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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668104/

800k people don't seem to mind difficult overworld

  • trackdemon5512
    trackdemon5512
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.
  • tonyblack
    tonyblack
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.

    So according to that data the fact that I cleared blackwood quests, delves and get companions means that I satisfied with my whole experience? Was even that achievement number actually analyzed at all? Because the way I see it there is no way to tell whether I liked the expansion or not based on anything I did in game, that’s where feedback come in.
    Speaking of trials, if this statistic analyzed so thoroughly, how come some of them remain unplayable for so long? VHRC top boss was buggy for years until it was fixed, same for horn achievement, vSO bugs with poison, vKA achievements bug, new trial have several recurring bugs but its new, come to think of it all of the trials was bugged at some points with both feedback provided and data from game, yet they were ignored for years. And it didn’t even consider actual satisfaction with trial itself, just the fact whether it was possible to clear in intended way or get achievement.
    I don’t doubt existence of the data, but how it analyzed, by who, what impact it has on the game remains a question. And you, same as me, have no access to it to refer its meaning so it is nothing more than speculation and attempt to preset it like it is catering to your point of view.

    Edited by tonyblack on 5 October 2021 08:11
  • trackdemon5512
    trackdemon5512
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.

    So according to that data the fact that I cleared blackwood quests, delves and get companions means that I satisfied with my whole experience? Was even that achievement number actually analyzed at all? Because the way I see it there is no way to tell whether I liked the expansion or not based on anything I did in game, that’s where feedback come in.
    Speaking of trials, if this statistic analyzed so thoroughly, how come some of them remain unplayable for so long? VHRC top boss was buggy for years until it was fixed, same for horn achievement, vSO bugs with poison, vKA achievements bug, new trial have several recurring bugs but its new, come to think of it all of the trials was bugged at some points with both feedback provided and data from game, yet they were ignored for years. And it didn’t even consider actual satisfaction with trial itself, just the fact whether it was possible to clear in intended way or get achievement.
    I don’t doubt existence of the data, but how it analyzed, by who, what impact it has on the game remains a question. And you, same as me, have no access to it to refer its meaning so it is nothing more than speculation and attempt to preset it like it is catering to your point of view.

    How to gauge zone engagement:
    - how many players have completed the story?
    - How many players have completed side quests?
    - How many players have done world bosses, delves, and dailies?
    - How often are companions used? How much time are they out?
    - What percentage of players have gone into Rockgrove? Completed it? Returned to farm it? Completed set collections and to what extent?

    There is a wealth of data available. If you or other players don’t like Blackwood it’s clear by you spending more time in other zones comparatively, low zone population counts outside of events, etc. There is so much to extrapolate from.

    It’s clear that you and other players know this. Why players ignore that it’s there is beyond me but it’s frustrating that individuals act like it doesn’t exist or it’s meaningless to argue their points is precisely why in the same Twitch stream that Rich expresses frustration. And that’s not conjecture, Rich directly states this, that he’s passionate about his work, and that while coming across as cross isn’t intended it’s a side effect of being told how things should be done by people who don’t know better.
  • Dark_Lord_Kuro
    Dark_Lord_Kuro
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    It would be a waste of ressources
    There is a reason vet overland was removed from the game in the first place

    800k player dont seem to mind? How about the rest of the 19 millions?
  • tonyblack
    tonyblack
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.

    So according to that data the fact that I cleared blackwood quests, delves and get companions means that I satisfied with my whole experience? Was even that achievement number actually analyzed at all? Because the way I see it there is no way to tell whether I liked the expansion or not based on anything I did in game, that’s where feedback come in.
    Speaking of trials, if this statistic analyzed so thoroughly, how come some of them remain unplayable for so long? VHRC top boss was buggy for years until it was fixed, same for horn achievement, vSO bugs with poison, vKA achievements bug, new trial have several recurring bugs but its new, come to think of it all of the trials was bugged at some points with both feedback provided and data from game, yet they were ignored for years. And it didn’t even consider actual satisfaction with trial itself, just the fact whether it was possible to clear in intended way or get achievement.
    I don’t doubt existence of the data, but how it analyzed, by who, what impact it has on the game remains a question. And you, same as me, have no access to it to refer its meaning so it is nothing more than speculation and attempt to preset it like it is catering to your point of view.

    How to gauge zone engagement:
    - how many players have completed the story?
    - How many players have completed side quests?
    - How many players have done world bosses, delves, and dailies?
    - How often are companions used? How much time are they out?
    - What percentage of players have gone into Rockgrove? Completed it? Returned to farm it? Completed set collections and to what extent?

    There is a wealth of data available. If you or other players don’t like Blackwood it’s clear by you spending more time in other zones comparatively, low zone population counts outside of events, etc. There is so much to extrapolate from.

    It’s clear that you and other players know this. Why players ignore that it’s there is beyond me but it’s frustrating that individuals act like it doesn’t exist or it’s meaningless to argue their points is precisely why in the same Twitch stream that Rich expresses frustration. And that’s not conjecture, Rich directly states this, that he’s passionate about his work, and that while coming across as cross isn’t intended it’s a side effect of being told how things should be done by people who don’t know better.

    I only replied to you in the first place because you started to tweak data to make you opinion “legit” one. Too many people like to speak for “majority” to prove that their point of view is the only correct one and to shut down any further possible discussion on the topic. It can be fair in some cases but not on this one. Its counterproductive and bring nothing valuable in the end. If you want to express your personal opinion why suggestion is not viable - fine, but please don’t throw statistics about something you don’t possess.
    Anything about statistic or majority that was linked in this thread so far was either cut out of context, alternated to accommodate personal point of view or a simple assumption. Using same pattern you can shut down any suggestion or complaint about how eso is atm.
  • SantieClaws
    SantieClaws
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭

    Also, additional character slots will not be coming out either at any point in the near future. The developers find that managing 18 characters is extreme for players. Few in the player base actually do it. And that in terms of managing the actual database with account data the system can’t even handle it as of now.

    Ah terribly sad news for this one.

    So many little Claws now that can never be ...

    Yours with paws
    Santie Claws
    Shunrr's Skooma Oasis - The Movie. A housing video like no other ...
    Find it here - https://youtube.com/user/wenxue2222

    Clan Claws - now recruiting khajiit and like minded others for parties, fishing and other khajiit stuff. Contact this one for an invite.

    PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!

    https://www.imperialtradingcompany.eu/
  • WhyMustItBe
    WhyMustItBe
    ✭✭✭✭✭

    Also, additional character slots will not be coming out either at any point in the near future. The developers find that managing 18 characters is extreme for players. Few in the player base actually do it. And that in terms of managing the actual database with account data the system can’t even handle it as of now.

    Ah terribly sad news for this one.

    So many little Claws now that can never be ...

    Yours with paws
    Santie Claws

    This isn't "news," Santie, it is just that some people seem to enjoy going around telling people what the devs think on their behalf. I will believe what the devs intend to do when the actual devs post and tell me so. Until then I take "armchair devs" with a grain of salt (or moonsugar as you prefer). :)

    Does anyone truly believe ZOS will never add new character slots? Data is only as good as one's interpretation of it. Does anyone honestly believe that ZOS thinks alts are irrelevant to long-term stability and player retention? WoW gives you 50. 50 characters, compared to 18. Why does WoW give you so many more? Because WoW has data for more than TWICE the lifespan of ESO that tells them rolling alts is the primary source of long-term player retention.

    There is no way a company like ZOS would not realize this.

    [Snip]

    EDIT: Reasons.

    [Edited for bait]
    Edited by ZOS_Volpe on 5 October 2021 20:08
  • NagualV
    NagualV
    ✭✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    I agree with you about difficult overland content in the game, and that the majority dont want it....but I must point out....

    This last statement contradicts your logic. ...if you argue(correctly in my opinion) that the company has all of the data available to them to make decisions, then when they do something that YOU dont like, you cant make a statement like this, because you sound exactly like people arguing FOR hard overland content.

    They made the decision to run the battleground test(its a test, not permanent) based on data they have. They mentioned people who were turning all game modes into deathmatch, but you and other complainers about this must take a dose of your logic and understand they did it based on the information available to them. Also, I dont recall seeing pvp/battleground players asking for the option of objective games to be removed, people have simply wanted the opportunity to choose...
    Edited by NagualV on 5 October 2021 10:08
  • Hurbster
    Hurbster
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    ✭✭
    I tell you what, I won't be satisfied until mobs can kill me just by looking at me funny.
    So they raised the floor and lowered the ceiling. Except the ceiling has spikes in it now and the floor is also lava.
  • Xorxe
    Xorxe
    ✭✭✭
    IDK, based on metacritic, i dont think all of 800k people are super happy :-)
    And there was tiered system for overland before One Tamriel and it was a ghost town. So its probably nothing that ZOS want to implement again.
    You have overland, basic dungeons, dlc dungeons, vet basic dungeons, vet dlc dungeons, normal trials, vet trials - looks like pretty robust learning path to me :-)
  • robwolf666
    robwolf666
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Vhozek wrote: »
    I think we should sit back and take a second look at this game's overworld to make it more interesting and exciting. Bumping up the mob difficulty seems to be a good start. I really doubt many people would complain. The only issue is that it can't just be done as a lone update but rather paired up with a sort of re-launch or massive event advertising the game. What do you think? What else could be implemented to make leveling exciting and not just a delay to end-game content? Because that's basically what it is, it's just a delay not even a challenging obstacle.

    Well, as a casual player who plays for fun rather than difficulty, I think overland is fine the way it is. Just make it take a bit longer to level up and don't hand out XP scrolls like they're candy. (Daily rewards in other words)
  • GreenhaloX
    GreenhaloX
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    How the hell you've come up with 800k..? Ha ha. It's overland. It's fine. A lot of new players continuously joining the game. Look.. If you would some challenges, go at it soloing a dragon or harrowstorm. Hey, I do. It makes the game a lot more challenging and interesting for me. Even some of the DLC's world bosses are quite tough enough when soloing and during non-event without an army already camping out at the world boss pit.
  • FlopsyPrince
    FlopsyPrince
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    ✭✭✭
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.

    This forum shows no evidence of influencing much of anything, unfortunately.

    It appears more like a valve to allow people to vent and hopefully thus reduce complaints. I don't like that outcome myself (though I disagree with this thread and the OP's claim/desire), but we need to be realistic in our desires.

    We can start talking about an AH next, so many can be on different sides of the issue! (That is a joke, not a true intent. Say your piece and move on. I know I am not the best example of that, but it is my intent.)
    PC
    PS4/PS5
  • SilverBride
    SilverBride
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    ✭✭✭✭✭
    This isn't "news," Santie, it is just that some people seem to enjoy going around telling people what the devs think on their behalf. I will believe what the devs intend to do when the actual devs post and tell me so.

    We provided a recent Twitch stream of Rich Lambert himself addressing this topic. This is him streaming and these are his words.

    He discusses overland difficulty from 1:48:00 through 1:51:11 (He briefly replies to a comment on skyshards, then gets back to topic.)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1133028256?t=1h48m0s
    Edited by SilverBride on 5 October 2021 15:39
    PCNA
  • ivelbob
    ivelbob
    ✭✭✭
    We provided a recent Twitch stream of Rich Lambert himself addressing this topic. This is him streaming and these are his words.

    He discusses overland difficulty from 1:48:00 through 1:51:11 (He briefly replies to a comment on skyshards, then gets back to topic.)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1133028256?t=1h48m0s

    Thanks for that Twitch link @SilverBride
    Really informative. I'm not surprised that the studio is constantly looking at the player data to figure out where to best allocate their resources.
  • trackdemon5512
    trackdemon5512
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    NagualV wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    I agree with you about difficult overland content in the game, and that the majority dont want it....but I must point out....

    This last statement contradicts your logic. ...if you argue(correctly in my opinion) that the company has all of the data available to them to make decisions, then when they do something that YOU dont like, you cant make a statement like this, because you sound exactly like people arguing FOR hard overland content.

    They made the decision to run the battleground test(its a test, not permanent) based on data they have. They mentioned people who were turning all game modes into deathmatch, but you and other complainers about this must take a dose of your logic and understand they did it based on the information available to them. Also, I dont recall seeing pvp/battleground players asking for the option of objective games to be removed, people have simply wanted the opportunity to choose...

    BGs presents a two fold problem. On one hand you have extremely low overall user engagement. While dungeons, arenas, and trials have fewer players engaged than the full ESO population, Battlegrounds have a virtually non-existent population. A population so small that using the group finder system to allow players to choose their mode regularly results in never ending queues.

    The second problem is that the portion that does play isn’t casual but usually extremely hardcore. They group with friends, reroll new characters for under 50, and many particularly play as if all games are a deathmatch.

    Now ZOS has two problems. How does it get Battleground engagement to rise? They tried before with motifs, style pages, emotes, and other rewards but that hasn’t worked. So is it Battlegrounds throwing people off or the people inside? The second more recently identified issue is players in BGs treating every mode as a Deathmatch and turning others off.

    You need to gather data from two populations that seem at odds with one another. And unfortunately while many want changes to BGs for everyone, this “test” (Its on a live server so calling it a test is actually misleading) has further cut into the BGs population. And much of that was spurned by a vocal minority yelling for it on these very forums and using their unbalanced power within the game to leverage that.

    That situation is very different from where you can clearly see engagement statistics for the entire game population with overland content and the numbers come in all the time.
  • trackdemon5512
    trackdemon5512
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    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    Frankly this comes across as rather ignorant of what Rich stated. The development teams knows the costs. They know the popularity. They know the statistics of what achievements are gotten, how many players have completed content, etc. That data is fed into tweaking builds, nerfing/buffing content, and it goes on.

    They know exactly what’s going on in their game and are the authority on such, not the forum posters. Not only is the data they’re going off of not even a decade old but it’s live. It’s constantly fed into and clear trends are extrapolated. And amongst those trends I can tell you two things are very clear. One, hard overland content desire is so niche that it’s never going to happen again. And two, no one wants to play battlegrounds and the population has suffered significantly.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    The problem with your argument is that you sacredly believe and trying to convince the others that data which developers gather and analyze related to the matter at hand while evidence of what this data actually represent in nonexistent. Did it based on achievements, player participation, in game feedback? Did you see it personally or is it just an assumption? If anything related to veteran overland and questing requests are meaningless to them they are free to ignore these requests, forum is a form of feedback after all.

    Yes. Forum feedback is direct and that’s about as useful as an Amazon product review to a manufacturer.

    Meanwhile scroll to the bottom of this page from a few years ago: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26349?Celebrate-ESO’s-4-Year-Anniversary-With-Us!

    The developers are able to access and keep track of a massive amount of statistics. They have access to combat logs, quest completion data, skill usage.

    Take a veteran trial for example. If I were a developer it would not be difficult to pull up the number of times enemies or bosses were killed in say Maw of Lorkhaj. I could see what boss groups were not passing. I could see the percentage of groups attempting content and then quitting. I could see the time in which groups complete a full run. Their final vitality. The number of times hardmode is completed. The number of players with specific achievements completed. How often players run the content. What times of the day players run the content.

    The servers are always on and are always tracking everything so the data is there. It’s valuable and it’s analyzed. The developers know exactly what is going on and it’s their business to monitor, identify trends, and make decisions based off such. Any successful business operates this way. But just catering to whimsical demands and ignoring data is how you ruin products and a business fails.

    The problem I constantly see is that people on these forums somehow think they know everything about a game from just playing and that those that design and code it somehow know less about how it works, what’s feasible, and how everything can functionally go together.

    So according to that data the fact that I cleared blackwood quests, delves and get companions means that I satisfied with my whole experience? Was even that achievement number actually analyzed at all? Because the way I see it there is no way to tell whether I liked the expansion or not based on anything I did in game, that’s where feedback come in.
    Speaking of trials, if this statistic analyzed so thoroughly, how come some of them remain unplayable for so long? VHRC top boss was buggy for years until it was fixed, same for horn achievement, vSO bugs with poison, vKA achievements bug, new trial have several recurring bugs but its new, come to think of it all of the trials was bugged at some points with both feedback provided and data from game, yet they were ignored for years. And it didn’t even consider actual satisfaction with trial itself, just the fact whether it was possible to clear in intended way or get achievement.
    I don’t doubt existence of the data, but how it analyzed, by who, what impact it has on the game remains a question. And you, same as me, have no access to it to refer its meaning so it is nothing more than speculation and attempt to preset it like it is catering to your point of view.

    How to gauge zone engagement:
    - how many players have completed the story?
    - How many players have completed side quests?
    - How many players have done world bosses, delves, and dailies?
    - How often are companions used? How much time are they out?
    - What percentage of players have gone into Rockgrove? Completed it? Returned to farm it? Completed set collections and to what extent?

    There is a wealth of data available. If you or other players don’t like Blackwood it’s clear by you spending more time in other zones comparatively, low zone population counts outside of events, etc. There is so much to extrapolate from.

    It’s clear that you and other players know this. Why players ignore that it’s there is beyond me but it’s frustrating that individuals act like it doesn’t exist or it’s meaningless to argue their points is precisely why in the same Twitch stream that Rich expresses frustration. And that’s not conjecture, Rich directly states this, that he’s passionate about his work, and that while coming across as cross isn’t intended it’s a side effect of being told how things should be done by people who don’t know better.

    I only replied to you in the first place because you started to tweak data to make you opinion “legit” one. Too many people like to speak for “majority” to prove that their point of view is the only correct one and to shut down any further possible discussion on the topic. It can be fair in some cases but not on this one. Its counterproductive and bring nothing valuable in the end. If you want to express your personal opinion why suggestion is not viable - fine, but please don’t throw statistics about something you don’t possess.
    Anything about statistic or majority that was linked in this thread so far was either cut out of context, alternated to accommodate personal point of view or a simple assumption. Using same pattern you can shut down any suggestion or complaint about how eso is atm.

    There are times and places where one’s argument can be completely moot. If it were the 1940s and people were arguing about segregation policies, such as keeping them in place, then discussion of said topic is very apt at that time. However bringing up the same topic in 2020 is absolutely ridiculously to do so as that ship has sailed. That there is now over 75 years of data in favor of non-segregation being better for societies.

    Bringing that analogy over to ESO, you could make arguments for and against veteran overland content and adjustable difficulty 8 years ago. But decisions were made, 8 years of data was gathered, and it’s abundantly clear to the creators of this game that segregated difficulty content doesn’t work for ESO. And trying to argue for it at this point is as pointless as arguing for segregation in 2020. It’s just not going to happen and players need to accept that.

    Dismissing the data and points that the creators have put out there about why they aren’t going back is self-defeatist.
  • Parasaurolophus
    Parasaurolophus
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    It would be a waste of ressources
    There is a reason vet overland was removed from the game in the first place

    800k player dont seem to mind? How about the rest of the 19 millions?

    The Vet Overland never existed. What are you talking about?
    PC/EU
  • WhyMustItBe
    WhyMustItBe
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    This isn't "news," Santie, it is just that some people seem to enjoy going around telling people what the devs think on their behalf. I will believe what the devs intend to do when the actual devs post and tell me so.

    We provided a recent Twitch stream of Rich Lambert himself addressing this topic. This is him streaming and these are his words.

    He discusses overland difficulty from 1:48:00 through 1:51:11 (He briefly replies to a comment on skyshards, then gets back to topic.)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1133028256?t=1h48m0s

    This quote has already been acknowledged as out of context. He addressed adding future veteran-only zones. No one is asking for veteran-only zones. People are asking for a TOGGLE to play in normal OR veteran mode. Rich did not reply to a question about a toggle. Apples and oranges.

    It would be a waste of ressources
    There is a reason vet overland was removed from the game in the first place

    800k player dont seem to mind? How about the rest of the 19 millions?

    The Vet Overland never existed. What are you talking about?

    The game actually launched with veteran overland zones. This was only changed years later with the One Tamriel update. Before once you completed your faction quests, you were time-warped to another faction to play through their quests, only the zones there were veteran zones with higher difficulty. This happened twice, with the level/difficulty of the first "faction warp" (old Cadwell's Silver) being higher, and then the next (old "Cadwell's Gold") being higher still.


    Edited by WhyMustItBe on 5 October 2021 16:40
  • TequilaFire
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    We can argue all day, but unless ZOS decides to do it which they already indicated resistance to doing it is a moot issue.
    They are throwing a bone though, on PTS wandering bosses are being tested.
    Edited by TequilaFire on 5 October 2021 16:41
  • Hallothiel
    Hallothiel
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    It would be a waste of ressources
    There is a reason vet overland was removed from the game in the first place

    800k player dont seem to mind? How about the rest of the 19 millions?

    The Vet Overland never existed. What are you talking about?

    Before One Tamriel it sort of did. Areas had to be done in order or else you would find yourself overwhelmed as you would be many levels below the adds. Was not fun.
  • Parasaurolophus
    Parasaurolophus
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    Been playing long? The game actually launched with veteran overland zones. This was only changed years later with the One Tamriel update. Before once you completed your faction quests, you were time-warped to another faction to play through their quests, only the zones there were veteran zones with higher difficulty. This happened twice, with the level/difficulty of the first "faction warp" (old Cadwell's Silver) being higher, and then the next (old "Cadwell's Gold") being higher still.
    I will quote myself.
    Overland eso has never been difficult. The claim that OT has made locations more casual is a misconception. Mobs of your level have always been easy to kill, with perhaps a few exceptions. The main problem was that we couldn't explore the locations freely. We could only go along a given route, because the level of mobs increased as we moved along the location. But it was still the same boring overland as it is now. Silver and Gold finished so few people, then that many players did not find the overland interesting. Complete the locations of their alliance, very few people wanted to complete twice more. You went one location after another, one after another ... And nothing changed. The level of mobs was growing, but it was pointless. And the quality of the vanilla locations in comparison with the numbered parts of the series was terrible. So there was no difficulty. The game was saved by the appearance of veteran dungeons and trials. High-end content has appeared in the game. Scaling content. Cancellation of the required subscription. Release of new dlc. New advertising campaign.
    Edited by Parasaurolophus on 5 October 2021 17:03
    PC/EU
  • SilverBride
    SilverBride
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    We provided a recent Twitch stream of Rich Lambert himself addressing this topic. This is him streaming and these are his words.

    He discusses overland difficulty from 1:48:00 through 1:51:11 (He briefly replies to a comment on skyshards, then gets back to topic.)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1133028256?t=1h48m0s

    This quote has already been acknowledged as out of context. He addressed adding future veteran-only zones. No one is asking for veteran-only zones. People are asking for a TOGGLE to play in normal OR veteran mode. Rich did not reply to a question about a toggle.

    This stream is from a month ago and nothing has been taken out of context or acknowledged as such. I encourage everyone to listen to the entire discussion on this topic and reach their own conclusions. Rich explains why veteran overland zones were removed and he clearly addresses an optional veteran overland when asked specifically if players could have a choice.

    "Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time." - Rich Lambert
    PCNA
  • Eridanus
    Eridanus
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    They should add an optional slider already. At this point I'd be happy with it even if it had the same rewards and no new achievements, because the current overworld difficulty is really killing all the fun for me.

    It's so easy to the point where I don't even have to pay attention to the combat, and everything feels like a chore. The people who enjoy the current difficulty say "it's good for the story", but I think that being able to steamroll through everything and kill the "bad guys" or clean "that dangerous zone" without any effort totally breaks the immersion and makes me feel detached from the story. I also lose interest knowing that every single ow quest in this massive world is going to be the same, where I feel like an overpowered God being able to shut down every threat to Tamriel as if it was a walk in the park.

    Other points to consider:
    -The constant presence of other players makes the world even easier
    -Companions are cool, but again, they make everything too easy. I'd like to be able to use them in overworld without them making the already shallow combat experience even more dull.
    -Not using CP and/or wearing white gear only isn't a solution. Boycotting your character and renouncing to certain mechanics in a game where character progression is a central point doesn't work and isn't fun, not to mention that it doesn't really make much of a difference anyway.

    Doesn't this game already have an automatic scaling system? Maybe they could scale the enemies as if you were x levels higher. It isn't ideal, but it would be far, far better than what we have now.
    Edited by Eridanus on 5 October 2021 17:27
  • Elsonso
    Elsonso
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    This isn't "news," Santie, it is just that some people seem to enjoy going around telling people what the devs think on their behalf. I will believe what the devs intend to do when the actual devs post and tell me so.

    We provided a recent Twitch stream of Rich Lambert himself addressing this topic. This is him streaming and these are his words.

    He discusses overland difficulty from 1:48:00 through 1:51:11 (He briefly replies to a comment on skyshards, then gets back to topic.)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1133028256?t=1h48m0s

    This quote has already been acknowledged as out of context. He addressed adding future veteran-only zones. No one is asking for veteran-only zones. People are asking for a TOGGLE to play in normal OR veteran mode. Rich did not reply to a question about a toggle. Apples and oranges.


    Actually, it is not out of context. He has answered this question a number of times, so there are different perspectives in some of the answers. They all basically boil down to a noncommital "no" when it comes to veteran overland.

    I encourage people to go watch the VODs from his streams. He has answers to questions about ESO, often including the reasons for why they do things, in every one of his videos. This will answer a lot of questions, and dispel any disbelief in what people have posted when they relay what Rich has said, as well as correcting any inaccuracies or mistakes in how that information is relayed.

    ESO Plus: No
    PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
    XBox EU/NA: @ElsonsoJannus
    X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus
  • WhyMustItBe
    WhyMustItBe
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    Elsonso wrote: »
    Actually, it is not out of context. He has answered this question a number of times, so there are different perspectives in some of the answers. They all basically boil down to a noncommital "no" when it comes to veteran overland.

    Once again, Rich saying no to future veteran-only overland zones is NOT the same as saying no to the idea of a toggle. Watch the linked stream again. No one was asking about a toggle.

    I get that they would be against creating new Craglorn style "adventure" zones or veteran only zones. But, the idea of a toggle makes a lot of sense: it doesn't affect people who don't want it in any way, but it is great for player RETENTION, as clearly by the volume of posts about it on the forum, a lot of people DO want the OPTION to play overland in veteran mode.

    Until someone can link me a dev specifically responding to a question about an OPTIONAL TOGGLE for veteran overland, I think it would be best to stop assuming what other people mean just to tell people no.

    Because ultimately it is not up to anyone here what ends up in the game.
  • NagualV
    NagualV
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    NagualV wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    tonyblack wrote: »
    [/i]

    If you are basing your entire argument on this one comment taken out of context which was in reference to creating specifically veteran only content like pre-One Tamriel, I think you are confused about what people are asking for in this thread.

    People in that stream weren't asking Rich about a toggle for veteran/normal mode, they were asking for more content like pre-One Tamriel where you had zones that were veteran ONLY. This is a whole other conversation people have talked about on the forums, where many want that sense of progression like WoW had pre-scaling where zones have level ranges and you can over level or under level a zone. That sort of thing I agree, will never be added to ESO again.

    However what I specifically would like to see is a TOGGLE, so you can play the overworld as it is now, or at the difficulty of old veteran versions of these zones, since all the work has already been done from before One Tamriel went live, and could easilly be copy-pasted to create versions for the modern zones.

    I think this would satisfy both sides, and as I mentioned before it is a shame to just throw all that work away.

    “People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

    “I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

    “And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

    “Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it? The satisfaction is there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

    So, like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.”


    - Rich Lambert

    How can you take this out of context? Yes it starts with pre-One Tamriel but it clearly carries over to present day content. Rich is being excessively clear that it’s not wanted by the majority of players nor were they doing it.

    And as he stated about the players it can be said just the same for developers “Just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it then why do it?”. Why should they spend the time developing an additional system for challenges that involves a TON of work and most of their customers will ignore it or won’t do it?

    There is no point in satisfying both sides because one side, the one pushing for harder difficulty toggles, has lost this battle. They were found to be in the minority and catering to them was a waste of time and resources. It’s not as if half the game wants a toggle and the other half doesn’t care. The data has clearly shown that’s not the case and that said content isn’t even attempted let alone repeated.

    But if challenging content has no place in this game and isn’t profitable why are we getting 2 dlcs every year dedicated solely to veteran players and featuring mechanic heavy challenging fights? Developing and marketing dungeons require a lot of resources. Most casuals will ignore them, yet there is clearly a lot of people who buy and enjoy them.

    Go into the clip and continue to watch. Yes there is content to be made for limited instances and the challenges were thrown specifically to arenas, dungeons, and trials. But when it comes to overland content the ship has long sailed. Developing it isn’t worth it because the vast amount of the player base just will not engage with it that way.

    This is why arenas, dungeons, and trials all have relatively easy normal modes and optional vet modes with hard modes and extra bosses. That is the limit to which they will make content difficult. Beyond that are achievements which isn’t the developer putting constraints on players but rather players doing it to themselves and the system taking notice.

    You can’t do that for story content because story content can’t be repeated on the same toon. It’s one and done. And it doesn’t matter if you make overland harder as you’ll just negate that challenge by grouping.

    Sorry but decades old data just isn't good enough justification why there should not be any changes or adjustments to existing and new content. Moreover, development cost and potential popularity is your personal opinion we both have no idea how much it is really cost or how popular it would be. But as long as half of released dlcs continue to cater to one group and another half to another there would always be complaints how one part is inaccessible and another trivially easy.

    But if we ignore the data and listen to ppl in the forums we get situations like the present, where all BGs are now Deathmatches and while a small few are happy the rest of the population refuses to engage.

    I agree with you about difficult overland content in the game, and that the majority dont want it....but I must point out....

    This last statement contradicts your logic. ...if you argue(correctly in my opinion) that the company has all of the data available to them to make decisions, then when they do something that YOU dont like, you cant make a statement like this, because you sound exactly like people arguing FOR hard overland content.

    They made the decision to run the battleground test(its a test, not permanent) based on data they have. They mentioned people who were turning all game modes into deathmatch, but you and other complainers about this must take a dose of your logic and understand they did it based on the information available to them. Also, I dont recall seeing pvp/battleground players asking for the option of objective games to be removed, people have simply wanted the opportunity to choose...

    You need to gather data from two populations that seem at odds with one another. And unfortunately while many want changes to BGs for everyone, this “test” (Its on a live server so calling it a test is actually misleading) has further cut into the BGs population. And much of that was spurned by a vocal minority yelling for it on these very forums and using their unbalanced power within the game to leverage that.

    That situation is very different from where you can clearly see engagement statistics for the entire game population with overland content and the numbers come in all the time.

    ...and I agree with you until this quoted part....this is where I believe you begin to sound like those who want harder overland content....

    Let's be clear here........the company said in its statement that they were conducting this test based on data that suggested DM was popular and the actions of pvp'ers( who were unable to play their preferred game mode, what, 80% or so of the time) when participating in objective based modes. You say "vocal minority yelling for it on these very forums and using their unbalanced power within the game to leverage that", and I would respond that you dont have all the data/facts to say that. In the same way that the company has made decisions in the past, based on data/facts, to not add a difficulty slider, they have also made a decision(based on data/facts they have) to implement this temporary test.

    Answer me this, yes or no - "hardcore pvp'ers" requested that objective modes be eliminated and only DM be a BG mode. The answer is no - the company made the decision to structure the test the way they did. Do you think they werent aware there would be backlash from those who prefer objective based modes?

    Finally, let's not pretend/ignore this test coincides with the release of a game that is highly attractive to "hardcore pvp'ers".....

    It isnt fair to accuse the DM people of being responsible for something they didnt even request.
  • Mandragora
    Mandragora
    ✭✭✭
    BGs presents a two fold problem. On one hand you have extremely low overall user engagement. While dungeons, arenas, and trials have fewer players engaged than the full ESO population, Battlegrounds have a virtually non-existent population. A population so small that using the group finder system to allow players to choose their mode regularly results in never ending queues.

    The second problem is that the portion that does play isn’t casual but usually extremely hardcore. They group with friends, reroll new characters for under 50, and many particularly play as if all games are a deathmatch.

    Now ZOS has two problems. How does it get Battleground engagement to rise? They tried before with motifs, style pages, emotes, and other rewards but that hasn’t worked. So is it Battlegrounds throwing people off or the people inside? The second more recently identified issue is players in BGs treating every mode as a Deathmatch and turning others off.

    You need to gather data from two populations that seem at odds with one another. And unfortunately while many want changes to BGs for everyone, this “test” (Its on a live server so calling it a test is actually misleading) has further cut into the BGs population. And much of that was spurned by a vocal minority yelling for it on these very forums and using their unbalanced power within the game to leverage that.

    That situation is very different from where you can clearly see engagement statistics for the entire game population with overland content and the numbers come in all the time.


    But players who were enjoying BG casually stated what the problem is - one of them was default group matching. While I have my own issues with OP, it is true that statistic will never tell you reasons behind those datas. Why ZOS never asked those casual pvp players why they do play BG and what is bothering them?
    Do you know what was the biggest problem (atleast as I see it) ? Groups - it was alfa and omega of good experience. Without it 1 really good pvp player could back up his casual team if they knew what to do. But not against a group.
    Also broken builds - like 2h mace invisible always critical attack camping at objective. Esp if it was done with 2 players cooperating.
    Those players who only battled did viable tactic while other members of the team could get around and help otherwise.
    But for some players it meant that even with all the power it was possible to loose and it didn't matter in results table - I do understand why it could be good to have only deathmatch for some time to compare data, but I cannot see how it could deal with the main problem.
    You cannot solve the problem of players not having dedicated pvp builds/armor sets and not being aggressive enough. But maybe they would have other suggestions? Or maybe not I don't know - does it have to have high population? I never had to wait too long for qeue - I would say even shorter time than for dps random dungeon...
    Edited by Mandragora on 5 October 2021 17:52
    PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!
  • Ballermfrau
    Ballermfrau
    ✭✭✭
    I agree and get rid of animation cancelling.

    Get better server. Update lighting further.

  • Franchise408
    Franchise408
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Akali wrote: »
    I agree with people saying overland is just fine, that being said, an option for difficulty offering better loot/rewards would be outstanding.

    Nothing wrong with offering people some choice!

    So what people are wanting is better loot, not more challenging content? Your argument is parroted here a lot. It almost always comes down to the rewards. Surely if the content was enjoyable, the rewards are secondary. but that never seems to be the case. People almost always start by saying they want more difficult content and come the end of their argument, focus solely on the rewards.

    So it's not too difficult to assume it's not really about the difficulty, people just want better rewards.

    This talking point is always used as a deflection.

    The "better rewards" being discussed will be purples instead of blues, for sets that, outside of Mother's Sorrow, are generally not used in any capacity for end game players of which gear is actually necessary. And for the rare sets like Mother's Sorrow that are used, the increase from blue to purple is minimal, AND can just generally be done via crafting upgrades anyways. So people harping on "Oh noez, you just want better rewards!" are really just talking about a non-factor.

    Yolna and Relequen's aren't going to start dropping from harder content in Grahtwood. New sets aren't going to be created for higher difficulty overland. People are still going to be getting the same gear they would normally get... just in... purple instead of blue.

    Considering that the precedent has been set in every other form of content this game has to offer, then it is only fitting that a more difficult overland could come with a higher quality purple drop instead of a standard blue drop.
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