disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I am sure by now ZoS is well aware of what players are asking for. But they may not be able to provide it in the way some want.

It seems they are injecting more difficult content into overland without completely changing overland and the story as a whole. I for one am very pleased if this is their solution because it won't affect anyone that loves overland as it is now negatively.

I would also be fine with a toggle or debuff but that doesn't seem to be the direction they are taking.

I'm not surprised that you're pleased because it doesn't address the issue in a way which affects you, but it also doesn't address the issue in any kind of sensible or satisfying way for the thousands of people who have lamented it for years, some of whom have left the game because of it.

And when everyone heard about increased general overland difficulty there were many posting how happy they were with that, even though it would negatively affect the many players that do not want a general difficulty increase.

And that's not great either. I really wish more people would understand that there are solutions which can work for everyone, and that those solutions are as good for them as if they were something they wanted for themself. In an MMO, excluding other players from the game lowers the population of the game, and that is bad for everyone.

I did celebrate the announced overland difficulty increase. And I didn't believe it would be forced. I still don't. But I didn't too. I have seen no evidence to believe it will be. It seems likely it will be done with an experimental, unrefined system that they can disable if it doesn't work out. I know there are others that felt the same as me and don't think it would be forced.

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I think we as players do understand that solutions that work for everyone would be ideal. But realistically that may not be possible.

I will not be convinced that every solution presented in this thread is impossible. We have presented options which can work for everyone and which use existing code. I'm not saying it would be simple, but it can be done.

Not being a programmer, I don't know if they have existing code that could be used to make a difficulty slider or not. I can't imagine how there would be since we've not had anything like that.

I think there may be code that could be used for a debuff, but there has been a lot of pushback against that idea.

I'm not saying none of that will ever happen because I don't know. I'm just looking at what's been done so far and making my own observations.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

And I didn't believe it would be forced. I still don't. But I didn't too.

Nice Mitch Hedberg reference.

rrbreezy wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I am sure by now ZoS is well aware of what players are asking for. But they may not be able to provide it in the way some want.

It seems they are injecting more difficult content into overland without completely changing overland and the story as a whole. I for one am very pleased if this is their solution because it won't affect anyone that loves overland as it is now negatively.

I would also be fine with a toggle or debuff but that doesn't seem to be the direction they are taking.

I'm not surprised that you're pleased because it doesn't address the issue in a way which affects you, but it also doesn't address the issue in any kind of sensible or satisfying way for the thousands of people who have lamented it for years, some of whom have left the game because of it.

Agreed. If this is the “solution” to the increased overland difficulty problem, then it’s no solution at all.

I'm sorry to say ZOS is in the unenviable situation that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The logical situation is to take the middle way, which IMHO is the right choice. How it is implemented, I don't know as at the end of the day I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject.

There is grounds to think a slider would do a lot to help with the issue.

They have been staples of video games for many years. And we've seen it works in other MMOs.

In many games, simple numbers changes quit often produces favorable results to improving balance.

In this game, we see how scaling greatly impact experience in IA.

Sliders also don't have to be one dimensional as they can be used to trigger special new attacks too.

ETA

And the other nice thing about them is you can make them a sliding scale with different levels of strength so the same setting doesn't have to work for every encounter. If a setting is too strong for a player to overcome, they can turn it down/off.

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

I think many of you are overreacting. We don't even know how much harder it will get. Even if it they'll bump it up 30% it honestly won't make much difference since most players kill mobs within 1-2 hits. Let the update release and check if you really will fail miserably fighting a boar.

There are players that find the current overland difficult for various reasons. Increasing the difficulty by 5% would make it more difficult for them, and 30% would render it completely unplayable for many of these players.

This isn't an overreaction... it's a fact.

Where did you get that fact from? There are people who really struggle to kill a boar? I don't believe it. Unless you're talking about soloing world bosses in the newest maps, which is meant to be a group encounter. I always meet randoms there and it isn't an issue.

There are people in this thread who already find overland difficult due to things like age, internet connectivity, disability, etc. The devs have also said some unnamed percentage of players find overland challenging.

I can empathize with those people - I even have some in my guild and we - myself included - do the best we can to help them along.

I also don't believe that this is the skill level that the game should be balanced around. I don't consider myself an "elite" player by any means, but I do believe there is a certain level of competency that needs to be expected of the players. It has nothing to do with any sort of ego surrounding in game achievements, but rather the fact that if the game is simplified so much that literally anybody can do it without any sort of effort being put in, then it ceases to be an actual game.

It is an online game. You should be expected to have a competent level of internet connection.

It is an ARPG. You should be expected to have a competent level of reflexes and "stick skills".

There is already an expectation to have proper hardware to run the game, whether it be an appropriate console, or a PC with proper GPU's, CPU's, etc. The game shouldn't be balanced around people who don't meet those minimum requirements, and the same should apply to online connections and reflex skills.

This is not the same as expecting Souls-like difficulty. I've no problem with this game having content that these players can do and complete. What I am saying is that in an online game, you should be expected to have at least a minimum level of internet connection, and in an ARPG you should be expected to handle a minimum level of reflex and twitch skills, and if you can't meet those requirements, that's not who the game should be balanced around. That's just balancing around the other extreme of the difficulty spectrum opposite from Souls-difficulty, which the game should also not be primarily balanced around.

100%. This

Franchise408 wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

rrbreezy wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

There should never be gold drops from overland, no matter what the difficulty. Overland is not end game content, and it shouldn't be. End game content shouldn't even drop gold rewards. The player can upgrade their gear to gold themselves.

Why?

Gold gear doesn't even drop from vet trials (except some jewelry pieces), there's no way it should be dropping from overland.

I am in agreement that a vet overland should have improved rewards, but it should remain consistent with the rest of the game. Vet dungeons drop purple gear instead of blue. That's the sort of upgrade players should get for a vet overland. Since the overland content is not repeatable (in regards to the quests, anyways), there shouldn't be any unique rewards that drop from vet overland, because so many people would already be locked out of receiving those rewards. But blue or purple drops rather than green is appropriate.

Gold drops shouldn't be dropping in a vet overland unless vet dungeons and trials are changed to also do the same.

Agreed, there should never be unique rewards tied to vet overland. If ZOS overcompensates, there will very likely be a significant amount of negativity over the way the feature is handled, and that's bad for everyone. It needs to be fair, and if it were me, I would start out with going light on rewards to allow uninterested people time to acclimate to the idea, as a way of managing any negativity that might occur during the rollout.

Yea, I am very pro-higher difficulty, I am very pro-vet overland, and I am very pro-higher rewards for vet overland.

I also agree that the extent of the higher rewards should be blue or purple drops of the same items that are already in normal.

I am firmly of the belief that any higher difficulty feature should be consistent with what happens in the rest of the game. Vet instance, higher quality drops but not different drops, no unique drops or rewards. Not even necessarily big on vet achievements, since people who have already played through the content would be locked out of it. The only exception to that would be if going into a vet instance allows you to play through the questlines again, then I could see potential achievements for them, but if there is no vet reset, then no achievements or unique rewards.

Getting an item from blue to purple costs pretty much nothing and you want to compare that with hours of challenging content? With the current economy, just higher quality drops like purple instead of blue doesn't justify the massively bigger effort to complete the task. Challenge must come with equivalent reward. It must respect the players time and effort put. If it doesn't, it will be met with a giant backlash and will bury ESO even deeper.

If you say rewards should not be tied to the effort, why can't I just login, press a button and get all rewards but green? I thought it was said in this thread that people who want a challenge, should just do it for the challenge, so following the same way of thinking, everyone else should do their activities just for the fun of doing the activities.

I hate fishing. I have never complained that I can't get the fishing rewards without fishing. If you want an item, you must do the activity. If it's a great item, you must do a harder activity. It's simple as that. It's the core of gaming.

The problem with giving unique and good rewards to a hypothetical vet overland story is that it undermines a major purpose of overland.

One of the purposes it serves is to attract new players to the game by giving them fun and rewarding content they can do right away. They can go and explore anywhere and everywhere and get all the rewards for doing this content.

Story content is one and done content. This means if you do the quest, you will not be able to repeat it later.

So, now all of a sudden all these players that felt the new player experience was fun and rewarding will find it punishing because they are locked out of a bunch of cool things they had no way of knowing they were locking themselves out of.

That's not fun and fair. That sucks. It's an awful first impression.

If they could find a way to avoid that problem without just making every quest into a daily quest (which imo seriously harms immersion) than I don't particularly object to rewards.

I think it's important that different gameplay systems continue to serve different audiences. If you can create something that allows that still happen while drawing in new people, that's perfect! But care should be taken not to undermine the diversity in the gameplay systems by catering too much to any one group.

For me, the reward is the challenge. As long as I can still use quests as a fun and immersive way to level up my toons, I don't particularly care about the rest of it. I don't need unique shinies for tutorial content.

rrbreezy wrote: »

I don’t just do “overland” content in MMORPGs to advance the story, and I suspect that applies to others. I think it’d be a bit weird to implement a system where your “reward” for some opt-in increased difficulty is a debuff.

The debuff is the mechanism that creates the opt-increased difficulty. This is how it's done in some games whether they explain it or not when you select your difficulty. It's not the reward. The reward is the more immersive story. Hopefully, they'd also do something like a bit more exp to retain the leveling functionality of the quests. The quests already come with rewards that are nice.

disky wrote: »

rrbreezy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The problem with giving unique and good rewards to a hypothetical vet overland story is that it undermines a major purpose of overland.

One of the purposes it serves is to attract new players to the game by giving them fun and rewarding content they can do right away. They can go and explore anywhere and everywhere and get all the rewards for doing this content.

Story content is one and done content. This means if you do the quest, you will not be able to repeat it later.

So, now all of a sudden all these players that felt the new player experience was fun and rewarding will find it punishing because they are locked out of a bunch of cool things they had no way of knowing they were locking themselves out of.

That's not fun and fair. That sucks. It's an awful first impression.

If they could find a way to avoid that problem without just making every quest into a daily quest (which imo seriously harms immersion) than I don't particularly object to rewards.

I think it's important that different gameplay systems continue to serve different audiences. If you can create something that allows that still happen while drawing in new people, that's perfect! But care should be taken not to undermine the diversity in the gameplay systems by catering too much to any one group.

For me, the reward is the challenge. As long as I can still use quests as a fun and immersive way to level up my toons, I don't particularly care about the rest of it. I don't need unique shinies for tutorial content.

I don’t just do “overland” content in MMORPGs to advance the story, and I suspect that applies to others. I think it’d be a bit weird to implement a system where your “reward” for some opt-in increased difficulty is a debuff.

The reward is not a debuff, the debuff is the function by which the challenge is implemented.

One thing I would like to ask to anyone who thinks that a challenge system would be good, but that debuffs are bad - if the system is functionally identical aside from the fact that it uses debuffs, and doesn't manifest in some other form, why do you think it's worse? I've seen people decry this idea because they don't like debuffs, but it's just math. It's just a way to achieve the effect using a system the game already employs, which would save on additional unnecessary development time. So what's the problem?

Because just increasing the boss' HP and damage doesn't make it more difficult, it just makes the fight last longer.
If they make a boss hit like a truck even if all the mechanics are played correctly, this will force players to build tankier builds, which leads to lower damage and longer fight time. Now that you can comfortably take the hits, the fight is solved and now it just takes a long time for you to finish it.
There is nothing interesting nor fun about that. Instead if they actually made the fights good, similar to a dungeon boss fight but with numbers balanced around a single player, this could actually make the fight more interesting but still more difficult.

An example of why adding numbers doesn't make a fight difficult.
Out of all the dungeons in the game, which ones are the most difficult ones? Lady Thorn in Castle Thorn has the most HP and does a lot of damage in execute, but that's not what makes the fight difficult, nor is Lady Thorn even close to being the most difficult dungeon boss.
In fights like Coral Aerie 2nd and 3rd boss, the difficulty doesn't come from the fact that the boss just hits hard and takes ages to kill, but from the additional mechanics.

If a debuff or slider that increases the damage and health of the enemies while decreasing the damage and health of the player isn't acceptable for some, then what would be?

The odds that they will ever redo all the overland enemies to include interesting mechanics is pretty slim I'd think.

disky wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

disky wrote: »

rrbreezy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The problem with giving unique and good rewards to a hypothetical vet overland story is that it undermines a major purpose of overland.

One of the purposes it serves is to attract new players to the game by giving them fun and rewarding content they can do right away. They can go and explore anywhere and everywhere and get all the rewards for doing this content.

Story content is one and done content. This means if you do the quest, you will not be able to repeat it later.

So, now all of a sudden all these players that felt the new player experience was fun and rewarding will find it punishing because they are locked out of a bunch of cool things they had no way of knowing they were locking themselves out of.

That's not fun and fair. That sucks. It's an awful first impression.

If they could find a way to avoid that problem without just making every quest into a daily quest (which imo seriously harms immersion) than I don't particularly object to rewards.

I think it's important that different gameplay systems continue to serve different audiences. If you can create something that allows that still happen while drawing in new people, that's perfect! But care should be taken not to undermine the diversity in the gameplay systems by catering too much to any one group.

For me, the reward is the challenge. As long as I can still use quests as a fun and immersive way to level up my toons, I don't particularly care about the rest of it. I don't need unique shinies for tutorial content.

I don’t just do “overland” content in MMORPGs to advance the story, and I suspect that applies to others. I think it’d be a bit weird to implement a system where your “reward” for some opt-in increased difficulty is a debuff.

The reward is not a debuff, the debuff is the function by which the challenge is implemented.

One thing I would like to ask to anyone who thinks that a challenge system would be good, but that debuffs are bad - if the system is functionally identical aside from the fact that it uses debuffs, and doesn't manifest in some other form, why do you think it's worse? I've seen people decry this idea because they don't like debuffs, but it's just math. It's just a way to achieve the effect using a system the game already employs, which would save on additional unnecessary development time. So what's the problem?

Because just increasing the boss' HP and damage doesn't make it more difficult, it just makes the fight last longer.
If they make a boss hit like a truck even if all the mechanics are played correctly, this will force players to build tankier builds, which leads to lower damage and longer fight time. Now that you can comfortably take the hits, the fight is solved and now it just takes a long time for you to finish it.
There is nothing interesting nor fun about that. Instead if they actually made the fights good, similar to a dungeon boss fight but with numbers balanced around a single player, this could actually make the fight more interesting but still more difficult.

An example of why adding numbers doesn't make a fight difficult.
Out of all the dungeons in the game, which ones are the most difficult ones? Lady Thorn in Castle Thorn has the most HP and does a lot of damage in execute, but that's not what makes the fight difficult, nor is Lady Thorn even close to being the most difficult dungeon boss.
In fights like Coral Aerie 2nd and 3rd boss, the difficulty doesn't come from the fact that the boss just hits hard and takes ages to kill, but from the additional mechanics.

First, I'm not asking for an increase to enemy HP because that would affect players who don't choose to enable the challenge system. I would only expect to see a system which adjusts player damage taken and damage dealt. That being said, see my post above which includes a list of possibilities for challenge options should it ever be made modular.

I disagree that adjustments to damage dealt and received wouldn't make a fight more difficult, or to use a term I prefer, more fun. They can change quite a bit. You might have to adjust your build and how you approach the encounter. You might need to use certain tools you didn't need to use previously. You may need to group with people who have tools that you don't have. Or, you may just need to practice. Because the situation is more deadly and the fight longer, your skill, your build and who/what you bring with you are more valuable than they were previously. Even if it just means a greater degree of preparation, there is thought in it that didn't exist before and as far as I'm concerned, that's a win. You can say that a tankier build would simply be necessary, but everything in a build is a matter of give and take, and there are so many valid builds in the game because people make choices based on what suits their playstyle. I don't think that would change just because the fights get harder.

And by the way, when it comes to bosses that are already a huge challenge, I'm not really even thinking about them. You've provided dungeon content examples but we aren't talking about dungeon content. Overland is a fundamentally different animal because it's so trivially easy, but something that might make overland feel dramatically more fun to play might not actually need to be as dramatic as you think.

Just increasing the boss' damage will just push the problem we currently have a bit further but it wont actually solve it. It will make it more difficult to people who don't have access to all kinds of gear, but once you do the fight becomes very easy again. If you just put on Ring of the Pale Order, you will not struggle surviving no matter how much they increase the boss' damage. Again, this would only make a rift between players who have the gear and players who don't. How can you avoid this then? By putting the difficulty in the mechanics of the boss, not its stats.

Why did I bring up dungeons when we are talking about overland content? It's because we already have fights in the game which have tackled this exact problem already. The base game dungeons the HMs are pretty much just stat increases on the boss. They realized that this actually doesn't pose a real challenge and started including mechanic based difficulty in future dungeons.

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't know who Jakeclips is or how he knows, but that sounds like something I'd expect them to do. Especially since Bastion Nymics were introduced as one answer to overland difficulty.

I don't think they will ever just increase the difficulty of all overland mobs, but rather will just insert more difficult content into what is already there.

I will never, ever understand how anyone considers Bastion Nymic to be overland content.

With that being said, we do recognize a lot of people want increased overland difficulty and the new world events (Bastion Nymics) that are instanced for up to 4 players in Necrom is one of our answers to that.

https://eso-u.com/articles/eso_developer_ama__las_vegas_global_reveal_2023

Huh, never new these existed.

Probably because it's behind a Daily Quest and can't be obtained just through overland exploration.

And it does read like it's just a Dungeon with extra steps.

SilverBride wrote: »

If a debuff or slider that increases the damage and health of the enemies while decreasing the damage and health of the player isn't acceptable for some, then what would be?

The odds that they will ever redo all the overland enemies to include interesting mechanics is pretty slim I'd think.

Yes, it's unacceptable and an idea that would fail on the larger scale. It never worked and it never will. We could just all go naked mode and it would be the same, right? All those ideas about debuffs, splitting the community and so on are full of problems that require a lot of work and will probably end up backfiring.

Solution? Just make the overland harder for everyone and see how it goes. I think many of you forgot how much harder the game was in its first years. I was a full time tank in overland content and it was fun as hell. I, my wife, and my friend finished the Aldmeri campaign together, because it was challenging enough to keep us engaged and have unique roles in our group. As the game "progressed" with next updates I had to go full DPS, because I was absolutely useless anywhere outside of DLC veteran dungeons and veteran trials. My playstyle died because of how easy the game became. The same with my wife. She went from full healer to DPS, because as a healer she's useless too anywhere outside veteran dlc dungeon. Everyone have their own powerful heals and DPS is the king. She felt forced to become a DPS to be relevant and quit instead. That's the reason activity finders can't ever find a real tank or a healer. We died off because no one needed us. This is not the case in other MMOs.
Many here want so badly to keep their overly easy playstyle without even thinking what it did to everyone else and to the game itself.

As someone said, probably more people quit because of how easy overland is, (which contributes to almost entire game, and is the main content) than how many would have problem with raising the difficulty level. All my veteran ESO player friends quit for mostly two reasons : 1. The game is too easy, it's boring, there's no need to become stronger. 2. PvP was completely abandoned, and Cyrodil was the very reason many of them even started playing this game.

Right now ESO is absolutely the easiest and most single-player mmo out there. I know some here want to complete all content and get all rewards with close to zero effort, but that's not what most players want in general, in any game. To survive, ESO must finally start shaping the game to fit the broader audience. You can't make everyone happy, but making majority happy is good for the game. Focusing on making minority happy and in essence making majority leave the game, will end up with the game ending up on life support, or shutting down.

I disagree with you. If it becomes difficult like Craglorn, I think more people will quit.
The first days weren't difficult either, they just had good stories and npcs, something that it really missing nowadays.

Where are the good characters such as Razum-dar? Good written Daedra princes not generic as Mehrunes Dagon? Last time Nocturnal appeared was in Blackwood and it was basically a cameo.

Last expansion had a somewhat good story, Hermaus Mora is always a treat, but the other princes along with him were so obtuse I didn't even notice them. The "forgotten" prince has been already forgotten again by me. Ithelia or something?

Zenimax need to PROGRESS the story. Advance the banner war, start the Nerevarine story, bring the Greymarch with Jyggalag...

What kills ESO for veteran players is that world is stuck in time. Conclusion: the game is currently exactly like the first days. Seems no year have passed since.