Overland Content Feedback Thread
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loveeso✭✭✭✭ESO_player123 wrote: »Excited to see ZOS finally working on overland difficulty options—especially with multiple levels. Great move.
If you’re aiming to avoid separate instances and leaning toward a system like LotRO’s landscape difficulty (which works well overall), I hope you’ll address one key issue:
Players on lower difficulty shouldn’t be able to undermine the experience for those on higher difficulty by one-shotting enemies already engaged in tougher combat.
Two potential solutions come to mind:
1. Enraged Tagging System
Once an enemy is attacked by someone on higher difficulty, it becomes visibly “enraged” or marked. Anyone who joins the fight is automatically pulled into that difficulty tier for that encounter. This keeps the challenge intact and avoids trivializing the fight.
2. Ghost Phase System
To players not on the higher difficulty, those enemies appear as ghostly, semi-transparent figures—like phantoms in Dark Souls. They’re untouchable and don’t interfere with normal spawns, which continue as usual for lower-difficulty players.
This could actually look stunning in-game: seeing others locked in intense battles with spectral foes while you engage your own tier.
Either approach would preserve immersion and prevent cross-tier interference. Just hoping ZOS nails the implementation so difficulty feels meaningful without fragmenting the world.
Importantly, this kind of system doesn’t just protect higher-difficulty players from having their challenge spoiled—it also prevents abuse.
Without safeguards, players could switch to high difficulty and let a friend on minimum difficulty tank and kill enemies for them, farming high-tier rewards without actually engaging with the challenge. That would undermine the whole point.
And let’s be honest: if higher difficulty doesn’t offer meaningful rewards, most players won’t bother. They’ll just switch to another game where challenge and reward go hand-in-hand.
I do not understand how it would work. Let's say player A on higher difficulty engages a boss and it becomes enraged or ghost phased. Then, comes player B on lower difficulty. Does it mean that player B has to wait for the player A to finish because the boss is simply unavailable because it's in a ghost phase or at the difficulty higher than player B wants (enraged). How would it be fair to make player B to wait? How would one prevent higher difficulty player from camping mobs and denying them for the lower level players in this case?
You wrote "They’re untouchable and don’t interfere with normal spawns, which continue as usual for lower-difficulty players." Would we see two bosses at the same location - one ghost phased and another not? That would be really weird.
Yes—level-0 players would see their own mobs and bosses as normal, while the Heroic+2 enemies (for the sake off this example: that's LotRO’s highest landscape difficulty) would appear ghost-phased.
Conversely, players in the Heroic+2 group would see their enemies in full detail, while level 0 mobs and bosses would appear ghost-phased to them.
I.e. No one would have to wait.Edited by loveeso on 18 September 2025 10:31MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭My main issue with this topic is that overland includes dailies and resource farming and treasure maps/surveys and antiquities...when you are in a rush to get those things done you don't want to spend so much time fighting off mobs.
I dont know about you guys but I let my surveys accumulated before going out and doing them and when I do them I get annoyed by how many of those are far from the wayshrines...so time consuming when I have so many other eso activities I want to engage in.
I find the difficult setting as a toggle a bit much for zos to deal with when there is less content coming out as is. Like someone mentioned, they would have to change the entire game.
I have issue with players wanting more challenging content as long as my content ive paid for over 10 yrs doesn't change to feeling again like a completely new game. Im trying to adjust to subclassing. Give me a break please.
Oh, in the second implementation I described, nothing would change for you—aside from occasionally seeing ghost-phased figures and players battling them. You’d still be mapping / zoning as usual.
In fact, having others on different difficulty tiers could actually make things easier. Fewer players competing for your tier delve or public dungeon bosses means less chance of arriving just in time to find someone standing over a freshly killed boss and having to wait around for a respawn.
MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
colossalvoids✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I honestly can't see a world where anything complex would be implemented, especially if it creates something visually weird and potentially confusing for new players, being still their target audience. They just do not do that as a company, all the features ar based on something we already have in essence. It's most probably either a debuff or enrage system, both are already in the game so it's the easiest way to go but in the end one side would get a short end of the stick as we already know they still insisting on not separating players by their interests. So either new players would finish bosses in couple hits or they would be joining an enraged monster that would one shot them, none of those experiences sounds good tbh. I'd be glad proven wrong on all of that, just my 2 cents.1 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭colossalvoids wrote: »I honestly can't see a world where anything complex would be implemented, especially if it creates something visually weird and potentially confusing for new players, being still their target audience. They just do not do that as a company, all the features ar based on something we already have in essence. It's most probably either a debuff or enrage system, both are already in the game so it's the easiest way to go but in the end one side would get a short end of the stick as we already know they still insisting on not separating players by their interests. So either new players would finish bosses in couple hits or they would be joining an enraged monster that would one shot them, none of those experiences sounds good tbh. I'd be glad proven wrong on all of that, just my 2 cents.
Both options rely on mechanisms that are already there. For example, option 2:
1. Simple debuff on players: the higher the difficulty, the bigger the debuff on the player (this is how they have done it in LotRO, it seems)
2. Existing enemies—no need to create anything new.
3. The mechanism of spawning enemies—already there.
4. No collision detection and mobs ignoring your attacks (for enemies not on your difficulty tier) —both mechanisms already implemented in game.
5. Making models semitransparent / ghostlike—also already there.
All of this is technically feasible—it’s just a matter of integrating the pieces that are already there. Will ZOS do it? We’ll see. If not, or if they don’t come up with something better, no hard feelings. But let’s be honest: players who are tired of the current state will move on. So many of my friends already have. I myself play ESO less and less—probably should’ve cancelled ESO+ a while ago.MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into someone who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
Personally, I'd expect sharing to be annoying at first when everyone is flooding the zone to try the new stuff. And then for excitement to die down and things to proceed how they already do on overland. You only occasionally run into someone on the same quest.Edited by spartaxoxo on 18 September 2025 12:192 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.3 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂
The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.Edited by spartaxoxo on 18 September 2025 13:013 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂
The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.
It looks like you didn’t read my earlier comments before replying. The scenario you just described wouldn’t happen—you wouldn’t end up waiting.
Re. Souls: we are also talking about two different things.MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂
The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.
It looks like you didn’t read my earlier comments before replying. The scenario you just described wouldn’t happen—you wouldn’t end up waiting.
Re. Souls: we are also talking about two different things.
I did read. You said it would be still be spawned. I'm saying if I needed help, I would be waiting. And then another person arrived but they can't help me because they're on a different setting. An enemy being able to be attacked when I'm not able to kill it by myself is meaningless in that scenario.
The others ghosts I see in souls is PvP.Edited by spartaxoxo on 18 September 2025 13:421 -
loveeso✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂
The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.
It looks like you didn’t read my earlier comments before replying. The scenario you just described wouldn’t happen—you wouldn’t end up waiting.
Re. Souls: we are also talking about two different things.
I did read. You said it would be still be spawned. I'm saying if I needed help, I would be waiting. And then another person arrived but they can't help me because they're on a different setting. An enemy being able to be attacked when I'm not able to kill it by myself is meaningless in that scenario.
The others ghosts I see in souls is PvP.
Well, that’s not what I wrote.
Not being able to solo an overland enemy in ESO? Honestly, having enemies like that would be a welcome change
Still, there’s no reason to deny higher-skilled players a meaningful challenge just to force them into easy mode for the sake of helping with content others can’t handle without them.
Anyway—no hard feelings. Hope you have a great rest of the week 🙂MMOs: ESO (PS & PC), GW2 (😍) & Souls/Elden (😍)0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.
They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.
Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.
And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉
The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.
I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.
The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.
Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.
Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂
The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.
It looks like you didn’t read my earlier comments before replying. The scenario you just described wouldn’t happen—you wouldn’t end up waiting.
Re. Souls: we are also talking about two different things.
I did read. You said it would be still be spawned. I'm saying if I needed help, I would be waiting. And then another person arrived but they can't help me because they're on a different setting. An enemy being able to be attacked when I'm not able to kill it by myself is meaningless in that scenario.
The others ghosts I see in souls is PvP.
Well, that’s not what I wrote.
Not being able to solo an overland enemy in ESO? Honestly, having enemies like that would be a welcome change
Still, there’s no reason to deny higher-skilled players a meaningful challenge just to force them into easy mode for the sake of helping with content others can’t handle without them.
Anyway—no hard feelings. Hope you have a great rest of the week 🙂
What do you mean by you wouldn't have to wait if not the enemies would not be spawned by both players then? Sorry. Just a bit confused then, genuine question.
Lots of options to provide vet players with stuff while still keeping same instance imo. I agree that vets should have difficulty options. 🙂0 -
shadoza✭✭✭✭Sharp as Night loves fishing. This day, I noticed he stood by and watched while I fished. Can we not convince him that he can drop a line in as well?0