I honestly don’t remember inexperienced or low-effort solo players deleting bosses others teams engaged in Vet zones within seconds. Maybe we played different versions of the game back then... or this comparison is missing the point of my post.

My point is not about endgame difficulty/content or nostalgia for old Veteran zones.

It’s about the ability to choose a consistent gameplay experience in open-world PvE....that was the intention about the system in the first place, wasn't it?

@Elderpatriot this was a lovely story, thanks for sharing I also love the Vestige difficulty and I'm very motivated to play with friends and also encounter other fellow Vestiges!

It would be awesome if Vestige difficulty would have its own player instance, so players of the same mind could team up more easily.

Elderpatriot wrote: »

I honestly don’t remember inexperienced or low-effort solo players deleting bosses others teams engaged in Vet zones within seconds. Maybe we played different versions of the game back then... or this comparison is missing the point of my post.

My point is not about endgame difficulty/content or nostalgia for old Veteran zones.

It’s about the ability to choose a consistent gameplay experience in open-world PvE....that was the intention about the system in the first place, wasn't it?

I didnt say that was your point. I was making an observation that people now asking for separation between difficulties is essentially almost the same thing as asking for leveled zones like the Vet ranked ones. My point about Vet zones was exactly that. We all got put on the same playing field with 1Tamriel, and all the new gear and skills and whatnot they've added to the game over the years. Of course nobody was deleting bosses back then. Player power was never this high, especially with all the other tools like being able to properly gauge your dps on a real trial dummy.

Going to repeat myself, but here goes anyway.

So you want a greater challenge in overland? You want the fights to be hard and the danger real? Then forget Vestige, that's for wimps.

Whack it on Adventurer, then take off all your armour and jewellery. Equip white weapons only. Next clear all your CPs. Take that potion off your quickslot and wait for the buff food to run out, oh and no companion either. Welcome to Vestige+ difficulty. If you'd like Vestige++ then unmorph all your skills. For Vestige+++ remove all passive skill points.

There is no fundamental difference between that and the official challenge system. Both are self-imposed nerfs that the player chooses to take.

That said, I get that a lowbie/easy mode players is killing your mobs quick, but that's not a new thing. In fact it can still be found in Adventurer difficulty, when a 2000+ experienced overland player rocks up to a WB and shatters it from 90% top 0% in 60 seconds, despite the lowbie having been working on that first 10% for the last 3 minutes.

Again, on a fundamental level there is no difference between that and what happens if an Adventurer rocks up to a Vestige fight. The only difference overall is that the lowbie is now the one doing the quicker killing, and the high level players is not, thereby reversing the roles/situation.

So, lets separate the challenge difficulties. Cool, we've now set the precedent that different difficulties should have their own instances. So that's instances for every 10 levels up to 50, another at CP160, CP300, CP800, CP1200 and CP1800 - because all of those are different difficulties too.

Edit: Typos

@gabriel: I actually tested your suggestion.

lowlevel character (around lvl 10), no CP in Bal Foyen a single random enemy guard in the open fields.

Vestige difficulty with normal gear: dead in two hits after roughly five seconds (he almost one hitted me).

Adventurer difficulty completely naked: thirteen hits and about thirty-six seconds before dying.

So no, naked Adventurer mode is definetly not "Vestige+"....i had never doubts about that, but making such points that are so easy to refute do not help at all to discuss the topic.


And think about the other argument of yours:

We always had the problem that highlevel chars could jump into a fight and "steal" encounters from low level players. It is absolutley true.


But you said it yourself: It is a problem that occurs from time to time. Now - the new difficulty system makes this occurrence much more frequent, because a lot of players even on your level are now godlike powerd compared to your vestige-character. So it is not the same on a fundamental level as you mentioned it. A Vestige player can not ruin an adventurers fight, but the other way around. They are players on the same level, doing the same quests probably for the first time. This is not bound do an advantage in progression or equipment. And Adventurer was so easy already, the difference to geared players adding to the fight was not so fundamental difference in experience. Instead of very easy it become even more easy.

The difference from tough to extremly easy is much more noticeable.


Why should increasing the frequency of a problematic scenario be an argument in favor of accepting it? It is unavoidable in an MMORPG that is designed like that to a certain degree - yes. But only to a certain degree.


But more importantly, I think your comparison misses the entire point.

Self-imposed restrictions only solve solo challenge. How do I find other people who share these rules?
Do I advertise in zone chat like: "LF naked no CP no passive no companion white weapons challenge group"
That sounds absurd to me.

Official difficulty settings exist precisely so that players don't have to negotiate a social contract before every fight. Shared rules create shared expectations and private handicaps create solitude. (it might be cool for Youtube Challenge-Videos and applause....but that is another topic)

And gear, weapons and progression are important parts of the game. A solution that effectively says "ignore half the game" is therefore not really a solution.


************************************************************************************************


Now at last a few general words on the subject of "separation."


I also find the wording itself interesting. Terms like "separation" or "splitting the playerbase" already imply that something valuable is being torn apart.

But is that really what is happening? By that logic, the official forums here themselves separate people aswell.


General Discussion.
Support.
Patch Notes/ News
Combat & Mechanics
Bug Reports
Test Server
Lore
Maintenance

and so on.........


One could argue that this "separates" forum users from each other.
And technically, it does. But in reality, it respects their goals to talk about something very specific and makes meaningful interaction easier.

Structure is not necessarily the opposite of community.

Structure is what allows communities to form in the first place.

After all ( i mentioned that before), goals and motivation are the engine of interaction — not mere physical presence.

People who want to discuss Lore gather in the Lore section for example. Any Discord Chat or Forum is structered more or less in that way for a reason.

People who enjoy challenge naturally gravitate toward others who enjoy their idea of challenge aswell.

To allow that to exist in its own space is not a negative form of unproductive fragmentation but organization.



And perhaps we should stop treating every form of organization as if it were automatically a social tragedy.




I also want to add that the discussion about separating players by difficulty is only one piece of a much larger puzzle when it comes to improving the overall experience.

It’s not just about who shares the same world space. It’s also about how rewards are structured — when players receive them, how frequently they are given, and in what quantities.

Because all of these systems shape pacing and immersion just as much as combat difficulty does. Right now, the experience often feels interrupted not only by other players, but also by constant (often meaningless) reward injections/systems, popups, and mass gear drops that break the natural flow of an adventure on your own. That is not a specific problem to the higher difficulty levels in my opinion....

but it could provide a very interesting starting point for everyone in the game — something beyond simply tweaking health bars and damage multipliers.


So in my opinion, the entire topic is not a single-system issue — difficulty settings are only the first step.
It is a broader question of how the game balances challenge, pacing, and reward feedback as a whole.
Some people approach it from the perspective of a shared experience, while others focus on speed, convenience, quantitative performance, or purely technical parameters. As a result, they are often not actually arguing about the same thing, which makes these discussions somewhat circular and difficult to resolve.