Challenge Difficulty still needs... Work.

GatheredMyst · June 21

A character with:

Blue gear
Blue enchantments
A thematic kit (Lightning mage. Storm Magic, Destro Staff)
No class masteries enabled.
CP Points assigned so Magicka doesn't always run out.

... And set to Master difficulty.

Stuff still melts. Lasts for seconds. Insert your choice of descriptions here.

Is it an improvement over before? Yes. Anything compared to how it was before is a step up. But it's still not enough to add that extra "crunch" to the overland stories.

But... three difficulties up, and still finding general mobs being obliterated by a thematic kit and only marginally upgraded gear? Something seems off. I'd turn it onto Vestige, but the gap between Vestige and Master is still incredibly high.

More options added to the pool? A tweaking of the current options? Not sure what the solutions are, but i'd hope the devs are willing to iterate on this a bit more.

My 2 gold pieces.

spartaxoxo · June 21

Just run Vestige with a companion and it gives you that in-between Master and Vestige difficulty level.

Vestige is perfect for me. Also which blue gear because sets matter a lot more than it's blue vs purple.

code65536 · June 21

GatheredMyst wrote: »

A character with:
Blue gear

Blue enchantments

A thematic kit (Lightning mage. Storm Magic, Destro Staff)

No class masteries enabled.

CP Points assigned so Magicka doesn't always run out.

... And set to Master difficulty.

Stuff still melts. Lasts for seconds. Insert your choice of descriptions here.

Is it an improvement over before? Yes. Anything compared to how it was before is a step up. But it's still not enough to add that extra "crunch" to the overland stories.

But... three difficulties up, and still finding general mobs being obliterated by a thematic kit and only marginally upgraded gear? Something seems off. I'd turn it onto Vestige, but the gap between Vestige and Master is still incredibly high.

More options added to the pool? A tweaking of the current options? Not sure what the solutions are, but i'd hope the devs are willing to iterate on this a bit more.

My 2 gold pieces.

Things like gear color and enchant color are relatively minor differences. Set choice matters more, but even that isn't as important as combat basics like having self-healing, blocking heavies, using skills, etc.

I remember when I first started playing the game, someone said to me, "You can give someone all-gold best-in-slot gear, but if they don't know how combat works, then I can do more damage than them in basic white gear."

Gabriel_H · June 21

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

Usureki · June 21

I recommend Vestige difficulty for your case. There it makes sense to block, roll dodge, self heal or casting shields.

Nevertheless, Challenge Difficulty is indeed in the need for some fine-tuning, some mobs are hitting off the chart, sometimes one shotting, while others are still melting, even with the damage sponge effect.

But at least they mean something on Master and Vestige. That makes the game way more fun for many of us.

Sentinel · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

Jeremy · June 22

GatheredMyst wrote: »

A character with:
Blue gear

Blue enchantments

A thematic kit (Lightning mage. Storm Magic, Destro Staff)

No class masteries enabled.

CP Points assigned so Magicka doesn't always run out.

... And set to Master difficulty.

Stuff still melts. Lasts for seconds. Insert your choice of descriptions here.

Is it an improvement over before? Yes. Anything compared to how it was before is a step up. But it's still not enough to add that extra "crunch" to the overland stories.

But... three difficulties up, and still finding general mobs being obliterated by a thematic kit and only marginally upgraded gear? Something seems off. I'd turn it onto Vestige, but the gap between Vestige and Master is still incredibly high.

More options added to the pool? A tweaking of the current options? Not sure what the solutions are, but i'd hope the devs are willing to iterate on this a bit more.

My 2 gold pieces.

Can just play it on Vestige for general questing then lower the difficulty back to Master when you do harder content on the map like Harrowstorms, Dragons, World Bosses etc.

Aliniel · June 22

I like vestige, but random stuff can one-shot you. Like some casts you are not even aware of. I'd say it's a thing of getting experience with these, but when 2 casters break your shield and still kill you, it's not really that fun. And that's me being fully buffed.

I'll have to do some experimenting with different CP/Mundus, but I feel like the dmg received was overshot. I play light armor, but that shouldn't make me one-shottable by mobs.

Gabriel_H · June 22

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

redlink1979 · June 22

What I don't like about Vestige is how everything can one-shot you.

ssewallb14_ESO · June 22

I run white level 1 weapons on Vestige. Lowers the damage enough to feel interactive. If the incoming damage on Vestige is too high for you you can swap out easy to change things like CP, class mastery, max health, food, skills, etc. to become a bit more tanky.

Worst case, get Esoteric Environment Greaves. It basically lowers the damage by a difficulty level, and stam sustain shouldn't be much of an issue dealing with overland mechanics.

Cominfordatoothbrush · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

Gabriel_H · June 22

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

spartaxoxo · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

The game wasn't built with CD in mind so ofc there are some outliers where it's better to swap to a companion or to a lower difficulty, for sure.

But, being able to create a build is not a small difference. There are no tanks if you have to remove all of your gear. Being unable to build for a challenge also means that you can't make adjustments to increase the number of enemies you can defeat by just unequipping things. I swapped to the build I created for Night Market and instantly had more fun and survived better than when on my group DPS build. Being able to use experience from one part of the game to enhance my experience in another felt good and is a fundamental part of the RPG experience that is lost by unequipping gear.

Tomatoes and Apples are both red fruit that can be used in cooking. Doesn't make them the same thing.

Cominfordatoothbrush · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

My point being, it's fundamentally different, because simply taking your armor off both does not increase enemy damage with to make quest enemies or bosses a threat, and eliminates a core element of the game which is build creation. It is at the most maximal equivalent to seasoned difficulty

I've done the just wear worse/no gear method. Every time I've made new character in the past I've done zone quests with at the most found gear and no CP. Because it's the only state where questing was enjoyable. But even then, there is no need to really try. No need to step out of AOE, pay attention to mechanics, block/dodge heavy attacks, or otherwise really engage with the combat beyond dpsing the enemies down. Enemies still die fairly quickly. It is distantly similar to challenge difficulty in that it's slightly more difficult, but it does not in any way achieve the same goal as challenge difficulty does where I not only have to pay attention to the enemy mechanics to survive, I can be fully geared doing it

Edit - and out of curiosity, what's one of the world bosses you're referring to? The ones I've fought so far have been comfortably blockable with only ~35k health as tank

Gabriel_H · June 22

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

The game wasn't built with CD in mind so ofc there are some outliers where it's better to swap to a companion or to a lower difficulty, for sure.

But, being able to create a build is not a small difference. There are no tanks if you have to remove all of your gear. Being unable to build for a challenge also means that you can't make adjustments to increase the number of enemies you can defeat by just unequipping things. I swapped to the build I created for Night Market and instantly had more fun and survived better than when on my group DPS build. Being able to use experience from one part of the game to enhance my experience in another felt good and is a fundamental part of the RPG experience that is lost by unequipping gear.

Tomatoes and Apples are both red fruit that can be used in cooking. Doesn't make them the same thing.

The game wasn't built for CD, so ZOS put a CD in, but didn't alter any other the underlying mechs or tuning. Nothing about what you said alters that CD is a sledgehammer. It's a macro level debuff, and it's still not the most challenging thing you can do in overland.

Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

spartaxoxo · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

.

Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

No. They aren't. Being able to build a character is a core RPG mechanic that fundamentally alters game.

Sentinel · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

The game wasn't built with CD in mind so ofc there are some outliers where it's better to swap to a companion or to a lower difficulty, for sure.

But, being able to create a build is not a small difference. There are no tanks if you have to remove all of your gear. Being unable to build for a challenge also means that you can't make adjustments to increase the number of enemies you can defeat by just unequipping things. I swapped to the build I created for Night Market and instantly had more fun and survived better than when on my group DPS build. Being able to use experience from one part of the game to enhance my experience in another felt good and is a fundamental part of the RPG experience that is lost by unequipping gear.

Tomatoes and Apples are both red fruit that can be used in cooking. Doesn't make them the same thing.

The game wasn't built for CD, so ZOS put a CD in, but didn't alter any other the underlying mechs or tuning. Nothing about what you said alters that CD is a sledgehammer. It's a macro level debuff, and it's still not the most challenging thing you can do in overland.

Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

I don't think the way you're using the term fundamental is all that helpful here, because you're using it to mean mathematically fundamental whereas I think others take the experience of playing the game (utilizing build variety etc) to be what is referred to as fundamental. Maybe we should move on from arguing over definitions.

I think if we take a step back, there is some agreement that challenge difficulty would be improved by having it be tuned in some respects to the encounter. Maybe its the case that all enemies with a boss icon (or perhaps individual attacks from said bosses) can be tuned slightly differently on different challenge difficulties. Even a sledgehammer approach to affect all bosses with all attacks above a certain threshold is still a way to achieve more tuned results for the player experience.

Gabriel_H · June 22

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

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Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

No. They aren't. Being able to build a character is a core RPG mechanic that fundamentally alters game.

May I suggest Google.

Gabriel_H · June 22

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Sentinel wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Step 1) Put the difficulty on Vestige.
Step 2) Take off all armour/jewellery and CP, then equip white weapons no enchants.

There is no difference at a fundamental level between those 2 things. Both a self-nerfs via a sledgehammer.

What's the fundamental level you're referring to here?

I see a big difference between those two things. I think superficially the only thing they have in common is that the player character does less damage and experiences more damage. Less superficially, the first option you list let's a player use their current build with all of its details to engage with the mechanics of an encounter that has greater risk of danger and longer time to kill. The second option means the player character has to sacrifice their build, their mechanics and fundamentally all engagement with the systems of the game to manufacture difficulty. I think the reason why you see more players engaging with the difficulty options ZOS provided than self-nerfs is because at the end of the day people still want to play the dang game and its systems. If these were truly fundamentally the same, wouldn't everyone currently running around with vestige enabled have been naked before the update?

I think OP's point is valid that some people may just want more intermediate points that work within the framework of letting them engage with the game's mechanics as fully as possible. There are times that I wish Vestige difficulty and Master had more of a middle-ground. I like Vestige for trash mobs, but some of the bosses I can struggle unless I bump down to Master. Though, this particular issue that I have wouldn't really be solved by just putting in an intermediate point as much as making a difficulty setting that would scale differently for different enemy types.

They are both the same thing. They are player chosen self-nerfs. They are both sledgehammers.

You talk about mechs like they are designed for this. They aren't, the mechs are tuned for CP160 at Adventurer difficulty. Changing difficulty is no different to taking off gear.

One reduces your damage done/taken after all calculations, the other reduces your damage done/taken before calculations. Having 50% crit rating at Vestige is the same as having 10% crit rating at adventurer. The only difference in the mathematics is the initial value, but the end result is the same. Like I said, a sledgehammer, these are not tuned fights.

Say you're at armor cap on adventurer and an enemy attack before mitigation deals 10000 damage. This is reduced to 5000. If you take your armor/defense buffs off and have 0 resistance, the damage you take is effectively +100%. This is not the same thing as playing vestige, it's the same thing as playing seasoned, AND you lose the fun of creating a build for your character

... which means both increase damage taken, both decrease damage done, both are player choices, both are self-nerfs - that's an example of sharing a fundamental level.

Challenge difficulty as implemented takes no account of nuance, scripting, or mechanics. It's a sledgehammer. There are overland bosses in the game that have attacks that cannot be dodged, they have to be blocked. Which means even a tank at 60k+ health and maximum damage mitigation cannot survive a hit on Vestige. That isn't a challenge, because challenge implies a chance of success.

Edit: Typos

The game wasn't built with CD in mind so ofc there are some outliers where it's better to swap to a companion or to a lower difficulty, for sure.

But, being able to create a build is not a small difference. There are no tanks if you have to remove all of your gear. Being unable to build for a challenge also means that you can't make adjustments to increase the number of enemies you can defeat by just unequipping things. I swapped to the build I created for Night Market and instantly had more fun and survived better than when on my group DPS build. Being able to use experience from one part of the game to enhance my experience in another felt good and is a fundamental part of the RPG experience that is lost by unequipping gear.

Tomatoes and Apples are both red fruit that can be used in cooking. Doesn't make them the same thing.

The game wasn't built for CD, so ZOS put a CD in, but didn't alter any other the underlying mechs or tuning. Nothing about what you said alters that CD is a sledgehammer. It's a macro level debuff, and it's still not the most challenging thing you can do in overland.

Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

I don't think the way you're using the term fundamental is all that helpful here, because you're using it to mean mathematically fundamental whereas I think others take the experience of playing the game (utilizing build variety etc) to be what is referred to as fundamental. Maybe we should move on from arguing over definitions.

I think if we take a step back, there is some agreement that challenge difficulty would be improved by having it be tuned in some respects to the encounter. Maybe its the case that all enemies with a boss icon (or perhaps individual attacks from said bosses) can be tuned slightly differently on different challenge difficulties. Even a sledgehammer approach to affect all bosses with all attacks above a certain threshold is still a way to achieve more tuned results for the player experience.

Depends what you want the player experience to be.

spartaxoxo · June 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

.

Oh and actually they are the same thing on a fundamental level.

No. They aren't. Being able to build a character is a core RPG mechanic that fundamentally alters game.

May I suggest Google.

Sure thing. I will do that since you specifically requested that I do so.

You use fundamental to describe things, activities, and principles that are very important or essential. They affect the basic nature of other things or are the most important element upon which other things depend

Source: Collins Dictionary

So, now that we have established that fundamental means a very important or essential part of the activity. Let's look at my claim.

Here I've been clearly using it to mean that the ability to build your character is an essential part of what makes something an RPG.

Is it essential to being an RPG? Let's look at what an RPG is through google.

A role-playing game (sometimes spelled as roleplaying game[1][2] or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume and play out the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development

Source: Wikipedia

I would say building a character counts as structured decision making around character development.

So, we have building a character being defined as an essential part of the RPG process according to Wikipedia. We know from the Collins Dictionary that an essential part of an activity is a fundamental part of that activity. Therefore, my claim that is building a character is a fundamental part of the process is fair and valid even if we disagree because you prefer to only look at numbers.

Which is okay. We don't all have to value the same things. But, you're leaving a lot out when you declare that building should not be seen as fundamental and that there is factually no difference between these two things. There is and it is very important to some of us.

GatheredMyst · June 22

I appreciate all the responses, but... before Challenge Difficulty was released, some of the workarounds listed above (Going naked, running low level weapons, running fewer abilities, etc) were things that we did before the system was put in place. The entire point of the system was to allow us to ... you know... play the game at a decent difficulty without having to jump through a bunch of arbitrary hoops.

The reason I posted feedback, despite really liking the system as a concept, is that I don't feel like they quite hit that mark yet. Master is second to Vestige, the highest "You're going to die if you don't pay attention" difficulty, and it doesn't really feel that different. Things die slower, yes, and you take a little more damage, but i'm not having to really work at it. Just put down wall of elements, that one storm summoning lightning field that i'm forgetting the name of, and by the time I have an auto attack off, it's time to use Mages Fury to execute.

As far as what sets i'm wearing... it's nothing special. Increased Magicka and Magicka Recovery so I don't have to resource juggle as much. I knew it wasn't a Vet Dungeon or a trial, so I didn't really

And yes, things still melt despite that.

GatheredMyst · June 22

Post to add: "So I didn't really bother doing anything crazy." to the second to last paragraph. Oops.