Possible work-around for Seasoned/Master/Vestige Instance

Jeremy · September 6

Since creating separate instances for challenge difficulties is out of the question due to technical reasons, I think ESO could accomplish nearly the same effect by marking an enemy based on the selected difficulty of the player who initiates combat with it. Any subsequent players who engage with the claimed monster will be temporarily adjusted to that difficulty. This way the difficulty can be consistently maintained while preserving the option to opt out. Players who want to avoid the higher difficulties can just avoid attacking the marked enemies.

LunaFlora · September 7

it has been brought up before and i still think it is an awful idea.

Vestige difficulty player hits a world boss, runs away, other players now have to deal with the increased difficulty they did not choose.
Vestige difficulty players would probably likewise be annoyed if it happened reversed.

How would the enemies even be marked? Do they get a giant clear impossible to toggle off symbol over their head?
Currently players have a symbol next to their name to signify their chosen difficulty, but only if you target them and you need to know what the symbols mean.

ESO_player123 · September 7

This has been discussed many times. The cons IMO outweigh the pros. The potential for trolling, players on lower difficulty being forced to wait while the player on higher difficulty slowly works on the boss, players on lower difficulty tagging trash packs so a player of higher difficulty is forced to deal with lower difficulty.

So, big NO to any form of tagging.

Jeremy · 1:03AM

LunaFlora wrote: »

it has been brought up before and i still think it is an awful idea.

Vestige difficulty player hits a world boss, runs away, other players now have to deal with the increased difficulty they did not choose.
Vestige difficulty players would probably likewise be annoyed if it happened reversed.

How would the enemies even be marked? Do they get a giant clear impossible to toggle off symbol over their head?
Currently players have a symbol next to their name to signify their chosen difficulty, but only if you target them and you need to know what the symbols mean.

If the player who initialized the fight exits combat, then just have the next player to initialize determine the shared difficulty. Easy enough to fix.

Enemies would be marked by an icon over their head, or something of that sort. You could give the player options to control how visible or large it is, or when it appears... etc. That way they can tailor it to their own tastes.

Jeremy · 1:27AM

ESO_player123 wrote: »

This has been discussed many times. The cons IMO outweigh the pros. The potential for trolling, players on lower difficulty being forced to wait while the player on higher difficulty slowly works on the boss, players on lower difficulty tagging trash packs so a player of higher difficulty is forced to deal with lower difficulty.

So, big NO to any form of tagging.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I think allowing for a consistent difficulty is of more importance to the game than accommodating players who may want to wait on the sidelines, especially since combat is scaled generally across the board in ESO. The marking system is a bit clunky I'll admit, but it's the only way I can think of to work around the technical problems ZOS claims prevents a more instanced approach (which would be ideal).

In the base difficulty, encountering other players is more of a nuisance than a benefit IMHO, because it just trivializes the content to such a large degree. The difficulty increases have been a huge improvement to this game, and I would like to see them build on that.

valenwood_vegan · 1:47AM

So instead of people choosing the difficulty they want to play on, it becomes a race to see who can get there first and if you don't like it, tough luck wait your turn? Doesn't sound very enjoyable to me. Also not sure how it would work since the difficulty settings affect the player and not the enemy - lots of opportunity for trolling and confusion. First thing that popped into my head was what happens if one player tags an enemy to vestige and drags in into the midst of a bunch of other players doing a dolmen or working on a wb at their desired difficulty or something? Hopefully they don't consider something like this.

ESO_player123 · 1:49AM

Tagging removes the optional part of the difficulty setting. The player that arrives second is either forced to accept the difficulty that they did not choose or wait.

Also, imagine the events or dailies where people grind for rewards with poor RNG (latest new Summerset furnishings come to mind). I doubt peole would welcome damage sponges in such situations.

Jeremy · 1:55AM

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Tagging removes the optional part of the difficulty setting. The player that arrives second is either forced to accept the difficulty that they did not choose or wait.

Also, imagine the events or dailies where people grind for rewards with poor RNG (latest new Summerset furnishings come to mind). I doubt peole would welcome damage sponges in such situations.

They can still choose their difficulty. Just not on enemies they didn't claim first is all. I would prefer an instance-based difficulty, but I don't think that's in the cards.

Jeremy · 1:59AM

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

So instead of people choosing the difficulty they want to play on, it becomes a race to see who can get there first and if you don't like it, tough luck wait your turn? Doesn't sound very enjoyable to me. Also not sure how it would work since the difficulty settings affect the player and not the enemy - lots of opportunity for trolling and confusion. First thing that popped into my head was what happens if one player tags an enemy to vestige and drags in into the midst of a bunch of other players doing a dolmen or working on a wb at their desired difficulty or something? Hopefully they don't consider something like this.

Or they could just help (instead of waiting their turn). They can remove repair costs from the higher difficulties if that is the concern.

ESO_player123 · 2:07AM

Jeremy wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

So instead of people choosing the difficulty they want to play on, it becomes a race to see who can get there first and if you don't like it, tough luck wait your turn? Doesn't sound very enjoyable to me. Also not sure how it would work since the difficulty settings affect the player and not the enemy - lots of opportunity for trolling and confusion. First thing that popped into my head was what happens if one player tags an enemy to vestige and drags in into the midst of a bunch of other players doing a dolmen or working on a wb at their desired difficulty or something? Hopefully they don't consider something like this.

Or the players could just help (instead of waiting their turn). They could get rid of repair costs at higher difficulties if that is the concern.

The repair costs are nothing.

One of the problems I see is that in the base game the WBs do not drop anything worth the increased difficulty for a long-time player. So, why bother at all unless you are after the difficulty itself (which might not be the case for the person who arrives second)? While farming, I definitely do not want to be slowed down.

While I can kill most of the DLC WBs by myself, I definitely would not want to participate in the Vestige version of them. Would you like to farm summerset dailies on Vestige difficulty, for example?

Personally, I would give higher difficulties a try if it was a true separate instance. We know that is not happening. So, we have what we have. And I would not want to see such tagging added to it.

Jeremy · 2:13AM

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

So instead of people choosing the difficulty they want to play on, it becomes a race to see who can get there first and if you don't like it, tough luck wait your turn? Doesn't sound very enjoyable to me. Also not sure how it would work since the difficulty settings affect the player and not the enemy - lots of opportunity for trolling and confusion. First thing that popped into my head was what happens if one player tags an enemy to vestige and drags in into the midst of a bunch of other players doing a dolmen or working on a wb at their desired difficulty or something? Hopefully they don't consider something like this.

Or the players could just help (instead of waiting their turn). They could get rid of repair costs at higher difficulties if that is the concern.

The repair costs are nothing.

One of the problems I see is that in the base game the WBs do not drop anything worth the increased difficulty for a long-time player. So, why bother at all unless you are after the difficulty itself (which might not be the case for the person who arrives second)? While farming, I definitely do not want to be slowed down.

While I can kill most of the DLC WBs by myself, I definitely would not want to participate in the Vestige version of them. Would you like to farm summerset dailies on Vestige difficulty, for example?

Personally, I would give higher difficulties a try if it was a true separate instance. We know that is not happening. So, we have what we have. And I would not want to see such tagging added to it.

World bosses are an anomaly since they are so un-evenly designed. Some would be enjoyable on Vestige. Others would be torturous death-fest. lol

Might make things more interesting, though. I would be ok with excluding World Bosses from the Mark System. Or perhaps they could go through and balance them more consistently first.

Sleep · 4:30AM

just remove difficulties