The Elder Scrolls difficulty philosophy, fun and appropriate or frustrating and restricting.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

So, in light of the recent 1.1.2 patch there has been a significant difficulty hike. Personally I love the idea of a challenge but I must question the philosophy of 'difficulty' that every elderscrolls game (online included) is guilty of. It's lazy, simply lumping more health and more damage onto mobs may increase the difficulty, but it's not exactly fun. I was hoping that an increase in difficulty would mean more spells being cast, smarter ai - new spells, things that force magicka management in addition to stamina and was instead left in a frustrating situation of conforming to cookie cutter builds or dieing, a lot.

Any who, cutting to the chase what do you guys think of the Elderscrolls difficulty scaling philosophy. Is it fun and rewarding or is it old fashioned and simply restricting.

czar

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

schip wrote: »

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

eh, I can't say I agree with you fully there, games are boring when killing every day monsters is like playing farm simulator

czar

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

schip wrote: »

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

eh, I can't say I agree with you fully there, games are boring when killing every day monsters is like playing farm simulator

i wouldn't mind, less killing = more exploration which in my opinion is more fun

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO

It's fun and rewarding

I enjoy the boost in challenge, bring more of ZOS. GJ

eNumbra

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

schip wrote: »

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

eh, I can't say I agree with you fully there, games are boring when killing every day monsters is like playing farm simulator

Traditionally games are designed that as you progress, bosses from previous levels become the normal mobs that you slice your way through on your way to the next challenge in order to create a sense of progression of power. Throughout the course of said game your character grows such that the boss in the first level that killed you a half-dozen times is not more than an ant by the end of the game.


Obviously MMOs can't follow the traditional platformer design but trash mobs should be just that; trash mobs. The challenge in them should be more in their quantity. If you want Dark Souls level challenge they either need to leave it in specific dungeons or in Dark Souls.

The difficulty level of mobs in ESOs various zones has been all over the place.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO wrote: »

I enjoy the boost in challenge, bring more of ZOS. GJ

if you have a look at my opening statement I enjoy a challenge to... but such an arbitrary way to go about it is really quite lazy, they've just slapped health and damage onto the mobs and expected it to work well.

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

eNumbra wrote: »

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

schip wrote: »

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

eh, I can't say I agree with you fully there, games are boring when killing every day monsters is like playing farm simulator

Traditionally games are designed that as you progress, bosses from previous levels become the normal mobs that you slice your way through on your way to the next challenge in order to create a sense of progression of power. Throughout the course of said game your character grows such that the boss in the first level that killed you a half-dozen times is not more than an ant by the end of the game.


Obviously MMOs can't follow the traditional platformer design but trash mobs should be just that; trash mobs. The challenge in them should be more in their quantity. If you want Dark Souls level challenge they either need to leave it in specific dungeons or in Dark Souls.

The difficulty level of mobs in ESOs various zones has been all over the place.

point.

Audigy

It's fun and rewarding

Back in the days at UO you had mobs that you couldn't approach as a new char, as they wiped the floor with you.

Several weeks of gameplay later, you could come back and kill them.

Its the traditional idea of MMO´s that ZO follows. Yes at other games like WoW you have no challenges and every mob just lays down if you get closer than 500 yards - but the basic idea of MMO´s always was "get stronger and get further" so I don't mind a high difficulty.


What I miss however are encounters and caves in the lower regions, that players can not do yet, but maybe in a few months or so. It would be incredible fun to see a cave but upon entering you just die, as the mobs are VR 20 or something.

Nox_Aeterna

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

Let me put it this way.

Before , i thought they would keep the whole "group" requirement , to craglorn , i was not happy with it , but ok, passable to a point.

Today , i login to find that i cant beat a mob pack i could till yesterday in a vet9.

I logged in , tried one mob pack, that i had killed yesterday at a dungeons door , i could not kill them there.

What is the point of a solo dungeon if i cant solo again?

So i logged off , and now i wait to see if i will just unsub , or zen will say something about this.

Hiddenbunny

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

Double the mob exp?... btw we make them twice as tough too, oh... that didn't make into the patch notes? nah, just leave them, no one will notice.

Dekkameron

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

I think most peeps are generally annoyed that they didn't tell us they were going to do it.
I mean seriously what is with all the stealth "fixes" they shove in. The lack of communication is dreadful.

madangrypally

It's fun and rewarding

I like the difficulty of Craig, though I do disagree with the added difficulty of the VR1-10 zones. The added difficulty and Templar bitting jabs bug/nerf makes it so as healer I dont want to solo anymore. (I did not spam or clip abilities). It gave my Templar a way to get into melee and dps. Now ill just stand back and heal and this greatly reduces my enjoyment of the game.

Craiglern Difficulty == Great.
VR1-10 Difficulty == Crappy and needs to be reverted back to prior patch.
Trails Difficulty == Great and enjoyed running them last night. Timed to last boss was around 13 minutes but last boss caused issues. Fun learning experience.

Gwarok

It's fun and rewarding

schip wrote: »

normal mobs should be easy, bosses should be hard. tadaaa

MMO mentality.

Oh BTW this isn't an "average" MMO, like that other MMO game I shall not mention personally because I'm sick and tired of it being used as a common cop out excuse to beat dead horses.

Wifeaggro13

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

they increased the diffculty and reduced our tools how the *** is that smart

Khaleyos

The Craglorn difficulty is really low... i normally solo the groups as a tank... frustrating experience when you doesnt get smashed just standing in all void and so on... the damage incoming is too low, the hp are too low... double both...
yesterday we went into the archive trial with 9 ppl... 4 of them were vet10, rest vet5-7... went to first boss easily and got him second try(with 5 ppl, because 4 died in his first cast)... that's were i start thinking: wtf, is this freaking easy?!
i hope the bosses and the trash after that little joke is harder and need 12 ppl to get smashed...

Korereactor

It's fun and rewarding

I like it, nice to have a challenge for a change. I can see though, for people new to MMOs, how it could irritate them. But see, that's when you just wait a few min or so until someone else comes by, ask for help, and bam - quest complete. Unfortunately you can't do that on the solo quests - so, if you can't figure it out, no shame in asking a friend (or Google).

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

It's old fashioned frustrating and restrictive.

Korereactor wrote: »

I like it, nice to have a challenge for a change. I can see though, for people new to MMOs, how it could irritate them. But see, that's when you just wait a few min or so until someone else comes by, ask for help, and bam - quest complete. Unfortunately you can't do that on the solo quests - so, if you can't figure it out, no shame in asking a friend (or Google).

you among many others missed the point.

Difficulty is fine, good even - i personally love a challenge.

However when the difficulty comes from "oh this is too easy let's lump 1k extra hp on it and increase all of it's damage by 20%" it locks out certain ways of playing.

I honestly feel like if they did something like idk - give some enemies magelight (or have the torch enemies that see your disguise see your stealth and invis to) increased mob armor mitigation (except for casters) stripped some health (except from necromancers and archers) added more healers, gave healers damage shields - more shaman mobs with the damage totems - gave sword and boarders reflect abilities and the kin and stripped damage away from auto attacks ~ 20% from all except 2hers and bow's - subsidize by giving dw users more attackspeed - or an interruptable dervish style attack. The difficulty would go up despite the average damage out put of mobs going down.

Also I'd really like to see a distinct hit to all ultimate costs but boost ultimate gains in certain situations - avoiding damage casts - interrupting heals - good target prioritization should all give increased ultimate gains for a time frame - for instance interupting a spell should give double ultimate gains for 3 seconds, blocking/rolldodging an ability as appropriate should do the same. Grant a passive 30% increase to ultimate gain when attacking priority targets, 0 when not and to compensate increase all ultimate abilities to 2 and a half times their current values.

This as a start to implementing a fun and rewarding yet challenging combat system. Clearly a lot more work could be done than I suggested, some methods of dealing with increasing the difficulty whilst keeping things fun could completely negate the need for anything I said.