Veteran System Changes Preview

Syntse

Persephonius wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

But, that is exactly how it is right now.

No I don't think it is quite there yet. Those who have completed the whole veteran already really cannot be counted as average casual players, for them maybe the content has been easy. Then there are those that reached V10-12 before Craglorn and before the content was buffed.

Now for some of the average casual gamers the veteran difficulty might come as surprise especially those that already struggled to get past Mannimarco and Molag Bal. Then again to my understanding the dolmens, delves etc do not provide enough challenge for the people seek that, also rewards are quite disappointment.

Not sure where to categorize myself not totally average casual as I play daily few hours and yet have not reached V10-12 where more average casual would play couple days a week for couple hours. I have not yet found veteran too difficult but I can see for example my wife would just quit gaming in veterans if playing alone.

Persephonius

LonePirate wrote: »

Persephonius wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

But, that is exactly how it is right now.

Are we playing the same game? In the VR zones, the solo dungeons, the public dungeons, world bosses and dolmens are all easier than the quest content, especially the Cadwell's Almanac quests. Today, I've cleared several VR8 and VR9 solo dungeons - all of them without any assistance because the zones are dead. If these changes help repopulate the VR zones, we should all be grateful and willing to give them a chance. I would rather see the Veteran zones teeming with people after a slight decrease in difficulty than to experience more of the emptiness that fills the upper VR zones nowadays.

But the problem is, everyone is regarding the VR zones as if they should have a higher population. Every MMO I have played, the higher level zones/areas/planets are always virtually dead, this should be expected. As the game progresses in time, a larger percentage of the player base is at max level engaged in the end-game. There is typically a larger population at the starter areas as people start new chars and stop before completely leveling them far more often than leveling them to max level as the game progresses in time. As this game progresses, the new zones will be where the action is, not the current VR zones. Naturally, if you start playing an MMO months/years after it's release, the population that is right there with you in level will not match the population that was like this just after launch (with a few exceptions ofcourse). This is an inevitable issue anyway, so instead of altering these zones in attempt to fix this population issue (which cannot work), a better method is to introduce content, that will have a high population that will alleviate the problem of grouping with other players while leveling.

Cody

MrBeatDown wrote: »

Im neutral on this change. It really doesn't matter to me if its easier than before. I think my biggest issue with finding people to play with is the fact that people would rather power level in Craglorn instead of power level by questing and playing the Vet dungeons.

Craglorn destroyed the vet zones completely. Try to make a V6-V10 dungeon group and see how long it takes you. It took me about 8 hours to find a group of newbs that couldn't even get passed the first boss 2 days ago. This is really sad. My V12 ran those dungeons in 15 minutes or less before craglorn. That was the best power leveling in the game and it gave great loot.

They said they nerfed the xp exploits in Craglorn to stop this. But it simply wasn't enough. They have found new xp exploits that allow them to continue to power level in craglorn. That is not healthy for the game. It is extremely difficult to find quest groups in craglorn due to all the LF Grind groups cluttering up the chat. Tower Runs and Shadow runs need to go away. These people need to be doing dungeon runs and earning there xp that way or playing daily quest. I get tired of these people camping a few bosses in craglorn and exploiting them.

They need to nerf those bosses in craglorn so that they only give xp 1 time per day to kill the grind group in craglorn. If not, they will just find some new spot to exploit a boss at a spawn and continue not playing in the vet zones making them look like ghost towns.

You got 2 full vet zones for people to level and 6 Vet 1-10 dungeons for them to do xp runs in and they choose to go to a V12 group zone and exploit it starting at V1. It needs a serious fix. Put and end to it. Make them play all the other zones or dungeons to get xp. That would solve a majority of the complaints about the game being to difficult. I just got my Alt up to V7 today. Its a Melee NB. The game is still pretty easy for me. I Have SOLO'D all the way up to this point. I haven't had any real problems that I could not solve by myself.

That's why I remain neutral on this subject, I could care less if they made it easier or not, I think the main problem is that craglorn is still being fully exploited and its taking players away from the zone and it makes the V1-V10 zones appear harder than they really are because they are ghost towns. Instead of having to wait 5 minutes for someone to come help you kill that world boss you now have to wait 4 hours. That's because they are in Craglorn camping the Shadow boss or Bouncing between The tower boss and outside spawns. Its Such Huge waste of V1-V10 zones. THey might as well not even exist. Looks like all the exploiters want is 1-50 zone and craglorn. The rest is garbage to them.

this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
YES
craglorn is why these vet zones are deserted! in my opinion, only people at or over VR10 should be allowed in craglorn. The amount of VR12s right now is ridiculous. there should not be this many max levels this early in the games time. I don't have to be an MMO expert to know this. this also hurts PvP as well, as there is not very much you can do when almost everyone you face is VR12. All they have to do, is do what you suggested, Or only allow VR10s and up in.

Arundo

Best news I have ever seen on these forums. Thanks for the update ZOS, cant wait to get back into the game next week.

Tobiz

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

One of the guiding principles of our Veteran gameplay was to encourage you (not force you) to group. We wanted you to be able to reach max level by playing solo if you wished, but still encourage you to group with others along the way. This principle was the reason we made our post-50 zones more difficult; we wanted you to get together with others to take on tougher challenges and form social bonds while you did so. But we understand that, despite our vision...

we failed to:
a) make questing in a group work adequately
b) make a working group finder
c) balance gameplay making content difficult for some, easy for some.


Fixed.
It is generally not a problem of the content, but of how the underlying systems work. Grouping on the fly is generally a pain if you want to do more then one quest, and even then you have to know at what phase in the quest you are so you can specifically ask for this in /zone, because the group finder, even if it gives you a group, does not filter on language, level of greed or rudeness.
So when you find a group of degenerates that you actually can communicate with and ignore their rude attitude and greedy behaviour, you still have the clothie swoop in and bomb the entire area only to leave you waiting for the respawn.
I havent had coffee yet. Im kranky...

edit:spelling

Oldbushie

Lyall84 wrote: »

Just a shout out to all people linking care bear and nerf bat and complaining about how it should be this hard...reality check. VR content is easy, and boring. I already have made it to VR12, doing every quest up until my VR 10 area ( stopped half way through), and every area was the same, easy, boring, frustrating pattern.

Attack, kill one mob.
Die, revive.
Attack, kill remaining one or two mobs.
When gear broke or I leveled up, make new gear.
Repeat.

This is very easy, very boring, very frustrating. In no way is it hard once you accept the fact that you need to either do a lot of running from way shrines or spend 30 to 50 soul gems each zone reviving. That is the part that is unacceptable. Should delves be hard enough to somewhat force you to groups? Absolutely. Should phasing "solo" quests or open world quests be so hard to force you to group? Absolutely not.

You need to let go of the misplaced pride you had in being so stubborn that dieing would not stop you from leveling and realize that while this is a game, above all, ZeniMax is a business. For them to be successful and keep this game running they need to retain customers. To do that, the difficult content needs to be optional. That is why most MMOs consider the PVP the end game content, because it is as easy or as hard as the player base makes it, and is optional. So any main stream questing and leveling needs to be set to a level that will keep people playing, not quitting after dumping 20 grand soul gems just to complete all the quests in their first VR zone.

I've used 20 soul gems on a single VR8 boss... at that point I gave up and am awaiting the changes.

born2beagator

AngryNord wrote: »

Very pleasing to see all the butthurt from the L2P elitists too. Hopefully we won't have to see your condescending posts in the forums anymore, good riddance.

HERE HERE!!!!

enem

Snit wrote: »

Making VR easier doesn't make them more interesting or rewarding. The challenge was the one thing I liked.

just equip lower level gear.

tino.antoninieb17_ESO

In my opinion - Vet content should be changed :
- VET Dungeons with increased difficulty and more demanding boss mechanics ( add some unique loot ) , significantly increase the xp ( this should be one of efficient leveling methods ), In every moment i should be able to choose between 6-10 dungeons or it will not be enough options and people will get bored soon.
- Trials - more challenging content ( duration , difficulty , mechanics , loot). After two month ( if i am hard core - should be happy if i cleared last batch of content )
- Mobs in zones reduced in number and difficulty ( dont let us die from critters coz that is not good for our ego )
- World Bosses should be a bit stronger with more challenging mechanics and drop much better loot
- Dolmens - more versatility ( just couple of templates in this moment ) and increase in difficulty )
- Group dungeons - increase in difficulty
- Increase xp for grouping ( +25% )
- PvP should be in average best leveling method regarding xp.
- Achievements in general should give additional xp ( and specific loot )
- Make player guilds mean for something ( bonus system , provisioning ... .
- For end game - Best in slot shouldnt be achievable in less then 40+ days

born2beagator

enem wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

Making VR easier doesn't make them more interesting or rewarding. The challenge was the one thing I liked.

just equip lower level gear.

What he said.

What they have now is already artificial difficulty (simply super buffing hp and damage)

So when that goes away, make difficulty yourself. Forced artificial difficulty like we have now is not good for the game.

tino.antoninieb17_ESO

born2beagator wrote: »

AngryNord wrote: »

Very pleasing to see all the butthurt from the L2P elitists too. Hopefully we won't have to see your condescending posts in the forums anymore, good riddance.

HERE HERE!!!!

I am not sure u get it . If they make leveling easier and they want to keep same retention ratio - then for sure ZOS will introduce next stop for easy going and that will be for sure END GAME content. After all, that is place where L2P or elitists as u call them, will excel .

Tobiz

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

The rewards in general are a problem, 1-50 not just in the veteran zones. It's been a big complaint since forever, you forgot to add the carrot and keep dangling an empty line in front of people.

Part of the issue with veteran content is that you can use stamina based builds 1-50 and succeed without much issue but the moment you take those builds into the veteran zones, you find out how badly stamina skills are balanced.

It's kind of mind boggling that you're going to nerf the difficulty of veteran content before addressing these balance issues.

In case you didnt see this, here it is again.

TRIP233

Thank you! I love to quest solo and I only group when doing Group dungeons or the Public Group Dungeons, also World Bosses, and Dark Anchors. I even group when going to Cyrodiil to participate in a skyshard gathering group or in the alliance war. Everything else I want to do by myself. Craglorn or future content like Craglorn I'm okay with, because It's advertised as requiring a group.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

I'm not one bit happy about these changes. You've gotta be kidding me. I guess the WoW crowd has won another round (big surprise, their numbers will always exceed everybody else). If I wanted a Singleplayer game, Skyrim is far superior to ESO in every way.

Seems that way, excellent news, isn't it.

Now the majority can carry on playing the way they prefer 50+ while people like you can continue inside your exclusive phat lewt content, aka. Craglorn and 'raids' .. everyone should be happy.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

dean_steusloffub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,


Starting next week on Monday, July 7th, you’ll see the first significant change we’re making to the Veteran System. We’re implementing some balance changes to content in post-50 zones that will make it much more like the content from levels 1-50.

I'm scared. Unfortunately, since the majority of the people that post do so because they don't like something, that is what a good portion of changes and tweaks are based on.

What isn't taken into consideration is the number of people that LIKE the challenge. I'm sure we'll be hearing from them shortly (as in when the changes go into effect).

Maybe, you know, they looked at the FACTS .. like perhaps the numbers of players who reach 50(1) and then give up, leading to the empty VR zones most of us admit exist, even though some refused to because they feared ZOS would do just what they're doing.

Yes, clearly the majority of posters on here dislike VR as it is, but I seriously doubt ZOS simply took the view of posters here .. we are after all a highly self-selecting statistically invalid population from which to gather views .. when making this, or any other, decision.

In fact it's patently obvious they DO listen elsewhere .. otherwise Craglorn and COH wouldn't exist, because hardly anyone posting here was asking for such elitiist content yet ZOS created it.

Sakiri

Persephonius wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

Persephonius wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Mission wrote: »

Please give us the option to keep it the difficulty it is somehow, not all of us want content to be watered down cause of a few carebears.

I do not like this change at all.

Why cant the questing content be easier for more people to enjoy. Then have solo dungeons, public dungeons, world bosses, dolmens etc the difficult parts where those who seek difficulty can find that? Something for everyone?

But, that is exactly how it is right now.

Are we playing the same game? In the VR zones, the solo dungeons, the public dungeons, world bosses and dolmens are all easier than the quest content, especially the Cadwell's Almanac quests. Today, I've cleared several VR8 and VR9 solo dungeons - all of them without any assistance because the zones are dead. If these changes help repopulate the VR zones, we should all be grateful and willing to give them a chance. I would rather see the Veteran zones teeming with people after a slight decrease in difficulty than to experience more of the emptiness that fills the upper VR zones nowadays.

But the problem is, everyone is regarding the VR zones as if they should have a higher population. Every MMO I have played, the higher level zones/areas/planets are always virtually dead, this should be expected. As the game progresses in time, a larger percentage of the player base is at max level engaged in the end-game. There is typically a larger population at the starter areas as people start new chars and stop before completely leveling them far more often than leveling them to max level as the game progresses in time. As this game progresses, the new zones will be where the action is, not the current VR zones. Naturally, if you start playing an MMO months/years after it's release, the population that is right there with you in level will not match the population that was like this just after launch (with a few exceptions ofcourse). This is an inevitable issue anyway, so instead of altering these zones in attempt to fix this population issue (which cannot work), a better method is to introduce content, that will have a high population that will alleviate the problem of grouping with other players while leveling.

What game are you playing? Over time MMOs become top heavy, higher levels are where players *are*, not low zones...

steveb16_ESO46

Well this is good to hear and almost certainly the correct financial decision. i'll certainly be keeping an eye on how it turns out with a view to resubbing.

Korkhan

We have no idea how exactly they are going to change the VR zones so I cannot say if I will like it. However I do like the current state of VRs and I doubt they will make them better. I would like to be proven wrong.

I don't think that changes to the difficulty of VR zones are the core of the problem here. @Jason7xnub18_ESO nailed it pretty much in his post http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1072336/#Comment_1072336 so there is no point in repeating that.

lim30041982

Natjur wrote: »

I know a lot of people complained that the vet levels are hard, but do we really want to go down the path of 'dummy' down the game? I know a few encounters need to be edited has they force you to group, but there is only a few of those quest 'bosses'

The Craglorn allowing people to still fast exp by grinding one or two bosses, so those who do not want to do the 50+ and 50++ can still bypass it and get to V12. I did all the normal quests and got to V10 without the need to 'grind'.

I agrees with some 'twinks' but are you really making it 'easy' mode due to players complains?

Noo , i'm one of the player that play this game for the "exploration" not for quick level to Vet 99 and im the "GOD" status.
I dont care about craglorn and maybe will never go there because u must find group and im fine with that.

But when i want go to explore i dont want to always ready "figth to death" with ......... crabs.

Ghenra

Waiting more info.

Fuxo

IMO, veteran level content is a lot better than the normal one. And the reason is freedom. Freedom of choice how you will progress through a zone, since 1 zone = 1 level.
In normal content, you have to follow the quests, otherwise you would either under level or over level the content. No freedom. Pure theme park.

Here is a suggestion: make 1-50 zones to be like veteran ones, i.e. 1 zone will have content spanning over 1-2 levels. Players would finish factions at level 15, 30 and 45 respectively, and reach level 50 in coldharbour. Yes, the main quest would require some changes to support it.

But the advantage is obvious - players would have a lot more freedom and the world would be much more open. You could also introduce randomly generated dungeons with increased difficulty, so they represent a bigger, but optional challenge.

Cyrodiil, adventure zones, trials, and veteran dungeons would represent veteran level content. Plus players could visit any faction and either do new veteran level quests or enjoy open world PvP everywhere.

sebban

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ I just hope you don't nerf the content too hard. Lvl 1-50 was too easy. VR1-5 was challenging, but not too hard. VR6-10 was very challenging (especially 8-10) and could use a *slight* nerf.

VR content is excellent in teaching players that they might need to adjust their build or strategy in preparation for VR dungeons and Trials. It teaches us that standing in red in the ground is deadly. Powerattacks need to be blocked. Casts need to be interrupted. If ppl don't learn this, they will have a horrible time in VR Dungeons and Trials.

Also, please don't nerf VR Dungeons. The first few times before you know the tactics, they are a nice challenge. I very much enjoy wiping 5-15 times on a new boss before you figure out what is going on and get the tactics down. If anything, increase the difficulty on some (most) of the bosses that are too easy.

I was somewhat disappointed with Craglorn as a whole. Ignoring the Trials, all the delves were way too easy and didn't give much of a reward. The daily quests were too easy, with the exception of Shada's Tear, but the green box at the end was a unworthy reward for that.

Please make sure you don't cater only to those who find VR content too easy. Those of us that enjoy challenging content need something to do as well. A few of my friends have already left the game because they were disappointed with the general lack of difficulty in Craglorn and running the same few VR Dungeons again and again.

In the end, I love the game, despite it's flaws.

Edit: Also, I believe you made a mistake when you let VR1 players into Craglorn. You should have increased both the difficulty and the rewards and locked it to VR10+.

tordr86b16_ESO

great news to my ears. i like leveling new toons so ++.

Oldbushie

What I don't get is how many people assume people only play MMOs for the challenge. Don't get me wrong, I like to have a little challenge in my games, but I only ever buy games for the story and/or the puzzles. If ESO didn't have a good story going for it I would have been gone a LONG time ago. I just want to be able to experience all of the story with the same toon, which is why I was ecstatic that we could play through all zones with the same toon. I find it excessively tedious to manage multiple alts and grind through portions of story I already did (painfully) on my main.

And yes, VR8-10 zones are dead as a doornail. The few times I've wanted to group I couldn't find anyone after days of checking zone chat.

ItsRejectz

So because of crying babies, we are now going to have the game dummed down and made easy. FFS, seriously! People complain about zenimax possibly ruining the game, when in fact it's the whining community that will end up destroying it.
It's end game content for christ , it's not meant to feel how it did at the start!

Ghenra

Any changes for the PvPers to get xp in Cyrodiil? New interesting pvp quests? New interesting rewards for take a keep? New OWPvP group-instances? New world-bosses added? New story-line quests? Something? Thanks

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

ItsRejectz wrote: »

So because of crying babies, we are now going to have the game dummed down and made easy. FFS, seriously! People complain about zenimax possibly ruining the game, when in fact it's the whining community that will end up destroying it.
It's end game content for christ , it's not meant to feel how it did at the start!

VR is leveling content, not end-game so your argument doesn't apply.

DisIzMe

To all those who complain about this change - one simple question:
Did you visit VR levels lately? It is ghost zone. You literally can go for hours without seeing another person.
I even did a test last week - stood in VR9 public dungeon entrance (you know,lots of bosses with xp and skill point and ctr,should be pretty busy place) for 1h waiting for someone to come in - nobody did.
Game will die real soon if it is not changed,i hope you understand it. Zenimax sure does, hope its not too little too late though.

Lyall84

Persephonius wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

Persephonius wrote: »

I don't understand. It seems to me that ZOS are taking these forums too seriously. Everyone I have spoken to in-game have said the exact opposite. That the VR zones were far too easy, the endgame trials are too easy to 'cheese', and the overall feeling of accomplishment is missing as doing everything was a face-roll.

Changing the VR content is not improving the experience of the players that have complained about them, as they will likely never do it, or do it once and forget about it; but rather punishing the players that actually like the VR zones. This will diminish the lifetime of the current content. It would have made more sense to introduce alternatives to the VR zones in levelling

I have felt that the 'big challenges' were coming, the things that get players hooked and make them analyze their character builds rigorously and needing to build strong team orientated mechanisms to accomplish the main endgame objectives. One of the main elements of an MMO are the player-to-player driven interactions which enable far greater complexity than is achievable in a single player game. People choose to play an MMO for these interactions in one form or another. These changes appear to be pushing the game in the direction of a purely single player experience, which does not make any sense. The best experiences I have had in MMO's come from team orientated progression 'raiding'; and the large scale PvP interactions that come from player driven economies and high pressure/consequence PvP battles (such are my experiences in EvE online, Swtor and WoW). I have seen many negative comments around the place as to the state of Swtor, but one of my most memorable times in an MMO comes from joining a Progression team for Denova Nightmare Mode when it was released. It was stated over and over by the player base that this operation was undoable. This was not received by the developers of the operation as criticism, but as praise (no matter how it was worded ). No matter how much it was criticized for being too hard, players continued to attempt it, and eventually it was completed (and once a way was found, it was very doable by a lot of people). That was an achievement worth having! This was reason to keep playing the game and improve not only your character and your own skills, but your teamwork.

It seemed to me so far that it was not really understood what player builds could accomplish in ESO, such as where trial bosses have been killed in literally 20 seconds or less. I can see that the actual mechanics of the trials are challenging, but the ability to completely ignore them and defeat bosses in seconds is purely a PvE content balancing issue. I was expecting that this would be addressed in future trials after greater insight of what can be done with character builds has been understood. With these changes to the VR system, I am now concerned that if ever a truly challenging trial is released, where a true progression raid team can sink their teeth into, it will be re-balanced as too many people will complain they can no longer cheese the mechanics. These complaints I believe have been mis-interpreted. Instead of buckling under and giving in, they should be interpreted as what they really are: hey you have developed something that is quite challenging here and is making me think and adapt what I have been doing, I cannot plant my face on the keyboard and roll side to side anymore.

Everyone that has complained that content is too hard, consider this. After you have face-roll grinded your way to vet-12 in a matter of days, completed the main endgame achievements after a week or so, what then?

Comparing people that spindle ground, or anomaly ground their way to VR12 than ran through trials to people that are just trying to quest are comparing apples to oranges. I can guarantee that most (I mean 51%+) of the "hardcore trial runners" that you have been talking to, did some sort of vet dungeon grinding, or anomaly grinding, to get to VR12 long before they thought about completing the quests.

I know a lot of you are going to suddenly be up in arms about how you completed the quests, etc. That is why I said most and pointed out 51%, not all. You already know that most people that hit VR12 early did it by grinding spindle, or whatever. Very few, and I mean very very few people hit VR10 solely by completing all the quests before starting to grind the rest of their experience.

The biggest part you are forgetting is that there are already hundreds of people that "face roll to vet 12 in a matter of days" by taking advantage of things like spindle or anomaly grinding. So telling someone that they should have to spend months grinding quests to go from VR1 to VR10, when people already are going VR1 to VR12 in less than a week is a very weak argument.

The point to the VR1-10 content is to allow someone to experience the content without re-rolling, and to allow them to collect more skill points. It should not cost them a wheelbarrow full of soul gems and a warehouse full of frustration to get there. Not when there are already so many work around options to get to VR12 quickly without subjecting yourself to the areas.

I for one completed all 3 zones before ever going to craglorn. I don't know, I must have been playing a different game, it was no where near as difficult as you are making it out to be. I don't hold much regard for people that grind dungeons to level then complain that they have ran out of content afterwards. My argument is that, I believe the majority of people that did the work-around grinds and missed everything are probably complaining the loudest that it is all too hard. There are a lot of players with a similar mindset to myself, that are not active on the forum (I only started on this forum yesterday as I strongly disagree with this change and want to put my opinion out there). So my concern is that the feedback is coming from a skewed and biased set of players that is not a real indication of what the majority actually want.

You missed my point where Zenimax has access to numbers that we cannot see. They know exactly how many people have stop subscribing, and if those people put the content is too hard. They know exactly how many VR is too hard threads. They can see the same smaller group of people calling everyone else whiners and saying L2P. They already know who the real majority is.

Not to mention, they only have said that they are changing it, not how they are changing it. So how can you possibly already have made up your mind to disagree with the changes?

Personally I have to see what they are proposing before I agree or disagree with what they are doing. But I do agree that something needs to be done.

I never said that the VR content was difficult. I have from the beginning said it was easy, boring and frustrating. Once you accept the fact that you are going to die a bunch, it is really easy. I am saying that mobs hitting you for 3 times what you can hit them for and having twice your hit points, does not make it "difficult" it makes it a death grind.

You should read my other post. They should have made the VR mobs the same stats as VR players, and just take away the 2-3 second telegraphing attack that every mob does regardless of VR or normal. Make them use more of the same abilities that players have, and more often.

Instead of a dual wield bandit doing a 1-2 second cast whirl wind. They should do the same instant cast whirl wind that players do, they should be able to twin blade poison you, use sparks to make you miss, etc. Make VR dungeon bosses or other "named" NPCs actually have Ultimates. I came across 1, just 1 nightblade NPC that used soul tether on me once. I thought it was awesome. But at the same time, i thought it was stupid that the pack of tigers or whatever before her was more of a challenge than she was.

Hitting for huge amounts of damage does not make something difficult that requires skill to overcome, it makes it tough. You have 1 option, kill it before it kills you. If you changed the way the NPCs used their skills so they were of quicker succession more like a player, it would make you have to think of what to do or when. That is difficultly that requires skill

Darzil

I'd mainly like to see a nerf of the high spell/armour penetration that monsters seem to have in VR zones (but not Cyrodiil/Craglorn), which makes avoiding being hit crucial, and armour irrelevant. Without that builds not relying on heavy CC become possible. I'd also like to see solo only quests allow others to help.

For me the main issue with almost all the game content is that group stuff is too easy, and veteran levels are a lottery solo, but trivial grouped.

Regardless of how I feel about challenge (I usually like it, though there have been a handful of VR bosses, normally CC immune or Wispmothers, that have been particularly painful solo), what has been no fun at all has been the lack of people at high VR in the zones. I can play for several hours and see no one, and only 4-5 others commenting in chat. Whenever you do get a group for doing world bosses or dolmen, easy at VR2-3, at VR7 everyone says how they've been trying to get people for days, and tries to keep the group together to do more stuff.

(full disclaimer, I'm a VR7 Bow Nightblade currently doing VR7 content, haven't been to Craglorn or joined any vp grind groups. I'm a gimp due to spending far too many points on crafting, and I'm still progressing. None of my guildies who reached VR1 are still playing, but then most of them liked stamina builds.)

It's possible that if skills were balanced, monsters were balanced, different builds were viable, and combat wasn't so buggy that the VR difficulty would be absolutely fine. I can see that an overall tweak is much easier than all that though, and making the content playable for the masses is probably a way not to lose the game before balancing is complete.