VETERAN SYSTEM CHANGES PREVIEW

Sakiri

Audigy wrote: »

The issue with all nerfs is that the road and this is what matters in an MMO will be shorten while no new parts of it are build.

Right now VR 12 does take a few months, with the changes it might take a week or two - who knows. Every Casual and non Raider is now losing his or her content with the nerf, or what is there at VR 12 that isn't inside dungeons or trials?

People that cry about "too hard" "too long" never realize that they actually only hurt themselves with those nerfs. Ask yourself what you will do once you are VR 12?

There is nothing to do, the VR content is the max level content - nerfing it lowers your fun in the game, the long levity!

Did people learn nothing from Blizzards mistakes in the past 6 years? Do you honestly want an MMO where the only group content happens in raids and dungeons and solo players are forced to grind 5 or 10 daily quests for months and don't have anything else to do?

Seriously with your demands ESO is very close now to WOW and so far I have not heard any news about solo content in the works for ESO and I doubt there is anything coming soon. You need to realize that this isn't Skyrim where you an add a new mod once you are done with the content. You also cant increase the difficulty slider once you are through at easy...

This is an MMO and every content you dump down is content that you lose in the long run!

Do I want that? Yes.

VagabondAngel

Alphashado wrote: »

There is no doubt that the most powerful builds are going to make it seem easier. But at least we will get back to having some variety and maybe we will see something besides a staff on the backs of 90% of the VR player base. The stamina build disparity will still exist in meta content, but it will hopefully be a viable option again for questing.

Anyone who chooses the so called cookie-cutter build will not change that because of a nerf I don't think,. There will always be the exponents of the push-button-to-win approach and nerfing the VR difficulty won't stop that, it will just make the mad dash to level cap all the quicker.

Remember I am speaking as medium armour wearing NB who uses a 2-handed sword and a bow, mixing stamina and magicka to good effect.

Phinix1

I have to say, I am somewhat disappointed by this decision. I really wish ZOS would erect the spine of standing up to the whiners already, but it seems with this company whenever the vocal minority complains they get whatever they want even if it ruins the game for the rest of us.

I will reserve final judgement however until I see how easy they actually make it...

I have felt all along that veteran zones were very well balanced even for solo play. 1-50 was actually boringly easy. I know that the majority of the player base was complaining about it being too hard though, so I understand in a way why ZOS felt the need to abandon their vision and concede defeat to the calls for a difficulty nerf, but still, a bit disappointing.

I honestly feel that part of the blame lies with the players. I think there is some overly stubborn refusal to try new skills and abilities to get through content, and people abuse the "play how you want" cliche to assume the should be able to beat things with fishsticks and win if they want to.

I really hope this isn't the beginning of the dumbing down of Elder Scrolls to WoW faceroll status, but I guess the vocal complaints always get what they want, so it was probably inevitable.

I have already been facerolling content with some minimal CC and actually using the mechanics we are given, and my fear is this will not only abandon the vision of veteran content as end game but also completely trivialize the whole purpose of block and rolldodge mechanics.

Skill? "Ain't no one got time for that!"

I erect the spine of my bruising sense of betrayal.

DeLindsay

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

I have to say, I am somewhat disappointed by this decision. I really wish ZOS would erect the spine of standing up to the whiners already, but it seems with this company whenever the vocal minority complains they get whatever they want even if it ruins the game for the rest of us.

Skill? "Ain't no one got time for that!"

I erect the spine of my bruising sense of betrayal.

That's all MMO's, except Eve Online. CCP laughs in the general direction of whiners to nerf this or that.

hamon

VagabondAngel wrote: »

I ran a half-marathon in Scotland once. Holy crap that was tough... felt mighty proud at the finish line though. (No idea how people manage a full marathon... running it anyway.)

Maybe if I'd waited a while, they would have reduced the distance to only 10 miles... or laid on a bus service or something. I mean, I'd have got to the finish line and that's all that matters, right?

crap analogy. what your advocating is that anyone who wants to enjoy a bit of running should be forced to run a half marathon.. wot about folk who just want a bit of a relaxing jog or a 2 mile run ? no room for them cos you decided half marathon is where it should be..

selfish attitude imo

Loco_Mofo

I don't regard this as a step in the right direction at all.

This is very disappointing news.

badmojo

Yeah, don't increase the rewards or balance certain mobs, just nerf it all.

NERF THE WHOLE GAME! That'll get everyone back who quit! Right?

Tabbycat

Most of the people who actually enjoyed the challenge weren't even playing in the Veteran Zones. They'd skipped it in favor of Craglorn. This is a good change. It means more players will populate the Veteran Zones. If you want the challenge and grouping, you have Craglorn.

crislevin

I played through all main quests from V1-9 and now in V10 zone (I am V7). I do NOT wish the current vet experiences on the new vet.

So yay, I support the change. You want challenge? go do group dungeons, trials, no need to make mass player to suffer through the vet zones as it is now.

This change will also help populating higher vet zones, which is practically empty atm.

badmojo

Oh the hypocrisy!

So if we want a challenge, we're forced to go to group areas? But, easy mode players don't have to group, ever? Nice double standard.

Oh and we all know how popular and convenient grouping is in PvE. Especially in VR areas, so instead of the easy mode'ers having to deal with that, now we have to?

That fixes everything.... for some. But it ruins my game, so screw that.

Alphashado

badmojo wrote: »

Oh the hypocrisy!

So if we want a challenge, we're forced to go to group areas? But, easy mode players don't have to group, ever? Nice double standard.

Oh and we all know how popular and convenient grouping is in PvE. Especially in VR areas, so instead of the easy mode'ers having to deal with that, now we have to?

That fixes everything.... for some. But it ruins my game, so screw that.

Weren't you one of the guys that said deal with it or leave?

Phinix1

Does Wildstar offer a challenge without catering to every complaint on the forums to nerf the content? Because I might have to bite my tongue and try it after all after this one.

ZOS needs to erect the spine of growing a spine.

Loco_Mofo

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

Does Wildstar offer a challenge without catering to every complaint on the forums to nerf the content? Because I might have to bite my tongue and try it after all after this one.

ZOS needs to erect the spine of growing a spine.

What?

A dev that sticks to its vision?

Phinix1

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

Does Wildstar offer a challenge without catering to every complaint on the forums to nerf the content? Because I might have to bite my tongue and try it after all after this one.

ZOS needs to erect the spine of growing a spine.

What?

A dev that sticks to its vision?

Precisely.

hamon

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

Does Wildstar offer a challenge without catering to every complaint on the forums to nerf the content? Because I might have to bite my tongue and try it after all after this one.

ZOS needs to erect the spine of growing a spine.

What?

A dev that sticks to its vision?

ye a dev that sees his vision is turning a AAA game into a niche grind fest, but carries on regardless... not ones i'd be paying at my company tbh..

Phinix1

Want a challenge? Play an offline game. Want a lobotomy? Play an MMO.

What a sad state we have arrived in.

KrisButtar

I'm glad they are giving it a Nerf. I really didn't want to say goodbye when my sub was up as I love TES games. They obviously looked at all data from a number of sources before hitting the Nerf or they would have not changed it. Majority rules and the Nerf is being applied.

kijima

Before everyone goes into meltdown with 'nerf' this don't 'nerf' that! How about we wait to see what ZOS will do?

What ZOS did with PvP in buffing the guards was great in my opinion. You used to be able to take a resource with just 2 decent players, I know this as I've done it, but that's now not possible and to be honest it never should have been really. I think balance was injected into that scenario, and for me it worked. so on that basis, why don't we wait to see what ZOS will do with vert areas? They haven't been specific yet about what changes are to be implemented.

Patience is a virtue after all.

Pulling back the difficulty a little bit making the jumps in veteran ranks smaller as they scale upwards instead of the steep climb from killing molag to VR as it stands now wouldnt be horrible. I'd expect VR12 areas like Craglorn to stay the way the are but making some of the early VR and then the VR7+ areas slightly easier or stepping up gradually as you level wouldn't be horrible. (let me just say, even after I re-read the part where I say easier, it doesn't sit well with me, what I mean is that as you level from VR1 to VR2 then the difficulty should also increase, and so on)

Either way it goes, chances are I'll keep playing. I'm the sort of person that even if something is hard, I'll just persist until it's done, so the difficulty as it currently stands isn't an issue for me, but I can understand it's an issue for others.

I guess from ZOS standpoint it is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Many people have said 'hey, this is to hard, do something about it!' and yet the people that were not having an issue with dificulty, well, of course they weren't saying anything because they had no need to weigh in on the subject, now that it's going to be made easier, all those that pushed through the hard parts are frustrated that it might have all been in vein, and they also lack the understanding that 'hey, I did it. You shoudl be able to do it too!" mentality, fortunately we are not all robots and don't play the same way. Thankfully.

There are some things that annoy me in game, so don't think that I'm a fan boy or without complaint. I'm unhappy with like the current memory leak that is happening in Cyrodiil, with the only fix for that seems to relog. I'm not happy with the unbalance of classes that still exists, although I do realize that balance is an ongoing thing in an MMO, I think better balance wouldn't be that hard to accomplish, even though some players nerf themselves by their own builds.

I've not have many issues with being forced to quit, or login issues or incomplete quests. I've not had slow load times, or any of the problems that some of the forum users seem to have. Either I'm just lucky or... actually I don't know how the rest of that is supposed to go. I think I'm just lucky.

Anyway, Nerf away the vert areas ZOS. Continue to do what you are doing, I like what you've done to date. The fix for vamps recently was great (I'm not a vamp btw) but one shotting them in PvP while enormously enjoyable (and let's face it, seeing a level 26 player kill a VR12 full vamp with silver shards was hilarious!) but really was something that couldn't continue. That was fixed with haste, and done the correct way. If you can continue to do things like the vamp fix and the buff for guards to resources, then I'll keep playing.

VagabondAngel

hamon wrote: »

crap analogy. what your advocating is that anyone who wants to enjoy a bit of running should be forced to run a half marathon.. wot about folk who just want a bit of a relaxing jog or a 2 mile run ? no room for them cos you decided half marathon is where it should be..

selfish attitude imo

No, I'm advocating that anyone who wants to run a half marathon should have to run the full distance and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing it.

Is it not selfish to nerf the difficulty of something that others enjoy so you can have an easy ride? The door swings both ways.

hamon

VagabondAngel wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

crap analogy. what your advocating is that anyone who wants to enjoy a bit of running should be forced to run a half marathon.. wot about folk who just want a bit of a relaxing jog or a 2 mile run ? no room for them cos you decided half marathon is where it should be..

selfish attitude imo

No, I'm advocating that anyone who wants to run a half marathon should have to run the full distance and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing it.

Is it not selfish to nerf the difficulty of something that others enjoy so you can have an easy ride? The door swings both ways.

except you need to find middle ground. cos not everyone rolled dk's/sorcs which makes everything in the entire game vastly easier. and if content is too easy for me i make it harder all by myself. which is simplicity if you have any imagination.

hell if it was really easy i'd do it naked to make it a challenge. long before i demanded it wasnt made easier. roll a templar and use a bow and tell me its too easy

Soothy

VagabondAngel wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

crap analogy. what your advocating is that anyone who wants to enjoy a bit of running should be forced to run a half marathon.. wot about folk who just want a bit of a relaxing jog or a 2 mile run ? no room for them cos you decided half marathon is where it should be..

selfish attitude imo

No, I'm advocating that anyone who wants to run a half marathon should have to run the full distance and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing it.

Is it not selfish to nerf the difficulty of something that others enjoy so you can have an easy ride? The door swings both ways.

So how does that fit in with those that levelled to VR10 prior to the Craglorn patch?

badmojo

Alphashado wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

Oh the hypocrisy!

So if we want a challenge, we're forced to go to group areas? But, easy mode players don't have to group, ever? Nice double standard.

Oh and we all know how popular and convenient grouping is in PvE. Especially in VR areas, so instead of the easy mode'ers having to deal with that, now we have to?

That fixes everything.... for some. But it ruins my game, so screw that.

Weren't you one of the guys that said deal with it or leave?

Probably, I'm not very sympathetic to people who think this game is too hard.

What does that matter though? I was happy with how things were, I wasn't suggesting a change that would ruin peoples enjoyment. If they weren't happy with the game, and weren't enjoying themselves, I felt they should find another game to enjoy.

Sadly, looks like they got their 'other game', and I'll be the one leaving to find something else, if I don't enjoy the changes on monday.

VagabondAngel

hamon wrote: »

except you need to find middle ground. cos not everyone rolled dk's/sorcs which makes everything in the entire game vastly easier. and if content is too easy for me i make it harder all by myself. which is simplicity if you have any imagination.

hell if it was really easy i'd do it naked to make it a challenge. long before i demanded it wasnt made easier. roll a templar and use a bow and tell me its too easy

My VR characters are a NB and a Templar, one VR4 as of tonight, the other VR3. I solo everything and I am not a so called 'pro' player. The Templar was my first roll, too - it's hard, yes... I never said it was easy, I said it wasn't supposed to be easy. Neither is it impossibly hard. It does, however, require patience and strategy when you can't just spam your win-now skill button. It provides a frequently difficult challenge and to earn those Veteran Ranks, so it should.

isengrimb16_ESO

isengrimb16_ESO wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

Ohioastro wrote: »

...and it'll remove a challenge for the people who like that. And it'll remove incentives for grouping. It is what it is, and MMO players have always really wanted extremely easy solo gameplay. I expected this, but it's still a loss for some of us.

You will still need to group for map objectives, Dolmen, Zone Bosses, and VR dungeons. This may not be perfect, but I feel like it's a step in the right direction and offers a compromise that many people have been hoping for. If this brings a population to the VR zones similar to the 1-50 zones, then I am behind it 100%

You don't need to formally group for dolmens, etc, you just want to pack up.

I love packing, not so much grouping, because I'm shy and don't think I'm good enough for groups.

I'll be looking forward to playing my V1 nightbow again, though.

I'm not sure what someone found funny about this post. I was That Kid in grade school who always got snubbed for gym class teams because I was crappy at most sports (I'm a good baseball batter, though, because I hate the sight of a ball coming at my head.) High school was great because at the time I went, you didn't have to take PE/gym - they changed that a year after I dropped out. Whew, missed a bullet there! And at the time, our gym classes were sexually segregated, and the female gym teacher was a lesbian - sorry, but I wouldn't be any more comfy with her than I would be with a man looking at my butt. Grade school, kindergarten to gr 8 wasn't, and we always had a man gym teacher, but both of them were creepy sexist types that looked at kids' butts.

So no, I don't join groups unless I see someone is desperate for a DPS - and no one ever needs a DPS person.

Anastasia

Tabbycat wrote: »

Most of the people who actually enjoyed the challenge weren't even playing in the Veteran Zones. They'd skipped it in favor of Craglorn. This is a good change. It means more players will populate the Veteran Zones. If you want the challenge and grouping, you have Craglorn.

---

OR...the middle bulge of the player population that is yet not even to Vet content could have arrived and made it a hopping place.

On the one hand, waiting for more of the rest of the population to level and get to the Vet + areas - thus creating organic population interaction - OR - making VR content more 'comfortable' and even more importantly FASTER for players who weren't 'comfortable' and had zerged over to Craglorn to get what some weren't willing to figure out how to get in the base VR content.

I'll be interested and watching to see if those who are Craglorn exiles come back to Veteran content, making the Vet + zones rife with player action AND actually do a lot of INTERACTING with each other, helping in duo's and trio's etc. Very interesting indeed.

Tavore1138

I am a VR12. I played with a 2h/5m DW NB & have solo'd questing all the way except for 4 boss fights. I have solo'd a bunch of normal dungeons too.

I am in no way a great player.

I found it tough going, I found it annoying to be killed by random 3 mob groups, I found some of the quest boss fights with ability immunity to induce fits of blind rage at the devs. On reflection I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I understand why they are doing this but I think that it risks robbing people of the journey of the game & also risks new moans when players get to PvP and find themselves suffering, part of what I gained from VR was a better built character that serves me better in that side of the game.

I hope ZOS can get the balance right - personally I would tune the random mobs down a bit to reduce general frustration but keep the vast majority of bosses at the same level so people can learn. Except Vox who they should burn at the stake....

Given how many simply object to questing or get over precious about 'faction loyalty' I am not sure this move will silence complaints.

I hope they don't simply turn this into A N Other MMO.

isengrimb16_ESO

I doubt they're going to tone it down THAT much - not to faceroll, snooze-yer-way through level for most people (elite types for whom gaming comes near naturally will always find most things too easy, just like anyone who is accustomed to doing anything will find their specialty easier than a non-specialist does.) And people who simply can't react to telegraphs and such will always find things hard; I know I have days where I know my reactions are just too slow to play a video game, and I might as well just chill out and watch TV shows. Other days, I feel like I'm breezing through.

But having just started V1 Betnikh, holy crap. I did find a couple of things in Coldharbour a bit tough - the one where you have to defend the mage, and you get a wave of undead, followed by a Harvester, followed by more undead ... I had to do that piecemeal. Did one half when I felt up to it, did the other half later when I felt up to it again; I wasn't sure if I WOULD get past it. But Betnikh was feeling like that quest _all the time_.

I do love my black lion med armour nightbow, and there's no way I wanted to be forced to put light armour and a staff on him. I'm looking forward to Monday, when, hopefully, VR content will be a little more enjoyable. Not faceroll easy, just .. enjoyable.

martinhpb16_ESO

And so the solo-fication and difficulty nerfing we see in so many games begins.

It was inevitable the solo brigade always wins in the end.

"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, this is not how all our players want to experience the game beyond level 50."

This trend will continue as well, difficulty will gradually be scaled downwards as an ongoing trend.

Akhratos

I didnt thing VR was too difficult (i soloed every solodungeon, worldboss and anchor except for the 2 VR atronach worldbosses), but its very strange to me that almost none of the "difficulty" or "challenge" lovers says anything about some things like:

VR11 mobs being easier than VR10 mobs.
Craglorn 4man dungeons being a laugh (probably, easiest of all VR 4man content so far).
Craglorn TRIALS being an utter joke done in under 20mins by semi-experienced groups already.

One would think most of them have not even got out of the first alliance yet, or they are running always in group and the "challenge" is not that much so they are unable to tell the difference.

Makes me wonder, if the challenge is focused only in the middle of the game actual progression (because endgame=craglorn is not any challenging), where are the challenge lovers like myself that finished VR1-10 areas gonna find it any further?

Yes, the answer is endgame content. Where it should always be (independent of other places you could find it as well).

Vahrokh

Alphashado wrote: »

You will still need to group for map objectives, Dolmen, Zone Bosses, and VR dungeons.

Ehm... today it's already like this...