Thin out the mob population to open up the world and encourage exploration

ItsGlaive

One thing that makes this game feel less "Elder Scrollsy" is that you can't walk from there to here without running into many, many mobs. Yes, it's an mmo, but it's also a big, open world. Not every step needs a path of mobs to hack through, it makes it feel too much like a hack and slash mmo and not enough like an Elder Scrolls world.

My favourite times are those where I'm running along exploring, discover an old shack or a body, go to check it out only to run into a totally unexpected enemy. That element of surprise is completely lost when mobs are scattered everywhere, filling every space.

My suggestion is to thin out the population, opening up the space in between "events" and locations, to make the world feel even bigger. To make up for the thinned out mob populace, exp gained from kills would likely need a bump.

What do you think?

adriant1978

They could also do a lot of work to improve quest area clean-up. Nothing kills immersion and a sense of achievement like completing a quest to drive bandits out of a town, only for the town to still be full of hostile bandits. I thought phasing was supposed to ensure this didn't happen.

dharbert

I disagree, I have my reasons

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm not saying there should be mobs covering every inch of Tamriel, but I would like some areas that have 30+ mobs concentrated in one place. I like to solo as many mobs as I can at once, and currently I have to find a place where I can run between two or three places and aggro enough mobs, then fight them. And even then it's only about 15 or so mobs.

Bloodystab

I disagree, I have my reasons

I disagree, You always have something to kill but i would prefer to replace them with "Random spawn points or some kind of events" scattered around the map.

Vikestart

I disagree, I have my reasons

I think it's nicely balanced at the moment. I wouldn't want to have to search for enemies to fight either.

Tamriel is a dangerous place, mind your step. Use stealth if you can and be mindful of your surroundings

technohic

I agree, open up the world a little

I vote yes; but the random ones not tied to a POI or whatever, need to roam a lot more. Maybe it isn't even about there being less, but they are just so static even when they shouldn't have to be.

RSram

I disagree, I have my reasons

Mobs are their to make it difficult to move around and are great fodder to practice to your skills on.

Yes the phasing is totally F*k'ed up in every zone and hasn't been fix since beta.

SFBryan18

Seems like the enemies are too spread out. Always some creature just sitting by itself, or a couple guys waiting to jump you. When I finally run into a bigger group of enemies, I always get slaughtered because I am so use to the easier world encounters. The fluctuation in difficulty is very noticeable.

OrangeTheCat

I disagree, I have my reasons

Exploration in ESO is not even in the same league as, say, Skyrim. If it was, I would tend to agree.

dharbert

I disagree, I have my reasons

Even the public dungeons don't have enough mobs for my taste. I want a dungeon that when I enter it looks like the hordes of Mordor waiting for me and I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into.

Cuyler

I disagree, I have my reasons

If this were a sandbox I would agree. But the themepark puts you on rails anyhow so might as well have some mobs there to keep it interesting. We're not really exploring, it's more like stumbling across stuff while on a predetermined path.

dharbert

I disagree, I have my reasons

Cuyler wrote: »

If this were a sandbox I would agree. But the themepark puts you on rails anyhow so might as well have some mobs there to keep it interesting. We're not really exploring, it's more like stumbling across stuff while on a predetermined path.

^ This

ESO = Rails

Star Wars Galaxies = Sandbox

I'd much rather this game was a sandbox, but it is what it is.

ers101284b14_ESO

I disagree, I have my reasons

Not enough mobs were always a pet peeve of mine in other Elder Scrolls games. I could walk around exploring but then I would start to get bored until I realized that in all my exploration I hadn't fought an enemy in hours. Always made the world feel less dangerous than it should be. I guess we could have fewer mobs but not a ton less.

Elloa

I agree, open up the world a little

I agree and this is a point I came up with during the beta already.

I'd prefer less mobs, and more powerfull monsters that players can choose to face, or to avoid.
I'd also rather have some place with high concentration of mobs (a den, a bandit camp), while the countryside is usually more empty.

A good example for this is Cyrodiil where the mob concentration is not that high, beside some particular place arround delves and quest areas.

Uomodipunta

I disagree, I have my reasons

I disagree. Yeah, we're talking about Elder Scrolls, but you mustn't forget that this is a MMORPG. They could thin mobs and give more exp for each of them, but then you would see lots of grinders (is it correct??) and less people questing. Since you get more exp from hunting, everybody would just kill mobs and you would find entire zones completely empty, with many people waiting for the respawn. I'm fine with the way ESO is now.

Elsonso

I disagree, I have my reasons

Well, yesterday a low level (Less than level 10) was apparently running all over Coldharbour after teleporting to a guildie and was able to bypass and avoid the daedra enough to spend the better part of an hour there, outside of the city.

I have been running all over Craglorn now for quite some time and, while there are monsters all over the place, they rarely bother me.

I would say that in the open world, the monsters are scattered pretty thin.

AlexDougherty

I disagree, I have my reasons

You can explore quite easily, the mobs just slow you down, they have never stopped me finding things.

ItsGlaive

I agree, open up the world a little

AlexDougherty wrote: »

You can explore quite easily, the mobs just slow you down, they have never stopped me finding things.

Doesn't it feel artificially full though? There shouldn't be this many mobs around. I tend to agree with @Elloa, Cyrodiil is a good example of mob placement. Maybe we could use a few more than that in the open world, but not many.

Samadhi

Xabien wrote: »

One thing that makes this game feel less "Elder Scrollsy" is that you can't walk from there to here without running into many, many mobs. ...

The amount of mobs does not bother me.

What bothers me is that running from Point A to Point B along the same path 10 different times will result in encountering the exact same types and number of mobs.
This issue would be the same even if their were less mobs, but it would become even more boring due to lack of encounters.

To me, the "Elder Scrollsy" feel comes from random encounters actually being random, not from random encounters being infrequent.

Xabien wrote: »

AlexDougherty wrote: »

You can explore quite easily, the mobs just slow you down, they have never stopped me finding things.

Doesn't it feel artificially full though? There shouldn't be this many mobs around. I tend to agree with @Elloa, Cyrodiil is a good example of mob placement. Maybe we could use a few more than that in the open world, but not many.

Agree with bolded here, not because Cyrodiil has areas with no mobs, but because those areas with no mobs frequently become home to unscripted, random encounters with other players.
Cyrodiil would be mediocre for exploration, if not for the ability to end up getting in a fight with another player while crossing the empty terrain between quest hubs and mob spawns.

Sacadon

I agree, open up the world a little

I've no big issue with current state, but like how you worded the first option... "Open it up a little bit"

I think some areas should be full of mobs and some more open. There are these already, but IMO not necessarily as optimum for me .

I get that craglorn is going to be covered up, makes sense. However, The Rift is a zone I enjoy spending time in and the constant kitty aggro does get old.

Again, no big deal, just an area I think ZOS could improve upon and make it more enjoyable.

Darkrogue671

I disagree, I have my reasons

As much as some people want this to be a Skyrim online, it will never happen. Instead we are left with a Ratchet & Clank type set up, so, exploring is minimal at best due to the relatively small areas. Towns & villages comprise of 2-4 buildings. Everything is so scaled down that there really isn't any space to put the xp from kills outside from what they've done. The only other option is to create less xp from kills and more from quests that are repeatable. That, imo, can be more boring than killing.

The overall design is the Achilles heel to exploring. Nothing we can do about it now.

Iluvrien

I agree, open up the world a little

I would tend to agree.

Usually I am in favour of mobs as the main occupation of my character is crafting (dropped materials/research items etc.). However the placement, or perhaps the density of placement of the mobs has begun to wear a little thin.

Two things have contributed to this:

1) On several occasions I have engaged a mob/mob group at range (my main is a Sorc) only to take a step or two backwards (and I do mean one or two) and find that somehow I have wandered into the aggro range of one or even two other groups (static, not patrolling). This setup reminds me of the original Moria in LotRO where the mobs were placed, pretty much exactly, twice the aggro distance apart, meaning that no matter what direction you moved in, as soon as you had cleared out on mob there was another waiting just in front of you blocking the way with you already on the edge of its aggro range.

2) When surveying new areas for both crafting nodes and general, well, surveying the spacing between encounters was disturingly regular. I would move 10-20 seconds in pretty much any direction from my last battle and would stumble into a new one (especially in Shadowfen when every ridge between the bogs, or every tree within them seemed to hide a croc or snake or kagouti or... that was waiting just out of site. The first half a dozen times I put it down to the hazards of exploration, the next dozen got a raised eyebrow, a gross later and I was upgrading it to small sighs... it got monotonous.

What it also served to do was to make me stop looking at the scenery as something to be enjoyed, no more wandering up onto ridges to see what was over there, no more stopping to watch the sunrise or peer up at the night sky. It made me push through areas faster and while sticking to the well worn paths... not beause I felt some kind of threat but because facing down the same pack of mobs for the 60th time in one exploration session was, quite frankly, more repetative than I could stand while remaining sane.

My experience may be entirely unique, but I doubt that somehow. Maybe increasing the randomness, as @Samadhi suggested, might have helped but I also think that triggering the encounters themselves was part of the problem.

Before anyone suggests the following let's clear these up right off the bat...

This is an MMO, MMO's have mobs in. - To which I say "No, really?". MMOs can have sufficient mobs in them without precluding the ability to skirt combat should the desire so take you. In places this one does do that.

...well if you had more experience with this kind of game... - I started MUDding in '97 (on a MUD that is still active to this day) and even that had a more believable distribution of mobs than I sometimes see here... and that is worrying.

tplink3r1

I agree, open up the world a little

Agree, but only "solo" zones and mobs should be harder.

ItsGlaive

I agree, open up the world a little

tplink3r1 wrote: »

Agree, but only "solo" zones and mobs should be harder.

I'd totally go for this. A little harder, a little more exp per mob to make up for the lower population.

Tandor

I disagree, I have my reasons

I have no issues with the present balance.

Slurg

I agree, open up the world a little

adriant1978 wrote: »

They could also do a lot of work to improve quest area clean-up. Nothing kills immersion and a sense of achievement like completing a quest to drive bandits out of a town, only for the town to still be full of hostile bandits. I thought phasing was supposed to ensure this didn't happen.

I voted yes because this. I supposedly "cleared" an area through the quest line and now I want to enjoy quietly exploring it. But I can't because all the mobs keep respawning! Sometimes they turn yellow and aren't aggressive. But sometimes they are daedra and poor innocent deer get caught in the crossfire.

miahq

I agree, open up the world a little

Static mobs where they just spawn and stand there are just lazy and kind of dumb. It ruins the Imersion, and frankly it's what's led me to hate a lot of other games. It's not that I'm against mobs, I'd just like them to be there for a reason and actually have some sort of routine, not just standing in one place.

The mobs everywhere thing, yes. We need to move away from that. It seems to come from this idea that every inch needs to be packed with as much as possible to keep players interested, but that to me makes it less interesting. It just makes it a chore.

Maybe bears sleep in caves but occasionally can be found in streams or rivers, maybe wolves can spawn at a den but then give them a routine where they're move active at night roaming a territory, not just waiting in a pack to attack people.

Point is, just make them do something other than just stand there...

Koensol

I disagree, I have my reasons

Lol, OP. You should've played Rift. You'd run away screaming after having played through two zones there.

rexisnotmydogb14_ESO

I agree, open up the world a little

It does seem a little much like there's a tiger on every rock and a band of bandits on every crossroads. But the thing I like the least is the respawn. If I am following a group and they clear the place, let it stay clear for a while.

perhaps if there were ideal role playing locations where the respawn is low and grinding locations where the respawn is high?

kelly.medleyb14_ESO

I disagree, I have my reasons

Xabien wrote: »

One thing that makes this game feel less "Elder Scrollsy" is that you can't walk from there to here without running into many, many mobs. Yes, it's an mmo, but it's also a big, open world. Not every step needs a path of mobs to hack through, it makes it feel too much like a hack and slash mmo and not enough like an Elder Scrolls world.

My favourite times are those where I'm running along exploring, discover an old shack or a body, go to check it out only to run into a totally unexpected enemy. That element of surprise is completely lost when mobs are scattered everywhere, filling every space.

My suggestion is to thin out the population, opening up the space in between "events" and locations, to make the world feel even bigger. To make up for the thinned out mob populace, exp gained from kills would likely need a bump.

What do you think?

I was just thinking on this subject and what I would like to see is more aggressive and densely populated mob groups but not so spread out, as it is the game is way to easy to just run through ignoring all the mobs as they can't catch you or even knock you off a horse effectively.

I'm sorry but running through piles of v11 mobs on a v2 is plain silly, there's no thrill of danger and its quite disappointing.

Cazic

I agree, open up the world a little

I agree.

I've always felt that the difficulty and quantity of mobs in ESO should be adjusted. Basically, have fewer mobs but increase their difficulty and XP rewards.

It's like most of the time you're always fighting mobs in 3s... why is that? It would be nice if there were more single mob encounters that were slightly challenging besides bosses. This would make ESO feel much more Elder Scrollsy.