Is it finally time to implement a difficulty slider?

BlackSparrow

So, One Tamriel is coming out soon. And, for the most part, it sounds awesome! Explore any zone in any alliance! Tackle dungeons with friends of varying levels! No longer level at a constant two-three levels above the content!

However, I'm foreseeing one problem with the "everything is always leveled to your character" mechanic, and that's the fact that, well... everything is always leveled to your character.

This means your Stamina DK tank is going to be facing the same content as [insert squishy build of the week here]. For the builds that have no problem with at-level content, the game will be even more of a faceroll, because there will no longer be an option to go to the next zone up... because that content will also be a faceroll. Meanwhile, Squishy McSquisherson (or even the average Joe and Jane who struggles with a certain kind of content) will no longer have the option to leave a dungeon or quest, level up a bit, and come back to tackle it at higher levels. The best they'll be able to do is get slightly better gear for it.

Thus the question of this thread. Do you think this problem would be solved by a difficulty slider? How would it be implemented to make it fair to those who play on high difficulty, without stranding those on low? When should you be allowed to change your difficulty?

Or, if you don't want a difficulty slider, how else would you solve this problem? And no, "L2P" isn't an answer, because most people want this game to be fun, no matter their personal skill level.

(Yes, I know ZOS most likely won't read this thread... this is just for community discussion).

So... discuss!

PS4_ZeColmeia

If it's server side and affects drops, sure. It can be as simple as a dampen on resists and weapon/spell damage.

If it's anything client side or is just for "fun" then no.

technohic

I am concerned to a degree. I have been learning to use my Templar without champion points allocated, essentially V14 gear (140 gear I suppose now?) and vet content is still easy. Kind of miss the launch days vet content. They shouldn't have made it easier and just made it grant more XP to match the difficulty and make it feel more rewarding.

Shadesofkin

I'm not really concerned, but I do think they're going to need content created which highlights that thought, skillpoints, and gear are necessary to accomplish some content in the game. If they don't they're going to run into the issue they've run into since the nerfing of WGT and ICP, which is there are still many players who just cannot do it. I figured, hey it's a million times easier, lets walk some newbs through it...yeah...still got dps who thinks sword and shield is good, still got sorcs hard casting frags and wondering why their numbers are so much lower, and still have tanks who out and out refuse to consider doing damage at all as part of their job. Oh and my personal favorite...people who ignore portals despite obviously having the halo over their head.

Elloa

A difficulty slider OR a choose your difficulty settings "easy - normal - hard - nightmare" would be the great next step to be develloped, at least for instancied content.

Maybe it will not be doable for the open world, and we will have to accept that the open world is too easy, but that's okay, if good players can have their share of challenge with the instancied content.

technohic

Well; if you think about it, One Tamriel is essentially going to eliminate 3 phases for each zone so we all are on on phase and just scaled to what I would assume would be the native level of the faction the zone is in. They could use take that same phasing that they scrap and turn it into selecting Easy (the native zone as is) Normal (bumped up to original vet level scaling we had at launch) and hard mode (Takes that up a notch).

Khaos_Bane

Yes, there needs to be a difficulty slider in open world and instanced content. Normal or Vet just isn't enough IMO.

Sentinel

I've mentioned it before, but yeah, I'd like a difficulty slider.
One end is normal, the furthest end is nightmarishly impossible. It would do a couple things: for one, it would scale your stats down evenly the further you go on the slider. It would also place a couple debuffs, losing healing received, and increasing damage received proportionally to how far the slider is placed. Mobs in this game already have most mechanics needed for somewhat interactive gameplay, while I would encourage some of the newer mechanics given to older mobs, increasing the difficulty of the game through scaling stats down would give a good challenge to players. The furthest end of the slider would likely see an impossible game to accomplish, to which I think is fantastic as it may spur ingenuity in finding ways to play around it.

Of course someone could say that running around naked is a better option, but the ceiling for how challenging you can make your game is just quite low with running around with no equipment; the difficulty is truly not that bad, and a difficulty slider can provide more options and greater challenge than anything running naked would provide.

Goes without a doubt that the slider is either disabled in dungeons, trials & PvP, or the character is given a notice that their slider is past normal and all group members/overworld players can see an icon for difficulty slider debuffs being present, meaning it's really up to them if they want to subject themselves to this kind of punishment. There's already a vote to kick for dungeons

Artis

Actually difficulty does change as you get more levels and better gear. I noticed even though my character is low level and he's battle leveled to cp150 in Wrothgar as I get more attribute points - my stamina still increases a little and with better gear I get better stats too.

BlackSparrow

technohic wrote: »

Well; if you think about it, One Tamriel is essentially going to eliminate 3 phases for each zone so we all are on on phase and just scaled to what I would assume would be the native level of the faction the zone is in.

Here's anther question: is eliminating the 3 phases ideal?

Cyrodiil has problems with balancing characters who have CP with those who don't. Isn't putting everyone against the same content just going to introduce that imbalance to the rest of PvE (moreso than DLC zones already have, anyway)? So characters with CP will be more unchallenged than ever? Or should the devs compensate by either scaling the monsters up (which strands anyone without CP) or scaling CP characters down further (at which point, what's the point of CP)? Or am I just seeing imaginary bugbears?

ContraTempo

It's pretty clear this is needed for PVE. Gets sticky when you group up though.

But solo? Sure. And if you have that slider set on "INSANE" and some "EASY" hack comes up during your fight and puts an arrow in your monster, he gets what he deserves (slaughtered by your OP monster). If you steal his kills, you get no rewards because EASY monsters don't reward INSANE players. Seems simple enough.