Why do these bad design choices even exist?

NewBlacksmurf

Kendaric wrote: »

ValkynSketha wrote: »

I will say it again MMORPG .

And I'll say it again, MMORPG does not mean forced grouping. It just means that you share a persistent online world with a lot of other players.

I'd love to have a solo version of the dungeons (of course with different loot) available, so that I could experience their story. Other players exist for me either as moving and often badly named NPCs or people to RP with.

@Kendaric

While the server type doesn't mean it's forced group, setting up servers for massive amounts of players to play together only makes sense for group content. Why would any developer use that type of server otherwise?

altemriel

could I have your gear pls ?

Asardes

I've noticed that when I go in various locations, like dolmens and public dungeons, people try to add me to groups without even asking. I refuse by default. If I couldn't this would be indeed forced grouping. It's rude anyway to add someone to a group without at least whispering and asking them beforehand.

Kendaric

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

And I'll say it again, MMORPG does not mean forced grouping. It just means that you share a persistent online world with a lot of other players.

I'd love to have a solo version of the dungeons (of course with different loot) available, so that I could experience their story. Other players exist for me either as moving and often badly named NPCs or people to RP with.

@Kendaric

While the server type doesn't mean it's forced group, setting up servers for massive amounts of players to play together only makes sense for group content. Why would any developer use that type of server otherwise?

@NewBlacksmurf

You don't need group content to be able to interact with others.
Yes, I freely admit that I'd prefer singleplayer games, but unfortunately they don't allow for real RP since you can only interact with scripted NPCs.
RP requires you to be able to interact with others and ESO is a RPG first and foremost.

For the record... I don't like the forced solo instances either, ideally you should always be able to bring someone along to help you if you want.

idk

Kendaric wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

And I'll say it again, MMORPG does not mean forced grouping. It just means that you share a persistent online world with a lot of other players.

I'd love to have a solo version of the dungeons (of course with different loot) available, so that I could experience their story. Other players exist for me either as moving and often badly named NPCs or people to RP with.

@Kendaric

While the server type doesn't mean it's forced group, setting up servers for massive amounts of players to play together only makes sense for group content. Why would any developer use that type of server otherwise?

@NewBlacksmurf

You don't need group content to be able to interact with others.
Yes, I freely admit that I'd prefer singleplayer games, but unfortunately they don't allow for real RP since you can only interact with scripted NPCs.
RP requires you to be able to interact with others and ESO is a RPG first and foremost.

For the record... I don't like the forced solo instances either, ideally you should always be able to bring someone along to help you if you want.

@Kendaric

Glad you admit your position is based on preference to single player games.

However, ESO is an MMO first and foremost. It offers a large assortment of single layer opportunities and those keep growing. However, if should offer content that requires multiple people and that content should always require multiple people. Otherwise it is pointless for it to be an MMO.

As for RP, we all role play. We role play healers, tanks and warriors. As for rich interactive RP with an NPC, no. It's not in any game. Rich interactive RP requires playing with other players so we are back to the MMO again. It's a requirement to interact with other players if you want to do decent RP.

Junipus

AuldWolf wrote: »

I regularly question them.

Forced grouping: Don't do it. You'll lose players and alienate people. Allow any number of people to play any of the content. You'll have more players, a happier playerbase, and whilst you may lose 30~ players who'll be annoyed about their privilege, you'll gain 30,000 more. Forced grouping is one of the things I've heard people talk of as the reason they don't play ESO. They don't like it. Most modern thinking gamers don't. ESO is looking antiquated with it. Socialising doesn't mean forced grouping. Socialising, for most, is roleplaying. When most people are questing, they'll do it solo or in a group of 2-3 max.

Pseudo-forced Grouping: World bosses, in this case. Why? You have an instanced world, so why not allow people to pick difficulty for world zones? You can have anything ranging from casual (for the vast majority) to HYPER-L33T for the fifty or so people who'd actually want that. By having world bosses require a group, or a specific build, you're getting a reputation for upholding antiquated MMO standards.

Forcing Players to Play Content They Dislike: You have certain kinds of abilities (PvP's good heal, the Undaunted magicka taunt) that have absolutely no valid alternatives whatsoever, thus forcing people to play content they won't enjoy. The undaunted thing could be fixed by moving Inner Fire to rank 1 or 2 (I believe 2 can be achieved with This One's on Me), but the PvP heal really needs a valid alternative.

Encouraging Competitive Behaviour Everywhere: This is going to result in an incredibly toxic community. You're allowing duels inside towns (a huge mistake), and you still haven't introduced the sorts of instanced nodes that Guild Wars 2 has had since launch (which is embarrassing). You could make the game more appealing to the average player by reducing these factors.

1. Forced grouping for group content? Don't do it. Forced grouping for overland content? Don't have to. Forced grouping for PvP? Don't have to. You're extremely vague with "forced grouping"
2. You don't have to do world bosses with others. Consider it challenging content if you want to do it solo, or wait for others to come if you can stand to see other people.
3. This is fair enough, but since you're effectively touting for a single player experience, there's plenty of things you might not like that you'd have to do. Anything else is simply wanting your dessert without first eating your vegetables.
4. Dueling inside towns doesn't promote competitive behaviour. I've no idea where the hell you get that idea from. Instanced nodes aren't really an issue unless you're going for a specific area because you know it's well-known. There are plenty of other spots now all nodes are scaled to harvest your materials, and this seems like a severe case of entitlement.

I'm pretty sure as well that your previous threads have all been focused on trying to turn an MMO into a single player ESO game two and a half years after it was released, 9 years after initial development and long ago since it was even close to a good idea.

Asardes

Well, I enjoy when people RP in a good way, ex. wear and dye costumes, invent a back story for their characters, play the lute or dance when they are out of combat, but I don't when they do it in a bad way, that makes them unable to function properly in group content ex. a tank that does not block because he's "brave", a healer that does not heal because he wants to "use the arcane energies", a ranged caster using a bow because he think he's a "wood druid" etc. I consider the former a nice addition to the gaming environment, but the latter pure and simple just trolling the other players.

Andohir

From a fairly new player's point of view:

AuldWolf wrote: »

Forced grouping: Don't do it. You'll lose players and alienate people. Allow any number of people to play any of the content. You'll have more players, a happier playerbase, and whilst you may lose 30~ players who'll be annoyed about their privilege, you'll gain 30,000 more. Forced grouping is one of the things I've heard people talk of as the reason they don't play ESO. They don't like it. Most modern thinking gamers don't. ESO is looking antiquated with it. Socialising doesn't mean forced grouping. Socialising, for most, is roleplaying. When most people are questing, they'll do it solo or in a group of 2-3 max.

Instanced group dungeons are an element I avoided so far. And I also don't feel the need to play them. Daylies are something that I won't touch for a long time. Once the skill points start lacking maybe I'll also start to play them, but I'd rather level an alt than doing so in the near future.

AuldWolf wrote: »

Pseudo-forced Grouping: World bosses, in this case. Why? You have an instanced world, so why not allow people to pick difficulty for world zones? You can have anything ranging from casual (for the vast majority) to HYPER-L33T for the fifty or so people who'd actually want that. By having world bosses require a group, or a specific build, you're getting a reputation for upholding antiquated MMO standards.

Two to three players will be able to kill any world boss, as long as one of them uses a resto staff or is a templar healer. At least I did not encounter any world boss so far who wasn't killable by two to three lower level/geared players. The more annoying thing is that the world boss resets when it's too far away from its spawn location due to kiting or when a player died, is in revival mode and the other one dies too.

AuldWolf wrote: »

Forcing Players to Play Content They Dislike: You have certain kinds of abilities (PvP's good heal, the Undaunted magicka taunt) that have absolutely no valid alternatives whatsoever, thus forcing people to play content they won't enjoy. The undaunted thing could be fixed by moving Inner Fire to rank 1 or 2 (I believe 2 can be achieved with This One's on Me), but the PvP heal really needs a valid alternative.

I went into a few public dungeons, mainly for the sky shards and got my Undaunted rank to mid 3 without ever doing a quest for them. Actually currently I level up the magTaunt skill. You're probably right with the PvP skill trees. Maybe they should be disabled for PvE.

AuldWolf wrote: »

Encouraging Competitive Behaviour Everywhere: This is going to result in an incredibly toxic community. You're allowing duels inside towns (a huge mistake), and you still haven't introduced the sorts of instanced nodes that Guild Wars 2 has had since launch (which is embarrassing). You could make the game more appealing to the average player by reducing these factors.

I ignore ongoing duels and have enabled the option to auto decline invites. Ressource nodes are everywhere, depending on passive skill and character level. I never felt the need to become angry about not getting a specific node, because the next one is just a few steps away.

zuto40

AuldWolf wrote: »

I regularly question them.

Forced grouping: Don't do it. You'll lose players and alienate people. Allow any number of people to play any of the content. You'll have more players, a happier playerbase, and whilst you may lose 30~ players who'll be annoyed about their privilege, you'll gain 30,000 more. Forced grouping is one of the things I've heard people talk of as the reason they don't play ESO. They don't like it. Most modern thinking gamers don't. ESO is looking antiquated with it. Socialising doesn't mean forced grouping. Socialising, for most, is roleplaying. When most people are questing, they'll do it solo or in a group of 2-3 max.

Pseudo-forced Grouping: World bosses, in this case. Why? You have an instanced world, so why not allow people to pick difficulty for world zones? You can have anything ranging from casual (for the vast majority) to HYPER-L33T for the fifty or so people who'd actually want that. By having world bosses require a group, or a specific build, you're getting a reputation for upholding antiquated MMO standards.

Forcing Players to Play Content They Dislike: You have certain kinds of abilities (PvP's good heal, the Undaunted magicka taunt) that have absolutely no valid alternatives whatsoever, thus forcing people to play content they won't enjoy. The undaunted thing could be fixed by moving Inner Fire to rank 1 or 2 (I believe 2 can be achieved with This One's on Me), but the PvP heal really needs a valid alternative.

Encouraging Competitive Behaviour Everywhere: This is going to result in an incredibly toxic community. You're allowing duels inside towns (a huge mistake), and you still haven't introduced the sorts of instanced nodes that Guild Wars 2 has had since launch (which is embarrassing). You could make the game more appealing to the average player by reducing these factors.

From 'the outside' ESO still looks far too much like a traditional MMO and still has too much in common with the likes of Wildstar. That's why regular Elder Scrolls players are so readily dismissing it. They'll cite reasons like these as to why. Oh, I can't solo that content? Oh, I can't get those abilities I like because of archaic, draconic reasons? And so on. ESO looks a bit too much like an old man, trying to be hip and cool with his singing, dancing, and dad humour at times. It looks like Everquest trying to hide its shame. And that's really, really unfortunate.

It bothers me because ESO has the potential to be a new wave MMO that could draw in people like never before. It just has to leave its outmoded, outdated, antiquated ideas behind. Ideas that belong in 2006 more than they do in late 2016. If ESO doesn't leave these ideas behind, a new MMO will come along eventually that does, and it'll soak up all of ESO's players. This will happen because although ESO is modern, it still can't let go of these alienating, antiquated factors. So it's leaving room for someone to do it better and just eat up ESO's niche. That's what happened with Champions Online, as I'll keep pointing out. The playerbase kept telling them not to kow-tow to the hardcore, not to bend over to privileged force grouping minorities. We tried. And they did. Their day one patch which was meant to appease those minorites cut their community in half. Half of the players actually left. And we know this since CO provides data on those playing.

They kept attempting to appease those minorities, and now CO is a ghost town. I'm begging you not to make these same mistakes. If you want to keep your subscribers, your whales, the people who'll actually buy things from the crown store? Keep your casuals! The hardcore, the PvP players, these aren't the people you get money from. You get your money from the roleplayers, those who're playing the game to have fun. Those who're grinding will hit the content cap then leave, as they do. They'll only come back for a little while for new content. The people who'll stay after that, and will keep paying for new crown store stuff, are people who don't rush through the game. They're the people you want to appeal to.

I keep making these threads and posts because ESO is just CO's history repeating itself and I'm dreading it. My problem with all this? I really like ESO. I really liked CO, too. CO lost its community, but I stuck around for a really long time anyway. After a while, everything was just hardcore and PvP appeasement, and then the game was put on life support because there was no more money. All of your money comes from your casual audience, whom you are spurning. That's the problem with your community shrinking.

The way to get a bigger community isn't finding new ways to force people to play together, that's an outdated idea that should be left at the mass grave of every MMO that's tried that and failed. The way to get a bigger community is to make a game that's accessible and fun to play for the majority of people.

If you fixed these issues, you'd draw in all of the single player Elder Scrolls fans you're losing out on.

Please don't kill off ESO with bad design choices. One Tamriel's world bosses change tells me that you're going in the wrong direction, now. You're misguided and you believe that this will actually reap you greater profits. It won't. Down this road lies ruin. You'll lose everything. Never listen to the hardcore players or the PvP players. I'm sorry, but they're a minority and you can afford to lose them. What you cannot afford is to lose the casuals who're buying crown store items and paying for subscriptions. I mean, I spend upward of $400~ a month on ESO between subscriptions for myself and my partner, and crown store purchases. There are a lot of people like me.

Keep doing what you're doing, keep going down this path, you'll lose us. There'll always be another MMO that'll be smart enough to figure out what's going on, and to secure a huge community filled with people who'll happily pay large amounts of money.

Fix this. please. This really is a heartfelt plea. Don't be Champions Online 2: Failing Harder.

How the *** do you spend more then $40 a month in the crown store

Asardes

Andohir wrote: »

I went into a few public dungeons, mainly for the sky shards and got my Undaunted rank to mid 3 without ever doing a quest for them. Actually currently I level up the magTaunt skill. You're probably right with the PvP skill trees. Maybe they should be disabled for PvE.

Absolutely not. Try running some harder PvE content without the following skills:
- aggressive warhorn
- barrier
- vigor
- purge
- razor caltrops
- proximity detonation

At least you should get to know the game better before making such a judgement. I'm sick and tired of people coming with "helpful" suggestions straight outa Wailing Prison.

Vyle_Byte

I like ESO.

Jamini

Andohir wrote: »

I ignore ongoing duels and have enabled the option to auto decline invites. Ressource nodes are everywhere, depending on passive skill and character level. I never felt the need to become angry about not getting a specific node, because the next one is just a few steps away.

Careful. If you take any resource nodes in Craiglorn you'll get people messaging you that they want to burn down your house, viking your wife, and sell your kids into slavery for taking their nodes.

-But anywhere else, yeah. Resource nodes are dime-a-dozen.

Sallington

Every one of your points makes me think that MMOs are not up your alley. Especially considering just how incredibly solo-friendly ESO already is, even suggesting that there's too much grouping involved... single player RPGs are what you're looking for.

Sallington

Kendaric wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

And I'll say it again, MMORPG does not mean forced grouping. It just means that you share a persistent online world with a lot of other players.

I'd love to have a solo version of the dungeons (of course with different loot) available, so that I could experience their story. Other players exist for me either as moving and often badly named NPCs or people to RP with.

@Kendaric

While the server type doesn't mean it's forced group, setting up servers for massive amounts of players to play together only makes sense for group content. Why would any developer use that type of server otherwise?

@NewBlacksmurf

You don't need group content to be able to interact with others.
Yes, I freely admit that I'd prefer singleplayer games, but unfortunately they don't allow for real RP since you can only interact with scripted NPCs.
RP requires you to be able to interact with others and ESO is a RPG first and foremost.

For the record... I don't like the forced solo instances either, ideally you should always be able to bring someone along to help you if you want.

*leans into mic*
WRONG

ESO is an MMO, first and foremost. If they focus too closely on the RP and RPG aspect, the entirety of the game suffers because they need to water down mechanics and gameplay.

Jamini

Absolutely not. Try running some harder PvE content without the following skills:
- aggressive warhorn
- barrier
- vigor
- purge
- razor caltrops
- proximity detonation

Do keep in mind the only "Harder PvE content" that really requires those is vMA and Trials. You can get by in many/most Vet non-hardmode dungeons without them.

I still love my warhorn and vigor though.

Anti_Virus

Poor OP getting attacked by Toxic forum users.

NewBlacksmurf

Kendaric wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

And I'll say it again, MMORPG does not mean forced grouping. It just means that you share a persistent online world with a lot of other players.

I'd love to have a solo version of the dungeons (of course with different loot) available, so that I could experience their story. Other players exist for me either as moving and often badly named NPCs or people to RP with.

@Kendaric

While the server type doesn't mean it's forced group, setting up servers for massive amounts of players to play together only makes sense for group content. Why would any developer use that type of server otherwise?

@NewBlacksmurf

You don't need group content to be able to interact with others.
Yes, I freely admit that I'd prefer singleplayer games, but unfortunately they don't allow for real RP since you can only interact with scripted NPCs.
RP requires you to be able to interact with others and ESO is a RPG first and foremost.

For the record... I don't like the forced solo instances either, ideally you should always be able to bring someone along to help you if you want.

@Kendaric

I think you're attempting to draw logic but excluding the server type makes your positions hard to accept as logical.
The server type is going to drive the logic and as such an MMO server type...that purpose is for a persistent world that many can partake in. The content if many are always around becomes a design for grouping.

ThePaleItalian

Where did the OP go? Is this another forum topic that gets blown up and the OP just disappears?

*grabs popcorn*

Bouldercleave

Thelon wrote: »

AuldWolf wrote: »

One Tamriel's world bosses change tells me that you're going in the wrong direction, now. You're misguided and you believe that this will actually reap you greater profits. It won't. Down this road lies ruin. You'll lose everything.

Fear Mongering has reached Rank IV

AuldWolf wrote: »

Allow any number of people to play any of the content. You'll have more players, a happier playerbase, and whilst you may lose 30~ players who'll be annoyed about their privilege, you'll gain 30,000 more.

AuldWolf wrote: »

Never listen to the hardcore players

AuldWolf wrote: »

By having world bosses require a group, or a specific build, you're getting a reputation for upholding antiquated MMO standards.

AuldWolf wrote: »

From 'the outside' ESO still looks far too much like a traditional MMO and still has too much in common with the likes of Wildstar.

AuldWolf wrote: »

ESO looks a bit too much like an old man, trying to be hip and cool with his singing, dancing, and dad humour at times.

AuldWolf wrote: »

All of your money comes from your casual audience, whom you are spurning.

I think SOMEONE has a Spiderman fetish... A little bit of bromance for the man in tights (and I'm NOT talking about Spidey)

Kamatsu

It always amuses, and saddens me as well, to see the constant cry of "It's an MMO, it should be all forced group content and hard content!" from people... people who seem to ignore the long history of MMO games that tried that and failed.

Time and time again new MMO's have cropped up claiming to be hard, tricky, group reliant, etc... and exactly ZERO of them have ever succeeded in the western market. Time and time again established MMO games have listened to the minority voice on forums crying out for harder content, more forced grouping, etc... and watched as their income plummeted and they ended up on maintenance or shut down. Yet time and time again, you see the exact same cries in 'easy' MMO's... to make them harder, to make them more group reliant... like doing the same thing that failed all the other games in the past wouldn't result in the exact same thing happening yet again (and hint: it happens again every time).

PS. And yes, we who post on forums are a minority. Time and again it's been shown that 10-20% of a games population ever visit official forums, reddit pages or unofficial forums. Most people never go to a games forums or such.. just buy the game from steam, their local store, etc then install and play the game.

GW2 -

Started out as the MMO for everyone, world would be easy and casual with harder content relegated to dungeons. They got the casual right, but failed on the hard dungeons. They had a steady income loss of around ~20% per quarter from launch due to lack of new released content or major updates, with spikes in revenue when they did do major content updates. The forums (official & unofficial & reddit) had it's fair share of the "MMO = hard = group content" posters crying for hard & group focused content, and to make all content like that. ANet listed.

HoT expansion was released and did initially sell well, as well as upswing in gem selling due to influx of people. The revenue was misleading in that the expansion was sold at full price - ie ppl who already paid $50 for the game had to pay another $50 for the expansion, so had to basically re-buy the game. Initial commentary was fine... but that's because the people doing it at launch were all the hardcore, the massive fanbois who never saw anything 'hard' because they were with the zerg. It wasn't long however when the forums, official and unofficial and redit, were filled with thread after thread, post after post, of complaints about how hard HoT was, how difficult, how casual unfriendly, how it was "group up of don't bother".

HoT was exactly what the "MMO = group or die" wanted. It was hard, you couldn't really traverse the map without virtually every mob CC'ing you, you couldn't do events on the maps as they were all group-focused (ie didn't matter how skilled you were, they were impossible to be done solo), hero-points (ie skill points) were many times locked behind having to do these group-only events, or were locked behind group-only champion boss fights... so if you wanted to progress your character you had to group or get nothing done. The main story for the expansion was locked behind needing masteries completed... and you could only get the xp to do these masteries via the events. End result, HoT was exactly what many of the posters earlier in this thread are clamering for.. hard & group-only focused.

Result? Anet suffered a massive 67% loss in revenue due to the mass of casual's leaving the game because it was too hard for them, they didn't like being forced into group-only content, they didn't like being forced into doing content they didn't like playing just to try and progress through the story, etc. And then the forums filled up with complains that the maps were dead, that there were not enough players to complete content, that they were map-hopping just to try and find enough people to complete events and such.

Yep, turning a casual & solo friendly game into a "MMO = group content & hard content" worked well for ANet <-- I'd def say any business loves to get a 67% drop in income after releasing a huge major expansion to it's product! /sarcasm. In fact things are so desperate for ANet that they are now looking at locking exclusive cosmetic skins that they know ppl want into their RNG lockbox's. Exclusively locking things into RNG lockbox's is usually a clear sign of financial worries - look at other games that have done this, and you'll note they are usually done at times of financial red-alerts. Why do you think ZOS is toying with RNG crates right now? Because financially things aren't great.

Lets look at WoW

What was WoW's biggest point" Wrath of the Lich King. LK brought with it 2 key things - it had the main story continuation from WC3, and was arguably the easiest & most solo-friendly expansion. It was maybe too easy, but it was accessible and open to casual's... who loved and thrived in it. WoW's sub numbers skyrocketed up to 12-13 million and people thought it would keep on going. Then it fizzled. Why?

Two key points - content drought & too easy on all level's. It took way, way too long between raid releases. Was like 10? or so months before they ended the expansion with the LK raid. This made it boring just doing the same thing... so people left. But they also mkade the whole expansion too easy - while having the open world and starter dungeons/raids being easy is fine... they didn't really make the raids ramp up in difficulty enough.

And yes, the forums did get filled with the "make everything harder" cry, the cries of ppl who posted earlier.. who wanted everything to be harder, to be more group reliant, etc. And Blizzard.... listened. Cataclysm was released, and the open world was a bit harder but still mostly casual friendly... but oh boy did the forums get filled with complaints about how hard the dungeons were, how unfriendly to casual's... and I'm talking the starter/early dungeons and not the end-level or raids. That did get resolved and dungeons were made easier...

But this marked the end of WoW as it declined. Some of it's decline had to do with just how long it's been around, it's dated graphics, other MMO's throughout the market, etc. However WoW started to flip-flop around trying to find the balance between casual and hardcore it used to have then lost. Pandaland I can't really comnment about since I was out of the WoW scene at that time... but from what I read and saw it was an attempt to bring humor back in and appeal back to the casual's... but didn't.

WoD brought huge numbers back, bringing WoW's sub's back from ~5-7 million back up to 10 million... but then it doed off rapidly. why? Lack of content, gating stuff ppl wanted behind grinds, attempts to force ppl into play-types they didn't like and attempt's at forced-grouping to progress. Ppl rejected that and left. Who would have guessed that ppl don't like playing games that try and force them into doing stuff they don't like just so they can hope to do the things they like?

And as for Legion? They have doubled-down on EVERY single aspect people hatred from WoD - main storyline is gated behind forced group content, professions are gated behind forced group content and forced PvP, calss storied are gated behind forced group content, zone story's are gated behind forced group content. If you want to progress the main storyline, your class storyline, professions, etc you are forced to run herioc dungeons, mythic & mythic+ dungeons, as well as having to do raids. So if you want to play... hope you love doing the same group-only hard content over, and over and over and over again... cuz if you don't, you won't get anywhere in Legion.

Notice how Blizzard are no longer reporting sub numbers for WoW anymore? It wouldn't be because they have chased a huge chunk of their casual player base away due to knuckling down expansion after expansion on trying to force players to do hard content to progress, forcing players to do content they don't like to progress, forcing players into doing group-only content, etc right?

I mean, the fact they had to do their own version of megaserver tech on Legion content on Legion's launch just to ensure the zones look active with players doesn't mean they have chased their players away right? And yes, Blizzard did implement Cross-Realm-Zones on Legion content on launch... CRZ was supposedly only meant to help older-content appear more full for the newer players playing their and/or older players re-playing it... but to have to do that on new content right from launch just to make people think the zones were active/busy? Big indication that WoW is dangerously low on sub numbers.

Old age of the game contributes... but then again, there's plenty of old MMO's still around and doing well. So what else? Well, the continuing focus on hard content, making the game harder, making people go through every aspect of the game to progress, locking story & such behind dungeons, raids, and other group-only content is a big cause. Go through the WoW forums since Legion launch... and what do you see as the biggest complaints? RNG of everything, and the fact that the main story, the class story, professions, etc have been locked behind having to grind group-only mythic & mythic+ dungeons as well as raids. In fact, the biggest grip I noted was the 2nd one - the leading cause of ppl stating they were unsubbing/leaving was the forced grouping to do anything.

What about Wildstar?

This was a game that promised to be the hard game that everyone always wanted, it was going to be the group-only focused raid-or-die game that hardcore, mmo=grouping=hard, players were after. Did it succeed? Failed so hard it made the fastest transition to F2P for any MMO...

It's biggest problems? lack of polish, lack of content, it's raid-attunments were just huge grind-fest's, etc. There were plenty of complaints about lack of content for casuals, lack of meanignful grinds or things for them to do if they weren't interested in raids... while the raiders were complaining that the attunements were too long, grindy, hard, etc.

But you know what? Forget all that - the key point is that even on launch prior to all the end-game issue's were discovered... the game was not very popular, it didn't have huge sales. Why? It wasn't advertised well enough, and even those markets where it was... the response was "Game aimed at raiders and hard-core? Not for me". I saw a lot of ppl who knew something about Wildstar, who had seen the ads and promo, or video's of it say they wouldn't touch it because it was aimed at the "MMO = forced grouping = hard content" crowd.... and this kind of gameplay didn't appeal to them.

The fact that Wildstar flopped at launch reflect's both the lack of advertising and that anti-casual focused game was bad. In fact it was so bad that Carbine spent a lot of man hours adding new end-game grinds, as well as dumbing down lots of the game, making the game more casual-friendly, etc. They actually picked up and did somewhat ok on F2P re-launch when they pushed how casual friendly it now was.

Only thing was.. while it was casual friendly, it still had the legacy of being known as the MMO for the hardcore, the MMO that hates casuals.... and lacked advertising to show otherwise. As so it struggles along making very little money and leaving the few who play it when the plug will be pulled - since NCSoft have pulled the plug on games that were making way more money than Wildstar is.

What else? Oh right, there's that open-world PvE/PvP game.. ArcheAge right?

ArcheAge was going to be a game that appealed to heaps, could do what you want, be what you want, open-world PvP with huge PvE elements... but aimed mostly at those wanting hard type gameplay due to the PvP and tricky POvE, but still appealing to the casual's who could go craft and build houses and such.. Gamer was more of a "If you want to go out, better group up for face the consequences"... ie group or die.

What happened to it? Well it went flub flub flub. Complaints of being too hard, too blah, not enough content... along with complaints of it being to much P2W, cheating, etc.

But still, game advertised as a more hard experience, more focused for group content... failed.

I could go on, there are plenty of others who have tried entering the MMO market as the 'hard' or 'group-focused' games... and failed, and plenty of examples of existing games that have tried to appease the "wah wah wah it's an MMO, MMO's are group focused, MMO's are hard wah wah wah" crowd, and found their incomes & player-base plummeting in a whirlpool of death & doom as the casual's leave the game in droves.

Not to say that I personally am against group-only content or hard content, but I believe you need a balance between the two. I also believe that changing and existing game that's considered 'easy' into something that's the opposite of that.... is a death-mark on that game (and has been proven so time and time again).

But always makes me sad to see ppl crying for a business to shoot itself in the foot... and then shake my head when businesses for whatever reason think that's a good idea, only to then lose both legs and arms in the process. And then of course the ppl crying this have by this time moved onto the next game, where they once again will be crying on forums asking for it to be made harder, more group-only focus, etc... with little care or thought that it's for these very reason's they left the previous dying game that listened to them.

LadyNalcarya

@Kamatsu
So much text and you forgot one "little" thing... 1T difficulty boost wasnt an actual buff, and definetely wasnt made to cater to hardcore players, they've just scaled everything to vr16.
The game was through some significant changes in balance after 1.6 (namely, softcap removal and champion system introduction) and that's what made world pve so easy. It wasnt designed that way, it became like this after the power creep.
And in softcap era stuff was actually more difficult than in vr16+ patches. Just because it was vr12 content that was designed for softcapped characters with no champion point boost. And yes, even though some dungeon mobs used to be marked as "vr16", they havent changed at all since vr12-14.
About catering to "hardcore" players... This game doesnt cater to them at all. All we have is 4 trials, and ok, maybe a few dlc dungeons. All of those have easily accesible normal modes for casual players, so that they wont miss the story and cant obtain the gear.
This game is as casual-friendly as it can get. And it has an absurd amount of solo content, almost all dlcs consist of solo content. There's just a few challenging instances, and even they have "casual" versions.
So while I agree there should be balance, I dont think your points are relevant to the current state of the game.
Where's this "wah wah wah it's an MMO, MMO's are group focused, MMO's are hard wah wah wah" you're talking about? Certainly not in this 99% solo casual game.

Kamatsu

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

@Kamatsu
So much text and you forgot one "little" thing... 1T difficulty boost wasnt an actual buff, and definetely wasnt made to cater to hardcore players, they've just scaled everything to vr16.
The game was through some significant changes in balance after 1.6 (namely, softcap removal and champion system introduction) and that's what made world pve so easy. It wasnt designed that way, it became like this after the power creep.
And in softcap era stuff was actually more difficult than in vr16+ patches. Just because it was vr12 content that was designed for softcapped characters with no champion point boost. And yes, even though some dungeon mobs used to be marked as "vr16", they havent changed at all since vr12-14.
About catering to "hardcore" players... This game doesnt cater to them at all. All we have is 4 trials, and ok, maybe a few dlc dungeons. All of those have easily accesible normal modes for casual players, so that they wont miss the story and cant obtain the gear.
This game is as casual-friendly as it can get. And it has an absurd amount of solo content, almost all dlcs consist of solo content. There's just a few challenging instances, and even they have "casual" versions.
So while I agree there should be balance, I dont think your points are relevant to the current state of the game.
Where's this "wah wah wah it's an MMO, MMO's are group focused, MMO's are hard wah wah wah" you're talking about? Certainly not in this 99% solo casual game.

I never directly mentioned anything about ESO as I was not talking about ESO, and whether or not it does/doesn't cater to hardcore/casual since One Tamriel. I was addressing all the poster's who keep spewing forth the "ESO is a MMO, is should all be group content, it should all be hard"... as these are the same people who generally push MMO companies to exclude casual players, to make everything in the game harder, to make more content be forced grouping, etc.

Just look at the OP's concerns - that there is now more forced grouping and that players are more forced to play content they dislike. Now go look at the "ESO is a MMO" replies.... then read my post again. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about - they are found throughout any thread/discussion which discusses being able to solo the game or play casually... and they are always spewing the same stuff out, that it's an MMO, that it should be group-only, etc.

I'll have to take your word regarding the softcap and cp changes, as I have only finally gotten to cp 160+ after OT hit, and only played speriodically previously. I personally never had any problems with questing, or doing world-bosses as a non-maxed character... but again,. that was prior to OT. But I never knew what it was like at end-game as I had/have never gotten there.

You are right in that the game caters mainly to casual's with very little for 'hardcore'. However, what the OP is worried about is that ZOS will pay attention to those clamoring to make everything hard and challenging and do that... thus chasing the casual's away and killing the game in the process. And again, if you scroll up and read a lot of the replies to the OP in this very thread and you'll see exactly what I mean by "wah wah it's an mmo". Go search the forums for any other thread complaining about difficult world-bosses and such... you'll see the same "wah wah it's an mmo" brigade carrying on and saying the game as a whole should be harder.

I wasn't really addressing ESO specifically, but the attitude I see from a small vocal group that tries to shut down any discussion of making anything in a game easier and/or more accessable weith the cries that it's an MMO and thus should be forced grouping with hard content and if ppl want to play casually and/or solo then they should play a single-player game.

As for ESO - I personally wish ZOS would add in some more dungeons with interesting mechanics for those looking for challenges (with both normal easier modes for ppl like me, with harder vet & beyond modes for those who really want a challenge). While that doesn't personally appeal to me, I also don't want those who like harder content to never get anything to wet their appetite. On the other hand, I don't want ZOS to try and turn everything harder and less casual/solo friendly... I've experienced that in other MMO's, and it never goes well for them.

Asardes

@Kamatsu

ESO currently caters to all players, especially casuals. It has mostly easy, solo friendly content. They realized they made a mistake with Craglorn and made it solo friendly in One Tamriel. The rest of the world is just like the Cadwell Gold areas were before the update, scaled to CP160. And that's even easier now, because people are up scaled to that, if they are not already CP160. The fact that World Bosses were made more difficult is an improvement, because before everybody did them just to put a marker on the map. Added loot has made them attractive. So multiple players team up to beat them. If they were left as easy as before, people would have just one-shotted them for the loot, moved on and left the other players waiting 10-15 until they respawned. This is exactly what happens now with delve and public dungon bosses and with dolmens, which are very easy. People struggle to make a hit on the mobs and claim XP, achievement and loot because they get killed so fast. IMO those should have been buffed as well.

Casual players can stick to: Main quest, Guild Quests (including repeatable ones), Alliance Zone quests, normal dungeons, normal trials, normal Maelstrom Arena, grouping for World Bosses, zerg style PvP on non-CP & non-vet campaigns (~95% of the game)
Hardcore players may want to progress to: Veteran Dungeons, Vetaran Trials, Veteran Maelstrom Arena, soloing World Bosses, small scale PvP on full CP campaigns (~5% of the game).

There are only 20 skill points locked behind group content (dungeons can still be completed in normal mode), and 50 locked behind PvP progression, 1 skill line locked behind group content (can still be unlocked with a couple of hundred of solo quests) and 2 skill lines locked behind PvP. By comparison, the other 300+ skill points are locked in solo quests, sky shards and Public Dungeon group events, which can be completed solo or with ad-hoc grouping by even the most unskilled players.

So you can stick just to easy content, completely avoid PvP, still fully develop your character. I've done just that on my alt. She has yet to complete any dungeon, even on normal mode, but she has most useful skill lines fully trained - undaunted is at 4 just from doing dailies and alliance war skills are at 2 just from doing the Cyrodiil tutorial - did it for the maneuvers so I can ride faster. She still wears her level 44 blue training gear because it still works, even with the enemies at CP160. Most times I don't even bother with food, and when I do it's the crusty bread I find all over the place. In brief, I've played her as casually as possible. And it's still fun. I do it to relax after a couple of hours of running harder content on my main, who collects 5-6 keys a day from doing vet HM dungeons. Eventually I will bring her into group content as well.

Andohir

Asardes wrote: »

If they were left as easy as before, people would have just one-shotted them for the loot, moved on and left the other players waiting 10-15 until they respawned. This is exactly what happens now with delve and public dungon bosses and with dolmens, which are very easy. People struggle to make a hit on the mobs and claim XP, achievement and loot because they get killed so fast. IMO those should have been buffed as well.

Bad design: put the toughest guy into the furthermost corner to maximize player frustration. One of similar strength should wait right at the entrance to let players know what difficulty to expect to actually get the achievement and the loot. If they fail to beat him, their frustration will be minimized, because they didn't invest much time and other efforts. So Dolmens could be buffed just like World Bosses, but delves and public dungeons shouldn't.


Btw. why is Massively Multiplayer considered to be content for small groups of 4 to 6 people? What's so massively about that? When I hear or read the term 'massively' it makes me think of thousands at least. Small groups belong to ARPGs like Diablo, with small maps that are designed to be played by a few people only, for short gameplay sessions. An open world like in ESO is completely different. Group dungeons, raids or trials are foreign elements to please the ARPG-type players. It's not the 'hardcore' players vs 'casuals' but ARPG vs RPG players.

IMO all instanced dungeons should be play- and beatable alone too, if the player wants to. And they should offer more possible ways to complete them, like stealthing through them, etc. - without any disadvantages for the preferred playstyle. The design of content for groups should be orientated towards reality: Why do we form social groups? Not with a 'goal' in mind that otherwise wouldn't be achieveable by one person only, but because we are social beings, it will be faster and easier to achieve something for everyone and also makes more fun than being just the lone wolf all the time. But the lone wolf has its right to exist too. Also in economic consumption context we form groups to e.g. get a group rebate, to get something cheaper than it'd be for a single person. So content should be designed to reward players for forming a group and playing together (more loot, etc), but not disadvantage the loners by making it impossible for them to complete it at all. Instanced group content has no reference in reality but is an artifact from ARPG-genre and from times of lower technical performing capability.

Zyrudin

Andohir wrote: »

Bad design: put the toughest guy into the furthermost corner to maximize player frustration. One of similar strength should wait right at the entrance to let players know what difficulty to expect to actually get the achievement and the loot. If they fail to beat him, their frustration will be minimized, because they didn't invest much time and other efforts. So Dolmens could be buffed just like World Bosses, but delves and public dungeons shouldn't.

I know what you are trying to say, but understand that what you are describing is basically Craglorn pre-One Tamriel. You'd get wiped at the first wasp mob and understand that you were either going to cut it or not. However, most (I think it was most, but we don't have actual numbers) players didn't like it and said that it was an elitist zone, etc, etc.

So actually in that case it was not a vocal minority changing the way things were going, but the casual majority that asked for Craglorn to be accessible to all. Craglorn was supposed to be challenging group endgame material, that's why it introduced trials.

Andohir wrote: »

Btw. why is Massively Multiplayer considered to be content for small groups of 4 to 6 people? What's so massively about that? When I hear or read the term 'massively' it makes me think of thousands at least. Small groups belong to ARPGs like Diablo, with small maps that are designed to be played by a few people only, for short gameplay sessions. An open world like in ESO is completely different. Group dungeons, raids or trials are foreign elements to please the ARPG-type players. It's not the 'hardcore' players vs 'casuals' but ARPG vs RPG players.

In my humble opinion, it makes no sense to develop an online multiplayer game (call it massively or not, it doesn't matter) and not make content that is mostly group only. It is multiplayer for a reason.

Now, I was here since the very beginning. I remember that the peeve back then at launch was that the most vocal players argued that the content was too solo. I kid you not, that the content was too solo and that they were having trouble going through the bulk of the game grouped up with friends (due to instancing in the main quest and a lot of territorial quests too, not to mention the dungeons). Public dungeons and delves back then were leveled to the region not the character, so if you tried to do them confidently solo you could be in for a surprise. These were marked as "group" for a reason, the same reason this game is labelled "multiplayer".

Andohir wrote: »

IMO all instanced dungeons should be play- and beatable alone too, if the player wants to. And they should offer more possible ways to complete them, like stealthing through them, etc. - without any disadvantages for the preferred playstyle. The design of content for groups should be orientated towards reality: Why do we form social groups? Not with a 'goal' in mind that otherwise wouldn't be achieveable by one person only, but because we are social beings, it will be faster and easier to achieve something for everyone and also makes more fun than being just the lone wolf all the time. But the lone wolf has its right to exist too. Also in economic consumption context we form groups to e.g. get a group rebate, to get something cheaper than it'd be for a single person. So content should be designed to reward players for forming a group and playing together (more loot, etc), but not disadvantage the loners by making it impossible for them to complete it at all. Instanced group content has no reference in reality but is an artifact from ARPG-genre and from times of lower technical performing capability.

I totally agree with you: the lone wolf has the right to exist too and has the right to be left in peace and in freedom. However, even the lone wolf needs to abide by the social context. If a lone wolf personality joins a game labeled "multiplayer", unless all he wants to do in that field is to duel, he simply chose the wrong context, the wrong genre, to play. Note, however, that you can and are able to do much more alone in ESO than you are required to group up for. So even the lone wolf is catered for in ESO to a larger extent than other MMO's.

ArchMikem

Encouraging Competitive Behaviour Everywhere: This is going to result in an incredibly toxic community. You're allowing duels inside towns (a huge mistake)

I was in Shadowfen to get to the Shadow Mundus stone and test out my damage with it, (comparing if it was worth it over the Serpent on my NB), and this Former Emperor comes up to me, sees me attacking some Crocodiles, and requests a Duel. Seeing as the guy is a Magicka Sorc and a Former Emperor, I 100% choose to decline. Immediately he starts following me, using the laugh emote whenever I'd stop. He tried to taunt me into Dueling so he could wipe me all over the swamp.

And that's not even a bad example. My guild officer was telling us about how incredibly hostile the chat was in Wrothgar over the double loot event.

Even though people on the internet were already crappy, yes I agree they've only been encouraged to get worse.

Asardes

ArchMikem wrote: »

Encouraging Competitive Behaviour Everywhere: This is going to result in an incredibly toxic community. You're allowing duels inside towns (a huge mistake)

I was in Shadowfen to get to the Shadow Mundus stone and test out my damage with it, (comparing if it was worth it over the Serpent on my NB), and this Former Emperor comes up to me, sees me attacking some Crocodiles, and requests a Duel. Seeing as the guy is a Magicka Sorc and a Former Emperor, I 100% choose to decline. Immediately he starts following me, using the laugh emote whenever I'd stop. He tried to taunt me into Dueling so he could wipe me all over the swamp.

Even though people on the internet were already crappy, yes I agree they've only been encouraged to get worse.

You can simply block people from writing to you. If they follow you you can simply ignore them because in a PvE environment they can't actually do anything to you, besides "stealing" that treasure chest or rubedite node. For example I sometimes end up blocking people that spam the zone chat with "WTS x for y gold". When I reveal their wannabe scam with a listing of MM prices that show things they're trying to sell are worth 1/10 of what they are asking some whisper and curse me. I simply block and move on.

Doctordarkspawn

This game has issues.

Previously this game was extremely difficult and was built like it, Dungeons were the hardest content but without pledges no reason to redo them. Back when Softcaps were a thing, the overload mechanic, DPS reached a height that the content was designed for, tanks hit a resistance cap and did their jobs with constant blocking, and healers healed.

Craglorn failed, and as it -was- basicly endgame PVE, the designers didn't know where or how to take a game anywhere. Then, the new age of design happened, drastically lowering the difficulty of the game in order to compensate for design decisions this game would endure.

They removed all barriers to DPS, and encouraged minmaxed setups. Trials allready required abilities from PVP, Which was stupid, but they built on this philisophy and build Maelstrom arena, which only the best of the best would complete. This was an age where most were happy.

Then Thieves guild came. We were still happy (Those of us who could still play after they outlawed all non direct x 11 hardware compliant cards) and when DB rolled around, it was a damn near revolution. Tanks and mitigation had a boom after much grumbling, the content was good, raiders got their hardest raid yet, a good thing that remains some of the best content they ever produced for the hardcore audience, and that didn't effect the rest of us. They were happy. We were happy. Both Hardcore and casual were happy and had content for them to do, Maw gave something the best of the best to aspire to. And the rest of us ran dungeons.

Then the trouble started. Shadows of the hist was created, two dungeons made essentially for the hardcore audience, which...didn't exist much on a dungeon level. They didn't fit in with the audience that regularly ran dungeons and the audience that ran raids complained they were too easy. Sooo they fit precisely no one. With mechanics built to counter DPS that had gotten far too high and out of control, it was a sign of things to come.

Then, came One Tamriels scaling, built to curb this DPS and as a result, polarized the community, lowered the ammount of tollerence for new players who the game failed to explain crucial mechanics (Like stats and the effect they have on damage) turned dungeons into this long drawn out affair. The raid community was shocked and appauled at the ammount of trash resistances and health. Only overland content got new life breathed into it, And that was welcome.

One Tamriel took one step forward and set fire to damn near everything else. If it is to be fixed, the resistance changes for group content need to be reversed. After that, and class reballances, I guarentee we will see this game see more people in it.

Maw, in a year of group and special solo content exclusively designed for the hardcore audience, is the only one still ran and loved. Shadows of the hist is reviled and abandoned. Maelstrom is actively, seethingly hated, and only has use as a raid attunement tool. Do you notice the patern here? If you do not, let me state it. When you make hardcore content, the only place where it will be consistantly ran and appreciated is as a Raid. Make hardcore content raids, and make dungeons for the rest, and you will please all without driving off most of us.

This game, like so many before it, resorts to trying to reign in the hardcore audience, a audience consistantly hard to please, and an audience that leaves no room for anyone else, and fail. And dies. I can only hope this course is reversed soon.

Doctordarkspawn

Asardes wrote: »

@Kamatsu

ESO currently caters to all players, especially casuals. It has mostly easy, solo friendly content. They realized they made a mistake with Craglorn and made it solo friendly in One Tamriel. The rest of the world is just like the Cadwell Gold areas were before the update, scaled to CP160. And that's even easier now, because people are up scaled to that, if they are not already CP160. The fact that World Bosses were made more difficult is an improvement, because before everybody did them just to put a marker on the map. Added loot has made them attractive. So multiple players team up to beat them. If they were left as easy as before, people would have just one-shotted them for the loot, moved on and left the other players waiting 10-15 until they respawned. This is exactly what happens now with delve and public dungon bosses and with dolmens, which are very easy. People struggle to make a hit on the mobs and claim XP, achievement and loot because they get killed so fast. IMO those should have been buffed as well.

Casual players can stick to: Main quest, Guild Quests (including repeatable ones), Alliance Zone quests, normal dungeons, normal trials, normal Maelstrom Arena, grouping for World Bosses, zerg style PvP on non-CP & non-vet campaigns (~95% of the game)
Hardcore players may want to progress to: Veteran Dungeons, Vetaran Trials, Veteran Maelstrom Arena, soloing World Bosses, small scale PvP on full CP campaigns (~5% of the game).

There are only 20 skill points locked behind group content (dungeons can still be completed in normal mode), and 50 locked behind PvP progression, 1 skill line locked behind group content (can still be unlocked with a couple of hundred of solo quests) and 2 skill lines locked behind PvP. By comparison, the other 300+ skill points are locked in solo quests, sky shards and Public Dungeon group events, which can be completed solo or with ad-hoc grouping by even the most unskilled players.

So you can stick just to easy content, completely avoid PvP, still fully develop your character. I've done just that on my alt. She has yet to complete any dungeon, even on normal mode, but she has most useful skill lines fully trained - undaunted is at 4 just from doing dailies and alliance war skills are at 2 just from doing the Cyrodiil tutorial - did it for the maneuvers so I can ride faster. She still wears her level 44 blue training gear because it still works, even with the enemies at CP160. Most times I don't even bother with food, and when I do it's the crusty bread I find all over the place. In brief, I've played her as casually as possible. And it's still fun. I do it to relax after a couple of hours of running harder content on my main, who collects 5-6 keys a day from doing vet HM dungeons. Eventually I will bring her into group content as well.

@Asardes you miss the point entirely. The point is that grindingly hard group content results in players leaving. Their not interested in 'sticking to easy content' and doing solo then leaving.

You focus on Hard content, you lose the majority of your playerbase. It's that simple. And quite frankly this game is actively driving away the audience that was largely why it succeeded, this game was the most casual friendly MMO on the market.

It's not now. The fact you think it is shows how disconnected you are from that audience, the ammount of tollerence for builds outside the meta in Dungeons let alone raids has dropped like a stone, because if your not the best you take ages to kill -anything-. One Tamriel was the end of the casual friendly MMO in respects to Endgame content.

Quit attempting to tell the casuals everything is fine. It's not, and you dont understand the problems they have with it. If your going to be an apologist, please figure out what your supposed to be apologizing -for-.

Asardes

@Doctordarkspawn

Yet again you ignore what I actually said, and understand what you want. As I clearly stated in my post, there is tiered content for all players to enjoy. Don't want to run a "meta build"? It's totally fine. Just stick to normal dungeons and trials, or simply overland content. The main challenge in normal trials is not wasting time looting heavy sacks. It would have really been a problem for unskilled players if all content was brutally hard. For example if all game would be as hard as Craglorn just after the release. Let's consider the DLCs

1) IC - mixed PvE and PvP with 2 new dungeons. Both the overland mobs and the dungeons were nerfed a short time after release. nICP and nWGT are easy and doable by players not even at vet levels. Players in overland content get the boosts that come with PvP like battle spirit and various campaign bonuses. Bosses require grouping, but PvP in general requires grouping. And it's by far the hardest of the DLCs overall.

2) Orsinium - only PvE, with a huge questing area, solo quest line and only a few world bosses that actually require a group. Introduced an arena that can be completed both in normal and veteran mode. Veteran mode is indeed hard, but represents a very small part of the content.

3) Thieves Guild - a new PvE only area, solo quest line, bosses require group, includes a new trial, more difficult than the others, but still a small part of the content overall.

4) Dark Brotherhood - a PvE only are, solo quest line, bosses require group, but no instanced solo or group content.

5) Shadows of the Hist - an pretty underwhelming DLC by it's scope that only introduces 2 new dungeons. Just like the ones in IC, only the veteran modes are actually difficult, and the hard modes for the bosses are significantly more difficult. If you want just the skill points and the 5 piece gear sets you can just do the normal modes.

So 3/5 DLCs have mostly the same mix as the game overall - largely solo questing areas, with some group content here and there, 1 is mainly PvP and 1 is exclusively group content. So the game does not cater exclusively to the "elite" as you keep whining on every post, it does in fact cater mostly to the "casual" player. If every difficult content was nerfed into the ground, there will be no point in actually playing well, in striving for improvement. People will just complete the content once, then get bored and leave, just like they did with the alliance zones, Cadwell's Silver and Gold and Craglorn before everything was scaled. If someone actually whined that he can't beat vMA/vSO/vHRC/vAA/vDSA spamming wrecking blow for 20 minutes at everything there's no reason to nerf those itself. He just needs to stick to normal version. The devs put most of their effort in doing the base version for those - modeling, mechanics, enemies - then a bit more effort in adding a few new mechanics, increasing the health and damage of the enemies for the veteran and difficult modes. So again, they cooked the meal for the "casuals" and just put some "elitist" sauce beside it for those who like it spicy. You come and say I shouldn't have spicy food.

And casual players don't leave because they are dismayed by the difficulty of the content, but because they are simply casual, meaning the game doesn't really matter much for them, they may play other games, and move on simply because another one has just been released.