My level 8 friend says ESO is TOO easy

Ravingar

So I finally got my mate to play the game and he's complaining to me that it's too easy, lacks engagement and doesn't require skill. And it makes sense.

When your low level you have these obsurd stats which make it easy, and this combined with easy overland content. It can just be boring.

It's a real issue that all the good and challenging content in ESO is locked behind levels and requires you to be the 'best'. And there's barely anything for the new players to challenge themself (damn you One Tamriel). It's why we get new players but not many of them actually stay.

I mean come on ZOS, now vets AND newbies are complaining about how easy overland content is. Who's this content actually appealing to anymore?

**What do the forums think?**

Facefister

Overland had always an entry-level difficulty. The only challenge you could get is soloing worldbosses(including the DLC ones). In exception of half a dozen, all of them are doable. Try that.

Casterial

PVE wise it is... It just isn't like it use to be before One Tamriel and when they made the zone scale to you... Its just sad... The challenge use to be so hard back in the Craglorn days that you'd just get wrecked by doing minimal mob fighting... Now its like you can take on the map, take little damage, out heal everything and just become the king of the map...

This is why PVE immersion for me is slightly dead.

BRCOURTN

This game is HUGE with tons of stuff to do for leveling up. If it can’t hold your friends attention span past level 8 then... I guess you could level him to 10 by grinding like 10 mobs with him. Then show him dungeons and cyrodiil, and if he’s still too bored, I don’t think the game is for him. I think this game is really much better for those with a sense of adventure and exploration.

Sweetpea704

Go do the world bosses and the sewers. Do normal maelstrom arena. But, you are missing out if you skip all the stories. The stories are good.

Acrolas

Watch a season of HarmonQuest and count how many times a main character dies per episode.

There are parts of ESO with a fast pace and high body count. But there's also a large part of it designed like a classic tabletop game. If you're skipping over a lot of story content, ESO probably isn't going to be a good long-term fit for your play style.

Preyfar

Sweetpea704 wrote: »

Go do the world bosses and the sewers. Do normal maelstrom arena.

He did say the guy was level 8. =P The problem about 85-90% of the game content is overworld content so that challenge doesn't really come until later on

newtinmpls

Play a nightblade in PvE, but not ganker style.

DaveMoeDee

Facefister wrote: »

Overland had always an entry-level difficulty. The only challenge you could get is soloing worldbosses(including the DLC ones). In exception of half a dozen, all of them are doable. Try that.

Not really because you could run ahead when the zones were leveled. If you did no PvP and no dungeons, you could easily start to fall behind zone levels, especially at vet levels.

Then again, falling behind might have been better than being ahead of the zone level and having a bunch of gear you can't wear yet.

DanteYoda

How the hell would a lv 8 know anything.. Its like just after the tutorial..

Sevn

Too easy for a level 8 huh? I'd love to see a vid of his adventures to see exactly what he is doing and what is so easy for a level 8.

MLGProPlayer

The difficulty isn't too bad for a new character. It only gets super easy once you hit the gear cap and enemies start dying from 1-2 light attacks.

Juju_beans

Ravingar wrote: »

So I finally got my mate to play the game and he's complaining to me that it's too easy and lacks engagement. And it makes sense.

When your low level you have these obsurd stats which make it easy, and this combined with easy overland content. It can just be boring.

It's a real issue that all the good and challenging content in ESO is locked behind levels and requires you to be the 'best'. And there's barely anything for the new players to challenge themself (damn you One Tamriel). It's why we get new players but not many of them actually stay.

I mean come on ZOS, now vets AND newbies are complaining about how easy overland content is. Who's this content actually appealing to anymore?

**What do the forums think?**

Then you and your friend should go quest and level in craglorn. There's a few group quests and events that should challenge a level 8

Cpt_Teemo

Sevn wrote: »

Too easy for a level 8 huh? I'd love to see a vid of his adventures to see exactly what he is doing and what is so easy for a level 8.

I bet its a level 8 with max cp points ha

ForsakenSin

Damm if you do Damm if you don't...

when it was hard and there was zones people were complaining
ohh its too hard the mobs are too hard i can't explore im giving up this game
make it so its easier they can go exploring different zones now they are complaining
ohh its too easy im giving up this game

Some people you can never please...

Linaleah

on another forums, i was just talking the other day to someone fairly new to the game, who at lvl 45 was having trouble with a story boss.

so easy is a very relative thing.

maybe your friend is good at video games. maybe your friend plays single player games on harder difficulty and that's fun for them. problem is, the game cannot be tuned to someone like your friend. why? becasue it immediately excludes people for whom easy difficulty is created. and those people? pay money too, AND they tend to be in a majority.

ArchMikem

Facefister wrote: »

Overland had always an entry-level difficulty. The only challenge you could get is soloing worldbosses(including the DLC ones). In exception of half a dozen, all of them are doable. Try that.

Trying to Solo a World Boss as a low level, even WITH Champ Points is guaranteed suicide. I'd love to see someone do it.

Sharee

People assume that when it is easy at level 8, it is only going to get easier from then on.

The game compensates you for having to fight the same enemies as a maxed-out level 50, yet without having any of the skills/equipment. So it buffs the low-level out of the wazoo just so he is able to compete.

If your friend hits level 40 without a corresponding upgrade to his equipment, it is going to get much harder for him.

Wreuntzylla

Most new people I run into want to hear the story but otherwise whip through the content due to the long grind to end game. How long does your level 8 friend plan to be sub-CP???

hamsterontherocksb16_ESO

I think the amount of people thinking that easy = bad is grossly outnumbered by the amount of people who think hard = bad.
People always say they want a challenge and love hard content because they want to be perceived as strong and bold.
But as a matter of fact humans tend to take the easy road. People take the path of lest resistance. People dont like "hard". They think they want a challenge and overcome it but once they have to do something "hard" which is synonymous with inconventient they tend to quit.

Everyone thinks they are hardass heroes that want to beat the biggest and baddest of bosses. But once they wipe 3 times they tend to give up. I personally love that I can blaze through overland stuff, have stuff die within two attacks. If every encounter would take me 30 seconds to complete I´d quit.

There are plenty of threads, especially in the past and sometimes even now, where people with traditionally harder to play classes (say stam NB and stam DK with no decent source of sealfheal) complain about content being too hard because once you have 3+ enemies they fail horribly.

Tell your friend that he should play some more. Its absolutely true that overland is easy but if he wants a challenge he can also go naked or not use buff food or keep his gear 10 level below character level.

Or just consider that the game might just not be for him. There is no shame in not liking something. Btw level 6 is.... 30 minutes into the game? Tell your friend to give it time.

Xuhora

then again...

...in WoW killing 20 wolves in Goldshire with lvl 8 was no challange
...in Diablo 3 killing undead ghouls in the greaveyard with lvl 8 was no challange
...in SWtoR slaying republic intrudors on dromund kaas was no challenge

continue the list if you want, but MMORPGS dont tend to offer a challange at lvl 8 since its more or less still the start, your character doesnt have a lot of skills to use, a lot of ressources to drain etc...

I'd advice him to continue and then start doing dungeons and worldbosses, cyrodill and maelstrom arena, then he has his challange.

AuldWolf

And my imaginary friend says that the vocal hardcore minority need to stop being bad losers and flooding the forums with duplicate threads. I mean, seriously, can we stop with the #GamerGate-y tactics? This was polled, repeatedly, and the hardcore lost every single time. No matter how yer doctors of spin try to put a new take on it, it's still the same broken record repeating the same thing ad nauseum.

The moderators are likely getting sick of this and might start doling out temporary bans, soon. I mean, I wouldn't blame them. This is, what, the twelfth thread in the past fortnight?

There are other games out there which have what you want, ESO shouldn't commit financial suicide to suit your tastes.

- WildStar tried to appeal to you guys, dead on arrival;
- Guild Wars 2's expansion Heart of Thorns expansion tried to appeal to you guys, almost killed ArenaNet and they had to redesign the campaign to be more casual (along with apologising profusely);
- Champions Online tried to appeal to you guys, it's on life support;
- Battleborn ignored its casual audience and tried to appeal to you guys, it's on life support;
- ESO's Craglorn and Cadwell's Gold/Silver were miserable failures, leading to the current scaling system.

That last one bears repeating: ESO's Craglorn and Cadwell's Gold/Silver were miserable failures. ZOS tried this. They saw the impending doom. They ran away from the impending doom of financial suicide as fast as their legs would carry them. This battle has already been lost in ESO.

Please fight it somewhere else?

Thank you.

AuldWolf

Linaleah wrote: »

becasue it immediately excludes people for whom easy difficulty is created. and those people? pay money too, AND they tend to be in a majority.

That's the point we've tried to explain to them with the emphasis on financial suicide and how it affected Guild Wars 2, Battleborn, Wildstar, Champions Online, and so many other games. The truth is is that hardcore players are such a minuscule minority that even if they all subscribed, it wouldn't even touch the huge amount of money thrown out by casual roleplayers.

Here's a Universal truth we've learned from past games:

- Do hardcore players buy costumes? Nope.
- Do hardcore players buy houses/furniture? Nope.
- Do hardcore players buy personalities/emotes? Nope.
- Do hardcore players buy things to skip grind? Nope.
- Do hardcore players buy cosmetic pets? Nope.
- Do hardcore players even buy mounts, for the most part? Nope, most use in-game money bought horses.

And we know this, statistically, from far too many games. It's what ArenaNet found out when their cash shop purchases just totally dried up in Heart of Thorns. Hardcore players don't use cash shop stuff, for the most part they don't subscribe. They have the time to grind, but they don't have the money to buy things with. So they opt for things accrued via grinding.

You can't found a business based upon people who never spend money on the game.

I know that. ZOS knows that. Every company who's ever made this mistake knows that.

There's no money in the hardcore. That's why games that target them keep dying. Either the hardcore audience just has no money or they simply don't spend it, whichever it is, this is Universally a statistical truth. You could use Heart of Thorns alone to make this point.

So why keep doing this? Play Black Desert or something. I mean, I know that's dying too but you might get something out of it before it goes, neh?

Or is this a parasitic thing where you're hoping that latching onto a game that's shown to be stable will allow you to enjoy your hardcore play for longer? Is that what this is? If so, I ask you: Where do you think that stability is coming from? Yeah.

Edit: And WoW? It's a gambling addiction. You're paying to support a gambling addiction. Why is it viable? You have to buy all of the expansions and pay the subscription to feed your gambling addiction. ESO isn't a gambling game, though. ZOS specifically didn't want to do that. That's why Morrowind comes with the subscription, now. They're not being WoW.

They're sending a pretty specific message with that.

Edit 2: And look at the Summerset Collector's Edition, what do you get?

- A Razum-dar journal;
- A cool daedric prince statue;
- Emotes;
- Personalities;
- Pets.

Nothing about that is hardcore. ZOS knows where their money is coming from. It's from casuals and roleplayers. Can I make this point any more than I am? ZOS already knows.

Nolic1

So your friend is either really good at games or you crafted him gear and made the game easier for him.

inclinations

The current game is too easy at a low level, and in the end as you are reaching level 50 you feel your character become more and more weak.

I'm so glad I played through when the game was just released and it was a challenge. Gutstripper actually stipped my noobie guts. Doshia , mannimarco, molag bal were all much harder and it took me more than a few tries to advance. I was riveted by the content.

Now its just boring to level and feeling weaker makes me disinterested in playing the character/class I've leveled.

drjokepu

Good for him?

swippy

the friend hasn't been to Cyrodiil yet, and hasn't soloed any dungeons either. he doesn't really know the game well enough to evaluate it at level 8. if he thinks he can, he might be a very impatient person, therefore not suited to get the most out of this game anyway. what does he have, 4 active skills? he hasn't even equipped his 2nd weapon yet. he hasn't played the game. someone this easily sated can be sent on their way, and maybe recommended some free games. or get him an NES for his birthday.

Ravingar

gg. Interesting to see how something people attacked the guy, some people talked about the easiness of the game, and some defended eso.. LOL - FYI he says stuff like the game requires no skill - and at his level, it doesn't really. And that's sorta the problem.

Pnyx

It is* easy. The game gets more dumbed down with each patch. Now you get a horse, money, daily rewards just for logging in. You have to solo contents designed for a group just to feel something. There are exceptions of course but not enough for me to level another character to 50.

bellatrixed

Literally every single MMO on the market is "boring" at level 8.

Every
Single
One

You have a couple abilities you can spam and if you die while questing, especially at low levels, IN ANY MMO IN EXISTENCE, you probably afked mid fight or have super outdated gear/skills.

MMO QUESTING IS NOT MEANT TO BE HARD

Methinks MMOs are not the genre for you and your "friend".

Like, what is the point of this sort of thing? I hate Overwatch but it's a massively popular game. I don't go to Overwatch forums and complain that it isn't like an MMO, I just don't play it. If you want challenging, difficult, expert tier content all the way through you should probably be playing something singleplayer or an FPS or something. MMOs are based around slow and steady grind, not crazily difficult mechanics outside of raids.

swippy

i still don't see it as a problem. mass-produced games aren't usually going to be challenging when you're only 40 minutes into them. if you want to play the good stuff, you have to invest a little time. they don't want to scare away noobs in the first hour, and there are other games for people needing immediate challenge, for sure.