Difficulty of this game.....

seipher09

First thing I want to say is I know other threads like this exist and I'm a causal player.

I play this game maybe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most. I came from guild wars 2 and world of Warcraft (not much wow though) before playing this. In guild wars 2 I'll say I died a lot and had a huge challenge in the open world content. I mean events and huge mobs often times wiped me out fast.

I've been on and off Eso for several years and the one thing that's always bothered me as a BAD player who never even weapon swaps as it's to difficult for me I still kill mobs basically instantly without even trying. I literally look at them and they pretty much die. It's boring.

I know people have suggested for this issue well don't use champion points or don't use gear???? Ok well then this isn't an mmorpg if your really having to basically make no goals to have fun.

So what exactly is the issue with a 100% optional hard mode setting? Basically instead of the fights scaling to cp160 they scale to your current cp. Again an OPTIONAL setting in the game.

This would have exactly 0% change for players who don't want it but make players like myself who find combat to be rather brain dead easy a bit more fun.

Do you see a change like this ever happening in the future? I just find the open world content nothing more then a book I'm reading as anything that stands in my way to kill just vanishes when I hit a button.

Katahdin

The problem is, right now, a level 1 character can be in the exact same map as a max CP character.
So to do as you suggest, this they would have to make a completely seperate server or instance for a veteran level.
Realistically, I dont see that happening.

or

they would have to have a toggle that toggled your character down to make mobs harder. Say a 50% debuff in your damage output and/or a buff in the amount of damage you take against current level mobs which would still allow max level characters and low levels to be in the same map ala One Tamriel.
Realistically, I think the player base would revolt

jcm2606

Katahdin's second suggestion is realistically what should happen.

I am in the same boat as you, overland content is far too easy for seasoned players. It isn't even the fact that our characters are fully built that's the problem, it's simply the fact that we know how the game works mechanically. Newer players don't fully grasp this, though, so overland content ranges from a moderate challenge, to very difficult. You can look on the forums for threads about how overland content is too hard. Hell, I can remember several threads from newer players asking for help with defeating K'tora, a quest line boss that is part of the Summerset Isles main quest line.

Scaling the world to the player isn't the solution, though. It won't work in "public" instances. If you're CP 750 (current CP cap), fighting a quest line boss in a "public" instance, and you have a level 21 friend with you, how should the boss scale? If a level 13 player who wasn't in your group was also there, how should the boss scale? It can't. If it scales to the highest level player, making the fight challenging for them, it becomes impossible for the lower level players. If it scales to the lowest level player, it becomes brain dead easy for the higher level players. This approach to scaling works in "private" instances, ie group dungeons, but it doesn't work in "public" instances.

The solution is to scale the player to the world, which is the approach the game has used since One Tamriel. This way, the world remains a fixed level, but the players are the ones that scale, making the problem a whole lot simpler. The problem with the system they have now is the mobs themselves are far too low leveled, and hence players are scaling to a level that is far too low.

Raising the level, however, isn't the solution, either. Raising the level will kill any sense of progression. Even though we are detesting it, the fact that we are able to kill bosses that newer players legitimately struggle with shows the sense of progression. Your power level stays constant -- at least constant when you take into account players changing their builds as they earn more skill and attribute points, and acquire new gear pieces to keep up with the gear grind -- until you hit the level of the world (CP 160), and from there you grow stronger by earning and spending more CP. When One Tamriel was first announced, people had serious concerns about how it could kill any sense of progression. Here we are coming up to 2 years since One Tamriel's release, and progression remains. We don't want to remove it.

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

Sergykid

don't create damage sponges, make everyone use their brain

Tyrobag

Its easy because its overland content, that's how ZoS intends it to be. If you want a challenge do dungeons and trials .(although if you refuse to even bar swap you'll only be able to do normal dungeons)

jainiadral

seipher09 wrote: »

First thing I want to say is I know other threads like this exist and I'm a causal player.

I play this game maybe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most. I came from guild wars 2 and world of Warcraft (not much wow though) before playing this. In guild wars 2 I'll say I died a lot and had a huge challenge in the open world content. I mean events and huge mobs often times wiped me out fast.

I've been on and off Eso for several years and the one thing that's always bothered me as a BAD player who never even weapon swaps as it's to difficult for me I still kill mobs basically instantly without even trying. I literally look at them and they pretty much die. It's boring.

I know people have suggested for this issue well don't use champion points or don't use gear???? Ok well then this isn't an mmorpg if your really having to basically make no goals to have fun.

So what exactly is the issue with a 100% optional hard mode setting? Basically instead of the fights scaling to cp160 they scale to your current cp. Again an OPTIONAL setting in the game.

This would have exactly 0% change for players who don't want it but make players like myself who find combat to be rather brain dead easy a bit more fun.

Do you see a change like this ever happening in the future? I just find the open world content nothing more then a book I'm reading as anything that stands in my way to kill just vanishes when I hit a button.

Personally, I've had the opposite experience that you have-- I've spent lots of time in GW2, and the base maps are a complete cakewalk compared to most of Tamriel. Heck, even the expansion maps are easier than some of the later faction maps like Bangkorai. Now that I'm past CP 160, things are finally starting to get easier (CP 245), but it's taken forever. Balancing makes little to no sense-- trash mobs hit like Mack trucks compared to named bosses. I still can't deal with massive mob packs in public dungeons.

So I definitely don't want to see anything get scaled up. I play games for story and to relax a little. Now that I'm mostly geared up, my cussing's declined by 75% and I mostly only die from falling (and public dungeons, but that's another story).

I'm all for toggles, TBH. That way everyone's happy.

Juhasow

If overland would be just that issue I wouldnt mind. Problem is that most of veteran game end content is boring and too easy.

Raraaku

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

Karthos

With the inherent power scaling coming from an ever increasing potential of CP points, I find it hard to conceive of the need to allow mobs to scale up to only CP160.

I would like future expansion/DLC zones to allow scaling to increase much higher, to lets say CP300 or beyond.

In this way, the players yet to achive such level would not be adversely affected, while the player base that is in excess of this target could enjoy a slight challenge on overland mobs, all without the messiness of a toggle or separate shards.

I say slight, because we'll never have truly difficult overland content; I am sure the devs would much rather have you test yourselves in vet dungeons and trials. Still, a little bit harder is better than nothing.

We could still do with more zones like Craglorn. Overland group content is something I would imagine a lot of players would desire, or aspire to.

Robo_Hobo

Yeah, any difficulty for overland content disappeared with the One Tamriel update. It might still be a bit challenging for new players until they get the hang of things, but for anyone else, it just doesn't exist outside of dungeons, trials and some world bosses.

It's a real shame as I always feel a little fear of danger ahead makes exploring and questing so much more enjoyable, but I literally can't die unless I go afk when questing.

I've done a lot to try to get that feeling of danger that I had back when I started, so much to the point that recently, I actually destroyed everything in my bank, deleted all of my characters, and started over without using any champion points, no food, and only using dropped gear when questing...and combat in quests is still pitifully irrelevant...

I really hope some day they add some optional debuff you can apply to yourself to make questing more difficult, because I literally can't do anything else to debuff myself more than what I've already done. I love the quests and storylines, but goodness gracious, it's in a terrible state for anyone who wants any sort of feeling of danger in their adventures outside of dungeons/trials.

Starlight_Knight

As a veteran player at over 1000 cp . i would LOVE the overland content to be more difficult, its so dumb and un-rewarding. i kinda wish CP wasnt acount wide tbh so it would at leased give a challenge there.
But Zo$ are all about cutting corners.

static_recharge

Decreasing damage done and increasing damage taken will only have half of the required effect to make content harder or more challenging. There also needs to be more engaging mechanics. Yes, not killing the enemy in 2 hits will at least let them do those mechanics, but it's not a total solution. Decreasing damage done by 50% will turn those 2 hits into 4 hits. Still not fun in my opinion.

I would prefer to have to think about how I'm going to engage a group of mobs, pick my priority targets, die a few times because I missed something and then learned how to avoid it or interrupt it. There is not enough strategy to any fight until you get to bosses and even then it's just kill it faster and GG.

milllaurie

It just seems you lack sone PvP!

redcomyn

Overland bosses haven't become easier. In fact, they have become much, much more difficult. Before One Tamriel, I could take most (not all) overland bosses by myself. Now, it is impossible for nearly all overland bosses. Most of my characters can't do any of them.

And now is the time when I need to be able to do them because there is rarely anyone else around to do them with. Most people don't seem to be interested in them. If someone comes by, they just keep going.

Doctordarkspawn

Raraaku wrote: »

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

This.

Do that then talk to me about difficult.

ValkynSketha

World quests across tamriel that put you in instanced world with increased difficulty and rewards, arena in every zone that put all world bosses in that zone in the same arena, 10-20% more health and damage for each player at dolmens, event everyday at certain time that have all dolmens for specific area activated for 3-4h with greatly increased health and damage aswell adds and bosses come out from the dolmen and start moving to cities players must unite to end this ***, cool stuff like this i guess should be good.

MerlinPendragon

Major increase in difficulty needed across the board. Set aside a few training areas for new players with reduced difficulty.

karekiz

GW2 isn't exactly comparable honestly. It largely depends on map type and where your at in said map <Due to downscaling which I am kinda shocked wasn't mentioned>. You claim you don't like having someone tell you don't use CP etc. What DO you think GW2 does when your level 70 character is now level 4 <At least back when I played it around launch to first fractals patch>. It is the same thing as no CP/PL gear, its just forced upon you.

Maybe DLC zones in the future need a boost in difficulty mode and I would be totally ok with that. Old world needs to contain its difficulty as is. It would be like revamping the entire old world dungeons to mimic DLC ones. Sure it would make them harder, but honestly do we really need a tank and spank fight to last 4 minutes instead of 1-2?

However if they do boost difficulty the idea of "I don't like to bar swap" is gonna be painful, unless you are a golden class who doesn't need to do it for stuff like VMA.

Honestly for me, I would LOVE a buff to world bosses to make them equal to craglorn normal trial difficulty and adjust their loot to match. That would be FAR more entertaining for casual guilds to organize raids without the 12 man limit to kill some raid like mobs. Difficult solo content is nice till its not new and nobody cares about it anymore, and I hate to break it to people. The minute people have done the quests once, if the gear isn't BIS they probably will never come back.

jcm2606

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

This.

Do that then talk to me about difficult.

Done. Can solo with my main.

Doctordarkspawn

jcm2606 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

This.

Do that then talk to me about difficult.

Done. Can solo with my main.

That tells me you've mastered the game and that's why it's so easy for you. We shouldn't alter the game based on that.

Balancing based on 1% will never be a good idea.

Shantu

Personally, I kind of like the god-like status I've achieved in overland content. Beyond that, with group content, dungeons (from solo to 4 people), trials, there's plenty of avenues for harder content. You want to die a thousand miserable, pathetic deaths? Step into pvp in Cyrodiil.

That being said, why not implement something like the ability to log into difficulty levels in overland content where combat is simply scaled up or down across the board? It would be cool if one had the option to log into normal or vet overland. Harder content could even be accessible after a certain experience or CP level. You'd be, of course, limited to playing and grouping with people who have achieved advanced levels who can log into the same difficulty level. But that seems workable, and even desirable, to me.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Agree, the game is extremely easy now since One Tamriel gutted the game. That should never have happened in my opinion. You had to level up your gear and skills to progress into a higher level zone which made the game challenging. Getting to Veteran Level 1 to go to Craglorn was a rush. Now it's nothing. Game has been gutted into Oblivion.

I doubt ZOS will ever create a new zone similar to what Craglorn was in the past but it sure would be nice.

jainiadral

karekiz wrote: »

GW2 isn't exactly comparable honestly. It largely depends on map type and where your at in said map <Due to downscaling which I am kinda shocked wasn't mentioned>. You claim you don't like having someone tell you don't use CP etc. What DO you think GW2 does when your level 70 character is now level 4 <At least back when I played it around launch to first fractals patch>. It is the same thing as no CP/PL gear, its just forced upon you.

Maybe DLC zones in the future need a boost in difficulty mode and I would be totally ok with that. Old world needs to contain its difficulty as is. It would be like revamping the entire old world dungeons to mimic DLC ones. Sure it would make them harder, but honestly do we really need a tank and spank fight to last 4 minutes instead of 1-2?

However if they do boost difficulty the idea of "I don't like to bar swap" is gonna be painful, unless you are a golden class who doesn't need to do it for stuff like VMA.

Honestly for me, I would LOVE a buff to world bosses to make them equal to craglorn normal trial difficulty and adjust their loot to match. That would be FAR more entertaining for casual guilds to organize raids without the 12 man limit to kill some raid like mobs. Difficult solo content is nice till its not new and nobody cares about it anymore, and I hate to break it to people. The minute people have done the quests once, if the gear isn't BIS they probably will never come back.

The downscaling in GW2 is far from perfect. As an elite max-level spec, you keep all of your additional traits, abilities, and passives. Your possibly ascended gear gives you additional (if downscaled) stat bonuses over someone starting fresh in the zone. So you're working at a huge advantage over a complete newbie, just like in this game. Overall, it seems a non-factor if you're comparing both games and their difficulty.

Chicharron

seipher09 wrote: »

First thing I want to say is I know other threads like this exist and I'm a causal player.

I play this game maybe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most. I came from guild wars 2 and world of Warcraft (not much wow though) before playing this. In guild wars 2 I'll say I died a lot and had a huge challenge in the open world content. I mean events and huge mobs often times wiped me out fast.

I've been on and off Eso for several years and the one thing that's always bothered me as a BAD player who never even weapon swaps as it's to difficult for me I still kill mobs basically instantly without even trying. I literally look at them and they pretty much die. It's boring.

I know people have suggested for this issue well don't use champion points or don't use gear???? Ok well then this isn't an mmorpg if your really having to basically make no goals to have fun.

So what exactly is the issue with a 100% optional hard mode setting? Basically instead of the fights scaling to cp160 they scale to your current cp. Again an OPTIONAL setting in the game.

This would have exactly 0% change for players who don't want it but make players like myself who find combat to be rather brain dead easy a bit more fun.

Do you see a change like this ever happening in the future? I just find the open world content nothing more then a book I'm reading as anything that stands in my way to kill just vanishes when I hit a button.

Remove your CP play with Level 1 Armor/Weapon, hard mode just for you.

jcm2606

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

This.

Do that then talk to me about difficult.

Done. Can solo with my main.

That tells me you've mastered the game and that's why it's so easy for you. We shouldn't alter the game based on that.

Balancing based on 1% will never be a good idea.

Read my comment. Specifically the last two paragraphs. Never did I say we should balance the game around seasoned players.

PlagueSD

redcomyn wrote: »

Overland bosses haven't become easier. In fact, they have become much, much more difficult. Before One Tamriel, I could take most (not all) overland bosses by myself. Now, it is impossible for nearly all overland bosses. Most of my characters can't do any of them.

And now is the time when I need to be able to do them because there is rarely anyone else around to do them with. Most people don't seem to be interested in them. If someone comes by, they just keep going.

I have no issues soloing "vanilla" world bosses. Although they're not designed to be soloable, but due to "power creep", CP level characters have no problems with old-world bosses. The DLC world bosses are a different story. They've been "adjusted" for this, and therefore are harder when compared to the old-world bosses.

idk

ESO, like many MMORPGs, has tiered content with increasing difficulty.

It is a rather simple concept. Want more difficulty then step up the challenge by tackling the more challenging content.

Below is a rough outline if difficulty from less challenging to more challenging. It was put together by people smarter than I am but pretty much what I would say.

Overworld
delves
normal dungeons
world bosses
vet dungeons
normal trials
vet DLC dungeons
vet trials
vet HM trials

I know someone will say that most of that is group content and it is to hard to put a group together and to much trouble to join a guild. Well, this is an MMO and we should clearly expect for group content to be developed. Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

Taleof2Cities

idk wrote: »

ESO, like many MMORPGs, has tiered content with increasing difficulty.

Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

Right?

If the OP only plays overland content, of course mobs are going to be easy.

AhPook_Is_Here

I get your points but i worry about all the people with ALS and other debilitating diseases and how making the game harder will effect their enjoyment of the game. Sure, normal dungeons and world content is a breeze you could beat playing with a straw, but there is still veteran content and trials to enjoy and of course pvp which can be challenging against good players.

idk

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

idk wrote: »

ESO, like many MMORPGs, has tiered content with increasing difficulty.

Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

Right?

If the OP only plays overland content, of course mobs are going to be easy.

If OP wants to play only that part of the game that is fine butt I will explain the very nature of things. The difficulty will not be increased in any meaningful way anytime soon if ever. That is pretty much fact.

The very design of the game being open world increases the challenge of making most of our questing (and especially open world that OP prefers) have variable difficulty at a player level.

It really is that simple. It is not going to happen anytime soon and doubtful ever. It would not be worth the effort to create a system that would make a character weaker by dialing a ***.

OP is already aware, based on his post, that he can already make his character weaker right now.

max_only

Karthos wrote: »

With the inherent power scaling coming from an ever increasing potential of CP points, I find it hard to conceive of the need to allow mobs to scale up to only CP160.

I would like future expansion/DLC zones to allow scaling to increase much higher, to lets say CP300 or beyond.

In this way, the players yet to achive such level would not be adversely affected, while the player base that is in excess of this target could enjoy a slight challenge on overland mobs, all without the messiness of a toggle or separate shards.

I say slight, because we'll never have truly difficult overland content; I am sure the devs would much rather have you test yourselves in vet dungeons and trials. Still, a little bit harder is better than nothing.

We could still do with more zones like Craglorn. Overland group content is something I would imagine a lot of players would desire, or aspire to.

You would imagine people want overworld forced group content? You’d be wrong. Craglorn was a failure.

Hayden_Knight wrote: »

As a veteran player at over 1000 cp . i would LOVE the overland content to be more difficult, its so dumb and un-rewarding. i kinda wish CP wasnt acount wide tbh so it would at leased give a challenge there.
But Zo$ are all about cutting corners.

Cp doesn’t have to be spent on your alts. Level an alt with all the cp left unspent until 50, it’s not like the experience that alt gains goes into gaining more cp levels.