Idea to improve overland content (it's too easy...stop the bleeding!)

Acrolas

There is Veteran content specifically designed to combine busy work and additional rewards for endgame players.

As a general design rule, punishing mechanics are not worth development time as you can't evaluate their psychological effects until there are already sunk costs. The very bad behavior exhibited over the combat changes in Update 20 probably didn't help things, either. Experimental systems require a certain baseline of emotional maturity and unfortunately a relatively few vocal antagonists can ruin it for everyone.

idk

Smasherx74 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

1. What bleeding? Doubt many are leaving the game because overworld content is to easy for them. If they are not up to the challenge of the content actually designed to be more challenging then I do not think we lost much.

2. Zos cannot make an NPC take less damage and do more damage only to specific palyer (this should be pretty obvious). Zos can only make you weaker which they have stated they do not want you to do?

3. Below is a rough outline of the progression of difficulty in the game from less to more difficulty, by design. I have seen plenty of excuses in response to this list, but if you are looking for more of a challenge then go for the content that offers more challenge.

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

2) The "buff" could decrease your resistances and damage, guess that one went right over your head huh lol?

3) Before T1 the overworld was not scaled, different zones had different level enemies. Only DLC zones were actually scaled. When craglorn was introduced it was an attempt to give us harder overworld content, that required teamwork in some instances. However T1 also changed this, a lot of craglorn content can now be solo'd some mechanisms don't require multiple people either. The problem in this game is that just by having a basic build you will be able to easily destroy everything in this game with no effort or worry. In other MMOs like WoW for example when you reach max level you have zones or enemies that are also max level. And even if you get good gear you could potentially die from regular quests. In ESO that's nearly impossible, even with lower end builds or just random sets thrown together. The solo experience / questing is absurdly easy in this game and offers virtually no challenge even to new players without builds or CP. This is all the fault of T1 when zone scaling was introduced. Before T1 I remember the first 6 months or so after launch and especially the beta it was an actual challenge sometimes, more so a minimalistic challenge where you couldn't just run around pulling everything and burning it like it's nothing.

Now I don't agree with the OP's idea of a buff to make the game more challenging. I think ZOS should remove zone scaling for vanilla zones, and enemies should have more health or resistances. At the very least if they keep scaling in place the bosses of quests or delves should actually be somewhat challenging requiring at least 2 noobs but being solo'able by end game players. The game is just absurdly easy, especially the overworld / questing portion.

@Smasherx74

1. At least you passed up the first point since their is nothing to support the first point.

2. Even OP has referred to it as a debuff on the player in a subsequent reply. I suggest reading through before attempting to belittle a player by falsely saying something went over their head.

3. Have no idea why you mentioned Craglorn, originally designed for groups of 4 and some quests required 4 to complete them. Craglorn was nerfed multiple times well before T1, at least twice so your entire point is incorrect. Anyone who could not solo Craglorn the week before T1 came out was probably not a strong player.

3a. You somehow compare the first months of the game to T1 as though any overland quests designed to be solo were challenging the weeks and months before T1 when they were clearly not. T1 is clearly not the issue. Zos started nerfing overland quests a couple months into the game.

To your final point, the scaling that came with T1 is and was not the issue and eliminating scaling is obviously not a solution unless one only wants to level up new characters.

The reality is, no major MMORPG will make or keep overland quests challenging for experienced players. They need to keep it easier for newer and less experienced players. It is a major reason why major MMORPGs have tiered difficulty as I mentioned in what you quoted, but it has just been ignored.

ganzaeso

Don't see any reason to increase loot drops for increased difficulty.

The increased challenge is the reward.

Otherwise this is just a veiled request for better loot drop rates.

FrancisCrawford

Let's see how simple we can keep this idea.

1. The three obvious candidates for easy debuffs are:

• Damage out, reduced by a percentage.
• Damage in, increased by a percentage.
• Persistent DoT.

Variants of those are all over the game. There should be no significant challenges in implementation.

2. A simple on/off toggle is easier than scaling a build-up over time.

3. ZoS has now introduced multiple mementos that deliver buffs (usually double XP). Assume this would be delivered via a memento as well.

4. The easiest way to turn it off is to have it last for a fixed duration when it's toggled on. Alternative, a pair of mementos could toggle it on and off.

5. Easiest is if the debuff has effects everywhere in the game. If it can be toggled off at will, there's little downside to that choice.

6. Any extra rewards such as better drops should be modularized: You get normal rewards, without ZoS having to do any implementation to change them, and you some extra reward(s) as well.

7. When ZoS adds extra rewards for something, it generally chooses to so in one or more of four ways:

-- Extra or enhanced reward containers, given out as quest rewards and/or boss drops.
-- Extra boss drops.
-- A new currency.
-- Achievements, titles, dyes or collectibles that can be directly updated on your lists of same.

So let's assume any bonus for assuming the debuff would conform to those templates.

---

With that as background, what should the magnitudes of the debuff be? What should the rewards be?

At the moment, I don't have an opinion on either, because I don't mind the overworld being super-easy, and I find endgame sufficiently challenging that I don't need debuffs there.

preevious

Coming with increased XP? Yes, great idea, I'd totally support that !

Coming with improved drop rate? Absolutely not .. even the "less efficient" players should get something nice on a regular basis.

richo262

Or instead of a shrine, have an Undaunted NPC 'dare you'.

So the Undaunted go into Delves, Dungeons and Trials. They don't focus on overland stuff, it is beneath them, so they challenge you to do it nerfed by strapping a ball and chain to your leg. (or some other nerf effect).

It doesn't effect your movement speed, it is cosmetic, and it lowers your armor / damage. As you earn XP you'll occasionally get undaunted XP. This way, people that don't do, or like dungeons can gain undaunted XP through overworld content (except delve daily).

FrancisCrawford

richo262 wrote: »

Or instead of a shrine, have an Undaunted NPC 'dare you'.

So the Undaunted go into Delves, Dungeons and Trials. They don't focus on overland stuff, it is beneath them, so they challenge you to do it nerfed by strapping a ball and chain to your leg. (or some other nerf effect).

It doesn't effect your movement speed, it is cosmetic, and it lowers your armor / damage. As you earn XP you'll occasionally get undaunted XP. This way, people that don't do, or like dungeons can gain undaunted XP through overworld content (except delve daily).

One precedent -- and I bet you were thinking of this too -- is the Undaunted quest to Orc's Finger Ruins.

Linaleah

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

this keeps showing up and people keep thinking that we can't tell just how this can be abused. UNLESS PEOPLE WITH DEBUFF ARE INSTANCED AWAY FROM OTHER PLAYERS. this WILL be abused for better rewards. how? well... you know how people pay to take them through skyreach? now. imagine the same skyreach situation, but the person being carried? has that debuff enabled. person carrying them - does NOT so, they are dealing full damage and not taking any extra. so without any actual challenge - you are STILL getting better rewards.

and before you say "skyreach is an instance", people do grind mobs outside, you know. and the same situation is still something that is very much possible. (heck, back when in swtor there was a bug at one point that allowed low level characters go into high level event area - people used to get carried to max level in couple of hours that way - if it can be cheesed, people WILL cheese it. every time)

but ok, you are not deliberately cheesing the system, you are honestly just looking for some personal challenge. well.. you are not alone in a world and players do come around and so non debuffed person comes buy and one shots the mob you were working on challenging yourself with. and... the debuff becomes moot all over again.

so to reiterate.

the ONLY way to add challenge that you all want, while avoiding all the ways people will cheese it - is by instancing zones, where people WITH debuff only play with OTHER people with debuff. and I've been told that the problem with that is that it will splinter the population to much.

Its like you lack creative problem solving skills.

Your concern is that the debuff would be abused by players carrying others. It could be implemented such that there is no XP boost if a mob is not a solo kill. Before granting XP, the game already considers how many other people were involved in the kill, so implementing this would be relatively trivial.

Instead of thinking of reasons that it wouldn't work, use your wall of text skills to think of ways to make it possible.

As you said, this theme keeps coming up. "Difficulty slider" is something I've seen mentioned before, my suggestion is to use the buff/debuff mechanism already in the game to accomplish this. It wouldn't require a rewrite of the game, and it would have absolutely zero impact on other players if implemented correctly.

I might add that this is definitely part of the Elder Scrolls ethos as Skyrim had multiple selectable difficulty levels, that frankly were necessary to make the game enjoyable based upon your playing skill.

A simple improvement like this could drastically increase enjoyment for people who enjoy overland soloing and Elder Scrolls "difficulty slider" mechanics.

difficulty sliders in MMOs do. no work. do you do any programing? at all? even a little bit? becasue what you are suggesting even if possible (anything is possible, is the kind of undertaking that is not. worth. investing time into.

we are talking about the game that has lag issues, disconnects, graphical glitches, combat glitches, so.. many gameplay glitches. we are talking about a game, that has gameplay balance issues that they have been working on since the game was released and STILL are nowhere near getting it right. and you want them to add a difficulty slider that enables and disables a difficulty debuffs per individual mob and then checks if someone else attacks it?

here's another thing for you. lets say they manage to do it and it doesn't take them obsene amount of resources to implement. hello trolling. if you cannot see players trolling those with debuff by tagging mobs they are fighitng to disable that bonus reward while still keeping the mob more difficult to kill - then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. cheap.

yes, dear , you HAVE to look for abuse potential. because there is ALWAYS abuse potential. all too many video game players practicaly make it their live's mission to find all the ways they can break a game - this is something video game developers have discovered a long time ago.

there is a reason why Blizzard for example went with separate instances for their pvp vs pve open world. it does work like a little buff you toggle on yourself, kinda like your idea, but they have tried it the other ways too. meanwhile ZoS used to have veteran zones. they opened up the world and remove veteran zones becasue it splintered the player base too much. if you think they haven't considered how to keep that challenge while still having players - playing together in a persistent world? I have TWO bridges in brooklyn to sell you.

difficulty sliders in MMO open world that cannot be abused defeating their original purpose are the kind of undertaking that would require too much resources that has to be taken away from you know... balancing they game we have already.

ImmortalCX

ganzaeso wrote: »

Don't see any reason to increase loot drops for increased difficulty.

The increased challenge is the reward.

Otherwise this is just a veiled request for better loot drop rates.

Actually it wasn't. But if overland content takes much longer, raises the armor repair bill, the rewards should be somewhat greater.

As I mentioned, it would be a small boost that wouldn't be noticed unless playing over a long time.

This is not an outlandish concept. Skyrim had difficulty slider.

ImmortalCX

jainiadral wrote: »

I'm at halfsies on this one-- mostly because I think that increasing motif drop rates could be a problem even if the rest is either tolerable (increased rewards) or awesome (debuff idea for those who want it).

My biggest concern is over major motif farming spots like Bonesnap Ruins. It's already painful to try and complete the story quest there because several max-CP players are constantly circling the area to do the mass-aggro then mow down thing. I've run into it both at prime time and at ungodly hours of the early AM. I'd hate to see that kind of behavior actively incentivized-- no one leveling or trying to do the story would ever be able to get anything done.

Keep in mind that with the heightened difficulty, they wouldn't be able to farm mobs at nearly the same rate. It might actually cut down on this kind of behavior.

joaaocaampos

What we need is: Dungeon Mode Toggle (Nor/Vet) for Delves and Public Dungeons.

Sevn

ImmortalCX wrote: »

ganzaeso wrote: »

Don't see any reason to increase loot drops for increased difficulty.

The increased challenge is the reward.

Otherwise this is just a veiled request for better loot drop rates.

Actually it wasn't. But if overland content takes much longer, raises the armor repair bill, the rewards should be somewhat greater.

As I mentioned, it would be a small boost that wouldn't be noticed unless playing over a long time.

This is not an outlandish concept. Skyrim had difficulty slider.

How many MMO'S have them?

ochsinator

What about just being able to activate veteran mode on the entire game instead of just trails. Does a similar thing by increasing the drop chances of sets gold motif etc. make it into dark souls for online lol

Smasherx74

idk wrote: »

Smasherx74 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

1. What bleeding? Doubt many are leaving the game because overworld content is to easy for them. If they are not up to the challenge of the content actually designed to be more challenging then I do not think we lost much.

2. Zos cannot make an NPC take less damage and do more damage only to specific palyer (this should be pretty obvious). Zos can only make you weaker which they have stated they do not want you to do?

3. Below is a rough outline of the progression of difficulty in the game from less to more difficulty, by design. I have seen plenty of excuses in response to this list, but if you are looking for more of a challenge then go for the content that offers more challenge.

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

2) The "buff" could decrease your resistances and damage, guess that one went right over your head huh lol?

3) Before T1 the overworld was not scaled, different zones had different level enemies. Only DLC zones were actually scaled. When craglorn was introduced it was an attempt to give us harder overworld content, that required teamwork in some instances. However T1 also changed this, a lot of craglorn content can now be solo'd some mechanisms don't require multiple people either. The problem in this game is that just by having a basic build you will be able to easily destroy everything in this game with no effort or worry. In other MMOs like WoW for example when you reach max level you have zones or enemies that are also max level. And even if you get good gear you could potentially die from regular quests. In ESO that's nearly impossible, even with lower end builds or just random sets thrown together. The solo experience / questing is absurdly easy in this game and offers virtually no challenge even to new players without builds or CP. This is all the fault of T1 when zone scaling was introduced. Before T1 I remember the first 6 months or so after launch and especially the beta it was an actual challenge sometimes, more so a minimalistic challenge where you couldn't just run around pulling everything and burning it like it's nothing.

Now I don't agree with the OP's idea of a buff to make the game more challenging. I think ZOS should remove zone scaling for vanilla zones, and enemies should have more health or resistances. At the very least if they keep scaling in place the bosses of quests or delves should actually be somewhat challenging requiring at least 2 noobs but being solo'able by end game players. The game is just absurdly easy, especially the overworld / questing portion.

@Smasherx74

1. At least you passed up the first point since their is nothing to support the first point.

2. Even OP has referred to it as a debuff on the player in a subsequent reply. I suggest reading through before attempting to belittle a player by falsely saying something went over their head.

3. Have no idea why you mentioned Craglorn, originally designed for groups of 4 and some quests required 4 to complete them. Craglorn was nerfed multiple times well before T1, at least twice so your entire point is incorrect. Anyone who could not solo Craglorn the week before T1 came out was probably not a strong player.

3a. You somehow compare the first months of the game to T1 as though any overland quests designed to be solo were challenging the weeks and months before T1 when they were clearly not. T1 is clearly not the issue. Zos started nerfing overland quests a couple months into the game.

To your final point, the scaling that came with T1 is and was not the issue and eliminating scaling is obviously not a solution unless one only wants to level up new characters.

The reality is, no major MMORPG will make or keep overland quests challenging for experienced players. They need to keep it easier for newer and less experienced players. It is a major reason why major MMORPGs have tiered difficulty as I mentioned in what you quoted, but it has just been ignored.

This is exactly the type of response which warrants the watering down of todays games

1) Nothing to support this "bleeding" concept for either you nor him. It's an entirely different argument to say having harder content would keep more players active.

2) The premise behind your post was ZOS would need to create an entirely different system to cause specific players to do less damage to them and take more damage from them. As I stated a status effect decreasing resistance would work just fine in that case, I'm not arguing for the OPs idea I'm simply explaining why some of your points are moot.

3) Just because launch mobs were more difficult than the update before T1, does not mean T1 didn't significantly nerf basically everything that wasn't below your level. This meant a CP 10 would have a hard time fighting CP160 mobs, perhaps for a V1 versus a max veteran rank enemy the difficulty was even more significant, but that's not what's were talking about here. We're talking about how scaling has made this game too easy for openworld content.


Not going to bother even trying to convince you of anything if you honestly are going to attempt to argue that Veteran rank mobs were harder than CP mobs therefor T1 scaling didn't matter. Being a "strong" or "good" player is irrelevant, the balancing of how things were scaled in T1 is what caused everything to be even more easy and so easy that it's not even a challenge to do 99% of open world content.

Smasherx74

idk wrote: »

The reality is, no major MMORPG will make or keep overland quests challenging for experienced players.

Go play Classic WoW. I don't need specific gear or even CP for this game to be easy on a new toon and so easy that it's mind numbing. In other MMORPGs just because you may understand how the mechanics and what spells are good to use, you aren't necessarily going to be able to run through anything in game. The fact a certain MMORPG rolled out a classic version of it's self where things were much more of a challenge utterly refutes what you've said here.

joaaocaampos

ImmortalCX wrote: »

When the buff is active, you get an additional 15% XP from monster kills. There would also be an increased drop chance for motifs and set gear dropping. There might also be other perks to maintaining the buff for extended periods.

To increase the immersion, the XP buff would start out at zero, but after several days, it would rise to the 15% XP buff. This would be done so that people would not constantly toggle it to bypass "challenging" content. It would reward people who kept the buff active.

The difficulty of the Intensity buff would be set so that people grinding XP would not want to use it because it would slow them down and they would lose XP. For people questing and playing the game normally, there would be a net increase in XP.

@ImmortalCX I totally disagree with XP buff. It's the worst idea ever!

The whole game has an XP standard. No matter if the content is Normal or Veteran, XP will be the same.

You can suggest other rewards, but not XP! Oh, XP AND GOLD!

Nolic1

Here is what your asking for better rewards for more difficult play ok here is the answer run no cp and all purple gear with all purple enchants sense all you asking for is a way to make the game more difficult and the rewards do not need to be changed cause your rewards are purple gear and should stay that way in overland.

You say something that debuffs you and buffs the enemy's well that will do the same thing and the devs do not need to change a thing. You want more EXP and only a max of 15% sub you get 10% more then none subs you want more then that run all training gear even more use exp pots or scrolls or wait for the one of 4 exp events that happen through out the year.

You say you want better rewards for you increased difficulty well they would need to add gold drops for you in your increased difficulty or even better chances for motifs that would mean the difficulty of overland need to be that of a trial that means the mobs need to have 18200 resistances and over 100k hp and hit like they do in trials and world bosses and I mean all of them need to match the difficulty of a trial boss other wise trials would be a joke when over land gives gold drops. As for motifs dropping more often there used to be things in the game that helped with that and was removed because to many complained they were useless buffs Well at least I remember for gold there still is one for chests in the cp.

The only way your idea would work is if it could not be abused in any way what so ever and the rewards could not offer more then a trial could as for better motif drops no leave that as is that is not that important its just looks and you are making it an issue that has no value on reward other then selling them and this would make the market bad for motifs.

You asked for people to explain why your idea is bad well there it it is in a nut shell unless you can explain in detail yourself the rewards such as gear quality, gold bonus over normal overland, EXP gain as explained is not needed when we have so many options for it in the game now, And how the idea could not be abused in any way then its something only a minority want and as the saying goes the needs of the many out way the needs of the few.

Also for the bleeding community thats normal in this day and age of MMO's no matter what dev's do they bleed players and players come and go with content release.

mocap

absolutely great idea. Basically it's like Skyrim difficulty "-75% your damage, +%75 enemy damage". So player with and without this "mode" when facing same enemy will get different experience (i.e impression, not exp points ofcuz).

kargen27

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

this keeps showing up and people keep thinking that we can't tell just how this can be abused. UNLESS PEOPLE WITH DEBUFF ARE INSTANCED AWAY FROM OTHER PLAYERS. this WILL be abused for better rewards. how? well... you know how people pay to take them through skyreach? now. imagine the same skyreach situation, but the person being carried? has that debuff enabled. person carrying them - does NOT so, they are dealing full damage and not taking any extra. so without any actual challenge - you are STILL getting better rewards.

and before you say "skyreach is an instance", people do grind mobs outside, you know. and the same situation is still something that is very much possible. (heck, back when in swtor there was a bug at one point that allowed low level characters go into high level event area - people used to get carried to max level in couple of hours that way - if it can be cheesed, people WILL cheese it. every time)

but ok, you are not deliberately cheesing the system, you are honestly just looking for some personal challenge. well.. you are not alone in a world and players do come around and so non debuffed person comes buy and one shots the mob you were working on challenging yourself with. and... the debuff becomes moot all over again.

so to reiterate.

the ONLY way to add challenge that you all want, while avoiding all the ways people will cheese it - is by instancing zones, where people WITH debuff only play with OTHER people with debuff. and I've been told that the problem with that is that it will splinter the population to much.

Its like you lack creative problem solving skills.

Your concern is that the debuff would be abused by players carrying others. It could be implemented such that there is no XP boost if a mob is not a solo kill. Before granting XP, the game already considers how many other people were involved in the kill, so implementing this would be relatively trivial.

Instead of thinking of reasons that it wouldn't work, use your wall of text skills to think of ways to make it possible.

As you said, this theme keeps coming up. "Difficulty slider" is something I've seen mentioned before, my suggestion is to use the buff/debuff mechanism already in the game to accomplish this. It wouldn't require a rewrite of the game, and it would have absolutely zero impact on other players if implemented correctly.

I might add that this is definitely part of the Elder Scrolls ethos as Skyrim had multiple selectable difficulty levels, that frankly were necessary to make the game enjoyable based upon your playing skill.

A simple improvement like this could drastically increase enjoyment for people who enjoy overland soloing and Elder Scrolls "difficulty slider" mechanics.

Do you know how much grief this would cause. Players already throw all kinds of obscenities and other abuse at other players when they are grinding up levels. Can you imagine the hate tells when you are just running by and decide to light attack or toss out an AoE on something another player is already fighting?

I still wouldn't mind a way to make overland content tougher but there should be zero reward for doing so. You do it because the extra challenge makes the game more fun and that should be enough.

I still think the way to do it would be with an armor set. Or maybe they could introduce a poison food that debuffs you for an hour instead of giving you a boost.