Seriously, this game is too easy and the overworld needs to be buffed heavily.

OneForSorrow

The overworld is plenty dangerous already. Have any idea how many times I've died falling off cliffs? At least a lot.

Wifeaggro13

Kolache wrote: »

Chadak wrote: »

ZOS puts challenge in the game. It just isn't in the overworld, and god willing it never will be, because the overworld isn't meant to challenge me, much like walking on the fricken sidewalk isn't meant to challenge me.

That would be fine if DLC after DLC after DLC wasn't released focused on adding so much damn sidewalk to the game. Is the entire purpose of all that area/quests/delves/public dungeons just to provide visual novel content between dungeons and world bosses?

At this point they are copy and pasting already developed resources. In all honesty I would almost be ok with it.if the game was evolving and emergent. They progression system is in their nerfs and meta changes lol. That baffles me

Cireous

From Yesterdays AUA on r/elderscrollsonline:

NerubianAssassin - 81 points
Hi Matt! Firstly, congratulations on the new Chapter, I had a blast playing it!

My question is related to new game systems, specifically new weapons.

Since the beginning I've always wanted to use spears as a weapon type, are there any plans to add them as a new skill line to ESO? Like a hybrid weapon that could be used either as a 2-handed spear, or as a 1-handed spear/shield.

What about other highly requested skill lines such as another magicka weapon (e.g. one hand/rune as seen in the classic Elder Scrolls games)?

EDIT: Bonus question, are there any plans to implement a more challenging overworld for veteran players (e.g. a difficulty toggle like Battle Spirit where you'd get debuff like 50% more damage taken and 50% less healing and damage done in exchange for a chance for mobs to drop zone furnishings and/or other rare items). It is disappointing to see solo quest bosses being hyped up as super powerful, then dying in 10 seconds.

ZOS_MattF - Zenimax - 87 points
Hello! We have no plans on implementing spears, but we have talked off and on about cool ways to do the one hand magic/one hand weapon thing. That's not on our roadmap anywhere, but we have been brainstorming.

There are so many cool things we could do! Seriously, we love these ideas too, but it all comes down to a matter of time and priorities.

EDIT: to respond to your edit. Yes, we've talked about this, in fact we tried to get that into the game as part of One Tamriel, but we just couldn't get it done. So we have ideas on how to have difficulty settings for overland content, but it's not currently planned. It's a great idea.

-- So it sounds like they are at least wanting to do it some time in the future. It's really a shame this couldn't come out with 1T.

srfrogg23

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Jhalin

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

JadonSky

I'm ok with trashmobs staying trash mobs it's expected any any mmo. But it would be nice if the quest bosses were more elite. Hate getting worked up to an epic fight against a quest boss thats been talked up to being able to take a whole army on there own. Then you kill him in 1 second flat.

I will say I really enjoyed the final quest boss in elsweyr. It felt like an epic battle and took about 5-10 minutes to beat him because of the mechanic which was awesome. I hope to see more fights like that.

srfrogg23

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

Kolache

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

Playing how you want doesn't mean there isn't a way to play poorly or that it shouldn't be discouraged. If you slot all magicka abilities and focus on all stamina stats/sets/medium armor you're not doing it right.

What does "3 different group roles" have to do with non-group content? That's why there are builds for dungeons/trials, builds for PvP, builds for vMA, etc... open world content shouldn't be tuned around the idea that you might be a healer with a trial spec and no offensive abilities so everything should die to light and heavy attacks. It's just a different type of content with different builds that are optimal like all the other content you bounce between.

srfrogg23

Kolache wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

Playing how you want doesn't mean there isn't a way to play poorly or that it shouldn't be discouraged. If you slot all magicka abilities and focus on all stamina stats/sets/medium armor you're not doing it right.

What does "3 different group roles" have to do with non-group content? That's why there are builds for dungeons/trials, builds for PvP, builds for vMA, etc... open world content shouldn't be tuned around the idea that you might be a healer with a trial spec and no offensive abilities so everything should die to light and heavy attacks. It's just a different type of content with different builds that are optimal like all the other content you bounce between.

Sure, if you want to do that. Not everyone wants to have a tanking setup and a dps setup while they're out questing between dungeon runs or battlegrounds.

Not everyone wants to hit the top of the Trials leaderboards, either. Some people are RPers. Can't leave them and their weirdball hybrid builds out in the cold.

This is a game for all types of players with content for all types. That is the most true for the open-world content.

Kolache

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Kolache wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

Playing how you want doesn't mean there isn't a way to play poorly or that it shouldn't be discouraged. If you slot all magicka abilities and focus on all stamina stats/sets/medium armor you're not doing it right.

What does "3 different group roles" have to do with non-group content? That's why there are builds for dungeons/trials, builds for PvP, builds for vMA, etc... open world content shouldn't be tuned around the idea that you might be a healer with a trial spec and no offensive abilities so everything should die to light and heavy attacks. It's just a different type of content with different builds that are optimal like all the other content you bounce between.

Sure, if you want to do that. Not everyone wants to have a tanking setup and a dps setup while they're out questing between dungeon runs or battlegrounds.

Not everyone wants to hit the top of the Trials leaderboards, either. Some people are RPers. Can't leave them and their weirdball hybrid builds out in the cold.

This is a game for all types of players with content for all types. That is the most true for the open-world content.

You are lumping in leaderboard min/maxers with any player at all that has even the slightest desire to be effective in this game. There's a world of difference between a flawless conqueror and someone that simply knows to put stamina enchants on their gear for more weapon damage.

It's not leaving anyone out in the cold to expect them to learn how to play the game at some reasonable point. Nobody said hybrids shouldn't be viable. Nobody is talking about making the entire overland a DLC hardmode trial. Have you read some of the posts in this thread? People are talking about whether or not its reasonable to even expect people to eat food or block NPC attacks at some point. Does that sound like someone on the cusp of being a min/maxing try-hard to you?

srfrogg23

Kolache wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Kolache wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

Playing how you want doesn't mean there isn't a way to play poorly or that it shouldn't be discouraged. If you slot all magicka abilities and focus on all stamina stats/sets/medium armor you're not doing it right.

What does "3 different group roles" have to do with non-group content? That's why there are builds for dungeons/trials, builds for PvP, builds for vMA, etc... open world content shouldn't be tuned around the idea that you might be a healer with a trial spec and no offensive abilities so everything should die to light and heavy attacks. It's just a different type of content with different builds that are optimal like all the other content you bounce between.

Sure, if you want to do that. Not everyone wants to have a tanking setup and a dps setup while they're out questing between dungeon runs or battlegrounds.

Not everyone wants to hit the top of the Trials leaderboards, either. Some people are RPers. Can't leave them and their weirdball hybrid builds out in the cold.

This is a game for all types of players with content for all types. That is the most true for the open-world content.

You are lumping in leaderboard min/maxers with any player at all that has even the slightest desire to be effective in this game. There's a world of difference between a flawless conqueror and someone that simply knows to put stamina enchants on their gear for more weapon damage.

It's not leaving anyone out in the cold to expect them to learn how to play the game at some reasonable point. Nobody said hybrids shouldn't be viable. Nobody is talking about making the entire overland a DLC hardmode trial. Have you read some of the posts in this thread? People are talking about whether or not its reasonable to even expect people to eat food or block NPC attacks at some point. Does that sound like someone on the cusp of being a min/maxing try-hard to you?

And, you're lumping in everyone who doesn't agree as being utterly incapable of being effective, or possibly illiterate. Like I said, it's about pacing and not being a total slog for non-dps focused builds.

exeeter702

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

This is what happens when you compartmentalize content design and isolate player demographics. You have this massive chunk of accessible pve content that in no way lends itself to other aspects of the game and in no way levies player experience into progressively challenging content tiers which is not good game design imho IF you also desire creating a space where players are incentivized to progress themselves onto harder, more rewarding and fufilling aspects of the game and acclimate organically.

What we have in eso however is a game that is primarily focused on crown store revenue generation and doing everything possible to create a playing space for every possible player demographic. It is naive to not understand why a development stuido or publishing hand would push for the type of format, but it doesnt make the reality any less disappointing.

exeeter702

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

these straw mans seriously need to stop, no one is suggesting such a thing.

You have those that desire the overland to offer a level of engagment and challenge that helps new players become good players over time by teaching them valuable lessons and making them WANT to participate in harder end game content.
And you have those that want the option to access a veteran level scaled over land for max cp characters.

Both desires have not once suggested that overland be tuned by default for "min/maxers".

Constantly getting stuck on the "play how you want" mantra leads to nowhere. At this point, that statement has been twisted and manipulated to suit so many non starter arguments that it is exhausting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that respects the intelligence of its players enough to be willing to say "hey perhaps try to improve your build a little" and give the player a slap on the wrist for failing every once and a while.

Zos telling players "hey, you can do WHATEVER you want! You can be the hero! No matter what, there will be something for you here in our game!" On top of the overly generous in count. double xp events is precisely why we have such abysmal players stepping into end game content and getting complety bent out of shape when someone tells them they are unfortunately not up to the standards necessary. Its these same players that pollute reddit and the forums with complaints that they shouldn't have to go to outside information resources to "get gud" when in truth ZOS does such a terrible job educating new players and incentivizing them to rise to the entirely reasonable modest occasion.

This is not elitism whatsoever, its having at the very least some form of expectation that players in your game are not so inept that they cant learn and overcome opposition and varying degrees of difficulty so long as they put forth the effort.

srfrogg23

exeeter702 wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

these straw mans seriously need to stop, no one is suggesting such a thing.

You have those that desire the overland to offer a level of engagment and challenge that helps new players become good players over time by teaching them valuable lessons and making them WANT to participate in harder end game content.
And you have those that want the option to access a veteran level scaled over land for max cp characters.

Both desires have not once suggested that overland be tuned by default for "min/maxers".

Constantly getting stuck on the "play how you want" mantra leads to nowhere. At this point, that statement has been twisted and manipulated to suit so many non starter arguments that it is exhausting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that respects the intelligence of its players enough to be willing to say "hey perhaps try to improve your build a little" and give the player a slap on the wrist for failing every once and a while.

Zos telling players "hey, you can do WHATEVER you want! You can be the hero! No matter what, there will be something for you here in our game!" On top of the overly generous in count. double xp events is precisely why we have such abysmal players stepping into end game content and getting complety bent out of shape when someone tells them they are unfortunately not up to the standards necessary. Its these same players that pollute reddit and the forums with complaints that they shouldn't have to go to outside information resources to "get gud" when in truth ZOS does such a terrible job educating new players and incentivizing them to rise to the entirely reasonable modest occasion.

This is not elitism whatsoever, its having at the very least some form of expectation that players in your game are not so inept that they cant learn and overcome opposition and varying degrees of difficulty so long as they put forth the effort.

Ok. I'm talking about pacing of the content, not elitism, but you do make a point. Who do you think is constantly demanding the game be "made harder"? Probably not the RP types with suboptimal builds.

Let's ask a different question: How long do you think each fight should last?

Keep in mind, this is an action oriented game with a few months worth of quests built into already. Should each mob pack take a few seconds to kill? About 30 seconds? A minute?

How long should it take to make your way through an area for a single quest? Better yet, how slow does combat and progression have to be before it becomes monotonous, tedious, boring?

Now, compound that with the slower speed of non-dps builds, like tanking and healing builds. Talk about a slog...

The combat is supposed to be fast paced, and the content right along with it. If you want more deliberate, slow paced, strategic combat, then you should probably play Dark Souls or The Witcher or even WoW Classic when it comes out. I just don't think that style of slow, hyper-focused, combat would be a good fit for ESO.

Jhalin

srfrogg23 wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

these straw mans seriously need to stop, no one is suggesting such a thing.

You have those that desire the overland to offer a level of engagment and challenge that helps new players become good players over time by teaching them valuable lessons and making them WANT to participate in harder end game content.
And you have those that want the option to access a veteran level scaled over land for max cp characters.

Both desires have not once suggested that overland be tuned by default for "min/maxers".

Constantly getting stuck on the "play how you want" mantra leads to nowhere. At this point, that statement has been twisted and manipulated to suit so many non starter arguments that it is exhausting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that respects the intelligence of its players enough to be willing to say "hey perhaps try to improve your build a little" and give the player a slap on the wrist for failing every once and a while.

Zos telling players "hey, you can do WHATEVER you want! You can be the hero! No matter what, there will be something for you here in our game!" On top of the overly generous in count. double xp events is precisely why we have such abysmal players stepping into end game content and getting complety bent out of shape when someone tells them they are unfortunately not up to the standards necessary. Its these same players that pollute reddit and the forums with complaints that they shouldn't have to go to outside information resources to "get gud" when in truth ZOS does such a terrible job educating new players and incentivizing them to rise to the entirely reasonable modest occasion.

This is not elitism whatsoever, its having at the very least some form of expectation that players in your game are not so inept that they cant learn and overcome opposition and varying degrees of difficulty so long as they put forth the effort.

Ok. I'm talking about pacing of the content, not elitism, but you do make a point. Who do you think is constantly demanding the game be "made harder"? Probably not the RP types with suboptimal builds.

Let's ask a different question: How long do you think each fight should last?

Keep in mind, this is an action oriented game with a few months worth of quests built into already. Should each mob pack take a few seconds to kill? About 30 seconds? A minute?

How long should it take to make your way through an area for a single quest? Better yet, how slow does combat and progression have to be before it becomes monotonous, tedious, boring?

The combat is supposed to be fast paced, and the content right along with it. If you want more deliberate, slow paced, strategic combat, then you should probably play Dark Souls or The Witcher or even WoW Classic when it comes out. I just don't think that style of slow, hyper-focused, combat would be a good fit for ESO.

Considering the majority of complaints center around papermache “bosses”, the question about trash mobs is pointless. Elite mobs should take more than light attacking to kill, you should have to block and dodge or risk more damage than what they currently deal.

Quest boss fights, especially main quest lines for zones, should take at least thirty seconds to a minute. No one that’s not in an endgame raid setup should be able to one-bang a boss that’s been built up through an entire zone’s questline.

Morgha_Kul

I'm one of those that likes to be able to solo most things in the game. I've commented before about how some of the content in the game is excessively difficult (Veteran Dungeons, some Normal Dungeons, Trials, Dragons, etc.), mostly because of excessive damage output and oneshot mechanics.

However, I also do believe that the opposite is true. Much of the content in the game, especially overland, is rather easy. However, I think the problem is the SCALING.

My Templar is max level. I recently noticed that my brand new Warden was doing FAR more damage with his bow, despite having the same skills and CP, and despite the Warden being less well equipped. The level scaling has made content, even at low level, far too easy.

I remember being completely unable to solo a Dolmen. Part of this was a lack of experience. That is, I now have a good idea of which skills to slot, what tactics to use, what targets to kill first, and so on. However, the fact remains that I can now take a brand new character out and solo a Dolmen with little difficulty.

Now, as I say this, I don't want to see it go too far the other way. It still needs to be soloable in the open world. I just think a little tweak is called for.

srfrogg23

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

I'm one of those that likes to be able to solo most things in the game. I've commented before about how some of the content in the game is excessively difficult (Veteran Dungeons, some Normal Dungeons, Trials, Dragons, etc.), mostly because of excessive damage output and oneshot mechanics.

However, I also do believe that the opposite is true. Much of the content in the game, especially overland, is rather easy. However, I think the problem is the SCALING.

My Templar is max level. I recently noticed that my brand new Warden was doing FAR more damage with his bow, despite having the same skills and CP, and despite the Warden being less well equipped. The level scaling has made content, even at low level, far too easy.

I remember being completely unable to solo a Dolmen. Part of this was a lack of experience. That is, I now have a good idea of which skills to slot, what tactics to use, what targets to kill first, and so on. However, the fact remains that I can now take a brand new character out and solo a Dolmen with little difficulty.

Now, as I say this, I don't want to see it go too far the other way. It still needs to be soloable in the open world. I just think a little tweak is called for.

A lot of that is deliberate. For example, dolmens now scale to the number of players in the area. They are soloable by design. Lower level characters receive more stat bonuses with the expectation that the game will be easier due to the lack of gear and skills. Stuff like that. It's all meant to keep players moving through the content and not stagnating in one zone for too long.

GarnetFire17

It seems simple, you have beginner zones where the mobs can stay as easy as they are. Once you get into the big zones they should be much harder. Not exceedingly difficult but difficult enough you can't just mindless stroll through the entire zone like you own the place as a low level character.

srfrogg23

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

these straw mans seriously need to stop, no one is suggesting such a thing.

You have those that desire the overland to offer a level of engagment and challenge that helps new players become good players over time by teaching them valuable lessons and making them WANT to participate in harder end game content.
And you have those that want the option to access a veteran level scaled over land for max cp characters.

Both desires have not once suggested that overland be tuned by default for "min/maxers".

Constantly getting stuck on the "play how you want" mantra leads to nowhere. At this point, that statement has been twisted and manipulated to suit so many non starter arguments that it is exhausting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that respects the intelligence of its players enough to be willing to say "hey perhaps try to improve your build a little" and give the player a slap on the wrist for failing every once and a while.

Zos telling players "hey, you can do WHATEVER you want! You can be the hero! No matter what, there will be something for you here in our game!" On top of the overly generous in count. double xp events is precisely why we have such abysmal players stepping into end game content and getting complety bent out of shape when someone tells them they are unfortunately not up to the standards necessary. Its these same players that pollute reddit and the forums with complaints that they shouldn't have to go to outside information resources to "get gud" when in truth ZOS does such a terrible job educating new players and incentivizing them to rise to the entirely reasonable modest occasion.

This is not elitism whatsoever, its having at the very least some form of expectation that players in your game are not so inept that they cant learn and overcome opposition and varying degrees of difficulty so long as they put forth the effort.

Ok. I'm talking about pacing of the content, not elitism, but you do make a point. Who do you think is constantly demanding the game be "made harder"? Probably not the RP types with suboptimal builds.

Let's ask a different question: How long do you think each fight should last?

Keep in mind, this is an action oriented game with a few months worth of quests built into already. Should each mob pack take a few seconds to kill? About 30 seconds? A minute?

How long should it take to make your way through an area for a single quest? Better yet, how slow does combat and progression have to be before it becomes monotonous, tedious, boring?

The combat is supposed to be fast paced, and the content right along with it. If you want more deliberate, slow paced, strategic combat, then you should probably play Dark Souls or The Witcher or even WoW Classic when it comes out. I just don't think that style of slow, hyper-focused, combat would be a good fit for ESO.

Considering the majority of complaints center around papermache “bosses”, the question about trash mobs is pointless. Elite mobs should take more than light attacking to kill, you should have to block and dodge or risk more damage than what they currently deal.

Quest boss fights, especially main quest lines for zones, should take at least thirty seconds to a minute. No one that’s not in an endgame raid setup should be able to one-bang a boss that’s been built up through an entire zone’s questline.

I don't light attack them to death or one-shot them. I sincerely doubt you do either. Not that it matters. I'm ok with them dying without multiple deaths of my own in the process.

BrightOblivion

I wouldn't necessarily mind it if quest bosses received a moderate boost in difficulty (mechanics that you actually have to block or interrupt wouldn't be terrible, provided there's a decent tell and it's not WHAM! ONE SHOT! if you miss it), but having a 5+ minute fight at the end of every quest chain seems like it would be incredibly tedious after the first couple quests, particularly when you need to restart that fight if you die to either a personal error or a server issue. There's a middle ground to be had. I'm also not really in favor of forcing people to group for quests for reasons others have mentioned. I do quests at odd times, whenever the mood strikes me, at whatever pace I feel like. The last thing I want to do when I feel like questing is try to find a group of people for that particular quest that's willing to move at my pace and wait while I raid bookshelves or pick flowers or what-have-you, or sit there and wait for other people to get to a boss that's been tuned so someone could have an immersive challenge when I want to get this quest over with.

I've done vMA and gotten flawless conqueror and even charged through it with no sigils. However, I'm not looking for "heavily buffed difficulty" in the overland (before you argue "That's not what people are looking for," it's literally right there in the title of the thread). I'm also running through it for multiple reasons- fetch quests, book collecting, fishing, just going from point A to point B. If I'm having to slog through groups of difficulty-buffed make-you-think random trash enemies for several minutes just to get to a fishing hole, that's going to get old quickly. I'm already at the point, with the present trash mobs in most delves, where I mostly just sprint through as quickly as I can in an effort to get in, get what I need, and get done with whatever daily quest it is. Having to slog through New Delve++ every time I did it would be...less than enjoyable.

Could world bosses stand to need more people in order to bring down? Maybe? But it has to be balanced with the fact that no zone is going to be as active as it is on release. Even the best, most rewarding zones will eventually die out. Not as completely as if 1T hadn't happened, to be certain, but still to the point that trying to find 8 or 10 people for a world boss at a random hour is going to take far longer than it takes to kill the boss. Personally, I wouldn't suggest it take more than 4-6 random people at the extreme.

So I guess I'm a "Maybe, here or there, in moderation" in regard to difficulty increases. Let me be completely clear about one thing, however. If this becomes another attempt to gain more shinies to crow over the lesser-thans about, you can save yourself the trouble. By the very nature of the shinies needing to be super-rare in order for them to be special (otherwise people will claim that it's not shiny or valuable enough), it can only appeal to a relatively small group of people. At that point, it's taking far more resources than it's worth. Additionally, changes to quests and the story should be undertaken carefully. The continuing story that an MMO is trying to tell should, by its nature, be extremely accessible to its players. If they come up against too hard a wall (as might occur if they buff it to the point where even an endgame player is going "This is challenging") in order to continue that story, they won't be inspired to get better. They'll just leave. And, frankly, I wouldn't blame them in the least.

MartiniDaniels

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

I'm one of those that likes to be able to solo most things in the game. I've commented before about how some of the content in the game is excessively difficult (Veteran Dungeons, some Normal Dungeons, Trials, Dragons, etc.), mostly because of excessive damage output and oneshot mechanics.

However, I also do believe that the opposite is true. Much of the content in the game, especially overland, is rather easy. However, I think the problem is the SCALING.

My Templar is max level. I recently noticed that my brand new Warden was doing FAR more damage with his bow, despite having the same skills and CP, and despite the Warden being less well equipped. The level scaling has made content, even at low level, far too easy.

I remember being completely unable to solo a Dolmen. Part of this was a lack of experience. That is, I now have a good idea of which skills to slot, what tactics to use, what targets to kill first, and so on. However, the fact remains that I can now take a brand new character out and solo a Dolmen with little difficulty.

Now, as I say this, I don't want to see it go too far the other way. It still needs to be soloable in the open world. I just think a little tweak is called for.

This. They made something within last year, I remember when I was starting in 2018 it was quite an accomplishment for me to solo a dolmen and I had more or less optimized gear for soloing content at that moment. Now I just go without fear on any dolmen I see on my new RP character without CP and with stolen food and in random gear. Dolmen Elites were smashing me in 2018, now I may just spam scytche and stay alive.

exeeter702

srfrogg23 wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

Sorry but I completely disagree that players with terrible habits, bad builds, and poor self sustain should be succeeding once they reach the third zone.

This entire game should not be built as a tutorial. There needs to be some kind of tangible scale in difficulty

It's not a tutorial. It's about pacing. There are 3 different group roles, only 1 of which specializes in killing mobs quickly. There are 50 levels and 160 CPs worth of gear and stats that vary throughout the leveling process to account for. Er go, the reason for the lower difficulty is to allow for variations in builds and equipment levels.

Tuning all of the content around min/maxers and their optimized endgame top tier 80k DPS builds is a bad design philosophy that forces gameplay homogenization. A very bad thing in a RPG built around the concept of "play how you want".

these straw mans seriously need to stop, no one is suggesting such a thing.

You have those that desire the overland to offer a level of engagment and challenge that helps new players become good players over time by teaching them valuable lessons and making them WANT to participate in harder end game content.
And you have those that want the option to access a veteran level scaled over land for max cp characters.

Both desires have not once suggested that overland be tuned by default for "min/maxers".

Constantly getting stuck on the "play how you want" mantra leads to nowhere. At this point, that statement has been twisted and manipulated to suit so many non starter arguments that it is exhausting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that respects the intelligence of its players enough to be willing to say "hey perhaps try to improve your build a little" and give the player a slap on the wrist for failing every once and a while.

Zos telling players "hey, you can do WHATEVER you want! You can be the hero! No matter what, there will be something for you here in our game!" On top of the overly generous in count. double xp events is precisely why we have such abysmal players stepping into end game content and getting complety bent out of shape when someone tells them they are unfortunately not up to the standards necessary. Its these same players that pollute reddit and the forums with complaints that they shouldn't have to go to outside information resources to "get gud" when in truth ZOS does such a terrible job educating new players and incentivizing them to rise to the entirely reasonable modest occasion.

This is not elitism whatsoever, its having at the very least some form of expectation that players in your game are not so inept that they cant learn and overcome opposition and varying degrees of difficulty so long as they put forth the effort.

Ok. I'm talking about pacing of the content, not elitism, but you do make a point. Who do you think is constantly demanding the game be "made harder"? Probably not the RP types with suboptimal builds.

Let's ask a different question: How long do you think each fight should last?

Keep in mind, this is an action oriented game with a few months worth of quests built into already. Should each mob pack take a few seconds to kill? About 30 seconds? A minute?

How long should it take to make your way through an area for a single quest? Better yet, how slow does combat and progression have to be before it becomes monotonous, tedious, boring?

Now, compound that with the slower speed of non-dps builds, like tanking and healing builds. Talk about a slog...

The combat is supposed to be fast paced, and the content right along with it. If you want more deliberate, slow paced, strategic combat, then you should probably play Dark Souls or The Witcher or even WoW Classic when it comes out. I just don't think that style of slow, hyper-focused, combat would be a good fit for ESO.

I fully admit simply inflating hp and damage values on various over land mobs is not the solution. Elongating trash mob encounters doesnt inherently make said encounters more appealing on its own. Mainly with quest bosses and elite mobs is where you can realistically start.

Morgha_Kul

Part of the issue is that often content is so easy for higher end players, that they will run around an area, gathering together every single mob in sight, including any bosses, and obliterating them in less than 2 seconds. This leaves nothing for anyone ELSE to do. It's really underwhelming having a quest to go kill a boss, only to have the quest complete itself because someone somewhere already killed it before you could even see it.

In a sense, I think the better solution is to adjust how WE get to do damage. The top end is so high right now that everything is trivial. They need to make an adjustment, some kind of diminishing returns so instead of the top DPS being somewhere around 60k it peaks at about 20k. It should still take substantial effort to GET to that 20k, so there will still be a feeling of accomplishment getting there, but the point is that it should get harder and harder to get more DPS.

I think this one change would fix a lot of the problems. Of course, some of the harder content would need to be recalibrated too, but this should be easy enough.

Aireal

ESO does a bad job of Tutorials.. and that's about par for the course for TES games ( can't speak for the others ). Oh yes, 'tap' RT for light attack, LT & RT to blocks...etc.. That is all fine and dandy, but what about crafting? Not just 'how to' but the need to.

What someone said about progression, triggered some thoughts.

Brand new MMO player ( Ie has played some games, never an MMO ) other than watching a bunch of U-tube Vid's.. how would they know that they needed to use all the crafting? To find those craftable armor set's. My Friends on another forum told me that I should have a dedicated crafter.. of course they also know just how much I really love crafting ( not at all ).

So for the first.. 20 or 30 levels.. just using found gear and/ or maybe enchanted stuff made by either their 'main' or a dedicated crafting character.. they do OK.. don't die too often, really start to learn the mistakes they made in choosing this or that skill.

*Remember these aren't people that have played ESO before... maybe they have played something similar, maybe not.

So as a brand new ESO player "I" have to:

1) learn the skill controls
2) learn how to 'read' the enemies
3) figure out the dungeon system..
4) figure out the different styles of play/armor/gear/skills. PvE, PvP, Vma..etc..
5) figure out the crafting system ( including craftable sets)

OH and Gods forbid "I" try and run with a group before I know it all.. cause while not everyone is a complete and utter jerk .. enough people are to be discouraging to new players. Instead of saying.. Dude as a Mag/Plar you should try and get this craftable armor type.. are you using 'this' type of food buff...

So now if I want to PvP, I either join a guild that has 'classes' or watch a couple dozen vid's to figure it out.. and hope I get it right.

How many levels does it take to get 5 to 6 traits researched? With how many characters? One dedicated crafter or ....??? Now if my 'main' is not just leveling errr battle skills, but also trying to craft and get those good enough. how many level's do I need to make gear that will help my character to be viable at higher levels..

When do "i" need to have my crafted gear good enough to account for the lack of the 'newbie 160CP buff"??? What lvl? When would 'found' gear no longer be workable?

Most of those I already know the answers to... I may be 'Newbie" to MMO's but, I ask the right people questions and I play slow enough to actually learn.

What does all that have to do with difficulty and increasing it? Rhetorical question.

Wifeaggro13

exeeter702 wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The open world content is fine. It is designed for all roles, pure or hybrids, at all levels to be able to progress through at a somewhat decent rate of speed. Rebalancing it to cater specifically to endgame dps characters will make the game so blasted boring and tedious for everyone else that the game's population will drop like a rock.

The open world content is the part of the game where Zos's advertising point of "play how you want" actually applies. The difficulty cannot be increased without compromising that aspect of the game.

This is what happens when you compartmentalize content design and isolate player demographics. You have this massive chunk of accessible pve content that in no way lends itself to other aspects of the game and in no way levies player experience into progressively challenging content tiers which is not good game design imho IF you also desire creating a space where players are incentivized to progress themselves onto harder, more rewarding and fufilling aspects of the game and acclimate organically.

What we have in eso however is a game that is primarily focused on crown store revenue generation and doing everything possible to create a playing space for every possible player demographic. It is naive to not understand why a development stuido or publishing hand would push for the type of format, but it doesnt make the reality any less disappointing.

Whoa eloquently put thank you

Morgha_Kul

Aireal wrote: »

ESO does a bad job of Tutorials.. and that's about par for the course for TES games ( can't speak for the others ). Oh yes, 'tap' RT for light attack, LT & RT to blocks...etc.. That is all fine and dandy, but what about crafting? Not just 'how to' but the need to.

What someone said about progression, triggered some thoughts.

Brand new MMO player ( Ie has played some games, never an MMO ) other than watching a bunch of U-tube Vid's.. how would they know that they needed to use all the crafting? To find those craftable armor set's. My Friends on another forum told me that I should have a dedicated crafter.. of course they also know just how much I really love crafting ( not at all ).

So for the first.. 20 or 30 levels.. just using found gear and/ or maybe enchanted stuff made by either their 'main' or a dedicated crafting character.. they do OK.. don't die too often, really start to learn the mistakes they made in choosing this or that skill.

*Remember these aren't people that have played ESO before... maybe they have played something similar, maybe not.

So as a brand new ESO player "I" have to:

1) learn the skill controls
2) learn how to 'read' the enemies
3) figure out the dungeon system..
4) figure out the different styles of play/armor/gear/skills. PvE, PvP, Vma..etc..
5) figure out the crafting system ( including craftable sets)

OH and Gods forbid "I" try and run with a group before I know it all.. cause while not everyone is a complete and utter jerk .. enough people are to be discouraging to new players. Instead of saying.. Dude as a Mag/Plar you should try and get this craftable armor type.. are you using 'this' type of food buff...

So now if I want to PvP, I either join a guild that has 'classes' or watch a couple dozen vid's to figure it out.. and hope I get it right.

How many levels does it take to get 5 to 6 traits researched? With how many characters? One dedicated crafter or ....??? Now if my 'main' is not just leveling errr battle skills, but also trying to craft and get those good enough. how many level's do I need to make gear that will help my character to be viable at higher levels..

When do "i" need to have my crafted gear good enough to account for the lack of the 'newbie 160CP buff"??? What lvl? When would 'found' gear no longer be workable?

Most of those I already know the answers to... I may be 'Newbie" to MMO's but, I ask the right people questions and I play slow enough to actually learn.

What does all that have to do with difficulty and increasing it? Rhetorical question.

It's funny. I remember when I was growing up, getting various games for my old Vic20 and C64, and had NO manuals at all. I still managed to figure out how to play the games, even the more complex ones (the only thing I could never quite get a handle on was Jousting in Defender of the Crown).
Gamers today seem to never want to think about things, just want it all handed to them. That's not a knock, exactly, just an observation.

Sylvermynx

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Aireal wrote: »

ESO does a bad job of Tutorials.. and that's about par for the course for TES games ( can't speak for the others ). Oh yes, 'tap' RT for light attack, LT & RT to blocks...etc.. That is all fine and dandy, but what about crafting? Not just 'how to' but the need to.

What someone said about progression, triggered some thoughts.

Brand new MMO player ( Ie has played some games, never an MMO ) other than watching a bunch of U-tube Vid's.. how would they know that they needed to use all the crafting? To find those craftable armor set's. My Friends on another forum told me that I should have a dedicated crafter.. of course they also know just how much I really love crafting ( not at all ).

So for the first.. 20 or 30 levels.. just using found gear and/ or maybe enchanted stuff made by either their 'main' or a dedicated crafting character.. they do OK.. don't die too often, really start to learn the mistakes they made in choosing this or that skill.

*Remember these aren't people that have played ESO before... maybe they have played something similar, maybe not.

So as a brand new ESO player "I" have to:

1) learn the skill controls
2) learn how to 'read' the enemies
3) figure out the dungeon system..
4) figure out the different styles of play/armor/gear/skills. PvE, PvP, Vma..etc..
5) figure out the crafting system ( including craftable sets)

OH and Gods forbid "I" try and run with a group before I know it all.. cause while not everyone is a complete and utter jerk .. enough people are to be discouraging to new players. Instead of saying.. Dude as a Mag/Plar you should try and get this craftable armor type.. are you using 'this' type of food buff...

So now if I want to PvP, I either join a guild that has 'classes' or watch a couple dozen vid's to figure it out.. and hope I get it right.

How many levels does it take to get 5 to 6 traits researched? With how many characters? One dedicated crafter or ....??? Now if my 'main' is not just leveling errr battle skills, but also trying to craft and get those good enough. how many level's do I need to make gear that will help my character to be viable at higher levels..

When do "i" need to have my crafted gear good enough to account for the lack of the 'newbie 160CP buff"??? What lvl? When would 'found' gear no longer be workable?

Most of those I already know the answers to... I may be 'Newbie" to MMO's but, I ask the right people questions and I play slow enough to actually learn.

What does all that have to do with difficulty and increasing it? Rhetorical question.

It's funny. I remember when I was growing up, getting various games for my old Vic20 and C64, and had NO manuals at all. I still managed to figure out how to play the games, even the more complex ones (the only thing I could never quite get a handle on was Jousting in Defender of the Crown).
Gamers today seem to never want to think about things, just want it all handed to them. That's not a knock, exactly, just an observation.

Well, so did I though my first games were SSI Gold Box games set in Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms (for PC, never did consoles). I was, I might add, much younger then, with better reflexes! In fact, my first PC (a Xerox) didn't have a manual - just a mimeo'd sheet of "instructions" - useless I might add!

However, when it came to my first MMO - WoW vanilla in 2006 just before WotLK released, well.... I was lost. And my reflexes were years older. I was SO confused - and that went on for months. A friend gave me the original game for my birthday in December 2005 (when I was still finishing up my last job before retiring for the third time); by the time I wasn't working any more, he'd pretty much quit playing as he was traveling all over the world for his job at that point.

So, not knowing anyone else who played, but wanting to try it, I started. Lost doesn't even begin to say how awkward I was, and how stressed I got. I stuck with it, then discovered that my sister and her son played - she'd never mentioned it so I had no idea; it just came up in conversation on the phone one time. After that, at least I had someone I knew to ask about things.... People weren't nice in game or on the forum....

It was in general quite the education.

LordVox

I do miss zone levels

Morgha_Kul

LordVox wrote: »

I do miss zone levels

I don't actually. I think an MMO needs to have a consistent world. A mudcrab in Bleak Rock should be the same as a mudrab in Elsewyr or anywhere else. Because WE gain experience levels doesn't mean the world around us does. It breaks the immersiveness of the setting when the zone makes creatures inappropriately strong.

I mean, if I've fought and defeated a gigantic legendary Bone Colossus capable of routing a whole army, why would I be getting killed by a mudcrab in the Rift? I have the same issue with Lord of the Rings Online, where my character, who fought ancient evils, defeated an entire army of orcs, faced down the Witch King and destroyed the Steward of Angmar... would be instantly killed by a COW in Dunland. Makes no sense, and disrupts the game setting.

It might be fine doing it that way in a straight up adventure game, but an MMO is different. In an adventure game, the environment exists for the story. That is, the story comes first, and the environment is created based on the needs of the story. In an MMO, it's reversed. The environment exists first, and the story is then inserted INTO it. This is what allows MMOs to expand, adding new content to the existing world. Ordinary adventure games don't have that capacity.

Aireal

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Aireal wrote: »

ESO does a bad job of Tutorials.. and that's about par for the course for TES games ( can't speak for the others ). Oh yes, 'tap' RT for light attack, LT & RT to blocks...etc.. That is all fine and dandy, but what about crafting? Not just 'how to' but the need to.

What someone said about progression, triggered some thoughts.

Brand new MMO player ( Ie has played some games, never an MMO ) other than watching a bunch of U-tube Vid's.. how would they know that they needed to use all the crafting? To find those craftable armor set's. My Friends on another forum told me that I should have a dedicated crafter.. of course they also know just how much I really love crafting ( not at all ).

So for the first.. 20 or 30 levels.. just using found gear and/ or maybe enchanted stuff made by either their 'main' or a dedicated crafting character.. they do OK.. don't die too often, really start to learn the mistakes they made in choosing this or that skill.

*Remember these aren't people that have played ESO before... maybe they have played something similar, maybe not.

So as a brand new ESO player "I" have to:

1) learn the skill controls
2) learn how to 'read' the enemies
3) figure out the dungeon system..
4) figure out the different styles of play/armor/gear/skills. PvE, PvP, Vma..etc..
5) figure out the crafting system ( including craftable sets)

OH and Gods forbid "I" try and run with a group before I know it all.. cause while not everyone is a complete and utter jerk .. enough people are to be discouraging to new players. Instead of saying.. Dude as a Mag/Plar you should try and get this craftable armor type.. are you using 'this' type of food buff...

So now if I want to PvP, I either join a guild that has 'classes' or watch a couple dozen vid's to figure it out.. and hope I get it right.

How many levels does it take to get 5 to 6 traits researched? With how many characters? One dedicated crafter or ....??? Now if my 'main' is not just leveling errr battle skills, but also trying to craft and get those good enough. how many level's do I need to make gear that will help my character to be viable at higher levels..

When do "i" need to have my crafted gear good enough to account for the lack of the 'newbie 160CP buff"??? What lvl? When would 'found' gear no longer be workable?

Most of those I already know the answers to... I may be 'Newbie" to MMO's but, I ask the right people questions and I play slow enough to actually learn.

What does all that have to do with difficulty and increasing it? Rhetorical question.

It's funny. I remember when I was growing up, getting various games for my old Vic20 and C64, and had NO manuals at all. I still managed to figure out how to play the games, even the more complex ones (the only thing I could never quite get a handle on was Jousting in Defender of the Crown).
Gamers today seem to never want to think about things, just want it all handed to them. That's not a knock, exactly, just an observation.

Sure, I regularly put together furniture at work without reading the instructions... But I've been building furniture, grills, swings and other "display" items for the retail stores I work for, for almost 20 yrs.

The point I was making was ease of play... Difficulty.. how long it takes to learn all the in's and out's of this game. Enough so that if you decide to go PvP or group PvE you don't get "owned" or kicked from the group rudely.

Not everyone learns at the same pace or in the same way.. I can read something once and 'learn' it.. watching a video.. I have to take notes and rewind a lot.. I just don't learn quickly that way. I remember books I read 40 yr's ago, but can't remember the last episode of Criminal Minds I watched a week ago.

Plus it's not just about 'learning' it's about getting there. Just because you 'learn' how to research and smith, doesn't mean that you can make armor that's fit for a character at any given level.