A Zone with Public Dungeon difficulty

Iccotak · January 2020

NOTE: This is not a perfect idea and I am open to criticism

There's no "TL;DR", please read the whole idea first

Opening
Craglorn was basically a Group Dungeon as a Zone that demanded players to get into a group of 4 and severely punished them if they didn't. Not a fun design.
This Proposal is designed like Public dungeon as a zone. a Public Dungeon can be solo'd yet it encourages Co-op no matter if you're a Vet or a New player. This is an MMO so let's have things that encourage people to be social & work together but doesn't demand it.

ZOS is capable of making great challenging solo content like we've seen with Maestrom Arena and Craglorn can be pretty fun when you get a group of friends with you. So let's make a compromise between solo & group content.

Proposal
These locations can range from various Daedric Planes, The isles of the Sea Elves, Areas ridden with Bandits, Pirates, & Raiders, Blackreach, you name it.

This is a PvE Warzone. For Solo players that want more challenge with their travel and for Co-op players that want more reasons to group up while they quest.
It's not Craglorn where everything is sequestered into "group areas".
It is a zone with overland content that is equivalent to a Public Dungeon.

Enemies
Enemy mobs are in greater number. The average 2-3 are now 4-6, upwards to 8-12

Delves UPDATED
Delves here are a little more difficult than other ones but are largely the same save for slightly larger mobs and 2 bosses
- 5 delves
- 3 public dungeons
- 2 "Group Delves" which are instanced content that can be tackled by 2-4 players.

World-Bosses
In this map World bosses are numerous and in many locations. There are 3 types of World Bosses: Stationary, Wandering, and Summoned.
Stationary are WB that spawn and remain in one place.
Wanderer are WB that travel pre-determined paths on the map - they are akin to the bosses that travel the Imperial City streets
Summoned are WB that arrive to a triggered event on the map which brings us to -

"Dolmen Siege Defense" activity
This concept has be posted in another topic to allow a more in depth overview about the activity separate from the "Zone" discussion: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/507715/dolmen-siege-defense

Basics
The goal is to change things up from the Dolmen rotations & Dragon hunts we are used to.
Basically it is like defending a keep in PvP but instead as a PvE activity where players deal with very large mobs of enemy NPCs.

A detailed explanation.

Spoiler

There are three keeps on the map. Both players and enemies will have access to siege weapons & materials.
Players must first capture the keep by reaching the center chamber. Players can take the keep by force or find ways to sneak in like the Grappling Bow posts at the corners of the keep (which are also useful for getting back in if they fall).
When they are successful they earn the first reward chest.
Once they have captured the Keep, they will have a limited time to repair the walls and prepare their defenses before the first wave of enemies arrives.

Players defend the keep from five waves of enemies. Players must prevent the enemies from reaching the center chamber.
Each round ends when the players kill a certain number of enemies. Each round will escalate till the critical point of the 5th wave.
On the 5th wave a Boss is summoned to attack the keep. Players have to kill the Boss to win the 5th round, and will earn a reward chest upon completion.

If the players can maintain their defenses on the 5th wave then they have the option to stick around for another set of 5 waves which will be harder but have greater rewards. Receiving purple gear and even motifs if they reach a higher number of waves
There will be a total of 15-20 waves divided by sets of 5.

If the enemy mob reaches the center chamber they can still be beaten back. If the Summoned boss reaches the center chamber then the enemy automatically wins resulting in a wipe. Players will have to start over.

THE DESTROYER
If players want the truly top tier rewards of the zone there is one particular challenge.
If all three keeps manage to be successfully defended at the same time till the very final wave it will tigger a "Destroyer" to spawn in the middle of the map.
The Destroyer is marked on the map - it will travel to one of the Keeps. Unlike the other bosses, a Destroyer can breach a wall with one to two hits.
If the players manage to beat it before it gets to the central chamber then they earn the "Slayer Chest", awarding purple -gold gear, rare crafting materials, furnishing, with the a chance to earn a pet & mount specific to the activity.
If they lose then the progress on all three keeps will be lost and players will have to start over.

Taleof2Cities · January 2020

This zone already exists. It's called Craglorn.

You can solo the group areas too ... which is a good trainer for vMA.

Unseelie · January 2020

While I appreciate the whole level scaling thing so that I can pretty much go anywhere I want to go, I have to say I would enjoy some harder areas and I do not mean just a random harder mob here and there (like a Minotaur or troll here or there).
For example the areas withing a certain radius of towns are scaled and the further out you get you enter a boosted difficulty range and further out it gets even harder. Just to give a bit of challenge and keep you on your toes.

MashmalloMan · January 2020

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

VaranisArano · January 2020

The overland content aspect sounds like the old Craglorn, back when it was an "adventure zone". It might be interesting to see how well that would work with CP 160 mobs as opposed to the very limited pre-One Tamriel vet rank 11.

Dusk_Coven · January 2020

Since public dungeons are generally even more dead than Craglorn, I think this is wasted effort. People only go in for limited objectives then they are done -- skyshards, or a few Mages Guild quests if for some reason they don't find finding books easier and faster.

If you want a "zone with public dungeon difficulty" -- it's called a public dungeon. Some area already big enough to be a zone, like Coldharbour.

FrancisCrawford · January 2020

I have an alternative suggestion -- add something to the 22 or so public dungeons that are already in the game.

Many of them have pretty decent quests, in some cases two such. I have at least somewhat fond memories of public dungeon quests in Glenumbra, Stormhaven, Rivenspire, Bangorkai, Auridon, Grahtwood, Greenshade, Malabal Tor, Reaper's March, Deshaan, Shadowfen ... well, you get the picture.

Those quests aren't particularly suited to be repeatable, but you could give then upgraded rewards, to the point that many people would be happy to do them once each, and some people would want to do them on multiple characters.

Brennric · January 2020

MashmalloMan wrote: »

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

I just never get how that would work. I set mine to level 3, engage the troll, and a level 10 new player walks up to help and immediately gets blown up. When I do a dolmen, does it set to my scale or someone else's? Those simply don't work in non instanced MMOs. Overland will not be harder. It hasn't been hard for me in 5 years. Ok, i do other stuff for the challenge. It simply is not going to change. I've defeated gods, dragons, you name it. I'm ok with the idea that the random crocodile on the way to the next town simply isn't a challenge anymore

MashmalloMan · January 2020

Brennric wrote: »

show previous quotes

MashmalloMan wrote: »

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

I just never get how that would work. I set mine to level 3, engage the troll, and a level 10 new player walks up to help and immediately gets blown up. When I do a dolmen, does it set to my scale or someone else's? Those simply don't work in non instanced MMOs. Overland will not be harder. It hasn't been hard for me in 5 years. Ok, i do other stuff for the challenge. It simply is not going to change. I've defeated gods, dragons, you name it. I'm ok with the idea that the random crocodile on the way to the next town simply isn't a challenge anymore

Well I'm not okay with it, as are many other players who feel like they can't properly enjoy a huge portion of the game because we're now playing in a game where you're capable of 50k+ dps and most mobs have 30k or 120k hp. That's very boring to me and makes most of the 2/4 DLC's we get every year very boring to play through.

Does my idea harm new players or people who are happy like yourself? No it doesn't, the scaling is optional for people interested in more of a challenge for all existing overland content, instead of being forced to go to Craglorn for 2% of what the entire games exploration has to offer. When you reach max CP it can also serve as another useful tool for people interested in farming since the challenge increases, but so does your rewards.

While I think scaling the HP upwards for the player is ideal because you still get a sense of progression, your damage would be the same, you just have more hp to chew threw, but I have a feeling in order for this to work, ZOS would instead have to work through the players stats since this is already accomplished through the existing One Tamriel scaling, it can just be modified for end game.

For example:

Level 1, 0% Extra Damage Taken, 0% Damage Done.
Level 2, +50% Damage Taken, -33% Damage Done, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, +100% Damage Taken, -66% Damage Done, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

You could choose the level in towns through some magical totem. Only overland would be affected, these modifiers only affect YOU and are turned off in instanced dungeons (4 man, arena, trials).

Royaji · January 2020

Brennric wrote: »

show previous quotes

MashmalloMan wrote: »

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

I just never get how that would work. I set mine to level 3, engage the troll, and a level 10 new player walks up to help and immediately gets blown up. When I do a dolmen, does it set to my scale or someone else's? Those simply don't work in non instanced MMOs. Overland will not be harder. It hasn't been hard for me in 5 years. Ok, i do other stuff for the challenge. It simply is not going to change. I've defeated gods, dragons, you name it. I'm ok with the idea that the random crocodile on the way to the next town simply isn't a challenge anymore

The problem is that those gods and dragons are not a challenge either.

Morgha_Kul · January 2020

Craglorn was initially this way (and still is, to some extent), and it was pretty well deserted. Most players simply can't solo in that level of difficulty. Indeed, some players still find the current level of difficulty in the open world a challenge.

I don't. You don't. Many do, and the game needs to be accessible to them too.

Iccotak · January 2020

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Craglorn was initially this way (and still is, to some extent), and it was pretty well deserted. Most players simply can't solo in that level of difficulty. Indeed, some players still find the current level of difficulty in the open world a challenge.

I don't. You don't. Many do, and the game needs to be accessible to them too.

1.If your argument that the system is fine as it is then we have a disagreement.
Some players do find the existing maps (besides Craglorn) challenging to Solo. Those are largely beginning players. Most Vets don't have an issue with them save for Dolmens and some WB. Though I still meet a couple here and there that don't have a problem.
Making all the maps so accessible to new players at the expense of the Veterans overland content experience is not a good design choice as it largely sequesters them to Dungeons & Trials. While those activities are great people like myself would like to see a zone that is more challenging but not feeling as restrictive as Craglorn.

2.This is a smaller zone - closer to the Coldharbour or Murkmire size zone. Not a chapter zone that newbies to just drop into. It is also supposed to encourage players to group up. This is an MMO so let's have things that encourage people to be social & work together.

3.Old Craglorn demanded that players get into a group of 4 and severely punished you if you didn't. It was more like Group Dungeon as an entire zone. Craglorn was also designed around the old Veteran system and was then retrofitted around the Champion system. It is still flawed in some ways. Example: There are still large areas you'll enter that give you a notification that it is for groups.

However, a Public Dungeon can be solo'd and it encourages Co-op. I mainly play a tank, and with just a few switch skills & gear I can solo a public dungeon. If I have a character that can't solo it then I will find a friend or group up with someone that also happens to be wandering the area.
So it is taking that philosophy and applying it to an entire zone.

4. The central aspect of the map is the Dolmen Keep Defense. The map is largely designed around this activity which is geared to be an enemy NPC war. With no PvP getting in the way allowing the developers to go all out with crazy monster armies.

Iccotak · January 2020

Removed & added to the OP

mocap · January 2020

im all for any type of overland diffuculty increase. Scroll of glorious overland battle, food with negative bonuses, difficulty slider, new quest zones for vet players. Anything. I just can't hold current absurd diffuculty of overland.

I've even tried some "overland builds" on PTS, that can bring a bit of challenge, but it feels so wrong and weird...

FierceSam · January 2020

Same old same old

I want more difficulty/challenge becomes ‘let’s have a more difficult zone/area’ (which a large % of players won’t be able to play), mysteriously becomes ‘and I get X more rewards for doing content that many players won’t touch’.

There are areas of public dungeon difficulty.... they’re called public dungeons. There are two in each chapter. They’re a real challenge when you’re a new player, but less so when you are experienced.

Like all these ideas, it’s unlikely to fly because making general overland content that a vast majority of your playerbase can’t do does not sell. Craglorn, just such an area, did not work and even now does not work.

redgreensunset · January 2020

MashmalloMan wrote: »

show previous quotes

Brennric wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

I just never get how that would work. I set mine to level 3, engage the troll, and a level 10 new player walks up to help and immediately gets blown up. When I do a dolmen, does it set to my scale or someone else's? Those simply don't work in non instanced MMOs. Overland will not be harder. It hasn't been hard for me in 5 years. Ok, i do other stuff for the challenge. It simply is not going to change. I've defeated gods, dragons, you name it. I'm ok with the idea that the random crocodile on the way to the next town simply isn't a challenge anymore

Well I'm not okay with it, as are many other players who feel like they can't properly enjoy a huge portion of the game because we're now playing in a game where you're capable of 50k+ dps and most mobs have 30k or 120k hp. That's very boring to me and makes most of the 2/4 DLC's we get every year very boring to play through.

Does my idea harm new players or people who are happy like yourself? No it doesn't, the scaling is optional for people interested in more of a challenge for all existing overland content, instead of being forced to go to Craglorn for 2% of what the entire games exploration has to offer. When you reach max CP it can also serve as another useful tool for people interested in farming since the challenge increases, but so does your rewards.

While I think scaling the HP upwards for the player is ideal because you still get a sense of progression, your damage would be the same, you just have more hp to chew threw, but I have a feeling in order for this to work, ZOS would instead have to work through the players stats since this is already accomplished through the existing One Tamriel scaling, it can just be modified for end game.

For example:

Level 1, 0% Extra Damage Taken, 0% Damage Done.
Level 2, +50% Damage Taken, -33% Damage Done, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, +100% Damage Taken, -66% Damage Done, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

You could choose the level in towns through some magical totem. Only overland would be affected, these modifiers only affect YOU and are turned off in instanced dungeons (4 man, arena, trials).

Considering the servers and the coding can't even handle the current needed level of calculations at high stress without bad lag and other bad hiccups forcing it to calculate damage done between several players in the same fight, all on a different level seems like a good way to make performance even worse for those who already suffer from it. Same with making more instances for various levelled people.

I honestly would object to single harder level overland zones, but I think Craglorn shows that the people who do want that is a small, if vocal, minority.

idk · January 2020

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

This zone already exists. It's called Craglorn.

You can solo the group areas too ... which is a good trainer for vMA.

And even as Zos began eliminating the group requirement of much of the quests and delves people still wanted it easier. Currently Zones are designed so the masses can handle it. The return on investment is obviously much less when it is designed for a smaller audience that OP's idea would be designed for. So not as worthy of the investment.

Iccotak · January 2020

idk wrote: »

show previous quotes

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

This zone already exists. It's called Craglorn.

You can solo the group areas too ... which is a good trainer for vMA.

And even as Zos began eliminating the group requirement of much of the quests and delves people still wanted it easier. Currently Zones are designed so the masses can handle it. The return on investment is obviously much less when it is designed for a smaller audience that OP's idea would be designed for. So not as worthy of the investment.

then the more prioritized idea would be the Dolmen Keep defense which I think would be a fun activity for everyone

Dusk_Coven · January 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

ZOS is capable of making great challenging solo content like we've seen with Maestrom Arena and Craglorn

This is a joke, right?

Maelstorm Arena = play to lose. After 1 hour (IF you are elite and memorized all the spawn points) you get to say "this was not the weapon I was looking for"

Craglorn = people running around mindlessly farming easy mobs for XP when they are bored of Alik'r.

Every new expansion ZOS throws out something new just to keep things fresh but the result is the same: People are going to just look for what is easy to farm and ignore everything else. And we already have Alik'r Dolmens and dragons for that. Whatever requires more effort is going to be ignored after all the one-shot things are done like story quests and skyshards.

You could however stretch things out with grindy achievements to get all the OCD people.

As for Dolmen Keep Defense, all this wave stuff sounds awfully like what NWO did in their guild strongholds, and people hated it. They did the absolute minimum for the reward and stopped. It required a lot of people as well as time commitment, and the guilds there were really big compared to ESO since they had guild alliances and you could tap other guilds as well.
This sort of suggestion is tricky and really requires research into not just what the player base wants but what the population is capable of mustering. And then you have to look at how people are going to cheese it. Ball groups in Cyrodiil right now suggests it's going to get exploited so fast it won't be funny.

There is a reason why a lot of games package their endgame PvE into dungeons and trials -- they can control the NUMBER of people entering and thereby it is easier to make them challenging.

Iccotak · January 2020

@FierceSam
As someone looking for challenging activities; What were your thoughts on the Dolmen Keep Defense idea?

MashmalloMan · January 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

@FierceSam
As someone looking for challenging activities; What were your thoughts on the Dolmen Keep Defense idea?

Hate to say it, although I agree the overland content is too easy. Your idea while interesting just won't ever happen, the simple reason is the demographic is too small to sell such a large design decision, ZOS would be designing something they know wouldn't get the proper return on investment thus it's not worth investing in to begin with.

You only need to look at their DLC's to understand this. They only made 1 PVP DLC to date with IC (now free) and Battlegrounds as a part of the Morrowind Chapter (now free) because they learned pay-walling PVP content is never the answer. Many tripple A games avoid this too (overwatch and even COD if I'm not mistaken.

Craglorn was their crack at end game PVE overland (free), but it came during a time where your were required to pay for a subscription to play, so that developement decision was justified until they learned NO ONE was using it, the zone group quests were and are still dead to this day.

Thats why I proposed a difficulty slider/modifier system instead. It wouldn't be hard to develop since the ONE Tamriel scaling system already exists, it just needs to be modified. The added benefit is it would seek to make ALL overland content more relevent instead of wasting resources designing a zone and no one will touch.

This game is huge and only getting bigger, it's a real shame people like myself who have been around since the beginning can't fully enjoy new content like the Zone DLC or Chapter because it feels like you're killing enemies on ultra super easy mode. The exploration has become uninteresting for me and it's suppose to be one of the best parts about ESO, but it's just too easy. People can claim that it's a minority who thinks this way, but if you really ask yourself, is the current design of ESO's overworld content difficulty do any justice for long term players? It doesn't and to say, well thats what trials and vet dungeons are for is so narrow minded.

So something needs to happen without hurting the new player experience and ZOS needs to justify the cost of developement. It's simply not the best it could be and falls under the bracket of "Quality of Life" changes ESO should have, but doesn't REALLY need. They do make great QOL changes over time, we recently got the Zone guide for quests/dungeons, level up tips and rewards, guild store searching revamp, etc. I think this concern falls under the same cost/time investment for ZOS to consider. Not under the "can we sell this as DLC" concern.

To suggest we should keep the game the same as some have suggested is to be okay with a majority of new DLC content feeling pointless for a large majority of the player base. Every year, if you think about an end game level, we get 4 vet dungeons, 1 trial, maybe 1 mini trial/arena (none in 2019's zone dlc). ZOS could do a lot more with the content they already have and modifier/difficulty slider could fix that, while not hurting the new player experience.

kenneth.friisb16_ESO · January 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

NOTE: This is not a perfect idea and I am open to criticism

"Dolmen Keep Defense" activity
Basic idea is something like this for a PvE activity
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78IJdhvY1zg&t=11s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5wABDrzg9I
A detailed explanation.
There are three keeps on the map. Both enemies and players will have access to siege weapons and materials.
Players must first capture the keep by reaching the center chamber. When they are successful they earn the first reward chest.
Once they have captured the Keep, they will have a limited time to repair the walls and prepare their defenses before the first wave of enemies arrives.
If a player falls off the keep wall and the door is blocked then they can get back in using the Crossbow Posts at the corners of the Keep.

Players defend the keep from five waves of enemies. Players must prevent the enemies from reaching the center chamber.
Each round ends when the players kill a certain number of enemies. Each round will escalate till the critical point of the 5th wave.
On the 5th wave a Boss is summoned to attack the keep. Players have to kill the Boss to win the 5th round, and will earn a reward chest upon completion.

I Actually think this could be kinda awesome. A PVE quest that utilizes the mechanics from PVP, like repairing and such. I could see this work. A grand epic siege. I like it

Iccotak · January 2020

@MashmalloMan
I could not agree more with this sentiment

People can claim that it's a minority who thinks this way, but if you really ask yourself, is the current design of ESO's overworld content difficulty do any justice for long term players? It doesn't and to say, well thats what trials and vet dungeons are for is so narrow minded.

That's why my hope with the unique dolmen activity was something both New & Veteran players could enjoy and work towards.
Even if ZOS doesn't do the Public Dungeon Zone I still think there is promise to the activity.
Which is why I expanded that concept in a separate post: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6537696

Perhaps for a difficulty slider there is something to try - feel free to start another topic that focuses on that concept

Spoiler

1: There are levels to raise the difficulty
2: you can only raise the difficulty. You cannot make the content any easier than it is right now.
3: Each level while increasingly harder provides more rewards

MashmalloMan · January 2020

redgreensunset wrote: »

show previous quotes

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Brennric wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

We don't need another area, we need all overworld content to scale better.

Since we can't punish new players or players that like how easy overworld is, there should be an optional difficulty modifier that people can set.

Eg. Leve 1, 100% HP, 100% Damage.
Level 2, 200% HP, 150% damage, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, 300% HP, 200% damage, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

Please... I'm so tired of half the DLC content being a cake walk, I shouldn't have to remove equipment to enjoy new quests and dungeons.

I just never get how that would work. I set mine to level 3, engage the troll, and a level 10 new player walks up to help and immediately gets blown up. When I do a dolmen, does it set to my scale or someone else's? Those simply don't work in non instanced MMOs. Overland will not be harder. It hasn't been hard for me in 5 years. Ok, i do other stuff for the challenge. It simply is not going to change. I've defeated gods, dragons, you name it. I'm ok with the idea that the random crocodile on the way to the next town simply isn't a challenge anymore

Well I'm not okay with it, as are many other players who feel like they can't properly enjoy a huge portion of the game because we're now playing in a game where you're capable of 50k+ dps and most mobs have 30k or 120k hp. That's very boring to me and makes most of the 2/4 DLC's we get every year very boring to play through.

Does my idea harm new players or people who are happy like yourself? No it doesn't, the scaling is optional for people interested in more of a challenge for all existing overland content, instead of being forced to go to Craglorn for 2% of what the entire games exploration has to offer. When you reach max CP it can also serve as another useful tool for people interested in farming since the challenge increases, but so does your rewards.

While I think scaling the HP upwards for the player is ideal because you still get a sense of progression, your damage would be the same, you just have more hp to chew threw, but I have a feeling in order for this to work, ZOS would instead have to work through the players stats since this is already accomplished through the existing One Tamriel scaling, it can just be modified for end game.

For example:

Level 1, 0% Extra Damage Taken, 0% Damage Done.
Level 2, +50% Damage Taken, -33% Damage Done, +50% experience, +25% loot/gold gain.
Level 3, +100% Damage Taken, -66% Damage Done, +100% experience, +50% loot/gold gain.

You could choose the level in towns through some magical totem. Only overland would be affected, these modifiers only affect YOU and are turned off in instanced dungeons (4 man, arena, trials).

Considering the servers and the coding can't even handle the current needed level of calculations at high stress without bad lag and other bad hiccups forcing it to calculate damage done between several players in the same fight, all on a different level seems like a good way to make performance even worse for those who already suffer from it. Same with making more instances for various levelled people.

I honestly would object to single harder level overland zones, but I think Craglorn shows that the people who do want that is a small, if vocal, minority.

I dissagree, you can make the claim that the game can't handle it, but there is no possible way any of us could know that. If that was true, ZOS wouldn't design anything new. New class? Nope. New skill line? Nope.

First of all, the entire game uses the ONE Tamriel scaling system flawlessly. Level 1-50 and 1-160CP players can do almost anything in the game without thinking about it. Do we really think that causes lag? I don't know about you, but it sounds like a scare tactic to me. I don't know why everyone jumps to "well the game can't handle anything new" whenever someone suggests some new mechanic to add to the game. I'm not a coder and I doubt you are, the point is, dynamic scaling has been used in the game for years, the idea is to just extend that technology to be used by max level players as an option.

Secondly, the major areas where you're affected by lag are areas like Towns, Trials and mostly PVP (where reaction time is key), so it's obviously very noticable in these areas. A difficulty slider wouldn't be meant for these areas of the game so it shouldn't affect them if your reason would be, "well the game has to calculate all the numbers". If it's disabled in those areas, why would it affect it anyway. The point of a difficulty slider would be to make the the other areas of the game more interesting to play like Zone quests, public dungeons, dolmens, etc. I don't think I've ever had noticable lag when I'm simply exploring the world, in fact, these areas always give me the highest FPS. You could argue high player count areas like World Bosses, Anchors and Dragons might be affected, but these areas already contain 50+ players using 100s of abilities. I don't think any amount of adjustments to the game will make these farming trains any more stable. Those ridiculous situations shouldn't hold back 90% of the overland content when they're already expected to be laggy environments in the first place.

Eiregirl · January 2020

I have played ESO since it launched and while I do like your idea and think it would work as long as it is not like craglorn was when it came out. The problem with craglorn was that it forced people into groups and in order to advance through the quests those people had to be on the same stage of the quest and that caused a lot of people to quit the game. I was very happy when they finally fixed that.

As I said I like the idea and as long as it does not force people into groups but requires multiple people to accomplish goals I think it would work fairly well at least in the short term and might work for the long term if they change it up every update or a few times per update to keep it fresh and different but once it gets learned and figured out it will become just as easy as everything else.

Perhaps instead of having a specific zone with a keep to defend why not have a random invaded by a daedric horde that attacks a random city in waves and if those waves are defeated a boss comes out along with a group of adds that must be defeated.

Many people who play this game do not look at it as a real MMO and came to it from other TES games which were single player. Were any of those games hard after you ran through it the first time? Not really. I also play WOW and have played many other games and none have really difficult overland content once you get into the game and learn how it is played and learn what you need to make it easy for you it just becomes easy.

In many games as they release new content it’s not really hard its just new and if it is a little harder than the old content it is still easy and in a very short time the newness is gone and it is just like everything else but it is still fun to play so we keep playing until it is not.

The developers try to make a game for everyone to play and very few games I have played have hard overland content for experienced players and even fewer have hard overland content for max level experienced players. Why? 2 reasons come to mind at this time.

1. Because they have other areas of the game for those types of players who want harder stuff to do. For example in eso those areas are the more difficult DLC Vet dungeons/trials and hardmode. There are arenas like Vet Maelstrom arena for solo and Vet Dragonstar arena for a group of 4. Would it be nice if they had more stuff like Maelstrom and Dragonstar? Yes it would and hopefully more are coming.
2. Not everyone is able to bulldoze through the game like you and me. Everyone has different levels of skill at playing the game even some experienced max CP players are not skilled at the game but still enjoy playing it. Overland content it tailored to the lower half of the skill range…maybe even less than that but regardless it is not tailored toward the upper echelon of players. Overland content is mainly designed for the story of the game and the questers, those who play just to do the quests. The developers add in stuff like world bosses, dolmens and a few other things that are a little harder for those that like harder stuff to give them something to do while questing through the world and leveling instead of *** the Alik’r dolmen run over and over and over but we all know many still do that.

You have a good idea that I hope the developers will at least look into and if they can make it work we might see it in the future. It may not appeal to everyone but I think it would appeal to enough to make it worthwhile as long as there are quests for the questers and nodes for the gatherers and traders.

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. John Lydgate

Iccotak · January 2020

@Eiregirl
Thanks for the feedback
I think there was a typo in your comment that made it all appear in a "quote" format

Eiregirl · January 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

@Eiregirl
Thanks for the feedback
I think there was a typo in your comment that made it all appear in a "quote" format

There was but I fixed it

thadjarvis · January 2020

@mocap probably has the simplest way to implement a scaling: food. Eg a food that does major vuln, major main, and a luck (loot) buff. All ZoS would have to do is code the luck buff which could just be some loot table multiplier.

MashmalloMan · January 2020

thadjarvis wrote: »

@mocap probably has the simplest way to implement a scaling: food. Eg a food that does major vuln, major main, and a luck (loot) buff. All ZoS would have to do is code the luck buff which could just be some loot table multiplier.

Hm, that's a great way of looking at it by using the already existing debuffs in the game. I'd argue they aren't really strong enough to make a large enough difference IMO, but it's definitely a start.

The second concern is designing multiple foods for this very purpose seems really unneccessary. There is already a good selection of foods/drinks for every build. Designing new ones would interfere with players builds and probably force players to purchase or make them. There would need to be many variants too, a max stam/hp food, max stam/hp, stam regen, etc.

Seems like a lot of extra work that can just be handled by a toggled debuff you get in town or perhaps a scroll you could use on the go that is disabled in content where it isn't applicable.

Iccotak wrote: »

@MashmalloMan
I could not agree more with this sentiment
show previous quotes

People can claim that it's a minority who thinks this way, but if you really ask yourself, is the current design of ESO's overworld content difficulty do any justice for long term players? It doesn't and to say, well thats what trials and vet dungeons are for is so narrow minded.

That's why my hope with the unique dolmen activity was something both New & Veteran players could enjoy and work towards.
Even if ZOS doesn't do the Public Dungeon Zone I still think there is promise to the activity.
Which is why I expanded that concept in a separate post: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6537696

Perhaps for a difficulty slider there is something to try - feel free to start another topic that focuses on that concept
Spoiler
1: There are levels to raise the difficulty
2: you can only raise the difficulty. You cannot make the content any easier than it is right now.
3: Each level while increasingly harder provides more rewards

Sure, I'll check it out. It's a good idea, it's just a question of if it can be sold, so is it worth the investment. I think a zone isn't worth their time, but your defense idea is something they could get behind.