Why is this game so easy?

cmorris975

I've played ESO on and off for years, and this is my biggest gripe. ESO is a good game - that's why I keep coming back to it for a bit sometimes. The OP is right though... Most of the game is mind-numbingly easy and that is probably why it never holds my attention for too long.

I think ESO has made some design decisions that really helped it to survive and flourish. Unfortunately, those decisions also took away most of the challenge except in veteran dungeons and things like that.

It is what it is. A painfully easy game with some challenging parts thrown in as well.

IronWooshu

To further add to my post. I think familiarity with content is why it's so easy because I see new players die and struggle all the time still.

MartiniDaniels

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

show previous quotes

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

Coatmagic wrote: »

PS: Absolutely love the comment about 'basic purple gear' ROFLMA.

OMG... I missed this one.

Put in the pile of people who don't think having maxed CP on their Lvl 1 character makes a difference.

You have purple weapons from level up rewards. Also improving to purple requires like zero effort and laughable amount of gold. Also only gold weapons and gold jewelry have some notable advantage, other pieces don't have critical difference, especially between blue and purple.

Only if you've got lots of playtime in the game. No one just starting the game is going to upgrade their gear to purple and it's only laughable to you because youve got tons of gold. Beginning players aren't going to be upgrading like that

There is plenty of gold simply from questing and selling all those trash drops to NPC traders. I remember I wasn't doing any crafting writs or trading, I was simply randomly doing dolmens/public dungeons all over the Tamriel and I had enough gold to regularly upgrade bag capacity, I remember I was even buying various motifs from guild traders.. there were 100% no shortage of gold.

Mortac

HouLiGaN wrote: »

Your only level 40.... the game isn’t suppose to be hard for you just yet. Get to 810 Cp. And go do trials in vHM... and post again. The hard part comes with finding another 11 focused players to clear them.

I'm not even asking for the game to be hard. All I'm asking for is for the game not to be so trivial that an undergeared 5 year-old mashing random buttons can complete it. It's ridiculous. Maybe if the game was like this for the first 10 levels, but not through the whole leveling process up to 50. It's god damn boring because all you do is run and talk. Combat is pointless for the most part.

Some even seem to think that the game is this easy because someone is geared and have CPs. I run around in greens and blues and have no CPs.

I also find it amusing when the same people that defend a level of difficulty tuned for a solo 5 year-old also think instancing delves is a bad idea "because this is an MMO." Yes, it's an MMO, tuned for solo players. How does that in any way make sense? Now, don't get me wrong, I like having solo content too when it isn't trivial. But forget about leveling a character up to 50 with a friend because you're going to be bored out of your minds when combat already is trivial for a single player. Thus, the whole leveling experience will feel like you do nothing else but run, talk and pick things up. I'm level 49 now and I've probably had something like 3 half-interesting fights so far. The rest has been just... meh... pointless.

I keep hearing that I should wait until I play trials. I get it, the trials are harder, but how many trials are there anyway? Since what you're telling me to do would require me to run the same content over and over again, instead of enjoying the hundreds (thousands?) of quests available in the game world.

Why so many of you like playing games tuned for small children I'll never understand. I have the impression you don't play to get challenged. Instead, you play because you like hitting buttons, thinking that you're good because you beat trivial content in 2 seconds.

asuzab16_ESO

Most MMOs, and ESO is no exception, have found themselves stuck in the vicious cycle of accessibility and low difficulty for years now, and we're nowhere close to being done with this plague. Just look at the answers of this thread, or just go visit WoW forums and you'll get the same answers from the players "The game has to be easy because I don't want to waste time to get where/what I want". MMOs are not about the journey anymore, they're about reaching the goal as fast as possible and if you think that ESO is any different than WoW, just look at 90% of the answers. People want everything right away without any effort, and they're not ready to give up on that for just a little bit of fun.

Where it gets extremely worrying is that the more companies listen to these players, the more the content outside of mythic/veteran dungeons/raid becomes tasteless and the more people want to skip it, to the point where you literally can let a 5 years old (I would not recommend doing so tho), like the OP said, reach level 50. Because of that, all the effort put in creating zones, quests and combat systems is highly devaluated, and I'm afraid that we will reach at some point "MMOs" that are just dungeon/raid finder interfaces without no open worlds.

I understand that some players don't have as much time and don't want to spend hours wiping, but dumbing down everything to the extreme is not the right approach in my opinion. If I didn't have much time, I'd rather like to feel very rewarded for playing well during one or two quests than just head smashing my keyboard through 20 quests. Unfortunately, when reading this post, it is clear that the current MMO players are expecting quantity over quality and it looks like things are not going to change anytime soon. I hope that I'm wrong and that some studio finally finds a way to make MMOs accessible to everyone without having to force everyone to play the dumbed down version.

When it comes to ESO, I feel the same as I do with WoW, it pains me that I don't get a single opportunity/necessity to fully play my class outside of instances or PvP (when it works). I've never had as much fun on this game as when I reached veteran levels after the release but now the fact that the only way to find challenge in these two games is to rush through the same straight corridors without a story for the 50th time is depressing. Both games have so much more to offer, every single quest could be epic, fun and a chance to (learn how to) play your class, get better, meet people and work together (to make it short: an adventure), but we're not getting this because being full purple before next week is more important.

And to finish, I'll just say that it's been so many years since we've felt what this actually tastes like that people forgot (or never knew about it in the first place). I might be wrong, but I'm pretty confident in saying that once an MMO finds a way to bring that back, then the genre will finally stop bleeding and maybe become popular again, and I hope that ESO shows the way.

(Sorry for all the English mistakes!)

angelofdeath333

Questing in this game is Boring and easy af. PvP, vma, vdsa, DLC vet dungeons and trials is where you need more than 2 fingers to play

Faulgor

robertthebard wrote: »

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JMadFour wrote: »

eh. this topic amuses me.

The Overworld is fine just the way it is, in my opinion. The stories and characters are fun to experience, the combat is good for that sort of experience.

But if people want to be sweaty about solo content, instead of grouping up and running the actual difficult content in the game that was designed for people like them, who are we to stop em?

ZOS should make an optional World difficulty level that bumps every mob up a few pegs. Normal Mobs become Elites, Elites become Dungeon Bosses, Dungeon, Delve, and Quest Bosses become World Bosses. Apply this to every NPC in the game (even Justice NPCs). So..Elite Mudcrabs. Every Minotaur on the Gold Coast is now a dungeon boss. That Alliance Zone Story Quest Boss is now World Boss level. and so on.

It's a simple way to go about adding difficulty, and it's optional so the 2% of the population who wants sweaty overland content can have it, and everyone else can just keep on playing the way they always have been.

Why limit options when they can be provided relatively simply?

Because it's diverting resources from somewhere else, for a part of the population that will then complain that it's too hard, and some that will complain that it's still not hard enough. I've seen it happen, even been banned from a game's forum for laughing at the "we need harder content, but not this hard" crowd.

As far as new game systems go, this would be the easiest to develop by far, because all the relevant technology (e.g. scaling) is already in place. There's also obviously a demand for it, because this must be one of the most requested features in the community. Certainly more than for the antiquities we're now getting.

I made a more detailed suggestion over a year ago, but the gist is:
- Transplant a Tel-Var-like system to overland content
- The more currency you carry, the more currency drops from enemies but the weaker you get
- Then you just have a bog-standard merchant for rewards

The Case for Higher Difficulty Settings: Making a Bargain

robertthebard

Faulgor wrote: »

show previous quotes

robertthebard wrote: »

JMadFour wrote: »

eh. this topic amuses me.

The Overworld is fine just the way it is, in my opinion. The stories and characters are fun to experience, the combat is good for that sort of experience.

But if people want to be sweaty about solo content, instead of grouping up and running the actual difficult content in the game that was designed for people like them, who are we to stop em?

ZOS should make an optional World difficulty level that bumps every mob up a few pegs. Normal Mobs become Elites, Elites become Dungeon Bosses, Dungeon, Delve, and Quest Bosses become World Bosses. Apply this to every NPC in the game (even Justice NPCs). So..Elite Mudcrabs. Every Minotaur on the Gold Coast is now a dungeon boss. That Alliance Zone Story Quest Boss is now World Boss level. and so on.

It's a simple way to go about adding difficulty, and it's optional so the 2% of the population who wants sweaty overland content can have it, and everyone else can just keep on playing the way they always have been.

Why limit options when they can be provided relatively simply?

Because it's diverting resources from somewhere else, for a part of the population that will then complain that it's too hard, and some that will complain that it's still not hard enough. I've seen it happen, even been banned from a game's forum for laughing at the "we need harder content, but not this hard" crowd.

As far as new game systems go, this would be the easiest to develop by far, because all the relevant technology (e.g. scaling) is already in place. There's also obviously a demand for it, because this must be one of the most requested features in the community. Certainly more than for the antiquities we're now getting.

I made a more detailed suggestion over a year ago, but the gist is:
- Transplant a Tel-Var-like system to overland content
- The more currency you carry, the more currency drops from enemies but the weaker you get
- Then you just have a bog-standard merchant for rewards

The Case for Higher Difficulty Settings: Making a Bargain

Two questions:

1. How many people would actually use it?

2. What happens when people game this system by keeping their currency low, and then complain that it shouldn't be their responsibility to nerf themselves to get "engaging content"? You're fooling yourself if you believe that the latter won't happen. It's going to run the gambit of denying that player skill plays into the equation at all, a pure fallacy, to "I worked hard to get this gear, and I should be able to use it", which is absolutely true, and carries with it the problem of having that gear is going to trivialize the content, and the devs will always be locked into tweaking it, if they want to stop these threads from popping up.

You see, these are things that matter in this discussion, because, as I said, it's diverting resources from other places to this, and it's going to be a never ending cycle of devs having to spend time on it because it's "stupid hard", something that was, and likely is still being thrown around a lot in DDO's Reaper mode, and people that think that it didn't go far enough. At the end of the day, I'm going to be in the second crowd, contrary to some other posters that just think everyone nay saying the necessity of this are just under skilled noobs that don't have any business in their MMO. Yet I still don't see the need to build the game around my skill level. I like the idea of there being other players in zones where I'm playing, it makes the game feel alive, and since I'm too sporadic a player, I've likely got under 6 months of total time playing, despite being around for 3 years, to stay in a guild, it's a nice way to have others to chat with.

Raudgrani

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

eKsDee

Can we stop over-complicating this or throwing up strawmans trying to justify not doing something about this? Here, a step-by-step guide on how to fix this, provided by your's truly:

1. Copy and paste Battle Spirit, change the name, and change which zones it applies to players in, and/or the conditions needed for it to be applied to a player, so it only applies in an overland instance.
2. Keep the damage received and healing received multipliers, but add an additional damage done multiplier, and remove the max health and range boosts.
3. Have all multipliers scale based on a difficulty attribute within the character's data, that players can freely adjust to alter how their character gets scaled.
4. Expose this attribute to players through a difficulty slider or dropdown menu in their character sheet (or the settings menu, if settings in that menu can be hooked up to server-sided settings like this).
5. Play around with the multipliers and the scaling, to ensure that each difficulty setting has a different feel to it, taking player feedback into account.

There. A 5-step guide on how to fix this, in a way that can't be exploited (it only adjusts difficulty, I personally don't care about drops since difficulty is my main problem with ESO's overland & questing), and in a way that doesn't affect other players.

Who gives a damn about whether there's increased drops that can be exploited, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, so stop talking about it. Implement the difficulty scaling, then worry about that stuff.

robertthebard

eKsDee wrote: »

Can we stop over-complicating this or throwing up strawmans trying to justify not doing something about this? Here, a step-by-step guide on how to fix this, provided by your's truly:

1. Copy and paste Battle Spirit, change the name, and change which zones it applies to players in, and/or the conditions needed for it to be applied to a player, so it only applies in an overland instance.
2. Keep the damage received and healing received multipliers, but add an additional damage done multiplier, and remove the max health and range boosts.
3. Have all multipliers scale based on a difficulty attribute within the character's data, that players can freely adjust to alter how their character gets scaled.
4. Expose this attribute to players through a difficulty slider or dropdown menu in their character sheet (or the settings menu, if settings in that menu can be hooked up to server-sided settings like this).
5. Play around with the multipliers and the scaling, to ensure that each difficulty setting has a different feel to it, taking player feedback into account.

There. A 5-step guide on how to fix this, in a way that can't be exploited (it only adjusts difficulty, I personally don't care about drops since difficulty is my main problem with ESO's overland & questing), and in a way that doesn't affect other players.

Who gives a damn about whether there's increased drops that can be exploited, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, so stop talking about it. Implement the difficulty scaling, then worry about that stuff.

I've got a one step plan: Play the content that's supposed to be difficult, if you're looking for difficulty in an MMO.

eKsDee

robertthebard wrote: »

show previous quotes

eKsDee wrote: »

Can we stop over-complicating this or throwing up strawmans trying to justify not doing something about this? Here, a step-by-step guide on how to fix this, provided by your's truly:

1. Copy and paste Battle Spirit, change the name, and change which zones it applies to players in, and/or the conditions needed for it to be applied to a player, so it only applies in an overland instance.
2. Keep the damage received and healing received multipliers, but add an additional damage done multiplier, and remove the max health and range boosts.
3. Have all multipliers scale based on a difficulty attribute within the character's data, that players can freely adjust to alter how their character gets scaled.
4. Expose this attribute to players through a difficulty slider or dropdown menu in their character sheet (or the settings menu, if settings in that menu can be hooked up to server-sided settings like this).
5. Play around with the multipliers and the scaling, to ensure that each difficulty setting has a different feel to it, taking player feedback into account.

There. A 5-step guide on how to fix this, in a way that can't be exploited (it only adjusts difficulty, I personally don't care about drops since difficulty is my main problem with ESO's overland & questing), and in a way that doesn't affect other players.

Who gives a damn about whether there's increased drops that can be exploited, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, so stop talking about it. Implement the difficulty scaling, then worry about that stuff.

I've got a one step plan: Play the content that's supposed to be difficult, if you're looking for difficulty in an MMO.

I'm not looking for difficult, I'm looking for "doesn't put me to sleep doing anything in overland." I don't do overland and questing in ESO because I literally get put to sleep by doing it, it's so mind numbingly boring.

MartiniDaniels

Raudgrani wrote: »

show previous quotes

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

eKsDee

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

show previous quotes

Raudgrani wrote: »

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

You can even do that with world bosses. While leveling my magblade, I solo'd one of the Deshaan world bosses at level 43 without any CP allocated, in half blue half green, half set half non-set gear, using something that barely even qualifies as a rotation I threw together on the spot.

Raudgrani

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

show previous quotes

Raudgrani wrote: »

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

You'll simply have to accept that this is the case, or more on to another game. They made overland content easier, I even think they did so multiple times. And this is the way they want it, and I doubt many feel this is a problem. Most people playing this game don't do it for questing, they move either towards "endgame" PVE or PVP content. Hardcore difficult overland content isn't an ESO thing, and I highly doubt they will ever change that.

Comparatively, it's a little bit like sitting as an adult with a pre-school maths introduction book, doing it over and over again, complaining about it being too easy. You are meant to move on. This is the way ESO is, players who are into questing generally don't like it because it's so challenging, but because of achievements, rewards and such. Because they like the lore and the storylines and what not. Every game is different.

robertthebard

eKsDee wrote: »

show previous quotes

robertthebard wrote: »

eKsDee wrote: »

Can we stop over-complicating this or throwing up strawmans trying to justify not doing something about this? Here, a step-by-step guide on how to fix this, provided by your's truly:

1. Copy and paste Battle Spirit, change the name, and change which zones it applies to players in, and/or the conditions needed for it to be applied to a player, so it only applies in an overland instance.
2. Keep the damage received and healing received multipliers, but add an additional damage done multiplier, and remove the max health and range boosts.
3. Have all multipliers scale based on a difficulty attribute within the character's data, that players can freely adjust to alter how their character gets scaled.
4. Expose this attribute to players through a difficulty slider or dropdown menu in their character sheet (or the settings menu, if settings in that menu can be hooked up to server-sided settings like this).
5. Play around with the multipliers and the scaling, to ensure that each difficulty setting has a different feel to it, taking player feedback into account.

There. A 5-step guide on how to fix this, in a way that can't be exploited (it only adjusts difficulty, I personally don't care about drops since difficulty is my main problem with ESO's overland & questing), and in a way that doesn't affect other players.

Who gives a damn about whether there's increased drops that can be exploited, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, so stop talking about it. Implement the difficulty scaling, then worry about that stuff.

I've got a one step plan: Play the content that's supposed to be difficult, if you're looking for difficulty in an MMO.

I'm not looking for difficult, I'm looking for "doesn't put me to sleep doing anything in overland." I don't do overland and questing in ESO because I literally get put to sleep by doing it, it's so mind numbingly boring.

How many times have you been through it? I mean, there's a poll on the first page this morning, not from today, it's just there as I type this, about wanting the start areas always taking you to Cold Harbor. As I reflect on that, I understand why new chapters start you in their zones, instead of there, as an effort to combat burn out that can come from repetitive running of the same stuff. As for "combat is boring", welcome to every MMO ever. Ironically, when swtor went to a system to make zones relevant no matter your level, it was "but I should be able to roflstomp this content because I'm so strong". Here, and in other MMOs as well, as this is far from a unique situation to ESO, it's "but I'm bored with overland because it's not engaging/challenging/interesting".

They can ramp it up or tune it however they like, but this thread, and others like it, will still turn up. Another thread that will turn up, and will have players that are actively posting in this thread, and all it's predecessors, is that they went the wrong way with it, and made it "stupid hard". I've seen that happen. I could literally copy/paste threads from assorted MMOs over the years, black out player names, and edit out game names where they occur, and nobody would notice it wasn't from here. I could pull them from DDO, where the actual leveling content is all instanced, and from GW 2, and nobody would know the difference. I get to feeling like I've logged into the wrong forums when I read these threads sometimes, because of things very much like that.

MartiniDaniels

eKsDee wrote: »

show previous quotes

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Raudgrani wrote: »

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

You can even do that with world bosses. While leveling my magblade, I solo'd one of the Deshaan world bosses at level 43 without any CP allocated, in half blue half green, half set half non-set gear, using something that barely even qualifies as a rotation I threw together on the spot.

Yes, there are plenty of WB who are barely doing any damage to player. But then somebody will cry about guar, gargoyle, elsweyr dragons etc, so it's better to keep WB out of discussion.

eKsDee

robertthebard wrote: »

How many times have you been through it?

More or less a year, until shortly after One Tamriel which caused this problem, when I couldn't stand how easy the content was. At that point, I just stopped intentionally doing it, and only did it while leveling characters, and even then I'd try to skip as much questing content as possible, because I just didn't find it fun anymore.

robertthebard wrote: »

I mean, there's a poll on the first page this morning, not from today, it's just there as I type this, about wanting the start areas always taking you to Cold Harbor. As I reflect on that, I understand why new chapters start you in their zones, instead of there, as an effort to combat burn out that can come from repetitive running of the same stuff.

A bit unrelated, but I kind of agree with that notion, even though it doesn't apply to me as I quit questing way before burnout set in (I know my issue is not burnout, because I still enjoy the questing itself, just the gameplay, or lack thereof, is the problem).

I still think the game should give newer players a choice on where to start, or at least redesign the introduction quest so it flows better into the main questline, because I keep seeing newer players getting confused on what to do next. Just need to look on the ESO subreddit to see it for yourself.

robertthebard wrote: »

As for "combat is boring", welcome to every MMO ever.

Except it's not the combat that's boring, it's the lack thereof. Overland combat has literally been dumbed down to at most require players mashing the one button, over and over again. There's no need to dodge or block attacks, or even properly use your skills, because overland has been dumbed down so much that anybody can play in any zone, which is the problem.

robertthebard wrote: »

Ironically, when swtor went to a system to make zones relevant no matter your level, it was "but I should be able to roflstomp this content because I'm so strong". Here, and in other MMOs as well, as this is far from a unique situation to ESO, it's "but I'm bored with overland because it's not engaging/challenging/interesting".

And this is why I think a system like I suggested is the best solution, because it gives players a choice between multiple difficulty levels, that only applies to themselves.

If a vet wants to roflstomp, they can turn their difficulty down, scaling their character up, well beyond what CP 810's are experiencing now.

If a vet wants some engagement in their overland experience, they can turn their difficulty up a bit, scaling their character down a bit, to better match the content.

If a vet wants a Dark Souls experience, they can turn their difficulty way up, causing their character scaling to plummet to the floor.

On the flip side, if a newer player is having trouble with content, they can turn their difficulty down a tad, or if they're finding overland a bit too easy, they can turn it up a tad.

Scalable, and the best part, completely independent. Because the difficulty scaling only touches their damage done, damage received and healing received, their own difficulties won't affect anybody else's, beyond having to be carried in group fights if their difficulty is too high.

I don't see a reason why anybody would say no to this, unless they fundamentally misunderstand it, or have some personal stake in keeping overland as easy as it is.

robertthebard wrote: »

They can ramp it up or tune it however they like, but this thread, and others like it, will still turn up.

Fixed with my solution, because my solution is scalable and completely independent.

robertthebard wrote: »

Another thread that will turn up, and will have players that are actively posting in this thread, and all it's predecessors, is that they went the wrong way with it, and made it "stupid hard".

Again, fixed with my solution.

eKsDee

Copypasting this part of my reply in its own comment, to ensure that everybody sees it.

And this is why I think a system like I suggested is the best solution, because it gives players a choice between multiple difficulty levels, that only applies to themselves.

If a vet wants to roflstomp, they can turn their difficulty down, scaling their character up, well beyond what CP 810's are experiencing now.

If a vet wants some engagement in their overland experience, they can turn their difficulty up a bit, scaling their character down a bit, to better match the content.

If a vet wants a Dark Souls experience, they can turn their difficulty way up, causing their character scaling to plummet to the floor.

On the flip side, if a newer player is having trouble with content, they can turn their difficulty down a tad, or if they're finding overland a bit too easy, they can turn it up a tad.

Scalable, and the best part, completely independent. Because the difficulty scaling only touches their damage done, damage received and healing received, their own difficulties won't affect anybody else's, beyond having to be carried in group fights if their difficulty is too high.

I don't see a reason why anybody would say no to this, unless they fundamentally misunderstand it, or have some personal stake in keeping overland as easy as it is.

eKsDee

Raudgrani wrote: »

show previous quotes

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Raudgrani wrote: »

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

You'll simply have to accept that this is the case, or more on to another game. They made overland content easier, I even think they did so multiple times. And this is the way they want it, and I doubt many feel this is a problem. Most people playing this game don't do it for questing, they move either towards "endgame" PVE or PVP content. Hardcore difficult overland content isn't an ESO thing, and I highly doubt they will ever change that.

Comparatively, it's a little bit like sitting as an adult with a pre-school maths introduction book, doing it over and over again, complaining about it being too easy. You are meant to move on. This is the way ESO is, players who are into questing generally don't like it because it's so challenging, but because of achievements, rewards and such. Because they like the lore and the storylines and what not. Every game is different.

If we're going with your analogy, than to continue it, it would be more accurate to say that those books are the ones with the most attention and quality, with everything else receiving the bare minimum.

Because that's literally how it is. Overland PvE content receives far more attention and polish than any other part of the game (except the Crown Store, obviously), than even end game PvE content, and we won't even mention PvP.

robertthebard

eKsDee wrote: »

show previous quotes

Raudgrani wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Raudgrani wrote: »

Mortac wrote: »

It annoys me to no end. I want to play content that isn't tuned for a 5-year old. But it seems 90% of the PVE content is tuned for just that.

It's a game meant for a broad audience, not "elite". ZOS are at least these days trying to gain a more "friendly approach" towards disabled and less good players, so I think you can expect that on an even wider scale ahead. The overland content is supposed to be cozy and simple. If you are looking for challenging content, you need to look elsewhere (not Elsweyr). For overworld content, I suppose world bosses are among the most demanding thing you can do (solo).

If you are past the overworld stage, you need to consider moving on to start looking at veteran dungeons as a next step. I'm more of a PVP player, but taking a break from that - and I have just done all dungeons (DLC too, of course) on veteran difficulty just the other day, and I'm starting to have them done on hardmode as well. That is not an easy thing to do, if you think so - you might be looking to start playing another game, but I don't really know which.

Skyrim was sold 30M+ copies and is considered a game "for a broad audience" for sure. Now if you take unmodded game and just plainly go around without sneak/kiting/LOS etc you will be wrecked on normal difficulty by every harder mob, until you max out your armor/spell resistance/damage output.
Same for Witcher 3 (sold ~30M copies too) - despite being very casual game, if you won't be actively using timed dodge and rolls you will be wrecked all the time (by enemies of your level) right from the start and to the end on NORMAL difficulty.
I don't even want to talk about "casual" Overwatch, Last of Us, Uncharted 4, GTA 5 - in all those games you won't reach anywhere if you will be just standing in place mashing 2 buttons and they are all way more successful and popular then ESO.
I have no idea what "broad audience" is meant for ESO even if one of the most popular and casual-friendly games require some minimal tactics to be played. As one forum member said - ESO overland insults one's intelligence. I never met game where you can create new toon, slot some default heal+spammable and kill everything with exception of world bosses while lazily pushing 2 buttons. (I mean new toon, with undistributed CP and in basic white/green/blue gear which drops around, white food)

You'll simply have to accept that this is the case, or more on to another game. They made overland content easier, I even think they did so multiple times. And this is the way they want it, and I doubt many feel this is a problem. Most people playing this game don't do it for questing, they move either towards "endgame" PVE or PVP content. Hardcore difficult overland content isn't an ESO thing, and I highly doubt they will ever change that.

Comparatively, it's a little bit like sitting as an adult with a pre-school maths introduction book, doing it over and over again, complaining about it being too easy. You are meant to move on. This is the way ESO is, players who are into questing generally don't like it because it's so challenging, but because of achievements, rewards and such. Because they like the lore and the storylines and what not. Every game is different.

If we're going with your analogy, than to continue it, it would be more accurate to say that those books are the ones with the most attention and quality, with everything else receiving the bare minimum.

Because that's literally how it is. Overland PvE content receives far more attention and polish than any other part of the game (except the Crown Store, obviously), than even end game PvE content, and we won't even mention PvP.

Alternatively, we could also say that the challenging content is too challenging, and that's why people are insisting that the overland content be changed to increase their engagement. We can say a lot of things, but none of that makes any of it true. One player's "too easy" is another player's Nightmare difficulty, with all "extremes" in between.

Let's be clear, you're asking a gaming company to spend possibly millions of dollars revamping every system in the game to accommodate a part of the player base that wouldn't make up that money. It's not going to suddenly increase the game population to the extent some seem to believe. We'll eventually, or have already gotten to the "everyone I know" fallacy, claiming that "everyone I know wants this/quit because it's not happening". What percentage of the player base is "everyone I know"? If I take the MMO where I knew the most people I've ever known in a game, the percentage of the total player base wouldn't even get close to 1%. I'm not even going to venture a guess to how many places to the right of the decimal I would have to go before the number isn't 0. In this vein, it may seem like it's some sort of game breaking issue, but if we look outside of that bubble what are we really going to see.

It doesn't have anything to do with "not understanding it" or "having an interest in maintaining it as is", it has to do with understanding that despite the volume of threads, there just aren't that many unique posters in them. It's the same people, making the same claims, over and over. For example, you haven't rage quit because of this, despite linking to a thread that's a year old. If we consider that only about 15% of a game's population even uses the forums, that percentage of players that are sincerely interested in something like this goes down even further, or has the possibility of doing so.

Then there's the elephant in the room: What happens if they implement this, and a couple of weeks/months down the road, a fix to something else breaks it? Taking bets that it would be something along the lines of "here we go again, ZoS introduces even more bugs into the game". From where I'm sitting, it's better to make the content that's intended for groups to be challenging, and just leave the overland stuff alone. It's cheaper, and will result in a lot less flaming of developers.

mairwen85

To be fair, the only opposition to this request sum up as:

1. takes time and effort away from other areas of development.
2. you can self nerf with CP and gear

While [1] is certainly a valid point, I question just how sever it would be in practice.

WRT [2], I feel that in the absence of a built in option, this is pretty much the most logical means to make overland more of a 'challenge' and any counterpoint to why a player should nerf themselves is directly addressed with the statement that you're asking for a built in means to achieve the same.

OP goes on after immediate difficulty with complaint regarding quest structure. Unfortunately, all quests do follow the formula go to x and do y (optionally come back). In ESO (as well all TES games) this manifests in the below variations:

• go to x and get y
• go to x and kill y
• go to x, kill y, and get z

Only the writing and dialogue can make that feel like anything else. If you're already flying through quests with epic gear and 2-manning every opponent, I'm guessing you're also speed clicking through all the guts of the quest and story, so nothing will give you any illusion of the formula being anything other than that.

Personally, I'm not a fan of overland -- been there done that many years ago -- so I'm grateful I can just nuke my way through it if I need anything from it. That said, it doesn't mean ZOS couldn't add the ability to apply self debuffs so that players who want it don't have to mess around with the laborious task of changing CP and gear between activities.

[https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1812-AlphaGear2.html#info]

West93

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

Faulgor

robertthebard wrote: »

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Faulgor wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

JMadFour wrote: »

eh. this topic amuses me.

The Overworld is fine just the way it is, in my opinion. The stories and characters are fun to experience, the combat is good for that sort of experience.

But if people want to be sweaty about solo content, instead of grouping up and running the actual difficult content in the game that was designed for people like them, who are we to stop em?

ZOS should make an optional World difficulty level that bumps every mob up a few pegs. Normal Mobs become Elites, Elites become Dungeon Bosses, Dungeon, Delve, and Quest Bosses become World Bosses. Apply this to every NPC in the game (even Justice NPCs). So..Elite Mudcrabs. Every Minotaur on the Gold Coast is now a dungeon boss. That Alliance Zone Story Quest Boss is now World Boss level. and so on.

It's a simple way to go about adding difficulty, and it's optional so the 2% of the population who wants sweaty overland content can have it, and everyone else can just keep on playing the way they always have been.

Why limit options when they can be provided relatively simply?

Because it's diverting resources from somewhere else, for a part of the population that will then complain that it's too hard, and some that will complain that it's still not hard enough. I've seen it happen, even been banned from a game's forum for laughing at the "we need harder content, but not this hard" crowd.

As far as new game systems go, this would be the easiest to develop by far, because all the relevant technology (e.g. scaling) is already in place. There's also obviously a demand for it, because this must be one of the most requested features in the community. Certainly more than for the antiquities we're now getting.

I made a more detailed suggestion over a year ago, but the gist is:
- Transplant a Tel-Var-like system to overland content
- The more currency you carry, the more currency drops from enemies but the weaker you get
- Then you just have a bog-standard merchant for rewards

The Case for Higher Difficulty Settings: Making a Bargain

Two questions:

1. How many people would actually use it?

2. What happens when people game this system by keeping their currency low, and then complain that it shouldn't be their responsibility to nerf themselves to get "engaging content"? You're fooling yourself if you believe that the latter won't happen. It's going to run the gambit of denying that player skill plays into the equation at all, a pure fallacy, to "I worked hard to get this gear, and I should be able to use it", which is absolutely true, and carries with it the problem of having that gear is going to trivialize the content, and the devs will always be locked into tweaking it, if they want to stop these threads from popping up.

You see, these are things that matter in this discussion, because, as I said, it's diverting resources from other places to this, and it's going to be a never ending cycle of devs having to spend time on it because it's "stupid hard", something that was, and likely is still being thrown around a lot in DDO's Reaper mode, and people that think that it didn't go far enough. At the end of the day, I'm going to be in the second crowd, contrary to some other posters that just think everyone nay saying the necessity of this are just under skilled noobs that don't have any business in their MMO. Yet I still don't see the need to build the game around my skill level. I like the idea of there being other players in zones where I'm playing, it makes the game feel alive, and since I'm too sporadic a player, I've likely got under 6 months of total time playing, despite being around for 3 years, to stay in a guild, it's a nice way to have others to chat with.

1. Considering that people are constantly asking for something like this, I predict a lot. Most would probably at least try it for some of the new rewards.

2. I don't follow. Are you saying it shouldn't be done because people might still not be satisfied? That's a cool argument to never get anything.

So is "it's diverting resources from other places". Like what, exactly? Antiquity systems nobody asked for? Another buggy class? Yo-yo rebalancing every 3 months? If we can't ask for things we'd like to see in the game because it requires development, they might as well shut down the studio. That will save development resources like nothing else.

eKsDee

West93 wrote: »

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

That would split the population, which could cause other issues. The way to tackle this is through a player debuff of sorts.

Lysette

Simply cut their resources in half and apply a semi-permadeath feature to those wanting it hard - they die, their character is locked for a week and cannot log in anymore (= dead for a week) - with half their resources and this rule it should be a challenge - and that is pretty easy to implement as well. And no instant choice of opting in and out, they have to stick with their decision to play either style for a month.

Naftal

eKsDee wrote: »

show previous quotes

West93 wrote: »

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

That would split the population, which could cause other issues. The way to tackle this is through a player debuff of sorts.

That would not split the population. People who want veteran mode aren't populating the normal overland, and if they are, they aren't grouping with people so it's not splitting anything.

Debuff would be stupid.

mairwen85

Naftal wrote: »

show previous quotes

eKsDee wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

That would split the population, which could cause other issues. The way to tackle this is through a player debuff of sorts.

That would not split the population. People who want veteran mode aren't populating the normal overland, and if they are, they aren't grouping with people so it's not splitting anything.

Debuff would be stupid.

Debuff would be less stupid than re-implementing the entire overland game world.

Naftal

mairwen85 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Naftal wrote: »

eKsDee wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

That would split the population, which could cause other issues. The way to tackle this is through a player debuff of sorts.

That would not split the population. People who want veteran mode aren't populating the normal overland, and if they are, they aren't grouping with people so it's not splitting anything.

Debuff would be stupid.

Debuff would be less stupid than re-implementing the entire overland game world.

As long as the debuff puts you into another instance with other people that have the debuff and the debuff mode has its own progression seperate from normal mode.

mairwen85

Naftal wrote: »

show previous quotes

mairwen85 wrote: »

Naftal wrote: »

eKsDee wrote: »

West93 wrote: »

Would it be possible to make overland zone being normal and veteran mode, in veteran everything scales higher and becomes harder to kill etc.

That would split the population, which could cause other issues. The way to tackle this is through a player debuff of sorts.

That would not split the population. People who want veteran mode aren't populating the normal overland, and if they are, they aren't grouping with people so it's not splitting anything.

Debuff would be stupid.

Debuff would be less stupid than re-implementing the entire overland game world.

As long as the debuff puts you into another instance with other people that have the debuff and the debuff mode has its own progression seperate from normal mode.

Like a do over? i.e. play overland with your max cp character as if was a new character?