Why is this game so easy?

newtinmpls · May 2020

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

All of it makes sense and I understand your position.

Then you are slightly ahead of me. <g>

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

That's why I always talk only about optional mode/instance. And yes, there are a lot of activities in the game,

Sounds like you would be a person who would accept a "personal debuff" (otherwise known as a difficulty slider).

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

but believe me majority of long-time players already participated in them and completed many times. So at some point only overland is left uncompleted and untouched.

Now picture me rolling my eyes - since there is generally no way to get a good view of "the majority" in a game that keeps it's stats as tightly hidden in ESO, it boils down to who is loudest (on forums, twitter, whatever).

I have a LOT of respect for people who say I like this or that or even I and the people I game/guild/PvP with like this or that.

I haven't finished all the base game overland - and I've been playing since about a month after launch. I just like wandering, hanging about doing occasional quests, non-vet undaunted. I enjoy "playing about"; but I'm not fixated on actually accomplishing anything besides enjoyment. I'm not a completionist, most of my houses are only partially finished, and I stink at PvP. I have 18 characters on my main account, but only one of them has actual gold items.

But I've still been playing, and enjoying for .. heck it's been six years now.

.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Dahveed · May 2020

Linaleah wrote: »

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Dahveed wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

and I will continue to repeat until blue in a face, why non instance debuff WILL NOT WORK.

does that debuff come with extra loot? cause it can be cheesed then by grouping debuffed player with undebuffed one where you still get those extra fast kills AND extra loot. but you say - if the mob is hit by non debuffed player, then there is no extra loot - well have fun with trolls making your fights harder for no extra rewards, just because they can tag things. and even if people are not trolling or cheesing - random non debuffed person comes along, sees you fighting a mob they also need for a quest - and bam, good bye challenge. or maybe they even think they are being helpful

any sort of increase in challenge HAS to be instanced.

You have sorely misunderstood what I said.

I didn't say anything (AT ALL) about getting extra loot or rewards. No, really. Read my paragraph again, carefully. I didn't say anything (AT ALL) about getting any extra loot or rewards.

That is to say, in this mode, if you choose to play it, you will get no extra loot or rewards.

Oh, did I mention? There would be no extra loot or rewards.

There, that should be clear enough now.

As to your second point, "have fun with trolls making your fights harder for no extra rewards", this sentence shows you didn't understand (AT ALL) what I said.

Here is what I said, word for word:

Leave the entire game as it is. Leave noobies alone. Leave the npcs alone. Leave all the gear, talents, cps, potions, crown store, EVERYTHING, don't touch any of it.

So if a "troll" comes along and starts attacking my tagged NPCs, the following things will change for me:

NOTHING.

Absolutely nothing. Except that instead of completely decimating the NPC I was attacking in 2.4 seconds as I normally would if that debuffed player were there, I will now decimate that npc in 2.2 seconds because a nerfed guy "helped" me.

My xp doesn't change, my loot doesn't change, nothing changes. Just some random dude came along and whacked the guy I was fighting ineffectually a couple of times.

So what? Where is the problem?

Again, I repeat:

Any player who likes things the way they are, just keep going about your merry way slaughtering everything in your path as you casually explore the rich story and lore of the overworld.

NOTHING. CHANGES.

Loot doesn't change. XP doesn't change. Gold doesn't change. Rewards don't change. The NPC health pool doesn't change. The NPC attack damage doesn't change.

NOTHING CHANGES.

The only thing that changes is the debuff that I apply to myself, because I'm a masochist who hates free stuff.

It doesn't affect you or anyone else in any way whatsoever.

If you STILL don't understand my concept after reading this post, I don't know what to say anymore.

you missed the part where some kind random person comes along and decides to "help. and what changes for you is that your challenge is gone. or did you just decide that you are the only one that can kill things quickly that plays in overland? and that it will not make a difference when undebuffed person comes along and wacks the same mob you are wacking? or maybe several people if its some sort of a boss type mob in a delve or something?

and why are you not disabling your cp already? that optional debuff wouldn't be free most likely, so might as well pay 3k to reset your cp - there's a bit of debuff on you right there and its already in game!

but with your proposal, nothing would change, for ANYONE. including you. well maybe with exclusion of instanced quest areas and we come back to what i said. this can only work with INSTANCING.

I've been playing this game for almost five years now, always solo.

In that entire time, another player has helped me down another NPC a grand total of about four times.

I don't care what other players do. If, once every three months, some random dude comes along and hits the same NPC I'm hitting, well whoop-dee-doo, it'll die faster. It still means the 4,389 other enemies I have to fight during those three months will be more interesting and suspensful.

This happens in classic WoW as I play it right now, sometimes players help me... but I still die all the time.

And you know what? It's supposed to be an MMO, this is supposed to be a good thing, right? Players cooperating... It would encourage groups. (Like I said, as a solo player I personally don't care, but that was one of the complaints that brought back classic WoW: A sense of community and a need to form groups and bonds in the game.)

I really, really don't care if once in a blue moon some other random dude attacks the same thing I'm attacking.

In fact, this is already a problem for me when I try to solo world bosses right now. A couple times now I've actually run away mid-encounter because other players have showed up while I try to solo a world boss. I run away and come back later solo again because I want the challenge and satisfaction that I earned my victory. I suppose I could do the same again if my character were nerfed.

Once again, you are just looking for every tiny little nitpick to shoot this idea down. I'm not sure why.

Dahveed · May 2020

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

ZOS_RogerJ · May 2020

As some posts have been removed, remember it’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread.

Foefaller · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Dahveed · May 2020

Foefaller wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Sorry but you're just wrong.

I am playing a fresh rogue in WoW classic, and I'm level 12. I've died about 30 times, not even exaggerating. Probably closer to 40 or 50.

I then rolled a paladin thinking I'd have self-heals, heavy armor, a shield and all my bubble/lay on hands shenannegins so things would be easier solo.... Maybe a little, but I've still died about 10 times by level 13.

When I was level 9 and I took on a level 10 bear for a quest, I'd get mauled. If I timed everything perfectly I could kill it and end the fight with about 8% health.

Things are just HARDER. Period. The npcs hit harder. The player hits softer. Things cost more. Mana is precious.

What I described abolve just doesn't happen in ESO, anywhere, ever, in overland content... with the obvious exception of world bosses, which just stay in their hovels and never patrol anywhere anyways, so there's no real spontaneous danger.

And even if you do get in any trouble in ESO (never happens), our characters run so fast and the NPCs reset so fast that you just have to sprint away and 2-3 seconds later you're fine.

If you try to run away from fights in classic WoW there is a very good chance you get dazed and slowed, or that you die anyways while you still get whacked 3-4 times.

I swear people talking about classic WoW on these forums obviously haven't played it recently. You probably misremember your experiences from 8 years ago and are conflating them with retail WoW which has the same problems that I'm talking about, i.e., overland content is a joke.

In WoW starting zones players drop like flies and people are constantly asking zone chat for help. That doesn't happen in ESO at all.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

Sure, it's all subjective and in my experience WoW was significantly easier because the quests have little variance, you had 50 skills you could pump out, overland enemies weren't any harder but they did have more hp making battles take much longer, and the professions that you had had little to no use. I remember being a smith and a jewelcrafter and when they were finally maxed out I was very disappointed to that only JC was useful and that was very minor as you could buy equal or better gems through pvp or pve activities.

The only difficulty in WoW came from raids and dungeons and once you've leveled out of content zones there's no real going back.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

Foefaller wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Exactly! The combat in WoW goes at a snails pace but people have a nostalgia for the series. I think personally the hardest single player content in an MMO was GW1.

max_only · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Foefaller wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Sorry but you're just wrong.

I am playing a fresh rogue in WoW classic, and I'm level 12. I've died about 30 times, not even exaggerating. Probably closer to 40 or 50.

I then rolled a paladin thinking I'd have self-heals, heavy armor, a shield and all my bubble/lay on hands shenannegins so things would be easier solo.... Maybe a little, but I've still died about 10 times by level 13.

When I was level 9 and I took on a level 10 bear for a quest, I'd get mauled. If I timed everything perfectly I could kill it and end the fight with about 8% health.

Things are just HARDER. Period. The npcs hit harder. The player hits softer. Things cost more. Mana is precious.

What I described abolve just doesn't happen in ESO, anywhere, ever, in overland content... with the obvious exception of world bosses, which just stay in their hovels and never patrol anywhere anyways, so there's no real spontaneous danger.

And even if you do get in any trouble in ESO (never happens), our characters run so fast and the NPCs reset so fast that you just have to sprint away and 2-3 seconds later you're fine.

If you try to run away from fights in classic WoW there is a very good chance you get dazed and slowed, or that you die anyways while you still get whacked 3-4 times.

I swear people talking about classic WoW on these forums obviously haven't played it recently. You probably misremember your experiences from 8 years ago and are conflating them with retail WoW which has the same problems that I'm talking about, i.e., overland content is a joke.

In WoW starting zones players drop like flies and people are constantly asking zone chat for help. That doesn't happen in ESO at all.

I disagree. I see people asking for help in zone chat all the time in ESO. But because quests require you to be on the same stage, I’m not able to help them (I usually craft them food and armor at that point). Also, I don’t die near as many times in WoW classic as you are describing. Sometimes different combat systems make sense differently to different people. Rogue was the last class I played in WoW because you have to learn to open, and then move to the opponents back immediately. In ESO, there is no bonus for attack from the back (unless you wear that 1 horrible armor set).
It’s two different philosophies of combat and different people will process it differently. I find WoW combat much easier because I can eat while fighting by locking on and queue up several skills in a row. ESO is not like that, you have to keep the enemy under your cursor (which requires looking as well as movement) and you can’t queue up skills to fire one after another like in a list, Eso skills and actions interrupt the previous one.

Foefaller · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Foefaller wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Sorry but you're just wrong.

I am playing a fresh rogue in WoW classic, and I'm level 12. I've died about 30 times, not even exaggerating. Probably closer to 40 or 50.

I then rolled a paladin thinking I'd have self-heals, heavy armor, a shield and all my bubble/lay on hands shenannegins so things would be easier solo.... Maybe a little, but I've still died about 10 times by level 13.

When I was level 9 and I took on a level 10 bear for a quest, I'd get mauled. If I timed everything perfectly I could kill it and end the fight with about 8% health.

Things are just HARDER. Period. The npcs hit harder. The player hits softer. Things cost more. Mana is precious.

What I described abolve just doesn't happen in ESO, anywhere, ever, in overland content... with the obvious exception of world bosses, which just stay in their hovels and never patrol anywhere anyways, so there's no real spontaneous danger.

And even if you do get in any trouble in ESO (never happens), our characters run so fast and the NPCs reset so fast that you just have to sprint away and 2-3 seconds later you're fine.

If you try to run away from fights in classic WoW there is a very good chance you get dazed and slowed, or that you die anyways while you still get whacked 3-4 times.

I swear people talking about classic WoW on these forums obviously haven't played it recently. You probably misremember your experiences from 8 years ago and are conflating them with retail WoW which has the same problems that I'm talking about, i.e., overland content is a joke.

In WoW starting zones players drop like flies and people are constantly asking zone chat for help. That doesn't happen in ESO at all.

You are pulling enemies and fighting only one or two at a time whenever possible, right?

WoW Classic comes from an age before devs got the idea that they can make encounters more exciting by having the player fight 3-4 trash mobs for each encounter as opposed to 1-2 mobs that were individually closer to you in terms of health/damage.

I also remember a rogue class quest that the mobs were almost impossible to solo traditionally, and you were meant to sneak and use things like Garrote, which would cause them to instantly die despite their gold status. You hadn't forgotten about that bit after all this time, have you?

It's just that my experience with WoW in the good ol' days was completely different from what you are describing, and I almost cannot conceive any reason why it would be that hard unless you're trying to play an early 00's MMO like it was a late 2010's MMO.

Prao · May 2020

If you do get bored of this game and don’t want to reach max level, just get power leveled by some friendly random to get a feel of the very beginning of end game content. I haven’t even had the patience to level 1-50 cp 160 by doing dungeons/overland.

Linaleah · May 2020

max_only wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

Foefaller wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Sorry but you're just wrong.

I am playing a fresh rogue in WoW classic, and I'm level 12. I've died about 30 times, not even exaggerating. Probably closer to 40 or 50.

I then rolled a paladin thinking I'd have self-heals, heavy armor, a shield and all my bubble/lay on hands shenannegins so things would be easier solo.... Maybe a little, but I've still died about 10 times by level 13.

When I was level 9 and I took on a level 10 bear for a quest, I'd get mauled. If I timed everything perfectly I could kill it and end the fight with about 8% health.

Things are just HARDER. Period. The npcs hit harder. The player hits softer. Things cost more. Mana is precious.

What I described abolve just doesn't happen in ESO, anywhere, ever, in overland content... with the obvious exception of world bosses, which just stay in their hovels and never patrol anywhere anyways, so there's no real spontaneous danger.

And even if you do get in any trouble in ESO (never happens), our characters run so fast and the NPCs reset so fast that you just have to sprint away and 2-3 seconds later you're fine.

If you try to run away from fights in classic WoW there is a very good chance you get dazed and slowed, or that you die anyways while you still get whacked 3-4 times.

I swear people talking about classic WoW on these forums obviously haven't played it recently. You probably misremember your experiences from 8 years ago and are conflating them with retail WoW which has the same problems that I'm talking about, i.e., overland content is a joke.

In WoW starting zones players drop like flies and people are constantly asking zone chat for help. That doesn't happen in ESO at all.

I disagree. I see people asking for help in zone chat all the time in ESO. But because quests require you to be on the same stage, I’m not able to help them (I usually craft them food and armor at that point). Also, I don’t die near as many times in WoW classic as you are describing. Sometimes different combat systems make sense differently to different people. Rogue was the last class I played in WoW because you have to learn to open, and then move to the opponents back immediately. In ESO, there is no bonus for attack from the back (unless you wear that 1 horrible armor set).
It’s two different philosophies of combat and different people will process it differently. I find WoW combat much easier because I can eat while fighting by locking on and queue up several skills in a row. ESO is not like that, you have to keep the enemy under your cursor (which requires looking as well as movement) and you can’t queue up skills to fire one after another like in a list, Eso skills and actions interrupt the previous one.

pretty much same experience. honestly rogues and nightblades both - make for a terrible first character. they are great when you are more familiar with the game, but can be really rough when you are not.

I actualy have active WoW subscription right now and been messing around on a shaman. (believe it or not, I miss those totem quests they removed in Cataclysm). she is easier then even leveling on live. and i have heirlooms on live, those do not exist in vanilla, so my gear is way WAY worse. no she is not enhance, elemental for LIFE. (ele in vanilla is... lets just say - underdeveloped :P )

the thing is.. if you attack things that are above you in level? yeah, you are going to have harder time. because WoW doesn't scale in classic (and has some very odd scaling calculations in BFA) short of rolling back one tamriel and limiting people to few zones again, all the while making most zones irrelevant completely (you think its easy now, wait until you quest when everything is gray and dies when you look at it sideways - which is how it was in ESO if you wanted to stay and complete a zone pre one tamriel and how it is in Wow classic) - there is no "fixing it".

if i have to pick between zones feeling uniformly relaxing, but at least they still are relevant vs zones that are level bound where I have to chose between moving on, or stopping to gain experience because I have just outleveled it? I pick one tamriel. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

and no, I'm not just being nitpicky when I say that individual debuff without changing anything else - is not going to work. you can already debuff yourself, by resetting CP and wearing lvl 1 white gear. apparently for some its not enough. some. probably even most - most certainly want better rewards for their effort. and becasue the skillgap is so wide in this game. how do you balance this debuff in a way that is just enough for both someone who does 30k dps, 60k dps and pushes 100k dps? make multiple debuffs? what about all the ranges in between?

Everest_Lionheart · May 2020

Linaleah wrote: »

show previous quotes

max_only wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Foefaller wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

My biggest beef with overland isn't the difficulty per se, it's the condensed nature of the enemies. If they made overland more difficult, I hope they would thin the herd out. As easy as it is, it still gets tedious asf having to kill enemies every two steps. Especially in delves. If it was more difficult, that would become amplified even more.

Oblivion suffered with this too. As soon as you stepped off the beaten track there was hostile animals or npcs galore. Again, it wasn't difficult, but it became tedious to the point I stopped venturing off the beaten path. This improved immensely with Skyrim. You could actually explore without having to be in combat every few steps.

This.

The OP is correct, I have been saying this for YEARS. ESO suffers greatly as a solo experience because the actual combat is too frequent, too repetitive, and too easy.

It seems bizarre to complain about the fact that there is simply too much "stuff" in the zones - too many NPCs, too many events, delves, dungeons, towns, points of interest etc etc etc.... but it actually takes away from the exploration experience if you are just constantly bombarded with tedious, repetitive crap.

I just recently rerolled a few characters in classic WoW, and boy did they get it right! Every attack matters, every point of armor counts, literally every copper you loot is valuable. I can barely come back to ESO anymore, it seems like a child's game, just like the OP said.

So what you're trying to say is games are harder when you have brand new toons vs older more established toons? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔hmmmm I wonder why that is.

Also you think attacks and armor matter in WoW then we must have played a different game. Classic WoW is easier to cheese than ever and isn't the comparison you wont for overland unless your idea of difficulty is damage sponges

Ah, the good ol' "So what you're saying is..."

No, that is not what I am saying.

I'm saying that classic WoW is 10x harder (yes, ten times, not exaggerating) than ESO.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with no CP on ESO, it is very very very very easy.

If I roll a new toon on a new server with nothing in WoW classic it is very very hard.

Because they are two completely different games with completely different balance and fundamentally different economies.

If by "harder" you mean "takes forever because TTK is high and you have to use food/drink to recover from pretty much every encounter," then sure.

If you're talking about awareness or timing of stuns/interrupts, I'd say it's no more difficult than ESO; once you know the best way to kill things for the class you are playing, there is very, very little that WoW Classic throws at you in the overworld that would require a shake-up or change in approach (other than new skills of course). Heck, when you do run into enemies that doesn't die in .5 seconds (or run a build that doesn't do the dps to kill them that fast, #TankHealerProblems) I think ESO actually starts becoming harder than WoW classic. Maelstrom Arena, IMO, is a good example of what a "hard" single player encounter that is actually hard in and of itself (and not just time consuming to farm the gear to make the dps check) could be, and there is nothing like that in WoW, beyond maybe the odd quest or two.

Sorry but you're just wrong.

I am playing a fresh rogue in WoW classic, and I'm level 12. I've died about 30 times, not even exaggerating. Probably closer to 40 or 50.

I then rolled a paladin thinking I'd have self-heals, heavy armor, a shield and all my bubble/lay on hands shenannegins so things would be easier solo.... Maybe a little, but I've still died about 10 times by level 13.

When I was level 9 and I took on a level 10 bear for a quest, I'd get mauled. If I timed everything perfectly I could kill it and end the fight with about 8% health.

Things are just HARDER. Period. The npcs hit harder. The player hits softer. Things cost more. Mana is precious.

What I described abolve just doesn't happen in ESO, anywhere, ever, in overland content... with the obvious exception of world bosses, which just stay in their hovels and never patrol anywhere anyways, so there's no real spontaneous danger.

And even if you do get in any trouble in ESO (never happens), our characters run so fast and the NPCs reset so fast that you just have to sprint away and 2-3 seconds later you're fine.

If you try to run away from fights in classic WoW there is a very good chance you get dazed and slowed, or that you die anyways while you still get whacked 3-4 times.

I swear people talking about classic WoW on these forums obviously haven't played it recently. You probably misremember your experiences from 8 years ago and are conflating them with retail WoW which has the same problems that I'm talking about, i.e., overland content is a joke.

In WoW starting zones players drop like flies and people are constantly asking zone chat for help. That doesn't happen in ESO at all.

I disagree. I see people asking for help in zone chat all the time in ESO. But because quests require you to be on the same stage, I’m not able to help them (I usually craft them food and armor at that point). Also, I don’t die near as many times in WoW classic as you are describing. Sometimes different combat systems make sense differently to different people. Rogue was the last class I played in WoW because you have to learn to open, and then move to the opponents back immediately. In ESO, there is no bonus for attack from the back (unless you wear that 1 horrible armor set).
It’s two different philosophies of combat and different people will process it differently. I find WoW combat much easier because I can eat while fighting by locking on and queue up several skills in a row. ESO is not like that, you have to keep the enemy under your cursor (which requires looking as well as movement) and you can’t queue up skills to fire one after another like in a list, Eso skills and actions interrupt the previous one.

pretty much same experience. honestly rogues and nightblades both - make for a terrible first character. they are great when you are more familiar with the game, but can be really rough when you are not.

I actualy have active WoW subscription right now and been messing around on a shaman. (believe it or not, I miss those totem quests they removed in Cataclysm). she is easier then even leveling on live. and i have heirlooms on live, those do not exist in vanilla, so my gear is way WAY worse. no she is not enhance, elemental for LIFE. (ele in vanilla is... lets just say - underdeveloped :P )

the thing is.. if you attack things that are above you in level? yeah, you are going to have harder time. because WoW doesn't scale in classic (and has some very odd scaling calculations in BFA) short of rolling back one tamriel and limiting people to few zones again, all the while making most zones irrelevant completely (you think its easy now, wait until you quest when everything is gray and dies when you look at it sideways - which is how it was in ESO if you wanted to stay and complete a zone pre one tamriel and how it is in Wow classic) - there is no "fixing it".

if i have to pick between zones feeling uniformly relaxing, but at least they still are relevant vs zones that are level bound where I have to chose between moving on, or stopping to gain experience because I have just outleveled it? I pick one tamriel. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

and no, I'm not just being nitpicky when I say that individual debuff without changing anything else - is not going to work. you can already debuff yourself, by resetting CP and wearing lvl 1 white gear. apparently for some its not enough. some. probably even most - most certainly want better rewards for their effort. and becasue the skillgap is so wide in this game. how do you balance this debuff in a way that is just enough for both someone who does 30k dps, 60k dps and pushes 100k dps? make multiple debuffs? what about all the ranges in between?

I don’t think there is any content in the game hard enough for the 60-100K DPS crowd. Even at 30K people are breezing through the toughest stuff. The power creep is out of hand and with bigger and better rewards that players would expect from “hard mode” the power creep would get even worse.

Then again if they removed all the caps and just let stuff be pretty much any build could be viable for endgame so long as you over level it to death. But isn’t that the nature of every RPG ever made? You over level to ROFL stomp everything into oblivion. The MMO aspect of the game allows you to ROFL stomp together in your underwear with your bare hands. It is what it is, just enjoy the ride!

zyk · May 2020

There are a huge number of reasons. The biggest is this timeline:

- 2006: Oblivion was released
- 2007: ZOS is formed from core of MMO PVP vets; ESO begins development to compete with WoW which was earning billions
- 2008: Skyrim begins full development (the groundwork had begun following Oblivion)
- 2011: Skyrim is released; is a sales phenom, outselling the rest of the tes series combined; changed everything tes
- 2012: development of ESO announced

Sometime during this period, WoW and its sub model peaked and was slowly declining. The sub model was failing for most games and replaced by F2P/B2P models.

So ESO began development as the ultimate WoW killer. It was going to combine TES storytelling and voice acting with MMO gameplay. It was going to feature deep PVE, PVP, Crafting, Trading, and raiding. Raiding was a big part of WoW's success so ESO was intended to have a deep endgame affected by each of the deep systems. Furthermore, it was going to evolve MMO combat. All of this resulted in a game with a very low floor and a high ceiling because there was so much to learn.

While ZOS was completing that complex beast...

Skyrim happened and changed everything because of its massive sales. It immediately became the focal point of the TES series. Its groundbreaking immersion attracted a very broad audience of all ages and walks of life. Effectively, the TES series had a brand new audience because the old was dwarfed by the new.

When ESO was announced in 2012, all of these new TES fans expected Skyrim Online, but ZOS was building TES: WoW of Camelot. Leaked concepts and screenshots would show a transition from a WoW-like interface to one with Skyrim styling. Combat was changed to be more TES-like.

In 2014, when ESO finally launched, it wasn't finished. Probably because they had to scrap so much to make it more Skyrim-like midway through development. It was MASSIVELY hyped. I considered its launch to be a legit event. Both Skyrim and MMO fans were expecting the best MMO ever and both groups were disappointed.

MMO fans were sick of bugs and bad launches. They expected games to work. They expected content. ESO launched with its combat system still in development and no endgame. PVP was amazing when it worked, but unplayable because of performance issues. MMO players abandoned ESO in droves. By the time Archeage launched about 6 months later, ESO was dead to the greater MMO community.

Skyrim fans enjoyed 1-50 enough, though they wanted actual Skyrim gameplay. But they absolutely despised vet levels and dungeons because they were designed for MMO players and not single player gamers, making it too difficult for the average Skyrim player. But the solution to that wasn't easy because the core problem was the meaningful complexity built into the game.

So ZOS solved this problem by blanket nerfing all Vet PVE content weeks after launch, rendering the complexity largely meaningless outside of PVP. ZOS had some PR events to tell Skyrim fans they were being heard and they announced a plan to morph ESO into the game it is today; most likely culminating with the release of Morrowind. Endgame PVE and PVP were largely abandoned or downsized significantly.

That's how ESO became ezmode and has been since.

tl;dr: skyrim happened

asuzab16_ESO · May 2020

I understand the person above that says in WoW Classic every attack matters and I also find that the current WoW and ESO lack in that department. I believe that impactful skills and gameplays in MMos have become quite rare nowadays. In both current WoW and ESO, rotation is at the center of the game. The better you know a rotation of very small impact abilities and execute it, the more you are effective, and most of the players swear by that. I find that very similar to the music arcade games where the only thing you have to do is hit the right color at the right time, and personally, I'm not a big fan of that. I miss the times when MMos were not developed with rotations in mind and it was up to me to adapt and figure out which of my 20/30/40 spells would be best to use next.

Vanilla (and now Classic) was one of the last remnants of that, a time where performance was not the result of how well you can perform a predetermined rotation but the result of how well you could adapt to different situations with the tools you. It also didn't rely on procs and the outcome of the fights were 100% a result of my personal ability choices, unlike WoW today with corruption procs that can do 80% of my dps, or ESO and its sets that can do the same. It didn't necessarily mean that the gameplay was better, but to me, it felt way more impactful and as I cruise through overland content today, I not only miss that, but also feel frustrated for not being able to even use one quarter of my given rotation before mobs explode. Same goes for current WoW.

I know I'm not speaking for everyone else, but I would personally love to have fights require me to make impactful gameplay choices again, like old MMOs, like tabletop RPGs. I also strongly believe that this transcends casual/pro gamers conflicts about whether game should be easy or not. Actually, I believe that ESO and many other games would be much more popular if they were reversing to gameplays that provide a stronger feeling of accomplishment.

vilio11 · May 2020

The biggest problem with overland is that I do not have any sense of progression. I like that the world is scalling but is it possible to keep the positive things from both worlds(scaling and sense of progression)

Lysette · May 2020

zyk wrote: »

There are a huge number of reasons. The biggest is this timeline:

- 2006: Oblivion was released
- 2007: ZOS is formed from core of MMO PVP vets; ESO begins development to compete with WoW which was earning billions
- 2008: Skyrim begins full development (the groundwork had begun following Oblivion)
- 2011: Skyrim is released; is a sales phenom, outselling the rest of the tes series combined; changed everything tes
- 2012: development of ESO announced

Sometime during this period, WoW and its sub model peaked and was slowly declining. The sub model was failing for most games and replaced by F2P/B2P models.

So ESO began development as the ultimate WoW killer. It was going to combine TES storytelling and voice acting with MMO gameplay. It was going to feature deep PVE, PVP, Crafting, Trading, and raiding. Raiding was a big part of WoW's success so ESO was intended to have a deep endgame affected by each of the deep systems. Furthermore, it was going to evolve MMO combat. All of this resulted in a game with a very low floor and a high ceiling because there was so much to learn.

While ZOS was completing that complex beast...

Skyrim happened and changed everything because of its massive sales. It immediately became the focal point of the TES series. Its groundbreaking immersion attracted a very broad audience of all ages and walks of life. Effectively, the TES series had a brand new audience because the old was dwarfed by the new.

When ESO was announced in 2012, all of these new TES fans expected Skyrim Online, but ZOS was building TES: WoW of Camelot. Leaked concepts and screenshots would show a transition from a WoW-like interface to one with Skyrim styling. Combat was changed to be more TES-like.

In 2014, when ESO finally launched, it wasn't finished. Probably because they had to scrap so much to make it more Skyrim-like midway through development. It was MASSIVELY hyped. I considered its launch to be a legit event. Both Skyrim and MMO fans were expecting the best MMO ever and both groups were disappointed.

MMO fans were sick of bugs and bad launches. They expected games to work. They expected content. ESO launched with its combat system still in development and no endgame. PVP was amazing when it worked, but unplayable because of performance issues. MMO players abandoned ESO in droves. By the time Archeage launched about 6 months later, ESO was dead to the greater MMO community.

Skyrim fans enjoyed 1-50 enough, though they wanted actual Skyrim gameplay. But they absolutely despised vet levels and dungeons because they were designed for MMO players and not single player gamers, making it too difficult for the average Skyrim player. But the solution to that wasn't easy because the core problem was the meaningful complexity built into the game.

So ZOS solved this problem by blanket nerfing all Vet PVE content weeks after launch, rendering the complexity largely meaningless outside of PVP. ZOS had some PR events to tell Skyrim fans they were being heard and they announced a plan to morph ESO into the game it is today; most likely culminating with the release of Morrowind. Endgame PVE and PVP were largely abandoned or downsized significantly.

That's how ESO became ezmode and has been since.

tl;dr: skyrim happened

This is about the best comprehensive tale about how ESO came to be and why it is like it is.

majulook · May 2020

If you truly want more difficulty, you can do several things:

1. Remove your Champion Points
2. Use Blue or Green gear.
3. Use gear a level below your current level.
4. Do not use food or drinks to buff your stats.
5. Use Potions that are below your level, or just what you find in loot drops.
6. Do not use Potions at all.
7. Do not put skill points into Racial passives, Gear, or Weapons.
8. Play with out some equipment. (as in no jewelry, or shoulder, or head, or what ever pieces)

Twilanthe · May 2020

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

Jeremy · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

MartiniDaniels · May 2020

Lysette wrote: »

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zyk wrote: »

There are a huge number of reasons. The biggest is this timeline:

- 2006: Oblivion was released
- 2007: ZOS is formed from core of MMO PVP vets; ESO begins development to compete with WoW which was earning billions
- 2008: Skyrim begins full development (the groundwork had begun following Oblivion)
- 2011: Skyrim is released; is a sales phenom, outselling the rest of the tes series combined; changed everything tes
- 2012: development of ESO announced

Sometime during this period, WoW and its sub model peaked and was slowly declining. The sub model was failing for most games and replaced by F2P/B2P models.

So ESO began development as the ultimate WoW killer. It was going to combine TES storytelling and voice acting with MMO gameplay. It was going to feature deep PVE, PVP, Crafting, Trading, and raiding. Raiding was a big part of WoW's success so ESO was intended to have a deep endgame affected by each of the deep systems. Furthermore, it was going to evolve MMO combat. All of this resulted in a game with a very low floor and a high ceiling because there was so much to learn.

While ZOS was completing that complex beast...

Skyrim happened and changed everything because of its massive sales. It immediately became the focal point of the TES series. Its groundbreaking immersion attracted a very broad audience of all ages and walks of life. Effectively, the TES series had a brand new audience because the old was dwarfed by the new.

When ESO was announced in 2012, all of these new TES fans expected Skyrim Online, but ZOS was building TES: WoW of Camelot. Leaked concepts and screenshots would show a transition from a WoW-like interface to one with Skyrim styling. Combat was changed to be more TES-like.

In 2014, when ESO finally launched, it wasn't finished. Probably because they had to scrap so much to make it more Skyrim-like midway through development. It was MASSIVELY hyped. I considered its launch to be a legit event. Both Skyrim and MMO fans were expecting the best MMO ever and both groups were disappointed.

MMO fans were sick of bugs and bad launches. They expected games to work. They expected content. ESO launched with its combat system still in development and no endgame. PVP was amazing when it worked, but unplayable because of performance issues. MMO players abandoned ESO in droves. By the time Archeage launched about 6 months later, ESO was dead to the greater MMO community.

Skyrim fans enjoyed 1-50 enough, though they wanted actual Skyrim gameplay. But they absolutely despised vet levels and dungeons because they were designed for MMO players and not single player gamers, making it too difficult for the average Skyrim player. But the solution to that wasn't easy because the core problem was the meaningful complexity built into the game.

So ZOS solved this problem by blanket nerfing all Vet PVE content weeks after launch, rendering the complexity largely meaningless outside of PVP. ZOS had some PR events to tell Skyrim fans they were being heard and they announced a plan to morph ESO into the game it is today; most likely culminating with the release of Morrowind. Endgame PVE and PVP were largely abandoned or downsized significantly.

That's how ESO became ezmode and has been since.

tl;dr: skyrim happened

This is about the best comprehensive tale about how ESO came to be and why it is like it is.

From my experience ESO weak start was not caused by being too difficult "for Skyrim fans". ESO was very expensive, there were bad reviews everywhere and given that mods for Skyrim were blooming, large part of Skyrim community just ignored ESO at all and came here much later because there was simply nothing else to play in Elder Scrolls genre. Then SE version came out, which gave Skyrim modding second breath because it removed many engine limitations and improved performance greatly.
Most my friends in ESO are NOT from Skyrim. They didn't even played other TES games... they came to ESO from other MMOs because of ESO relatively good graphics, true RPG PVP, lack of P2W and lack of necessity to grind hard to reach end game.
ESO combat is overall more forgiving then modded Skyrim, because of animation cancelling, immediate blocking and availability of roll-dodge. In Skyrim if current level of difficulty is hard enough, you must precisely time everything because you can't block instantly, there is only small amount of available animation cancelling and classical dodge with "invulnerability frames" is non-existent. I'd say only vDLC dungeons and veteran trials have higher PVE difficulty then modded Skyrim. Of course if you have overwhelming stats difficulty in Skyrim is non-existent, but that's what mods are for. But mods just make AI more aggressive, remove some exploits and push damage from mobs higher, they don't add new mechanics or anything.

asuzab16_ESO · May 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

This. You perfectly explained the problem.

robertthebard · May 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

show previous quotes

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

asuzab16_ESO · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

joerginger · May 2020

But there is absolutely nothing to do in this famed 'overland' once you're done with exploring and questing. So I don't really understand the desire to turn it into a vet paradise. The only reason that forces you to go back to regions you're actually done with is picking up surveys.

vilio11 · May 2020

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

Apping up the difficulty does not mean to make this game a Dark Souls.
You can make the game slightly more difficult. Many new players are leaving the game after 10 hours because the game is easy for them. I have many friends that tried the game and they were bored because the game was too easy for them and they told me: "this game is braindeath and the combat do not feel powerfull".

Dahveed · May 2020

joerginger wrote: »

But there is absolutely nothing to do in this famed 'overland' once you're done with exploring and questing. So I don't really understand the desire to turn it into a vet paradise. The only reason that forces you to go back to regions you're actually done with is picking up surveys.

I have been playing casually for 4 years and I am nowhere CLOSE to finishing this aspect of the game.

I haven't even started Morrowind, Elsweyr, or Summerset yet. I only recently (a few months maybe?) finished the vanilla quests...

There is a crapload of content in this game's overland, it's actually pretty incredible how many quests and zones there are...

It's just a shame that the gameplay is so shallow.

Dahveed · May 2020

vilio11 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

Apping up the difficulty does not mean to make this game a Dark Souls.
You can make the game slightly more difficult. Many new players are leaving the game after 10 hours because the game is easy for them. I have many friends that tried the game and they were bored because the game was too easy for them and they told me: "this game is braindeath and the combat do not feel powerfull".

Exactly. I tried to get my brothers and a couple RL friends to join ESO and they abandoned ship after a couple hours because it's a joke.

I hoped one day they might change their mind, and I was also hoping for a different difficulty setting or something one day.

That day has never come, and now that WoW classic is out there is literally no hope. For people who enjoy questing and exploration but who have never immersed themselves in ES before (and hence don't know what they're missing), they see this game as just another copy/paste MMO with mindless fetch quests and boring, easy combat designed for little girls.

There is NO WAY they are going to grind to end game to "get to the good stuff". Both my brothers are married with kids now, there is simply no way in hell I am going to convince them to drop 100+ hours into a game just so they can get to the fun stuff later.

zyk · May 2020

vilio11 wrote: »

Apping up the difficulty does not mean to make this game a Dark Souls.
You can make the game slightly more difficult. Many new players are leaving the game after 10 hours because the game is easy for them. I have many friends that tried the game and they were bored because the game was too easy for them and they told me: "this game is braindeath and the combat do not feel powerfull".

I believe this is by design. IMO, ZOS made a conscious decision to explicitly not serve traditional PC gamers. We may have built this industry with our purchases, but we're difficult customers because we have always held developers accountable.

ZOS knows how easy their game is. The ZOS leadership is still composed of DAOC vets and the guys who designed the relatively difficult vet content at launch.

I worked as an analyst for telecommunication companies when ring tones were popular. I personally didn't know a single person who bought one, but the revenue was absurd. In the billions worldwide, basically all profit. The largest operational cost was handling payment disputes. My coworkers were constantly bewildered by it.

Well, I think gaming is so mainstream, that kind of consumer now plays games. They have no qualms about buying crates and no patience for learning complex systems. They are consumers looking for pure entertainment. They can't even imagine wanting to be challenged. It's for these players that GTA 5 has an option to skip missions to progress the story after being failed. Progression used to be the reward for overcoming the challenge.

ESO isn't tuned for what we considered casual gaming 10 years ago. it's designed to be almost impossible to lose -- like what happened to single player games around 15 years ago. Contrast this to Verant in 1999, designing entire zones they thought were impossible for players to beat; to be proven wrong by us, of course.

It's not really an us against them thing though. I don't have a problem with the players I've described. I think ZOS has done a pretty good job of serving them. The problem I have is with ZOS. They can make both parties happy. And they should because they said they would when they sold us ESO in 2014.