Legendary Overland Difficulty Toggle Option

Nestor

Why have the complication of recoding the game when every player has the ability to recode their character. Normal Non Set Gear, No CP, No Food, No Potions and No Enchants will get you exactly what you are looking for. Immediately.

Build your character for weakness not strength if you want a harder game. That is all a difficulty slider really does, is change the power balance.

Universe

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content like what you suggested.

Nestor wrote: »

Why have the complication of recoding the game when every player has the ability to recode their character. Normal Non Set Gear, No CP, No Food, No Potions and No Enchants will get you exactly what you are looking for. Immediately.

Build your character for weakness not strength if you want a harder game. That is all a difficulty slider really does, is change the power balance.

Even playing with weak/bad gear doesn't make it challenging enough in most cases.
A strong debuff will solve everything with a simple click on the menu & teleport with no hassle.
Also, I want to feel the sense of accomplishment that I beaten an harder mode, not that I did some fake stripping my character naked which doesn't even provide enough challenge(Unless I remove almost everything).

@MartiniDaniels posted regarding a similar claim:

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

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Curious_Death wrote: »

clear ur CP
use white or max green weapons
use green gear
problem solved.

No, not solved.
You need to remove abilities from bars, remove armor and remove weapons. Then overland mobs will be dangerous. As soon as you slot healing or take even white weapon in your hands, they become trivial.

If you didn't see his post about his fist fight with a giant:

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

^ My fist fight with a giant year ago
As you can see from stats fully naked character, no CP, gear, attributes or food. I forgot to remove passives and mundus my bad. Giant dps was 152 though, which proves that basic health recovery is enough to outheal damage from elite mob even when standing in front of him naked
Don't tell me I was running from Giant, you can see that I managed 0.99 LA per second against him

The above is just an example how weak the current Overland is.
Maybe the debuff I stated should be buffed further like: Your health recovery is reduced by 30%.
*The current normal overland is simply not meant to provide a challenge for seasoned players.
It is like fighting low HP training dummies which pose no threat at all.

It seems that some forum members don't read most of the posts in this discussion so I have to re-answer similar questions many times.
*OP post slightly edited to answer why weakening the character isn't the right way to do this.

seipher09

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

I want a harder version for sure, but I do not want any debuffs or nerfs to myself. I simply want mobs to have more health and actually deal more damage than a breeze that is impossible to die from unless afk.

seipher09

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

Nestor wrote: »

Why have the complication of recoding the game when every player has the ability to recode their character. Normal Non Set Gear, No CP, No Food, No Potions and No Enchants will get you exactly what you are looking for. Immediately.

Build your character for weakness not strength if you want a harder game. That is all a difficulty slider really does, is change the power balance.

Please keep in mind this 10000% defeats the purpose of any meaningful progression in the game and any single rpg in general. The goal of an rpg is to get good gear and to get better at the game. What your suggesting is basically the exact opposite of what an rpg should be.

Glurin

No! I don't want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content like what you suggested.

seipher09 wrote: »

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Nestor wrote: »

Why have the complication of recoding the game when every player has the ability to recode their character. Normal Non Set Gear, No CP, No Food, No Potions and No Enchants will get you exactly what you are looking for. Immediately.

Build your character for weakness not strength if you want a harder game. That is all a difficulty slider really does, is change the power balance.

Please keep in mind this 10000% defeats the purpose of any meaningful progression in the game and any single rpg in general. The goal of an rpg is to get good gear and to get better at the game. What your suggesting is basically the exact opposite of what an rpg should be.

Eh, sort of. I wouldn't say it's the goal of an RPG. Part of the goal, maybe. A supporting structure of the goal. But just having the good toys isn't what I'd call the goal by itself. There are examples of RPGs out there that made that mistake, and they all ended up feeling hollow and empty.

In fact come to think of it, Fallout 76 is an example of treating good gear as the goal, as illustrated by the statement from a Bethesda dev saying they were surprised to learn that Fallout fans expected Fallout to be in a Fallout game. The devs thought people just wanted to run around a radioactive wasteland shooting each other with the biggest guns they could find.

Dusk_Coven

Other.

seipher09 wrote: »

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Nestor wrote: »

Why have the complication of recoding the game when every player has the ability to recode their character. Normal Non Set Gear, No CP, No Food, No Potions and No Enchants will get you exactly what you are looking for. Immediately.

Build your character for weakness not strength if you want a harder game. That is all a difficulty slider really does, is change the power balance.

Please keep in mind this 10000% defeats the purpose of any meaningful progression in the game and any single rpg in general. The goal of an rpg is to get good gear and to get better at the game. What your suggesting is basically the exact opposite of what an rpg should be.

[snip]

This is what the OP really wants: To make it just hard enough that they can still overcome everything, and justify collecting higher rewards. The key is that they will still be able to overcome everything. If they actually want a decent chance of failing, they need to follow the difficulty progression and start doing actually hard veteran dungeons and trials and progress further into doing the achievement challenges, for example.

And the reason those harder challenges are in instances is because the developers can have a better chance of controlling the environment and player counts to actually make it challenging. In overland, they can't stop players from swarming a dragon with 20-40 or more people and then hear them complain about how easy dragons are during a dragon-killing event.
Whatever the OP suggests, unless the player count can be enforced, it'll just get exploited and players will do the not-intended thing of being challenged and instead just farm higher rewards.
For a start, no extra rewards. Then we'll see if people actually are interested in being challenged. Craglorn shows that the answer is no.
[edited for baiting]

MellowMagic

Other.

Universe wrote: »

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MellowMagic wrote: »

Having separate instances for Overland content isnt the best idea itll take to much dev time to veteranize every insignificant enemy. Plus there are some zones that are already bare enough having more instances is gunna leave so many zones empty. I do think a veteran toggle is a good idea but only for story bosses specifically ones that are instanced. Defeating story bosses in veteran mode will give you a coffer with a regional furnishing recipe. I don't think it's a good idea to associate mementos or achievements with a veteran toggle because people won't be able to repeat stuff they've already done thus will never be able to earn it.

Not really.
A debuff solves many of the possible development issues, like time spent on developing it.
In fact in theory it will be quite easy to implement it.

Additional achievements & momentos are not part of my suggestion.

Not really.
I was mostly commenting towards other comments that suggested those ideas, I think debuffing yourself so that easy content feels harder is a terrible lazy idea. Turning cp off basically achieves this and doesnt waste developer time. I want harder optional content quest content to match my characters power I dont want to purposely make myself weaker so things appear harder.

Daemons_Bane

Other.

We always talk about difficulty sliders.. would it work if we had a slider for our character instead.? Decreasing our stats by a percentage, the more we slide it.. I imagine that it would not impact other players, unless we try to heal them, and it would make the experience as hard as we could ever want it.. best of all, there would be no reason to tamper with the overland content

cmorris975

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

I find most of the ESO content to be mind-numbingly easy, to the point where I lose interest in playing it pretty soon after I download it (which happens a couple of times a year).

I think Bethseda should just start adding new areas with the expansions that are a little tougher. I know that goes against the whole "One Tamriel" thing, but maybe they could make it so the new areas are just a *little* more challenging. Anything to break up the "everyone is a face-stomping hero and all mobs are the same with different skins" feeling of the current game would be a real breath of fresh air.

Dahveed

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't want any other extra rewards.

I guess I'm just an old fart, and times have changed. "Loot" didn't used to be in every video game ever as an auto-include. I just want to explore, read lore, participate in cool quest stories AND at the same time feel like my character is in danger.

Having an entire zone full of creatures and bandits who all want me dead, but who are hitting me with nerf balls all day, just feels really dumb. I don't want some shiny sword or pet because I beat a quest, I just want to feel like I overcame an obstacle to deserve my reward: I beat the game.

I think a happy medium would be to just add cosmetic-only stuff to this system, such as achievements non-combat pets or something...

Maybe even a system whereby you get like 50 crown gems (those purple ones) for completing a zone's story on hard mode or something? I dunno.

But personally I wouldn't care, I just want more engaging gameplay in overworld, the rewards would be inconsequential.

cmorris975

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

Dahveed wrote: »

I seem to be in the minority, but I don't want any other extra rewards.

I guess I'm just an old fart, and times have changed. "Loot" didn't used to be in every video game ever as an auto-include. I just want to explore, read lore, participate in cool quest stories AND at the same time feel like my character is in danger.

Having an entire zone full of creatures and bandits who all want me dead, but who are hitting me with nerf balls all day, just feels really dumb. I don't want some shiny sword or pet because I beat a quest, I just want to feel like I overcame an obstacle to deserve my reward: I beat the game.

I think a happy medium would be to just add cosmetic-only stuff to this system, such as achievements non-combat pets or something...

Maybe even a system whereby you get like 50 crown gems (those purple ones) for completing a zone's story on hard mode or something? I dunno.

But personally I wouldn't care, I just want more engaging gameplay in overworld, the rewards would be inconsequential.

I'm with ya. I don't need any extra reward either, just some danger and challenge. Discovering a new delve isn't exciting because they all are so easy that it makes them feel very bland. Every new delve feels just like the last one with different skins on the mobs and interiors. I'm sure the story for each one changes, but it's hard to get engaged with the stories in ESO as the questing is so rampant in the game that I just want a break from it. Plus, how do I get engaged in the storyline when there's really very little risk to my character in terms of death penalty or difficulty in completion? It's missing those immersive qualities. There's no risk, so there's no feeling of "reward" upon completion. It's all very repetitive and cannot sustain my attention.

I will say that the veteran group content absolutely grabs my attention. But that is where the world actually is a challenge for once, that's not the norm in Tamriel. There's really no danger in the vast majority of Tamriel. It seems like really bad game design, to be honest. I guess I must be missing something because the game is successful. People must really like it how it is.

I don't get it though. It all feels so "samey", everywhere in the world. Very little danger anywhere. How do you have an adventure without danger? Or risk?

Wolf_Eye

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content, but not like what you suggested.

I wouldn't mind if people want a harder overland content. But those demanding a challenge should see the challenge itself as a reward; it cheapens the argument if they then turn around and say "oh but we want better drops too!".

No, the challenge is your prize in itself, you cannot demand "extra" prizes.

Overland content is primarily supposed to reward newbies and it needs to remain that way so that new players can play through the stories without "missing out" on extra rewards because they did not play it on a frustrating hardmode. Imagine having hordes of new players complaining that they missed out on the extra rewards for defeating Molag Bal in the main story quest because the hardmode was too hard for them at their low level. Remember, you cannot play through quests twice so you cannot try to get the hardmode items ever again unless you get them the first time.

And what about all the people who already completed quests? You're denying them these extra prizes because it's not like they can go back and complete the story quests again on hardmode. Once a quest is complete, you can never do it again (unless you're talking solely about daily quests, which could work).

Veteran dungeons, trials, and such should remain as the areas where experienced players get the bulk of their item rewards. Quest rewards should not be changed, so as to not spit in the face of all those who already completed those quests.

Elwendryll

Other.

Universe wrote: »

I know that I can just fight with white gear, lesser abilities and toggle off my champion points, but I believe this isn't fun nor initiative.

Well, I disagree with that. I find questing disappointing because all the build up and anticipation is ruined by the final boss dying in 2 seconds, you don't need a very high dps to make it trivial, and being close to 90k on the dummy, everything in the quest lines just melt.

So, recently, I took away my CPs, food, potions, and went with white CP 10 gear with white CP 10 enchants, and I simplified my ability bars (double 2H, no dots). I disabled the UI (except for reading dialogs/books and checking where I need to go), disabled combat cues (the colored telegraphs on the ground) and healthbars, and went questing. I even made a new outfit, to make my character look more common, like he could be a cool looking NPC.

I finished Murkmire. And I have to say every fight was meaningful, I used the blade of woe a lot, I always love to do that, but this time it was actually faster than fighting.
The boss fights were actually challenging enough to be enjoyable. And the big enemies that were supposed to be intimidating were in fact encouraging me to sneak past them instead of fighting.

I genuinely had a lot of fun, and I could properly enjoy the story and the beauty of the scenery without the lack of difficulty breaking my immersion.

MartiniDaniels

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content like what you suggested.

Elwendryll wrote: »

show previous quotes

Universe wrote: »

I know that I can just fight with white gear, lesser abilities and toggle off my champion points, but I believe this isn't fun nor initiative.

Well, I disagree with that. I find questing disappointing because all the build up and anticipation is ruined by the final boss dying in 2 seconds, you don't need a very high dps to make it trivial, and being close to 90k on the dummy, everything in the quest lines just melt.

So, recently, I took away my CPs, food, potions, and went with white CP 10 gear with white CP 10 enchants, and I simplified my ability bars (double 2H, no dots). I disabled the UI (except for reading dialogs/books and checking where I need to go), disabled combat cues (the colored telegraphs on the ground) and healthbars, and went questing. I even made a new outfit, to make my character look more common, like he could be a cool looking NPC.

I finished Murkmire. And I have to say every fight was meaningful, I used the blade of woe a lot, I always love to do that, but this time it was actually faster than fighting.
The boss fights were actually challenging enough to be enjoyable. And the big enemies that were supposed to be intimidating were in fact encouraging me to sneak past them instead of fighting.

I genuinely had a lot of fun, and I could properly enjoy the story and the beauty of the scenery without the lack of difficulty breaking my immersion.

Yeah, that works, especially if you remove burst healing abilities.
But Murkmire is one of the best zones in the game, it's quality and beauty compensates a lot for lackluster combat (like in unmodded Witcher 3 or Skyrim for example). Try it in something like Shadowfen and we'll see how fun it will be.

Universe

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content like what you suggested.

seipher09 wrote: »

I want a harder version for sure, but I do not want any debuffs or nerfs to myself. I simply want mobs to have more health and actually deal more damage than a breeze that is impossible to die from unless afk.

The debuff is achieving the same stats just in reverse.
"1. The player character output damage is reduced by 50%."
This means that essentially the mobs HP just doubled since the player character is doing 0.5X of the original damage output.
If taking into consideration the other below effects, much less than that.
A mob of 120K health will suddenly feel like 300K-400K+ HP mob due to all the effects.

"2. Healing is reduced by 30%."
This makes it significantly harder to heal in tough combat situations.

"3. Damage Shields Strength is reduced by 30%."
The damage shields are less efficient in defending the player.

"4. Increased damage taken by 35%."
This makes mobs deal more damage to the player character.

"5. Physical and Spell resistance are capped at 5K each."
This effect makes the player character less resistant.

"6. Physical and Spell Penetration are capped at 5K each."
This effect makes the player character damage output even lower since less damage will penetrate the mob's resistance which if I can recall correctly is about 9.1K on overland.
(https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/289430/new-mob-mitigation-values-for-one-tamriel/p1)

"7. Champion points are disabled. But can still be earned."
This essentially makes the player much weaker in both resistances and in damage dealing, healing, overall stats, blocking and a lot of other combat aspects.

"8. The cost to block and dodge roll is increased by 10%."
This makes it harder to constantly block or dodge roll.
One of the issues of power creep is that it's so easy to dodge roll or block.
Players will have to strategically block/dodge roll when it is actually necessary.

"9. Double the experience points, items & gold earned from killing monsters."
A mere bonus for hard work. It also serves as incentive to participate in this harder mode.

"10.The rewards from quests are doubled."
A mere bonus for hard work. It also serves as incentive to participate in this harder mode.

"11.Players who set the toggle as ON will be able to see and group with each other on the same phase.
Lower and higher difficulty players will not be able to attack the same monsters.
There will be no mix of lower and higher difficulty."

This effect prevents exploiting & combat chaos.
Only players who are under the effect of the debuff will be able to be on the "Legendary Overland" phase.

Overall, the debuff achieves the same effect without the need to re-design the entire Overland areas.
The only features which will be added are: the debuff itself, phasing to support it, grouping & teleporting restrictions, double rewards as stated and some minor stability & balancing update.
The rewards part is not the reason why I want an harder mode.
This is a bonus for playing on a higher difficulty.

Personally, I will be happy to have only a harder mode without any rewards, but it is obvious that if there will be higher rewards there will be a real reason for players to be on the harder mode.
For example, why will players choose to spend triple the amount of time & effort to kill a Dragon/World Boss if there will be no additional rewards(double rewards) ?
Most won't.
The double rewards will serve as the incentive to engage with the higher difficulty mode.
Indeed, the challenge is a reward in itself, but in order to have enough players in hard mode phases, there needs to be an incentive to join and in this case it is the double rewards.
If a veteran Trial would have granted the same rewards as the Normal Trial would you been bothered with the veteran Trial ?
Most wouldn't have bothered with the higher difficulty if that was the case and the developers know that...That's the reason why there are better rewards on a veteran mode in Dungeon/Trial/Arena.

Thanks for voting and participating!
I'm glad that you all shared your opinions & votes.

MartiniDaniels

Yes! I want an harder difficulty setting for Overland content like what you suggested.

^ Thanks for creating the poll with reasonable options!
222 votes at now is pretty solid activity for forum polls, maybe ZOS will understand that they are losing money because game doesn't have an option for harder overland.