Idea: Optional difficulty slider for PVE world content

Pywrath

One of the things that I've found to be incredible about the ESO universe is how much effort & art went into the production of the overland content. From the diverse biospheres, to the volumes of pages of lore and the well-thought out (and voice acted) solo quests.

But there's one BIG problem for me. And, perhaps 80% of the player base. It's WAY too easy and, because of it, sometimes unexciting.

Granted, there's plenty of challenging content options in the Arenas, PVP, and Dungeons/Trials. But so much of the game is overland PVE. And many experienced players still haven't seen or done all of it, precisely because it's not challenging & rewarding enough.

So at best, there are hundreds of hours of potential game play for experienced players being somewhat underutilized. At worst, players have shifted focus away from 80% of the games incredible content to focus on pvp and furniture grinding.

What if we implemented an optional difficulty slider for over landscape content? That rewarded people slightly while also making ALL of that wonderful content playable/exciting again for experienced players.

While difficulty sliders are more difficult to pull off in MMOs, ZOS hasn't already essentially done the work with the Battleground buff/debuff. Why nor optionally give it players the ability to increase damage taken from the Overland enemies by 100, 200, or 300% and decrease damage done to them by perhaps half that?

Think of it this way. Sheogorath gives players who have completed the main quest the option to "amuse him" by making everything harder. In exchange, he'll increase the reward value (amount of gold, likelihood of certain drops, new currency, transmute stone drop chance, etc) in proportion to the difficulty level (of which there are 3-5). The player receives a buff called "Sheogorath's unblessing" that applies both the appropriate debuff and the increase in drops. The buff can be removed at any time.

Players now have an incentive to play the awesome "old" content. And, because it's harder, they'll enjoy it more.

The only potential downside I see here is reward inflation. The best way to fight that would be by offering a drop/reward that would not affect the player economy much (e.g. rewarding transmutation stones, or perhaps a new currency that operates like tel var stones - lost when dead). But even if gold or other loot is offered, I'd bet the impact would be minimal.

What do you all think? Would you like the chance to make overland content more challenging (optionally) and rewarding? Would you play overland content more if so?

Luckylancer

ZoS release a ton of overland content each year but I cant play it. My templar can kill everything with only one skill spam back to back.

I wont weaken my toon to challenge myself. I played skyrim at legendary difficulty so I can enjoy maximising my strenght and having a struggle againts enemies at same time. A lot of players dont do this too. We play veteran content instead of wearing thrash gear at normal mode.

Overland content was better when I was try harding at level 10 on my main.

Pywrath

@Luckylancer so it sounds like you agree that overland content is too easy, but that you aren't a fan of optional monster buffs or player debuffs that offer an incentive?

Do you think that there is any way to make overland content "challenging & fun" again?

I remember how great it was at level 10 too. I wonder if there is a way to recreate that?

Ellimist_Entreri

I had previously suggested in another thread scaling the number of available rewards for world bosses according to how many players are participating, however the thread was quickly derailed (thank you mod staff for cleaning up that mess!) in order to force it locked & prevent any real discussion on the topic - Be careful making any suggestions that benefit the community around here.

If the enemies difficulty were to scale up and down (health, damage etc) based on the amount of users involved with an event it would help bring back the challenge even when zerg groups of DDs are involved ^_^

While this doesn't specifically handle the scaling issues of general content such as quests when running a solid build at cap, it could be applied to much of the content such as delves, world bosses, dolmens etc.

Pywrath

I like that idea @Ellimist_Entreri. When there are 10 players fighting a zone boss, it takes the fun out of it. Would be nice if difficulty scaled accordingly.

etchedpixels

Pywrath wrote: »

@Luckylancer so it sounds like you agree that overland content is too easy, but that you aren't a fan of optional monster buffs or player debuffs that offer an incentive?

Do you think that there is any way to make overland content "challenging & fun" again?

I remember how great it was at level 10 too. I wonder if there is a way to recreate that?

If you are US go to EU and vice versa and start again. At least on PC you've got access to both and they are totally independent.

Alan

Pywrath

etchedpixels wrote: »

Pywrath wrote: »

@Luckylancer so it sounds like you agree that overland content is too easy, but that you aren't a fan of optional monster buffs or player debuffs that offer an incentive?

Do you think that there is any way to make overland content "challenging & fun" again?

I remember how great it was at level 10 too. I wonder if there is a way to recreate that?

If you are US go to EU and vice versa and start again. At least on PC you've got access to both and they are totally independent.

Alan

Well, I'm not a huge fan of rolling a new character. Ideally, I'd like to do more challenging content with my current toon. Trying to avoid grinding skills, points, crafting, quests, etc.

But, that's the best idea at the moment. I hear the EU players are nicer. Might be worth checking out just for that.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

Pywrath wrote: »

I remember how great it was at level 10 too. I wonder if there is a way to recreate that?

To put it simple you can start by resetting your champion points and use no more than 150 or even none. Truth being told is that level 10 with 810 cp distributed is no challenge at all. In case of some characters using just greens it may be easier than fresh level 50 with some cp 160 blues.

MattVH

Thinking out loud;

Being able to reset a zone to veteran difficulty after you complete the zone guide, would be great. Veteran difficulty standards should have been the standard for overland and questing all along, for everything to make sense to me, but that's probably not for everyone.

Looking at other MMO's, it's really not that outlandish to have options to replay quests or a new game+ option. A lot of work maybe, but its the first thing that would rekindle ESO for me personally.

hafgood

No.

No.

No.

There is enough end game content already. Zones are designed so that anyone can complete them, yes they are more challenging for new players then vets but so be it.

People complain about the difficulty and then want better rewards for completing it at a harder level. All this does is increase the power creep all the more. And then there will be more complaints about how easy the hard mode is. Will be demands for extra hard with even better rewards, meaning the powerful get even more powerful.

No thank you.

idk

Pywrath wrote: »

And, perhaps 80% of the player base.

I think suggesting 80% of the player base agrees is a huge assumption.

Myself, I enjoy the challenge of the arenas and trials but when it comes to overland that is stories and the lack of difficulty is far less important than the quality of the story and its telling.

However, I expect Zos will reset the baseline of this game with a future increase in the gear cap/level cap which might come with or shortly after the change to CP. Ofc, this is just a guess and I am willing to note it as such when I am making an assumption.

Firstmep

I find the quest design pretty boring.
Even as far back since Morrowind, it feels like there's a lot more running from npc to npc than fighting mobs.
If "cutscenes" and dialogs vere actually interesting this wouldn't be so much of an issue, but alas.

Don't think overland mob difficulty is ever going to change, ZoS wants as many players to be able to explore the world as possible, and this includes completely new players with 0 gear.

Pywrath

idk wrote: »

Pywrath wrote: »

And, perhaps 80% of the player base.

I think suggesting 80% of the player base agrees is a huge assumption.

Myself, I enjoy the challenge of the arenas and trials but when it comes to overland that is stories and the lack of difficulty is far less important than the quality of the story and its telling.

However, I expect Zos will reset the baseline of this game with a future increase in the gear cap/level cap which might come with or shortly after the change to CP. Ofc, this is just a guess and I am willing to note it as such when I am making an assumption.

@idk Yeah, I admit that was a wild guess/assumption on my part. I would love to do a poll of sorts. I should have said "a lot of people" think that overland content is too easy and would play it if it was more difficult.

@

Firstmep wrote: »

I find the quest design pretty boring.
Even as far back since Morrowind, it feels like there's a lot more running from npc to npc than fighting mobs.
If "cutscenes" and dialogs vere actually interesting this wouldn't be so much of an issue, but alas.

Don't think overland mob difficulty is ever going to change, ZoS wants as many players to be able to explore the world as possible, and this includes completely new players with 0 gear.

@Firstmep, I hope it does change. I agree that quests aren't as interesting as single player rpgs. But, compared to other mmorpgs - especially action mmorgps, I think ESO quests excel. It's just a little "disappointing" when I kill a main boss in a few light attacks.

alterfenixeb17_ESO wrote: »

Pywrath wrote: »

I remember how great it was at level 10 too. I wonder if there is a way to recreate that?

To put it simple you can start by resetting your champion points and use no more than 150 or even none. Truth being told is that level 10 with 810 cp distributed is no challenge at all. In case of some characters using just greens it may be easier than fresh level 50 with some cp 160 blues.

@alterfenixeb17_ESO, your idea is great. Can't believe I hadn't thought of that. I wonder how much of this problem is caused by CPs anyhow. My only (minor) problem with this approach is there is no additional reward for doing so. But that's the case for just about any game's difficulty slider that I've played.

I would like to see some additional "reward" for increasing difficulty. Whether there's a debuff or as @MattVH suggests, an option to set overland content to veteran.

@hafgood, I agree that I do think that care should be taken not to provide rewards (for increased difficulty) that disrupts the game's power balance. But, I think that this can be easily avoided by awarding some of the things suggested in the original post (transmute stones, cosmetic items, increased quality gear drops, new currency for cosmetics, achievements, titles).

What I'm looking for is the ability to increase difficulty across a few options (easy, medium, hard, etc) and get some incentive for doing so.

idk

@Pywrath

Even a forum poll is not valid when speaking to what the population thinks. It only deals with dorm goers which tend to be more passionate in a subject. Even then it only reflects the thoughts of those I'm the forum who care enough to vote which is usually a very small number.

hafgood

@Pywrath

You haven't answered the question about what happens when two players with different difficulty settings arrive at the same world boss? How does the game decide which difficulty level the boss is set at?

Or do the higher difficulty players have their own instance? So an instance for normal difficulty, another for medium and a 3rd for hard?

Despite your claims that a lot of players want the hard option i, personally, believe the opposite. I believe the hard option would be sparsely populated as thr majority of players would be playing on normal.

If i'm resource farming for instance why would I make the game harder? The only incentive to go to hard mode would be for extra rewards and I am very anti that. I see no reason why any player should get better drops or incentives to play hard mode. If anything hard mode should come with fewer drops, less rewards, after all hard should be hard, and that means more of a grind as well to get anything done. It shouldn't mean increased rewards to make it easier, hard should mean hard.

And I'd go as far to say you should be difficulty locked for the month, and it should apply to all your characters. So no deciding the lack of mats and drops isn't for you after a few days. You want it? You have to have it for a month. At the end of the month you can change your difficulty.

Wonder how many would choose to stay in hard mode? I suspect it would be a very underpopulated instance, meaning all the work Zos did to generate it would have been wasted.

Just my thoughts

Pywrath

idk wrote: »

@Pywrath

Even a forum poll is not valid when speaking to what the population thinks. It only deals with dorm goers which tend to be more passionate in a subject. Even then it only reflects the thoughts of those I'm the forum who care enough to vote which is usually a very small number.

Wait, @idk, are you suggesting that --polls-- aren't accurate?!
Haha. JK. Good point. Yes, would be very tough to get anything more than a rough estimate, at best.

hafgood wrote: »

@Pywrath

You haven't answered the question about what happens when two players with different difficulty settings arrive at the same world boss? How does the game decide which difficulty level the boss is set at?

Or do the higher difficulty players have their own instance? So an instance for normal difficulty, another for medium and a 3rd for hard?

@hafgood, good catch. My brother brought this up to when we were chatting about it. I definitely don't have the 'answer' here, but in my mind it would depend on how the "difficulty modifier" worked. If it's a simple debuff, than the debuff would apply to the player character only. The rest of the world, for all intensive purposes, would remain the same. For example, the debuff would multiple all incoming damage by a certain factor depending on the difficulty setting (1.5x, 2x, 3x, etc). That debuff would also mitigate all outgoing damage by that same factor to Overland NPCs only.

You bring up a good point on if the difficulty slider should apply to already "tougher" monsters like World Bosses. I personally think it should b/c bosses should always maintain a certain enhanced difficulty level of a base game's difficulty.

hafgood wrote: »

And I'd go as far to say you should be difficulty locked for the month, and it should apply to all your characters. So no deciding the lack of mats and drops isn't for you after a few days. You want it? You have to have it for a month. At the end of the month you can change your difficulty.

This is a really good point. You are absolutely correct. It should not be able to be changed for a period of time once set. Otherwise, you'd have people setting the difficulty up for select fights. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this whole concept wouldn't work without a lock like you suggest. Plus, it increases the "risk" a bit which some players (like myself) might enjoy.

hafgood wrote: »

Wonder how many would choose to stay in hard mode? I suspect it would be a very underpopulated instance, meaning all the work Zos did to generate it would have been wasted.

This brings up another interesting idea. In initial discussions with folks, there wouldn't be a separate instance for "hard mode". It would just be a character level debuff. But, this idea would be cool to flesh out. My mind goes to "hardcore mode" on Fallout/Dark Souls, for example. Though, I am aligned with your sentiments that it might not "pay off" for ZOS. Separate server instances, maintenance, coding/development, testing...all for something that players might use. But might not. The business case might be difficult to justify for the bean counters. But, who knows. It's a really interesting idea for some hardcore players.

Altogether, great analysis @hafgood. Thanks for your input.

idk

Pywrath wrote: »

idk wrote: »

@Pywrath

Even a forum poll is not valid when speaking to what the population thinks. It only deals with dorm goers which tend to be more passionate in a subject. Even then it only reflects the thoughts of those I'm the forum who care enough to vote which is usually a very small number.

Wait, @idk, are you suggesting that --polls-- aren't accurate?!
Haha. JK. Good point. Yes, would be very tough to get anything more than a rough estimate, at best.

LOL. Yea and I did catch the JK.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

Pywrath wrote: »

@alterfenixeb17_ESO, your idea is great. Can't believe I hadn't thought of that. I wonder how much of this problem is caused by CPs anyhow. My only (minor) problem with this approach is there is no additional reward for doing so. But that's the case for just about any game's difficulty slider that I've played.

By a lot really. DPS bonus from cp (not counting cp for resource management) can boost it at level 10 by up to 100%. At 50 it's less due to i.e. gear however still something noticeable for sure assuming you have 810 points to distribute. But then just from CP's you can get u to 15% of recovery supported by for instance -20% in block and dodge roll cost. Just think about it. Also for def in some builds at least easily half of def stats are coming from cp which is sick btw but then that's how it works.

Pywrath wrote: »

I would like to see some additional "reward" for increasing difficulty. Whether there's a debuff or as @MattVH suggests, an option to set overland content to veteran.

Using those original data if you do not use champion points then you are just a level 50. All mobs are cp 160 which is expected to be equal to old vet rank 16 more less. Ofc it's a simplification (if they were vet rank 16 and you were just vet rank 1 then gl with doing anything) but otherwise this could get you close enough really. Also you may want to add to this list of "do not use this" some trial gear too as well as monster sets - they were not even part of the original game and the idea behind this approach is to recreate original as much as possible.

Pywrath

Awesome @alterfenixeb17_ESO. Would have been interesting to see how the game changed once CPs were introduced. I remember thinking once I hit lvl 50 "oh, I should be able to compete effectively against CP players since our levels are the same". Yep... I was that guy that you killed in two light attacks in IC

Id wonder if ZOS has a lot to potentially gain (in revenue and community engagement) by making overland content OPTIONALLY more challenging. As long as it doesn't increase the power gap to @hafgood 's point.

vestahls

Have never heard of an MMO that has a difficulty slider within a server - maybe between servers it would be more doable.

But if you're max level, why do you even want to bother with "Zone" content? I take it you mean overland, delves, world bosses? After a certain level, these shouldn't be difficult.

There's lots of ways you can increase the difficulty for yourself though: run without armor and weapons, try to fight in 1st person, try to RP walk in every right / no running. All of those should make things harder.

Pywrath

@vestahls -- I really enjoy soloing and ES lore; the writers have built an awesome world. But it's just so boring when nothing poses a challenge anymore. I mean, this is the quintessential problem of all Bethesda games...often, my character gets too OP to make the game play interesting before I can conclude the storyline.

I like the suggestions for ways to make the game harder (fighting naked, removing CPs, etc). First person...haha, that's a new one. I like it.

But the way my mind works, if I'm going to do something that is harder, I'd want to be compensated more. More risk, more reward, so to speak.

vestahls

@Pywrath I know what you mean, and yes it's the bane in all the single player games too.

There's not really any solution, and a difficulty slider is a far off dream in any MMO, especially this one. Besides, if proper compensation is something you also want, that wouldn't help, because even in the SP games the gear is always the same.

One way I've found to get more challenging content is to try to solo trials - the newer ones are kind of out of the question, but some of the original ones can be done at least in part if not in whole (some have mechanics that require 12 players to get through; haven't tried all of them though). So maybe give that a go.

Another suggestion, similar to the stuff from my previous post, is to run non-optimal gear. Overland will still be easy, but dungeons will have an added difficulty. I've started using more fun/gimmick sets rather than the "meta" stuff I typically use, and it's like being CP10 sometimes. But this is just for solo, cause any "serious" group seeing you run Caluurion, Grace of Gloom, Withered Hand, Bahraha's or Daedric Trickery instead of Mother's Sorrow or False God will likely kick you lol.

Pywrath

@vestahls I haven't tried solo trials yet. That's something to play around with. Any in particular you recommend starting with? Thanks!

vestahls

Pywrath wrote: »

@vestahls I haven't tried solo trials yet. That's something to play around with. Any in particular you recommend starting with? Thanks!

Try the ones in Craglorn, I think those are the easiest, and skip the mobs when you can (unless you enjoy that, but I found the bosses easier than the mobs themselves and more worth the effort).

jle30303

I have the opposite viewpoint to the OP:

Overland monsters should STOP scaling.

I'm a tank, not a DPS, and it takes a lot longer to kill even common monsters like skeevers than it should do. I mean, I'm level 50 with over 500 champion points, by now I should be able to kill a skeever or a nix-hound with one normal blow of a light-attack, not have to spam a skill five or six times.

Remember most players seem to be some form of DPS-type, even if a not fully efficient one. But the mobs have to be killable by someone who for PVP has specialised into tank or healer, and doesn't do half as much damage as even a bad DPS.

Conversely, they have to be *survivable* by a DPS who doesn't have the HP or defence capability of a tank, even a bad tank.

So it is *entirely right* that the base single-player PVE game should be apparently "easy", because it has to cater to people who are over-specialized for the high end of multi-player PVE - glass-cannon dps have to be able to survive the single player mobs without needing a healer, and low-damage tanks have to be able to kill them.

Pywrath

@vestahls thanks! I may not be quite there yet (after finally getting through vMA after getting my ass kicked this weekend...) but good to have another solo challenge to prepare for.

@jle30303 interesting perspective as a tank. The main thing I'd say is that I'd like like Overland difficulty to be *optionally* more difficult. If there are a lot of players who need older overland content to be easier at high CP, this same "sliding buff/debuff" could theoretically address that. Though, I generally haven't seen heard this yet. Is this a common experience with tanks? Just curious because I am usually pvp mixed and healer.

jle30303

It may well be less of an issue for healers because healers are usually Magicka-heavy characters. If you've got enough skill points for the magicka damage as well as the healer skill-sets, and their respective weapons, switching from Healer to DPS in single player may be not too bad, since you're already high in at least one offensive stat, so even if your CPs are mainly set up for healing rather than offence, at least you've got a high basic offensive stat to hurt the mobs with.

Whereas Tanks are often Health-heavy and thus lousy with both Magicka and Stamina damage because both stats are purposely kept low in order to run high Health. I run a slightly hybrid kind of build - more of my CPs are geared towards offence than defence, to counter my lower base damage - and it's still frustrating, especially trying to solo WBs: most of them I can deal with but it takes ages, but there's some I just can't kill because they can heal themselves or regen faster than I can damage them.

jle30303

And the trouble with an "optional difficulty slider" that actually gives rewards for increasing the difficulty is, some builds thus may be unable to take advantage of that, and will thus be disadvantaged in actually levelling up.

Which in my opinion is why it's better for the PVE stuff to remain where it is, catering to lower level players, and if you're super-powerful, then so be it - blast through the monsters and find it easy, that's the whole point of levelling up is to find things easy that used to be difficult when you were lower level. In fact, in my opinion monsters scaling up to the characters *already* goes too far.

Pywrath

jle30303 wrote: »

It may well be less of an issue for healers because healers are usually Magicka-heavy characters. If you've got enough skill points for the magicka damage as well as the healer skill-sets, and their respective weapons, switching from Healer to DPS in single player may be not too bad, since you're already high in at least one offensive stat, so even if your CPs are mainly set up for healing rather than offence, at least you've got a high basic offensive stat to hurt the mob with.

Yes, I can definitely see how healers would have more offensive output potential than tanks. Good point. I can see how tanks could struggle with dps in solo content.

I would say that focus is a personal decision in character building though. Ideally, there should be a pro and con for every optimization decision. For the most part, that holds true in eso. You can be good at everything, but not at the same time. It's a great character development philosophy -- largely to the credit of Bethesda.

As I spec my healer out for dungeons, he should struggle more against characters spec'd for PVP, for example. In my mind, if someone is creating a group healer or group tank or group dps, they are more focused on group content than solo. So they should expect more difficulty in solo. But that's okay because they can respec at any time, and even go back and forth if they want to spend the $.

The problem this post is trying to address is that for characters who are spec'd for solo (which generally exclude the aforementioned tanks and healers), most of the solo content in the game (overland zones) is too easy.

I'd have a sure as heck of a difficult time tanking a dungeon for a group with my solo spec'd character. But tanking doesn't interest me. Solo challenges do. So I focus my optimization there (and have a second build for healing). Note: perhaps this opens the door for a separate topic about making it easier for tanks to switch back and forth between tanking and soloing (some of the recent gear changes may have helped here). But that's outside of our original scope.

I do agree that characters should generally be able to level at the same rate. And that no "class" or spec should be good at everything. So there should always be content that everyone can play and excel at so they can progress.

But an optional difficulty slider for solo content that provides cosmetic or non-combat-related rewards allows for that. It wouldn't upset any combat/power balance that I can think of (other than playing the game more). It may not be something that every player can take advantage of, if they don't focus on soloing, for example. Though I do know of a lot of folks who would like more solo challenges. Most importantly, it wouldn't penalize anyone because it's optional and awards non-combat-power related rewards.

Iccotak

I’ll never agree with nerfing the player in the same instance as other players because it’s opting to make yourself less effective in comparison to others. It only works if it’s a separate instance.

To be clear this does mean that ZOS needs to go over the power creep of Champion points. Because I remember fights before one Tamriel that used the same mechanics but we’re definitely harder - so there is a question of how buffed the player is, without CP.

That aside

A separate instance for Enemies do need them to be tougher. By tougher I don’t just mean increased stats but more abilities. The enemies need to be more capable.

Story Bosses definitely need this - not just Main Story Bosses but Zone Story Bosses. increased stats and mechanics.

As it stands many Story bosses are not only very weak in numbers but present no actual threat mechanically.

Pywrath

Iccotak wrote: »

I’ll never agree with nerfing the player in the same instance as other players because it’s opting to make yourself less effective in comparison to others. It only works if it’s a separate instance.

To be clear this does mean that ZOS needs to go over the power creep of Champion points. Because I remember fights before one Tamriel that used the same mechanics but we’re definitely harder - so there is a question of how buffed the player is, without CP.

That aside

A separate instance for Enemies do need them to be tougher. By tougher I don’t just mean increased stats but more abilities. The enemies need to be more capable.

Story Bosses definitely need this - not just Main Story Bosses but Zone Story Bosses. increased stats and mechanics.

As it stands many Story bosses are not only very weak in numbers but present no actual threat mechanically.

@Iccotak, we seem to be in agreement with the overarching problem: that zone enemies need to (at least optionally) pose a greater challenge to experienced players.

I'm totally with you here. I don't have strong feelings about how we get there. I just want to be challenged in solo content.

I do want to provide clarity around the proposed idea. I was not proposing a nerf. I was proposing a way to optionally offer more difficulty in zone areas -- and to offer a modest reward to players for taking that challenge.

If the scope is limited to zone monsters, other players wouldn't be affected.

This wouldn't affect PVP, trials, dungeons, etc. Just zone content. It's not much different than taking off your gold equipment or un-allocating some champion points to get more of a challenge. Both are voluntary. Both are temporary. Except the proposed idea provides a modest reward for doing so. And it would allow you retain and play around with certain abilities/mechanics/combinations that you might otherwise forsake by taking off gear or dropping champion points.

Providing an "optional" combat modifier might also be a good place to start gathering data around the community's interest in more difficulty zone content. I agreed with a point @idk made: you can't really get this data from polls or forums. It needs to be collected passively. You could track who "opts in" to the difficulty modifier buff and then devote more/less development focus accordingly.

Maybe experienced players find a renewed in interest in tackling zone quests they haven't done because they can make the experience as (optionally) tough as Maelstrom?

Fallout 4, for example, has a cool mechanic where increasing the difficulty also increases the chance of getting legendary items. While that wouldn't exactly work in this MMO (due to the aforementioned power creep potential), something analogous could be done with a reward that does not as directly influence combat strength (e.g. aesthetic items or collectibles).

Getting back to the main point though, I agree that the problem was likely brought on by champion point inflation. I would support just about any idea/initiative that mitigated some of this power inflation. Another instance would be totally cool. Just viewing it from ZoS's perspective, I bet that would take more development resources than an optional combat modifier that's similar to the "Battleground Buff".