Overland is too easy!

SilverBride

Alaztor91 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind an OPTIONAL vetOverland mode that works on a different instance than the ''normal'' Overland, sure it would split the playerbase but not even close to how it was when the old Cadwell Silver/Gold and Vet Ranks were still around.

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

Alaztor91 wrote: »

These days the only remotely engaging fights in Overland are Dragons, Harrowstorms and some DLC World Bosses but only when solo or with little players involved, otherwise they just turn into a Zergfest vs Target Dummy scenario.

Maybe you can solo world bosses but many players can't. But world bosses and Harrowstorms aren't there to be end game content. They are part of the overland story, and daily quests, and are quite fine just as they are for their intended purpose.

Sekt_Tiberlus

1)If dual-wield build - equip only one-handed(no duals)
2)Don't use rotation against simple mobs
3)Don't use too optimal for dps sets
...
10)PROFIT

Agenericname

SilverBride wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind an OPTIONAL vetOverland mode that works on a different instance than the ''normal'' Overland, sure it would split the playerbase but not even close to how it was when the old Cadwell Silver/Gold and Vet Ranks were still around.

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

Alaztor91 wrote: »

These days the only remotely engaging fights in Overland are Dragons, Harrowstorms and some DLC World Bosses but only when solo or with little players involved, otherwise they just turn into a Zergfest vs Target Dummy scenario.

Maybe you can solo world bosses but many players can't. But world bosses and Harrowstorms aren't there to be end game content. They are part of the overland story, and daily quests, and are quite fine just as they are for their intended purpose.

If it were optional, why would it matter? "Casuals" as you call them wouldn't be there, would they? So it would have no impact on them.

renne

Who plays overland for the combat anyway?

Schemering

ahhh i miss those days when Doshia was enough to stop progress of most players in fighters guild and 2 Kaghoutis in Shadowfen Veteran 8 zone were enough to force me to have a strategy for killing them or be killed...

that said; i think its good this way, the overland is for casual players and even people that have no cp; no idea about how skills work and have no access to good gear yet have to be able to survive the big majority of encounters in the zones. One tamriel is one of the best things they did to make the game accessible to all types of players. When i want a challenge i will solo a veteran group dungeon or the worldbosses in Wrothgar or so, when i want a real challenge i will do a veteran dlc dungeon solo.

SilverBride

Agenericname wrote: »

If it were optional, why would it matter? "Casuals" as you call them wouldn't be there, would they? So it would have no impact on them.

SilverBride wrote: »

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

Agenericname

SilverBride wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

If it were optional, why would it matter? "Casuals" as you call them wouldn't be there, would they? So it would have no impact on them.

SilverBride wrote: »

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

The player base is already split. At any given time there are multiple instances running.

It has nothing to do with a mental rift.

Iccotak

SilverBride wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

Story Bosses are designed only for new players. Pure and Simple.

Which hurts the overall player base because we already see a response of people who don’t do Story mainly as consequence of the lack of engaging combat. - Doesn’t matter if the writing is good if the gameplay doesn’t support the narrative.

Story bosses are designed so all players of all levels can complete the content... not just new players. Like someone mentioned earlier, some of these bosses used to be so hard that players would be stuck and unable to progress for days. I experienced that myself before One Tamriel.

Players who don't do the overland story now don't because they've already done it multiple times on multiple alts... not because it's not enough of a challenge. This is a consequence of a game being around for years. Making overland more difficult will not make the story suddenly new and fresh for those players.

They removed veteran overland for a reason. They are not going to bring it back, optional or otherwise.

In order for story boss to be completed by any player of any skill level, that means that they need to be easy enough for new players to beat them.

So like I said story bosses are designed for new players because at that point anyone can beat it.

And like other people have already said in this thread and others, the hard story bosses made those experiences memorable and encourage them to learn the gameplay.
I get that for some people it was really hard, Old Doshia certainly killed me a few times before I beat her - but I did not view that as discouraging, I saw that as a challenge to overcome.
If we have the gameplay cater solely to the lowest common denominator then the game almost basically becomes a walking simulator.

And I’ve met people who don’t bother to do the story at all as a consequence of this design choice. On their main or alts - they just go right to group content because the story doesn’t feel like it caters to them at all. Along with that, the main encounters are so easy &underwhelming that it kills any immersion and investment in the story.

Many players are not interested and doing yet another story that hypes up its main antagonist only for it to be a complete let down.
This is especially worse for the boss that is at the end of the year

Iccotak

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

Play as a tank. We don't need overland content to even further funnel people to all be DPS builds.

I'm not opposed to any added features. I just don't care if they implement this and developers are a limited resource.

I play a tank and it doesn’t make the fights engaging- just tedious.

Story Bosses are designed only for new players. Pure and Simple.

Which hurts the overall player base because we already see a response of people who don’t do Story mainly as consequence of the lack of engaging combat. - Doesn’t matter if the writing is good if the gameplay doesn’t support the narrative.

Yeah, that was my point about being a tank. Even the easy overland is a grind with a tank.

I question the idea that people would do more questing if the combat was better. Either they are into narrative or they aren't. Doing the narrative to get to battles makes the narrative kinda pointless. Even when the game was new and things felt more challenging due to less power creep, there were a lot of people who preferred to just grind mobs to level.

It is not about one thing or the other. It is not a matter of story versus gameplay.

It is a matter of the story and the gameplay supporting each other.

For me, I simply do not understand this mentality that gameplay and story should be completely separate. It does not make sense. If I just wanted to experience a story and that was it that I would watch a movie or TV show. For a video game I want both and engaging story and engaging gameplay.

As many other people here including myself have said, if the story builds up this main antagonist to be super dangerous and super powerful then that is what we are going to expect and when the gameplay does not live up to what they hype up then that story becomes underwhelming and unmemorable.

You just can’t take a story at all seriously when the main antagonist is killed in two seconds or is so incredibly basic.

And I’m not comparing it to other games, we don’t have to, when the developers have already shown that you could have a story with engaging combat in their dungeons and trials.

Developers have shown that they can make really good combat content, for solo and group. And that content doesn’t have any problems with the bosses living up to the narrative.

So again, I want to go to bosses to have the same treatment as dungeons and trials.

Iccotak

SilverBride wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind an OPTIONAL vetOverland mode that works on a different instance than the ''normal'' Overland, sure it would split the playerbase but not even close to how it was when the old Cadwell Silver/Gold and Vet Ranks were still around.

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

Splitting the player base into two separate instances is not comparable to pre-one Tamriel.

Back then the player base was split into something like nine different instances based on your level and the faction you chose. That was terrible.

Having two separate instances based on difficulty choice is really not that bad in comparison

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

And like other people have already said in this thread and others, the hard story bosses made those experiences memorable and encourage them to learn the gameplay.

It was a small minority that saw it that way. A huge portion of the playerbase was completely frustrated by having their progress impeded and spending days at a standstill.

This is why they changed it. They are not going to change it back.

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

As many other people here including myself have said, if the story builds up this main antagonist to be super dangerous and super powerful then that is what we are going to expect and when the gameplay does not live up to what they hype up then that story becomes underwhelming and unmemorable.

The story also builds the player up to be the hero who is able to defeat the main antagonist solo... no matter what their level or experience.

Iccotak

SilverBride wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

And like other people have already said in this thread and others, the hard story bosses made those experiences memorable and encourage them to learn the gameplay.

It was a small minority that saw it that way. A huge portion of the playerbase was completely frustrated by having their progress impeded and spending days at a standstill.

This is why they changed it. They are not going to change it back.

Well never say never. Don’t agree with an absolutist mindset - and I don’t care for telling people to just be happy with what they got when there is a legitimate criticism.
That’s just trying to shut down the conversation.

It is a topic that is frequent on various online platforms from the Forums, Reddit, YouTube, Podcasts, etc even the developers themselves have acknowledged that it is a problem and it is something that they were looking into.

So maybe have a conversation instead of belittling them and saying they basically don’t matter.

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

Well never say never. Don’t agree with an absolutist mindset - and I don’t care for telling people to just be happy with what they got when there is a legitimate criticism.
That’s just trying to shut down the conversation.

It is a topic that is frequent on various online platforms from the Forums, Reddit, YouTube, Podcasts, etc even the developers themselves have acknowledged that it is a problem and it is something that they were looking into.

So maybe have a conversation instead of belittling them and saying they basically don’t matter.

First of all, where are the links to the developers saying this is a problem? Because I have my doubts.

Second, I think this conversation does need to be shut down. It is a minority of players trying to take over the base game and turn it into end game content. That is completely unreasonable.

Third, they are not going to risk losing the majority of their player base to appease a few. They are smarter than that, which is why they made the changes they did to fix what was then the real problem... that story bosses were too hard for most of the players.

Iccotak

SilverBride wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

As many other people here including myself have said, if the story builds up this main antagonist to be super dangerous and super powerful then that is what we are going to expect and when the gameplay does not live up to what they hype up then that story becomes underwhelming and unmemorable.

The story also builds the player up to be the hero who is able to defeat the main antagonist solo... no matter what their level or experience.

Same can be said for dungeons and trials, but those still have a challenge.

Just because the narrative says the player can beat that villain doesn’t mean that fight has to be easy.

it’s not exactly great for the health of the player base when only one demographic is being catered to when it comes to the story.

Like I have said in the past, if the game is going to market the story for all players then they should try and make it enjoyable for more than just one type of player.

ZeroDPS

Overland is easy and snare-y

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

Like I have said in the past, if the game is going to market the story for all players then they should try and make it enjoyable for more than just one type of player.

They do that now. They have overland for everyone... veteran dungeons and trials for end game players... Cyrodiil and battlegrounds for PvP'rs. Multiple small "towns" that are often used by Roleplayers.

Everyone is represented with things just as they are right now. There is no reason to completely turn it into something else.

I question the motives of this request and feel it is really more loot oriented than anything else. Otherwise why would you suggest as you did in a thread you started on basically the same subject, that the bosses be repeatable? And drop vet level gear?

If it was really about the story and immersion, doing the boss more than once would completely break immersion. It seems the motive here is to have an easy source of vet gear without having to actually run the established vet content.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/549560/harder-main-story-bosses/p1

exeeter702

SilverBride wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind an OPTIONAL vetOverland mode that works on a different instance than the ''normal'' Overland, sure it would split the playerbase but not even close to how it was when the old Cadwell Silver/Gold and Vet Ranks were still around.

Splitting the playerbase even a little is a very bad idea. There is already a large mental rift between end game players and casuals. Let's not feed that.

Alaztor91 wrote: »

These days the only remotely engaging fights in Overland are Dragons, Harrowstorms and some DLC World Bosses but only when solo or with little players involved, otherwise they just turn into a Zergfest vs Target Dummy scenario.

Maybe you can solo world bosses but many players can't. But world bosses and Harrowstorms aren't there to be end game content. They are part of the overland story, and daily quests, and are quite fine just as they are for their intended purpose.

Naw you dont get to have it both ways. Zos is adding a companion system specifically to assist in new players' experiences and to help ease them into group content by allowing them to interact with said system without the stress of other people. Additionally, this system is being added so that rp and story focused players can have a more solo / independent experience. So please spare me with the explanations about the negative effects of separating seasoned long time players and new and or hyper casual players. Zos clealry has zero issues with encouraging a solo non peer interactive experience for new players, but removing veteran players from the overland zones that new players populate is crossing the line?

Pre 1T and (craglorn) is in no way relevant or applicable to the current game as it exists today nor is it any type of rebuttal to the suggestion of an optional overland tuned for max level players.

exeeter702

SilverBride wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

Well never say never. Don’t agree with an absolutist mindset - and I don’t care for telling people to just be happy with what they got when there is a legitimate criticism.
That’s just trying to shut down the conversation.

It is a topic that is frequent on various online platforms from the Forums, Reddit, YouTube, Podcasts, etc even the developers themselves have acknowledged that it is a problem and it is something that they were looking into.

So maybe have a conversation instead of belittling them and saying they basically don’t matter.

First of all, where are the links to the developers saying this is a problem? Because I have my doubts.

Second, I think this conversation does need to be shut down. It is a minority of players trying to take over the base game and turn it into end game content. That is completely unreasonable.

Third, they are not going to risk losing the majority of their player base to appease a few. They are smarter than that, which is why they made the changes they did to fix what was then the real problem... that story bosses were too hard for most of the players.

Fix what problem? That's the irony here... what possible reason is there to implement a companion system beyond rp reasons then?

You arent losing players if you offer a separate instance of overland content either.

SilverBride

exeeter702 wrote: »

Fix what problem? That's the irony here... what possible reason is there to implement a companion system beyond rp reasons then?

You arent losing players if you offer a separate instance of overland content either.

This thread isn't about companions and I honestly don't care about them one way or the other.

But I do care about taking the game and dividing it into what would basically be 2 separate games. Why not just make an ESO Vet game and the few of you who want to play that can go over there instead.

exeeter702

"No because it would cost development resources to cater to a small selection if players"

Speculative at best while disregarding the fact that dynamic scaling and automated server shard generation technologies already exist in game.

"No because segregating the player base is not healthy and which is why 1T exists"

Zos has verbally expressed the desire to encourage a solo experience for casual playstyles that are not dependent on player to player interactions, while also affording the opportunities to partake in dungeon content with npcs because and quote "other players can be scary"....

"No because overland content is for the story and doesnt need to be challenging,and pre 1t had certain bosses that served as absolute gatekeepers"

Nothing is more damning to the video game medium of story telling than having an antagonist of a given narrative posses zero capabilities of producing a failure condition to a player. And pre 1t quest bosses being an issue is an entirely different point. You can have a middle ground that at the very least the game asks of its players to give some effort for a final encounter instead of smothering them with visual spectacle so it can superficially feel grandiose where the win condition requires nothing more than stepping out of a ground effect and left clicking every 1 second.

CP5

The player-base is already divided, each zone is broken up into instances that can only hold so many players. Having some instances set to a higher difficulty and only allowing people who opt into it in wouldn't hurt normal instances since there are already so many of them, it isn't as if you would suddenly see a majority of the population leave, and if you did then clearly there was a demand for the harder content.

A majority of the players I run trials with do nothing but that, and in no small part due to how disengaging the overland content is. How are options like this damaging then? How would overland be 'taken over' if it was an option that only part of the player base would use and overland is already designed for solo play?

As for the whole 'you belong in trials and dungeons then' mentality, telling other players to effectively gtfo when all they want to do is actually enjoy the story without devaluing it by simply knowing how to play is a selfish statement to make I feel especially since, again, it would be an option.

Iccotak

SilverBride wrote: »

First of all, where are the links to the developers saying this is a problem? Because I have my doubts.

what the developers had to say
From Reddit over 1 year ago
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bwdb0r/comment/epwrb9x
Text of answer

ZOS_MattF
Hello! We have no plans on implementing spears, but we have talked off and on about cool ways to do the one hand magic/one hand weapon thing. That's not on our roadmap anywhere, but we have been brainstorming.

There are so many cool things we could do! Seriously, we love these ideas too, but it all comes down to a matter of time and priorities.

EDIT: to respond to your edit. Yes, we've talked about this, in fact we tried to get that into the game as part of One Tamriel, but we just couldn't get it done. So we have ideas on how to have difficulty settings for overland content, but it's not currently planned. It's a great idea.

---

SilverBride wrote: »

Second, I think this conversation does need to be shut down. It is a minority of players trying to take over the base game and turn it into end game content. That is completely unreasonable.

1. Shutting down a conversation because you simply disagree is really never ok.
2. No one is trying to take over anything. This is the "Veteran Elitist" arguments all over again. Asking for an optional difficulty to actually make overland and/or story bosses engaging fights worth looking into is not taking anything away from anyone - if anything it adds more to do for more players.

SilverBride wrote: »

Third, they are not going to risk losing the majority of their player base to appease a few. They are smarter than that, which is why they made the changes they did to fix what was then the real problem... that story bosses were too hard for most of the players.

They wouldn't lose anyone by giving more players more options. That's just silly

SilverBride wrote: »

They do that now. They have overland for everyone... veteran dungeons and trials for end game players.

And Endgame players (or casual players who sometimes dabble in endgame) have expressed disappointment in story bosses and overland. because that content is the majority of the experience and telling people to just be happy with their little corner is not actually listening to them.
In fact you've resorted to basically belittling them or making them out to be evil elitists with secret agendas.

Yeah I made a proposal for a game mode that works like the rest of the game. You get a reward dependent on the difficulty setting you chose. At the time I even restricted it to cosmetic - but at this point with a sticker book I don't think it matters.

But God Almighty Forbid that I propose a game mode that offers something for more than one type of player.
Some are going to just want the challenge and some are going to just want reward, and some are going to want both.
That is the case for the game already - so making a game mode that works just like the rest of the game is not dubious despite the many attempts you have made to frame this conversation as such.

SilverBride wrote: »

I question the motives of this request and feel it is really more loot oriented than anything else. Otherwise why would you suggest as you did in a thread you started on basically the same subject, that the bosses be repeatable? And drop vet level gear?

If it was really about the story and immersion, doing the boss more than once would completely break immersion. It seems the motive here is to have an easy source of vet gear without having to actually run the established vet content.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/549560/harder-main-story-bosses/p1

Sure, because Content that is Challenging & Endgame difficulty is an easy source of loot. Said No One.

Way to exclude important details in order to support your argument.

Why would I say make it repeatable?
Because ZOS only makes repeatable content hard or with difficulty options as that justifies the effort & resources put into those activities. There are no exceptions - so why would I go against that design philosophy?

And I view the way story bosses are now WAY more immersion breaking than it being repeatable. I still find dungeons and trials more engaging in the gameplay & story than the story bosses even though I have done them more than once on the same character.

The entire game is centered around loot, that is literally the case for every activity made by the devs - so you say I should make an activity that offers No Loot otherwise I am just scheming for loot (even when I originally made it only cosmetic)? That's foolish.

I proposed an activity that I tried to design in such a way that it would be seamless with what is there - and your overwhelming response was a knee-jerk "It's Fine the way it is" and proceeded to go about 15 pages of ignoring people, shaming them, trying to shut down the conversation, and making out anyone who disagreed with you as veteran elitists with a secret agenda.

Anyone can read that thread and see for themselves.

exeeter702

SilverBride wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Fix what problem? That's the irony here... what possible reason is there to implement a companion system beyond rp reasons then?

You arent losing players if you offer a separate instance of overland content either.

This thread isn't about companions and I honestly don't care about them one way or the other.

But I do care about taking the game and dividing it into what would basically be 2 separate games. Why not just make an ESO Vet game and the few of you who want to play that can go over there instead.

You are missing the point. The companion system being added to the game further separates the player base so your suggestion that it is not ideal runs contrary to the values zos is placing resource time into.

Iccotak

exeeter702 wrote: »

Nothing is more damning to the video game medium of story telling than having an antagonist of a given narrative posses zero capabilities of producing a failure condition to a player. And pre 1t quest bosses being an issue is an entirely different point. You can have a middle ground that at the very least the game asks of its players to give some effort for a final encounter instead of smothering them with visual spectacle so it can superficially feel grandiose where the win condition requires nothing more than stepping out of a ground effect and left clicking every 1 second.

Flamebait

I would have to say that the answer to this is no. I have a simple reason for this and that would be spite, possibly a bit of malice as well. I have seen so many times that people have asked for solo versions of dungeons without loot simply to see the story, and the constant stream of vitriol that inevitably flows from the people that supposedly love dungeons that if it was possible to do them solo, even without loot or reduced loot, nobody would dungeon.

So if it is not acceptable for there to be solo dungeons for people to see the story then why should this work the other way for people that feel the story of overland is to easy and so want it harder, but of course not for the story but rather to get improved loot from it. Also don't forget the effect this will have on the economy as well then. I person A runs normal overland and can get drops of a set, but person B runs the vet overland and gets either higher quality versions of that loot or a better set that drops from the higher difficulty version then person A will have a massively reduced chance to sell his goods.

Also what difficulty should it be scaled to in your theoretical version? Would it be a hard challenge for a person in dungeons gear, all veteran dungeon gear with gold weapons? If so then there are people that will find it easy and complain they want harder with better rewards still. Should it be set so you need 810CP and all gold weapon, armor and jewelry with full trial sets to pull more than 1 mob and survive?

This is one of the main problems of what you propose, another is how should it be made harder? If they just double or quadruple the health of everything it really isn't harder, but if they have to redesign every single mob to have new abilities and stats and AI then it also isn't just remaking a zone harder it is literally remaking the entire zone other than the terrain.

This kind of got away from me but thanks for reading if you got all the way here.

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

First of all, where are the links to the developers saying this is a problem? Because I have my doubts.

what the developers had to say
From Reddit over 1 year ago
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bwdb0r/comment/epwrb9x.

Yes, we've talked about this, in fact we tried to get that into the game as part of One Tamriel, but we just couldn't get it done. So we have ideas on how to have difficulty settings for overland content, but it's not currently planned. It's a great idea.

The bold print is what I took away from that.

You have to take into consideration they were just coming from a setup that had separate zones with separate difficulties so they probably did discuss how to implement some aspects of their current system into the new one. They didn't find a way to do it.

ESO changed into "One Tamriel" mode in October 2016. If they haven't prioritized that in the past 5 years I very much doubt they ever will.

coop500

Can this thread just... like, die already? it's beating a dead horse at this point. This and the dozen other threads like it.

Iccotak

ZOS_MattF
to respond to your edit. Yes, we've talked about this, in fact we tried to get that into the game as part of One Tamriel, but we just couldn't get it done. So we have ideas on how to have difficulty settings for overland content, but it's not currently planned. It's a great idea.

What I took away.

SilverBride wrote: »

As far as "It's a great idea.", they always say things like that... it's called being diplomatic.

Ah yes, you once again went about the reductionist, belittling, and dismissive route. 👌

SilverBride wrote: »

You have to take into consideration they were just coming from a setup that had separate zones with separate difficulties so they probably did discuss how to implement some aspects of their current system into the new one. They didn't find a way to do it.

ESO changed into "One Tamriel" mode in October 2016. If they haven't prioritized that in the past 5 years I very much doubt they ever will.

1. That does not mean that it is impossible or could never happen.
2. Just because you find it unlikely, or disagree with it, is not a reason to go about trying to shut down the conversation

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

As far as "It's a great idea.", they always say things like that... it's called being diplomatic.

Ah yes, you once again went about the reductionist, belittling, and dismissive route. 👌

I actually didn't intend it that way, but when I went back and reread it I thought it best to remove it. My apologies if I offended.

But I am going to take this poster's advice and bow out now.

coop500 wrote: »

Can this thread just... like, die already? it's beating a dead horse at this point. This and the dozen other threads like it.