We need to talk about ESO's difficulty level

Rust_in_Peace

The overland and quest experience in this game is a joke. It's incredibly easy to the point of ridicule. You don't even need to have any gear equipped or any skills slotted and enemies are totally trivial. Where are the stakes? The sense of danger? I've been playing Classic Burning Crusade recently and it feels like a god damn survival game compared to ESO. Is it "dark souls" hard? Of course not, but at least the threat of actually taking damage and getting killed is there.

I have heard many people use the argument "well it has to be easy to keep the barrier of entry low for new/casual players".

No it doesn't. There are plenty of other MMO's with casual audiences who set the bar higher. Guild Wars 2 for example is one of the most casual MMO's out there and the open world can still kill you and the main quest will still wreck you if you don't pay attention.

I have played this game since release and I do remember clearly that Veteran enemies used to offer a bit of a challenge. But now? I don't even want to do the story quests anymore. It's so boring and even though it's easy it feels like a slog.

The devs have taken "play how you want/just be yourself" mentally to a totally unnecessary extreme.

Rust_in_Peace

Oh, and this isn't even considering Champion Points or Companions. Both great ideas on paper that are complete overkill for the majority of the games content.

wnights

I disagree. I want to play to have a good time and I have stopped playing so many games because at some point difficulty becomes a barrier and forces you to grind gear etc. Or makes difficulty the only point of the game creating an illusion of content

I am not against making higher difficulty an available option rather than forcing everyone to play on a higher difficulty setting. Some sort of switch perhaps

tenryuta

oh we could always use a terrible dlc region like heart of thorns...

Xuhora

ZOS' way to fix that:

- cut CP benefits in half! also cut needed CP for each star in half!
- is the overland difficult yet?
- if not, repeat

in 3 cicles we will be maxed out for each role at 810 CPs, while still not having enough meaningfull passives to spend our CPs.

be carefull what you wish for, we have seen how they adress threads like this. Also, its a dead horse

Gary404

wnights wrote: »

I disagree. I want to play to have a good time and I have stopped playing so many games because at some point difficulty becomes a barrier and forces you to grind gear etc. Or makes difficulty the only point of the game creating an illusion of content

I am not against making higher difficulty an available option rather than forcing everyone to play on a higher difficulty setting. Some sort of switch perhaps

I agree with you here, I am new to the game with my wife but we have found quite a few instances where we cannot progress without the appropriate gear/spells/levels. There is definitely a skill and difficulty to this game, not everyone is amazing day one.

Iccotak

I don't even want to do the story quests anymore. It's so boring and even though it's easy it feels like a slog.

Exactly!! the only reason I got this chapter was because of Argonian content - but the past couple of years have just been really disappointing in the story department. The writing is OK but the final boss fights are so mediocre and simple because they are designed only for New Players

This kind of design philosophy completely forgets about the long time players who've been going through the story content. In the single player games I could adjust difficulty - but if I want anything challenging or more importantly Engaging, then I have to play endgame / group content.

Why does engaging story & lore have to be mutually exclusive from engaging gameplay? Why should zones ONLY be for one type of player?

From a gameplay standpoint ESO is centered around action combat & progression - so why should the 500+ hours of questing play like a point & click adventure?

I don't want to spam dungeons and Arenas ad nauseum just because they stimulate me. I want to do quests and be stimulated while doing so.

I also love lore and storytelling but I definitely do NOT love it when a Big Bad is a Big Joke after the story spent 10-20 hours, or even up to a year, hyping them up.

The Story Content should not just be for the Very New or the Very Casual player. It's accessible sure but it's not fun for everyone to do. Key word being Fun, the story & questing is not fun for a lot of people because of the gameplay -- which is important because this is an mmo that is also heavily centered around action combat.

People go on and on about all the good writing and all the exploration and how that should be fun enough. There's a ton of content that I'd like to do, but the gameplay is so unbelievably boring and I cannot get excited for a New "Year Long Adventure" that I know is going to be incredibly easy.

The journey becomes a walking simulator and the destination is very underwhelming

It doesn't matter how many hours there are of questing and exploring if the gameplay experience in that content is too trivial and easy to the point that it is NOT Engaging or Fun.

Yes that can happen. Things can be too easy to a point that it is no longer fun.

I would like to be able to enjoy the Solo Questing Story experience, or maybe even enjoy it with one friend, but as it is I find it incredibly difficult to get immersed in a story that is a breeze to beat.
I don't want another Craglorn with the forced grouping - but - I don't want everything to be as easy as Bleakrock either.

Engaging Story & Engaging Gameplay should not be mutually exclusive.

wnights wrote: »

I disagree. I want to play to have a good time and I have stopped playing so many games because at some point difficulty becomes a barrier and forces you to grind gear etc. Or makes difficulty the only point of the game creating an illusion of content

I am not against making higher difficulty an available option rather than forcing everyone to play on a higher difficulty setting. Some sort of switch perhaps

At this point the only way to go is making an optional difficulty setting for Overland / Main Story content

Especially for the Main Story Bosses - they are so incredibly underwhelming and disappointing

Enemies overall (in a different setting) need more health/damage AND mechanics

Iccotak

Xuhora wrote: »

ZOS' way to fix that:

- cut CP benefits in half! also cut needed CP for each star in half!
- is the overland difficult yet?
- if not, repeat

in 3 cicles we will be maxed out for each role at 810 CPs, while still not having enough meaningfull passives to spend our CPs.

be carefull what you wish for, we have seen how they adress threads like this. Also, its a dead horse

CP has NOTHING to do with Overland content at all.

CP is for endgame & group content. "Champion Points" which you earn after Level 50 for Champion content

You don't need CP at all for Overland and frankly I think it is disingenuous to blame those asking for the story content to not have boring gameplay.

CP nerfs & changes happened due to a variety of reasons, one of them being endgame players breezing through endgame content. None of their reasons had anything to do with Overland content being too easy.

zvavi

I have a theory. By which they are not allowed to make overland more than easy because then casuals might notice performance issues more. /Conspiracy /sarcasm

Narvuntien

If I want danger, I fight dragons.

The game tried harder overland it went badly.

MrGhosty

If their scaling system can be used to allow for a difficulty slider I have no issue with it existing, but I doubt such a thing would be done. Something that does feel like more of a possibility though would be to give us options to change the difficulty on main story quests. I don't personally want to deal with a difficulty overland, as most of the time I'm trying to get somewhere and don't want to deai with veteran mudcrabs ( still have PTSD from the last time) but I wouldn't mind being able to amp up the difficulty in solo/group instanced areas, at the very least for the last boss fight. The elsweyr bosses weren't terribly interesting fights and increasing the difficulty would also be a good way for newer players to get a feel for more mechanics that they can expect to see in harder endgame content.

Xuhora

Iccotak wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

ZOS' way to fix that:

- cut CP benefits in half! also cut needed CP for each star in half!
- is the overland difficult yet?
- if not, repeat

in 3 cicles we will be maxed out for each role at 810 CPs, while still not having enough meaningfull passives to spend our CPs.

be carefull what you wish for, we have seen how they adress threads like this. Also, its a dead horse

CP has NOTHING to do with Overland content at all.

CP is for endgame & group content. "Champion Points" which you earn after Level 50 for Champion content

You don't need CP at all for Overland and frankly I think it is disingenuous to blame those asking for the story content to not have boring gameplay.

CP nerfs & changes happened due to a variety of reasons, one of them being endgame players breezing through endgame content. None of their reasons had anything to do with Overland content being too easy.

i know that you dont need CPs for overland content, but i also know that ZOS intention was to combat powercreep with the reduction in CP effectivness. True, part of the powercreep is felt in the field of endgame players but the other part is in the questers and explorers and adventurers.
And by all means, if the many forumposters is to believe, the endgame trial crowd is by far a minority of ESO (not my words, but i will pick them up).

btw, im not advocating against harder story content, im all for it. i just raise my concern that the way to achieve that could very well be "cut them im half!". its not a good way, its not a fair way and it does not adress the real issue (beeing storybosses are killed withing seconds) but we have seen such disconnected reactions in the past

Orion_89

I see two problems here.

While ESO is friendly to the newcomers (wich is great, that's why it is the only MMO I played more than 3 months; it has been four years so far) there is no deepness. Combat has a high-speed tempo, but mobs just stand in your AOEs and spam 1-3 atacks, so it doesn't matter how many of them you fight at once, they will die at the same time standing in your splash.

And the second is a hybrid target system. You don't need to aim at enemy's head or leg to deal crit damage or to knock them down. Lack of animations also won't help it. There is a HAVOK engine, why not to use it at full capacity?

AndyMac

It’s a MMO for casuals and people who pile in during play for free weeks.

That ain’t changing- at least it keeps the game alive I guess.

mocap

im currently RP difficulty. StamNB vampire stage 4 (health regen 0) and gank bosses with Simmering Frenzy skill (drain your own HP). Skip trashes with Invisible skill or vampire passive. Vigor as healing tool and pew pew companion.

Still easy AF, but kinda fun. For now at least...

Everstorm

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Just take off your gear, weapons and champion points and try fighting overland content

Why? The foundation of every RPG since Dungeons and Dragons has been character development, making your character better. Telling people to undo that is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as balancing 75% of all the content around brand new players.
I have been playing for five years or so, I play this game for the quest content. Why on earth would you release new content that is unenjoyable for dedicated players who have been playing and paying for years?

Nobody is asking for vDLC difficulty, just a bit harder. Instead I noticed that even the two new public dungeons have smaller, easier thrash groups that are zero risk.

mocap

playing naked isn't hard, since we have base 1000 spd/wpd this update. It will take just longer to kill mobs. Something different, though, could be in DLC like Murkmire.

mocap

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

There’s plenty of hard content in the game, not everything has to be sweaty, have you gotten godslayer yet?

such reasonings are full of extrema. You compare tryhard nolifer achievements with 2k+ of fully voiced narrative quests. Do you really think newcomers need that much to lvl 50 or get used to control or something?

And nobody ask for affecting everyone difficulty. Just a personal toggle with some debufs like PvP Combat Spirit. This could be food, scroll or mythic item.

Everstorm

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Everstorm wrote: »

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Just take off your gear, weapons and champion points and try fighting overland content

Why? The foundation of every RPG since Dungeons and Dragons has been character development, making your character better. Telling people to undo that is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as balancing 75% of all the content around brand new players.
I have been playing for five years or so, I play this game for the quest content. Why on earth would you release new content that is unenjoyable for dedicated players who have been playing and paying for years?

Nobody is asking for vDLC difficulty, just a bit harder. Instead I noticed that even the two new public dungeons have smaller, easier thrash groups that are zero risk.

There’s plenty of hard content in the game, not everything has to be sweaty, have you gotten godslayer yet?

And what if I I don't enjoy doing trials? I ran with 54 - 72 player raids for 7 years in Everquest, I'm totally burned out on that sort of content.
When I juat started playing ESO, before One Tamriel, I remember the fun challenge taking my lvl 15 to Wrothgar. Why should I be banned from such enjoyment simply because I have played since then?

Jierdanit

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Everstorm wrote: »

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Just take off your gear, weapons and champion points and try fighting overland content

Why? The foundation of every RPG since Dungeons and Dragons has been character development, making your character better. Telling people to undo that is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as balancing 75% of all the content around brand new players.
I have been playing for five years or so, I play this game for the quest content. Why on earth would you release new content that is unenjoyable for dedicated players who have been playing and paying for years?

Nobody is asking for vDLC difficulty, just a bit harder. Instead I noticed that even the two new public dungeons have smaller, easier thrash groups that are zero risk.

There’s plenty of hard content in the game, not everything has to be sweaty, have you gotten godslayer yet?

lol

He just told you he is playing the game for quest content and you ask him if he already got Godslayer?
Those 2 parts of the game have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

He is asking for a little harder questing content, so you do not kill pretty much every single enemy in them within 5 seconds even if you just equip found green gear. Trials are a completely different area of the game...

Also no there is not plenty of hard content in the game, outside of trials and vDLC dungeons at least.

Everstorm

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Zos won’t make hard content because they want to attract new players and that means more $ for them, I don’t agree with that but at this point it’s not much use even asking for harder content since they probably don’t care

We can agree on that at least. This is one of those frequently reoccurring topics that ZOS refuses to acknowledge. Despite of their annual new year's promise to improve communication...

Luke_Flamesword

There is a lot of very casual players which will struggle in higher difficulty, so maybe something like this would be a good solution:

Let's make overland content harder (but in reasonable level, not like DLC vet dungeons hard) and let's give solution for these who wants take it easy - you can swith off/on special buff (giving you more health and other stats) in cities chapels. Buff will work of course only in overland (so no pvp and pve group content). Stats should be high enough to give players present easy difficulty.

Why this approach? Because game should teach by default how to manage with harder fights (block, interrupt and avoid red circles or take huge damage) and just give workaround for these who really don't want it. Also debuffs sounds like something negative and everyone wants to higher rewards for that, so let's make base game harder and just give optional feature to avoid this.

Biro123

Totally agree with OP.

I restarted ESO recently after a 3 hear break. Created a brand new character and played through the main questlines, levelling him up to 50.

I did this promising myself that I would spend no CP (aside from a few economy-based stars or runspeed stars only) - and ONLY use the gear I found - and not use addons to find skyshards etc.. No crafting, no food/pots
Basically playing like a brand new player.

Yes, I know how the game works, what skills to use etc.. but overland content was still ridiculously trivial. As were the 'Epic endgame quest bosses' - which is a massive immersion loss imho. There was no challenge even then - to the point of being mind-numbing.

I get the one-tamriel concept - but I still think there needs to be some small amount of scaling in zones.. With 'beginner zones' for starting non-dlc questlines with their current difficulty - but later zones in the questline becoming more challenging - with DLC zones being downright dangerous!

Coatmagic

Everstorm wrote: »

And what if I I don't enjoy doing trials? I ran with 54 - 72 player raids for 7 years in Everquest, I'm totally burned out on that sort of content.
When I juat started playing ESO, before One Tamriel, I remember the fun challenge taking my lvl 15 to Wrothgar. Why should I be banned from such enjoyment simply because I have played since then?

Most people nowadays don't want hard content and those that do are still playing games that offer it, and that is why those games still exist. My husband and I also came from EQ, and have also been here since beta, and it is very sad to see how low the difficulty bar has been set, but it is what the majority want.

Maybe someday we'll get a 'new shiny' proper MMO (that isn't a blatant cash grab!) but not gonna hold my breath. Even Pantheon (if it's ever released) will probably be dumbed down and battered by the EZPZ bat *sigh*

BTW, just getting nekked and not allocating CP does not make things more difficult for those that already know how to play
AND things being THIS easy also does not teach new people how to play properly (at all!) but you vet dungeoneers already know this, dontcha? LOL

Grandchamp1989

The problem is the difficulty curve is so extreme I have never quite witnessed anything like it...

Overland doesn't teach anything... Vet DLC expect everything and Trial HM are quite hard.

People say to just nerf combat - but if Zos did that it would ruin endgame. The problem is not that Godslayer is too easy to get in vet hardmode no death speedrun trials. The problem is that overland quests are way too easy, even if you choose to nerf yourself.
There should be an optional HM scroll, near quest bosses, that makes them more difficult.

When combat is so easy pets and companions can complete quest bosses for you now.. It's kinda a problem for the people who wish to earn a quest completion.......

Red_Feather

I think that once you 100% a zone you unlock the option to enter a hard instance of any delve or public dungeon in that zone.

The hard instance can give you a buff that increases your magic find so you get more drops. And the enemies in that instance can get a buff that increases their resistances and penetration. And that's it! Not a terribly convoluted thing!

Iccotak

Ringing_Nirnroot wrote: »

Just take off your gear, weapons and champion points and try fighting overland content

doesn't fix the problem of combat not being engaging - it never has, I know from experience. It just makes the fights longer.

People want the fights to be engaging

Iccotak

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

The problem is the difficulty curve is so extreme I have never quite witnessed anything like it...

Overland doesn't teach anything... Vet DLC expect everything and Trial HM are quite hard.

You can't just get rid of CP altogether and sets.. Because then it will be impossible to do trial hardmodes.. and even regular vet trials for a lot of people who don't parse 90k+ this patch.

But you can't have overland where pets destroy the bosses in overland either....

You can't nerf the player too much more (2 patches have done that already in a row) because it will the destroy the endgame scene - and there's not a problem with the endgame scene difficulty... Godslayer is not exactly "Too easy to get".

The problem is that overland is too easy and need an optional hardmode scroll to give some resemblence of accomplishment, for completing long quests.

The problem is that the enemies are mechanically not engaging or smart

they hardly do anything. Even the bigger NPCs are slow in their attacks.

Enemies need more than a stats boost - they need a mechanics overhaul. More abilities and different types of attacks.

Lady_Galadhiel

Threads like these are getting old,people just need to accept that the game wont have any harder overland content any time soon if ever.
The normal casual player is happy with the overland stuff and how it is designed,I mean I hear pretty often complains from people that some stuff is too difficult for them,mind my wild guessing but I would say 80% of the people who play eso can not even defeat one world boss on their own.

Harder overland content would make more casuals to leave the game from what Zos would not benefit at all.
And I don't think Zos would benefit either from reworking or making a harder veteran overland instance from old content,if that would ever happen it would be from the new expansions.

bmnoble

So long as its optional and not forced on everyone got no problem with it.

So long as the increased difficulty is not an excuse to get better rewards, your reward is the increased challenge you wanted so badly.

Iccotak

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

Threads like these are getting old,people just need to accept that the game wont have any harder overland content any time soon if ever.
The normal casual player is happy with the overland stuff and how it is designed,I mean I hear pretty often complains from people that some stuff is too difficult for them, mind my wild guessing but I would say 80% of the people who play eso can not even defeat one world boss on their own.

Harder overland content would make more casuals to leave the game from what Zos would not benefit at all.
And I don't think Zos would benefit either from reworking or making a harder veteran overland instance from old content, if that would ever happen it would be from the new expansions.

So because 80% of the populace cannot beat a Group Content activity on their own we should therefore stop asking ZOS to make the single player content more engaging in combat gameplay.....