We need to talk about ESO's difficulty level

Kikke

Make an MMO and aim it towards the TES crowd, how anyone could imagen this game being anything near hard has either never played a TES game before or is the type of player ZOS aimed at... Light attack spamming skyrimplayers.

Rust_in_Peace

Just to be clear I think dungeons, vet content, trials, world bosses, etc. are all relatively fine in terms of difficulty scaling, even some of the delves have slightly tougher enemies. I do not want them to just add larger health pools either.

I think if they can make our companion AI competent, why not regular enemies? It's just flat out immersion breaking when enemies don't even seem like they want to kill you.

I see a lot of people quoting that same exact point of where "if it's too hard casuals won't play" or "zos needs it to be braindead or the game will die". This kind of thinking is absurd. You can clear overland content with absolutely no gear or skills slotted. Hell, you see people in normal mode dungeons doing exactly that and just light attacking their way through.

If you're super casual and you don't care about progress, why do you need to rush through the game? I think that's what it really comes down to; people want the game to be efficient and the cash shop reflects this as well. If there's a challenge people won't get their dailies done fast enough. I hate that MMO's have basically turned into daily login mobile games.

ApoAlaia

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Mandatory weekly comment on mandatory weekly thread about overland difficulty.

No, I do not want every morning when I do my daily 10-20 surveys to turn into a challenging adventure I need to gear for.

I am fine with picking up nodes in my 'casual wear', thanks for asking.

The fact people think like this is depressing. Just go play a mobile game if all you want to do is login for your free daily gimmie items.

I have no idea if there is a language barrier here or my prose has let me down but I don't understand how doing surveys correlates to 'daily gimmie items'.

It already takes me 2 hours every day to do my writs and harvest the surveys, I don't see how the process taking me an extra 30 minutes because overland is now a 'challenging adventure' would improve my experience in any way.

Furthermore I do my chores so I can afford doing the stuff that I find fun. I don't think this qualifies as a radical approach to the game.

It took some time/effort investment to level 18 crafters and make 8 of them grandmaster crafters so how this correlates to 'mobile game daily gimmie items' I don't know.

FantasticFreddie

Overland is open to everyone. You at 1800CP with your Godslayer mount and that level 10 are going to be hitting the same boss. The devs cannot balance the boss to be fun yet challenging to you both. They can either make it so the level 10 gets instantly wrecked and doesn't stand a chance, or so that you are mildly put off by how easy it is. They choose the latter, and I don't really see why they shouldn't.

Alurria

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Mandatory weekly comment on mandatory weekly thread about overland difficulty.

No, I do not want every morning when I do my daily 10-20 surveys to turn into a challenging adventure I need to gear for.

I am fine with picking up nodes in my 'casual wear', thanks for asking.

The fact people think like this is depressing. Just go play a mobile game if all you want to do is login for your free daily gimmie items.

I have no idea if there is a language barrier here or my prose has let me down but I don't understand how doing surveys correlates to 'daily gimmie items'.

It already takes me 2 hours every day to do my writs and harvest the surveys, I don't see how the process taking me an extra 30 minutes because overland is now a 'challenging adventure' would improve my experience in any way.

Furthermore I do my chores so I can afford doing the stuff that I find fun. I don't think this qualifies as a radical approach to the game.

It took some time/effort investment to level 18 crafters and make 8 of them grandmaster crafters so how this correlates to 'mobile game daily gimmie items' I don't know.

Unfortunately it's not a language barrier it's called cherry picking. The fact is that Zos does make challenging content but a certain segment is bored. It will never be enough for this minority. Most quests you do one time ONCE it's a STORY not a action mechanic. Overland NPCs or monsters don't need to be hard and of course it's already been brought up in this thread about wanting better rewards which is why they want this. It's really not about difficulty or challenge because every one of these threads has a person wanting better rewards.

Everstorm

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Overland is open to everyone. You at 1800CP with your Godslayer mount and that level 10 are going to be hitting the same boss. The devs cannot balance the boss to be fun yet challenging to you both. They can either make it so the level 10 gets instantly wrecked and doesn't stand a chance, or so that you are mildly put off by how easy it is. They choose the latter, and I don't really see why they shouldn't.

But how much content does there need to be for a level 10. Because currently it's the vast majority of the content. Does that make sense?

FantasticFreddie

Everstorm wrote: »

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Overland is open to everyone. You at 1800CP with your Godslayer mount and that level 10 are going to be hitting the same boss. The devs cannot balance the boss to be fun yet challenging to you both. They can either make it so the level 10 gets instantly wrecked and doesn't stand a chance, or so that you are mildly put off by how easy it is. They choose the latter, and I don't really see why they shouldn't.

But how much content does there need to be for a level 10. Because currently it's the vast majority of the content. Does that make sense?

It doesn't matter. If you want something to be accessible to everyone, you need to balance for the lowest common denominator.
We don't roll our eyes at a wheelchair ramp at the sandwich shop because how many people are in wheelchairs, anyways, we understand as a society that some things need to be accessible to everyone.
And I would heartily disagree that the majority of the content is balanced for a level 10 to solo. I can think of plenty of difficult content off the top of my head. There is the insanity of Imperial City sewers and the banner bosses (with the added challenge of players to fight) There are public dungeons, dragons, and world bosses that can all present a challenge to you. There are trials, vet trials, and the hardmodes, there are dungeons with punishing "kill you now" mechanics and a challenge banner at every boss.
But, I don't need a wolf or a quest boss to wreck me when I am just trying to relax.
IF they had a way to instance quest bosses for certain big quests ie zone or faction quests, sure, I would be down for scaling the difficulty.
In general, I understand the need for a wheelchair ramp, even when I don't need one myself.

Castagere

Gary404 wrote: »

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.

I hope ZOS remembers they have players that play for fun and don't need everything to be a challenge. I don't know what gear these people are using but if I don't pay attention in combat I can die and I have over 700 cp.

Mik195

Ergele wrote: »

we have been talking about this since one tamriel.

Gotta keep the discussion up so that ZoS can see the demand.

Ok, I demand that ZOS not increase the difficulty. Its fine as it is and after work, I want to relax. If I want a challenge, I'll try to clean out the downstairs closet or have a conversation with my boss.

If you want a challenge or to practice for a possible old age, play like me. You can only use one bar - bar swapping will work 1/3 of the time, 1/3 of the time you will end up in first person and the reminder will use your potion. You only have access to one potion and your ultimate will fire about 10% of the time. Blocking sometimes wirks, but is usually just too late.

That's my physical world, but I slowly am able to do more content. Was CP 1000+ before I could solo a base dungeon. Has DSP well under 20k and still haven't made it through Selene's but harder overland would not be fun.

Amerises

Narvuntien wrote: »

If I want danger, I fight dragons.

The game tried harder overland it went badly.

I dont think harrowstorms and dragons are the next step in difficulty from anchors/group delves. Geysers are cool because it changes its difficulty based on how fast you kill the trash packs, but there's no benefit to making it harder on yourself.
Also, once you get an overland achievement, most of the overland content becomes redundant. The rewards need to match the difficultly too.

Amerises

Iccotak wrote: »

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.....

Also a good reason to have vet overland. Everybody wins! And if you're in normal and make a friend, maybe you two choose to try vet? A nice reward for doing vet is everything dropping in epic quality, that'd be enough incentive.id rather spend 15 minutes with two other people on a vet dolmen for a purple piece of jewelry than hitting a loading screen every 7 minutes for 3 hours...

XomRhoK

I think people who suggest leave all as it is and not make OPTIONAL difficulty sliders or suggest to get naked to increase difficulty just don't understand the reasoning of other players. I am casual player with one character who i care about, i don't want to make alts with every new chapter, i don't want to gimp my character, because skills, gear, CP points, food, enchants can be miningful to my build and to my perception of the character (visual effects from sets for example), and in the end it's an RPG game i want to find gear and use it, i want to craft, cook, find treasures and USE it, not gimp myself. I am not very interested in tryhard content i want to expirience story, see work of designers of the world, see interesting beautiful places and such gameplay is 70-80% of each chapter, but at the same time i want to feel some resistance from enemies, sometimes feel danger, especially from quest and delve bosses, so i need OPTIONAL difficulty increase. I play more as a tanky character and even for me enemies die to fast and i almost ignore all their mechanics and attacks, because they are not impactful, and players who spec in dealing damage, especially ranged, just desintegrate all at sight, and don't even know how enemies attack looks like. This is wrong. I understand that new players may have problems with enemies on the current difficulty, i am myself died several time not long ago while tested some sets at PTS, i were not tryhard, but were not afk and died in light armor. Thats why i for OPTIONAL difficulty sliders.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

The problem with "more damage from monsters"/"less damage to monsters" is what someone else mentioned - overland mobs aren't mechanically difficult. For people used to complex dungeon/trial fights, the basic attacks of overland won't give "difficulty" even if they did 1% damage to it. It's just a longer fight, not a "challenging" one.

CP5 wrote: »

I enjoy that you say "if you can't solo a group boss with a level 10 character then overland is fine" when that is a very poor comparison. Let's take a basic mob for example instead, to show how poor it is at providing any sense of threat.

Enemies with a 1h and spare off hand have the almighty power to walk backwards, write a novel, throw a knife, before waddling back into the fray to slap you with their toy sword.

Conjurers, summon a literal bubble from oblivion, setting it out to pop on an enemy to, mildly slow them down, and once the bubble is summoned they channel a buff on said bubble, to, increase its nonexistent damage?

Healers channel one heal spell on one ally, then stand around for 5s, throw a ball of confetti on you, then wait 5 more seconds before doing another heal.

Tanks yeet themselves from the battlefield, leaving their allies to die only to land where their enemy was when they started their jump clueless of what just happened.

I agree that interesting mechanics and more active actions from mobs are good things, but no one will revise all mobs and bosses in game to adjust their mechanics and actions it's too much work and not worth spended time and money. Thats why i wrote:

XomRhoK wrote: »

The only cheap and fast option as i can see is placing debuff on player, who decided increase difficulty of overland content.

In reality some not bad mechanics already in game, they are just not impactful and ignored because of that. Increase the slider of damage to x5 or x10 and you will need to block, dodge or chase and interrupt the guy who walk backwards to throw knife, or he will do alot of damage to you, you can't just ignore him any more, same with archers attacks, burning oil on the ground will kill you if you will just stand in it, you will be forced to step aside, so you will need to interact with mechanics which already in the game. And if you don't want to make fights last long just don't adjust slider of player's damage too much, just to the point to not disintegrate all enemies at the sight, to allow them to execute mechanics they already have.

Amerises

XomRhoK wrote: »

I think people who suggest leave all as it is and not make OPTIONAL difficulty sliders or suggest to get naked to increase difficulty just don't understand the reasoning of other players. I am casual player with one character who i care about, i don't want to make alts with every new chapter, i don't want to gimp my character, because skills, gear, CP points, food, enchants can be miningful to my build and to my perception of the character (visual effects from sets for example), and in the end it's an RPG game i want to find gear and use it, i want to craft, cook, find treasures and USE it, not gimp myself. I am not very interested in tryhard content i want to expirience story, see work of designers of the world, see interesting beautiful places and such gameplay is 70-80% of each chapter, but at the same time i want to feel some resistance from enemies, sometimes feel danger, especially from quest and delve bosses, so i need OPTIONAL difficulty increase. I play more as a tanky character and even for me enemies die to fast and i almost ignore all their mechanics and attacks, because they are not impactful, and players who spec in dealing damage, especially ranged, just desintegrate all at sight, and don't even know how enemies attack looks like. This is wrong. I understand that new players may have problems with enemies on the current difficulty, i am myself died several time not long ago while tested some sets at PTS, i were not tryhard, but were not afk and died in light armor. Thats why i for OPTIONAL difficulty sliders.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

The problem with "more damage from monsters"/"less damage to monsters" is what someone else mentioned - overland mobs aren't mechanically difficult. For people used to complex dungeon/trial fights, the basic attacks of overland won't give "difficulty" even if they did 1% damage to it. It's just a longer fight, not a "challenging" one.

CP5 wrote: »

I enjoy that you say "if you can't solo a group boss with a level 10 character then overland is fine" when that is a very poor comparison. Let's take a basic mob for example instead, to show how poor it is at providing any sense of threat.

Enemies with a 1h and spare off hand have the almighty power to walk backwards, write a novel, throw a knife, before waddling back into the fray to slap you with their toy sword.

Conjurers, summon a literal bubble from oblivion, setting it out to pop on an enemy to, mildly slow them down, and once the bubble is summoned they channel a buff on said bubble, to, increase its nonexistent damage?

Healers channel one heal spell on one ally, then stand around for 5s, throw a ball of confetti on you, then wait 5 more seconds before doing another heal.

Tanks yeet themselves from the battlefield, leaving their allies to die only to land where their enemy was when they started their jump clueless of what just happened.

I agree that interesting mechanics and more active actions from mobs are good things, but no one will revise all mobs and bosses in game to adjust their mechanics and actions it's too much work and not worth spended time and money. Thats why i wrote:

XomRhoK wrote: »

The only cheap and fast option as i can see is placing debuff on player, who decided increase difficulty of overland content.

In reality some not bad mechanics already in game, they are just not impactful and ignored because of that. Increase the slider of damage to x5 or x10 and you will need to block, dodge or chase and interrupt the guy who walk backwards to throw knife, or he will do alot of damage to you, you can't just ignore him any more, same with archers attacks, burning oil on the ground will kill you if you will just stand in it, you will be forced to step aside, so you will need to interact with mechanics which already in the game. And if you don't want to make fights last long just don't adjust slider of player's damage too much, just to the point to not disintegrate all enemies at the sight, to allow them to execute mechanics they already have.

Yeah, mechanics are important to increasing difficulty, I don't want to spend 5 minutes on a mud crab, but I wouldn't mind needing to dodge roll when it shoots me with a water gun or blasts spikes out of its back towards me.

coop500

Castagere wrote: »

Gary404 wrote: »

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.

I hope ZOS remembers they have players that play for fun and don't need everything to be a challenge. I don't know what gear these people are using but if I don't pay attention in combat I can die and I have over 700 cp.

Yup, even on my characters with 900 CP and 2 5 piece sets and a monster set, I can easily die if I am too fumbly.

That's why I don't believe this hyperbole of 'oh you can do all overland naked with no CP or skills or passives'
Like, okay, maybe one or two mobs? or mudcrabs? But not any decent amount of enemies.

coop500

Also lets not forget tank and healer builds, i HATE doing anything in overland with my tank and healer characters, it's already painfully slow and boringly hard (especially on my tank)

Iccotak

zelaminator wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

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.....

If the majority of the players want x, that is what the company will give them.. simple as that.. And I truly do believe that the majority of the players are content with the difficulty that we are at right now

in my admittedly anecdotal experience I find the opposite - even for people I introduce to the game

LashanW

coop500 wrote: »

No, on my gatherer character, I can sometimes STRUGGLE with overland, cause all her gear is set to move faster, not protect or deal damage. I don't want to die every time I accidentally aggro a few mobs (which are friggen everywhere and constantly guarding nodes)

ApoAlaia wrote: »

No, I do not want every morning when I do my daily 10-20 surveys to turn into a challenging adventure I need to gear for.

I am fine with picking up nodes in my 'casual wear', thanks for asking.

I collect 70+ surveys per week and I VERY rarely have to fight anything, most survey spots are placed outside of aggro radius of enemies, only a very few have enemies within aggro range (even then it's only one or 2). I don't aggro anything from wayshrine to survey spot either thanks to DB "Shadow Rider" passive (one of the most useful passives in the game).

My guy (orc magplar) wears adept rider and jailbreaker and he can 2 shot overland enemies with crushing shock and jesus beam. If overland difficulty was upped it wouldn't affect my survey gathering experience at all as you can avoid enemies so easily in the first place.

Iccotak

Alurria wrote: »

It's not worth it if A. You can't make money on it. B it angers the majority of players who are casual and spend the majority of the money in game. C. If you T-off these casuals pretty soon you will find empty servers. This thread keeps popping up the subject is old. If you want difficult do the vet content because that is what it's designed for. Overland is not designed to present a challenge it's a story for your character to complete as in adventure not designed to bunny hop mechanics or run in a circle around a boss. If you want action play a action game.

Simple - make a Veteran Mode for Overland that applies to the whole game but you have to buy a chapter to access it.

Just like Antiquities was applied to the whole game but you needed Greymoor to access it.
(EDIT: Or just make it a free update to the game like One Tamriel was)

also 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?

Alucardo

I don't see the problem tbh. It makes rolling alts for end game ridiculously simple and fast, and if you're new to the game or returning from a long hiatus, then you won't take as long to catch up and you won't struggle.
I've seen comments from newbies claiming some of the overland stuff is too hard, and you want to make it harder for them? Why? Do you really spend that much of your time slaying mud crabs and wolves? If you're so powerful, why aren't you doing trials or pvping?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against making things more difficult, but I also don't really see the issue when it makes getting to end game faster and you can start doing what you actually enjoy doing, be it dungeons/trials or pvp.

RevJJ

I think what we really need is a separate forum where these daily posts about how easy the game is can go.

amm7sb14_ESO

This is a game of extremes.

The overland content is mind numbingly easy, to the point it is tedious, and wholly off-putting to engage in.

I typically create a new character per chapter to be my "canon" character for that chapter. I haven't made my character for this chapter yet because I cannot bring myself to endure even 1 more overland quest.

The writing and story may be good, but the game play is so tedious. I haven't even gotten a companion yet because it requires a quest, and I don't care how short it is, I just can't endure doing anymore overland content.

On the other end of the extremes, you have vet trials and some vet DLC dungeons that have mechanics that are just so absurdly overboard and non-sensical, it stops being "challenging" and ventures into "you are actively trying to make my experience a living hell". Once you start getting to a point of "you have to be fully, 100% min / max meta-optimized to even *participate* in this content", you have taken it too far.

It's hard to find a middle ground. Overland content is tedious. Normal group content can be completed with my eyes closed. Vet content has a nice balance some of the time, but other times just flies off the cliff of absurdity.

This game definitely has its hooks in me. I've been here off and on since beta, and more consistently for the past year and a half. But while I do find enjoyment from this game, it is also an exercise in masochism, because it seems like everywhere I turn, any level of content is actively trying to push me away from the game.

Iccotak

coop500 wrote: »

Also lets not forget tank and healer builds, i HATE doing anything in overland with my tank and healer characters, it's already painfully slow and boringly hard (especially on my tank)

I play a tank - you know what I do when I play Overland? I change my build - the game is designed for you to be able to change your build to suit the circumstances. Change the gear, slot different skills, invest in other skill lines, etc. - all things you can do without changing CP or Skill Morphs.

I don't do the best damage but I have the good sense to adjust more for damage output over taking damage.

Where did this mentality come from? -- The idea that Overland should be mind numbingly simple and not ask anything of the player, that you should NEVER struggle with anything - why is there this push to make the overland content a point & click adventure? Especially for a game with action oriented combat systems...

nukk3r

Iccotak wrote: »

Alurria wrote: »

It's not worth it if A. You can't make money on it. B it angers the majority of players who are casual and spend the majority of the money in game. C. If you T-off these casuals pretty soon you will find empty servers. This thread keeps popping up the subject is old. If you want difficult do the vet content because that is what it's designed for. Overland is not designed to present a challenge it's a story for your character to complete as in adventure not designed to bunny hop mechanics or run in a circle around a boss. If you want action play a action game.

Simple - make a Veteran Mode for Overland that applies to the whole game but you have to buy a chapter to access it.

Just like Antiquities was applied to the whole game but you needed Greymoor to access it.

also 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?

Just curious, how many times can one repeat the same quests that always have the same outcome?

knightblaster

The trouble is that ESO relies very heavily on player skill/familiarity with the game in order to be played effectively. A new player coming from a typical tab target MMO will struggle at first. If you make it harder, they will have massive problems. Because this design is very centered on the player's own skill, it isn't as easy to scale as a different design, where you can scale difficulty more easily by matching up more and stronger character skills with harder enemies and encounters. Here you can't really do that as much, and so once you have personally scaled the player-based difficulty scale, playing well becomes rather easy, even with a fresh character, regardless of the "character" abilities.

I think what that means is that the game needs different difficulty settings, because you can't really solve this issue of player-skill-based difficulty otherwise.

amm7sb14_ESO

Arunei wrote: »

Everstorm wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Mandatory weekly comment on mandatory weekly thread about overland difficulty.

No, I do not want every morning when I do my daily 10-20 surveys to turn into a challenging adventure I need to gear for.

I am fine with picking up nodes in my 'casual wear', thanks for asking.

Oh yes! Let's balance the game around gathering crafting materials! 🙄
While we're at it: please make trials easier so I can finish collecting books!

I mean...gathering crafting mats IS part of Overland, whether you care about it or not. Overland isn't just about questing. People don't want to have to spend three minutes fighting beefier mobs to collect the node nearby. Your comparison to a trial for books doesn't make any sense and is rather extreme because trials don't inherently involve collecting books, as well as trials being meant to be more difficult than Overland. Are there even any books in trials that you need for the book furniture bundles? Because if not and you're just talking completion for the sake of getting every book, you can't really compare that to normal Overland gameplay.

I think people are forgetting that TES is a single-player universe game up until ESO, and thus a lot of people who play are playing not for the MMO experience but because it's a TES game. A lot of people playing this have likely never played another MMO before (this is the case for me on both counts). You can point and say "well other MMOs do this or that" but ESO isn't those games, and people playing those games are playing them because of both the franchise and the MMO part in most cases.

If we could have some sort of opt-in for higher difficulty that would be fine, but I will never support increasing the difficulty for everyone without the choice to say no. I can clear Overland as easy as several people here, I can solo certain DLC dungeons well enough, and so on. I would much prefer Overland staying easy so the stories are more accessible and so other Overland content doesn't become more tedious than it is already because trash mobs are all mini bosses now.

I am someone who is here because I am a TES fan, not an MMO fan.

There is no content in a single player game - even in Skyrim, which many of the more bitter of the fanbase call "dumbed down" (I do not subscribe to that cynical perspective) - that is anywhere nearly as remotely mind numbingly tediously simple as ESO's overland content.

Morrowind is revered by the fanbase for the fact that you actually have to build up your character into competence.

Oblivion is infamous for a flawed leveling system that adds severe challenge to certain mid-levels in the game.

Skyrim is easy to become god-like in, but until you cross that threshold into godliness around the mid-30's or so, challenge is still easy to find, especially against dungeon and quest bosses.

In ESO? I literally can't die to overland mobs if I tried. I could sheath my weapon and set my controller down and walk away and I still won't die. Your "some people are here because of the single player TES games" argument is flawed, because even solo content in ESO is *nothing* like a single player TES game experience. Not even in the least bit.

If ESO's solo content is what single player TES games were like, TES would probably be among my most hated RPG franchises of all time.

Iccotak

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.

No risk, No threat, No danger,

"But what about the New Players?" - Most new players I've met found this combat boring

let's be honest what this is about, convenience. Even though people are asking for an optional instance that is more challenging and engaging - so far the other argument against it has been about convenience

- "I want to get to resources fast"
- "I want to level to endgame fast"
- "I don't want trash mobs to inconvenience me - get in & get out"
- "I don't want to struggle at all"
- "I don't want to have to think about what I'm doing"
- "I don't want to put any effort into questing, period"
- "I don't want to have to adjust my build ever"

that last one is just baffling imo.

If that's what you want - fine, you can have your instance and enjoy that. But a lot of us don't enjoy that and would prefer to have a separate instance with mechanics that make us think and engage us. I want my solo story content to be appealing for both writing & gameplay.

I want my builds to matter more outside of group content. I want to be able to quest with one of my IRL friends and for it to not be a total breeze.

There is over 500+ hours of questing - while many of you want that to be as fast as possible, many others would like that experience to be FUN. I don't want my questing experience to basically be a walking simulator. I want an Elder Scrolls experience

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Iccotak

Castagere wrote: »

Gary404 wrote: »

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.

I hope ZOS remembers they have players that play for fun and don't need everything to be a challenge. I don't know what gear these people are using but if I don't pay attention in combat I can die and I have over 700 cp.

Engaging combat is FUN for many of us - that's why we're asking for it.

Sure things can be hard to a point that it is no longer fun - but same goes on the other end of the spectrum.

make it too easy/simple and the game becomes boring

amm7sb14_ESO

Ingenon wrote: »

Anyway, I have a question for you folks that say overland is too easy. Are you able to solo complete all the game world base dailies on a level 10 alt with mismatched gear and no CP? In all the zones? I'm not asking if you can complete them while you have all CP allocated and while wearing full endgame gear. I'm asking about you doing every one of them as a new player would, with no CP and the mismatched gear you get from doing overland quests. Because if you can't, then ZOS does not have to up the difficulty on overland. I believe the range of difficulty that ZOS offers now is appropriate.

Yes. I can.

I have made many alts and don't actually upgrade my gear until I hit level 50 / CP levels, and I typically don't distribute my CP points until 50 either.

I usually stick with the same level 4 gear or so throughout my journey to 50, because actually upgrading my gear before 50 is wholly pointless.

Aardappelboom

Totally agree, I even took off my gear and I had to try to die...I see so many arguments against this that are honestly easily taken care of with an optional toggle and the story mode could definitely benefit from a difficulty slider, there's no reason why it shouldn't happen at this point and there are a lot of good suggestions on this forum that don't suggest total instancing of all zones (which would be bad, obviously)

Also, referencing Craglorn is another story entirely, it was an anticipated DLC that suddenly forced everyone into a different playstyle by introducing non-optional veteran, overland content, of course it went wrong. I found Craglorn refreshingly lovely after steamrolling through Cadwell's silver and gold.

A lot of the mechanics and "cutscenes" of bosses are really cool, but because they go down so easily you miss all this.

nukk3r

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

Anyway, I have a question for you folks that say overland is too easy. Are you able to solo complete all the game world base dailies on a level 10 alt with mismatched gear and no CP? In all the zones? I'm not asking if you can complete them while you have all CP allocated and while wearing full endgame gear. I'm asking about you doing every one of them as a new player would, with no CP and the mismatched gear you get from doing overland quests. Because if you can't, then ZOS does not have to up the difficulty on overland. I believe the range of difficulty that ZOS offers now is appropriate.

Yes. I can.

I have made many alts and don't actually upgrade my gear until I hit level 50 / CP levels, and I typically don't distribute my CP points until 50 either.

I usually stick with the same level 4 gear or so throughout my journey to 50, because actually upgrading my gear before 50 is wholly pointless.

Can you truly solo world boss dailies with a lvl 10 character? Don't tell me they're group content, because most of them are not. The ones that are meant for group have an indicator when you enter their range.