We need to talk about ESO's difficulty level

SilverBride

Bottom line:

• ESO has a large base of casual players.
• Overland is the story and is for everyone.
• There are veteran dungeons, trials and arenas for those who want more of a challenge.
• Veteran zones before One Tamriel failed and were removed.
• There is not enough support for creating a veteran overland.

Every new thread that is created on this same exact topic shows less and less support, and more and more opposition. And every new thread has at least a few comments about how many threads have been started on this same exact subject. Frankly, it has turned into a joke.

Lauranae

When blackwood launched, i created a new one and decided to go with

no cp
no gear (mean i keep the starter one the longer i can)
no particular weapon (same as above)
no boost, no heal potion

NOTHING that could have advantaged me.

And yes it was no easy, it was difficult. I did the blackwood story like this as well as all the overland quests and finished to lv32. Some fights were really demanding, even if i know the out of red and dont stand here and there. The little change happened when i started with Bastian and Mirri, this helped a little but was not so easy as my challenge was to not let them die at all.

And yes i died. Yes sometimes it was tiring. And i did not felt the game was handed to me on an easy plate. And i tested all, Delves, Public groups, deadlands. And yes i died. And some fight in public groups were feeling discouraging.

All this while i have aside 2 accounts full of 50, both account with 1000cp each. Blackwood with CP and geared, is easy, not everything as they upped a bit some boss fights and this is fun.

But for a new player, the difficulty is not easy. They will not solo a world boss for sur until some more times into the game. And even then not all world boss.

I remember that i left the game at the beginning, when i reach 50 and had to fight veteran. I hated that. Fiercely. There was nothing fun in diing so much and not even be able to feel a little victory.

If you want some difficutly Overland, remove all those buffs, golded gear, addons, and play the game as it should be played. And you will see its another game.

CP5

knightblaster wrote: »

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.

As someone who has done plenty of pugs, the mentality that new players develop in overland continue into these dungeons and clearly show what skills they learn during their time playing overland. They enter the dungeon, left click away, and sometimes cast a single skill.

If, let's say, they're facing a fight with a lot of ambient damage they die all the time unless the healer goes well out of their way to focus heals. Why? Because overland never got the idea to them to slot and use heals.

Or, if facing a large group of enemies, they won't use an attack that hits multiple enemies at once because again, overland caps out at 3 enemies per encounter, and those fights, with such low threat from each mob, can be easily cleared by killing them one at a time.

Or how about fights with red aoes? Overland aoes are so small and weak they never learn to get out of them, so guess which fights in game often kill inexperienced players?

Simple fact of the matter is overland sets the standard, and that bar is low. Players can find success by doing the bare minimum that once you put any expectations on their ability to do anything beyond moving and light attacking it seems like an excessive challenge. Having enemies you need to pay attention to teaches people how to play, and they will understand trying to run with their shoes tied together isn't a challenge because the earth is dragging your face to the ground, but because you're tripping on your own actions.

Hymzir

Just something to add to my previous novel about the issue, here's the sequel... Just some thoughts that occurred to me while buying groceries.

I remember what it was like to slog through those veteran zones, slowly building towards Veteran Rank 10 - then 12, then 14 the 16, but by then it wasn't that much of an issue. I mean Orsinium was leveled from the get go, even before the whole One Tamriel became a thing.

It was hard, it was a slog, but it was also sortta entertaining. So yeah, I do get the point for harder overland. But it just isn't a good fit for the game anymore. The game itself has evolved. Where overland content was once THE CONTENT of the game, it no longer is. It's filler, it's the glue that binds the actual pieces of content together. It's something you go through while on the move from one activity to another. Slogging through it in hardmode was fun because you did it once and then moved on. There was a constant sense of progression as you moved from one quest hub to the next. You started a new zone in one corner and slowly worked your way to the end, and then moved to a brand new zone.

Now you are constantly going across multiple zones for various reasons. Repeating the same stuff and places endlessly. Your going to do your dailies in a delve or to kill some world boss. Looking for an antiquity lead that drops from a chest, maybe you are trying to get enough hardwood to build that nifty new cabinet for your home. You are not there to do the content as such, you are there to do something else, and do not want to waste repeating the same old content.

In addition to this, the whole concept of "Overland" is kinda problematic. I mean, what is it actually? It actually contains a whole host of stuff to do and to interact with. You got world bosses, world events, delves, public dungeons, and quests (some containing no actual fighting at all). Then there's thievery and dark brotherhood contracts, and farming for building materials and collectibles, or looking for relics for some treasure hunt, of maybe just picking up some extra skill points for an alt from skyshards. Now you got companions to build rapports with. And then there is, of course, all those myriad meaningless mobs that dot the landscape.

They all operate under the same difficulty level, so again, a blanket buff or some sort of nerf applied to your character would not really be a good fit to make the game more engaging. Somethings, like world event could be harder, although dragons and harrowstorms show that maybe not. Quest bosses could be harder, but compared to what? It's still a shared gaming space so... Dynamic difficulty wont really work. Most world bosses are fine as they are, some are harder, some are easier, and some just are a bad match for you build. You'd need a fairly intricate system to take all that into account and a simple difficulty slider really doesn't sound like it would do the trick.

The one thing that I do guarantee, is that the vast majority of players do not want to make all those meaningless mobs more tedious to deal with. In fact I bet that most players would take it as a welcomed news, if ZOS stated in the next update that "Due to years of culling, the monster populations of Tamriel have dwindled, and overland mob density has decreased by 40%." That would make lot more people happy than a difficulty slider. You could still retain the current mob densities in quest locations and ruins and dungeons. But all those pointless mobs in the wild, guarding some wood node or such, could really take a significant reduction in numbers. And a lot lower aggro rates.

Which reminds me of a yet another thing - see back in the days of veteran zones, farming for mats was not such a big thing. Sure weeds were always useful and welcome for potions, but most of the other stuff you just kinda ignored. There were no crafting writs to drain mats, there was no housing to act as a bottomless sink, and only end game tier crafting mats mattered. That's another thing that has changed - farming for stuff, and looking for collectibles, and antiquity leads, and relics and a chests and stuff is a lot bigger part of the game than it used to be. And you do not need the extra aggravation of mobs that take 4 seconds to deal with instead of 2. It might not sound much, but those mobs add up. And I'd much rather waste only 15 minutes of my evening on pointless mobs, rather than 30 minutes. This is doubly true for those who only can play 3 or 4 hours a day.

Calling for "harder" overland is not productive. There are way too many moving components, and play-styles, and play interests at hand here. What might suit you will most certainly inconvenience others, and tailoring the play experience to suit your needs would require way too finicky a system to be feasible. And would run into all sort of issues in a shared gaming space. I personally would like to see some parts of "overland" be harder, but I realize that my wishes and wants are my personal, and they probably do not reflect the wishes and wants of others, let alone the majority of players.

If you want more difficulty then it is lot more productive to just ask for harder content, to be more specific about what it is you want to be harder, and in what way. Maybe a whole new category of activities called challenges or something was in order. But as a whole, the Overland difficulty is fine as it is, it serves it's purpose and changing it is way much more trouble than it's worth.

I suppose a difficulty slider is within the realms of possibilities, but I doubt it will really make much of an impact, and I doubt most people will use it. Still, who knows, maybe ZOS will implement it, but with all the issues involved, I would not hold my breath. The key point here is, that it isn't as simple as some people seem to think it is. Making new content that is specifically tagged a s harder - like some challenging monster hunts or something - sounds much more doable within the framework of the game.

But yeah, that's all I had to add. Just some food for thought. My real point in all of this was, that overland is a vague therm, and that it really isn't the "content" of the game as such anymore. It's just a medium that connects all the actual content of the game together. And more and more of that content is no longer in anyway shape or form associated with actual combat. And that most of the players who engage with it do not want it to be more tedious than it already is.

Lauranae

CP5 wrote: »

knightblaster wrote: »

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.

As someone who has done plenty of pugs, the mentality that new players develop in overland continue into these dungeons and clearly show what skills they learn during their time playing overland. They enter the dungeon, left click away, and sometimes cast a single skill.

If, let's say, they're facing a fight with a lot of ambient damage they die all the time unless the healer goes well out of their way to focus heals. Why? Because overland never got the idea to them to slot and use heals.

Or, if facing a large group of enemies, they won't use an attack that hits multiple enemies at once because again, overland caps out at 3 enemies per encounter, and those fights, with such low threat from each mob, can be easily cleared by killing them one at a time.

Or how about fights with red aoes? Overland aoes are so small and weak they never learn to get out of them, so guess which fights in game often kill inexperienced players?

Simple fact of the matter is overland sets the standard, and that bar is low. Players can find success by doing the bare minimum that once you put any expectations on their ability to do anything beyond moving and light attacking it seems like an excessive challenge. Having enemies you need to pay attention to teaches people how to play, and they will understand trying to run with their shoes tied together isn't a challenge because the earth is dragging your face to the ground, but because you're tripping on your own actions.

Its not a game that develop a mentality!! Some people love challenges, some dont. Its life. And you can not ask someone to be as you are. You can not force someone into something they do not want. You can try to help them, by explaining, and sticking with them side by side.
People explaining a fight, or a way to play a class are very rare. Actually most of the time, its rush and learn. And die. And try to understand why you die.
No one is able to understand without a little explanation how to deal with a boss or another one.
You want them to up to your level, its ok, then be patient, explain, take the time, offer more help than 1 instance.

amm7sb14_ESO

SilverBride wrote: »

WoW is the same way. Their overland is just quests, there aren't even harrowstorms or world bosses, or delves or dolmens. It is just the quests and the story. This is the norm in most MMO's. Creating veteran overland is not, and for very good reason.

And many MMO's aside from WoW have challenging quest content. Your point?

WoW is a crap game. The fact that ESO is simply a faster combat console version of it is the worst thing about it. I can't stand WoW questing either

Red_Feather

Who else here has 90% of the game's delves left undone because of how dull their fights feel.
Overland delves I just jog through and auto attack enemies to unleash them, until reaching the skyshard and then jog out.
Maybe I'll run across the delve boss and auto attack that to complete the delve on the map.
Every enemy in a delve feels like a bug on a windshield.

CP5

Lauranae wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

knightblaster wrote: »

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.

As someone who has done plenty of pugs, the mentality that new players develop in overland continue into these dungeons and clearly show what skills they learn during their time playing overland. They enter the dungeon, left click away, and sometimes cast a single skill.

If, let's say, they're facing a fight with a lot of ambient damage they die all the time unless the healer goes well out of their way to focus heals. Why? Because overland never got the idea to them to slot and use heals.

Or, if facing a large group of enemies, they won't use an attack that hits multiple enemies at once because again, overland caps out at 3 enemies per encounter, and those fights, with such low threat from each mob, can be easily cleared by killing them one at a time.

Or how about fights with red aoes? Overland aoes are so small and weak they never learn to get out of them, so guess which fights in game often kill inexperienced players?

Simple fact of the matter is overland sets the standard, and that bar is low. Players can find success by doing the bare minimum that once you put any expectations on their ability to do anything beyond moving and light attacking it seems like an excessive challenge. Having enemies you need to pay attention to teaches people how to play, and they will understand trying to run with their shoes tied together isn't a challenge because the earth is dragging your face to the ground, but because you're tripping on your own actions.

Its not a game that develop a mentality!! Some people love challenges, some dont. Its life. And you can not ask someone to be as you are. You can not force someone into something they do not want. You can try to help them, by explaining, and sticking with them side by side.
People explaining a fight, or a way to play a class are very rare. Actually most of the time, its rush and learn. And die. And try to understand why you die.
No one is able to understand without a little explanation how to deal with a boss or another one.
You want them to up to your level, its ok, then be patient, explain, take the time, offer more help than 1 instance.

I'm not asking for random players to psychically know every fight. I'm saying that overland fails to teach people what ESO's combat is actually about. They can force players to bash a million times during the tutorial, but the second that player gets to the final boss in direfrost and needs to cc break, they won't. If a skill is never needed, it won't be used. As I mentioned in an earlier post, almost every overland mob is built the same way, mediocre health/damage with skills deliberately designed to put out fireworks while wasting the mobs time, buying time for the players to mow them down. That kind of fight isn't engaging, memorable, or helpful for teaching how to play. Overland being that basic taught new players that what they do to clear there is sufficient for the entire rest of the game, leaving them unprepared for anything else.

Abigail

ixthUA wrote: »

Majority of players make a dps build, so questing becomes very easy (it was designed to be doable by tanks too), then they complain about long dungeon queues (there are like hundreds? times more dps than tanks), then they queue as fake tank (and quit as soon as they get a dungeon they can't tank with 20k hp), then they complain about fake tanks/healers and overland being too easy.
Solution: play as a tank.
1. No more easy overland.
2. No more long queues.
3. No more fake tanks.

Only this morning I put my newly minted level-50 magblade in a random as a damage dealer. (She does only 30+K dps with starter gear.) The tank was a fake tank and guess who actually tanked the dungeon? My alt is decidedly not setup for tanking, so as always it was quite a struggle for me, but I did it. Ironically, as I've alluded to before, the group ran well ahead of me, but the minute I caught up I took aggro away just from my normal rotation. This is certainly not the first time -- I've ended up tanking with my healers a couple times. It's not fun and something is really wrong with this picture.

amm7sb14_ESO

Red_Feather wrote: »

Who else here has 90% of the game's delves left undone because of how dull their fights feel.
Overland delves I just jog through and auto attack enemies to unleash them, until reaching the skyshard and then jog out.
Maybe I'll run across the delve boss and auto attack that to complete the delve on the map.
Every enemy in a delve feels like a bug on a windshield.

Me.

As it stands, overland content in this game acts as an annoyance / hinderance. It is not quality content.

Until overland content is revamped and given something to actually make it engaging, I will not partake in it. And I'm sure many others feel the same way.

amm7sb14_ESO

ixthUA wrote: »

Majority of players make a dps build, so questing becomes very easy (it was designed to be doable by tanks too), then they complain about long dungeon queues (there are like hundreds? times more dps than tanks), then they queue as fake tank (and quit as soon as they get a dungeon they can't tank with 20k hp), then they complain about fake tanks/healers and overland being too easy.
Solution: play as a tank.
1. No more easy overland.
2. No more long queues.
3. No more fake tanks.

Playing as a tank in overland doesn't make it "hard". It just makes it even more mind numbingly tedious.

ixthUA

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Playing as a tank in overland doesn't make it "hard". It just makes it even more mind numbingly tedious.

What is hard then?
Long - just extends time.
Chance of failure (1-shot + boss reset) extends time randomly.
High attention adds a chance of failure.
High learning extends time at first, becomes easy later.
For me difficulty is how much time i spend to achieve something. For example i failed to complete all solo questing on my dk tank, but succeeded on my healer.

zelaminator

Lauranae wrote: »

When blackwood launched, i created a new one and decided to go with

no cp
no gear (mean i keep the starter one the longer i can)
no particular weapon (same as above)
no boost, no heal potion

NOTHING that could have advantaged me.

And yes it was no easy, it was difficult. I did the blackwood story like this as well as all the overland quests and finished to lv32. Some fights were really demanding, even if i know the out of red and dont stand here and there. The little change happened when i started with Bastian and Mirri, this helped a little but was not so easy as my challenge was to not let them die at all.

And yes i died. Yes sometimes it was tiring. And i did not felt the game was handed to me on an easy plate. And i tested all, Delves, Public groups, deadlands. And yes i died. And some fight in public groups were feeling discouraging.

All this while i have aside 2 accounts full of 50, both account with 1000cp each. Blackwood with CP and geared, is easy, not everything as they upped a bit some boss fights and this is fun.

But for a new player, the difficulty is not easy. They will not solo a world boss for sur until some more times into the game. And even then not all world boss.

I remember that i left the game at the beginning, when i reach 50 and had to fight veteran. I hated that. Fiercely. There was nothing fun in diing so much and not even be able to feel a little victory.

If you want some difficutly Overland, remove all those buffs, golded gear, addons, and play the game as it should be played. And you will see its another game.

No no, you've heard what they say.. literally impossible to die, 1-2 shotting story bosses with only starter gear, can't even die if they leave the keyboard for 5 minutes..

Abigail

zelaminator wrote: »

No no, you've heard what they say.. literally impossible to die, 1-2 shotting story bosses with only starter gear, can't even die if they leave the keyboard for 5 minutes..

I'm guessing you don't do overland content because that is utter poppycock.

I grant you the overland content is not too challenging, but two-shotting story bosses is BS. And it's certainly possible to die. I say this as someone whose alts have, as an example, 5pcs Mother's Sorrow, 5pcs Julianos, Zaan shoulders, and a Wild Hunt ring; doing 30-40K dps.

Now, if you're wearing end-game gear and using perfected weapons, I can see where the content might be too easy.

Before you go on about the lack of difficulty, consider the legions of newer players who are struggling with lesser equipment.

Advice: equip run of the mill gear and take off your CPs.

zelaminator

Abigail wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

No no, you've heard what they say.. literally impossible to die, 1-2 shotting story bosses with only starter gear, can't even die if they leave the keyboard for 5 minutes..

I'm guessing you don't do overland content because that is utter poppycock.

I grant you the overland content is not too challenging, but two-shotting story bosses is BS. And it's certainly possible to die. I say this as someone whose alts have, as an example, 5pcs Mother's Sorrow, 5pcs Julianos, Zaan shoulders, and a Wild Hunt ring; doing 30-40K dps.

Now, if you're wearing end-game gear and using perfected weapons, I can see where the content might be too easy.

Before you go on about the lack of difficulty, consider the legions of newer players who are struggling with lesser equipment.

Advice: equip run of the mill gear and take off your CPs.

It was very much sarcasm on my end, directed at some of the outrageous claims made in these threads

I know very well that it is easily possible to die, that we have many many new players that struggle through the content, that needs help to complete the quests from time to time

Sylvermynx

zelaminator wrote: »

No no, you've heard what they say.. literally impossible to die, 1-2 shotting story bosses with only starter gear, can't even die if they leave the keyboard for 5 minutes..

Yeah. I've heard it. It's not true. I still die to groups of the "weenie" overland mobs three years into the game. I'm old. My reflexes suck. My internet connection ditto. Sure I have a decent rotation - but I can't reliably bar swap (that sucky internet - and no, I have nothing better available because of living in the back of beyond, a whole 40 miles north of "good" connection).

So yeah. I die. Not every time but frequently enough that threads like this one (the MANY MANY threads like this one) make me want to reach through the browser and choke everyone who's promoting this "veteran overland" garbage - even if they say it's "optional" - does anyone really believe that if they get their way, ZOS will actually make it optional? Not only no but HELL NO - because a major change of this sort would cause a mega programming disaster if it was "just a switch for optional".

And that's all I'm going to say - because I'm not risking my posting privs again.

[@Abigail - @zelaminator was.... oh - nev'mind.... he got it first....]

Alurria

Sylvermynx wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

No no, you've heard what they say.. literally impossible to die, 1-2 shotting story bosses with only starter gear, can't even die if they leave the keyboard for 5 minutes..

Yeah. I've heard it. It's not true. I still die to groups of the "weenie" overland mobs three years into the game. I'm old. My reflexes suck. My internet connection ditto. Sure I have a decent rotation - but I can't reliably bar swap (that sucky internet - and no, I have nothing better available because of living in the back of beyond, a whole 40 miles north of "good" connection).

So yeah. I die. Not every time but frequently enough that threads like this one (the MANY MANY threads like this one) make me want to reach through the browser and choke everyone who's promoting this "veteran overland" garbage - even if they say it's "optional" - does anyone really believe that if they get their way, ZOS will actually make it optional? Not only no but HELL NO - because a major change of this sort would cause a mega programming disaster if it was "just a switch for optional".

And that's all I'm going to say - because I'm not risking my posting privs again.

[@Abigail - @zelaminator was.... oh - nev'mind.... he got it first....]

I totally agree, and as another poster said it has become a joke in certain circles when this thread pops up because the claims are unbelievable at times.

Amottica

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

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?

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.

Just because you build a wheelchair ramp for one person also doesn't mean everyone needs to start using wheelchairs and taking the ramp which is what your analogy here would equate to.

I do not think a wheelchair ramp is a reasonably similar analogy to the request of this thread. One is significantly important for mobility-challenged people and in many cases legally required. The other is nothing more than a personal desire for some against a business decision and nothing more.

Iccotak

ixthUA wrote: »

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Playing as a tank in overland doesn't make it "hard". It just makes it even more mind numbingly tedious.

What is hard then?
Long - just extends time.
Chance of failure (1-shot + boss reset) extends time randomly.
High attention adds a chance of failure.
High learning extends time at first, becomes easy later.
For me difficulty is how much time i spend to achieve something. For example i failed to complete all solo questing on my dk tank, but succeeded on my healer.

Engaging I think is a better word than "Hard"

and the things we need to ask are

- How fast is the enemy?
- How often do they move?
- How often do they use their weapon and how fast are they with it?
- What is their react time?
- How many abilities do they have?
- What kind of abilities do they have?
- How often do they use these abilities?
- How much damage do they deal?
- What are their defenses?

additional questions

- How many do you run into at a time?
- How smart are they?
- How effective are they as a group?

Point being; how often does the Enemy (or more) put players in a position where they have to think about what they are doing and what they are dealing with.

---

Let's talk general enemies in the zones, delves, and public dungeons.

mobs are generally trash because they are slow to move, slow to attack, and slow to use their abilities of which they have few.
general mobs being trash makes sense - BUT there needs to be more "Bigger NPCs" who have more and do more.

Players have access to a wide array of abilities that they can execute in fast succession. Now there are companions who have access to a variety of abilities. It stands to reason that there has to be some "Tougher Enemies" - within a group of trash mobs - who have more abilities and do more damage.

---

I would say that the new enemy type "Ruinarchs" are getting there - they use more attacks and are faster when using them.

Some of the "Mini-Boss" encounters in the story would have been great additions to general overland content.

Like the witch Nathari from the Markarth DLC story. I think she would be a good base for a "Grand Necromancer" enemy type that you could run into every once in a while.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Nathari

Or even the Delve Boss in a delve in Blackwood, an Argonian Necromancer - these "Bosses" would actually be great for Bigger NPCs around the map.

---

Another example of what I am talking about is the introduction cinematic (which uses in game engine)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/575654/eso-new-intro-cinematic

Here is what I pointed out

I wish the overland gameplay was as exciting as this intro made it look.

- Daedra hordes pouring out of the anchors and roaming the lands - even attacking cities!
- Daedric Titans flying around
- Dangerous Bosses that wander the open world zones

And other stuff like how;
- Enemies were attacking in actual groups larger than just three (and god forbid encouraging players to work together in an MMO outside of required group content)
- Large Battles with NPCs that were actually fighting each other and seeking out combat
- nice little details & touches like how animals were wandering the zone (like the bugs flying in Valenwood)

This intro made ESO look way more sandbox than it currently is right now and I hope they can achieve that in the gameplay - also fighting an enemy army/hordes sounds like a REALLY awesome game activity.

the video made general questing and exploration look dangerous and with some risk.

Imagine if werewolves actually behaved in the game like they do in the video

You're exploring and wandering around - suddenly you spot a Werewolf in the distance who howls and you find yourself being attacked on all fronts by their Pack.

That kind of Sandbox enemy Ai behavior would be awesome in ESO!

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Story Bosses (aka the Main Villains of the Story) are another matter.
From my experience - I have never "one-shotted" a story boss - but I did find their mechanics overly simple, basic, and just overall not engaging. The worst of them had to be the Main Dragon bosses in 2019: Mulamniir, Laatvulon, and Kaalgrontiid - all had mediocre boss fights that just completely killed any tension that was there.

I wore a less than an ideal set, and did poor DPS - but the boss mechanics, abilities, phases were all just so boring and clearly designed for a beginner in mind. It was a complete let down. I will say that the Boss in Blackwood was more engaging because they actually moved around and summoned a plethora of minions to keep things busy.

As for a "Veteran Mode"

I don't think they should be as hard as a Trial, as that content should be it's own special challenge.

I would think that the Boss mechanics more like Base Game to early DLC dungeon Bosses would be good.

They don't have to be the hardest thing in the game, nor do I want them to be - But I think ZOS can give an appropriate challenge to actually make it an engaging fight worth the wait. I would like ZOS to use their creativity as they have shown for group/arena content and apply it to the Story Bosses.

SilverBride

Alurria wrote: »

...as another poster said it has become a joke in certain circles when this thread pops up...

Sometimes when things aren't going well my friend will tell me it's because overland is too easy. Or we will say "If only overland wasn't so incredibly boring." It's become a running joke with us. We blame it for everything.

After a dozen threads with the same posters saying the same things, we just can't take it seriously.

Morgha_Kul

I have to say, I am inclined to agree that overland foes are a bit too easy. I get that overland content has to be manageable to people just starting out, but there does have to be SOME challenge.

Consider, one of my characters is a VERY hybrid character. He averages around 5k dps (there are people doing in excess of 100k... I expect the average is around 20-30k...). For this character, decently equipped, there is NO threat from overland foes. I can wade into groups of foes 20 strong... and never be in any danger. If my low end character finds the foes trivial, they're probably TOO weak.

Red_Feather

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

Who else here has 90% of the game's delves left undone because of how dull their fights feel.
Overland delves I just jog through and auto attack enemies to unleash them, until reaching the skyshard and then jog out.
Maybe I'll run across the delve boss and auto attack that to complete the delve on the map.
Every enemy in a delve feels like a bug on a windshield.

Me.

As it stands, overland content in this game acts as an annoyance / hinderance. It is not quality content.

Until overland content is revamped and given something to actually make it engaging, I will not partake in it. And I'm sure many others feel the same way.

It is a shame as there is so many things that can be done to make the areas really entertaining. A delve could still be easy but maybe have a secret challenge in it that is really difficult. Like a key you pick up and bring to a door, but even holding the key continually summons extremely lethal ghosts.

Hapexamendios

I'm fine the way it is.

VampReworkFailed

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.

Casuals don't keep a game alive, fun fact. They aren't the ones spending money on crown store items or expansions. They play the game for a few hours a week then leave. That's a casual player.

Want to know WHY no other mmo caters to casual players as heavily as ESO with their difficulty? Cause there's only short term profit in it.

Cause ur never gonna believe what casuals eventually become. That's right! Veteran players. So, answer me this very simple equation. If the game caters the majority of its content (questing/overland) to the casual players.... what is gonna happen when those casual players no longer become casual? O: That's right...! They become.... v e t e r a n. And then want to know what happens next? They leave the game because there's no challenge in the questing or overland experience.

There is a reason NO OTHER MMO is like this and why ESO will never, ever move up on the popularity charts. Cause they're only focused on short-term growth.

explain to me why classic WoW is more popular than ESO? People like decently challenging content. All other ES games are also harder than ESO. Even on novice difficulty!

VampReworkFailed

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.....

yup, because 80% of people can't defeat a world boss by themselves by this person's logic that means the majority of the entire game should be baby-easy.

Even though this is an 18+ game and quite frankly if you have a hard time with overland you shouldn't be playing this video game.

it's literally the classic thing of 'oh well, I play the game to just relax and turn my brain off. So... therefore you wanting challenge doesn't matter." bruh if u wanted to turn ur brain off go watch TV.

Tired of these people thinking the game should be made easier to cater towards *their* needs when having actual challenge and rewards are what RPGs are about.

Imagine an ESO where quests actually gave you good loot.....

rpa

For minor 'difficulty' challenge try soloing the group delves of Craglorn as a dps. I myself find unavoidable damage annoying but maybe its just my casual taste.

RevJJ

VampReworkFailed wrote: »

Even though this is an 18+ game and quite frankly if you have a hard time with overland you shouldn't be playing this video game.

it's literally the classic thing of 'oh well, I play the game to just relax and turn my brain off. So... therefore you wanting challenge doesn't matter." bruh if u wanted to turn ur brain off go watch TV.

Tired of these people thinking the game should be made easier to cater towards *their* needs when having actual challenge and rewards are what RPGs are about.

Imagine an ESO where quests actually gave you good loot.....

I’m not sure you actually realize this goes both ways... So let me rephrase what you said.

You’re saying people should not be asking for a game to be catered to their needs and interests, because it should be catered to your needs and interests.

SilverBride

VampReworkFailed wrote: »

Casuals don't keep a game alive, fun fact. They aren't the ones spending money on crown store items or expansions. They play the game for a few hours a week then leave. That's a casual player.

A casual player is not defined by how much they play, but rather how they play. I play from 3 to 5 hours a day on average, not a few hours a week, and I am definitely a casual player. I don't participate in end game content, such as veteran dungeons, trials and arenas, but rather enjoy questing, crafting and housing... that is what makes me a casual player.

I am ESO+, I buy all chapters and I buy crowns... and I am not alone. Many casuals are into housing and roleplaying and are spending a lot of money in the Crown store. What are hard core end game players buying from the Crown store?

End game players aren't gearing up to play overland. They are running veteran content for their challenges.

Everstorm

Thread is stuck in the same pro and con arguments and they all have their merrits. While I would like an optional harder difficulty I don't see it happening.
But I would be very happy if ZOS did away with the forced grouping mechanics that just about every new dlc dungeon has. At least on normal difficulty. So us people can find a challenge there.

Red_Feather

The only delves I ever had fun doing were the ones in cyrodiil. When there is a chance that something more powerful than me can walk into the room while I'm exploring it, it completely changes the dynamic of the whole thing. It doesn't have to be a pvp thing!

Anyone encounter one of those roaming imperial sewer bosses with the heartbeat? Stuff like that will very much add a sense of danger to the world without being forced on players since they can be avoided! 😯
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Coldharbour_Elite_Guard

I remember in other mmorpgs I played, like guild wars 2 and everquest, there was sometimes a patrolling named enemy that would add to the atmosphere. Just it's presence was enough to feel threatened. The knowledge that you weren't the strongest thing in the room can do that.