We need to talk about ESO's difficulty level

Dagre2

Alurria wrote: »

Dagre2 wrote: »

Alurria wrote: »

I particularly love it when they say 'but they already had instance before one tramiel' well guess what those resources have been realocated. That particular partition is gone one to store other aspects of the game. It just reminds me of someone who wants a mcrib sandwich when they are not in season from Mc Donald's. 'well you had them 6 months ago I want one now' really?! Amazing how a couple dozen people on this forum pushing an agenda will claim hundreds of thousands of players want this. They continue to exaggerate how easy the game is while telling the rest of us we are selfish when they are guilty of the same thing. I don't want it because it's not needed. I would rather they fix bugs like the block bug or ranged bug. I would rather they work on making companions AI better or improve the drop rate on leads or any number of things that will improve the game for everyone, NOT a small minority of players who think they are playing a action game as opposed to a STORY game. Role Playing Game not Mortal Combat.

wow released numbers many years ago, during cata launch on ghostcrawlers(a dev) blog. showing that over half of players only did solo content. add in that they added LFR(super easy raid mode) down the road and its become the most popular version of raiding for the general playerbase and i'd say that people actually want the opposite that some people on here are claiming.

I know who Ghostcrawler is and I never like him, he changed and nerfed a lot in wow. Guess what this game isn't? Yeah this is not WoW so why bring that into the equation. I left wow for this game because of the nerfs and guess who lead the pack in nerfs ghostcrawler. THIS is NOT WoW

oh i wasn't aware.... /facepalm. but way to ignore my points and just focus on something else entirely. what your view of a game is, is rather meaningless to the points i made about the mmo playerbase in general. if they released the same data on ESO i'm willing to bet the numbers are even more skewed in favour of solo players.

Wolf_Eye

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.

Not that I think overland needs anything. But, then, I'm not a "challenge" player - I don't jack up the difficulty setting in SP games, either. I'm fine with whatever 'normal' is.

One contributing issue in this game is the level scaling/"go anywhere" - since everything is the same level, and a player can go to any zone at any point in their career, it all has to be basically the same. Meanwhile, in "increase the level cap each expansion" MMOs, there's at least a gear reset.

Not that this provides any overland & questing difficulty to 'endgame' players in those games, either. I went through several WoW expansions - for those of us who just did overland & quests, the new expansion immediately brought us more powerful gear/abilities/etc. Meanwhile, the endgame raiders plowed through all the new zones without replacing or upgrading their gear until they got to the new max level dungeons. So, yeah - while the new mobs were higher level & attacked harder, they still didn't provide any 'challenge' to the Good players.

So this is nothing new. Skilled/meta/pro players don't get challenged by MMO overland & questing. Not sure why it's expected here. /shrug

This is exactly what people don't understand. They think that giving enemies more health will magically make it more challenging, when it's the MECHANICS that are difficult in this game.

But if you gave Overland mobs more mechanics, then you're just hurting beginner players, because they are not used to the game mechanics and won't be able to kill mobs anymore.

The solution to a "toggable" overland that does not have a separate server would be an optional buff/debuff "challenge mode". But then we would have the issue of "when you give a mouse a cookie, it's going to want milk". The people choosing this opt into this buff/debuff mode will want better rewards. When they get better rewards, they're going to want better mechanics because they're starting to realize that having more/less health doesn't magically make it more challenging. And thus we are back to the start.

But then you could do a separate server (An optional opt-in instance, kind of like how you have to travel to Cyrodiil) where the enemies have super health and group dungeon level mechanics, (and sure maybe we double the gold and purple the items you get from quests, but no special "hardmode items" for overland because some people have already completed all quests). Then it might work. But that would be an enormous amount of work on ZOS' part, and I can't really seem them doing it.


Unless ZOS can magically profit from implementing a hardmode, THEN I can see them willing to make a hardmode server, but I can't imagine that the people wanting a harder difficulty level would be willing to cough up a lot of money for it.

So we are forever at a stalemate with this.

Wolf_Eye

coop500 wrote: »

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.

For me, I love challenging content...but sometimes I also love to relax. My version of relaxation is to go to a public dungeon and just SLAUGHTER the mobs. It's easy, and BECAUSE it's easy, it is FUN. It is sometimes fun and a great stress reliever to feel powerful and untouchable.

I REALLY don't want that taken away from me. If there MUST be a difficulty setting, it MUST be OPTIONAL.

Not everyone wants to get home from a long and stressful day at work just to be faceplanted by a mudcrab.

CP5

Alurria wrote: »

I particularly love it when they say 'but they already had instance before one tramiel' well guess what those resources have been realocated. That particular partition is gone one to store other aspects of the game. It just reminds me of someone who wants a mcrib sandwich when they are not in season from Mc Donald's. 'well you had them 6 months ago I want one now' really?! Amazing how a couple dozen people on this forum pushing an agenda will claim hundreds of thousands of players want this. They continue to exaggerate how easy the game is while telling the rest of us we are selfish when they are guilty of the same thing. I don't want it because it's not needed. I would rather they fix bugs like the block bug or ranged bug. I would rather they work on making companions AI better or improve the drop rate on leads or any number of things that will improve the game for everyone, NOT a small minority of players who think they are playing a action game as opposed to a STORY game. Role Playing Game not Mortal Combat.

They, have multiple instances running right now. Different instances of zones to prevent any one zone from having to many players in it. Different instances of IC and Cyrodiil. Different instances, of dungeons. It is a tech they had, have, and will continue to have. Adding different rule-sets to these instances is something they continue to do to this day. How is that to hard?

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

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.

Not that I think overland needs anything. But, then, I'm not a "challenge" player - I don't jack up the difficulty setting in SP games, either. I'm fine with whatever 'normal' is.

One contributing issue in this game is the level scaling/"go anywhere" - since everything is the same level, and a player can go to any zone at any point in their career, it all has to be basically the same. Meanwhile, in "increase the level cap each expansion" MMOs, there's at least a gear reset.

Not that this provides any overland & questing difficulty to 'endgame' players in those games, either. I went through several WoW expansions - for those of us who just did overland & quests, the new expansion immediately brought us more powerful gear/abilities/etc. Meanwhile, the endgame raiders plowed through all the new zones without replacing or upgrading their gear until they got to the new max level dungeons. So, yeah - while the new mobs were higher level & attacked harder, they still didn't provide any 'challenge' to the Good players.

So this is nothing new. Skilled/meta/pro players don't get challenged by MMO overland & questing. Not sure why it's expected here. /shrug

This is exactly what people don't understand. They think that giving enemies more health will magically make it more challenging, when it's the MECHANICS that are difficult in this game.

But if you gave Overland mobs more mechanics, then you're just hurting beginner players, because they are not used to the game mechanics and won't be able to kill mobs anymore.

The solution to a "toggable" overland that does not have a separate server would be an optional buff/debuff "challenge mode". But then we would have the issue of "when you give a mouse a cookie, it's going to want milk". The people choosing this opt into this buff/debuff mode will want better rewards. When they get better rewards, they're going to want better mechanics because they're starting to realize that having more/less health doesn't magically make it more challenging. And thus we are back to the start.

But then you could do a separate server (An optional opt-in instance, kind of like how you have to travel to Cyrodiil) where the enemies have super health and group dungeon level mechanics, (and sure maybe we double the gold and purple the items you get from quests, but no special "hardmode items" for overland because some people have already completed all quests). Then it might work. But that would be an enormous amount of work on ZOS' part, and I can't really seem them doing it.


Unless ZOS can magically profit from implementing a hardmode, THEN I can see them willing to make a hardmode server, but I can't imagine that the people wanting a harder difficulty level would be willing to cough up a lot of money for it.

So we are forever at a stalemate with this.

But if enemies in overland never do anything, how will beginning players learn to expect enemies to do anything? If enemies never hit hard, why ever block? If red aoe's never hurt, why bother getting out of them? If enemies who heal do so little its impossible to notice, why bother having enemies who pose a different level of threat creating a list of priorities? When every single enemy is so one dimensional that it doesn't matter what they are, or where you're fighting them, every fight devolves into the same exact thing, a bland time sink that bores experienced players and teaches new players nothing.

As for the dreaded "they'll want more rewards" mentality, just up gear drops to purple like every other vet area and be done with it. Please stop making a mountain out of a single grain of sand when trying to discredit peoples genuine displeasure with the current state of ESO's overland, it is enough that every zone is a beginner zone. Give enemies the ability to fight back by not having them waste their own time (like I outlined earlier) and give them enough health to not be vaporized by a halfway well geared player and that alone will be a significant improvement. They just need to use things they already have, the different instances of zones, the abilities mobs already have programmed into the game, and put the effort into letting their veteran players actually enjoy overland. It really isn't that hard, ZOS added companions easily enough without cutting content releases, is it really that hard to believe they wouldn't try to revitalize all of their older, barren zones?

Alurria

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

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.

Not that I think overland needs anything. But, then, I'm not a "challenge" player - I don't jack up the difficulty setting in SP games, either. I'm fine with whatever 'normal' is.

One contributing issue in this game is the level scaling/"go anywhere" - since everything is the same level, and a player can go to any zone at any point in their career, it all has to be basically the same. Meanwhile, in "increase the level cap each expansion" MMOs, there's at least a gear reset.

Not that this provides any overland & questing difficulty to 'endgame' players in those games, either. I went through several WoW expansions - for those of us who just did overland & quests, the new expansion immediately brought us more powerful gear/abilities/etc. Meanwhile, the endgame raiders plowed through all the new zones without replacing or upgrading their gear until they got to the new max level dungeons. So, yeah - while the new mobs were higher level & attacked harder, they still didn't provide any 'challenge' to the Good players.

So this is nothing new. Skilled/meta/pro players don't get challenged by MMO overland & questing. Not sure why it's expected here. /shrug

This is exactly what people don't understand. They think that giving enemies more health will magically make it more challenging, when it's the MECHANICS that are difficult in this game.

But if you gave Overland mobs more mechanics, then you're just hurting beginner players, because they are not used to the game mechanics and won't be able to kill mobs anymore.

The solution to a "toggable" overland that does not have a separate server would be an optional buff/debuff "challenge mode". But then we would have the issue of "when you give a mouse a cookie, it's going to want milk". The people choosing this opt into this buff/debuff mode will want better rewards. When they get better rewards, they're going to want better mechanics because they're starting to realize that having more/less health doesn't magically make it more challenging. And thus we are back to the start.

But then you could do a separate server (An optional opt-in instance, kind of like how you have to travel to Cyrodiil) where the enemies have super health and group dungeon level mechanics, (and sure maybe we double the gold and purple the items you get from quests, but no special "hardmode items" for overland because some people have already completed all quests). Then it might work. But that would be an enormous amount of work on ZOS' part, and I can't really seem them doing it.


Unless ZOS can magically profit from implementing a hardmode, THEN I can see them willing to make a hardmode server, but I can't imagine that the people wanting a harder difficulty level would be willing to cough up a lot of money for it.

So we are forever at a stalemate with this.

This^ I have no problem with a separate server or instance for harder content, what I do have a problem with is taking resources from regular game development to accomplish that. I take exception with the exaggerated statements people are making too. I also don't want this to be WoW 2.0. Where all it's about is chasing gear. I already don't like the price increases of crown store items. This is not a action game with a story thrown in it's a Story game with some action thrown in. You want challenging combat do a trial if not there is always that FPS you can go to. You want pvp all the time there is always that pvp game you can go to. The other thing is the constant barrage of these threads on the forum. Starting a thread about this everyother day isn't going to help. Think for a minute, if what you are asking for is not even acknowledged by Zos what makes you think they are even thinking about it. They have a plan and they have projects that will benefit the entire player base not a small number on these forums. Unless it is monetarily beneficial to make a hardcore server they are not going to do it. Personally if they give better rewards I think the whole vet server idea needs to be separated from the rest of the game because I would rather play with normal mode people.

Sanguinor2

BlueRaven wrote: »

So tell me, what gets cut to pay for this vet server? What teams get reassigned? What you are adding means something else gets taken away. So what is the plan?

We´ve been through this before. Asking the customer for a plan of action or business proposal or whatever you want to call it is, at best, a disingenuous attempt to shut people up while ignoring reality. Because the reality is that we as customers can ask things of Zos, obviously doesnt mean that they have to do it. But asking a customer who has no knowledge of any of the variables involved for a plan about how said variables are to be used is pure stupidity to be quite frank.
Who would you say should make a plan? The person from the outside that has no data at all and no knowledge of any interior processes? Or someone that actually knows all that?

Wolf_Eye

CP5 wrote: »

Alurria wrote: »

I particularly love it when they say 'but they already had instance before one tramiel' well guess what those resources have been realocated. That particular partition is gone one to store other aspects of the game. It just reminds me of someone who wants a mcrib sandwich when they are not in season from Mc Donald's. 'well you had them 6 months ago I want one now' really?! Amazing how a couple dozen people on this forum pushing an agenda will claim hundreds of thousands of players want this. They continue to exaggerate how easy the game is while telling the rest of us we are selfish when they are guilty of the same thing. I don't want it because it's not needed. I would rather they fix bugs like the block bug or ranged bug. I would rather they work on making companions AI better or improve the drop rate on leads or any number of things that will improve the game for everyone, NOT a small minority of players who think they are playing a action game as opposed to a STORY game. Role Playing Game not Mortal Combat.

They, have multiple instances running right now. Different instances of zones to prevent any one zone from having to many players in it. Different instances of IC and Cyrodiil. Different instances, of dungeons. It is a tech they had, have, and will continue to have. Adding different rule-sets to these instances is something they continue to do to this day. How is that to hard?

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

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.

Not that I think overland needs anything. But, then, I'm not a "challenge" player - I don't jack up the difficulty setting in SP games, either. I'm fine with whatever 'normal' is.

One contributing issue in this game is the level scaling/"go anywhere" - since everything is the same level, and a player can go to any zone at any point in their career, it all has to be basically the same. Meanwhile, in "increase the level cap each expansion" MMOs, there's at least a gear reset.

Not that this provides any overland & questing difficulty to 'endgame' players in those games, either. I went through several WoW expansions - for those of us who just did overland & quests, the new expansion immediately brought us more powerful gear/abilities/etc. Meanwhile, the endgame raiders plowed through all the new zones without replacing or upgrading their gear until they got to the new max level dungeons. So, yeah - while the new mobs were higher level & attacked harder, they still didn't provide any 'challenge' to the Good players.

So this is nothing new. Skilled/meta/pro players don't get challenged by MMO overland & questing. Not sure why it's expected here. /shrug

This is exactly what people don't understand. They think that giving enemies more health will magically make it more challenging, when it's the MECHANICS that are difficult in this game.

But if you gave Overland mobs more mechanics, then you're just hurting beginner players, because they are not used to the game mechanics and won't be able to kill mobs anymore.

The solution to a "toggable" overland that does not have a separate server would be an optional buff/debuff "challenge mode". But then we would have the issue of "when you give a mouse a cookie, it's going to want milk". The people choosing this opt into this buff/debuff mode will want better rewards. When they get better rewards, they're going to want better mechanics because they're starting to realize that having more/less health doesn't magically make it more challenging. And thus we are back to the start.

But then you could do a separate server (An optional opt-in instance, kind of like how you have to travel to Cyrodiil) where the enemies have super health and group dungeon level mechanics, (and sure maybe we double the gold and purple the items you get from quests, but no special "hardmode items" for overland because some people have already completed all quests). Then it might work. But that would be an enormous amount of work on ZOS' part, and I can't really seem them doing it.


Unless ZOS can magically profit from implementing a hardmode, THEN I can see them willing to make a hardmode server, but I can't imagine that the people wanting a harder difficulty level would be willing to cough up a lot of money for it.

So we are forever at a stalemate with this.

But if enemies in overland never do anything, how will beginning players learn to expect enemies to do anything? If enemies never hit hard, why ever block? If red aoe's never hurt, why bother getting out of them? If enemies who heal do so little its impossible to notice, why bother having enemies who pose a different level of threat creating a list of priorities? When every single enemy is so one dimensional that it doesn't matter what they are, or where you're fighting them, every fight devolves into the same exact thing, a bland time sink that bores experienced players and teaches new players nothing.

As for the dreaded "they'll want more rewards" mentality, just up gear drops to purple like every other vet area and be done with it. Please stop making a mountain out of a single grain of sand when trying to discredit peoples genuine displeasure with the current state of ESO's overland, it is enough that every zone is a beginner zone. Give enemies the ability to fight back by not having them waste their own time (like I outlined earlier) and give them enough health to not be vaporized by a halfway well geared player and that alone will be a significant improvement. They just need to use things they already have, the different instances of zones, the abilities mobs already have programmed into the game, and put the effort into letting their veteran players actually enjoy overland. It really isn't that hard, ZOS added companions easily enough without cutting content releases, is it really that hard to believe they wouldn't try to revitalize all of their older, barren zones?

I'm not saying "they shouldn't do this", I was more outlining the difficulties that would be inherent in trying to do this.

There would need to be a separate server/instance thing so that vet chasers could have better mechanics without affecting newbies.

And yes, I have seen newbies die to mobs in spite of the lack of mechanics we have now. I myself was a new player back in 2019, and yes I did indeed die to overland mobs too. I remember having to do Camlorn three times over because the werewolf quest boss kept killing me as a newbie *(and I died twice on that one point in the quest where three regular mobs kept coming in waves. Yes, I died to regular mobs). I wasn't even NEW new at the time, I was about level 30 or so.

Now, of course, everything is easy, but I would appreciate that people stop assuming overland is easy for new players because I know from experience that it's not always the case.

Not everyone has expert skills like you do. Please try to understand, just because something seems easy for you does not mean that it is easy for everyone; since everyone's brains and hand/eye coordination works DIFFERENTLY **(we are not clones of each other) then there must be a wide variety of different capabilities that we all have.

BlueRaven

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

So tell me, what gets cut to pay for this vet server? What teams get reassigned? What you are adding means something else gets taken away. So what is the plan?

We´ve been through this before. Asking the customer for a plan of action or business proposal or whatever you want to call it is, at best, a disingenuous attempt to shut people up while ignoring reality. Because the reality is that we as customers can ask things of Zos, obviously doesnt mean that they have to do it. But asking a customer who has no knowledge of any of the variables involved for a plan about how said variables are to be used is pure stupidity to be quite frank.
Who would you say should make a plan? The person from the outside that has no data at all and no knowledge of any interior processes? Or someone that actually knows all that?

I am not asking for numbers, but what is the sacrifice here?

What gets cut? Do we have less dungeons, less trials? Less overland content?

Or do you think going back to a mandatory sub is the answer? Or maybe increase the cost of chapters? And make the dlcs NOT part of eso+ anymore?

Give me an idea on how the extra effort to do all of this stuff and still cram it into their content schedule, gets paid for.

I like getting stuff for free. I would love to get a new car for example, apparently I don't have to budget or plan for it, so tell me how this works. How do I keep my current car (the current server) and buy a new car (vet server) without having to worry about paying for it or the maintenance of it. Because apparently I can do this without any extra cost or effort on my part, just like Zos can do all of this for free.

Sanguinor2

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am not asking for numbers, but what is the sacrifice here?

What gets cut? Do we have less dungeons, less trials? Less overland content?

Or do you think going back to a mandatory sub is the answer? Or maybe increase the cost of chapters? And make the dlcs NOT part of eso+ anymore?

Give me an idea on how the extra effort to do all of this stuff and still cram it into their content schedule, gets paid for.

I like getting stuff for free. I would love to get a new car for example, apparently I don't have to budget or plan for it, so tell me how this works. How do I keep my current car (the current server) and buy a new car (vet server) without having to worry about paying for it or the maintenance of it. Because apparently I can do this without any extra cost or effort on my part, just like Zos can do all of this for free.

You are literally asking me how it should be financed when none of us know anything about the finances involved. What kind of answer do you expect? Do you not see how that is about as disingenuous as it gets? If you were actually interested in the answer to that you would ask someone with the necessary insider knowledge but you are just trying to get people to shut up.

Again: It is not my job as a customer to answer anything like that. I can suggest that Zos does this, this does not mean that they have to, I can ask them to consider my suggestion but they dont even have to do that. I could suggest that it could get added as a feature for a chapter but none of us even know the criteria something has to meet to be considered worthy of being added as a feature for a chapter. You understand that this is a problem dont you?

Nowhere did I suggest that budget or a plan would not be necessary thats just you putting words into my mouth. I said that, in this case, it is not the customers job to do that.

But to go with your anology what you want to do is ask a random stranger that has not the faintest clue how your financial situation looks like to come up with a plan on how you could finance a car. Even better you want to ask someone that doesnt even know what a car costs to plan buying a car for you. You see how that would be problematic dont you?

SilverBride

Mayrael wrote: »

I too have been playing since launch and TBH the days before One Tamriel are the ones I personally remember best when it comes to PvE. I loved the quests and the feeling when I managed to make my character stronger. That's what attracted me to ESO, the ability to freely build characters to fit my play style. To be honest my first encounter with vet zones was a shock, but I quickly recovered and loved vet zones for the fact that they made me think and improve my character, it gave me a great sense of satisfaction, it had that RPG vibe that ESO lacks now, which frankly has become more of a mobile game where you just have to log in everyday.

And yes it's true that you still need to keep in mind the new players, no one denies that, but the optional (here I leave room for dialogue, so that the solution is as comfortable as possible for both sides) more difficult content would not bother them in any way.

I realize there are others like yourself who enjoy harder content, even in overland, but that is not the norm. The former veteran levels were not a source of satisfaction for many, but rather a huge frustration and a roadblock toward progressing in the story. I completed Cadgar's Silver and Gold once and never attempted it again. When I got to that point I just rolled a new alt in a different faction to avoid it.

As far as optional vet overland, there is not enough interest to justify it.

BlueRaven

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am not asking for numbers, but what is the sacrifice here?

What gets cut? Do we have less dungeons, less trials? Less overland content?

Or do you think going back to a mandatory sub is the answer? Or maybe increase the cost of chapters? And make the dlcs NOT part of eso+ anymore?

Give me an idea on how the extra effort to do all of this stuff and still cram it into their content schedule, gets paid for.

I like getting stuff for free. I would love to get a new car for example, apparently I don't have to budget or plan for it, so tell me how this works. How do I keep my current car (the current server) and buy a new car (vet server) without having to worry about paying for it or the maintenance of it. Because apparently I can do this without any extra cost or effort on my part, just like Zos can do all of this for free.

You are literally asking me how it should be financed when none of us know anything about the finances involved. What kind of answer do you expect? Do you not see how that is about as disingenuous as it gets? If you were actually interested in the answer to that you would ask someone with the necessary insider knowledge but you are just trying to get people to shut up.

Again: It is not my job as a customer to answer anything like that. I can suggest that Zos does this, this does not mean that they have to, I can ask them to consider my suggestion but they dont even have to do that. I could suggest that it could get added as a feature for a chapter but none of us even know the criteria something has to meet to be considered worthy of being added as a feature for a chapter. You understand that this is a problem dont you?

Nowhere did I suggest that budget or a plan would not be necessary thats just you putting words into my mouth. I said that, in this case, it is not the customers job to do that.

But to go with your anology what you want to do is ask a random stranger that has not the faintest clue how your financial situation looks like to come up with a plan on how you could finance a car. Even better you want to ask someone that doesnt even know what a car costs to plan buying a car for you. You see how that would be problematic dont you?

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

MorganaLaVey

BlueRaven wrote: »

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

Just provide him with the information about the development cost of the different parts of the game and the execution plan of making overland content more engaging + development cost of it and tell him the income/ proffit the new system would likely generate, so he can see if increesing the budget would be reasonable so he can give you an answer allready...

Sanguinor2

BlueRaven wrote: »

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

Again: I did not say that it is not part of this discussion. What I said is that none of us is actually qualified to talk about the budgeting in this specific case since we do not know any of the numbers involved. Me or anyone else making a specific plan for this is nothing but conjuncture since, again, WE DO NOT KNOW ANY OF THE NUMBERS INVOLVED!!!!!! How hard is it to understand this? I dont know what else to tell you at this point besides that me making a plan for payment would not be anywhere close to reality ergo completely pointless.

BlueRaven

MorganaLaVey wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

Just provide him with the information about the development cost of the different parts of the game and the execution plan of making overland content more engaging + development cost of it and tell him the income/ proffit the new system would likely generate, so he can see if increesing the budget would be reasonable so he can give you an answer allready...

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

Again: I did not say that it is not part of this discussion. What I said is that none of us is actually qualified to talk about the budgeting in this specific case since we do not know any of the numbers involved. Me or anyone else making a specific plan for this is nothing but conjuncture since, again, WE DO NOT KNOW ANY OF THE NUMBERS INVOLVED!!!!!! How hard is it to understand this? I dont know what else to tell you at this point besides that me making a plan for payment would not be anywhere close to reality ergo completely pointless.

Not asking for numbers.

Something this big gets added, something big has to get taken away.

What gets cut?

Sorbin

BlueRaven wrote: »

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

I am not asking for numbers, but what is the sacrifice here?

What gets cut? Do we have less dungeons, less trials? Less overland content?

Or do you think going back to a mandatory sub is the answer? Or maybe increase the cost of chapters? And make the dlcs NOT part of eso+ anymore?

Give me an idea on how the extra effort to do all of this stuff and still cram it into their content schedule, gets paid for.

I like getting stuff for free. I would love to get a new car for example, apparently I don't have to budget or plan for it, so tell me how this works. How do I keep my current car (the current server) and buy a new car (vet server) without having to worry about paying for it or the maintenance of it. Because apparently I can do this without any extra cost or effort on my part, just like Zos can do all of this for free.

You are literally asking me how it should be financed when none of us know anything about the finances involved. What kind of answer do you expect? Do you not see how that is about as disingenuous as it gets? If you were actually interested in the answer to that you would ask someone with the necessary insider knowledge but you are just trying to get people to shut up.

Again: It is not my job as a customer to answer anything like that. I can suggest that Zos does this, this does not mean that they have to, I can ask them to consider my suggestion but they dont even have to do that. I could suggest that it could get added as a feature for a chapter but none of us even know the criteria something has to meet to be considered worthy of being added as a feature for a chapter. You understand that this is a problem dont you?

Nowhere did I suggest that budget or a plan would not be necessary thats just you putting words into my mouth. I said that, in this case, it is not the customers job to do that.

But to go with your anology what you want to do is ask a random stranger that has not the faintest clue how your financial situation looks like to come up with a plan on how you could finance a car. Even better you want to ask someone that doesnt even know what a car costs to plan buying a car for you. You see how that would be problematic dont you?

Budgeting is part of this discussion, if you like it or not.

Magical gnomes who live in a tree are not building content for this game. Servers are not grown in someone’s back yard as a hobby. And last I checked, cable companies are still charging for bandwidth, yes even to companies like zos.

Implementing vet servers costs money.

ESO’s budget is not getting bigger, most likely there is pressure to decrease the budget.

So again, what is the plan? How do you think this gets paid for? Waving off the cost is not realistic.

[snip]

Budgeting is not a part of this discussion because literally no one here works for ZOS, you included. [snip]

People post how they feel about the content and how they'd like to engage with it. That's it. That's as far as the customer's role extends. And when it comes to this particular subject, it comes up enough on these forums, on reddit, and in Discord that it is at least worth noting as a significant point of player feedback if nothing else.

Figuring out how to monetize this game is literally no one's job here whatsoever. But game developers push free updates all the time as a means of increasing player retention/engagement. You ought to know; One Tamriel, the update that nerfed all of this content in the first place, was in and of itself a free update.

If you don't have any interest in a content update of that nature, fine. That's totally your opinion and your prerogative. [snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Alurria

There will be no answer because people think things just magically get done to please them... Oh and look there is a leprechaun with a pot o gold over there.

BlueRaven

Alurria wrote: »

There will be no answer because people think things just magically get done to please them... Oh and look there is a leprechaun with a pot o gold over there.

Exactly. It’s crazy. Is money just an abstract concept now?

They are requesting a major change but apparently cost is not part of the discussion?

Sanguinor2

BlueRaven wrote: »

Not asking for numbers.

Something this big gets added, something big has to get taken away.

What gets cut?

How do you know that? One Tamriel could be done without any extra cost towards the customer. Chapters have features beyond the new zone, could you show me Zos official criteria about what needs to be present to make a feature chapter worthy that would in theory prevent this from being a chapter feature? You might have noticed that at this point we are entering the realm of speculation, if you didnt no need to thank me for pointing that out for you.

Alurria wrote: »

There will be no answer because people think things just magically get done to please them... Oh and look there is a leprechaun with a pot o gold over there.

There will be no accurate answer because none of us is in a position to provide one. If you have all the necessary inside knowledge please share with the class. Would also be nice if either you or BlueRaven could show me any of the business and budget proposals you attached to anything that you said Zos could take under consideration. You can also DM them to me in case you dont want them made public.
I dont expect anything from Zos. I know that they are in no way obligated to do what I want. I can still ask them to consider it even tho they dont actually have to.

SilverBride

Sorbin wrote: »

One Tamriel, the update that nerfed all of this content in the first place, was in and of itself a free update.

There is no such thing as a free update. Any change takes time and manpower and people don't work for free. And the bigger the change, the bigger the cost.

Regardless, One Tamriel removed veteran overland because it just didn't work. Why would they bring back something that failed before now at the request of a handful of players?

Luckylancer

Hard - Norma -l Easy - Story mode
ESO overland have a story mode difficulty if you compare it to other games. When I was a new player, game was harder but I still rarely died.

I dont play or pay for any story related content for years. Killing everything in 1 second kills immersion. I dont feel inside the game, I feel like I am doing chores.

Fix is harder overland content. If "don't use CP" and "fight naked" would work, there wouldn't be veteran and hardcore content, there would be naked trial runs.

SilverBride

Let's address the real issue here. This whole proposal has absolutely nothing to do with overland being too easy or immersion being broken because of it. It's all about wanting a way to farm veteran drops without having to do veteran content.

I came to this realization in one of the first of many threads on this subject when the OP proposed that quest bosses have an optional veteran level and drop loot comparable to their now veteran status. Then they proposed that these quest bosses be repeatable, which would make them a convenient way to farm veteran drops without having to participate in veteran content. But that reason wouldn't convince ZoS so the immersion story was fabricated.

I don't know if some of these players have social anxiety and are afraid to group for end game content, or if they have failed to make the cut in veteran dungeons and trials, but completely reworking the base game so they have another way to farm veteran drops is not reasonable.

Sanguinor2

You know what? Lets actually play your game.

"Making overland not be a sleeping pill where people can oneshot any normal mob that dares to stop them from going from A to B and make hyped up story bosses actually be a threat. The (very un)official (and useless/pointless)proposal!"

Supervisor C (I dont even know if he exists but he does now) will stop doing X (I dont even know if he is actually doing that but he is now or rather isnt anymore) to supervise and coordinate an optional increase in difficulty of overland combat and story combat. In his team he will have Coder B (Dont know if she exists but she does now) and Coder C (dont know if he exists but he does now) and Coder U (dont know if he exists but he does now), they will stop doing X (dont know if they were actually doing that but they stopped doing it now) and get payed 25 dollar per hour (even tho I dont know if they get payed that amount, they get payed on an hourly basis, they even work in the US or get payed in a different currency but they are payed that now). They will work on this project 8 hours a day (even tho I dont know what kind of hours they actually work), 5 days a week (they might work different times but who knows or cares).
Encounter team members F and K will both provide the numbers while balance team member P will coordinate with them (I dont know if they exist but they do now), they will stop doing X (I dont know if they were actually doing that but they arent anymore) and they will get payed 25 dollar per hour (even tho I dont know if they get payed that amount, they get payed on an hourly basis, they even work in the US or get payed in a different currency but they are payed that now). They will work on this project 8 hours a day (even tho I dont know what kind of hours they actually work), 5 days a week (they might work different times but who knows or cares).
Estimated time to completion will be 2 months (even tho I have no idea how realistic or unrealistic that is, if my workers and supverisor work faster or slower than others in the same profession, what kind of foundations are already there that can be made use of, but its 2 months now).
Estimated cost will be 60k dollars (who knows or cares how accurate this is but here have a random number be happy now).
To make profit it will be part of the new Chapter X and originally planned feature Y will get postponed to the next one (who even knows what Y is, if it was actually already planned, if it would cost more or less, generate more or less profit and all that other wonderful questions none of us can answer).


Here you go, a wonderful proposal and plan of action which is entirely useless because none of us actually knows any of the things I claim in here, hope you are happy now.

Alurria

SilverBride wrote: »

Let's address the real issue here. This whole proposal has absolutely nothing to do with overland being too easy or immersion being broken because of it. It's all about wanting a way to farm veteran drops without having to do veteran content.

I came to this realization in one of the first of many threads on this subject when the OP proposed that quest bosses have an optional veteran level and drop loot comparable to their now veteran status. Then they proposed that these quest bosses be repeatable, which would make them a convenient way to farm veteran drops without having to participate in veteran content. But that reason wouldn't convince ZoS so the immersion story was fabricated.

I don't know if some of these players have social anxiety and are afraid to group for end game content, or if they have failed to make the cut in veteran dungeons and trials, but completely reworking the base game so they have another way to farm veteran drops is not reasonable.

^This is the real issue and I also believe this. The fact that no one can answer reasonably how a server like this will be paid for. I don't want my money going to these players who want another way to obtain better loot items because they don't want to do the hard content that is provided.

Sanguinor2

SilverBride wrote: »

Let's address the real issue here. This whole proposal has absolutely nothing to do with overland being too easy or immersion being broken because of it. It's all about wanting a way to farm veteran drops without having to do veteran content.

I came to this realization in one of the first of many threads on this subject when the OP proposed that quest bosses have an optional veteran level and drop loot comparable to their now veteran status. Then they proposed that these quest bosses be repeatable, which would make them a convenient way to farm veteran drops without having to participate in veteran content. But that reason wouldn't convince ZoS so the immersion story was fabricated.

I don't know if some of these players have social anxiety and are afraid to group for end game content, or if they have failed to make the cut in veteran dungeons and trials, but completely reworking the base game so they have another way to farm veteran drops is not reasonable.

Ah yes its always wonderful to have a person that does not know me at all tell me what it is that I actually want.

That aside: Bosses dont drop good gear in nearly all cases, anyone hypothetically farming a quest reward to get "veteran" drops doesnt know what they are doing.
You might also have noticed that veteran dungeons drop the same gear as normal dungeons monster sets aside (cant recall anyone demanding monster sets be dropped by a vet overland btw) only in a higher quality (blue vs purple).
No one is asking (or if there was at one point someone asking for it I dont want any part of it) for the trial loot table to be applied where perfected drops would happen since perfected overland sets do not exist and I really dont want them to because I dont actually want to refarm all the perfected overland sets thank you very much.
I have also cleared every single vet hm content in the game, most trifectas included, on multiple roles and classes but thank you very much for telling me that I did actually not make the cut for veteran content and that I am too anxious to join a group, thats useful knowledge to have and I will immidiately adjust my playstyle to reflect that.

SilverBride

@Sanguinor2 I wasn't talking about you. I was referring to proposals made by other posters repeatedly in multiple threads who did ask for repeatable veteran story quest bosses with comparable drops.

MorganaLaVey

BlueRaven wrote: »

Something this big gets added, something big has to get taken away.

What gets cut?

Are you sure thats how it works ? Because as far as im aware AAA Companies like ZOS dont just take all the money they have and try to make the best out of it, they have alot of money lying around and invest in what ever makes sense. So if Vet. Overland is proffitibale enough then they can just increese the budget and nothing needs to get cut.

Or as an alternetive: How about crowdfunding if a multimillion $ companie like ZOS realy cant find a few k somewhere ?

Ragnaroek93

Difficulty is one of the biggest downsides of the game imo. It's so easy that it's just immersion breaking at this point.

Abigail

Only spitballing here, but whenever someone starts rattling about how easy the content is, what I'm really hearing is "Look at me and how great and wonderful I am."

Doubt ESO is unique in its player base, but there is a tremendous narcissistic factor at play. ZOS taps into it with immersion-breaking mounts, stupid things like the Jester, and outrageous-looking armor. I don't presume to be a mind reader, but people assuming all the flashy crapola are likely crying for attention.

I suspect the same goes for the 'make content harder' crowd; just more look at me.

BlueRaven

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

You know what? Lets actually play your game.

"Making overland not be a sleeping pill where people can oneshot any normal mob that dares to stop them from going from A to B and make hyped up story bosses actually be a threat. The (very un)official (and useless/pointless)proposal!"

Supervisor C (I dont even know if he exists but he does now) will stop doing X (I dont even know if he is actually doing that but he is now or rather isnt anymore) to supervise and coordinate an optional increase in difficulty of overland combat and story combat. In his team he will have Coder B (Dont know if she exists but she does now) and Coder C (dont know if he exists but he does now) and Coder U (dont know if he exists but he does now), they will stop doing X (dont know if they were actually doing that but they stopped doing it now) and get payed 25 dollar per hour (even tho I dont know if they get payed that amount, they get payed on an hourly basis, they even work in the US or get payed in a different currency but they are payed that now). They will work on this project 8 hours a day (even tho I dont know what kind of hours they actually work), 5 days a week (they might work different times but who knows or cares).
Encounter team members F and K will both provide the numbers while balance team member P will coordinate with them (I dont know if they exist but they do now), they will stop doing X (I dont know if they were actually doing that but they arent anymore) and they will get payed 25 dollar per hour (even tho I dont know if they get payed that amount, they get payed on an hourly basis, they even work in the US or get payed in a different currency but they are payed that now). They will work on this project 8 hours a day (even tho I dont know what kind of hours they actually work), 5 days a week (they might work different times but who knows or cares).
Estimated time to completion will be 2 months (even tho I have no idea how realistic or unrealistic that is, if my workers and supverisor work faster or slower than others in the same profession, what kind of foundations are already there that can be made use of, but its 2 months now).
Estimated cost will be 60k dollars (who knows or cares how accurate this is but here have a random number be happy now).
To make profit it will be part of the new Chapter X and originally planned feature Y will get postponed to the next one (who even knows what Y is, if it was actually already planned, if it would cost more or less, generate more or less profit and all that other wonderful questions none of us can answer).


Here you go, a wonderful proposal and plan of action which is entirely useless because none of us actually knows any of the things I claim in here, hope you are happy now.

Not.
Asking.
For.
Numbers.

(3rd time I have said it.)

What you are asking for is something on the scale of “Classic WoW” but aimed at just a small subset of the current eso player base.

So what gets cut? I am guessing it’s going to be the general size of future overland content? Cut the length of future stories? Maybe not as many delves? All of that together may pay for the added cost of the alternate set of future vet servers.

Maybe there can be a new revenue source? Doubling eso+ could pay for it. But then what is the value of eso+ to the common player at that point, most people don’t even do dungeons.
Maybe it can be a separate sub, but how many people will buy it? Hmmmm…

Black wood came out with three public dungeons which seems like an extravagance that could be cut, but I suppose that is not casual content so it will be protected…

And then what happens?

“I am a new player, but I am very casual and not very good at video games. But my friend plays so I will give it a shot. Do I join a vet server where they are on but the play style is not to my liking? Do I play on the “normal” server where they don’t have a character and ask them to join me?” - One Tamriel was supposed to bring everyone together. Vet servers just separate them again.

This whole thing is not very realistic from a budget standpoint.

Thechuckage

Im just amazed (again) at the assumptions about newer players so many people are making.
Ever heard of the soft bigotry of low expectations? Because that is on full display here. The wild assumption that every newbie basically needs their hand held thru the entirety of overland is ridiculous and insulting.

And once again, Crag failed because it was GROUPED OVERLAND. Group quests just dont work outside of dungeons. And, once again, no one is asking for that same failed concept. If there was ever a horse to stop beating, its that one.