What type of overland would you prefer?

ADarklore

So even in THIS poll, it shows that the majority prefer open world as it is... so one would think it would also represent what the players feel outside of this poll as well. Especially if they aren't coming to the forums to complain, and even amongst the forum users, it shows a preference for open world as it is. With that being the case, even though we see threads about this almost every single week, without this poll showing a huge margin FOR harder content... ZOS isn't going to devote resources to make any changes.

Alarde

I guess we don't need every enemy to be comparable to a boss so high level players can enjoy a somewhat challenging content and not a complete faceroll that it is today. We all know that when you go around in your PvE gear, nothing ordinary lasts to land the first hit before dying.

So maybe everyone could benefit of a more selective buff to certain mobs in a way that tiers would matter more. I think tuning HP and damage up on them a little would be fine, but delegating some of them to be Captains or Sergeants (example) between themselves would add a cool aspect to exploring.

Honestly, i just wish ESO had a more dynamic environment towards what GW2 did with it's PvE, but this is something far too inapplicable now.

Vevvev

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

It can still be easy, bit I need to feel like I'm actually in danger when I go into dangerous areas. Or when I fight a literal sword singer vampire lord the fight needs more powerful blows coming from him. He was just a "bullet sponge" if you ignored the side mechanic. Like a target dummy with a light amount of damage getting thrown your way.

I didn't find that particular fight easy, in fact I've not beaten it yet despite several tries. Now, I know I'm not exactly a great player (being disabled doesn't help either), but I can't help but wonder... how many casual, non-CP players without access to dungeon/trial gear do actually consider that fight easy?

I don't have the absolute most meta gear, but run a solo/PvP focused build that balances offensive and defensive power. If I ran pure tank I could stand still and let my HP regeneration outdo the damage being done to me in there, and during the fight I was even using the vampire skill called Blood Frenzy that siphons my health away at a quick rate to deal more damage. So I was playing risky the whole time as well.

Lucozade85

To be honest I don't see what the problem is having a more difficult overland mode. The people that do not want it, do not have to do it, and it should offer different gear. I know people will say things along the lines of 'there shouldn't be extra gear because not everyone will be able to get it' but isn't that the same for everything? I fair few might not be able to get perfected gear, or titles they would like because they're more difficult to obtain, it doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.

At the moment overland is extremely boring.

Pauwin

ADarklore wrote: »

So even in THIS poll, it shows that the majority prefer open world as it is... so one would think it would also represent what the players feel outside of this poll as well. Especially if they aren't coming to the forums to complain, and even amongst the forum users, it shows a preference for open world as it is. With that being the case, even though we see threads about this almost every single week, without this poll showing a huge margin FOR harder content... ZOS isn't going to devote resources to make any changes.

A lot of ESO's content is not made for the majority of more casual players.
If the devs didn't care about their "10% veteran player base" (random number), we wouldn't have veteran trials, hard modes, arenas... etc. It's important for them to care about their core veteran fanbase as much as the "casual" majority

Kendaric

Vevvev wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

It can still be easy, bit I need to feel like I'm actually in danger when I go into dangerous areas. Or when I fight a literal sword singer vampire lord the fight needs more powerful blows coming from him. He was just a "bullet sponge" if you ignored the side mechanic. Like a target dummy with a light amount of damage getting thrown your way.

I didn't find that particular fight easy, in fact I've not beaten it yet despite several tries. Now, I know I'm not exactly a great player (being disabled doesn't help either), but I can't help but wonder... how many casual, non-CP players without access to dungeon/trial gear do actually consider that fight easy?

I don't have the absolute most meta gear, but run a solo/PvP focused build that balances offensive and defensive power. If I ran pure tank I could stand still and let my HP regeneration outdo the damage being done to me in there, and during the fight I was even using the vampire skill called Blood Frenzy that siphons my health away at a quick rate to deal more damage. So I was playing risky the whole time as well.

It doesn't invalidate my point though.

You are an experienced player with gear appropriate to your playstyle, not a new or casual one. How many CP do you have?

Vevvev

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

It can still be easy, bit I need to feel like I'm actually in danger when I go into dangerous areas. Or when I fight a literal sword singer vampire lord the fight needs more powerful blows coming from him. He was just a "bullet sponge" if you ignored the side mechanic. Like a target dummy with a light amount of damage getting thrown your way.

I didn't find that particular fight easy, in fact I've not beaten it yet despite several tries. Now, I know I'm not exactly a great player (being disabled doesn't help either), but I can't help but wonder... how many casual, non-CP players without access to dungeon/trial gear do actually consider that fight easy?

I don't have the absolute most meta gear, but run a solo/PvP focused build that balances offensive and defensive power. If I ran pure tank I could stand still and let my HP regeneration outdo the damage being done to me in there, and during the fight I was even using the vampire skill called Blood Frenzy that siphons my health away at a quick rate to deal more damage. So I was playing risky the whole time as well.

It doesn't invalidate my point though.

You are an experienced player with gear appropriate to your playstyle, not a new or casual one. How many CP do you have?

CP is not a measure of skill, but I recently crested the 1,500 point and have been playing for 6 years. It wasn't until Summerset when I finally met the right people who helped me understand the rules of the game. Once I learned how damage scaled, how much health to build, how to properly bar swap, and made a switch from a stamina tank to a magicka healer/DD I went from struggling to pull 7k to being able to hold my own in overland world bosses. It took me about year after that to beat nMA, a year after that to beat vMA, and a year after that on 7/20/2020 I got Flawless Conqueror.

Compare all that to my friend who is only cp 580 who got all that knowledge far sooner than me, especially because I came to his aid and helped him theory craft builds, is able to take on endgame veteran content and made the final bosses of many overland stories look like weaklings. Last week he beat Orsinium for the first time ((And he started after I kept kicking him to do it, especially since he needed skill points)) and was saddened by the final boss fight because it ruined what was an amazing story. He legitimately liked the story but he beat down the final encounter so quickly it wasn't even all that memorable for him.

Kendaric

Vevvev wrote: »

CP is not a measure of skill, but I recently crested the 1,500 point and have been playing for 6 years. It wasn't until Summerset when I finally met the right people who helped me understand the rules of the game. Once I learned how damage scaled, how much health to build, how to properly bar swap, and made a switch from a stamina tank to a magicka healer/DD I went from struggling to pull 7k to being able to hold my own in overland world bosses. It took me about year after that to beat nMA, a year after that to beat vMA, and a year after that on 7/20/2020 I got Flawless Conqueror.

True, CP is not a measure of skill but it drastically affects difficulty since it increases damage/mitigation.

Many players, especially "casual" ones, don't care about that sort of stuff. They just play for the story and want to have fun, not necessarily be challenged by a boss fight.
Hard, challenging content has it's place, of course, but it shouldn't be overland/story content.

Vevvev

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

CP is not a measure of skill, but I recently crested the 1,500 point and have been playing for 6 years. It wasn't until Summerset when I finally met the right people who helped me understand the rules of the game. Once I learned how damage scaled, how much health to build, how to properly bar swap, and made a switch from a stamina tank to a magicka healer/DD I went from struggling to pull 7k to being able to hold my own in overland world bosses. It took me about year after that to beat nMA, a year after that to beat vMA, and a year after that on 7/20/2020 I got Flawless Conqueror.

True, CP is not a measure of skill but it drastically affects difficulty since it increases damage/mitigation.

Many players, especially "casual" ones, don't care about that sort of stuff. They just play for the story and want to have fun, not necessarily be challenged by a boss fight.
Hard, challenging content has it's place, of course, but it shouldn't be overland/story content.

Hard, challenging content does have it's place in the overland, and it's why you see world bosses, dolmens, and other similar events in this game. And it's not alone as other games have been doing this long before ESO came out with some examples being the Rifts in Rift, Invasions in Pirates of the Caribbean Online, meta events in Guild Wars 2, and other such things. They were fun, challenging, and most often rather than not had good incentives for doing them whether it was an impact on the world itself, or if the devs were being quite lazy, better loot.

The current difficulty of ESO's Overland makes it feel like it lacks a soul, and that's why I wish they turned it up just a little. I'm not asking for everything to be veteran levels of difficulty as I don't want to drive some of my casual friends from the game, but when you get to a point where you're at the climatic battle where the entire world rests in the balance I don't want to have the reaction of the lady in this gif.



Also I hate bullet sponges and one shots so I'm not asking for that either. A game that really sells the illusion of difficulty is Dark Souls 3... and yes... I did say illusion. It feels difficult, but once you get into the rhythm of the fight you begin to realize it actually isn't. ESO almost has that cadence and it can be achieved with the correct systems. One good example is ESO's Frostvault dungeon with the dwarven boss. You have to take out it's weak points before you can hurt it directly, and it's these kinds of "invincibility" phases I like best. A poor example of an invincibility phase is the final boss of the Blackwood portals who is completely unkillable as this scene plays out where you have to fight little minions running to him that die in pretty much one hit.

Another illusion of difficulty ZOS could improve on is enemy combat behavior. Like for example when ZOS introduced new enemy types like Death Hunters, the Akaviri martial Artists, and other such foes with quick snappy attacks they took me by surprise. The current default overland NPCs outside these examples have heavily telegraphed and uninteresting attacks. If ZOS went through and remastered them to be more snappy and have impact I'd enjoy questing in overland a lot more, especially if these moves allow the NPC to survive for a second or two longer cause it moved out of AoE or something.

Kendaric

I guess we just have to agree to disagree, as our preferences for what we want from a game seem to be diametrically opposed.

MirandaSharp

I prefer harder without any extra loot or XP. Just let me feel that a boss fight is a boss fight.
Don't understand why people bring up loot and XP all the time. How about just enjoying the game?
Now overland questing is incredibly boring for experienced players as there is just no enjoyable fighting when doing quests. It's such a shame as the quests and the stories are well written and could be really enjoyable if only the fighting also matched the story.

Iccotak

ADarklore wrote: »

So even in THIS poll, it shows that the majority prefer open world as it is... so one would think it would also represent what the players feel outside of this poll as well.

Especially if they aren't coming to the forums to complain, and even amongst the forum users, it shows a preference for open world as it is.

With that being the case, even though we see threads about this almost every single week, without this poll showing a huge margin FOR harder content... ZOS isn't going to devote resources to make any changes.

It’s been pointed out before but this is a poorly constructed poll. With hardly any choices.

When I did a poll with more options we saw that there was more nuance in people’s perspectives - before it was shut down.

Btw - most new players who don’t enjoy overland don’t stay and don’t bother coming to the forums to voice this critique.

Any friend I introduced to the game didn’t stick around because of how boring the combat was in Overland content (which is the majority of where the story is)

A few years ago I was even briefly contemplating leaving the game until dungeon finder came out, and then I got hooked on the dungeons because their gameplay is so engaging.

I just wish I had a choice in making the story boss is that engaging. Because so far no Self-Nerf has fixed that problem.

Iccotak

Kendaric wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

CP is not a measure of skill, but I recently crested the 1,500 point and have been playing for 6 years. It wasn't until Summerset when I finally met the right people who helped me understand the rules of the game. Once I learned how damage scaled, how much health to build, how to properly bar swap, and made a switch from a stamina tank to a magicka healer/DD I went from struggling to pull 7k to being able to hold my own in overland world bosses. It took me about year after that to beat nMA, a year after that to beat vMA, and a year after that on 7/20/2020 I got Flawless Conqueror.

True, CP is not a measure of skill but it drastically affects difficulty since it increases damage/mitigation.

Many players, especially "casual" ones, don't care about that sort of stuff. They just play for the story and want to have fun, not necessarily be challenged by a boss fight.
Hard, challenging content has it's place, of course, but it shouldn't be overland/story content.

It’s already been said numerous times but champion points are hardly relevant when talking about Overland. When I start a new character I don’t apply my champion points until I get them to level 50 - but I am now a more skilled player.

And the enemies general inability to at all keep up with me leads to boring fights - which is a problem when that is the case for the large majority of the content and the quests.

SilverBride

The definition of "too easy" is purely subjective and very different from one player to another. There is no way to fairly adjust the difficulty of overland with so many varied opinions. The only solution is to adjust the player, and/or give optional quest boss difficulties.

Kendaric

Iccotak wrote: »

It’s already been said numerous times but champion points are hardly relevant when talking about Overland. When I start a new character I don’t apply my champion points until I get them to level 50 - but I am now a more skilled player.

And the enemies general inability to at all keep up with me leads to boring fights - which is a problem when that is the case for the large majority of the content and the quests.

CP are relevant when it comes to boss fights like the one with Rada at the end of Markarth. Of course there's also the matter of skill, but CP help to overcome this.

For normal overland mobs they are irrelevant, that's true. That's largely owed to how the scaling works for low(er) level characters. Player skill plays a large role in this, too, of course.

There is, quite frankly, no good solution to this that fits both crowds. A veteran version of overland would still be easy for you, simply because enemy AI is the same just with more HP and damage. And adding a different AI would probably affect the normal version as well or be a lot more work or very little return.

Vhozek

whitecrow wrote: »

Overland is easy enough. What I'd prefer is less hostiles in the environment. Many times I just want to wander and explore and it's annoying to constantly run into crocodiles or whatever.

"Become immune and indetectible by mobs. Interacting with an object cancels this effect and taunts enemies within a 20m radius, putting the ability on a 3 minute cooldown".

Vhozek

I have been playing Albion Online for the past week and it has already done more to introduce me to the MMO genre than ESO has in 2000+ hours. I'm valuating guilds, grouping, and set abilities for the first time ever. I know the mobs in AO are not difficult, but the difficulty set by the PvP and the hardcore nature of the game has played an important role in making MMOs more accessible for me. Can't wait to get tired of the game so I can try my new mentality on ESO but I'm having too much fun right now.
So yeah, harder overland please.

Iccotak

Kendaric wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

It’s already been said numerous times but champion points are hardly relevant when talking about Overland. When I start a new character I don’t apply my champion points until I get them to level 50 - but I am now a more skilled player.

And the enemies general inability to at all keep up with me leads to boring fights - which is a problem when that is the case for the large majority of the content and the quests.

CP are relevant when it comes to boss fights like the one with Rada at the end of Markarth. Of course there's also the matter of skill, but CP help to overcome this.

For normal overland mobs they are irrelevant, that's true. That's largely owed to how the scaling works for low(er) level characters. Player skill plays a large role in this, too, of course.

There is, quite frankly, no good solution to this that fits both crowds. A veteran version of overland would still be easy for you, simply because enemy AI is the same just with more HP and damage. And adding a different AI would probably affect the normal version as well or be a lot more work or very little return.

1. I did not have my champion points applied to my character when I fought the final story bosses for last year. It was easy because I already had the knowledge and skill.


2. Overland

Firstly, how “easy“ it is depends on how it is executed.
Secondly, people are not asking for overland to be as hard as endgame dungeons or trials, or even be as hard as old craglorn. What we are asking for is the combat of general overland be more engaging.

For Story Bosses - yeah a harder option would need some more mechanics added to script to be engaging.

General Overland is different from those encounters.
A self Nerf doesn’t work because the enemy still hits for the same.

But do something similar to Skyrim though. Where it not only nerfs the player but also boosts the enemy stats for damage dealt.

However to be fair, ESO is not Skyrim. And by that I mean that Skyrim did not have an ability bar - The player having an ability bar which they are using far more frequently in comparison to the enemy is a huge advantage.

So while the first step is a good direction - a separate instance where the player is nerfed and the enemies are also boosted.
The second step would be allowing the enemies to use their abilities more frequently. In order to keep up with the player.

(yes it has to be separate for the sake of preserving fairness and immersion)

But for general Overland you don’t need to add much mechanics. They just need to use their abilities more frequently.

Vhozek

ADarklore wrote: »

So even in THIS poll, it shows that the majority prefer open world as it is... so one would think it would also represent what the players feel outside of this poll as well. Especially if they aren't coming to the forums to complain, and even amongst the forum users, it shows a preference for open world as it is. With that being the case, even though we see threads about this almost every single week, without this poll showing a huge margin FOR harder content... ZOS isn't going to devote resources to make any changes.

That majority looking pretty even to me.

tomfant

honglatongla wrote: »

The one where stupid trash mobs won't chase and annoy me when i pass them by.

This. At least small mobs should drop aggro much faster when just running past them to get to that world boss.

zelaminator

tomfant wrote: »

honglatongla wrote: »

The one where stupid trash mobs won't chase and annoy me when i pass them by.

This. At least small mobs should drop aggro much faster when just running past them to get to that world boss.

Makes me think of the games that removes aggro once you reach a high enough level, unless you attack the mobs.. maybe that could work

Oznog666

I would like to see one more overland like Craglorn including the quests, world bosses and dungeons. Craglorn is not as easy as all the other regions and it's for sure nothing for new players. But later on, as soon as one is more experienced and having better equipment then Craglorn is very interesting and a lot of fun. I loved to discover Craglorn and when I was able to do Skyreach solo I was really pleased with this content.