Make more overland content like Shada's Tear (in other zone than Craglorn) !

anitajoneb17_ESO

No, ..(+reasons)

I voted "no" because, for me, overland is story and exploration, and combat goes in the way of both (in my opinion and playstyle). Players who enjoy difficulty already have plenty of dungeons and arenas, and some world bosses have their share of difficulty too. That's enough (and ZOS can add more of that if they wish to, I don't mind). But please keep overland easy (I'd even say "combat-free if that were up to me ;-) )

anitajoneb17_ESO

No, ..(+reasons)

Red_Feather wrote: »

Having a group area in each zone isn't the end of the world. Why are people overreacting to the suggestion. It's one group area in a zone. I don't get the big deal. Each zone has it's own theme and it would be nice if a group of players or someone really good at duoing or soloing get to experience a challenge in that themed environment instead of having to go off into a trial instance somewhere over and over again.

What's the difference between what you're suggesting and a regular group dungeon/trial ?
Leave overland to casuals !

spartaxoxo

corrosivechains wrote: »

the best stories people tend to remember are the ones in which they had a hard time against a boss or a zone, meeting new people in an effort to beat it, and finally doing so while also creating a life-long online friendship.

And this right here is why I want Vet Trials to be lowered just a little bit in difficulty (but NOT the achievements and hard modes like God Slayer) so badly. And this right here is why I'm sympathetic to people who want more challenging Overland, even though I don't think it's the right to do it because of the numerous issues with making it overland.

This is nearly entirely absent for upper middle tier players. I remember knocking back energy drinks and trying for hours and hours to beat raids. In this game, they are all either too easy (like Crag) or too difficult for vast majority to PUG.

I just never get that in ESO. Trials guilds are all about slowly eeking away with people you've played with a gazillion times until you get your thing done days or weeks later. And that's it's own kind of rewarding and fun. But it cannot replace meeting new people in a PUG and bashing your heads together for hours until you emerge victorious. It just can't. It's an entirely different experience.

And one that's almost entirely absent in ESO, at least on console.

Thoragaal

Yes, I would love to have this !

corrosivechains wrote: »

Seems to me your personal anecdote reinforces my assertion. WoW in 2004 when it released, while known to be easier than other offerings at the time, was still very difficult by modern standards with every zone having quests and areas fully intended for group content. As you yourself have said here, you made this friend while questing in the open world, and again since many of the quests WoW had on released required grouping it's safe to assume this pairing was done in order to get past such content.

Hogger is a prime example of this, and the memes which spawned from this encounter...in the starter zone for humans no less. Here is an interesting quote from https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Hogger :

"While Hogger's significance in-game was originally minimal, his relative difficulty at such a low level has caused him to become one of the most well-known and popular minor characters in the game."

(It's beside the point of the thread, I don't want to derail it, but) I've never been as lonely in any online game as I've been while playing ESO. It could very well have to do with the difficulty; there's been no need/incentive to group up.
On the other hand it could also be just me growing a preference for playing solo.

corrosivechains

Yes, I would love to have this !

SilverBride wrote: »

corrosivechains wrote: »

Seems to me your personal anecdote reinforces my assertion. WoW in 2004 when it released, while known to be easier than other offerings at the time, was still very difficult by modern standards with every zone having quests and areas fully intended for group content. As you yourself have said here, you made this friend while questing in the open world, and again since many of the quests WoW had on released required grouping it's safe to assume this pairing was done in order to get past such content.

Hogger is a prime example of this, and the memes which spawned from this encounter...in the starter zone for humans no less.

WoW was not the least bit difficult in the questing zones and there were not group content areas in every zone. Yes Hogger was a quest objective that took a few players to beat at first, but his difficulty wasn't even close to ESO's World Bosses. And there were very few of this type of mob in the open world.

The quests in WoW are very easy and the only reason I spent time questing with my friend, which by the way I normally prefer to do solo, was because we enjoyed each other's company. We did not play together to get past group content so that assumption is not accurate.

Yes, WoW on release had areas in every zone with elite mobs and at least 1 quest which took players into those areas. That's not even mentioning all the wanted posters, again, in every zone, which also required multiple players and even suggested the number of players you'd need to complete them. On top of that, the quest structure was done in such a way that if you skipped these group quests you were stuck grinding mobs for exp to catch up. This design persisted into The Burning Crusade, which again saw even in the starting areas for the new races(such as Knucklerot, Luzran, and Dar'Khan). Now, seeing as how you yourself said this was back on release in 2004, these were definitely in effect at the time.

SilverBride

No, ..(+reasons)

corrosivechains wrote: »

Yes, WoW on release had areas in every zone with elite mobs and at least 1 quest which took players into those areas. That's not even mentioning all the wanted posters, again, in every zone, which also required multiple players and even suggested the number of players you'd need to complete them. On top of that, the quest structure was done in such a way that if you skipped these group quests you were stuck grinding mobs for exp to catch up. This design persisted into The Burning Crusade, which again saw even in the starting areas for the new races(such as Knucklerot, Luzran, and Dar'Khan). Now, seeing as how you yourself said this was back on release in 2004, these were definitely in effect at the time.

The entire structure was different in that mobs don't scale to the player like they do in ESO. It was not unusual for a player to completely outlevel the mobs in a zone by the time they were finishing up with that zone's quests. The mobs you are referring to could easily be solo'd by most players by that time. But even for lower level players it usually only required 2 players to down any of the mobs you mentioned, and there were almost always others around so it wasn't hard to get help if you needed it. Also if you did skip quests or mobs you could easily level just from running dungeons, which is how many players chose to level anyway, especially on alts.

The point I was making was that it doesn't take huge frustrating challenges to bond with others and make friends in an MMO. Some of my best friends back then and now in ESO were made in very causal encounters. And the friendship I made 17 years ago was not one of necessity, and was not formed so we could get past difficult content, because that was not a problem for us in the first place.