Repeatable Main Story w/ Solo Dungeons & Difficulty Setting

Iccotak

Repeatable Main Story w/ Solo Dungeons & Difficulty Setting
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Note:
- This does NOT update old content
- This is NOT Cadwell’s Silver & Gold
- This is NOT about Overland Zone
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Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.
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❗❗Section #1: What is the Problem❗❗

The Main Story content is truly the big one for a lot of the people criticizing the gameplay experience.

It’s basically a very common complaint at this point how disappointing the experience can be, specifically the Story Bosses as well as the lack of replay value in chapters. Which often leads to burning through the content very quickly.

Take Zumog Phoom and Mulaamnir for example; characters that were hyped up throughout the Elsweyr campaign that ultimately turned out to be easy, boring, and anti-climatic.

Video, Spoilers if you haven’t played Elsweyr

https://youtu.be/0PiRwePwYe8

(Though to be fair Zumog necromancer mechanics would be great to see from some of the overland enemies but that is a different topic which you can find here:
Zone Elites & Mini-Bosses
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/588919/zone-mini-bosses)

That was the case for every boss in “Season of the Dragon”. Even Kaalgontiid - the big bad guy they hyped for a year through story and marketing.
Dark Heart of Skyrim wasn’t much better either. It really dragged down the quality of the story experience.

How can I get immersed or excited for the story let alone the next one if the gameplay in that main story is consistently so lackluster? And after all that hype?!
They spend all this time/money marketing the gameplay & story BUT the story caters primarily to New Players??

As someone else put it

The enemies have plot armor, they need to for the quest to work, but there isn't even the illusion of a threat anymore, so when each quest is filled with fights against inept opponents and the parts between fights are full of npcs harping on how doomed we all are, when I know that if I were to fight the big bad then and there it would all be over, the story loses what weight it could otherwise have and leaves me feeling like I'm just wasting my time cleaning up trash npcs couldn't be bothered to deal with.

This is because the bosses & overall story are designed and balanced for NEW players - making it doable for everyone regardless of skill, which is fine for New Players and those that just want a casual chill play through but it hurts the experience & level of engagement for many other players - as well as contribute to how fast players burn through new zones.

With that said, it’s unrealistic to expect ZOS to change the past - But we can ask that they do better with future Main Story content going forward.
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💡Section #2: What is the Idea?💡

In the game right now; there are already several separate instances from overland throughout the Main Story content, as it guides the player through the zone, which the devs use for important story moments and encounters. So the foundation of the idea is already there.

My idea is to use that standard system, make the quest repeatable, and include a difficultly setting for those specific instances.

This adds replay-ability and wider appeal of the story to more players. But how would that work?

Instances
It operates much like the Main Story in the Base Game & DLCs work now.

Think of it as a series of mini or “solo dungeons”, all around the map which the player unlocks as they progress through the story. They do not encompass all of the story, but primarily key moments.

Each of these Solo-Dungeons has a small boss and the Final one has the Main Boss.
They are short and designed to be solo-able, but you can still choose to play with others, with up to a maximum of 4 players in an instance.

Upon entering a Solo-Dungeon, the player will be prompted if they want a private or public instance. Additionally, this can be set in the Group Finder menu.

Difficultly Setting
The Zone is unaffected by difficultly setting applied to Solo-Dungeons. The Main Story can be completed regardless of the difficultly set.

Normal is the same difficultly experience that we’ve come to expect of story content.
If Players are of high enough level then they can opt into the Veteran instance.

Veteran Solo-Dungeons are definitely a step up from normal with harder bosses which can be given interesting mechanics by activating a challenge banner. Which all mini-bosses and the Final boss will have

Make the powerful world ending boss actually a threat which has engaging gameplay for those that want it.

Replay
there are three routes. Either;

A. They can play through the whole story again to access solo-dungeons. The main quest can be activated for replay in their collections menu.

B. They can just go through any solo-dungeon they want. By walk, map, or group finder.
Go to group finder
- select “Story”
- select the Chapter/DLC
- select which Solo dungeon you want
- Check “Private” or Not
- Then play

C. All of the above.

Rewards
Firstly, you can only earn the Skill points once.

There would be some standard achievements for completing Solo-Dungeons on Normal & Veteran difficulties including various challenges.
Normal would still come with the title that it normally does.

Sticker Book gives universal account access to sets. So I’m my opinion, it’s ok for a Solo-Dungeons to drop either world gear or unique sets.

Veteran would have an increased tier of purple quality drops.

Also there could be a motif set exclusive to the story solo-dungeons - or leads for motif pages.

Pieces of the set, and motif pages, would have to be split amongst the solo-dungeons to encourage playing all of them.

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❓Section #3: Questions❓

Is all of the main story ONLY in the Solo Dungeons?

No, only some of it is.

Why solo dungeons throughout the quest, Why not just the Final Story Boss?

Because it’s about the overall story experience.

Having multiple Solo-Dungeons throughout the story balances out with the overland experience that happens in-between.

Also having multiple solo-dungeons helps provide variety in replay-ability and prevents burn out. - It is better than just fighting the final boss over & over & over.

What about Overland?

The overland content outside of the solo-dungeons will remain untouched. Regardless of difficultly setting in Solo-Dungeons.

What about old content?

Like I said; it’s unrealistic to ask ZOS to update the old content right now. It’s far more realistic that they do something different in a later dlc.

Updating the Old Bosses can be filed along with visually updating the old zones i.e. “We might get around to it when the map is filled out”

And Honestly that’s not a bad idea as they may eventually want to revitalize their older content when they have filled out Tamriel BUT That won’t not happen for a long while.

Even so, if ZOS went forward with the replay-able story in future content. That’d still a great thing considering how much more of the map there is to fill out.

Why does there have to be rewards?

Because according to Rich Lambert, in a twitch stream he did a month ago, adding a difficultly setting/toggle for any combat activity would require also adding an incentive so then players are more inclined to participate in the content.

There has to be a justification for player participation and developer investment.

When asked about a Veteran toggle for Overland / Story, Rich replied:
”Uh, it is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult.

There is a ton of work, and then as lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you're not going to get anything out of it why do it, you know?
The satisfaction is there sure, but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

So if the developers were to hypothetically do this, putting in time & resources to make the Story engaging, it would demand that it draws in enough player participation to justify the time spent developing & playing it.

Hence make it repeatable - and if it is going to be replayable, then you want to make sure the gameplay is fun and that there is added incentive to encourage participation.

That’s universally how they go about with designing activities.
Everything that is repeatable is harder (or has the option to be harder), it has more mechanics, and has added incentive.
This is readily observable everywhere in the game.

Who cares about Gameplay? It’s all about the Story and Lore.

Generally speaking: Gameplay ≥ Story/Lore

Especially for MMOs.

Good story & lore are awesome BUT -
You will find that many people don’t get invested in the story, or lore, if the gameplay is lacking. Especially when the “Story Experience” is mainly centered around killing things.

Skyrim has great lore but it's accessible gameplay with extreme player freedom and immersion was the key to its huge success.
WoW not only had the IP but it was a huge gameplay success for MMOs.
You need good gameplay to support the story & lore.

ESO got a second wind because they improved the gameplay experience, not because of the “Stellar Writing”. It was a great move but it could use some fine tuning.

Elder Scrolls Online uses an action rpg system which has a heavy focus on combat and character builds. It is NOT a point & click adventure or visual novel, if it was - well there are much better games in that genre.

If you make that combat gameplay irrelevant or boring for the majority of the main quest experience (which is what average person plays) then people are very unlikely to be engaged in the quest let alone the lore.

Poor gameplay can actually make the story worse off. It ruins immersion or any investment the player might have had.

People want the gameplay to match up with the narrative.

Engaging Gameplay makes people engaged in the World & Story. Which is important for player retention.

Bungie recognized that which is why they are basically doing this idea for the campaign of their new Destiny expansion. A game which has had a nearly identical complaint about lackluster & underwhelming story bosses for as long as ESO has. Even though they are financially successful and cannot actively monetize the setting, they are adding it because it has been a complaint for so long and they want players of various playstyle preferences to have the best story experience Possible -- Not just doable

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Ending Note:
Overall this idea would add appeal to the story for a wider audience, it has something for everyone, and more importantly long-term replay-ability for a Chapter & for the whole Year-Long Story, thus more engagement from the player base.

It provides more value to the customer as well as rewarding the Developers investment both in the short & long term.

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edits made to clear grammar

colossalvoids

Section 2 is really similar to what I've put in zenimax surveys and feedback in-game reports for some time, partially so but it's fairly close. Actually was making a "love letter" of sorts with similar idea to sent to a
certain dev with open dm's but could just redirect here, it's more polished and thought out, even though harder on implementation. If something like that could be achieved one day it would be a great addition to the game.

Also just repeatable main quests alone with instanced content having possible "difficulty banners" would be a good one.

summ0004

Good post im all for it.

Iccotak

colossalvoids wrote: »

Actually was making a "love letter" of sorts with similar idea to sent to a
certain dev with open dm's but could just redirect here,

Please do

Honestly I think This plus more Elite enemies from my other thread, would go a long way to solve players issues with the gameplay of Overland & Story content

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

Given that it would seem this thread was created to Bait members from another thread, we have decided to close it down. In the future, when creating threads/posts, we ask that they be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the Community Rules. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
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