ZoS is shortchanging themselves on their combat designs...

Rudrani

I think they make brilliant combat designs for most of the Hardmodes... but most players dont play the hardmodes.

The way they translate the hardmode to vanilla or normal is where i think they are "shortchanging" themselves. All the interesting stuff gets lost in vanilla vet, or completely oblitterated in normal.

Use Stone Garden Stone Husk fight as an example. If you don't do Hardmode you dont even have to think about what the warewolf skills are. Just spam anything and you are fine.

I wish they could figure a way to make the non hardmode be basically the same gameplay as the hardmode, just more forgiving. So, not like you could burn through non-hardmode, but you wont die for doing something wrong, till eventually you figure out how to do it right.

Mechs for hardmodes are so much more interesting.

Treeshka

There is a very big gap between veteran hard mode and regular veteran difficulty in trials, and i believe they have decided to do the same for the latest dungeons, since i observed a significant difficulty difference between hard modes and regular veteran difficulty of The Dread Cellar and the other dungeon that come with it.

I also agree that most of the mechanics got lost in normal difficulty and normal difficulty does not prepare player to the veteran content.

If i need to give one example, the tomb explosion in Sunspire deals near no damage to anyone in normal difficulty and it kills you in veteran and veteran hard mode. It should hit more in normal difficulty to indicate that it will kill you in veteran difficulty. On the other hand the in Maw of Lorkhaj different colors nearly kills each other in normal mode. It is a clear indication that in veteran difficulty that mistake will kill you.

The thing is also if they add the hard mode mechanics to the normal modes with a more forgiving way, they will nuke the boss anyway. Nowadays all normal trials are being nuked if the boss does not have a forced immune phase. Maybe they can increase the hit points of the bosses, and keep everything same, but that is unlikely going to happen in my opinion.

Lysette

there is as well a big gap between normal mob and those few more challenging NPCs in overworld - those are as well no problem for good players of course, but I ran in one in Rivenspire yesterday, where 2 guys and I could do like nothing against that NPC - we were all 3 around level 35 - so most likely casual players, but our weapons did like nothing to this NPC.

this is not what I expect from overworld - I got killed even I had vigor, rapid regeneration and dark cloak active - this shouldn't happen in normal overworld content. But it could be latency in my case as well - I got killed by about 35k hitpoints, which is too much in a 2 second time window, because I have just about 7k regen in that time and 27k health - so 35k incoming within 2 seconds will just kill me, from full health to death in one go. This is far too hard for casual overworld content.

There is as well nothing to learn from it - because if I would make my gear able to withstand that, all the other normal content would become boring - so I stick with normal blue gear, because then most of the overworld is enjoyable - I would rather like to have this special NPC tuned down, that they cannot kill someone like me in just 2 seconds - from full to death is not enjoyable, no way to react to that.

Artim_X

In relation to DLC hardmodes, I feel like the watered-down final boss on vet is sufficient difficulty for a pug group conprised of everyone properly doing their role (experienced tank, efficient healer, and effective DPS'). However, when hardmode activates that's when the group also needs to absolutely respect the mechanics or get punished.

I agree that it would be interesting to at least be able to learn the hardmode mechanics on the other modes without dying from a one-shot so that when a group decides to activate it they'll know exactly what will punish them.

colossalvoids

I'd guess the problem is that people doing normals (new players mostly) usually don't want to do any mechanics or learn anything and that's kind of a game design since one tamriel, people can just went through any content without any gear or understanding what's going on. Zos kind of tries to make some new content more challenging as people reported that for newer or less experienced players VH was a lot harder than MA but that's about it, group dungeons is a bit of another realm.

Grandchamp1989

I think dungeon runs are basicly trial and error until you crack the code.

I'm not opposed to OPs suggestion of forcing people into being actively aware of mechanics. Maybe they don't kill you on normal, and you have endless tries until you figure it out and then you got a natural progression into vet where not doing mechanics will be a struggle.

Good idea OP.

GreenhaloX

Just give us Steed as one of our permanent passive. Slow *beeping* heavy attack. Good Lord, man..

Veinblood1965

I used to PVE Vet's extensively and got burned out and quit ESO for a while. Now I'm into PVE and can't stand to run dungeons. I only run them when required for undaunted keys if I want a shoulder piece or for endeavors. Just want to get in and get out asap. THAT being said I wouldn't be opposed to a little more ummph to the normal modes for other players that can use the guidance as long as it's not insane as then it would be vet content lol.

SodanTok

Unfortunately big part of "play how you want" design is letting people not having to think or almost even play to go thru the basic content (normal difficulty). And because the big step between vet and normal was target of constant complains they moved basic vet difficulty down a bit

Dragonlord573

I also wish they'd stop nerfing dungeons that aren't really that hard. Like Frostvault, I had the luck to play it prior to its nerfs, and I miss the difficulty that was present. What nerf am I talking about? The vault guardian boss and the balls.

Before Flames of Ambition there was a mechanic in that fight where you had to avoid dwarven spheres that would kill you if you touched them. They're very obvious and are easy to avoid as they have a set path. One day I was doing the dungeon and I found it really odd they were gone. I asked if they became a vet mechanic and nope. They were completely removed from the fight.

Lysette

In my mind the fact "One Tamriel" made the normal overland content casual friendly and accessible nearly everywhere instead to maintain the former level-gated region-design, is what made ESO that successful - it is simply casual-friendly and players with not that much time to play can enjoy and be someone in this game as well. If it would be made harder, it would alienate a lot of us, who just play it for relaxation and quest/story content, where mobs are there to support the story and not the focus.

buttaface

Not sure if ESO's console game level type... push the purple switch then the blue lever then stand in this place and not this other similar place while charging three heavy attacks in a row while doing a particular emote with one dps playing a bowling sidegame and if the healer ever uses X skill the team wipes" version of rote learning "pseudo difficulty" qualifies as "brilliant combat designs." Yes, I am being a bit facetious, but that's not too far off.

IMO people who like and were brought up on console games tend to like that kind of "difficulty" while more PC oriented folks do not generally. Of course there are exceptions. For an example of how PvE difficulty is done right, see the defunct game Global Agenda from HiRez. Not much "push the lever, then the switch then go this way and not that" stuff in there, just mobs that insta gibbed teams if -one- player strayed from their role or working with the team. This is probably one reason the game died, and "easy" casual play is definitely why ESO survives... that and very strong IP that is unique in coming from gaming and not movie or book IP.

PvP is supposedly the "difficulty" in these games, and stretching pseudo difficulty as ESO does probably doesn't make them much money.

acw37162

The DLC dungeon hard mode is played by less then 20% of the player base and is going down and the 20% is probably generous.

Vet and Hard Mode content and the reward systems for them are one of the single biggest issues in the game.

The proper difficulty to reach the most people is base game Vet dungeons difficulty otherwise your investment to return on investment to actually playable content goes down, substantially.

karekiz

Hard modes are currently one of the most profitable bits of 4 man content excluding things like selling carries <argueably more since you can duo some w/o even a healer - Thank you cauldron ez HM double Motif bug for the money>. There are some HM's that directly 1:1 to their vet counterpart at least. At lot of the newer ones do keep it fairly similar across the board.

There are ones that don't and are more irritating to pull people thru since it isn't a simple transition. Frostvault comes to mind as the rat phase is basically 100% different rule set than normal/non HM. I would definitely like it if they followed the same HM rat phase in the other modes. I hate explaining or trying to remember each different skill for non tank roles.

As for difficulty its hard to balance normal to even play out the mechanics. Remember these are made for players below level 50 - CP 159. Basically the devs have to assume that players might not even have full set bonuses when entering or vastly under rated gear due to how leveling and scaling works.

**Edit: I am assuming you meant for Dungeon based HM's since you used Stonegarden <Which is kinda funny since nobody actually does the intended method on that encounter and actually burns/skips thru the phase on HM>. For raids it would be kinda nice if the mechanics were always 1:1 as normal raids are balanced around post CP 160 players. I wouldn't mind it if in Normal Cloudrest the orbs did damage to players so when they enter vet they have a feel for how to use their characters downstairs.

Asgaeroth

x

Magdalina

Asgaeroth wrote: »

If they wanted to prepare people for veterans in normals, they would telegraph the mechanics. They abandoned mechanical telegraphs for DLC dungeons, so mechanics are just cheap shots that are not readily learnable. You run into a mechanic in DLC normals and the group just quits after 3 tries because no one makes normal dungeon guides and there's no indication of what the mechanics are. It is faster to queue for another dungeon than to dig into paragraph 23 on a vet guide and guess which mechanic exists and don't exist in normals.

All this free week of premium time did was remind me why I play without it. Random normal queues are not playable right now because 30% of the dungeons are day ruining land mines. Tanks get instant queue, so when you go into a known bad DLC dungeon, the tank instantly drops out. You cludge along without a tank for 10 mins, another comes in and instantly drops out. 45 minutes later 3rd tank comes in, you're stuck on the 3rd to last boss who does an untelegraphed instant kill cheap shot, 3rd tank instantly drops out, then both DPS leave. This exact experience happened to me three times in 3 hours last night and I just shut my computer off. I tried to find something in ZOS support that would let me remove the free premium time so I could play the game, I feel screwed right now lol

They do telegraph the mechanics. There're no magical one-shots out of thin air, they all have their tells. It's also pretty hard to die in a normal DLC even if you have agro as a dps (I know, I've had it quite a bit while running random normals leveling new characters. People love fake tanking random normals. Nothing quite like your fake tank spending 90% of it dead simply because he keeps standing in ALL the red possible as you successfully 3 man it), 99% of mechanics might do some damage but never one-shot on normals. If you are dying to random bunch of damage, you're probably either standing in red, not interrupting a cast or being targeted by a heavy-hitters heavy (which you can absolutely see coming and will survive just fine if you block it). Or you just have no healer and no self heals. Still dying? Use food. Use armor buff (most classes have some skills that gives you one). Use self heals. It isn't some op complicated stuff, you don't need an optimised build or anything in normals, it's just the very very very basic game mechs.

DLC are...hard. I mean not hard to complete, but hard to define their place in the game. Personally, vet DLC dungeons HM are my absolutely favourite part of the game, but I know that oh so many people are deadly afraid of them because they heard somewhere they're hard or they had a bad experience there with a fake healer, fake tank and not a single person knowing what they were doing, all dying very quickly and painfully. They are imo the absolutely best content in the game, they just require some patience and persistence to master.

Some people already find even normal DLCs too hard as they don't want ANY mechanics in their game, however, current normals are way too easy compared to vets, and vets way too easy compared to HM, resulting in frustratingly long learning experience for that gap. I'm not sure how we could solve that. Introduce some medium difficulty?

Overall though I think the issue is wayyyy deeper than dlc dungeons or trials. The issue starts with open world that for 50 levels and then infinite number of CPs teaches players that standing in red, not bashing, not blocking, not using food, not using any completed sets, not using potions and only using light attacks is a perfectly valid gamestyle that works for all content. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind there being content like this for people who prefer it - what I DO mind is the ignorance that it encourages. People need to at the very least be aware of base game mechanics such as block/dodge/bash/get out of red by the time they enter group dungeons at all before we could perhaps talk about more mech-heavy normals.

karekiz

Asgaeroth wrote: »

If they wanted to prepare people for veterans in normals, they would telegraph the mechanics. They abandoned mechanical telegraphs for DLC dungeons, so mechanics are just cheap shots that are not readily learnable. You run into a mechanic in DLC normals and the group just quits after 3 tries because no one makes normal dungeon guides and there's no indication of what the mechanics are. It is faster to queue for another dungeon than to dig into paragraph 23 on a vet guide and guess which mechanic exists and don't exist in normals.

All this free week of premium time did was remind me why I play without it. Random normal queues are not playable right now because 30% of the dungeons are day ruining land mines. Tanks get instant queue, so when you go into a known bad DLC dungeon, the tank instantly drops out. You cludge along without a tank for 10 mins, another comes in and instantly drops out. 45 minutes later 3rd tank comes in, you're stuck on the 3rd to last boss who does an untelegraphed instant kill cheap shot, 3rd tank instantly drops out, then both DPS leave. This exact experience happened to me three times in 3 hours last night and I just shut my computer off. I tried to find something in ZOS support that would let me remove the free premium time so I could play the game, I feel screwed right now lol

What mechanics do you feel from what DLC dungeons are one shots w/o ques? I think the biggest F U mecahnic that I dislike is Decriptify since it comes at a point where healers are in a bad spot for 4 man content and its an un-avoidable mechanic that just makes you take 50% of life total all the while negating like 90% of healing, Go go shield spam.

I hear this a lot but most of the time people can't even name the boss they are talking about. Scalecaller was infamous for being named "Cheap" one shots, but literally NPC's tell you how to play. Players just ignored it.

because in normal they could literally just ignore it. And if you can ignore a mechanic, why not just DPS thru it?