Overland Content Feedback Thread

tonyblack

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

For the people who is against a player debuff idea, why would you even be against it if you'd never use it?

The reason WHY we should get harder overland is because WE veteran players played the game when it came out and would like that experience again.

The experience = Bosses will actually feel like a boss when you fight them, the fight becomes longer thus their mechanics will be viable. Story content will get more immersive since a big villain will actually be fearsome, not easier to kill than a normal mob in a Vet dungeon.
That alone is so wrong in so many ways. How can Molag bal be weaker than a random mob in a dungeon!? He's a f*cking Daedric prince.

And please don't tell me to fight naked and without gear bla bla bla. I've done it and it's still to easy since I've been playing since launch and I know the game all too well...

The easy way to do it?
- A new mundus stone? Wich grants the debuff?
- A food/drink of some sort?
- A world skill/curse that works that adds similiar things like being a vampire or werewolf
- An item to equip in the appearance/gallow slot in the inventory since that is basically never used unless you have a costume etc.
So would there be an upside to having this debuff? I mean to make it even worth trying in the future for people who are against could include a BUFF.

-Maybe increased EXP?
-Maybe increased gold?
-Maybe a cool outfit/style motif in the end similiar to Cadwells gold

NO shortcuts or direct effect to get gear faster or make your character stronger.Just a simple "carrot" to make it even more interesting using this debuff. WIN-WIN


THIS IS what this game desperatly needs. I usually mention new animations but this is an Elder scrolls game, in an Elder scrolls game you explore and quest and level your character.
There is no need for more or new content atm if you ask me BECAUSE there is soooo much good content already in the game.
Making overland actually unique WILL be like adding tons of "new" content to the game!

Period!

The debuff idea some posters try to push there is the most boring and lazy solution.

I still haven’t seen a single good argument against instancing barring some vague claims about performance impact and fear that it split population so some players would be unable to do world bosses (which easily fixable by unified zone chat/guilds and shouldn’t be the main counterpoint to begin with as own enjoyment shouldn’t come at expense of enjoyment of others).

Running into undebuffed players who nuke mobs and bosses with ease would suck any fun for utilizing such system and as suggested that it should provide no additional rewards or motivation to engage in it would make it dead on arrival.

So what we get poorly thought out system and additional excuse to cut competitive content in the future.

disky

Yuji34 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

For the people who is against a player debuff idea, why would you even be against it if you'd never use it?

Because I do want harder overland and because of that I want the Devs to work on a solution that actually works. Not something like a fixed debuff, for which we can reliably predict that it is going to be a huge disappointment.

So you prefer nothing, you're not happy so you want to punish everyone

I'm not taking sides on this one, but I think both have their points:

a. Something needs to be done soon.

b. It should be done properly.

Both are correct.

alpha_synuclein

Adding to the list of things that will most likely never happen , what about tying up an optional "veteran" instance(s) to one of the zone events?

During our usual zone themed events muliple instances of the celebrated zone are created, what if one of them was beefed up with increased difficulty (using any of the methods described above)?

It would be limited and temporary by default, so it shouldn't be too hard on the servers.

It would not cause any significant split in the playerbase (not that I believe this would happen with the other options of vet overland, but it seems like a popular argument, so let's entertain it). Since the evented zones are always very heavy populated, the players that need help killing harder enemiess will not run short of help. Moving out some of the heavy hitters might even help with the issue of some not being able to get the loot from bosses during events.

And the popularity (or lack thereof) of "vet" option versus the regular instances mighr get everyone the idea of how big is the part of the playerbase that would want to engage in such adjusted overland. Since what we have now are pure speculations.

Nharimlur_Finor

This game, as delivered, is rumored to generate USD 200M per annum.

Any and every suggestion that ZOS don't know what they're doing is quite bizarre.

Mrtoobyy

tonyblack wrote: »

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

For the people who is against a player debuff idea, why would you even be against it if you'd never use it?

The reason WHY we should get harder overland is because WE veteran players played the game when it came out and would like that experience again.

The experience = Bosses will actually feel like a boss when you fight them, the fight becomes longer thus their mechanics will be viable. Story content will get more immersive since a big villain will actually be fearsome, not easier to kill than a normal mob in a Vet dungeon.
That alone is so wrong in so many ways. How can Molag bal be weaker than a random mob in a dungeon!? He's a f*cking Daedric prince.

And please don't tell me to fight naked and without gear bla bla bla. I've done it and it's still to easy since I've been playing since launch and I know the game all too well...

The easy way to do it?
- A new mundus stone? Wich grants the debuff?
- A food/drink of some sort?
- A world skill/curse that works that adds similiar things like being a vampire or werewolf
- An item to equip in the appearance/gallow slot in the inventory since that is basically never used unless you have a costume etc.
So would there be an upside to having this debuff? I mean to make it even worth trying in the future for people who are against could include a BUFF.

-Maybe increased EXP?
-Maybe increased gold?
-Maybe a cool outfit/style motif in the end similiar to Cadwells gold

NO shortcuts or direct effect to get gear faster or make your character stronger.Just a simple "carrot" to make it even more interesting using this debuff. WIN-WIN


THIS IS what this game desperatly needs. I usually mention new animations but this is an Elder scrolls game, in an Elder scrolls game you explore and quest and level your character.
There is no need for more or new content atm if you ask me BECAUSE there is soooo much good content already in the game.
Making overland actually unique WILL be like adding tons of "new" content to the game!

Period!

The debuff idea some posters try to push there is the most boring and lazy solution.

I still haven’t seen a single good argument against instancing barring some vague claims about performance impact and fear that it split population so some players would be unable to do world bosses (which easily fixable by unified zone chat/guilds and shouldn’t be the main counterpoint to begin with as own enjoyment shouldn’t come at expense of enjoyment of others).

Running into undebuffed players who nuke mobs and bosses with ease would suck any fun for utilizing such system and as suggested that it should provide no additional rewards or motivation to engage in it would make it dead on arrival.

So what we get poorly thought out system and additional excuse to cut competitive content in the future.

Of course I would love for something even better aswell. But hey come on, let's be realistic here. Do you really think a game that is 10 years old could come up with anything remarkable this time around?

People nuking bosses etc wouldn't change a thing from the current game? I mean every world event and almost every world boss just drops in under a minute so what would be the difference?

Muizer

Yuji34 wrote: »

So you prefer nothing, you're not happy so you want to punish everyone

Who, apart from yourself, is saying those are the options?


I think we can objectively dismiss a universal, fixed debuff as a solution.

There's a huge range in player ability in this game. On top of that even in overland there's quite a range in encounter difficulty.

Suppose you apply a fixed debuff so that a delve boss is exactly the right difficulty. Then I can assure you most of the mobs in overland will become an absolute drag with fights that last longer without ever being challenging. I also can assure you World bosses will become undoable. You'll be slotting and unslotting your debuf and for many it will never be right for anything.

Difficulty sliders have the same problem, though there at least you could adjust your slider somewhat from one encounter to the next. But you would have to do that yourself and I wonder how many would consider that a good fix.

So even thinking through some very simple scenarios you run into obstacles that no Dev worth their salt is ever going to overlook. Forget about that.

Harder overland will require something way more sophisticated to deliver something we (you as well) would be satisfied with. Let's not waste time on ideas that can be rejected as objectively bad before even a line of code is written.

SilverBride

This most recent statement keeps getting lost in the discussion.

"Similarly, open-world content is balanced for casual play; ZOS is not going to make the open-world game or story content too hard because they don’t want people to quit. People who want challenge are funneled into dungeons."


The only thing I see happening, if anything at all, would be some type of debuff, whether a food or drink or a new skill from scribing. But I honestly don't think anything will be done because there is no consensus over what would be an acceptable level of difficulty and I don't believe there are enough players that would even use any options anyway.

Muizer

SilverBride wrote: »

This most recent statement keeps getting lost in the discussion.

"Similarly, open-world content is balanced for casual play; ZOS is not going to make the open-world game or story content too hard because they don’t want people to quit. People who want challenge are funneled into dungeons."

Well, I guess most here agree that that last bit is a mistake. And it is easy to see why. For one thing, there is no reason to assume a priori that people that come to ESO from a standalone Elder Scrolls games would be particularly interested in getting funneled into dungeons or trials and a lot of reason to assume they'd want t similar level of challenge in the nearest equivalent, which is overland. So the fact that the demand for a more challenging overland exists is pretty much a given. ZOS know it and also know that so far their attempts to create instanced content aren't meeting that demand. I think sooner or later they're going to have to 'bite the bullet'.

SilverBride

Muizer wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This most recent statement keeps getting lost in the discussion.

"Similarly, open-world content is balanced for casual play; ZOS is not going to make the open-world game or story content too hard because they don’t want people to quit. People who want challenge are funneled into dungeons."

Well, I guess most here agree that that last bit is a mistake. And it is easy to see why. For one thing, there is no reason to assume a priori that people that come to ESO from a standalone Elder Scrolls games would be particularly interested in getting funneled into dungeons or trials and a lot of reason to assume they'd want t similar level of challenge in the nearest equivalent, which is overland. So the fact that the demand for a more challenging overland exists is pretty much a given. ZOS know it and also know that so far their attempts to create instanced content aren't meeting that demand. I think sooner or later they're going to have to 'bite the bullet'.

I think their stance is the right one and there is no reason for them to change what has been working well for 8 years so far.

BasP

Muizer wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This most recent statement keeps getting lost in the discussion.

"Similarly, open-world content is balanced for casual play; ZOS is not going to make the open-world game or story content too hard because they don’t want people to quit. People who want challenge are funneled into dungeons."

For one thing, there is no reason to assume a priori that people that come to ESO from a standalone Elder Scrolls games would be particularly interested in getting funneled into dungeons or trials and a lot of reason to assume they'd want t similar level of challenge in the nearest equivalent, which is overland.

Yeah, I tried out ESO a couple of years ago myself just because I got bored of modding Skyrim for the nth time and I've been playing ESO as a single player game since then. I eventually started soloing dungeons and I enjoy the arenas (vVH more so than vMA), but I'd really like it if Overland posed some challenge as well. And that's probably true for others that come from the single player games as well - mods that increase the difficulty of those games are popular after all.

But considering ZOS's stance on this topic, I highly doubt we'll ever get separate Veteran instances in which more mechanics are added to mobs and bosses to make the fights more engaging and exciting. So something relatively simple like a slider that adds increasingly stronger debuffs to the player, or a couple of predetermined difficulty levels with player debuffs, seem like the most realistic things we could wish for to me.

Yuji34

Muizer wrote: »

Yuji34 wrote: »

So you prefer nothing, you're not happy so you want to punish everyone

Who, apart from yourself, is saying those are the options?


I think we can objectively dismiss a universal, fixed debuff as a solution.

There's a huge range in player ability in this game. On top of that even in overland there's quite a range in encounter difficulty.

Suppose you apply a fixed debuff so that a delve boss is exactly the right difficulty. Then I can assure you most of the mobs in overland will become an absolute drag with fights that last longer without ever being challenging. I also can assure you World bosses will become undoable. You'll be slotting and unslotting your debuf and for many it will never be right for anything.

Difficulty sliders have the same problem, though there at least you could adjust your slider somewhat from one encounter to the next. But you would have to do that yourself and I wonder how many would consider that a good fix.

So even thinking through some very simple scenarios you run into obstacles that no Dev worth their salt is ever going to overlook. Forget about that.

Harder overland will require something way more sophisticated to deliver something we (you as well) would be satisfied with. Let's not waste time on ideas that can be rejected as objectively bad before even a line of code is written.

No, it’s not just me proposing these two options. The DEVS have made a statement, they were CLEAR, there will be no rework to add difficulty to the overland. From that point on, we are proposing alternative solutions without a complete overland rework.

So, I’m proposing a simple solution that could already satisfy many players without penalizing others. Get up to date and follow the Devs' statements. You just want to be against it for the sake of being against it.

Dahveed

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't believe there are enough players that would even use any options anyway.

There are plenty of things in this game which barely get used but get attention from devs anyways. That's what makes this game so awesome IMO, there are so many things to do and so many ways to play, that I feel like I'm only ever scratching the surface.

I've been playing on and off for almost a decade and I still haven't played a single card game (forget the name), I still don't have a companion, I have never run a trial and I almost never PVP. Furthermore 99 percent of the emotes, knick-knacks, momentos, instruments, furnishings etc. that you obtain from quest givers, achievements, loot etc. are probably never used by anyone (like ever) except maybe once when you get them and you're like, "oh, cool." Then forget about it along with the seven thousand (or so) other cosmetic doo-dads that they took time to make. Not to mention the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of different armor sets which are trash and never used by anyone, but the devs still made them anyways because they are part of the flavour of the zone/DLC/faction/whatever lore and style.

That's what makes everything so terrific IMO, you can customize your character and your activities however you want... and even though there are many things I don't do, just having those options I find is exciting for me. Even though, when you think about it, there is probably about 70 percent of the content of this game which over 90 percent of players will never see.

I remember in one of the Vanilla "save our city" quests, Bangkorai Garrison, there is an entire overhaul of the entire place with new NPCs which all have new dialogue, which nobody (I mean almost literally NOBODY, perhaps 0.1% of the population) will ever see or talk to.

Have you ever heard of a Khajiit named Moonclimber? (No cheating, now! ) I guarantee you the number of players who have talked to this NPC can be counted using three digits, at most. Maybe even two digits. Yet they still put her there because it adds something to their game. A reason to go back there and explore after your quest.

(Here is a post I made about it a long time ago if you're curious: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396431/re-bangkorai-garrison-good-job#latest)


My overall point is, that yes you are perhaps correct that relatively speaking not as many players as we might think would use this. But certainly enough would, as you can see by these forums arguments. And even if not.... so? Why would they pay a voice actor, writer, and NPC AI coder to create Moonclimber when only 74 players in the 10 year history of ESO have ever even seen her, let alone talked to her? (Trust me, she is NOT easy to find if you're not scouring every nook and cranny.)

But a difficulty slider (or some such variation) would be the "gameplay" version of Moonclimber, of one of those goofy quest costumes you get after a quest chain that people will only ever (maybe) wear once and forget about, that momento they give you for that obscure achievement, or that one scene of environmental storytelling that 99% of players will miss and/or not care about. It adds to the vastness of ESO, and gives us choice for those of us who want to play this game as an Elder Scrolls game and not another bland MMO "my character is a god who can squish entire armies in 14 seconds" walking simulator.

SilverBride

Regardless of our personal opinions, they have made it clear what their stance is several times now. I believe a debuff is the only option that stands a chance of ever being implemented, but feel the odds are pretty low that it will happen. Especially when there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking.

Dahveed

SilverBride wrote: »

Regardless of our personal opinions, they have made it clear what their stance is several times now. I believe a debuff is the only option that stands a chance of ever being implemented, but feel the odds are pretty low that it will happen. Especially when there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking.

Yep, that's why it would have to be incremental. Whatever form it were to take (Mundus Stone, curse, slider etc etc) they'd have to make it incremental.

I do however share your pessimism about it ever being implemented on one hand, but I'm encouraged by other MMOs who have made it work in some form or another to light the way. Apparently LOTRO has made it work quite well... I even toyed with the idea of trying that game again, but it looks too old and outdated for my liking.

Nharimlur_Finor

SilverBride wrote: »

Regardless of our personal opinions, they have made it clear what their stance is several times now. I believe a debuff is the only option that stands a chance of ever being implemented, but feel the odds are pretty low that it will happen. Especially when there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking.

they have made it clear what their stance is several times now.

Yes, but why would this stop people popping down into their own personal rabbit-hole?

there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking

Something that I haven't wasted my time considering, to be honest. But it's an excellent point.


So what happens when Casual Player arrives at a world boss and joins an encounter with someone with the ability to increase the difficulty of their own interaction with said world boss? Are we expecting the game to calculate two separate, simultaneous outcomes? Call me old-fashioned, but that sounds remarkably like doubling the performance load.

Or don't I understand what 'overland' means in this context?

Muizer

Yuji34 wrote: »

You just want to be against it for the sake of being against it.

Thanks for informing me. I didn't know that /S

Nharimlur_Finor

Dahveed wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't believe there are enough players that would even use any options anyway.

There are plenty of things in this game which barely get used but get attention from devs anyways. That's what makes this game so awesome IMO, there are so many things to do and so many ways to play, that I feel like I'm only ever scratching the surface.

I've been playing on and off for almost a decade and I still haven't played a single card game (forget the name), I still don't have a companion, I have never run a trial and I almost never PVP. Furthermore 99 percent of the emotes, knick-knacks, momentos, instruments, furnishings etc. that you obtain from quest givers, achievements, loot etc. are probably never used by anyone (like ever) except maybe once when you get them and you're like, "oh, cool." Then forget about it along with the seven thousand (or so) other cosmetic doo-dads that they took time to make. Not to mention the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of different armor sets which are trash and never used by anyone, but the devs still made them anyways because they are part of the flavour of the zone/DLC/faction/whatever lore and style.

That's what makes everything so terrific IMO, you can customize your character and your activities however you want... and even though there are many things I don't do, just having those options I find is exciting for me. Even though, when you think about it, there is probably about 70 percent of the content of this game which over 90 percent of players will never see.

I remember in one of the Vanilla "save our city" quests, Bangkorai Garrison, there is an entire overhaul of the entire place with new NPCs which all have new dialogue, which nobody (I mean almost literally NOBODY, perhaps 0.1% of the population) will ever see or talk to.

Have you ever heard of a Khajiit named Moonclimber? (No cheating, now! ) I guarantee you the number of players who have talked to this NPC can be counted using three digits, at most. Maybe even two digits. Yet they still put her there because it adds something to their game. A reason to go back there and explore after your quest.

(Here is a post I made about it a long time ago if you're curious: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/396431/re-bangkorai-garrison-good-job#latest)


My overall point is, that yes you are perhaps correct that relatively speaking not as many players as we might think would use this. But certainly enough would, as you can see by these forums arguments. And even if not.... so? Why would they pay a voice actor, writer, and NPC AI coder to create Moonclimber when only 74 players in the 10 year history of ESO have ever even seen her, let alone talked to her? (Trust me, she is NOT easy to find if you're not scouring every nook and cranny.)

But a difficulty slider (or some such variation) would be the "gameplay" version of Moonclimber, of one of those goofy quest costumes you get after a quest chain that people will only ever (maybe) wear once and forget about, that momento they give you for that obscure achievement, or that one scene of environmental storytelling that 99% of players will miss and/or not care about. It adds to the vastness of ESO, and gives us choice for those of us who want to play this game as an Elder Scrolls game and not another bland MMO "my character is a god who can squish entire armies in 14 seconds" walking simulator.

Exactly.

Muizer

SilverBride wrote: »

Especially when there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking.

The simplest solution involving just debuffs would require incremental difficulty levels. And at each level the debuff would need to scale depending on the difficulty of the encounter with the easy (mob) encounters needing a much bigger boost than hard ones (world bosses). IMHO anything less is just not worth discussing.

spartaxoxo

Muizer wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Especially when there is no concensus at all on how much difficulty would be accepted by those asking.

The simplest solution involving just debuffs would require incremental difficulty levels. And at each level the debuff would need to scale depending on the difficulty of the encounter with the easy (mob) encounters needing a much bigger boost than hard ones (world bosses). IMHO anything less is just not worth discussing.

I don't think it would be able to scale to the mob, but allowing the player to scale it at-will would work imo. So, a player could choose whether they wanted a little more damage received, a lot more damage received, etc. Like how there's sliding scale in their single player games.

tonyblack

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

tonyblack wrote: »

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

For the people who is against a player debuff idea, why would you even be against it if you'd never use it?

The reason WHY we should get harder overland is because WE veteran players played the game when it came out and would like that experience again.

The experience = Bosses will actually feel like a boss when you fight them, the fight becomes longer thus their mechanics will be viable. Story content will get more immersive since a big villain will actually be fearsome, not easier to kill than a normal mob in a Vet dungeon.
That alone is so wrong in so many ways. How can Molag bal be weaker than a random mob in a dungeon!? He's a f*cking Daedric prince.

And please don't tell me to fight naked and without gear bla bla bla. I've done it and it's still to easy since I've been playing since launch and I know the game all too well...

The easy way to do it?
- A new mundus stone? Wich grants the debuff?
- A food/drink of some sort?
- A world skill/curse that works that adds similiar things like being a vampire or werewolf
- An item to equip in the appearance/gallow slot in the inventory since that is basically never used unless you have a costume etc.
So would there be an upside to having this debuff? I mean to make it even worth trying in the future for people who are against could include a BUFF.

-Maybe increased EXP?
-Maybe increased gold?
-Maybe a cool outfit/style motif in the end similiar to Cadwells gold

NO shortcuts or direct effect to get gear faster or make your character stronger.Just a simple "carrot" to make it even more interesting using this debuff. WIN-WIN


THIS IS what this game desperatly needs. I usually mention new animations but this is an Elder scrolls game, in an Elder scrolls game you explore and quest and level your character.
There is no need for more or new content atm if you ask me BECAUSE there is soooo much good content already in the game.
Making overland actually unique WILL be like adding tons of "new" content to the game!

Period!

The debuff idea some posters try to push there is the most boring and lazy solution.

I still haven’t seen a single good argument against instancing barring some vague claims about performance impact and fear that it split population so some players would be unable to do world bosses (which easily fixable by unified zone chat/guilds and shouldn’t be the main counterpoint to begin with as own enjoyment shouldn’t come at expense of enjoyment of others).

Running into undebuffed players who nuke mobs and bosses with ease would suck any fun for utilizing such system and as suggested that it should provide no additional rewards or motivation to engage in it would make it dead on arrival.

So what we get poorly thought out system and additional excuse to cut competitive content in the future.

Of course I would love for something even better aswell. But hey come on, let's be realistic here. Do you really think a game that is 10 years old could come up with anything remarkable this time around?

People nuking bosses etc wouldn't change a thing from the current game? I mean every world event and almost every world boss just drops in under a minute so what would be the difference?

Yet they did come up with a new class, new skill customization (scribing), new type of arena (endless archives), every new chapter bring a lot of new enemies with new skills and mechanics (half of which we don’t see because they toned down to be beaten by level 5 characters). I would say the game still delivers, though philosophy of putting all challenge in group content and removing any from solo what really suck any fun out of it.

I’m not saying decentish debuff solutions is impossible, but they kind of make little sense considering how much effort would be put for them in comparison to instancing and enemy scaling (using similar system as for endless archive for example) and how much inconvenience it would be to balance them in settings with players who use different options.

For example, my idea for this would be serpent constellation which would be semi independent champion points system. It wouldn’t detract points from other 3 constellations but adding 1 point every level in addition to regular ones providing sense of progression. Each perk has the reduction in combat efficiency but adding non combat benefit (for example, reduce damage done by x amount, increase xp gain for x amount), maxing set of first perks unlock new ones (i.e. damage done and mitigation reduction unlock healing reduction, reduced resource regeneration and adding passive hp drain, etc.). Getting full set of perks unlock passive for getting champion boxes as random drops from mobs and bosses, providing small amount of crafting materials, random motifs and unique currency for which you can purchase something nice (like new mount, skin, outfits, etc). Getting system where you get sense of progression, accomplishment and freedom of choice is the way but something like that would absolutely not work for differently scaled players.

colossalvoids

Will chime in about "no difficulty consensus" part as it seems quite flawed.

First of all there's no consensus on current overland difficulty - it is what it is, and that's why people argue about it or ask for nerfs/buffs every single patch. It was changed once, without anyone having a consensus about it and we're all stuck with this choice. Now we have standards, like overland, normal group difficulty, veterans and hard modes, plus solo/trial/arena ones. Same ones can be applied, like veteran dungeon/trial for overland zone or dungeon hard mode for world boss/event and veteran solo arena for an instanced quest boss as an example.

Not many experienced players would expect a system that can be well adjusted or fine tuned by player, that's not how ESO works - we have presets that are applied to everything, literally every single bit is standardised.

It's fair to expect a solution that would go along with already existing definition of veteran or hardmode, new players like always would just stick with what is presented if want a better elder scrolls experience.

Muizer

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't think it would be able to scale to the mob, but allowing the player to scale it at-will would work imo. So, a player could choose whether they wanted a little more damage received, a lot more damage received, etc. Like how there's sliding scale in their single player games.

In the standalone games the difference between the easiest and hardest encounters are much, much smaller. That means you can get away with a flat modifier. Not in ESO though. In order to work in a comparable way, that difficulty range would have to be reduced, which can only be done by some sort of scaling to the mob. The alternative is having to adjust the scale manually before encounters and I don't think a self-respecting developer would implement such an obviously flawed hack. There would be a litany of complaints if they did that. "Be happy you got something" doesn't work with the masses.

Four_Fingers

They are working on it, it is called Elder Scrolls VI.

disky

Muizer wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't think it would be able to scale to the mob, but allowing the player to scale it at-will would work imo. So, a player could choose whether they wanted a little more damage received, a lot more damage received, etc. Like how there's sliding scale in their single player games.

In the standalone games the difference between the easiest and hardest encounters are much, much smaller. That means you can get away with a flat modifier. Not in ESO though. In order to work in a comparable way, that difficulty range would have to be reduced, which can only be done by some sort of scaling to the mob. The alternative is having to adjust the scale manually before encounters and I don't think a self-respecting developer would implement such an obviously flawed hack. There would be a litany of complaints if they did that. "Be happy you got something" doesn't work with the masses.

To be honest I don't think most people want overland to be massively more difficult, but something more along the lines of the mobs in more recent dungeons on either Normal or Veteran. We're all ignorant of the way things work on the back-end but I don't think this is an impossible task to overcome. ZOS could make it even more interesting by implementing other challenge factors like augmenting stealth detection radius or resource gains, but for a start, I think giving players a way to simply adjust the amount of damange they deal/receive would be nice to have.

Rkindaleft

I don't understand why anyone would be against a totally OPTIONAL difficulty slider. If you don't want to use it you don't have to interact with it. It makes no difference to you or how you like to play the game.

This is probably anecdotal, but I have a vivid memory that sticks with me for some reason - back in 2020, my boyfriend who's never played video games before started playing this during lockdown so we could do something together. He was like level 30, and said to me after finishing one of the zones, "Was that a boss? It didn't really do anything. I just swung my sword at it for a while and it died."

Obviously he knew nothing about trials or DLC dungeons at that point - but for a player who just started and knew nothing about how ESO's combat worked to infer that the questing content in the game offered zero challenge or engagement speaks to some level about how not immersive it is outside of progressing the story. People who want additional challenge should have the option to do it. People who like the easy mode should have the option to remain at easy mode.

SilverBride

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who want additional challenge should have the option to do it.

They have that option with Dungeons, Public Dungeons, Trials, Arenas, World Bosses, Wandering World Bosses, Dragons, Geysers, Harrowstorms, Vents, Incursions, Bastion Nymics, the Infinite Archive.

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who like the easy mode should have the option to remain at easy mode.

They have that option with Overland.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who want additional challenge should have the option to do it.

They have that option with Dungeons, Public Dungeons, Trials, Arenas, World Bosses, Wandering World Bosses, Dragons, Geysers, Harrowstorms, Vents, Incursions, Bastion Nymics, the Infinite Archive.

But that kind of content isn't what TES has traditionally been about, and those who want a TES experience with any degree of challenge aren't getting that. There's no reason anyone who wants it shouldn't be able to get it.

Rkindaleft

SilverBride wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who want additional challenge should have the option to do it.

They have that option with Dungeons, Public Dungeons, Trials, Arenas, World Bosses, Wandering World Bosses, Dragons, Geysers, Harrowstorms, Vents, Incursions, Bastion Nymics, the Infinite Archive.

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who like the easy mode should have the option to remain at easy mode.

They have that option with Overland.

Stop deflecting.

That literally does not counter the point that I made. People like to do the quests, yet are turned away because outside of the story progression there's LITERALLY nothing there that's engaging for them. That has been reiterated 1000 times in this thread. They should be able to do it at an OPTIONAL difficulty that's engaging for them. It makes no difference to you, so if the option exists it won't affect you at all.

SilverBride

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

People who want additional challenge should have the option to do it.

They have that option with Dungeons, Public Dungeons, Trials, Arenas, World Bosses, Wandering World Bosses, Dragons, Geysers, Harrowstorms, Vents, Incursions, Bastion Nymics, the Infinite Archive.

But that kind of content isn't what TES has traditionally been about, and those who want a TES experience with any degree of challenge aren't getting that. There's no reason anyone who wants it shouldn't be able to get it.

This isn't traditional TES. But that wasn't the point of my post.

SilverBride

Rkindaleft wrote: »

That literally does not counter the point that I made. People like to do the quests, yet are turned away because outside of the story progression there's LITERALLY nothing there that's engaging for them. That has been reiterated 1000 times in this thread. They should be able to do it at an OPTIONAL difficulty that's engaging for them.
It makes no difference to you, so if the option exists it won't affect you at all.

Why should a player be able to change the difficulty, or any other feature, of a game? This isn't our game. We may play it but we don't own it. And optional doesn't make everything automatically a good idea. Even so, I have stated many times that I am fine with an optional debuff that only affects the player using it.

But the point of my post was that this game isn't lacking in challenges. Every single thing except overland is challenging content.