Overland Content Feedback Thread

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I have advocated for them for three years and have posted multiple videos showing why they're necessary.

These videos do not show that anything is necessary. All they show is one player being able to defeat difficult enemies. That is far from everyone's experience. But even if it was there are still a lot of players that enjoy being strong and able to easily defeat enemies, even Bosses.

Increased difficulty is a personal preference, not a necessity.

The reason for most players driven changes in the game is that a lot of people are complaining about whatever is getting changed. This is why the nerfed herald seekers, for example. A lot of people were complaining about how the increased difficulty of overland was making their experience unpleasant, and ZOS nerfed it. If that is the reason why decreased difficulty is necessary, then it certainly should be a reason why increased difficulty options are necessary too.

Well, my objection to the damned herald seekers wasn't difficulty, as I didn't "choose" to engage them: they kept getting pulled onto me by others fighting them near my dig sites! Ultimately, I learned where they were, and if a site popped up in one of those areas, I'd just rescry until I got one where a seeker wasn't.

They could have resolved that with aggro changes alone but they nerfed the seekers themselves and also lowered the amount needed IIRC.

I don't think that this sort of aggro was the only issue with the seekers, though.

Yes, as I said. Lots of people were also complaining about the difficulty, so they decreased it. It's an example of a difficulty change that was implemented because lots of people complained, and therefore they found it necessary to change. They could have left it at the aggro problem TaSheen pointed out. But, they didn't. They also made the quest and the seekers easier.

Reduced the health and damage output of Herald’s Seekers in the Apocrypha and Telvanni Peninsula zones.

Each Bastion Nymic daily quest now has its own unique name to help you differentiate between them.

Added additional guidance to direct you to Ordinator Tandessa for optional conversations.

Reduced the amount of Daedric Ichor you need to harvest to 4, down from 5.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/641025/pc-mac-patch-notes-v9-1-5-update-39

If this was necessary because people are complaining about things being too hard, then it is also necessary (and only fair) that it work the other way around too. They need to give us a difficulty option. Something that doesn't impact those who don't want it negatively but allows vets to be able to enjoy things.

spartaxoxo

I also want to add that if they finally give us a difficulty option. It would mean they'd likely no longer feel the need to unnecessarily make challenging public dungeon group event bosses, world events, and world bosses the default.

It's truly one of those "a rising tides raises all ships" situation.

Edit

I don't just want this because as a vet player, I'd be happy to use it. I also want it as a player who sometimes struggles with pain and who has a family member that used to play this game that is disabled. More difficulty when I can do it will make the game more fun for me. As will being able to do the zone without it if that's all I'm able to do that day. The ability to go in and out of vet at will to suit both my health and my mood (sometimes health is fine but I genuinely just want something relaxing and play overland anyway) is something that would really make the game a lot better for me and mine.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I have advocated for them for three years and have posted multiple videos showing why they're necessary.

These videos do not show that anything is necessary. All they show is one player being able to defeat difficult enemies. That is far from everyone's experience. But even if it was there are still a lot of players that enjoy being strong and able to easily defeat enemies, even Bosses.

Increased difficulty is a personal preference, not a necessity.

The reason for most players driven changes in the game is that a lot of people are complaining about whatever is getting changed. This is why the nerfed herald seekers, for example. A lot of people were complaining about how the increased difficulty of overland was making their experience unpleasant, and ZOS nerfed it. If that is the reason why decreased difficulty is necessary, then it certainly should be a reason why increased difficulty options are necessary too.

ZoS has the numbers. They can see how many, or how few players were engaging the Herald Seekers. That may have been a factor in why they lowered their difficulty.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask for changes that make the game more enjoyable for some players, but those are quality of life features based on personal preference, not necessities.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I have advocated for them for three years and have posted multiple videos showing why they're necessary.

These videos do not show that anything is necessary. All they show is one player being able to defeat difficult enemies. That is far from everyone's experience. But even if it was there are still a lot of players that enjoy being strong and able to easily defeat enemies, even Bosses.

Increased difficulty is a personal preference, not a necessity.

The reason for most players driven changes in the game is that a lot of people are complaining about whatever is getting changed. This is why the nerfed herald seekers, for example. A lot of people were complaining about how the increased difficulty of overland was making their experience unpleasant, and ZOS nerfed it. If that is the reason why decreased difficulty is necessary, then it certainly should be a reason why increased difficulty options are necessary too.

ZoS has the numbers. They can see how many, or how few players were engaging the Herald Seekers. That may have been a factor in why they lowered their difficulty.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask for changes that make the game more enjoyable for some players, but those are quality of life features based on personal preference, not necessities.

Anything that prevents a lot of players from being able to play content is a necessity in a video game.

Kelenan7368

I personally love the overland content. Most is very well done and have a great to ok story line. I would however like to see more comedy in stories and a difficulty toggle that adds more exp. when active.

But overall Hats off ZOS! Great job! I love what your doing and have a great addiction to your game!

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Anything that prevents a lot of players from being able to play content is a necessity in a video game.

There is a huge difference between not being able to do something and just not wanting to.

Enemies that are easy don't stop anyone from engaging with and defeating them. Virtually everyone can defeat easy enemies. They may not prefer to fight easy enemies, but they can.

But enemies that are so difficult that many players are unable to defeat them is stopping players. This may be one reason the Herald Seekers were adjusted.

What is being asked for is a quality of life feature, which is perfectly reasonable. But it is not a necessity because it is only the player's personal preference that is stopping them from engaging the content.

BasP

Theist_VII wrote: »

World Bosses and Public Dungeon Group bosses should not be solo-able by your average player.

They are designed with group play in mind. I keep seeing Silorn pop up, I’m assuming the Group boss is what people find difficult? It literally has Group in the name of the description…

I do agree with you somewhat, but Viikor Brazen Hoof from Silorn might be a tad overtuned. When it comes to Overland content, I've always thought that Public Dungeon Group Bosses were supposed to be easier than World Bosses (as it's easier to get help with a fight on the World map than at the far end of a Public Dungeon). I find Viikor more difficult to solo than some of the recent WBs though.

Of course it's not impossible, as spartaxoxo demonstrated, and I also just soloed it on my Stamcro. With a DW front bar I wasn't able to kite as much and I admittedly failed the first time. But after making some changes to my skill setup (I slotted Summoner's Armor for Major and Minor Resolve, Spirit Guardian for the damage reduction + HoT and Mortal Coil), the fight went well. But having to do that for a PD boss seems a bit excessive considering the usual difficulty of PD bosses.

That said, I wish that the quest bosses were (optionally) at least as difficult as Viikor so that those fights would be a bit more memorable. Yesterday I finished the Legacy of the Bretons storyline and the boss fights absolutely paled in comparison, and they didn't feel epic at all.

SilverBride

BasP wrote: »

That said, I wish that the quest bosses were (optionally) at least as difficult as Viikor so that those fights would be a bit more memorable.

Since the Story Bosses are instanced they could have hard mode scrolls that the player could use if they choose. Possibly 2 or 3 levels of difficulty, because not all those wanting more difficulty want it to the same degree.

These wouldn't negatively affect other players that are now struggling with these Bosses like the current changes are.

[Edit] It would be nice if they include an easy mode scroll for those that find these fights too difficult.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Anything that prevents a lot of players from being able to play content is a necessity in a video game.

There is a huge difference between not being able to do something and just not wanting to.

Enemies that are easy don't stop anyone from engaging with and defeating them. Virtually everyone can defeat easy enemies. They may not prefer to fight easy enemies, but they can.

But enemies that are so difficult that many players are unable to defeat them is stopping players. This may be one reason the Herald Seekers were adjusted.

What is being asked for is a quality of life feature, which is perfectly reasonable. But it is not a necessity because it is only the player's personal preference that is stopping them from engaging the content.

The enemies are so easy they effectively change the genre of the game. People with high power cannot play the engaging, action rpg, that casuals get to play. Games are meant to be fun. And anything that is a such a massive detriment to that, that it prevents engagement should be fixed within reason. I don't agree that such a thing is not necessary.

BasP

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

That said, I wish that the quest bosses were (optionally) at least as difficult as Viikor so that those fights would be a bit more memorable.

Since the Story Bosses are instanced they could have hard mode scrolls that the player could use if they choose. Possibly 2 or 3 levels of difficulty, because not all those wanting more difficulty want it to the same degree.

These wouldn't negatively affect other players that are now struggling with these Bosses like the current changes are.

[Edit] It would be nice if they include an easy mode scroll for those that find these fights too difficult.

Both of those things would be nice indeed. In a game with as many quests as well as a relatively casual player base such as ESO (which I don't mean in a wrong way - I'm definitely not a veteran or "hardcore" player myself), I do think that Overland content should be accessible and completable by anyone.

If I had any say in it whatsoever, which obviously isn't the case, I'd prefer a slider or setting that would effect the entire Overland instead of having multiple easy and hard mode scrolls in front of bosses in instanced content though. It would be nice to have a bit more challenge in general. I liked the original difficulty of the Seekers, for example, and found fighting them more boring after the nerfs (even though the fights last shorter).

SilverBride

There is no way that every player is going to find every bit of content in any game to their preference. We choose what we will engage in and what we don't. If we choose not to engage in some content for whatever reason, that is our choice, not a flaw in the game.

No matter what we think personally, ZoS are the ones that have to see a need.

spartaxoxo

No, they can't make all content enjoyable to everyone. I agree. But when content is not enjoyable to a broad swath of players, and the game isn't even playing as the same genre anymore, that's a rather extreme example. And that can and should be addressed.

They do see a need and have been making everyone miserable with the bad design decision to just force difficulty onto everyone.

SilverBride

BasP wrote: »

I'd prefer a slider or setting that would effect the entire Overland instead of having multiple easy and hard mode scrolls in front of bosses in instanced content though.

I am no programmer, but I imagine that difficulty scrolls would be a lot easier to implement than the entire overland. And since Story Bosses were one of the biggest complaints in this thread, it looks like a good place to start.

colossalvoids

SilverBride wrote: »

There is no way that every player is going to find every bit of content in any game to their preference. We choose what we will engage in and what we don't. If we choose not to engage in some content for whatever reason, that is our choice, not a flaw in the game.

No matter what we think personally, ZoS are the ones that have to see a need.

Issues is that people want to, desperately so to enjoy some forms of content they can't currently. The metrics of "success" is wildly different from player to player, for one it's an ability to finish the activity and for the other it's the fun along the way which is success, no matter if the content is completed at all as an example so this content fails for a lot of us and surely can be made better by some means be it challenge scrolls, instances or any other solution.

BasP

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

I'd prefer a slider or setting that would effect the entire Overland instead of having multiple easy and hard mode scrolls in front of bosses in instanced content though.

I am no programmer, but I imagine that difficulty scrolls would be a lot easier to implement than the entire overland. And since Story Bosses were one of the biggest complaints in this thread, it looks like a good place to start.

I'm no programmer either, but I figured it would be the other way around. Though I suppose that would depend on the effect of those scrolls. If all they did was reduce the damage done and increase the damage taken (or the other way around for Easy Mode), I think that it would be less work to implement those things as permanent (de)buffs that are added to a slider/ setting. Developers would have to make a UI for it once, but otherwise they'd have to add multiple scrolls to each boss in all of the instances that have been released and will be released in the future. I am guessing that will turn out to take more time overall.

If the scrolls would make changes to the mechanics of the bosses themselves, though, that'd be another matter entirely.

spartaxoxo

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

There is no way that every player is going to find every bit of content in any game to their preference. We choose what we will engage in and what we don't. If we choose not to engage in some content for whatever reason, that is our choice, not a flaw in the game.

No matter what we think personally, ZoS are the ones that have to see a need.

Issues is that people want to, desperately so to enjoy some forms of content they can't currently. The metrics of "success" is wildly different from player to player, for one it's an ability to finish the activity and for the other it's the fun along the way which is success, no matter if the content is completed at all as an example so this content fails for a lot of us and surely can be made better by some means be it challenge scrolls, instances or any other solution.

Yeah. I don't know how they could about fixing things. But, I know they should try. And it should be an optional thing. The only thing their current path has done is pit players against one another, make some side content hopelessly out of reach for new players, and cause a good amount of both vet and casual players to leave the game. It's bit of a bummer, honestly.

colossalvoids

spartaxoxo wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

There is no way that every player is going to find every bit of content in any game to their preference. We choose what we will engage in and what we don't. If we choose not to engage in some content for whatever reason, that is our choice, not a flaw in the game.

No matter what we think personally, ZoS are the ones that have to see a need.

Issues is that people want to, desperately so to enjoy some forms of content they can't currently. The metrics of "success" is wildly different from player to player, for one it's an ability to finish the activity and for the other it's the fun along the way which is success, no matter if the content is completed at all as an example so this content fails for a lot of us and surely can be made better by some means be it challenge scrolls, instances or any other solution.

Yeah. I don't know how they could about fixing things. But, I know they should try. And it should be an optional thing. The only thing their current path has done is pit players against one another, make some side content hopelessly out of reach for new players, and cause a good amount of both vet and casual players to leave the game. It's bit of a bummer, honestly.

Anecdotally it made me abandon one of my favourite activities - helping newer players out with stuff through /z or just randomly going for bosses in zones to see if anyone is up and actually directly help if approached in dm's. Thanks to this thread where I've been told that I'm an asset for new players so can't have my own fun in separate instance when I'd feel to lol. Now it's not even my "main" game anymore despite being TES related so here's that.

spartaxoxo

colossalvoids wrote: »

Anecdotally it made me abandon one of my favourite activities - helping newer players out with stuff through /z or just randomly going for bosses in zones to see if anyone is up and actually directly help if approached in dm's. Thanks to this thread where I've been told that I'm an asset for new players so can't have my own fun in separate instance when I'd feel to lol. Now it's not even my "main" game anymore despite being TES related so here's that.

I try to still be an asset to new players because I want this game to continue to thrive. But, I find myself checking out more and more with each expansion.

CP5

Regarding the hard mode scroll situation, and doubling back to my obsession with instances while I'm at it.

Let's make a buff to give enemies, buffs are easy things, an ID that is tied to modifiers that can be placed on things. Things like increasing health, or armor, or damage, those are all things we see them do reliably with all the buffs players have and all the buff abilities enemies have. I'd imagine that adding skills this way would be messy, since we do have some skills that add new skills to our bars, like the werewolf's pounce, where you get a 5s buff that replaces the pounce with a slash, so maybe they would do skills, but I wouldn't count on it.

If you made an instance, I imagine you should be able to universally apply a copy of a buff to all 'things' of a given type in that instance. See Cyrodiil applying battle spirit to all players in the instance, but not npcs. Npcs also act as a good example of these buffs, since npcs at keeps get buffs based on how long the keeps resources have been controlled. We could take our buff, which does whatever to make the enemies harder, and apply it to all npcs in the instance. We could use tags, which I imagine the game has, given in the past ZOS explicitly mentioned in patch notes how they buffed or nerfed groups of enemies based on their roles, not just all at once, so we could make different buffs, make tank mobs tankier, make mage mobs deal more damage, and so on. Because of what I've seen from Cyrodiil, and the game's many buffs on the side of players and enemies, I imagine that would be easy.

A scroll is different in a few ways. Each scroll needs to be hand placed in the map, meaning that while each quest instance would need to be visited to some capacity, though the blanket buff could be automated I'd imagine, a scroll would be more time intensive to add. The scroll needs to be tied to the enemies who are a part of the fight, which means linking the scrolls activation to however many enemies are a part of the fight, which is a point of failure since some enemies might not be caught in a manual edit of so many areas, but I would imagine that the hook for undoing the hard mode activation, which is tied to when the fight resets, normally on the parties death, that should be easy to do, but I know bosses normally fade away when they reset, rather than overworld and maybe quest bosses, who run back to where they start, so that reset could be messy as well.

If the scroll only applied a long duration debuff to the player, and as long as the player didn't stubbornly wait out the self-inflicted debuff, that would work much more cleanly, since such a debuff should be lost on death. This would also solve the issue of linking the scroll to enemies, and would likely work better.

For myself, making enemies take longer to fight and deal more damage does help, since it is clear ZOS has made enemies abilities more impressive, so maybe that would be good enough. I'm just still remembering just how laughable most enemies I fought in the past have been. The 10s taking aims, the moon walk into knife throw, the bubbles. But if the enemies in more recent questing areas have more meaningful move-sets, can live long enough to use them, and their skills hit hard enough to be worthy of respecting, then that could do it.

disky

BasP wrote: »

I'm no programmer either, but I figured it would be the other way around. Though I suppose that would depend on the effect of those scrolls.

Almost certainly more design work up-front from the coders but once they get the system up and running, it would probably end up being less work after the fact. If it were me handling the project, I would first take steps to adjust all overland monster stats so that they're consistent across zones. Then design the debuff system and link it into however they plan to implement it. Which is definitely harder than just dropping some scrolls they already have the code for, but scrolls also fail to solve the issue for the rest of overland, which to me is the whole point. I want the entire world to feel dangerous, not just bosses.

grumlins

Request:

Overland monster sets
Overland Special Weapons (like the maelstrom pieces but with more interesting abilities)

A complete overhaul of all of the overland sets so that they provide better abilities for those that have nothing on them that you can't get from the Champion Points system that make them useless (tier 5 abilities).

cp = Champion Points

Examples:

Spriggan's Thorns (just penetration)
Mother's Sorry (just crit)
Akaviri (just reduces ultimate costs)
Fjord's (just 15% increase in sprint speed) (if you're a vampire nb thief black hand assassin with cp it doesn't stack)
Ranger's Gait (reduce snares by 50%) (this is already in the light armor passives)
Beekeeper's Gear (health recovery is already built into heavy armor passives and cp)
Spinner's Garments (just penetration)
Darkstride (Reduces the cost of Sprint and Sneak by 50%) (Baked into cp) (Vampire Passive Unnatural Movement)
Vampire Cloak (Reduces damage taken by 5%) (Vampire already has a reduction by 15%)
Warrior Poet (gives 10% increased health) (baked into cp)
Crafty Alfiq (just a whole bunch of magicka huh?)
Ayleid Refuge (11% damage reduction) (baked into cp and vampire also a basic aspect of most tank sets already out there)
Champion of the Hist (1 Ultimate per second while in combat) (Hide of the Werewolf generates more) (Dead-Water and Bog Raider generate more per death which stacks because most of the mobs are in groups)

I'd simply like to see these sets touched up you don't need to change anything but the 5th piece set ability. Make them fun or interesting. For Example, you could make Mother's Sorrow summon a rainstorm that does electrical damage up to 3 times with lightning bolts or it could summon a shadow that runs up and explodes doing damage.

Spriggan's Thorns could create a thorned vine that grabs the feet of the enemy for 5 seconds in a hold that also causes bleed damage and hemorrhage?

Akaviri could summon a giant sea snake to fight at your side for a few seconds snaring and poisoning your enemy.

BeeKeeper's Gear could summon a cloud of insects that cause bleeds or poison in much the same way that the Mirrormoor enemies summon them.

Crafty Alfiq could summon one that would cast a random elemental spell on the enemy before teleporting away say fire, lightning, or ice.

Fjord's could transform you into a dear when out of combat when you sprint causing animal mobs to ignore you.

Vampire Cloak could summon an army of rats/bats to stampeding your enemies biting and scratching and causing disease damage and hemorrhage.

It makes the game more interesting. Anyway I'm not complaining I'm just surprised I'm the only one who thinks of these things and I'd love to see the old world sets updates so they look and feel more interesting during combat.

Thanks!

spartaxoxo

Just when I had given up all hope on a slider, they pulled me back in. Reddit pointed out a comment most of us missed in April.

https://www.thegamer.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-creative-director-rich-lambert-10-year-anniversary-interview/

Of course, ten years means ESO has accrued its own veterans, and with One Tamriel stripping away the level restrictions and putting all zones - even new ones - on the same level playing field, many old-timers now find the game too easy. It’s an interesting contrast as ESO being too hard was what once pushed so many away.

“We do hear that feedback all the time,” Lambert says. “‘Give us a difficulty slider, let us do hard modes.’ There’s things we’re looking at but it’s not a simple problem because ten different people can play the game and they all play it ten different ways and it’s hard for some and easy for others. So we have to find the happy medium ground where the most amount of people can enjoy it.”

TaSheen

Well.... that speaks to them increasing overland difficulty in the last few releases I guess. No wonder I'm having a hard time with it.

CP5

I wouldn't get all that excited. If they were cooking up some grand 'difficulty slider' option, why would they intentionally ramp up zone difficulties, only to have to go back later to reduce it? Once a slider is in place, every zone will need to cleanly adhere to a baseline, since the slider would amplify any differences between them.

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

I wouldn't get all that excited. If they were cooking up some grand 'difficulty slider' option, why would they intentionally ramp up zone difficulties, only to have to go back later to reduce it? Once a slider is in place, every zone will need to cleanly adhere to a baseline, since the slider would amplify any differences between them.

I doubt it. They rarely go back and adjust old stuff. They'd just expect you to turn it off/down if it was too hard.

SilverBride

Keep in mind that suggestions are not always implemented the way the players expect.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

Keep in mind that suggestions are not always implemented the way the players expect.

This has been said multiple times. We all understand this. What matters in this moment is that we might see some measure of progress, in whatever form, which is miles better than nothing at all. We all hope they're actually listening to us about how specifically to handle this but at least they're talking about it.

Elsonso

Unfortunately, when I read the quote from Lambert, this suggests a contradiction:

“Give us a difficulty slider, let us do hard modes.’ There’s things we’re looking at but it’s not a simple problem..."

This suggests that they are looking at a slider.

"...ten different people can play the game and they all play it ten different ways and it’s hard for some and easy for others. So we have to find the happy medium ground where the most amount of people can enjoy it.”

In a slider situation, "happy medium" would be whatever the player sets the slider for. Instead, this sounds like they are trying for a difficulty level that is somewhere in the middle, and that would apply to everyone. Basically, what they are doing today.


Maybe they are working on a slider that they can use, but would not necessarily be available to the player? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

disky

CP5 wrote: »

I wouldn't get all that excited. If they were cooking up some grand 'difficulty slider' option, why would they intentionally ramp up zone difficulties, only to have to go back later to reduce it? Once a slider is in place, every zone will need to cleanly adhere to a baseline, since the slider would amplify any differences between them.

I wouldn't exclude the possibility. They may have thought of Gold Road as a test, and the backlash might serve as feedback for whatever they choose to do in the implementation of a real solution. I would like to believe (yeah, I know) that they're considering the entirety of overland when implementing this kind of change.

TaSheen

Elsonso wrote: »

Unfortunately, when I read the quote from Lambert, this suggests a contradiction:

“Give us a difficulty slider, let us do hard modes.’ There’s things we’re looking at but it’s not a simple problem..."

This suggests that they are looking at a slider.

"...ten different people can play the game and they all play it ten different ways and it’s hard for some and easy for others. So we have to find the happy medium ground where the most amount of people can enjoy it.”

In a slider situation, "happy medium" would be whatever the player sets the slider for. Instead, this sounds like they are trying for a difficulty level that is somewhere in the middle, and that would apply to everyone. Basically, what they are doing today.


Maybe they are working on a slider that they can use, but would not necessarily be available to the player? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actually after further thought yesterday, this is pretty much exactly what I decided they meant as well. I hate to say this so bluntly - but they are VERY good at "double non-speak".