Overland Content Feedback Thread

summ0004

I would like to see something done about overland or at the very least story bosses have some increased difficulty to make questing and exploration more engaging.

The whole purpose with RPGs is to feel like your character is improving and getting more powerful to overcome challenges, and in this game it doesnt really feel like this in the open world. I find we have a selection of 10 abililties that we can put on our bars, but it almost doesnt matter if to even use them if things die in a few light/heavy attacks.

I understand this is probably a difficult thing to balance to keep everyone happy, but something needs to be done to keep vet players interested.

For starters all the new content expansions released do very little for me and I have no interest in buying or playing them I can just click through them like im barely functional zombie. As a result I have not purchased any content in the last couple of offerings, and will not as I dont feel its good value for momey if I dont have a game I can actually play through.

StevieKingslayer

ixthUA wrote: »

Now that we have armory, veteran experts have no excuse not to try
- no companion
- no cp
- solo self found tank gear
overland.
I wonder how easy world bosses will be.

I already do all of this. It is easy. I have an etnire toon dedicated to this, shes not even wearing a set

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Sarannah wrote: »

StevieKingslayer wrote: »

I realize my sleep deprived mind read your comment a little wrongly, so editing to add in that in my proposed example, the veteran instance would be capped at a certain amount of players to help with the server capacity and ensure it doesn't put any extra strain on the already desperately needing to be replaced servers - Instead of just adding in a whole new server or anything like that. Then again I accept that none of us are programmers for zos, or technician experts for them, so if they could provide more insight into this, like a clear "no, we actually cant physically do this, then that would put alot of this to bed, not "we wont do it because people don't like it"

Just had to respond to this, as this idea would grant those in the overland veteran instance(s) a massive bonus to farming resources and mobs. Both the seperate instance part, and the capped players part. That should never ever happen!

Then do not allow farming nodes. Simple. It also would not be a massive advantage at any rate, since at the moment I see "veteran" players oneshotting everything and streaming ahead of the level 45 attempting to grab a wood node and stealing it from under them when they were struggling to fight a mob. So actually it -might- help. The main complaint I keep seeing repeated here is "I dont want to fight a mudcrab for five minutes" okay well if that were the case because of vet overland, how would that speed up farming if we are fighting a mudcrab for five minutes like so many suggest we would be apparently doing

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wrote:

summ0004 wrote: »

I would like to see something done about overland or at the very least story bosses have some increased difficulty to make questing and exploration more engaging.

I do not understand what a difficult mob has to do with questing and exploration, especially when not all quests even involve killing. And engaging is a feeling, not something that can be measured, so how do you quantify that?

summ0004 wrote: »

The whole purpose with RPGs is to feel like your character is improving and getting more powerful to overcome challenges...

[snip]

Because apart of exploration for us is stumbling upon challenges, that is how the game started and we understand that that is not how the game is now, but it would be nice to face anything and have to think. Engaging can be talking about the combat for some, and the overall quest writing for all. I personally dont think there is even enough quests in any of the new lands. I finish them in a day not speeding through, thats why I purposely dont do quests in new lands anymore till 2-3months later when theres no one around and its a dead zone. Blackwood for example. Did it all over 2 days, with breaks for dungeons/trials. I saw basically no one the entire time. Rather boring and plain, but your saying that's what vet instance would be like....well...at least then I'd have fun fighting something, since there was no players around anyway

[snip]

[Removed response to removed content]

SilverBride

wrote:

[snip]

There are a lot of players who are happy with overland in its current state and are actively supporting the game with subs and crown store purchases. It would be bad business to drive these players away for something that is not guaranteed to increase player satisfaction or bring significantly more players or revenue to the game.

[Edited to Remove quote]

Toxic_Hemlock

It seems to me there is a major divide in what would be even considered a compromise here.

Lets just say we have players, we will call them casuals, that play for the simple enjoyment of getting away from the hustle and bustle of the daily world. These players may like games like the sims, or old school adventure games like leisure suit Larry and puzzle games. They enjoy a good story and have many alts that can play and replay the different zones.

Then we have the hardcore players, we will call them the elites, they play games for the challenge and are always striving to become better at such. These players enjoy games like dark souls, FPS games, and are more often found dueling and playing PvP. They use terms like parse, animation cancelling, rotation, and a slew of others that hold little to no interest to the casual crowd.

In between we have all the varying colors of the rainbow and as such it become quite confusing, even to some of the players as to what would make them happiest.

So I ask you, with such a diverse player base, how the hell can you make everyone happy?

My answer is of course you can't.
Unless the entire world becomes instanced or everyone has to settle for being a clone of everyone else this becomes a very circular argument. I don't think any side is right or wrong here, although I like it to be casual I just wanted to point out that there are as many different styles of people playing so try to understand others play the game too. /soapbox.

edit: punctuation

Franchise408

SilverBride wrote: »

[snip]

There are a lot of players who are happy with overland in its current state and are actively supporting the game with subs and crown store purchases. It would be bad business to drive these players away for something that is not guaranteed to increase player satisfaction or bring significantly more players or revenue to the game.

And there are a lot of players who aren't happy with overland in it's current state, and are actively supporting the game with subs and crown store purchases. It would also be bad business to drive these players away by insisting on keeping the status quo and refusing to evolve a game within a genre that necessitates evolution.

[Edited to Remove Quote]

Psiion

Greetings all,

Once again, after removing some posts derailing the conversation, we would like to remind everyone to keep the discussion on the topic of Overland Content. If you feel another member is Baiting or otherwise violating the ESO Forum's Community Rules, please refrain from further derailing the thread by calling them out, instead we ask that you report the posts for the moderation team to review and handle.

The Forums are intended to be a place for civil and respectful conversation. If you do not have something constructive to add to the thread, we strongly suggest finding another thread to participate in.

You can review the Forum's Community Rules in full here.

Amottica

Franchise408 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

[snip]

There are a lot of players who are happy with overland in its current state and are actively supporting the game with subs and crown store purchases. It would be bad business to drive these players away for something that is not guaranteed to increase player satisfaction or bring significantly more players or revenue to the game.

And there are a lot of players who aren't happy with overland in it's current state, and are actively supporting the game with subs and crown store purchases. It would also be bad business to drive these players away by insisting on keeping the status quo and refusing to evolve a game within a genre that necessitates evolution.

[Edited to Remove Quote]

And Zenimax is not interested in driving those players away. Rich specifically said they made WBs more challenging for players interested in finding a challenge in overland. He also stated that the data indicated that the huge majority of polayes are not interested in a challenge when they quest which is why the game is designed as it is since One Tamriel. RIch also noted that this current design has lead to the game becoming more successful than it has ever been.

So they did address the smaller portion of the player base interested in more of a challenge while noting how the game became much more popular and successful when they went to the easier overland.

This also means the business people, the ones who make the final decision, are happy with the game as it is. It has nothing to do with players' opinions if they want it or not, but if it is worth it. Zenimax does not seem to think so and this is based on their actual words and has nothing to do with my opinion on the matter. In a previous post I linked the thread that has the interview with Rich that I have based this on.

hmr13.76preeb18_ESO

It is clear that at the moment it is almost impossible to change something globally in the game. In future updates, it makes sense to make the difficulty slightly higher. To prevent players from falling asleep while completing the quest chain.
Now let's talk about complex content. And it's not about 12-person challenges and 4-person dungeons. Everything is quite normal there.
I want to propose. Who has long remembered the difficulty level of the Maelstrom arena in the game when it first appeared in content? Do you remember the half-prince Fa-Nuit-Hen? I propose to make a continuation of this story. Fa-Nuit-Hen is a martial artist who wants to create a Vortex Army of Interdimensional Mercenaries - "“ It's fun to train warriors and heroes, but owning your own army is even more fun! We can become interdimensional mercenaries! "
Who better than Fa-Nuit-Hen to challenge all Daedric princes, challenge his best warrior to a duel with the best warriors of every Daedric prince? Boethiah I think would not refuse to watch such fights. And other princes too ...
So the content itself. This is a whole layer of content. Each new arena belongs to one of the Daedra princes, includes 12 circles. Each solo arena owned by one of the princes is a separate adventure! Separate addition. There are 16 solo arenas (according to the number of princes) with 12 rounds in each. To get to the first arena - The challenge can only be passed on the veteran Maelstrom arena mode. (trigger availability of achievement). And so for each subsequent arena (there is an achievement-pass). NO NORMAL MODE! This is a special feature of these arenas! I do not know what rewards (except for achievements and titles to give to the player), but I can offer for completing each arena a Maelstrom Weapon Enhancement Crystal - for one weapon only (make your choice carefully, which weapon you want to enhance) Maelstrom staff or Maelstrom sword? The choice is yours. Enhancement crystal - it will enhance your weapon (its unique Maelstrom property) by 6.25% when you pass all 16 arenas (and this will not be very soon) you will enhance your favorite Maelstrom weapon by 100%. After completing the final sixteenth arena - Challenge, you will receive the Outfit of the Master of the Whirlwind Army. I think it will be the most harmonious Daedric image, like the blade of a blade. Better than the emperor's outfit and generally the best in the game. For developers, there are many examples in fan mods for the Scrolls series - HOW A REALLY BEAUTIFUL DAEDRIC ARMOR SHOULD LOOK.
The complexity of this content is simple - IT WILL REALLY GET DIFFICULT! If you want to receive an award, be worthy of it!
“The rules are simple: victory or death. Enter the arena, defeat all opponents, then move on to the next one.
Manage to get through all the arenas, and I will offer you a place among my officers. Well, are you interested? Or will you return to Tamriel to fight the mud crabs? "- semi-prince Fa-Nuit-Hen.
P.S-Text with errors and repetitions, not editable. This is how the forum editor works.

Toxic_Hemlock

hmr13.76preeb18_ESO wrote: »

...Large Snip
Manage to get through all the arenas, and I will offer you a place among my officers. Well, are you interested? Or will you return to Tamriel to fight the mud crabs? "- semi-prince Fa-Nuit-Hen.

Well Mud Crabs do drop chitin fairly often that can be worth good gold.
Also I won't die to one, nor do I need to practice to kill one, so I guess you got my answer there Prince.

Seminolegirl1992

Faulgor wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

tonyblack wrote: »

Your evidence is not less anecdotal than mine

Yes. It is. Rich Lambert works for Bethesda, you do not.

Here's a more official quote

As for the extra difficulty, that's something our playerbase has talked about for a long time. A lot of our original players forget that we had that with [Cadwell's Gold and Silver] way back when. The feedback that we got about that was they didn't like it. It wasn't fun. The extra difficulty wasn't what they wanted. They wanted to enjoy the story. It's a catch-22."

From Matt Firor in an official interview.

Sorry, but it's objectively true.

Being in the minority doesn't mean nothing should be done, so that's not what I am saying.

I find Firor's statement a bit condescending tbh - it's precisely the original players that did not forget what the game was like shortly after release, and the issues with Cadwell zones and Craglorn were more numerous than their difficulty.

For Cadwell in particular, one main issue was that you could go there only after finishing the main quest and reaching max level, which effectively presented these zones as endgame content. But you could experience that same content just by creating a new character in that alliance, which most players chose instead. Being able to do what a level 1 character can do is a poor carrot for endgame players.

Craglorn stumbled mainly over the forced grouping for quests, which meant you had to find people at the exact quest stage you were at to continue the story. Most people didn't even bother with that, and just stuck to grinding anomalies and world events for EXP.

Which ties into the problem of the whole reward structure of the game at the time, mainly that it didn't exist. VR ranks always felt like "sorry we don't have any more levels for you, here are some astronomical exp bars to fill" which made any content past level 50 feel so, so arduous. The only reason you'd want to rank up anyway was to beat higher VR rank mobs in the Cadwell and Craglorn zones, which, as said above, made poor endgame content for other reasons than just their difficulty.
In terms of items or cosmetic rewards, there was also virtually nothing. Crafted sets were superior anyway, by design.
If the only content the game offers is questing, and I can do it on a new character at level 1 or with an old character after weeks of grinding VR rank exp, of course I'm not going to bother.

When Matt Firor says that people didn't like the difficulty in those old zones, he is technically correct. But that is only part of the picture, because they particularly didn't like that the content wasn't worth the effort. It should be mentioned that at the same time, people were complaining massively that there was effectively no worthwhile endgame content at all, which is why ZOS tried to fill that gap with trials and new veteran dungeons (the base game veteran dungeons weren't that difficult at release far as I recall. City of Ash 2 was a real spike in difficulty, yet due to power creep is easier today than most DLC dungeons), but these also came too slow to keep players around or where not what players were looking for - highly coordinated 12 man raids with hour long play sessions aren't for everyone, even if they look for a challenge. Hence the addition of Maelstrom arena, etc etc.

So even at a time when he says that people didn't want more difficult content, they kept releasing more difficult content. Not to mention that even the non-Cadwell zones then were harder than they are today. There is also a lot of content in the game today that is vastly more difficult than the old Cadwell zones ever were, and people still do it. ZOS still bangs out 4 group dungeons with veteran hardmodes each year.

You could point out that there is a difference in expected difficulty between story and group content, but that just shows that the answer isn't that simple. Just like there are still people who want to experience group content in a story mode (which gets requested about as often), there are people who want to experience the story content at a higher difficulty.
Separating content difficulty by content type - hard instanced group dungeons vs easy story content - was a decision that ZOS made, and I think there is enough player demand for some cross-over there.

This^^^ for those who want to keep bringing up Rich or any other quote. Craglorn and the VR system was not rewarding and was quite arduous, to quote my friend here. Content not worth the effort. Forced grouping for Craglorn at exact quest stage. And crafted gear being superior (heck I remember the days of Julianos being crowded around and people paying for you to craft for them). *Of course* it wasn't popular. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Hallothiel

Of those asking for vet overland, how many of you play on PC?

And if so, do you use add-ons?

(Not baiting, genuine question to clarify)

LashanW

Hallothiel wrote: »

Of those asking for vet overland, how many of you play on PC?

And if so, do you use add-ons?

Yes to both.

sorcmag01

One point I think I understand, Eso is not about how hard or how easy content is, it's about its world content and lore within. Lets not waste recourses on old content in Overland imo.

However, I think Cyrodiil needs to be front and center "NOW" and rise to the level that PVE content currently is, so it's more enjoyable. I am PVE, not PVP, however. I have read in this forum that PVP needs fixes, quests, drops, less lag, gear drops that meets PVP game play, and finally, balance skills between players, so why change Overland when Cyrodiil needs it so badly.

Cyrodiil should be a ZOS priority imo, so not to waste money and time on old content. Without a descent PVP option, ESO will never populate correctly imo. This would help PVP and PVE population.

I would love to see large World PVP battel events, like other top games have. A hundred count battle is so much fun, and dying in one is no big deal, because it is expected, plus, it's a good learning tool. Overland is where we live and level up, and Cyrodiil is not anywhere close to that for PVP players imo. Cyrodiil needs some TLC, and that is a fact imo.

colossalvoids

Can't say I disagree with post above.

Honestly if pvp was working like a clock not many people would complain about overland as we were occupied enough there before, it was my personal endgame outside of group pve before and overland was a one time deal kind of outside of leveling alts most of the time.

But it's not currently, so my crave for HM banners at main quest bosses still as desirable as before.

Toxic_Hemlock

sorcmag01 wrote: »

One point I think I understand, Eso is not about how hard or how easy content is, it's about its world content and lore within. Lets not waste recourses on old content in Overland imo.

However, I think Cyrodiil needs to be front and center "NOW" and rise to the level that PVE content currently is, so it's more enjoyable. I am PVE, not PVP, however. I have read in this forum that PVP needs fixes, quests, drops, less lag, gear drops that meets PVP game play, and finally, balance skills between players, so why change Overland when Cyrodiil needs it so badly.

Cyrodiil should be a ZOS priority imo, so not to waste money and time on old content. Without a descent PVP option, ESO will never populate correctly imo. This would help PVP and PVE population.

I would love to see large World PVP battel events, like other top games have. A hundred count battle is so much fun, and dying in one is no big deal, because it is expected, plus, it's a good learning tool. Overland is where we live and level up, and Cyrodiil is not anywhere close to that for PVP players imo. Cyrodiil needs some TLC, and that is a fact imo.

As a very casual PvE player myself than doesn't even go into PvP anymore (mount speed) I agree with this 100% although I have no skin in the PvP game at all. If ZOS were to breathe much more life into that game mode it might make those that want a tougher experience in PvE focus there instead. I wouldn't even mind if next years expansion was focused there as it seems by all the posts I read about PvP it is sorely needed. Giving up a yearly expansion seems to be an extremely fair tradeoff to me and as I have quite the few alts I still need to get map completion for anyways.

I'll admit my motives for this are selfish, but if it gives many of the elite players a reason to stay subbed it is a plus for everyone IMO.

edit: few spelling errors

chaz

Hmmm, I slightly may post about overland things and stuff. Not to confuse with Honolulu's Eggs & Stuff. I for one, like a few sets farmed from overland. I like the set bonuses and they be somewhat fairly decent. Some of the look and design of the armor looks ok, and some are just plain ugly. Thank goodness for skins right.

Now, I don't know if this should be added but some overland suits can look a little better. Yu know, ever pick up a costume and start wearing it, and it looks like slap. Yea, that's the one.

While on this subject, those things are just part of the costume slot, when are these going to get a perma status in the game?

Examples:

[Appearance] Tab:





Versus the:

[Costume] Tab:



I'm fairly certain that the appearance tab take up inventory whereas the Costume tab does not. I only ask because these too are overland stuff, and only show up in the appearance tab where you keep and store your guild tabbard. And you destroy them, you have to go out and look for them all over again and cannot be recreated of copied to a costume look with that nifty little [Outfit Station].

Meaning, if I were to destroy oh say, the shadowsilk Gem for example to save item space on my toon. I cannot make that look in the outfit station, and would thus have to find out where I got that overland item from and try to get it again if thats even possible. Some of those I believe are quest items and can only be obtained during a quest, once quest is over, good luck, you need another toon to restart said quest to get that item again.

Im not too sure but I think at one time we could bank these thus we could share them with toons account wide, now they just be stuck on a toon within the appearance tab from the toons inventory wallet. Or I could be wrong.

EDIT:
Yes, I do have some of these in the bank:




Anyway, thanks for letting me get in on this conversation.

Bye Now.

Seminolegirl1992

LashanW wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

StevieKingslayer wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

So, has anyone defined or agreed upon what vOL is yet, or is it still an undefined thought that will never happen?

The exact definition is not needed. We are spitballing ideas to get traction on our perceived issue, we are not a guild or a community on discord or anything, we have nothing organized, though it is an interesting point, maybe we should be . It is for the devs to decide if it is worthy of hearing or not, and what constitutes change and doesn't. It appears that most of us on the vOL side are happy with optional toggle/difficulty meter for us. I would say the close second is at least challenge banners for bosses. I think even just one step in a direction towards us would be nice, and I could live with that, a show of good faith or something. But thats just me personally, others may feel differently

Well actually, a definition of what you are asking for is needed, otherwise the devs have no clue what you what.

Perhaps. But if devs wanted a clear definition they would ask for the specifics via mods here or via a survey. We don't need to explain implementation level details and justify our stance to other forum users as if they are the devs. I don't see the point of answering to people who make assumptions on what sort of information devs need. We give feedback about our current experience and some suggestions, it's up to the devs to figure out how to solve it.

People had issues for a long time with regards to the pains of obtaining and keeping gear with correct traits, and the devs came up with brilliant solutions such as transmutation, set reconstruction system and now curated drops (my hats off to the devs for this stuff btw, bloody amazing job ). Players didn't provide the solution details there, devs came up with it.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Is it the entire Overland or just the stories?

I will just answer this one (and it's my opinion, I'm not a representative of any form of group to say it's a general consensus ). I want difficulty of the stories to be increased (must be optional tho). Quite a bit of quests involve certain overland mobs (the ones in camps and abandoned towns, castles etc, basically overland area where the quest occur) So those mobs should be affected too. Quest bosses definitely need to be affected. I'd be very happy if the big bad guy of the zone has an instanced difficulty of the same level as a veteran base game dungeon boss (maybe HM scroll included)

I don't really care about the difficulty of world bosses, incursions (things like dolmens, geysers, harrowstorms etc.) as they are not directly involved in zone story quests. I just want to experience the stories with combat gameplay that actually matters. (30k HP enemies that do an attack once every 5 seconds and when that attack does like 100 damage, is not in anyway interesting to me)

Oooh that would be so much fun. The story boss being vet dungeon boss level with a hm scroll. An actual fight for once, easily soloable

Seminolegirl1992

Toxic_Hemlock wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

Questing in Overland feels like I am one punch man! At CP 1200+ almost every mob we face has less hp than our dps numbers. They have made us more powerful every update for years but haven't changed overland. The power creep is real and they need to find a solution, right now many people have 125% crit damage and over 50% crit chance. As others have said we are just customers it's their job to figure out what to do. I understand they have to keep around the role players that only play an hour a week, but they also have to keep around the people that have had ESO+ for 6 years.

Maybe we are just overthinking it here. The devs could easily add an option to the overland to zero out all the CP (except maybe crafting). As they do this for cyrodiil now I don't think it would require much dev work. Even if the fights would still be easy to some, you would definitely feel the difference without the warfare buffs.

Maybe all that is needed is the ability to revert yourself voluntarily to a fresh lvl 50. It would still cause problems with others coming along and destroying your targets, but at least it would not require much dev time IMO.

Well..problem with that is even without cp the game is laughable. I don't have higher than a level ten character on my pc eu account and I can fist fight things to death. Of course no cp on that account either since it's the other server

Sylvermynx

Seminolegirl1992 wrote: »

Well..problem with that is even without cp the game is laughable. I don't have higher than a level ten character on my pc eu account and I can fist fight things to death. Of course no cp on that account either since it's the other server

Must be nice. I can't even begin to fathom that, much less approach it on my characters.

AlexanderDeLarge

Khenarthi wrote: »

My 2 cents, from another thread:

I'm not opposed to OPTIONAL harder overland as long as there are NO extra rewards. Then the people who want a challenge can have it, and people like me who enjoy the current easygoing difficulty won't feel pressured to join the hard mode for extra goodies. Win-Win.

Why shouldn't there be additional rewards? When I do veteran dungeons, I get extra rewards. When I do veteran trials, I get extra rewards. When I do veteran arenas, I get extra rewards. Why should a proposed veteran overland be different? It's very strange that of all things, a veteran overland player being rewarded for completing content at an increased difficulty is a step too far for some.

As stated in the previous thread I think I would be fine with some sort of debuff memento with an XP gain/gold modifier in the interim while they gather data and figure something else out long term. I would suggest looking at Warframe's Steel Path mode for inspiration on how they could use a global modifier for a veteran difficulty toggle and how to adequately reward players.

Jeremy wrote: »

I'm not talking about the Veteran Zones. I am talking about before that. You were already level 50 when you started doing those.

The problem with the Veteran Zones was you had to grind those ranks and that drove a lot of people away. It killed my first guild in fact and made them all quit. lol

It's strange to see so much revisionism when it comes to The Elder Scrolls Online's launch state. Sure, it had linear progression and a higher difficulty level but it also had broken grouping mechanics when a group-mandatory zone released and one of the most tedious endgame progression systems I've seen in all of MMOs and let's not act like the base game's content is attractive enough to warrant playing through another faction's zones... but harder .

People had plenty of reasons to quit the game back then and Cadwell Silver/Gold and Craglorn are pretty damn low on that list of reasons why. TESO 2021 is obviously a very different game than what it was in 2014 and quite frankly I find the argument that 'well we had cadwell silver/gold and craglorn and people didn't like it' incredibly disingenuous to say the least.

Toxic_Hemlock

Seminolegirl1992 wrote: »

Toxic_Hemlock wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

Questing in Overland feels like I am one punch man! At CP 1200+ almost every mob we face has less hp than our dps numbers. They have made us more powerful every update for years but haven't changed overland. The power creep is real and they need to find a solution, right now many people have 125% crit damage and over 50% crit chance. As others have said we are just customers it's their job to figure out what to do. I understand they have to keep around the role players that only play an hour a week, but they also have to keep around the people that have had ESO+ for 6 years.

Maybe we are just overthinking it here. The devs could easily add an option to the overland to zero out all the CP (except maybe crafting). As they do this for cyrodiil now I don't think it would require much dev work. Even if the fights would still be easy to some, you would definitely feel the difference without the warfare buffs.

Maybe all that is needed is the ability to revert yourself voluntarily to a fresh lvl 50. It would still cause problems with others coming along and destroying your targets, but at least it would not require much dev time IMO.

Well..problem with that is even without cp the game is laughable. I don't have higher than a level ten character on my pc eu account and I can fist fight things to death. Of course no cp on that account either since it's the other server

The problem with this statement is that up until lvl 50 you are given a ton of extra help though the Battle leveling introduced in One Tamriel. A starting character, in order to compete in the open world, is given some nice increases in their ability to do damage. Try a dolman @ lvl 3 (starting level more or less) as a DPS and see if you don't do enough damage in Alik'r for kill credit and you will see this boost in action.

After lvl 50 you begin to feel the need for armor and good weapons more (The sweet spot for challenge). As you approach CP160 you become more powerful, and things die quicker. If you are feeling powerful with a fresh level 10 then that is to be expected. Now if you take that same level 10 and add in say 2000CP then of course it would become laughable for you, but as a fresh level 10 without allocated CP, I am sorry you are not playing the same game as the rest of us as you are given the leveling boost.

My post was not meant as a total cure, but more of a possibly easily implemented band-aid to give players a way to make overland more difficult to those that want it.

Edit: clarity

DarcyMardin

Here since the beginning when the overland world was indeed a lot harder. I fall somewhere in the middle of this debate because 1. I’m a daily, but casual gamer, and 2. I have started over with second and third accounts and found the overland considerably harder for characters with no gear or CP.

So I agree that the current “way too easy” is rather boring and unrewarding, particularly in what should be epic fights, like the entire main quest and some of the local skill point story quests. But for the sake of the new and the perennially casual players, I would not like to see the overland scaled up to veteran dungeon levels, *unless* that were somehow optional (some choice on difficulty level).

More choice would be great, if technically possible.

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

People had plenty of reasons to quit the game back then and Cadwell Silver/Gold and Craglorn are pretty damn low on that list of reasons why. TESO 2021 is obviously a very different game than what it was in 2014 and quite frankly I find the argument that 'well we had cadwell silver/gold and craglorn and people didn't like it' incredibly disingenuous to say the least.

A lot of our original players forget that we had that with [Cadwell's Gold and Silver] way back when. The feedback that we got about that was they didn't like it. It wasn't fun. The extra difficulty wasn't what they wanted. They wanted to enjoy the story. It's a catch-22."

Typical example of the feedback received



"...It was far more difficult and unenjoyable than any game should be."

Other stuff also being problems =/= difficulty wasn't explicitly commonly identified as a problem too. One piece of feedback does not negate another. Other stuff may have also been issues but people also did not like the difficulty.

Nothing disingenuous about the devs citing both feedback and play data they commonly received.

Edit
Their game was gonna die and they were very intent on figuring out why and fixing it. They know better than all of us what the issues were because they studied feedback and play data intensely back then. It was their job. And their fixes completely turned the game around.

AlexanderDeLarge

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

People had plenty of reasons to quit the game back then and Cadwell Silver/Gold and Craglorn are pretty damn low on that list of reasons why. TESO 2021 is obviously a very different game than what it was in 2014 and quite frankly I find the argument that 'well we had cadwell silver/gold and craglorn and people didn't like it' incredibly disingenuous to say the least.

A lot of our original players forget that we had that with [Cadwell's Gold and Silver] way back when. The feedback that we got about that was they didn't like it. It wasn't fun. The extra difficulty wasn't what they wanted. They wanted to enjoy the story. It's a catch-22."

Typical example of the feedback received



"...It was far more difficult and unenjoyable than any game should be."

Other stuff also being problems =/= difficulty wasn't explicitly commonly identified as a problem too. One piece of feedback does not negate another. Other stuff may have also been issues but people also did not like the difficulty.

Nothing disingenuous about the devs citing both feedback and play data they commonly received.

Edit
Their game was gonna die and they were very intent on figuring out why and fixing it. They know better than all of us what the issues were because they studied feedback and play data intensely back then. It was their job. And their fixes completely turned the game around.

I've always said Aldmeri Dominion zones are terrible and you're using that post to prove your point? Greenshade is arguably the worst zone in the game. Frankly you'd have to pay me to go through Aldmeri Dominion's zone quests in a veteran overland and I'm one of the biggest advocates for the introduction of a veteran overland system. The game has easily doubled or tripled in size. The content has substantially improved since the base game's release too so why is this even being used as an argument?

It is absolutely disingenuous to cite 'data' collected from 2014 back when the game was blatantly broken in numerous ways, had linear zone progression (as mentioned, those zones weren't great and I wouldn't wish them on anybody), before we even had Champion Points which is responsible for the power creep necessitating the veteran overland and before we had 15+ content releases including five paid expansion packs.

The game is unrecognizable from 2014 and it's ridiculous to suggest that 'data', whatever that means, despite all those differences is still somehow relevant. It's been over five years since One Tamriel released which is essentially the equivalent of Final Fantasy 14's A Realm Reborn relaunch.

How is 'data' gathered from 1.0 relevant when we're on version 7.1? Hell, how is that 'data' relevant past the relaunch of the game (v2.6)?

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

How is 'data' gathered from 1.0 relevant when we're on version 7.1? Hell, how is that 'data' relevant past the relaunch of the game (v2.6)?[/b]

Because y'all keep bringing it up to say that the data about back then is wrong. If you want to say he's doing revisionist history back then, then it bears stating that no he isn't. And showcasing the type of feedback he heard which explicitly cited difficulty as an issue.

Outdated? Sure. But that's a goalpost move. What I was specifically addressing was that his quote is revisionist.

hafgood

I haven't read all the posts and have no interest in doing so but just wanted to add my opinion.

I'm all for Quest bosses scaling to the player rather than the player scaling to the boss. Make them more difficult so they really are the big bad.

As for anything else? Not convinced.

How hard is hard? One person's hard is another person's easy. So the problem that i see is a harder overland is still going to be seen as easy by those who one shot everything, Double health? 2 hits, makes no difference to then.

So how hard do you make it.

Do you amend existing zones or just limit to new zones? I personally would start with a Craglorn mark 2 zone. A zone where the content is difficult for 75% of players, where they need to group up to complete it, where the top 25% can solo it with a little difficulty. See how that goes, do the we want a harder overland go there? How much is it used? It can be used to gauge the real interest in harder overland content.

Anything else is a waste of time.

spartaxoxo

hafgood wrote: »

Do you amend existing zones or just limit to new zones? I personally would start with a Craglorn mark 2 zone. A zone where the content is difficult for 75% of players, where they need to group up to complete it, where the top 25% can solo it with a little difficulty. See how that goes, do the we want a harder overland go there? How much is it used? It can be used to gauge the real interest in harder overland content.

Anything else is a waste of time.

I really doubt they'll ever make a vet overland, but if they do I think it should be tuned around the same level of VVH. I don't see a point in doing something like Crag level difficulty. That place is a total face roll for even only slightly above average players. VVH has nothing that's unsoloable but is decently hard and has a lot of mechs.

Blackbird_V

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

My 2 cents, from another thread:

I'm not opposed to OPTIONAL harder overland as long as there are NO extra rewards. Then the people who want a challenge can have it, and people like me who enjoy the current easygoing difficulty won't feel pressured to join the hard mode for extra goodies. Win-Win.

Why shouldn't there be additional rewards? When I do veteran dungeons, I get extra rewards. When I do veteran trials, I get extra rewards. When I do veteran arenas, I get extra rewards. Why should a proposed veteran overland be different? It's very strange that of all things, a veteran overland player being rewarded for completing content at an increased difficulty is a step too far for some.

As stated in the previous thread I think I would be fine with some sort of debuff memento with an XP gain/gold modifier in the interim while they gather data and figure something else out long term. I would suggest looking at Warframe's Steel Path mode for inspiration on how they could use a global modifier for a veteran difficulty toggle and how to adequately reward players.

Jeremy wrote: »

I'm not talking about the Veteran Zones. I am talking about before that. You were already level 50 when you started doing those.

The problem with the Veteran Zones was you had to grind those ranks and that drove a lot of people away. It killed my first guild in fact and made them all quit. lol

It's strange to see so much revisionism when it comes to The Elder Scrolls Online's launch state. Sure, it had linear progression and a higher difficulty level but it also had broken grouping mechanics when a group-mandatory zone released and one of the most tedious endgame progression systems I've seen in all of MMOs and let's not act like the base game's content is attractive enough to warrant playing through another faction's zones... but harder .

People had plenty of reasons to quit the game back then and Cadwell Silver/Gold and Craglorn are pretty damn low on that list of reasons why. TESO 2021 is obviously a very different game than what it was in 2014 and quite frankly I find the argument that 'well we had cadwell silver/gold and craglorn and people didn't like it' incredibly disingenuous to say the least.

I think it's genuinely (and not baiting here) jealousy that they'd not be *good* enough to participate and get more rewards. I mean sure, it's true, but we'd need rewards catered to us for sure. I personally am asking for small things, like extra materials after a quest, or from treasure chests (that cannot be force opened) that give like 5-7 unrefined materials, along with more experience and some achievements. I'd personally love skins as well tbh, but so many people would complain that they'd not add it (because gl getting carried in solo quest instances for it)

As stated in the previous thread I think I would be fine with some sort of debuff memento with an XP gain/gold modifier in the interim

I do disagree with you here. That is not a good enough solution, since many others can come and whack mobs. Also, a lot of people would not want to opt for this solution if they added it.

Hallothiel

I think it's genuinely (and not baiting here) jealousy that they'd not be *good* enough to participate and get more rewards. I mean sure, it's true, but we'd need rewards catered to us for sure.

Nope. Have to really disagree with you here.

Those that want a vet whatever have frequently stated its about the challenge, not the reward. So that should be sufficient. Surely?

Vet versions of dungeons & trials are already part of how they design the game, and the rewards are part of this. But you don’t have to do vet versions to get them - due to the sticker book, you can get the gear in normal versions, and monster heads are available for AP (if have patience, granted).

And personally I am quite capable of doing difficult vet content. But on the whole it bores me.

hafgood

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I really doubt they'll ever make a vet overland, but if they do I think it should be tuned around the same level of VVH. I don't see a point in doing something like Crag level difficulty. That place is a total face roll for even only slightly above average players. VVH has nothing that's unsoloable but is decently hard and has a lot of mechs.

People want a challenge (at least they claim they do) so a dedicated challenging zone would fit the brief and enable Zos to gauge the interest in it. Yet as soon as I suggest this people want it watered down.

Seems to me people want more rewards for little extra work, rather than the extra work they claim they want.

And surely Crag level difficulty is exactly what's needed, let's see the harder overland crew proof how good they are and how active they can make a zone dedicated to their needs. And if they can't then it shows that what's said on the forums is all hot air.