Overland Content Feedback Thread

disky

Muizer wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Out of boredom I 'undressed' my stamblade questing through Vvardenfell. With just her attribtute points, a mundus stone, a bow and a two-handed sword (green, no enchants) I found the Public Dungeon bosses to be roughly at the right difficulty.

With no cp, armor, jewelry, food or potions, I found the most interesting bit added to combat was the lack of stamina regen. It really adds to the combat when you have to be careful how and when you expend those limited resources. Much more important for the dynamic than hitpoints and damage alone.

That's still not an acceptable solution, though. Builds are one of the things that people who enjoy combat also find to be integral to the experience, and forcing a player to remove all of the progress they've made just to have a good time goes against the spirit of the game. We should have the option to feel challenged while fighting with at full strength.

It was more of an experiment to see if by tweaking stats the current fly-swatting encounters can be turned into fun ones at all. I didn't want to just assume that. There could be other factors at play to make overland encounters boring. Quite a few still are, but otoh mob and boss special abilities that could be safely ignored actually start to matter. So there's an actual game there, if you get my drift.

Oh, I understand, I wasn't trying to criticize you, I was just making the point clear because this has been presented as a "solution" when it's not. So we have to oppose it because it's easy for some people to say "well, this is obvious, just don't use a proper build, job done".

TaSheen

@disky - it's my understanding of some players' positions that they like overland the way it is because they are "gods" and can flyswat their way across the zones. I don't see that a slider "deconstructs" that, but it may be that there's a disconnect in definitions?

In my case, I don't do the whole "godlike" thing - because I have too much in the way (various issues) to ever be "godlike". I just like overland to not get in my way when I need to go do something. Up until Galen, overland was perfect for my needs - since Galen, not so much.

However, I'm about done with the whole discussion: everything up to Galen (well, with the minor exception of the Deadlands, and that's more just because I hate the place) is workable for me, so except for grabbing skyshards and wayshrines and surveys in new content, I'll just stick my aging abilities to all the zones before Galen, and call it a day. That way I'm not in anyone's way or face over it.

There really is plenty to do, so it's not actually an issue. It won't even be an issue (for me) if new content gets harder and harder - it will only become an issue if they go back and redo older content to make it harder. At that point, it will be (for me) back to Skyrim and Oblivion. I would miss ESO, but I'm not going to beat my head (and my "inabilities") on stuff that's guaranteed to cause me issues....

disky

TaSheen wrote: »

@disky - it's my understanding of some players' positions that they like overland the way it is because they are "gods" and can flyswat their way across the zones. I don't see that a slider "deconstructs" that, but it may be that there's a disconnect in definitions?

In my case, I don't do the whole "godlike" thing - because I have too much in the way (various issues) to ever be "godlike". I just like overland to not get in my way when I need to go do something. Up until Galen, overland was perfect for my needs - since Galen, not so much.

That's also understandable and valid. I wasn't trying to exclude your point of view, I was just addressing SilverBride's position.

TaSheen wrote: »

There really is plenty to do, so it's not actually an issue. It won't even be an issue (for me) if new content gets harder and harder - it will only become an issue if they go back and redo older content to make it harder. At that point, it will be (for me) back to Skyrim and Oblivion. I would miss ESO, but I'm not going to beat my head (and my "inabilities") on stuff that's guaranteed to cause me issues....

I'm glad you're so accepting of change, but I think that ZOS could put forth a little more effort to even out difficulty across overland and then provide a way to increase the challenge for those who want it. That would be, in my opinion, the most proper way to handle things, and once the initial work is done it should be much easier to manage going forward.

colossalvoids

I'd agree that if newer zones feel more difficult for some players there's no reason for that to remain in current state, it should be even as every single zone is a leveling ground too and some might be less capable than others, obviously. But people who like "solve the game" approach should be able to start with more appropriate challenge level right away, also.

SilverBride

disky wrote: »

We are on the same page. I just said it that way because I'm speaking from the perspective of a player who believes the overland game is too easy.

It is one thing to say "I believe overland is too easy" because this identifies the statement as the player's own personal opinion. It's something completely different to say "Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

Is it easy? In many ways, yes. Is it too easy? Not if the goal is for overland to be doable by all players.

As far as being functional, overland is not broken if it still maintains its functionality. Players are able to do quests, and fight trash mobs, and run delves and dolmens (and Geysers etc.) and all the other overland content. Players may enjoy this as it is, or may think it's too easy or too difficult but it's still functioning as intended, therefore is not broken.

The debate in this thread is one of player preference, not a broken system (which it isn't).

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

We are on the same page. I just said it that way because I'm speaking from the perspective of a player who believes the overland game is too easy.

It is one thing to say "I believe overland is too easy" because this identifies the statement as the player's own personal opinion. It's something completely different to say "Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

Is it easy? In many ways, yes. Is it too easy? Not if the goal is for overland to be doable by all players.

As far as being functional, overland is not broken if it still maintains its functionality. Players are able to do quests, and fight trash mobs, and run delves and dolmens (and Geysers etc.) and all the other overland content. Players may enjoy this as it is, or may think it's too easy or too difficult but it's still functioning as intended, therefore is not broken.

The debate in this thread is one of player preference, not a broken system (which it isn't).

I'm not going to debate this. You know my position.

SilverBride

Just explaining why I find it very frustrating to hear overland described that way.

Theist_VII

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/624269/eso-developer-deep-dive-core-combat-values/p1

SilverBride

That states that many actions are not affected by global cooldowns so the player can remain active in combat. It also talks about character builds and execution, and it mentions group builds specifically. I don't see anything specific to overland or its difficulty mentioned.

TaSheen

disky wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

@disky - it's my understanding of some players' positions that they like overland the way it is because they are "gods" and can flyswat their way across the zones. I don't see that a slider "deconstructs" that, but it may be that there's a disconnect in definitions?

In my case, I don't do the whole "godlike" thing - because I have too much in the way (various issues) to ever be "godlike". I just like overland to not get in my way when I need to go do something. Up until Galen, overland was perfect for my needs - since Galen, not so much.

That's also understandable and valid. I wasn't trying to exclude your point of view, I was just addressing SilverBride's position.

TaSheen wrote: »

There really is plenty to do, so it's not actually an issue. It won't even be an issue (for me) if new content gets harder and harder - it will only become an issue if they go back and redo older content to make it harder. At that point, it will be (for me) back to Skyrim and Oblivion. I would miss ESO, but I'm not going to beat my head (and my "inabilities") on stuff that's guaranteed to cause me issues....

I'm glad you're so accepting of change, but I think that ZOS could put forth a little more effort to even out difficulty across overland and then provide a way to increase the challenge for those who want it. That would be, in my opinion, the most proper way to handle things, and once the initial work is done it should be much easier to manage going forward.

After nearly 77 years of life in an ever-changing world, well.... I think I've made my peace with most things. In my lifetime I've gone from no telephones at all to a mobile that thinks it's a computer; from pencil and paper to write my stories, to a computer to input them into; from a car that would go only about 50 mph, to jets that go 1k mph or more. Adjusting to a changing game isn't going to kill me!

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

That states that many actions are not affected by global cooldowns so the player can remain active in combat. It also talks about character builds and execution, and it mentions group builds specifically. I don't see anything specific to overland or its difficulty mentioned.

I think the point is that it refers to builds as being a core part of gameplay, which relates to the conversation we've been having vis-a-vis their place in overland combat.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

It is one thing to say "I believe overland is too easy" because this identifies the statement as the player's own personal opinion. It's something completely different to say "Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

Saying something is too easy doesn't make a claim of fact, because ease is subjective. It only does that when something can be mistaken for fact. This is why you don't see most art reviews written this way. People are speaking their own truth. And we all understand it's their subjective truth because they are speaking about something that cannot be fact.

For example, here are two excerpts of reviews from the movie Frozen.

"It's genuinely a delightful experience; full of memorable songs and fun moments & lots of dry humour." -Tony Black, for Cultural Conversation.

"The plot is thin, the characters...are annoying, and their motivations are puzzling...It does not help that the "villain" here is vague, and the benevolent characters never complete their "hero’s journeys". - Diana Tuova, for Spotlight on Film.

"Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

This is also an opinion. The devs could handle the tutorial a number of ways. One of the ways they handled it back when creating One Tamriel was to set the difficulty for higher levels and then give hidden buffs to new players. They could do the same thing again if they wanted to do so. I am not saying that they should or that I would want that. I am pointing out it's existence as option to illustrate that there are many different ways they can handle tutorial content to achieve their stated goal of everyone being able to explore.

As far as being functional, overland is not broken if it still maintains its functionality. Players are able to do quests, and fight trash mobs, and run delves and dolmens (and Geysers etc.) and all the other overland content. Players may enjoy this as it is, or may think it's too easy or too difficult but it's still functioning as intended, therefore is not broken.

The debate in this thread is one of player preference, not a broken system (which it isn't).

Thank you for sharing this, I appreciate it. If we limit the concept of functionality to "Does it work?" Then I'd agree that Overland is objectively (mostly) functional, with the exception of some glitches such as the stuck in combat bug.

However, I think if we look at the devs other intentions with overland, it falls short. They say things like that they are an "RPG" studio at heart. They say that it's supposed to provide the Elder Scrolls experience. That everyone will be able to explore the world in their own way. But, overland ceases to be an RPG for a large swath of their customers. It becomes more similar to a walking sim. It does not provide the same experience as the single player stories because the single player stories provide a difficulty toggle precisely for this reason. If the purpose of the overland is to provide the quintessential Elder Scrolls experience, it does fall short of that goal.

https://www.thegamer.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-interview/

Theist_VII

SilverBride wrote: »

That states that many actions are not affected by global cooldowns so the player can remain active in combat. It also talks about character builds and execution, and it mentions group builds specifically. I don't see anything specific to overland or its difficulty mentioned.

"We believe combat is more engaging when you are on the move and continuously taking action. Battles should be exhilarating, with threats and opportunities coming fast and you feeling empowered to respond in kind."

"Whether you've played for 10 minutes or 1000 hours, there should always be something to learn or improve upon. That loop of learning should be consistently fun and rewarding. Our combat is designed to challenge you along two primary paths: character builds and skillful execution. Outside of combat, your character build should test your ability to refine a large number of choices into a proficient engine for battle. Tests of skillful execution occur during battle, challenging you to realize the potential of your build and outperform opponents in fast-paced, active combat."

Coming from the lead combat designer of this game, on a post pinned to the top of the Combat and Character Mechanics tab on these very forums.

Clearly there is a contradiction of ideals here, between vision and implementation.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

"Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

This is also an opinion.

This is a fact.

"...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."

spartaxoxo

Theist_VII wrote: »

.Clearly there is a contradiction of ideals here, between vision and implementation.

Also, they were asked about what other games inspired this one.

https://www.thegamer.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-interview/

We’re all gamers of course, so games of all types have a huge influence on us. They aren’t the only source of inspiration though – books, movies, sports…etc are all great sources as well. For me personally, I love diving into anything with RPG elements – building characters' power, collecting new gear, and strong storytelling.

They defined RPG elements, which is important to know since they consider themselves an RPG studio. And this is supposed to be an RPG game too.

Building characters' power, collecting new gear, and strong story telling.

You can see two of the three of these in their overland. You can see that inspiration. Unfortunately, the building characters part isn't really present past the first few levels.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

"Overland is too easy" because that makes a claim that their opinion is a fact when the real fact is that overland needs to be easy enough for all players to succeed at.

This is also an opinion.

This is a fact.

"...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."

"Open world is balanced" is different from "Overland needs to be balanced" this way. It actually doesn't have to be.

Again, they already did this by setting the difficulty at a higher level and then adding hidden buffs to low level characters.

SilverBride

It is a fact that overrland is balanced for casual play and that ZoS is not going to make the open-world game or story content too hard. This is not just my own personal opinion.

spartaxoxo

"Overland needs to be balanced for everyone to beat it" is a personal opinion.

"Overland is currently designed for everyone to beat it," is fact.

Overland could be changed to make it harder and find a happy medium is also a fact. And it's their current design direction. I don't think this was a good option or a good plan. But it is the one they are going with.

Edit:

“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.”

Theist_VII

As stated by Brian Wheeler, there are two primary paths to combat, character builds and skillful expression.

Builds that can carry your lack of skillful expression through use of your understanding of how the game works, and skillful expression to carry your lack of a decent build from years of repetition.

Anyone can make a brain dead build that will pass for veteran content just through an understanding of how the Empower buff works, no DLC required, just level your Mage’s Guild up.

Now imagine what that build does to Overland, it’s an absolute joke with no skillful expression required, so why is it that we haven’t seen a mechanical overhaul to Overland?

SilverBride

I have tried to be supportive of difficulty debuffs or sliders or challenge banners even though I have never seen a need for any of these things. But I supported them in a good faith effort for those players that would find them beneficial to their enjoyment of the game.

But I am no longer putting out an effort to advocate for these things. My viewpoint is as valid as everyone else's and I stand behind it.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

I have tried to be supportive of difficulty debuffs or sliders or challenge banners even though I have never seen a need for any of these things. But I supported them in a good faith effort for those players that would find them beneficial to their enjoyment of the game.

My viewpoint is as valid as everyone else's and I stand behind it.

Yes. Your viewpoint is as valid as everyone else's. I am not trying to invalidate your viewpoint. I am simply responding to the idea that we are presenting our views as facts by distinguishing between what is fact and what is our opinion on both sides of this equation. Well, to the best of my ability. Like all human beings I am subject to being mistaken or to miss something due personal biases.

I view it as fact that overland is currently designed to be accessible by everyone. But, that recently they have shifted this design goal to instead be a happy medium difficulty because they also view it as a design goal that the most amount of people can enjoy their game.

When we speak our truth, it is not meant to invalidate you or the many others that find overland fun. You all are valid and that's why so many of us have, in good faith, argued against forced difficulty even though it would benefit us. I still believe that forcing difficulty on you all is the wrong way to go about things. But, my experience remains valid too. For me, overland is too easy and does not provide the RPG or Elder Scrolls experience. It just doesn't.

Stafford197

Theist_VII wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/624269/eso-developer-deep-dive-core-combat-values/p1

Whoa, thank you for linking this thread! What a total failure to deliver on their stated goals. Posters in that thread already massively ratioed the Combat Team there lol!!

Sad to see because when it comes to Zone Design, many Cosmetics, Sound, Music, Environments… for the most part much of the content released by ZOS is in line with how it would ideally turn out in an Elder Scrolls MMO. Not perfect, but still leagues ahead of where the Combat/Gameplay team have sunk this game to.

spartaxoxo

I actually think the combat and gameplay team knocks it out of the park. It's specifically overland that has the issue. But, the group play content is mostly excellent. Well, at least from a PvE perspective. I don't play PvP enough to have a firm opinion on how well the basic combat works when it's functional (apart from balance).

They've managed to make a combat system that accommodates a wide range of skill and play styles. It's shame they won't let us all use it in overland.

Stafford197

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually think the combat and gameplay team knocks it out of the park. It's specifically overland that has the issue. But, the group play content is mostly excellent. Well, at least from a PvE perspective. I don't play PvP enough to have a firm opinion on how well the basic combat works when it's functional (apart from balance).

They've managed to make a combat system that accommodates a wide range of skill and play styles. It's shame they won't let us all use it in overland.

Many players do not think the Combat Team knocks it out of the park at all. They’ve had several massive failures and even had to apologize to the community for it. Sometimes terrible changes are reverted, and sometimes not.

Some examples: U35, Morrowind Sustain nerfs, Animation Cancelling adjustments, haphazardly unfinished Hybridization which reduced build variety, Scalebreaker massive DoT buffs / subsequent massive DoT nerfs, Proc Set meta in PvP, “floaty” combat animations…. There are so many examples of major failures and combat philosophy flip flops.

I believe if Nick Konkle (original combat lead) never left ZOS, this game would have had a much brighter future due to his combat philosophy being how the entire game was originally developed.

Muizer

spartaxoxo wrote: »

When we speak our truth, it is not meant to invalidate you or the many others that find overland fun. You all are valid and that's why so many of us have, in good faith, argued against forced difficulty even though it would benefit us. I still believe that forcing difficulty on you all is the wrong way to go about things. But, my experience remains valid too. For me, overland is too easy and does not provide the RPG or Elder Scrolls experience. It just doesn't.

I feel the same, though I would like to point out that not everything about how overland is 'just a matter of opinion'. There are 'objective' observations that can be made about the game design.

Overland has encounters with enemies whose AOE's you can step out of, whose attacks can be blocked or interrupted and whose attacks can be preempted or avoided by sneaking or going invisible. The design of the game can be seriously questioned when you are better off ignoring all of that. Just like you would question de design of a foot race with hurdles scaled down to half an inch in height.

Dahveed

It's hard to add anything new to this discussion at this point (everyone has repeated themselves dozens of times already), but I just want to say that the devs are underestimating how badly we want this, and how bad it looks from the "outisde" - i.e. the hundreds of thousands of social media views on videos and reviews from content creators saying the game is too easy.

Even just on Youtube typing in "ESO is too easy" gets you multiple pages of videos. They have varying amounts of views of course, ranging from tens of thousands to one or two hundred. And not all of them are strictly about difficulty, but do mention it in their videos/reviews. Some variation of "too easy" inevitably pops up.

A LOT of people either avoid the game entirely or just try it out and discover the same thing, either objectively or through confirmation bias (i.e. they were told it's too easy so they just confirm this bias without going any further). How many players would have stayed had their been more challenging content?

I can personally vouch for *at least* five people I know IRL (three work colleagues and my two brothers) who all tried it and all quit very early. That is anecdotal, but it's ethnological evidence which confirms the statistics of the social media view counts I mentioned.

That's not to say a difficulty slider would bring all those people back, but if even a fraction of them did it would be a bump. Not to mention how ever many thousands (tens? hundreds?) in the coming years will try the game and find it too easy and boring for them... but it would be our job to point out that they could change this with a LotRO-style difficulty slider and then perhaps stick around.

This would also neutralize the problem of future DLCs being too difficult and/or annoying for more casual types who don't want to stress out over combat and just want the story mode. ZoS wouldn't have to ramp up difficulty to try to find that "middle ground" that has been mentioned a few times now. Everything would instead be baseline story mode for all base zones and all current and future DLCs with no headaches for anyone... BUT with the option for veterans and/or masochists (*raises hand*) to make things more dangerous and difficult.

Then they could add an additional layer to their PR campaigns: Like any Elder Scrolls game, you can play it how YOU want. We can't add actual mods like an ES game, but at least we can tailor the experience to our desires like every other Bethesda game. It would be great for their marketing.

disky

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually think the combat and gameplay team knocks it out of the park. It's specifically overland that has the issue. But, the group play content is mostly excellent. Well, at least from a PvE perspective. I don't play PvP enough to have a firm opinion on how well the basic combat works when it's functional (apart from balance).

They've managed to make a combat system that accommodates a wide range of skill and play styles. It's shame they won't let us all use it in overland.

Yeah, the game is a blast to play when the challenge is there. It's just that overland is

-IN MY OPINION-

far too easy.

Stafford197

Muizer wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

When we speak our truth, it is not meant to invalidate you or the many others that find overland fun. You all are valid and that's why so many of us have, in good faith, argued against forced difficulty even though it would benefit us. I still believe that forcing difficulty on you all is the wrong way to go about things. But, my experience remains valid too. For me, overland is too easy and does not provide the RPG or Elder Scrolls experience. It just doesn't.

I feel the same, though I would like to point out that not everything about how overland is 'just a matter of opinion'. There are 'objective' observations that can be made about the game design.

Overland has encounters with enemies whose AOE's you can step out of, whose attacks can be blocked or interrupted and whose attacks can be preempted or avoided by sneaking or going invisible. The design of the game can be seriously questioned when you are better off ignoring all of that. Just like you would question de design of a foot race with hurdles scaled down to half an inch in height.

Exactly!

I’ll just add that the “One Tamriel” update, which launched 8 years ago, caused this whole situation in the first place. But it was still a fantastic patch despite ESO being considered too easy at the time.

Our base characters have become far stronger due to combat balance changes since then. The difficulty intended by One Tamriel was a lot higher than what it now is.

If they just gave us a difficulty slider (in the form of a PvE Battle Spirit self-debuff) this whole discussion would’ve never happened in the first place tbh

Dahveed

As a follow-up to my last comment, I'd just like to share this one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7hdlXCMRWw

"This New Player Is Correct About Everything" by NefasQS. (I never knew this guy before, but I saw his video recently and it's well done.)

It's by no means the be-all end-all but it's indicative of a lot of people's mindset about ESO, and has over 11k views in just over 4 days.

That's just ONE video.

EDIT - just saw too, the original video (from 2 months ago) has 94k views as well.

disky

Dahveed wrote: »

As a follow-up to my last comment, I'd just like to share this one example:
[snip]

This is the one I often refer to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPMT26raNc

I think it's also important to note that Sean himself no longer does ESO content.