Overland Content Feedback Thread

spartaxoxo · September 24

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

I will never, never ever group with anyone in overland content. Never. I am not playing "with" anybody when I am in the overland. I am already separated from the rest of the playerbase because there is zero reason for me to play with anyone in the overland.

You are not. Others are playing with randoms. I have helped plenty of random players I came across while doing overland who needed it. And the vast majority of the playerbase is using overland.

If someone isn't using overland currently, then that's obviously not who is getting separated. It is vet players who DO use overland, that would be separated from new players. This makes it hard for them to find friends and guilds, receive help, or even understand that the game is still alive.

I know for a 100% fact players like this exist because I am literally one of them.

And those people that do that can stay in their preferred instance and play together, while those of us who want a challenge can go to our instance and play the way we want.

I want a challenge and I want to be available to new players. I also want to be able to play alongside friends and family, not all of whom are able to do vet content.

This idea that only people who quit overland would use an option to increase difficulty is totally incorrect. I am currently using overland. I don't mind helping new players. And I would use anything that would allow me to increase the difficulty if given the choice.

Muizer · September 24

disky wrote: »

I agree that dynamism would be a huge boon for the overland experience, but a challenge increase (option) has to come first or it doesn't mean much. As it has already been said, if we're trampling over everything then no amount of surprise will matter. It would just be another nuisance to brush aside.

If it is possible to spawn enemies to attack the player specifically, encounters could be added that are comprehensively tailored to a player's chosen difficulty level. Not just in terms of player-side stats, but mob stats, numbers, types and special abilities. That does not depend in any way on changes to existing encounters. Saying those need to be addressed first may be a preference, but it's not a necessity.

disky · September 24

Muizer wrote: »

disky wrote: »

I agree that dynamism would be a huge boon for the overland experience, but a challenge increase (option) has to come first or it doesn't mean much. As it has already been said, if we're trampling over everything then no amount of surprise will matter. It would just be another nuisance to brush aside.

If it is possible to spawn enemies to attack the player specifically, encounters could be added that are comprehensively tailored to a player's chosen difficulty level. Not just in terms of player-side stats, but mob stats, numbers, types and special abilities. That does not depend in any way on changes to existing encounters. Saying those need to be addressed first may be a preference, but it's not a necessity.

But if you're already tailoring that type of encounter to the player's challenge preferences, why not just create a system which does it for all of overland? What is the point of creating challenging dynamic encounters while leaving the rest of overland as it is? Wouldn't it be better (and easier) to just build a blanket debuff system for the entire content area, rather than doing it only for those encounters and creating what would amount to an inconsistent experience?

If you want more dynamism or interesting mechanics within the bounds of those encounters, that's still possible with a blanket overland challenge increase. It would just exist on top of the settings for general overland.

Muizer · September 25

disky wrote: »

But if you're already tailoring that type of encounter to the player's challenge preferences, why not just create a system which does it for all of overland? What is the point of creating challenging dynamic encounters while leaving the rest of overland as it is? Wouldn't it be better (and easier) to just build a blanket debuff system for the entire content area, rather than doing it only for those encounters and creating what would amount to an inconsistent experience?.

It's a matter of quality over quantity. Dynamic encounters can be purposefully designed to provide a player-customizable challenge including mob numbers, strength and variety. A blanket player debuff is very limited in what it can achieve because it can't do any of that.

As for what is 'easier', I think a more pertinent consideration is 'what can ZOS monetize'. I think brand new added content has a better chance than a modifier on existing content.

disky · September 25

Muizer wrote: »

disky wrote: »

But if you're already tailoring that type of encounter to the player's challenge preferences, why not just create a system which does it for all of overland? What is the point of creating challenging dynamic encounters while leaving the rest of overland as it is? Wouldn't it be better (and easier) to just build a blanket debuff system for the entire content area, rather than doing it only for those encounters and creating what would amount to an inconsistent experience?.

It's a matter of quality over quantity. Dynamic encounters can be purposefully designed to provide a player-customizable challenge including mob numbers, strength and variety. A blanket player debuff is very limited in what it can achieve because it can't do any of that.

As for what is 'easier', I think a more pertinent consideration is 'what can ZOS monetize'. I think brand new added content has a better chance than a modifier on existing content.

First, I don't think it's about what is monetizable, I think it's about what is possible or likely to happen. And I'm not saying that dynamic, customizable overland encounters couldn't or shouldn't happen. I'd love to see it and I 100% agree that overland could benefit from a greater level of unpredictability. But I think it's best to do the easier, more cost-efficient, more practical thing, which would provide the greatest experiential benefit, and then build on it.

I really don't agree that it's more monetizable. I think a challenge option is something that a lot of players have been clamoring for over the years and an alternative which doesn't address the problem head-on would be another in a long line of distractions which ultimately fail to satisfy when the rest of overland is still a breeze. Optional overland challenge would be a huge boon to the game and if it were made known that it was coming, I think a lot of players would come back to overland, and even come back to the game.

Muizer · September 26

Ok, I should phrase it more carefully. Generally ZOS don't spend much effort on updates of content that has already been released / sold. The 'quality of life' updates fall into the category of 'quick wins'. A difficulty slider is not a quick win.

You're talking about an effort that ZOS have so far only expended on a major ingredient of their yearly content release cycle: A new zone, or a new major system.

ZOS seem to operate on a paradigm that these must offer something players feel they cannot miss out on: progression or rewards.

That then leads to the question: how are ZOS going to introduce a system where players need to to play through content they have already played through to get these new unmissable rewards?

Because people will complain when there are such rewards. And people will also complain if there aren't

So yeah I get your point about the value of investing in longevity, but I suspect for ZOS that can never be the main focus while they're trying to drive revenue and keep players involved from one year to the next.

spartaxoxo · September 26

Quarter 3 changes are for quality of life changes that just make the game better.

A slider that just gives you a debuff and some exp to offset the debuff wouldn't be crazy different than Home Tours or Group Finder.

Dahveed · October 1

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Quarter 3 changes are for quality of life changes that just make the game better.

A slider that just gives you a debuff and some exp to offset the debuff wouldn't be crazy different than Home Tours or Group Finder.

I'd be cautious about offering any extra rewards, even a slight xp buff. People will complain about it.

I don't want extra rewards, I just want more challenge.

(Indeed one of my main criticisms of all modern games is that we are spammed constantly with seratonin hits from free loot every time our character farts. But that's another discussion entirely.)

colossalvoids · October 1

After briefly trying out the latest zone I'd give props to zos for making at least one public dungeon boss actually public dungeon boss - the one who requires a company and not just mauled as usual by one person easily. A Silorn mino to be exact. Died a dozen of times with my "rp" sword and board setup and was a pleasant surprise I wasn't really expecting. WB's though are the same deal as usual, didn't found anything of interest difficulty wise yet.

BasP · October 1

colossalvoids wrote: »

After briefly trying out the latest zone I'd give props to zos for making at least one public dungeon boss actually public dungeon boss - the one who requires a company and not just mauled as usual by one person easily. A Silorn mino to be exact.

Looking at the latest PTS Patch Notes, I'm afraid the next Chapter won't have such a Public Dungeon boss.

colossalvoids · October 1

BasP wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

After briefly trying out the latest zone I'd give props to zos for making at least one public dungeon boss actually public dungeon boss - the one who requires a company and not just mauled as usual by one person easily. A Silorn mino to be exact.

Looking at the latest PTS Patch Notes, I'm afraid the next Chapter won't have such a Public Dungeon boss.

Not surprised though, people used to faceroll those and it's definitely not the case with that one.

Franchise408 · October 1

Dahveed wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Quarter 3 changes are for quality of life changes that just make the game better.

A slider that just gives you a debuff and some exp to offset the debuff wouldn't be crazy different than Home Tours or Group Finder.

I'd be cautious about offering any extra rewards, even a slight xp buff. People will complain about it.

I don't want extra rewards, I just want more challenge.

(Indeed one of my main criticisms of all modern games is that we are spammed constantly with seratonin hits from free loot every time our character farts. But that's another discussion entirely.)

Here's the thing; The extra rewards in ESO for a higher difficulty setting are the same items you'd get in the lower difficulty setting, just blue instead of green, or purple instead of blue. Someone playing on the lower difficulty isn't actually missing out on anything. At worst, they will need to upgrade it, which can be done fairly easily.

So really, there is no problem whatsoever with ESO giving "greater rewards" for the higher difficulty. Lower difficulty players will be missing out on exactly nothing.

TaSheen · October 1

For some of us "lower difficulty players" (like me), we don't care about rewards at all. I use some specific sets, I tweak or change them over time, I have all the gold I could ever need, there's just not much in the reward structure to cause me to care about it at all.

SilverBride · October 1

BasP wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

After briefly trying out the latest zone I'd give props to zos for making at least one public dungeon boss actually public dungeon boss - the one who requires a company and not just mauled as usual by one person easily. A Silorn mino to be exact.

Looking at the latest PTS Patch Notes, I'm afraid the next Chapter won't have such a Public Dungeon boss.

Thank goodness. I didn't mind that this Boss actually required a group, but it was very difficult to find others willing to join because of the difficulty.

disky · October 1

Dahveed wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Quarter 3 changes are for quality of life changes that just make the game better.

A slider that just gives you a debuff and some exp to offset the debuff wouldn't be crazy different than Home Tours or Group Finder.

I'd be cautious about offering any extra rewards, even a slight xp buff. People will complain about it.

I don't want extra rewards, I just want more challenge.

(Indeed one of my main criticisms of all modern games is that we are spammed constantly with seratonin hits from free loot every time our character farts. But that's another discussion entirely.)

100% agree, but I think a lot of players expect improved rewards which creates one of the major friction points preventing a challenge slider from being implemented. On one side you have those who expect improved rewards for an increased challenge, and won't use the feature if improved rewards aren't part of the implementation.
Then you have players who don't want improved rewards because they don't want to miss out on anything if they choose not to increase the challenge.

The argument could be made that there is little point in developing a feature which has no intrinsic motivator, because most people will avoid it. A ZOS representative has made this point in a past interview so they do have this in mind. ZOS may feel compelled to provide rewards, but if they do, they know they're going to have players who feel like they're missing out because they didn't want to increase challenge, and some of those players are definitely going to complain.

I can understand why ZOS might feel like this is a win-lose situation with the studio caught in the middle, which could be why they're avoiding it even though it could probably be done relatively easily. That being said, if it is how they're thinking, I hope they reconsider. There are ways to do this which work for everyone, and the game is losing players, which could be ameliorated with substantial QoL features like overland challenge options.

disky · October 1

BasP wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

After briefly trying out the latest zone I'd give props to zos for making at least one public dungeon boss actually public dungeon boss - the one who requires a company and not just mauled as usual by one person easily. A Silorn mino to be exact.

Looking at the latest PTS Patch Notes, I'm afraid the next Chapter won't have such a Public Dungeon boss.

Good. I want more challenge as much as anyone here, but this wasn't the way to do it. They need to even out challenge across all zones and then provide players with challenge options that suit them.

casparian · October 2

disky wrote: »

On one side you have those who expect improved rewards for an increased challenge, and won't use the feature if improved rewards aren't part of the implementation.
Then you have players who don't want improved rewards because they don't want to miss out on anything if they choose not to increase the challenge.

I continue to think the best way around this issue is simply to have multiple ways to achieve the reward, whatever it is. Give people a chance to earn it through a variety of different options, one of which is participating in challenging overland/quest/delve content. It's options all the way down.

disky · October 2

casparian wrote: »

disky wrote: »

On one side you have those who expect improved rewards for an increased challenge, and won't use the feature if improved rewards aren't part of the implementation.
Then you have players who don't want improved rewards because they don't want to miss out on anything if they choose not to increase the challenge.

I continue to think the best way around this issue is simply to have multiple ways to achieve the reward, whatever it is. Give people a chance to earn it through a variety of different options, one of which is participating in challenging overland/quest/delve content. It's options all the way down.

Sounds good to me.

notyuu · October 10

Objectively Overland is too easy leading to players running the "solo face roll everything" mindset, which inturn leads to them forgetting/not understanding basic game systems such as blocking, dodging, not standing in damage and bashing, when the aforementioned mindset and lack of core skills of the games basic mechanics are combined it results in them whining and complaining and demanding nerfs when they encounter even the slightest bit of resistance due to a lack of core skills, resulting in an inability to step up and improve themselves.

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland, not by much mind you, but enough where it means the average player has to pay attention and use mechanics/systems in combat, or in other words increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10

SilverBride · October 10

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

Blackbird_V · October 10

SilverBride wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

You know what? I agree. "increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10" Definitely disagree. Make it 10/10 difficulty. I WANT THE CHAOS, CARNAGE AND MAYHEM. GIVE GIVE GIVE.

TaSheen · October 10

I'm okay with increasing the difficulty to whatever as an option....

SilverBride · October 10

Blackbird_V wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

You know what? I agree. "increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10" Definitely disagree. Make it 10/10 difficulty. I WANT THE CHAOS, CARNAGE AND MAYHEM. GIVE GIVE GIVE.

Difficult veteran zones at launch almost killed this game. This is one reason we no longer have these.

Blackbird_V · October 10

SilverBride wrote: »

Blackbird_V wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

You know what? I agree. "increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10" Definitely disagree. Make it 10/10 difficulty. I WANT THE CHAOS, CARNAGE AND MAYHEM. GIVE GIVE GIVE.

Difficult veteran zones at launch almost killed this game. This is one reason we no longer have these.

We cannot say for sure that is the reason why. At launch the game had MASSIVE glaring issues, one of which being segregated alliances. That split the playerbase TIMES 3. It was legitimately impossible to play with an AD banana as a godlike DC player. AD players would never be in the same zone as DC aligned players, and vice versa. That already made major issues.

Then we go to Craglorn, where the small wasps were literally brutal and lethal. That zone made it so you had to legit have a dungeon group set-up to do anything in that zone.

Combat back then was not as easy to understand as it is today. Item sets were just bizarre and in weird places. Some of the difficulty was wacky, I admit - Doshia, for example, was not balanced for level 10. Solely saying Vet Zones were why the game nearly went the way of Concord is completely disingenuous imo.

SilverBride · October 10

Blackbird_V wrote: »

Solely saying Vet Zones were why the game nearly went the way of Concord is completely disingenuous imo.

I didn't say this was soley the reason. I said "This is one reason we no longer have these."

spartaxoxo · October 10

Blackbird_V wrote: »

Solely saying Vet Zones were why the game nearly went the way of Concord is completely disingenuous imo.

Saying it's the only reason would be disingenuous. It would also be disingenuous to say it wasn't a reason, when it was specifically cited as such by many players. And devs removed that difficulty after extensive research on what it was that players didn't like.

Forced difficulty doesn't work.

Blackbird_V · October 10

SilverBride wrote: »

Blackbird_V wrote: »

Solely saying Vet Zones were why the game nearly went the way of Concord is completely disingenuous imo.

I didn't say this was soley the reason. I said "This is one reason we no longer have these."

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Blackbird_V wrote: »

Solely saying Vet Zones were why the game nearly went the way of Concord is completely disingenuous imo.

Saying it's the only reason would be disingenuous. It would also be disingenuous to say it wasn't a reason, when it was specifically cited as such by many players. And devs removed that difficulty after extensive research on what it was that players didn't like.

Forced difficulty doesn't work.

I misread that as "This is the reason...". My bad there, I admit.

erdYrrson · October 10

notyuu wrote: »

[...] The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland, [...]

No

notyuu · October 10

SilverBride wrote: »

Blackbird_V wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

You know what? I agree. "increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10" Definitely disagree. Make it 10/10 difficulty. I WANT THE CHAOS, CARNAGE AND MAYHEM. GIVE GIVE GIVE.

Difficult veteran zones at launch almost killed this game. This is one reason we no longer have these.

I'm not saying make vet zones or craglorn, that's be like a 5/10 on the difficulty scale.

I'm saying make overland have more than negative levels of a challenge where you can't just tab out or go afk part way through a fight and be fine and dandy when you come back to the game, you know, just enough resistance where the average, not higher end, dungeoneer trial type, but your average 12k DPS, no sets, light attack spam mcgee has to pay attention when fighting, and thus engage with the combat system and mechanics, which in turn would make it far easier to progress in skill and ability due to having core basic knowledge of the fundamental combat systems.

in the end it'd serve as a means to make the onboarding process for dungeons, trials, arenas, ect just that much easier, after all going from difficulty 1/10 to 2/10 (banished cells 1) is a lot less "imposing" and "impossible" than going from -2/10 to 2/10

Or don't, keep things as they are, with the lack if an onboard system to ease mcgee into non overland content, leading to cries for nerfs and constant complaints that'll leave nobody happy be the complaints acted upon or ignored.

TaSheen · October 10

notyuu wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Blackbird_V wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

notyuu wrote: »

The solution would be increasing the difficulty of overland

No.

You know what? I agree. "increase the difficulty from -2/10 to 1/10" Definitely disagree. Make it 10/10 difficulty. I WANT THE CHAOS, CARNAGE AND MAYHEM. GIVE GIVE GIVE.

Difficult veteran zones at launch almost killed this game. This is one reason we no longer have these.

I'm not saying make vet zones or craglorn, that's be like a 5/10 on the difficulty scale.

I'm saying make overland have more than negative levels of a challenge where you can't just tab out or go afk part way through a fight and be fine and dandy when you come back to the game, you know, just enough resistance where the average, not higher end, dungeoneer trial type, but your average 12k DPS, no sets, light attack spam mcgee has to pay attention when fighting, and thus engage with the combat system and mechanics, which in turn would make it far easier to progress in skill and ability due to having core basic knowledge of the fundamental combat systems.

in the end it'd serve as a means to make the onboarding process for dungeons, trials, arenas, ect just that much easier, after all going from difficulty 1/10 to 2/10 (banished cells 1) is a lot less "imposing" and "impossible" than going from -2/10 to 2/10

Or don't, keep things as they are, with the lack if an onboard system to ease mcgee into non overland content, leading to cries for nerfs and constant complaints that'll leave nobody happy be the complaints acted upon or ignored.

Fine, if it's optional. I dislike combat in the first place (especially in this game), and my age and aging reflexes as well as nothing but satellite connection all make things very hard for me. The only thing I can reliably get through is overland - I'm not planning on doing any group content or pvp because I just burned out on all that in WoW and RIFT, and I'm just not interested - because of the physical issues as well. Quest bosses are enough harder lately that I just can't do it - it was all I could do to get past the boss in Galen; it took me 3 days of trying, and my hands were a mess for days after. SO not fun....