Overland Content Feedback Thread

Surgee

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

That's not what killed the game at launch. It was a total mess overall.

It was very explicitly cited by many players that the game was too hard and they didn't like the difficulty and the devs outright stated it was that the feedback that caused them to take the difficulty out. When they took the difficulty out the game grew every single year. They have tried to nudge the difficulty up the past couple of years and the game has been in a steady decline since. There's a group of players that come for the chapter story and then leaves and they left West Weald faster than other chapters before it that were easier.

They have already been trying to nudge the difficulty up for the past two years and it has done nothing.

Edited to add
You can't have a brand new player with no gear and a trial trifecta player using the same difficulty. There's no middle ground there. Anything that would challenge the trial player would be impossible for the new one. Anything a new player can overcome with a moderate challenge would be boring and trivial still to the trial player, as Necrom and West Weald have both demonstrated.

They have tried this twice and it has utterly failed both times.

That's simply not true and you do not have any real data to support the claim that making things easier made any numbers go up.

The devs themselves have stated it and you can see the trend on Steam Charts.

Do you really think that the few vocal people on the forum represent the 24 million players that tried the game, or even the 1% that's left playing? There's like 10 people arguing over and over in this topic, while most quit and the rest are just playing.

Steam Charts being low does not mean there's only 1% still playing. The vast majority of the playerbase doesn't use Steam.

Here is a very important fact: Zenimax decided to up the difficulty level. This means they have collected DATA from player interactions in game to support that decision. They don't just wake up one day and say"hey let's make the game harder just for the heck of it". There must be a very good reason for it, and trust me, its never based on few opinions from the forums. This is not an indie game ran by 10 people. Decisions are data driven.

Decisions are driven by both feedback and data, every game dev will tell you that. They tried to a forced difficulty, it failed, and now they are most likely trying something different.

Steam charts is 0.04% of the player base (10k currently) so I'm being generous here. For 1% we should have 240k active players. Even that 1% is a wishful thinking. From that tiny group, how many actually go on forums? How many are talking in this topic? Another fact: vast majority of players simply move along to another game when they are dissatisfied instead of expressing it on forums.

As for the Devs please point me where they said that decreasing overland difficulty solely have increased player population. If you can provide it I'll take that back. Until then literally everything you say is just your own opinion.

As someone who worked in gaming and corpo, I'm certain that data always wins. Player feedback is valuable but ONLY affects anything seriously at big scale.

Please show facts not guesses. Thanks! I'm looking at things from the perspective of market and business instead of arguing just for the same of arguing. I absolutely love the game and think ESO has everything it needs to become the most popular and best overal MMO out there. It just needs some tinkering and new direction. After 10 years of giant updates and everything it has to offer it should be at the top and it's far from it. You can't call it a great success. Testing new things is absolutely necessary.

Muizer

disky wrote: »

I have thought about this

I appreciate that. Little point discussing it with people who think ZOS can just wave some magic wand and make everybody happy!

disky wrote: »

but I'm not concerned about it for two reasons.First, if you enable the mode intentionally, you're accepting the realities of the game for what they are.

This sounds more like something a modder would do than a developer of a triple A game though.

disky wrote: »

Second, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that once you enable a higher challenge, everything matters so much more. You just described the very scenario I'm looking for. It's precisely what I'm expecting to happen. It's a challenge mode. You're not going to have an easy time, all the time. That's the point.

Maybe, but it seems you are prepared to tolerate things that I suspect the wider community would not and that ZOS simply would not countenance. Firstly, at the difficult side of the encounter spectrum, you could end up with content you cannot complete. Secondly at the easy side of the encounter spectrum end up with a lot of "nuisance level" encounters: Taking significantly longer than the current trivial encounters, while still not presenting a satisfactory challenge.


Having said that, now that I think of it, perhaps I am taking 'scaling' too literally. An additive] rather than multiplicative difficulty increase might actually work, because in relative terms that could boost the easy encounters more than the hard ones. Hmmm .....

spartaxoxo

Surgee wrote: »

As for the Devs please point me where they said that decreasing overland difficulty solely have increased player population. If you can provide it I'll take that back. Until then literally everything you say is just your own opinion.

Everything you say is just your own opinion as well. Meanwhile, the developers have given us explicit statements about this since Elsweyr. You can Google most of them. Some of have been removed because Rich Lambert used to Livestream but had to remove his streams after an incident (wife said something that PvPers felt was insulting) better not discussed here.

Anyway here's some quotes that you can also find in this thread. You're also free to Google dev statements about overland difficulty throughout the years. Some of these are on the front page.

Here is a statement they made where they explicitly attribute their later success to removing the difficulty. They flat out say the data doesn't lie.

"So, we had that, Jeulen, at launch. It was called Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. Nobody did it and everybody hated it, so we took it out and we put the challenge into world bosses and into solo arenas and into dungeons and trials."

“People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff. I get that there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things.”

...

“I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go an experience story.”

“And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.”

Here they also say they got feedback that people didn't like it. So the feedback and data were in alignment. People explicitly cited difficulty as a reason why they didn't enjoy the game. And the game became successful when they removed it.

_Zathras_ wrote: »

The relative ease of content in Elsweyr and Elder Scrolls Online as a whole has been a common complaint as the game's playerbase ages. Players have asked for alternate difficulty options for the open-world questing experience, to have a challenge outside of dungeons and trials. Lambert says that this probably won't be coming because Zenimax Online wants the entire storyline to be accessible.

"Balance is obviously a tricky thing. What is too easy for one player is impossible for another," he tells us. "We try to balance so that the average player can have a good experience, especially with the main story content. That's our critical path. If they want to challenge themselves, they can go and do Public Dungeons, or Trials with 12 of their friends. We do make that conscious choice with the crit path to make it playable for as many people as possible."

"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."

Source

Here is a statement where they say the vat majority of their players enjoy the story side of the game.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/10/04/eso-deadlands-new-world/

The vast majority of our player base loves the exploration, loves the lore, loves the story side of things. So we focus a lot of our time and effort on that.

We know they are making this change for the vet players, a minority of the population, because they have told us so themselves.

People who want things harder are in the minority. I don't think it's a small minority or they wouldn't be putting out so many statements and making the change that they are making in the future. But, based off their previous statements it is unlikely to be mandatory because that's simply not what the majority wants.

ETA

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

https://massivelyop.com/2024/01/18/elder-scrolls-onlines-gold-road-chapter-takes-players-back-to-oblivions-best-city-on-june-3/

And finally this is their most recent statement as far as I know. They tell us they are making this change for vet players and are also sure to highlight before saying it that One Tamriel saved the game and that newcomers being able to go anywhere is a core strength.

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

Here's another where they talk about this game as a virtual world.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/a-decade-in-tamriel-takeaways-as-elder-scrolls-online-turns-ten

Quick_Talos87

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

sans-culottes

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

Please read the thread before making uninformed comments like this.

PS. I love Soulsborne games. Suspect I’m not alone in that regard.

SilverBride

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

colossalvoids

SilverBride wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

It has nothing to do with FromSoft games. Those are a good example of game having a narrative fortifying gameplay and vice versa but that's about it. Game already have veteran options and tunings for other types of content, it's pretty basic ask to have one for a base overland also after ten years of having only one mode available leaving other players to their respective corners, while every other piece of content offering a much easier variant akin to overland difficulty more or less (normal mode).

It's also not an ask of "veteran" or "hardcore" players only, new ones can be easily turned out by current difficulty as we already know by personal experiences and tons of reviews throughout the years stating that it's the reason for leaving the game, or one of them. We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

These aren’t mutually exclusive categories for all of us. As someone just noted, FromSoftware games are not MMORPGs. I’m glad your friend has “moved on,” but there are plenty of us who also enjoy other media beyond this.

Asking them to not change the game based on the feedback the studio note cited is, ironically, what’s at least as much of a request for an accommodation. This goes doubly when the context is largely “overland is already too hard.”

disky

Muizer wrote: »

disky wrote: »

First, if you enable the mode intentionally, you're accepting the realities of the game for what they are.

This sounds more like something a modder would do than a developer of a triple A game though.

It sounds exactly like what a player does when they adjust a difficulty slider, like the ones that are available on many other games, including TES games, to me.

Muizer wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Second, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that once you enable a higher challenge, everything matters so much more. You just described the very scenario I'm looking for. It's precisely what I'm expecting to happen. It's a challenge mode. You're not going to have an easy time, all the time. That's the point.

Maybe, but it seems you are prepared to tolerate things that I suspect the wider community would not and that ZOS simply would not countenance. Firstly, at the difficult side of the encounter spectrum, you could end up with content you cannot complete. Secondly at the easy side of the encounter spectrum end up with a lot of "nuisance level" encounters: Taking significantly longer than the current trivial encounters, while still not presenting a satisfactory challenge.


Having said that, now that I think of it, perhaps I am taking 'scaling' too literally. An additive] rather than multiplicative difficulty increase might actually work, because in relative terms that could boost the easy encounters more than the hard ones. Hmmm .....

I would argue that if you can't complete it, you can adjust the difficulty. That's the beauty of a slider (or a set of sliders), it's just buffs and debuffs which can be adjusted in real-time. Or, as I mentioned earlier in a response to BananaBender, you can adjust your build or bring someone with you. That's the experience you sign on for by enabling a challenge feature, and if someone doesn't want to use it, they don't have to use it. Personally, I think that the need for a little bit of consideration/preparation makes a game more fun.

I want harder "trash" mobs because they're what I spend most of my time fighting and so that is where most of my disappointment comes from. To me, they're not an obstacle in the way of bosses, they are the game, and I think people are just so used to thinking differently about this that they're not expecting it to be fun. Maybe it's the Dark Souls mindset, but bosses are just a small part of how challenge is presented in overland, and I think adjusting everything else would be a far more interesting and vital change.

For what it's worth, I assume it would work through percentages, but I'm not a programmer.

SilverBride

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

It has nothing to do with FromSoft games. Those are a good example of game having a narrative fortifying gameplay and vice versa but that's about it. Game already have veteran options and tunings for other types of content, it's pretty basic ask to have one for a base overland also after ten years of having only one mode available leaving other players to their respective corners, while every other piece of content offering a much easier variant akin to overland difficulty more or less (normal mode).

It's also not an ask of "veteran" or "hardcore" players only, new ones can be easily turned out by current difficulty as we already know by personal experiences and tons of reviews throughout the years stating that it's the reason for leaving the game, or one of them. We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics.

I'm a Veteran player, too. All my characters are geared and have good builds and I engage in all content except veteran trials, mostly because of time constraints and not being able to stick to a consistent schedule. I do quite fine with mechanics and have had no complaints. But I also love the relaxing questing experience of Overland.

Not all the content in the game will meet everyone's preferences. Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

It has nothing to do with FromSoft games. Those are a good example of game having a narrative fortifying gameplay and vice versa but that's about it. Game already have veteran options and tunings for other types of content, it's pretty basic ask to have one for a base overland also after ten years of having only one mode available leaving other players to their respective corners, while every other piece of content offering a much easier variant akin to overland difficulty more or less (normal mode).

It's also not an ask of "veteran" or "hardcore" players only, new ones can be easily turned out by current difficulty as we already know by personal experiences and tons of reviews throughout the years stating that it's the reason for leaving the game, or one of them. We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics.

I'm a Veteran player, too. All my characters are geared and have good builds and I engage in all content except veteran trials, mostly because of time constraints and not being able to stick to a consistent schedule. I do quite fine with mechanics and have had no complaints. But I also love the relaxing questing experience of Overland.

Not all the content in the game will meet everyone's preferences. Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

Given that people also frequently report this as something that drives them away, or that leads to an unsatisfactory experience, the idea that the status quo is sufficient is clearly not what’s motivating the developers. If people largely felt this way, then there wouldn’t be such wildly divergent opinions.

spartaxoxo

Overland is not fine. It is too easy to gear/level one's self out of a good experience for all too many players. That's why the devs are addressing this issue. At this point, it's more about "how" than "if" as to whether or not they'll address it. A fix is being tested in April. Thank Goodness.

I don't think it's something that should be mandatory. I think that is a bad idea. But I do think it needs to be tested and I'm glad the devs agree now.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

You know that when I say this, this I'm not talking about a non-optional change, but I think the response to this statement is obvious: if there are Vet modes for everything else, then barring technical limitations there is no reason to argue that overland shouldn't have some kind of challenge mode as well. Just because you like things the way they are, and just because a lot of other people do also, that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people asking for it and leaving the game over it.

I appreciate that you're here to provide a counterpoint so we can keep this thread going, but I think that even you can accept that this point of view doesn't hold water. In the past, you have noted the community interest in an optional change, yourself.

Arunei

Surgee wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

If a debuff or slider that increases the damage and health of the enemies while decreasing the damage and health of the player isn't acceptable for some, then what would be?

The odds that they will ever redo all the overland enemies to include interesting mechanics is pretty slim I'd think.

Yes, it's unacceptable and an idea that would fail on the larger scale. It never worked and it never will. We could just all go naked mode and it would be the same, right? All those ideas about debuffs, splitting the community and so on are full of problems that require a lot of work and will probably end up backfiring.
Can you provide examples of games where this idea failed? I'm sure there are plenty of people like myself who ESO is their first and only MMO, so we don't know of other games that have tried player debuffs and failed.

Solution? Just make the overland harder for everyone and see how it goes. I think many of you forgot how much harder the game was in its first years. I was a full time tank in overland content and it was fun as hell. I, my wife, and my friend finished the Aldmeri campaign together, because it was challenging enough to keep us engaged and have unique roles in our group. As the game "progressed" with next updates I had to go full DPS, because I was absolutely useless anywhere outside of DLC veteran dungeons and veteran trials. My playstyle died because of how easy the game became. The same with my wife. She went from full healer to DPS, because as a healer she's useless too anywhere outside veteran dlc dungeon. Everyone have their own powerful heals and DPS is the king. She felt forced to become a DPS to be relevant and quit instead. That's the reason activity finders can't ever find a real tank or a healer. We died off because no one needed us. This is not the case in other MMOs.
No. You yourself said your fun is not someone else's fun and vice versa, but you're still trying to impose your fun on others by asking for everyone to have to deal with harder Overland. You don't want to deal with easy Overland but want others to deal with harder Overland despite the fact that numerous people have said the game at it's current level is already too hard for whatever reason, and they would be locked out of Overland was made too much harder.

Many here want so badly to keep their overly easy playstyle without even thinking what it did to everyone else and to the game itself.
Because many people don't want Overland to be basically one massive dungeon when questing and doing other mundane things. Also, you're again forgetting the fact that just because it looks like a lot of people off the forum think Overland is too easy, that number only looks that big because of the trend of people talking about things thy DISLIKE, but not usually bringing up things they like or are neutral about without some sort of outside prompting.

The devs have the numbers. THEY know the actual number of players, the ones who are still active vs the ones who've quit. And speaking of quitting, because of the fact people tend not to say anything about things they aren't actively dissatisfied about, making Overland too much harder WILL result in a lot more people quitting than people realize. Because suddenly those happy or neutral people are being alienated and have something to complain about.


As someone said, probably more people quit because of how easy overland is, (which contributes to almost entire game, and is the main content) than how many would have problem with raising the difficulty level. All my veteran ESO player friends quit for mostly two reasons : 1. The game is too easy, it's boring, there's no need to become stronger. 2. PvP was completely abandoned, and Cyrodil was the very reason many of them even started playing this game.
And what happens when people get used to harder Overland? What happens when people theorycraft builds or just develop skills to handle stuff that's a bit harder? Are people going to keep asking for harder and harder and harder content? If you just want a blanket increase, that would eventually make the game too hard for too many people and there would STILL be people yelling it's too easy and to bump it up even more.

Myself and others have pointed out the fact that as many people gain experience, regardless of any given character's strength, they eventually gain enough experience that most stuff becomes easy. That's what happens with experience. You learn and get better. We've asked how ZOS is supposed to account for that and when difficulty needs to stop being increased because of it and literally no one that I've seen has answered that. When is difficult difficult enough?

Right now ESO is absolutely the easiest and most single-player mmo out there. I know some here want to complete all content and get all rewards with close to zero effort, but that's not what most players want in general, in any game. To survive, ESO must finally start shaping the game to fit the broader audience. You can't make everyone happy, but making majority happy is good for the game. Focusing on making minority happy and in essence making majority leave the game, will end up with the game ending up on life support, or shutting down.

You keep going on about people wanting rewards for no effort...who has said that? Not a single person here has said they want rewards for nothing. What people have been saying is they don't want things harder because they're either happy with how things are, they don't want to deal with harder stuff even if they could easily, or because the game being made harder overall would prevent them from playing. NOT ONE PERSON that I have seen posting here has said they don't want to put effort into things. They don't want to put MORE effort into things.

People like me don't want general questing, getting Skyshards, doing surveys or farming mats, and so on, taking longer because every single aspect of the game being treated like a normal dungeon. We don't want to put MORE effort into things.

People like SilverBride play the game to have fun and relax, not to have to come up with complex builds that allow them to just handle Overland mobs while doing simple things. And again to reiterate your own words, your fun is not someone else's, nor theirs yours. It's very dismissive to infer that someone's idea of fun is wrong, as there's no right or wrong over something subjective like fun. People like this just don't want to put MORE effort into things.

People like TaSheen literally have already been locked out of certain content because it was made harder, and have made it clear that other things being made harder would lock them out of that content like they have other things. They CAN'T put more effort into the game, for whatever reason.

Where are the hard numbers that people wanting harder Overland are the majority? Seeing stuff about it in other places is not hard proof, it's anecdotal and hearsay. It's not accounting for the fact that, again, people who are happy with or neutral towards things often DO NOT talk about them without being prompted to, whereas people unhappy with things will very much talk about them.

That's not to say there aren't a good number of people who do want it. I doubt ZOS would be looking into testing things for harder Overland if there wasn't enough people clamoring for it to make it worth dev time that could go to other things. But there's nothing that we as players have access to that tell us which camp is the majority.

Also, to make a novel even longer...debuffs don't have to only change player health and damage. They can impose weakness to certain things (say fire damage), they can slow or stop resource gain, they can slow how often you can use Skills or Light Attacks, they can do all sorts of things with them. ZOS can create entirely new, unique debuffs that people could apply to themselves maybe via a menu or with supplemental Gear that doesn't take the place of actual Sets. And these debuffs can all be things that make people need to approach various encounters more carefully and with more consideration than those who find the game too easy as it is currently do.

I won't even try to answer because I did numerous times and you absolutely do not listen, do not try to relate, avoid facts (even the numbers provided), base yours on the bubble you are in, and keep contradicting yourself. You keep talking about what gives you and few others fun, but don't care about how millions of players feel who do not have fun. (By the way, that's 24 million, with less than 1% playing, from which many still do not have fun and only cope with it because they have to. I gave numbers and sources before in case you don't want to use google).

You are so open for people having fun, but yet do not accept the fact that most do NOT have fun when they do not get a reward that equals to the effort put. There's nothing more disappointing than going through a massive challenge and getting garbage that you can get in other means much easier. If you can't comprehend that, there's nothing to talk about really. You simply do not understand majority of players and you do not want them to have fun.

You did not answer, you dodged answers. When I ask for actual concrete proof and numbers you don't provide them. You keep not providing them. By all means tell me what facts I've avoided. Tell me where I am being contradictory. PROVIDE PROOF FOR YOUR CLAIMS AND ACCUSATIONS. Because as I see it I myself have been providing proof both when asked for and when not. I've been stating facts that it seems you just don't want to hear.

Touching on those numbers you gave, most of them were hearsay. You said that "the population on console is known to be the lowest and that platform is basically dead", that's not actual evidence, that didn't include numbers. Neither did the "other numbers are likely lower", you didn't even explain what that's supposed to mean when I asked. You didn't provide actual evidence or provide tangible numbers aside from the Steam chart numbers.

One CANNOT USE HEARSAY and present it as proof. I and others have mentioned time and again they relying on Steam chart numbers ALONE is NOT solid proof, because it doesn't account for people who DON'T play on Steam. But you keep throwing the Steam chart numbers out there like they're 95% of the player base or something. And even taking those numbers into account, it seems you're trying to say that EVERYONE on Steam who has quit has quit over easy Overland. If you're going to keep using Steam numbers as proof, you need to indicate which percentage of all those who've quit did so specifically over the game being too easy. You can't look at the whole percentage of people no longer playing and go "welp X% have all stopped playing, all of them quit over ONE thing".

Myself and others keep pointing out you can't rely solely on posts you see speaking negatively about something because most people tend to not speak about things that they like are okay with, which means the ones speaking out are often NOT the majority that YOU keep claiming they are. People have pointed out that the game was much harder and THE DEVS THEMSELVES have said most people DIDN'T LIKE IT and that's why they made things easier. YOU are avoiding facts and repeatedly NOT providing actual solid proof when asked for it.

As for not wanting others to have fun, I've been advocating for people to have a more challenging Overland by various means, as long as it's opt-in. YOU'RE the one who's being dismissive about peoples' fun, as you keep saying to just impose a blanket increase on everyone despite many people in this thread saying over and over that it would impact THEIR fun, and in a number of cases impact their ability to play AT ALL.

SilverBride

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

You know that when I say this, this I'm not talking about a non-optional change, but I think the response to this statement is obvious: if there are Vet modes for everything else, then barring technical limitations there is no reason to argue that overland shouldn't have some kind of challenge mode as well. Just because you like things the way they are, and just because a lot of other people do also, that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people asking for it and leaving the game over it.

I appreciate that you're here to provide a counterpoint so we can keep this thread going, but I think that even you can accept that this point of view doesn't hold water. In the past, you have noted the community interest in an optional change, yourself.

I agreed to it as a good faith gesture, not because I ever saw a need. But the more I read posts like "We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics", the less generous I feel.

It's not just new players, or those with limitations, or casuals that enjoy the relaxing questing of overland. Many vets, such as myself, also enjoy it.

I've reached a point that I no longer care. I just want my game left alone.

Edited to add: I am not here to provide a counterpoint to keep this thread going. I am here to provide my own feedback, which is important and valid on it's own.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

You know that when I say this, this I'm not talking about a non-optional change, but I think the response to this statement is obvious: if there are Vet modes for everything else, then barring technical limitations there is no reason to argue that overland shouldn't have some kind of challenge mode as well. Just because you like things the way they are, and just because a lot of other people do also, that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people asking for it and leaving the game over it.

I appreciate that you're here to provide a counterpoint so we can keep this thread going, but I think that even you can accept that this point of view doesn't hold water. In the past, you have noted the community interest in an optional change, yourself.

I agreed to it as a good faith gesture, not because I ever saw a need. But the more I read posts like "We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics", the less generous I feel.

It's not just new players, or those with limitations, or casuals that enjoy the relaxing questing of overland. Many vets, such as myself, also enjoy it.

I've reached a point that I no longer care. I just want my game left alone.

Edited to add: I am not here to provide a counterpoint to keep this thread going. I am here to provide my own feedback, which is important and valid on it's own.

I know you aren't here solely to provide a counterpoint, none of us are. That is just the result of the feedback you provide. We're having a discussion.

I can understand your point of view with regard to the quote because it does seem unnecessarily exclusive, and I have argued against that point of view myself. But, I think that if it's reinterpreted as "If all of the other content in the game has a challenge mode, why is it so hard to accept that overland should have one as well?", It's easier to empathize with. That may not be exactly what they said but it's a more equitable derivation.

Frankly, I feel like the zero-sum arguments on both sides in this thread are tiresome and unnecessary. I doubt any solution will please everyone, but if we accept that there is a significant desire for this change then the only real options are to come up with the best possible implementation, or continue trying to exclude each other from the game, to the detriment of us all.

Arunei

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

You know that when I say this, this I'm not talking about a non-optional change, but I think the response to this statement is obvious: if there are Vet modes for everything else, then barring technical limitations there is no reason to argue that overland shouldn't have some kind of challenge mode as well. Just because you like things the way they are, and just because a lot of other people do also, that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people asking for it and leaving the game over it.

I appreciate that you're here to provide a counterpoint so we can keep this thread going, but I think that even you can accept that this point of view doesn't hold water. In the past, you have noted the community interest in an optional change, yourself.

I agreed to it as a good faith gesture, not because I ever saw a need. But the more I read posts like "We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics", the less generous I feel.

It's not just new players, or those with limitations, or casuals that enjoy the relaxing questing of overland. Many vets, such as myself, also enjoy it.

I've reached a point that I no longer care. I just want my game left alone.

Edited to add: I am not here to provide a counterpoint to keep this thread going. I am here to provide my own feedback, which is important and valid on it's own.

I know you aren't here solely to provide a counterpoint, none of us are. That is just the result of the feedback you provide. We're having a discussion.

I can understand your point of view with regard to the quote because it does seem unnecessarily exclusive, and I have argued against that point of view myself. But, I think that if it's reinterpreted as "If all of the other content in the game has a challenge mode, why is it so hard to accept that overland should have one as well?", It's easier to empathize with. That may not be exactly what they said but it's a more equitable derivation.

Frankly, I feel like the zero-sum arguments on both sides in this thread are tiresome and unnecessary. I doubt any solution will please everyone, but if we accept that there is a significant desire for this change then the only real option is to accept it and come up with the best possible implementation, or continue trying to exclude each other from the game, to the detriment of us all.

I do think most of us posting here accept that there's a decent number of people who want harder Overland. ZOS wouldn't be actively looking into testing ways to implement it if it wasn't something their numbers indicated would be worth the dev time/effort. I think the main thing people are against is the narrative that those people are the majority.

Given that people will rarely post/talk in public spaces about stuff they like or okay with (how many threads has anyone seen actively praising a part of the game that isn't something being introduced during a patch, or heck even things that are?), it will always seem like that number is a minority, not just in regards to ESO. People as a whole are always more vocal about things they don't like compared to what they do, or are neutral about.

SilverBride

disky wrote: »

Frankly, I feel like the zero-sum arguments on both sides in this thread are tiresome and unnecessary. I doubt any solution will please everyone, but if we accept that there is a significant desire for this change then the only real option is to accept it and come up with the best possible implementation, or continue trying to exclude each other from the game, to the detriment of us all.

I feel that the best option is for players to accept that this game provides content that appeals to different play styles and not all content will appeal to everyone.

We should not expect content to be changed to accommodate any one particular play style, especially when it may completely ruin the experience many have enjoyed for 8 years now.

disky

Arunei wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland should be accepted for what it is and not changed to accommodate any one playstyle.

You know that when I say this, this I'm not talking about a non-optional change, but I think the response to this statement is obvious: if there are Vet modes for everything else, then barring technical limitations there is no reason to argue that overland shouldn't have some kind of challenge mode as well. Just because you like things the way they are, and just because a lot of other people do also, that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people asking for it and leaving the game over it.

I appreciate that you're here to provide a counterpoint so we can keep this thread going, but I think that even you can accept that this point of view doesn't hold water. In the past, you have noted the community interest in an optional change, yourself.

I agreed to it as a good faith gesture, not because I ever saw a need. But the more I read posts like "We can't expect everyone to like being exclusively in their instanced veteran corners and not complain about other parts of the game being tuned for a beginners or people who refuse to/can't engage with game's mechanics", the less generous I feel.

It's not just new players, or those with limitations, or casuals that enjoy the relaxing questing of overland. Many vets, such as myself, also enjoy it.

I've reached a point that I no longer care. I just want my game left alone.

Edited to add: I am not here to provide a counterpoint to keep this thread going. I am here to provide my own feedback, which is important and valid on it's own.

I know you aren't here solely to provide a counterpoint, none of us are. That is just the result of the feedback you provide. We're having a discussion.

I can understand your point of view with regard to the quote because it does seem unnecessarily exclusive, and I have argued against that point of view myself. But, I think that if it's reinterpreted as "If all of the other content in the game has a challenge mode, why is it so hard to accept that overland should have one as well?", It's easier to empathize with. That may not be exactly what they said but it's a more equitable derivation.

Frankly, I feel like the zero-sum arguments on both sides in this thread are tiresome and unnecessary. I doubt any solution will please everyone, but if we accept that there is a significant desire for this change then the only real option is to accept it and come up with the best possible implementation, or continue trying to exclude each other from the game, to the detriment of us all.

I do think most of us posting here accept that there's a decent number of people who want harder Overland.

Sure, but I'm talking about the people on either side who make arguments like "overland is fine, it doesn't need to change" or "just make overland harder and people will learn to deal with it". Those arguments are not helpful. It is understood that there is a desire for this feature in a large portion of the community, even if it isn't the majority, and so it's worthwhile to come up with the best solution for everyone instead of trying to tell each other how to play. I'm not saying ZOS doesn't comprehend this, just that those who hold positions which exclude others from the game are making a mistake.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Frankly, I feel like the zero-sum arguments on both sides in this thread are tiresome and unnecessary. I doubt any solution will please everyone, but if we accept that there is a significant desire for this change then the only real option is to accept it and come up with the best possible implementation, or continue trying to exclude each other from the game, to the detriment of us all.

I feel that the best option is for players to accept that this game provides content that appeals to different play styles and not all content will appeal to everyone.

We should not expect content to be changed to accommodate any one particular play style, especially when it may completely ruin the experience many have enjoyed for 8 years now.

See above.

SilverBride

disky wrote: »

It is understood that there is a desire for this feature in a large portion of the community, even if it isn't the majority, and so it's worthwhile to come up with the best solution for everyone instead of trying to tell each other how to play. I'm not saying ZOS doesn't comprehend this, just that those who hold positions which exclude others from the game are making a mistake.

Keeping Overland as it has been for over 8 years now isn't excluding anyone from the game. Players choose which content they participate in, and not enjoying one part does not stop anyone from enjoying the content they do enjoy.

I don't know what their experiment will be, or how they will determine if it will lead to a change or not. I only hope they take my, and other like minded players', feedback into consideration before making a change to something that has worked well for most of the life of this game.

So let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

It is understood that there is a desire for this feature in a large portion of the community, even if it isn't the majority, and so it's worthwhile to come up with the best solution for everyone instead of trying to tell each other how to play. I'm not saying ZOS doesn't comprehend this, just that those who hold positions which exclude others from the game are making a mistake.

Keeping Overland as it has been for over 8 years now isn't excluding anyone from the game. Players choose which content they participate in, and not enjoying one part does not stop anyone from enjoying the content they do enjoy.

I don't know what their experiment will be, or how they will determine if it will lead to a change or not. I only hope they take my, and other like minded players', feedback into consideration before making a change to something that has worked well for most of the life of this game.

So let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

No, it is. People leave the game because it's not satisfying. I don't do overland because it's not satisfying. Just because someone *can* do something, that doesn't mean they will ever do it if it's not going to be enjoyable for them to do. I'm sure you understand this.

Please, accept that the majority of the content in the game is effectively locked away for me because I cannot enjoy it. That is just how it is. And I'm not the only one.

SilverBride

@disky

We do not agree so let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

disky

SilverBride wrote: »

@disky

We do not agree so let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I would prefer if it were possible to achieve a better sense of understanding about this, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen today.

Surgee

SilverBride wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

I agree.

My friend started playing ESO in beta when I did. He played awhile but moved on because he is into difficult games like Dark Souls, etc.. He found games that meet his preferences rather than asking that this game change to accommodate him.

I think people are often mistaking difficulty of understanding the game Vs difficulty of the actual combat. Many players felt overwhelmed with ESO not because combat was hard, but because the game did an awful job of explaining how to play. It was like a math exam that no one wanted to do. Players tend to go into ESO thinking it's Skyrim online, put on any crappy gear on, and spam basic attack, because it worked in other elder scrolls games. They often have no clue about resource management and do not understand the complex skill tooltips. It improved with the new introduction, but is still having fundamental issues. Once you grasp the core mechanics, the game is disappointingly easy.

On a side note. I've just talked with my friend today why he quit ESO after hitting lvl 25 and he said : the game is awfully easy and I was bored all the time. There was zero challenge". There are also players who quit because of that.

old_scopie1945

There has been some toing and froing over player numbers. Jakeclips did a recent deep dive on this subject. This is a link to his vid to those who may be interested:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ6sBkcITFA

spartaxoxo

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

It is understood that there is a desire for this feature in a large portion of the community, even if it isn't the majority, and so it's worthwhile to come up with the best solution for everyone instead of trying to tell each other how to play. I'm not saying ZOS doesn't comprehend this, just that those who hold positions which exclude others from the game are making a mistake.

Keeping Overland as it has been for over 8 years now isn't excluding anyone from the game. Players choose which content they participate in, and not enjoying one part does not stop anyone from enjoying the content they do enjoy.

I don't know what their experiment will be, or how they will determine if it will lead to a change or not. I only hope they take my, and other like minded players', feedback into consideration before making a change to something that has worked well for most of the life of this game.

So let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

No, it is. People leave the game because it's not satisfying. I don't do overland because it's not satisfying. Just because someone *can* do something, that doesn't mean they will ever do it if it's not going to be enjoyable for them to do. I'm sure you understand this.

Please, accept that the majority of the content in the game is effectively locked away for me because I cannot enjoy it. That is just how it is. And I'm not the only one.

Yup.

Also, "we can't force everyone to enjoy a harder difficulty because they'd leave the game since it wasn't fun anymore," works both ways imo. We shouldn't just leave the difficulty the way it is because players have left since the game wasn't fun anymore.

I'm glad the developers are trying something, whatever it turns out to be. I think forced would be a mistake. But the beauty of tests are they can be undone and refined to better suit the playerbase.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

It is understood that there is a desire for this feature in a large portion of the community, even if it isn't the majority, and so it's worthwhile to come up with the best solution for everyone instead of trying to tell each other how to play. I'm not saying ZOS doesn't comprehend this, just that those who hold positions which exclude others from the game are making a mistake.

Keeping Overland as it has been for over 8 years now isn't excluding anyone from the game. Players choose which content they participate in, and not enjoying one part does not stop anyone from enjoying the content they do enjoy.

I don't know what their experiment will be, or how they will determine if it will lead to a change or not. I only hope they take my, and other like minded players', feedback into consideration before making a change to something that has worked well for most of the life of this game.

So let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I hope they’ll take into consideration those of us who’d like overland difficulty to exceed one-to-two GCDs for every encounter, too.
Edited to add: I’ve had a number of the same conversations, @Surgee. Almost verbatim.

Franchise408

vsrs_au wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I am sure by now ZoS is well aware of what players are asking for. But they may not be able to provide it in the way some want.

It seems they are injecting more difficult content into overland without completely changing overland and the story as a whole. I for one am very pleased if this is their solution because it won't affect anyone that loves overland as it is now negatively.

I would also be fine with a toggle or debuff but that doesn't seem to be the direction they are taking.

I'm not surprised that you're pleased because it doesn't address the issue in a way which affects you, but it also doesn't address the issue in any kind of sensible or satisfying way for the thousands of people who have lamented it for years, some of whom have left the game because of it.

And when everyone heard about increased general overland difficulty there were many posting how happy they were with that, even though it would negatively affect the many players that do not want a general difficulty increase.

And that's not great either. I really wish more people would understand that there are solutions which can work for everyone, and that those solutions are as good for them as if they were something they wanted for themself. In an MMO, excluding other players from the game lowers the population of the game, and that is bad for everyone.

I think we as players do understand that solutions that work for everyone would be ideal. But realistically that may not be possible.

I will not be convinced that every solution presented in this thread is impossible. We have presented options which can work for everyone and which use existing code. I'm not saying it would be simple, but it can be done.

Unless you're a ZOS developer, you know nothing about the existing code, so can't really make any assumptions about it. As a software developer myself, I can guarantee you that solutions which seem very simple to the end-user may not actually be simple for a developer to implement.

We know that they have existing code for separate instances. We know this because this is what the game does in literally every single other area of the game.

Franchise408

Surgee wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

I think many of you are overreacting. We don't even know how much harder it will get. Even if it they'll bump it up 30% it honestly won't make much difference since most players kill mobs within 1-2 hits. Let the update release and check if you really will fail miserably fighting a boar.

There are players that find the current overland difficult for various reasons. Increasing the difficulty by 5% would make it more difficult for them, and 30% would render it completely unplayable for many of these players.

This isn't an overreaction... it's a fact.

Where did you get that fact from? There are people who really struggle to kill a boar? I don't believe it. Unless you're talking about soloing world bosses in the newest maps, which is meant to be a group encounter. I always meet randoms there and it isn't an issue.

There are people in this thread who already find overland difficult due to things like age, internet connectivity, disability, etc. The devs have also said some unnamed percentage of players find overland challenging.

I can empathize with those people - I even have some in my guild and we - myself included - do the best we can to help them along.

I also don't believe that this is the skill level that the game should be balanced around. I don't consider myself an "elite" player by any means, but I do believe there is a certain level of competency that needs to be expected of the players. It has nothing to do with any sort of ego surrounding in game achievements, but rather the fact that if the game is simplified so much that literally anybody can do it without any sort of effort being put in, then it ceases to be an actual game.

It is an online game. You should be expected to have a competent level of internet connection.

It is an ARPG. You should be expected to have a competent level of reflexes and "stick skills".

There is already an expectation to have proper hardware to run the game, whether it be an appropriate console, or a PC with proper GPU's, CPU's, etc. The game shouldn't be balanced around people who don't meet those minimum requirements, and the same should apply to online connections and reflex skills.

This is not the same as expecting Souls-like difficulty. I've no problem with this game having content that these players can do and complete. What I am saying is that in an online game, you should be expected to have at least a minimum level of internet connection, and in an ARPG you should be expected to handle a minimum level of reflex and twitch skills, and if you can't meet those requirements, that's not who the game should be balanced around. That's just balancing around the other extreme of the difficulty spectrum opposite from Souls-difficulty, which the game should also not be primarily balanced around.

100%. This

Franchise408 wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

rrbreezy wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

There should never be gold drops from overland, no matter what the difficulty. Overland is not end game content, and it shouldn't be. End game content shouldn't even drop gold rewards. The player can upgrade their gear to gold themselves.

Why?

Gold gear doesn't even drop from vet trials (except some jewelry pieces), there's no way it should be dropping from overland.

I am in agreement that a vet overland should have improved rewards, but it should remain consistent with the rest of the game. Vet dungeons drop purple gear instead of blue. That's the sort of upgrade players should get for a vet overland. Since the overland content is not repeatable (in regards to the quests, anyways), there shouldn't be any unique rewards that drop from vet overland, because so many people would already be locked out of receiving those rewards. But blue or purple drops rather than green is appropriate.

Gold drops shouldn't be dropping in a vet overland unless vet dungeons and trials are changed to also do the same.

Agreed, there should never be unique rewards tied to vet overland. If ZOS overcompensates, there will very likely be a significant amount of negativity over the way the feature is handled, and that's bad for everyone. It needs to be fair, and if it were me, I would start out with going light on rewards to allow uninterested people time to acclimate to the idea, as a way of managing any negativity that might occur during the rollout.

Yea, I am very pro-higher difficulty, I am very pro-vet overland, and I am very pro-higher rewards for vet overland.

I also agree that the extent of the higher rewards should be blue or purple drops of the same items that are already in normal.

I am firmly of the belief that any higher difficulty feature should be consistent with what happens in the rest of the game. Vet instance, higher quality drops but not different drops, no unique drops or rewards. Not even necessarily big on vet achievements, since people who have already played through the content would be locked out of it. The only exception to that would be if going into a vet instance allows you to play through the questlines again, then I could see potential achievements for them, but if there is no vet reset, then no achievements or unique rewards.

Getting an item from blue to purple costs pretty much nothing and you want to compare that with hours of challenging content? With the current economy, just higher quality drops like purple instead of blue doesn't justify the massively bigger effort to complete the task. Challenge must come with equivalent reward. It must respect the players time and effort put. If it doesn't, it will be met with a giant backlash and will bury ESO even deeper.

If you say rewards should not be tied to the effort, why can't I just login, press a button and get all rewards but green? I thought it was said in this thread that people who want a challenge, should just do it for the challenge, so following the same way of thinking, everyone else should do their activities just for the fun of doing the activities.

I hate fishing. I have never complained that I can't get the fishing rewards without fishing. If you want an item, you must do the activity. If it's a great item, you must do a harder activity. It's simple as that. It's the core of gaming.

Even with increased difficulty, I highly doubt that overland is going to take some huge effort to actually complete.

If I do a normal dungeon, I get blue drop gear. If I do vet dungeons, I get the same gear, but in purple. Vet dungeons do drop monster helms - and vet dungeons are also repeatable content. If you add in a unique drop for overland quests, what happens to people who have already completed those quests and can't go back and play them again? Those players will just never be able to get that gear.

Blue or purple drops, when overland presently drops green, is an appropriate upgrade of loot that remains consistent with the rest of the game.