Overland Content Feedback Thread
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SilverBride✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DeathStalker wrote: »
they could have eased fears and concerns anytime and have chosen to let them run wild. When they "adjust" abilities, it's almost always way op or nerfed until nobody uses it. Pick any part of this game you want. It's almost always thermal nuclear bomb to kill a fly approach with adjustments. So, until they confirm otherwise, massive, forced difficulty increase
I agree that letting us know sooner rather than later would alleviate some of our fears... or make them worse... depending on what they have planned. But nothing leads me to believe it will be a massive forced difficulty increase.
They created Bastion Nymics as one solution to overland difficulty. That was not massive or forced. I seriously don't believe they will do anything that would drive away a HUGE portion of the playerbase.
But whatever it is... it is an EXPERIMENT that may not become permanent.PCNA1 -
sans-culottes✭✭✭✭✭SilverBride wrote: »But whatever it is... it is an EXPERIMENT that may not become permanent.
Or permanent, as the case may be. Best to withhold judgment until there’s more to go off of.Edited by sans-culottes on March 10, 2025 8:44PM1 -
DeathStalker✭✭✭✭✭SilverBride wrote: »
I agree that letting us know sooner rather than later would alleviate some of our fears... or make them worse... depending on what they have planned. But nothing leads me to believe it will be a massive forced difficulty increase.
They created Bastion Nymics as one solution to overland difficulty. That was not massive or forced. I seriously don't believe they will do anything that would drive away a HUGE portion of the playerbase.
But whatever it is... it is an EXPERIMENT that may not become permanent.
I guess in the end, @SilverBride, I have lost my faith in them, and you haven't.3 -
sans-culottes✭✭✭✭✭DeathStalker wrote: »
I guess in the end, @SilverBride, I have lost my faith in them, and you haven't.
If you don’t have faith in the developers, then why would you be supporting their product? This is just tilting at windmills.4 -
DeathStalker✭✭✭✭✭sans-culottes wrote: »
If you don’t have faith in the developers, then why would you be supporting their product? This is just tilting at windmills.
I haven't logged in since the announcement of a difficulty increase. Besides that and giving voice to my displeasure with the direction here on the forums. What else exactly am I supposed to do?2 -
SilverBride✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DeathStalker wrote: »I haven't logged in since the announcement of a difficulty increase. Besides that and giving voice to my displeasure with the direction here on the forums. What else exactly am I supposed to do?
I'm sorry to hear that.
I can't say I have been happy with every decision that has been made over the past 11 years, but realistically why would I expect to? It's not easy to balance a game so that there is something for everyone, but I think they have done a pretty good job of it.
I still enjoy playing this game, and am happy about some of the changes in the patch today. I am not going to stop playing and enjoying the game and the company of my friends in game over something that may or may not happen.PCNA3 -
Franchise408✭✭✭✭✭
✭DeathStalker wrote: »
I haven't logged in since the announcement of a difficulty increase. Besides that and giving voice to my displeasure with the direction here on the forums. What else exactly am I supposed to do?
Honestly, anything else?
If a game isn't bringing you joy anymore, you probably shouldn't play it.
Now, you certainly have a right to an opinion regarding the game. I'm not always entirely happy with ESO, including the current state of overland, and I've expressed my opinion. I also spend most of my gaming time playing other games that do bring me joy. There's far too many games in existence for me to get stuck on one particular game's design. If ESO is not going to offer me the experience I want, then I will find a game that does. In terms of MMO's, I have EverQuest in consistent rotation, which offers me a decent overland challenge. I've maxed out characters in New World and Fallout 76 which give me acceptable challenges. I have MMO-adjacent online games like Diablo 2 Resurrected and Diablo 4 which present me with a proper challenge. Then there's all the other games that aren't necessarily online that I like to rotate through as well - single player RPG's, 4x / RTS / strategy games, sports games, shooters, etc. And I can stick around in ESO when I want to do something with my guild and run a trial or some dungeons or something. I've long passed the time of ESO being my main full time game, and I don't think that even addressing overland difficulty will do much to change that for me, although it will move the needle a little bit. Appropriately enough, taking some time away from the game as I have has reduced much of the burnout, and I've been slightly more reinvigorated to join up on runs with my guild, and an overland adjustment is definitely enough to at least pique my interest to see how it turns out.
Although if I'm being honest, my gripe with overland is less about the difficulty and more about the overall design of questing to begin with, which I find to be rather mundane and tedious even at the best of times. However, because this particular topic addresses a concern I have with the game, I do partake at times.
I say all this to say - you are entitled to your opinion about overland, and you are even justified in your skepticism towards how you anticipate the devs will approach it. I also don't anticipate the solution being satisfactory for me, although for the opposite reasons (I don't think the changes will go far enough). I feel that the devs have taken the wrong lessons from the data they have access to, and I don't feel confident in their abilities to make changes that will be satisfactory for me. However, there isn't a reason to fear. If the changes aren't what I want them to be, I can simply stick to the parts of the game that I do enjoy, and I can go and play other games for the experience I'm looking for that ESO is lacking.
While I do want to see change made to this game's overland, and I am an advocate for it, there is one thing I agree with from those who haven't been as excited towards overland difficulty changes - not every game needs to be for every audience. As a player of ESO, I would of course want ESO to cater to my preferences, but if it doesn't... well, I have other options, and I will play them. I don't have all of my eggs in the ESO basket, and I already have Bethesda mainline titles like Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Starfield to offer me the open world, free form type of experience I'm looking for. ESO has never been that game, and I don't think even adjusted difficulty will make it that game. In the MMO realm, I have EverQuest and New World that offer me experiences that I prefer, and in the MMO-adjacent online realm, I have Fallout 76, Diablo 2 Resurrected, and Diablo 4 that offer me an experience I enjoy. There are other games that offer me the experience I am looking for, and if ESO is determined to continue with the philosophy it has of very easy overland, and the challenge seeking is to come from group content like trials and dungeons, then ESO will remain a part time game that I just hop onto a couple times a month for guild events, and I won't be buying additional content that is completely unnecessary to my experience.1 -
Aelfan✭✭✭I have two perspectives on overland content.
1) I am professionally involved with the past, and I like some degree of reality in my world-building. I want my character to be a hero, with the skills of Fiore dei Liberi or the like, not just some dude. Even "some dudes" in the past were very capable, for example it was said that every 15th century English bowman carried 12 Frenchmen in his belt as he had 12 arrows: one arrow, one Frenchman. So I want the overwhelming majority of opponents to die as quickly as they would if they were facing Fiore dei Liberi or any other warrior of note. This should include all overland content. To find a challenge, I should have to look for it.
2) A lot of the content in this game is not about fighting, it is about finding things. Some people are actually more engaged by this content than the fighting. I am happy to fight in the game most of the time, but when I am intent on finding things having to be repeatedly fighting for my life is tedious. I am very aware of this at the moment as I am finally trying to finish the damned Psijic portal thing.
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Dahveed✭✭✭✭✭
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I'm just throwing this out there, but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned xp rates. (Or if they have it's buried and I missed it.)
It would be nice to be able to slow down, or even pause, the gaining of xp for added challenge. Back when one of those golden pursuits was to level an alt to 50 (to get some cosmetic spell stuff I think) I messed with my first ever real "alt" and I was astonished at how fast I got to 50 just by doing writs and low level BGs, with a splash of side questing. I was 50 within a matter of a few days.
It would be nice to have an NPC "curse" you or something with a Curse of Stupidity where you can't learn, or learn very slowly. Or something else that could even be arbitrary.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who want slower leveling for greater challenge. I think an xp toggle would be pretty easy to implement, as they've done in WoW for example.2 -
disky✭✭✭✭✭I have two perspectives on overland content.
1) I am professionally involved with the past, and I like some degree of reality in my world-building. I want my character to be a hero, with the skills of Fiore dei Liberi or the like, not just some dude. Even "some dudes" in the past were very capable, for example it was said that every 15th century English bowman carried 12 Frenchmen in his belt as he had 12 arrows: one arrow, one Frenchman. So I want the overwhelming majority of opponents to die as quickly as they would if they were facing Fiore dei Liberi or any other warrior of note. This should include all overland content. To find a challenge, I should have to look for it.
2) A lot of the content in this game is not about fighting, it is about finding things. Some people are actually more engaged by this content than the fighting. I am happy to fight in the game most of the time, but when I am intent on finding things having to be repeatedly fighting for my life is tedious. I am very aware of this at the moment as I am finally trying to finish the damned Psijic portal thing.
You're welcome to that point of view, and I would bet that many people feel the same way. However, I'm sure we can agree that many other people find fun in games when they're challenging to some extent, and if there is a way for those of us who do to find that challenge, especially if it doesn't impact your experience, where's the harm? ESO's minimal overland challenge has been a hot topic for years, ever since One Tamriel released, for a reason. This thread exists and is the largest on the forum for a reason. I'm not trying to attack you, I just hope it's understood that there is a major contingent of the playerbase who really wants a change, and I'm certain that we're totally fine with you keeping what you have. In fact, we argue for it all the time.Edited by disky on March 11, 2025 6:41PM2 -
disky✭✭✭✭✭I'm just throwing this out there, but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned xp rates. (Or if they have it's buried and I missed it.)
It would be nice to be able to slow down, or even pause, the gaining of xp for added challenge. Back when one of those golden pursuits was to level an alt to 50 (to get some cosmetic spell stuff I think) I messed with my first ever real "alt" and I was astonished at how fast I got to 50 just by doing writs and low level BGs, with a splash of side questing. I was 50 within a matter of a few days.
It would be nice to have an NPC "curse" you or something with a Curse of Stupidity where you can't learn, or learn very slowly. Or something else that could even be arbitrary.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who want slower leveling for greater challenge. I think an xp toggle would be pretty easy to implement, as they've done in WoW for example.
It has been brought up. It's a weird topic, because I modify games like Skyrim and Cyberpunk to slow experience gain to a quarter of normal, but the trouble with XP in ESO is that it's so closely tied to gear. Because gear doesn't actually become "real" until CP160, in ESO I want my characters to be over 50 as soon as possible so I can play with all of the gear I've collected, and also, so I don't have to worry about opening a bag by mistake and accidentally level-locking a piece of gear below CP160, permanently relegating it to a lower tier of usefulness. A lot of content depends on character level as well.
The only scenario I can think of in which this wouldn't become an issue is when you're playing the game without interacting with any other players for anything and you're not doing PvP, group dungeons or trials at all. As much as I prioritize overland, I also do this stuff from time to time, and so that doesn't really work for me. I'd imagine the percentage of the playerbase which plays that way is pretty limited.
I'd also like to make the point that progression in ESO is about more than just experience and level, and that reaching CP160 feels like the beginning of the road. Once you get there, there's still quite a bit to do.Edited by disky on March 11, 2025 7:03PM0 -
Franchise408✭✭✭✭✭
✭I have two perspectives on overland content.
1) I am professionally involved with the past, and I like some degree of reality in my world-building. I want my character to be a hero, with the skills of Fiore dei Liberi or the like, not just some dude. Even "some dudes" in the past were very capable, for example it was said that every 15th century English bowman carried 12 Frenchmen in his belt as he had 12 arrows: one arrow, one Frenchman. So I want the overwhelming majority of opponents to die as quickly as they would if they were facing Fiore dei Liberi or any other warrior of note. This should include all overland content. To find a challenge, I should have to look for it.
2) A lot of the content in this game is not about fighting, it is about finding things. Some people are actually more engaged by this content than the fighting. I am happy to fight in the game most of the time, but when I am intent on finding things having to be repeatedly fighting for my life is tedious. I am very aware of this at the moment as I am finally trying to finish the damned Psijic portal thing.
My responses:
1. That's great, and our characters should definitely feel special, but for purposes of the narrative, the bosses we face should be comparable, and right now that is just not the case.
2. There absolutely should be non-combat content in the game. That's part of what makes RPG's, and MMO's in particular special is the non-combat content. It allows you to more fully immerse yourself in a wide open and living world. At the same time, this is also an action RPG, which means it is very combat intensive. Getting involved in combat as you explore is part of the experience. As it stands, these encounters also are not a fight for your life, and nor is anyone asking for random overland encounters to become a fight for your life and I doubt it will become so.2