Overland Content Feedback Thread

Harvokaan

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during the pandemic and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

What numbers are you checking? Only from steam, they gained 14k, not 5k after the lockdown (28,5k - April 2020) and when you compare the data before that (14,7k - March 2020) to date today (15,7k - November 2020) you can see they lost 13k from that 14k gain. Thats data from https://steamcharts.com as they are the most accurate for this platform.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during the pandemic and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

What numbers are you checking? Only from steam, they gained 14k, not 5k after the lockdown (28,5k - April 2020) and when you compare the data before that (14,7k - March 2020) to date today (15,7k - November 2020) you can see they lost 13k from that 14k gain. Thats data from https://steamcharts.com as they are the most accurate for this platform.

I was comparing November which is the most recent full month of data. You don't compare the numbers that way because different ebbs and flows of the game is natural based on holidays, seasonal tastes, new content releases, etc. You compare the same period of time in different years. You see that same ebb and flow in every year.

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

If you want to do April

April 2019 was 16138
April 2020 was 28,467
April 2021 was 23,377

The same exact trend appears, they lost players from the pandemic but they still retained a lot of those players and the player count was higher than it was pre-pandemic at that same time in 2019. They gained 12329 players during the pandemic and kept 7239 of them or 58%. The majority of them.

[edited to remove quote]

Vulkunne

SilverBride wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Its the opinion of the many that matters.

Everyone's opinion matters, and everyone has a right to their opinion.

However, according to Rich the a huge majority doesn't want difficulty with the story.

I don't believe anyone has said 'huge majority'. That is what some of you want to think but I don't believe it. A huge majority doesn't agree on anything, especially video game content, just check the forums.

Harvokaan

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during the pandemic and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

What numbers are you checking? Only from steam, they gained 14k, not 5k after the lockdown (28,5k - April 2020) and when you compare the data before that (14,7k - March 2020) to date today (15,7k - November 2020) you can see they lost 13k from that 14k gain. Thats data from https://steamcharts.com as they are the most accurate for this platform.

I was comparing November which is the most recent full month of data.

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

How the hell you got that 5k gain and 1k lost then?
Lockdown worldwide starts around march, eso major pandemic gain was in April 2020 (from 14,7k average to 28,4k) and when you compare november 2021 (15,7k) to march 2020 (14,7k) you can see 1k gain out of 14k from pandemic. Not sure what math you applied here but your numbers don't hold up.

[edited to remove quote]

Vulkunne

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during November of 2020 and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth. They gained players every single year since One Tamriel, then the pandemic happened and they had a temporary but massive surge, and managed to retain a lot of those players.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

With respect, I thank you for trying to be informative on here.

However, to me at least, none of this really is relevant for 2022 as a whole. This is not 2020. New year will bring new things, new updates, for which you have no data for presently unless the Devs have let us know the plan. Which I don't want to know I'm just saying.

But whatever data there is, those years are over. Its not necessarily going to predict how 2022 will turn out. I could call my boss and tell him what a great job I did back in 2019 but it doesn't matter because we have new challenges now, why? because the world has changed.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during the pandemic and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

What numbers are you checking? Only from steam, they gained 14k, not 5k after the lockdown (28,5k - April 2020) and when you compare the data before that (14,7k - March 2020) to date today (15,7k - November 2020) you can see they lost 13k from that 14k gain. Thats data from https://steamcharts.com as they are the most accurate for this platform.

I was comparing November which is the most recent full month of data.

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

How the hell you got that 5k gain and 1k lost then?
Lockdown worldwide starts around march, eso major pandemic gain was in April 2020 (from 14,7k average to 28,4k) and when you compare november 2021 (15,7k) to march 2020 (14,7k) you can see 1k gain out of 14k from pandemic. Not sure what math you applied here but your numbers don't hold up.

You should not be comparing November 2021 to March 2020. You should be comparing November 2021 to November 2020.

November 2021 is 15,780.5
November 2020 is 16,956.1

16956-15780 is 1176 players lost.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during November of 2020 and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth. They gained players every single year since One Tamriel, then the pandemic happened and they had a temporary but massive surge, and managed to retain a lot of those players.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

With respect, I thank you for trying to be informative on here.

However, to me at least, none of this really is relevant for 2022 as a whole. This is not 2020. New year will bring new things, new updates, for which you have no data for presently unless the Devs have let us know the plan. Which I don't want to know I'm just saying.

But whatever data there is, those years are over. Its not necessarily going to predict how 2022 will turn out. I could call my boss and tell him what a great job I did back in 2019 but it doesn't matter because we have new challenges now, why? because the world has changed.

I am correcting the claim that this game has been losing players in droves, and thus a change like this is necessary to stop the losses.

The game is NOT doing that. It is losing players from 2020, but that was to be expected and most games did because the 2020 numbers were never gonna be sustainable as lockdowns eased. They actually maintained the majority of that surge and grew vs this same time pre-pandemic (2019)

[edited to remove quote]

Vulkunne

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during November of 2020 and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth. They gained players every single year since One Tamriel, then the pandemic happened and they had a temporary but massive surge, and managed to retain a lot of those players.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

With respect, I thank you for trying to be informative on here.

However, to me at least, none of this really is relevant for 2022 as a whole. This is not 2020. New year will bring new things, new updates, for which you have no data for presently unless the Devs have let us know the plan. Which I don't want to know I'm just saying.

But whatever data there is, those years are over. Its not necessarily going to predict how 2022 will turn out. I could call my boss and tell him what a great job I did back in 2019 but it doesn't matter because we have new challenges now, why? because the world has changed.

I am correcting the claim that this game has been losing players in droves, and thus a change like this is necessary to stop the losses.

The game is NOT doing that. It is losing players from 2020, but that was to be expected and most games did because the 2020 numbers were never gonna be sustainable as lockdowns eased. They actually maintained the majority of that surge.

Well now they're talking about another round of lockdowns and where I am most of us are not going to start working in the office until like March because of Omicron. So that may affect things, I'm sure.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during November of 2020 and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth. They gained players every single year since One Tamriel, then the pandemic happened and they had a temporary but massive surge, and managed to retain a lot of those players.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

With respect, I thank you for trying to be informative on here.

However, to me at least, none of this really is relevant for 2022 as a whole. This is not 2020. New year will bring new things, new updates, for which you have no data for presently unless the Devs have let us know the plan. Which I don't want to know I'm just saying.

But whatever data there is, those years are over. Its not necessarily going to predict how 2022 will turn out. I could call my boss and tell him what a great job I did back in 2019 but it doesn't matter because we have new challenges now, why? because the world has changed.

I am correcting the claim that this game has been losing players in droves, and thus a change like this is necessary to stop the losses.

The game is NOT doing that. It is losing players from 2020, but that was to be expected and most games did because the 2020 numbers were never gonna be sustainable as lockdowns eased. They actually maintained the majority of that surge.

Well now they're talking about another round of lockdowns and where I am most of us are not going to start working in the office until like March because of Omicron. So that may affect things, I'm sure.

I am working from home myself. Honestly who can say how things will turn in 2022? I think they probably will need to course correct with the pvp crowd at the least. They may have gotten a lot of newbie questers, but they lost so many PVP players that they have had to rework the queue for Battlegrounds and focus on improving performance particularly in Cyro for years now. That shows PVP very much needs attention.

[edited to remove quote]

Vulkunne

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

Thats why im not saying "eso is dying" [snip]. I just point that there is a problem with population and player retention and that the numbers are not great when you look at the bigger picture. Maybe it will change if zos announce some crazy new stuff for 2022 but for now the trend is worrying. I started the discussion about these numbers to higlight that the situation isn't that good and some changes to the formula might be desired (as oposite to some ppl here stating that everything is perfect the way it is right now and nothing needs to be changed.

But the numbers aren't worrying though. That's the thing. The assertion that there is a worrying trend isn't supported by the numbers. They expected to lose a good chunk of the growth in 2020 as lockdowns eased, and that's exactly what happened. But they also retained a good portion of those players.

They gained 5425 average players on Steam during November of 2020 and lost 1176 of them this year, but they also kept 4249 of them. That's roughly 78% of the players from this time last year. That's a very good retention given the global circumstances.

This is why they call themselves more successful than ever. Because they have had very good growth. They gained players every single year since One Tamriel, then the pandemic happened and they had a temporary but massive surge, and managed to retain a lot of those players.

This isn't to say they should do nothing, but from a success standpoint the formula they have has been extremely successful, so it's small wonder they are hesitant to mess with it. Players were saying this same thing back during Summerset, which is why they addressed in an promotional interview for Elsweyr, and then Elsweyr proceeded to do better than Summerset, no pandemic involved.

With respect, I thank you for trying to be informative on here.

However, to me at least, none of this really is relevant for 2022 as a whole. This is not 2020. New year will bring new things, new updates, for which you have no data for presently unless the Devs have let us know the plan. Which I don't want to know I'm just saying.

But whatever data there is, those years are over. Its not necessarily going to predict how 2022 will turn out. I could call my boss and tell him what a great job I did back in 2019 but it doesn't matter because we have new challenges now, why? because the world has changed.

I am correcting the claim that this game has been losing players in droves, and thus a change like this is necessary to stop the losses.

The game is NOT doing that. It is losing players from 2020, but that was to be expected and most games did because the 2020 numbers were never gonna be sustainable as lockdowns eased. They actually maintained the majority of that surge.

Well now they're talking about another round of lockdowns and where I am most of us are not going to start working in the office until like March because of Omicron. So that may affect things, I'm sure.

I am working from home myself. Honestly who can say how things will turn in 2022? I think they probably will need to course correct with the pvp crowd at the least. They may have gotten a lot of newbie questers, but they lost so many PVP players that they have had to rework the queue for Battlegrounds and focus on improving performance particularly in Cyro for years now. That shows PVP very much needs attention.

You know what that would be wonderful. Start with PvP. Yeah start there and move forward cautiously.

[edited to remove quote]

SilverBride

Vulkunne wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

However, according to Rich the a huge majority doesn't want difficulty with the story.

I don't believe anyone has said 'huge majority'. That is what some of you want to think but I don't believe it. A huge majority doesn't agree on anything, especially video game content, just check the forums.

"I get 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." - Rich Lambert

Vulkunne

SilverBride wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

However, according to Rich the a huge majority doesn't want difficulty with the story.

I don't believe anyone has said 'huge majority'. That is what some of you want to think but I don't believe it. A huge majority doesn't agree on anything, especially video game content, just check the forums.

"I get 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." - Rich Lambert

Ok so let's play a game. Let's play Devil's advocate for a moment and let's look at this closer. Now obviously the context is missing, but anyways I've read thru the full interview and I thank Mr Lambert for his time.

If you try to say, "Well Rick is clearly stating a HUGE portion of the player base just wants to do the story and they don't want harder difficutly."

Problem #1: Everyone does the story, even me. This actually not helping your case very much because this is something that everyone does.
Problem #2: He says they don't want harder difficulty... well what exactly what does that even mean? Do you see what I'm saying? Trials and the like are harder difficulty, surely. In fact, the phrase 'harder difficulty' itself is subjective and can span across PvE and PvP content, even, and in this piece of conversation there is no hot switch set to indicate *specifically* that he is referring to Overland content.

He doesn't really specify. A Huge portion (no % or actual numbers even) wants to do the story, sure we all do. They don't want harder difficulty? What they don't want the story to be harder? He can't mean PvE content in general because Trials are hard but he doesn't specify. And I could keep going, in fact, because Trials are hard and this is content they're making, the actual product the company makes is going against what he is implying, respectfully. Ergo, if we're to accept nothing should be more difficulty then why make Trials, among many other things.

Unfort I don't see this as a Silver Bullet for your case.

spartaxoxo

Vulkunne wrote: »

He doesn't really specify. A Huge portion (no % or actual numbers even) wants to do the story, sure we all do. They don't want harder difficulty? What they don't want the story to be harder? He can't mean PvE content in general because Trials are hard but he doesn't specify.

"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.

He does specify. He's talking about the story and in particular rejecting vet overland.

This is not a suprise either as the difficult stuff is played by the more hardcore minority in most video games.

Vulkunne

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

He doesn't really specify. A Huge portion (no % or actual numbers even) wants to do the story, sure we all do. They don't want harder difficulty? What they don't want the story to be harder? He can't mean PvE content in general because Trials are hard but he doesn't specify.

"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.

He does specify. He's talking about the story and in particular rejecting vet overland.

This is not a suprise either as the difficult stuff is played by the more hardcore minority in most video games.

So People just did not like... who are these people? Has anyone seen them around recently? No one asked me what I thought. So "who" is this really coming from and did we really get to choose and did they choose for us based on the "who"?

A HUGE portion wants to do the story right? Ok, yeah sure. Everyone I've ever met wants to do ESO story. Totally agree.

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

Again, what does he really mean by difficulty though. If this is linked to you know the Silver and Gold system that's different. That's not what we're asking for here and I have yet to ever see one person ask to have that back. And this IS a valid point because from before the Silver and Gold zones were part of the story.

spartaxoxo

Vulkunne wrote: »

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

It is well known thing across the industry at this point that your casuals tend to be the majority or your playbase and income, and they don't generally engage with any of the harder content. Like you don't have trophy data on pc but you see it in this and other games that there’s a significant drop in people doing harder content.

In fact, that so few people even attempt to do the harder stuff and fewer still succeed is what gives hard stuff it's prestige.

Your hardcore playerbase can't and shouldn't be ignored though as they are ones that give games hype, spread word of mouth, create content, etc.

So most games also try to include plenty of content for those users.

I honestly don't know why you guys think this game would be an exception to something generally true across the entire industry.

Vulkunne

Ah yes, a Tale of Two ESOs.

Like I said before, say it once more. There is nothing Casual about Overland Difficulty. Yes, you might be able to get around zones casually but the way it is setup now is easy mode and not casual mode.

You are most welcome to think and believe as you like but Overland Content is not Casual. I can't just call it something it isn't.

spartaxoxo

Vulkunne wrote: »

Ah yes, a Tale of Two ESOs.

Like I said before, say it once more. There is nothing Casual about Overland Difficulty. Yes, you might be able to get around zones casually but the way it is setup now is easy mode and not casual mode.

You are most welcome to think and believe as you like but Overland Content is not Casual. I can't just call it something it isn't.

When you Google the term casual difficulty many games are describing an easier mode, so I'm not really sure why you're acting like casual difficulty typically denotes some kind of challenge? But I mean call it what you want I suppose.

Most people here seem to want it at like a normal dungeon or craglorn difficulty level and I don't personally find that any different to Overland, just more time consuming. .

Vulkunne

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Ah yes, a Tale of Two ESOs.

Like I said before, say it once more. There is nothing Casual about Overland Difficulty. Yes, you might be able to get around zones casually but the way it is setup now is easy mode and not casual mode.

You are most welcome to think and believe as you like but Overland Content is not Casual. I can't just call it something it isn't.

When you Google the term casual difficulty many games are describing an easier mode, so I'm not really sure why you're acting like casual difficulty typically denotes some kind of challenge? But I mean call it what you want I suppose.

Most people here seem to want it at like a normal dungeon or craglorn difficulty level and I don't personally find that any different to Overland, just more time consuming. .

Right you personally consider it as such, that's cool. I support you.

Personally, while I can only try to glean information from Rich's interview, I know the content that I would like to see. Clearly being a Dev isn't easy so they have to go in a direction but I don't enjoy living in the past so to speak. They are at least aware alot of people want more difficulty, or just combat balance and that a HUGE amount of people enjoy running the stories.

But this IS the crux of the matter. We are NOT all once contiguous pot. A % thinks the story content should run with something more difficult or more balanced perhaps. A % does not. Obviously we can both agree by logic the people who want more difficulty are not the same people who enjoy running the stories without, yet a HUGE portion both enjoy same content ... but not in the same way.

This is the problem that was never resolved.

Rudrani

Since the thing is 51 pages long now, i'd like to restate my feelings...

My Observation
Most of what is actually good about eso is in the overworld...
...its interesting
...its vast
...its colorful
...it has variety
...its less predictable than instances

The only problems are:
1) it is made for preschoolers
2) there are few very significant rewards from it.


My Suggestion
Make the difficulty setting (normal/vet) that is already in the group window also affect our overland instance.

If we are in a vet overland instance, the difficulty level will be vastly cranked up (like 10x the current hp and damage), and the rewards will be similarly cranked.

The rewards should include things I actually want:
1) Gold mats, all crafting types
2) Transmute geodes
3) Skill points
4) Small chance to find random perfected gear from trials in that zone.
5) Small chance to find gear from the dungeons in that zone.
6) Small chance to find motifs from dungeons and trials in the zone.

Rudrani

Its NOT that hard to do, technically.
And if not that many players play it, so what? Not that many players play Rockgrove Hardmode, but ZoS still made it.

It would take the 5% of people who would play it, and make them really happy for a very long time (cuz there is TONS of stuff to do in the overworld)

Ronin37

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

It is well known thing across the industry at this point that your casuals tend to be the majority or your playbase and income, and they don't generally engage with any of the harder content. Like you don't have trophy data on pc but you see it in this and other games that there’s a significant drop in people doing harder content.

In fact, that so few people even attempt to do the harder stuff and fewer still succeed is what gives hard stuff it's prestige.

Your hardcore playerbase can't and shouldn't be ignored though as they are ones that give games hype, spread word of mouth, create content, etc.

So most games also try to include plenty of content for those users.

I honestly don't know why you guys think this game would be an exception to something generally true across the entire industry.

Thing is the game does not need to be Dark Souls but Story bosses should not melt like a some Skylander boss.

spartaxoxo

Ronin37 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

It is well known thing across the industry at this point that your casuals tend to be the majority or your playbase and income, and they don't generally engage with any of the harder content. Like you don't have trophy data on pc but you see it in this and other games that there’s a significant drop in people doing harder content.

In fact, that so few people even attempt to do the harder stuff and fewer still succeed is what gives hard stuff it's prestige.

Your hardcore playerbase can't and shouldn't be ignored though as they are ones that give games hype, spread word of mouth, create content, etc.

So most games also try to include plenty of content for those users.

I honestly don't know why you guys think this game would be an exception to something generally true across the entire industry.

Thing is the game does not need to be Dark Souls but Story bosses should not melt like a some Skylander boss.

Why not though? Like for me personally if it's not Dark Souls it's not worth doing a whole instance lol

Ronin37

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ronin37 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

It is well known thing across the industry at this point that your casuals tend to be the majority or your playbase and income, and they don't generally engage with any of the harder content. Like you don't have trophy data on pc but you see it in this and other games that there’s a significant drop in people doing harder content.

In fact, that so few people even attempt to do the harder stuff and fewer still succeed is what gives hard stuff it's prestige.

Your hardcore playerbase can't and shouldn't be ignored though as they are ones that give games hype, spread word of mouth, create content, etc.

So most games also try to include plenty of content for those users.

I honestly don't know why you guys think this game would be an exception to something generally true across the entire industry.

Thing is the game does not need to be Dark Souls but Story bosses should not melt like a some Skylander boss.

Why not though? Like for me personally if it's not Dark Souls it's not worth doing a whole instance lol

There was a boss in Secret Worlds that was a kind of dps check and it was glorious when you got past it. People in this game would melt into goo puddles if some overland boss pushed back even a little.

Amottica

LashanW wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Here you indicate you want benefits for dealing with more of a challenge which supports Rich's claims.

Please don't take my words out of context and try to give it a different meaning. My post you quoted was only about self debuff systems. I don't care about benefits/rewards in a separate veteran overland instance. Because in a vet instance, everyone is in the same boat, unlike self debuffs.

Amottica wrote: »

Also, a debuff system works just fine. Besides that, the player with a debuff will have to pay more attention since they will take more damage when they mess up, when there are other players involved it is really irrelevant what your damage is anyhow since in overland there is not a limit to how many can join in.

I have never seen or used self-debuff systems with zero benefits that people actually bothered to use. Please provide examples if you know any. If ZoS implemented something like that then it would see little use and they will come to the conclusion that nobody cares about a vet overland.

I did not take it out of context and fail to see any significant difference between a system that made a character weaker to increase the challenge vs putting the character in a zone that has been buffed which means the character would be weaker by comparison. Heck, entering the optional version of the zone could debuff the player and it would have the exact results of buffing the zone.

Heck, even in some of the threads asking for more challenges the idea is put forth to increase the rewards even if it is a different instance and Rich alluded to most players would tend to avoid dealing with more challenges if it did not provide greater rewards. It is essentially why they suggested the vet zones were not popular. In other words, Zenimax disagrees with you on this and feels strongly their data backs up their view.

spartaxoxo

Ronin37 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ronin37 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

they do not want to struggle with the difficult things... So why keep producing things like oh I don't know Vet Vateshran. Just one example. Just one example among dozens of others.

It is well known thing across the industry at this point that your casuals tend to be the majority or your playbase and income, and they don't generally engage with any of the harder content. Like you don't have trophy data on pc but you see it in this and other games that there’s a significant drop in people doing harder content.

In fact, that so few people even attempt to do the harder stuff and fewer still succeed is what gives hard stuff it's prestige.

Your hardcore playerbase can't and shouldn't be ignored though as they are ones that give games hype, spread word of mouth, create content, etc.

So most games also try to include plenty of content for those users.

I honestly don't know why you guys think this game would be an exception to something generally true across the entire industry.

Thing is the game does not need to be Dark Souls but Story bosses should not melt like a some Skylander boss.

Why not though? Like for me personally if it's not Dark Souls it's not worth doing a whole instance lol

There was a boss in Secret Worlds that was a kind of dps check and it was glorious when you got past it. People in this game would melt into goo puddles if some overland boss pushed back even a little.

Don't know about that game but that sounds fun.

LashanW

Amottica wrote: »

I did not take it out of context and fail to see any significant difference between a system that made a character weaker to increase the challenge vs putting the character in a zone that has been buffed which means the character would be weaker by comparison. Heck, entering the optional version of the zone could debuff the player and it would have the exact results of buffing the zone.

[snip] Problem is impact of other players.

• Self applied debuff in current overland -> Normal and debuffed players are mixed together and face same enemies. Not a level playing field. Artificial difference between power levels of skilled debuffed players and inexperienced normal players can affect immersion.
• a veteran overland -> It's a level playing field. Any difference of power levels between players here will be purely due to player skill.

Amottica wrote: »

Heck, even in some of the threads asking for more challenges the idea is put forth to increase the rewards even if it is a different instance and Rich alluded to most players would tend to avoid dealing with more challenges if it did not provide greater rewards. It is essentially why they suggested the vet zones were not popular. In other words, Zenimax disagrees with you on this and feels strongly their data backs up their view.

[snip]
[edited for baiting]

spartaxoxo

LashanW wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I did not take it out of context and fail to see any significant difference between a system that made a character weaker to increase the challenge vs putting the character in a zone that has been buffed which means the character would be weaker by comparison. Heck, entering the optional version of the zone could debuff the player and it would have the exact results of buffing the zone.

[snip] Problem is impact of other players.

• Self applied debuff in current overland -> Normal and debuffed players are mixed together and face same enemies. Not a level playing field. Artificial difference between power levels of skilled debuffed players and inexperienced normal players can affect immersion.
• a veteran overland -> It's a level playing field. Any difference of power levels between players here will be purely due to player skill.

Amottica wrote: »

Heck, even in some of the threads asking for more challenges the idea is put forth to increase the rewards even if it is a different instance and Rich alluded to most players would tend to avoid dealing with more challenges if it did not provide greater rewards. It is essentially why they suggested the vet zones were not popular. In other words, Zenimax disagrees with you on this and feels strongly their data backs up their view.

[snip]

There is no gameplay difference between a 100k player rolling in and nuking a group of vet overland before you get a hit in, and a 25k player doing the same to a debuffed player.

Either way the player didn't get to meaningfully interact with the mob in question.

The only difference is the immersion of some players, which is a subjective thing.

Saying one isn't a level playing field implies a gameplay difference that does not exist.

It is simply the reality of multiplayer gaming that you'll sometimes run into people who hit harder than you do.

[edited to remove quote]

LashanW

spartaxoxo wrote: »

There is no gameplay difference between a 100k player rolling in and nuking a group of vet overland before you get a hit in, and a 25k player doing the same to a debuffed player.

Either way the player didn't get to meaningfully interact with the mob in question.

The only difference is the immersion of some players, which is a subjective thing.

Saying one isn't a level playing field implies a gameplay difference that does not exist.

It is simply the reality of multiplayer gaming that you'll sometimes run into people who hit harder than you do.

Immersion is the whole reason some of us are asking for a vet overland.

Also, I'm one of those 100k guys (110k to be precise) so I don't care about differences between actual skills of players. If I saw someone nuking some quest enemies that I'm fighting faster than me in a vet overland I'd be impressed and be wanting to know how they did it. But if it was someone who simply weren't debuffed while I was? It's not a good feeling.

spartaxoxo

LashanW wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

There is no gameplay difference between a 100k player rolling in and nuking a group of vet overland before you get a hit in, and a 25k player doing the same to a debuffed player.

Either way the player didn't get to meaningfully interact with the mob in question.

The only difference is the immersion of some players, which is a subjective thing.

Saying one isn't a level playing field implies a gameplay difference that does not exist.

It is simply the reality of multiplayer gaming that you'll sometimes run into people who hit harder than you do.

Immersion is the whole reason some of us are asking for a vet overland.

Also, I'm one of those 100k guys (110k to be precise) so I don't care about differences between actual skills of players. If I saw someone nuking some quest enemies that I'm fighting faster than me in a vet overland I'd be impressed and be wanting to know how they did it. But if it was someone who simply weren't debuffed while I was? It's not a good feeling.

Sure but it's moreso the story immersion and not a competition with other players, yes? You want to have to deal with threats?Especially in boss fights which are already privately instanced so you won't run into another player. You're not likely to encounter this problem all that often and it can be resolved just by focusing on your own gameplay experience or waiting for them to get a bit ahead of you, which is already what less powerful players do when someone at your power level rolls through.

LashanW

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sure but it's moreso the story immersion and not a competition with other players, yes? You want to have to deal with threats?Especially in boss fights which are already privately instanced so you won't run into another player. You're not likely to encounter this problem all that often and it can be resolved just by focusing on your own gameplay experience or waiting for them to get a bit ahead of you, which is already what less powerful players do when someone at your power level rolls through.

Personally it's not gonna be a problem for me. As I said before, I play on PC-EU from Asia so I can just play when everyone in Europe is still sleeping. Also yes, debuffs are fine for instanced quests. It's not gonna solve the unusually high cooldowns on mob abilities and the fact that you almost never meet more than 3 quest enemies at a time, but it's a start at least.