Overland Content Feedback Thread

Harvokaan

ajkb78 wrote: »

Captain_OP wrote: »

ajkb78 wrote: »

For existing zones the debuff system is really the only viable approach, but it is a very simple one and could very easily be implemented. If rich Lambert thinks otherwise he's over implicating the problem. The game already supports modifiers to damage received and damage done (CP). It also supports modifiers that work on a per zone basis (battle spirit). So the simplest way of implementing a veteran difficulty setting for overland would be to add 3 modifiers that the player can turn on or off as desired. The first would reduce healing received by around 80% (80 is just a suggestion but something around that value would probably be about right). The second would reduce damage done to NPCs by around 80%. And the third would increase damage taken from NPCs by around 400%. All these modifiers would apply, when selected, in all overland, delve and public dungeon instances, except the reduced healing received one would be overridden by the similar one baked into Battle Spirit when in Cyrodiil.

The combined effect would reasonably increase ttk on NPC enemies without having any effect on other players (the NPCs themselves aren't buffed, only their interaction with the player selecting vet mode) and while retaining the ability to optimise performance (a good setup will still perform better than a bad one as the debuffs are just percentage based).

The other thing that could be done quite easily is allowing group instances for delves and public dungeons (and by extension also public instances for stuff in Craglorn which new players sometimes find intimidating), just add a public / group selection when you enter the delve or a setting like the vet / normal content selector. That would also allow for solo instances as that's what the group setting would give if you were solo.

I think that's as much as is reasonable to ask for existing zones: realistically there's only so much effort the developers would want to commit to overhauling existing content.

For new zones though, it would be great to see more interesting NPC mechanics - more varied attack patterns, use of shields, healing, charge attacks etc. They might still be as easy as ever to kill on normal mode (and accordingly more difficult on 'vet') but at least they would be more interesting to fight.

Only increasing the difficult doesnt make it more fun. True the modifiers make it harder, but will tune down the game experience. In Normal and vet dungeons exist the same ability but with small modifications, which is fun because you learn the easy version without hard punishment and then get to know the harder version. Like a aoe damage that get a short stun in veteran mode. Difficulty doesnt rely on stats, it depends on the challange of gameplay aswell. Debuffs alone will not solve the issue. And another downside is that it feel akward when players running the same content dont have the same difficulty. Example: you doing a public dungeon boss and have the hardest time of your life, meanwhile a level 10 player straight up kill it easy and you have to hit and run while he does the job for you. Players should all be set on a equal challange when they play together, else it feels akward or you question yourself why you do that to yourself.

I agree that debuffs are only part of the ideal answer, but they are extremely easy to add and realistically they are all we have even a chance of getting for existing zones. Plus, overland is public kind of by definition: you could instance delves perhaps, as is done in Craglorn, but the whole point of a mmo is interaction with other players so you really can't instance overland itself (except for the population balancing you sometimes see when a zone is full and you see "x player is in a different version of Craglorn" or whatever. So because you have all players in the same instance of overland you can't really have different mechanics, the normal players and the vet players would be side by side so all you can really do is change the difficulty experienced. That doesn't mean the mechanics followed by overland mobs couldn't be made more varied and interesting, but when you have multiple players going up against the same enemies in the same instance the behaviour of enemies can't be different for one player than it is for another. The other option would be to make a completely separate veteran instance of every zone with different mob mechanics, but that's upwards of 30 newzones to update, balance, allocate server resources to and realistically it won't happen, plus it would further fragment the player base.

It was raised multiple times here but I will repeat: we don't know what s easy and what is hard to implement. I provide draft design of easy solution for vet overland but nobody except zos devs knows if it can be applied easily or not. Same for debuffs. We have both debuff system and separate instances with different difficulty in game. Repeating "it is too hard, it is too pricy" while you don't have the data won't automaticaly make it true.
As for fragmenting the playerbase, ppl who are against vet overland should decide if this feature is desired only by small amount of players (so issue of fragmenting the playerbase is nonexistent) or the vet overland is desired by a lot of players (so it is long overdue and should be done already). You cannot use two arguments that contradicts itself in same sentence.
As for allocating new server resources, we already have different instances. What is the difference between 4 instances of normal deshaan and 3 instances of normal deshaan + 1 vet with different set of multipliers applied to mobs?

Captain_OP

ajkb78 wrote: »

Captain_OP wrote: »

ajkb78 wrote: »

For existing zones the debuff system is really the only viable approach, but it is a very simple one and could very easily be implemented. If rich Lambert thinks otherwise he's over implicating the problem. The game already supports modifiers to damage received and damage done (CP). It also supports modifiers that work on a per zone basis (battle spirit). So the simplest way of implementing a veteran difficulty setting for overland would be to add 3 modifiers that the player can turn on or off as desired. The first would reduce healing received by around 80% (80 is just a suggestion but something around that value would probably be about right). The second would reduce damage done to NPCs by around 80%. And the third would increase damage taken from NPCs by around 400%. All these modifiers would apply, when selected, in all overland, delve and public dungeon instances, except the reduced healing received one would be overridden by the similar one baked into Battle Spirit when in Cyrodiil.

The combined effect would reasonably increase ttk on NPC enemies without having any effect on other players (the NPCs themselves aren't buffed, only their interaction with the player selecting vet mode) and while retaining the ability to optimise performance (a good setup will still perform better than a bad one as the debuffs are just percentage based).

The other thing that could be done quite easily is allowing group instances for delves and public dungeons (and by extension also public instances for stuff in Craglorn which new players sometimes find intimidating), just add a public / group selection when you enter the delve or a setting like the vet / normal content selector. That would also allow for solo instances as that's what the group setting would give if you were solo.

I think that's as much as is reasonable to ask for existing zones: realistically there's only so much effort the developers would want to commit to overhauling existing content.

For new zones though, it would be great to see more interesting NPC mechanics - more varied attack patterns, use of shields, healing, charge attacks etc. They might still be as easy as ever to kill on normal mode (and accordingly more difficult on 'vet') but at least they would be more interesting to fight.

Only increasing the difficult doesnt make it more fun. True the modifiers make it harder, but will tune down the game experience. In Normal and vet dungeons exist the same ability but with small modifications, which is fun because you learn the easy version without hard punishment and then get to know the harder version. Like a aoe damage that get a short stun in veteran mode. Difficulty doesnt rely on stats, it depends on the challange of gameplay aswell. Debuffs alone will not solve the issue. And another downside is that it feel akward when players running the same content dont have the same difficulty. Example: you doing a public dungeon boss and have the hardest time of your life, meanwhile a level 10 player straight up kill it easy and you have to hit and run while he does the job for you. Players should all be set on a equal challange when they play together, else it feels akward or you question yourself why you do that to yourself.

I agree that debuffs are only part of the ideal answer, but they are extremely easy to add and realistically they are all we have even a chance of getting for existing zones. Plus, overland is public kind of by definition: you could instance delves perhaps, as is done in Craglorn, but the whole point of a mmo is interaction with other players so you really can't instance overland itself (except for the population balancing you sometimes see when a zone is full and you see "x player is in a different version of Craglorn" or whatever. So because you have all players in the same instance of overland you can't really have different mechanics, the normal players and the vet players would be side by side so all you can really do is change the difficulty experienced. That doesn't mean the mechanics followed by overland mobs couldn't be made more varied and interesting, but when you have multiple players going up against the same enemies in the same instance the behaviour of enemies can't be different for one player than it is for another. The other option would be to make a completely separate veteran instance of every zone with different mob mechanics, but that's upwards of 30 newzones to update, balance, allocate server resources to and realistically it won't happen, plus it would further fragment the player base.

You kind of over think it. And maybe the devs are happy that some people try to reduce the work that have to be done, but in all of this the product(Game) have to reach a expected quality and you cant not make every decision by measuring its work time. Some times it is better to invest once more time to get a lasting result, then patching it over and over again.

To this case: All what you explained, that have to be done, already exists. There are already multiple instances per zone, adding a flag for vet or normal instance is maybe a little more work than adding debuffs. And again dont measure everything by the work that have to be done, the goal is what matters. You guess it right, diffrent behavior of mobs is what make it interessting but can not be made in the same instance.
Next point: The zones arent new and if you upscale the mobs it isnt really much work. Altering abilities of mobs isnt hard too, because all of the mobs are copy pasted across the board. Adding a new ability to all archers isnt that much work and if they want to take it specific and make every mob more unique(which i wouldnt recommand for all existing content), than of cause it would take more time and ressources. I personal would recommand to start the new chapter with normal and vet instances to see how it turns out and then from time to time update all zones. This way it would be a low effort and with small pool of new abilities to npcs added to the patch every zone gets interisssting to be visited again.

Mobs already get balanced every patch and like i said before, they are copy pasted with different models. It is not that much more work.
The server resources you refer to wouldnt have any impact, because there are already in use. You can test it when you join a group and the game ask you to travel to team captains zone, because thats the mechanic that gets expanded.

And last to the playerbase:
The playerbase is already fragmented to a point where this wouldnt make it worse. Story/Solo players, the floor and the ceilling. I would say that it would do the opposite, those who play on their own will never change and those who struggle at vet content will have it easier to ask for help, which is the meet and greet point of this game. I am not saying all solo players prefer normal, but on normal you dont need to ask for help. They even added companions which can help throu any encounter in normal. Proof me wrong, but i only interact with random players if i encounter a problem i can not resolve by my own.

SilverBride

We don't know how much work it would take to establish a separate veteran overland, but Rich Lambert does. This is what he said just a few months ago when asked about veteran overland, then about optional veteran overland.

"Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests? Uh, so we had that... at launch. It was called Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. Nobody did it and everybody hated it, so we took it out. We put the challenge into World Bosses, and into solo Arenas, and into Dungeons and Trials."

"Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it why do it? The satisfaction's there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

ajkb78

SilverBride wrote: »

We don't know how much work it would take to establish a separate veteran overland, but Rich Lambert does. This is what he said just a few months ago when asked about veteran overland, then about optional veteran overland.

"Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests? Uh, so we had that... at launch. It was called Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. Nobody did it and everybody hated it, so we took it out. We put the challenge into World Bosses, and into solo Arenas, and into Dungeons and Trials."

"Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it why do it? The satisfaction's there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

I'm not really convinced about the incentivisation part. People will do it because they want to because it provides a suitable level of challenge, not because of loot. I've got everything I need from VMA but I still do it sometimes because it's more fun that normal maelstrom. The amount of people who ask for this definitely shows the self motivation is there (and if some people aren't motivated to do it / don't want to, and therefore never touch it, does it actually matter?) If they do want to provide motivation in the form of loot, a buff to gold drops and chance of loot quality upgrade would be ample.

Harvokaan

SilverBride wrote: »

We don't know how much work it would take to establish a separate veteran overland, but Rich Lambert does. This is what he said just a few months ago when asked about veteran overland, then about optional veteran overland.

"Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests? Uh, so we had that... at launch. It was called Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. Nobody did it and everybody hated it, so we took it out. We put the challenge into World Bosses, and into solo Arenas, and into Dungeons and Trials."

"Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it why do it? The satisfaction's there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

I already told you, they didn't start working on it, didn't estimate anything, didn't even design a possible solution. He don't know how much work it would take as there was no proper estimation as they treat vet overland as idea they won't implement at current time Stop treating each Rich world like a holy truth as even he said (couple times) that ppl shouldn't do so as he often only says what he thinks might be the truth, not what he knows is the truth. His words, not mine.
Example: they changed how troll in SO works, many players reported that it is broken while Rich was saying it is okay. After half a year he went to SO and saw the fight with his own eyes and write to dev on stream that this fight is simply broken. Half a year of player complaints and him answering once or twice that it is okay.
I already mentioned that. Many mantras that you repeat in this topic were answered and discussed [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Lysette

LashanW wrote: »

But I don't think your suggestion is good technical-wise. ZoS reworked a lot of sets that operated on a random chance and made it so they activated in a guaranteed manner upon meeting the proc condition. Their reasoning was that calculating the random chances all the time stressed the servers more.

now this is an argument by ZOS, which is weird - multiply with carry requires just a couple of nano-seconds to compute a new random number - so you can have hundreds of millions of them per second - and this should stress the servers?- absolutely not, there is another reason for not wanting to do that.

SilverBride

Harvokaan wrote: »

I already told you, they didn't start working on it, didn't estimate anything, didn't even design a possible solution. He don't know how much work it would take as there was no proper estimation as they treat vet overland as idea they won't implement at current time Stop treating each Rich world like a holy truth as even he said (couple times) that ppl shouldn't do so as he often only says what he thinks might be the truth, not what he knows is the truth. His words, not mine.
Example: they changed how troll in SO works, many players reported that it is broken while Rich was saying it is okay. After half a year he went to SO and saw the fight with his own eyes and write to dev on stream that this fight is simply broken. Half a year of player complaints and him answering once or twice that it is okay.
I already mentioned that. Many mantras that you repeat in this topic were answered and discussed [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Rich has a lot of knowledge about what it takes to design an MMO. It is not necessary to actually start working on something to know how extensive the job would be. His experience tells him this.

Others may or may not agree with him, but I trust his word, and it is relevant to this topic.

Harvokaan

SilverBride wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

I already told you, they didn't start working on it, didn't estimate anything, didn't even design a possible solution. He don't know how much work it would take as there was no proper estimation as they treat vet overland as idea they won't implement at current time Stop treating each Rich world like a holy truth as even he said (couple times) that ppl shouldn't do so as he often only says what he thinks might be the truth, not what he knows is the truth. His words, not mine.
Example: they changed how troll in SO works, many players reported that it is broken while Rich was saying it is okay. After half a year he went to SO and saw the fight with his own eyes and write to dev on stream that this fight is simply broken. Half a year of player complaints and him answering once or twice that it is okay.
I already mentioned that. Many mantras that you repeat in this topic were answered and discussed [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Rich has a lot of knowledge about what it takes to design an MMO. It is not necessary to actually start working on something to know how extensive the job would be. His experience tells him this.

Others may or may not agree with him, but I trust his word, and it is relevant to this topic.

[snip] They didn't design, estimate or even touch the subject. Truly till they sit and decide "okay lets think how it can be done" you can say it will take a lot of time or it will be a quick task and both those "estimations" would mean nothing.
Rich also said to not treat his world like ultimate truth. [snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

Lysette

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a vet overland instance. I'm not sure if the developers have any interest in doing that, but it makes a lot more sense to me than things like debuffs. Though for instanced quest bosses, obviously a "challenge" scroll or such might be something to consider.

Also, I still don't see why a toggle for a battlespirit sort of thing couldn't be done.

Caveat: I'm an "uber casual" solo player, as 750ms ping plus 74 year old reflexes makes twitch combat and group stuff not viable for me.

750ms - holy cow, I'm at 280-360ms now and to me it feels like my characters got extremely better just by getting down from 480ms before - I now have a chance to escape the red and actually dodge somewhat in time - blocking is still a problem, because when I see the attack, it has already happened and any reaction of mine would be far behind in time anyway. But still, with pings that high, we could never really enjoy much harder content simply by technical reasons.

this said - I still run a damage shield, resolving vigor and rapid regeneration in parallel when things get ugly and switch to resto staff. So yeah, I can eventually stay alive in the red - but it is so much fun to actually getting out of it sometimes.

LashanW

Lysette wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

But I don't think your suggestion is good technical-wise. ZoS reworked a lot of sets that operated on a random chance and made it so they activated in a guaranteed manner upon meeting the proc condition. Their reasoning was that calculating the random chances all the time stressed the servers more.

now this is an argument by ZOS, which is weird - multiply with carry requires just a couple of nano-seconds to compute a new random number - so you can have hundreds of millions of them per second - and this should stress the servers?- absolutely not, there is another reason for not wanting to do that.

What is that other reason?

I personally believe it. Because damage and other combat calculations must be done near instant for all players at all times on the server. Even a 250ms delay on these calculations is completely unacceptable. Ever seen a magDK parsing over 100K dps? It's insane the amount of unique damage instances they are outputting within a second (thanks to DoTs). And each such damage instance is already going through a lot of dynamic calculations (for traits like bloodthirsty) and already includes random number generation (to determine critical hits, proccing of status effects etc.) on the server.
It gets super crazy in trials with all the effects from other players and the fight goes on for several minutes without stopping. And that's just 12 players.

Makes sense that ZoS went after the random chances on proc sets. It's a perfectly fine thing to remove since proc sets are already kept in check by their own unique cooldowns. The only exception I know of is the pale order ring.

Damage output of players should never be affected much by randomness anyway. Crits are already causing enough inconsistency.

LashanW

Lysette wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a vet overland instance. I'm not sure if the developers have any interest in doing that, but it makes a lot more sense to me than things like debuffs. Though for instanced quest bosses, obviously a "challenge" scroll or such might be something to consider.

Also, I still don't see why a toggle for a battlespirit sort of thing couldn't be done.

Caveat: I'm an "uber casual" solo player, as 750ms ping plus 74 year old reflexes makes twitch combat and group stuff not viable for me.

750ms - holy cow, I'm at 280-360ms now and to me it feels like my characters got extremely better just by getting down from 480ms before - I now have a chance to escape the red and actually dodge somewhat in time - blocking is still a problem, because when I see the attack, it has already happened and any reaction of mine would be far behind in time anyway. But still, with pings that high, we could never really enjoy much harder content simply by technical reasons.

Yes 400+ ping is terrible. But ~300ms is fine for PvE endgame as long as it doesn't spike. I got trial and dungeon trifectas at ~270ms ping. However at that ping you have to anticipate things more than you can react.

Lysette

LashanW wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a vet overland instance. I'm not sure if the developers have any interest in doing that, but it makes a lot more sense to me than things like debuffs. Though for instanced quest bosses, obviously a "challenge" scroll or such might be something to consider.

Also, I still don't see why a toggle for a battlespirit sort of thing couldn't be done.

Caveat: I'm an "uber casual" solo player, as 750ms ping plus 74 year old reflexes makes twitch combat and group stuff not viable for me.

750ms - holy cow, I'm at 280-360ms now and to me it feels like my characters got extremely better just by getting down from 480ms before - I now have a chance to escape the red and actually dodge somewhat in time - blocking is still a problem, because when I see the attack, it has already happened and any reaction of mine would be far behind in time anyway. But still, with pings that high, we could never really enjoy much harder content simply by technical reasons.

Yes 400+ ping is terrible. But ~300ms is fine for PvE endgame as long as it doesn't spike. I got trial and and dungeon trifectas at ~270ms ping. However at that ping you have to anticipate things more than you can react.

indeed, but at least now I have an actual chance to get out of harm's way, before I was more or less forced to tank the damage, because I couldn't get away in time.

Lysette

There is another problem, when different challenge levels are in the same instance - like it happened about an hour ago to me - I was in western skyrim in a really interesting crypt, enjoyed exploring and taking out enemies in a stealthy way - until a veteran came in as well - rushed through it, killed everything in his way and off he was again - leaving an empty crypt behind - ruined my fun completely - if something like that is ever to be implemented, please in an own instance, that players like me are not deprived from their experience by mass amounts of vet players redoing story-content - eventually ruining it for everyone else by doing it. That overland is too easy, keeps them away from these areas - and we casuals can still enjoy them. But it would be quite different with different challenge levels sharing the same instances.

Lysette

LashanW wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

But I don't think your suggestion is good technical-wise. ZoS reworked a lot of sets that operated on a random chance and made it so they activated in a guaranteed manner upon meeting the proc condition. Their reasoning was that calculating the random chances all the time stressed the servers more.

now this is an argument by ZOS, which is weird - multiply with carry requires just a couple of nano-seconds to compute a new random number - so you can have hundreds of millions of them per second - and this should stress the servers?- absolutely not, there is another reason for not wanting to do that.

What is that other reason?

I personally believe it. Because damage and other combat calculations must be done near instant for all players at all times on the server. Even a 250ms delay on these calculations is completely unacceptable. Ever seen a magDK parsing over 100K dps? It's insane the amount of unique damage instances they are outputting within a second (thanks to DoTs). And each such damage instance is already going through a lot of dynamic calculations (for traits like bloodthirsty) and already includes random number generation (to determine critical hits, proccing of status effects etc.) on the server.
It gets super crazy in trials with all the effects from other players and the fight goes on for several minutes without stopping. And that's just 12 players.

Makes sense that ZoS went after the random chances on proc sets. It's a perfectly fine thing to remove since proc sets are already kept in check by their own unique cooldowns. The only exception I know of is the pale order ring.

Damage output of players should never be affected much by randomness anyway. Crits are already causing enough inconsistency.

well, we use multiply-with-carry because we need our random number cryptographically safe - and it is already extremely fast - but there are faster methods, which pass big crush but aren't cryptographically safe - here is an implementation of it (see the source code section) - there is as well test data for computing and storing half a million of those - taking less a millisecond. It simply isn't a problem implemented in an efficient way

https://lemire.me/blog/2019/03/19/the-fastest-conventional-random-number-generator-that-can-pass-big-crush/

if you look at the implementation, it is using inline coding - not conventional function calls, which would create unnecessary stack frames, which consume time where it isn't useful - the code snippet is so short, that directly inlining it is the better and faster way to implement it.

SilverBride

Lysette wrote: »

There is another problem, when different challenge levels are in the same instance - like it happened about an hour ago to me - I was in western skyrim in a really interesting crypt, enjoyed exploring and taking out enemies in a stealthy way - until a veteran came in as well - rushed through it, killed everything in his way and off he was again - leaving an empty crypt behind - ruined my fun completely - if something like that is ever to be implemented, please in an own instance, that players like me are not deprived from their experience by mass amounts of vet players redoing story-content - eventually ruining it for everyone else by doing it. That overland is too easy, keeps them away from these areas - and we casuals can still enjoy them. But it would be quite different with different challenge levels sharing the same instances.

This same thing can happen in a veteran overland zone. Unless a player is CP 3600 and decked out in the best in slot gear and very experienced in the game and veteran content there is always going to be someone more powerful than them. This is the reality of an MMO and a separate veteran overland isn't going to change that.

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

There is another problem, when different challenge levels are in the same instance - like it happened about an hour ago to me - I was in western skyrim in a really interesting crypt, enjoyed exploring and taking out enemies in a stealthy way - until a veteran came in as well - rushed through it, killed everything in his way and off he was again - leaving an empty crypt behind - ruined my fun completely - if something like that is ever to be implemented, please in an own instance, that players like me are not deprived from their experience by mass amounts of vet players redoing story-content - eventually ruining it for everyone else by doing it. That overland is too easy, keeps them away from these areas - and we casuals can still enjoy them. But it would be quite different with different challenge levels sharing the same instances.

This same thing can happen in a veteran overland zone. Unless a player is CP 3600 and decked out in the best in slot gear and very experienced in the game and veteran content there is always going to be someone more powerful than them. This is the reality of an MMO and a separate veteran overland isn't going to change that.

yeah, and companions didn't make it better - next dungeon I was in a group of 4 players 2 of them with companions - so 6 fighting in a dungeon which is already easy enough for single person - you can imagine what they did - emptied the dungeon and my fun was again ruined - that is why I'd better wait for most of the world being in bed to do such things. Questing is just fun, if those obstacles and enemies I'm supposed to encounter are still there and not dead on the ground or absent - and I fear with mixed instances of the proposed kind, it will be an even more worse experience for those doing these quests for the first time. Their experience shouldn't be ruined - because if they cannot enjoy it, they are likely to play something else instead.

spartaxoxo

Where did Rich ever say they have never sat down to try to figure out how long something like this might take? I don't see him state that anywhere in the available quotes. What did see him state was that it would take a ton of work, which was cited as a reason they aren't doing it. I see no reason not to trust Rich's word over anyone else's word in this thread, he is the authority figure who actually works there.

Nobody else here is actually working on eso and therefore have no way of knowing anything about it.They are free to make guesses based off any personal experiences they may have, but they don't work there so they can't know

NeeScrolls

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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

Bingo ^ , which is why imho this entire thread is ostensibly an exercise in echo-chamber futility. #insanityloop

LightningWitch wrote: »

I don't understand what the point of this topic is, other than to give people a chance to vent.. Now this thread is posted so ... the developers have it easier to see the same complaints?.

Yup. And mission accomplished.

SilverBride wrote: »

quoted from RICH LAMBERT (ESO game designer) : "...but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

LightningWitch wrote: »

The developers should know what we want.

No. They should know what THEY want.

Then we, as consumers, must learn to either adapt...or un-$ub.

Otherwise, once game developers start trying to cater too much toward the lowest-common-denominator type gamer, the game's integrity will inevitably suffer and the playerbase (casuals & hardcores) will become insatiable.

It's much better, imo , to create more challenging content (and rewards) initially for ALL players of all shapes & sizes & skillsets to strive toward, rather than trying to go back retro-fit easy content to become harder after it's already been easy for so long they're used to it by now. (aka current 'overland' )

Which is why i'd be shocked if @ZOS_ devs ever bother trying to "tune" overland. Instead, just keep creating NEW zones with more & more increased challenges within certain more dangerous sections of the map, so that players know what to expect and therefore don't become too entitled overall.

Lysette wrote: »

next dungeon I was in a group of 4 players 2 of them with companions - so 6 fighting in a dungeon .

hmm i thought the game *kicks* all companions once the group is FULL in dungeons/trials , no? Or were you talking about a non-queue'd version entering manually on-foot?

[edited for off-topic comparison]

spartaxoxo

NeeScrolls wrote: »

hmm i thought the game *kicks* all companions once the group is FULL in dungeons/trials , no? Or were you talking about a non-queue'd version entering manually on-foot?

I was under the impression if you went into a dungeon with 4 people the companions were kicked period, actually? Didn't realize you could have 6 do it, seems it would really trivialize it.

Harvokaan

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Where did Rich ever say they have never sat down to try to figure out how long something like this might take? I don't see him state that anywhere in the available quotes. What did see him state was that it would take a ton of work, which was cited as a reason they aren't doing it. I see no reason not to trust Rich's word over anyone else's word in this thread, he is the authority figure who actually works there.

Nobody else here is actually working on eso and therefore have no way of knowing anything about it.They are free to make guesses based off any personal experiences they may have, but they don't work there so they can't know

He admitted they didn't work on the hard overland as they didn't find it important. And the reason why they didn't work on that was because they fought "nobody would enjoy it" as Rich believes that the need for hard overland is too low to throw any resources at it.
Thats why I was really glad that they gather all the feedback in one place and that this topic got a lot of attention and we can clearly see that there is some demand for vet overland.
[snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

spartaxoxo

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Where did Rich ever say they have never sat down to try to figure out how long something like this might take? I don't see him state that anywhere in the available quotes. What did see him state was that it would take a ton of work, which was cited as a reason they aren't doing it. I see no reason not to trust Rich's word over anyone else's word in this thread, he is the authority figure who actually works there.

Nobody else here is actually working on eso and therefore have no way of knowing anything about it.They are free to make guesses based off any personal experiences they may have, but they don't work there so they can't know

He admitted they didn't work on the hard overland as they didn't find it important. And the reason why they didn't work on that was because they fought "nobody would enjoy it" as Rich believes that the need for hard overland is too low to throw any resources at it.
Thats why I was really glad that they gather all the feedback in one place and that this topic got a lot of attention and we can clearly see that there is some demand for vet overland.
[snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

Where did he admit they didn't even check in to see how much it would take? They have gotten a ton of feedback about this for years and they have noted that they have gotten a lot of feedback for one for years. But they have never done it, and this year they added because it would be a ton of work to their list of reasons why. I would not be surprised at all if they HAD checked to see if this was something they could do with little effort, realized it would be a lot of effort, and then decided their time was better spent on NEW things. Which is one of my personal reasons for believing him about this. They told me that their tools have evolved a lot and going back to old stuff as a general rule is not worth their time and it's better spent on new content when I asked about a totally separate thing. They interpreted my reply as being about shortening the forced dialogue in DSA and said that it would take 3 months just for that one fix in DSA, and that was their reasoning as to why.

[snip]

[Removed response to removed content]

Parasaurolophus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Where did Rich ever say they have never sat down to try to figure out how long something like this might take? I don't see him state that anywhere in the available quotes. What did see him state was that it would take a ton of work, which was cited as a reason they aren't doing it. I see no reason not to trust Rich's word over anyone else's word in this thread, he is the authority figure who actually works there.

Nobody else here is actually working on eso and therefore have no way of knowing anything about it.They are free to make guesses based off any personal experiences they may have, but they don't work there so they can't know

He admitted they didn't work on the hard overland as they didn't find it important. And the reason why they didn't work on that was because they fought "nobody would enjoy it" as Rich believes that the need for hard overland is too low to throw any resources at it.
Thats why I was really glad that they gather all the feedback in one place and that this topic got a lot of attention and we can clearly see that there is some demand for vet overland.
[snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

Where did he admit they didn't even check in to see how much it would take? They have gotten a ton of feedback about this for years and they have noted that they have gotten a lot of feedback for one for years. But they have never done it, and this year they added because it would be a ton of work to their list of reasons why. I would not be surprised at all if they HAD checked to see if this was something they could do with little effort, realized it would be a lot of effort, and then decided their time was better spent on NEW things. Which is one of my personal reasons for believing him about this. They told me that their tools have evolved a lot and going back to old stuff as a general rule is not worth their time and it's better spent on new content when I asked about a totally separate thing. They interpreted my reply as being about shortening the forced dialogue in DSA and said that it would take 3 months just for that one fix in DSA, and that was their reasoning as to why.

[snip]

[Removed response to removed content]

I also think that zod should be added with vet. overland mode for new dlc and chapters.

AlexanderDeLarge

There's no doubt in my mind that any acceptable implementation of a veteran overland is a lotta work but unfortunately for the team, it's inevitable work that needs to be done and anyone asking for it now is just ahead of the curve of where even the more casual playerbase will be down the line.

The power level in which the game becomes trivialized is super low (CP300-ish) and they're almost on their sixth year of selling standalone expansion packs at retail. Anyone who has played one or two of the chapters through completion in addition to the base game's story has reached the aforementioned CP300-ish power level by playing extremely casually. How many more years is it gonna be a sustainable business model to sell $40 expansions where anyone who has played the game for a decent amount of time is one-shotting the enemy NPCs?

SilverBride

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

There's no doubt in my mind that any acceptable implementation of a veteran overland is a lotta work but unfortunately for the team, it's inevitable work that needs to be done and anyone asking for it now is just ahead of the curve of where even the more casual playerbase will be down the line.

The power level in which the game becomes trivialized is super low (CP300-ish) and they're almost on their sixth year of selling standalone expansion packs at retail. Anyone who has played one or two of the chapters through completion in addition to the base game's story has reached the aforementioned CP300-ish power level by playing extremely casually. How many more years is it gonna be a sustainable business model to sell $40 expansions where anyone who has played the game for a decent amount of time is one-shotting the enemy NPCs?

I really don't believe casual players are going to become less casual over time. It's a playstyle and the desire for a relaxed gaming experience doesn't go away just because the player gets more powerful.

A lot of players enjoy feeling strong, and one shotting mobs gives that feeling much better than struggling with wolves and bears.

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

There's no doubt in my mind that any acceptable implementation of a veteran overland is a lotta work but unfortunately for the team, it's inevitable work that needs to be done and anyone asking for it now is just ahead of the curve of where even the more casual playerbase will be down the line.

The power level in which the game becomes trivialized is super low (CP300-ish) and they're almost on their sixth year of selling standalone expansion packs at retail. Anyone who has played one or two of the chapters through completion in addition to the base game's story has reached the aforementioned CP300-ish power level by playing extremely casually. How many more years is it gonna be a sustainable business model to sell $40 expansions where anyone who has played the game for a decent amount of time is one-shotting the enemy NPCs?

You know when I see various player added modifications people have added to games, the two I always see the most is the ones that make people even more powerful (e.g. godmode) and makes content way easier, and the ones where people are adding in some kind of debuff to make things even harder. There's even a fairly popular mod for I think it was Bloodborne that did that, or one of them souls series games. And those games are already hard.

I think there is a clear taste preference there where some people want to be ultra powerful and just kill a bunch of stuff effortlessly and it's like a power fantasy type thing. And then there's those that look to games for a challenge. And I don't think those tastes are likely to change as the player levels up, it's moreso whether a particular game has something that suits their tastes or not. Different games seem to pick a crowd as their primary audience, and may only have some small amount of content to keep the other side happy.

There's no doubt that ESO has been successful with this formula for a long time and that a lot of people love it. And there's also no doubt that a sizable minority has been dissatisfied and are getting increasingly bored of it.

colossalvoids

SilverBride wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

There's no doubt in my mind that any acceptable implementation of a veteran overland is a lotta work but unfortunately for the team, it's inevitable work that needs to be done and anyone asking for it now is just ahead of the curve of where even the more casual playerbase will be down the line.

The power level in which the game becomes trivialized is super low (CP300-ish) and they're almost on their sixth year of selling standalone expansion packs at retail. Anyone who has played one or two of the chapters through completion in addition to the base game's story has reached the aforementioned CP300-ish power level by playing extremely casually. How many more years is it gonna be a sustainable business model to sell $40 expansions where anyone who has played the game for a decent amount of time is one-shotting the enemy NPCs?

I really don't believe casual players are going to become less casual over time. It's a playstyle and the desire for a relaxed gaming experience doesn't go away just because the player gets more powerful.

A lot of players enjoy feeling strong, and one shotting mobs gives that feeling much better than struggling with wolves and bears.

100% of players I've talked to long enough to know this were casual or very casual for even years before they've found right people or actually experienced something they were told isn't their play field by "lovely community" here. it's not a sect or elite club, it's all ex-casual players. I myself bought eso first of all to just read up new lore books and do quests only on my own as it was a possibility, it changed though.

It's still relaxed gameplay but you can relax a lot of ways, from fishing and housing to smooth no death run in a solo arena or progressing new so called "end game" achievement with a group of like-minded people.

Personally I don't feel strong one shorting mobs, it's like beating a person who's unable to defend themselves. Some of us find fun and feeling that we're somewhat strong in overcoming challenges thrown at us so harder the content we beat - the more fun and satisfaction we're getting from the session. To each their own, so denying people new modes isn't the path of inclusion.

spartaxoxo

colossalvoids wrote: »

To each their own, so denying people new modes isn't the path of inclusion.

She also said she supported entirely new standalone zone as a test.

I don't think a single person in the last like 20 pages has actually stated that they want to deny people any new changes to give themselves more difficulty. So thankfully we are all on the same page about how their should be something for such players and there has been no recent denial of options for inclusion.

Edit

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I also think they should maybe guage interest by putting on a new, totally standalone zone in place of one of the dungeons in the dungeon pack. (So 1 new dungeon and 1 small zone). See how it goes over. A small adventure zone to test the waters.

I don't see them going back to old content to make a vet zone, but if that goes over well then maybe they will feel less risk in doing more such zones.

And I don't think that many casuals would object to have 1 less new dlc dungeon in their queue.

SilverBride wrote: »

I could go along with that. Getting current data on how much interest there is would be invaluable in helping resolve this issue.

SilverBride

colossalvoids wrote: »

Personally I don't feel strong one shorting mobs, it's like beating a person who's unable to defend themselves. Some of us find fun and feeling that we're somewhat strong in overcoming challenges thrown at us so harder the content we beat - the more fun and satisfaction we're getting from the session. To each their own, so denying people new modes isn't the path of inclusion.

It's all a matter of personal preference. I was just making the point that not all casual players will become more hardcore just because their characters have gotten more powerful.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Personally I don't feel strong one shorting mobs, it's like beating a person who's unable to defend themselves. Some of us find fun and feeling that we're somewhat strong in overcoming challenges thrown at us so harder the content we beat - the more fun and satisfaction we're getting from the session. To each their own, so denying people new modes isn't the path of inclusion.

It's all a matter of personal preference. I was just making the point that not all casual players will become more hardcore just because their characters have gotten more powerful.

Yes. It's very important to note too how player taste impacts such a thing as well, when the question of what the casuals who are currently happy will like a year ago from now arises.

Because a player that is happy now may not necessarily be unhappy a year later as the original question speculated, although it is true some won't be.

NeeScrolls

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because a player that is happy now may not necessarily be unhappy a year later as the original question speculated, although it is true some won't be.

That ^ sentence totally encapsulates this entire thread & topic.

I for one certainly don't envy whichever @ZOS_ dev gets assigned the task of "satisfying" casuals.