Overland Content Feedback Thread

CP5

An interesting list, but as someone who doesn't pvp much anymore I feel pvp in general shouldn't probably have a tier. Difficulty is far too dependent on who you're fighting.

spartaxoxo

Lysette wrote: »

Now this is strange, as I experience pretty much all "old" zones to be quite crowded - I go back to pretty much all of them for antiquities, and from my point of view, they are quite filled with a new generation of players. Ok, they are doing Z content yet, and you might eventually not refer to them seeking help, but from what I can tell, these zones are pretty much alive.

The antiquities have helped that problem a bit to be sure, but I see people pretty rarely in certain zones on console.

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

You said it yourself, you left after you got to the silver and gold zones because they weren't engaging for you.

I never said that. What I said was I completed Silver and Gold on one character but never did them again on my alts because they were too difficult and I didn't enjoy struggling. I left when Craglorn came along with its forced grouping and it was impossible to progress because no one was grouping for quests. I was at a standstill.

CP5 wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

An interesting list, but as someone who doesn't pvp much anymore I feel pvp in general shouldn't probably have a tier. Difficulty is far too dependent on who you're fighting.

While that is most definitely true, I tried to put it on there based on the idea of someone who isn't good at pvp going in there to get some task accomplished (e.g. getting enough ap to get purge) and how likely they were to both get it accomplished and feel they were able to do something meaningful to contribute to that being accomplished as anyone can get carried.

Lysette

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Now this is strange, as I experience pretty much all "old" zones to be quite crowded - I go back to pretty much all of them for antiquities, and from my point of view, they are quite filled with a new generation of players. Ok, they are doing Z content yet, and you might eventually not refer to them seeking help, but from what I can tell, these zones are pretty much alive.

The antiquities have helped that problem a bit to be sure, but I see people pretty rarely in certain zones on console.

ok, but console is attracting a different kind of players - I play on PC and there I cannot see a lack of players in old zones - I revisited as well those 6 very basic newbie zones (Stros M'kai, Betnik ect) and they are packed with new players.

spartaxoxo

Lysette wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Now this is strange, as I experience pretty much all "old" zones to be quite crowded - I go back to pretty much all of them for antiquities, and from my point of view, they are quite filled with a new generation of players. Ok, they are doing Z content yet, and you might eventually not refer to them seeking help, but from what I can tell, these zones are pretty much alive.

The antiquities have helped that problem a bit to be sure, but I see people pretty rarely in certain zones on console.

ok, but console is attracting a different kind of players - I play on PC and there I cannot see a lack of players in old zones - I revisited as well those 6 very basic newbie zones (Stros M'kai, Betnik ect) and they are packed with new players.

Console is very much a part of this game and no changes to this game are PC only outside of some settings and add-ons.

The starter islands are typically full of farmers, Alikr is popular for Dolmens, etc. I'm talking moreso places like Greenshade where there isn't a lot of farming going on. There's no way to tell for sure but, I wouldn't be surprised if that was a single instance zone most of the time.

ShalidorsHeir

spartaxoxo wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

What would be your answer to that, for an experienced player who finds anything outside of group content to be painfully dull.

Side note: This is exactly why I think that the solution should keep people in the same instance and also that vet overland should actually be on par with VVH. I know almost nobody is asking for it to be that brutally hard, but I want the challenge banners on bosses to be that brutally hard. And I don't think they should overhaul the entire game because then it would take dev time away from other things as their time is extremely limited at current time, but if they did I also hope that they make it that hard.

I don't think we need it to be current Craglorn difficulty, that's a total waste of time. That content is also stupid easy. The reason that I refer to it as 5 minute mudcrap fights isn't because I think it would literally take 5 minutes to fight a crab or anyone would want that, it's because the only thing that level of difficulty accomplishes is making trash take slightly longer. That zone is still very easy. You can already accomplish that level of difficulty by just taking off your gear. If you were debuffed enough to where practically every heavy attack could one shot you though, that would be a different story.

The vast majority of this game''s new content caters to mid-tier casual players, with even the group events and the public dungeons now catering to them. The new public dungeon is pretty rough on new players. The new group event is rough on new players. About the only thing they feel comfortable doing is the old overland, delves, and story questing. And on the top end you pretty much only have vet arenas and trials.

I don't want new player experience to be made worse because they can't get help, because a game's continued success requires that the game make a good first impression. I have seen many games completely crumble because they became too top heavy and stopped being attractive to new players.

At the same time though, it's impossible to ignore the complete lack of content for upper middle and elite players, especially if they prefer to play solo. THAT is who the difficulty level should be catered to, not some Tom and Joy with the 20k DPS who already have basically the entire game at their feet.

https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/eso-elder-scrolls-online-content-tier-list-1225647/1614244

I made this tier list a while back and you'll notice there is hardly anything for Z tier and hardly any content for A+ difficulty. Almost all of it was in the middle.

I think it's easy to think Z list content is also mid-tier content, but all the non-stop threads about wanting to remove normal dlc dungeons, the new players that already make threads complaining that the older base game zones are already ghost towns in which it is hard to find help etc should show otherwise. A lot of those players already struggle in places like IDK Greenshade to get help and these are already largely single instance areas with only a small amount of established players available to help. I don't want to see a zone that already is struggling to have a population get further split apart.

Point 1: they dont need to overhaul the whole game - a first step to see if further changes are worth can be done by simple scaling where as ESO is already generic enough to achieve this with simple instance labels and configs for the vet zones. Maybe they should give it a try for the new chapter and then see if its worth to do that for every zone.

Point 2: You call it: ghost towns already now. So the current approach DOES NOT keep things in place already. With new overland changes they will bring some or maybe a lot of players back to these zones because they are interested in that stuff. No matter if its instances or something else. I am open but i can not think of good solutions inside the samew zone that would appeal to all players needs.
In contrast to what our nay-sayers believe we are not just slaying machines and we did not want everything super hard. And no we do not need to get super hard content for solo, the prior goal for difficulty changes (next to other good ideas, but less generic) alway has been quality and immersion. Quality gets lost if i kill bosses before they can play out any mechanic and stuff. Immersion lacks when some NPCs makes up a super enemy who is about to destroy the world and then i one shot this garbage. The threat of a boss congures with that of a snail, which, as a another result, makes the NPC looking like a [snip] who was just fooling me around with his damn heretics.
Some people even mention that they feel it is an interferrence when other player occur at the same quest boss --> why is that? because the fight that was about to be around 30 secs is now just 5 secs or even less. Everyone does 1 LA and done? Ofc this results in a worse expierence and is percepted in a negative way. Now imagine that boss fight would take a while (not too long, but a way more at least) where 1 player needs like 3 to 5 mins and een with other people around it would maybe still take 1 min. Then it was still somewhat remarkable and immersive. maybe someone struggles a bit and needs more than 5 mins than another players would be welcome encounter instead of a nasty interuption of your questing experience -> this is what bring players together and not what splits them up. Besides that: yes, some more solo content would be nice. But with solo people usualy mean that they want to do things on their own, meaning: no group required. what it does not mean: that they need to enter an area "alone". So Overland content is actually the easiest way with the least amount of effort and costs to get most things done in ESO.

[edited for profanity bypass]

spartaxoxo

Just scaling the world is no different gameplay wise than a debuff slider, which is what LOTRO uses. The harm of splitting people out of already dead zones greatly outweighs the positive of splitting.

The only good reason to split players is if you're doing so because you're completely overhauling things with a lot of new mechs.

ShalidorsHeir

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Just scaling the world is no different gameplay wise than a debuff slider, which is what LOTRO uses. The harm of splitting people out of already dead zones greatly outweighs the positive of splitting.

The only good reason to split players is you're doing so because you're completely overhauling things with a lot of new mechs.

dead zones can not be split - do not think that vet players enter dead zones in the hope to find someone who needs help. Thats not how it works in practise they may enter for excavation lead or whatnot for their own sake and leave afterwards. And please - at least read the whole post.
Besides that: i think you did a good job on that tier list. But statistics like these need interpretation of multiple points of view to find some consent.

Lysette

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Now this is strange, as I experience pretty much all "old" zones to be quite crowded - I go back to pretty much all of them for antiquities, and from my point of view, they are quite filled with a new generation of players. Ok, they are doing Z content yet, and you might eventually not refer to them seeking help, but from what I can tell, these zones are pretty much alive.

The antiquities have helped that problem a bit to be sure, but I see people pretty rarely in certain zones on console.

ok, but console is attracting a different kind of players - I play on PC and there I cannot see a lack of players in old zones - I revisited as well those 6 very basic newbie zones (Stros M'kai, Betnik ect) and they are packed with new players.

Console is very much a part of this game and no changes to this game are PC only outside of some settings and add-ons.

The starter islands are typically full of farmers, Alikr is popular for Dolmens, etc. I'm talking moreso places like Greenshade where there isn't a lot of farming going on. There's no way to tell for sure but, I wouldn't be surprised if that was a single instance zone most of the time.

What gets players back into old zones are basically 2 mainly non-combat activities - the side quest line of the psijic order (sealing time breaches) and antiquities - I do both of those on all of my 16 characters and come across those zones on a regular basis therefore - I could not say that they are empty - with Greenshade you could be right though, even the area around the shadow mundus stone has rarely any resources to pick up - so someone is farming those.

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

You said it yourself, you left after you got to the silver and gold zones because they weren't engaging for you.

I never said that. What I said was I completed Silver and Gold on one character but never did them again on my alts because they were too difficult and I didn't enjoy struggling. I left when Craglorn came along with its forced grouping and it was impossible to progress because no one was grouping for quests. I was at a standstill.

CP5 wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

It would be like going to a hotel and having blue paint on the walls of your room, then demanding the paint color on all the other rooms be made blue because, "we can't have the wall color of other rooms be a different color than mine."

Also, any follow up for the other questions in the post you quoted, particularly at the end, the main reason why I stopped posting in the thread previously was because of the strategic avoidance of direct questions that would help resolve these circular debates.

Lysette

I gave an example how one could keep players together even if vet overland zones would be separate instances - by just offering 3 zones at a time for 14 days - and then go to the next 3 zones - this way all the vet players who like to do this content are concentrated in 3 zones (which might eventually have several instances, if demand would be high). This would open up all of Tamriel twice a year in full - just not all zones in parallel.

And it would give ZOS time to implement it in steps as well - with low risk, if it wouldn't be popular. And it is a risk to take for ZOS, even I doubt that you will want to do the quests - but eventually just concentrate on the "harder" parts of those zones - you should really think about if you are really wanting to do these pretty simple quests - or if it is eventually something different you desire. Are you really wanting to get some water and put out fires in the Rift for example - is that content you want to play - I doubt that. Not even my characters want to do that, they are not the errand runners for these guys, they can put our those fires by themselves - that is the content you want to play?

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

I knew a lot of raiders who only logged in for raids because their play time was limited and they chose to spend it on activities they enjoyed most.

I seriously doubt that veteran overland will appeal to hard core end game players and make them excited to quest again. How challenging is it to gather pelts after running hard mode veteran trials? Increasing a wolf's difficulty isn't going to make that exciting again.

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

I knew a lot of raiders who only logged in for raids because their play time was limited and they chose to spend it on activities they enjoyed most.

I seriously doubt that veteran overland will appeal to hard core end game players and make them excited to quest again. How challenging is it to gather pelts after running hard mode veteran trials? Increasing a wolf's difficulty isn't going to make that exciting again.

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

yeah this - I see a problem with it as well.

spartaxoxo

ShalidorsHeir wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Just scaling the world is no different gameplay wise than a debuff slider, which is what LOTRO uses. The harm of splitting people out of already dead zones greatly outweighs the positive of splitting.

The only good reason to split players is you're doing so because you're completely overhauling things with a lot of new mechs.

dead zones can not be split - do not think that vet players enter dead zones in the hope to find someone who needs help. Thats not how it works in practise they may enter for excavation lead or whatnot for their own sake and leave afterwards. And please - at least read the whole post.
Besides that: i think you did a good job on that tier list. But statistics like these need interpretation of multiple points of view to find some consent.

I did read it. Dead zones do have people coming and helping. Someone comes in for their ring of the wild hunt lead, and then sees a new player calling for help and goes help them. Or they are doing the quests for an alt, sees a new player calling for help, and helps them. There's barely enough people but people can get help.

I also never stated you want things super hard. I said I did. I don't think there is a point catering the difficulty to people who already have most of the content in the game catered towards them. It's people who can do stuff like VMA that are lacking in stuff to do, not the guy who thinks normal dlc dungeons are hard. So if they do the instanced way and can therefore offer only one difficulty, that difficulty should be brutal.

Or they can go the LOTRO route and just have a debuff slider that gives a bunch of difficulty options and let people customize their difficulty. That works too. So long as there is a brutal option.

Ronin37

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

I knew a lot of raiders who only logged in for raids because their play time was limited and they chose to spend it on activities they enjoyed most.

I seriously doubt that veteran overland will appeal to hard core end game players and make them excited to quest again. How challenging is it to gather pelts after running hard mode veteran trials? Increasing a wolf's difficulty isn't going to make that exciting again.

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

Veteran overland makes the stories more appealing and makes the stakes actually make sense. Right now its a snooze fest and the stakes are laughable. To be honest with the loot and payouts being what they are why they are there is barely a reason to go though the new expansion content because people can just go read a book.

spartaxoxo

Ronin37 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

I knew a lot of raiders who only logged in for raids because their play time was limited and they chose to spend it on activities they enjoyed most.

I seriously doubt that veteran overland will appeal to hard core end game players and make them excited to quest again. How challenging is it to gather pelts after running hard mode veteran trials? Increasing a wolf's difficulty isn't going to make that exciting again.

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

Veteran overland makes the stories more appealing and makes the stakes actually make sense. Right now its a snooze fest and the stakes are laughable. To be honest with the loot and payouts being what they are why they are there is barely a reason to go though the new expansion content because people can just go read a book.

The stories are already appealing and make sense for many people, such a thing is entirely subjective. They are different experience to a book because they are more interactive medium. There shouldn't be any forced vet overland, instead there should be an optional difficulty increase of some fashion so that people who don't enjoy them can find enjoyment too.

summ0004

Wow this thread is still going backwards and forwards lol.

I am currently not playing ESO at the moment but waiting with interest for some changes to the game, especially in regards to improvements in difficulty in overland or the very least some more engaging content to do solo.

In its current state I am not interested in buying chapters for story content if the game is only catered for novices starting out as a new character which is a shame as I love the feel of the game as a whole.

Seems ZOS is not interested in making content for people who want the concept of an open world game with engaging combat and roleplaying character progression through the world.

Shame as I believe they are missing a significant gap in the market.

LalMirchi

I'm rather divided internally on the overland difficulty issue. Let's look at end of quest bosses (take your pick).

It is rather underwhelming to wipe the floor with the end of story bosses with a good character and build. Meeting these BIG baddies as a new character can be slightly challenging but not at all impossible,

No worries, I'm still valid as a quester, not so much as a warrior, but obviously we've lost the plot here haven't we?

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Have you ever considered what people who run vet trials do when their raid is done and the group disbands? Normally, from those I run with, they log off until their next scheduled raid. Outside of group content, the game doesn't offer them any reason to log back in.

I knew a lot of players like that in WoW, too. The only thing they enjoyed was raiding so that's what they did. I never once heard any of them say that they sure wish the questing zones were more difficult so they could have a challenge while gathering animal pelts or burning supply crates.

So, we shouldn't try to give those players something interesting to do? Let the biggest piece of content in game go unplayed by a decent part of the community, and allow those players to get in the habit of not wanting to log in. You know what happens when these trial groups take breaks? Come time for them to run again, we have a few who just don't come back, which in turn causes the groups runs to become delayed, which can well cause more to leave. Player retention is vital for an mmo to survive, and congratz, players in your area of play are happy, but why then is it such a bad thing to give other player an option that could well give them something to do. Why then does everyone, even in instances you're not a part of, have to play your way?

I knew a lot of raiders who only logged in for raids because their play time was limited and they chose to spend it on activities they enjoyed most.

I seriously doubt that veteran overland will appeal to hard core end game players and make them excited to quest again. How challenging is it to gather pelts after running hard mode veteran trials? Increasing a wolf's difficulty isn't going to make that exciting again.

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

MMO's live and die by their ability to retain players. At least you saying you're comfortable with letting players leave, and making no efforts to change this (despite the fact that one tamriel, an update you enjoyed, was explicitly designed in no small part to fix such an issue) helps frame the conversation moving forward. Let me just say, since you aren't a part of this group in game, that the end game community has been slowing considerably as players continue to leave, and newer players only sometimes advance to the same type of content. It's all fine if a part of the game you don't enjoy is suffering slowly, but would you be content receiving the same responses you're giving out if you tried voicing concerns of a flaw you had in the game in the future?

TequilaFire

Lysette wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Now this is strange, as I experience pretty much all "old" zones to be quite crowded - I go back to pretty much all of them for antiquities, and from my point of view, they are quite filled with a new generation of players. Ok, they are doing Z content yet, and you might eventually not refer to them seeking help, but from what I can tell, these zones are pretty much alive.

The antiquities have helped that problem a bit to be sure, but I see people pretty rarely in certain zones on console.

ok, but console is attracting a different kind of players - I play on PC and there I cannot see a lack of players in old zones - I revisited as well those 6 very basic newbie zones (Stros M'kai, Betnik ect) and they are packed with new players.

Yep, plenty of players in older zones on console, I was just getting a little annoyed by how many players were in the zone story for Orsinium which I haven't done in ages on a new character. More to do with time of day.

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

MMO's live and die by their ability to retain players. At least you saying you're comfortable with letting players leave, and making no efforts to change this (despite the fact that one tamriel, an update you enjoyed, was explicitly designed in no small part to fix such an issue) helps frame the conversation moving forward. Let me just say, since you aren't a part of this group in game, that the end game community has been slowing considerably as players continue to leave, and newer players only sometimes advance to the same type of content. It's all fine if a part of the game you don't enjoy is suffering slowly, but would you be content receiving the same responses you're giving out if you tried voicing concerns of a flaw you had in the game in the future?

It's a fact that players take breaks and leave games for various reasons. It is not logical to expect players to join a game and then play it actively forever. I'm comfortable with this because that is just how it is, and it's this way in every MMO. That alone will not break a game.

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

Overland is not failing. I spend a lot of time questing and always run into other players. I just finished every quest in every zone on my 3 characters so yesterday I rolled a new alt so I can do it again on a new class. This is my first alt since the Necromancer I rolled when Elsweyr released. The starting area is teeming with new characters, some of which are probably also new to the game.

I personally don't see a need for more overland difficulty but I appreciate that some do. This is why I support a debuff or toggle or slider and challenge banners. I also support a standalone adventure zone, just to see how many would actually use it. That information could make a difference in how they address this in the future.

But I do not support a separate veteran overland for reasons I've stated before.

Defeatist

It’s important that the community talks out the issue of overland content being too easy because that’s the only way the Dev team will recognize that this is an issue which needs addressing. I’ll reiterate, it’s encouraging to hear that others have had the same experience as me.

There have been some great ideas posted in the thread, here are mine:

1. Debuff Food. Nearly no one is going to debuff themselves just for the fun of it, I’ve worked hard over the years to get best in slot raid gear and hone my Sorc rotation. I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot just so I don’t one-shot the boss during story quests. However, if ZOS released a food item that both buffed gold/exp/rare item drops while simultaneously debuffing your character’s DPS/health/resistance then I would definitely use it. Even as a 1300+CP player, I still need that gold for my spellpower pot fund.
   
2. New Game+. I have close long time ESO friends who have like 8 alts and have played the overland story through on all 8. While I have alts too, I really only want to play my main. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience the main story quests in each zone again. Seeing as I can barely keep myself awake saving the world again in the new DLC zones, as it is, I’d rather play FF14 before going back through the previous zones. If ZOS were to implement a New Game+ system with a higher difficulty level then it would solve several different problems. First, players who prefer their main character won’t have to craft alts to experience the story again. Second, it would offer a heightened level of difficulty for veteran players, maybe even multiple levels of difficulty for each New Game+ playthrough. Third, it would offer more gameplay content for players, particularly veteran ones with minimal effort from the ZOS Dev team.
   
3. HM Boss Standards. While it’s not my ideal solution, it’s better than nothing. Add difficulty togglable standards for main story quest boss fights. The ease with which I shred through bosses is embarrassing. I’ve been tracking how long boss fights last using ONLY light attacks as I slog through the Blackwood main story quest. The fight with the boss at the end of the quest “Weapons of Destruction” lasted about 14 seconds, light attacks ONLY. The longest part of most boss fights is the portion where they’re invincible which is annoying but probably also a move by ZOS so that I’ll actually see/hear the scripted events in the fight. Just add togglable boss standards which buff the boss’s damage, casting speed, or ability types that way the combat content appeals to both different play styles.

I’ll close by saying this. Some folks in the thread have supposed that losing veteran players such as myself isn’t a big deal because we are a minority and swarms of new players will come to replace us. I strongly disagree. Who helped you kill those dragons, walked you through the HM mechanics of a veteran dungeon, or recorded video on how to optimize your build for the newest patch, etc? Not only that but I personally have been subscribed since beta. I will also unabashedly admit to ESO’s Crown Store being my guilty pleasure for spending. Veteran players are a committed, paying portion of the player base. I think the ZOS Devs and the ESO casual player base are doing themselves a disservice by alienating us.

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players come and go due to burnout or other reasons. It doesn't hurt a game to lose players as long as they are still gaining.

MMO's live and die by their ability to retain players. At least you saying you're comfortable with letting players leave, and making no efforts to change this (despite the fact that one tamriel, an update you enjoyed, was explicitly designed in no small part to fix such an issue) helps frame the conversation moving forward. Let me just say, since you aren't a part of this group in game, that the end game community has been slowing considerably as players continue to leave, and newer players only sometimes advance to the same type of content. It's all fine if a part of the game you don't enjoy is suffering slowly, but would you be content receiving the same responses you're giving out if you tried voicing concerns of a flaw you had in the game in the future?

It's a fact that players take breaks and leave games for various reasons. It is not logical to expect players to join a game and then play it actively forever. I'm comfortable with this because that is just how it is, and it's this way in every MMO. That alone will not break a game.

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

Overland is not failing. I spend a lot of time questing and always run into other players. I just finished every quest in every zone on my 3 characters so yesterday I rolled a new alt so I can do it again on a new class. This is my first alt since the Necromancer I rolled when Elsweyr released. The starting area is teeming with new characters, some of which are probably also new to the game.

I personally don't see a need for more overland difficulty but I appreciate that some do. This is why I support a debuff or toggle or slider and challenge banners. I also support a standalone adventure zone, just to see how many would actually use it. That information could make a difference in how they address this in the future.

But I do not support a separate veteran overland for reasons I've stated before.

Players taking a break is one thing, players failing to find anything of meaning to do and leaving dissipointed is another.

Pvp has been in a bad state for a while between performance and balance issues. End game pve has had some performance issues as well but like I mentioned for you, since you aren't an end game pve'er yourself, is that people take breaks for many reasons but then just chose to never come back.

Overland isn't failing, and I never said it was, except for failing at teaching players how to actually play the game (like most video games would). The fact that overland does a good job catering to casual players and new players is good, but like i've stated the content is so, safe, enemies so restrained, that I can't take the npcs cries for help seriously when I know a raw fish to the face is all the effort I would need to put forward to silence the year centric big bad.

And how would debuffs fix these issues at all? If debuffs worked, we would already use them, as I said a few posts back, but it doesn't change how enemies are so heavily restrained. And why does it matter how people in another instance are enjoying the content compared to you? Why do you feel the need to force your own idea of the 'right way to play' upon people you can't even directly interact with since they're in a different instance?

Harvokaan

SilverBride wrote: »

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

PvP lost almost half of its playerbase because of NW (major portion of pvp playerbase who decided to try it out didn't return), everyone who have at least 2-3 eso pvp discords knows about that. Same story for end game pve, a lot of groups disband because they had problems with players leaving and no new raiders available (the mass exodus started around end of 2020 but now it is much worse).
You admitted before that you don't participate with high end pve or pvp content, please don't assume how the situations of these communities looks like if you are not a part of those communities. Ppl who are an actual part of those communities tell you that situation is bad, they probably know better as they play with other raiders/pvpers on daily basis. It is not an opinion of an unit, it is a consensus of major part of those communities.
Finding party for farming is not hard for now, finidng team for progressing trifecta is now much harder then before. Same with pvp, not too hard to find pug group in cyro but finding a pvp guild that will do pvp evenings 2-3 times per week is really tough

SilverBride

Harvokaan wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

PvP lost almost half of its playerbase because of NW (major portion of pvp playerbase who decided to try it out didn't return), everyone who have at least 2-3 eso pvp discords knows about that. Same story for end game pve, a lot of groups disband because they had problems with players leaving and no new raiders available (the mass exodus started around end of 2020 but now it is much worse).
You admitted before that you don't participate with high end pve or pvp content, please don't assume how the situations of these communities looks like if you are not a part of those communities. Ppl who are an actual part of those communities tell you that situation is bad, they probably know better as they play with other raiders/pvpers on daily basis. It is not an opinion of an unit, it is a consensus of major part of those communities.
Finding party for farming is not hard for now, finidng team for progressing trifecta is now much harder then before. Same with pvp, not too hard to find pug group in cyro but finding a pvp guild that will do pvp evenings 2-3 times per week is really tough

All I know is what I see, and I see groups forming for these all the time. But even if there are less end game players doing things like trifecta that you mentioned, how is veteran overland going to fix that?

summ0004

I think there are some good ideas that could bandaid the problem until a more long term overhaul to overland takes place

The hard mode banners in story bosses and instances I fully support as a compromise, and I also like the idea of ZOS releasing chapter stories and zones only for veteran content.

The debuff scroll is a tricky one for me and it depends on how its implemented. I am not keen on the idea of just reducing stats of the player as you may aswell just not use it and take off all your gear and fight naked as it would have the same result, and I am not keen on this type of debuff.

Any kind of debuff scroll in my opinion should come with increased gold and XP or better quality items, otherwise it makes players level more slowly and get less gold as a result. I think this is perfectly fair in my eyes, as more difficulty should not make things less efficient.

spartaxoxo

summ0004 wrote: »

I think there are some good ideas that could bandaid the problem until a more long term overhaul to overland takes place

The hard mode banners in story bosses and instances I fully support as a compromise, and I also like the idea of ZOS releasing chapter stories and zones only for veteran content.

The debuff scroll is a tricky one for me and it depends on how its implemented. I am not keen on the idea of just reducing stats of the player as you may aswell just not use it and take off all your gear and fight naked as it would have the same result, and I am not keen on this type of debuff.

Any kind of debuff scroll in my opinion should come with increased gold and XP or better quality items, otherwise it makes players level more slowly and get less gold as a result. I think this is perfectly fair in my eyes, as more difficulty should not make things less efficient.

I think a lot of the reason that people oppose debuffs is frankly because they are closed off to the solution so only consider the weakest possible debuffs and absolutely nothing given for using them, even though that doesn't need to be the case at all and is just using the worst possible application as the standard.

LOTRO has several different strengths of debuffs on their slider and it's so effective at making the game harder there's a substantial number of people paying for the privilege of using it explicitly monthly.

They can do way way more with debuffs than you could do unequipping your gear.

They can make you 10 times the damage so all heavy attacks in the game must be blocked or dodged and multiple enemies are insane challenge, they can make you take constant frost damage in cold zones that gets worse and worse if you don't get near a heat source, they can make it so that you can't have more than 3k hp, etc etc.

And they can do something like increased gold gain alongside them with it.

Harvokaan

SilverBride wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

PvP lost almost half of its playerbase because of NW (major portion of pvp playerbase who decided to try it out didn't return), everyone who have at least 2-3 eso pvp discords knows about that. Same story for end game pve, a lot of groups disband because they had problems with players leaving and no new raiders available (the mass exodus started around end of 2020 but now it is much worse).
You admitted before that you don't participate with high end pve or pvp content, please don't assume how the situations of these communities looks like if you are not a part of those communities. Ppl who are an actual part of those communities tell you that situation is bad, they probably know better as they play with other raiders/pvpers on daily basis. It is not an opinion of an unit, it is a consensus of major part of those communities.
Finding party for farming is not hard for now, finidng team for progressing trifecta is now much harder then before. Same with pvp, not too hard to find pug group in cyro but finding a pvp guild that will do pvp evenings 2-3 times per week is really tough

All I know is what I see, and I see groups forming for these all the time. But even if there are less end game players doing things like trifecta that you mentioned, how is veteran overland going to fix that?

By providing some content specialy for those end game players? So they will have something to do when they are not in group to beat same trials and dungeons over and over (with merely 4 new dungeons and one new trial per year)? Casuals get something each update, some love to more experienced players is not bad.
As for pvp players, they desperately need cyro fixes and some new modes, apparently zos started working on fixes so maybe they will get some love in like 2 years

SilverBride

Harvokaan wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Harvokaan wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What part of the game that I don't enjoy is suffering slowly? I don't enjoy PvP or veteran end game content but I don't see how those are failing. There are plenty of players running them. Just go to Craglorn and notice all the players advertising for veteran dungeon and trial groups. Players in my guild also get groups together for these.

PvP lost almost half of its playerbase because of NW (major portion of pvp playerbase who decided to try it out didn't return), everyone who have at least 2-3 eso pvp discords knows about that. Same story for end game pve, a lot of groups disband because they had problems with players leaving and no new raiders available (the mass exodus started around end of 2020 but now it is much worse).
You admitted before that you don't participate with high end pve or pvp content, please don't assume how the situations of these communities looks like if you are not a part of those communities. Ppl who are an actual part of those communities tell you that situation is bad, they probably know better as they play with other raiders/pvpers on daily basis. It is not an opinion of an unit, it is a consensus of major part of those communities.
Finding party for farming is not hard for now, finidng team for progressing trifecta is now much harder then before. Same with pvp, not too hard to find pug group in cyro but finding a pvp guild that will do pvp evenings 2-3 times per week is really tough

All I know is what I see, and I see groups forming for these all the time. But even if there are less end game players doing things like trifecta that you mentioned, how is veteran overland going to fix that?

By providing some content specialy for those end game players? So they will have something to do when they are not in group to beat same trials and dungeons over and over (with merely 4 new dungeons and one new trial per year)? Casuals get something each update, some love to more experienced players is not bad.
As for pvp players, they desperately need cyro fixes and some new modes, apparently zos started working on fixes so maybe they will get some love in like 2 years

Fair enough.

And to clarify, I fully support a debuff or toggle or slider and challenge banners. I also support a standalone adventure zone. I just don't support a separate veteran overland for reasons I've stated before.