Overland Content Feedback Thread

Lysette

.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Ok @SilverBride, I understand you probably don't like it when I address you directly, but both yourself and other users seem confused about how instancing works and are worried about subdividing the community. Putting aside the fact that many of the players this change would impact don't even log in all that often, sort of like what happened to you pre-One Tamriel, here is how the system currently works.

Imagine you owned a place that had swimming pools. You have this magic hallway where you can open more pools over time to meet the demands of the number of people arriving. To keep things sane, you only allow, say, to keep the math simple, each pool can only fit 10 people max, but you only ever let them fill to say, 7 people before opening a new pool. This is done so if someone wants to join someone whose already in a pool they can without it becoming over crowded.

Lets say you have 40 people, you would have 5 pools with 7 people and a 6th with only 5. You could, if you wanted the numbers to be more even, have 4 with 7 and 2 with 6, and each group would have a comfortable number of people with room for people to join those who they wanted to be with directly.

Now, if all the pools were shallow and someone wanted a deeper pool to swim, not to worry, you have the ability to change the depth of the pools as need and let's say you change only one of them to accommodate those who want to swim. If only one person wanted this, you would have 1 pool with 1 person, and the rest would be 4 pools with 8 and one with 7. The people who aren't interested in swimming in the deeper pool have slightly more people but still aren't near cap, and those who are interested get to enjoy what they want.

Tweak this ratio as much as you like, but you wouldn't need to open any additional pools to accommodate the 40 people, and outside of extremes like the mentioned "only 1 person" example, and all of them maintain a comfortable number of people.

However, this number, 40 people, would likely rise as people who want to swim in a deeper pool catch wind that you've offered this and as you get more people you open more pools.

This is exactly how it works with zone instances. Divide players into sane numbers so zone chat doesn't become a blur and peoples computers don't fry while entering town, create new instances as the total population needs, and you can organize which instance people are in to curate their individual taste in exactly the same way you would curate players between zones. You, don't take issue with zos adding more zones, do you? Yet they divide players depended on what people want to do, same as this instancing system already does.

It is a good thing you enjoy the game as much as you do. MMO's live or die depending on the population they can maintain, and no one in the right mind would want to change that. But just because you enjoy it as is doesn't invalidate others, and just because you feel the way it is fine doesn't change the fact that every other piece of content in the game has options on how you would want to engage with it. Giving the option gives more players the ability to enjoy the game, and as you've said many times fun is subjective, so please don't assume that your own enjoyment invalidates other players concerns. I've spent thousands of hours in this game because I love it and want to see it succeed, and adding an option, even one you personally wouldn't use, would enable more people to keep enjoying it.

That's an awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to post it; probably the best explanation I've seen yet when it comes to this sort of "instance setup".

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

That is exactly the problem - to get back to the pool analogy - not deep enough, not warm enough, too warm, too less sharks in them, missing box jelly fish, where are white sharks and why doesn't it have cone snails, able to kill instantly - that is an endless source of problems, because just a tiny amount of people will agree on what they actually want and all the rest keeps complaining. Some even want changes to the mechanics NPCs are using - which seems to me totally out of scope, because it is a massive redesign of old content. Pretty much any solution to this is likely to just satisfy a few and disappoint the rest, if not even alienating them and making them leave.

I actually think, that offering no solution at all - like they are doing currently - might cause less harm than actually trying to make some happy - as long as there is no solution, people have hope and stick around - but if a solution is offered, which is not making them happy, there is no hope anymore and they might just leave for good. And there is not much of a real chance to get it right either. Private instancing with tools to cater the experience by yourself would be a solution - but it is as well a costly one and the megaserver might not be made for it and a lot might be averse to the idea in a whole - like SilverBride - but she is likely not the only one hating this idea of mine. And her arguments in regards to it are as valid as mine - just from a different perspective.

CP5

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Ok @SilverBride, I understand you probably don't like it when I address you directly, but both yourself and other users seem confused about how instancing works and are worried about subdividing the community. Putting aside the fact that many of the players this change would impact don't even log in all that often, sort of like what happened to you pre-One Tamriel, here is how the system currently works.

Imagine you owned a place that had swimming pools. You have this magic hallway where you can open more pools over time to meet the demands of the number of people arriving. To keep things sane, you only allow, say, to keep the math simple, each pool can only fit 10 people max, but you only ever let them fill to say, 7 people before opening a new pool. This is done so if someone wants to join someone whose already in a pool they can without it becoming over crowded.

Lets say you have 40 people, you would have 5 pools with 7 people and a 6th with only 5. You could, if you wanted the numbers to be more even, have 4 with 7 and 2 with 6, and each group would have a comfortable number of people with room for people to join those who they wanted to be with directly.

Now, if all the pools were shallow and someone wanted a deeper pool to swim, not to worry, you have the ability to change the depth of the pools as need and let's say you change only one of them to accommodate those who want to swim. If only one person wanted this, you would have 1 pool with 1 person, and the rest would be 4 pools with 8 and one with 7. The people who aren't interested in swimming in the deeper pool have slightly more people but still aren't near cap, and those who are interested get to enjoy what they want.

Tweak this ratio as much as you like, but you wouldn't need to open any additional pools to accommodate the 40 people, and outside of extremes like the mentioned "only 1 person" example, and all of them maintain a comfortable number of people.

However, this number, 40 people, would likely rise as people who want to swim in a deeper pool catch wind that you've offered this and as you get more people you open more pools.

This is exactly how it works with zone instances. Divide players into sane numbers so zone chat doesn't become a blur and peoples computers don't fry while entering town, create new instances as the total population needs, and you can organize which instance people are in to curate their individual taste in exactly the same way you would curate players between zones. You, don't take issue with zos adding more zones, do you? Yet they divide players depended on what people want to do, same as this instancing system already does.

It is a good thing you enjoy the game as much as you do. MMO's live or die depending on the population they can maintain, and no one in the right mind would want to change that. But just because you enjoy it as is doesn't invalidate others, and just because you feel the way it is fine doesn't change the fact that every other piece of content in the game has options on how you would want to engage with it. Giving the option gives more players the ability to enjoy the game, and as you've said many times fun is subjective, so please don't assume that your own enjoyment invalidates other players concerns. I've spent thousands of hours in this game because I love it and want to see it succeed, and adding an option, even one you personally wouldn't use, would enable more people to keep enjoying it.

That's an awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to post it; probably the best explanation I've seen yet when it comes to this sort of "instance setup".

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

"Whatever that really means." Every other piece of pve and pvp content has optional settings to enjoy it differently, except overland. As it is, overland offers one kind of experience that many players enjoy, but for some players who enter ESO expecting more, and for others who have progressed to harder content, the "shallow" combat of overland makes the task of fighting enemies tiresome, and take the joy out of the stories.

What "deep" means, is that I need to pay attention in combat to what I'm actually fighting. If an enemy mender exist, they should be able to heal enough to actually justify my attention. An enemy tank should be durable enough to survive my attacks and defend their allies, but instead they take as much damage to kill while also using their time in the fight to leap into the air, leaving their allies for dead.

Deeper, to me, means a combination of replacing skills on enemies that exist to waste their own time, and giving them enough stats to survive and fight back. This isn't some incredibly small niche of elitist, but anyone who would both want to explore the world and stories of the game, while also taking as much advantage of the combat system eso offers.

LashanW

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

Lysette wrote: »

Some even want changes to the mechanics NPCs are using - which seems to me totally out of scope, because it is a massive redesign of old content. Pretty much any solution to this is likely to just satisfy a few and disappoint the rest, if not even alienating them and making them leave.

I actually think, that offering no solution at all - like they are doing currently - might cause less harm than actually trying to make some happy - as long as there is no solution, people have hope and stick around - but if a solution is offered, which is not making them happy, there is no hope anymore and they might just leave for good.

I don't get why casual players make such claims. You obviously don't play endgame content. We do. So casual players and endgame players don't share the same mindset and idea of fun/engaging gameplay, and that's perfectly fine. Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

I'm not a child, I'm not gonna throw a temper tantrum, flip the tables and leave the game for good if I don't get exactly what I want.

ZoS knows how to make challenging content. This is not uncharted territory for them, it's something they have done for years. They have already made quite a bit of veteran dungeons, trials, arenas and they are designed really well, for people who enjoy getting good at the game. Only problem I have with such content is that they are designed for groups. There's only 2 solo arenas for the whole game. And I got perfect clears (no death and/or speed run) for both of them long ago. I can't be grouped with 3+ players every time I play ESO.

For me, ideal solution would be optional veteran instances where the difficulty is similar to veteran solo arenas or veteran non-DLC dungeons. But I would still be ok with lesser difficulties (like normal DLC dungeons or normal base game version 2 dungeons). I'd still be fine with only challenge banners for quest bosses, I'd even use self-debuffs (as long as they come with some sort of extra reward). It's just that I can't stand visual novel type gameplay to be the ONLY option available in questing. I have played a couple of visual novel games before, they just aren't my cup of tea.

Lysette

CP5 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Ok @SilverBride, I understand you probably don't like it when I address you directly, but both yourself and other users seem confused about how instancing works and are worried about subdividing the community. Putting aside the fact that many of the players this change would impact don't even log in all that often, sort of like what happened to you pre-One Tamriel, here is how the system currently works.

Imagine you owned a place that had swimming pools. You have this magic hallway where you can open more pools over time to meet the demands of the number of people arriving. To keep things sane, you only allow, say, to keep the math simple, each pool can only fit 10 people max, but you only ever let them fill to say, 7 people before opening a new pool. This is done so if someone wants to join someone whose already in a pool they can without it becoming over crowded.

Lets say you have 40 people, you would have 5 pools with 7 people and a 6th with only 5. You could, if you wanted the numbers to be more even, have 4 with 7 and 2 with 6, and each group would have a comfortable number of people with room for people to join those who they wanted to be with directly.

Now, if all the pools were shallow and someone wanted a deeper pool to swim, not to worry, you have the ability to change the depth of the pools as need and let's say you change only one of them to accommodate those who want to swim. If only one person wanted this, you would have 1 pool with 1 person, and the rest would be 4 pools with 8 and one with 7. The people who aren't interested in swimming in the deeper pool have slightly more people but still aren't near cap, and those who are interested get to enjoy what they want.

Tweak this ratio as much as you like, but you wouldn't need to open any additional pools to accommodate the 40 people, and outside of extremes like the mentioned "only 1 person" example, and all of them maintain a comfortable number of people.

However, this number, 40 people, would likely rise as people who want to swim in a deeper pool catch wind that you've offered this and as you get more people you open more pools.

This is exactly how it works with zone instances. Divide players into sane numbers so zone chat doesn't become a blur and peoples computers don't fry while entering town, create new instances as the total population needs, and you can organize which instance people are in to curate their individual taste in exactly the same way you would curate players between zones. You, don't take issue with zos adding more zones, do you? Yet they divide players depended on what people want to do, same as this instancing system already does.

It is a good thing you enjoy the game as much as you do. MMO's live or die depending on the population they can maintain, and no one in the right mind would want to change that. But just because you enjoy it as is doesn't invalidate others, and just because you feel the way it is fine doesn't change the fact that every other piece of content in the game has options on how you would want to engage with it. Giving the option gives more players the ability to enjoy the game, and as you've said many times fun is subjective, so please don't assume that your own enjoyment invalidates other players concerns. I've spent thousands of hours in this game because I love it and want to see it succeed, and adding an option, even one you personally wouldn't use, would enable more people to keep enjoying it.

That's an awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to post it; probably the best explanation I've seen yet when it comes to this sort of "instance setup".

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

"Whatever that really means." Every other piece of pve and pvp content has optional settings to enjoy it differently, except overland. As it is, overland offers one kind of experience that many players enjoy, but for some players who enter ESO expecting more, and for others who have progressed to harder content, the "shallow" combat of overland makes the task of fighting enemies tiresome, and take the joy out of the stories.

What "deep" means, is that I need to pay attention in combat to what I'm actually fighting. If an enemy mender exist, they should be able to heal enough to actually justify my attention. An enemy tank should be durable enough to survive my attacks and defend their allies, but instead they take as much damage to kill while also using their time in the fight to leap into the air, leaving their allies for dead.

Deeper, to me, means a combination of replacing skills on enemies that exist to waste their own time, and giving them enough stats to survive and fight back. This isn't some incredibly small niche of elitist, but anyone who would both want to explore the world and stories of the game, while also taking as much advantage of the combat system eso offers.

Yeah, but they would need a lot more hit points - my normal experience is, I'm jumping on them with stampede, add another AoE effect and a DoT and the whole group will be dead on the ground long before the initial stampede effect ends. And this would not change a lot even if they would have twice as many hit point - then I'll kill them a few seconds later - it doesn't matter to me, but it would be a drama for a true newbie, to come across these guys then.

I think in a quest no one wants a challenge which could stop them from completing the quest - they want to complete the quest and enemies are supposed to die in a single run - they aren't there to provide a challenge which could make the quest fail. Don't forget what Rich said, people do not want difficulty in their story.

Lysette

LashanW wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

Lysette wrote: »

Some even want changes to the mechanics NPCs are using - which seems to me totally out of scope, because it is a massive redesign of old content. Pretty much any solution to this is likely to just satisfy a few and disappoint the rest, if not even alienating them and making them leave.

I actually think, that offering no solution at all - like they are doing currently - might cause less harm than actually trying to make some happy - as long as there is no solution, people have hope and stick around - but if a solution is offered, which is not making them happy, there is no hope anymore and they might just leave for good.

I don't get why casual players make such claims. You obviously don't play endgame content. We do. So casual players and endgame players don't share the same mindset and idea of fun/engaging gameplay, and that's perfectly fine. Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

I'm not a child, I'm not gonna throw a temper tantrum, flip the tables and leave the game for good if I don't get exactly what I want.

ZoS knows how to make challenging content. This is not uncharted territory for them, it's something they have done for years. They have already made quite a bit of veteran dungeons, trials, arenas and they are designed really well, for people who enjoy getting good at the game. Only problem I have with such content is that they are designed for groups. There's only 2 solo arenas for the whole game. And I got perfect clears (no death and/or speed run) for both of them long ago. I can't be grouped with 3+ players every time I play ESO.

For me, ideal solution would be optional veteran instances where the difficulty is similar to veteran solo arenas or veteran non-DLC dungeons. But I would still be ok with lesser difficulties (like normal DLC dungeons or normal base game version 2 dungeons). I'd still be fine with only challenge banners for quest bosses, I'd even use self-debuffs (as long as they come with some sort of extra reward). It's just that I can't stand visual novel type gameplay to be the ONLY option available in questing. I have played a couple of visual novel games before, they just aren't my cup of tea.

Yeah, I fully support optional veteran instances - everything what gets you off normal instances actually - that I can eventually complete a quest with the supposed content in them - and not infiltrate an empty fortress like yesterday - it was so annoying, it could have been an experience and it was just lackluster - not worth doing at all. It was supposed to be a heavily guarded fortress, which I would have to infiltrate stealthy and remain unseen - that the hostages would not be killed by the bad guy of the fortress - but nothing of that mattered at all in that quest - a waste of time, this does not make me want to quest more.

Sylvermynx

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

That's not on me to worry about. That's on the devs, and on those who galumph through content grumbling about how "trivial" it is and not taking time to smell the roses.

SilverBride

LashanW wrote: »

Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

Several posters have stated they do not currently play overland, and some don't play the game at all, but say they would play again if they get a separate veteran overland.

Red_Feather

All overland content is so boring it's unbelievable it's lasted this long.

Ronin37

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Ok @SilverBride, I understand you probably don't like it when I address you directly, but both yourself and other users seem confused about how instancing works and are worried about subdividing the community. Putting aside the fact that many of the players this change would impact don't even log in all that often, sort of like what happened to you pre-One Tamriel, here is how the system currently works.

Imagine you owned a place that had swimming pools. You have this magic hallway where you can open more pools over time to meet the demands of the number of people arriving. To keep things sane, you only allow, say, to keep the math simple, each pool can only fit 10 people max, but you only ever let them fill to say, 7 people before opening a new pool. This is done so if someone wants to join someone whose already in a pool they can without it becoming over crowded.

Lets say you have 40 people, you would have 5 pools with 7 people and a 6th with only 5. You could, if you wanted the numbers to be more even, have 4 with 7 and 2 with 6, and each group would have a comfortable number of people with room for people to join those who they wanted to be with directly.

Now, if all the pools were shallow and someone wanted a deeper pool to swim, not to worry, you have the ability to change the depth of the pools as need and let's say you change only one of them to accommodate those who want to swim. If only one person wanted this, you would have 1 pool with 1 person, and the rest would be 4 pools with 8 and one with 7. The people who aren't interested in swimming in the deeper pool have slightly more people but still aren't near cap, and those who are interested get to enjoy what they want.

Tweak this ratio as much as you like, but you wouldn't need to open any additional pools to accommodate the 40 people, and outside of extremes like the mentioned "only 1 person" example, and all of them maintain a comfortable number of people.

However, this number, 40 people, would likely rise as people who want to swim in a deeper pool catch wind that you've offered this and as you get more people you open more pools.

This is exactly how it works with zone instances. Divide players into sane numbers so zone chat doesn't become a blur and peoples computers don't fry while entering town, create new instances as the total population needs, and you can organize which instance people are in to curate their individual taste in exactly the same way you would curate players between zones. You, don't take issue with zos adding more zones, do you? Yet they divide players depended on what people want to do, same as this instancing system already does.

It is a good thing you enjoy the game as much as you do. MMO's live or die depending on the population they can maintain, and no one in the right mind would want to change that. But just because you enjoy it as is doesn't invalidate others, and just because you feel the way it is fine doesn't change the fact that every other piece of content in the game has options on how you would want to engage with it. Giving the option gives more players the ability to enjoy the game, and as you've said many times fun is subjective, so please don't assume that your own enjoyment invalidates other players concerns. I've spent thousands of hours in this game because I love it and want to see it succeed, and adding an option, even one you personally wouldn't use, would enable more people to keep enjoying it.

That's an awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to post it; probably the best explanation I've seen yet when it comes to this sort of "instance setup".

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

"Whatever that really means." Every other piece of pve and pvp content has optional settings to enjoy it differently, except overland. As it is, overland offers one kind of experience that many players enjoy, but for some players who enter ESO expecting more, and for others who have progressed to harder content, the "shallow" combat of overland makes the task of fighting enemies tiresome, and take the joy out of the stories.

What "deep" means, is that I need to pay attention in combat to what I'm actually fighting. If an enemy mender exist, they should be able to heal enough to actually justify my attention. An enemy tank should be durable enough to survive my attacks and defend their allies, but instead they take as much damage to kill while also using their time in the fight to leap into the air, leaving their allies for dead.

Deeper, to me, means a combination of replacing skills on enemies that exist to waste their own time, and giving them enough stats to survive and fight back. This isn't some incredibly small niche of elitist, but anyone who would both want to explore the world and stories of the game, while also taking as much advantage of the combat system eso offers.

Yeah, but they would need a lot more hit points - my normal experience is, I'm jumping on them with stampede, add another AoE effect and a DoT and the whole group will be dead on the ground long before the initial stampede effect ends. And this would not change a lot even if they would have twice as many hit point - then I'll kill them a few seconds later - it doesn't matter to me, but it would be a drama for a true newbie, to come across these guys then.

I think in a quest no one wants a challenge which could stop them from completing the quest - they want to complete the quest and enemies are supposed to die in a single run - they aren't there to provide a challenge which could make the quest fail. Don't forget what Rich said, people do not want difficulty in their story.

Rich is just one opinion because if people did not want difficulty in their stories a lot of games would not exist. All we would have is Myst without the puzzles.

FlopsyPrince

CP5 wrote: »

"Whatever that really means." Every other piece of pve and pvp content has optional settings to enjoy it differently, except overland. As it is, overland offers one kind of experience that many players enjoy, but for some players who enter ESO expecting more, and for others who have progressed to harder content, the "shallow" combat of overland makes the task of fighting enemies tiresome, and take the joy out of the stories.

That is not true. What settings can you change for Cyrodill or IC? CP or No CP. A leveling option with no CP for Cyrodill. You could have that with overland now by just turning off your CP.

I have never done a battlegrounds, so I don't know what is there, but I would bet it is similar.

What "deep" means, is that I need to pay attention in combat to what I'm actually fighting. If an enemy mender exist, they should be able to heal enough to actually justify my attention. An enemy tank should be durable enough to survive my attacks and defend their allies, but instead they take as much damage to kill while also using their time in the fight to leap into the air, leaving their allies for dead.

Deeper, to me, means a combination of replacing skills on enemies that exist to waste their own time, and giving them enough stats to survive and fight back. This isn't some incredibly small niche of elitist, but anyone who would both want to explore the world and stories of the game, while also taking as much advantage of the combat system eso offers.

This is what you personally want. You do not represent all those even on this thread that have posted in this conversation thread. It is only "clear" for you, but that is not the same as everyone else.

LashanW wrote: »

I don't get why casual players make such claims. You obviously don't play endgame content. We do. So casual players and endgame players don't share the same mindset and idea of fun/engaging gameplay, and that's perfectly fine. Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

No, I don't play endgame content. That is not what I seek out of the game. I do not want almost every battle to be a near death experience.

I'm not a child, I'm not gonna throw a temper tantrum, flip the tables and leave the game for good if I don't get exactly what I want.

Who is doing that? I only see those who want the generally vague "harder overland" saying they would do anything close.

I would of course stop playing if this became something I had to stress out all the time. I play this to relax, not stress myself. My days of trying to play Civilization on the top difficulty level (or trying to do that) are long past.

ZoS knows how to make challenging content. This is not uncharted territory for them, it's something they have done for years. They have already made quite a bit of veteran dungeons, trials, arenas and they are designed really well, for people who enjoy getting good at the game. Only problem I have with such content is that they are designed for groups. There's only 2 solo arenas for the whole game. And I got perfect clears (no death and/or speed run) for both of them long ago. I can't be grouped with 3+ players every time I play ESO.

Of course they know how to make hard content, that is why we have Trials, Vet dungeons, Harrowstorms, etc. But refitting existing content is not a trivial switch flip. It would take a lot of time to overhaul all the zones and the payoff is still uncertain.

Would you stay challenged for more than a week, at best? How much would you replay the new "harder version" of overland? Do you have anything to validate that?

I can validate that I do replay "easy content" repeatedly. I have done it on over 40 characters now.

For me, ideal solution would be optional veteran instances where the difficulty is similar to veteran solo arenas or veteran non-DLC dungeons. But I would still be ok with lesser difficulties (like normal DLC dungeons or normal base game version 2 dungeons). I'd still be fine with only challenge banners for quest bosses, I'd even use self-debuffs (as long as they come with some sort of extra reward). It's just that I can't stand visual novel type gameplay to be the ONLY option available in questing. I have played a couple of visual novel games before, they just aren't my cup of tea.

The instancing would be the easy part. Making the content "hard" is still not defined, even for you and nothing substantive asserts how it would keep you engaged for long. Designer and developer time is limited. That means each place it is used must get a good return for the effort.

That point needs to be made.

(I do not mean to insult anyone in this reply, I am just trying to address the points raised.)

FlopsyPrince

Red_Feather wrote: »

All overland content is so boring it's unbelievable it's lasted this long.

And how likely would any change to it satisfy you for long? You seem to dislike the concept, so making it hard would likely not make it interesting.

And "interesting" is what most are seeking. Nothing remains "interesting" over the long run except for those of us who are OCD enough to like repetition. Though even that can get old, which is one of the reasons I stopped playing Warcraft years ago at the end of Pandaria. I had plenty I wanted to do, but too much was not helpful to collect it all, something that drives the ability to endure lots of repetition. ESO is fine for that for me, for now at least, but I can't see it helping those who are not interested in it already, no matter how hard it was. It would only be interesting for a while and then would not be interesting enough, as noted by the first reply to my questioning the pool analogy.

FlopsyPrince

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

Several posters have stated they do not currently play overland, and some don't play the game at all, but say they would play again if they get a separate veteran overland.

That is almost certainly what they think (at least I would hope so), but that doesn't prove it would satisfy them for long. The latter is the huge question in the room that needs strong consideration given the depth of effort required for any changes to existing content in this area.

spartaxoxo

Ronin37 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Ok @SilverBride, I understand you probably don't like it when I address you directly, but both yourself and other users seem confused about how instancing works and are worried about subdividing the community. Putting aside the fact that many of the players this change would impact don't even log in all that often, sort of like what happened to you pre-One Tamriel, here is how the system currently works.

Imagine you owned a place that had swimming pools. You have this magic hallway where you can open more pools over time to meet the demands of the number of people arriving. To keep things sane, you only allow, say, to keep the math simple, each pool can only fit 10 people max, but you only ever let them fill to say, 7 people before opening a new pool. This is done so if someone wants to join someone whose already in a pool they can without it becoming over crowded.

Lets say you have 40 people, you would have 5 pools with 7 people and a 6th with only 5. You could, if you wanted the numbers to be more even, have 4 with 7 and 2 with 6, and each group would have a comfortable number of people with room for people to join those who they wanted to be with directly.

Now, if all the pools were shallow and someone wanted a deeper pool to swim, not to worry, you have the ability to change the depth of the pools as need and let's say you change only one of them to accommodate those who want to swim. If only one person wanted this, you would have 1 pool with 1 person, and the rest would be 4 pools with 8 and one with 7. The people who aren't interested in swimming in the deeper pool have slightly more people but still aren't near cap, and those who are interested get to enjoy what they want.

Tweak this ratio as much as you like, but you wouldn't need to open any additional pools to accommodate the 40 people, and outside of extremes like the mentioned "only 1 person" example, and all of them maintain a comfortable number of people.

However, this number, 40 people, would likely rise as people who want to swim in a deeper pool catch wind that you've offered this and as you get more people you open more pools.

This is exactly how it works with zone instances. Divide players into sane numbers so zone chat doesn't become a blur and peoples computers don't fry while entering town, create new instances as the total population needs, and you can organize which instance people are in to curate their individual taste in exactly the same way you would curate players between zones. You, don't take issue with zos adding more zones, do you? Yet they divide players depended on what people want to do, same as this instancing system already does.

It is a good thing you enjoy the game as much as you do. MMO's live or die depending on the population they can maintain, and no one in the right mind would want to change that. But just because you enjoy it as is doesn't invalidate others, and just because you feel the way it is fine doesn't change the fact that every other piece of content in the game has options on how you would want to engage with it. Giving the option gives more players the ability to enjoy the game, and as you've said many times fun is subjective, so please don't assume that your own enjoyment invalidates other players concerns. I've spent thousands of hours in this game because I love it and want to see it succeed, and adding an option, even one you personally wouldn't use, would enable more people to keep enjoying it.

That's an awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to post it; probably the best explanation I've seen yet when it comes to this sort of "instance setup".

No it is not. Making a deeper swimming pool is trivial compared to making "harder" overland content, whatever that really means.

Though even with the pool idea, would you go to all the effort to make multiple "deep" pools if someone was only going to swim in them for an hour or so and then find them not deep enough?

"Whatever that really means." Every other piece of pve and pvp content has optional settings to enjoy it differently, except overland. As it is, overland offers one kind of experience that many players enjoy, but for some players who enter ESO expecting more, and for others who have progressed to harder content, the "shallow" combat of overland makes the task of fighting enemies tiresome, and take the joy out of the stories.

What "deep" means, is that I need to pay attention in combat to what I'm actually fighting. If an enemy mender exist, they should be able to heal enough to actually justify my attention. An enemy tank should be durable enough to survive my attacks and defend their allies, but instead they take as much damage to kill while also using their time in the fight to leap into the air, leaving their allies for dead.

Deeper, to me, means a combination of replacing skills on enemies that exist to waste their own time, and giving them enough stats to survive and fight back. This isn't some incredibly small niche of elitist, but anyone who would both want to explore the world and stories of the game, while also taking as much advantage of the combat system eso offers.

Yeah, but they would need a lot more hit points - my normal experience is, I'm jumping on them with stampede, add another AoE effect and a DoT and the whole group will be dead on the ground long before the initial stampede effect ends. And this would not change a lot even if they would have twice as many hit point - then I'll kill them a few seconds later - it doesn't matter to me, but it would be a drama for a true newbie, to come across these guys then.

I think in a quest no one wants a challenge which could stop them from completing the quest - they want to complete the quest and enemies are supposed to die in a single run - they aren't there to provide a challenge which could make the quest fail. Don't forget what Rich said, people do not want difficulty in their story.

Rich is just one opinion because if people did not want difficulty in their stories a lot of games would not exist. All we would have is Myst without the puzzles.

Different games have different playerbases with different tastes.

spartaxoxo

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

Several posters have stated they do not currently play overland, and some don't play the game at all, but say they would play again if they get a separate veteran overland.

That is almost certainly what they think (at least I would hope so), but that doesn't prove it would satisfy them for long. The latter is the huge question in the room that needs strong consideration given the depth of effort required for any changes to existing content in this area.

Stories are more interesting to many people when the interactive elements support the narrative. Even if a player here eventually gets burnt out, some new player that also enjoys that would replace them, no different to how it works with casual content.

Quests are once and done activities anyway, so there's no need for the same quests to be engaging that long. They just need to be interesting when you engage them the first time or two. This is not repeatable content.

Adding an optional difficulty would no doubt make quests more interesting for a significant number of players.

Sylvermynx

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Stories are more interesting to many people when the interactive elements support the narrative. Even if a player here eventually gets burnt out, some new player that also enjoys that would replace them, no different to how it works with casual content..

Eh, not for me; any story for me is far more important than anything else in the game - interactive? Nope, don't care about it. I suppose that others are far more invested in "entertain me!" than I am.

Thankfully.... I write. So when this game "deletes" me, I still have options.

CP5

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

Several posters have stated they do not currently play overland, and some don't play the game at all, but say they would play again if they get a separate veteran overland.

That is almost certainly what they think (at least I would hope so), but that doesn't prove it would satisfy them for long. The latter is the huge question in the room that needs strong consideration given the depth of effort required for any changes to existing content in this area.

Any effort is better than no effort. People aren't engaging with the game as much as they would otherwise like, not because they are just burnt out, but because outside the group content they've run to death the game fails to engage them, and they leave. Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. Those two issues should be addressed, and any means of doing that would take effort, and I honestly feel doing nothing would be the worst solution in the long run.

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

Several posters have stated they do not currently play overland, and some don't play the game at all, but say they would play again if they get a separate veteran overland.

That is almost certainly what they think (at least I would hope so), but that doesn't prove it would satisfy them for long. The latter is the huge question in the room that needs strong consideration given the depth of effort required for any changes to existing content in this area.

Any effort is better than no effort. People aren't engaging with the game as much as they would otherwise like, not because they are just burnt out, but because outside the group content they've run to death the game fails to engage them, and they leave. Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. Those two issues should be addressed, and any means of doing that would take effort, and I honestly feel doing nothing would be the worst solution in the long run.

One of my cousins wanted to see what ESO was all about because mulitple members of my family enjoy it. He watched videos, hyped himself up for Mannimarco, and then got very disappointed that Mannimarco ended up being a pushover. He still enjoys the game but I'm not sure how much longer, it was a pretty big let down for him. He had bought into the hype of the trailers and storyline, only for him to die quickly.

I think customizable difficulty really can help people enjoy the game much more, even if they are new.

CP5

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. .

[snip]

You should never be cheering on people who enter a game with high hopes, only to be let down and leave. "The Elder Scrolls" isn't about difficulty, it is a world, the lore, the history, the characters. Difficulty is entirely disconnected from that, and binding your preferred way to play as the 'correct' way to play, and showing a positive reaction to people leaving isn't how you support a game going for the long term. You can't say what people coming to the game are looking for, [snip]

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Lysette

Lately I thought about the future of gaming, because I experience a trend in some games towards an in average older community - the boomer generation is about to get retired and a lot of them grew up with video games, and now they will have a lot of time to do what they always wanted - finally having enough time to play video games and especially those, they grew up with or which they have played on and off for a decade or more.

Demographics basically suggest that there will be an increased influx of older gamers and they are likely to play more than ever before - but at the same time, their reflexes and reaction times are quite different from a much younger generation - games will have to take this into account in future, because there are a whole lot in this generation, who will populate video games for at least a decade - and this trend to more and more of them will not end before 2050 - there is a lot of money to gain in this, if the game is not too twitchy or too hard.

Well, my conclusion in regards to ESO - ESO is in a quite good position to attract them as it is - TES is around for more than 2 decades, a whole lot of them will know or have played TES games and we can expect quite an influx of them very shortly - they are about to retire.

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

And if they don't stick around long enough to even bother giving feedback, we can't judge how many players that is, but just like you and others had issues with early ESO, so to could many others.

Lysette

CP5 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. .

[snip]

You should never be cheering on people who enter a game with high hopes, only to be let down and leave. "The Elder Scrolls" isn't about difficulty, it is a world, the lore, the history, the characters. Difficulty is entirely disconnected from that, and binding your preferred way to play as the 'correct' way to play, and showing a positive reaction to people leaving isn't how you support a game going for the long term. You can't say what people coming to the game are looking for, [snip]

But so is wanting it to be harder, whilst the majority doesn't want it to be changed - this goes both ways. You basically want that development resources are bound to something, what doesn't benefit most of the player base - [snip]

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Ronin37

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. .

[snip]

So you want to [snip] gatekeep?

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Lysette

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

And if they don't stick around long enough to even bother giving feedback, we can't judge how many players that is, but just like you and others had issues with early ESO, so to could many others.

That is like in EVE - 50% do not even make it over their first 2 hours and 80% drop the game within a week - that is a win, because it takes a certain kind of player to enjoy a pvp everywhere game and those leaving are just not the kind of player who will benefit the community of the game - it is a win that they leave early.

Ronin37

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

And if they don't stick around long enough to even bother giving feedback, we can't judge how many players that is, but just like you and others had issues with early ESO, so to could many others.

That is like in EVE - 50% do not even make it over their first 2 hours and 80% drop the game within a week - that is a win, because it takes a certain kind of player to enjoy a pvp everywhere game and those leaving are just not the kind of player who will benefit the community of the game - it is a win that they leave early.

They don't leave because its PVP everywhere to which you could play the game in the high sec systems if you want and be protected. They leave because it has an extreme learning curve. They tried revamping the new play experience years ago.

Lysette

Ronin37 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

And if they don't stick around long enough to even bother giving feedback, we can't judge how many players that is, but just like you and others had issues with early ESO, so to could many others.

That is like in EVE - 50% do not even make it over their first 2 hours and 80% drop the game within a week - that is a win, because it takes a certain kind of player to enjoy a pvp everywhere game and those leaving are just not the kind of player who will benefit the community of the game - it is a win that they leave early.

They don't leave because its PVP everywhere to which you could play the game in the high sec systems if you want and be protected. They leave because it has an extreme learning curve. They tried revamping the new play experience years ago.

Statistics show though, that highsec is the most dangerous with the most kills - and that it has a huge learning curve cannot be experienced in 2 hours or a week - they leave by other reasons. CONCORD is not there to protect you anyway, to think this would be protective is what gets people killed. I think they are leaving because getting killed has consequences - it is unlike in other pvp games.

spartaxoxo

We don't need to be cheering people leaving only for the reason they like content that we don't. There is room in ESO for both casuals and hardcore players alike. A difficulty debuff slider ala LOTRO would allow people to customize the difficulty to their own needs, and let people play the way they are most comfortable. Customization is a core part of The Elder Scrolls experience, and many players have different experiences with the franchise, and even two people that played Skyrim may not have had the same experience in terms of difficulty, level of modding ,etc.

Let's not be selfish and define playing ES games as only our experience, or even video gaming as a whole. Easy games are fun and make users feel powerful. God Mode is one of the most popular mods/cheats out there going all the way back to the early days of single player gaming with literal codes that could enable it. Adding in more and more challenging content or seeking out difficult games is also very popular. One need only look at the success of a game like Bloodborne to see that. There is no one way to game, and there need not be only one way to experience Overland.

Lysette

Ronin37 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was. .

[snip]

So you want to [snip] gatekeep?

I am not the one saying the game has to be changed - I like it as it is - [snip]

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

LashanW

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

I don't get why casual players make such claims. You obviously don't play endgame content. We do. So casual players and endgame players don't share the same mindset and idea of fun/engaging gameplay, and that's perfectly fine. Yet how do casual players predict what we will do when we don't get exactly what we asked for?

No, I don't play endgame content. That is not what I seek out of the game. I do not want almost every battle to be a near death experience.

I'm not a child, I'm not gonna throw a temper tantrum, flip the tables and leave the game for good if I don't get exactly what I want.

Who is doing that? I only see those who want the generally vague "harder overland" saying they would do anything close.

I would of course stop playing if this became something I had to stress out all the time. I play this to relax, not stress myself. My days of trying to play Civilization on the top difficulty level (or trying to do that) are long past.

I will never accept a solution that raises difficulty for all players in a forced manner. Said it many times before. Let's get that out of the way. My response about the concern of us leaving over solutions was aimed at someone else.

Reason I mentioned endgame content is because you folks are worried about exact difficulty level of overland we are asking for. Notice how no endgame player here is worried about that. That is because endgame content already has clearly defined difficulty levels. Normal, Veteran and Veteran Hardmode. We know it and are used to it. We never requested these settings, ZoS designed them, without our input. And they work fine. People like me are simply asking for similar settings for questing.

To simply put, I'm saying that harder difficulty settings are not new in ESO, ZoS knows well how to design them. It's just that casual players have no idea about it because they don't partake in such content that is already here. I hope I get the idea across.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Of course they know how to make hard content, that is why we have Trials, Vet dungeons, Harrowstorms, etc. But refitting existing content is not a trivial switch flip. It would take a lot of time to overhaul all the zones and the payoff is still uncertain.

Would you stay challenged for more than a week, at best? How much would you replay the new "harder version" of overland? Do you have anything to validate that?

I can validate that I do replay "easy content" repeatedly. I have done it on over 40 characters now.

I actually do understand if ZoS is not willing to rework all the overland zones they have released. What I'm hoping for is, they will consider these difficulty settings when they release new overland content in the future.

Regarding validation for whether I'd be engaged in a "veteran" overland for the long term. Yes I would. But I'm not sure how to prove this. Since you went with your word of mouth, let's go with that. I have 17 characters so far. Only 1 of them has actually done overland quests a lot (even then not fully, I stopped near end of Cadwell's Gold). Other 16 characters don't do questing at all (except Psijic guild skill line).

However, each of those 16 characters has done dungeons extensively, from the day they were created (some nearly 4 years ago). My stickerbook is complete for almost all non DLC dungeons. Around half of them have done veteran trials. One of them has done veteran content so much, they have 100% achievements and complete stickerbooks for Halls of Fabrication, Maw of Lorkhaj and Cloudrest. I will have Sunspire covered in a year atmost as I'm progressing for Godslayer these days. If a guildmate asks me to join yet another run of Halls of Fabrication, I'd do it in a heartbeat (assuming I'm actually free at that time).

I got no issues with replaying content as long as the gameplay feels fun. Wouldn't be the first time I spent 1000+ hours playing a game with engaging gameplay with massive amount of character customization, when the actual limited content could be completed in less than 100 hours.

Ronin37

Lysette wrote: »

Ronin37 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Or new players coming to eso expecting more out of the combat leave before giving the game a chance with a bad taste in their mouth talking about how stale of an experience it was.

We don't know what new players may be looking for in a game, or assume they all want difficult content. We can only accurately give our own feedback from our own experiences.

And if they don't stick around long enough to even bother giving feedback, we can't judge how many players that is, but just like you and others had issues with early ESO, so to could many others.

That is like in EVE - 50% do not even make it over their first 2 hours and 80% drop the game within a week - that is a win, because it takes a certain kind of player to enjoy a pvp everywhere game and those leaving are just not the kind of player who will benefit the community of the game - it is a win that they leave early.

They don't leave because its PVP everywhere to which you could play the game in the high sec systems if you want and be protected. They leave because it has an extreme learning curve. They tried revamping the new play experience years ago.

Statistics show though, that highsec is the most dangerous with the most kills - and that it has a huge learning curve cannot be experienced in 2 hours or a week - they leave by other reasons. CONCORD is not there to protect you anyway, to think this would be protective is what gets people killed. I think they are leaving because getting killed has consequences - it is unlike in other pvp games.

Good lord yes you can Gank in high sec. There are other full loot pvp games. You people are literally trying to turn this game into Wizards101. Also, believe it or not and hold on to your butt, plenty of us love Elderscrolls and wait for it, like playing games not visual novels. Oh oh here is another nugget, you don't work for the company. All because YOU want a software application you can log into, walk around, and larp in does not mean the rest of us are cool with that. And using the idea that you can rope off players so the newbies you so want to protect somehow can have a safe space in a mostly PVE game. A game that you can't even run trains on people for all us EQ and Asheron's Call people.

[snip]
[edited for baiting]