Overland Content Feedback Thread

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Overland fails to engage experienced players, fails to provide new players a proper idea of what ESO can offer, putting some off before they even get into it and failing to give those that stick around the confidence or skills needed to even progress into normal dungeons without issue.

I am a very experienced player and overland engages me quite fine. Some players, experienced or not, may not find it engaging but it is not a problem of all experienced players by a long shot.

And as I have mentioned before, overland does not train you for dungeons. Dungeons train you for dungeons.

So what about choice, why should overland be the only piece of content that only comes in one form that causes an identical issue to one you had in the past? When the tech exist to both keep what you enjoy and allow other players an option? Your concession that you support self applied debuffs fails to fix the issue of enemies being explicitly designed to waste their own time, and how bosses do much of the same.

It's unrealistic to expect them to change all the mobs behavior for an essential second verision of the game, imo. Most likely if they did do a new instance, it would just buff the mobs health and damage. Maybe they'd give a couple of new attacks to the bosses alone, but probably wouldn't do more than that.

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

So what about choice...

(From Rich Lambert's twitch stream 7 months ago)

Rich's reply when asked "Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests?"

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

When asked if there could be an option to give people the choice:

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

Rich summarizing:

"So, you know like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it."

Parasaurolophus

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

So what about choice...

(From Rich Lambert's twitch stream 7 months ago)

Rich's reply when asked "Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests?"

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

When asked if there could be an option to give people the choice:

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

Rich summarizing:

"So, you know like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it."

The community is also asking for a story mode for dungeons, trials and arenas. To which Rich replies that this is a very stupid idea. We were also very unhappy that we had to re-farm arena weapons again. When Rich was asked how it was, Rich replied that grinding is the meaning of the game.
Not that I'm judging Rich, no. It's just that the game often doesn't work the way the developers want it to. The developers think that they are developing fascinating stories, but in reality they are just a couple of evenings of reading dialogues.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

The community is also asking for a story mode for dungeons, trials and arenas. To which Rich replies that this is a very stupid idea. We were also very unhappy that we had to re-farm arena weapons again. When Rich was asked how it was, Rich replied that grinding is the meaning of the game.

When and where did he say that?

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Not that I'm judging Rich, no. It's just that the game often doesn't work the way the developers want it to. The developers think that they are developing fascinating stories, but in reality they are just a couple of evenings of reading dialogues.

I find the stories fun and enjoyable. We all have our opinions, but in the end we can only speak for ourselves.

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

So what about choice...

(From Rich Lambert's twitch stream 7 months ago)

Rich's reply when asked "Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests?"

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

When asked if there could be an option to give people the choice:

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

Rich summarizing:

"So, you know like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it."

And his comment was made with a complete disconnect as to what people are interested in. His mental image was to bring back old gold and silver zones, which again, is not what people are interested in. Mindlessly stat padding mobs doesn't make them more interesting, and craglorn doing the same with the addition of more enemies (because it was a group zone for groups) didn't make for interesting encounters. Constantly referring to that quote as a 'gotcha' moment against any suggestions would suggest they knew what the community were asking for and imply that the developers are always right.

Also, keep in mind that 2/3 of the game required fully clearing main quest lines, and while some players did that others just made other characters in the other factions to experience that content. Until someone at ZOS comes in and actually cares to have a meaningful discussion we're both just going to be stuck in this loop, you stonewalling against change due to the fear of having what you enjoy being compromised, and myself out of frustration trying to explain the same thing a dozen times over with no ground to be made unless ZOS gives us something concrete to discuss over.

LogicOfLiam

While I have not interest in what you suggest, the reality is that ZOS keeps designing systems that encourage players to return to the same places over and over again. If they are going to have dailies to send people into delves or group dungeons over and over again, maybe they should invest in an option where those can be more or less challenging.

Why do you keep returning to those zones? Is it for dailies?

Btw, if you don't want to win fights in seconds, run a tank build. Ugh, really horrible.[/quote]

Personally I don't return to these zones except for things like Treasure maps. I don't even go to the new zones for the quests because I don't want to roll over people hitting me with pool noodles; like I said earlier on I haven't done any overland content past Northern Elswyre because of how it's go from A to B with a few insects in my way.

I've done the tank build in Overland before and I agree it is really horrible 😅 But we don't want buffs/Nerfs to health, we want mechanics, we want healers to heal their allies, necromancers to bring back the dead, tanks to try to take your agro, etc... We just want a form of meaningful gameplay that we can enjoy whilst questing; without taking from the more casual player base. People argue that Overland sets players up for Vet Dungeons... Normal Dungeons set players up for Vet Dungeons. Yes the game is story based, not combat based, but games like Skyrim and Fallout are storybased too, I can't tell you the amount of times my corpse has been buried with the Falmer or my body has been thrown across the map by a Deathclaw on normal. These types of encounters make you change the way you approach content.

I'm heavily a solo player. I only run Vet Dungeons when I can convince my brother and 2 friends to jump back on and do it with me. I have social issue and don't like talking to people online, so it's very rare I do Vet Dungeons; that's a me problem though, if I actually tried to engage with people I could definitely do it, but I can't bring myself to do it. So where is the content for a person like me? Overland, but unfortunately that is too easy for me. This year I have started to solo Vet DLC Dungeons and I am having a blast (does it still count as Solo bringing in Bastian?), but I want more. I know I am playing an MMo I meed to engage with the community, but ZoS do heavily market play your way, play alone or with friends.

SilverBride

CP5 wrote: »

And his comment was made with a complete disconnect as to what people are interested in. His mental image was to bring back old gold and silver zones, which again, is not what people are interested in. Mindlessly stat padding mobs doesn't make them more interesting, and craglorn doing the same with the addition of more enemies (because it was a group zone for groups) didn't make for interesting encounters. Constantly referring to that quote as a 'gotcha' moment against any suggestions would suggest they knew what the community were asking for and imply that the developers are always right.

Also, keep in mind that 2/3 of the game required fully clearing main quest lines, and while some players did that others just made other characters in the other factions to experience that content. Until someone at ZOS comes in and actually cares to have a meaningful discussion we're both just going to be stuck in this loop, you stonewalling against change due to the fear of having what you enjoy being compromised, and myself out of frustration trying to explain the same thing a dozen times over with no ground to be made unless ZOS gives us something concrete to discuss over.

Edited to say it's time we just agree to disagree.

Parasaurolophus

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

The community is also asking for a story mode for dungeons, trials and arenas. To which Rich replies that this is a very stupid idea. We were also very unhappy that we had to re-farm arena weapons again. When Rich was asked how it was, Rich replied that grinding is the meaning of the game.

When and where did he say that?

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Not that I'm judging Rich, no. It's just that the game often doesn't work the way the developers want it to. The developers think that they are developing fascinating stories, but in reality they are just a couple of evenings of reading dialogues.

I find the stories fun and enjoyable. We all have our opinions, but in the end we can only speak for ourselves.

Rich said this on one of his many streams.

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

spartaxoxo

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

The community is also asking for a story mode for dungeons, trials and arenas. To which Rich replies that this is a very stupid idea. We were also very unhappy that we had to re-farm arena weapons again. When Rich was asked how it was, Rich replied that grinding is the meaning of the game.

When and where did he say that?

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Not that I'm judging Rich, no. It's just that the game often doesn't work the way the developers want it to. The developers think that they are developing fascinating stories, but in reality they are just a couple of evenings of reading dialogues.

I find the stories fun and enjoyable. We all have our opinions, but in the end we can only speak for ourselves.

Rich said this on one of his many streams.

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

There's a lot of easy games out there. Different games cater to different audiences. Games are interactive. Instead of reading about how some super powerful being effortlessly took down 20 warriors, you do it yourself. There's a value in that. And that's why different games have different difficulty, even up to removing combat entirely.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

What would be the point of a game without a story? This is what quests are... the story of the world and our part in it. I can't imagine that a game where you just log in and run around killing things all day with no reason or purpose would be very engaging.

Lysette

@CP5 I don't know if you read my post a few pages back, where I replied to a post of yours where you described instancing. I actually agreed to that and said, that not all of overland would have to be instanced, but just a few quest locations - and these might just be pretty much those, which bother me as well by other reasons (quests with no content, because others have cleared out it before).

It takes effort to figure out what has to be instanced and what can be left alone - and if this effort has to be made, it should benefit a larger group of people - and it could - those instances could have rule sets for players like you, but they could as well be temporary solo/small group instances with normal rules, to fix the "empty quest area" problem and make questing fun again. I think that both areas overlap and the effort taken to figure out what would have to be instanced would be worthwhile, because this way it could benefit a larger group of people - quests are not fun currently by a very simply reason - stuff is dead what is supposed to be encountered, but it is not there - a "heavily guarded fortress" with all dead guards in them - how much fun is that?- The area where this is happening is imo overlapping with the area you would want to be harder as well.

So these instances could solve both - and if it benefits a larger group of players, it is more likely to eventually be done - but if it is just something for the 1% - then it just won't - because ZOS is a company, not a charity, they do what makes them money and avoid what chokes them with effort required to create something what earns them nothing extra.

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

What would be the point of a game without a story? This is what quests are... the story of the world and our part in it. I can't imagine that a game where you just log in and run around killing things all day with no reason or purpose would be very engaging.

For some people that is the game, running around killing others - pvp is like that, and ESO offers this as well - and I bet if pvp would fluently work in ESO, we wouldn't have this discussion at all, because those seeking a challenge would find it there.

But most of the game is made for story-driven role play, not for combat-driven encounters - combat in that part of the game is just the icing on the story-cake - a little bit of bashing on enemies and otherwise following the story - it is non-competitive content and not meant to be challenging, but enjoyable in a casual way - I bet that most players have a challenging real life and in their spare time they might want some engaging content - which is not the same as challenging or hard content. Just exploring and playing through a story in a quest is engaging as well, but not hard to do. Engaging content does not need to be difficult to be enjoyable.

Well, and a real challenge is very easy to create by yourself - play the game without to die at all - and if you die, delete the character and start over with a new one - permadeath - but this would be a real challenge with consequences - and I guess no one really wants a real challenge or even dares to do it.

colossalvoids

Won't be going deep or anything but engaging, casual or any other term is subjective and not helping convo. I probably might have way worse life overall but my casual and engaging evening is a what's called challenging content. Current questing experience is out of my picture now because it's providing me nothing at all while it was at least some small semi lore related dive before when compared to now I can't care less for it. If it's provides zero opportunity to lose myself in it it's not engaging and more anger inducing than anything. And to lose myself I need a challenge. Story alone isn't an option, it's not eso's strength since murkmire. Some prefer the gameplay be tied with a story and not be two separate parts not serving each other.

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

CharlieFreak

6

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

What would be the point of a game without a story? This is what quests are... the story of the world and our part in it. I can't imagine that a game where you just log in and run around killing things all day with no reason or purpose would be very engaging.

I like doing the quests and reading all the stuff I find, too. But in my experience of interacting with others players in various MMOs over the years, there is a large percentage of players who have no interest at all in any story or lore. They want xp, levels, gear, collectibles, etc. and cannot be bothered to be delayed by listening/reading a bunch of dialogue.

I actually think that people who listen to the quests are in the minority. Most are just spamming E E E E E E and then looking at the objectives they need to do to complete it, after.

Lysette

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

Lysette

CharlieFreak wrote: »

6

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It's good that you like stories. But wouldn't it be better to implement them in the form of a story or a comic book? It's still a video game, RPG and mmo.

What would be the point of a game without a story? This is what quests are... the story of the world and our part in it. I can't imagine that a game where you just log in and run around killing things all day with no reason or purpose would be very engaging.

I like doing the quests and reading all the stuff I find, too. But in my experience of interacting with others players in various MMOs over the years, there is a large percentage of players who have no interest at all in any story or lore. They want xp, levels, gear, collectibles, etc. and cannot be bothered to be delayed by listening/reading a bunch of dialogue.

I actually think that people who listen to the quests are in the minority. Most are just spamming E E E E E E and then looking at the objectives they need to do to complete it, after.

Yeah, I do that as well if I do this quest for the x-th time on a different character - but you are right, I know a lot of people who play like this. That is the problem with having quest markers pointing you to the next objective - one doesn't have to pay attention to the story - but that is as well "play as you want" - if they don't want to listen to the story, they don't have to.

But there are as well quests, where I just like the voice acting so much, that I listen to it every time a character of mine does this quest. For example the quest line with the augur in the psijic order is so fun to do, I like the augur's comments, a lot amuse me anytime I hear them.

Chadak

The game is what it is. You can either accept that or pound sand for the most part, because it's quite clear at this point that nobody at ZOS is trying too hard to ramp up the difficulty of overland or to make new optional difficult mechanisms for it.

They're not going to turn this into Elden Ring for you no matter how much you try to bargain and act like this was ever a negotiating to begin with.

colossalvoids

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

IF it's considered stress. And it's not lol. Might be for the beginner trying out their first VMA or for scorepushers but that's about it for lots of us, that's a way to de-stress more of so people are asking to make the game more engaging for such type of players outside of closed environments that are half the releases a year.

Malthorne

Chadak wrote: »

The game is what it is. You can either accept that or pound sand for the most part, because it's quite clear at this point that nobody at ZOS is trying too hard to ramp up the difficulty of overland or to make new optional difficult mechanisms for it.

They're not going to turn this into Elden Ring for you no matter how much you try to bargain and act like this was ever a negotiating to begin with.

No one is asking for Elden ring or dark souls. That’s clearly unrealistic. What I believe most of us want is to be engaged with the combat during questing . An optional increased difficulty setting to help us enjoy the story and overland content.

ZOS is at least listening, otherwise, they wouldn’t have created and pinned this thread.

LashanW

Chadak wrote: »

They're not going to turn this into Elden Ring for you no matter how much you try to bargain and act like this was ever a negotiating to begin with.

This is the binary mindset Nefas mentioned in his video. Some people think if we are not happy with current visual novel difficulty, we must be asking for dark souls difficulty.

Most of us are not referencing other games, but rather the group/arena content within ESO and how they appeal to a wider range of people via selectable difficulty settings.

Lysette

colossalvoids wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

IF it's considered stress. And it's not lol. Might be for the beginner trying out their first VMA or for scorepushers but that's about it for lots of us, that's a way to de-stress more of so people are asking to make the game more engaging for such type of players outside of closed environments that are half the releases a year.

I guess we have a different opinion then what a challenge is - if it isn't stressful but routine, where is the challenge then?

SilverBride

LashanW wrote: »

Some people think if we are not happy with current visual novel difficulty, we must be asking for dark souls difficulty.

We don't know what to think because there is no clear or agreed upon difficulty suggested, or which parts of overland would be affected.

If they make a completely separate veteran overland where even trash mobs are veteran level then some will say we only wanted delve and world bosses and quest bosses to be more difficult. But if they do it that way the ones wanting everything more difficult won't be happy. And whichever way they do it there will be some who want it even more difficult and some who want it less.

I'd be very cautious asking for any major change without spelling it out in detail. Remember account wide achievements...

Parasaurolophus

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Some people think if we are not happy with current visual novel difficulty, we must be asking for dark souls difficulty.

We don't know what to think because there is no clear or agreed upon difficulty suggested, or which parts of overland would be affected.

If they make a completely separate veteran overland where even trash mobs are veteran level then some will say we only wanted delve and world bosses and quest bosses to be more difficult. But if they do it that way the ones wanting everything more difficult won't be happy. And whichever way they do it there will be some who want it even more difficult and some who want it less.

I'd be very cautious asking for any major change without spelling it out in detail. Remember account wide achievements...

You again throws from one extreme to another. There are many options for how to reach a consensus.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Some people think if we are not happy with current visual novel difficulty, we must be asking for dark souls difficulty.

We don't know what to think because there is no clear or agreed upon difficulty suggested, or which parts of overland would be affected.

If they make a completely separate veteran overland where even trash mobs are veteran level then some will say we only wanted delve and world bosses and quest bosses to be more difficult. But if they do it that way the ones wanting everything more difficult won't be happy. And whichever way they do it there will be some who want it even more difficult and some who want it less.

I'd be very cautious asking for any major change without spelling it out in detail. Remember account wide achievements...

You again throws from one extreme to another. There are many options for how to reach a consensus.

There has been no consensus presented.

Some agree to debuffs and challenge banners, some only want a completely separate veteran instance, some want instanced delves, some want overland more difficult for everyone, and just how difficult is still up in the air.

If no consensus is reached this debate will never be resolved, because even if they implement any of these suggestions some players will still not be satisfied.

[edited to elaborate]

spartaxoxo

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

IF it's considered stress. And it's not lol. Might be for the beginner trying out their first VMA or for scorepushers but that's about it for lots of us, that's a way to de-stress more of so people are asking to make the game more engaging for such type of players outside of closed environments that are half the releases a year.

I guess we have a different opinion then what a challenge is - if it isn't stressful but routine, where is the challenge then?

Honestly, I also find myself having a different definition of a challenge. If you can do it like it's routine and it's not stress inducing at all, it's not a challenge.

A challenge to me is something you struggle to complete. And you probably stress over it a bit. And then when you finally overcome it, you get euphoria and relief because you accomplished it.

I don't see a point in a harder overland if it's not going to provide that. 3 hits instead of 2 is not engaging nor a challenge.

CP5

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

IF it's considered stress. And it's not lol. Might be for the beginner trying out their first VMA or for scorepushers but that's about it for lots of us, that's a way to de-stress more of so people are asking to make the game more engaging for such type of players outside of closed environments that are half the releases a year.

I guess we have a different opinion then what a challenge is - if it isn't stressful but routine, where is the challenge then?

Honestly, I also find myself having a different definition of a challenge. If you can do it like it's routine and it's not stress inducing at all, it's not a challenge.

A challenge to me is something you struggle to complete. And you probably stress over it a bit. And then when you finally overcome it, you get euphoria and relief because you accomplished it.

I don't see a point in a harder overland if it's not going to provide that. 3 hits instead of 2 is not engaging nor a challenge.

That's why, to me, flat stat increases fail to do anything, be it from buffing the enemies in a direct manner or by reducing the player's effective health and damage. I elaborated on this greatly many times in the past, but many enemies intentionally stall themselves, and in what ways they're unique they're also so weak that it really doesn't matter.

That design change ZOS made during the dark brotherhood update was to standardize encounter experiences, where any group of mobs you fight will deal pretty much the same damage and take the same amount of damage to kill, resulting in all encounters effectively feeling the same.

To me, they need enough stats to survive long enough to do something, but they also need to be powerful enough in those areas that they're important enough to take note of in fights. Tanks with enough armor to survive hits while interfering with the player's actions, healers that are able to effectively keep their allies alive, damage dealing enemies that offer enough of a threat to demand some sort of response. Without those characteristics, I just skip past them because I know exactly how every encounter will go, this makes exploration dull because no matter where I go, be it a normal zone or the depths of the deadlands I already know the worst that can happen, and then bosses suffer from the poor stat pool causing them to melt in mere moments sapping all tension from the story.

For me, it isn't about 'every encounter must be something I struggle against,' but instead it's that I enjoy the sort of puzzle that engaging encounters are, where I have meaningful choices to make based on what I'm fighting. If the enemies are capable enough to get me to do this, where I have to actually take care as to what I'm doing and paying attention to where I am, I can feel more invested in the moment. If instead every group of 3 mobs dies to the same 2-3 cast of any generic aoe skill and bosses melt before I can even register their name, I don't feel anything except "why didn't the npc's deal with this issue already?"

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

For me, it isn't about 'every encounter must be something I struggle against,' but instead it's that I enjoy the sort of puzzle that engaging encounters are, where I have meaningful choices to make based on what I'm fighting. If the enemies are capable enough to get me to do this, where I have to actually take care as to what I'm doing and paying attention to where I am, I can feel more invested in the moment. If instead every group of 3 mobs dies to the same 2-3 cast of any generic aoe skill and bosses melt before I can even register their name, I don't feel anything except "why didn't the npc's deal with this issue already?"

The thing is the time absolutely doesn't matter if everything dies as quickly as it does even in Craglorn.

And if they buff the damage to insane levels, there are already mechanics in place that will force you to pay attention. I still have a heightened sense of hearing for "taking aim" and will whip my camera around for it, even though that skill is no longer a threat. Because a long time ago, it used to be scary.

I want to see crippling levels of player damage increase and boss resistances, before I'd mess around with timings. Because you run very serious risk of it feeling punishing rather than challenging if the timers are short because of assumptions made about their appropriateness when they could be safely ignored.

vingarmo

Quoted post has been removed.

This was probably said in this thread a dozen of times but I’d say it again: success of ESO launch has nothing to do with difficulty of overland content. Game had no endgame content outside of pvp, gamebreaking exploits with cheat engine, gold dupes, etc., tons of bugs, pure optimization and of course performance problems. Downplaying these issues just to convey your own point of view don’t make a convincing argument. Overland in ESO at launch was what other MMOs use as a standard where next zone offer content for higher levels than previous one or simply put use linear progression. It never was as challenging as to make the game look like Dark Souls of MMOs or something like that, you simply needed to follow in a strict order where each zone was designed for specific levels. If you was at appropriate level the difficulty was more than doable for average player but being underleveled or overleveled created situations where it wasn’t as enjoyable and so exploration was strictly limited by your level. It was common design decision for other MMOs and personally, I think ZOS got away from this direction just so they could sell their DLCs for new players and not gate it behind high levels and CP grind.

Saying that ESO doesn’t try to cater to hardcore or experienced players is also wrong. DLC dungeons and trials do that, but the problem is: it’s group content, meaning it had to be scheduled in advance to run with like-minded individuals and it isn’t always an option for those who have real life commitments or specific time to play the game or even enjoy it solo outside of such schedule. For a title which originate from single player series and try to advertise itself as single player oriented as possible ESO did rather bad job at providing engaging solo content for players who enjoy combat just as much as they enjoy stories, exploration and lore.

I won’t speculate why this exact topic was pinned. What I can tell though it would be a weird decision for a company to pin a topic, which filled with complaints about game, with no intention to react to it. How would it look like for new or returning players who decided to check ESO out and first thing they see on their official forums is large pinned threads of complains about bad performance and game design decisions which dated a few years back?

You have your right disagreeing with opinions of others on the subject and provide your own feedback of what you like about current overland and what would you like to see more in the future. Nothing of what you wrote would change anyone’s mind because most of it can be summarized to: enjoy game how it is and stay silent or look for another game with nothing constructive on the topic.

But the fact that this topic survived through years of neglect and discussion about it still going there and on other ESO related sources is proof enough that there is sizable amount of players who interested in it. If ZOS as a company concerned in attracting and retaining players to ESO they can try to come up with ideas, which satisfy different types of players or they could ignore all suggestions about potential improvements and let the game slowly die from bland content and lack off innovations.

As for other games, I think huge success of Elden Ring was good enough proof that challenging solo content can be sold pretty well if designed right. I know quite a few of people from ESO dropped it for ER and I myself did so as well. Huge open worlds with tons of exploration, different enemy types and bosses who distinguished between each other, require different approach, and pose a challenge, quests, secrets and puzzles, which require some thinking and not just “click this pillar 4 times until it clicks and thoughtlessly follow quest marker”. If somebody who loves a challenge haven’t try it yet I would totally recommend to give it a go. A shame though that the only thing ESO have to compete with that is card game, I’m underwhelmed even writing that but I don’t expect anything exciting about Hish Isle which would only take one weekend to finish off and nothing to remember it by.

colossalvoids

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Yeah, imagine a lot of people coping with RL challenges or everyday stress and treats by challenges in games.

This sounds to me like a recipe for an early death - coping stress by adding even more stress - but you do as you please.

IF it's considered stress. And it's not lol. Might be for the beginner trying out their first VMA or for scorepushers but that's about it for lots of us, that's a way to de-stress more of so people are asking to make the game more engaging for such type of players outside of closed environments that are half the releases a year.

I guess we have a different opinion then what a challenge is - if it isn't stressful but routine, where is the challenge then?

No one mentioned routine, it's more of running on a perfectly set track against mountain/deep forest trailrunnig - the difference is kinda mindless activity versus actively thinking about your decisions and unexpected variables in place, there are gradients. It's not about walk in a park against dark souls banging your head against the walls black and white situation that keep you stressed. We already have different content difficulties that are applied to very limited amount of contents but can be expanded in ideal but unrealistic situation.

Zoltan_117

The problem with the overland content is as someone has said, its like a visual novel, I feel I am going through the motions and not engaged.

They can either make the mobs more difficult or remove some of the quest markers and try harder on the quest mechanisms.
At the end of the day we are craving for this to be an online version of an Elder Scrolls game, so a little bit more effort would be good.

Till then I stopped playing a while ago, it's not rewarding to complete any quests both from this point and the lack of relevant item rewards.