Challenging the Creative Director's Thoughts on Challenge (Elden Ring edition)

Ditronus

I've lost friends early on playing ESO when they understood the scaling nature of the gear and enemies in most of the game's content. There's benefits, but there's also a real cost to having scaled content that is under-tuned content or doesn't keep up with broad-level power creep. With games like Elden Ring going mainstream and selling 12+ million copies, I think ESO's team drastically underestimates how much enjoyment can be had in games that pose a reasonable amount of challenge, especially in MMORPGs where the traditional end goal is to grow increasingly stronger to trounce once-challenging content. This post seeks to pose a challenge to the creative director's thoughts on challenge.

In response to the creative director's recent wccftech.com article (link at the bottom):

1. "A large portion [of the millions of our players] find the game hard and the Overland content challenging."

Are there any recent polls or other data developer-side that evidences this? I find this extremely hard to believe at face value given the user polls I've seen and my own anecdotal experience with the game.

2. The continuing Cadwell's silver/gold talking point.

This Cadwell's reference seems to always come up when the developers talk about the much-requested better overland tuning. It feels cavalier to dismiss hugely demanded game features that are being requested by the *current* player base in the *current* iteration of the game just because some feedback was given by players playing a wholly different game 6 years ago. In that 6 years, there are definitive and measurable amounts of power creep, and players have become largely familiar with the game's systems. Basing current design choices off player feedback given in the first two years of ESO's life seems to tell me that you and your team have not really thought this through in an empirical or careful way.

3. "What are the incentives for players to play at a harder level?"

If Elden Ring's massive success shows is that people enjoy open worlds and challenging content, even casual players. The incentives for players to play at a harder level has its own intrinsic rewards. People like to be challenged. MMOs main gameplay draw is attaining more gear and experience to become stronger so you can overcome the challenges you might face. Yet, outside of group content and some world bosses, challenges by and large don't exist in ESO, even more so now that companions are here.

Sure, if you give players an easier and harder option to get the same level of rewards, many might opt to take the easier road. In Elden Ring, many players pit themselves against a game that had a standard challenge across the board tailored for their audience with no options of a harder difficulty; I'd rather ESO retune their Overland/questing content across the board to account for the gradual increase in power creep and player familiarity of the game's systems over the last 6 years, much like WoW did for all their overland activities at max level from Legion on. Make a baseline improvement to finetune the difficulty of the game instead of adding difficulty toggles. Or, if you prefer to take the route where you have an opt-in difficulty system, gold and exp are always good rewards that are reasonable to give out for greater challenges, especially in ESO where it feels you can never have enough gold or exp. (I've always wondered why the game has such a vast emphasis on questing and exploration, and yet the amount of gold and exp you get for doing said activities are trivial; it feels like the rewards for those things in general should be brought up to where, if I wanted to farm CP, I don't mindlessly farm dolmens in a desert for hours, but I partake in quests first and foremost.)

4. Having a more challenging Overland makes sense, or gives purpose, to the many activities and designs of the game that increase player power.

Companions, sets, crafting, potions, Champion Points, food, build design, gold, materials, etc. are all things that impact player power, and most of these things find their sole reason for existence in making the player stronger. When most of the game's content, and each subsequent expansion's content, is designed for doing quests/dailies/exploring, activities that exist to make you stronger become increasingly obsolete. When questing or doing outdoor content, I don't need to even use my secondary bar--half of my skills--because packs of mobs die in one stampede + carve. What "rotations" the game might have are broken down, and combat becomes even more simplistic and unsatisfactory when you only have the opportunity to use a couple skills in any given engagement. Combat, considered to be a weak point by "a large portion" of the player base, is made to feel even worse.

5. "Yea, [overland difficulty] comes up pretty often. It is a hot topic."

I wonder why. I'd propose that the game has changed over the last 6 years, and much of the player base has to. One only need to look at the game's cloth physics, or lack thereof, to see how old the game is and why ESO's team should keep a keen ear to current player feedback, instead of resting on what players relayed to the team 6 years ago. Seeing only 20,000 or so people tuning into ESO's expansion reveal as compared to WoW's 200,000+ expansion reveal, the team can do a lot more to not only attract new players but retain current ones. Elden Ring, with FromSoftware's trademark emphasis on challenge being its own reward, has shown how attractive finely-tuned difficulty can be in an RPG. Even WoW, soon to be under the same parent company, can showcase the importance of difficulty tuning, even though WoW has an emphasis on story questing content dramatically less-so than ESO.


Currently, most of the game's content offering is in the form of quests, and the overwhelming amount of enemies, and thus quest content, is trivial. Epic storylines devolve into 5-second "Big Bad" boss fights where my companion slays the boss so early that the boss' dialogue cuts off mid-sentence. I shouldn't have to feel like I need to unsummon my companion, take off my food buff, etc. to enjoy most of what the game has to offer because if I don't, the game breaks down. There are dozens upon dozens of hours of story content that I have not gotten to that I probably won't get to because I'd rather wait to do it to when it feels like it is tuned more appropriately. With how quickly the developers dismiss calls for better tuned difficulty, bringing up 6-year old feedback on a 6-year old iteration of the game, it feels like the decision is not a gameplay one, but rather a fiscal one: are they scared that casuals all across Tamriel would pack up their wallets and never come back the first time they experience death from a challenging situation, perhaps pulling too many mobs? I'd wager they would do pack up their wallet for a plethora of other problems in ESO ever before facing more difficult content that gives meaning to the many systems of the game.

When challenge fades, so does interest, leaving with it a bunch of systems and features without a purpose.



https://wccftech.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-high-isle-preview-qa-fsr-1-0-support-card-game-and-much-more/

OsUfi

One of the main reasons for my love of Skyrim and ESO is that its not Dark Souls. Its easy enough for my dreadfully slow reactions to bumble about and play without dying over and over again. I can explore and experiment with all manner of skills and gear combos. Meta means nothing in 99% of this game.

Elden Ring appeals to some gamers, Elder Scrolls others. There is some crossover, but they're different games entirely. If it's challenge you want go for your trifectas. If that's not enough, there are other games out there that can satiate your desire for challenge.

kaisernick

Ditronus wrote: »

With games like Elden Ring going mainstream and selling 12+ million copies, I think ESO's team drastically underestimates how much enjoyment can be had in games that pose a reasonable amount of challenge, especially in MMORPGs where the traditional end goal is to grow increasingly stronger to trounce once-challenging content.

No no no
first off not everyone love souls like content and everything should not be like that series.
Second mmos tradition of upping the challenge and increasing the strength has been to doom of WOW it has gone on for so long it is constantly getting massive power creep only to cause frustraion rage and a FOTM type gameplay in such a way the game is failing hard.

more challanging content should be avaliable BUT it should be like this card game a OPTION not forced on players if they add any new challenge it should be something akin to arenas with more challenge in mind.

jaws343

Yeah, no. This whole idea that because X game is popular it must be what players want for all games is utter nonsense.

Call of Duty is popular, Halo is popular, but I am not clamoring for turning this game into another first person shooter even if I enjoy FPS games. I just play those games when I want to play that type of content.

Leave X game's mechanics to that game and play it or don't. Stop trying to shoehorn in those game's mechanics into an entirely different game. Just play that game.

Sylvermynx

OsUfi wrote: »

One of the main reasons for my love of Skyrim and ESO is that its not Dark Souls. Its easy enough for my dreadfully slow reactions to bumble about and play without dying over and over again. I can explore and experiment with all manner of skills and gear combos. Meta means nothing in 99% of this game.

Elden Ring appeals to some gamers, Elder Scrolls others. There is some crossover, but they're different games entirely. If it's challenge you want go for your trifectas. If that's not enough, there are other games out there that can satiate your desire for challenge.

This. Overland is already hard enough for me (and some others who have situations similar to mine - advancing age, slow reflexes, muscle issues etc.) Optional harder overland? Fine. I'd really hate to find that I couldn't play the game any more, so that some of you got Elden Ring difficulty or whatever. Right now, if it's three mobs or more overland, my characters die and sometimes to two - I have no facility with twitch-style combat (that went away 20 years or so ago) and my reflexes are not good at all these days.

Jaimeh

ESO is a different game than Elden Ring, and it has a different purpose: mainly that is has a type of content that everyone can potentially enjoy. It's true that overland content is really easy, but there are people who play for the quests and the lore, or for RP, and that level of difficulty is enough for them. For the folks wanting a challenge there's the HMs and trifecta achievements, which are plenty gruelling. Although FROMSOFT games sell well, ZOS is not interested in following a similar way because ESO is an MMO and the revenue is from the people who stay on aboard, who keep subbing, buying expansions, etc., and since the majority of the playerbase is more casual-oriented, if ZOS upped the difficulty, they would lose these players. I think a nice middle ground solution would be a kind of toggle-able HM mode for overland content, so players would have the option to play through harder content should they wished to.

VaranisArano

My biggest issues with Cadwell's Gold was that you had to do a ton of railroaded quest content to get that far and that pre-One Tamriel grouping meant you could only quest with people in the same alliance and at a similar level.

So when Rich says: "We had Cadwell Silver, we had Cadwell Gold, and players really didn't like it. It was too hard for them, and when we did One Tamriel, we ripped all that out based on player feedback. Like, nobody did it."

I'm thinking, "Yeah, in my case, I did Cadwell's Gold once, because it required doing 14 zones in order before I even got there. I didn't get around to it on my alts, because who wants to do 13-14 more zones to play the exact same faction quests as before?"

Cadwell's Gold was just not very accessible, and required a lot of time and effort to get there.


Much of my perception of how difficult Cadwell's Silver was is probably skewed by the fact that I didn't really learn that "Food buffs are actually helpful" until I'd finished most of it. Also, pre-One Tamriel, I was still leveling up my gear through questing, and had less than 300 CP...it was a different game back then.

If we had a HM-toggle, I'd use it for my DD characters. As it is, overland content is a cakewalk once I can do 10k DPS, so I usually quest on my tank just so bosses live long enough for me to see their mechanics.

colossalvoids

At this point I find more elder scrolls in fromsoftware than I see in eso. For me tes was morrowind and oblivion primarily, mentality of the arena of eternal struggle for survival sparked something that isn't present here for the most part. It can't be all about surface lore hooks to be engaged. So to say gameplay should serve the narrative and vice versa, in an absence of said synergy perception changes a lot.

DagenHawk

If you want Elden Ring like content spend five bucks for a new account; use only a costume for armor, don't use CP and don't morph any abilities.

I think you will find overland content most challenging then.

Mythgard1967

I hate Dark Souls and even though Elden Ring is hugely popular and intrigued me...they lost me the second I realized it was dark souls.

It isn't that I dislike challenging content...POE and Grimdawn (though not MMOs) are difficult games to master and I love them both. I just really hate how punishing it is with no real reason to be other than to be hard and it punishes anyone who doesnt play souls like.

Not to mention....Elden Ring is not an MMO; they are even encouraging players to play offline......and difficulty is fully optional. Optional difficulty in an MMO is difficult to do.

If I wanted to play an ARPG; I would play an ARPG.

Stamicka

So just a heads up, your thread might get closed and you might get referred to the "Overland Feedback Thread". ZOS has a habit of silencing posts like these.

Ditronus wrote: »

I've lost friends early on playing ESO when they understood the scaling nature of the gear and enemies in most of the game's content.

This right here is why the game remains so easy. The ESO at launch was a much more challenging game compared to the ESO now. The vast majority of the demographic that enjoys difficult content has probably quit the game. Meanwhile, the population for ESO has supposedly been growing. There's a bit of "natural selection" going on. The competitive crowd either quits the game or isn't attracted to it. The casual crowd is happy with the game so they stay. The new players that come in are probably in the casual demographic, if they aren't they probably quit early.

Because of this, over the years I think that ESO has become a game that is largely made up of extremely casual players. There probably isn't much overlap between Elden Ring players and current ESO players. I think you would see more overlap between current ESO players and Animal Crossing players.

The developers seem to be developing the game for this extremely casual demographic. It makes sense since that is probably the majority of the playerbase now. It's just sad that ESO's combat system is going to waste on such an easy game.

peacenote

OsUfi wrote: »

One of the main reasons for my love of Skyrim and ESO is that its not Dark Souls. Its easy enough for my dreadfully slow reactions to bumble about and play without dying over and over again. I can explore and experiment with all manner of skills and gear combos. Meta means nothing in 99% of this game.

Elden Ring appeals to some gamers, Elder Scrolls others. There is some crossover, but they're different games entirely. If it's challenge you want go for your trifectas. If that's not enough, there are other games out there that can satiate your desire for challenge.

kaisernick wrote: »

Ditronus wrote: »

With games like Elden Ring going mainstream and selling 12+ million copies, I think ESO's team drastically underestimates how much enjoyment can be had in games that pose a reasonable amount of challenge, especially in MMORPGs where the traditional end goal is to grow increasingly stronger to trounce once-challenging content.

No no no
first off not everyone love souls like content and everything should not be like that series.
Second mmos tradition of upping the challenge and increasing the strength has been to doom of WOW it has gone on for so long it is constantly getting massive power creep only to cause frustraion rage and a FOTM type gameplay in such a way the game is failing hard.

more challanging content should be avaliable BUT it should be like this card game a OPTION not forced on players if they add any new challenge it should be something akin to arenas with more challenge in mind.

I'm going to temporarily side bar to point out that these are good arguments about providing options. This is why AwA was and continues to be a problem. I am one of those players who does pursue trifectas (and other hard achievements) as a way to challenge myself and the ability to do so on multiple characters and track it in game was a nice option that was removed. So if I were going to be difficult, I'd say... well overland needs to be harder because the way I challenged myself before was removed!! But of course, I support the idea that we should have options for everything whenever possible, and I also believe things should not be removed from players. But I do think it's funny that so many people turned a blind eye towards the fact that options that were removed for many players with AwA but want options for overland. I've read both super long threads. We should be vocal about wanting all play styles addressed for all major changes!

Anyway, I play both Elden Ring and ESO and I can definitely say that I would not want ESO's overland to mirror the difficulty of Elden Ring. ESO (and I would expand this to say most MMO's) are more of a lifestyle game. You log in when you have a few minutes, you log in when you can play a long time, there are activities that are easy so you can sit and relax and things to challenge yourself. Elden Ring I only play when I have a lot of free time, and even then I sometimes don't feel like dealing with how challenging it is. It is not something I would want ALL THE TIME. And may I just say, I hate the fact that you have to go back to where you died to pick up gold/leveling points when you die. It means I can almost never charge in, carefree, just to see how I will do. I'm always sneaking and being careful and strategically planning whether I'm Ok with losing my progress and... that's OK sometimes but not what I'd want in an MMO. I think overland could use a slight bump, especially to bosses at the end of quest lines so you feel like you actually accomplished something at the end of the story, but doing dailies, endeavors, casual leveling, questing, etc. in an Elden-Ring like difficulty would be not fun at all. My two cents.

ZOS_Mika

Hey folks,

Since there is a similar thread already up and running with discussion surrounding this article, we are going to go ahead and close this one down. Please feel free to continue discussion here.