Necrom World Bosses are way too difficult

Giulietta

I'm commenting mostly to find this thread again quickly, but I do vote for vet overland content. Imagine a tamriel like craglorn!
It'd be amazing, while people not interested in combat or low lvl or whatever can have an easier version.

Indeed, farmers would split (still making them less) rpers would get a calm place, ppl who like it easy would have that, ppl who like it more challenging would have that....

But increasing rewards are neither necessary nor a good idea. People who want better loot would complain about "having to" run around in vet overland, people who find vet overland too difficult would complain about getting less than others and (imo rightfully) complain about being treated as second-rate players.
The only way vet overland can work out is with same rewards: only then will people be and feel free to choose the difficulty they want. It's about the gaming experience and not about the gain.

SeaGtGruff

AzuraFan wrote: »

I've done 5 of the 6 bosses in Necrom. I started one on my own (what I understand to be the easier one) and I think I could have soloed it but another player joined in, which was fine.

3 of the remaining 4 were reasonable for a small group (2-4 players). No deaths, but not a walk in the park, and the mechanics and adds were reasonable.

I did the nightmare one earlier today, and jeez. We started with 3 people. A few others eventually joined in. We wiped when the boss was down to 135k. We tried it again, this time with about 5-7 people there. Everyone died at least once, but fortunately at least one player was always up so we did it. But I won't be doing this boss again (I got lucky and the lead dropped for me). Too much going on. Too many ads, red circles flying all over the place, and the usual lack of control responsiveness making things more difficult.

I've seen people in this thread say learn mechanics. At one point I was crowd controlled, had ALL the ads bunched up on me (I think everyone but two of us were down at that point), and two red circles zooming toward me. There was nothing I could do.

I consider this boss tedious garbage and understand why players do it once and then never do it again. When it comes up for my boss daily, I'll skip it and wait until the next day.

I have one boss left which I expect won't be as bad as the nightmare.

I tried the Waking Nightmare boss this morning and was able to stay alive, but only because several other people showed up.

When I arrived at the boss, it was dead and someone else was hanging around the entrance to the boss's arena, presumably waiting for it to respawn. I went on in and started looking around, then very shortly after that the boss respawned. I went on the attack right away, but the other player didn't join in yet.

I'm not sure whether they were AFK, waiting for someone, busy with zone or guild chat, etc., but my experiences fighting WBs solo is that sometimes other players seem to be waiting to see whether I die or not, because they're worried we'll both end up wiping out. If they observe for a bit and it looks like I'm surviving okay, they'll join in. That is all just speculation on my part-- and as I said, it could be that they were AFK, waiting, etc.-- but I've experienced that situation often enough that it seems like maybe they're sitting on the fence waiting to see how I hold up before they join in.

Anyway, I only had to solo the Waking Nightmare for about a minute before the other player plus a few others joined in, and then things started to really get wild. I was too focused on fighting and staying alive to count how many of us there were, and it can be hard to tell companions from players at times, but I'd guess there were at least 4 of us. Companions died, my Sorc pets kept dying, and some of the other players died, but I managed to stay alive-- not by any skill of mine, but by keeping an eye on my Clannfear and resummoning him as soon as he died so I could call on him to heal me. I'm somewhat tanky, so that helped, but I'm not as tanky as a real tank, and my Clannfear is the only self-heal that I've got slotted.

It was definitely an intense fight, and I can appreciate that a lot of players don't really enjoy that sort of thing, but the real point of my story is about how sometimes other players seem to be waiting and watching to see how things go before they join in-- so unless you're waiting for someone in particular, you might want to just start soloing a boss and hope that others show up to help. My experience is that someone almost always does, at least in the newer zones.

But as I said, I'm really just guessing about what I think might be going on in other players' heads. I know that sometimes one or more players will be at the entrance to a boss's arena waiting for other people to arrive. I have a story about that, too. After Summerset dropped, I was riding around fighting bosses to see how tough they were, and rode up to the Indrik boss's arena to give it a try. There was a crowd of other players lounging around the arena entrance, so I figured they must be waiting for the boss to spawn, but then I saw that the boss had already spawned. I didn't even slow down, but went charging in to fight it. Then I see people in chat saying "Hold on, I think another group just arrived! You'd better hurry up and get here because the fight's just started!" Sea Gooooat Jenkiiiins! Woohoo!

Braffin

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

I've done 5 of the 6 bosses in Necrom. I started one on my own (what I understand to be the easier one) and I think I could have soloed it but another player joined in, which was fine.

3 of the remaining 4 were reasonable for a small group (2-4 players). No deaths, but not a walk in the park, and the mechanics and adds were reasonable.

I did the nightmare one earlier today, and jeez. We started with 3 people. A few others eventually joined in. We wiped when the boss was down to 135k. We tried it again, this time with about 5-7 people there. Everyone died at least once, but fortunately at least one player was always up so we did it. But I won't be doing this boss again (I got lucky and the lead dropped for me). Too much going on. Too many ads, red circles flying all over the place, and the usual lack of control responsiveness making things more difficult.

I've seen people in this thread say learn mechanics. At one point I was crowd controlled, had ALL the ads bunched up on me (I think everyone but two of us were down at that point), and two red circles zooming toward me. There was nothing I could do.

I consider this boss tedious garbage and understand why players do it once and then never do it again. When it comes up for my boss daily, I'll skip it and wait until the next day.

I have one boss left which I expect won't be as bad as the nightmare.

I tried the Waking Nightmare boss this morning and was able to stay alive, but only because several other people showed up.

When I arrived at the boss, it was dead and someone else was hanging around the entrance to the boss's arena, presumably waiting for it to respawn. I went on in and started looking around, then very shortly after that the boss respawned. I went on the attack right away, but the other player didn't join in yet.

I'm not sure whether they were AFK, waiting for someone, busy with zone or guild chat, etc., but my experiences fighting WBs solo is that sometimes other players seem to be waiting to see whether I die or not, because they're worried we'll both end up wiping out. If they observe for a bit and it looks like I'm surviving okay, they'll join in. That is all just speculation on my part-- and as I said, it could be that they were AFK, waiting, etc.-- but I've experienced that situation often enough that it seems like maybe they're sitting on the fence waiting to see how I hold up before they join in.

Anyway, I only had to solo the Waking Nightmare for about a minute before the other player plus a few others joined in, and then things started to really get wild. I was too focused on fighting and staying alive to count how many of us there were, and it can be hard to tell companions from players at times, but I'd guess there were at least 4 of us. Companions died, my Sorc pets kept dying, and some of the other players died, but I managed to stay alive-- not by any skill of mine, but by keeping an eye on my Clannfear and resummoning him as soon as he died so I could call on him to heal me. I'm somewhat tanky, so that helped, but I'm not as tanky as a real tank, and my Clannfear is the only self-heal that I've got slotted.

It was definitely an intense fight, and I can appreciate that a lot of players don't really enjoy that sort of thing, but the real point of my story is about how sometimes other players seem to be waiting and watching to see how things go before they join in-- so unless you're waiting for someone in particular, you might want to just start soloing a boss and hope that others show up to help. My experience is that someone almost always does, at least in the newer zones.

But as I said, I'm really just guessing about what I think might be going on in other players' heads. I know that sometimes one or more players will be at the entrance to a boss's arena waiting for other people to arrive. I have a story about that, too. After Summerset dropped, I was riding around fighting bosses to see how tough they were, and rode up to the Indrik boss's arena to give it a try. There was a crowd of other players lounging around the arena entrance, so I figured they must be waiting for the boss to spawn, but then I saw that the boss had already spawned. I didn't even slow down, but went charging in to fight it. Then I see people in chat saying "Hold on, I think another group just arrived! You'd better hurry up and get here because the fight's just started!" Sea Gooooat Jenkiiiins! Woohoo!

After reading some of your posts I have to admit: I really like your playstyle and the way you look at video games. Marvellous field report! And, whatever it's worth, a honest awesome from me.

AzuraFan

Braffin wrote: »

2) While there will always be players around complaining about difficulty, having an option would ease the current situation as players could freely switch between this two instances. Want to solo this WB but it's too hard for you? No problem, do it in normal mode then. Bored by bosses falling by your axe like skeevers? Try veteran then, if you dare the challenge. I think the majority would accept this solution.

Agreed, but ZOS seems resistant to the idea. Speculation, but I figure they have no plans to do it because (a) the data they have (which none of us here on the forums have) suggests that most players wouldn't participate in a more difficult overland, or (b) it would be too much work for them to justify at this stage in the game's life cycle.

But who knows, they might surprise us someday.

AzuraFan

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

But as I said, I'm really just guessing about what I think might be going on in other players' heads. I know that sometimes one or more players will be at the entrance to a boss's arena waiting for other people to arrive. I have a story about that, too. After Summerset dropped, I was riding around fighting bosses to see how tough they were, and rode up to the Indrik boss's arena to give it a try. There was a crowd of other players lounging around the arena entrance, so I figured they must be waiting for the boss to spawn, but then I saw that the boss had already spawned. I didn't even slow down, but went charging in to fight it. Then I see people in chat saying "Hold on, I think another group just arrived! You'd better hurry up and get here because the fight's just started!" Sea Gooooat Jenkiiiins! Woohoo!

Haha that must have been pretty funny. I haven't had the experience of someone hanging around and not joining in. I have seen where there are a few players waiting and nobody seems to want to start fighting the boss (and nobody has been asking in zone chat, so it's not a group waiting for someone to show up). I usually start fighting the boss at that point and the others have always joined in. I'm always happy if I'm fighting a boss and others show up and join in because it makes it go faster.

Jaraal

AzuraFan wrote: »

Haha that must have been pretty funny. I haven't had the experience of someone hanging around and not joining in.

I've seen this plenty of times. People will watch a fight, then jump in at the last second to get a few hits in for credit, or stand just inside aggro range so they will get hit and their companion will launch a few range attacks.

You see this a lot at dolmens, dragons, and Oblivion portals. Stand back and observe. Watch the AKFers loot the chests every 5 minutes, then go AFK again, and loot after the next battle finishes, and so forth.

AzuraFan

Jaraal wrote: »

You see this a lot at dolmens, dragons, and Oblivion portals. Stand back and observe. Watch the AKFers loot the chests every 5 minutes, then go AFK again, and loot after the next battle finishes, and so forth.

The only place I recall seeing that is at a PD group event when the endeavor was to do X of them for the weekly. A player was stationed there and wasn't even around to loot. Just kept getting credit for each completion because their companion joined in.

SilverBride

Giulietta wrote: »

I'm commenting mostly to find this thread again quickly, but I do vote for vet overland content.

This thread is not about veteran overland content. It is specifically about the World Bosses in Necrom.

chessalavakia_ESO

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

We can't go for sliders to define difficulty almost infinitely variable. But that's not necessary, as it would be sufficient to define some of the already opened instances as "veteran", the playerbase would split upon them as it does now, except the game is taking the respective difficulty setting into account.

The problem is, ZOS wants to avoid the split in the playerbase. Most likely because it could make the game feel emptier than it actually is to new players.

Also, they probably want to avoid setting a precedence, as other groups would almost certainly want their own "special" instances.

I understand that.

Thing is, the split is already here, as we can see in every thread about difficulty.

We have two options now:
1) Looking for a solution which is fitting for at least most of us, even if this mean we aren't in the same instances all the time. (We are are indeed in different instances as the game is now too. So I'm not convinced the game would feel emptier.)
2) Insisting that a specific way to play the game is the only right way to do it and everybody else has to submit to that set norm or leave the game.

I still vote for option 1 and see therefore no reason to set actions which affect all players (nerfing content) while other options are still available.

Part of the issue with separate instances is that the population you pull in isn't just going to be the people that want the harder overland experience. It's also going to be everyone that might prefer to be in a less populated instance. The former might not be that disruptive to lose but, the latter could seriously add up (Ex: players that don't like busy areas, rpers looking to avoid crowds, and resource farmers looking to have less competition)

You'll also run into the issue that people aren't necessarily going to agree on the same level of difficulty for what Veteran should be. For example, I would agree with you that much of the game is too easy but, I'm also one of the people that thinks that the Necrom World Bosses should get nerfed. If the difficulty was aimed at me, it'd likely be too easy for you to enjoy and if it's aimed at you it'd likely be either too tedious or too hard for me to enjoy.

Veteran Overland will also run into the issue that people are lazy/don't necessarily like content. I complain about the difficulty from time to time but, most of the time I'm in-game I am running a companion and relatively well geared out which reduces the difficulty significantly. Even if the difficulty was perfect in my view, I would likely be spending significant periods of time in the easier mode because it goes faster and portions of the content really don't interest me that much.

You'll also hit the payoff issue. If the rewards aren't increased it's not going to be effective which will lead to complaints. If they are increased you'll end up with people in it that don't actually enjoy it for the rewards that will complain about it.

Generally speaking, decisions that take resources will impact everyone to one degree or another. For example, I'd like a PvE Imperial City with reduced Tel Var gain and loss. The time it would take to implement that would take away from other things and it would put a dent on the number of people in the PvP one which could reduce the quality of the experience for the people that like the current version.

Fundamentally, many of the difficulty issues in the game are because ESO draws much of the difficulty from bursts/mechanics and only a small portion of the power a player brings into play is from the character itself. Thus, the results players get are vastly different which makes producing content for them that is enjoyable manner significantly harder.

You make a few fair points here, I nonetheless have some understanding issues with you explanation which I'd like to adress:

1) We already play in seperate instances at any given moment we play this game. There isn't only one instance of "reapers march" for example, but maybe 2-8 of them, depending on the amount of players which are adventuring in this zone. So, even if some people would use a "veteran overland" (which is nothing more but some instances with increased difficulty depending on players porting to that zone by toggling "veteran" on) for various reasons not related to combat, nothing would change. The rules in there would be the same for all players which opted into this and everyone would be free to use it without further restrictions.

2) Of course not all players would agree on the same level of difficulty for veteran overland, as they don't agree on difficulty of overland in general. But having the option to choose between an easier and a more engaging instance would definitely not deteriorate this circumstance but could be an essential tool in counteracting the gap we already have in this game. This very thread we are responding to show exactly why this question is imminent.

3) Yes, people may be lazy sometimes or simply don't like some of the provided content. They won't do this content then in veteran mode but stick to normal mode (as they already do with dungeons), finish it as quick as possible and move on to content they're interested more. This latter content maybe encourages them to do it in veteran mode. I see no problem with that.

4) I simply don't understand what you mean by "payoff issue". Of course there will always be players which aren't satisfied with the rewards for any given content. Look around this forums. We have lots of complaints already. But there is a difference between being able to do content and being willing to do content. Rewards are completely a matter of willingness and don't affect the topic of difficulty at all. Indeed it's a unhealthy peculiarity of mmo-styled games to concentrate almost exclusively on rewards instead of content itself.

5) Yes, altering the game takes resources and therefore everyone of us is affected. With Necrom zos tried to react to increasing demands of the playerbase about a more engaging overland experience, while trying to take into account the concerns of players which voted against any form of "splitting" the playerbase. What are the results? Exactly the players, which were opposing this solution are now demanding nerfs (which, of course, would take resources). If we follow this logic, there will only be easy content left in this game. All players which are looking for a more engaging experience will finally have to find a new game. This is neither a compromise nor is it healthy for the game. Let's be honest here: PvP is starving for years, PvE endgame dried out almost completely, dungeon releases were cut in half. But for some people here that's still not enough, it has to be even easier. Maybe you're right in the end and people are indeed lazy or not interested in the game but play just for the rewards. But if that's the case, this game is on life support anyways.

6) You're right, eso was never a build-based game like other mmos around, but is relying heavily on a player's responsiveness to mechanics. Coupled with the variety of builds, which are theoretically possible (You won't find any other game which give the player a similar amount of freedom, as vertical gear progression is standard in this genre.) the gap between "floor and ceiling" is necessarily significant. There is an easy solution for this issue tho, it's called difficulty options.

If you have a large effectiveness gap between players you aren't going to have many players that can actually utilize content that is designed to be challenging for players at the top which makes it not the highest return on investment.

You can see the issues blatantly in dungeons how the mechanics frequently don't get to fire in normal due to the amount of damage, how you have fake roles all over the place because the amount of damage lets them get away with it much of the time, and how people end up entering veteran having learned next to nothing which leads to players slanting towards pre-mades which further reduces the quality in randoms as well as increases the queue times.

If you have a large effectiveness gap between players and you lack effective skill based matchmaking you will find your population in player vs player content will be lacking and that portions of the population that remain may lean on items designed to mitigate that gap which will end up annoying other players.

You'll notice that ESO's PvP has a fair number of tanky builds that people run to avoid getting killed as much and that the population amount isn't all that impressive outside of an event that draws in players that traditionally don't PvP which shifts the PvP population away from slanting towards being as potent.

ZOS is definitely attempting to bet this year more on players like you than players like me but, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good bet (or I could be totally off and it might be). I'm interested enough in the Graht-Oak Squirrel and Sancre Tor Sentry in the upcoming event to stick around for the next few weeks but, beyond that I'm not sure I have much that I care about left this year. In other years, I'd have the story from two dungeons and a story dlc to look forward to but, this year it's just going to be an endless dungeon and some quality of life I'm not really interested in.

I find it astonishing how precise you describe the issues of the game in it's current state while denying the logical solution to this problems at the same time.

But you're right of course. The game got far too easy over the years, leaving the players uninterested in the gameplay itself. Focusing on shiny rewards hotfixed the situation for some time, but sure, rewards get boring and repetitive after a while.

Time for a change, I'd say.

That's because your solution in most situations would be sub-optimal in my view.

ESO runs over 40 different zones and my impression is that many of them have a relatively high population limit and a relatively limited number of instances.

Thus, having separate instances based on difficulty would alter the experience. Personally, I wouldn't really care in that regard but, ZOS seems to care.

You could however, possibly be able to spin up added difficulty zones for new areas such as the Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha. My impression is that both zones are running at lower instance populations and have a boatload of instances so moving part of the population into another instance would likely barely show.

However, that really isn't the main issue.

Spinning up added difficulties does less to solve issues than cutting the effectiveness gap does.

It's kind of like the changes that enabled the Oakensoul Heavy Attack builds.

Yes, if you've got no other cards to play it does a sort of okay job of making the content a better match for portions of players but, it faces diminishing returns to no returns the farther people get from the cookie cutter builds it enables.

Closing the gap in effectiveness would have had far better results in my view as it would let player use builds closer to what they want rather than having a very limited number of builds that get the job done without people complaining a ton.

I agree on narrowing the effectiveness gap, and I also agree that Oakensoul failed to do so. (I won't go into detail about this mythic here because that's far off-topic, but indeed Oakensoul is harming the evolution of many players relying on it, while endgamers are enabled to play around with "cheese builds". Not the intended outcome.)

But narrowing the effectiveness gap is dependent on several factors:
1) Skipping existing content by outdpsing it has to be stopped, to prevent behaviour like you described it regarding random normal dungeons. If people, which are still learning how to be effective in combat, are enabled to skip every mechanic they encounter, they'll never learn. This is something WBs in Necrom are indeed adressing.
2) The game has to teach players why to improve their toons performance by explaining build development. That's something this game is completely failing at, especially for a broader audience.
3) This game is lacking an easy way to form groups for most of the content. We'll see if the announced group finder will solve some of this problems.

Not all issues players experience are originated in game mechanics tho, there is also the aspect of human interaction, which can't be solved by development decisions but only by the playerbase itself. Let's look again at dungeons, which are indeed a fine example: While it's standard in vet dungeons for players to discuss briefly the upcoming task and how to do it, I see lot of complaints regarding normal mode: speedrunning, fake roles, even greeting each other before starting with the activity isn't state of the art anymore. It's noticeable that all of this issues concern easy content, isn't it?

Personally, I'm generally of the view that much of human behavior is reflective of the environment and the incentives at play.

For instance, if someone speed runs ahead of other players the game will drag the other players to where they are if the trigger a boss fight.

It might not be the intent but this sends to message that the person running ahead is in the right and the other players getting dragged are in the wrong.

The fake roles happen because you have a population disparity that slows down the queue for certain roles and you don't have much of a punishment for doing so. If you had increased incentives for playing the roles the matchmaker was short (Ex:Increase transmutes or allow the players to select a more limited series of dungeons while still getting transmutes) on and implemented punishments for deliberately faking you'd likely have less issues with fakes.

The rewards structure in dungeons in my view leans a bit too much towards stacking everything on the last boss which can add to the focus on getting done ASAP. I also think from a transmute perspective it might be good to scale the rewards based on dungeon length.

Part of the reason many of the normal runs can end up not being very social is because they are short and rushed. People invest more effort into social interactions when they feel they will be dealing with the people for longer periods and when they don't feel like they will end up falling behind other people by typing to them.

If you want to get more into blatant manipulation you can also go the endorsement route to influence people's behavior but that can easily come across as a bit creepy.

Braffin

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

We can't go for sliders to define difficulty almost infinitely variable. But that's not necessary, as it would be sufficient to define some of the already opened instances as "veteran", the playerbase would split upon them as it does now, except the game is taking the respective difficulty setting into account.

The problem is, ZOS wants to avoid the split in the playerbase. Most likely because it could make the game feel emptier than it actually is to new players.

Also, they probably want to avoid setting a precedence, as other groups would almost certainly want their own "special" instances.

I understand that.

Thing is, the split is already here, as we can see in every thread about difficulty.

We have two options now:
1) Looking for a solution which is fitting for at least most of us, even if this mean we aren't in the same instances all the time. (We are are indeed in different instances as the game is now too. So I'm not convinced the game would feel emptier.)
2) Insisting that a specific way to play the game is the only right way to do it and everybody else has to submit to that set norm or leave the game.

I still vote for option 1 and see therefore no reason to set actions which affect all players (nerfing content) while other options are still available.

Part of the issue with separate instances is that the population you pull in isn't just going to be the people that want the harder overland experience. It's also going to be everyone that might prefer to be in a less populated instance. The former might not be that disruptive to lose but, the latter could seriously add up (Ex: players that don't like busy areas, rpers looking to avoid crowds, and resource farmers looking to have less competition)

You'll also run into the issue that people aren't necessarily going to agree on the same level of difficulty for what Veteran should be. For example, I would agree with you that much of the game is too easy but, I'm also one of the people that thinks that the Necrom World Bosses should get nerfed. If the difficulty was aimed at me, it'd likely be too easy for you to enjoy and if it's aimed at you it'd likely be either too tedious or too hard for me to enjoy.

Veteran Overland will also run into the issue that people are lazy/don't necessarily like content. I complain about the difficulty from time to time but, most of the time I'm in-game I am running a companion and relatively well geared out which reduces the difficulty significantly. Even if the difficulty was perfect in my view, I would likely be spending significant periods of time in the easier mode because it goes faster and portions of the content really don't interest me that much.

You'll also hit the payoff issue. If the rewards aren't increased it's not going to be effective which will lead to complaints. If they are increased you'll end up with people in it that don't actually enjoy it for the rewards that will complain about it.

Generally speaking, decisions that take resources will impact everyone to one degree or another. For example, I'd like a PvE Imperial City with reduced Tel Var gain and loss. The time it would take to implement that would take away from other things and it would put a dent on the number of people in the PvP one which could reduce the quality of the experience for the people that like the current version.

Fundamentally, many of the difficulty issues in the game are because ESO draws much of the difficulty from bursts/mechanics and only a small portion of the power a player brings into play is from the character itself. Thus, the results players get are vastly different which makes producing content for them that is enjoyable manner significantly harder.

You make a few fair points here, I nonetheless have some understanding issues with you explanation which I'd like to adress:

1) We already play in seperate instances at any given moment we play this game. There isn't only one instance of "reapers march" for example, but maybe 2-8 of them, depending on the amount of players which are adventuring in this zone. So, even if some people would use a "veteran overland" (which is nothing more but some instances with increased difficulty depending on players porting to that zone by toggling "veteran" on) for various reasons not related to combat, nothing would change. The rules in there would be the same for all players which opted into this and everyone would be free to use it without further restrictions.

2) Of course not all players would agree on the same level of difficulty for veteran overland, as they don't agree on difficulty of overland in general. But having the option to choose between an easier and a more engaging instance would definitely not deteriorate this circumstance but could be an essential tool in counteracting the gap we already have in this game. This very thread we are responding to show exactly why this question is imminent.

3) Yes, people may be lazy sometimes or simply don't like some of the provided content. They won't do this content then in veteran mode but stick to normal mode (as they already do with dungeons), finish it as quick as possible and move on to content they're interested more. This latter content maybe encourages them to do it in veteran mode. I see no problem with that.

4) I simply don't understand what you mean by "payoff issue". Of course there will always be players which aren't satisfied with the rewards for any given content. Look around this forums. We have lots of complaints already. But there is a difference between being able to do content and being willing to do content. Rewards are completely a matter of willingness and don't affect the topic of difficulty at all. Indeed it's a unhealthy peculiarity of mmo-styled games to concentrate almost exclusively on rewards instead of content itself.

5) Yes, altering the game takes resources and therefore everyone of us is affected. With Necrom zos tried to react to increasing demands of the playerbase about a more engaging overland experience, while trying to take into account the concerns of players which voted against any form of "splitting" the playerbase. What are the results? Exactly the players, which were opposing this solution are now demanding nerfs (which, of course, would take resources). If we follow this logic, there will only be easy content left in this game. All players which are looking for a more engaging experience will finally have to find a new game. This is neither a compromise nor is it healthy for the game. Let's be honest here: PvP is starving for years, PvE endgame dried out almost completely, dungeon releases were cut in half. But for some people here that's still not enough, it has to be even easier. Maybe you're right in the end and people are indeed lazy or not interested in the game but play just for the rewards. But if that's the case, this game is on life support anyways.

6) You're right, eso was never a build-based game like other mmos around, but is relying heavily on a player's responsiveness to mechanics. Coupled with the variety of builds, which are theoretically possible (You won't find any other game which give the player a similar amount of freedom, as vertical gear progression is standard in this genre.) the gap between "floor and ceiling" is necessarily significant. There is an easy solution for this issue tho, it's called difficulty options.

If you have a large effectiveness gap between players you aren't going to have many players that can actually utilize content that is designed to be challenging for players at the top which makes it not the highest return on investment.

You can see the issues blatantly in dungeons how the mechanics frequently don't get to fire in normal due to the amount of damage, how you have fake roles all over the place because the amount of damage lets them get away with it much of the time, and how people end up entering veteran having learned next to nothing which leads to players slanting towards pre-mades which further reduces the quality in randoms as well as increases the queue times.

If you have a large effectiveness gap between players and you lack effective skill based matchmaking you will find your population in player vs player content will be lacking and that portions of the population that remain may lean on items designed to mitigate that gap which will end up annoying other players.

You'll notice that ESO's PvP has a fair number of tanky builds that people run to avoid getting killed as much and that the population amount isn't all that impressive outside of an event that draws in players that traditionally don't PvP which shifts the PvP population away from slanting towards being as potent.

ZOS is definitely attempting to bet this year more on players like you than players like me but, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good bet (or I could be totally off and it might be). I'm interested enough in the Graht-Oak Squirrel and Sancre Tor Sentry in the upcoming event to stick around for the next few weeks but, beyond that I'm not sure I have much that I care about left this year. In other years, I'd have the story from two dungeons and a story dlc to look forward to but, this year it's just going to be an endless dungeon and some quality of life I'm not really interested in.

I find it astonishing how precise you describe the issues of the game in it's current state while denying the logical solution to this problems at the same time.

But you're right of course. The game got far too easy over the years, leaving the players uninterested in the gameplay itself. Focusing on shiny rewards hotfixed the situation for some time, but sure, rewards get boring and repetitive after a while.

Time for a change, I'd say.

That's because your solution in most situations would be sub-optimal in my view.

ESO runs over 40 different zones and my impression is that many of them have a relatively high population limit and a relatively limited number of instances.

Thus, having separate instances based on difficulty would alter the experience. Personally, I wouldn't really care in that regard but, ZOS seems to care.

You could however, possibly be able to spin up added difficulty zones for new areas such as the Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha. My impression is that both zones are running at lower instance populations and have a boatload of instances so moving part of the population into another instance would likely barely show.

However, that really isn't the main issue.

Spinning up added difficulties does less to solve issues than cutting the effectiveness gap does.

It's kind of like the changes that enabled the Oakensoul Heavy Attack builds.

Yes, if you've got no other cards to play it does a sort of okay job of making the content a better match for portions of players but, it faces diminishing returns to no returns the farther people get from the cookie cutter builds it enables.

Closing the gap in effectiveness would have had far better results in my view as it would let player use builds closer to what they want rather than having a very limited number of builds that get the job done without people complaining a ton.

I agree on narrowing the effectiveness gap, and I also agree that Oakensoul failed to do so. (I won't go into detail about this mythic here because that's far off-topic, but indeed Oakensoul is harming the evolution of many players relying on it, while endgamers are enabled to play around with "cheese builds". Not the intended outcome.)

But narrowing the effectiveness gap is dependent on several factors:
1) Skipping existing content by outdpsing it has to be stopped, to prevent behaviour like you described it regarding random normal dungeons. If people, which are still learning how to be effective in combat, are enabled to skip every mechanic they encounter, they'll never learn. This is something WBs in Necrom are indeed adressing.
2) The game has to teach players why to improve their toons performance by explaining build development. That's something this game is completely failing at, especially for a broader audience.
3) This game is lacking an easy way to form groups for most of the content. We'll see if the announced group finder will solve some of this problems.

Not all issues players experience are originated in game mechanics tho, there is also the aspect of human interaction, which can't be solved by development decisions but only by the playerbase itself. Let's look again at dungeons, which are indeed a fine example: While it's standard in vet dungeons for players to discuss briefly the upcoming task and how to do it, I see lot of complaints regarding normal mode: speedrunning, fake roles, even greeting each other before starting with the activity isn't state of the art anymore. It's noticeable that all of this issues concern easy content, isn't it?

Personally, I'm generally of the view that much of human behavior is reflective of the environment and the incentives at play.

For instance, if someone speed runs ahead of other players the game will drag the other players to where they are if the trigger a boss fight.

It might not be the intent but this sends to message that the person running ahead is in the right and the other players getting dragged are in the wrong.

The fake roles happen because you have a population disparity that slows down the queue for certain roles and you don't have much of a punishment for doing so. If you had increased incentives for playing the roles the matchmaker was short (Ex:Increase transmutes or allow the players to select a more limited series of dungeons while still getting transmutes) on and implemented punishments for deliberately faking you'd likely have less issues with fakes.

The rewards structure in dungeons in my view leans a bit too much towards stacking everything on the last boss which can add to the focus on getting done ASAP. I also think from a transmute perspective it might be good to scale the rewards based on dungeon length.

Part of the reason many of the normal runs can end up not being very social is because they are short and rushed. People invest more effort into social interactions when they feel they will be dealing with the people for longer periods and when they don't feel like they will end up falling behind other people by typing to them.

If you want to get more into blatant manipulation you can also go the endorsement route to influence people's behavior but that can easily come across as a bit creepy.

I don't think it's the job of a video game to tell people how to interact with others, so if you understood my posting in this direction you got me wrong.

I'm simply saying, that people are limiting themselves if they refuse to talk to each other, especially if they are doing some content together. And I see no need to change anything in reaction to that, because this isn't a gameplay issue but human error.

When I group up with others, I always greet my fellow adventurers and have a quick chat about expectations regarding the content we're doing together. That's why I recommend guilds. There are indeed guilds for almost every taste, including the preference to solo as much of the game as possible (without any obligations in return). I'm even in one of those guilds for myself and happily help out casual questers if they ask for assistance with doing a dungeon or a more engaging worldboss.

So no, I see no need for nerfs just to accomodate players which are refusing to accept any form of help already possible.

Giulietta

SilverBride wrote: »

Giulietta wrote: »

I'm commenting mostly to find this thread again quickly, but I do vote for vet overland content.

This thread is not about veteran overland content. It is specifically about the World Bosses in Necrom.

yes, but WBs happen to be part of the overland. would solve your problems too

SilverBride

Giulietta wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Giulietta wrote: »

I'm commenting mostly to find this thread again quickly, but I do vote for vet overland content.

This thread is not about veteran overland content. It is specifically about the World Bosses in Necrom.

yes, but WBs happen to be part of the overland. would solve your problems too

It wouldn't solve anything for me because I am against the idea. But that isn't the issue I was bringing up in this ghread.

Braffin

SilverBride wrote: »

Giulietta wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Giulietta wrote: »

I'm commenting mostly to find this thread again quickly, but I do vote for vet overland content.

This thread is not about veteran overland content. It is specifically about the World Bosses in Necrom.

yes, but WBs happen to be part of the overland. would solve your problems too

It wouldn't solve anything for me because I am against the idea. But that isn't the issue I was bringing up in this ghread.

Yes, you were always against this idea (without any reasonable arguments I may add) and opposed it to the best of your ability.

Now you have more engaging WBs in the overland you play in.

Enjoy the results. I definitely do 😆

SilverBride

I have killed all of them more than once. That isn't the point of this thread.

The point is that it has been hard to find groups because players just aren't doing them, and many have stated difficulty and the length of the fight as the reason.

I have no problem fighting these World Bosses. I have a problem with how long it takes to get a group together.

peacenote

Anifaas wrote: »

It is quite the contradiction to advertise "Play how you want" and then design world content for the elites. ESO by definition is a casual game and should focus on difficult instanced content and world content designed for everyone. Games like Destiny, WoW, STO, and GW2 all figured this out ages ago.

But as usual the elites, who are most apt to inhabit video game discussion boards, skew this conversation in their favour and it appears that's who the developers are listening to right now. I'd love more difficult ad-hoc content to tackle personally but not at the expense of excluding the masses.

Lots of absolutes and generalizations here that I think maybe aren't quite fair or are too simplistic.

There is a 171 page and counting thread about Overland difficulty. There are so, so many opinions and the desires for harder overland, optional overland, or keeping it the same and they are definitely not simply limited to "casuals" and "elites." For example, I don't know what you'd consider me. I typically can only play a couple of hours two days a week, but I've been playing since beta without ever quitting. I enjoy DLC dungeon challenges more than anything else in the game. I like running trials, but I don't have any trifectas or anything like that, and I work through all of the quest/story content on my main character. I also like to PvP, and I try to participate in the events and get my tickets and free cosmetic content. And my achievements in PvP content are much less impressive than what I've completed on the PvE side. A streamer would kill me in a heartbeat I'm sure. Some of my characters have meta builds. Some have builds that are very very very old. So am I a casual? Am I an elite? Personally, I don't think I'm either.

To call ESO a "casual" game also seems wrong. ESo has always been a game that leaves breadcrumbs, encouraging people to explore all content and spend a lot of time in it. Antiquities, achievement rewards, PvP gear that will work nicely in PvE and vice versa... I could go on for a long time but since when has there been an official definition of ESO as casual? Heck, there was a thread a while back explaining that ESO was first and foremost advertised as a PvP game.

Regardless, I, someone who enjoys trials and DLC HMs, was generally an advocate of leaving overland as it was, but maybe increasing just the boss level difficulties at the end of major storyline quests, or having a challenge banner, because increasing the difficulty overall would make it too hard for new players to catch up with the story. There's gallons of content now.

I don't mean to go on about myself because my opinion matters that much. I'm just showing that, using myself as an example, the broad statement of ESO being a casual game and the devs catering to the elites is inaccurate. Defining casual and elite is too narrow, and assuming that each type of player has one specific view and playstyle is flawed.

From a 10,000 foot view, I feel like ZOS isn't catering towards any one view and I sincerely doubt they designed a whole area and release to appeal to end gamers. Not to mention there is a whole range and rainbow of players between "Overland in Stonefalls is hard for me" and "I can do trial trifectas in my sleep on any role." I suspect what they are trying to do is add additional options to show they've heard the various perspectives because it's not possible to completely overhaul overland. Plus, it is not easy to make content feel fresh and new when the population also demands it be formulaic. Is it SO BAD to have an area where some world bosses are potentially tougher, for a change of pace? Plus, as we all know, each new class tends to be more powerful for a bit, and it may be the bosses were balanced with many arcanists in mind.

Bleakz wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This thread is specifically about the Necrom World Bosses and why players aren't doing them nearly was much as they have in other new chapters. The only answer I've been given is because they are too difficult and take too long, and it's difficult to get a group for them because of this.

The answer is far simpler than whatever it is you are trying to push


There is simply less players compared to the previous years expansion

But also when compared to the past there are far less "endgame/high skill level/however else you want to put it" players available to answer requests for help as they have specifically been pushed out of this game

I think there is some truth to this. Related, people are less inclined to buy the expansion because AwA resulted in less incentive to level a new class. This is not my sentiment despite my many posts against AwA... I've heard it amongst friends. I will be leveling multiple arcanists but may people don't see the point. If you are primarily interested in end game but are happy with your current mix of characters, the expansion basically has a new trial. That's it. You get nothing by doing the content with a new class and trying to re-do end game content if you're the type of person that enjoys working towards goals. For many, that one trial is just not enough incentive. So folks are taking breaks (or continuing them). There have been many posts, by me and others, cautioning against the assumptions and criticisms thrown at so-called elites/end gamers because people forget they play other parts of the game too, and are out and about in the world helping new players, giving advice, sharing gold, helping with world bosses, etc. Well, I suspect we're seeing the results of those people leaving the game with this release.

AzuraFan wrote: »

I'm not going to read through a 171 page thread. But I haven't seen many players saying they wouldn't support an optional overland. For those that do oppose it, I think there are two concerns with it:

1. It would take dev resources away from other things to please a minority of players (I'm not saying it's a minority, but that's the concern).

2. Players who try the hard mode would soon be complaining that it's either too difficult or too easy, so we'd be back to square one.

I can add a third reason to this (which is my own concern). I worry if this is done with sharding or phasing or anything of the like that the world will seem less populated and fragmented than it already is. If there was a vote, I don't think I'd vote for harder overland over a lot of other improvements OR new content... but I know I'd rather have it stay as-is or have the difficulty be increased a bit (to account for power creep) over any solution that splits the population. I play an MMO to see others running around in the world with me.

If Necrom world bosses are harder, and if already less people are killing them than previous releases because of the time it takes and because there are less players... just think about what a ghost town those same bosses would be if people would be split into "hm and normal" overland instances.

At any rate, I haven't done much of Necrom yet and am not really sure if the bosses are harder or not. This wasn't a feature I specifically asked for, although I think as long as they are not significantly harder than the dragons, I probably will enjoy the content. I just think that spreading assumptions and conspiracy theories, like ZOS is catering to raiders by making world bosses harder, solves nothing. Even if the bosses are a bit harder, I'm certain it has to do more with things like many people asking for a more interesting overland, less players in the game, devs attempting to tune for power creep, devs attempting to make the content stretch longer since replayability was impacted by AwA, devs trying to add uniqueness to a new zone, and other more mundane realistic reasons than a deliberate attempt to placate the most talented and skilled players in our community by changing content that isn't their core focus.

zos_Izaren

Greetings,

At the request of the OP we have closed this thread. Thank you for your understanding.