Necrom World Bosses are way too difficult

Anifaas

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.

Tia413

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Ok, let's see if I can explain it:

In ESO enemies are static at level 50 CP 160. However, the player is scaled/bolstered, which is the reason why the player gets weaker as level increases. This is also the reason why it's generally easier to do, for example, a public dungeon at level 20 or 25 than at level 40. Of course gear plays a significant role in this as well.

When a player reaches CP 160+ and their power increases again, to the point where all normal content is pathetically easy for them.
So essentially players with high CP are overleveling content, which makes any fight trivial of course.

As for your example: The level 10 character has stats a level 50 CP 160 character would have. However, as the game can't know how you'll distribute your stats, all your stats are increased to the extreme. Add to that the fact that the level 10 character may in fact be a level 10 CP 1500+ alt character...

Okay, so as I understand your explanation, it's the players who are being scaled. That's basically what I had thought, although I'm still in the dark about the specifics. But it sounds like the amount of scaling could be plotted as a sort of curve in that the lower-level characters get more benefit or impact from the scaling than higher-level characters do, with L50 CP160 being the point at which the curve changes.

Anyway, my earlier posts were wondering if this scaling that's already being done could conceivably be modified based on a "difficulty" preference in each character's game settings. The enemies would still be "static at level 50 CP 160," just as they are now, so everyone could still play alongside each other in the same instances, facing the same enemies, just like now. But instead of the scaling being done by some kind of fixed calculation, the calculation would use values that vary per character. The mechanics of the scaling would remain the same, but the results would vary in accordance to whether the difficulty was set to (say) easy, default, or challenging.

I have no idea if that would be possible, since I don't know the specifics of how the scaling is done. And I'm not even trying to advocate for such a solution, because as I mentioned before, I think it would open up a huge can of worms. Too many players are already somewhat hostile or critical or toxic toward each other when it comes to the game's content and how each player chooses to clear it. We don't need anything else that players could rag each other over.

In any case, any hypothetical difficulty setting should NOT be enabled in PvP-- neither in PvP zones nor during duels in PvE zones-- and it would probably also need to be considered when finding groups, such as ensuring that players with differing difficulty settings are not grouped together unless they have indicated that they don't mind being in a group where members might not have the same difficulty setting as they do.

@SeaGtGruff
Here are some links that may help you, concerning One Tamriel

https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25827

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/294849/pc-mac-patch-notes-v2-6-4-update-12-one-tamriel#latest

Gargath

People were asking for harder overland bosses since many years, and finally we got what we asked for.
It's a normal thing in MMO games that people get in group with many others, if they cannot kill a beast while playing alone or with friend.

Kendaric

Marcus684 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

Some of them are a bit difficult for less than 4-5 people to kill.

Seems like pretty much all Necrom bosses (World bosses and Bastion Nymic) use the same mechanic where 4 or 5 things spawn around them that make them immune to damage until you kill those things. Kinda uninspired lack of fight variety IMO.

The most interesting fight to me is the final boss in the Dreaming sector of Bastion Nymic.

Thinking about it further, I think ZOS putting in adds that must be dealt with to WB fights is a good thing. Way too many dungeon boss fights are a simple burn, so much so that newer players really struggle with boss fights with adds. Adding this mechanic in an open world setting gives them a chance to learn it in a more forgiving venue. Any of the other players in the fight can yell "kill the tentacles" or whatever adds there are to clue them in.

There are already plenty of world boss fights with a lot of adds...

Voidmother Egoladil in the Reach (invulnerable while the void shield mobs are alive + plenty of adds)
Skeg the Undefeated in Western Skyrim (lots of adds + poison DOT from the barrels)
Hordek the werewolf in Western Skyrim (lots of adds you have to deal with)
Toad-Tongue warchief in Blackwood (lots of adds and players need to kick barrels with food over to lure his Durzogs away)
The Nereid in Vvardenfell and most other Vvardenfell world bosses
The guar in Deshaan (spriggan adds that heal it)

I'm sure there are a lot more.

SilverBride

Gargath wrote: »

People were asking for harder overland bosses since many years, and finally we got what we asked for.
It's a normal thing in MMO games that people get in group with many others, if they cannot kill a beast while playing alone or with friend.

SOME players were asking for that but many were happy with things as they were.

Players are trying to group for these World Bosses but are having trouble finding others that are willing to group for them.

chessalavakia_ESO

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.

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

How many threads now on this?

Just wait for pre made group finder

I've played other games with group finders and I don't have much hope for the function.

My expectation is that in much of the content that isn't popular it's not going to work in a timely manner with the finder and in the content with more popularity it will lead to zergs kind of like what you see at the Dolmens in the Alik'r Desert.

Tia413 wrote: »

me_ming wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Ever thought about people who can't get better for whatever reasons, e.g. disabilities, age, etc? Those people play as well.

I'm really tired of statements like this one. Are you telling me that people with disabilities cannot do anything in this game other than run around and quest? Are you saying that just because they are disabled they are not capable of learning mechanics or improving? Seriously, I'm curious if that is what you think of people with disabilities. Because I, for one, know a lot of people with disabilities who can do things a lot better than people who do not. Please let's stop this assumption that just because some people have disabilities that they cannot get better, because the only reason ANYONE cannot get better is because you didn't try.

I so wanna curse right now.
Post like these really get my blood boiling.

I have Memory Issues (amongst other issues) thanks to taking hits in the head because the man I was married to decided beating me was much more convenient to him than going to anger management classes.
I ended up having a severe stroke at the age of 30 due to the abuse. Had to learn how to feed myself, walk again, talk again, etc.
I just had to use a calculator to even be able to remember what age I was when I had my stroke. I've also had to use spell check several times while writing the above. Am I proud of that? No I am not!
I graduated High School with a 4.0 gpa. And I was reduced down to a vegetative state in moments. I almost died. Do I want to be in a better state than I am now? Yes, I would!
I am lucky to be walking and talking today. But some things are not as repairable as broken bones are.
So how dare you judge my disability against the people you claim you know whom are disabled.
Not everyones disability is the same or affects them the same.

So Boss mechanics.....yeah there is absolutely, positively no way I could ever be able to memorize them. I can't even remember to do simple rotations. I just choose skills that I see help me kill things the quickest and that's what I run with.
No rotation to it. I just keep pressing keys ( I use the Keypad on a Keyboard for my skills. It's easier for me that way because I still don't have full use of my left side). I may press 1243 on one kill and it may end it being 4132 on the next kill. I do click my LMB during it all though. But stuff dies. And that's all that matters to me.

So don't sit there and say "the only reason ANYONE cannot get better is because you didn't try." because that is hogwash. I wouldn't even be here writing this if I didn't try. But What I have left of the old me is all I will ever have. And I am grateful for that. And noone will ever take that away from me!

I can solo most World Bosses in the game but the Necrom WB's are a whole different story thanks to the added mechanics.

I don't personally run addons but, my impression is that some addons provide combat alerts that will on the fly tell you when a a portion of the mechanic are firing/about to fire and what to do about it. I'm unsure if they do it for WB's or if they are updated to Necrom but, it might help you in some of the other content if you don't mind directions flashing at you.

AzuraFan

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.

Braffin

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?

Sylosi

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.

It isn't designed for elites, quite the opposite in fact.

The vast majority of content in this game (quests, delves, public dungeons, a significant number of "proper" dungeons, most world bosses, dolmens, events, pretty much all overland mobs, etc) are set at a level that is ridiculously easy.

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat.

And yes GW2 has figured it out, but you clearly don't play GW2 (at least not in any meaningful sense), because instead of having an overworld that is 99.9% insipid faceroll like ESO, it actually has content of varying difficulties to accommodate all the playerbase not just one minority. It actually lives up to "Play how you want" unlike this game.

World bosses are in fact a fine example of difficult overworld content in GW2, you have boss fights that can take 10 mins+, require a basic degree of organisation, have mechanics, require people to do multiple events to spawn the boss and guess what, a level of difficulty that means sometimes it will fail, even though you might of spent an hour doing the pre-events / boss fight in total.

Not to mention many of those world bosses are designed for an actual MMORPG, as in needing 20 to 50+ players, imagine that, actual MMO gameplay in an MMO.

Which is part of the reason GW2's overland is in a much healthier state than ESO's.

Tia413

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Tia413 wrote: »

me_ming wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Ever thought about people who can't get better for whatever reasons, e.g. disabilities, age, etc? Those people play as well.

I'm really tired of statements like this one. Are you telling me that people with disabilities cannot do anything in this game other than run around and quest? Are you saying that just because they are disabled they are not capable of learning mechanics or improving? Seriously, I'm curious if that is what you think of people with disabilities. Because I, for one, know a lot of people with disabilities who can do things a lot better than people who do not. Please let's stop this assumption that just because some people have disabilities that they cannot get better, because the only reason ANYONE cannot get better is because you didn't try.

I so wanna curse right now.
Post like these really get my blood boiling.

I have Memory Issues (amongst other issues) thanks to taking hits in the head because the man I was married to decided beating me was much more convenient to him than going to anger management classes.
I ended up having a severe stroke at the age of 30 due to the abuse. Had to learn how to feed myself, walk again, talk again, etc.
I just had to use a calculator to even be able to remember what age I was when I had my stroke. I've also had to use spell check several times while writing the above. Am I proud of that? No I am not!
I graduated High School with a 4.0 gpa. And I was reduced down to a vegetative state in moments. I almost died. Do I want to be in a better state than I am now? Yes, I would!
I am lucky to be walking and talking today. But some things are not as repairable as broken bones are.
So how dare you judge my disability against the people you claim you know whom are disabled.
Not everyones disability is the same or affects them the same.

So Boss mechanics.....yeah there is absolutely, positively no way I could ever be able to memorize them. I can't even remember to do simple rotations. I just choose skills that I see help me kill things the quickest and that's what I run with.
No rotation to it. I just keep pressing keys ( I use the Keypad on a Keyboard for my skills. It's easier for me that way because I still don't have full use of my left side). I may press 1243 on one kill and it may end it being 4132 on the next kill. I do click my LMB during it all though. But stuff dies. And that's all that matters to me.

So don't sit there and say "the only reason ANYONE cannot get better is because you didn't try." because that is hogwash. I wouldn't even be here writing this if I didn't try. But What I have left of the old me is all I will ever have. And I am grateful for that. And noone will ever take that away from me!

I can solo most World Bosses in the game but the Necrom WB's are a whole different story thanks to the added mechanics.

I don't personally run addons but, my impression is that some addons provide combat alerts that will on the fly tell you when a a portion of the mechanic are firing/about to fire and what to do about it. I'm unsure if they do it for WB's or if they are updated to Necrom but, it might help you in some of the other content if you don't mind directions flashing at you.

@chessalavakia_ESO Ty for the recommendation. I do run a ton of addons already. I have Azurah, Combat Metrics, FTC, Srendarr, to name a very few.

They really don't help with memory loss or the ability to focus on too many things at once.

I notice the names of skills and I think it shows how much damage the skill does go around in a circle on my screen but in all honesty, they go by too fast for me to be able to focus on them to tell you what they said. They are still there I guess because ...idk.
I do look at Combat Metrics a lot though. That's how I can tell which skills are worth keeping and which aren't.

For ex: On My Main (a MagSorc) I use Crushing Shock (Keypad 1), Shock Ring (Keypad 2), Crystal Frags (Keypad 3), Blockade of Storms (Keypad4) and a Clannfear (Keypad 5). Shooting Star for my Ult.
I put Blockade of Storms on Keypad 4 intentionally because its what I lead out with in any fight. And it's a very small reach up of my index finger from Keypad 1 if I need to reapply Blockade of Storms.
And I am quite happy with the amount of dmg I do no matter what skill my fingers hit.

I don't use Block or Roll Dodge while fighting because it's too many inputs for my flimsy brain to remember. (I do use Roll Dodge now because of the Interaction bug that came with Necrom, but even then sometimes it takes me a few minutes to even remember that I assigned it to MB5)
Heck even my Companions and Assistants are all Bound to keys over by the Keypad and if it wasn't for a written list I wouldn't be able to remember who is keybound to what key.
And even though I was told I didn't need to gold/yellow out my gear and enchantments, I did anyhow because it helps me with survivability. I also have all Divines on my gear.

I hadn't died in years until recently.
First in Gorne PD (in Necrom) when I went to get the companion Sharp. And then to a WB in Necrom (TP) that I accidently stumbled into while wandering around and wasn't watching my mini map.

Gnesnig

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.

Absolute nonsense. In every MMO, there is content in overland zones that you have to get more people for and some form of organisation and skill up. World bosses are *bosses*, not mudcrabs. Not everyone *should* be able to do them.

But then again, maybe you want mudcrabs to scale up to 100k HP as well? And every other mob in the game. And all the same mechanics. No surprises, everything is the same. And if you die to it, then ZOS refunds the minutes spent if you have ESO+. How about that?

Please come to your senses.

Snamyap

SilverBride wrote: »

Gargath wrote: »

People were asking for harder overland bosses since many years, and finally we got what we asked for.
It's a normal thing in MMO games that people get in group with many others, if they cannot kill a beast while playing alone or with friend.

Players are trying to group for these World Bosses but are having trouble finding others that are willing to group for them.

In the last two weeks I have been doing the daily every day. So far I have had exactly one occasion where I had to solo one, the Chainmaker, because nobody showed up. On all the others people were already fighting when I arrived, or multiple people were waiting when the boss respawned. On zero occasions the group present wiped and had to retry. This is on the EU server, mostly on prime time, after I get home from work and stuff.

Kendaric

Gnesnig wrote: »

Absolute nonsense. In every MMO, there is content in overland zones that you have to get more people for and some form of organisation and skill up. World bosses are *bosses*, not mudcrabs. Not everyone *should* be able to do them.

But then again, maybe you want mudcrabs to scale up to 100k HP as well?

Shellcracker would like a word with you...

No one is complaining that you need a group to fight a world boss (well, most of us do need a group anyway). The complaint is people don't want to do the bosses because they're too difficult/tedious, making it extremely hard/impossible to find a group.
And that is a problem.

I don't know how it is for Necrom, but it certainly applies to other areas as well. Good luck getting a group for Ghemvas or the Trophytaker in Blackwood, even if you have the quest to share. And even if you get a group, many people will leave after they died once.
Once people have their achievements/map completion or whatever else they want, they just don't do the bosses anymore.

Melivar

I think now that the initial D4 hype is slowing down that I have seen more people in Necrom and asking for help with WB and Bastion Nymic. Could also be folks were focusing on the trial, companions and main quest the first week or so as well.

First week seemed when I was on there was no one in the Telvani peninsula and no groups around world bosses. This week I can't get to things fast enough when a call comes out that the boss is up.

In either case it seems like its getting easier to get boss kills as of Sat/Sun .

Jaraal

Marcus684 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

Some of them are a bit difficult for less than 4-5 people to kill.

Seems like pretty much all Necrom bosses (World bosses and Bastion Nymic) use the same mechanic where 4 or 5 things spawn around them that make them immune to damage until you kill those things. Kinda uninspired lack of fight variety IMO.

The most interesting fight to me is the final boss in the Dreaming sector of Bastion Nymic.

Thinking about it further, I think ZOS putting in adds that must be dealt with to WB fights is a good thing. Way too many dungeon boss fights are a simple burn, so much so that newer players really struggle with boss fights with adds. Adding this mechanic in an open world setting gives them a chance to learn it in a more forgiving venue. Any of the other players in the fight can yell "kill the tentacles" or whatever adds there are to clue them in.

I disagree. These gimmicky boss invulnerability phases that are in place solely to extend the duration of the fights are obnoxious and annoying. The low point of it was in the Oblivion portals, where you spend 90% of your time fighting trash pack adds, and only 10% of the time fighting the actual boss.

And they have continued this trend with, for example, the Prime Cataloger. Most of the battle is spent sprinting around a huge room trying to hit the one clone that's not invulnerable, sprint back 30 yards to another, and so on and so forth, and then fight the actual boss for a few seconds, then rinse and repeat.

I'm glad that you enjoy these artificially drawn out, time wasting battles. But many of us do not.

Tia413

Sylosi wrote: »

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.

It isn't designed for elites, quite the opposite in fact.

The vast majority of content in this game (quests, delves, public dungeons, a significant number of "proper" dungeons, most world bosses, dolmens, events, pretty much all overland mobs, etc) are set at a level that is ridiculously easy.

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want", which speaks volumes.

And yes GW2 has figured it out, but you clearly don't play GW2 (at least in not in any meaningful sense), because instead of having an overworld that is 99.9% insipid faceroll like ESO, it actually has content of varying difficulties to accommodate all the playerbase not just one minority. It actually lives up to "Play how you want" unlike this game.

World bosses are in fact a fine example of difficult overworld content in GW2, you have boss fights that can take 10 mins+, require a basic degree of organisation, have mechanics, require people to do multiple events to spawn the boss and guess what, a level of difficulty that means sometimes it will fail, even though you might of spent an hour doing the pre-events / boss fight in total.

Not to mention many of those world bosses are designed for an actual MMORPG, as in needing 20 to 50+ players, imagine that, actual MMO gameplay in an MMO.

Which is part of the reason GW2's overland is in a much healthier state than ESO's.

You know what? We had a tougher overland but people said it was too tough. So Zos changed it and gave us One Tam. Now people are complaining that One Tam overland is too easy.

Make up your minds People.

Quote from Rich Lambert on the topic : Rich's Quote on Overland Content
"That's a difficult one because difficulty is definitely subjective. We have millions of players that play The Elder Scrolls Online, and a large portion of them find the game hard and the Overland content challenging, especially as a new player when you don't have gold, all the gear, and Champion Points. Ultimately it comes down to, if we make the game harder, what are the incentives for players to play it at the harder level? That opens up a whole huge can of worms. I also look back and remember we had harder Overland content. 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. So it's a challenging subject and a difficult question to answer. All I can really say is we're definitely looking at it, but we don't have any major changes planned for the Overland difficulty."

Posted by Zos_Kevin here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7573425#Comment_7573425 Post # 3053

I was here for the switch to One Tam. I miss pre One Tam. I still play like pre One Tam.
I still do Base Game Faction, Mages Guild, Fighter Guild and ColdHarbour quests. Then I do Caldwell's Silver. Then Caldwell's Gold. Then move on to DLC zones.
The only differences between Pre One Tam and One Tam is the fact that with One Tam I am no longer stopped from moving on to the next zone until I reach the level requirement for said zone and the fact that it took longer to kill overland mobs Pre One Tam than it does now with One Tam.

But this is what is to be expected when a game has been around for almost 10 years and most of the people who wanted One Tam back then are long gone.
Never Ending Cycle.

Braffin

Tia413 wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

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.

It isn't designed for elites, quite the opposite in fact.

The vast majority of content in this game (quests, delves, public dungeons, a significant number of "proper" dungeons, most world bosses, dolmens, events, pretty much all overland mobs, etc) are set at a level that is ridiculously easy.

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want", which speaks volumes.

And yes GW2 has figured it out, but you clearly don't play GW2 (at least in not in any meaningful sense), because instead of having an overworld that is 99.9% insipid faceroll like ESO, it actually has content of varying difficulties to accommodate all the playerbase not just one minority. It actually lives up to "Play how you want" unlike this game.

World bosses are in fact a fine example of difficult overworld content in GW2, you have boss fights that can take 10 mins+, require a basic degree of organisation, have mechanics, require people to do multiple events to spawn the boss and guess what, a level of difficulty that means sometimes it will fail, even though you might of spent an hour doing the pre-events / boss fight in total.

Not to mention many of those world bosses are designed for an actual MMORPG, as in needing 20 to 50+ players, imagine that, actual MMO gameplay in an MMO.

Which is part of the reason GW2's overland is in a much healthier state than ESO's.

You know what? We had a tougher overland but people said it was too tough. So Zos changed it and gave us One Tam. Now people are complaining that One Tam overland is too easy.

Make up your minds People.

Quote from Rich Lambert on the topic : Rich's Quote on Overland Content
"That's a difficult one because difficulty is definitely subjective. We have millions of players that play The Elder Scrolls Online, and a large portion of them find the game hard and the Overland content challenging, especially as a new player when you don't have gold, all the gear, and Champion Points. Ultimately it comes down to, if we make the game harder, what are the incentives for players to play it at the harder level? That opens up a whole huge can of worms. I also look back and remember we had harder Overland content. 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. So it's a challenging subject and a difficult question to answer. All I can really say is we're definitely looking at it, but we don't have any major changes planned for the Overland difficulty."

Posted by Zos_Kevin here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7573425#Comment_7573425 Post # 3053

I was here for the switch to One Tam. I miss One Tam. I still play like pre One Tam.
I still do Base Game Faction, Mages Guild, Fighter Guild and ColdHarbour quests. Then I do Caldwell's Silver. Then Caldwell's Gold. Then move on to DLC zones.
The only differences between Pre One Tam and One Tam is the fact that with One Tam I am no longer stopped from moving on to the next zone until I reach the level requirement for said zone and the fact that it took longer to kill overland mobs Pre One Tam than it does now with One Tam.

But this is what is to be expected when a game has been around for almost 10 years and most of the people who wanted One Tam back then are long gone.
Never Ending Cycle.

The problem with pre One Tam was never the too high difficulty, but the forced (!) splitting of the playerbase along alliances, so you couldn't play with your friends (or even see them) outside of instanced content and craglorn. On the contrary, I still remember some players complaining about increased difficulty with One Tam, because it was no longer possible to faceroll outlevelled content. Specifically these complaints were targeted at WBs back then.

There was indeed a difficulty issue with Cadwell's Silver and Gold due to the idea of making whole zones (!) specifically for groups, not just a few WBs. But that was sorted out long before One Tam happened with the transistion from old "veteran ranks" to CP 1.0.

Snamyap

Tia413 wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

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.

It isn't designed for elites, quite the opposite in fact.

The vast majority of content in this game (quests, delves, public dungeons, a significant number of "proper" dungeons, most world bosses, dolmens, events, pretty much all overland mobs, etc) are set at a level that is ridiculously easy.

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want", which speaks volumes.

And yes GW2 has figured it out, but you clearly don't play GW2 (at least in not in any meaningful sense), because instead of having an overworld that is 99.9% insipid faceroll like ESO, it actually has content of varying difficulties to accommodate all the playerbase not just one minority. It actually lives up to "Play how you want" unlike this game.

World bosses are in fact a fine example of difficult overworld content in GW2, you have boss fights that can take 10 mins+, require a basic degree of organisation, have mechanics, require people to do multiple events to spawn the boss and guess what, a level of difficulty that means sometimes it will fail, even though you might of spent an hour doing the pre-events / boss fight in total.

Not to mention many of those world bosses are designed for an actual MMORPG, as in needing 20 to 50+ players, imagine that, actual MMO gameplay in an MMO.

Which is part of the reason GW2's overland is in a much healthier state than ESO's.

You know what? We had a tougher overland but people said it was too tough. So Zos changed it and gave us One Tam. Now people are complaining that One Tam overland is too easy.

Player characters have become a LOT more powerful since One Tamriel was released through beter gear, more champion points, etc. The mobs on the other hand stayed exactly the same as they were back then.

Jestir

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

SilverBride

Tia413 wrote: »

But this is what is to be expected when a game has been around for almost 10 years and most of the people who wanted One Tam back then are long gone.

I was long gone after Craglorn was released. One Tamriel is what brought me back and I am still here.

AzuraFan

Sylosi wrote: »

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want", which speaks volumes.

But those of us who don't want a challenging overland or aren't super duper elite players can say the opposite. To change your
own words: "Because pretty much all that is available in VET DUNGEONS AND TRIALS is difficult (to me) to placate people who are so entitled they think the only VET DUNGEONS AND TRIALS content should be allowed is that which meets their high standards and a complete lack of interest in FACEROLL content. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want."

I mean, you're the one demanding that overland change to suit you. So you're the one demanding that the game change so you can play how you want.

I prefer to solo. I don't wear meta sets or have a meta build. Still, I can solo all the basegame normal dungeons (except those I can't due to a mechanic and a couple of the "2" versions). I can solo most basegame WBs and some DLC ones. I can solo all PD group events (including Gorne - haven't tried the other Necrom one yet). But doing some of that solo stuff is just the right challenge for me. Any more difficult and I wouldn't be able to do it.

I stay out of vet content, trials, and most DLC dungeons (haven't even done them once) because that content isn't for me in terms of difficulty. So I stay in my lane. I don't demand that all these activities be heavily nerfed so I can do them (except I wouldn't mind a story time dungeon mode that doesn't provide any of the usual rewards).

[snip] Even though there's already a bunch of content catering to them, they want overland to become more difficult, and ZOS seems to be listening and has upped the ante on WBs (and that Bastion thingie doesn't sound great either). That takes content away from me. So now not only are the usual activities I avoid out of bounds, but now stuff's creeping into overland too. If the creep becomes too much, I'll decide chapters aren't worth the money and look elsewhere to spend my gaming time and dollars.

Having said that, I'd be perfectly fine with an optional difficult overland (a hard mode instance, for example). But there's already challenges for players who want it (vet dungeons, trials, arenas). Overland has always been for those who don't want much of a challenge, and I think ZOS would be crazy to push those players away from the game.

[Edited for Baiting]

Braffin

AzuraFan wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

That is what makes a mockery out of "Play how you want", because for anyone who wants even a little bit of engaging gameplay in the overworld they can't get it. Because pretty much all that is available in the open world is faceroll to placate people who are so entitled they think the only overworld content that should be allowed is that which meets their low standards and complete lack of interest in the combat. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want", which speaks volumes.

But those of us who don't want a challenging overland or aren't super duper elite players can say the opposite. To change your
own words: "Because pretty much all that is available in VET DUNGEONS AND TRIALS is difficult (to me) to placate people who are so entitled they think the only VET DUNGEONS AND TRIALS content should be allowed is that which meets their high standards and a complete lack of interest in FACEROLL content. And that "play how we want" for them really means "play how I want."

I mean, you're the one demanding that overland change to suit you. So you're the one demanding that the game change so you can play how you want.

I prefer to solo. I don't wear meta sets or have a meta build. Still, I can solo all the basegame normal dungeons (except those I can't due to a mechanic and a couple of the "2" versions). I can solo most basegame WBs and some DLC ones. I can solo all PD group events (including Gorne - haven't tried the other Necrom one yet). But doing some of that solo stuff is just the right challenge for me. Any more difficult and I wouldn't be able to do it.

I stay out of vet content, trials, and most DLC dungeons (haven't even done them once) because that content isn't for me in terms of difficulty. So I stay in my lane. I don't demand that all these activities be heavily nerfed so I can do them (except I wouldn't mind a story time dungeon mode that doesn't provide any of the usual rewards).

But some players in the "I want challenging content" group don't want to stay in their lane. Even though there's already a bunch of content catering to them, they want overland to become more difficult, and ZOS seems to be listening and has upped the ante on WBs (and that Bastion thingie doesn't sound great either). That takes content away from me. So now not only are the usual activities I avoid out of bounds, but now stuff's creeping into overland too. If the creep becomes too much, I'll decide chapters aren't worth the money and look elsewhere to spend my gaming time and dollars.

Having said that, I'd be perfectly fine with an optional difficult overland (a hard mode instance, for example). But there's already challenges for players who want it (vet dungeons, trials, arenas). Overland has always been for those who don't want much of a challenge, and I think ZOS would be crazy to push those players away from the game.

You know why vet dungeons and vet trials are called vet? Because there is a normal mode for a more casual experience.

Overland is lacking those options tho.

ZOS_Kraken

Hello,

While we understand everyone has different opinions, we ask that you keep the conversation constructive and be polite to your fellow forum users.

Zos_Kraken

AzuraFan

Braffin wrote: »

You know why vet dungeons and vet trials are called vet? Because there is a normal mode for a more casual experience.

Overland is lacking those options tho.

Agreed. Which is why I said I'd be fine with an OPTIONAL more difficult overland. But that isn't what's happening, from what I can see with Necrom. A non-optional bump in difficulty is starting to creep in, which is the wrong direction, IMO.

Tia413

Braffin wrote: »

The problem with pre One Tam was never the too high difficulty, but the forced (!) splitting of the playerbase along alliances, so you couldn't play with your friends (or even see them) outside of instanced content and craglorn. On the contrary, I still remember some players complaining about increased difficulty with One Tam, because it was no longer possible to faceroll outlevelled content. Specifically these complaints were targeted at WBs back then.

There was indeed a difficulty issue with Cadwell's Silver and Gold due to the idea of making whole zones (!) specifically for groups, not just a few WBs. But that was sorted out long before One Tam happened with the transistion from old "veteran ranks" to CP 1.0.

Agree, you couldn't play with your friends Pre One Tam unless you made your characters in the same Faction.

But the overland problem that you speak of was created because people exploited (may be the wrong choice of word) the way the game was set up Pre One Tam.
Instead of moving on to the next level zone after completing the zone, they instead stuck around after reaching the recommended max level for the zone or used EXP scrolls so they would have an advantage before moving on to the next zone.
And how do you figure Cadwells "caused difficulties due to the idea of making whole zones (!) specifically for groups, not just a few WBs"?

Cadwells Silver and Gold was all about moving your toon on to completing the next Factions' Quest lines.
Ex: When you created your character if you choose AD as your faction then your quests went like this:
Base Quest (including Cold Harbour)> Caldwell Silver (EP)> Cadwells Gold (DC)
As seen here: Aldmeri Dominion - Ebonheart Pact - Daggerfall Covenant
And this was for DC Faction chosen characters: Daggerfall Covenant - Aldmeri Dominion - Ebonheart Pact
And this was for EP Faction chosen characters: Ebonheart Pact - Daggerfall Covenant - Aldmeri Dominion

Yeah I remember the reasoning for the switch from Veteran ranks to CP (Update 10). Which happened in May of 2016. And One Tam happened in October of 2016. so it wasn't that "long before One Tam happened".
But the goal for transitioning away from Veteran Ranks to Champion Points was to streamline the leveling process, and make it so we could share Champion Points with the other characters on our account. And it was also hoped that it would stop power creep. *rolls eyes*

Nonetheless, I prefer Pre One Tam Overland versus what we got with One Tam Overland. And I remember it being harder.

Kendaric

I wouldn't go as far as calling pre-One Tamriel actually difficult, apart from Craglorn of course (and certain story bosses). It was just incredibly tedious as most enemies had way too much health.
Even back then you were rarely forced to block/dodge unless you were in a fight with more than two enemies or fighting world bosses.

It was even a common complaint from many of the group/dungeon people that overland didn't teach players to block and dodge.

Braffin

AzuraFan wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

You know why vet dungeons and vet trials are called vet? Because there is a normal mode for a more casual experience.

Overland is lacking those options tho.

Agreed. Which is why I said I'd be fine with an OPTIONAL more difficult overland. But that isn't what's happening, from what I can see with Necrom. A non-optional bump in difficulty is starting to creep in, which is the wrong direction, IMO.

I agree with you, it's a quite suboptimal solution for everyone. I think nobody intends to push out more "casual" players (I don't like this term btw, as I play casual myself while doing also vet content regularily.).
It's the opposite some of us "sweatlords" are concerned of. Year after year content was taken away from us, our complaints about that were wiped away in this very forums with suggestion like "just nerf yourself" and more and more of us left the game as we didn't feel welcome anymore, while some "casuals" celebrated this exodus as "not a big loss". It's hard to care for the needs of people acting like this.

But who is opposing an optional "veteran overland" in the community? (Nobody can force zos to implement it, I'm well aware of that. But I'm sure our opinions and arguments do matter.)

Look through this thread and see for yourself. The very same people crying for further (non-optional) nerfs all the time:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread/p1

Don't get me wrong, this is not about calling out someone, but about analyzising the roots of the gap in the playerbase. In my opinion the problems aren't caused be "sweatlords", "casuals" or solo players but by a (hopefully) very few toxic individuals (on both sides of the gap), which are acting out of envy, the need to "show off", shame or whatever reason.

Tia413

Kendaric wrote: »

I wouldn't go as far as calling pre-One Tamriel actually difficult, apart from Craglorn of course (and certain story bosses). It was just incredibly tedious as most enemies had way too much health.
Even back then you were rarely forced to block/dodge unless you were in a fight with more than two enemies or fighting world bosses.

It was even a common complaint from many of the group/dungeon people that overland didn't teach players to block and dodge.

"It was just incredibly tedious as most enemies had way too much health."
Well that was what I referred to back in the post I began to speak about Pre One Tam in. It took longer it seemed to kill them.
But then too I wasn't too high of a level back when Vet Ranks changed over to Champion Points. I had only began playing the game shortly before that change.

"It was even a common complaint from many of the group/dungeon people that overland didn't teach players to block and dodge."

And it still is all these years later.

AzuraFan

Braffin wrote: »

Look through this thread and see for yourself. The very same people crying for further (non-optional) nerfs all the time:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread/p1

Don't get me wrong, this is not about calling out someone, but about analyzising the roots of the gap in the playerbase. In my opinion the problems aren't caused be "sweatlords", "casuals" or solo players but by a (hopefully) very few toxic individuals (on both sides of the gap), which are acting out of envy, the need to "show off", shame or whatever reason.

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.

My own thoughts on this are that this game has always had an identity crisis. ZOS has never really decided what its target audience is. Because there's never been a clear vision, they swing from trying to please one group to another to another, and they end up pleasing no one.

Braffin

AzuraFan wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Look through this thread and see for yourself. The very same people crying for further (non-optional) nerfs all the time:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread/p1

Don't get me wrong, this is not about calling out someone, but about analyzising the roots of the gap in the playerbase. In my opinion the problems aren't caused be "sweatlords", "casuals" or solo players but by a (hopefully) very few toxic individuals (on both sides of the gap), which are acting out of envy, the need to "show off", shame or whatever reason.

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.

My own thoughts on this are that this game has always had an identity crisis. ZOS has never really decided what its target audience is. Because there's never been a clear vision, they swing from trying to please one group to another to another, and they end up pleasing no one.

Understandable, it's quite a read

You summarize the concerns quite well nonetheless. And both arguments are flawed in my opinion:

1) The assumption that the own playstyle represents the majority and other ways to play this game are niche program at best, is nothing more than that: an assumption (to enforce personal likings).

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.

I agree to your words about the lack of vision btw, but after almost ten years it's to late for changes. There is already an established playerbase with widely differing experiences and expectations. Best thing we can hope for is a game which fulfill some of the needs each group demands without excluding any of them almost completely. Having options would be a start.