Just a thought: Character dependent Combat Experience Levels for PVE

Elderpatriot

Dear TESO-Community, ZoS Moderators/Developers.

I've always felt quite comfortable in the vivid world of Tamriel - even if I have to admit that i have never been an extreme fan of the Elder Scrolls series. TESO was my very first intense contact with the famous RPG-Series - of course i knew about the others (Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind) at that point. I simply like the world, the unique gameplay approach enriched with roleplaying elements - and most of all the friendly community.

However, there is one topic, the so called Overworld PVE/Content, that always causes friction. I also belong to the faction that would like experience a little more challenge in normal everyday questing....but I still have to note that there are players who seem to see it completely differently. And then there is ZOS - probably cautious when it comes to this difficult topic and constantly worried, that too much change could lead to an exodus of players.

Respecting and satisfying all sides at the same time seems to be almost impossible. On the one hand, balance and gameflow, on the other hand, the completely understandable, economic aspects of a company.


Well - I've been thinking about that recently and I'm wondering what your opinion is, because I have the following suggestion to make on the much discussed issue:

It's about the disadvantages of the scaling system, a satisfactory solution without having to give up the advantages or the actual balancelevel at all. A concept that is relativley easy to adjust, yet should feel impactful but in the end....does not change anything at all. Best of both worlds. Everything stays as it is now and still yet feels completley different.



First let me list up the pros & cons of the current Scaling-PVE-System:

Pros

- The system grants immense freedom in exploring Tamriel. Play any style whereever you want.
- It makes it so much easier to interact with friends/guildmates. You basically can't level up and leave other players behind. That is a very important aspect of the system in my eyes.
- older areas from past chapters and the base game do not become obsolete.

Cons

- Lack of sense of progression, due to the always more or less same enemy strength.
- Many players generally find the game to be too easy in PVE and the combat therefore not satisfying.
- Particularly affected are highlevel champion-characters, which even experience current chapters without much progression or challenge.

I hope most players can broadly agree with me on the points listed.





There are already general ranking systems for usable weapons and skills. But these ranks apply across the board to all situations. And here the following idea came to me:
What if players had an individual combat experience level against each specific opponent (currently referring to overland PVE) in the world?

The idea behind it:

Players will encounter a specific type of enemy for the first time ever (this doesn't mean veteran versions or bosses, but literally every different type of enemy in the world)

He has no experience in dealing with or fighting this opponent. Therefore, he finds it more difficult than with enemies he already knows. As a result, he takes significantly more damage from their attacks and does less damage himself. If he successfully kills this new and initially unknown adversary, he gains combat experience - a kind of leveling system that works like the current use of skills or weapons.

This initial handicap would cause players to initially experience the fight as more challenging. Over time, the effect wears off and the fight becomes more and more effective. So it reaches exactly the level that we currently know from the game and is often the bone of contention in many discussions: it tends to be quite easy.



What exactly could that look like?

In the example I have now come up with, I will set 5 experience levels for the fight.
A player encounters an Great Bear for the first time



Level 0 (first contact)



The Great Bear only takes 50% damage in combat and deals 200% more damage.


Level 1 (Requirement: 10 Great Bears killed)



The Great Bear takes 40% less damage in combat and deals 160% more damage.

Level 2 (Requirement: 30 Great Bears killed)

Damage reduction 30%
Extra damage 120%

....
....
....

Level 5 (requires 125 Great Bears killed)

Damage reduction 0%*

Extra damage 0%*

*It plays exactly as we are used to it now.






Sooner or later it will come down to exactly the balance that we already know today. Little would have to be taken into account in this regard, as the handicaps do not last very long due depending on the necessary amount of kills to advance in this system.

Important: There is also no intention of turning this into some kind of forced grindfest. Therefore, progress should never take too long. It should just happen during gameplay. Nevertheless, it would add a kind of role-playing element to the whole thing and you could look forward to more challanges in PVE-Content in the short term, which then automatically adapts later on back to normal levels.

Champion-Players could also approach new chapters/DLCs in Overland PVE with a little more respect - especially if they choose to level a new character from the start.

You could of course apply individual filters about conditions and strenght of the debuffs for veteran or elite version of enemies and bosses...or if they are exclude from the concept and it only affects foes without any rank in overland PVE as a final decision or just to observe the effect in a more controlled environment.

Even if the initial balance would be a bit off and too harsh - 10 enemies killed (for the first step) will not take much time, it would give you certain feel of progression in combat that you actually get stronger based on that experience and still yet it is active long enough so players cannot rush mindless through the content. It also gives more reason for grouping up in PVE, although solo play is still possible.


Benefits:

- PVE-Overland beeing way too easy is not longer the case at least for a specific time (first contact)
- PVE feeling too hard is not a problem, because the first steps of combat experience levels are achieved relativley quick. And still yet, each enemey is different and will get more attention by a player, if he is not familiar with it.
- It adds a layer of RPG-Element to the combat.
- easy to readjust instead of balancing each enemy on its own for many classes. Basics stay the same as they are today.
- individual access to standard, veteran, elite enemies and bosses possible for a better overall balance.
- it might encourage people to play together in Overland-PVE
- feeling of progression returns, although the scaling-system is still in place.
- best of both worlds. Challenge and easyness in one package.


Downsides:

- Values ​​that are too low can make the system appear unusable and unnoticeable.
- Values ​​that are too high can make combat almost impossible upon first contact. Should be impactful but never undoable.
- (mentioned by i_killed_Vivec) possible overhead problems for traffic (not sure how strong this problem is and what can be done to avoid it/ it is technical)





So, that is my idea about all this. I know this was A LOT to read, however, I hope that I have clearly explained the concept, the idea behind it and the intentions associated with it.

What do you think about that? (You shouldn't be bothered by the numbers/values ​​I picked for the explaination - they were just made up and were just an approximation/suggestion).


Thank you for your patience and time.


sincerely yours

Elderpatriot

Kite42

No way. I hate reverse 'kiddiecapping' systems, and this game already has them. In any adult venture those with greater skill have handicaps - good golfers play from further back, and can disregard fewer strokes. Good chess players are given less time or material.

But in 'kids' games (computer games) we somehow give the newer/weaker players an even bigger challenge. They don't get 'perfected' staves, their lack of CP reduces damage, hit points, healing ability etc.

It sucks, but it is a feature of computer games because they're for kids (right?) and kids just want to win.

Your system makes this nonsense even *worse*!

I_killed_Vivec

Downsides you forgot...

The system now has to calculate the relative difficulty for each and every encounter, as well as keeping track of the "per encounter XP" for each char and each encounter type. Processing overhead explodes, memory requirements for each char (not each user, each char!) explodes. That in itself is a hard NO.

The system now has to combine the relative difficulties for each player when joining an encounter. I've killed tons of bears, you have just met your first; I melt it effortlessly, you manage to get one light attack in. How does the system combine the inputs? How does it assess the XP you should get for your first encounter?

But that's just a matter of rules, not beyond the wit of man, but all adding to the processing overhead.

However, the real killer is this: "Sooner or later it will come down to exactly the balance that we already know today."

That's precisely the problem that players asking for harder overland want to solve! They don't want the balance we have now, they want a challenge for their maxed out characters, rather than just melting mobs that get in the way as if they aren't there.

TLDR: You've added considerable overheads affecting performance, without solving the actual issue.

Elderpatriot

How does it make it worse, if all it does is fading back to the current balance setting of the game in the end? I can not follow that statement.

I agree, it would be troublesome, if PVE would already be on a higher difficulty level (not hard, but let us say easy to average) and therefore as i wrote: the danger of beeing too hard to enjoy, frustrating (Downsides). This is not about introducing a permanent hardcore mode/server for lovers of hard content. It was more the idea to bring back a feeling of progression, a handicap that can be adjusted and played with in a quick & easy way...based on my impression the game is extremly easy to begin with and it does not change at all in this Overland-category. As i mentioned, the values i suggested are just placeholders if they feel too intense / weak or too grindy. And dungeons - may be a complete different story.

But today PVE-Overland seems to be the opposite. So easy that you can forget everything, especially if there is just one single random player nearby - and that happens quiet often.

I made some tests (to be fair, i did not with the great bear) in Glenumbra, VVardenfell and Summerset:

A single melee enemy attacked me, i did not move, did not use any potions and was a level 20 Orc character/nightblade (not a champion yet) wearing selffound green items. Nothing special, no upgrades, no enchanting.

Observations:

- It took me three times about 120 seconds to get killed.
- it took me about 8 seconds to kill that enemey with simply spamming random skills.

So those enemies had about 7,5% of my strength/survival ability - for a beginner character, not for a player using those champion-points and better equipment.

Of course there might be differences from zone to zone and different enemies, but my overall impression is: it has not really changed since i was playing this game on PC 7-8 years ago. And it represents more or less that PVE-direction we are currently in.


So just using the suggested values for the combat experience level at the first contact with an unknown enemy (which again, are made up and just for demonstration purposes - not claming, they are a good pick):

- 200% extradamage would reduce 120 seconds defensless survival to about 40 seconds duration*
- 50% damagereduce would stretch the time for a kill from 8 seconds to about 16 seconds.

In the end each one of those tested single enemies would have around 37% of my strenght...for the first 10 encounters and then it starts fading already. Again, no healingspells, no leeching, no healpotions no special liferegsetups, no dodgerolls, no championpoints, no special armor/weapons - just standard stuff selffound lowlevel, not even walking to avoid attacks. Just standing there and getting punched.

40 Seconds is still plenty time to react and not hard to fight....but healing and potions would become a bit more necessary from time to time, especially if you are fighting groups that have unknown types of enemies with that buff. Why is this considered to be problematic and unreasonable?

Kids play fortnite like a jedimaster and build up towers within a blink of a second, because they learn so quick and are damn good at computergames. I honestly doubt it is kids, who repell a slightly higher level of challenge as starting condition. May be it is the adult audience in the end...but, really are they all? That was my impression: It is completly mixed and that is why i had those thoughts about a system to give everyone a piece of the cake.




*Edit: this might not be exact since the natural liferegeneration ticks less often in this case, so it might be shorter. Again: just demonstration purpose as a setup.

Edit 2: Sorry, i did not see your post Vivec. Well as i mentioned, it was meant as a compromise because obviously nobody will change the Overland-difficulty on a larger and permanent scale. Did not happen since Tamriel Unlimted in any noticeable way it seems.
And yes, it will revert to the current state after a while - but when visiting a zone the very first time with a char and questing there, it can feel a lot different in terms of difficulty. Later on revisiting you gained the combat experience and it will be again the cookie-cutter situation. Does not seem it alright for you to progress and be stronger later on?

I already have the impression as a solo-player for PVE-Questung that i am already in or close to the finalstate of power..... where i should be AFTER progressing from the very beginning. Of course hey - if ZoS would overhaul everything piece by piece i'd be happy - but honestly - do you believe that will happen? Your arguments are valid and understandable...but you know....there too much opposition in my eyes and for some reason ZoS is keeping its plans for this problem a secret (may be they do not even have plans about this topic at all).


So that is the reason for this approach: Im not trying to solve the problem just in the favour for one side - that was not my intention in the first place. Otherwhise i could simply make one of those "PVE is too easy please make it harder" topics/posts and i think there are plenty of them already and the amount of advocates and oppossition seems to trap us in this unsatisfactory situation.

About the overhead - well, this might be a problem i have not considered.....however i am not a programmer and therefore i am not qualified to make statements if this is a real thing and what posibilities exists to implement such a check to avoid unnecessary traffic.

Amottica

Leveling up in ESO is so fast that I see no point in making adjustments. I can get a character to 50 in a weekend. I could probably do it in a day if I really pushed it.

LunaFlora

no thanks.
i like the amount of challenge in most overland situations right now. when i started i already struggled with certain quest bosses in Greymoor, Orsinium, and even the Valley of Blades quest from the main quest.

if we had this when i started playing i might not have kept playing.



if with your idea it'll become how it is now after killing a certain amount of monsters then the players who want more challenge aren't getting it, because most of them are experienced longtime players.

But it shouldn't be based on level or playtime either.
Challenge like this should be optional.


Buffs or debuffs we can enable or disable via an extra menu/tool would probably be best to decrease or increase challenge in overland for players.

it would be a choice you individually make and some of the de-/buffs already exist like Maim and Protection which reduces damage done and reduces damage taken respectively.

my suggestion has already been talked about in the Overland feedback thread similarly so it's nothing new though.

Avran_Sylt

I assume the system wouldn’t be active in dungeons, otherwise that just becomes a death knell for new players doing random normals and creates another gap between new and vet players.

Other than that, this system only considers a veterans perspective of approaching new content: already fully geared with no room for item growth and established skill rotation, given a new “challenge” and form of progression simply through enemy health/damage inflation. (Which also becomes trivial again for some reason?).

This is less of a challenge and more like introducing a bestiary “sticker book”, at the expense of making the new player experience more of a slogfest.

Newcomers will be met with an even more difficult challenge while they’re still learning the game and are under-geared, and as it’s purely number stacking for attrition more than an actual challenge that can be mitigated with skill, it just makes for an overall slower onboarding experience through initial questlines.

Just introduce a “Training Weapon” that decreases your damage by 90% and disables item sets.

Elric_665

Why change the Game if you want a Challenge in Overland Content?
Easy Things to do:
1. No Engame Raidgear - only max. Level 35 Overland Sets (White Gear).
2. No Champion Points.
3. No Buffood.
4. One usable Bar (surely NO Oakensoul)

Elderpatriot

@LunaFlora

hello there Lunaflora ,

i excluded bosses, veterans, elites from this suggestion as the balance situation might be very different compared to the generic standard PVE-Quest-FOEs (also there are a lot of worse examples for them aswell for sure and needs to be adressed). So i understand there might be situations in the game that frustrated you and seemed to be already challenging in your eyes....but do you really believe this is representative for the overall pve-experience and therefore a valid example to reject any adjustments?

For the point it should be optional is always difficult in the openworld part of an MMO-Game - because you are obviously not alone and get interferred already alot by others. To play in an instanced copy of the world could do the trick here, and towns could be gatheringpoints to meet other players. But as long anybody can come across and 2 hit the boss you are sitting on in hardmode, because he chooses to play easy mode instead, i do not believe optional difficulty sliders would do a good job. Those are benefits from the Singleplayer-Universe to have that freedom and i doubt it would fit into the current setup of how ESO works or how MMORPGs are working in general. Unless they offer a seperate Veteran-Server (hate that name to be honest, actually i would call them Story-Server (current balance) and Standard-Server (more challenging balance) were all players share the same amount of rules to beat the content. That is unavoidable in my opinion. As long other players share the same open world with you, this can happen anytime and can be abused unfortunatley. That is why instances exist and different modes for them are setup. Same rules for all are necessary in a multiplayer environment.



And may be you are picking something wrong up here: It does only get easier if you repeat the same content against the same enemies (again not groupdungeons, group content bosses, pve bosses included at the moment).

So, if you are leveling up you get more powerful towards enemies, that you already beat multiple times in the zone. I do not see that this is the opposite of progression or interfers with the problem, that everything is easy as it is today.

Just imagine Golden Road is ready to play and you are questing there with your experienced highlevel char there for the first time. Enemies would be more robust/dangerous and not easier to beat even if you are highlevel. The transition to a higher difficulty exists in this case. This system would reset the enemies strength depending on the fact you have already trained against them in that zone or not. It has nothing to do if you are highlevel or lowlevel on your character perse....in the end something simelar was in place back than, when zones were gated with level restrictions. You level up, get stronger in Zone A and finish it - than you enter next Zone and it feels a bit harder again until you make your way through it and collected enough combat experience levels...until next zone.


It is actually progression in a very simplistic way, i agree.....but that would make you stop playing the game as you mentioned? Obviously at the current state nothing gets harder at all in PVE-Solo-Questing, everything is easy all the time except very rare encounters (but again, im am not talking about bosses, groupcontent and so on at the moment). Im just looking at the Arcanist class and his beam of death. I mean i burn with one spellcast though entire groups as a complete newbie. I know this is an extreme example, but this is the direction of difficulty (or lets call it easyculty is a more accurate term) the entire Quest-Content for Soloplayer feels.


If Teso would work more like certain other Online-games, that towns and villages are used as hubs and gatheringpoint for players to meet, chat and trade, while moving outside each player plays in its own copy of the world (unless you invite a friend to your party) - there a difficulty-slider could be very good solution, because nobody else gets affected by it and can interrupt your gameplay. It could also open more possibilities for instanced PVE-Changes of the world based upon your roleplay and decissions you make towards NPCs. A feature to invite friends or random to your own version of worldprogression would be cool - or to visit others and simply to help them if required. Okay , this is a bit too offtopic now....just thoughts.

I mean no offense here towards you, dear LunaFlora, and how you like to experience the game. I am just curious about how serious your statement is in that regard. May be you are asking for a complete seperate difficulty setting/server to choose from - but that is a complete different approach, but i would be fine with that. I am just thinking about solutions, because i am afraid nothing will ever happen, if one side simply wants to dominate the other faction (easy players vs hardmode lovers). Not drastic enough of a change in the eyes of many or way too much for the others....but i stopped demanding complete submission from others, because i think i know what is best for them. I actually would have other things in my mind for the game, but obiously as you demonstrate, i am not alone here and have to listen to the opinions of others....as ZOS needs to aswell.

Elderpatriot

Elric_665 wrote: »

Why change the Game if you want a Challenge in Overland Content?
Easy Things to do:
1. No Engame Raidgear - only max. Level 35 Overland Sets (White Gear).
2. No Champion Points.
3. No Buffood.
4. One usable Bar (surely NO Oakensoul)

The point is in my eyes: Because it is already very easy, i never ever wasted any thoughts about the need of championpoints, bufffood, endgame raidgear..............for the current level of challenge in Openworld-Quest-PVE? And of course you are looking at it from the perspective from a high level player - may be long term engagement aswell - i understand it at a certain degree, that people have seen all the stuff already and just want to get their character up for the endgame content...and therefore are in a hurry.

However, this extras are only used to get rid of PVE-Content much faster, to powerlevel your character basically. If you exclude this, then you are still stuck with the 100-120 seconds deathtimer, if you just stand there with green armor and get struck by the enemy like a punching bag in a 1on1 PVE situation without any attempt to defend yourself. So it does not create a challenge by switching from godmode to very easy/story mode. It becomes just less of a shortcut in terms of time you need to to level up. But that completely misses the mark.

As i mentioned, there might be differences between different types but it should not be difficult at all to find such weak foes. And what options are left to artifically raise the challenge also nobody else would do so (which counteracts the idea that everyone plays by the same rules in the game)? Turning of the monitor or running naked is no option and would feel silly - also i believe that i could make it quiet far with standard equipment for lowlevels in a solo dungeon, just by listening to the combat sounds...but navigating through the corridors would be horrible and impossible.

moo_2021

Only if this is limited to quests.


I don't want to fight overland mobs. They just come at me while I'm travelling and it's really annoying even if it'd only take a second to wipe entire group.


Overland would be more fun if mobs are running and hiding from players.

LunaFlora

Elderpatriot wrote: »

@LunaFlora

hello there Lunaflora ,

i excluded bosses, veterans, elites from this suggestion as the balance situation might be very different compared to the generic standard PVE-Quest-FOEs (also there are a lot of worse examples for them aswell for sure and needs to be adressed). So i understand there might be situations in the game that frustrated you and seemed to be already challenging in your eyes....but do you really believe this is representative for the overall pve-experience and therefore a valid example to reject any adjustments?

For the point it should be optional is always difficult in the openworld part of an MMO-Game - because you are obviously not alone and get interferred already alot by others. To play in an instanced copy of the world could do the trick here, and towns could be gatheringpoints to meet other players. But as long anybody can come across and 2 hit the boss you are sitting on in hardmode, because he chooses to play easy mode instead, i do not believe optional difficulty sliders would do a good job. Those are benefits from the Singleplayer-Universe to have that freedom and i doubt it would fit into the current setup of how ESO works or how MMORPGs are working in general. Unless they offer a seperate Veteran-Server (hate that name to be honest, actually i would call them Story-Server (current balance) and Standard-Server (more challenging balance) were all players share the same amount of rules to beat the content. That is unavoidable in my opinion. As long other players share the same open world with you, this can happen anytime and can be abused unfortunatley. That is why instances exist and different modes for them are setup. Same rules for all are necessary in a multiplayer environment.



And may be you are picking something wrong up here: It does only get easier if you repeat the same content against the same enemies (again not groupdungeons, group content bosses, pve bosses included at the moment).

So, if you are leveling up you get more powerful towards enemies, that you already beat multiple times in the zone. I do not see that this is the opposite of progression or interfers with the problem, that everything is easy as it is today.

Just imagine Golden Road is ready to play and you are questing there with your experienced highlevel char there for the first time. Enemies would be more robust/dangerous and not easier to beat even if you are highlevel. The transition to a higher difficulty exists in this case. This system would reset the enemies strength depending on the fact you have already trained against them in that zone or not. It has nothing to do if you are highlevel or lowlevel on your character perse....in the end something simelar was in place back than, when zones were gated with level restrictions. You level up, get stronger in Zone A and finish it - than you enter next Zone and it feels a bit harder again until you make your way through it and collected enough combat experience levels...until next zone.


It is actually progression in a very simplistic way, i agree.....but that would make you stop playing the game as you mentioned? Obviously at the current state nothing gets harder at all in PVE-Solo-Questing, everything is easy all the time except very rare encounters (but again, im am not talking about bosses, groupcontent and so on at the moment). Im just looking at the Arcanist class and his beam of death. I mean i burn with one spellcast though entire groups as a complete newbie. I know this is an extreme example, but this is the direction of difficulty (or lets call it easyculty is a more accurate term) the entire Quest-Content for Soloplayer feels.


If Teso would work more like certain other Online-games, that towns and villages are used as hubs and gatheringpoint for players to meet, chat and trade, while moving outside each player plays in its own copy of the world (unless you invite a friend to your party) - there a difficulty-slider could be very good solution, because nobody else gets affected by it and can interrupt your gameplay. It could also open more possibilities for instanced PVE-Changes of the world based upon your roleplay and decissions you make towards NPCs. A feature to invite friends or random to your own version of worldprogression would be cool - or to visit others and simply to help them if required. Okay , this is a bit too offtopic now....just thoughts.

I mean no offense here towards you, dear LunaFlora, and how you like to experience the game. I am just curious about how serious your statement is in that regard. May be you are asking for a complete seperate difficulty setting/server to choose from - but that is a complete different approach, but i would be fine with that. I am just thinking about solutions, because i am afraid nothing will ever happen, if one side simply wants to dominate the other faction (easy players vs hardmode lovers). Not drastic enough of a change in the eyes of many or way too much for the others....but i stopped demanding complete submission from others, because i think i know what is best for them. I actually would have other things in my mind for the game, but obiously as you demonstrate, i am not alone here and have to listen to the opinions of others....as ZOS needs to aswell.

i feel like you did not even read what i said.

i did not mention optional difficulty sliders.
i mentioned debuffs to increase challenge and buffs to decrease it.

we already get debuffs from monsters and buffs from skills and sets so having a tool to enable specific de-/buffs would be optional challenge for individual players.

i did not say anything about seperate servers or instances.
players already get different buffs separately so another server or instance isn't necessary.



And yes i think my experience with combat is representative of for a part of the overall pve population, because i know plenty of others that have had the same experience.
Not everyone, but plenty of people.

increased challenge should be optional precisely because there are plenty of people who do not want more challenge in overland.
And because there are also plenty of people who do want more challenge in overland.

Elderpatriot

@avran sylt:

Maybe there could be different handicaps for championplayers and nonchampions - but that is a question of adjusting things. And again i have to remember:

This is not targeting at veteranplayers exclusively at all. It is for Questing PVE Solo content in the first place no matter what your character level is: Story content, filler quests, guild quests and so on. Veterans could benefit from it aswell, since they are already so dominating in PVE.

But the statement of yours confuses me... that the game is already very challenging for new players and it would become too hard otherwhise implies, that everything is fine and everything is well balanced - and there is no topic about PVE-Content beeing too easy at all. I can hardly imagine that...may be you have never ever played any game in your life before and ESO is your first pick, but this cannot be the main target audience here, or is it?

If 100-120 seconds of standing still until you fall in so called undergeared stuff is already a challenge to be dealt with, then i am completley off about my expecxtations and what other players can handle....and i am not a true champion/veteran player, i have two 50s back from the time, when tamriel unlimted launched and it became so easy as it is today (i play on PS5 for several reasons now after a long break).

Teso is known very well for the lack of any learning curve until you hit the endgame-stuff. I agree with you, that certain other additions in combat would be cooler to make it more skillbased and instead of adding more dmgoutput/hps:

- way faster execution of special attacks with those zoning indicators with more impact
(may be the follow you at a certain speed instead of beeing static, so you have to time your dodgeroll instead of simply running is the easy and common way out of it)

- enemies use more dogde, interrupts and block to counter your attacks (introduced in the tutorial but rarley seen ingame-PVE-combat in Overland/Soloquests)
- more ensnares to prevent you from simply running through entire camps without any further consideration.
- overall more impact of special abilites.
- skill based combat (observing enemies, what they do and how you can aproach them in the best way)


however....in the end, if the damage output is so awefully low that you just will not die in most scenarios...this will lead you to the point of not caring about it anymore and nothing of this will ever come to life or matter until you hit this very hard wall of endgame content. And yes, it sounds simple and a bit lazy, but dmg output and surviveablity of the enemies is crucial for the other stuff to become noticeable in the first place. And again this system with combat experience levels would not even go so far to make it permanent. It should be an initial task to deal with (not too hard so, i am absolutley not for making it hard/impossible for newcomers. I absolutley agree about that would be not a good thing to do).


However usually discussions about this topic turn often into this specific direction:

Either people react very harshly to any suggestion (and they are free to comment and like or dislike it, that is not what i am trying to point out) ...but they claim that any adjustment into one direction would destroy the game and make it unplayable...or it doesn't even go far enough for them instead.

So there must be some space between hardmodes and absolutley nothing at all. And i would love to see that beeing adressed.

Elderpatriot

i feel like you did not even read what i said.

i did not mention optional difficulty sliders.
i mentioned debuffs to increase challenge and buffs to decrease it.

we already get debuffs from monsters and buffs from skills and sets so having a tool to enable specific de-/buffs would be optional challenge for individual players.

i did not say anything about seperate servers or instances.
players already get different buffs separately so another server or instance isn't necessary.

I apologize if you feel i have not paid enough attention to your words.

But i looked at your post like that: Isn't a difficulty buff not exactly the same as a slider in the end? It is a switch to turn on and turn off - which sounds good first and freedom of choice - but leads to the same problems as i described, because you are not alone in the MMORPG-World and playing side by side with other players.

You will end up crossing people sharing the same zone, the same quest, the same solodungeon, the same target - but they play with different conditions/Buffs than you are. So while it can be a cool experience if you meet up with friends sharing your difficulty buff and having a great adventure, it will happen a lot that another guy or group comes along with a much easier setting and just slams your targets into the ground leaving you there as a spectator.

This situations of course will happen anyway in MMORPGs - they are happening right now today in TESO - but a seperation with buffs as a difficulty switch will provoke them to become even more common. It is a difference - at least i see it that way- if a more advanced player has advantages over your state own of progress.

That is why i brought up all the other thoughts (that are somewhat connected with your idea of adjusting things).

So again, no bad feelings, it was not my intention to give you that impression.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

With there already being a thread opened on this subject here, we're going to go ahead and close this one down.

Thank you for understanding.