Overland combat change coming with the seasons changes

Castagere

It says overworld combat difficulty will be increased. Why don't they give us an overland difficulty slider? Why is that so difficult for them? LOTRO just did and it was a huge hit from all the players in that game. They added an NPC in all major hubs you can talk to to make the change. Come on ZOS do that already.

disky

I expect that this thread will be closed and referred to the pinned Overland Content Feedback thread, in which the idea of a slider, as well as the LotRO implementation, have been discussed for quite some time. That being said, the letter doesn't actually say how they're going to handle this so I don't think we should assume it will be a global change. I also think that many players want things to stay the way they are and I'm sure ZOS understands this, so they're probably considering an optional implementation.

spartaxoxo

You don't even know how they are doing that. They haven't actually told us how they are going about changing things up.

Also there is a thread on overland already.

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

Ugrak

Yeah if there is one single takeaway from the megathread on overland difficulty, it is that the population has widely diverging preferences regarding difficulty. So providing players with the ability to choose individually seems best.

Quest content in ESO could benefit from having some kind of story mode available as an accessibility feature. Simply maintaining difficulty, but making the player undefeatable and maybe boosting damage. So players who struggle can always complete quests and get quest rewards. Obviously that should disable earning performance rewards. Just got to make sure to avoid making it in such a way that bots and similar can exploit it.

Aside from pockets of challenge, current overland doesn't even feel like combat, and I don't even think it's the lack of difficulty itself that is primarily to blame, but mostly too few enemies at a time, who are doing too little. If the pulls were larger and more complex, that might go a long way toward making it feel like there is some kind of fight going on.

On this note, enemy placement could be done like it is in Cyrodiil, where they are concentrated around points of interest rather than being sprinkled everywhere throughout the zone. So players who want bigger fights can get that, and those who want to explore and harvest, can avoid fights if they don't want that.

Overland difficulty as such belongs in the megathread, but what I mainly want from the announced overland difficulty revision is mainly to get those (currently missing) fast paced; low-commitment fights where the outcome is uncertain. DLC world bosses and events provide some overland challenge already for those who seek it, but can be a bit of a slog. Would be nice with generic enemies that have a real chance to kill the player if the mechanics are not respected, like a hard world boss, but without the massive HP pool. Would do wonders for the questing experience IMO.

Desiato

Considering the change they just made to cloak to make it easier to use, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

I would guess we're talking the overland difficulty we saw when Orsinium launched, not 2014 vet difficulty.

It's kind of dumb that all these "trash" mobs have mechanics we never see because they die in one or two gcds. Why do they even exist? What is the purpose?

With that said, I hope they are unafraid to launch a modern day Craglorn (as it existed in 2014) as optional content that might not appeal to everyone.

Ugrak

Desiato wrote: »

With that said, I hope they are unafraid to launch a modern day Craglorn (as it existed in 2014) as optional content that might not appeal to everyone.

I think the main problem with the original Craglorn launch was that there was no other veteran zone. You could sort of still romp around in either Bangkorai, Reaper's March or the Rift (depending on which alliance you played) but the rest of Tamriel (plus Coldharbor) was underleveled to the point where you would get no loot or xp. So it was really just either Craglorn or Cyrodiil once you hit max level.

And Craglorn of course was basically a zone-wide veteran dungeon, so quite a jump for most players. Basically a combination of too soon, and a lack of options.

I vividly recall walking off the road to mine a piece of ore and aggroing one enemy (at a longer distance than usual) and having a pull sized like a small army rapidly emerge from behind the hill and kill me.

I think ESO has sufficient variety that it could pull off a Craglorn style adventure zone today though.

If they want to just experiment, an idea I've played around with in my head is to just use the Infinite Archive as the vehicle for something like this. For example a library wing with apocrypha books you can get pulled into. Taking you to anything from smaller instances to entire zones. Old delves, world bosses, trials, questlines, all embellished and modernized.

Desiato

Ugrak wrote: »

I think the main problem with the original Craglorn launch was that there was no other veteran zone. You could sort of still romp around in either Bangkorai, Reaper's March or the Rift (depending on which alliance you played) but the rest of Tamriel (plus Coldharbor) was underleveled to the point where you would get no loot or xp. So it was really just either Craglorn or Cyrodiil once you hit max level.

When Crag was introduced, most ESO zones had a veteran version except coldharbour, main/guild quest zones, the base game "I" dungeons which were normal -- but that normal had much tougher mechs than normals of today.

After completing the main story players had the option of starting Cadwell's Silver, and later Gold which presented veteran versions of the zones of other factions. For example, after completing the main story on my AD character, I started Cadwell's silver and could then access a Veteran Rank versions of EP zones. After completing silver, I could then access the VR version of DC zones.

The difference with Crag was that the overland mobs were in larger packs and the delve mobs were much tougher than normal delve mobs. I think the VR level cap was raised with its introduction too, but I don't recall offhand. Story mobs were tuned for groups, but decent combatants could solo them.

The original Crag was very popular. It only died because ZOS neglected it for so long. Until 1T, when it was nerfed via normalization, its gear was useless because it was under-level.

ssewallb14_ESO

Yeah I highly doubt they'll buff everything across the board. It'll likely be some kind of "veteran mode" mechanic.

Interested to see what they're cooking.

Ugrak

Desiato wrote: »

When Crag was introduced, all ESO zones had a veteran version except coldharbour

Yeah sort of. Sadly you would just pass through them on the way up the veteran ranks. You'd get to level 50 usually in Coldharbor after completing your own alliance zones. From there on out you'd do Cadwell's silver and then gold for the other two alliances, levelling those vet ranks. But all zones became useless for loot and xp after leveling 5 levels past their enemies. Even the materials were leveled. Leaving you with only the third alliance's last zone and Craglorn as PVE zones when at max rank.

I guess the intent may have been to collect all PVE players in Craglorn and focus them on group content. Not the worst idea on paper, but of course it collided with how a lot of players of Elder Scrolls games like to do casual solo stuff. I think they overcorrected a bit in that direction though, turning it all into a Tamriel-wide starter island.

A bit of casual Elder Souls would be a good fit for me.