RIP ESOU

Lags · January 3

Aldoss wrote: »

Figured I wouldn't waste my time because I assumed this thread would get deleted pretty fast and didn't want to waste my time.

I'll give it to ZOS for allowing it to stay, but they've earned no faith from me that they won't still delete it once the higher ups are off their vacations next Monday.

I watched the video. I watched Nefas on occassion, but wasn't a part of his communities.

For me, it's not who Nefas is, but what he represents. In business terms, Nefas is (was) the gold standard of a brand's avatar: the brand evangelist. He was not only a customer, but someone who loved the game so much, he created systems, content, curriculum, communities, and websites that would help other people fall in love with the game the same way Nefas had.

Normally, brands would do their best to try to retain customers like that, and while I know that this is just one side of the story, I couldn't help but get this feeling of nodding my head and saying "yuuuuup" while listening to the things that Nefas said that ZOS did. It's a shame that I can easily see so many ZOS people being generally condescending or outright threatening to someone. There isn't enough social capital that they've earned over the years for me to give them any benefit of the doubt here.

Perhaps they'll make a post giving their side of the story, but it makes too much sense not to. It's the smart thing to do, but also, it's just ZOS' MO at this point. They don't communicate. When they do, it's generally poorly done or tactless, unless it's done by an employee who arguably has the least amount of control and authority (@ZOS_Kevin - the one person Nefas referred to as a generally great guy).

U35 was a changing tide, not just for me, but for a lot of players. I'm not sure what happened to the management structure that caused this tidal shift away from the essence of the game that originally drew me and my wife in, but it was plainly clear to us that supporting them financially was not in the cards.

At this point, it's clear to me that the faults of ESO's trajectory are the cause of not one, but likely many of the directors and managers at ZOS. Much like the toxicity that Blizzard cultivated, ZOS seems to have unfortunately cultivated an aura of narcissism and ego. I think that was warranted when it was the game that I fell in love with back in 2019, but while the game's essence has degraded into the absolute dreadful state that we currently find it in, the ego has seemingly increased inversely.

U44 is the second worst patch I can remember since U35 and @ZOS_MattFiror made no mention of these faults in his annual letter. That's unreal. Imagine if a car company unveiled a car, but the engine in everyone's car would randomly shut off during use. Then, not even two months later, the CEO makes an annual statement that says nothing about it.

I've never played a game with a development team that communicates more poorly than ZOS. I've never played a game that has as many bugs as ESO, yet still somehow generates AAA money. I've never played a game that has has bugs like "stuck in combat" that (quite literally) have never been fixed in nearly a decade. It's actually baffling. Bewildering.

My wife and I took our money away in U35, but we've recently taken our time away, too. We found a new game with a new world and have been having a blast so far. I don't really think ZOS can change from what they've become. One director change isn't enough. This is nearly a decade of behavior that's been reinforced into habit and I just really don't think the will power exists to steer them from it.

I'm sad to see ESO turn into this. We loved this game. Of course, I'll be excited to come back, but what's going to get us back isn't some trinket, class, or other intangible digital object. What we want is a development team that actually shows that they care about their game and engages with their players in common sense mediums to gather that feedback and then actually sets goals and roadmaps and allows their playerbase to hold them responsible for meeting those goals.

It's been 2 months since @SkaraMinoc's post on the BG livestream and we haven't even received a request from ZOS to fill out a survey asking us to volunteer our thoughts on the matter. We will receive zero information about what they're planning to do to resolve the myriad issues that U44 dumped on us until PTS day 1, which will, once again, start the 21 day countdown crunch time for the devs and combat team to do what they've proven time and time again to be wholeheartedly impossible and try to balance their game. It's really depressing to watch a AAA studio flounder like this while they boast about the $2B war chest that their player base has bestowed upon them.

To circle this back to the medium that most people will know Nefas from, it's currently still prime time on a Thursday night in North America. There are currently more people on Twitch watching TES4 Oblivion, a game nearly twice as old as ESO, than are currently watching ESO. The only similar game that ESO has more viewers than is GW2, but it's only by a couple hundred. WOW, FFXIV, BDO, AOC, NW, D2, T&L, Albion Online, and Lost Ark all have more viewers than this game, most by several thousand viewers. I get that not everyone here watches Twitch, but this is honestly a devastating blow to this game when, not even a few years ago, this game would easily be in the top 5 most watched MMOs on the platform.

The brain drain is real and ZOS doesn't really seem to care. Or, in Nefas' case, seem to be actively trying to instigate it.

10/10 post. Ill deff give it to them as well, for not shutting the thread down. Even though a couple comments are deff over the top. Honestly surprised they haven't been removed yet. But its going to take time and actual change for people to have faith again. I hope things improve. I hope they actually want to change. I have seen little to make believe it, but ill always hope. Ive spent like 25k hours in this game since 2016. Spent an amount of money i would rather not think about. And over the last year or two ive spent almost no money and been playing other games more than eso. But no matter what im playing i would rather be playing eso, just not how things are now. More like how things were before.

Hopefully they back track some of the bad changes, and start trying to improve things, make things exciting, and make this game feel like an mmo agian. But when you see things like this video, its just hard to believe it will happen. The stuff in this video didnt happen years ago, most of this is within the last year afaik, and some of it even within the last few months. So it doesnt seem like the egos have changed, nor does it seem like zos is willing to admit they have made some mistakes. But regardless, many of us will come back if things change for the better.

Stamicka · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

ESO is a TES THEMED game. It's not a solo questing game. ESO is an MMO with PvP and trials that require grouping and a very time consuming learning curve to master. It's far more rewarding to git good as opposed to just mindlessly pushing buttons.

So everyone needs to "git gud" and engage in PvP, and trials, and group with others because that is what some others find far more rewarding?

Maybe some a lot of us enjoy "mindlessly pushing buttons", and spending time solo questing, and decorating our houses, etc.. But sometimes we also enjoy grouping with others for things that we want to participate in, because we want to, and because we find it rewarding, not because it's expected of us.

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

[snip] You can continue to stay in your solo questing bubble and play the game how you want. I really don’t see anywhere where somebody said you can’t continue to do that.

The fact that ESOU is shutting down doesn’t affect you whatsoever in this case. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

SilverBride · January 3

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Thysbe · January 3

Nefas did more than just mere content creation.

The ESOU organised projects, class mentorships, group finders before there was an ingame option. Thats what I call community management, provide a platform to exchange on all aspects of the game (there were even housing and fashion departments). So the end of this is a big blow to the ESO community.

Currently ESOU has 22.2k Members the official ESO Discord has 41k. So I would say thats significant.

Lags · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

ESO is a TES THEMED game. It's not a solo questing game. ESO is an MMO with PvP and trials that require grouping and a very time consuming learning curve to master. It's far more rewarding to git good as opposed to just mindlessly pushing buttons.

So everyone needs to "git gud" and engage in PvP, and trials, and group with others because that is what some others find far more rewarding?

Maybe some a lot of us enjoy "mindlessly pushing buttons", and spending time solo questing, and decorating our houses, etc.. But sometimes we also enjoy grouping with others for things that we want to participate in, because we want to, and because we find it rewarding, not because it's expected of us.

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

Maybe you have a good outlook on how things should be in this game, for it to be a healthy thriving mmo, but many others from the casual side of the community dont. The type of people that say zos should remove cyrodiil, or make trials and vet dlc dungeons super easy. Those people are trying to remove parts of the game we love, and most of them dont even try these things.

I cant think of anyone i know, that is a end game pvp/pver, that would want to remove story or questing content from the game, so i find it extremely entitled and short sighted when i see people say these things about parts of the game i love.

I agree people should 100% play how they want but zos shouldn't make things worse for the end game community to appease the casual community. Which is what they have been doing for the last few years. Eso has always been one of the most causal/solo friendly mmos to exist. Even before one tamriel, but especially after. But the changes over the last few years have been pulling this game away from what an mmo is. And it hasnt just impacted end game players, its impacted everyone. From trading, to collecting, to achievement hunters, to causal guilds that want to pvp on the weekends and do some trials every now and again.

all im saying is i think they did a pretty good job before like 2021 making this game casual friendly while still keeping end game players happy. Ofc there was always problems that still held eso back, performance and rewards to name a couple, but nothing like you see today. I think most players understand that to have a good thriving mmo you need all kinds of players, from casual to sweaty, doing whatever they want to do in the game. And if you're someone that just wants skyrim online then all i can say is things will just continue to decline and the game will not grow.

moderatelyfatman · January 3

@Erickson9610
Why have more than 4-5 websites if they're each sufficient for most purposes? Who visits more than 5 websites for the same information?

Why have multiple sources of the same information?

Deltia leaves: Why have 3-4 websites...

Nefas leaves: Why have 2-3 websites....

Alcast quits (not yet): Why have 1-2 websites....

Skinny Cheeks moves on (please no): Why have.... oh wait, it's gone!

ESO is a complicated game with many roles, classes and playstyles and every content creator tends to be specialised in one of them.
I go to SkinnyCheeks when I want an endgame dps build, HackThe Minotaur when I want a fun or overland built and Deltia if a want a PvP build unless its a magsorc in which case I go to Malcolm.
There's Tank Club for people who want to learn to tank and Hyperioxes for endgame tanking who can give you the mathematical breakdown on why your damage mitigation isn't the number on your tool tips.

Lags · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

lol this is so crazy to me. I see it the complete opposite way. The only challenging content in this game is vet dlc dungeons, vet arenas, and vet trials. And some of the DLC world bosses. what else is challenging? pvp? Well that all depends on who you're fighting so you cant really use that as an example. It may be, it may not be. Housing, questing, achievement hunting, trading, collecting, normal dungeons/arenas/trials, exploration.

And a flat difficulty increase does little to fix the problem. The problem is a lack of rewards/rewarding content, and the dumbing down of combat and content. If they think just making overland more difficult solves that they are wrong. Maybe it will be good, maybe not, but its a bit deeper.

spartaxoxo · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Almost every single thing in this game is also casual content too. Most PvE content comes in two forms, casual and vet. I've literally done normal trials without even wearing armor and had a level 45 tank in my last normal trial. It's literally whatever. It's just normal.

Edited

The last group arena is Black Rose Prison, released 6 years ago.

The last solo arena is Vateshran Hollow, released 4 years ago

Yes, there's Infinite Archive but the way it is structured means that you must play it at a casual level for a significant amount of time before you're allowed to handle something challenging.

Performance in Cyrodiil continues to be poor. Yes, they have tried somethings but they have failed to fix it for years.

Really, the main thing vets have to look forward to is 1 trial a year and 2 dungeons. And who knows if they add a new trial next year.

Housing, Scribing, Companions, most antiquity leads, etc none of that is built with players who like challenge as the priority.

ETA

What little I have seen of Nefas as a personality doesn't really gel with me as a viewer. But, I can recognize the enormity of the effort he put into ESO-U and that players who enjoy a challenge have plenty to legitimately complain about.

Lags · January 3

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@Erickson9610
Why have more than 4-5 websites if they're each sufficient for most purposes? Who visits more than 5 websites for the same information?

Why have multiple sources of the same information?

Deltia leaves: Why have 3-4 websites...

Nefas leaves: Why have 2-3 websites....

Alcast quits (not yet): Why have 1-2 websites....

Skinny Cheeks moves on (please no): Why have.... oh wait, it's gone!

ESO is a complicated game with many roles, classes and playstyles and every content creator tends to be specialised in one of them.
I go to SkinnyCheeks when I want an endgame dps build, HackThe Minotaur when I want a fun or overland built and Deltia if a want a PvP build unless its a magsorc in which case I go to Malcolm.
There's Tank Club for people who want to learn to tank and Hyperioxes for endgame tanking who can give you the mathematical breakdown on why your damage mitigation isn't the number on your tool tips.

i swear i saw a skinny cheeks video like a month ago where he said he would be pulling back from eso a bit and trying to move on to other games, while not out right quitting. And i never followed alcast much but i dont think hes uploaded a video for like a year, but i know he updates his website. And deltia sold his YT channel and website iirc, and doesnt really play eso anymore. You would think someone at zos would wonder about all of this. Seems like a shame to me. Seems like a pretty big loss for the game and community in a pretty short period of time.

moderatelyfatman · January 3

@Lags
While I respect Nefas enormously, he could be blunt and harsher in his language than he needed to be at times.

SkinnyCheeks is the guy I'm watching the closest. He recently wrote a huge section on how to fix the game which has been largely ignored by the devs. Skinny has been mum about the whole thing but I sure he's deeply disappointed but hasn't vented publicly.
I consider Skinny to be one of the most diplomatic and professional ESO youtubers out there so he's the ultimate canary in the coal mine for me.

stuartx13 · January 3

I agree 100% with Nefas.

moderatelyfatman · January 3

@Sleepsin
Dude! Please don't get this thread banned!

spartaxoxo · January 3

Soarora wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

wilykcat wrote: »

What's ESOU?

What indeed...

Most people could give two figs about raiding in ESO, so naturally a channel like that wouldn't get much engagement in the first place...

I'm pretty sure things like DLC dungeons and Trials are going to be opened up to the average player soon anyway...I mean, why leave all that content deserted for a demographic that will never show up?

DLC dungeons, trials, arenas, EVERYTHING, is open to anyone already, as long as you own it! If you were an ESOU member you would know that. Lol. But seriously, the fact that you think this content is locked to the “average player” speaks volumes for how well (or not) the game communicates/informs players.

I think a lot of people who are perfectly capable of completing these things self-select themselves out because of all the people who paint themselves as the typical average user making it out to be way harder than it is.

I've had so many people over the years be like "OMG this is my first x! Thanks for helping me, this was actually a lot of fun." And they'll have a like 1500 cp. And it'll be like normal AA.

They thought that they needed way more things than they did to participate in normal trials and dlc dungeons.

To be honest, even I've overestimated how hard trials are. I already had a trial trifecta as healer, but I wouldn't start tanking trials until I'd done multiple dungeon trifectas as a tank. I don't think I would've even gotten into hard content if it weren't for the rewards (I wanted dro'm-athra skin and worm wizard for RP reasons), but those kinds of rewards (skins for trials on vet, skins/personalities for dungeon challengers) have gone away, and if ZOS adds incentives again, then we'd see an explosion on the forums about how it's unfair and vitriol towards people who do dungeons and trials as their regular content. If we want the game to get better, we need to stop fighting each other too.

This is why I want all content to be more rewarding in general. I want them to treat grimoires like they treat leads and put it in everything. I want cool stuff tied exclusively to hard achievements. I want More cool stuff in PvP. ETA: And I almost never PvP.

I don't think jealousy or someone forcing themselves to play content they don't like for a small period of time is a valid reason not to make the game generally rewarding. And frankly, it's surprising it's such a problem in this one. Most games I have played have a bunch of different types of rewards across a variety of content. And people just play the stuff they enjoy and ignore the things they hate. And it's no big deal. No idea why this game has strayed into that but it's really seems to have made people less interested in playing.

Desiato · January 3

OMG could you imagine if we lost the Tamriel Foundry forums!? And omg what if asayre quit?!

Soarora · January 3

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Almost every single thing in this game is also casual content too. Most PvE content comes in two forms, casual and vet. I've literally done normal trials without even wearing armor and had a level 45 tank in my last normal trial. It's literally whatever. It's just normal.

Edited

The last group arena is Black Rose Prison, released 6 years ago.

The last solo arena is Vateshran Hollow, released 4 years ago

Yes, there's Infinite Archive but the way it is structured means that you must play it at a casual level for a significant amount of time before you're allowed to handle something challenging.

Performance in Cyrodiil continues to be poor. Yes, they have tried somethings but they have failed to fix it for years.

Really, the main thing vets have to look forward to is 1 trial a year and 2 dungeons. And who knows if they add a new trial next year.

Housing, Scribing, Companions, most antiquity leads, etc none of that is built with players who like challenge as the priority.

ETA

What little I have seen of Nefas as a personality doesn't really gel with me as a viewer. But, I can recognize the enormity of the effort he put into ESO-U and that players who enjoy a challenge have plenty to legitimately complain about.

Not to mention that group PvE isn’t a monolith. I know people who only do dungeons and not trials and people who only do trials and not dungeons (exceptions for getting gear, which is usually on normal). I remember a discussion I had around here on these forums with Necrom, where overlanders were upset about the lack of story DLC and I mentioned the lack of later 2 dungeons (which were definitely felt by the way), to be told that bastion nymics are “essentially dungeons” and I was not heard out. And yet my point was that content was taken away from us all, that we need to band together and overlanders are not being specifically targetted. (Which by the way, I started as an overlander. Just like most people around here who are team “its a TES game not really an mmo”. I’m not some out of touch endgamer, but that never really seems to matter in discussions either… I’m fine with less story content not because I think the story content is worthless and content should be taken away from the casuals, but honestly because I’m really unhappy with the direction of the writing.)

gronoxvx · January 3

Ruthless wrote: »

Defending wrote: »

I scrolled briefly and realised unsurprisingly that they are plenty of spiteful and hateful comments from the community.

Nefas was someone who had started his entire career, dedication and invested time for ESO. My 7000 hours in-game is meagre compared to his efforts.

Instead of bashing him, has anyone given a thought that if there is no semblance of truth to what Nefas mentioned in the video, why will he decide to quit forever in such a fashion?

We are talking 4-5 years of effort here, consider that people might not even stay in a same job that long.

why quit in such fashion ? for views of course, he is a content creator learning the ropes

dont get it twisted all he did is work for himself until he is big enough to venture on to new things

If he wanted to make cash why wouldnt he chuck a sypherpk and go to another game years ago? ESO content creators make a fraction of what can be made with other games, even when eso was at its peak.

Besides, being treated like he was id sure as hell make a video and monetize it. Most would.

manukartofanu · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Overland isn't endgame PvE... Why do end-game players need an increase in its difficulty? Just take a look at the forums; what are end-game players complaining about? Is there even a single mention that they want an increase in overland difficulty? Don't blame players for what developers want to do.

spartaxoxo · January 3

manukartofanu wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Overland isn't endgame PvE... Why do end-game players need an increase in its difficulty? Just take a look at the forums; what are end-game players complaining about? Is there even a single mention that they want an increase in overland difficulty? Don't blame players for what developers want to do.

There's a years old thread with hundreds of pages of vet players asking for an increased difficulty to Overland.

merevie · January 3

He has good survival instincts - the last handful of creators need to transition asap as well. Hopefully he can find something else he loves and just chill awhile first though. We are down to what, four? three? that post mechanics content? Maybe ZOS can create their own mechanics site for players -pay for the staff from their own funds. Then could control the narrative, learn how combat actually functions in game and get a real link to the community. You only want a stream team when your content is up to par. Right now, they need inhouse employees on Twitch.

Jierdanit · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Literally nothing except for PvP, Trials and vet DLC dungeons is challenging to most people I know.

NotNi.ya · January 3

Alot of people are missing the point tbh. I didn't like nefas's content but that doesn't negate the fact he was a huge contributor not only to the game but to other people mostly in the end game community. If you are commenting on this thread as either a casual player or someone who only does housing, I'm sorry but you have no idea how much he did for players. From the trans employee video all the way to nefas's video there has been countless instances of gaslighting and bad communication skills. I quit playing over a month ago and I don't intend on coming back but I do lurk on the forums just on the off chance things get better. Sadly I don't see that happening.

Pepegrillos · January 3

gronoxvx wrote: »

Ruthless wrote: »

Defending wrote: »

I scrolled briefly and realised unsurprisingly that they are plenty of spiteful and hateful comments from the community.

Nefas was someone who had started his entire career, dedication and invested time for ESO. My 7000 hours in-game is meagre compared to his efforts.

Instead of bashing him, has anyone given a thought that if there is no semblance of truth to what Nefas mentioned in the video, why will he decide to quit forever in such a fashion?

We are talking 4-5 years of effort here, consider that people might not even stay in a same job that long.

why quit in such fashion ? for views of course, he is a content creator learning the ropes

dont get it twisted all he did is work for himself until he is big enough to venture on to new things

If he wanted to make cash why wouldnt he chuck a sypherpk and go to another game years ago? ESO content creators make a fraction of what can be made with other games, even when eso was at its peak.

Besides, being treated like he was id sure as hell make a video and monetize it. Most would.

Most content creators can't just pack and leave the MMO directory they've been streaming on for years. The number of streamers that have left the ESO space (or GW2, or FFXIV, pick whichever) and have made it elsewhere is actually small compared to those who failed. More often than not, changing games means you stop making money.

dk_dunkirk · January 3

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@Lags
While I respect Nefas enormously, he could be blunt and harsher in his language than he needed to be at times.

SkinnyCheeks is the guy I'm watching the closest. He recently wrote a huge section on how to fix the game which has been largely ignored by the devs. Skinny has been mum about the whole thing but I sure he's deeply disappointed but hasn't vented publicly.
I consider Skinny to be one of the most diplomatic and professional ESO youtubers out there so he's the ultimate canary in the coal mine for me.

I saw a video where it was clear about how he felt, but given Nefas' comments about how ZOS has treated him behind the scenes, it seems highly probable that Skinny feels like he would be retaliated against somehow if he were to go into detail. If someone uses threats and coercion to get behavior that they want -- "The gaming community is small, ... --- that's how they treat everyone.

Elsonso · January 3

spartaxoxo wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Overland isn't endgame PvE... Why do end-game players need an increase in its difficulty? Just take a look at the forums; what are end-game players complaining about? Is there even a single mention that they want an increase in overland difficulty? Don't blame players for what developers want to do.

There's a years old thread with hundreds of pages of vet players asking for an increased difficulty to Overland.

A lot of the streamers talk about "Stupidly Easy" overland. I have always been a little confused by this. I know vet players want harder content, but why do they need what is essentially the "lobby" to be harder content?

But, there is a thread about this and the only reason I mention it here is that Nefas was one of the people who talked about easy content in ESO. I disagreed with him on the subject, but he did have one related thing I agreed with. He was also one to mention the skill gap getting up to veteran level end-game content. Overland does not really prepare players for more advanced content, due to the easy nature. This is only a problem for players who want to move forward in difficulty, and he had an idea to address it. That idea was killed by Update 35, before it even got off the ground.

I think ESO is worse off for him leaving.

Koshka · January 3

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Overland isn't endgame PvE... Why do end-game players need an increase in its difficulty? Just take a look at the forums; what are end-game players complaining about? Is there even a single mention that they want an increase in overland difficulty? Don't blame players for what developers want to do.

There's a years old thread with hundreds of pages of vet players asking for an increased difficulty to Overland.

A lot of the streamers talk about "Stupidly Easy" overland. I have always been a little confused by this. I know vet players want harder content, but why do they need what is essentially the "lobby" to be harder content?

But, there is a thread about this and the only reason I mention it here is that Nefas was one of the people who talked about easy content in ESO. I disagreed with him on the subject, but he did have one related thing I agreed with. He was also one to mention the skill gap getting up to veteran level end-game content. Overland does not really prepare players for more advanced content, due to the easy nature. This is only a problem for players who want to move forward in difficulty, and he had an idea to address it. That idea was killed by Update 35, before it even got off the ground.

I think ESO is worse off for him leaving.

I think, there is a difference between content being easy (like, for example, easy/normal difficulty of Skyrim), and never ever being in danger while exploring or even saving the world. If they boost the difficulty to Skyrim levels, it won't be too difficult (it can even be played by people who do not normally play videogames), but there won't be ridiculous sitiations like a boss not being able to finish their speech because they died in 5 seconds.
Currently you can pretty much only die to fall damage or by purposefully ignoring what npcs are telling you to do (like standing in the shield during dragon fights in Elsweyr).

P.S. Before anyone says anything about disabled players. This is an mmo and many people are willing to lend you a hand if you are having troubles. I've done so myself many many times.

Charon_on_Vacation · January 3

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players have the right to participate in whatever activities they enjoy, be it solo or group, and no one way is more right than the other.

...which also implies that players who are interested in the more endgame group-y stuff should get some love from the devs as well.

And that's the problem - they feel like they haven't been.

Every single thing in the game except overland is challenging content. All of it. And now they plan some kind of difficulty increase for overland too. How is that not getting some love?

Overland isn't endgame PvE... Why do end-game players need an increase in its difficulty? Just take a look at the forums; what are end-game players complaining about? Is there even a single mention that they want an increase in overland difficulty? Don't blame players for what developers want to do.

There's a years old thread with hundreds of pages of vet players asking for an increased difficulty to Overland.

A lot of the streamers talk about "Stupidly Easy" overland. I have always been a little confused by this. I know vet players want harder content, but why do they need what is essentially the "lobby" to be harder content?

But, there is a thread about this and the only reason I mention it here is that Nefas was one of the people who talked about easy content in ESO. I disagreed with him on the subject, but he did have one related thing I agreed with. He was also one to mention the skill gap getting up to veteran level end-game content. Overland does not really prepare players for more advanced content, due to the easy nature. This is only a problem for players who want to move forward in difficulty, and he had an idea to address it. That idea was killed by Update 35, before it even got off the ground.

I think ESO is worse off for him leaving.

i know a few casual players that stopped playing eso because overland was too easy.
their reason:
they don't like to do dungeons or other instanced content. they like to enjoy the story of the game, going through zones and such. overland was no challenge at all, much to easy for them. they wanted story, zones and engaging gameplay.

personally, i think the whole overland difficulty debate is wasted time.
eso could just do what 18 year old mmos already have done.
put an npc in the game (several places) where you can decide your overland difficulty (multiple options) on your own. instead of changing the whole world, it adjusts your stats.
put in some rewards for different difficulties, titles, mounts, whatever, done.

SilverBride · January 3

Overland isn't supposed to prepare players for end game content. Overland is the story and its job is to tell that story. The only way to lean more challenging content is to start doing dungeons etc. and work up to veteran content as we learn.

Expecting overland to prepare us for end game content is like expecting a geography class to prepare us for calculus. They are 2 completely different worlds.

Koshka · January 3

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland isn't supposed to prepare players for end game content. Overland is the story and its job is to tell that story. The only way to lean more challenging content is to start doing dungeons etc. and work up to veteran content as we learn.

Expecting overland to prepare us for end game content is like expecting a geography class to prepare us for calculus. They are 2 completely different worlds.

Nobody said that overland should be vet hm levels of difficult. But when it is too easy even for fresh cp160s, to the point that they get bored and leave, it is a problem.
As someone who likes to helps newbies, it's a recurring theme I see.

sarahthes · January 3

Koshka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Overland isn't supposed to prepare players for end game content. Overland is the story and its job is to tell that story. The only way to lean more challenging content is to start doing dungeons etc. and work up to veteran content as we learn.

Expecting overland to prepare us for end game content is like expecting a geography class to prepare us for calculus. They are 2 completely different worlds.

Nobody said that overland should be vet hm levels of difficult. But when it is too easy even for fresh cp160s, to the point that they get bored and leave, it is a problem.
As someone who likes to helps newbies, it's a recurring theme I see.

Power creep has hit even the casual questers really hard.

Juomuuri · January 3

Tbh, I welcome the possibility of a slightly more challenging overland since currently the mobs inhabiting the zones are yeeted in like two hits, sometimes one. Everything is melting, even the base game WBs. The DLC WBs and incursions are at least somewhat challenging when compared to base game (I like dragons and harrowstorms!) but it really gets boring when you quest and are able to mop the floor with quest bosses who can't even finish their monologue.

But to be on topic, I have never visited ESOU but I knew of it. I don't do trials outside of normal farm runs from time to time, so I personally had no reason to go there. It's always disheartening when a content creator shuts down their site(s) since the information will be likely gone forever. I hope someone manages to find a way to backup the guides or something...