Beginner Difficulty in Overland

Taraezor

I am not a beginner. I have sussed out a few things since I first started playing.

That said... I remember the dark days. The days of frustration where I didn't quit only because I had already paid up for a while so I wanted to get my money's worth. Sheer stubbornness kept me in.

Many players would just give up. Overland questing so very difficult.

How so? YOU may think that everything is so easy. Right here and now... yup it sure is.

But please step back a bit. Clamouring for increased overland difficulty may work against the long term viability of the game. It's easy to say "git good" and to "add in tutorials" on how to build your skills (yeah... I thought as a DPS kinda guy I should load up my bar(s) with pure DPS stuff).

Nah... players wanna play the game. Not do obvious tutorials with popup arrows and popup "git good" rubbish.

Why not... leave Overland as is but have an option somehow to heavily scale up the damage and HP of mobs? For those players who just want more difficulty. Nothing extra. Just more difficulty and maybe more gold.

It's crucial though that non-gold rewards NOT be locked behind the increased difficulty.

Players need to feel that they have conquered Overland. Yeah... that first ever Dolmen you soloed. Remember the feeling? Yeahhhhhhh! That first public dungeon you soloed, including the bonus boss, without a single death! The first World Boss you soloed?

Okay I admit that Diablo II many years ago got away with Normal... Nightmare.... Hell. But ESO is a different game and anyway D2 launched with those three levels. Here in ESO we do NOT want our initial achievements to be devalued.

Please do not lock "the good stuff" behind an Overland difficulty barrier. It just adds to the sense, for new comers, that they are so very far behind.

Way back when ESO abandoned that Veteran mode where we then had to do the other two factions, It felt liberating! By adding a second difficulty level, with a second tier of rewards will be a step in the other direction.

For those of you who already git good. You've got your Trials. Enjoy. But leave the casuals, solo players (me), RPG lovers (me) and beginers alone!

Tandor

They made it very clear last week that while they're working on an increased difficulty in overland content it will be opt-in.

Renato90085

zos in stream say it opt in
it more like you are try selfishly depriving players of something they want..

Seraphayel

Overland content has been incredibly easy since the removal of adventure zones back in 2015 when they introduced One Tamriel. Ever since besides some dedicated group challenges (world bosses or dolmen style events) nothing was remotely dangerous or difficult in the open world.

SilverIce58

The game is constantly evolving so you really cant compare how hard overland was back then to how easy it is now. There are soooo many changes to how the game plays now compared to then. Players are sooo much more experienced (the ones who have stayed long-term) now than back then when everything was fresher and Veteran Ranks were very different than Champion Points. They would put you in a new zone with difficult enemies but no real boost to your stats, plus if we had then what we have now in terms of classes, CP boosts, and gear, I'm sure the game would've been a lot easier then too.

valenwood_vegan

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

294 pages of the same arguments and counting. Many people desperately want harder overland. Others don't. Perhaps that's why they stated they're working on something optional.

sans-culottes

Taraezor wrote: »

I am not a beginner. I have sussed out a few things since I first started playing.

That said... I remember the dark days. The days of frustration where I didn't quit only because I had already paid up for a while so I wanted to get my money's worth. Sheer stubbornness kept me in.

Many players would just give up. Overland questing so very difficult.

How so? YOU may think that everything is so easy. Right here and now... yup it sure is.

But please step back a bit. Clamouring for increased overland difficulty may work against the long term viability of the game. It's easy to say "git good" and to "add in tutorials" on how to build your skills (yeah... I thought as a DPS kinda guy I should load up my bar(s) with pure DPS stuff).

Nah... players wanna play the game. Not do obvious tutorials with popup arrows and popup "git good" rubbish.

Why not... leave Overland as is but have an option somehow to heavily scale up the damage and HP of mobs? For those players who just want more difficulty. Nothing extra. Just more difficulty and maybe more gold.

It's crucial though that non-gold rewards NOT be locked behind the increased difficulty.

Players need to feel that they have conquered Overland. Yeah... that first ever Dolmen you soloed. Remember the feeling? Yeahhhhhhh! That first public dungeon you soloed, including the bonus boss, without a single death! The first World Boss you soloed?

Okay I admit that Diablo II many years ago got away with Normal... Nightmare.... Hell. But ESO is a different game and anyway D2 launched with those three levels. Here in ESO we do NOT want our initial achievements to be devalued.

Please do not lock "the good stuff" behind an Overland difficulty barrier. It just adds to the sense, for new comers, that they are so very far behind.

Way back when ESO abandoned that Veteran mode where we then had to do the other two factions, It felt liberating! By adding a second difficulty level, with a second tier of rewards will be a step in the other direction.

For those of you who already git good. You've got your Trials. Enjoy. But leave the casuals, solo players (me), RPG lovers (me) and beginers alone!

Please see the conversation in the other thread. Many of us have addressed the concerns you’ve raised.

AlterBlika

Taraezor wrote: »

For those of you who already git good. You've got your Trials. Enjoy. But leave the casuals, solo players (me), RPG lovers (me) and beginers alone!

It's a little unfair that you get to enjoy lots of big maps with tons of quests while we can only enjoy trials and dungeons with one-time short stories. I have all dlcs purchased, yet I've never completed any zone story since when I started playing (5 years ago or so) because that content is just so braindead and unsatisfying to play.

ESO has so much potential yet it's locked behind being a visual novel of some sort where you just read text and kill enemies with one button. Tbh something like vet overland should've been implemented a long time ago, so many players quit because the game is unengaging before endgame.

Soarora

Thing is that even my main who has a REALLY BAD build (like I’m wearing one set of armor and use 2 abilities bad) nearly 1-shots most things. I don’t get to see enemy mechanics. The last time I remember seeing enemy mechanics was when I was fresh and still in Summerset.

I don’t mind it being opt in as long as it comes with increased gold gains or exp or something. I agree it doesn’t need to be unique collection items.

Gaebriel0410

Opt-in sounds perfectly fine to me! I don't need any extra rewards for it either, for me (hopefully) the extra challenge will be the reward.

I am already happy that they hinted they are working on something in regards to difficulty, since in the past they always said they wouldn't do it.

LPapirius

All overland is beginner difficulty.

CameraBeardThePirate

Basically everyone asking for harder overland combat has said it should be opt in. LOTRO did it years ago, and a lot of people pointed to that game as what should be implemented. ZOS has already stated that an increased Overland difficulty would be opt in.

I gotta say I disagree with not having rewards locked behind the difficulty increase though. We should be incentivising players to get better at the game.

Toanis

I'd say the problem for new players is that they want to play content balanced for new players and have it ruined by 4 digit CP players nuking the mobs because this is the most convenient place to kill 15 skeletons, fire atronachs, etc. for Endeavours.

Maybe we should first have a No-CP instance for new players. With only the Level <50 chars being buffed to 160CP, this actually might also be the challenging overland for difficulty enjoyers, and deter the rest from bothering the newbies.

Arunei

People are gonna get real tired of seeing me say this, but I'm gonna keep doing it just so nobody who hasn't seen the after show is potentially misled:

Rich said they are prioritizing making harder Overland opt-in, and that it "mostly probably" will be. He did NOT say it 100% WILL be opt-in. They've not even really started on it yet, development is still in super super super early rough drafts, so they can't say for certain they can make it opt-in. But they're going to try their best to do so, because they know there are already people who have a hard time with the game as is and have acknowledged that, and said they don't want to drive players away.

But again...it's not been confirmed to 100% be guaranteed opt-in. Whether they're using 'safe language' or not is irrelevant; why use safe language if they know for sure how something is going to turn out? The only reason to do it is if there's even a tiny chance they can't make it happen the way they want to.

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.