Solo play too difficult

quietscribe

Thanks all for your comments. I am currently looking into different ways of using the skills and tactics I have and have gone back to grind out some skill in another weapon.

Part of the issue I have is that blocking and dodging uses a great deal of stamina; something my sorcerer has very little of so I run out fast, and if if the fight is protracted or against two or more mobs then I soon run out of mana, and am a bit of a sitting duck. Also, mobs, especially named mobs, hit like a truck! One unblocked major hit and nearly half my health is gone, more if its a named one.

I will indeed heed the advice about getting food and better potions as they will give me a boost in mana etc, as I had not been using food thus far. My gear is of the same level I am, though without traits (I haven't learned any yet in tailoring). There is perhaps hope yet for my sorcerer.

I would however refer back to my original post, because while some builds are more survivable than others, if the game is too difficult at the beginning for the average player, most won't level enough to see that difficulty curve balance itself. I am not talking here from a personal bias, but from data backed up by the gaming industry (articles from Rift , as well as in one of the video blog extra credits [sorry I couldn't find which one it was for this reply]).

My post wasn't about killing challenge, but about making the game more initially accessible to a greater range of players, about making the curve of difficulty slower to rise in the early levels to encourage players to persevere and learn rather than get frustrated and quit.

Wildflower1

My simple suggestion that worked for me when I would die too often with bosses...level up higher and try again. Meanwhile take the great advice here about builds. I solo always but do give help to others...and always accept when given to me. Good luck!

Vikova

quietscribe wrote: »

I am fine with their being challenge, however making gameplay this difficult so early in the game (still at level eight) a lot of players are going to give up before actually delving deeper into the game.

Other mmos have suffered because of this very reason and changed their earlier areas to compensate because they lost so many players within the first 10 levels. I feel that ESO will need to do the same, because while some players like yourself will find it great to have that challenge, a far greater percentage will just leave the game completely.

At that low of a level, it is likely that you are still running with L4 gear. It makes a huge difference early on. If you craft gear alongside your level early on instead of relying on quest rewards, it is fine.

jdkorreckpreub18_ESO

RakeWorm wrote: »

If you craft gear alongside your level early on instead of relying on quest rewards, it is fine.

This. Crafting constantly is extremely important in this game to keep yourself geared while leveling in the early levels.

MageGuy

I'm utterly baffled by this post.
I've been solo since minute 1, and I haven't had any issues with content.

I completely reject the idea of making the game more simple though.
If some players give up and leave because they feel things are too hard, when 100's of thousands of players have found them to be fine, then all I can say is good.

Because for every thing to dumb down so that the worst players can get them you lose the good players who are now bored to death of an easy mode game.
And it's those good players who are the ones promoting it on blogs, youtube videos, talking to their guildmates in other games, etc to come over.

If all they say is, "They dumbed the game down, it's boring as hell now." then ZOS will lose far far more subscriptions.

They already nerfed gutripper because people complained. Even though level 5's and 6's (I was lvl 6 when I did it) were completing it. All because bad players didn't realize that there's such a thing in game as dodging and terrain. No player had to take even a single scratch of damage on gutripper (this includes melee players! I know, I did it with twin axes at level 6), if you just looked around and used the terrain the developers gave you.

jdkorreckpreub18_ESO

MageGuy wrote: »

They already nerfed gutripper because people complained. Even though level 5's and 6's (I was lvl 6 when I did it) were completing it. All because bad players didn't realize that there's such a thing in game as dodging and terrain. No player had to take even a single scratch of damage on gutripper (this includes melee players! I know, I did it with twin axes at level 6), if you just looked around and used the terrain the developers gave you.

I had to look up who gutripper was just now, as the fight is easy and unmemorable now to the point where I just didn't remember because the fight was so easy I didn't care. Wish I could go back in time and see the harder version.

ricku1967

i absolutely love that this game is a challenge, thats part of the appeal to me. I have soloed 95% of the game so far and i haven't had much of a problem at all. Have i died many times? yes i have. thats part of the challenge. Other MMO's, most can get to max level in a few days because its too easy. you actually have to think about your fights in this game. i hope they never "dumb down" this game and make it too easy just because a few cant handle the challenge.

Elvikun

I think you just may need to learn to block (I noticed many people do not aknowledge this usefull thing exists), interrupt, move... Essentially how the game is played. Too many people play it as a WoW-style MMO and come back complaining it is too hard - because it is too hard if you play it that way.

Other than that, the game can get challanging, but definitely not extremely hard or impossible without a group, if you do content of your level, keep your equipment updated and in good shape and don't go after obviously group content alone (Group dungeons, world "bosses"...). I am a notorious loner, so I do know, but I don't see the impossible odds in battles. Such as people complaining about Gutsripper - What is the problem there, it was a very easy fight.

At the rist of sounding offensive - it's not the game, it's you. Explore, test and learn or ask questions and read guides. Whatever works for you.

quietscribe

For the few people that have posted most recently and are under the illusion I don't know how to block, gear up etc, I would direct you to one of my reply posts here.

jdkorreckpreub18_ESO

quietscribe wrote: »

For the few people that have posted most recently and are under the illusion I don't know how to block, gear up etc, I would direct you to one of my reply posts here.

Dude, people are trying to help with suggestions of areas to work on. We don't have access to stand above your shoulder while you play to see where you are making mistakes. But many of us are not encountering the problems you are. That means you are doing something different that could be considered "wrong". That could be build, gear, or dodge blocking skills.

erbadim

In GW2 I thought a certain mob was impossible then i roll evaded and ranged it, in SWTOR i also thought I was stuck then I used the "of the force" ability better and let the NPC partner tank most of the fight. Hopefully I will have a easy way to counter difficult times in ESO too.

Stautmeister

Post us your build: Use this website
http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#c9Mz9c85qzk706
I have played a sorc to 20, a templar to 29 and a dk to 30. On neither of this characters i had issues,

I died, yes, died a lot. Generally due to overpulling, or not understanding when to do what, use which skill.
A solo build should have aoecc/dmg single target dmg, an interrupt and a survivability tool.
http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#cM0ze0NNgo8AIQe8NiaW8hMyU8NPXh85ke7mbaqj8H7mNzwM6bbHm8J7mqziB6NziY8K7zbkg8zk706
this for example is a sorc solobuild you can use in combination with a destruction staff. hit the weakest target with your spell. Root them, unleash aoe. Your clanfear will probably draw the atention of a mob.
Vs melee bosses you can generally kite.

Another thing is that while light armor is pretty handy early. IT offers 0 survivability xcept mana reg. Mix like 4 light pieces with 3 heavy to get more survivability. Especially when you dont have light armor passives.

Also, silver bolts from the fighting guild is amazing vs 50% of all the mobs in the game + it uses stamina which you wont really use anyway.

jmacclureb14_ESO

Once I corrected my build to include survivability, the game became easier. Also note that you shouldn't try quests too high level. Collecting Skyshards also helps a lot.

rwelshmub17_ESO

Hi There,

I'm finding the game difficult as well. I've played every Elder Scroll game since Arena and the last real MMO I played was DAOC. I'm having a hard time with my Red Guard Night blade with Doshia and Werewolf guy (cant remember the name still knocked senseless for the 6th time he has killed me lol). I've tried everything, played the beginner Islands, crafted my own armour, I dodge, I block, interrupt etc. but cant seem to take out the quest bosses. At lvl 12 still cant take Doshia because of the confined space for my area of the quest, I cant seem to get all those healing globes before she gets one. I'm having fun but wish I had the option to group on those bosses. I can take out mobs of 3-4 5 though. I think I will take these bosses on at 15 so I can swap between bow and Duel Wield, much better suited to my style of play. For me its not about leveling really but learning to play so not ready to give up yet. My one big criticism of the game is not having the choice to group those solo bosses, if all I want to do is solo then I can go back to Oblivion/Skyrim and not pay the monthly charge. My daughter and I want to play this game together and we dont like the fact in order to finish these quests you have to do it solo. We plan to adventure together but cant do it in all aspects of the game - disappointing. I believe the choice should be there. I'm not looking for an easy game and dont want those bosses nerfed just dont like the forced solo thats all. A nightblade is hard to play dishes out a lot of damage but cant seem to take it and will take a lot of play to learn the best tactics for him.

That being said my Dark Elf Dragon Knight that I play also is much easier to play, being able to pull the mob to you hand out damage is very handy. I will enjoy playing this guy as well.

aufischb16_ESO

I agree with the OP as well. I can understand that some people don't want it to be too easy, but I really would have liked it to be a bit easier.

Not everyone is the fighter-player type. I, for example had to be Level 14 before I was able to beat Doshia, even though I knew about the moving spheres. ESO as it is now is 90% pure fighting with only the occasional quest being a non-fighting quests. In Skyrim and Oblivion we were able to sneak, hide, steal, interact with people for days without the need for a single fight, and still finish quests and level up. This is completely impossible in ESO, but this is exactly what keeps me playing Skyrim after more than 150 hours. And isn't ESO a subscription based game, which depends on people coming back after the 30 days free-play period?

Considering the fact that Bethesda-games like Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/New Vegas are the pure definition of solo-play-games with an extremely high degree of freedom, and that many of those players have bought/subscribed to ESO in the hope the it would be playable in a similar way, we SHOULD be able to play ESO solo and still level up in a meaningful way.There are designated Group dungeons and an additional PVP-Zone for all the MMO-Fans after all.

I can appreciate that there are technical difficulties in implementing different difficulties in an MMO, but it would have be really nice to choose a difficulties-setting at login and then automatically play on a designated server.

quietscribe

jdkorreckpreub18_ESO wrote: »

quietscribe wrote: »

For the few people that have posted most recently and are under the illusion I don't know how to block, gear up etc, I would direct you to one of my reply posts here.

Dude, people are trying to help with suggestions of areas to work on. We don't have access to stand above your shoulder while you play to see where you are making mistakes. But many of us are not encountering the problems you are. That means you are doing something different that could be considered "wrong". That could be build, gear, or dodge blocking skills.

I apologize if my post came off as narky or something, I had assumed people had not read my post where I detailed the fact that I was in fact using dodge/interrupt and I did have gear of my same level since the posts seemed to ignore that fact.

The point I am trying to make is not about the fact that if I got the perfect build, and did all the right things in a perfect order, that I could not beat the enemies. I think that if I managed to buy super good gear, drink all the different food/potions, dodge/block at all the points without fail, that I could indeed take down these mobs. My point is that a game, especially in the beginning, should not have these rather high expectations of the player. The tolerance for error in ESO is about the same for raiding in other games: very small. Players starting a game should have far more lee-way for error than is currently given, and without that lee-way players will be far more likely to just set down the game and play something else, rather than re-subscribe.

Zarec

I have done a sorc and had none of the problems you seem to be having. Many players seem to be having few problems solo leveling. I hate being that type of person but this sounds like a L2P issue rather than the game being too difficult. Knowing when to use your skills and when to save certain ones as well as quickbar health pots can save your life.

In the end you're gonna die anyway like I did with the veil quests. At least they didn't respawn so as long I took some out with me each time before I died the effort wasn't wasted. I think I died four times that quest where there was 8 mobs in the first room and accidentally agroed the entire room and the fourth time in the last room with the three named leaders my summon died and my ult wasn't charged. Think I had only died twice before that not including the totally embarrassing jump I made following the seer thinking I had to jump into the light instead of click it.

Zarec

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Well it is a MMO, god forbid you have to socialize.

This is a ES game.

Playing solo should ALWAYS remain a path to the top.

They may tweak things to scale based of number in party but doubt it and to be honest if they made it any easier then they should remove the leveling because holy moly it's easy.

Sallakat

I have come to the realization that as a leveling healer I sometimes have a hard time on main story quests (and some quest bosses) even tho I tend to do them overleveled rather than on the correct level. I have picked DPS skills from both templar dps skill trees (morphed them too) and ofc use them in fights all the time, but still some bosses are damn hard. I have 3 DPS skills plus 2 healing skills on my leveling skill bar with the addition of healing ultimate.
For me it's been a learning curve with the block/interrupt feature but also still I've felt like this game doesn't reaaaally love leveling healers.

jarrellj

I am completely with you! I've been saying since beta that the bosses in particular are TOO DAMNED DIFFICULT for a solo player in this game. By the time I get to the point where I can actually kill them, I'm 7 levels above them at LEAST... and more in some cases... and any loot or xp they give me is basically worthless.

I'm getting bored. I'm ready to cancel my sub right now. The last thing I need is to pay $15 a month just to feel frustrated and pissed off.

JJ

Nyres

I'm a level 9 dragon knight with 3/3/2 stat spread and what ever I seem to try and do I just seem to be constantly on the verge of death or dying repeatedly in any combat. I understand a challenge but there's nothing I can seem to do that would l even help me stay alive longer. It feels like mobs damage or health is too highly tuned for an actual enjoyable solo play.

Sihnfahl

Nyres, what tree are you specializing in?

Nyres

Ardrent Flame I thought it was the dps one.

Sihnfahl

Nyres wrote: »

Ardrent Flame I thought it was the dps one.

Good DPS, low combat control. Armor type / weapon spec? Use ESOHEAD for a skill / spec link. I use DP personally since the talons do help limit the number of mobs on you in a pinch, and Green Dragon Blood is a nice survivability skill.

Ourorboros

I also find it difficult to solo at times. Lots of good advice here. And since it is a MMO, if an area is too hard, wait for someone to come along before tackling. No need to even form a group. There are times though when I wish I had a friend who played the game .

rwelshmub17_ESO

Ourorboros wrote: »

I also find it difficult to solo at times. Lots of good advice here. And since it is a MMO, if an area is too hard, wait for someone to come along before tackling. No need to even form a group. There are times though when I wish I had a friend who played the game .

Thats the issue here as well on these Quest bosses you cant group you have to take them on solo. When you enter the dungeon you will always be alone. I would like to have the option to do it solo or group. I have friends and family like me who have a long history of ES games and couldnt wait to adventure together in an ES world. For a big part of the game we can but for guild quests (i.e. Fighters Guild, Mages etc) you have to do them solo, so to follow those our little party has to break up. I dont have a lot of time as some to play the game as work and life gets in the way so when I play I want to be fun and good quality. I like the gameplay to this point and took part in all the betas and enjoy the challenges but resigned to the fact that for the quest bosses I will go back to them much later in the game to finish them off. I will do it just for completion now not for any joy of the storyline or the quest because its pretty well meaningless at that point

rwelshmub17_ESO

Ourorboros wrote: »

I also find it difficult to solo at times. Lots of good advice here. And since it is a MMO, if an area is too hard, wait for someone to come along before tackling. No need to even form a group. There are times though when I wish I had a friend who played the game .

Thats the issue here as well on these Quest bosses you cant group you have to take them on solo. When you enter the dungeon you will always be alone. I would like to have the option to do it solo or group. I have friends and family like me who have a long history of ES games and couldnt wait to adventure together in an ES world. For a big part of the game we can but for guild quests (i.e. Fighters Guild, Mages etc) you have to do them solo, so to follow those our little party has to break up. I dont have a lot of time as some to play the game as work and life gets in the way so when I play I want to be fun and good quality. I like the gameplay to this point and took part in all the betas and enjoy the challenges but resigned to the fact that for the quest bosses I will go back to them much later in the game to finish them off. I will do it just for completion now not for any joy of the storyline or the quest because its pretty well meaningless at that point

Doraelari

I would hate it so much if they made this game easier. I haven't had any trouble soloing anything and I'm level 26 right now. It would just make the game boring.

curlyqloub14_ESO

Wow, if anything I'd say it's already rather easy-mode, and part of me wishes it was a little harder. Of course, the world bosses and dungeon bosses might require a group, but that's kinda the point of them.

As for the rest of the content, I almost wish it was a bit harder, and not so easy to solo, and I am not a "leet gamer" at all. I'm currently lvl 17, and haven't needed to group for anything besides the things I just listed. Maybe some classes are tougher. As a Nightblade using Siphoning and a Bow, I have found very little so far that required much more than some dodging, blocking and pew pew pew. But on that note, you do have to actively pay attention to your fights, not just sit back and mash keys.

I have seen lots of people talking about having a hard time levelling, being under geared, etc., and in every case it has turned out that they have skipped quests, not been finding the sky shards, running pasts treasure chests without opening them, and other stuff that makes them miss out on gear and xp. Unlocking chests, and even just running around and discovering every locale, gives xp - and there is potential for some nice gear in those chests too! I'm amazed how many people I see running right by them.

Bottom line: if you aren't fully exploring the world and skipping quests, then yeah, you are probably gonna' have a tough time. Take your time, open your eyes, leave the paths and explore the environment, and stop and look around as you're moving through the world. Otherwise you will probably miss a lot.

Darka

At first i got a little caught out by multi mob based situations
I died a few times, and what that did is make me approach things differently
Not everything should be a face smashing keyboard semi afk walk through when facing a mob, it makes