Official Discussion Thread for "Developer Deep Dive—Season Zero’s Challenge Difficulty

ZOS_Kevin · January 22

This is the official discussion thread for, "Developer Deep Dive—Season Zero’s Challenge Difficulty"

"Learn about the new Challenge Difficulty system, coming later this year, via this developer deep dive."

We'll move this to the news section next week.

Red_Feather · January 22

ZoS, you really need to consider using a 'curse' system instead of just 'monsters do more damage, players do less damage'. This isn't going to make overland content more interesting. It may actually do the opposite.
When I say curse system it's the type of stuff you do with your kiss/curse gear sets. So it'll be like a hidden invisible cursed gear set being added to a character in the game's background.

ZOS_Kevin · January 22

Red_Feather wrote: »

ZoS, you really need to consider using a curse system instead of just 'monsters do more damage, players take more damage'. This isn't going to make overland content more interesting. It may actually do the opposite.

As we noted, this is the start of the system. We want to get a base system in player hands and then build out from there over time.

spartaxoxo · January 22

Yessssss! Finally we got the framework for this and I'm excited it may get expanded on over time. Vestige actually sounds hard! 😲 I can't wait!!!

Let's GOOOOOOOO 😍😍

Red_Feather · January 22

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

ZoS, you really need to consider using a curse system instead of just 'monsters do more damage, players take more damage'. This isn't going to make overland content more interesting. It may actually do the opposite.

As we noted, this is the start of the system. We want to get a base system in player hands and then build out from there over time.

I updated my post to explain what I meant. I mentioned such a thing to Rich in one of his streams long ago and he really liked the idea. He honestly thought it was cool.

Faulgor · January 22

Based on feedback from various in-person events and player discussions, we believe starting with experience and gold is a good way to gauge player engagement.

I think that's a terrible way to gauge player engagement - I can already predict very few will use this, because I've seen this before. People don't spend time on things they feel don't reward their time, and taking at least 5 times as long to get twice the exp won't compel people to do this for a significant amount of time.
We went through this with old Craglorn, and I'd rather we didn't have to repeat that lesson.

I'll make a point to use this so the system isn't abandoned, but I really hope you'll add more rewards down the line.
(Wouldn't trade bars make a good reward in some fashion? The store for possible goodies is already there, and nobody is locked out of any rewards if they don't want to play at a higher difficulty.)

Cooperharley · January 22

This looks phenomenal and i like the way yall are going about it. Will be super cool to experience some danger and actually struggle here and there! Exploration is back!

I like the different tiers so we can choose how we want! More player agency is great. Vestige mode here i come! Itll also make grouping with my friends and questing more enticing versus us breathing on a monster and it dying lol. We'll actually have to work together! NICE!

Red_Feather · January 22

Faulgor wrote: »

Based on feedback from various in-person events and player discussions, we believe starting with experience and gold is a good way to gauge player engagement.

I think that's a terrible way to gauge player engagement - I can already predict very few will use this, because I've seen this before. People don't spend time on things they feel don't reward their time, and taking at least 5 times as long to get twice the exp won't compel people to do this for a significant amount of time.
We went through this with old Craglorn, and I'd rather we didn't have to repeat that lesson.

I'll make a point to use this so the system isn't abandoned, but I really hope you'll add more rewards down the line.
(Wouldn't trade bars make a good reward in some fashion? The store for possible goodies is already there, and nobody is locked out of any rewards if they don't want to play at a higher difficulty.)

The rewards of this proposed system just fall so flat. These rewards of increased gold and xp COMPETE with so much that already exists, that this difficulty system is merely going to advance already existing farming methods but do nothing for overland content in general. It makes me sad ZoS is starting off with this mentality.

Cruxanero · January 22

Which measures are taken to avoid exploitation here? I think it's a brillant decision to not separate the playerbase and make different difficulty instances, but I can immediately see that it might be possible to have a group (not necessarily grouped ingame) that runs together, with everyone on vestige difficulty while only one player plays on adventurer difficulty. When everyone engages the same mobs, would that mean that the lone adventurer can effectively solo the mobs, while everyone else barely does anything and still gets the vestige reward tier?

Credible_Joe · January 22

Very disappointed to see that no consideration is being made in regards to content congestion.

This system will do nothing to resolve the frustrations when questing in highly populated areas. Any non-zero number of players opting out of, or even using a lower challenge setting in any delve or shared questing interior will negate the system entirely.

It'll be mostly fine in base game zones, especially one or two in after the starting regions. Ditto chapter content more than a year out of vogue.

But anyone trying to use this along side any content launch that involves a questing zone will be sorely frustrated by the sheer volume of players consuming content before the challenge players can meaningfully engage with it. We've seen it multiple times in the past year when delve bosses are the target of golden pursuits or event challenges; a portion of nerfed players won't see any difference at all when it's still burned down in one or three seconds.

Thanks for taking the step and making the effort, but I believe that this approach will be ineffective. If we don't instance delves and story interiors at the very least, nothing will change in practice, except for older content gaining some replayability.

LunaFlora · January 22

nice to finally read about it.
i wanna try it out, but personally probably am not somebody who needs it.

i do hope if there ever are Golden Pursuits with Challenge Difficulty rewards, it is something simple like "Kill 50 monsters in Seasoned difficulty or higher", so people could kill wolves and mudcrabs.

ZOS_Kevin · January 22

Faulgor wrote: »

Based on feedback from various in-person events and player discussions, we believe starting with experience and gold is a good way to gauge player engagement.

I think that's a terrible way to gauge player engagement - I can already predict very few will use this, because I've seen this before. People don't spend time on things they feel don't reward their time, and taking at least 5 times as long to get twice the exp won't compel people to do this for a significant amount of time.
We went through this with old Craglorn, and I'd rather we didn't have to repeat that lesson.

I'll make a point to use this so the system isn't abandoned, but I really hope you'll add more rewards down the line.
(Wouldn't trade bars make a good reward in some fashion? The store for possible goodies is already there, and nobody is locked out of any rewards if they don't want to play at a higher difficulty.)

The idea is to add more rewards down the line. Right now, we want to make sure we see how folks use the system while we work to refine and build out the system. I think the core takeaway from us is, this is a starting point, not the final update to the system.

But again, totally understand your point here and will make sure folks on the team see this. Just so they know thoughts on rewards.

BloodstainedFay · January 22

Personally, I see no need for this system to even have rewards. I am happy that I'll be able to do story content without one shotting Multiversal Level Threats with a single light attack as before.

The real painpoint for me is the fact that somehow we're sharing the world with people in other difficulty levels? This on paper has a few issues

Imagine you're on Vestige difficulty, fighting mobs. A group of players on Adventure difficulty show up and just steamroll everything for you. Fun killer right there.
This is exploitable. You can have 1 person on Vestige difficulty working with lower difficulty people to essentially quickly EXP & Gold Farm (and whatever other rewards you have later down the line)

I genuinely do not see a way this'll work -without- splitting the playerbase into shards, and honestly with this being an Overworld/Quest content only feature I don't see why you're so against sharding here.

AlexanderDeLarge · January 22

I know the article mentions that rewards are minimal at launch and it's built with expansion in mind but I think parity with veteran dungeons and trials and arenas (purple/gold gear) would make sense. The precedent is there.

I hope one day we can "NG+" the game and reset our progression to experience all of this on our established characters.

I will be using it regardless of rewards, but it just feels odd for this to be the one exception to the general design of more challenge = more reward. I'm glad this is finally happening. Thank you ZOS team.

alakeyfox · January 22

I got a few questions:

1. If I fight a world boss while having selected the highest difficulty, and a player comes along who uses the lowest difficulty, would they melt my boss? If so, do I still get the increased rewards? If yes - that seems like a big flaw, there would be little reason not to crank up the difficulty for extra XP & gold if you know you aren't gonna fight alone. Plus, surely it would look extremely odd to see another player waltz in and seemingly spit out 1mil DPS.
2. The highest difficulty at the moment promises a 200% increase to XP & gold gain, are we talking +200% from 1k XP & 30 odd gold or are you looking to re-tune the rewards as a whole? If not, I can hardly see myself even doing step 1.

Grafahel · January 22

Ah well, there goes my dream of being able to replay a zone I've already completed on a different difficulty, I was kind of hoping you would enter a different instance of the zone. I really hope we will get some sort of zone reset option in the future, so I don't have to make a new character if I want to play through a zone's storyline again.

Edit: aside from that I'm sure it will be fun to try out anyway, that wasn't the only reason I was looking forward to this option but just a hope I've been harbouring for a while

Pepegrillos · January 22

Seems like a good start. I want to see how these numbers play out in practice.

drip_fromtheinkwell · January 22

alakeyfox wrote: »

I got a few questions:

1. If I fight a world boss while having selected the highest difficulty, and a player comes along who uses the lowest difficulty, would they melt my boss? If so, do I still get the increased rewards? If yes - that seems like a big flaw, there would be little reason not to crank up the difficulty for extra XP & gold if you know you aren't gonna fight alone. Plus, surely it would look extremely odd to see another player waltz in and seemingly spit out 1mil DPS.

Definitely agree on this point. I love the idea of these different challenge modes, but it would be so disheartening to work so hard, only for someone to come in at the easiest mode, spit on the boss you've been working on and kill it, and walk away.

Red_Feather · January 22

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Based on feedback from various in-person events and player discussions, we believe starting with experience and gold is a good way to gauge player engagement.

I think that's a terrible way to gauge player engagement - I can already predict very few will use this, because I've seen this before. People don't spend time on things they feel don't reward their time, and taking at least 5 times as long to get twice the exp won't compel people to do this for a significant amount of time.
We went through this with old Craglorn, and I'd rather we didn't have to repeat that lesson.

I'll make a point to use this so the system isn't abandoned, but I really hope you'll add more rewards down the line.
(Wouldn't trade bars make a good reward in some fashion? The store for possible goodies is already there, and nobody is locked out of any rewards if they don't want to play at a higher difficulty.)

The idea is to add more rewards down the line. Right now, we want to make sure we see how folks use the system while we work to refine and build out the system. I think the core takeaway from us is, this is a starting point, not the final update to the system.

But again, totally understand your point here and will make sure folks on the team see this. Just so they know thoughts on rewards.

I think a lot of us can predict the system will be used by dolmen farmers and bot farmers. And beyond that it won't see any meaningful playerbase interaction.

AlexanderDeLarge · January 22

People say this isn't going to get any meaningful engagement but this system is the difference between me playing the game and not playing the game. This is exactly what I've been asking for and its absence has kept me out of the game since the Elsweyr days when I powercrept the game too much and it stopped being fun. I've been posting here passionately advocating for it all these years because I know firsthand how much it improved another game I play (Lord of the Rings Online's landscape difficulty).

I find no enjoyment in completing overland content and especially these larger chapter stories where you instakill the final boss before they can even say their lines.

This system once implemented will require little to no upkeep, though I would advocate for additional rewards because it's weird that this is the one exception to Elder Scrolls Online's more challenge = more reward activities.

DeathandDebauchery · January 22

BloodstainedFay wrote: »

Personally, I see no need for this system to even have rewards. I am happy that I'll be able to do story content without one shotting Multiversal Level Threats with a single light attack as before.

The real painpoint for me is the fact that somehow we're sharing the world with people in other difficulty levels? This on paper has a few issues
Imagine you're on Vestige difficulty, fighting mobs. A group of players on Adventure difficulty show up and just steamroll everything for you. Fun killer right there.

This is exploitable. You can have 1 person on Vestige difficulty working with lower difficulty people to essentially quickly EXP & Gold Farm (and whatever other rewards you have later down the line)

I genuinely do not see a way this'll work -without- splitting the playerbase into shards, and honestly with this being an Overworld/Quest content only feature I don't see why you're so against sharding here.

I'd like to see an answer to this question. The article was very scant on how this would work with players sharing the same mobs.

BixenteN7Akantor · January 22

Just +XP and +gold looks meh to me.
I expected things like higher loot rarity like that CP for chests. Higher chance for leads. A quite rare chance to get, i don't know, swift/harmony jewelry or a nirnhorned piece. Loot two regular set pieces instead of 1 when in max difficulty. Who knows !

Morvan · January 22

I know this is still in development, but it would be really nice if you introduced a way to reset and repeat questlines alongisde it, now that the game will have a difficulty slider, I wish I'd be able to repeat every questline on the Vestige difficulty.

Maybe add new achievements with cool rewards for every questline you complete on Vestige difficulty? That would be nice.

But overall, I'm glad you guys are finally tackling overland difficulty, EXP and Gold are definitely not going to make it worth having for most content, but I'm sure you'll add more over time.

Arunei · January 22

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

I know the article mentions that rewards are minimal at launch and it's built with expansion in mind but I think parity with veteran dungeons and trials and arenas (purple/gold gear) would make sense. The precedent is there.

I hope one day we can "NG+" the game and reset our progression to experience all of this on our established characters.

I will be using it regardless of rewards, but it just feels odd for this to be the one exception to the general design of more challenge = more reward. I'm glad this is finally happening. Thank you ZOS team.

The main reason people are against Dungeon-level rewards being put in higher difficulty is because the increased difficulty is supposed to be its own reward. Making the game more immersive for people who are bored or frustrated by how quickly they can mow things down. Overland isn't meant to give you high end rewards like Dungeons and Trials and the like. It's meant for delivering the majority of story content.

Now having there be Pursuits tied to it would be fine imo, and also adding it to Tomes when those come out. Individual Pursuits can be skipped and the Tomes can be reset freely, so people who can't or don't want to engage in that can skip it without losing anything. But because Overworld content is the majority of what people play, putting high-end rewards can make them feel like they're being locked out of stuff.

As for people worried about exploitation with a group of people running on the hardest setting working with someone on the lowest to farm exp and gold...I don't really see how either is a problem to be honest 'n__n. You might be able to power level new characters at light speed or grind out CP faster but is that honestly gamebreaking? I mean everyone already says you can level a fresh character in a day as it is, is doing it a bit faster reeeeaaaaally that big of a deal? And CP itself also has a hard cap, but after a certain point they're useless anyway because no build requires maxed CP. As for the gold, you get so little from Overland that even boosting the amount by like 200% only means instead of 200 gold for killing a pack of trash, you're getting 400 instead. Nooooot really lottery level amounts of gold, heh.

BloodstainedFay · January 22

Arunei wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

I know the article mentions that rewards are minimal at launch and it's built with expansion in mind but I think parity with veteran dungeons and trials and arenas (purple/gold gear) would make sense. The precedent is there.

I hope one day we can "NG+" the game and reset our progression to experience all of this on our established characters.

I will be using it regardless of rewards, but it just feels odd for this to be the one exception to the general design of more challenge = more reward. I'm glad this is finally happening. Thank you ZOS team.

The main reason people are against Dungeon-level rewards being put in higher difficulty is because the increased difficulty is supposed to be its own reward. Making the game more immersive for people who are bored or frustrated by how quickly they can mow things down. Overland isn't meant to give you high end rewards like Dungeons and Trials and the like. It's meant for delivering the majority of story content.

Now having there be Pursuits tied to it would be fine imo, and also adding it to Tomes when those come out. Individual Pursuits can be skipped and the Tomes can be reset freely, so people who can't or don't want to engage in that can skip it without losing anything. But because Overworld content is the majority of what people play, putting high-end rewards can make them feel like they're being locked out of stuff.

As for people worried about exploitation with a group of people running on the hardest setting working with someone on the lowest to farm exp and gold...I don't really see how either is a problem to be honest 'n__n. You might be able to power level new characters at light speed or grind out CP faster but is that honestly gamebreaking? I mean everyone already says you can level a fresh character in a day as it is, is doing it a bit faster reeeeaaaaally that big of a deal? And CP itself also has a hard cap, but after a certain point they're useless anyway because no build requires maxed CP. As for the gold, you get so little from Overland that even boosting the amount by like 200% only means instead of 200 gold for killing a pack of trash, you're getting 400 instead. Nooooot really lottery level amounts of gold, heh.

Admittedly, the EXP & Gold "abuse" annoys me less than Adventurer Difficulty steamrolling whatever mobs a random Vestige difficulty person is fighting by themselves. Just a fun killer if you're solo overworlding on high difficulty only for others to interrupt and one shot everything

SneaK · January 22

I like the idea of a curse system similar to D2 nightfalls.

EX:
In February, Challenge Mode will be in Reapers March. All monsters in overland, delves, public dungeons will have the following curse modifiers. Previously completed quests will open back up to complete again with the modifiers.
+50% flame damage
+50% physical damage
+50% health
Etc etc etc
Takes +30% frost damage
Group dungeons will also have a curse variant mode to select when queuing.

Gold items drop from bosses. Specific cosmetics related to the challenge zone and new achievements.

Also, rotate two at a time, a base zone and a DLC zone.

Destai · January 22

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The idea is to add more rewards down the line. Right now, we want to make sure we see how folks use the system while we work to refine and build out the system. I think the core takeaway from us is, this is a starting point, not the final update to the system.

But again, totally understand your point here and will make sure folks on the team see this. Just so they know thoughts on rewards.

If you guys want content to be successful, it needs to be rewarding from the start. You're already adjusting Night Market based on that notion. It seems like you guys prefer to have lacking rewards until you either get feedback or declining engagement. I understand it's a starting point, just trying to give you guys perspective for a better start. I'm not confident this solution is cognizant of how people actually play the game. I'm not confident you'll get sufficient participation.

I can't imagine many new players will participate in higher difficulties, compared to vets looking for a challenge. I would think that gold and experience matter less to the people attracted to this system, they're more so looking for a challenge and a "look at me" reward for doing that.

As it stands right now, this isn't a system I would participate in. As a long-time player, if I want gold or experience, I'm going to do crafting dailies, or equip experience boosting gear and consumables. I just don't personally see the value in this.

Djiku · January 22

BloodstainedFay wrote: »

The real painpoint for me is the fact that somehow we're sharing the world with people in other difficulty levels? This on paper has a few issues
Imagine you're on Vestige difficulty, fighting mobs. A group of players on Adventure difficulty show up and just steamroll everything for you. Fun killer right there.

This is exploitable. You can have 1 person on Vestige difficulty working with lower difficulty people to essentially quickly EXP & Gold Farm (and whatever other rewards you have later down the line)

I genuinely do not see a way this'll work -without- splitting the playerbase into shards, and honestly with this being an Overworld/Quest content only feature I don't see why you're so against sharding here.

These are exactly the same problems I see too. I don't see this working out without seperating the playerbase. The way they are planning it will cause too many problems

ZOS_Finn · January 22

Good feedback and we are excited to see people try this. Will try and answer some questions before the system goes live and you all can see it in action.

- Exploitation: This is indeed a key area of focus for us and one of the reasons the rewards start with XP and Gold. At our core, we are an MMO and want to encourage players to play together, see other people, soft group, etc. so as we were developing a core pillar was to make sure we maintain that playstyle. Its something we will keep an eye on especially as we layer on more reward mechanism.
- Rewards: Initially you will most likely see the layered approach to rewards in the form of Golden Pursuits and interaction with the Tome system. From there we will see how best we can expand in that regard.
- Exploration: It is true that there are places in the game where you will see players of mixed difficulty engaging with the same content. There are a lot of places where that won't be prevalent, however. Story instances are a good example of content being primarily group instanced in some fashion so you will be able to experience those as challenging pieces of content. Delves and Public Dungeons also will have varied populations from time to time.
- New Mechanics - Monsters currently do have mechanics. in the current form of difficulty, most players that are adept at the game just do not see them. As fights become longer, those mechanics will be much more noticeable. As an example, I was testing the final story encounter in Eastern Solstice (The Final Dark) and actually had to dodge, block, interrupt, etc and still died on Vestige difficulty. It was a lot of fun to experience that with a character that had all the tools at my disposal.

Kallykat · January 22

I'm relieved to see that I can keep playing at the Adventurer difficulty and that the only rewards for higher challenge levels (currently) are increased xp and gold.

I'm not looking forward to more rewards being added and feeling pushed into playing a higher challenge level I don't enjoy.

ssewallb14_ESO · January 22

Will we get to test this out this PTS cycle?