Lord Xanhorn wrote: »

So one of the more important things I got from the ESO live was the content will scale to your level. Does that mean that it will basically be Oblivion where everything you fight will always be your level? This kinda sucks and take away any feeling of growth or progression you get from your character.

Hows this even gonna work in an MMO with other people with other levels are all in the same area? Will everything be instanced to just me? Sounds like the DLC is basically going to be Oblivion Online.

You will still have the level 1-50 content that will not scale. Only DLC content will scale because anyone going with the B2P method will need to out right pay for the DLC. You think anyones going to pay for a DLC they have to wait to go interact with?

MasterSpatula wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

The sense of progression is essential to me. Once it's lost, it's no longer a good RPG. This is why I never play Oblivion without mods to fix the scaling (though none of them really got it right, IMO).

Not even the one that would completely randomly populate the world, so you could see crap like Land Dreugh wandering around as soon as you exited the sewers?

Especially those ones. The area around the Imperial City is the most civilized part of Tamriel. Having high-end dangers right outside the major population center of a continent made no sense, no matter what my level was. High-end enemies should have dominated the more remote areas of the map, while the dangers in the middle of the map should have been more suited to an area heavily populated by non-combatants.

Cyrodiil was also supposed to be a jungle... *shrugs*

Though, I am a little surprised no one tweaked the leveled lists to push the game that route.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Dave2836 wrote: »

Lord Xanhorn wrote: »

Dave2836 wrote: »

At that point a good player will find the opportunity to attemp different skilled builds for fun. A poor player will eventually get better through trial and error. If that fails, there is always grouping and learning tactics.

Oh that sounds like great marketing. 'Come play our game where if you are really good, you can just keep trying different builds while you demolish the same crap easy content.'

Its pretty lonely at the top. why not gimp yourself and play a pacifist. Light armor, offhand shield, no weapon, and only the fighter's guild skills? The unarmed combat animations are pretty slick.

Or why not create content for those more dedicated players, rather than tell them to F off from your casual game?

Oh right, $$$-

I get that you're being sarcastic, but, really, think about this for a second.

You're running a business. Why are you going to throw, say, 10%-20% of your current operational budget at something that will only be consumed by 2%-5% of your customers? With the added bonus that it will alienate some of your customers causing them to leave.

The vet upgraded dungeons are a compromise on this, with content for that 2%-5%, without having to actually commit serious funds to building entirely fresh content, or risking alienating players.

But, we've seen people trying to go and make the ultra-hardcore MMO for the Dark Souls generation. And... Secret World is pretty dead. The starter zones have the population you'll see in ESO's vet zones. Get into the late game content, and you can see a handful of players running around doing their dailies, but that's about it.

You're actually pretty off base here.

First and foremost, every player eventually becomes better by playing.
No one gates bad by playing the game, so unless someone stops playing for a year, eventually, everyone will be able to tackle and enjoy the content.

Statistically, no, "everyone won't."

Steam gates achievements based on, "did you actually play the game?" and then counts you against the global pool. What this shows is, with a lot of games, between 5% and 15% of players never even see the first "gimme" achievement (when there is one.)

They start up the game, and for whatever reason never get started.

When you look, at that, (and yes, I'm talking about single player games) there is a sharp drop off in how long people spend playing a game.

Also, some MMO developers in the past have talked more openly about what chunks of their games' populations advance through the content. that's where the 2%-5% number comes from. Which is why I said it isn't just an ESO statistic. This is MMOs in general.

MMOs demand a huge time commitment to get to endgame. Most people don't stick with a single game for years at a time. They'll play a game for 40 to 100 hours, get their money's worth, usually finish it in that time and move on.

It's not a conscious choice, but the game just doesn't hold their attention that long.

Thank you for the great thoughout reply.

To the first part of this, that's why I said "everyone gets better by playing a game". Those that just launched the game once and never played it do not count. They didn't enjoy the game and stopped.

You seem to be missing the point here. The issue is that, at each step, you will have progressively fewer players. The Steam thing suggests that roughly 5% of players, or 1 in 20, never get past a game's main menu.

The percentage of a game that actually pulls in those really rare achievements that take awhile to build up hover around 1%. Obviously, this isn't Elder Scrolls Online specifically, but the longer you have to commit to a game, the more players that will drop off. They'll get bored, and wander off. They'll get distracted by something new and shiny, and wander off. They'll get frustrated... and. wander. off.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

However, an actually active player will get better by playing. Maybe he'll peak some time in his personal skill, but if he continues to play, he won't become worse and will have other avenues to grow (CP, gear, etc).

Having no venue for advancement in a game is a death knell for a player. They can't get better at the game, can't get better stuff, can't do new stuff, they'll leave. But, that's not really an issue here. And these aren't specifically the group we're focusing on.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And yes, only 5% of people reach the highest end content, but people are reading this wrong.
That's a good sign, not a bad sign. It means the game has a challenge.

Or it means they got bored and wandered off. For a subscription MMO, that is actually a bad thing, because fewer paying subscribers mean less revenue, less support for the game, a smaller population, which leads to less of a community, which leads to players finding less support to advance, which leads to them leaving, which leads to a smaller community...

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

As long as you know you have new things to experience in a game, you'll keep playing it. As soon as you've reached all content, there is no longer that carrot.
That is why it makes sense for MMO devs to focus 15-30% of their work load for higher end content. It gives the game longevity.

The fallacy here is, you're assuming everyone looks at the game in the same light.

I'm looking at my steam list right now, and I've got Grim Dawn, Starbound, Divinity: Original Sin, Watch Dogs and Space Hulk: Ascension waiting to be played/finished... though, in retrospect I should probably take Watch Dogs off that list because I have no intention of going back to it.

My point is, if I leave the game, it's because I'm curious about the winter update for Starbound, or because I find Grim Dawn really compelling and entertaining. It's not a strike against ESO per say, because I enjoy that too. It's just, on a whim, this one wins out.

And, that's where a lot of players end up, ironically. They'll move on to other games, not because the one they're playing is too hard, or because it failed, but because something over there is more interesting. You can track this just looking at your steam contacts list.

For a subscription MMO, once you're out, there's a real financial incentive to not return. Going back to Watch Dogs would just mean firing it up again, but returning to Elder Scrolls Online requires setting the subscription back up, waiting for it to clear, patching, and then being able to play.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Those players that do not stick to a game for years are doing it for various reasons. Some aren't MMO players yet still buys them for the initial rush. But mostly, it's because of the same line of thinking that everyone should be able to do 100% of the content easily.
If most players have seen all they have to see in your game after a couple months, then why should they stick to your game?
No amount of content will ever suffice to please a population if you create said content with this philosophy.

Ultimately, the reasons are parenthetical, only between 1 in 20 and 1 in 50 players will ever see endgame content. That's all.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I'd also argue that game hopers are of no interest to MMOs. They aren't the commited type of gamers so no matter what you do to please them, you'll never keep them. They'll buy into your game no matter what anyway.
It is much smarter as a business to focus on your core audience and players that will remain your customers for years.
That's how early WoW was made, that's how Eve Online is made today and that's how all successful games are made.

There's a real danger in trying to point at the extreme outliers in the industry and saying, "yeah, we can do that."

WoW and EVE are as successful as they are because of dumb luck. On top of that WoW has made some serious mistakes over the years, including, arguably, aiming content releases only at players participating in end game content.

They were in the right place for the market at the right time. Back in 2004 no one expected WoW to be the massive success it is today. It was doing some marginally innovative things with the MMO framework, but if you'd told anyone that by 2015 WoW would still be going, have 12 million active subscriptions, and have effectively run everyone else out of the market to the point where developers were having to "sell" their MMOs for free just to compete over the crumbs, they'd think you were an idiot.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Second, if WoW losing millions of subscribers taught us anything, making the game easier is a mistake. The same patern repeated in all games that did the same error.
This hard content is that you do not have acces to, or aren't able to achieve yet, is the carrot. It serves as a motivation to play more to improve both your character and your own skill.
Working as a team to improve your runs provides the social hooks to remain in game too. Those guys need you and you need them and once you achieved something, it is your success, you earned it.

Game difficulty is a completely different issue. Ask The Secret World how they're doing right now.

Dark Souls (and to an extent Demon's Souls) proved to the industry that there is a market for really difficult content. Some players really go for that. Some don't.

Players who don't can just as easily end up frustrated with the game. Especially if their losses feel like the result of things beyond their control. In those cases, simply ramping up the difficulty can result in disgruntled ex-players actually undermining a game's presence elsewhere. Again, go find any Secret World article on someplace like Massivly and look at the comments.

That's addressed by the point I made just before.
WoW stoped at some point focusing on its core audience and started making changes to please fleeting players rather than commited ones.
The result was that they lost millions of subscribers in the process.

Dificulty isn't making a game punishing, but providing a challenge to all gamers.

With a proper ladder of content where each player can progress at their own pace, there is little frustration possible.
The issue is when the players start seeing that the ladder is almost finished, they lose motivation to continue climbing since they have not many things left to see.

Or they get distracted by greener pastures. The statistical analysis I've always heard, regarding WoW was that the subscriptions started faltering after multiple expansions that only affected endgame content. Not stuff that applied content across the board, for low and high level players.

Regardless of challenge, if you design and sell content for 5% of your players, your other 95% of players have no reason to buy it. Some of them will, and some of those will feel deeply cheated that it's so far out of reach. But, ultimately, if you're trying to sell something that a player can't access without spending more time than they're willing to, their job as a consumer is to ignore you. Which brings us back to Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade. Though, again, I haven't played a Warcraft game since they decided that the franchise wouldn't be doing RTSs from here on out.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

But, even if you make it easy, it won't matter. If content is buried 200 hours into an MMO, most players will simply never see it. For someone who has a life, and can only game for 1 to 2 hours a night, a 200 hours climb through the ranks, can easily mean they're looking at four to eight months of playing the same game, never getting bored, and never switching to an alt, in order to access that content.

In many cases, once they do get there, they'll find themselves presented with players who got there within two weeks of launch, and have worked the content into a finely honed system, and will flip out at any newbie who wanders in and ruins their run.

A lot of time, the reason I see attributed to WoW's declining numbers has nothing to do with the game's difficulty being nerfed. The issue was, all of the new content was gated behind a massive timesink.

Just to know that there is 200 more hours of content left to go is a motivation to remain susbcribed. Higher end content is just what you add on top to extend that number for all players.

For some people, yes. But, statistically, most players won't stick around that long.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I think you misunderstand the point of MMOs. The concept at its core is: "games you can play forever thanks to the subscription fee."
It's not just because you pay to access the game forever but because you pay for the game to get updated forever.
4 to 8 months of content ahead of you is a selling point, not a flaw in design.

No, I understand the concept of the MMO just fine. I think you fundamentally misunderstand gamer behavior.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Heck, I've been forced by life to be extremely casual on ESO for the past few months, yet I remained susbcribed. First, even if I played 5-10h per month, this is great value for $ spent for entertainment.

Assuming you don't get bored, or want to move onto something else.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, I knew I still had a lot of content to go through and that my continued support would mean they'll add content faster than I can consume it and when I'll have time to go hardcore again, I won't be done in a week.

The players who will burn content in a week don't matter.

You've conflated two groups, and it's really important to understand they're not the same people. Players who move on because they've "finished" the content. And players who move on because "ooh, shiny."

You can keep players around who are trying to "beat" the game by adding in new stuff at the back end. The Trials, new vet dungeons, these guys are in that 2%-5% sub set.

You cannot keep the players who are distracted by something else by doing that. It's what WoW learned the hard way, and it's a large part of why Warlords of Draenor offered up that instantly level a character to 90... or whatever, incentive. If you're going to sell a thing to a subscriber, they need to be able to consume that content.

It's part of why, going forward, the devs have said DLC content will be accessible to players regardless of level. You can't sell Vet 10 DLC to a player who doesn't have anyone above 20. They're just not in the market for it.

You can incentivize it with new classes, like DCUO does. But, otherwise you create a situation like The Secret World, where they're hemorrhaging players, and selling content as DLC that most players can't actually run.

Supposedly, TSW's actually changed that, and started selling content packs that are scattered through the game, like the old issue updates. But, I don't care enough to log back in and check.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

The players that got to the top within two weeks of the launch got there because the game was not tailored to challenge them. This is a flaw in recent games. But also, it is the nature of themepark games with heavy instancing to separate players. Those hardcore players are i ntheir own guilds and they have little impact on your casual guild ,aside from the guides they provided to you.
In essence, hardcore players are very useful to a game comunity.

And finally, the reasons you may have seen were wrong.
The content in early WoW was gated by an even larger timesink. And not only a timesink but also a player skill wall in many occasions.
Yet, that's when it grew the most.

And, by "grew" you mean hemorrhaged roughly 18% of their population in two years.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Blizzard spent around 3 expansion being wrong too, when their core audience was yelling to them that they should turn themselves around.
There was a point where Blizzard flat out said that WoW would never grow again. But just the plans of this latest expansion going back to the game's roots have increased their subscribers ahead of its actual launch.

Honestly, it sounds like you're letting personal experience with your individual segment of the community cloud your perceptions on the entire population. You found yourself in an echoing chamber, and for anyone on the outside... this is not what happened.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

A similar thing occured on ESO. Just the hype of 1.6 getting released got more players playing even before it got released.
That's the beauty of the subscription model, if players have things to look forward to, they pay.
And the champion point system is something players can look forward to for a long time, seing as it is designed for at least 3600 hours to max out.

If you really want to see this in action, go online to steam charts and look up an MMO's player stats. ESO isn't a great example because... well, it's player stat curves are weird, and there's less than six months of data. But, look at Rift, DCUO, TSW, or any of the others on there. You'll find massive spikes of people coming into a game because something new and major was found, and then a population dropoff. A new thing came out, players flocked, and then abandoned, and the game doesn't recoup those losses.

It's healthy for a game only in the sense that more money goes to the developers, but it does nothing for the community long term.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Third, Trials and their leaderboards are a great tool to motivate what I said before, and we need more and harder ones.
Scaling the existing ones would be imposible. How can you have a leaderboard representing a competition of players if they don't all tackle the same challenge.

To someone who's specifically looking to be competitive, sure. To literally anyone else? Not so much. To an "average" (yes, I know that's a loaded term) new player firing up the game, the first thing they're not going to do is fire up the leaderboard, and immediately decide how they'll get their name on it.

True, but it eventually will be one of their activity once they reach that point in the game. Having players to be competitive with is a dynamic challenge, one that never ends. It not only gives content for the individual, but as it is mostly based around groups, it gives the social hooks necessary for MMOs to grow.

What I mean by social hooks is: If you have friends in a game, and you have activities to do together that makes you all gain something together, then you're most likely to remain subscribed to keep in touch with those people and not "let them down". The gregarious instinct of humans is not to be underestimated.

Which, again, I mentioned ages ago. But, it's a confirmation system. You play because your friends play, which in turn discourages you from going to another game where they don't, and drags you back because they're still there.

This is agnostic to any specific MMO, and honestly, it can transition into other multiplayer games, like RTSs and coop games (like Borderlands or Left 4 Dead).

It has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the game. In this case the players are the content, not the game itself. The game is completely irrelevant, you're there for your friends, and because everything's more fun with friends.

Trust me, I'm an STO refugee, I know.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And finally, and most important point, those 2-5% players are your most loyal fans. They are those releasing videos of their runs, posting guides about builds and content, they are the core members of guilds and the ever present guys necessary for a snowball effect to occur.

Well, you said your first accurate thing... and then tripped and landed on your face.

2%-5% of the players are the game's most loyal. They will stick around and, in general, a game has to screw the pooch something fierce to chase them off... but, at the same time, they're not the ones making videos.

If a game has a population of 250,000 players, that would mean at least 10,000 of them would be active on youtube, twitch, or someplace else. For your actual content producing entertainers? At a rough estimate, you're looking at something closer to 0.05% of your population. Give or take. Or 50 per 100k.

I gave more than one activity, not all being done by all. Being a core member of a guild is more than enough to be a comunity pilar.
As i said, social hooks are important.

But you're underestimating boredom and what can be considered fierce.

No... if you've been reading my posts up to this point, that is my argument.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

By not focusing on your core audience, those that would be playing for years, you are being fierce against them.
You are not focusing on them simply by designing a game that can't be played for years.

The problem is, you can't sell a game to 5% of your population. WoW tried, and it put their subscription numbers into a slide. I mean they actually tried to follow your analysis and it cost them serious money.

However much you might want it to be otherwise, you are less valuable to the company than 19 other customers. When the goal is to keep as many people happy as possible, the smallest segments will get tossed on the fire first.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If they no longer have steps to climb on the metaphorical ladder, your game has no longer any thing to provide for them.
If those players leave the game rather than remain, you have high turn over because every single less commited player will leave at the same point or earlier.

Making more players have the option to be dedicated is what creates player retention, and by extension, growth of the player base.

At a very abstract level? Sure. "Give people more stuff to do, and they'll pick off the menu."

The problem is, you're hung up on saying, "no, you need to pick off THIS part of the menu or everythingwillFAIL!" Which just isn't true. More content, content that's open to everyone? Content that is actually diverse and different from what was already available? That will keep players coming back. Content that is inaccessible, content you force players to pay you and prove their worth? That won't help with retention.

Seriously, go look at The Secret World's population trending. That's the game that does the exact things you seem to think are the key for success. That's a game that's on life support after less than 3 years. It does not work. You can't hang a business on it.

Or, ask Games Workshop. Their quest to become an elite "status symbol" luxury brand has practically murdered their franchises.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If there isn't enough room in a game for hardcore PvEers, then the community cannot prosper.

Without a population an MMO can't survive. Just, flat fact. It doesn't matter how many subscribers you have, the less coherent the community, the more they'll fracture and spin off. Ironically, one of the things ESO doesn't do that well. But, it hasn't been a fatal issue yet.

We agree, ESO doesn't do that well, and a good part of it is due to not having released any high end content to keep people interested.

No, that was a reading comprehension failure on your part. ESO does not do a good job of creating a unified homogeneous community. That said, it was something the developers explicitly did not want. And, why we don't have a single unified auction house, or a lot of custom multi-guild channels.

I can't say the lack of a global auction house has any effect on the lack of high level content. I just don't think those are related in any rational way.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Another part of it is to have completely neglected the PvP aspect of the game.
When large guilds of both types leave the game from boredom and frustration, you are indeed fragmenting your community.

Except, of course, ESO's community has been pretty fragmented from the onset. If someone isn't on your contacts list, or in one of your guilds, they're just out there floating in space beyond your monkeysphere.

Again, this was a deliberate, design decision. Not an accident or oversight. You can say it was a bad choice, and there's a lot of people, even on these forums that would agree with you. But, it's hardly accidental.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

It goes back to all my previous points. Player retention is capital to have a population that grows. New players are less interesting than keeping old players because no matter how many new ones you can attract, they'll leave as soon as they become old.

This is a sign of something seriously wrong with the game. There's, honestly, still a community playing stuff like Empire at War, eight years after launch, with no support from the publisher. So, if your game can't keep anyone, there's something seriously wrong with it that goes far beyond limited community management tools.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

That's one of the flaws in f2p games.
The whole concept is geared at getting players to pay early to catch up. Either through raw power or through time saving items. But once they reach the top, they have nothing left to look forward to, and leave.
So you end up with a model that can easily attract many players, but none remain to become long term assets for the community, nor long term customers for the company.

Or the realize "free" isn't really "free" at all, and they book because the game isn't worth the money it would take to keep playing... or they're kids who have a three week attention span... or the game is pay to win... or there really is nothing beyond a gear grind at high levels...

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

All of those games can't succeed by design.

Look, the way this is phrased, you're saying, "free to play games are deliberately designed to fail."

I don't think that's what you mean, and if you'd said something like, "it's a fundamental flaw in the business model." Okay. But...

Free to Play games are an incredibly diverse group of titles, ranging from cow clickers to MMOs that failed because their publishers had unrealistic expectations of the market. You cannot generalize all of them under a single banner and say, "nope, they all fail because they're not hard enough." That's just nonsensical. It's like saying, "All FPS games will fail because they don't have an FOV slider."

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Look at Planetside 2. Despite being unique and having great tech and art, it is plagued by such a high turnover that it is failing.

And, from what I'm told, very steep P2W purchases that mean participation is more a test of how much you're willing to spend or how long you're willing to grind rather than how good you actually are.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

They spent their first two years trying to please new players, in ways that detrimented were detrimental to older players, and now they are looking into ways to slow down the progression speed to keep players interested longer and/or creating new revenue avenues. (only achievements rather than normal successful activities will provide xp)

There are ways, especially in sandboxish games, to provide care for both new players and older players. But they requires to create higher end systems geared at advanced players that new players will grow into and be excited to look forward to mastering.

While something like the champion system will help for retention with the chunk of the population that makes it that far... and incentivizes running up alts. It doesn't actually do anything for retention among players who's main is in the 6-49 range. Which, again, is most of them.

You're talking about retention in the 2%-5% that make it that far. I'm just trying to tell you, again, and again and again, there are a lot of players that leave, long before any of the systems you're talking about kick in.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Optional scalling of some content is fine. The solo instanced ones should have both options. Same for dungeons. But the veteran version, trials and some new added zones need to be a "next step" evolution for your character.

If you get that far. You seem to have some idea that people leave because they get frustrated. That's probably true in some cases, but in general, this is just about people getting bored with playing the same game night after night, and wandering off to find something new.

And with that last comment, you hit the nail on the coffin of my own argument.
Keep high level players always interested, and you'll retain the lower level ones too. I don't think scaling is needed nor good, but it is not all bad for some content.

Yes, your argument is dead, and now ready for burial.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

As someone with limited amount of time and money, If you hear that players get bored and leave soon in a mmorpg, you don't buy it and/or do not subscribe to it.

This issue has plagued ESO for months, and is not helped by the fact a lot of worked on and completed content has been held back to become DLCs.

Those DLCs won't be a "next step on the ladder" and will not be interesting to older players. They will sell, but they won't help retain the the population.

Thing is, you can keep high level players entertained by introducing more leveling content. The spliced DLC that's accessible to end game and leveling players is promising. But, it doesn't get around the part that, out of every hundred players who roll up a character, only two to five of them will make it to the end game content. To an extent, there's nothing you can do about this.

If everything will at last scale to you, i will rejoice.

Basically that should mean that i can finally start questing where ever i want and give more options to make my own story for my characters.

Only real problem in Oblivion by the way, was those unrealistically good weapons and equipment that scaled enemies had.. When only stats are scaled, it is more like Skyrim where gear also means a difference.

Iago wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

I would also add that doing dolmens as low level will finally be fun as veteran players will no longer be able to ruin them by insta killing everything. It is better to scale than have differencies.

We will all still be different with our skills and passives, stats as well. Gear too and so forth.

What happens if you find a dolmen in Glenubra and a level 12 a level 20 and 2 VR14's are fighting there. Who does that dolmen scale to?

The concept was not DLC content scales to the player but that the player scales to it. Which is worse.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Iago wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

I would also add that doing dolmens as low level will finally be fun as veteran players will no longer be able to ruin them by insta killing everything. It is better to scale than have differencies.

We will all still be different with our skills and passives, stats as well. Gear too and so forth.

What happens if you find a dolmen in Glenubra and a level 12 a level 20 and 2 VR14's are fighting there. Who does that dolmen scale to?

The concept was not DLC content scales to the player but that the player scales to it. Which is worse.

If I scale t my environment I am going to give away a lot less armor to people just starting out. As it stands I give away 1 to 2 sometimes more green or blue sets of armor away each week to new players. If I have to start fighting mobs my level to get the Iron I think IIl pass

Iago wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Iago wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

I would also add that doing dolmens as low level will finally be fun as veteran players will no longer be able to ruin them by insta killing everything. It is better to scale than have differencies.

We will all still be different with our skills and passives, stats as well. Gear too and so forth.

What happens if you find a dolmen in Glenubra and a level 12 a level 20 and 2 VR14's are fighting there. Who does that dolmen scale to?

The concept was not DLC content scales to the player but that the player scales to it. Which is worse.

If I scale t my environment I am going to give away a lot less armor to people just starting out. As it stands I give away 1 to 2 sometimes more green or blue sets of armor away each week to new players. If I have to start fighting mobs my level to get the Iron I think IIl pass

Yeah, that's not what's going on at all.

This is like the part where when dungeon scaling was first introduced everyone was like, "but think of the solo dungeons, we'll be ruined!"

DLC like Wrothgar will be new zones. When you enter them, you'll scale to 50. Like what happens with cyrodiil now. And, you can then fight enemies there as if you were high enough level to not get smeared across the walls.

This is not going to scale enemies to your level. It will also not apply to zones in the base game.

The way I see it, of they are getting rid of Veteran levels, the the "scaling up" is actually a "scaling DOWN" of all the mobs. Look at the broadcast on twitch, they were very careful to say they would still have leveling 1-50, so there is progression. But after that, the champion point system is there to slowly make you more powerful but NOT require that you only fight rats in this area or do quests in this order. Instead things should become a bit more open and you'll still be a little over powered the more you play, even on your lowbie alts, thanks to those champion points.

starkerealm wrote: »

Iago wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Iago wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

I would also add that doing dolmens as low level will finally be fun as veteran players will no longer be able to ruin them by insta killing everything. It is better to scale than have differencies.

We will all still be different with our skills and passives, stats as well. Gear too and so forth.

What happens if you find a dolmen in Glenubra and a level 12 a level 20 and 2 VR14's are fighting there. Who does that dolmen scale to?

The concept was not DLC content scales to the player but that the player scales to it. Which is worse.

If I scale t my environment I am going to give away a lot less armor to people just starting out. As it stands I give away 1 to 2 sometimes more green or blue sets of armor away each week to new players. If I have to start fighting mobs my level to get the Iron I think IIl pass

Yeah, that's not what's going on at all.

This is like the part where when dungeon scaling was first introduced everyone was like, "but think of the solo dungeons, we'll be ruined!"

DLC like Wrothgar will be new zones. When you enter them, you'll scale to 50. Like what happens with cyrodiil now. And, you can then fight enemies there as if you were high enough level to not get smeared across the walls.

This is not going to scale enemies to your level. It will also not apply to zones in the base game.

Cool that makes a lot of sense and also makes me worry less

starkerealm wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I'll snip our mutual wall of texts as we've been mostly repeating the same arguments to each other and attempt to cut to the essential.

I don't think that the "shiny" effect is as strong as you believe it is.
It certainly has an impact on players, but good games have a draw strong enough to counter it. The argument we could make is that there are far more lesser titles than there are good titles, so this effect is rarely countered.

Then, I'll make this one really simple...

We're talking about one of those "two kinds of" questions. There's two kinds of MMO players, those that adapt their playstyle to the framework, and those that don't.
Those that don't, approach MMOs the same way they would any single player game. They don't stick around for months to see endgame, they never get over that hurdle into the high level content. Not because it's too difficult, but because they go off and do something else.

Judging by what developers have discovered and reported, "those that don't" also account for the vast majority of players.

And "those that don't" will never remain attached to an MMO, no matter how much you modify it to please them. It is a fool's errand. They just aren't the audience for these kind of games.

It is always best to focus on those that are indeed interested in the genre. Those that have the potential to stay for years and try to please those people.

A mistake many publishers did early on was to think that MMOs are not a niche genre. They'll never outsell shooters or assassin's creed. But they make up for it by having a dedicated following ready to pay for months, even years, if they are pleased.

I can act as feminine as I want, stuff up a bra and put on lipstick, I'm not gonna attract a straight man.

Haha. Yeah I guess I could get him drunk enough to get confused.

In the end I agree with what you say. You need to add systems that can please everyone.

Something fun to pick up but has depth and long term replayability.
You know, easy to learn, hard to master.

But I do think that the two guys that stay subbed for a year are more valuable. They are community pilars and will encourage others to stay subbed. The shiny crowd is just too "locusty".

Atari clearly isn't the only publisher confused this way. Or at least nowadays publishers figured out they could get away with it.
It's really damaging tge industry as a whole when the smart move is to not buy games and wait for the switch.
Those making an honest attempt are harmed by this mentality.