Scale PVE difficulty---Its just to easy

Shunravi · February 2016

Selstad wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Oh, i get ya. But in my perspective as someone who pugs, i run into a lot of people at relatively high levels who dont know or dont do simple things like bash a chargeup, avoid red, or know how certain npcs operate. So my reply to you strms mostly from that perspective. Its amazing how simple encouragement and advice about mechanics (not even gear, rotation, or cp) can change how effective someone can be. And thats simple mechanical knowhow that the game should have exposed them to by that point.

Of course, my reply is to make it actually easier first by ensuring mechanical knowledge. Which is an essential first step before any actual dificulty changes.

I consider things such as CC, interrupting and such as a "core" mechanic of the game, meaning that you should know about it relatively easy during the first few minutes of the game, and if I remember correctly, you get some introduction during the first 3 levels in that Coldharbour part starting zone around those things. It's been nearly 2 years since I did it so correct me if I'm wrong.

you'd think so...

urkonse · February 2016

As long as endgame stuff wont get any harder im happy

TalonKnight · February 2016

Katahdin wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

This content is made so a new player can run it, without champion points, without basic knowledge of skills and buffs, wears looted random gear and food/drink/potions.

If you desire a challenge, respec and remove all your champion points + wear looted gear, like a new player. Then go and join a group, with new players who don't know mechanics of dungeons - and walk into a dungeon with them.

This.

Yeah but the prob with what u just said is that these dungeons r actually too hard for most new players with no champion points to learn.

And some bosses at low lev, no matter how skilled u cant complete ie the crab boss in fg.

babylon · February 2016

Haven't bothered reading through entirety of thread but just going to remind OP of this point - the Devs made vet areas easier because people didn't like the extra difficulty...they aren't going to go and ruin it for the majority of players, as they know the majority do not want the open areas to be mind numbingly tedious due to long fights all the time.

And nobody does Craglorn - if OP wants to challenge himself go solo Craglorn delves and solo or two man dungeons as far as he can get.

Flameheart · February 2016

I don't find this game difficult, but I don't think it is that easy as the TO mentioned it. There are a couple of facts that determine difficulty besides instance design and the willingness of a player to do the theorycrafting for builds and roles. The later I expect from a player and no, it is no rocket science. A player who does not have a clue and does not want to have a clue should be no measure for instance difficulty. In so far I agree to the TO.

But other facts like:

- group constellations like what classes
- experienced veteran players or newbs at all or newbs when it comes to that specific instance
- equip quality and CPs

do matter.

Example:

We are a non progression (Archives hard mode -> check, Hel Ra hard mode -> check, Sanctum hard mode -> pending) guild that delivers almost every day an event. 2 raid days for trials in the week, 1 day for IC sewers, 1 day for PvP and now 1 day to show new or even long time guild members harder content like V16 WGT.

The "WGT day" for newcomers or players who haven't seen that instance is a great and well visited event right now. We try to build groups with two Veteran players and two newcomers. The results are a mix of light and shadow. Some groups reached the top and killed the final boss, some not.

My impressions:

- equip and CPs matter - a lot, I would suggest to have at least epic gear + legendary weapons to get it done with a certain ease besides learning/knowing the mechanics.
- a great DD can cater a weak DD and therefore a whole group. To have as much dps as possible is the number one rule in my eyes. DPS can smooth out everything. Weak dps just increases failure chance a lot and it leads to an effect some other people do not realize: It degrades and weakens fully specialized builds developed for well-practised groups -> ressource probs inc.
- some who thought they were good players, realized that there was room for improvement and that there was "potential to unlock".
- some who thought playing a stamina DD build in PvE should be easy (in spite of they were told that it is possible to do that, but more difficult as playing a magicka ranged build) ate a lot of damage and get onehitted a few times and dps wasn't the best. In that case I hope the DDs' dps will be sufficient, because your healer is busy...
- a group with one or maybe even two magicka NB which deliver good dps and awesome offheal almost trivialize content, because the healer will be able to dps in about 50% to 75% of a fight (I can add 10k to 15K dps as a healer alone in V16 gold equip and capped CPs). A group with tank (warhorn nr. 1) + 2 NB DDs or 1 NB DD + 1 Overload Sorc + NB "spell power cure" healer (warhorn nr. 2) destroys just everything in light speed.
-> magicka ranged DD builds are an excellent choice for newcomers and/or players who have doubts because of their movement skills and reactions.

eliisra · February 2016

Selstad wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Oh, i get ya. But in my perspective as someone who pugs, i run into a lot of people at relatively high levels who dont know or dont do simple things like bash a chargeup, avoid red, or know how certain npcs operate. So my reply to you strms mostly from that perspective. Its amazing how simple encouragement and advice about mechanics (not even gear, rotation, or cp) can change how effective someone can be. And thats simple mechanical knowhow that the game should have exposed them to by that point.

Of course, my reply is to make it actually easier first by ensuring mechanical knowledge. Which is an essential first step before any actual dificulty changes.

I consider things such as CC, interrupting and such as a "core" mechanic of the game, meaning that you should know about it relatively easy during the first few minutes of the game, and if I remember correctly, you get some introduction during the first 3 levels in that Coldharbour part starting zone around those things. It's been nearly 2 years since I did it so correct me if I'm wrong.

There's even a combat tutorial pop-up you can have active, telling you when to interrupt NPC's and such.

But it's clearly not enough, because seeing new players in PvP they still dont know how to block reactively, when to bash, dodge, LoS or break cc. They never have to use those combat actions when questing or doing landscape stuff, so it's not going of automatically for them in real fights.

If you're never punished for ignoring combat mechanics, like with today's landscape content, than it's much harder to learn. To perfectly incorporate all combat techniques into your normal gameplay, you need to be exposed to constant situations where you have to use them or likely die.

First months of ESO that was the case. If you played back than you know what I'm talking about. Doing the gold VR zones on my broken templar or equally broken nightblade at the time was sometimes as hard as today's vMA. Miss on cc and a pack of mobs would just kill me. That forced you to learn how to deal with ESO combat. I dont think that difficulty was acceptable in any way, it shouldn't be stressful and painful to do quests and delves. But a hint more difficulty into today's landscape&quest is needed and would benefit new players.

I suspect the ones raging about keeping it sleepy mode or brain-dead easy is older players. They want to level up alts quickly and with no resistance, so 2-shooting mobs is perfect. Meanwhile all new players I talk to thinks PvE is to easy and want it harder.

Thevampirenight · February 2016

eliisra wrote: »

Selstad wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Oh, i get ya. But in my perspective as someone who pugs, i run into a lot of people at relatively high levels who dont know or dont do simple things like bash a chargeup, avoid red, or know how certain npcs operate. So my reply to you strms mostly from that perspective. Its amazing how simple encouragement and advice about mechanics (not even gear, rotation, or cp) can change how effective someone can be. And thats simple mechanical knowhow that the game should have exposed them to by that point.

Of course, my reply is to make it actually easier first by ensuring mechanical knowledge. Which is an essential first step before any actual dificulty changes.

I consider things such as CC, interrupting and such as a "core" mechanic of the game, meaning that you should know about it relatively easy during the first few minutes of the game, and if I remember correctly, you get some introduction during the first 3 levels in that Coldharbour part starting zone around those things. It's been nearly 2 years since I did it so correct me if I'm wrong.

There's even a combat tutorial pop-up you can have active, telling you when to interrupt NPC's and such.

But it's clearly not enough, because seeing new players in PvP they still dont know how to block reactively, when to bash, dodge, LoS or break cc. They never have to use those combat actions when questing or doing landscape stuff, so it's not going of automatically for them in real fights.

If you're never punished for ignoring combat mechanics, like with today's landscape content, than it's much harder to learn. To perfectly incorporate all combat techniques into your normal gameplay, you need to be exposed to constant situations where you have to use them or likely die.

First months of ESO that was the case. If you played back than you know what I'm talking about. Doing the gold VR zones on my broken templar or equally broken nightblade at the time was sometimes as hard as today's vMA. Miss on cc and a pack of mobs would just kill me. That forced you to learn how to deal with ESO combat. I dont think that difficulty was acceptable in any way, it shouldn't be stressful and painful to do quests and delves. But a hint more difficulty into today's landscape&quest is needed and would benefit new players.

I suspect the ones raging about keeping it sleepy mode or brain-dead easy is older players. They want to level up alts quickly and with no resistance, so 2-shooting mobs is perfect. Meanwhile all new players I talk to thinks PvE is to easy and want it harder.

Why not give both options. Now what they could do is make it vet scaled instances like orcisism but do this for all your main factions zones, but this would be a choose able instance, not forced on anyone. The main zones would still be the easy ones you are in now and also they can make it the rp/pve easy instance. then have the vet scaled instances of each faction zone. I would really be happy if they did this.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2016

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

coolermh · February 2016

babylon wrote: »

Haven't bothered reading through entirety of thread but just going to remind OP of this point - the Devs made vet areas easier because people didn't like the extra difficulty...they aren't going to go and ruin it for the majority of players, as they know the majority do not want the open areas to be mind numbingly tedious due to long fights all the time.

And nobody does Craglorn - if OP wants to challenge himself go solo Craglorn delves and solo or two man dungeons as far as he can get.

Im talking about lowbie stuff on my new char...You can't go to craglorn on a lvl 34. Plus once you hit vet 16 even craglorn is pretty easy, especially when you consider it is supposed to be group content. Back in the day craglorn was very challenging but now with cp and higher vet ranks its just easy. I am not saying any of this because I think that I am a great player....I'm not... lol.

Volkodav · February 2016

Unsent.Soul wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

This content is made so a new player can run it, without champion points, without basic knowledge of skills and buffs, wears looted random gear and food/drink/potions.

If you desire a challenge, respec and remove all your champion points + wear looted gear, like a new player. Then go and join a group, with new players who don't know mechanics of dungeons - and walk into a dungeon with them.

People say this, but I'm sorry, this is ridiculous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOSzX09QX-g

Well,I'm glad you arent one of the Devs then.Lower level players deserve to learn to play and to want to take that from them is both selfish and ridiculous.

Yea, but this thread isnt really talking about lower level stuff. Its all well and good to learn, but when there is no signifigant learning curve outside of group instances, there is a problem.

Not sure of certain people's reading comprehension but in the OP it clearly states doing low level dungeons(typically for non vet, no cp toons) and that they should be made more difficult because the group was made of 3 players over 300 CP and 1 over max.

This thread is detrimental to any new person or a group of players that don't know the ins/outs of dungeons. I'm not the only one that sees it this way.

.I dont think this is detrimental to any lower level players reading this. Surely they dont come in here,read this and scream NOOO! And then run off,not to play ESO forever.I also dont agree with the OP that the dungeons should be made harder.This was my first and continuing stance on the issue.

WalkingLegacy · February 2016

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

Smurf,

CPs are an artificial replayability hook. To keep you playing the game. They're here because the devs don't want to design a deeper progression system.

CPs will ruin this MMO. Difficulty balance and class balance can't be achieved with this system in place.

Selstad · February 2016

eliisra wrote: »

Selstad wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Oh, i get ya. But in my perspective as someone who pugs, i run into a lot of people at relatively high levels who dont know or dont do simple things like bash a chargeup, avoid red, or know how certain npcs operate. So my reply to you strms mostly from that perspective. Its amazing how simple encouragement and advice about mechanics (not even gear, rotation, or cp) can change how effective someone can be. And thats simple mechanical knowhow that the game should have exposed them to by that point.

Of course, my reply is to make it actually easier first by ensuring mechanical knowledge. Which is an essential first step before any actual dificulty changes.

I consider things such as CC, interrupting and such as a "core" mechanic of the game, meaning that you should know about it relatively easy during the first few minutes of the game, and if I remember correctly, you get some introduction during the first 3 levels in that Coldharbour part starting zone around those things. It's been nearly 2 years since I did it so correct me if I'm wrong.

There's even a combat tutorial pop-up you can have active, telling you when to interrupt NPC's and such.

But it's clearly not enough, because seeing new players in PvP they still dont know how to block reactively, when to bash, dodge, LoS or break cc. They never have to use those combat actions when questing or doing landscape stuff, so it's not going of automatically for them in real fights.

If you're never punished for ignoring combat mechanics, like with today's landscape content, than it's much harder to learn. To perfectly incorporate all combat techniques into your normal gameplay, you need to be exposed to constant situations where you have to use them or likely die.

First months of ESO that was the case. If you played back than you know what I'm talking about. Doing the gold VR zones on my broken templar or equally broken nightblade at the time was sometimes as hard as today's vMA. Miss on cc and a pack of mobs would just kill me. That forced you to learn how to deal with ESO combat. I dont think that difficulty was acceptable in any way, it shouldn't be stressful and painful to do quests and delves. But a hint more difficulty into today's landscape&quest is needed and would benefit new players.

I suspect the ones raging about keeping it sleepy mode or brain-dead easy is older players. They want to level up alts quickly and with no resistance, so 2-shooting mobs is perfect. Meanwhile all new players I talk to thinks PvE is to easy and want it harder.

ESO in the beginning was unbalanced in terms of difficulty. Some quests were easy, while others were insane. Some dungeon bosses were easy while others snapped the head of you. It was a high inconsistency in difficulty back then, and it's good that the game has been balanced out a bit to make it easier. Some of the unbalances were even reported during the beta (I was one of them reporting this), and some things were changed, but the major parts weren't. So some changes had to be made to make the curve more even.

That doesn't mean the game isn't too easy, as said difficulties are difficult to attune since some like it hard while others want it a bit easy. Finding that middle ground isn't easy, but it has to be based on the perspective of a new player, not an experienced player who have played the game for a long time. Per example, modelling WoW's levelling difficulty after me, would be a major mistake, I've levelled 40+ alts in that game over my time and have a huge advantage in knowing the game, so the game would have to be very difficult to accommodate for that, which in terms would be major hard for new players. So it has to be modelled and shaped in the eyes of a new player, joining the game now, not a player that levels an alt.

That difficulty is the key and what's sought after. Experienced players will always after a time consider the open world content too easy, mostly because we know the game. Craglorn was a mistake in terms of forcing a team up, which led to people grinding rather than doing the content. The difficulty in veteran content can be tuned up, but I think that the best way to make difficulties, is to introduce raids and tune them to being very hard and require dedication and work to accomplish. I see it as impossible to tune to out door content to such a degree that it's challenging, rewarding and difficult without overdoing it.

Sadetius · February 2016

Hi,

I wanted to give some perspective trough me and a couple of other friends. We are all noobs basically. 1 friend And I have a little more experience in the mmo genre. The other friend is (was) completly new to MMO's. We are mostly pve players and we sometimes do pvp just for the heck of it.

Anyway we stopped playing ESO a couple of months ago. I still lurk the forums to see what plans are being made, changes, DLC etc. The main reason for departure was that a large portion of the PVE was too easy. At the beginning it was quite challenging since we still had to learn the mechanics skills, gear setup etc. However it got way too east once we got the hang of it a bit.
In addition You cannot really quest together, well you can however questing becomes way too easy. Same goes for delves, anchors public dungeons. If you group up it becomes a snoozefest. Most of the things become way too easy if you run it with 2 or more players (delves,public dungeons, Anchors). A few world bosses are challenging and fun, most of the are soloable and again with 2+ people way too easy. We did a couple of lower lvl dungeons and that was quite fun however those couple of dungeons are just not enough.

So my friends quit before they reached veteran lvls; I lvld up to VR3 too see how things progressed, shortly after that I quit as well. The difficulty felt the same and I just did not have the energy anymore to lvl up further to do the higher lvl/veteran dungeons.

I do not know if we are just part of a small minority that experienced it like this. However in our situation the PVE was really lackluster. We were expecting more challenging/group content troughout the zones.

TLDR:

My friends and I (we are pretty nooby) quit since the PVE did no provide enough challenging/group content trough out the zones. An extremely large part of the open world is quite too easy when running solo; When grouping up it is trivial.

Shunravi · February 2016

Sadetius wrote: »

Hi,

I wanted to give some perspective trough me and a couple of other friends. We are all noobs basically. 1 friend And I have a little more experience in the mmo genre. The other friend is (was) completly new to MMO's. We are mostly pve players and we sometimes do pvp just for the heck of it.

Anyway we stopped playing ESO a couple of months ago. I still lurk the forums to see what plans are being made, changes, DLC etc. The main reason for departure was that a large portion of the PVE was too easy. At the beginning it was quite challenging since we still had to learn the mechanics skills, gear setup etc. However it got way too east once we got the hang of it a bit.
In addition You cannot really quest together, well you can however questing becomes way too easy. Same goes for delves, anchors public dungeons. If you group up it becomes a snoozefest. Most of the things become way too easy if you run it with 2 or more players (delves,public dungeons, Anchors). A few world bosses are challenging and fun, most of the are soloable and again with 2+ people way too easy. We did a couple of lower lvl dungeons and that was quite fun however those couple of dungeons are just not enough.

So my friends quit before they reached veteran lvls; I lvld up to VR3 too see how things progressed, shortly after that I quit as well. The difficulty felt the same and I just did not have the energy anymore to lvl up further to do the higher lvl/veteran dungeons.

I do not know if we are just part of a small minority that experienced it like this. However in our situation the PVE was really lackluster. We were expecting more challenging/group content troughout the zones.

TLDR:

My friends and I (we are pretty nooby) quit since the PVE did no provide enough challenging/group content trough out the zones. An extremely large part of the open world is quite too easy when running solo; When grouping up it is trivial.

Thank you for sharing. Im not sure how big or small the group of people who share this experience is, but a few friends i tried bringing into the game had similar things to say when they left.

WalkingLegacy · February 2016

@Sadetius

My friend and I came back a couple months ago and started fresh.

We say the same thing over and over, like "that's it" or "that was easy". Every time a solo mission pops up we also shout out how lame it is.

Game is easy. The core chunk of the game is easy. Stupid easy.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2016

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

Smurf,

CPs are an artificial replayability hook. To keep you playing the game. They're here because the devs don't want to design a deeper progression system.

CPs will ruin this MMO. Difficulty balance and class balance can't be achieved with this system in place.

I'm not sure how your comment relates to this topic.
Undeniably, the use of CP's especially after 100, create efficiencies that by default make your character more efficient and more effective. That leads to an easier interaction for any PvE or PvP situations....the more CP's you gain to a certain extent, the further this applies. I do feel there is a break even but this topic is regarding a player under level 50 who has over 300 CPs who wants more difficulty.

If they do not use any of the 300 CPs that changes their experiences.
We know this due to the CP caps put in place and the many CP calculators.

ZOS has now scaled a lot of content and will continue to do so, which attempts to set a scale.
Whether good or bad, a scale is set and this scale is offset by utilizing CPs.

As results, the CP is basically a difficulty slider now. The OP wants more difficulty, so my suggestion is to fist remove all CPs and replay (with the entire group not using CPs)

I would also like more difficulty but I do not think difficulties should be created based on a players experience using CPs.

Shunravi · February 2016

.

WalkingLegacy · February 2016

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

Smurf,

CPs are an artificial replayability hook. To keep you playing the game. They're here because the devs don't want to design a deeper progression system.

CPs will ruin this MMO. Difficulty balance and class balance can't be achieved with this system in place.

I'm not sure how your comment relates to this topic.
Undeniably, the use of CP's especially after 100, create efficiencies that by default make your character more efficient and more effective. That leads to an easier interaction for any PvE or PvP situations....the more CP's you gain to a certain extent, the further this applies. I do feel there is a break even but this topic is regarding a player under level 50 who has over 300 CPs who wants more difficulty.

If they do not use any of the 300 CPs that changes their experiences.
We know this due to the CP caps put in place and the many CP calculators.

ZOS has now scaled a lot of content and will continue to do so, which attempts to set a scale.
Whether good or bad, a scale is set and this scale is offset by utilizing CPs.

As results, the CP is basically a difficulty slider now. The OP wants more difficulty, so my suggestion is to fist remove all CPs and replay (with the entire group not using CPs)

I would also like more difficulty but I do not think difficulties should be created based on a players experience using CPs.

I get what you're saying but you're just justifying the horrible designed difficulty system with a horribly designed paragon system to make the game artificially 'more difficult'

Some people don't have any CP, game is still easy mode. Veteran MMO players I can guarantee have zero issues with the base difficulty of the game. When they start playing they don't have CP.

So as new players come in, whether they are bad 'cellphone' gamers or seasoned MMO veterans, the difficulty system is still badly designed.... And champion points will continue to make this an issue as you progress through the game and more content is added.

Humatiel · February 2016

1-50 should be as hard as veteran ranks, at vr1 there should be one scale of difficulty and that is VMA. If you had that you wouldn't have the tankwithbowoffhealdps that we have now.

Autolycus · February 2016

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

Smurf,

CPs are an artificial replayability hook. To keep you playing the game. They're here because the devs don't want to design a deeper progression system.

CPs will ruin this MMO. Difficulty balance and class balance can't be achieved with this system in place.

I'm not sure how your comment relates to this topic.
Undeniably, the use of CP's especially after 100, create efficiencies that by default make your character more efficient and more effective. That leads to an easier interaction for any PvE or PvP situations....the more CP's you gain to a certain extent, the further this applies. I do feel there is a break even but this topic is regarding a player under level 50 who has over 300 CPs who wants more difficulty.

If they do not use any of the 300 CPs that changes their experiences.
We know this due to the CP caps put in place and the many CP calculators.

ZOS has now scaled a lot of content and will continue to do so, which attempts to set a scale.
Whether good or bad, a scale is set and this scale is offset by utilizing CPs.

As results, the CP is basically a difficulty slider now. The OP wants more difficulty, so my suggestion is to fist remove all CPs and replay (with the entire group not using CPs)

I would also like more difficulty but I do not think difficulties should be created based on a players experience using CPs.

This is actually about how, even without the use of any CP at all, or any crafted gear, PvE content is still too easy. New and returning players alike are saying the same thing. What motivation is there for a new player if it's too easy, right out of the gate. What motivation do existing players have to remain if everything is too easy?

j3crow · February 2016

Katahdin wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

I'm with OP. Large swathes of this game are mind numbling easy.

Respec to remove the champ points. Take off the set gear or just run it without gear.

If we make low level areas harder for veteran players who can roflstomp content because of champ points, set gear, glyphs on armor, pots and food, not to mention already knowing the content which new players don't have access to or just don't know about yet, newer players will quit in frustration.

This is not good for the longevity of the game.

You however do have enough knowledge to make it more challenging for yourself.

This

The content becoming easy because of champion points... Is the whole point of champion points. Isn't that obvious? Its supposed to reward you directly with power for time invested.

Its supposed to be easier.

Think the content is to easy because you've invested in Champion points? Than stop using Champion Points.

This is kind of obvious, people

Humatiel · February 2016

j3crow wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

I'm with OP. Large swathes of this game are mind numbling easy.

Respec to remove the champ points. Take off the set gear or just run it without gear.

If we make low level areas harder for veteran players who can roflstomp content because of champ points, set gear, glyphs on armor, pots and food, not to mention already knowing the content which new players don't have access to or just don't know about yet, newer players will quit in frustration.

This is not good for the longevity of the game.

You however do have enough knowledge to make it more challenging for yourself.

This

The content becoming easy because of champion points... Is the whole point of champion points. Isn't that obvious? Its supposed to reward you directly with power for time invested.

Its supposed to be easier.

Think the content is to easy because you've invested in Champion points? Than stop using Champion Points.

This is kind of obvious, people

There is nothing obvious about gimping yourself to enjoy content.

Shunravi · February 2016

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

So last night a couple of guildies and myself went on alts and had some fun in the non-vet camps and at the end of the night we decided to do a few dungeon on are lowbies for the skill points. The four of us were fairly veteran players and know how to build chars. We did the first dungeon and it was really really easy so we decided to do white gold tower...again so easy it was not fun...so one guy left and we decided to do imperial city prison with only 3 people.... a bit more of a challenge but we still never even wiped....

Why is it so easy...Champion points... I have over the cap and the rest of the guys were 300+. Can we please scale dungeon difficulty somehow to account for champ points...make it fun again please!

The difficulty slider is CPs....thats what they are there for. To make things more effective which causes a reduction in difficulty.

Lets say you were not using CP's as it seems you are using them. The game was more difficult and it was changed, I do believe the original difficulty was fit best but there were a lot of complaints and still a large forum voice of....make everything solo-able.

I would like to see more difficulty but I'm unsure that it makes sense if you're using CPs and a manual group where the dungeon is scaled to the leader. By that approach its going to be a lot easier than it use to be prior to any group leader scaling or Group Finder scaling.

Smurf,

CPs are an artificial replayability hook. To keep you playing the game. They're here because the devs don't want to design a deeper progression system.

CPs will ruin this MMO. Difficulty balance and class balance can't be achieved with this system in place.

I'm not sure how your comment relates to this topic.
Undeniably, the use of CP's especially after 100, create efficiencies that by default make your character more efficient and more effective. That leads to an easier interaction for any PvE or PvP situations....the more CP's you gain to a certain extent, the further this applies. I do feel there is a break even but this topic is regarding a player under level 50 who has over 300 CPs who wants more difficulty.

If they do not use any of the 300 CPs that changes their experiences.
We know this due to the CP caps put in place and the many CP calculators.

ZOS has now scaled a lot of content and will continue to do so, which attempts to set a scale.
Whether good or bad, a scale is set and this scale is offset by utilizing CPs.

As results, the CP is basically a difficulty slider now. The OP wants more difficulty, so my suggestion is to fist remove all CPs and replay (with the entire group not using CPs)

I would also like more difficulty but I do not think difficulties should be created based on a players experience using CPs.

I agree with your premise as the game currently stands. But as much as cp can be used as a dificulty slider, I do not believe that telling a player that they should ignore their character and account progression in order to have a more fulfilling experience is heathy for them or the game in general. Especially since an account with more cp is likely to have already experienced that content before. This simply propagates stale content. PvP is more balanced in this regard as you can find other players of similar progression to fight. In pve though, its stale.

What i believe the op is proposing, and what my arguments have been for, is for a form of active scaling based on the experience a player has with the game. As you must have at least one level 50 character to have cp, i believe cp is an excelent indicator for a players experience with the game. An active scaling system would work to keep older content interesting for older players, while keeping the encounter completely untouched for players new to the game. (emphasized because it seems to be the main point of duscussion in the thread.)

This can wotk by aplying mathematical scaling matrices to stats in the content. These could be based on a geralization of how much sustain, survivability, and damage a player is expected to have given a certain number of cp (+ better gear as they have a max rank character.) and these could affect basic things like npc health and damage, but could also affect things like timers and percentages as well. Take vCoH; there is a boss that has two forms of aoe. At a certain percent hp, it will use both phases at once. What this form of scaling could do is make it so the threshold for said dual aoe would occur at higher percentages of health. In this case it would raise it above 'execute phase.' But for players with few or no cp, this encounter would remain more or less the same. This can also affect something like the movement speed of a mobile aoe, or adds.

This wouldnt be creating new dificulties as much as changing what already exists without affecting the less experienced. I see such a thing as a giid thing in terms of keeping content interesting and fir the longevity of the game.

Shunravi · February 2016

Humatiel wrote: »

j3crow wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

I'm with OP. Large swathes of this game are mind numbling easy.

Respec to remove the champ points. Take off the set gear or just run it without gear.

If we make low level areas harder for veteran players who can roflstomp content because of champ points, set gear, glyphs on armor, pots and food, not to mention already knowing the content which new players don't have access to or just don't know about yet, newer players will quit in frustration.

This is not good for the longevity of the game.

You however do have enough knowledge to make it more challenging for yourself.

This

The content becoming easy because of champion points... Is the whole point of champion points. Isn't that obvious? Its supposed to reward you directly with power for time invested.

Its supposed to be easier.

Think the content is to easy because you've invested in Champion points? Than stop using Champion Points.

This is kind of obvious, people

There is nothing obvious about gimping yourself to enjoy content.

Ignoring a part of the games experience such as progression or gearing should never be the way to alter an experience of it. At least in my opinion. Because those things are part of playing the game too.

Katahdin · February 2016

Unless make all the 0-50 zones instanced, they can not introduce a slider or make the content scalable. That is only possible in instanced dungeons.

You can not have scalable open world quests/ content. GW2 tried it with certain bosses and it became a horror show. Some cases a zerg of 50 people couldn't finish some bosses and events. Other cases, you start it with 4 people and 4 more run by and scales the event and it's undoable or it takes literally forever. I was at one event for over an hour and we still couldn't kill it with max level players. It is very tricky to balance such a system. Not sure if the ESO engine can do it.

Shunravi · February 2016

Katahdin wrote: »

Unless make all the 0-50 zones instanced, they can not introduce a slider or make the content scalable. That is only possible in instanced dungeons.

You can not have scalable open world quests/ content. GW2 tried it with certain bosses and it became a horror show. Some cases a zerg of 50 people couldn't finish some bosses and events. Other cases, you start it with 4 people and 4 more run by and scales the event and it's undoable or it takes literally forever. I was at one event for over an hour and we still couldn't kill it with max level players. It is very tricky to balance such a system. Not sure if the ESO engine can do it.

Agreed. This should be an instance only deal. Like in the op.

Autolycus · February 2016

j3crow wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

I'm with OP. Large swathes of this game are mind numbling easy.

Respec to remove the champ points. Take off the set gear or just run it without gear.

If we make low level areas harder for veteran players who can roflstomp content because of champ points, set gear, glyphs on armor, pots and food, not to mention already knowing the content which new players don't have access to or just don't know about yet, newer players will quit in frustration.

This is not good for the longevity of the game.

You however do have enough knowledge to make it more challenging for yourself.

This

The content becoming easy because of champion points... Is the whole point of champion points. Isn't that obvious? Its supposed to reward you directly with power for time invested.

Its supposed to be easier.

Think the content is to easy because you've invested in Champion points? Than stop using Champion Points.

This is kind of obvious, people

New players, returning players, and players who have deliberately left CP unallocated still find it too easy. How many in total? I don't know. But at this point, more new players I have talked to have stated it is too easy than new players who believe it is challenging. I recently recruited a new player who made it all the way to vr16 and then quit because it was too easy. New players are posting regularly in the Players Helping Players section about how easy world bosses, public and group dungeons are. This seems like evidence that it is, in fact, too easy.

bedlom · February 2016

Sort craglorn out instead imo, make it like all the other zones pls zeni.

babylon · February 2016

coolermh wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

Haven't bothered reading through entirety of thread but just going to remind OP of this point - the Devs made vet areas easier because people didn't like the extra difficulty...they aren't going to go and ruin it for the majority of players, as they know the majority do not want the open areas to be mind numbingly tedious due to long fights all the time.

And nobody does Craglorn - if OP wants to challenge himself go solo Craglorn delves and solo or two man dungeons as far as he can get.

Im talking about lowbie stuff on my new char...You can't go to craglorn on a lvl 34. Plus once you hit vet 16 even craglorn is pretty easy, especially when you consider it is supposed to be group content. Back in the day craglorn was very challenging but now with cp and higher vet ranks its just easy. I am not saying any of this because I think that I am a great player....I'm not... lol.

Devs balance mobs by increasing their damage and hp, making annoying long fights. We don't get balanced by making the mob AI smarter - they just get moar hp and moar damage and moar...etc. This makes long, boring fights as a solo player.

It's not harder, it's just more boring and takes longer until zzzz you want to log off and go watch paint dry or something.

So what you are asking for, you don't want.

Go solo the group dungeons for some challenge. Even solo the group delves. Have at it.

Autolycus · February 2016

babylon wrote: »

coolermh wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

Haven't bothered reading through entirety of thread but just going to remind OP of this point - the Devs made vet areas easier because people didn't like the extra difficulty...they aren't going to go and ruin it for the majority of players, as they know the majority do not want the open areas to be mind numbingly tedious due to long fights all the time.

And nobody does Craglorn - if OP wants to challenge himself go solo Craglorn delves and solo or two man dungeons as far as he can get.

Im talking about lowbie stuff on my new char...You can't go to craglorn on a lvl 34. Plus once you hit vet 16 even craglorn is pretty easy, especially when you consider it is supposed to be group content. Back in the day craglorn was very challenging but now with cp and higher vet ranks its just easy. I am not saying any of this because I think that I am a great player....I'm not... lol.

Devs balance mobs by increasing their damage and hp, making annoying long fights. We don't get balanced by making the mob AI smarter - they just get moar hp and moar damage and moar...etc. This makes long, boring fights as a solo player.

It's not harder, it's just more boring and takes longer until zzzz you want to log off and go watch paint dry or something.

So what you are asking for, you don't want.

Go solo the group dungeons for some challenge. Even solo the group delves. Have at it.

Craglorn was never scaled when they boosted attributes x10. Craglorn mobs still have 20-30k health, and still do the same damage they did before, making the entire zone less challenging than a significant portion of the rest of the game. At the very least, it should have been scaled with our attributes, like everything else.

Some people might suggest the simple fact that group dungeons and group delves merely being soloable is an indication that content is too easy. I know I've solo'd several of these myself, and though I don't necessarily disagree with you, I find that this also merits the same zzzZZZzz that just boosting health and damage does.

Why don't we make the AI smarter, or add additional mechanics, wombo combos, etc.? ZOS has clearly demonstrated an ability to design fun mechanics, noting certain aspects of vMA, SO, and a handful of vet dungeons.