I've not read every answer to this thread (sorry) but stumbled on @Magdalina answer and I SO MUCH AGREE with her point of view.
I understand that in ESO there is a huge gap between newbie players and optimised players. A gap that can not be filled. There is too much possibility to mess up your build, to be unable to dodge, block, avoid, and cancel animation. There is too much room for optimisation and meta. That's how it is. But you can not nerf your game indefinitively to catter the newbie players. They have to learn to play the game at some point.
For an average gamer like me, who is neither newbie, neither optimised, the normal content is already way too easy. The veteran content is simple enough for me to not care to have proper gear, high number of CP (I'm still below 300) and still encounter little difficulties on most dungeon with a group of average players like me.
When I play with good players, the veteran dungeon are done so fast, and the bosses are dead so quickly that I felt carried by my group and find no space for me as healer to show off my skills.
How the content is easy, and how everything is a DPS race is frustrating enough for me to have resuscribed to World of Warcraft to actually have something to do as healer!!!
So please. Do not nerf the two only Dungeons that are still presenting a challenge. There is other solutions than nerfing.
One of the easy solution that would cost you close to zero in investment and would partially solve the problem is to REMOVE the Imperial Prison and WhiteGold Tower for the Random Normal Rotation in the Dungeon finder.
@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom
Not true. It works in DDO. There people accept that setting game to easier affects the droprates. It is because they still get same rewards from easier setting, but they have to compensate easy with more runs. That is the difference to ESO. Here easier mode completely blocks players from good rewards. That is why veteran modes are nerfed.timidobserver wrote: »sentientomega wrote: »I am copying (and a bit modifying) a post from vMA thread. These ideas are pretty straight copy from Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO. What i propose is already tested there and working well.
TL;DR: I am willing to trade exclusive BiS rewards to avoid constant nerfing of content..
vWGT and vICP are getting nerfed. This is because we have only two difficulty levels and how gear rewards work. All players want to get meaningful rewards. If they can't get them from veteran difficulty, they demand nerfs until they can pass the content to get the gear rewards. In fact there is only one valid difficulty, veteran, because people despise rewards from normal mode.
I am suggesting to have four difficulty levels and change to gear rewards. The difference should not be level of gear but how fast we get them. A hardcore player could grind one vMA weapon in a week with multiple runs per day in hardest difficulty, while a casual gets it in half year running few times per week.
I think these changes should happen to instanced PvE content:
- Every player should have a way to play content at level they believe they can pass it.
- Every player should have a way to play content at level that is challenging.
- We need more difficulty levels because now we have very easy and very difficult, and people can't find the level they can pass but still challenges them.
- We should not end up nerfing every trial/dungeon because most people can't pass them.
- Easier difficulty should give also BiS gear but significantly slower than harder difficulties. Keep easier difficulty still relevant path for rewards to avoid nerfing.
- We should have more predictable path to acquiring gear and real, visible progress. RNG is sometimes too easy, sometimes too unfair.
The solutions could be
- All instanced content should have four difficulty levels: casual, normal, veteran, elite.
- Keep rare RNG drops as they are, but add tokens to get rewards like vMA weapon e.g. every 20th to 80th run in MA, depending on difficulty. Set items require less tokens.
- Use the tokens in crafting tables to produce the special item. We have there all selections we need to create it.
- This would need jewelry crafting tables too. But even without it, jewelry could be purchasable from a vendor with tokens.
I am not yet sure about the token scaling, but it should be such that if good player selects easier difficulty their farming rate gets slower. This gives us two good things:
- No one can argue easier difficulties give away BiS gear because easier difficulty require more effort than harder difficulties. Players want to select the highest difficulty they still can run trough without too many deaths.
- At the same time not-so-good players can see there is a path for them for the BIS gear, and therefore do not demand nerfs.
Each instance would have their own tokens. Running CoA gives Valkyn token and MA gives Maelström token. If elite CoA drops four tokens, then require 4*20=80 tokens in e.g. clothing table to make one Valkyn item. You can only select head or shoulder and style is locked, but can freely choose level and traits. With 80 WGT tokens i can make Kena or with 20 WGT tokens i can make one Imperium or Spellcure set item.
What we get from these changes?
- No need to nerf elite difficulty.
- Elite players lose exclusive rewards. Instead they earn them faster than others.
- Regular players gain access to best rewards, but don't have to struggle with elite difficulty. They still have to put more effort to get that gear.
- Normal difficulty becomes a valid choice.
- Everybody can pass every content. That's why there is casual difficulty. I have played with stoned or anxious players, who can barely use light attack, or quit from fear of death.
- Token system handles the balancing between difficulty levels. It also mitigates current RNG unfairness. I've witnessed people getting Valkyn head on their very first vCoA run, and NOT getting even one full set in vWGT after 200 runs. This is NOT making gear rewards easier. It makes them predictable.
- it is hard to make dungeon difficulty balanced correctly. In DDO people can compensate it by selecting different difficulty. There some trials are usually run at hard (=veteran) and others at normal difficulty. So instread ZOS tweaking the one difficulty people adapt.
Smaller changes:
- Integrate the veteran hard mode into the elite mode.
- Move weekly rewards to token system to keep overall drop rate same as now.
- Group leader chooses difficulty level.
I like this, at least it would allow more people to play the game and persist, rather than give up.
I also think the concept should be extended to the OW, and that could be implemented by a sort of player buff, to reflect difficulty, so there'd be no need to nerf content, or change it in any way at all.
The onus would be on the player, if a casual player wanted to complete something, kill a pesky one-pip boss like Aldimion, they'd be able to do so.
If a top player wanted to take on the same challenge, with a 50-lap-swimming stomach, palpitations, showering palms and a dry mouth, they'd have a diff slider option they could set themselves to (elite), and get the thrill they're after, because while I'm not an expert, and a strict non-believe in cookie-cutter paths to success (ZOS said we have the widest range of choice possible, and they should mean it if they really believe that, so they people who build however they want are not penalised for doing so).
The difficulty slider could be found Under Settings/Gameplay, with four settings like the ones quoted, with reward quantity and quality synced to each.
The only thing is, the buffs you get through the settings should state that said buffs would be inactive in Cyrodiil/IC, though I imagine those zones have their own "difficulties".
A difficulty slider won't change anything. The only point to a difficulty slider would be to increase the reward/incentive for doing the content at a more difficult level. The problem is that the people that do content with the slider set low will find it unacceptable that their reward is not the same as those that do it with it set on high. There is no solution to people with their point of view.
Difficulty slider ALONE won't change anything.
anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »KoshkaMurka wrote: »Yeah, so why people who dont like the content wont play another game instead of screwing up the game for everyone else?
If you like dancing instead of soccer, you will join a dancing club instead of writing a ton of petitions to add dances to soccer rules, right?
See how your interests and ZOS' interests diverge at this point ?
That's the very exact crossroads.
You would like to keep soccer dance-free (because that's how you like it and that's fine) so you'd like dancers to go elsewhere.
Problem is, players leaving for another game is not in ZOS' interest.
Which is why they choose to make soccer dancer-friendlier.
You went totally wrong. Easier mode meant more effort. How on earth you ended thinking about ZERO effort? L2R? Do you really support vICP and vWGT nerfs and rewards handed to you for free then?Not true. It works in DDO. There people accept that setting game to easier affects the droprates. It is because they still get same rewards from easier setting, but they have to compensate easy with more runs. That is the difference to ESO. Here easier mode completely blocks players from good rewards. That is why veteran modes are nerfed.timidobserver wrote: »sentientomega wrote: »I am copying (and a bit modifying) a post from vMA thread. These ideas are pretty straight copy from Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO. What i propose is already tested there and working well.
TL;DR: I am willing to trade exclusive BiS rewards to avoid constant nerfing of content..
vWGT and vICP are getting nerfed. This is because we have only two difficulty levels and how gear rewards work. All players want to get meaningful rewards. If they can't get them from veteran difficulty, they demand nerfs until they can pass the content to get the gear rewards. In fact there is only one valid difficulty, veteran, because people despise rewards from normal mode.
I am suggesting to have four difficulty levels and change to gear rewards. The difference should not be level of gear but how fast we get them. A hardcore player could grind one vMA weapon in a week with multiple runs per day in hardest difficulty, while a casual gets it in half year running few times per week.
I think these changes should happen to instanced PvE content:
- Every player should have a way to play content at level they believe they can pass it.
- Every player should have a way to play content at level that is challenging.
- We need more difficulty levels because now we have very easy and very difficult, and people can't find the level they can pass but still challenges them.
- We should not end up nerfing every trial/dungeon because most people can't pass them.
- Easier difficulty should give also BiS gear but significantly slower than harder difficulties. Keep easier difficulty still relevant path for rewards to avoid nerfing.
- We should have more predictable path to acquiring gear and real, visible progress. RNG is sometimes too easy, sometimes too unfair.
The solutions could be
- All instanced content should have four difficulty levels: casual, normal, veteran, elite.
- Keep rare RNG drops as they are, but add tokens to get rewards like vMA weapon e.g. every 20th to 80th run in MA, depending on difficulty. Set items require less tokens.
- Use the tokens in crafting tables to produce the special item. We have there all selections we need to create it.
- This would need jewelry crafting tables too. But even without it, jewelry could be purchasable from a vendor with tokens.
I am not yet sure about the token scaling, but it should be such that if good player selects easier difficulty their farming rate gets slower. This gives us two good things:
- No one can argue easier difficulties give away BiS gear because easier difficulty require more effort than harder difficulties. Players want to select the highest difficulty they still can run trough without too many deaths.
- At the same time not-so-good players can see there is a path for them for the BIS gear, and therefore do not demand nerfs.
Each instance would have their own tokens. Running CoA gives Valkyn token and MA gives Maelström token. If elite CoA drops four tokens, then require 4*20=80 tokens in e.g. clothing table to make one Valkyn item. You can only select head or shoulder and style is locked, but can freely choose level and traits. With 80 WGT tokens i can make Kena or with 20 WGT tokens i can make one Imperium or Spellcure set item.
What we get from these changes?
- No need to nerf elite difficulty.
- Elite players lose exclusive rewards. Instead they earn them faster than others.
- Regular players gain access to best rewards, but don't have to struggle with elite difficulty. They still have to put more effort to get that gear.
- Normal difficulty becomes a valid choice.
- Everybody can pass every content. That's why there is casual difficulty. I have played with stoned or anxious players, who can barely use light attack, or quit from fear of death.
- Token system handles the balancing between difficulty levels. It also mitigates current RNG unfairness. I've witnessed people getting Valkyn head on their very first vCoA run, and NOT getting even one full set in vWGT after 200 runs. This is NOT making gear rewards easier. It makes them predictable.
- it is hard to make dungeon difficulty balanced correctly. In DDO people can compensate it by selecting different difficulty. There some trials are usually run at hard (=veteran) and others at normal difficulty. So instread ZOS tweaking the one difficulty people adapt.
Smaller changes:
- Integrate the veteran hard mode into the elite mode.
- Move weekly rewards to token system to keep overall drop rate same as now.
- Group leader chooses difficulty level.
I like this, at least it would allow more people to play the game and persist, rather than give up.
I also think the concept should be extended to the OW, and that could be implemented by a sort of player buff, to reflect difficulty, so there'd be no need to nerf content, or change it in any way at all.
The onus would be on the player, if a casual player wanted to complete something, kill a pesky one-pip boss like Aldimion, they'd be able to do so.
If a top player wanted to take on the same challenge, with a 50-lap-swimming stomach, palpitations, showering palms and a dry mouth, they'd have a diff slider option they could set themselves to (elite), and get the thrill they're after, because while I'm not an expert, and a strict non-believe in cookie-cutter paths to success (ZOS said we have the widest range of choice possible, and they should mean it if they really believe that, so they people who build however they want are not penalised for doing so).
The difficulty slider could be found Under Settings/Gameplay, with four settings like the ones quoted, with reward quantity and quality synced to each.
The only thing is, the buffs you get through the settings should state that said buffs would be inactive in Cyrodiil/IC, though I imagine those zones have their own "difficulties".
A difficulty slider won't change anything. The only point to a difficulty slider would be to increase the reward/incentive for doing the content at a more difficult level. The problem is that the people that do content with the slider set low will find it unacceptable that their reward is not the same as those that do it with it set on high. There is no solution to people with their point of view.
Difficulty slider ALONE won't change anything.
Rewards?
WGT and ICP drop v15 sets.
Helmets can be purchased in Cyrodill.
Why does everyone feel entitled to get gear for ZERO effort?
Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Dammit. So when I accept a pledge then abandon it because get busy in PvP or whatever, I'm contributing to the nerfs. But damn... nerfing the normal mode too? o.Oanitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest
That still doesn't change the fact that people are trying to go in using entropy as their DPS as mentioned in a post a page or two ago. It's no-where near optimal but since 99% of the content is possible doing that, apparently the hard stuff needs to be too -_-anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
You went totally wrong. Easier mode meant more effort. How on earth you ended thinking about ZERO effort? L2R? Do you really support vICP and vWGT nerfs and rewards handed to you for free then?Not true. It works in DDO. There people accept that setting game to easier affects the droprates. It is because they still get same rewards from easier setting, but they have to compensate easy with more runs. That is the difference to ESO. Here easier mode completely blocks players from good rewards. That is why veteran modes are nerfed.timidobserver wrote: »sentientomega wrote: »I am copying (and a bit modifying) a post from vMA thread. These ideas are pretty straight copy from Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO. What i propose is already tested there and working well.
TL;DR: I am willing to trade exclusive BiS rewards to avoid constant nerfing of content..
vWGT and vICP are getting nerfed. This is because we have only two difficulty levels and how gear rewards work. All players want to get meaningful rewards. If they can't get them from veteran difficulty, they demand nerfs until they can pass the content to get the gear rewards. In fact there is only one valid difficulty, veteran, because people despise rewards from normal mode.
I am suggesting to have four difficulty levels and change to gear rewards. The difference should not be level of gear but how fast we get them. A hardcore player could grind one vMA weapon in a week with multiple runs per day in hardest difficulty, while a casual gets it in half year running few times per week.
I think these changes should happen to instanced PvE content:
- Every player should have a way to play content at level they believe they can pass it.
- Every player should have a way to play content at level that is challenging.
- We need more difficulty levels because now we have very easy and very difficult, and people can't find the level they can pass but still challenges them.
- We should not end up nerfing every trial/dungeon because most people can't pass them.
- Easier difficulty should give also BiS gear but significantly slower than harder difficulties. Keep easier difficulty still relevant path for rewards to avoid nerfing.
- We should have more predictable path to acquiring gear and real, visible progress. RNG is sometimes too easy, sometimes too unfair.
The solutions could be
- All instanced content should have four difficulty levels: casual, normal, veteran, elite.
- Keep rare RNG drops as they are, but add tokens to get rewards like vMA weapon e.g. every 20th to 80th run in MA, depending on difficulty. Set items require less tokens.
- Use the tokens in crafting tables to produce the special item. We have there all selections we need to create it.
- This would need jewelry crafting tables too. But even without it, jewelry could be purchasable from a vendor with tokens.
I am not yet sure about the token scaling, but it should be such that if good player selects easier difficulty their farming rate gets slower. This gives us two good things:
- No one can argue easier difficulties give away BiS gear because easier difficulty require more effort than harder difficulties. Players want to select the highest difficulty they still can run trough without too many deaths.
- At the same time not-so-good players can see there is a path for them for the BIS gear, and therefore do not demand nerfs.
Each instance would have their own tokens. Running CoA gives Valkyn token and MA gives Maelström token. If elite CoA drops four tokens, then require 4*20=80 tokens in e.g. clothing table to make one Valkyn item. You can only select head or shoulder and style is locked, but can freely choose level and traits. With 80 WGT tokens i can make Kena or with 20 WGT tokens i can make one Imperium or Spellcure set item.
What we get from these changes?
- No need to nerf elite difficulty.
- Elite players lose exclusive rewards. Instead they earn them faster than others.
- Regular players gain access to best rewards, but don't have to struggle with elite difficulty. They still have to put more effort to get that gear.
- Normal difficulty becomes a valid choice.
- Everybody can pass every content. That's why there is casual difficulty. I have played with stoned or anxious players, who can barely use light attack, or quit from fear of death.
- Token system handles the balancing between difficulty levels. It also mitigates current RNG unfairness. I've witnessed people getting Valkyn head on their very first vCoA run, and NOT getting even one full set in vWGT after 200 runs. This is NOT making gear rewards easier. It makes them predictable.
- it is hard to make dungeon difficulty balanced correctly. In DDO people can compensate it by selecting different difficulty. There some trials are usually run at hard (=veteran) and others at normal difficulty. So instread ZOS tweaking the one difficulty people adapt.
Smaller changes:
- Integrate the veteran hard mode into the elite mode.
- Move weekly rewards to token system to keep overall drop rate same as now.
- Group leader chooses difficulty level.
I like this, at least it would allow more people to play the game and persist, rather than give up.
I also think the concept should be extended to the OW, and that could be implemented by a sort of player buff, to reflect difficulty, so there'd be no need to nerf content, or change it in any way at all.
The onus would be on the player, if a casual player wanted to complete something, kill a pesky one-pip boss like Aldimion, they'd be able to do so.
If a top player wanted to take on the same challenge, with a 50-lap-swimming stomach, palpitations, showering palms and a dry mouth, they'd have a diff slider option they could set themselves to (elite), and get the thrill they're after, because while I'm not an expert, and a strict non-believe in cookie-cutter paths to success (ZOS said we have the widest range of choice possible, and they should mean it if they really believe that, so they people who build however they want are not penalised for doing so).
The difficulty slider could be found Under Settings/Gameplay, with four settings like the ones quoted, with reward quantity and quality synced to each.
The only thing is, the buffs you get through the settings should state that said buffs would be inactive in Cyrodiil/IC, though I imagine those zones have their own "difficulties".
A difficulty slider won't change anything. The only point to a difficulty slider would be to increase the reward/incentive for doing the content at a more difficult level. The problem is that the people that do content with the slider set low will find it unacceptable that their reward is not the same as those that do it with it set on high. There is no solution to people with their point of view.
Difficulty slider ALONE won't change anything.
Rewards?
WGT and ICP drop v15 sets.
Helmets can be purchased in Cyrodill.
Why does everyone feel entitled to get gear for ZERO effort?
anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
Good news :Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Even though we have no ETA for housing, it's the VERY FIRST TIME we hear that training dummies are coming !
I'm sure training dummies will encourage and motivate a lot of people to improve their rotations and alleviate some of the discrepancies between players which finally lead to the nerfs.
anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
Good news :Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Even though we have no ETA for housing, it's the VERY FIRST TIME we hear that training dummies are coming !
I'm sure training dummies will encourage and motivate a lot of people to improve their rotations and alleviate some of the discrepancies between players which finally lead to the nerfs.
Clarkieson wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
Good news :Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Even though we have no ETA for housing, it's the VERY FIRST TIME we hear that training dummies are coming !
I'm sure training dummies will encourage and motivate a lot of people to improve their rotations and alleviate some of the discrepancies between players which finally lead to the nerfs.
A combat dummy?
To test the DPS you will no longer need to get the high DPS gear that will no longer matter.
This kind of philosophy from zos will kill the game. It will be sone AP farming in cyrodiil to buy the hat and shoulder from the vendor so we can do 2 trials.
Game over
Clarkieson wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
Good news :Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Even though we have no ETA for housing, it's the VERY FIRST TIME we hear that training dummies are coming !
I'm sure training dummies will encourage and motivate a lot of people to improve their rotations and alleviate some of the discrepancies between players which finally lead to the nerfs.
A combat dummy?
To test the DPS you will no longer need to get the high DPS gear that will no longer matter.
This kind of philosophy from zos will kill the game. It will be sone AP farming in cyrodiil to buy the hat and shoulder from the vendor so we can do 2 trials.
Game over
Clarkieson wrote: »anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »Q26: What factors do you consider when deciding to scale down difficulty of dungeons?
MF: So, we actually think a lot of these decisions are data-driven as well as feedback driven. We get feedback from people saying this is too hard or not too hard and then we got to the data to decide and we take a look to see how many players are accepting the quest how many players are abandoning the quest, how many players are starting but not able to complete and we go through this process. We have target numbers that we wish to hit for these values and so if 0.1% of the population is able to complete a dungeon that took us quite a long time to do that's not the target number want. We want to get more players involved in doing those dungeons and so we look at those kind of factors when deciding how or when to reduce difficulty.
Q57: I heard balance changes for VICP/VWGT and I really like the difficulty they're at right now. Are they getting easier or harder?
MF: We are reducing the power a little but of both normal and veteran ICP/WGT/COA and this goes along with an earlier question of what goes into these decisions and just really we took a look at the data and what people were doing wasn't hitting the numbers we wanted. We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power. Now that being said you guys should definitely play it it's not like we've taken a hatchet and dropped it 25%.
RL: It's still hard!
MF: Small incremental changes are what we've made and they go better than sweeping 15% reductions.
Copy/pasted from the PAX Q/A transcript.
We want more players to complete this content so we made the decision to reduce the power.
The decision is based on figures, not on QQ.
Good news :Q65: Does the term Bloodspawn test mean anything to you? Right now the best way t otest DPS is going to Veteran Spindleclutch and fight it, do you have plans to add a combat dummy instead?
MF: God I would love to.
RL: Yep, I agree.
MF: I'll say that you're not the first person that has asked for that and brought that feedback. IT is definitely something that we're looking at that we really want to do.
RL: I will get in trouble for this but I want to put it in for housing.
Even though we have no ETA for housing, it's the VERY FIRST TIME we hear that training dummies are coming !
I'm sure training dummies will encourage and motivate a lot of people to improve their rotations and alleviate some of the discrepancies between players which finally lead to the nerfs.
A combat dummy?
To test the DPS you will no longer need to get the high DPS gear that will no longer matter.
This kind of philosophy from zos will kill the game. It will be sone AP farming in cyrodiil to buy the hat and shoulder from the vendor so we can do 2 trials.
Game over
Um, what?
sickboy2808 wrote: »I remember when i couldnt get past that dam Titan in COA V but did i cry for a nerf. No friggin way. I died too many times to him so i watched some vids,changed my skills and now that whole Dung is so so easy. If i speak the truth it is because of the amouny of CP everyone has now, although i only have about 270 and dont think it matters too much when im just taunting and running ha. Please Please dont nerf. I havent even completed the other 2 dungs yet so again pls leave them alone
sickboy2808 wrote: »I remember when i couldnt get past that dam Titan in COA V but did i cry for a nerf. No friggin way. I died too many times to him so i watched some vids,changed my skills and now that whole Dung is so so easy. If i speak the truth it is because of the amouny of CP everyone has now, although i only have about 270 and dont think it matters too much when im just taunting and running ha. Please Please dont nerf. I havent even completed the other 2 dungs yet so again pls leave them alone
Also, nerfing normal mode?o_O
You keep saying figures, statistics etc.
But if you read closely to the answer Rich gave, it was the PLAYER FEEDBACK that initially led them to start looking at the numbers.
Patch Notes 2.4.0
Difficultychanges for nWGT and nICP:
- Enemys will now commit suicide after 10 seconds combattime (20 Seconds for bossmobs)
- ressources and HP will be filled up to 100% after you leave combat (similar mechanic as we already have in nMSA)
sickboy2808 wrote: »I remember when i couldnt get past that dam Titan in COA V but did i cry for a nerf. No friggin way. I died too many times to him so i watched some vids,changed my skills and now that whole Dung is so so easy. If i speak the truth it is because of the amouny of CP everyone has now, although i only have about 270 and dont think it matters too much when im just taunting and running ha. Please Please dont nerf. I havent even completed the other 2 dungs yet so again pls leave them alone
Khaos_Bane wrote: »I agree with @Elloa on this subject. There is no need to nerf these dungeons, but I am sick of the DPS race. The focus on DPS is starting to make this game very very boring. It sure would be nice to have events in Dungeons that had more focus on tanking, healing, and sustain.
Well, i don't know how did you come to conclusion i wrote anything about zero effort, when i have suggested exact opposite. Look also Nifty's similar proposition about nightmare difficulty in another thread. The difficulty level propositions are to save the higher difficulty.You went totally wrong. Easier mode meant more effort. How on earth you ended thinking about ZERO effort? L2R? Do you really support vICP and vWGT nerfs and rewards handed to you for free then?Not true. It works in DDO. There people accept that setting game to easier affects the droprates. It is because they still get same rewards from easier setting, but they have to compensate easy with more runs. That is the difference to ESO. Here easier mode completely blocks players from good rewards. That is why veteran modes are nerfed.timidobserver wrote: »sentientomega wrote: »I am copying (and a bit modifying) a post from vMA thread. These ideas are pretty straight copy from Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO. What i propose is already tested there and working well.
TL;DR: I am willing to trade exclusive BiS rewards to avoid constant nerfing of content..
vWGT and vICP are getting nerfed. This is because we have only two difficulty levels and how gear rewards work. All players want to get meaningful rewards. If they can't get them from veteran difficulty, they demand nerfs until they can pass the content to get the gear rewards. In fact there is only one valid difficulty, veteran, because people despise rewards from normal mode.
I am suggesting to have four difficulty levels and change to gear rewards. The difference should not be level of gear but how fast we get them. A hardcore player could grind one vMA weapon in a week with multiple runs per day in hardest difficulty, while a casual gets it in half year running few times per week.
I think these changes should happen to instanced PvE content:
- Every player should have a way to play content at level they believe they can pass it.
- Every player should have a way to play content at level that is challenging.
- We need more difficulty levels because now we have very easy and very difficult, and people can't find the level they can pass but still challenges them.
- We should not end up nerfing every trial/dungeon because most people can't pass them.
- Easier difficulty should give also BiS gear but significantly slower than harder difficulties. Keep easier difficulty still relevant path for rewards to avoid nerfing.
- We should have more predictable path to acquiring gear and real, visible progress. RNG is sometimes too easy, sometimes too unfair.
The solutions could be
- All instanced content should have four difficulty levels: casual, normal, veteran, elite.
- Keep rare RNG drops as they are, but add tokens to get rewards like vMA weapon e.g. every 20th to 80th run in MA, depending on difficulty. Set items require less tokens.
- Use the tokens in crafting tables to produce the special item. We have there all selections we need to create it.
- This would need jewelry crafting tables too. But even without it, jewelry could be purchasable from a vendor with tokens.
I am not yet sure about the token scaling, but it should be such that if good player selects easier difficulty their farming rate gets slower. This gives us two good things:
- No one can argue easier difficulties give away BiS gear because easier difficulty require more effort than harder difficulties. Players want to select the highest difficulty they still can run trough without too many deaths.
- At the same time not-so-good players can see there is a path for them for the BIS gear, and therefore do not demand nerfs.
Each instance would have their own tokens. Running CoA gives Valkyn token and MA gives Maelström token. If elite CoA drops four tokens, then require 4*20=80 tokens in e.g. clothing table to make one Valkyn item. You can only select head or shoulder and style is locked, but can freely choose level and traits. With 80 WGT tokens i can make Kena or with 20 WGT tokens i can make one Imperium or Spellcure set item.
What we get from these changes?
- No need to nerf elite difficulty.
- Elite players lose exclusive rewards. Instead they earn them faster than others.
- Regular players gain access to best rewards, but don't have to struggle with elite difficulty. They still have to put more effort to get that gear.
- Normal difficulty becomes a valid choice.
- Everybody can pass every content. That's why there is casual difficulty. I have played with stoned or anxious players, who can barely use light attack, or quit from fear of death.
- Token system handles the balancing between difficulty levels. It also mitigates current RNG unfairness. I've witnessed people getting Valkyn head on their very first vCoA run, and NOT getting even one full set in vWGT after 200 runs. This is NOT making gear rewards easier. It makes them predictable.
- it is hard to make dungeon difficulty balanced correctly. In DDO people can compensate it by selecting different difficulty. There some trials are usually run at hard (=veteran) and others at normal difficulty. So instread ZOS tweaking the one difficulty people adapt.
Smaller changes:
- Integrate the veteran hard mode into the elite mode.
- Move weekly rewards to token system to keep overall drop rate same as now.
- Group leader chooses difficulty level.
I like this, at least it would allow more people to play the game and persist, rather than give up.
I also think the concept should be extended to the OW, and that could be implemented by a sort of player buff, to reflect difficulty, so there'd be no need to nerf content, or change it in any way at all.
The onus would be on the player, if a casual player wanted to complete something, kill a pesky one-pip boss like Aldimion, they'd be able to do so.
If a top player wanted to take on the same challenge, with a 50-lap-swimming stomach, palpitations, showering palms and a dry mouth, they'd have a diff slider option they could set themselves to (elite), and get the thrill they're after, because while I'm not an expert, and a strict non-believe in cookie-cutter paths to success (ZOS said we have the widest range of choice possible, and they should mean it if they really believe that, so they people who build however they want are not penalised for doing so).
The difficulty slider could be found Under Settings/Gameplay, with four settings like the ones quoted, with reward quantity and quality synced to each.
The only thing is, the buffs you get through the settings should state that said buffs would be inactive in Cyrodiil/IC, though I imagine those zones have their own "difficulties".
A difficulty slider won't change anything. The only point to a difficulty slider would be to increase the reward/incentive for doing the content at a more difficult level. The problem is that the people that do content with the slider set low will find it unacceptable that their reward is not the same as those that do it with it set on high. There is no solution to people with their point of view.
Difficulty slider ALONE won't change anything.
Rewards?
WGT and ICP drop v15 sets.
Helmets can be purchased in Cyrodill.
Why does everyone feel entitled to get gear for ZERO effort?
That is exactly what I don't support.
I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
My point was: the only difference between veteran and normal versions of WGT and ICP is that equipment dropped in normal modes are one level lower than max.
Yet, people don't want to invest any effort into beating veteran versions and want max level gear simply handed to them.
Khaos_Bane wrote: »I agree with @Elloa on this subject. There is no need to nerf these dungeons, but I am sick of the DPS race. The focus on DPS is starting to make this game very very boring. It sure would be nice to have events in Dungeons that had more focus on tanking, healing, and sustain.
The problem is the following:
1. Mechanics/Bosses are so hard, they need a real tank and healer
2. People can't complete it and want it to be nerfed
3. ZOS nerfs content
4. Good groups outdps every mechanic
5. people complain, that you don't need a tank/heal
do you see the problem?