One of the things that many of us enjoy about single player role playing experiences is a certain level of uncertainty in combat. Whether that's uncertainty because a certain enemy is more powerful than others or because you suddenly come up out-manned against 7 foes, it keeps roaming the world exciting.

This is something that I find sorely lacking in ESO.

If I'm running around adventuring, I know exactly what to expect. If I come across humanoid NPC's, they are going to be in groups of 3 - maybe in a group of 4 if 1 of the patrolling NPC's wanders over as you assault the group and the difficulty and tactics are always the same.

I've reflected on my experience having played the game since beta and have come to the conclusion that this is one of the things that keeps me apprehensive whenever I think about jumping back into the game. This sort of repetition takes me out of the experience and makes it hard to jump back into the game. Luckily, the new content of late has been doing a good job of bringing me back, but for the long game, I think that something needs to structurally change in terms of the enemies you encounter and their mechanics.

For starters, I understand why this was done the way it was:

- these groupings create for a reliable and manageable user experience
- reliable AI
- reliable loot, balancing, and experience gain

I think that things really need to change up. One of the things that people hated about ESO when it launched (those expecting Skyrim Online) is that the combat felt very static. It feels very WoW. While I would disagree with that to a large degree, this enemy grouping system and static difficulty is what we've come to expect from MMORPG's.

What I would love to see moving forward in this game is the following:

- Randomly spawning Elite/named monsters. This happens in Diablo and many other games and it really keeps the game fresh and interesting. Look at how many people are STILL playing Diablo 2! You see a group of enemies in the distance, brashly run into the fight and one of the enemies is more powerful than the rest, which makes you change your strategy immediately. This would also encourage players to scout a combat situation prior to jumping in. These encounters should be randomized mob spawns and should drop considerably rarer loot.
- Vary the groups of enemies. Have groups of 2 enemies, groups of 7 enemies, or just single targets, etc... spawn. I really think that this would vary exploration up a bit. Now, we still want to keep the game soloable, so scale the stats of the enemies accordingly. If you fight a single enemy, it is going to be at full strength. If you fight 7 enemies at once, their stats are lower to accommodate. This isn't necessarily to increase the difficulty (though, I wish there were a harder difficulty option), but to vary the groups of enemies you face. Minus the scaling, a similar approach happens in public dungeons and it really does make them interesting. It would be nice if these mob spawns were random, but it's far more rewarding and fun than fighting mob groups in the overworld.
- Passive monsters. Why does every wolf want to kill me? Although I believe that the tendencies of most mobs should be to kill you, some should be just as happy to watch you run past them. If you attack them or their friends, however, they will certainly attack you.
- More tactics that the AI uses in combat. Before ESO launched, the developers touted that there would be awesome AI in the game. That a soldier would throw oil and shout "light it up!" to a nearby archer or pyromancer and in doing so, deal greater damage to the player. The problem is that this example is really the only synergy mechanic that mobs use. There should be more of this kind of stuff. A change in AI like this would challenge the player and encourage more strategic gameplay.
- Loot. I know that loot has been a struggle in ESO. Balancing loot is a struggle that I'm not going to pretend to know how to fix. One thing that can be done, though, is drastically increasing the drop rates of gold/yellow items from bosses and ensuring that these mobs only drop quality gear. For those explorers out there, it would be nice if treasure chests had a higher chance to drop exceptional gear/sets, too. It doesn't currently feel awesome when you open a chest and you get a soul gem and a white mace. Meh. Again, if you implement elite/named enemies, these enemies could drop some pretty cool stuff, which adds more emphasis to going out and exploring.

I would certainly welcome more opinions on what to do to help ease up some of the repetition, but I really think that if these changes were implemented, the game would be fun to just explore at any time. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are my favorite roam around and explore/kill things games and these changes would help give ESO that same flavor.