hmsdragonfly wrote: »

[...]
All of your suggestions require too many instances. I don't see how they will work.
[...]

If you were refering to my suggestion (among others) to have a veteran version of all PvE zones then I'd have to disagree with you. For many zones, I think this would barely increase the number of instances or not increase it at all. Instead of 7 normal instances of Craglorn I imagine there could be like 5 normal and 2 veteran instances.

Veteran zones would create new problems with the "travel to player" function though. The friends list and guild rosters would have to be updated to show if someone is in the normal or the veteran version of a PvE zone. And being unable to change between normal an veteran mode when inside a group dungeon or in a group but not group leader could become a problem as well.

An alternative would be to have an optional hard mode that scales down an individual player's strength in non dungeon PvE zones but slightly increases XP and loot rewards from killing monsters and bosses (the player could only change from normal to hard mode or vice versa when out of combat). This wouldn't create any new instances. Or even better a difficulty slider with at least 10 different settings that gradually increase difficulty (gradually scale down the player character's strength) and at the same time gradually increase XP gain and loot from kills in regular PvE zones.

Dreepa wrote: »

I only put those quotes there to illustrate that I am not alone with this. It goes without saying that there will be people of different opinion.

This is not a war about right or wrong. This is a discussion about the game experience, which is always subjective.

If you are on a crusade to prove me wrong, fine, it won't change the experience we had. Also, I am being constructive (besides my OP, which was a rant in angry mode, granted) and I do not think is serves any point to be pedantic about the terminology.

To me the advertising is pretty clear, and the vision communicated implies "Group play with your friends while exploring Tamriel"

This discussion now has turned to a point where it is no longer about sharing opinions and views, but about who is right and who understood what wrongly.... to behonest, this is pointless, and leads nowhere.

I have made my point, you have made yours.


PS: I did not carry them. I said that. I often times even refrained from attacking, to give them a bit more fighting, so I don't do any DPS.

You are alone with this, those quotes you linked here are all different concerns.

Of course, you have the freedom to group play with your friend while exploring Tamriel, no one forbids you from doing it. It is just not possible to balance solo questing for groups, as it will screw up the experience of solo players, which are 90% of the playerbase

I fully respect your opinion, it doesn't mean I agree with yours. We can simply agree to disagree, if that's what you want.

So, here is my tl,dr: Real new players will struggle to get through solo content even when 2-3 of them group up, you don't have to agree about them. Take care of yourself first, do yourself a favour and play through craglorn with your group. You know crag exists. People who don't know crag exists are struggling through solo content anyway even when 2-3 of them group up.

GaldorP wrote: »

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

[...]
All of your suggestions require too many instances. I don't see how they will work.
[...]

If you were refering to my suggestion (among others) to have a veteran version of all PvE zones then I'd have to disagree with you. For many zones, I think this would barely increase the number of instances or not increase it at all. Instead of 7 normal instances of Craglorn I imagine there could be like 5 normal and 2 veteran instances.

Veteran zones would create new problems with the "travel to player" function though. The friends list and guild rosters would have to be updated to show if someone is in the normal or the veteran version of a PvE zone. And being unable to change between normal an veteran mode when inside a group dungeon or in a group but not group leader could become a problem as well.

I am not gonna lie, this might be a good idea for Craglorn as it is already populated. I think Crag will make a great zone for CP600s min-maxers. Balance vet Craglorn like it's a big vet Trial, will give CP600s min-maxers something to do when they are bored of running vet Trials for score. Sure as hell people will whine "it's recycled content, give us real new content", but whatever, it's a good idea in my view.

For other zones like Greenshade where there are already too few people, I am not sure where I will stand on this, as the zone will look dead.

Kodrac wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

Travel where you like, whenever you like, with whomever you like regardless of their Alliance or level. Accept any quest, fight any monster, and experience a world of adventure without limits!"

Where in this did you get group play from? You're seeing things that aren't there. Traveling with anyone regardless of Alliance means they opened up the zones to everyone and Alliance doesn't stop you from going places you couldn't before and you're not excluded from from playing alongside people of other Alliances anymore. But you somehow read "EQ style necessary grouping for every encounter everywhere"???

If you impose over-dramatic interpretation of statements onto me, then you shouldn't resort to the same tactic by implying I ever said "EQ style necessity for grouping".

Kodrac wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

Kodrac wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

Travel where you like, whenever you like, with whomever you like regardless of their Alliance or level. Accept any quest, fight any monster, and experience a world of adventure without limits!"

Where in this did you get group play from? You're seeing things that aren't there. Traveling with anyone regardless of Alliance means they opened up the zones to everyone and Alliance doesn't stop you from going places you couldn't before and you're not excluded from from playing alongside people of other Alliances anymore. But you somehow read "EQ style necessary grouping for every encounter everywhere"???

If you impose over-dramatic interpretation of statements onto me, then you shouldn't resort to the same tactic by implying I ever said "EQ style necessity for grouping".

But it is what you're looking for. It's plain to see. But unfortunately for you, that model is a dinosaur today. Complaining that a modern game doesn't have it only makes you look like a dinosaur too. :shrug:

You must have read a different thread than I did. I even talked a lot about how I like to solo play, but the content is being pug stomped by random players, leaving me to go through empty caves without a single fight, and leading to a dungeon boss with nice game play patterns that I never get to see as 10 random player kill it before I even realized that this is the quest end-boss, where out of nowhere my quest tracker announcement pops up, telling me I just killed the boss mob.

@golfer.dub17_ESO

golfer.dub17_ESO wrote: »

flguy147ub17_ESO wrote: »

Vet zones were way tougher at PC launch, i have a guildmate who quit due to dying too much and not being able to even complete quests in the vet zones back then. I remember when Doshia wasnt basically a normal mob but too many people couldnt beat Doshia so they nerfed Doshia into the ground like its just a normal Wolf in a zone lol.

I remember going up from Stonefalls to the Rift and immediately getting wrecked by the level 40 skeleton soldiers around there, either trying to sneak around them or getting lucky and having a high level save me.

I should hop on one of my alts and see what it's like these days. Can probably put them in the dirt without breaking a sweat using just tutorial island gear.

I'm not saying it's bad that things are this way now, but boy it sure is different.

I started playing right before One Tamriel. My gaming buddy and I thought it was awesome when we went Deshaan at level 10 and it was... difficult for us. We got to level 20 and went to The Rift and got ... murdered by the first skeleton mob we came across.

We loved it. Something immediate to aspire to.

Fast forward to now: My level 10 sorcerer can take on anything overland except for those rifts in Craglorn and SOME world bosses.

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

It is very arrogant to say I am alone with this. Even this thread has some people going in the same direction. And I am also talking for the 2 players that I played with. One guy in the quotes even literally said, he didn't like the boring leveling, and stopped at 30. Another one said, he disliked the lack of challenge. That is pretty much exactly what I disliked and what this thread is about.
If you make such a bold statement you better have done some data gathering or focus group test on the player base to back it up.

Umm nope. Your concern is that solo questing is not balanced for groups. Those quotes you linked here are all different concerns. Boring leveling is a different concern (I also disagree with this opinion, as leveling through questing is the best experience I have in this game, more than PvP, more than vMA. Quests are just so well written and the combat is fun, figuring out combos is even more fun). The lack of challenge is a different thing, but it is indeed an issue, since I am CP500 and I burn through solo questing so easily. I would love if the solo content is balanced for high level solo players, but in no way I would expect solo content to be balanced for group play.

Maybe you should do your research first. Forum is always filled with negativity, but you see how many people disagree with your negativity here?

Nope that is not my concern. And I am not being negative. Please stop now with being so negative.

kylewwefan wrote: »

You must not remember what it was like going to a higher level zone and getting absolutely ripped by mud crabs. Then, when you became higher level, you could go into low level zones and one spin to win could easily clear a room.

The scaling that's in place now gives the best of both worlds IMO. As a low level you can go and quest wherever you want. Open world mobs are more of an annoyance than a life or death threat.

A few world bosses can be soloed, but some need to have a good sized group. Normal dungeons are easy enough for good groups.....some are hard enough that a bad group is going to struggle.

Going back to the old system is definitely not the solution, I agree.

Any time someone opens up a thread with any variant of the word "bored" I go into auto-response, "You don't belong in mmo's. Maybe not even in games. Go date. Go play tennis. Learn to be a cook. Anything else."

parkham wrote: »

@golfer.dub17_ESO

golfer.dub17_ESO wrote: »

flguy147ub17_ESO wrote: »

Vet zones were way tougher at PC launch, i have a guildmate who quit due to dying too much and not being able to even complete quests in the vet zones back then. I remember when Doshia wasnt basically a normal mob but too many people couldnt beat Doshia so they nerfed Doshia into the ground like its just a normal Wolf in a zone lol.

I remember going up from Stonefalls to the Rift and immediately getting wrecked by the level 40 skeleton soldiers around there, either trying to sneak around them or getting lucky and having a high level save me.

I should hop on one of my alts and see what it's like these days. Can probably put them in the dirt without breaking a sweat using just tutorial island gear.

I'm not saying it's bad that things are this way now, but boy it sure is different.

I started playing right before One Tamriel. My gaming buddy and I thought it was awesome when we went Deshaan at level 10 and it was... difficult for us. We got to level 20 and went to The Rift and got ... murdered by the first skeleton mob we came across.

We loved it. Something immediate to aspire to.

Fast forward to now: My level 10 sorcerer can take on anything overland except for those rifts in Craglorn and SOME world bosses.

Well I remember how much I hated the overland before One Tamriel. I had to avoid fighting, because if I killed mobs, I would level up so quick that I would be totally outleveled for everything. All the rewards from quests were trash that I couldn't use. Gear I got from killing mobs were also trash. With that said, I couldn't do fighter's guild questline, mages guild questline, the main questline, i couldn't PvP, couldn't do normal dungeons, couldn't hop into DLC areas. Skipping side quests? Side quests are often the best quests, no way i am going to skip them. Plus, side quests are designed closely to the main story of that particular zone, if i skip them to do later, not only there will be no reward, it will also break the flow of the storyline.

I hated it so much, I couldn't do what I want to do, so much for a TES game. One Tamriel came and it totally saved the game for me. I now can do what I want, whenever I want. No more restriction, no more underleveled quests.

Dreepa wrote: »

Jemcrystal wrote: »

Any time someone opens up a thread with any variant of the word "bored" I go into auto-response, "You don't belong in mmo's. Maybe not even in games. Go date. Go play tennis. Learn to be a cook. Anything else."

If I don't belong in games, I need to quit my job. *sadface*

The desire that is behind the criticism is actually to improve. I wasn't negative for the sake of being negative, but to discuss how it can be done better. The OP was not nice, I admit. I was a bit pissed. However, I deeply care for TES, it is one of my favorite brands, and I even have played Daggerfall back in the days.

Sorry if I came across as raging. I only seek to improve a game I think is awesome, where I find it is not where it could be.

Eh, no problem. My point is more that games are boring because our bodies are not meant to sit around all day and stare at a screen. Even Dark Souls will get boring. It's redundant to use the word boredom in gaming as yeah if you sit on your duster all day you are going to be bored. Think I came off sounding hostile.

Kodrac wrote: »

Maybe you're just not getting your point across very well then. Because it comes off like this: When I solo I don't like other people around, but when I'm with my friends it's not hard enough. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't see a way to have it both ways.

Then we need new fresh design approaches that tackle this problem!
Think outside the box. Instancing was one solution for example. If you could say "private group enabled" and you get an instance on demand, that would already be awesome. However, it seems that some people think this is not doable with ESO tech. I dont know, can't comment on that, I am not a ZOS programmer


But just as a general concept: Think about Diablo. You can play it solo, and you can have 3 people just join. Difficulty adapts automatically. It is always fun!

Maybe we need to ask Blizzard for solutions. I bet they would find one

Dreepa wrote: »

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

Dreepa wrote: »

It is very arrogant to say I am alone with this. Even this thread has some people going in the same direction. And I am also talking for the 2 players that I played with. One guy in the quotes even literally said, he didn't like the boring leveling, and stopped at 30. Another one said, he disliked the lack of challenge. That is pretty much exactly what I disliked and what this thread is about.
If you make such a bold statement you better have done some data gathering or focus group test on the player base to back it up.

Umm nope. Your concern is that solo questing is not balanced for groups. Those quotes you linked here are all different concerns. Boring leveling is a different concern (I also disagree with this opinion, as leveling through questing is the best experience I have in this game, more than PvP, more than vMA. Quests are just so well written and the combat is fun, figuring out combos is even more fun). The lack of challenge is a different thing, but it is indeed an issue, since I am CP500 and I burn through solo questing so easily. I would love if the solo content is balanced for high level solo players, but in no way I would expect solo content to be balanced for group play.

Maybe you should do your research first. Forum is always filled with negativity, but you see how many people disagree with your negativity here?

Nope that is not my concern. And I am not being negative. Please stop now with being so negative.

Do you even know what you want? Solo questing in the open world (except for crag) is designed for solo players.

No, I criticized the design approach towards a dynamic player behavior which is tackled by a static world design.
I have said that I like both, solo play, and group play with friends, and I have also stated that BOTH experiences are not that good.

I also explained that solo play is actually not solo, but PUG-play, which translates to group play. So if the solo content is designed for solo, then how was the designer approaching the dynamic amount of players?
What you so harshly defend is entirely contradictory.

If solo content was ... well... solo content for real, there wouldn't be other players. It is MMO content and it follows the same formula that DAOC did. It is static MMO content. The only REAL solo content by design is the Prophet's main questline and those single player instances.

And to repeat myself:

Dreepa wrote: »

You must have read a different thread than I did. I even talked a lot about how I like to solo play, but the content is being pug stomped by random players, leaving me to go through empty caves without a single fight, and leading to a dungeon boss with nice game play patterns that I never get to see as 10 random player kill it before I even realized that this is the quest end-boss, where out of nowhere my quest tracker announcement pops up, telling me I just killed the boss mob.

Solo experience is not good? What are you talking about? It's not good just because sometimes you run into a player while questing? Come on! As I have said several times already (and you always ignore it): How is it even a problem? Maybe you don't like it, sure, I respect that, but I don't like pizza, so I don't judge. You are trying to take down this boss, and some other hero jumps in to help you. It makes the world more lively, there's another hero trying to do something good, well that's good news. It's the damn point of solo questing in an MMO. You are not the only hero in this world. You are out there by yourself, but sometimes there will be people who lend you a hand.
Solo experience is better than what you get from Skyrim. There, I said it.

So, since the solo experience is good (I am pretty sure you said it yourself somewhere as well), your concern is simply solo questing content is not designed for your group. Then again, 99.999999999999% of the player base do the open world quests solo. Should ZoS waste more resources on chasing a ghost that might or might not exist (a.k.a trying to develop a system that can balance out both solo and group play, which doesn't exist as of yet) to please a very very very small portion of the playerbase? Oh, and there's a chance they will screw the game up with all the bugs while the game is already buggy as it is. They already make craglorn for you guys. You refuse to do it. Oh well. This game is not for you then.

Also, tl,dr: Real new players will struggle to get through solo content even when 2-3 of them group up, you don't have to agree about them. Take care of yourself first, do yourself a favour and play through craglorn with your group. You know crag exists. People who don't know crag exists are struggling through solo content anyway even when 2-3 of them group up.

You don't seem to disagree with my tl, dr.

P/S: The chance of a quest boss getting killed by 10 random people is soooooo low. Don't lie to me, I have done all the quests myself, you mostly see 0-1 player in your quest area. Sometimes 2, but that's already rare. 3 is even rarer.

So is there anything that speaks against a custom difficulty slider for regular PvE zones like the one Diablo 3 has for example? Higher difficulties make the player character weaker (using new additional scaling mechanics) and slightly increase XP and loot rewards from kills (more gold and chance to get additional loot). The difficulty could only be changed out of combat and not when inside a group dungeon or trial. I think this would be great to have for veteran players

Edit: I just realized this could be abused easily at world bosses and dolmens so it should probably only affect regular overworld monsters and regular monsters in delves. And even then it could be abused when in group with someone who plays in normal mode and kills all the monsters for you so that probably wouldn't work >< So I return to my idea of entire zones having a hard mode then ^^