The future of ESO's expansions in terms of difficulty

Dorjee · August 2017

Whilst I appreciate the benefits of the One Tamriel update, I think it has made certain content (especially solo content) quite easy for players that are 160CP or above.

My main concern is how will this impact ESO’s future Chapters (“expansions”) moving forward.

Because as things stand, although the story behind ESO’s first expansion is great and all the rest – there really isn’t any challenge element to the solo content.

Using World of WarCraft and Guild Wars 2 as examples –

In WoW, with each expansion comes an increase in the level cap. The new content reflects this increase and makes things harder accordingly – and so that’s the challenge element.

In GW2, although levels are not that important anymore, players – at the very least – must become max level before they can enjoy the content of the expansions (HoT and the forthcoming new one). Once in this content, things are somewhat challenging.

But, in ESO, because of the One Tamriel update – Morrowind’s solo content is not really challenging for those that are 160CP or above, which I feel takes some of the enjoyment out of playing. ESO is the only MMO that I know of where a level one newbie can jump right into the new content of an expansion and start playing (save for those MMOs that offer level boosts).

Now I accept that there is other challenging content for 160CP+ players other than the solo content; and I also accept the whole point of the One Tamriel update was for players to go anywhere with friends etc.

But, the question I ask is – will this be the same for all future ESO expansions?

I ask this because if the CP cap continues to rise, but the content difficulty stays the same – all future solo content in expansions will be ridiculously easy.

Apart from one day raising ESO’s 160CP soft cap and having that reflected in the content of future expansions only – I can’t see what else can be done to overcome the above issue. However, by doing that, new players would not be able to jump straight into the new content, which would defeat the purpose of the One Tamriel Update…

It would be great to hear what other players feel about this.

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Remag_Div · August 2017

Yeah, overland content will never again be super hard and require grouping (minus some things like world bosses). They tried with Craglorn and it failed miserably. The hard content in this game will continue to come from things like veteran dungeons and trials.

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Very few games are hard these days. Devs try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Very few games are hard these days. Devs try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

Or, possibly, the audience isn't that big.

Look at dark souls. Compared to other games at the time, it had a comparatively low budget. It aimed, for a target audience. It hit that audience. It was profitable, because it ajusted it's expectations.

Problem ain' the world. Problem is you my man.

seedubsrun · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Wow someone who complains about complaining. How refreshing. Ignore this one OP. There are plenty of people and several somewhat recent posts sharing your concern. There's been many suggestions, a lot of them good, on how Zos could approach this. They usually come down to "would be a waste of time and money" (To which I say, giving players more out of the existing content is likely a money saver in reality and a good ass idea) or "Zos wont bother with it" (To which I'd say, I hope that's not true but probably is)

I'd like to see it happen but be optional. More like a normal/Vet toggle in some way. I feel as the CP cap increases the difficulty of overland and questing will get easier and easier until new expansions granting new locations will be very boring to play through. I haven't finished the last 3 content expansions because of this. I guess we'll see what they do.

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

seedubsrun wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Wow someone who complains about complaining. How refreshing. Ignore this one OP. There are plenty of people and several somewhat recent posts sharing your concern. There's been many suggestions, a lot of them good, on how Zos could approach this. They usually come down to "would be a waste of time and money" (To which I say, giving players more out of the existing content is likely a money saver in reality and a good ass idea) or "Zos wont bother with it" (To which I'd say, I hope that's not true but probably is)

I'd like to see it happen but be optional. More like a normal/Vet toggle in some way. I feel as the CP cap increases the difficulty of overland and questing will get easier and easier until new expansions granting new locations will be very boring to play through. I haven't finished the last 3 content expansions because of this. I guess we'll see what they do.

Simply put:

They dont do it, because the audience for it isn't big enough to justify the cost of a free update. And if they -made you pay- for a option to make overland difficulty difficult? You would raise holy hell, and rightly so.

No matter how you dislike it, that truth isn't mitigateable. It is lose lose for ZOS.

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Very few games are hard these days. Devs try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

Or, possibly, the audience isn't that big.

Look at dark souls. Compared to other games at the time, it had a comparatively low budget. It aimed, for a target audience. It hit that audience. It was profitable, because it ajusted it's expectations.

Problem ain' the world. Problem is you my man.

Video games used to be more challenging. There has been a generational shift though. I'll call it the "achievement generation", where most people care about the end result (the achievement) and don't care about the journey there (in fact, they want to get the achievement as quickly as possible with as little resistance as possible).

dickeybarret · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Telling players to leave for expressing opinions doesn't help either. I'm not a fan of facerolling quest content myself, so in those times where I can't get a raid going, or things are just in general slow, I like to go soloing world bosses, farm and the like. I get the op's post though. I won't buy Morrowind for that very reason. When power creep makes it so you can light attack your way through most quest content, it take away the want to do it at all.

Sigtric · August 2017

If you raise CP gear cap and leave mobs where they are, it gets even easier.
If you raise mobs to match, nothing changes, what was the point?

Raising the CP rank of the mobs themselves and leaving gear alone would be the only way that works, but I don't see this as a possibility or changing much at all if max CP keeps increasing.

While the One Tamriel update was great for the game in terms of allowing people to play most content together, the CP system itself is on a runaway path.

CP keeps raising and they will have to continue to keep nerfing CP and modifying it to keep it in line. Alternatively a major overhaul of CP would be needed to keep the power creep under control. I just can't see how the CP system as it is now is sustainable for the future.

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

Sigtric wrote: »

If you raise CP gear cap and leave mobs where they are, it gets even easier.
If you raise mobs to match, nothing changes, what was the point?

Raising the CP rank of the mobs themselves and leaving gear alone would be the only way that works, but I don't see this as a possibility or changing much at all if max CP keeps increasing.

While the One Tamriel update was great for the game in terms of allowing people to play most content together, the CP system itself is on a runaway path.

CP keeps raising and they will have to continue to keep nerfing CP and modifying it to keep it in line. Alternatively a major overhaul of CP would be needed to keep the power creep under control. I just can't see how the CP system as it is now is sustainable for the future.

Oddly enough, I agree with you on this.

The system itself needs gutted, and replaced with something plausable, sustainable, and balanced. If there must -be- some existing system. I'm personally not all that opposed to the old days, where we had no CP, but the cost reduction and damage modifiers were set to suit the content, rather than needing buffed by a extensive system.

Jhalin · August 2017

I'd like it if exansions required completion of the main questline (defeat molag bal) before allowing a toon to join in on the expansions' main quests. Expansions are meant to expand on story content, not give random tangents of events that can be entered at any point without any regard to previously established plot events. And this way they could be designed with the assumption that players are at least moderately proficient at the game and make the content more challenging that the standard faceroll of overland content.

Dorjee · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Wow! Well...thank you for your response. It's very enlightening.

I did not cite the MMOs I did because I want to play them. I cited them as examples of how harder difficulty is dealt with in expansions. Further, I didn't say I wanted the game to conform to my interests - I don't think I'm that important - I just wanted to explore ideas with other players about the issue in question.

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Jhalin wrote: »

I'd like it if exansions required completion of the main questline (defeat molag bal) before allowing a toon to join in on the expansions' main quests. Expansions are meant to expand on story content, not give random tangents of events that can be entered at any point without any regard to previously established plot events. And this way they could be designed with the assumption that players are at least moderately proficient at the game and make the content more challenging that the standard faceroll of overland content.

Agreed.

Although I think they made Morrowind like this because they knew there would be a lot of new players drawn in by the nostalgia. They didn't want them to have to play through the main story before getting to enjoy the product they bought.

With that said, Morrowind very clearly took place after the events of the main story if you've completed the main story first (both the final quest in Orsinium and the quest ZOS added to the Wayrest bank make that abundantly clear).

Jhalin · August 2017

^ exactly

When the story being presented is so obviously framed as a future-story, it just boggles my mind that I can enter it with a lvl0 toon like they're completely unrelated games

LonePirate · August 2017

The group event in the dwemer public dungeon in Vvardenfell is easily the most difficult one in the game to solo. I'd say the devs are already listening and responding to feedback like that from the OP.

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

LonePirate wrote: »

The group event in the dwemer public dungeon in Vvardenfell is easily the most difficult one in the game to solo. I'd say the devs are already listening and responding to feedback like that from the OP.

It's incredibly easy at max level. I didn't even realize it was the group event until I got the skill point.

It's just a boss that spawns a few waves of extremely weak adds (you kill those adds in 2-3 hits at max level). The boss itself doesn't actually do anything. The group events in some of the base game public dungeons were a lot more challenging (although still extremely easy at max level).

You simply can't die in any of these encounters due to the insane damage mitigation provided by CP. Mobs do almost no damage to you, even if all you're wearing is light armour.

Jhalin · August 2017

It took me wayyyy too long to remember the group event for the dwemer place. But yeah, I vaguely remember soloing it on my stamblade

DMuehlhausen · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

It was never "hard" to begin with it. The problem was the VR grind and the being forced to play through the other factions just to hit max level. Then throw in that the dungeons gave you essentially 0 experience.

I understand where he's coming from. I'm not saying it should be like FFXI Online was all those years ago where enemies your own level could one shot you sometimes, or EQ where you had to rest for 20 minutes after fights. However I shouldn't be able to just run through like 10 packs (3-4) in a group. Turn around and spam a skill and never really lose life and easily kill them. There is a balance and it would be nice if they found it.

maboleth · August 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Very few games are hard these days. Devs try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

Or, possibly, the audience isn't that big.

Look at dark souls. Compared to other games at the time, it had a comparatively low budget. It aimed, for a target audience. It hit that audience. It was profitable, because it ajusted it's expectations.

Problem ain' the world. Problem is you my man.

Video used to be more challenging. There has been a generational shift though. I'll call it the "achievement generation", where most people care about the end result (the achievement) and don't care about the journey there (in fact, they want to get the achievement as quickly as possible with as little resistance as possible).

You have

from me.

<personal rant> I hate new achievement generation, because they just mindlessly run to satisfy their 1000 miles wide but 1 inch deep attention and excitement. For example, I love dungeons but I've seen 40% of them probably, or less, because whenever I went there, people just rushed like they were hunted by a wild dogs. Achievements, armour parts... don't care for story, quests or the sheer brilliance of art & voice department that put weeks and months into making everything beautiful.
So wherever I can, I try to either solo or go with few trusted friends. </personal rant>

But alas, that's probably cause and effect when there's so much games nowadays, competition is greater than ever and ZOS needs big money to sustain and get going... So you know, you can't blame casual players.
But I do find ZOS trying to shake everything from time to time and make fights, CP points, mundus stones, etc. more exciting and versatile.

Doctordarkspawn · August 2017

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

It was never "hard" to begin with it. The problem was the VR grind and the being forced to play through the other factions just to hit max level. Then throw in that the dungeons gave you essentially 0 experience.

I understand where he's coming from. I'm not saying it should be like FFXI Online was all those years ago where enemies your own level could one shot you sometimes, or EQ where you had to rest for 20 minutes after fights. However I shouldn't be able to just run through like 10 packs (3-4) in a group. Turn around and spam a skill and never really lose life and easily kill them. There is a balance and it would be nice if they found it.

Let me let you in on a secret.

If they do this, your gonna kill the ammount of people questing because -then- it will be a slog again. Why? Because ZOS is very liberal with the enemy placements. They're -everywhere-, hell, go do the Wrothgar quests again and see just -how much- combat there is to complete basic objectives.

So your choices are: Slog-ish fights that will kill momentum for people questing or questing mostly for the story and nothing else. Pick one.

Kendaric · August 2017

Jhalin wrote: »

I'd like it if exansions required completion of the main questline (defeat molag bal) before allowing a toon to join in on the expansions' main quests. Expansions are meant to expand on story content, not give random tangents of events that can be entered at any point without any regard to previously established plot events. And this way they could be designed with the assumption that players are at least moderately proficient at the game and make the content more challenging that the standard faceroll of overland content.

Hell no. I've defeated Molag Bal once and don't want to to be forced to go through Coldharbor (or any part of the main quest) on each of my alts just to be able to enjoy expansion/DLC content.

papadog · August 2017

I would not mind seeing a difficulty toggle that would turn off/on your champion points on demand, without cost, and without requiring that you reassign them. Just turn the effects on or off.

zaria · August 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

WOW overland is not hard in any way, doubt they changed it since I played. Might be a bit harder than ESO but also more tedious as get 20 bear asses is more common. You also have lots of fun quests some very fun but the bulk is tedious.

ESO is different in two ways, you have the 1) noobs using random dropped gear no idea of skills or builds, Light armor all point into health using only LA with bows. 2) You have the alts with crafted sets, blue food and an rotation.
Finally you have the co160+ characters some 3) doing up to 40K dps and clearing vMA daily, but even 4) the somewhat scrubby ones can do the easier veteran dungeons.
Current overland content is scaled for 1), now with an expansion who is also not an starting zone you could increase difficulty up to the 2)-3) level, current solo content of craglorn or a bit harder.

Wifeaggro13 · August 2017

seedubsrun wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Translation: WAAAAH! WAAAAH! MAKE IT HARDER!

You cite MMO's that make things harder at high levels. Go play them. This game is not equipped to make difficulty fun.
And I've never understood the players who simply want this game to conform to they're interests.

The overland content being hard is what drove players away in the beginning. Wonder what'll happen if it happens again? OH WAIT.

Wow someone who complains about complaining. How refreshing. Ignore this one OP. There are plenty of people and several somewhat recent posts sharing your concern. There's been many suggestions, a lot of them good, on how Zos could approach this. They usually come down to "would be a waste of time and money" (To which I say, giving players more out of the existing content is likely a money saver in reality and a good ass idea) or "Zos wont bother with it" (To which I'd say, I hope that's not true but probably is)

I'd like to see it happen but be optional. More like a normal/Vet toggle in some way. I feel as the CP cap increases the difficulty of overland and questing will get easier and easier until new expansions granting new locations will be very boring to play through. I haven't finished the last 3 content expansions because of this. I guess we'll see what they do.

He is hostile and really just a idiotthat likes to complain that all the dungeons are to hard and how no content should need communication amongst group members to complete

Thalmor-Nordmaster · August 2017

Need more traps/puzzles/buttons levers/pit/jumps/bumps/dumps/sumps. One thing I remembered from the oblivion standalone was the puzzle locks in the Aedric ruins. Use a frost arrow on this panel/a fire arrow on this one/ and a shock arrow on that one.

I remember doing the main quest when you had to beat ManiMacaroni to the red diamond. The bridge was a really cool thing. It made you think. I like dungeons and stuff that makes you use some intellectual abilities. I now see the same flame spout traps spread through out the Nord ruins in DumbNordLandia can we get some different ones added to the mix like the ax-halls and the rolling rocks. Revamp all the dungeons to include a variety puzzles and hazards.Not just an occasional one.

We should be able to enter the halls of Sancre Tor and be grateful as hell that we made it out alive. Each of the delves in this game should leave us with a memory of achievement for defeating not just the boss/Henchmen/Breton Scumlord, but for defeating the operational environment as well.

Torches and dark dank deadly delves should be introduced at some point in the future. There is much potential for this game.

Sacrificing a Companion in the MQ was fun. Let us add that to some dungeon runs. We have to sacrifice a team member (Argonian/Orc) to complete the run. Sometimes before the first boss. Sometimes the second. Or they must enter the room of flames in order to throw the door switch so we can leave the instance.Ok, maybe not flames. Maybe spikes. Or crush damage from a giant wheel of Cheese.

just my thoughts. I have more but they only come out when I am on some hi grade couch lock sticky icky.

speaking of which...BRB...

Dorjee · August 2017

I think on balance - after taking into account some of the above views - future expansions will have to have harder overland content.

Even if solely becuase of the continuous rise of the CP cap!

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Dorjee wrote: »

I think on balance - after taking into account some of the above views - future expansions will have to have harder overland content.

Even if solely becuase of the continuous rise of the CP cap!

The game needs a difficulty toggle that disables your CP (and maybe scales down your gear too). This way, casuals can still enjoy the story/collect achievements, while those of us who want a little bit of resistance from the game can also have our fun.

BlazingDynamo · August 2017

Casuals.

The game will sink with the launch of TES6. At that point they might turn the game around and lure hardcore long term players back with beefy end game content. My theory though, it'll be too little too late.

fastolfv_ESO · August 2017

i have had this concern too, but zenimax has a focus on new players not existing players. By introducing more and more bland scalable new zones to lvl in they make the world look like a sandbox for new players when its just more places to lvl without any focus. Why do we need 30 zones to lvl in and then nothing to do? only zenimax can answer that

Tannus15 · August 2017

I wouldn't expect any content to be any harder than we already have.

Zos have stats on what % of players complete the really hard content like vMA, vCoS, vDSA and vMoL and it's simply not worth the time and cost to make something HARDER than that.

You can expect more of the same difficulty, but not harder.

As people have correctly identified, CP power creep is the real issue with keeping the game balanced. At the same time players want a feeling of progression and improvement, so basically ZoS can't win.

On top of that players keep refining the ultimate build over time making the hard content even easier for themselves, and then are outraged that ZoS nerf their ultimate build while at the same time asking for more difficult content.