We need overland HARDMODE

DosPanchos · December 2017

Can I get an amen?
This content is too good, too detailed, and too potentially entertaining to make it this easy. Please, ZOS, do us all a favor and give your content the justice it deserves by making it HARD again!

Some suggestions:
1. Revamp caldwells quest to make it hard mode for that specific character. It doesn't matter if it's instanced delves just give us some challenging overland!

2. Make new dlc zones that have special challenges and not just the same old warn out easy content. C'mon, just one difficult overland zone. I dare you.

3. Merry Christmas you filthy animals!

starkerealm · December 2017

DosPanchos wrote: »

Can I get an amen?

No.

To be fair, a vet version of open world content would, probably, be pretty welcome. But it would also schism the community between those two versions.

Given how unpopular Craglorn was as group only, I don't see this one happening, sorry.

Also, I take offense at that, I just bathed. :P

OutLaw_Nynx · December 2017

No.

Go play Dark Souls if you want to be punished. Go play Horizon Zero Dawn on Ultra Hard and come back to ESO. This game isn’t meant for sweaty try hards. Sweaty try hards are a small portion of their audience. You really think they’ll make a stupid ridiculous zone for a small audience? If you want hard don’t use cp, wear awful gear, try to be a hybrid.

I don’t want overland zones to be a chore. I don’t expect a troll to become vSO difficultly. Is that what you’re wanting? Trial adds wondering around?

I’m curious what your idea for this zone is.

deamor666eb17_ESO · December 2017

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

MehrunesFlagon · December 2017

deamor666eb17_ESO wrote: »

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

Do even know what hard mode is?Overland needs to be made more difficult.

DosPanchos · December 2017

Lol so much resistance. Obviously ZOS needs to cater to different needs. I like a challenge, not a "sweaty try-hard challenge, just something that requires actual thinking. Nearly every element of overland content requires 0 thought. It's out of balance.

madchuska83 · December 2017

It's called Craglorn.

Anrose · December 2017

madchuska83 wrote: »

It's called Craglorn.

It used to be called Craglorn. Now, even that is a breeze without thinking and only mashing one button.

Voxicity · December 2017

Agreed 100%. Not sure why the casuals are so opposed to it. If you aren't skilled enough then don't do it

ereboz · December 2017

the 'big stuff' in the overland zones like world bosses, dolmens, delves, public dungeons, etc needs to be scaled to the number of players attacking. I think rift does this? Maybe GW2, seems to work pretty well for them. When 3 full groups are at the same dolmen (alikir), it goes down ridiculously fast.

Magdalina · December 2017

This would be cool, it has been done, it could be done again but it never will unfortunately

Craglorn was such zone. And to everyone bringing up the "look how unpopular it was" argument...do you really think it was because of the difficulty? Vet dungeons - well dlc ones at least - are hard. Vet trials are hard. Vet MA is hard. Is this content empty? The endgame community may not be at its peak but we're getting a new trial what, every second update? And MA is still ever popular(even if not loved). Because ZOS actually provided incentive for doing this content. BiS gear, leaderboards, overall decent rewards, infinite replayability, etc.

Craglorn now...let's see...atrocious xp - once they nerfed grinding there you could literally do ANYTHING in the game including fishingand get more experience than from Craglorn. 1000% useless loot, plus iirc quests actually rewarded you with GREEN gear. Really Zenimax? A purple temper may not be the top of my dreams either, but GREEN? What else did it have going for it...Replayability? Nope, while there were repeatable dailies there was 0 incentive to ever do them again for aforementioned reasons.
And last but not least, the amazing quest instancing. Not just you needed 3-4 people in random places JUST to stand on pads for you in order to progress, but you needed people on the very same step of the very same quest as you or you were unable to progress. I don't know what bright soul came up with that design but I sure as hell hope he's been fired. That on top of aforementioned reasons(which didn't exactly incentive people to hang out there) made actually completing it a miracle. And then it took them MONTHS to fix that godmode awful instancing. This should've been fixed on day one, maybe week one at most.

Craglorn at its launch still stays one of my favourite experiences in ESO - I was lucky enough to do it with a group of friends who cared about fun and story more than about rewards, we had great fun together and improved our characters a lot over the course I feel. The graphics are amazing(Mage's staff

), the mechanics are actually really cool in a lot of places, but this all went to waste because of how ZOS handled it. It could've been the best thing in the game but now it's just remembered as a failure. It wasn't Crag's "difficulty" that killed it, it was all of the above reasons combined plus lack of reaction or even any communication from Zenimax.

For something like old Crag to actually work, Zenimax would have to get some backbone and actually firmly stand behind their view of the game/zone, provide very good(but not overpowered!) incentive to adventure there and do something to make grouping for it easier, perhaps a groupfinder equivalent of sorts(and obviously no "same quest same step only" stupidness). Unfortunately Zenimax has proven time and again this is not something they're capable of.

...I do miss old Craglorn SO much

deamor666eb17_ESO · December 2017

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

deamor666eb17_ESO wrote: »

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

Do even know what hard mode is?Overland needs to be made more difficult.

I’ve been here since beta.
This game was a lot harder back then. And you know what happened? A lot of people told ZOS that the game was too hard. So the game was made easier.

ZOS doen’t want to shoot themselves in the foot. Most people playing this game doesn’t want ”hard mode” game. Most of the playing population is ”casual”. ZOS is a company that wants to keep majority of its customers happy.

What comes to making a separate ”hard mode” for the content...
What would it require? How much development time would it need and how many would actually use it? How much profit would it make to the company?

tplink3r1 · December 2017

OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »

No.

Go play Dark Souls if you want to be punished. Go play Horizon Zero Dawn on Ultra Hard and come back to ESO. This game isn’t meant for sweaty try hards. Sweaty try hards are a small portion of their audience. You really think they’ll make a stupid ridiculous zone for a small audience? If you want hard don’t use cp, wear awful gear, try to be a hybrid.

I don’t want overland zones to be a chore. I don’t expect a troll to become vSO difficultly. Is that what you’re wanting? Trial adds wondering around?

I’m curious what your idea for this zone is.

"Go play X" is not an argument

LordSemaj · December 2017

Once upon a time, a troll was a raid boss. Trying to solo a troll was work, a monster that couldn't be stunned like other elite mobs and could kill you in a few hits easily. People had to actually master dodge rolls to solo content, block or interrupt or sidestep certain attacks that one shot, and any form of CC was just automatic death if you didn't break free. Heck, early on even three mobs were life threatening. Three normal mobs. Now I pull an entire dungeon of them.

And let's not forget Caldwell's Silver and Gold. The game actually did have hard mode overland once. It did scale to veteran levels and it was glorious in its own right. But as mentioned above, people complained about how hard the game was and everything was nerfed. People using special snowflake specs that were inefficient or running content with green gear 10 levels out of date complained that the game was impossible to solo in and that every delve required a partner or three. Even the scrub thieves complained because guards were practically a guaranteed kill if they caught up to you and only masterful dodge rolling could help you to escape your impending fate.

In comes ZOS with the magic wand of happy happy love joy and all the content was made easy enough for children.

badmojo · December 2017

Amen

ArchMikem · December 2017

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

deamor666eb17_ESO wrote: »

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

Do even know what hard mode is?Overland needs to be made more difficult.

No, it doesnt need to be. You want it to be. Overland is the prep school to end game group content. Unless youre suggesting there be separate instances for players, id suggest you take a look at all those low levels already running around taking 5min just to defeat a single trash mob. You want to make life even harder on them?

Korah_Eaglecry · December 2017

We dont NEED a Overland Hardmode.

The absolute vast majority of players would never touch it and it would likely end up gating better drops behind a senseless difficulty wall. It would take development resources to implement and so there would need to be good reason, and a sizeable interest from the playerbase for it to make the work worth while.

Id much rather those development resources be spent on changes that are geared towards things that can improve the experience for the majority than for a significantly small minority that would go radio silent after the changes.

Prof_Bawbag · December 2017

Magdalina wrote: »

This would be cool, it has been done, it could be done again but it never will unfortunately

Craglorn was such zone. And to everyone bringing up the "look how unpopular it was" argument...do you really think it was because of the difficulty? Vet dungeons - well dlc ones at least - are hard. Vet trials are hard. Vet MA is hard. Is this content empty? The endgame community may not be at its peak but we're getting a new trial what, every second update? And MA is still ever popular(even if not loved). Because ZOS actually provided incentive for doing this content. BiS gear, leaderboards, overall decent rewards, infinite replayability, etc.

Craglorn now...let's see...atrocious xp - once they nerfed grinding there you could literally do ANYTHING in the game including fishingand get more experience than from Craglorn. 1000% useless loot, plus iirc quests actually rewarded you with GREEN gear. Really Zenimax? A purple temper may not be the top of my dreams either, but GREEN? What else did it have going for it...Replayability? Nope, while there were repeatable dailies there was 0 incentive to ever do them again for aforementioned reasons.
And last but not least, the amazing quest instancing. Not just you needed 3-4 people in random places JUST to stand on pads for you in order to progress, but you needed people on the very same step of the very same quest as you or you were unable to progress. I don't know what bright soul came up with that design but I sure as hell hope he's been fired. That on top of aforementioned reasons(which didn't exactly incentive people to hang out there) made actually completing it a miracle. And then it took them MONTHS to fix that godmode awful instancing. This should've been fixed on day one, maybe week one at most.

Craglorn at its launch still stays one of my favourite experiences in ESO - I was lucky enough to do it with a group of friends who cared about fun and story more than about rewards, we had great fun together and improved our characters a lot over the course I feel. The graphics are amazing(Mage's staff ), the mechanics are actually really cool in a lot of places, but this all went to waste because of how ZOS handled it. It could've been the best thing in the game but now it's just remembered as a failure. It wasn't Crag's "difficulty" that killed it, it was all of the above reasons combined plus lack of reaction or even any communication from Zenimax.

For something like old Crag to actually work, Zenimax would have to get some backbone and actually firmly stand behind their view of the game/zone, provide very good(but not overpowered!) incentive to adventure there and do something to make grouping for it easier, perhaps a groupfinder equivalent of sorts(and obviously no "same quest same step only" stupidness). Unfortunately Zenimax has proven time and again this is not something they're capable of.

...I do miss old Craglorn SO much

Whilst i don't think you meant to, you actually well and truly hit the nail on the head there. " I was lucky enough to do it with a group of friends" sums up everything that was wrong with Craglorn towards the end. Absolutely had a place within the game when there were people around that wanted to do it, when it was new and so on. However, the thing that really killed Crag or made it unfun for newcomers, absolutely no one wanted to do it with them as most people had done it when it was easy to group. For the first 3 months i began playing ESO, no one wanted to go there to help regardless of when and where i asked. Instead people just preferred to stand in the likes of Mournhold and spam their AoE etc. If i had £1 for every person i saw asking for people to help with in Craglorn, only to be ignored by everyone, I wouldn't be sitting typing some inane stuff about a game on the net, I'd be sat in the Mediterranean to this day, on my Yacht, being hand fed grapes by a few glamour models.

Craglorn had to change as next to no one could be arsed grouping with newcomers thus the area became inaccessible to a lot of people.

Doctordarkspawn · December 2017

[snip]

Seriously though. People have put it better. A schism in the community is a good way of describing it.

[edited for insult]

DieAlteHexe · December 2017

No thanks.

I'm good.

Doctordarkspawn · December 2017

Voxicity wrote: »

Agreed 100%. Not sure why the casuals are so opposed to it. If you aren't skilled enough then don't do it

Given you have the apparently omnipotent assessment that all who oppose this are casuals, I dont see -why- you dont know why they're opposed to it.

Selective clairvoyance is hard to believe.

Seriously, casual has just become the term you people use for people who disagree with you. When you are that insulated in your little echochamber, I doubt you can comprehend jack all from anyone from a differing view point.

AlienatedGoat · December 2017

Overland content is way too easy for anyone who has been playing the game for a while. I think it was meant to be that way.

Difficulty progression in the game is generally: Overland -> Normal Dungeons -> Vet Dungeons -> Normal Trials -> Vet Trials. Newer people start out with the first two. This is a terrible design for the game, since the majority of content is in the Overland - including new content. That means that Overland content in every DLC and expansion is already too easy for most players who've been around.

It's a waste if you ask me. There are many solutions that would be acceptable, but the best one would probably be a difficulty slider for Overland content that increases rewards (gold,xp,drops,quest rewards) with the difficulty.

Anrose · December 2017

ArchMikem wrote: »

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

deamor666eb17_ESO wrote: »

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

Do even know what hard mode is?Overland needs to be made more difficult.

Overland is the prep school to end game group content.

Overland content does NOTHING to prepare anyone for endgame group content. I think it’s the point of this post to make it more challenging so that it forces to learn how to actually fight in this game. That way I don’t get a “tank” in a vet dungeon who uses a 2H and does nothing but light attack, stand in stupid, and die.

Runs · December 2017

We don't need a hardmode. Maybe a few quests buffed back to how hard they used to be before they got nerfed, but not a hardmode. We don't need the population split that would cause. They do something like that they may as well get rid of all the One Tamriel changes as well.

If they introduced a hard mode, what would be the point? The people who need it the most to learn mechanics wouldn't use it. And the people who used it wouldn't need it.

LordSemaj · December 2017

Phage wrote: »

It's a waste if you ask me. There are many solutions that would be acceptable, but the best one would probably be a difficulty slider for Overland content that increases rewards (gold,xp,drops,quest rewards) with the difficulty.

The chief reason that overland content in just about every game isn't vet-level is because that would require vet-level rewards. Overland content can be zerged, there is no safe way to hand out vet-level rewards to people and maintain a non-broken system. You're basically inviting dungeons to be meaningless content if players can farm their gear from world content.

Games that do service vet-level rewards from overland content typically do so through world bosses and generally you have to parse the highest to actually get those rewards. This creates a pay to win incentive and it's most popular in Korean games to go about farming open world bosses that actually drop stuff worth a fortune and improves your character tremendously.

Dracofyre · December 2017

Horms of Reach is very hard, and that is in Craglorn.

no hardmode for overland zones. just the dungeons, those designed zones made for hardmode to keep vet players happy and challenging.

MehrunesFlagon · December 2017

ArchMikem wrote: »

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

deamor666eb17_ESO wrote: »

Take off all your gear except weapons. Don’t assign champion points.
Well done, you have now activated harder play mode.

Do even know what hard mode is?Overland needs to be made more difficult.

No, it doesnt need to be. You want it to be. Overland is the prep school to end game group content. Unless youre suggesting there be separate instances for players, id suggest you take a look at all those low levels already running around taking 5min just to defeat a single trash mob. You want to make life even harder on them?

Overland in it's current state is not going to do anything to prep players for end game contents.In fact I think it does the opposite. Since it can all be done without even knowing what a rotation is.It may sound a bit harsh,but if you are new you should have some difficulty.How else will you learn?

Bryanonymous · December 2017

Take off your gear.

AlienatedGoat · December 2017

LordSemaj wrote: »

Phage wrote: »

It's a waste if you ask me. There are many solutions that would be acceptable, but the best one would probably be a difficulty slider for Overland content that increases rewards (gold,xp,drops,quest rewards) with the difficulty.

The chief reason that overland content in just about every game isn't vet-level is because that would require vet-level rewards. Overland content can be zerged, there is no safe way to hand out vet-level rewards to people and maintain a non-broken system. You're basically inviting dungeons to be meaningless content if players can farm their gear from world content.

Games that do service vet-level rewards from overland content typically do so through world bosses and generally you have to parse the highest to actually get those rewards. This creates a pay to win incentive and it's most popular in Korean games to go about farming open world bosses that actually drop stuff worth a fortune and improves your character tremendously.

You already can farm gear from Overland. Everything that drops apart from jewellery can be upgraded, and even purple jewellery drops from dolmens easily. There is also nothing "pay to win" about giving increased rewards for increased difficulty. This isn't a Korean MMO, there's nothing in this game that is "pay to win", and the increased rewards would be marginal (just a bit of extra gold, extra xp, gear drops purple/blue instead of blue/green, that kind of stuff). Just something to make the effort worth more than just mindlessly plowing through Overland on normal.

What I have in mind would be hardcoded to only allow 4 players to a group. You set your group dungeon difficulty to Veteran, and thereafter all mobs you come across will be scaled up to match your strength, including Bosses. Non-Vet players could still attack and participate, but the mob would be harder for everyone. It would keep from having to instance Veteran, and keep the world more or less as open as it is now.

Example: You and your Vet group in Overland roll up on a World Boss and initiate a fight. The Boss's HP, resistances and other stats are scale up to meet your challenge. While you're fighting, 3 or 4 more people show up to join in the fight. They are not on Vet, but they are able to participate and fight the stronger Boss. You fell the Boss together, and your group gets Veteran level rewards (extra gold, extra xp, purple gear) from the boss, while the people who showed up get their normal rewards. Everyone leaves happy.

DieAlteHexe · December 2017

Not sure if it can be done but an option for "hard mode" would be fine. I've no interest but for those who feel the need, hey, whatever. Just don't want to see it for everyone. I game to have fun and relax, not to be challenged. I've enough challenge in RL.

joaaocaampos · December 2017

Why a whole zone? Why not 30% of the zone? 1/3 of the delves can be group delves, with better rewards.

Zones are for everyone, not just those with high CP.