Two types of player;

1. Those who game for excitement, challenge.

2. Those who game to relax and socialise.

A successful game will create content for both types preferably so that a player can pick and choose as they progress. Never forget that there are varying levels of ability as well.

You know, topics like these make me laugh, for one reason only and that's that the mechanics to make game play harder for yourself already exist.

Respec your champ points and don't reallocate them.

Only wear picked up armour or don't wear armour at all, just don a costume.

Hell, don't even invest skill points and pretend abilities don't exist, just swing a sword or punch things if that's what floats your boat.


But I bet exactly zero people do any of the above

Just curious - what class was your friend playing?

Invincible wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

* No Champion Points Invested.
* No gear 'sets' (you can only use what you find).
* No friends (you gotta fly solo).
* No food (most newbies have no idea how important food is, so they don't use it).

The game would still be an absolute faceroll. Leveling my sorc in training gear with no food and no potions I can still pull half the map in alikr without even blinking.

I envy you. But what about 'Quest Bosses'?

I think most of us can agree that overland mobs (wolves, goblins, beetles and so forth) are incredibly easy (even I find them easy and I'm ESO's worst player). But Quest Bosses are a different matter.

The Goblin King in Stros M'Kai kicked my butt the first time I faced him. And that evil Werewolf in Daggerfell (the one slaughtering all the beggars) literally ripped me apart.

Even now, with champion points and gear, I still struggle with some of the Quest Bosses.

So I'm curious, when you guys talk about incredibly easy content, are you just talking about the overland mobs? Or do you find ALL content incredibly easy? Including the Quest Bosses?

The game is more tuned to complete newbs who really have little to no idea what they are doing mechanics or skillwise.

I have a friend who decided to build a khajiit heavy hybrid Nightblade. He LA spams everything, and has admitted he almost no skills placed, and has been putting all points into crafting. All his gear is whatever drops, and mobs can take him minutes to kill each. He runs a 2H greatsword and resto staff. For him, this game is reasonably difficult. He even has 120CP but doesn't know how to place them properly, so doesn't.

For his attributes, he placed 20 stam, 20 mag, 24 health. He is wearing 5 medium, 1 light 1 heavy (but only after I informed him about how this changes things....).

Klixen wrote: »

Invincible wrote: »

Klixen wrote: »

* No Champion Points Invested.
* No gear 'sets' (you can only use what you find).
* No friends (you gotta fly solo).
* No food (most newbies have no idea how important food is, so they don't use it).

The game would still be an absolute faceroll. Leveling my sorc in training gear with no food and no potions I can still pull half the map in alikr without even blinking.

I envy you. But what about 'Quest Bosses'?

I think most of us can agree that overland mobs (wolves, goblins, beetles and so forth) are incredibly easy (even I find them easy and I'm ESO's worst player). But Quest Bosses are a different matter.

The Goblin King in Stros M'Kai kicked my butt the first time I faced him. And that evil Werewolf in Daggerfell (the one slaughtering all the beggars) literally ripped me apart.

Even now, with champion points and gear, I still struggle with some of the Quest Bosses.

So I'm curious, when you guys talk about incredibly easy content, are you just talking about the overland mobs? Or do you find ALL content incredibly easy? Including the Quest Bosses?

Quest bosses? 9 out of 10 of them have slightly more health and hit slightly harder than random mobs. I've never found a quest boss that offers any sort of difficulty.

The only semi challenging overworld content that exists is soloing world bosses, which is quite sad because world bosses are meant to be engaged by teams. Even so the majority of world bosses are extremely simple to solo and only require you to not fall asleep while chipping away at their massive health pools.

The only "challenging" solo content I've found anywhere in the game is soloing dungeons. But it gets boring quickly.

There was so much sky is falling talk before 1T came out, woo. But all in all it has been a master stroke at making a world where you may simply go anywhere, what a great job.

But if there were an option to click “Veteran” for overworld, and make things twice as hard, for even nominal returns I’d do it in an instant. To make this excellent open ended world feel dangerous.

I take the self nerfing arguments seriously. I’ve made them before. But I think the human mind, or our “type” simply needs a small carrot. 20% more exp gain, titles, etc. Caldwells Platinum, whatever. I think its really worth considering something like it for the replayability factor it would add.

The game wasn't any harder before One Tamriel. For me it was much easier because I like to complete each map before I move on, so I was always way above the level of the content I was doing. I'd pick which attack I wanted to use first based on which animation I felt like seeing because it literally did not matter and I'd be lucky to get 2 hits in.

Of course it did mean you had the option of skipping to content above your level, which would be harder. But that would only work until level 50 and then your only options were to go back to the stuff you missed which would be even easier or restrict yourself to a few 'end game' areas, which would now be at your level and therefore presumably too easy.

Lunerdog wrote: »

You know, topics like these make me laugh, for one reason only and that's that the mechanics to make game play harder for yourself already exist.

Respec your champ points and don't reallocate them.

Only wear picked up armour or don't wear armour at all, just don a costume.

Hell, don't even invest skill points and pretend abilities don't exist, just swing a sword or punch things if that's what floats your boat.


But I bet exactly zero people do any of the above

I do the first two. I only use champion points on 2 alts who have barely any combat skills because I'm using their skill points elsewhere. I chose not to use them on my main/"run around PvE solo so no one else has to approve of my build" character for exactly this reason - I keep seeing people complain that the game is too easy and I've seen what high CP characters can do. At the moment I feel like the difficulty is about right for me, so I don't want to make it easier.

I might have to use them on my healer though when I start doing dungeons. Even for normal dungeons I feel like people expect you to use CP if you have them.

And I mostly use dropped armour because it's easier and cheaper. Every so often I craft a set for my main because several pieces are behind my level, or I want to try an idea that involves set bonuses or just because I feel like it, but mostly it's dropped gear.

Another option is to use a build you find fun but which isn't ideal, like a magicka/stamina hybrid.

Basically if you're good enough at the game that it's easy you should know 4-5 ways at least to make it harder, and can tailor your character to be as easy/hard to play as you want, in much the same way as you'd tailor it to have the best build possible. It's just a matter of working out what's right for you.

jcm2606 wrote: »

The problem I have with the self nerfing arguments is that it just serves to prove how easy overland content is. In order to even create a challenge for overland content, you must play like a new player. Doesn't that seem wrong?

Even then, I'd argue that self nerfing doesn't completely "fix" it, regardless. Even if you had trash gear and basically no skills slotted, you'd still know the game. You'd still know how and when to block, how and when to roll dodge, how and when to weave light/heavy attacks. Self nerfing makes your life harder, but not hard enough, for well experienced players.

All MMO's that survive provide challenging content for all players. As it stands now, 80% of the game caters specifically towards newer players, and is a face roll for everyone else. While I do agree that One Tamriel did open the game up and improved the game, it made overland content far too easy for experienced players. Sure, I don't want trash mobs to be damage sponges like they are in veteran group content, but at the same time I'd like them to take longer to die than me dropping Caltrops and swapping to my front bar on my Stam Sorc.

What if it was a single-player game and instead of suggesting using lower quality gear or non-set gear or whatever we were suggesting switching from normal to hard mode? It does exactly the same thing in most cases - reduces your stats or increases the enemies. Maybe it adds a few extra things, like damage from friendly AoE, but mostly it's enemies doing more damage and having more health, you do less damage and have less health.

Would you still be saying the same thing then? That players shouldn't have to turn the difficulty up to get a challenge and easy mode should be made harder instead? Or would you accept it because it's an established convention in the genre to offer different difficulties so each player can choose what's right for them?

You're never going to get one difficulty that's right for everyone all of the time because peoples abilities and what they want from the game is different.

For example when I play Dragon Age Inquisition I'm on hard mode, pausing as soon as I go into combat and switching to the tactical top-down view so I can issue commands to my whole party, pausing again every couple of attacks to reassess and set new orders. When my husband plays he's on easy mode, keeps the camera close behind his character so he can watch the animations, assumes everyone else is "doing their thing" and never pauses because it interrupts the flow of combat. There is absolutely no way to make one difficulty setting that's right for both of us because we want different things from the combat.

It's the same in ESO. For every person on the forum humble-bragging about how easy the entire game is and how they wish it was harder there's someone (who probably doesn't even bother to visit the forum) who really enjoys roaming around the open world, playing around with their skills and exploring without having to be constantly on the ball and doing their absolute best to survive. And likely a 3rd player who thinks they do have to be doing their best to survive anything more than 1 or 2 normal enemies because they find the game extremely difficult.

jcm2606 wrote: »

The problem I have with the self nerfing arguments is that it just serves to prove how easy overland content is. In order to even create a challenge for overland content, you must play like a new player. Doesn't that seem wrong?

Even then, I'd argue that self nerfing doesn't completely "fix" it, regardless. Even if you had trash gear and basically no skills slotted, you'd still know the game. You'd still know how and when to block, how and when to roll dodge, how and when to weave light/heavy attacks. Self nerfing makes your life harder, but not hard enough, for well experienced players.

All MMO's that survive provide challenging content for all players. As it stands now, 80% of the game caters specifically towards newer players, and is a face roll for everyone else. While I do agree that One Tamriel did open the game up and improved the game, it made overland content far too easy for experienced players. Sure, I don't want trash mobs to be damage sponges like they are in veteran group content, but at the same time I'd like them to take longer to die than me dropping Caltrops and swapping to my front bar on my Stam Sorc.

I suck at video games. Really, I'm just not very good. But even I find overland content mind numbing even when I'm leveling up a new character. I shouldn't HAVE to deliberately gimp myself to find the game challenging. I tend to agree with the poster who suggested a vet level setting for the game that, in addition to being challenging to players with over 500 CP would also drop better loot. THAT gives you a reason to do it AND brings back some excitement.

I don't know if this is possible, but could an Addon solve all our problems?

Addons are brilliant! The creators seem to be able to do some wonderful things with them. So is it possible to create an Addon that would increase the difficulty?

Then everybody would be happy. Hopeless players like me could choose not to use the Addon and keep the difficulty as it is. But everyone else who longs for more challenge could ramp the difficulty up.

Is such a thing possible?

I started ESO before 1 Tam, levelled 3 toons to vet rank, almost all to V16. I miss the sense of progression that the game had before, but I do not miss how miserable some of the regular overland contain could be for as soloing noob.

OK, yeah, the harvesters in the final quest in the Bangkorai main quest that you can one shot now, that was nerf overkill. But I remember trying to complete that before 1 Tam for the first time, and just screaming in rage and worrying whether I was going to even be able to complete the quest.

Then there were the the harvester minibosses in the Orchard in Coldharbour. Those had me near tears. I begged a guildmate who was in Coldharbour at same time to help me, and he laughed at me, saying harvesters were easy and to just dogderoll. I kid you not, but 5 minutes later I tp'd to another wayshrine in Coldharbour and saw that same player running for his toon's life...from a harvester.

Oh and that Auridon quest where you go to that island and infiltrate the Veiled Heritance, and you had to fight that trio of mini bosses. I could not beat those bosses on my first toon. i had to level up to like lv 25 before I could, and back then, Aurtidon was scaled for lvs 1 through 16. I think those bosses were scaled to lv12, IIRC. Even though those bosses are easier now, I still have people asking me to help them with it.

AND, how literally every mob in Wrothgar and Craglorn was a pita and made just travelling the map an unnecessarily grindy ordeal.

Yeah, let's not go back to that. If you're not a MMO noob and find the overland content too easy and want a challenge, go with no armor, limit the skills you use, don't use CP points. But pls don't think going back to how it was before 1 Tam is a good idea. FFS.