ZOS- please stop the power creep- you've made your own content redundant.

Dapper Dinosaur · May 2018

Questing is just running from arrow to arrow and ending with a 2 hit thumping of a low health "boss".

Does nobody understand that the overworld is modeled this way so that people who are playing a tank or healer can beat the content without taking 6 hours per quest line, assuming no dps players are with them or otherwise show up to help??

Also, I'm permabanned now, but can still edit existing comments. I just want to take this last available space I have to say fruck you, Zenimax. Your boards are extremely overpoliced and it saddens me that we live in a world where nobody is allowed to speak their mind without being heavily censored and punished for using anything less than the most flowery of language, and nobody is allowed to say anything even slightly derogatory about any other user or Zenimax itself without, again, being heavily punished. For anyone that sees this, as soon as you get a two-week ban, which is after the one-week, you're on your last strike. Be careful. They give you practically no room for error. Every single moderation, no matter how pathetically minor, bumps you further down the hole. There is no expiration date. If you slipped up 4 times 10 years ago, a new slip will continue the old pain-train, because that's fair.

VaranisArano · May 2018

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

Questing is just running from arrow to arrow and ending with a 2 hit thumping of a low health "boss".

Does nobody understand that the overworld is modeled this way so that people who are playing a tank or healer can beat the content without taking 6 hours per quest line?

Definitely. I mean, once I hit 15K DPS (and that's low for end-game content) I never had difficulty with questing content again. Blew through Clockwork City like the bosses were tissue paper, in fact. But I can actually quest on my tank and its slower, but still not a complete drag with only 6-8K DPS.

New or leveling players typically don't have dungeon-ready DPS rotation. If I want to blow through overland content, I bring my stam sorc DDs. If I want to actually fight through quests, I bring my other characters - my healer, my PVP-equipped stam warden, my MagDK tank - the characters who don't rip through 100k health minibosses like they are tissue paper.

I don't have to take off my CP or my meta gear to have fun questing, but I don't bring my "hi-I'm-ready-for-a-vet-dungeon" DDs to an overland delve and expect boss fights to last more than five seconds, either.

karekiz · May 2018

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

Questing is just running from arrow to arrow and ending with a 2 hit thumping of a low health "boss".

Does nobody understand that the overworld is modeled this way so that people who are playing a tank or healer can beat the content without taking 6 hours per quest line, assuming no dps players are with them or otherwise show up to help?

I don't get the whole harder questing thing either.

Now world bosses? I would be down for those getting a boost to normal craglorn trial level difficulty with boosted 100% purple drop quality.

Those who want gear progression would be the first to freak out the minute their golded rings/necks get nerf or changed. CP isn't the sole reason items get changed. Actually if they ever did go with traditional gear progression gold rings/neck would be an utter waste of time since by the end of the year it would be useless again.

MaleAmazon · May 2018

Its progression though: If your doing Vet FH your past the point of classic Dungeons.

Classic Vet 1 -> Vet 2 <Some of them> -> ICP/WGT -> Newer DLC <Order of difficulty changes per person thoughts. I think Vet HM CoS is the third easiest HM past ICP/WGT others don't>.

IMO the point is that it´s not a smooth progression, and the DLC dungeons are WAY harder (which is I guess why people enter them, they cleared vFungal 1 and so vFL must be no problem

. For single player it´s even worse; you have veteran Maelstrom which is hard (and used to be harder) and then everything else like 10 km below that. Also the difficulty is the mechanics much more than stats.

Basically, the difficult part is that someone in your group is just, no offense, really dense or doesn´t speak english = wipe and group falls apart, unfortunately.

The OP is exactly right: ZOS keep increasing CP, anyone playing will get more skillpoints = easier to improve gear, etc etc. Meanwhile almost all content difficulty seems aimed at lvl 1 players who just bought the game, with increasing difficulty being provided by introducing group coordination mechanics. As a mostly solo player, I feel way left out :'(

Inoki · May 2018

Power creep will definitely destroy the game. Seen the same happen to many. Only a fool would think it cannot happen here. It can, and it will, if something's not done about it.

Sevn · May 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

So basically ZOS should have handed out nerfs all around like they did last year with Morrowind the last time things were way out of hand?

Thats how,ZOS handles it. When they cant make more difficult content, they nerf everyone.

This. Blows my mind that these "game is too easy" folks don't realize how Zos is going to respond. By nerfing sustain or some other unwanted nerf. For every class. That is exactly what all these types of threads will lead to. And these same folks will be the first ones running to the forums to complain about the changes they themselves brought upon the entire playerbase.

Funny enough they always want extra rewards too. No gold jewelry or anything special whatsoever for such modes. You're not looking for challenging content, you're looking for another way to get items most others can't.

iCaliban · May 2018

Sevn wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So basically ZOS should have handed out nerfs all around like they did last year with Morrowind the last time things were way out of hand?

Thats how,ZOS handles it. When they cant make more difficult content, they nerf everyone.

This. Blows my mind that these "game is too easy" folks don't realize how Zos is going to respond. By nerfing sustain or some other unwanted nerf. For every class. That is exactly what all these types of threads will lead to. And these same folks will be the first ones running to the forums to complain about the changes they themselves brought upon the entire playerbase.

Funny enough they always want extra rewards too. No gold jewelry or anything special whatsoever for such modes. You're not looking for challenging content, you're looking for another way to get items most others can't.

Several of these "game is too easy!" criers, have self admittedly not done trials. So they want to nerf all of us who have put in the time in order to avoid playing the game mode that is designed to be challenging? No, just no.

Thealteregoroman · May 2018

Y'all gone be mad as hell if they reveal Spellcrafting as a DLC later this year LOL.

VaranisArano · May 2018

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

Y'all gone be mad as hell if they reveal Spellcrafting as a DLC later this year LOL.

They'll save it for the next chapter and treat it like jewelry crafting so everyone can scream pay to win.

bg22 · May 2018

I asked for a halt in player leveling progression Wayyyyyyy back when we had Veteran Ranks...

I hate it.

Sylosi · May 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

Datthaw wrote: »

Astrid_V wrote: »

First thing to stop endless power creep is by removing broken system called Champion Points.

The cp system is an end game crutch tbh. They take this away and people might actually have to wear sustain and max stat sets in pve instead of just stacking damage. And in pvp it will remove all the total min maxed troll builds that totally take advantage of sets plus cp to buff the hell out of something such as defile.

Without the CPsystem no one would play the game anymore, because there would be literally no way to advance your character. And no mmo works without an infinite horizontal progression.

Except CP isn't horizontal progression, it is vertical progression, which is the problem.

D0PAMINE · May 2018

I enjoy the CP system

greylox · May 2018

Keep CP, bring back soft caps

AuldWolf · May 2018

What makes it worse is that only a minority even visit the forum. If there was an official poll made about this, linked from the launcher so everyone was aware of it, then the response to the options would be to simply maintain the status quo.

Many games have tried to appease the hardcore.

Champions Online did it. Dead.
Wildstar did it. Dead.
Battleborn did it. Dead.

Why do you think that ESO has continued GW2 levels of popularity? It's because the game can be played with a minimal amount of grind and generally in a stress-free way, which is what most players want. The majority actually want a stress-free game. I'm actually annoyed that they're out of touch enough to think that group dungeons appeal to a number larger than 5 per cent of their playerbase. Studies done on MMOs have shown -- time and again -- that hardcore raiders, group dungeon players, and PvP players are a tiny minority compared to everyone else.

The largest group? Small group players, 2-3 players in a team who play regularly. Followed by solo players.

And the thing is is that in order to do some of the content someone has to play a 'difficult' class, and if people can't always play together that means soloing. If you're in a duo but sometimes you have to do things apart, then it'd be an absolute chore to wander around a world suited for a group of 5 or more.

Could you imagine the hell that resource gathering would become?

Honestly, if ZOS did poll the community, all of the community, I'd be willing to put down a grand on the vast majority of players not wanting things to get harder. In fact, part of that bet would be that they'd want the following:

* PvE Cyrodiil map;
* Public/group/trial dungeons that scale down to solo play;
* World bosses that can be tackled solo.

I'm not saying that ZOS should stop developing for the small minorities of PvP or hardcore raiding because that would be unempathetic, just that it would be more forward thinking to allow everyone to play this content. Because that's what the vast majority of people want.

When people think of MMOs, I see questions come up often about them:

"Do I have to do group raid dungeons? I hate those. It's so stressful and everyone hates one another. Do I have to do group dungeons?"
"Do I have to grind? I have a job, and I have other games to play. I'd rather just enjoy the story. So, do I need to grind my life away?"
"Do I have to PvP? I hate PvP, it's stressful and I have anxieties/disabilities so I can't even play it, anyway. Or I just don't like the competitive aspect. Do I need to PvP?"

MMOs that answer no more commonly to those questions become more popular.

The most popular MMOs are very casual and very story-focused.

What's ESO for the most part?

Very casual and very story-focused.

Hence the popularity.

If they changed it to suit what the minority wanted, it'd be dead overnight like Champions Online was when they did the same thing. They tried to appeal to the hardcore with difficulty creep (which is worse than power creep, FAR worse), and it just drove off their entire community. Now CO is dead. Wildstar is dead. Battleborn is dead. All for the same reasons.

I mean, sure, I'd be okay with having configuration options which allow for different zone versions, but how likely is that? They seem stressed for resources as it is. But that's all I'd support is the option to join a harder PvE zone, rather than just making the game harder full stop because that will kill it.

If you want ESO to live, you shouldn't ask for this. There's a mountain of dead MMOs for you to research to explain why.

Edit: Some will ask what difficulty creep is, I'll illustrate...

Hardcore Players: Make the game harder!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: More purple loot! I want to feel more badarse!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: The game is too easy, now! The purples made it too easy! I have so many numbers! Make it harder!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: The difficulty is good but the rewards aren't worth it, add better elite drops!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: The game is too easy now, make the game more difficult to suit this gear I've grinded for!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: I love this difficulty! But I feel unrewarded. REWARD ME! More epic drops! More epic! Bigger numbers!
Developer: Okay!
Hardcore Players: I can sleepwalk through content, now. Make the game harder!
Developer: Okay!
Casual Players: We can't play this, now. The base game has become impossible to play! You have to spend your life grinding the stuff right at the beginning to get even slight viability. We can't play it any more. We're all going to leave, now.
Developer: Oh no! Why is our game failing? Where did 95 per cent of our community go? It's a mystery! We'll never figure it out!

And that's how many of my favourite online games died.

Edit 2: I mean, notice that someone even asked for world bosses to be like some sort of Craglorn-esque raid boss, but one that drops super gear. That's the very definition of difficulty creep. So, when they're kitted out in amazing gear, the world bosses will be easy again. Oh no, better crank up the difficulty! Et cetera until the game dies.

Just... wear white armour. Or wear nothing. Use no weapons. There, you have your difficulty.

MerlinPendragon · May 2018

All mobs... overland, delves, dungeons, trials.... need an increase in difficulty.

xeNNNNN · May 2018

Im seeing far too many simply complaining and not enough people coming up with alternatives though there are a few people here trying.

What will you do without the progression system as well for whatever its worth, despite the impact or perceived problem with CP (it is after all subjective) what kind of progression system would you put in place beyond a balance portfolio because honestly... you'd be uprooting what the games balanced around as well as its only true progression system...

MMOs without end game progression die and the ones that demand you only grind ruin the experience for many....

Xelsa · May 2018

I would love to see another zone somewhere between craglorn and normal non-dlc difficulty. Experienced players could solo it, and lower levels could group up to do it.

Kiralyn2000 · May 2018

Yeeeaaaah. The folks who know how to do the content, can do it even more easily as they get more CP, and complain it's it's a cakewalk due to powercreep.

Meanwhile, the folks who can't do the content, won't be able to do it no matter how many CP you give them. Because the real difficulty is knowledge&skill with the combat systems, not how awesome your stats are. (Which is why "well, just turn off your CP!" isn't a solution for giving the pro players "harder content".... because they've "learned 2 play" and that's the important part.)

GawdSB · May 2018

You know there's players that's not max CP and that can just steamroll through everything right? It's irritating when those with max CP all gold gear cry about things being too easy. Well, what did you think would happen? Things would get harder the more CP you allocate and the better your gear?

Not everybody can even get in a guild and do trials to get the best gear. Stop complaining everything isn't all about you. Casual players have to play to, and they're probably the majority of the player base.

DoctorESO · May 2018

You can make yourself weaker and the game more challenging by removing your CP allocation.

Chilly-McFreeze · May 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

You can make yourself weaker and the game more challenging by removing your CP allocation.

And this helps balancing out PvE for low-cp players and high cp players, CP PvP for low & high cps and no cp PvP all at the same time while it stops nerfing classes and skills to compensate for the ever increasing power creep?

Lunatic_Dizzy · May 2018

Why not spend the 3,000 gold and respec your cp, but not spend any? I mean cp is totally optional.

Lunatic_Dizzy · May 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

You can make yourself weaker and the game more challenging by removing your CP allocation.

Dang it, beat me to it. Same thing I was saying basically lol.

Animus-ESO · May 2018

All they really need is some soft caps on some stats.

Turelus · May 2018

Tandor wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Astrid_V wrote: »

First thing to stop endless power creep is by removing broken system called Champion Points.

I couldn't agree more.
For me personally I've not seen much good come from the CP system and it's only caused more issues than it solved. They should have just made Veteran levels account wide (like CP) and stuck with that system.

CP is neat and I like the idea behind it, but it should never have become a system where it increased power, or if it does remove the double dip (attribute bonus) to start with. I remember when this was announced and talked about as the whole parts of a whole, slices of pie thing at the guild summit and it sounded great.
It didn't work that way though, it just become more of the same buff everything on your character with no meaningful choice required.

Or perhaps it's the fact that CPs are account-wide that means we have this issue in the first place? A lot of the triviality argument is down to the fact that players are rolling alts and allocating hundreds of CPs to them straight off the block. I don't see how replacing one account-wide system with another one will solve anything.

Some form of continuing character progression throughout a game is necessary in order to give playing it a sense of purpose. Every character should progress through its own efforts, and continue to level up beyond 50 by the same method as before 50 - in levels. With the mobs scaling as well the game should be no less challenging after 50 as before 50. Some adjustment in the mob difficulty levels may be needed for the higher level characters but lower level characters would find it more challenging than now because they wouldn't be running round say Bleakrock Isle with 750 CPs. What's so special about level 50 that we have to turn the game on its head at that point?

I mean the argument against VR was the grind right, especially with alts.

So what if when you hit 50 you got all the VR levels added on then, like CP does now. You wouldn't get the benefits of VR power (unlike CP power) until 50.

I also disagree with the need to have progression to give sense of purpose. If the content is there and challenging and engaging, released at a good rate (every three months currently!) then progression isn't required to keep engagement.

As I said earlier as well ESO has a false progression. We see our numbers go up, we feel like we're going forward but then there is a balance pass and things become weaker, CP gets rebalanced and more front loaded to make sure we're at the right level again. However before each of those we run around with stupid stats which break the content or force ZOS into developing around that power creep.

Also I do agree all the content needs to have some kind of pass to make it balanced again. However doing something that big means no update for that quarter (see One Tamriel) and people get pretty mad about that.

Tonnopesce · May 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

Questing isn´t end-game content, it´s not supposed to be "challenging". All content doesn´t have to be endgame hardmode...

Yeah... But it can be interesting, last quest of morrowind was hard af, if you do it at level 20-30 without cp or uber gear.
Summerset is boring compared to morrowind the difference is huge, i can solo most wb and "dolmens" in the summerset zone at 745 cp

JumpmanLane · May 2018

Feanor wrote: »

ZoS refusing to do what every other game does and stubbornly, stupidly, and lazily insist on trying to balance PvP and PvE is the cause of ALL nerfs ~ to classes and fun sets, etc et al...

This just a forum myth that doesn’t gain more truth the more it gets repeated. The fact is that both PvE and PvP are getting out of hand, and that ZOS tries to combat this with band aid fixes to sustain, class abilities and passives, and set adjustments.

If you pretend CP didn’t exist, most balancing problems would be just a matter of adjusting numbers. But as long as you have to balance content for CP and noCP and you increase player power via CP system with every update, the sweet spot for both PvE and PvP is always out of reach.

If you take vMA, some years ago the best players ran this in 1h 30m. Then the benchmark shifted to under an hour. Now the best ones run it under 30 minutes. It was never intended to be like that.

If people run the same content over and over and over and over, shouldn’t their times improve.

Outside of farming what’s the incentive of running the same content over and over? An achievement title.

The_Smilemeister · May 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

Astrid_V wrote: »

First thing to stop endless power creep is by removing broken system called Champion Points.

What do you propose as alternative for a horizontal progression? Armor that becomes obsolete every three months like other mmo`s do?

Like Twice Born Star, Viper, Spriggans? Remember those armour sets? Doesn't matter what you do with CP if armour sets are made redundant regardless.

Aurielle · May 2018

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

Overland content and daily dungeons have become so easy they are absolutely redundant. Some players enjoy the story so just do them a favour and take combat out of questing entirely as its totally pointless now.

I stopped playing LOTRO after 7 years and came to ESO for this very reason. There was an actual challenge in ESO and a sense of progression.

If I can complete content on an alt using light attacks on a class for which I have no idea how to play, who is in totally sub-level gear then something is seriously wrong. I do not accept that the ESO player base is so inedpt that it needs content at this silly level of difficulty.

Like the OP says you are creating redundant content.

I should be excited about this new update but tbh it just feels like a chore I have to complete to get to the other side

I think you underestimate how bad the average ESO player is. As a veteran MMO player, you came to the game with a lot of “MMO sense” (for lack of a better word). I know that, because I played LOTRO for 8 years, starting circa MoM’s release; before that game turned into the faceroll easy, essence gear/LI grind-fest that it was was when I left, we had to be knowledgeable about optimal stats, gear, and mechanics. You actually needed groups to complete certain overworld content. That experience would have given you an edge when you started in ESO.

Don’t forget that ESO appeals to Skyrim bros who play this game as though it’s Skyrim. The average damage dealer in normal and vet dungeons pulls about 10k DPS or less by spamming light and heavy attacks (with the occasional bit of Snipe spam thrown in for good measure), and they don’t care to improve. It’s not uncommon to find people with 300+ CP struggling to kill overland mobs in under 3 seconds.

I’m all for adding new difficulty levels to dungeons (veteran HM is way too easy outside of newer DLC dungeons), but increasing overland difficulty will absolutely alienate a significant portion of the playerbase. While I’d be perfectly happy to alienate these players for the sake of my sanity when pugging dungeons, I realize that it would be detrimental to the longevity of the game.

MehrunesFlagon · May 2018

Feanor wrote: »

ZoS refusing to do what every other game does and stubbornly, stupidly, and lazily insist on trying to balance PvP and PvE is the cause of ALL nerfs ~ to classes and fun sets, etc et al...

This just a forum myth that doesn’t gain more truth the more it gets repeated. The fact is that both PvE and PvP are getting out of hand, and that ZOS tries to combat this with band aid fixes to sustain, class abilities and passives, and set adjustments.

If you pretend CP didn’t exist, most balancing problems would be just a matter of adjusting numbers. But as long as you have to balance content for CP and noCP and you increase player power via CP system with every update, the sweet spot for both PvE and PvP is always out of reach.

If you take vMA, some years ago the best players ran this in 1h 30m. Then the benchmark shifted to under an hour. Now the best ones run it under 30 minutes. It was never intended to be like that.

how can they even manage that with load screens?unless they don't have much of a load screen at all.