lihentian wrote: »

if you find game too easy. take off your equipment and replacement them with level 1 none set, white gear. if you still find it too easy, reset your champion level. if you still find it too easy solo craglorn with above gear set.

Zardayne wrote: »

D&D Online if I remember right does the difficulty selection when you enter quest instances and it's been working fine for a long time (Been awhile since I played but it's still kicking). I believe City of Heroes did as well. I've said this before and I'll say it again. When the game began and a few of us veteran players (with no CP, uber gear, or a lot of in game skills) found the game pretty easy then . Other than Dosha and a few rare other things it was easy enough that none of us even grouped for the majority of the ride to 50. Mainly because we were killing mobs even faster than alone and you couldn't even enjoy good fight while still enjoying the overland/delve quests. Even to this day an expansion drops and a whole new land mass drops and we go our own way to do PVE quests to try and eek out some enjoyment. Can you imagine being able to enter a delve and choose a veteran or epic option where you could enjoy the game's quests with a friend or two? Why would that be a bad thing? Some people are so adamant that this would somehow hurt their game and that just blows my mind.

Sevn wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

D&D Online if I remember right does the difficulty selection when you enter quest instances and it's been working fine for a long time (Been awhile since I played but it's still kicking). I believe City of Heroes did as well. I've said this before and I'll say it again. When the game began and a few of us veteran players (with no CP, uber gear, or a lot of in game skills) found the game pretty easy then . Other than Dosha and a few rare other things it was easy enough that none of us even grouped for the majority of the ride to 50. Mainly because we were killing mobs even faster than alone and you couldn't even enjoy good fight while still enjoying the overland/delve quests. Even to this day an expansion drops and a whole new land mass drops and we go our own way to do PVE quests to try and eek out some enjoyment. Can you imagine being able to enter a delve and choose a veteran or epic option where you could enjoy the game's quests with a friend or two? Why would that be a bad thing? Some people are so adamant that this would somehow hurt their game and that just blows my mind.

Let me.help you with that. As seen by my vote, I'm all for the option but I'll tell you why others don't support the option. As a business, Zos only has so much time and resources to do any number of the things.

They can spend that on projects/content the masses will buy/enjoy for 3 or more months or they can spend it on projects/content that only a handful will enjoy temporarily and then be back on the forums demanding more. Why? Because challenging content is only challenging the first few times you run it. The mechanics don't change and you good people are so awesome you'll own it in a few days if not hours and be right back here demanding more.

Which means more and more time/resources is pulled away from projects/content the masses would enjoy who are already struggling with the difficulty as is by the way. That's how it affects them. There is no such thing as this won't affect another, we are all connected one way or another.

What happens overseas will affect your area of the world as well, maybe not today, but eventually. Same in the video game world.

AuldWolf wrote: »

The entire game could use a scaling overhaul, One Tamriel didn't go far enough.

What they did with world bosses was bad news for most people; Where they could be done as a duo before, some of them now are ridiculous to do so that way. So being able to adjust the difficulty of world bosses would be welcome. Similarly, being able to scale group dungeons/trials down to as few as one player (even though I play as a duo, I always think of the solo players). And generally just provide as many options for people to tweak the game experience to what they want out of it.

Sadly, none of this is going to happen as MMO developers have very confused ideas about what makes money. As has been seen with Wildstar, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Champions Online, and many other promising titles. The only ones hanging in there right now are ESO and GW2.

Many, many studies have told us that PvPers account for <1 per cent of any MMO's population; And hardcore raiders account for <5 per cent of the population. This is true regardless of the game, and it's why sandbox MMOs flop much more quickly and spectacularly than 'themepark' MMOs. MMO developers don't seem to understand that it's the enjoyment of play, the story, the characters, the lore, and gathering all of the things that can be gathered which keeps us coming back. The addon Pocket Apocrypha (also Librarian) keeps me playing as much as any feature built into ESO as I love collecting books. I just love collecting!

And like the majority of players, I have a case of altitis as I thoroughly enjoy putting together new characters. If an MMO let me I'd happily stay for years, going through alts, collecting things, and simply enjoying myself and having fun. I think that the first truly, genuinely successful MMO, post-WoW, is the one that puts control of things like difficulty, level of grind, and other factors in the hands of the players. Also, having a variety of types of play on offer is a great way to keep people playing. I know a number of people who solely play GW2 for the jumping puzzles, these days.

MMO developers are quite detached from reality, which is why MMOs regularly fail. I'd vote for granular control over the experience, but I know that in the end we won't even see the OP's desire for more difficult quests. The truth is? Many MMO project leaders just aren't great at their jobs.

Oh, their creative teams will put together lovely characters, and beautiful areas, with enticing mysteries and intoxicating lore. Then they'll flub the gameplay and other, important elements and turn players away. One example of this, for me, was Hew's Bane. The Thieves Guild area is so, so breathtakingly beautiful, sometimes I can't get over the sheer effort that must've gone into its aesthetic design. I've done area design myself, so I have so much respect for ESO's art team. And the Thieves Guild characters, from Velsa to Silver-Claw, they're simply sublime. I love them! I love them to bits. I will always remember them. And so it's a damn shame that the Thieves Guild content is let down by it being a bad thief-y game experience. It has no soundscape, it occasionally has bad level design, and so on.

MMOs often suffer with this. They'll rock aesthetics, story, and characters to a degree other games could only imagine. Then they'll drop the ball on gameplay unlike any other kind of game out there. It's stunning, really.

MMO developers want to appeal to everyone to make the most money but they only have a very narrow view of what 'everyone' looks like. The new market announce spam system that would just wind up people with anxiety, OCD, and autism rather than getting them to buy things shows how incredibly short-sighted the people at Zenimax Online Studios are. They don't... This is weird to say, but it's true. They don't understand us, the players. They don't get the kind of groups of people playing their game and how diverse they are, and they don't know how to appeal to us. They've become too detached.

It reminds me of DC Comics and how the aged, ancient editors (and I'm a fine one to talk at my ripe age) love Barry Allen. But very few other people do. Most people prefer Wally West, or even Jay Garrick, Impulse, or any other number of speedsters over Barry Allen. Barry's kind of Captain Whitebread, in a way, he's this dull, Aryan stereotype that appeals to upper-middle class white men. Wally was never that. Wally West could be more easily related to by the kinds of people who actually read comics.

Similarly, the editors at Marvel didn't understand why their push for diversity didn't work. It was because it was gimmicky and had no legacy or story backing it up. It was just 'boop, Captain America's a black person now because he literally stole Captain America's suit after having an argument with him and declared himself to be Captain America.' That's ridiculous, but that's kind of what Marvel did with their diverse line-up. And it was insulting. It was especially insulting to the intelligence of minorities who had seen veiled prejudice in the past, and knew what a manipulative, half-hearted handout looked like. It was clear to everyone but Marvel how obvious it was that they didn't want to spend time actually building up characters and legacy to introduce diversity properly in the way DC did.

This detachment is what leads to these issues.

It's why balance is so out of whack as well, instead of listening to the people in the community who can crunch numbers like some kind of super-powered actuary alongside playing every day, they just listen to themselves in an echo chamber. They opt for heavy handed nerfs because it's what they think is best without consulting with the community. I wonder what a community-wide poll would look like if ZOS themselves ran it asking whether we liked heavy-handed nerfs?

Yeah, this is an essay, but I can't help it. This sort of complete detachment is commonplace and it's what tends to ruin things. ESO doesn't just need a difficulty option for quests. What it needs is for the people in charge to really touch base with the community and start listening. To offer us the options we all want, to provide us with a customisable gaming experience that suits us so that we can enjoy ourselves. That way we'll stick around longer, we'll buy more things, and we'll spend more money.

That's just too reasonable, though, isn't it?

Edit: If I were ZeniMax, I'd look at what people were saying and start running community wide polls. I'd also add a Universal voting system for posts in threads, like up-votes. Not to rearrange the threads, but to present ZOS with a 'top 5' posts in each poll thread for what the community this ZOS should be reading. That's how I'd go about getting some immediate data.

And make them visible -- such as putting them in the launcher -- so that everyone knows that there's an issue to be voted on.

Edit 2: Also things that ought to be customisable?

* Choose whether to enter a duel or no-duel zone;
* Choose whether to enter a free PvP or no-PvP zone (yes, world PvP);
* PvE Cyrodiil map.

And so many more that would make the game so much more accessible, and enjoyable, for all players.

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

AuldWolf wrote: »

The entire game could use a scaling overhaul, One Tamriel didn't go far enough.

What they did with world bosses was bad news for most people; Where they could be done as a duo before, some of them now are ridiculous to do so that way. So being able to adjust the difficulty of world bosses would be welcome. Similarly, being able to scale group dungeons/trials down to as few as one player (even though I play as a duo, I always think of the solo players). And generally just provide as many options for people to tweak the game experience to what they want out of it.

Sadly, none of this is going to happen as MMO developers have very confused ideas about what makes money. As has been seen with Wildstar, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Champions Online, and many other promising titles. The only ones hanging in there right now are ESO and GW2.

Many, many studies have told us that PvPers account for <1 per cent of any MMO's population; And hardcore raiders account for <5 per cent of the population. This is true regardless of the game, and it's why sandbox MMOs flop much more quickly and spectacularly than 'themepark' MMOs. MMO developers don't seem to understand that it's the enjoyment of play, the story, the characters, the lore, and gathering all of the things that can be gathered which keeps us coming back. The addon Pocket Apocrypha (also Librarian) keeps me playing as much as any feature built into ESO as I love collecting books. I just love collecting!

And like the majority of players, I have a case of altitis as I thoroughly enjoy putting together new characters. If an MMO let me I'd happily stay for years, going through alts, collecting things, and simply enjoying myself and having fun. I think that the first truly, genuinely successful MMO, post-WoW, is the one that puts control of things like difficulty, level of grind, and other factors in the hands of the players. Also, having a variety of types of play on offer is a great way to keep people playing. I know a number of people who solely play GW2 for the jumping puzzles, these days.

MMO developers are quite detached from reality, which is why MMOs regularly fail. I'd vote for granular control over the experience, but I know that in the end we won't even see the OP's desire for more difficult quests. The truth is? Many MMO project leaders just aren't great at their jobs.

Oh, their creative teams will put together lovely characters, and beautiful areas, with enticing mysteries and intoxicating lore. Then they'll flub the gameplay and other, important elements and turn players away. One example of this, for me, was Hew's Bane. The Thieves Guild area is so, so breathtakingly beautiful, sometimes I can't get over the sheer effort that must've gone into its aesthetic design. I've done area design myself, so I have so much respect for ESO's art team. And the Thieves Guild characters, from Velsa to Silver-Claw, they're simply sublime. I love them! I love them to bits. I will always remember them. And so it's a damn shame that the Thieves Guild content is let down by it being a bad thief-y game experience. It has no soundscape, it occasionally has bad level design, and so on.

MMOs often suffer with this. They'll rock aesthetics, story, and characters to a degree other games could only imagine. Then they'll drop the ball on gameplay unlike any other kind of game out there. It's stunning, really.

MMO developers want to appeal to everyone to make the most money but they only have a very narrow view of what 'everyone' looks like. The new market announce spam system that would just wind up people with anxiety, OCD, and autism rather than getting them to buy things shows how incredibly short-sighted the people at Zenimax Online Studios are. They don't... This is weird to say, but it's true. They don't understand us, the players. They don't get the kind of groups of people playing their game and how diverse they are, and they don't know how to appeal to us. They've become too detached.

It reminds me of DC Comics and how the aged, ancient editors (and I'm a fine one to talk at my ripe age) love Barry Allen. But very few other people do. Most people prefer Wally West, or even Jay Garrick, Impulse, or any other number of speedsters over Barry Allen. Barry's kind of Captain Whitebread, in a way, he's this dull, Aryan stereotype that appeals to upper-middle class white men. Wally was never that. Wally West could be more easily related to by the kinds of people who actually read comics.

Similarly, the editors at Marvel didn't understand why their push for diversity didn't work. It was because it was gimmicky and had no legacy or story backing it up. It was just 'boop, Captain America's a black person now because he literally stole Captain America's suit after having an argument with him and declared himself to be Captain America.' That's ridiculous, but that's kind of what Marvel did with their diverse line-up. And it was insulting. It was especially insulting to the intelligence of minorities who had seen veiled prejudice in the past, and knew what a manipulative, half-hearted handout looked like. It was clear to everyone but Marvel how obvious it was that they didn't want to spend time actually building up characters and legacy to introduce diversity properly in the way DC did.

This detachment is what leads to these issues.

It's why balance is so out of whack as well, instead of listening to the people in the community who can crunch numbers like some kind of super-powered actuary alongside playing every day, they just listen to themselves in an echo chamber. They opt for heavy handed nerfs because it's what they think is best without consulting with the community. I wonder what a community-wide poll would look like if ZOS themselves ran it asking whether we liked heavy-handed nerfs?

Yeah, this is an essay, but I can't help it. This sort of complete detachment is commonplace and it's what tends to ruin things. ESO doesn't just need a difficulty option for quests. What it needs is for the people in charge to really touch base with the community and start listening. To offer us the options we all want, to provide us with a customisable gaming experience that suits us so that we can enjoy ourselves. That way we'll stick around longer, we'll buy more things, and we'll spend more money.

That's just too reasonable, though, isn't it?

Edit: If I were ZeniMax, I'd look at what people were saying and start running community wide polls. I'd also add a Universal voting system for posts in threads, like up-votes. Not to rearrange the threads, but to present ZOS with a 'top 5' posts in each poll thread for what the community this ZOS should be reading. That's how I'd go about getting some immediate data.

And make them visible -- such as putting them in the launcher -- so that everyone knows that there's an issue to be voted on.

Edit 2: Also things that ought to be customisable?

* Choose whether to enter a duel or no-duel zone;
* Choose whether to enter a free PvP or no-PvP zone (yes, world PvP);
* PvE Cyrodiil map.

And so many more that would make the game so much more accessible, and enjoyable, for all players.

You know one of the last things you said is one of the things I miss most about a lot of the older MMOs and that is World PVP. I mean how hard would it be to allow players to flag themselves for world open pvp. That right there would give this player the difficulty I crave in the overland world I spend a lot of time in. Some of favorite MMO experiences were on PVP servers. No Cyrodiil isn't the only option for PVP and World PVP while questing brings on a whole new level of heightened play. I knocked out my Stamplars last 10 levels a coouple years ago doing quests in Cyrodiil and it was as close to that experience as I could get. Thanks for the reminder.

Honestly I don't think open world pvp would have that much of a use. Think of the last time you saw someone in green shade that isn't just at a way shrine. Now think about how many of them aren't new players that wouldn't enable pvp. Without objectives like in cyrodil, people would be too spread out to really have any chance of encountering players.

Zardayne wrote: »

"You good people are so awesome"..that's lovely. It was a nice touch you added there for emphasis. I for one am a MMO gamer with 20+ years experience but I'm no power game. In 4 years I still don't have a full set of gold gear. I just wanted to clarify that I'm obviously not as awesome as a lot of players. It has nothing to do with "owning" anything in short time, it's infusing some difficult options for those of us who want it. See the thing your disregarding is myself and other non casual MMORPG gamers is a lot of us are here for the long haul. We view these MMO worlds as lands we'll be laying our virtual heads in for years to come, not just for a 3 week span when the expansion drops and then gone again for months until the next round. We're the ones who are paying our monthly fees (not saying some buy to play arn't) for years on end, buying a lot of crap out of the crown store for our homes, our respecs, and other items. How many casual players you think have dropped money on many $30 respecs? My guess is not a lot. The reason being , they're not in it for the day to day long haul.

Like you said challenging content is only challenging the first few times you run it and you're right. That's why I'd like to see more difficulty infused into the areas I spend a lot of my character "life" and that's overland and delves.. Dungeons and such are only fun for so long. PVP's great for a challenge but just like everything too much and the fun wears thin. I try to juggle them all to keep myself interested over that long haul I spoke about earlier. I spend way more time nowadays, farming, exploring, finishing quests I've missed (or haven't done on my newest character), and just existing in the "world". I'd like that world to want to include me in it too. Including a difficulty choice on delves and public dungeons isn't going to impact crap. In case you havent noticed the majority of folks in these things are solo players so how is that going to effect them exactly? I personally would like to select a harder difficulty and take my friends along perhaps for a chance at some better challenges and loot.

ADarklore wrote: »

I do not support it because of the amount of time that would be required plus additional servers, etc. They cannot scale content to individual players- right now everyone is 'scaled' the same exact way- to add scaling for every individual person who toggles for difficulty would be a nightmare and probably require separate instances. Imagine someone CP50 opting for 'hard' difficulty and then running content with someone CP750 selecting the same 'hard' difficulty... there would be no way to design content for that disparity and have them play along side the players who are playing the game on normal difficulty.

In the end it would most likely require completely separate servers for those who want 'difficult' content... and there is no way that ZOS could afford to do that.

Sevn wrote: »

Way too many self absorbed people in this thread. For every one of you that finds the game easy there are at least five players struggling with the EXACT enemy/content you are blowing thru. Take five minutes to stop moaning about poor me and take a look around some time. They are the majority of the player base, not you uber I sneeze and everything died players.

And stop with the extra rewards. NO. You want harder content? I'm all for it, but you're not going to get anything special for it. Not better loot, not a title, zilch. You all say you are looking to challenge yourselves well completing harder content is all the reward and motivation you should need.

Otherwise no I'm totally against the option as you all aren't really looking for a challenge, you're just looking for something extra that only a few can obtain. Which explains why you are not already doing the many things to debuff yourselves to make content more challenging.

Zardayne wrote: »

We'll guess what as a veteran player my paid for slice of the pie is way too small.

Lysette wrote: »

AuldWolf wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

We'll guess what as a veteran player my paid for slice of the pie is way too small.

It really isn't and I wish I could more adequately explain this to you. Considering the size of your demographic, what's actually in The Elder Scrolls Online already is beyond generous. That's why you're just coming across as entitled. If your demographic was larger, you'd be more entitled. The truth is is that you aren't where most of the money is coming from and ZeniMax Media is a business.

If they catered to you, they'd lose 95 per cent of the in-game community, easily, and in short order. It's happened to other games and it'll happen again. Will you feel as though you're getting your money's worth when the game is placed on life support where the developers can't even afford to develop content for it any more? Look how many MMOs that's happened to whenever the developer has focused too much on the min/maxer quotient. Developers may finally be wising up to the realisation that most players don't enjoy min-maxing, excessive grind, forced grouping, PvP, or unreasonable difficulty.

There are minorities for each of these things, absolutely, but they are minorities. That's why there are only a scant handful of games which appeal to hardcore players, many of which are failing or have failed. This is versus the success that 'themepark' titles enjoy when they understand and appeal to their primary demographic. And you're playing one of those 'themepark' titles you so detest right now. If this game isn't suited to you, why not find one that is? Why ruin it for those who love it?

Because the hardcore min-maxers will kill it with their ceaseless demands. Everyone else will just get fed up and leave. It always happens. And then the game is put on life-support, the hardcore people get whinier and whinier but the developers can't do anything about it. So they leave. They leave to move onto the next game to do that to. What I don't understand is why? There have to be better suited games out there, why do this?

And their logic is what is putting me off as well - overpowering themselves and then whine about the game being too easy. They could just use normal gear sets, which gives them normal power and they could enjoy it again - but no, they want power-creep instead, which is known to ruin a game.

ynimma wrote: »

lihentian wrote: »

if you find game too easy. take off your equipment and replacement them with level 1 none set, white gear. if you still find it too easy, reset your champion level. if you still find it too easy solo craglorn with above gear set.

I see this logic coming back regardless how flawed it is.
The skills, gear, champion points a player gets along the ride is for a reason: that's how you can physchologically convert your game experience and learning to be an achievement.
If the game does not offer any options in 90% of the content (like overland) to challenge your achievements and status overall, the whole meaning of playing is lost on that same 90%.
Have you ever seen any olympic runner for example who became a champion once to run backwards in the next race just to feel it more challenging? Of course not. Because it would not be creative but stupid to the core.
Same here or in every game: in order for a game to be engaging, the game has to challenge the status and achievements of the player the game is feeding with the other hand. Having a "vet mode" overland would just do that (with a little more extra reward) while those not ready yet could still feel epic cutting themselves through the defult overland difficulty.

I know it's no point explaining this for a lot of western movie hero who shoot the "No. Just no."-bullets nor for anyone who really believes that if I do a content naked it'd solve any issue but hey, I did what I could here.