Difficulty of this game.....

Doctordarkspawn · July 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

Go to Craglorn and open a Celestial Rift.

This.

Do that then talk to me about difficult.

Done. Can solo with my main.

That tells me you've mastered the game and that's why it's so easy for you. We shouldn't alter the game based on that.

Balancing based on 1% will never be a good idea.

Read my comment. Specifically the last two paragraphs. Never did I say we should balance the game around seasoned players.

I appear to be eating crow. I apologize. Let me just point something out though.

we've been asking them to use the model for battle spirit for alot of things for a while now, asking them to simply make additions as far as things go to do the same thing as PVP nerfs to skills. They never have. I think it has something to do with how battle spirit is structured. In any case, I wouldn't hold my breath.

SickleCider · July 2018

I just want more mechanically interesting content. I don't think just scaling the enemies in overland content to have a higher stat ratio in comparison to me would make them interesting. It'd just make the fights longer. I want something that shakes me out of my rotation and makes me pay attention. I always wonder if I'm expecting too much. I come from games like Bloodborne, where one lone werewolf gets your heart pounding, even at grotesque character levels, just on account of sheer speed and unpredictability.

crjs1 · July 2018

There already is challenging content - vet dungeons, trials, PvP - leave overland as it is, it’s fine! Not everyone plays the game for difficulty. Of course people who have played the game for years are going to find the game especially overland easy. Making the game punishing for casuals and new players will kill it. I personally don’t understand the whole difficulty = fun thing. For me it’s the story.

Zardayne · July 2018

idk wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

idk wrote: »

ESO, like many MMORPGs, has tiered content with increasing difficulty.

Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

Right?

If the OP only plays overland content, of course mobs are going to be easy.

If OP wants to play only that part of the game that is fine butt I will explain the very nature of things. The difficulty will not be increased in any meaningful way anytime soon if ever. That is pretty much fact.

The very design of the game being open world increases the challenge of making most of our questing (and especially open world that OP prefers) have variable difficulty at a player level.

It really is that simple. It is not going to happen anytime soon and doubtful ever. It would not be worth the effort to create a system that would make a character weaker by dialing a ***.

OP is already aware, based on his post, that he can already make his character weaker right now.

This right here is why I've begun moving on for the most part after 4yrs. I'll be damned if they're going to keep selling me expansion packs with 80% overland content that is absolutely worthless to me unless I'm running naked, no cp, and afraid. I'm also not going to keep running the same dungeons and trials over and over and over and pretend that's fun. It's not. Hell even Ultima Online had some random tough monster encounters in the woods that would wake your berry picking ass up if you were asleep at the wheel..Not here. They just mark them on your map so you can avoid danger..

Also like the OP mentioned, there are some casual MMOs out there that still know how to add some challenging content to overland to at least try to keep it fresh. Unfortunately this company is too worried about pumping out reskinned $40 camels for their store than to worry about adding some excitement to their game.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

seipher09 wrote: »

First thing I want to say is I know other threads like this exist and I'm a causal player.

I play this game maybe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most. I came from guild wars 2 and world of Warcraft (not much wow though) before playing this. In guild wars 2 I'll say I died a lot and had a huge challenge in the open world content. I mean events and huge mobs often times wiped me out fast.

I've been on and off Eso for several years and the one thing that's always bothered me as a BAD player who never even weapon swaps as it's to difficult for me I still kill mobs basically instantly without even trying. I literally look at them and they pretty much die. It's boring.

Lies.
I know a truly bad player at this game on my friends list. You are masquerading.

jaws343 · July 2018

idk wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

idk wrote: »

ESO, like many MMORPGs, has tiered content with increasing difficulty.

Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

Right?

If the OP only plays overland content, of course mobs are going to be easy.

If OP wants to play only that part of the game that is fine butt I will explain the very nature of things. The difficulty will not be increased in any meaningful way anytime soon if ever. That is pretty much fact.

The very design of the game being open world increases the challenge of making most of our questing (and especially open world that OP prefers) have variable difficulty at a player level.

It really is that simple. It is not going to happen anytime soon and doubtful ever. It would not be worth the effort to create a system that would make a character weaker by dialing a ***.

OP is already aware, based on his post, that he can already make his character weaker right now.

Everytime this argument about increasing difficulty gets brought up, people arguing for it say that not using CP or using lower level gear isn't the solution because they would lose progression. But then they turn around and siggest a battle spirit type mechanic that alters their stats, which is basically CP. The mechanic already exists, not ZOS's fault that people are too stubborn to use it. I mean, someone earlier in this thread said they wished CP wasn't account wise so that they couldn't use it on their low level alts... Just don't use it then.

DanteYoda · July 2018

I don't get this post.. I found Guildwars 2 vanilla to be far far easier than ESO to play.. Way easier.

Heart of Thorns and pink weapon grinds literally drove me away from GW2 though it made the game terrible.. I do agree on the weapon bars in ESO though its a pita imo.. Worst mechanics i've ever had to deal with in any mmorpg..

That said imo ESO is far harder open world than GW2 ever was.

Sevn · July 2018

Yep, Katahdin's second suggestion of a toon debuff is the more likely scenario, but all it does is exactly what the player can already do themselves, which is making your toon weaker.

I still don't see how making the fights longer will make them any more enjoyable and you're out of your mind if you think they will spend time and resources to making new interesting mechanics for existing npc's.

Nor would I want them to to be completely honest, that's time and resources that could go towards content the majority of the player base will enjoy.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Sevn wrote: »

and you're out of your mind if you think they will spend time and resources to making new interesting mechanics for existing npc's.

Nor would I want them to to be completely honest, that's time and resources that could go towards content the majority of the player base will enjoy.

Sadly, they already have been adding "new interesting mechanics" to the open world npcs, and I hate it too.

1) All the stun/silences they gave enemies since Morrowind. Just look at that Khartag's Point delve and the AoE cone stun/silence the enemies use there. Every one of the staff using Factotums in Clockwork City also has an apparently max range silence also that needs to be interrupted to prevent it.
It's like an ultimate but usable far too often on the enemies that should never have an ultimate and should be the weakest.

2) The Summerset enemies also gained more untelegraphed stuns and knockbacks. The gryphons can launch and knock you down at any time really. The salamanders can tail whip the ground at your feet and stun you, along with the telegraphed cone knockback. The worst are the spider daedra in the Meridia Shrine delve, Eton Nir Grotto or whatever it is called, that just rear-up and knock you back with almost no reaction time so it gets me every time unless I'm perma-blocking in anticipation of it, which is a very bad thing to teach players when you nerf that every time it is possible.

The worst part though? These mechanics are often making their way back to old enemy groups in the rest of the world.

I have to say though, I am so glad that the "TAKING AIM!" bow ability seen in Craglorn is not everywhere else. That is seriously not fair to solo players and those who don't know what it means or how to tell which enemy is doing it.

Camb0Sl1ce · July 2018

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

Lirkin · July 2018

I never level my characters to 50 with CP. Makes me learn the class better.

The game is setup to be easier when you get to high CP. I do the harder content that I could not do before solo. If you are grouping it will never be a hard game in all but the veteran content.

Camb0Sl1ce · July 2018

but again we go back to more difficult witout reason. overland should be easier no doubt, you have leveled up thus you shoud be stronger in every scenario. although i made a new character on NA went straight for public dungeons for skill points and got rekt. on eu cake walk. so i just believe right now things are ok-ish.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

but again we go back to more difficult witout reason. overland should be easier no doubt, you have leveled up thus you shoud be stronger in every scenario. although i made a new character on NA went straight for public dungeons for skill points and got rekt. on eu cake walk. so i just believe right now things are ok-ish.

FYI, I'm not the original poster. I don't think they posted beyond the first post which is why, along with the statement I quoted above from it, I think this thread is bait.

Ydrisselle · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:
1. They made not downscaling to the player but upscaling the player to the mobs' fix level. Higher CP levels still mean better stats, and lower level players simply don't have all the necessary skills and passives. The result is quite same.
2. That is here with the CP160 barrier. Simply our CP levels are much higher, so our characters are too strong after some times.
3. That's what you can achieve by dropping CP or downscaling your gear.

ADarklore · July 2018

I always suspect a post as a troll post when someone posts something and then never responds again.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:

1) This is nothing like before One Tamriel. Literally everything in the first zone was below level 10 so you could max out and go back and light attack once to obliterate an enemy. There is no comparison to now.

2) Yes, everything from Skyrim can be implemented here. FYI, there is a multiplayer Skyrim mod. That difficulty slider I was talking about just modifies player final calculation numbers so that they have an easier or harder time depending on what they like for all content. They did not do that on ESO since they need everything at a minimum difficulty balanced for all players "to keep them interested", but they definitely could do it if they actually tried and have great success while allowing us to solo group content using such a system if we chose.
Essentially, the point is they could allow us to make the harder content that we currently do not participate in because of it requiring too big of a group and too much effort into something we could have as "a challenging solo" thing we could actually do by lowering the difficulty, or raising it for people who want that to any level they think is fair against themselves.

And maybe you haven't heard this ever before, which would be weird as hell, but this is an MMORPG.
The only difference that matters between this and Skyrim is that MMO part which stands for "massively multiplayer online..." which just means "more players together" while they are still both RPGs which stands for "role-playing games". FYI, "role-playing" is not always "I'm talking like a haughty high elf because I am a haughty high elf" in chat all the time but also as in the "role in a group that I play is tank or dps or healer".
"Role-playing" just means we have an avatar as our vehicle for playing in the world, so technically every game with an avatar is an RPG but it has been narrowed by popular consensus to be a game with stats for characters that can be raised/lowered through time/items.
This game is a lot more similar to Skyrim than you think.

You really should play more games, or at least hear about them randomly and not very often, so you understand where the game you play comes from and why it is the way it is.

Edit:
MMO is not the proper term for this game also since that is like a sentence without a subject or a verb or an object(grammar terms). It's how we shorten MMORPG which is "massively multiplayer online role-playing game". If we didn't just know that outright was what people meant by "MMO" then it would be like saying "I ate a juicy delicious........." and not even telling someone what was so juicy and delicious. It doesn't make sense, so it is terribly flawed to base your argument on an incomplete thought like "this is an MMO......"/"this is a massively multiplayer online ........".

Ydrisselle · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:

1) This is nothing like before One Tamriel. Literally everything in the first zone was below level 10 so you could max out and go back and light attack once to obliterate an enemy. There is no comparison to now.

2) Yes, everything from Skyrim can be implemented here. FYI, there is a multiplayer Skyrim mod. That difficulty slider I was talking about just modifies player final calculation numbers so that they have an easier or harder time depending on what they like for all content. They did not do that on ESO since they need everything at a minimum difficulty balanced for all players "to keep them interested", but they definitely could do it if they actually tried and have great success while allowing us to solo group content using such a system if we chose.
Essentially, the point is they could allow us to make the harder content that we currently do not participate in because of it requiring too big of a group and too much effort into something we could have as "a challenging solo" thing we could actually do by lowering the difficulty, or raising it for people who want that to any level they think is fair against themselves.

And maybe you haven't heard this ever before, which would be weird as hell, but this is an MMORPG.
The only difference that matters between this and Skyrim is that MMO part which stands for "massively multiplayer online..." which just means "more players together" while they are still both RPGs which stands for "role-playing games". FYI, "role-playing" is not always "I'm talking like a haughty high elf because I am a haughty high elf" in chat all the time but also as in the "role in a group that I play is tank or dps or healer".
"Role-playing" just means we have an avatar as our vehicle for playing in the world, so technically every game with an avatar is an RPG but it has been narrowed by popular consensus to be a game with stats for characters that can be raised/lowered through time/items.
This game is a lot more similar to Skyrim than you think.

You really should play more games, or at least hear about them randomly and not very often, so you understand where the game you play comes from and why it is the way it is.

Edit:
MMO is not the proper term for this game also since that is like a sentence without a subject or a verb or an object(grammar terms). It's how we shorten MMORPG which is "massively multiplayer online role-playing game". If we didn't just know that outright was what people meant by "MMO" then it would be like saying "I ate a juicy delicious " and not even telling someone what was so juicy and delicious. It doesn't make sense, so it is terribly flawed to base your argument on an incomplete thought like "this game is an MMO"/"this is a massively multiplayer online ........".

I'm playing almost exclusively MMOs for 13 years, I have plenty of experience with them (I could write a list, but I feel it's unnecessary). Some of them is hard, some of them is easy, they only have one thing in common: many players running around doing quests (optimally, since some o them are quite a ghost town now). Today's games are extremely solo friendly, and they don't have to go even more that way. Yes, there could be more challenging solo content, but the real challenges should require a group. ESO's most challenging content is a trial, which requires 12 people... if somebody can't manage to get a dozen people, then s/he would have a lot of trouble in WoW/EQ or any "classic" MMO before the solo content became the new standard. There is nothing in ESO which needs a really large and organized group (maybe PvP if you want to be an emperor, or securing one of the best guild traders) compared to the classic setup of an MMO.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:

1) This is nothing like before One Tamriel. Literally everything in the first zone was below level 10 so you could max out and go back and light attack once to obliterate an enemy. There is no comparison to now.

2) Yes, everything from Skyrim can be implemented here. FYI, there is a multiplayer Skyrim mod. That difficulty slider I was talking about just modifies player final calculation numbers so that they have an easier or harder time depending on what they like for all content. They did not do that on ESO since they need everything at a minimum difficulty balanced for all players "to keep them interested", but they definitely could do it if they actually tried and have great success while allowing us to solo group content using such a system if we chose.
Essentially, the point is they could allow us to make the harder content that we currently do not participate in because of it requiring too big of a group and too much effort into something we could have as "a challenging solo" thing we could actually do by lowering the difficulty, or raising it for people who want that to any level they think is fair against themselves.

And maybe you haven't heard this ever before, which would be weird as hell, but this is an MMORPG.
The only difference that matters between this and Skyrim is that MMO part which stands for "massively multiplayer online..." which just means "more players together" while they are still both RPGs which stands for "role-playing games". FYI, "role-playing" is not always "I'm talking like a haughty high elf because I am a haughty high elf" in chat all the time but also as in the "role in a group that I play is tank or dps or healer".
"Role-playing" just means we have an avatar as our vehicle for playing in the world, so technically every game with an avatar is an RPG but it has been narrowed by popular consensus to be a game with stats for characters that can be raised/lowered through time/items.
This game is a lot more similar to Skyrim than you think.

You really should play more games, or at least hear about them randomly and not very often, so you understand where the game you play comes from and why it is the way it is.

Edit:
MMO is not the proper term for this game also since that is like a sentence without a subject or a verb or an object(grammar terms). It's how we shorten MMORPG which is "massively multiplayer online role-playing game". If we didn't just know that outright was what people meant by "MMO" then it would be like saying "I ate a juicy delicious " and not even telling someone what was so juicy and delicious. It doesn't make sense, so it is terribly flawed to base your argument on an incomplete thought like "this game is an MMO"/"this is a massively multiplayer online ........".

I'm playing almost exclusively MMOs for 13 years, I have plenty of experience with them (I could write a list, but I feel it's unnecessary). Some of them is hard, some of them is easy, they only have one thing in common: many players running around doing quests (optimally, since some o them are quite a ghost town now). Today's games are extremely solo friendly, and they don't have to go even more that way. Yes, there could be more challenging solo content, but the real challenges should require a group. ESO's most challenging content is a trial, which requires 12 people... if somebody can't manage to get a dozen people, then s/he would have a lot of trouble in WoW/EQ or any "classic" MMO before the solo content became the new standard. There is nothing in ESO which needs a really large and organized group (maybe PvP if you want to be an emperor, or securing one of the best guild traders) compared to the classic setup of an MMO.

I disagree with the part of your post I bolded.

You know why trials in ESO only require 12 players? Do you remember when WoW required 40 players for a raid and then when they reduced that to 25?
I remember 50 player "zone limit maxed" raids where nobody else could enter the zone and if you disconnected you lost your spot in the zone and had to go to "zone 2" in City of Heroes.

It was easier to get bigger groups in the past even though there were much less players. City of Heroes could easily form several simultaneous 40+ player raids with a population less than 200k concurrently logged in players, which is ridiculously small population compared to WoW and ESO. City of Heroes maybe had 400k active players while ESO and WoW are conservatively above 1 million.

People just have less time and less patience for their use of that time as that time is becoming more and more valuable for whatever they could spend it on.
This is why I disagree on the point that "games don't have to go more solo friendly" because they really do need to be more solo friendly. The evidence of this already going that way is the reduced largest group size requirement for endgame content such as ESO only being 12 and WoW reduced over the years from 40 to 25 even before ESO was released.

This is the way of things that is inevitable. MMOs were amazing when they were new and took effort to get into so you wouldn't get "casual haters"(people who "hate" as their hobby, not hating casuals) and everybody felt so lucky to be able to play with other people as such a new and innovative thing. Now, people are leaning more towards the old quote "hell is other people" and would rather not have their fun time ruined by somebody else.

We're going more solo and the best thing to do is embrace it.
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ParaNostram · July 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

This right here, this is a great suggestion.

Facefister · July 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

Katahdin's second suggestion is realistically what should happen.

I am in the same boat as you, overland content is far too easy for seasoned players.[...]

Isn't that the point? Random bandits, novice necromancers or wildlife should pose no threat to "professionals" and "veterans".

Ydrisselle · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:

1) This is nothing like before One Tamriel. Literally everything in the first zone was below level 10 so you could max out and go back and light attack once to obliterate an enemy. There is no comparison to now.

2) Yes, everything from Skyrim can be implemented here. FYI, there is a multiplayer Skyrim mod. That difficulty slider I was talking about just modifies player final calculation numbers so that they have an easier or harder time depending on what they like for all content. They did not do that on ESO since they need everything at a minimum difficulty balanced for all players "to keep them interested", but they definitely could do it if they actually tried and have great success while allowing us to solo group content using such a system if we chose.
Essentially, the point is they could allow us to make the harder content that we currently do not participate in because of it requiring too big of a group and too much effort into something we could have as "a challenging solo" thing we could actually do by lowering the difficulty, or raising it for people who want that to any level they think is fair against themselves.

And maybe you haven't heard this ever before, which would be weird as hell, but this is an MMORPG.
The only difference that matters between this and Skyrim is that MMO part which stands for "massively multiplayer online..." which just means "more players together" while they are still both RPGs which stands for "role-playing games". FYI, "role-playing" is not always "I'm talking like a haughty high elf because I am a haughty high elf" in chat all the time but also as in the "role in a group that I play is tank or dps or healer".
"Role-playing" just means we have an avatar as our vehicle for playing in the world, so technically every game with an avatar is an RPG but it has been narrowed by popular consensus to be a game with stats for characters that can be raised/lowered through time/items.
This game is a lot more similar to Skyrim than you think.

You really should play more games, or at least hear about them randomly and not very often, so you understand where the game you play comes from and why it is the way it is.

Edit:
MMO is not the proper term for this game also since that is like a sentence without a subject or a verb or an object(grammar terms). It's how we shorten MMORPG which is "massively multiplayer online role-playing game". If we didn't just know that outright was what people meant by "MMO" then it would be like saying "I ate a juicy delicious " and not even telling someone what was so juicy and delicious. It doesn't make sense, so it is terribly flawed to base your argument on an incomplete thought like "this game is an MMO"/"this is a massively multiplayer online ........".

I'm playing almost exclusively MMOs for 13 years, I have plenty of experience with them (I could write a list, but I feel it's unnecessary). Some of them is hard, some of them is easy, they only have one thing in common: many players running around doing quests (optimally, since some o them are quite a ghost town now). Today's games are extremely solo friendly, and they don't have to go even more that way. Yes, there could be more challenging solo content, but the real challenges should require a group. ESO's most challenging content is a trial, which requires 12 people... if somebody can't manage to get a dozen people, then s/he would have a lot of trouble in WoW/EQ or any "classic" MMO before the solo content became the new standard. There is nothing in ESO which needs a really large and organized group (maybe PvP if you want to be an emperor, or securing one of the best guild traders) compared to the classic setup of an MMO.

I disagree with the part of your post I bolded.

You know why trials in ESO only require 12 players? Do you remember when WoW required 40 players for a raid and then when they reduced that to 25?
I remember 50 player "zone limit maxed" raids where nobody else could enter the zone and if you disconnected you lost your spot in the zone and had to go to "zone 2" in City of Heroes.

It was easier to get bigger groups in the past even though there were much less players. City of Heroes could easily form several simultaneous 40+ player raids with a population less than 200k concurrently logged in players, which is ridiculously small population compared to WoW and ESO. City of Heroes maybe had 400k active players while ESO and WoW are conservatively above 1 million.

People just have less time and less patience for their use of that time as that time is becoming more and more valuable for whatever they could spend it on.
This is why I disagree on the point that "games don't have to go more solo friendly" because they really do need to be more solo friendly. The evidence of this already going that way is the reduced largest group size requirement for endgame content such as ESO only being 12 and WoW reduced over the years from 40 to 25 even before ESO was released.

This is the way of things that is inevitable. MMOs were amazing when they were new and took effort to get into so you wouldn't get "casual haters"(people who "hate" as their hobby, not hating casuals) and everybody felt so lucky to be able to play with other people as such a new and innovative thing. Now, people are leaning more towards the old quote "hell is other people" and would rather not have their fun time ruined by somebody else.

We're going more solo and the best thing to do is embrace it.

via Imgflip Meme Generator

I have started WoW on the day they released AV/AB/WG back in 2005... yes, I remember the 40 man raids very well. And I understand the need of solo content since I was a solo player even back then - there was many group quests I couldn't finish until I outlevelled and outgeared it so much that I was finally be able to solo it (lvl19 elite ogres in NE Loch Modan... I have died there so many times...). But the "solo everything" mentality is killing the MMOs. If a player want to solo everything, then go and play a single RPG. That's why I don't really want solo versions of raids and dungeons (although the "quest only" solo dungeons would be a nice addition, so it would be possible to finish dungeon quests in my own speed).
This genre was a niche one before WoW, and it is going back there slowly but steadily. I don't mind it until my favourite ones will stay alive.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

ParaNostram wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

This right here, this is a great suggestion.

And it was already done in Skyrim Legendary Edition with the difficulty options there. They really need to make that happen here in ESO since they have the blueprint already.

Facefister · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

This right here, this is a great suggestion.

And it was already done in Skyrim Legendary Edition with the difficulty options there. They really need to make that happen here in ESO since they have the blueprint already.

Then I want better loot and more gold. While we're at it, implement a third difficulty for dungeons where you have a chance for gold jewelry.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Facefister wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

This right here, this is a great suggestion.

And it was already done in Skyrim Legendary Edition with the difficulty options there. They really need to make that happen here in ESO since they have the blueprint already.

Then I want better loot and more gold. While we're at it, implement a third difficulty for dungeons where you have a chance for gold jewelry.

You fail at sarcasm.

1) You raise your difficulty then good, more/better rewards for you.

2) I wouldn't mind if everybody had better rewards for every difficulty. It doesn't hurt my gameplay and actually would help.

Facefister · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

So, the solution is really to apply another layer of scaling to the player, adjusting stats to make their experience easier or harder, based on a selected difficulty setting. The beautiful thing is, a system like this already exists. Battle Spirit. Battle Spirit is a status effect applied when you enter Cyrodiil that changes various stats to provide balance in PVP. Battle Spirit gives you an extra 5000 maximum health, reduces damage taken by 50%, reduces healing received by 50%, reduces the effectiveness of damage shields by 50%, and increases the range of abilities by 8 meters if the ability has a base range greater than 28 meters.

This system could work similarly. When in an overland instance, players are given a special status effect that adjusts several stats, based on the selected questing difficulty that they have chosen. It should adjust "behind the scenes" stats that aren't shown to the player, such as damage dealt, damage taken, healing, etc. That way "surface level" stats remain intact, and so builds are easier to manage and share while in overland zones. Plus, it also prevents any cases of "why do I have 5000 less magicka and stamina?"

This right here, this is a great suggestion.

And it was already done in Skyrim Legendary Edition with the difficulty options there. They really need to make that happen here in ESO since they have the blueprint already.

Then I want better loot and more gold. While we're at it, implement a third difficulty for dungeons where you have a chance for gold jewelry.

You fail at sarcasm.

1) You raise your difficulty then good, more/better rewards for you.

2) I wouldn't mind if everybody had better rewards for every difficulty. It doesn't hurt my gameplay and actually would help.

I wasn't sarcastic, not even slightly. If the game gets more difficult, I want better loot. And I was serious with the third difficulty.

TheInfernalRage · July 2018

I remember someone wanted to do Darkshade Caverns 2 in vet. He was a damage dealer, but he don't bar swap. DC2 is not that difficult, but if the DPS is low, it's really going to sting.

The overland and delve difficulty is built for casual players in mind. The difficult monsters they'll be facing might be some world bosses or soloing dolmens. The quests too seem to serve merely the purpose of storytelling and practicing how to play the class. I believe that ZOS wants players to transcend overland content and do the more difficult content.

LifenLemons · July 2018

seipher09 wrote: »

First thing I want to say is I know other threads like this exist and I'm a causal player.

I play this game maybe 1 or 2 hours a day at the most. I came from guild wars 2 and world of Warcraft (not much wow though) before playing this. In guild wars 2 I'll say I died a lot and had a huge challenge in the open world content. I mean events and huge mobs often times wiped me out fast.

I've been on and off Eso for several years and the one thing that's always bothered me as a BAD player who never even weapon swaps as it's to difficult for me I still kill mobs basically instantly without even trying. I literally look at them and they pretty much die. It's boring.

I know people have suggested for this issue well don't use champion points or don't use gear???? Ok well then this isn't an mmorpg if your really having to basically make no goals to have fun.

So what exactly is the issue with a 100% optional hard mode setting? Basically instead of the fights scaling to cp160 they scale to your current cp. Again an OPTIONAL setting in the game.

This would have exactly 0% change for players who don't want it but make players like myself who find combat to be rather brain dead easy a bit more fun.

Do you see a change like this ever happening in the future? I just find the open world content nothing more then a book I'm reading as anything that stands in my way to kill just vanishes when I hit a button.

Do you have Summerset? Some bosses are really fun. There are harder areas in Tamriel

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

ive played since console launch and i can say ive never played any mmo before eso, but at the start yes things were harder. i remember quest bosses that kicked my butt. i enjoyed getting stronger and coming back to beat that quest boss (or world boss before 1t). it felt good lol. at the same time though now i run vet trials and hard modes for scores for a challenge. also when i run around overland and nuke stuff ofcourse its cool, but ive played a long time. like one poster said if you want harder content DO harder content. overland mobs are not end game. although a part of me wishes that questing was how it was before 1t.

I miss that very same thing about leveling before One Tamriel. I liked out-leveling older areas.

I really wish they had paid more attention to Skyrim and done exactly the same things as there:
1) Make everything scale down to the player level so the player can go anywhere, especially because their friends are above them.
2) Make everything stop scaling at a certain point that varies for whatever reason so that some places and things are always easier.
3) Give us a legendary difficulty setting slider like Skyrim Legendary Edition where players can customize their own difficulty by increasing the damage enemies do to themselves and decreasing their own damage to enemies to make it harder on themselves if they choose. (Skyrim also altered what damage enemies take and have dealt to them but that doesn't work well in a MMO like this.)

If they did that then we would all be much happier.

I had this experience, but after One Tamriel: I've died to every miniboss with 100k+ hp or every mob group with 3+ members. Now I've outlevelled them, and have better stats, more passives, set bonuses and AoE/selfhealing.

Skyrim is a single RPG, not an MMO, so it's systems can't really be used here, however ZOS did almost exactly what you want from them:

1) This is nothing like before One Tamriel. Literally everything in the first zone was below level 10 so you could max out and go back and light attack once to obliterate an enemy. There is no comparison to now.

2) Yes, everything from Skyrim can be implemented here. FYI, there is a multiplayer Skyrim mod. That difficulty slider I was talking about just modifies player final calculation numbers so that they have an easier or harder time depending on what they like for all content. They did not do that on ESO since they need everything at a minimum difficulty balanced for all players "to keep them interested", but they definitely could do it if they actually tried and have great success while allowing us to solo group content using such a system if we chose.
Essentially, the point is they could allow us to make the harder content that we currently do not participate in because of it requiring too big of a group and too much effort into something we could have as "a challenging solo" thing we could actually do by lowering the difficulty, or raising it for people who want that to any level they think is fair against themselves.

And maybe you haven't heard this ever before, which would be weird as hell, but this is an MMORPG.
The only difference that matters between this and Skyrim is that MMO part which stands for "massively multiplayer online..." which just means "more players together" while they are still both RPGs which stands for "role-playing games". FYI, "role-playing" is not always "I'm talking like a haughty high elf because I am a haughty high elf" in chat all the time but also as in the "role in a group that I play is tank or dps or healer".
"Role-playing" just means we have an avatar as our vehicle for playing in the world, so technically every game with an avatar is an RPG but it has been narrowed by popular consensus to be a game with stats for characters that can be raised/lowered through time/items.
This game is a lot more similar to Skyrim than you think.

You really should play more games, or at least hear about them randomly and not very often, so you understand where the game you play comes from and why it is the way it is.

Edit:
MMO is not the proper term for this game also since that is like a sentence without a subject or a verb or an object(grammar terms). It's how we shorten MMORPG which is "massively multiplayer online role-playing game". If we didn't just know that outright was what people meant by "MMO" then it would be like saying "I ate a juicy delicious " and not even telling someone what was so juicy and delicious. It doesn't make sense, so it is terribly flawed to base your argument on an incomplete thought like "this game is an MMO"/"this is a massively multiplayer online ........".

I'm playing almost exclusively MMOs for 13 years, I have plenty of experience with them (I could write a list, but I feel it's unnecessary). Some of them is hard, some of them is easy, they only have one thing in common: many players running around doing quests (optimally, since some o them are quite a ghost town now). Today's games are extremely solo friendly, and they don't have to go even more that way. Yes, there could be more challenging solo content, but the real challenges should require a group. ESO's most challenging content is a trial, which requires 12 people... if somebody can't manage to get a dozen people, then s/he would have a lot of trouble in WoW/EQ or any "classic" MMO before the solo content became the new standard. There is nothing in ESO which needs a really large and organized group (maybe PvP if you want to be an emperor, or securing one of the best guild traders) compared to the classic setup of an MMO.

I disagree with the part of your post I bolded.

You know why trials in ESO only require 12 players? Do you remember when WoW required 40 players for a raid and then when they reduced that to 25?
I remember 50 player "zone limit maxed" raids where nobody else could enter the zone and if you disconnected you lost your spot in the zone and had to go to "zone 2" in City of Heroes.

It was easier to get bigger groups in the past even though there were much less players. City of Heroes could easily form several simultaneous 40+ player raids with a population less than 200k concurrently logged in players, which is ridiculously small population compared to WoW and ESO. City of Heroes maybe had 400k active players while ESO and WoW are conservatively above 1 million.

People just have less time and less patience for their use of that time as that time is becoming more and more valuable for whatever they could spend it on.
This is why I disagree on the point that "games don't have to go more solo friendly" because they really do need to be more solo friendly. The evidence of this already going that way is the reduced largest group size requirement for endgame content such as ESO only being 12 and WoW reduced over the years from 40 to 25 even before ESO was released.

This is the way of things that is inevitable. MMOs were amazing when they were new and took effort to get into so you wouldn't get "casual haters"(people who "hate" as their hobby, not hating casuals) and everybody felt so lucky to be able to play with other people as such a new and innovative thing. Now, people are leaning more towards the old quote "hell is other people" and would rather not have their fun time ruined by somebody else.

We're going more solo and the best thing to do is embrace it.

via Imgflip Meme Generator

I have started WoW on the day they released AV/AB/WG back in 2005... yes, I remember the 40 man raids very well. And I understand the need of solo content since I was a solo player even back then - there was many group quests I couldn't finish until I outlevelled and outgeared it so much that I was finally be able to solo it (lvl19 elite ogres in NE Loch Modan... I have died there so many times...). But the "solo everything" mentality is killing the MMOs. If a player want to solo everything, then go and play a single RPG. That's why I don't really want solo versions of raids and dungeons (although the "quest only" solo dungeons would be a nice addition, so it would be possible to finish dungeon quests in my own speed).
This genre was a niche one before WoW, and it is going back there slowly but steadily. I don't mind it until my favourite ones will stay alive.

You're right about this:

Ydrisselle wrote: »

But the "solo everything" mentality is killing the MMOs.

But that's impossible to stop. That's a symptom of the permanent problem of "not enough time in the day". We would have to change how the world is for that to no longer be a problem.

Actually, there is one way we could make it happen. We would need to shift the design of the game to be like the old game City of Heroes where groups stacked buffs from each player that made grouping much easier than solo and every class had the same buffs available so it didn't matter what class you had and people grouped all the time just for easy fun. Nobody ever "got butthurt" when a group failed because it was rare to fail. We just grouped up and "wrecked face", as my signature says.

Seriously, that is the absolute only way to bring back the "massively multiplayer" in MMORPG. You need to make people WANT to group, which will only happen if grouping is both easy because of many people wanting a group and easy to form the group with working group systems and making the group content NOT challenging/frustrating with common failure.
Essentially, the problem with MMOs and grouping these days is they feel they need to "teach us something" with everything being a challenge until you "learn" the mechanics or "put in the work" grinding. People don't like learning that is just meant to get you past what you learned and they don't like working.

Make groups easier and fun so they don't feel like "cramming for a test" and "work" and suddenly grouping will be back with a vengeance. I could almost guarantee it.

Edit:
The reason I, and many others, don't play single player games even though we exclusively solo is because those games do not have nearly as big a world, no continuing updates(which is both a blessing and a curse depending on what they rework) and, most importantly, because we have friends/family we chat with in these MMOs that we otherwise wouldn't speak to much and would grow distant from.
MMOs do bring people together.

DaveMoeDee · July 2018

Not sure if this was mentioned, but one approach is scaling to max CP. All mobs will be max CP, and people below max CP will be scaled. I have no idea how they scale power after max gear level, but that is the way to avoid trivializing content as people gain more CP.

But even that will fail because the game is just really easy now compared to launch.

Edit: tbh though, better to leave most content easy so bad players can enjoy the story.