Difficulty of this game.....

Merlin13KAGL · July 2018

What you want is a difficulty slider.

Presently, there is no risk vs reward.

Morrowind got it right (the real one, not the DLC). There weren't leveled zones. Anything of any difficulty could be anywhere. There were not L10 safespaces with magical borders, there was ugliness around every corner.

If you opted to go somewhere before your intended time, there was potentially great reward for substantial risk. If you didn't want the risk, there were places you damn well learned to avoid.

It was at least a little better Pre-1T, because you had the option to go to the next tier zone, even though leveling was still too fast and you'd always outlevel a zone well before you fully cleared it.

Now, with everything scaled to be like everything else, you end up with three tiers of difficulty at most: Faceroll, Meh, and Nay impossible.

This game has never been good about gradual transitions (closest thing to that was 4 man, as you went up in tiers, the mechanics did require more of everything). It's why people are generally either bored out of their mind or frustrated because they can't figure out why they keep getting their ass handed to them.

It's better when you're allowed to go anywhere (1T). it's also better when you're not automatically guaranteed a clear or an ass-whoopin' if you do.

Zardayne · July 2018

LifenLemons wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

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".

Yes, but at the same time, there has to be content there to challenge players. As it stands currently, overland content makes up for at least 60-70% of the whole game. When 60-70% of the whole game is brain dead easy for seasoned players, that's when there's a problem.

The beauty of a system like I've suggested, though, is it solves this problem without affecting other players. Since the scaling is applied to the player, I can turn my difficulty up, and quest alongside a friend who has it all the way down.

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.

Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure Skyrim actually scaled the world to your level. Difficulty options definitely adjusted your own stats, but the primary sense of difficulty came from the world scaling. In OG Skyrim there were several spawn lists, where the world would select which spawn list it would use based on your level. There was one particular quest, I think it was when you first traveled to High Hrothgar, where if you were a low level, you got a regular troll, but higher levels got frost trolls, and even higher got some other mob. That, combined with the mobs themselves scaling, and the character being scaled based on difficulty, is how Skyrim, and many single player games implement difficulty systems.

The problem, as I outlined in my lengthy comment, is that this approach doesn't work in an MMO. You can't have the world scale to two separate players. So, as I suggested, the scaling must, and should, happen on the player.

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

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.

This is one way, but as I explained in my lengthy comment, it will kill any sense of progression. The community was already concerned about progression when One Tamriel was first announced, and to be quite honest progression was hurt during the stint from level 1 to 50, then CP 10 to 160.

LifenLemons wrote: »

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. It isn't even the fact that our characters are fully built that's the problem, it's simply the fact that we know how the game works mechanically. Newer players don't fully grasp this, though, so overland content ranges from a moderate challenge, to very difficult. You can look on the forums for threads about how overland content is too hard. Hell, I can remember several threads from newer players asking for help with defeating K'tora, a quest line boss that is part of the Summerset Isles main quest line.

Scaling the world to the player isn't the solution, though. It won't work in "public" instances. If you're CP 750 (current CP cap), fighting a quest line boss in a "public" instance, and you have a level 21 friend with you, how should the boss scale? If a level 13 player who wasn't in your group was also there, how should the boss scale? It can't. If it scales to the highest level player, making the fight challenging for them, it becomes impossible for the lower level players. If it scales to the lowest level player, it becomes brain dead easy for the higher level players. This approach to scaling works in "private" instances, ie group dungeons, but it doesn't work in "public" instances.

The solution is to scale the player to the world, which is the approach the game has used since One Tamriel. This way, the world remains a fixed level, but the players are the ones that scale, making the problem a whole lot simpler. The problem with the system they have now is the mobs themselves are far too low leveled, and hence players are scaling to a level that is far too low.

Raising the level, however, isn't the solution, either. Raising the level will kill any sense of progression. Even though we are detesting it, the fact that we are able to kill bosses that newer players legitimately struggle with shows the sense of progression. Your power level stays constant -- at least constant when you take into account players changing their builds as they earn more skill and attribute points, and acquire new gear pieces to keep up with the gear grind -- until you hit the level of the world (CP 160), and from there you grow stronger by earning and spending more CP. When One Tamriel was first announced, people had serious concerns about how it could kill any sense of progression. Here we are coming up to 2 years since One Tamriel's release, and progression remains. We don't want to remove it.

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?"

OR... If the game is too easy, you can alter your armour, lower your weapons. Or maybe scratch your weapons all together and go in for a fist fight on Bosses

The problem with this is it affects other content in the game, and it doesn't allow you to change the effective difficulty. You're going to be blowing 3000 gold each time you transition from late game content to questing, in order to reset CP, plus the gold costs for resetting skills/attributes if you want to go that far.

Doing it the way I suggested would make the process automatic and free, and your build would still be relevant in questing. Just it is weaker while questing. But you choose how weak you want to be.

Start a new character?

You know I've actually thought about buying this for my Xbox to relive the newbie experience. Not only would I lose all of my gear and cp but I also suck with a gamepad lol. I just hate to give up my costumes, dyes, and mounts I've purchased. I think I can get a used copy cheap at gamestop. I might just give it a week and see one day.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Ihatenightblades wrote: »

No offense but if you are having a hard time bar swapping ( 1 button ) then mmorpgs are not the games for you.

1) Bar swapping in combat is a unique mechanic to only ESO and GW2, as far as games I have heard of or played.
2) Bar swapping is very buggy here, which is the cause for most trouble people have with it in conjunction with lag.
3) MMOs have actually had on screen multiple "hotbars"for years and years before any of this "action combat" gimmicky stuff. I remember having 6 on screen bars with 10 slots each on City of Heroes and then some hidden bars I could switch into the main bar window for macros and emotes and temporary items not used in combat.

Yes, bar swapping is easier than some of the old mechanics we had to deal with in older MMOs, but it is not easy enough for many in action combat without messing up.
Your generalization about MMOs is definitely incorrect though because bar swapping never really existed as a necessity to using alternate skill loadouts before this game. Even DC Universe Online doesn't require a bar swap during combat and is only used when they switch roles from tank to dps or healer to dps or back, usually when going from group content to solo.

Edit:
My bar swapping experience is from my perspective with a gamepad since I am far less capable with a keyboard and mouse than I used to be. It's clunky to do that, but I have figured out a way to make it work and still do some amazing things in ESO, like soloing Shada's Tear in Craglorn and soloing most worldbosses.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

What you want is a difficulty slider.

Presently, there is no risk vs reward.

Morrowind got it right (the real one, not the DLC). There weren't leveled zones. Anything of any difficulty could be anywhere. There were not L10 safespaces with magical borders, there was ugliness around every corner.

That's incorrect.
In The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind, everything was leveled to you until you out-leveled the scaling. A high elvel Golden Saint was often just a low level Clannfear when your level wasn't high enough to be able to take on the Golden Saint.
You could actually skip almost directly to the end of the game in TES3 Morrowind, and it wasn't hard and was allowed and even planned for in the quest dialogue.

TES3 Morrowind was a lot like ESO One Tamriel, but without infinite scaling. I guess you could equate it to champion points letting you out-level everything eventually.

Zardayne · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

As far as finding it odd that people are not doing the challenging content, I believe quite a few are. I just think people (myself included) get so tired of jumping on the hamster wheel and doing the same thing over and over and over. We're talking dungeons and trials here. Sure they are fun a couple of times but damn most of us have to run the same crap repeatedly to get the gear we want. That gets old real quick. To me PVP is way more challenging than any of the dungeons they could ever throw at us yet when's the last time they had major updates to Cyrodiil? After 4 years I need more reason to keep riding that wheel too. To me that's why Overland needs an infusion of life. When I'm burned out of dungeons and pvp I go out into this huge world they've created to farm materials and armor sets, finish up delves I missed, explore nooks I might have missed the first few times around (believe it or not I still find places), etc. I 'd like to still be excited about the old world. Hell I'd like to be excited about future pve expansions and pay for them but when I already know ahead of time that the whole new zone being introduced wasn't created for me to have fun which includes a slight challenge (not 2-3 shotting final quest bosses), I'm done paying them. I bet 80% of this game is overland and growing every expansion and some people keep saying it's only for leveling 1-50..get outta here! What a waste...

All content gets boring and old. Asking for it to be more difficult doesn't improve that because you've already done it and it would still be boring very quickly because it needs to be "possible to win" and very much so because that is the entry point for new players and majority of what they can do to start.

The overland content is like a tutorial. You can't ask for that to be more difficult as it would kill the game by guaranteeing that new players would instantly hate the game.
It's not like they knew they would be getting into a prison shower like Dark Souls advertised, so you just can't surprise them with that and expect a good reaction. Also, games like Dark Souls are very niche despite all the publicity. Not that many people play them or continue doing so, especially if they break their controller or console so they can't.

Well I would never suggest Dark Souls caliber difficulty. That game has no middle ground whatsoever. It throws you in the fire right off the bat and keeps cranking the heat up. I'm just talking about sprinkling some difficulty in overland adding some difficulty selection to delves and public dungeons.

Solo worldbosses and the public dungeon group bosses. add your own difficulty by doing it in green gear or missing some gear or no 5 piece set bonus or without potions or without food buffs.

Difficulty is not hard to find. It's hard to find easier content when you need it. That's why they won't add difficulty enough that you would ever consider it good to anything in overland content. Not everybody is as good as you at the game.

I actually have a friend who dies to the weakest quest bosses regularly. I've tried to help him do better but he still can't get it. I don't want it to be harder for him than it already is when he has no option to make it easier that makes sense to him.
You can create your own difficulty and leave my friend to what he considers difficult.

"If we wanted "challenge" in City of Heroes we would solo the content. If we wanted fun we would form a random PUG the majority of the time and just "wreck face!" feeling overpowered. That was the most fun of any game I've ever played so why does no other "newer" game design that way? I guess they like players never feeling good enough and the inevitable "max level rat/worm/insect/this-shouldn't-be-a-threatening-enemy-but-it-is" effect."

You know I just noticed you mentioned City of Heroes in your sig and read what you have. I too played COH/COV for a few years. So you were fine entering a mission alone knowing you could be challenged but you also knew you had the option to increase that difficulty by adding more players to your team which would increase some of the mob levels and add harder types of those mobs. So what in the world is the difference if we added some difficulty selection to delves and public dungeons to overland? Sorry bud but you've got me highly confused now. Also as a COH player you know very well that the world was sprinkled with harder lieutenant and elite leveled mobs. You could easily jump into a tougher mob just by jumping from one alley into the next. Why would that be any different than what some of us are asking for here?

1) Grouping actually made content easier in City of Heroes.
2) City of Heroes did have the difficulty settings that could add 3 levels to the enemies and up to +8 more enemies to the group sizes too. That worked really well to customize the difficulty for everyone.
3) Those "sprinkled around elite mobs" weren't actually that tough. They were just like trolls here on ESO, a little tougher but nothing to worry about.

And yes, I'm all for adding difficulty settings.
The thing I am arguing against is all the people saying "just make it more difficult for everyone" just because they want it more difficult. That is just asking for trouble, and they are sometimes doing it out of the desire to see others struggle and suffer.

I very much would like customizable difficulty starting at easier than things are now(for group content anyway) and going up to more difficult for people who want to choose that option. I want grouping to be as common as it was in City of Heroes with any class welcome because the group content was balanced to be easier than solo at the base difficulty so everybody felt welcome and capable and could ramp it up once they felt more comfortable.

I regularly participated in 40-50 player raids in city of heroes, sometimes every night. I have not done so since in any game because every one I have tried has made it far more difficult, more toxic in groups because of the failures at trying to just finish and get the reward. Hell, I even did that Eden Trial in City of Heroes that regularly took around 3 hours and had a 4 hour time limit. I did it multiple times for rewards and fun every time.
No other game has ever been able to make me put myself through that long time-frame or grouping that regularly with that many people. City of Heroes was different than other games because the other games all design group content to be harder than solo when CoH made grouping definitely easier with group buffs that stacked to make players godly.
It was too much fun, which is just the right amount.

COH was fun and in my opinion one of the best MMOs. I loved the grouping system for missions. Get a full group and enter a hard mission and it did seem easier just because everyone was working together and wrecking the joint. Now if you got away from the group you could definitely get over your head. Overall though it was fun and I could definitely find some challenge in the streets as I was leveling up (of course the zones were themeparked in level ranges if I remember right). Then you had the park and some other zones where you could pull larger groups of mobs with harder mobs sprinkled in. That's what i wished we had here. Zones where either I could test myself alone and tackle larger groups of mobs or I could take some friends and we'd actually be challenged. All the dleves and such are instanced so they could easily do that here. Quite a few MMOs in the past had difficulty levels of instances. I'd just like more options but not too the extent where everyone was suffering (like if they went Dark Souls on us lol). Thanks for the COH discussion. Brought back good memories.

Like what you said here : It was too much fun, which is just the right amount

Ultimately I think this is what it boils down to. Just having fun. Once that's gone it's time to move on.

Tandor · July 2018

I don't have a problem with some sort of difficulty slider, but I don't think it's the answer for those who do the tougher group content because they'll be grouped with other players who have chosen to take the easy option and scaled down the difficulty throughout the game up to where they go into dungeons and find themselves up against the tougher content for the first time and are ill-equipped to handle it.

I'm not even convinced that those players who deride the overland content as being too easy would actually use the difficulty slider themselves. Mostly they're leveling up alts for the endgame and they'll probably still want to race through the process as quickly as possible and not actually have the patience to extend the routine fights through increased difficulty in that situation.

Much of the problem would be resolved in my view if champion points couldn't be allocated until a character reached level 50. Moreover, that would be a very simple change to implement compared with coding in a complete scaling makeover with the introduction of a difficulty slider or even an optional hard mode. When you have characters running around Khenarthi's Roost with many hundreds of champion points it's not surprising that those players find the content easy!

Another theoretical solution would be for a new zone to be added as a DLC for high level characters in which the whole scaling was changed to make it more challenging, but we had that with Craglorn and it ended up being deserted because nobody wanted to go there, or if they did they couldn't find anyone to group up with. I don't see ZOS going for that again.

idk · July 2018

Zardayne wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

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.

While I would agree it would be nice if ESO offered good WBs, the rest of overland I where I should be.

I do find I odd tha people say here are still casual games that offer challenging overland content yet not really name any. In this case Ultima online is mentioned making I seem that going to a game released 20 years ago as an example is a stretch.

I also find I odd that people make up all sorts of reasons for not doing the more challenging content yet want other areas of the game should be made more challenging for them.

I could name quite a few MMOs that I've played throughout the years that have mixed in tougher content in with casual in overland.
UO- Be it a stretch or not, a 20 year MMO that is still going did something right. A ton of UO was overland. Overland was our main home where you spent a lot of time unless you were dungeon diving. There wasn't instancing of everything. Having some harder mobs living in the world you did added a bit of excitement to the game. If you were a less skilled character and ran into a lich for instance you'd run for your life, find some companions, and try to kill it. If not you could avoid it. Casuals and vets both happy.
GW2- A lot of GW2s world is for casuals but you can definitely run into tougher elite leveled mobs sprinkled in all over. It at least gives it the feeling that every mob isnt a cookie cutter of all the rest. Not only that but they have zone wide events that can spawn some pretty tough fights too which require others to join in. As a casual you could avoid these if you didnt want to take part. It's not forced.
Daoc- Another game that in it's overland we had roaming patrols and some elite leveled mobs sometimes sprinkled into mob groups.
WoW- They had roaming mobs in their zones and sometimes they were elites or named mobs. If you played I'm sure you'd remember you could be fighting a pack of mobs and all of a sudden had 3 more due to a roaming patrol. That added excitement. You could also find caves and such and as you were killing ogres inside you'd realize quite a few were elites. I got to make the choice to stay and forge ahead in case there was a chest with loot in there. It was optional.
EQ2-Sprinkled in tougher mobs with regular leveled ones in overland.

I could probably go on as I've played them all (well, most)but after 20 years some of them are a bit fuzzy and I definitely don't want to lie to make a point. I just don't see why they can't sprinkle in some excitement in overland and I definitely don't understand why we can't have multiple difficulty of all of the delves in the world.

As far as finding it odd that people are not doing the challenging content, I believe quite a few are. I just think people (myself included) get so tired of jumping on the hamster wheel and doing the same thing over and over and over. We're talking dungeons and trials here. Sure they are fun a couple of times but damn most of us have to run the same crap repeatedly to get the gear we want. That gets old real quick. To me PVP is way more challenging than any of the dungeons they could ever throw at us yet when's the last time they had major updates to Cyrodiil? After 4 years I need more reason to keep riding that wheel too. To me that's why Overland needs an infusion of life. When I'm burned out of dungeons and pvp I go out into this huge world they've created to farm materials and armor sets, finish up delves I missed, explore nooks I might have missed the first few times around (believe it or not I still find places), etc. I 'd like to still be excited about the old world. Hell I'd like to be excited about future pve expansions and pay for them but when I already know ahead of time that the whole new zone being introduced wasn't created for me to have fun which includes a slight challenge (not 2-3 shotting final quest bosses), I'm done paying them. I bet 80% of this game is overland and growing every expansion and some people keep saying it's only for leveling 1-50..get outta here! What a waste...

Edit: To me ESO is going the way of Warcraft. Both have pushed their players away from the world and into cities where the bulk of it's players are sitting and waiting for dungeon pops, pvp battleground ques and duels. Sorry, after all of these years of MMO development by all of these companies, there has to be more to this genre than that. We as players should be demanding more than that...

It is interesting what you try to say but in the end your examples pretty much say we have the challenge in open world ESO.

Ofc a 20 year old game that still has servers up is entirely irrelevant since everyone here mentioning it has no interest in playing. It seems odd to mentioned a game as a prime example yet you have not wanted to play it for well over a decade. Irrelevant at it's core.

Then you mention GW2. Another game you seem to not be playing. One can wonder why. Yet you mentioned they had some stronger NPCs in some zones while most were super easy. ESO does have WBs. While I have soloed at least most, all in Summerset, I would say their challenge is a tad higher than trash mobs.

I do find your "Edit" an interesting creative piece since it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of MMO content which may be the issue at the core.

In any well made MMORPG a great number of players in the game are interested in doing the dungeons. They are commonly the next step in difficulty so logically the next interest players have. If you scroll back a page or two I believe I posted the transition of difficulty in this game if it helps.

From the first month this game was released players were looking for groups to clear dungeons and pretty much the same case in any game I played. That is pretty much he case with any major MMORPG worth their salt.

So ESO is not going the way of WoW. It started with a good solid design of content with tiered difficulty from the start.

I do find it odd why some argue to make open world more challenging when they made excuses for why hey do not do the content intended to offer a greater challenge. But everyone is entitled to their opinions.

Wifeaggro13 · July 2018

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I've only just started playing about a two months ago and fully completed just 4 zones or so. I'm noticing that no matter what zone I'm in the trash mobs although the design of the mobs are totally different, it's mash a few buttons and they die and most delves, public dungeon bosses eta are mash the same buttons a few more times and they die. I'm at about 170 CP points. I was wondering the same thing last night, once I max out CP points and gear what would the challenge be? While exploring is really fun and a lot of the quests and dialog in those quests really are well thought out at some point a little challenge would be nice. I've only PVE'd so far and rarely grouped up (I am on PS4 and even with a mini keyboard I hate the chat interface so grouping just sucks for me not being able to quickly respond to questions and interact which is another subject entirely). A little more challenge in PVE would be a nice addition to the game. Maybe just some veteran PVE ZONES not dungeons etc?

I am enjoying the game however from a programming aspect its amazing how much content there is.

ZOS did a zone like that before, it was Craglorn. Let's say it was unsuccessful.

It was successful it was the hub of the game it was packed . The problem was that they increased VR and left craglorn at the old Rank and un itemized. Not only did craglorn empty out the whole damn game emptied out due to them focusing on console release and B2P model.lets have the facts straight before . The only re did craglorn because they wanted to artificially extend the life of their content with out having to create something new

Tandor · July 2018

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I've only just started playing about a two months ago and fully completed just 4 zones or so. I'm noticing that no matter what zone I'm in the trash mobs although the design of the mobs are totally different, it's mash a few buttons and they die and most delves, public dungeon bosses eta are mash the same buttons a few more times and they die. I'm at about 170 CP points. I was wondering the same thing last night, once I max out CP points and gear what would the challenge be? While exploring is really fun and a lot of the quests and dialog in those quests really are well thought out at some point a little challenge would be nice. I've only PVE'd so far and rarely grouped up (I am on PS4 and even with a mini keyboard I hate the chat interface so grouping just sucks for me not being able to quickly respond to questions and interact which is another subject entirely). A little more challenge in PVE would be a nice addition to the game. Maybe just some veteran PVE ZONES not dungeons etc?

I am enjoying the game however from a programming aspect its amazing how much content there is.

ZOS did a zone like that before, it was Craglorn. Let's say it was unsuccessful.

It was successful it was the hub of the game it was packed . The problem was that they increased VR and left craglorn at the old Rank and un itemized. Not only did craglorn empty out the whole damn game emptied out due to them focusing on console release and B2P model.lets have the facts straight before . The only re did craglorn because they wanted to artificially extend the life of their content with out having to create something new

I don't think it was just that. Whenever you introduce a zone that is effectively group-only, as Craglorn was, it is packed for a few weeks after launch and people have no problem getting a group. Fast-forward a few months and new players coming through find such a zone deserted and because everyone else has already completed the content nobody wants to return to ir, so the new players can't get a group. That isn't a problem exclusive to ESO, but the problem is compounded in a game (such as ESO) that is essentially solo-friendly at least so far as such overland content is concerned. ZOS did the sensible thing and opened up the zone to solo players, while retaining some tough mobs for groups (which never get mentioned by those who deride the ease of the overland content generally).

Zardayne · July 2018

idk wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Zardayne wrote: »

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.

While I would agree it would be nice if ESO offered good WBs, the rest of overland I where I should be.

I do find I odd tha people say here are still casual games that offer challenging overland content yet not really name any. In this case Ultima online is mentioned making I seem that going to a game released 20 years ago as an example is a stretch.

I also find I odd that people make up all sorts of reasons for not doing the more challenging content yet want other areas of the game should be made more challenging for them.

I could name quite a few MMOs that I've played throughout the years that have mixed in tougher content in with casual in overland.
UO- Be it a stretch or not, a 20 year MMO that is still going did something right. A ton of UO was overland. Overland was our main home where you spent a lot of time unless you were dungeon diving. There wasn't instancing of everything. Having some harder mobs living in the world you did added a bit of excitement to the game. If you were a less skilled character and ran into a lich for instance you'd run for your life, find some companions, and try to kill it. If not you could avoid it. Casuals and vets both happy.
GW2- A lot of GW2s world is for casuals but you can definitely run into tougher elite leveled mobs sprinkled in all over. It at least gives it the feeling that every mob isnt a cookie cutter of all the rest. Not only that but they have zone wide events that can spawn some pretty tough fights too which require others to join in. As a casual you could avoid these if you didnt want to take part. It's not forced.
Daoc- Another game that in it's overland we had roaming patrols and some elite leveled mobs sometimes sprinkled into mob groups.
WoW- They had roaming mobs in their zones and sometimes they were elites or named mobs. If you played I'm sure you'd remember you could be fighting a pack of mobs and all of a sudden had 3 more due to a roaming patrol. That added excitement. You could also find caves and such and as you were killing ogres inside you'd realize quite a few were elites. I got to make the choice to stay and forge ahead in case there was a chest with loot in there. It was optional.
EQ2-Sprinkled in tougher mobs with regular leveled ones in overland.

I could probably go on as I've played them all (well, most)but after 20 years some of them are a bit fuzzy and I definitely don't want to lie to make a point. I just don't see why they can't sprinkle in some excitement in overland and I definitely don't understand why we can't have multiple difficulty of all of the delves in the world.

As far as finding it odd that people are not doing the challenging content, I believe quite a few are. I just think people (myself included) get so tired of jumping on the hamster wheel and doing the same thing over and over and over. We're talking dungeons and trials here. Sure they are fun a couple of times but damn most of us have to run the same crap repeatedly to get the gear we want. That gets old real quick. To me PVP is way more challenging than any of the dungeons they could ever throw at us yet when's the last time they had major updates to Cyrodiil? After 4 years I need more reason to keep riding that wheel too. To me that's why Overland needs an infusion of life. When I'm burned out of dungeons and pvp I go out into this huge world they've created to farm materials and armor sets, finish up delves I missed, explore nooks I might have missed the first few times around (believe it or not I still find places), etc. I 'd like to still be excited about the old world. Hell I'd like to be excited about future pve expansions and pay for them but when I already know ahead of time that the whole new zone being introduced wasn't created for me to have fun which includes a slight challenge (not 2-3 shotting final quest bosses), I'm done paying them. I bet 80% of this game is overland and growing every expansion and some people keep saying it's only for leveling 1-50..get outta here! What a waste...

Edit: To me ESO is going the way of Warcraft. Both have pushed their players away from the world and into cities where the bulk of it's players are sitting and waiting for dungeon pops, pvp battleground ques and duels. Sorry, after all of these years of MMO development by all of these companies, there has to be more to this genre than that. We as players should be demanding more than that...

It is interesting what you try to say but in the end your examples pretty much say we have the challenge in open world ESO.

Ofc a 20 year old game that still has servers up is entirely irrelevant since everyone here mentioning it has no interest in playing. It seems odd to mentioned a game as a prime example yet you have not wanted to play it for well over a decade. Irrelevant at it's core.

Then you mention GW2. Another game you seem to not be playing. One can wonder why. Yet you mentioned they had some stronger NPCs in some zones while most were super easy. ESO does have WBs. While I have soloed at least most, all in Summerset, I would say their challenge is a tad higher than trash mobs.

I do find your "Edit" an interesting creative piece since it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of MMO content which may be the issue at the core.

In any well made MMORPG a great number of players in the game are interested in doing the dungeons. They are commonly the next step in difficulty so logically the next interest players have. If you scroll back a page or two I believe I posted the transition of difficulty in this game if it helps.

From the first month this game was released players were looking for groups to clear dungeons and pretty much the same case in any game I played. That is pretty much he case with any major MMORPG worth their salt.

So ESO is not going the way of WoW. It started with a good solid design of content with tiered difficulty from the start.

I do find it odd why some argue to make open world more challenging when they made excuses for why hey do not do the content intended to offer a greater challenge. But everyone is entitled to their opinions.

I'm not going to answer all of your questions since my lunch break is about over so I'm just going to cherry pick.

Let's start with your last:
I do find it odd why some argue to make open world more challenging when they made excuses for why hey do not do the content intended to offer a greater challenge. But everyone is entitled to their opinions.

First off I love when people assume others haven't done any of the "harder content". I've been playing 4 years. I've a ton of it.

I've seen your list of the "order" were all supposed to live by in this MMO. So with that said I'm supposed to run the same dungeons and Trials ad naseum until the next DLC. Rinse and repeat. I've done this for years. Unfortunately I work for a living and I work a lot so being able to do trials and dungeons every night isn't going to happen. For that reason I spend quite a bit of time overland and in delves, especially during the week. So for a veteran player having the option to increase some of his/her difficulty in delves/public dungeons and sprinkled in overland sounds like an easy fix to keep people interested. Would it harm newer players? No. The majority of these additions would be optional.

It is interesting what you try to say but in the end your examples pretty much say we have the challenge in open world ESO.

That is hardly what I'm saying. I wouldn't have told you that one day one of PC ESO release and I definitely wouldn't say that now with CP points and all of the outlandish gear sets. There's was a reason why when I came with 4 coworkers to ESO upon release the majority of the time we leveled alone (way before cp). It was just too easy. I've made reference to several games I've played (or are still playing even though you imply that you know I do not) just to give ideas of other games from the past that add some difficulty into their overland portion of the game without scaring off casuals. No crap one's 20 yrs old and doesnt have the player base it once had we all move on to the next best graphical things with friends. It'll happen here to when the next big one hits. I was just saying that their overland world had a mix of casual with some risks. They werent't afraid to not put a rampaging orc fort in an area that casuals might pass because casuals could bypass it while others could jump right in and test their steel. Right now the main challenge in open world is a static mob marked on the map known as a "world boss" . He doesn't travel around the zone ambushing characters, He doesn't pop up with an entourage destroying villages. He just sits there.

In any well made MMORPG a great number of players in the game are interested in doing the dungeons. They are commonly the next step in difficulty so logically the next interest players have. If you scroll back a page or two I believe I posted the transition of difficulty in this game if it helps.

They might be interested in dungeons but from numbers flying around of upward of 80-90% never see end game ones, just how much interest is there really with casual players? I know I can sit in the finder on PC flagged as a healer for quit some time before a pop. If I Que as DPS, it's way longer. My guess is the majority of casuals spend most of their in game lives in overland playing the game as Skyrim 2.0

So ESO is not going the way of WoW. It started with a good solid design of content with tiered difficulty from the start.

It's still early in the game for ESO so there are still a lot of players roaming overland vs Warcraft. What I'm getting at is it seems as more and more people move from overland leveling, they are camping out in cities waiting for their dungeon, Cyrodiil, BG, and duels to pop. I'd hate to see ESO end up like that where all of the post 50 fun is instanced based and the overland is left empty and barren.

I do find your "Edit" an interesting creative piece since it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of MMO content which may be the issue at the core.
I found this quite funny. I'm not even going to spend much time on the condescending nature of your remark other than to remind you've I've played MMOs for a long time and just because I have ideas that could expand upon the enjoyment of the game world doesn't mean I don't understand how it currently functions. I just choose not to keep doing the same things over and over again and pretending that I'm enjoying it and offer some feedback that may or may not change anything.

Damn went well over my lunch lol.

Zardayne · July 2018

idk wrote: »

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

It is a rather simple concept. Want more difficulty then step up the challenge by tackling the more challenging content.

Below is a rough outline if difficulty from less challenging to more challenging. It was put together by people smarter than I am but pretty much what I would say.

Overworld
delves
normal dungeons
world bosses
vet dungeons
normal trials
vet DLC dungeons
vet trials
vet HM trials

I know someone will say that most of that is group content and it is to hard to put a group together and to much trouble to join a guild. Well, this is an MMO and we should clearly expect for group content to be developed. Also, there is MA. vMA is a decent solo challenge.

I agree most MMOs use this tiered system. As I mentioned in my other post unfortunately a lot of casuals (myself included nowadays due to increased workload) really don't have the time every single night to do a trial. Nowadays if I'm lucky I might be able to squeeze in dungeon or two before the weekend. I'd bet for the most part, most casual players (which this game really caters to) touch these during the week with the occasional dungeon splashed in there.

Overworld
delves
normal dungeons
world bosses
vet dungeons

A post 50 casual player that has possibly finished silver and gold after a few months has probably already knocked out most world bosses while leveling and finishing these up. That leaves these:

Overworld
delves
normal dungeons
vet dungeons

Now we both agree this is a MMO but it's also a casual MMO, and one with a lot of solo Skyrim players. Matt even stated a long time ago that was their core audience if I'm not mistaken. So with a lot of us not having near the time we had back in the day running raids in various games or defending pvp alarm clock raids (Daoc), most nights a lot of us are left with:

Overworld
delves

Now for a casual player that has been playing long term and has done the dungeon rat wheel (which we can agree they need to keep cranking those out) , what are we left with during the week that we can squeeze in for excitement in a short amount of time?

delves

Would it hurt ZOS or the player base to include increased difficulty where a player could choose what lvl of difficulty they wanted to tackle on a night after work, especially in delves? Other games manage different difficulties of instances. Why not here? Have something like this:

Overworld
Delve-Regular
Delve-Veteran
Delve-Epic (For 2-3 player content)

lagrue · July 2018

I dunno I recently went back and started rolling a new Tank toon... I have nearly 650 CP on him, and I even crafted him sets - and tbh it's not been "easy" nor has it been difficult - it's just been longed out.

I still face no threat, but it now takes me like 20x longer to kill trash enemies.

I think the subjective difficulty can change depending on how you're playing. If you're rolling DPS you're going to face roll the entire overworld - Healers and Tanks can too, but it will be a much longer process for them imo.

With all that said, as somebody who runs Vets and such, I don't actually want to see an increased difficulty in overland content. I like having difficulty relegated to specific activties. IT allows the game to be friendly to ultra casuals and hardcores alike. There is something for everyone. It also makes me look like Jesus when I roll into "low level inhabited" zones and start facerolling everything. I do sometimes like to trash the trash mobs without it becoming an extravagent 20 minute fight, and I think most people will feel the same.

There's unforseen consequences to jacking up Overworld content difficulty - one of which is how much it'll kill farming by making every fight your encounter along the way last longer, another issue is that any increased difficulty will make the already 500 hours+ of story content last 3x as long, which would be total balls because it's already boring enough as it is. Longing out the fights will NOT make it any more fun to drag your nuts through overworld content.

I still remember pre-One Tamriel when zones actually had scaling and what *** times those were. The game was a tad more challenging, but it was also so limiting it wasn't even funny. It's much better as is now, imo. I think people just need to stop having unrealistic expectations of overland content. It's mostly narrative and it's not supposed to be where you're getting all your "action" from.

Wifeaggro13 · July 2018

Tandor wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I've only just started playing about a two months ago and fully completed just 4 zones or so. I'm noticing that no matter what zone I'm in the trash mobs although the design of the mobs are totally different, it's mash a few buttons and they die and most delves, public dungeon bosses eta are mash the same buttons a few more times and they die. I'm at about 170 CP points. I was wondering the same thing last night, once I max out CP points and gear what would the challenge be? While exploring is really fun and a lot of the quests and dialog in those quests really are well thought out at some point a little challenge would be nice. I've only PVE'd so far and rarely grouped up (I am on PS4 and even with a mini keyboard I hate the chat interface so grouping just sucks for me not being able to quickly respond to questions and interact which is another subject entirely). A little more challenge in PVE would be a nice addition to the game. Maybe just some veteran PVE ZONES not dungeons etc?

I am enjoying the game however from a programming aspect its amazing how much content there is.

ZOS did a zone like that before, it was Craglorn. Let's say it was unsuccessful.

It was successful it was the hub of the game it was packed . The problem was that they increased VR and left craglorn at the old Rank and un itemized. Not only did craglorn empty out the whole damn game emptied out due to them focusing on console release and B2P model.lets have the facts straight before . The only re did craglorn because they wanted to artificially extend the life of their content with out having to create something new

I don't think it was just that. Whenever you introduce a zone that is effectively group-only, as Craglorn was, it is packed for a few weeks after launch and people have no problem getting a group. Fast-forward a few months and new players coming through find such a zone deserted and because everyone else has already completed the content nobody wants to return to ir, so the new players can't get a group. That isn't a problem exclusive to ESO, but the problem is compounded in a game (such as ESO) that is essentially solo-friendly at least so far as such overland content is concerned. ZOS did the sensible thing and opened up the zone to solo players, while retaining some tough mobs for groups (which never get mentioned by those who deride the ease of the overland content generally).

It was not forced group only you could solo there it was diffcult but not impossible. the zone emptied because the content was not increased , itemized and it had been out grown. people would farm it for XP from VR 1 to 10 . it was the hub of the game post 50. and i do agree removing the group aspect of it after there failure to capitalize on thier original game design was the only reasonable choice.

With that said though the dumbing down of the game a nd regurgitated leveling content has done nothing to improve retention of players. right now the game just regurgitates its single player population over ansd over and the end game community is near non existent / then every few months we here how the game is too hard form some one who has played the game for less then 6 months

schroed360 · July 2018

Just to add my 2 cent, that game was hard from April 1st to july 7 of 2014. You needed to be carefull in those vet zone take your time even drop an ulti for 3 mobs pack.
Now we sometimes have a thread like this one, back in those days the forum was exploding with complaint thread about difficulty...
So i don see why we would revert back to vanilla. It s 2018...

Jeremy · 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.

I agree with you Seipher.

This game is too easy - especially in terms of the questing and overland content. The content would be a lot more fun if they would beef things up a bit. They could add a companion system to help players who struggle.

Uviryth · July 2018

The difficulty in this game is completely broken. Content is either too easy or way too hard. Just "challenging" is very, very rare.
I think the main reason is that the combat in this game just doesnt work. With animation canceling, Attackweaving and the whole shabang dps do between 10k and 60(!)k damage. No encounterdesigner in the gaming-industriy can account for that.

So unless they come up with a genius idea to close that gap, there will never be balanced content in ESO.

Ravingar · July 2018

Wanna make the game harder? Go in settings, gameplay and turn off combat cues

Jeremy · July 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

The difficulty in this game is completely broken. Content is either too easy or way too hard. Just "challenging" is very, very rare.
I think the main reason is that the combat in this game just doesnt work. With animation canceling, Attackweaving and the whole shabang dps do between 10k and 60(!)k damage. No encounterdesigner in the gaming-industriy can account for that.

So unless they come up with a genius idea to close that gap, there will never be balanced content in ESO.

That's my sense of it too.

The game goes from from brain dead easy as the OP puts it to instant death if you blink your eyes and miss something.

It would be nice if they could find a middle ground between the two.

Lysette · July 2018

It is not that ZOS could not do it or doesn't want to - it is more that those, who want it harder want a reward for doing so. If they would not want more XP gain for it, it could be easily done. Like a silder which takes away from your basic resources, which is at the same time a damage reduction and a resource reduction - it could be that simple, just the reward aspect is troublesome and why they won''t do it.

Protossyder · July 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

The difficulty in this game is completely broken. Content is either too easy or way too hard. Just "challenging" is very, very rare.
I think the main reason is that the combat in this game just doesnt work. With animation canceling, Attackweaving and the whole shabang dps do between 10k and 60(!)k damage. No encounterdesigner in the gaming-industriy can account for that.

So unless they come up with a genius idea to close that gap, there will never be balanced content in ESO.

What about the Maelstrom Arena for example? Is it too easy or way too hard? Don't you think that you are describing a usual learning curve? For a beginner some content seems impossible, but once they get into the game and improve, it becomes "just challenging" and at some point very easy. Experienced and "trained" players will always whine about things being way too ez just like unexperienced, untrained and/or new players will find things way too hard and nearly impossible.

Lysette · July 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

The difficulty in this game is completely broken. Content is either too easy or way too hard. Just "challenging" is very, very rare.
I think the main reason is that the combat in this game just doesnt work. With animation canceling, Attackweaving and the whole shabang dps do between 10k and 60(!)k damage. No encounterdesigner in the gaming-industriy can account for that.

So unless they come up with a genius idea to close that gap, there will never be balanced content in ESO.

This is because ZOS tries to make the game enjoyable for opposite kind of players. Pretty much all over-world content is for casual role players, who do not seek a challenge, but a story-driven RPG experience. And this is what they get there, they can do the content, even if they refuse to learn game mechanics (because this is meta level, and a role player is not about meta level stuff, but is playing from character perspective).

And there is the other group of players, for whom challenge and end game is "the game" - which it is not for casuals, who might never ever reach "end game" at all - and for those seeking a challenge all the over-world content is too easy - simply because they have another focus, care for better gear and learn game mechanics and practice their rotations. They will always be dissatisfied with most of the game, because it is made mainly for the casual majority.

Zardayne · July 2018

You know I've been doing some thinking about this for quite awhile (few years actually lol) and sometimes when I have a chance to put it in words on the forum I do it in a time where I'm rushed and I only half ass get out what I mean. First off I want to clarify a few things because I feel sometimes people confuse me with other posts on how difficult I'd like to see the game. Here's a breakdown of my opinion on difficulty:

I do not want the difficulty ramped up like our old Vet levels. Even though I enjoyed it some, I definitely wouldn't want even more casual folks to have to deal with that on a daily basis
I do not want Dark Souls difficulty. I saw someone bring that up in the post. That difficulty is for a niche crowd and not MMOs
I'd just like to see some difficulty sprinkled throughout zones. Perhaps some troll leveled mobs (what are those champion lvl, elite?)mixed in packs of lesser mobs. Maybe add some roaming encounter in some zones that are world boss level instead of being so static. Can you imagine a zone event where a world boss leveled mob appeared and began destroying little villages until the players showed up to stop it. I mean players will already run circles around the zone for hours hitting anchors and world mobs for set gear. As much as I hate that rat race, I do like how they bring players together for a common goal. You don't even have to group up, just show up. GW2 does that and it can be pretty cool and epic. A few coworkers and I still talk about a random monstrous giant encounter that took a lot of people in the zone to kill. It was awesome and these are the kinds of things that are missing IMO in ESO. Those are MMO moments that you will remember forever. We call those WOW (not the game) moments.
Difficulty levels added to delves and public dungeons. That way casual folks with no cp or lesser game knowledge can still enjoy the game and myself with some CP can ramp my difficulty to enjoy them too. I'd like a difficulty where I can duo with a friend. There's not a whole lot of that kind of material in the game. Even before cp and the game was dropped my friends and I hardly ever grouped in the 1-50 range. It was just overkill and no fun. If higher difficulty brought a chance at better rewards, great. If not so be it.
(Edit)I'd just like a bit of difficulty in overland mainly because my time is more limited nowadays than it once was with an increased workload and finishing up a degree in your mid 40s, running dungeons during the week like I use to can be near impossible. I'm sure a lot of people are in the same boat. If there was a way to infuse a bit more excitement into the world and find a happy medium without hurting the gameplay for the majority of others, I say why not. I've heard numerous times a large portion of MMO gamers never even see end game dungeons perhaps out of fear of dealing with players or limited time. These players are still gaining CPs and slowly getting stronger. What happens then? Is ZOS banking on the quests and story lines being the gel holding them here? I feel eventually something is going to need to be done about the power creep.

To sum this up, the game began as a themepark and with one tamriel is trying to go a sandbox route. I think this is what I've been leaving out trying to explain what I'd like to see. I'd like to see the overland world one day like a sandbox world more. Where you have the possibility to run into any kind and any difficulty of beast anywhere in the world. Not just a world boss that walks circles in his little area all day 24/7, marked on your map as well even further simplify it. It would be nice if they would expand on overland to make it even more sandbox and like a living breathing world. Where beauty and danger could lurk anywhere, not just vet dungeons and trials. Hell, like a real fantasy world in the books or a D&D session with friends. In sandbox games the adventure is just as much in the huge world developers create as they are in instanced material. Perhaps with the removal of leveled zones we'll see more sandbox elements in the future. That's the direction I'd like to see the world I live in daily go.

Uviryth · July 2018

Protossyder wrote: »

Uviryth wrote: »

The difficulty in this game is completely broken. Content is either too easy or way too hard. Just "challenging" is very, very rare.
I think the main reason is that the combat in this game just doesnt work. With animation canceling, Attackweaving and the whole shabang dps do between 10k and 60(!)k damage. No encounterdesigner in the gaming-industriy can account for that.

So unless they come up with a genius idea to close that gap, there will never be balanced content in ESO.

What about the Maelstrom Arena for example? Is it too easy or way too hard? Don't you think that you are describing a usual learning curve? For a beginner some content seems impossible, but once they get into the game and improve, it becomes "just challenging" and at some point very easy. Experienced and "trained" players will always whine about things being way too ez just like unexperienced, untrained and/or new players will find things way too hard and nearly impossible.

VMA is actually one of the few instances of "the right amount of challenging". As you say, its a point of experience. You can do 10k dps, if you know where to stand and what to do, you can beat it (albeit it being 10 times harder).
Then there is stuff like [insert most Veteran DLC-Dungeons], which are a true nightmare if your DPS are both on the low end. Those are mostly borderline impossible if the fights go on for too long. On the other side you have pretty much any overland-content, be it normal mobs or public"group"dungeons, where mobs die easily with your 10k damage or just plain melt like snow in lava if you even start your weave-rotation.

As I said, effed up because of the huuuuuuuuge DPS-gap. I really never seen anything like it. I mean, its 500% difference for Meridias Sake!

Uviryth · July 2018

Lysette wrote: »

This is because ZOS tries to make the game enjoyable for opposite kind of players. Pretty much all over-world content is for casual role players, who do not seek a challenge, but a story-driven RPG experience. And this is what they get there, they can do the content, even if they refuse to learn game mechanics (because this is meta level, and a role player is not about meta level stuff, but is playing from character perspective).

There is a difference between something being easy and whatever ESO does at the moment. Even for the casual roleplayer, its just plain boring. I dont think anyone actually likes overland content at the moment. Even the Roleplayers cant really commit to their role, if nothing threatens their character.

Merlin13KAGL · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

What you want is a difficulty slider.

Presently, there is no risk vs reward.

Morrowind got it right (the real one, not the DLC). There weren't leveled zones. Anything of any difficulty could be anywhere. There were not L10 safespaces with magical borders, there was ugliness around every corner.

That's incorrect.
In The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind, everything was leveled to you until you out-leveled the scaling. A high elvel Golden Saint was often just a low level Clannfear when your level wasn't high enough to be able to take on the Golden Saint.
You could actually skip almost directly to the end of the game in TES3 Morrowind, and it wasn't hard and was allowed and even planned for in the quest dialogue.

TES3 Morrowind was a lot like ESO One Tamriel, but without infinite scaling. I guess you could equate it to champion points letting you out-level everything eventually.

Oblivion would change enemy types as you leveled. Morrowind's enemies had fixed stats which were not restricted to zones. There might be a range of potential spawn levels, but there were limits, both upper and lower.

Considering a Scrib could kill you at Level 1, there were most definitely areas that posed more threat than others, and they weren't necessarily nestled into nice, pretty little containers.

That's the way it should be. You should have to mind where you step.

neverwalk · July 2018

use no armor, use no cp, use no abilities, use only light and heavy attacks.

DanteYoda · July 2018

Again i'll say it, CP 160 should have been where the game stopped.

If they make the game hard as craglorn everywhere i'll just leave and so will my wallet.

Sevn · July 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

This is because ZOS tries to make the game enjoyable for opposite kind of players. Pretty much all over-world content is for casual role players, who do not seek a challenge, but a story-driven RPG experience. And this is what they get there, they can do the content, even if they refuse to learn game mechanics (because this is meta level, and a role player is not about meta level stuff, but is playing from character perspective).

There is a difference between something being easy and whatever ESO does at the moment. Even for the casual roleplayer, its just plain boring. I dont think anyone actually likes overland content at the moment. Even the Roleplayers cant really commit to their role, if nothing threatens their character.

I see players of all ranks struggling all the time all over Tameriel. Pretty sure it's not as easy for as many as you are implying.

Zardayne · July 2018

DanteYoda wrote: »

Again i'll say it, CP 160 should have been where the game stopped.

If they make the game hard as craglorn everywhere i'll just leave and so will my wallet.

I don't think many would like to see Craglorn all over the place. I know I wouldn't. I did like to challenge myself there in the past and do some farming though. I like the group areas.

Qualanthar · July 2018

Uviryth wrote: »

There is a difference between something being easy and whatever ESO does at the moment. Even for the casual roleplayer, its just plain boring. I dont think anyone actually likes overland content at the moment. Even the Roleplayers cant really commit to their role, if nothing threatens their character.

Hi.

I just started last Monday and I am very much enjoying the questing content. As for whether or not it is "challenging", I've died a number of times both in delves and in the open world - mostly from things attacking me from range or behind. I've figured out how to effectively use a healing staff, my ultimate, and the heals on my sorcerer pets to get through most things but I am generally quite happy to see and follow someone else as I am working through the layers and layers of trash. I often stealth through the higher density mob areas to get to quest objectives because the 10+ seconds it takes to kill a pack of two or three gets a tad old when its the same over and over and over again.

But the quest content itself is great. Lots of feels, some meaningful choices that clearly have multiple outcomes. Just in Grathwood last night I did a quest and choose to rescue the ghost of a boy from his father. I then, in a later quest, encountered the kid's mother and got dialogue options about it. If I'd made a different decision in the first quest, or done the order differently, I would have had a different experience. That is pretty epic in an MMO.

So I am enjoying being a lawful good character as I play because I can see a way to be otherwise. You don't get that a lot in the questing set up of games like this.