MikaHR wrote: »

Yup, dont use CP and use just white gear with no stats and voila - insta overland vet mode.

That’s not true. It’s still easy if you know the basics.

Feanor wrote: »

MikaHR wrote: »

Yup, dont use CP and use just white gear with no stats and voila - insta overland vet mode.

That’s not true. It’s still easy if you know the basics.

Try soloing all worldbosses, then come back and say "its easy"

It is. Your failure to see that is...your failure as it is just plain mathematics, nothing more.

World bosses are overland content designed for 1-infinite number of players.

And the answer is to curb power creep in higher (CP) levels, either by severly nerfing CP or make CP untility/non combat effects only. Then nerf some broken/OP gear. That will do exact thing you are asking for.

Pretty easy solution, nerf high end gear and CP. As power creep caused by those is what created this "problem" in the first place.

And those complaining about the "problem" are unwilling to fix it for themselves so im inviting ZOS to fix it for them.

It is NOT easy to do quests.
A lot of new players come to ESO every day.

New players know nothing of combat and skills. I always see someone trying to kill mobs just with a sword light attack. I whisper them - take 2 daggers, take a 2h sword to get skills. But they never answer as they don't undrestans what's giong on.

New players have no food and sets - even crafted. It is hard for them to do quests. An example is my friend - he quit playing ESO because it was impossible to do stories. I tried to help her, yet she kept striking mobs just with Lava Whip. And I have a lot more examples.

If someone wants a hard mode - just take your sets off, leave your vMA weapons in your bank and get your CPs to zero. Here you go - a hard mode!

myskyrim26 wrote: »

It is NOT easy to do quests.

Maybe not for new players. But for experienced veteran players they are absurdly easy - so easy in fact it's boring. And high level players should be able to enjoy the release of new areas to explore and quest in as well. This game shouldn't be all about new players.

taking off gear or not using CP is not an option, you will be throwing away a core pillar of an RPG : Character development/progression. Since most of the power mainly comes through CP and gear you will be throwing that all away in the garbage. I am just going to leave this quote here :

" Continuously providing opportunities for the player’s characters to grow
and develop throughout the role-playing experience is absolutely critical. If a
game cannot offer meaningful character advancement perceptible either
through the story or through the character’s statistics, a title cannot rightfully
be considered a role-playing game."

Source : Hallford, N., Hallford, J., & LaMothe, A. (2001). Swords and circuitry: A designer's guide to computer role-playing games. Premier Press, Incorporated.

And just changing the numbers is artificial difficulty, it will just take longer in defeating an enemy. Tweaking the attack timings and how fast and how often enemies will attack, along with tweaking their damage. So that they will remain a threat for players would be perfect, maybe with some additional enemies placed here and there.

Just give an option for a vet overland, the mega server is sharded anyway, I do not think that an additional shard added to it will make much of difference. Furthermore, the more casual players and hardcore players will be bumping heads less for dungeon ques for example.

Different strokes different folks, nobody wants to force players who barely understand the game into a more difficult, but keep in mind that ESO is not the first MMORPG for other players, who have more experience in these types of games.

" Continuously providing opportunities for the player’s characters to grow
and develop throughout the role-playing experience is absolutely critical. If a
game cannot offer meaningful character advancement perceptible either
through the story or through the character’s statistics, a title cannot rightfully
be considered a role-playing game."

Does this mean that MMO and RPG and mutually exclusive?

A single-player RPG can do this by providing a linear progression through the game that does not involve going back to content the player has outgrown. Such games are played once, unless they give the opportunity to re-run with a different type of character, making build variety a major feature of successful games.

However an MMO has new and experienced players together*, and needs to provide content for each of them simultaneously. The only method seems to be placing the advanced content in well-labelled dungeons that the inexperienced will avoid, (or die quickly there). And of course, this isn't a simple binary choice. There has to be content at various levels because the transition from new to experienced isn't an overnight switch. ESO tries to do this. It also has to provide PvE, and PvP in one game, which is a bit contradictory.

MMO's also want to place emphasis on team play as an option. It can't be the whole game, as players need to learn solo, before they add cooperative skills to their portfolio. Again, there's a mix of solo and team in the quests in ESO, with the MQ designed for the solo training. You can't remove that, or new teams will never form. So is the progression from solo to small group to larger team, and do players need advanced-level solo content at all?

---

* Separating players by experience level is a possible option, but not one I'd like. It prevents mentoring, and you can't easily distinguish carrying a player to teach them the mechanics of a dungeon, from any other reason for the carry. There is a case for linking significant rewards to skill progression, which are player-specific, rather than quest completions, which can just reflect the choice of friends.

ghastley wrote: »

* Separating players by experience level is a possible option, but not one I'd like. It prevents mentoring, and you can't easily distinguish carrying a player to teach them the mechanics of a dungeon, from any other reason for the carry. There is a case for linking significant rewards to skill progression, which are player-specific, rather than quest completions, which can just reflect the choice of friends.

We don't have to separate players for different difficulty levels. One Tamriel already solved that problem for us: All players are scaled anyway. It would be trivial to apply a new debuff - like Battlespirit in PvP areas - to those who are looking for a challenge. No separate zones like the old vet zones, and people of all skil levels and difficulty choice can still play together.

Ideally, this would be tied into the lore by making a deal with a Daedric Prince (like the Prince of Bargains, Clavicus Vile). In turn for becoming weaker after using a memento, we could gain a new currency to use at certain NPCs (like for crafting writs and Tel Var) for furnishings, motifs, item sets, etc or gain new achievements with dyes, titles, skins, and costumes as rewards. A system that has already proven itself, and is easy to expand with further updates. It could also be part of a DLC, as I'm sure ZOS is always considering monetization.

@danikat
Such a great post, couldn't decide between insightful or awesome. Went with AWESOME.

Discussion on the sidelines:

Sadetius wrote: »

taking off gear or not using CP is not an option, you will be throwing away a core pillar of an RPG : Character development/progression. Since most of the power mainly comes through CP and gear you will be throwing that all away in the garbage. I am just going to leave this quote here :

" Continuously providing opportunities for the player’s characters to grow
and develop throughout the role-playing experience is absolutely critical. If a
game cannot offer meaningful character advancement perceptible either
through the story or through the character’s statistics, a title cannot rightfully
be considered a role-playing game."

Source : Hallford, N., Hallford, J., & LaMothe, A. (2001). Swords and circuitry: A designer's guide to computer role-playing games. Premier Press, Incorporated.

"Grow and develop", "character advancement ... through the story".

I don't think that either that attempt at a definition, or your interpretation are really hitting the mark. Growth and development doesn't need to be reflected by stats or abilities. Advancement through story doesn't need to make your character stronger, mechanically.
The last quest lines I've been playing were Murkmire, Dark Brotherhood, and Mages Guild (on an alt). All stories provided some sense of advancement and in-world progress that was independent from stats - getting insights into the world, getting acknowledged by in-game organisations, changing the world (in a smallish way). ESO is not really good at this because it needs to maintain a world state that is similar to many players at vastly different stages of their quests, and a lot of stuff is simply repeatable, but they do it sometimes (like opening up and re-establishing that Argonian village at the end of the quest line), and they at least try to acknowledge progression through dialogue, even if you don't necessarily see it in-world.

Restricting these characteristics of an RPG only to stats takes a lot away from the role-playing part, I think.

Jeremy wrote: »

In any case: they could release veteran versions of these zones without disturbing the playing experience of people like you who prefer things extremely easy. That would be a win/win for both populations and I see no good reason not implement it or why such a change would make you "unhappy".

The problem with two different versions is that the rewards would be better for the higher version. Thus, no one who COULD do the higher version (like me) would settle for the lesser. And thus, there would be no relaxation or let down. The game would always be at high level intensity.

I would prefer the solution of a difficulty slider. Those who want to fight harder can do so, but the rewards remain the same.