They tried harder content that in Craglorn and other places and no one wants to go there for that "harder" content, e.g., overland portals.
And once you're finished all the questing in a zone you're basically done and won't go back except for maybe gathering nodes and surveys. And given that people use pets to draw aggro or just run past mobs when they are gathering, I don't believe many people would want this feature.

If people prove that they actually access the already harder overland content, then this has a chance of consideration.
More than likely people will just get bored after the novelty wears off -- except when that happens the grind in the zone will remain.

harder mean better and more carries! I say yay!

Why are people constantly throwing extremes at everybody wanting overland to be a little more challenging?

We don't want overland to be Dark Souls, where you either play perfectly or die.

We don't want overland to be trials, where trash can take just as long as a boss.

We want overland to at least be engaging, to the point where you have to put more than 1% effort into it to succeed.

Jem_Kindheart wrote: »

I wonder if these players making threads every. Single. Day. Asking for harder overland / questing have bothered to spend the $10 to buy a new game key with zero cp and start from zero.

As an experiment and out of curiosity, I did exactly that a few weeks ago. Guess what, the content is sufficiently difficult. A new player just coming into the game today, especially after food has been nerfed once or twice a year, skills made more costly with regular patches, the price of mats and potions skyrocketing, and with the game offering very little education on how to git gud, the player would have a sufficiently difficult gaming experience overland and questing.

So, to enjoy the other 2/3's of the game, vets have to buy a new account? Do you realise not only how batshit insane that sounds, but also how selfish it sounds?

myskyrim26 wrote: »

NO.
Go play vet dungeons solo.

1. To what end? What's the point?

2. We're still running the same dozen to two dozen dungeons we've had for 4-5 years, so there's nothing new here. People will very quickly get bored of just running vet dungeons solo, for no reason, and we're back to square one, with vets asking for more PvE content.

MasterSpatula wrote: »

While I used to think Craglorn should have remained a more challenging zone, in the end, I've come around to being a "no" on this topic for one simple reason:

Trash mobs aren't supposed to be a challenge. They're supposed to be a nuisance.

Trash doesn't exist to make the game harder. It exists to slow you down, to drag things out, to make the game feel bigger and fuller than it really is. It's like the crackers in a meatloaf or the rice under your curry.
-snip-

1. They're not even a nuisance. If anything, they barely even exist for us vets, because we literally don't feel them. We cut through them like actual butter, and they barely even tickle us.

2. The more pressing issue is, quest bosses barely exist, too. A quest boss that's been built up across an entire zone is meant to be challenging, you're meant to face the very real possibility that you can die, that's what makes it immersive. When I can swat a quest boss aside, just like I can trash, questing loses all of its weight, and I just feel bored.

3. The above two points are reinforced if I play literally any other game where trash and bosses are even a tiny bit more challenging. GW2, the other MMO I play, trash takes a good 2-5 seconds to kill (depending on the mob type), and some mechanics can downright be punishing if you don't pay attention to them. Bosses can sometimes take actual minutes to kill, even in full raid gear, and I must be on my toes at all times, because the mechanics are even more punishing. But, you know the real kicker? I swear GW2 is way more active than ESO, because you can legit get 60-80 people in a single zone, to complete a world meta event that requires 60-80 people. Where's the 60-80 people, per-zone, in ESO, on a single boss?

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

Still NO. Come on, this is an MMO. Why lock off certain areas for the l33t only? Yes there are people who aren't as good as you, and they have every right to be able to use every zone they can.

And yet we can't enjoy any zone we can? How very discriminatory.

randomkeyhits wrote: »

overland stuff is for newbies, light casuals and quest/story orientated players
-snip-

And yet overland makes up the vast majority of PvE content, and is at the center of Zenimax's spotlight.

nafensoriel wrote: »

Davadin wrote: »

UPDATE: I MEANT TO SAY FOR SOME AREAS (ie. Craglorn, Coldharbour, etc.) ONLY!!!

: 100% increase in damage for all overland and public dungeons NPC. 100% increase of resistance. 200% aggro range increase (3x range). NO health increase though. Nothing changes in Dungeon/Trial. (except for mudcrabs)

Step One: Remove all champ points.
Step Two: Equip blue gear.
Step Three: Click a portal in craglorn without preloading skills.

Wow, one little event, in one zone. So much playtime I can invest!

Starlock wrote: »

[sarcasm]Yes, because this sounds tremendously fun for our characters who are not specialized as min-maxed damage dealers.[/sarcasm] Which is basically all of my characters now and in the foreseeable future.

Dude, I quest in full raid gear in GW2, and *** is still harder than it is in ESO. Numbers are just numbers, Zenimax can easily rebalance overland to make full raid gear the norm for all ESO overland content. (Not that I'm saying they should, I'm just proving a point, that gear does not matter.)

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

They tried harder content that in Craglorn and other places and no one wants to go there for that "harder" content, e.g., overland portals.
And once you're finished all the questing in a zone you're basically done and won't go back except for maybe gathering nodes and surveys.
-snip-

1. Nobody wanted to go to Craglorn because grouping was almost mandatory if you wanted to run the actual content.

2. The thing is, there's so many hours worth of questing that vets just won't experience in an enjoyable way. It'll take a good amount of time for someone to run out of questing content, assuming they don't completely rush everything.

myskyrim26 wrote: »

First, you chase META. You achieve the highest DPS possible.

Next, you're bored.

Bored with overland, normal dungeons, normal everything.

-snip-

So, to enjoy the other 2/3's of the game, we have to dumb ourselves down to that of a newer player? Seems legit.

Y'know, I have this wacky idea. Why don't we, instead, release long term PvE content aimed at vets! No more living dungeon/trial releases patch-to-patch, no more getting burnt out on running the same dozen to two dozen vet dungeons over and over and over and over, we can instead sink our time in something that has hundreds of hours of content!

Can already guarantee one of you is now reee'ing at your monitor, frothing at the mouth in rage, over the thought of content being released specifically for vets, instead of casuals.

jcm2606 wrote: »

2. We're still running the same dozen to two dozen dungeons we've had for 4-5 years, so there's nothing new here.

And you somehow think overland content will be less boring when you repeat it even more?
Not sure the we-want-overland-harder people really know what they are asking for.
Even if ZOS wanted to look into this they couldn't. They don't have a handle on combat and dps ranges so they can't benchmark it. Even if they somehow magically could and used a particular benchmark, some other we-want-overland-harder complainer will come on the forums and demand more because it's not hard enough for their personal benchmark.

That's why there are different difficulties of dungeons, and normal/veteran/hardmode, and various challenges -- each is benchmarked differently so you can choose where you want to challenge yourself. That's where your harder content is in pretty much every MMO -- that's where the grind is. Not overland.

Overland and story content is benchmarked for newbs -- because every expansion they want to attract new people so right off the bat those people must be able to complete their new content and walk around the world.

How about this instead: A Monster Helm set:
- 1 piece = you stop earning any progress in level or skill line and your CP has no effect
- 2 piece = every tick you lose progress in all your skill lines and your level
Downgrade your toon to a level 3 newb and have your harder overland with 3 skill points to spend and no CP.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

And you somehow think overland content will be less boring when you repeat it even more?

There is way more overland content than there is dungeon content, and the gap only grows the longer the game lives on, because overland and questing is Zenimax's focus (you've been living under a very well furnished rock if you think otherwise).

My point is, there's another game's worth of content in overland, that vets simply can't experience without wanting to shoot their brains out, because it's so damn easy. Yes, eventually you will complete the content, but you easily have hundreds of hours before that happens, and so much more overland content comes every 6 months, at the least.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Not sure the we-want-overland-harder people really know what they are asking for.

At the least, I do. I just want to be able to do overland without falling asleep. Like, actually just think about how overland works in ESO.

Trash mobs generally have around 30k health, while a PvP build (which doesn't build nearly as much into damage as a PvE build) can deal half of that in a single cast of a burst skill. 2 casts, without light attacks, mob drops dead.

Most decent players in PvE have between maybe 75-125% of a mob's health as DPS (and so with a full rotation can kill a trash mob in under a second), and top tier players can pull 3x(!!!) the amount of a mob's health as DPS.

In no other game have I played, are trash mobs that weak. In the current MMO I'm playing (GW2), trash mobs are absolutely not that weak.

The really sad part, though, is, bosses aren't much better. Most quest bosses can be killed in under 10 seconds, and pose next to no challenge, even for casuals who know what they're doing. How can this be acceptable to you? A boss that is meant to be potentially cataclysmic, as per the very quest it's a part of, is killed in under 10 seconds by some schmuck. I get it, we killed Molag Bal (with some deus ex machina help, btw), and did other legendary acts, but it shouldn't be that easy!

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

That's where your harder content is in pretty much every MMO -- that's where the grind is. Not overland.

1. Then why does overland make up the vast majority of PvE content? And before you say it doesn't, it absolutely does when you account for the actual value behind the playtime. Dungeons and trials lose their value once you've gotten all the gear, skins, titles, achievements, and other rewards, possibly even earlier if you get burnt out on running the same few dungeons over and over and over. Overland? Still got a metric *** ton of quests and side content to do, that can easily last hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours, and it keeps getting bigger since it is the primary focus of Zenimax.

2. Overland isn't a grind because Zenimax doesn't want it to be. There's dozens of ways to incorporate overland into end game, and some MMO's absolutely do use them. World events, world bosses that actually contribute to progression, true open world PvP, etc. ESO could easily add these, and you'd likely see some players come into overland zones to grind events and bosses, or participate in the open world PvP where available.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Overland and story content is benchmarked for newbs -- because every expansion they want to attract new people so right off the bat those people must be able to complete their new content and walk around the world.

That doesn't prevent them from introducing optional ways for vets to make overland more difficult, so they can actually enjoy the other 2/3's of the game. Again, literally just introduce a new status effect similar to Battle Spirit, that adjusts stats such as damage done/taken and healing received, in a way that makes it scalable. Add a new dropdown option in the character sheet, that allows you to choose the difficulty, by changing how the new status effect scales your stats.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

How about this instead: A Monster Helm set:
- 1 piece = you stop earning any progress in level or skill line and your CP has no effect
- 2 piece = every tick you lose progress in all your skill lines and your level
Downgrade your toon to a level 3 newb and have your harder overland with 3 skill points to spend and no CP.

Is this a joke?

LuckyLuke wrote: »

Just take all your armour off, equip a level one dagger and disable all your cp. You can effectively make it as difficult as you like.

Why should I have to undo all of my progression just to enjoy overland content? You do realise that other MMO's offer overland content, that doesn't require that, right? Hell, in GW2, overland is part of end game, thanks to meta events.

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

Jem_Kindheart wrote: »

I wonder if these players making threads every. Single. Day. Asking for harder overland / questing have bothered to spend the $10 to buy a new game key with zero cp and start from zero.

As an experiment and out of curiosity, I did exactly that a few weeks ago. Guess what, the content is sufficiently difficult.

I have to agree. I've done this multiple times, and the real eye-opener was when I started over on the EU server with no friends, guilds, gold, or crafting ability. Wearing whatever the dead guy dropped and looking forward to the day you can craft a full white set of Innate Axiom plus Vastarie's (not to mention get into a guild that has those stations but doesn't have a 10K sales req't) is humbling.

Yeah, because the solution to overland being *** easy, and hence being unenjoyable for vets, is to buy another copy of the game. Great idea!

LuckyLuke wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

LuckyLuke wrote: »

Just take all your armour off, equip a level one dagger and disable all your cp. You can effectively make it as difficult as you like.

Why should I have to undo all of my progression just to enjoy overland content? You do realise that other MMO's offer overland content, that doesn't require that, right? Hell, in GW2, overland is part of end game, thanks to meta events.

You don’t have to do it. You can be more resourceful in challenging yourself with the game as it is. Did you ever try playing Iron Man rules in D2?

Every player is playing the role of some godly adventurer in this game, so it would be stupid for a little crab to be able to stomp on you.

There are already plenty of avenues for more difficult content in this game as is.

1. Why should I have to jump through hoops to do make the game more enjoyable? That's more so the problem. The game should be enjoyable for everybody, there should be content for everybody, and yet vet PvE'ers are left living dungeon and trial releases patch-to-patch, because there's next to no long term content for them. Do you see the disconnect here?

2. I'm not asking for a crab to stomp on me, I'm asking for that crab to not die when I sneeze at him. I'm asking for overland to actually require my, even partial, attention. Currently, it requires barely 5% of my attention, which is why I don't find it enjoyable. I'm not immersed in the gameplay, because there's nothing to be immersed in. I see a mob, I swing my sword, mob dies. What is there to even be immersed in?

LuckyLuke wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

LuckyLuke wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

LuckyLuke wrote: »

Just take all your armour off, equip a level one dagger and disable all your cp. You can effectively make it as difficult as you like.

Why should I have to undo all of my progression just to enjoy overland content? You do realise that other MMO's offer overland content, that doesn't require that, right? Hell, in GW2, overland is part of end game, thanks to meta events.

You don’t have to do it. You can be more resourceful in challenging yourself with the game as it is. Did you ever try playing Iron Man rules in D2?

Every player is playing the role of some godly adventurer in this game, so it would be stupid for a little crab to be able to stomp on you.

There are already plenty of avenues for more difficult content in this game as is.

1. Why should I have to jump through hoops to do make the game more enjoyable? That's more so the problem. The game should be enjoyable for everybody, there should be content for everybody, and yet vet PvE'ers are left living dungeon and trial releases patch-to-patch, because there's next to no long term content for them. Do you see the disconnect here?

2. I'm not asking for a crab to stomp on me, I'm asking for that crab to not die when I sneeze at him. I'm asking for overland to actually require my, even partial, attention. Currently, it requires barely 5% of my attention, which is why I don't find it enjoyable. I'm not immersed in the gameplay, because there's nothing to be immersed in. I see a mob, I swing my sword, mob dies. What is there to even be immersed in?

You will need to jump through more hoops if you got your wish 😂

No I wouldn't. I'd literally be able to keep everything on I have now, choose a difficulty that works for me (confused? maybe actually read my comments), and everything'd just work. Mobs would take longer to kill, and I'd have to pay attention, but that's the whole point.

I want mobs to take longer to kill, because currently they drop dead in 1-2 skill casts.

I want to have to pay attention to what I'm doing, because currently I'm literally put to sleep by overland content, to the point where I need a show/movie/video playing on my other monitor to keep me awake and engaged.

The game should be like that. Gameplay and mechanics shouldn't be optional.

albesca wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

I want mobs to take longer to kill, because currently they drop dead in 1-2 skill casts.

I want to have to pay attention to what I'm doing, because currently I'm literally put to sleep by overland content, to the point where I need a show/movie/video playing on my other monitor to keep me awake and engaged.

The game should be like that. Gameplay and mechanics shouldn't be optional.

I have eight characters, four of them are at CP level and do between 6k and 15k DPS, so a single mob takes from two to five seconds to die. Groups of three take anything between ten seconds and half a minute depending on the ratio between AOEs and single target skills.
Craglorn mobs, with higher HPs and bigger groups, take two to four times as long to beat, but that's it.

Fighting mobs is just Dance Dance Revolution with more buttons to push: you can make it longer, you can make the buttons sequences more complex, but as far as paying attention goes everything is just muscle memory after a few repetitions.

Which is when mechanics come into play. Add more variety to the AI, make dodging/blocking more mandatory so the repetition is broken up some, etc.

Other games, including MMO's, are able to offer the sort of experience I'm after, and do so in core overland content. ESO isn't any different, Zenimax absolutely could make the experience more unpredictable.