The overworld is not the right gauge for difficulty. Also, if people are like I was when starting out, I assumed that the game worked like other games. But it works quite differently, even with all the similarities with other games.

But there is power creep in eso. It's in how buffs/nerfs are given to abilities and sets more so than cp. Though cp does play a part.

As a new player, I have to say I find the game post level 20 to be overly easy. Admittedly, I haven't ventured into dungeons (well, I have twice. Once sneaking around solo somewhere in Morrowind to complete Neramo's quest (which was the most difficult thing I've done) and once grouped in Alik'r in the dwarven eye thingy questline (putting a dungeon at the end of a solo questchain… <Grumble, mumble...> ). Since level 30 or 40, I've died a handful of times and found very little to be even slightly challenging. Which surprised me, as with 'inspiration' post-50, my gear was often 30 to 50 'levels' out of date.

I'd say this isn't really a matter of power creep or not. As far as overland is concerned, the main issue is that combat in 90% of overland content is incredibly slow-paced, with the very few mechanics that most enemies have being telegraphed seemingly hours before they actually happen. Whether or not new players have difficulty with overland seems to come down to their experience in gaming overall, rather than their experience within ESO specifically, and I think for a lot of people that's where the rub is. Of course, it's definitely true that someone who's already played through the game will have an even easier time, but again, that's due more to knowledge of the game rather than stats.

Side note for @Gonadius

I'm pretty sure those dungeons you're referring to aren't actually the multiplayer zones that this game considers dungeons, and are more likely delves at most. With the exception of Undaunted quests (Endgame), the only quests that take place inside dungeons, either instanced or public, are started inside their respective dungeons. Also, none of the solo questlines involve multiplayer dungeons in any way.

Its hard to reduce power creep with out damaging casual players, if not impossible.

The top dogs are pulling 100k+ dps right now

And there are some people doing 10k - 15k.

If you take 10k dps away, endgame players will adapt, casual players will quit because of so many votekicks

Power creep is inevitable on the long run. But overworld was never about hardcore challenge, and it should never be about it. Lately i switched my heavy armor to medium so i can do Orsinium questline faster, and took a while to get used to the increased damage taken, but only once i had tough situation without pulling a half army on myself.

For vet. dunegons it is quite clear, that base game ones are much easier, than DLC ones. But the playerbase is often the same which can make DLC ones frustratingly difficult sometimes. Some people are literary braindead, and couldn't follow the simplest mechanics.

For dungeons i think, that the best solution would be switching difficulties, or introducing a new ones. I would prefer the latter to avoid player outrage.

New difficulty solo: dungeon becomes easy enough to solo it. The boss mechanism doesn't change, but gives you more time to react, and deals much less damage, and has much less health of course. Great for learning mechanics for first time, and do the quest. Be warned, that certain aoes/attacks, that meant to be fatal would still deal HUGE damage. Clearly showing, that dude you meant to avoid/block that.

Quest only available for solo difficulty. Quest no longer gives skillpoint, and reward reduced to a normal overworld quest. However the achievement for doing it for first time on normal would give the reward of the original quest. Including the skill point.

DLC dungeons would be nerfed both for normal, and vet. to match the base-game style.

New difficulty elite: this one would be hardcore players. The drop has chance to be lengedary, but mostly epic. However droprates are greatly increased. This difficulty would be pushed to the limit for both DLC, and base-game, and would not be available for anyone below 160CP.

Last but not least i would make a limit to all dungeons through dungeon finder. You cannot enter vet. dungeon without having the normal achievement first, and you can't enter elite dungeon without having the vet. first. This limitation would be account wide. Premades are not affected, and doing it on vet. or elite would automatically unlock the lower level achievements.

Ksariyu wrote: »

I'm pretty sure those dungeons you're referring to aren't actually the multiplayer zones that this game considers dungeons, and are more likely delves at most. With the exception of Undaunted quests (Endgame), the only quests that take place inside dungeons, either instanced or public, are started inside their respective dungeons. Also, none of the solo questlines involve multiplayer dungeons in any way.

The quest Tharayya's Trail in the Alik'r Desert starts in the Santaki delve, moves on through two more delves, then completes in the Volenfell dungeon.