Why is this game so easy?

Dahveed · May 2020

I can't remember who, and I'm too lazy to go look for it in these posts, but a couple people in this thread have implied (or said outright) that classic WoW was easy and that it's about the same in all MMOs when you're just starting out.

This seems to be a pretty common argument against raising the difficulty, or adding a new hard mode. The argument is basically "well yeah, every MMO is hard at the start then just gets easier, because we get better at them and our characters are OP."

I'm going to post two videos completely debunking that nonsense.

This afternoon I was playing classic WoW and getting whooped by Murlocs who were lower level than me. I was just playing along with it, then just randomly thought of this argument and hit the alt+F9 shadowplay feature on my NVidea to capture my experiences.

Here is the video... feel free to speed it up and scroll through it, of course I don't expect people to watch the whole thing. I actually forgot I was recording for a while:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k73aBdpHO6o&feature=youtu.be

Now, contrast this with ESO. I just made this character, who is, for all intents and purposes, naked. No CP, no gear, no talents, no gold, no items, no buffs. Just wearing the "adventurer's cloth" (or whatever it's called), the rags you start with that have literally zero armor on them.

This is out in the open world, not in the tutorial zone. So this enemy is supposed to be scaled to my level, I guess. It's pathetic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTDMjZJXoqE&feature=youtu.be

This is very early on, maybe I'm wrong but if I'm sure if I were to level up to 16 (like my WoW paladin is) I'd have a full set of gear and weapons, all my abilities and talents and everything, a better health pool, etc etc...And the enemies would still scale to me...Would things get even easier or harder? Somehow I doubt they'd get harder once my character had all his abilities.

Hopefully this will put to rest any ideas that the game is only easy because we're all so OP and good at video games or whatever....

This is what passes for "gameplay" in the open world. It's quite sad.

But if people want that, I'm fine with it. I just wish they'd put a harder mode so that people who fall asleep playing this type of game can get more challenge and enjoy themselves too.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

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Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

They've already tried a vet overland region, it was Craglorn before they revised it into what it is now. It was meant for vet groups but didn't get much use because, shockingly, the vets and people able to do the content thought it was too hard.

Seasoned players have vet dungeons and trials, that is what they design for us. Sure overland is meant just as much for you but that d

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

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robertthebard wrote: »

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

I'm about cp 1380 and I don't have this problem. I've still got lore books to find and content to clear on other toons. You're not suddenly barred from content you just can't have every enemy set at 3mil HP because you're bored.

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Overland is fun to go back to unless you're only looking for high level challenges which you and the people that post these threads are. The reason these threads meet with such resistance are adding it will cause more problems than its worth and there's no way to make overland content hard barring just giving them a big boost of HP which makes for boring content.

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

I mean this isn't new in MMOs, every one I've played in the last 20 years is structured like this.

Dahveed · May 2020

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

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Jeremy wrote: »

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

They've already tried a vet overland region, it was Craglorn before they revised it into what it is now. It was meant for vet groups but didn't get much use because, shockingly, the vets and people able to do the content thought it was too hard.

Seasoned players have vet dungeons and trials, that is what they design for us. Sure overland is meant just as much for you but that d
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asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

I'm about cp 1380 and I don't have this problem. I've still got lore books to find and content to clear on other toons. You're not suddenly barred from content you just can't have every enemy set at 3mil HP because you're bored.

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Overland is fun to go back to unless you're only looking for high level challenges which you and the people that post these threads are. The reason these threads meet with such resistance are adding it will cause more problems than its worth and there's no way to make overland content hard barring just giving them a big boost of HP which makes for boring content.

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

I mean this isn't new in MMOs, every one I've played in the last 20 years is structured like this.

Specifically regarding your comment about Craglorn, that place didn't work because there was only one possible difficulty, "get your arse kicked or get out". I also know someone IRL who started Craglorn back in the day who quit it because it was too rough. He didn't want to grind his toon just to play there.

Their solution was to nerf it... which is fine for that crowd, but it wasn't for me. Now it's just like all the other zones, that is to say, boring. It was the one zone I was really looking forward to, but by the time I got there it was nerfed after the whole CP system came out. It was interesting at first but then they nerfed it again, now it's just a normal zone.

zyk · May 2020

Craglorn was very active for over a year after its introduction. It only stopped being so active when the level cap was raised to V16 in 2.1. That made Crag irrelevant because the mobs, crafting mats, and loot were V10-V14. It was also not at all challenging at V16.

The Craglorn questlines were among the best in the game. Overland group content was a lot of fun. ESO was supposed to have a lot of zones like Crag. They were to be called Adventure zones. ZOS referenced them in interviews until just before launch.

I remember being incredibly excited at the thought of Oblivion adventure zones in 2014. I'm still so disappointed they never happened.

I can understand why players wanted ESO to be easier when they found it too difficult. However, I find it unfathomable that anyone would be against the option of Overland content as difficult as it was in 2014 because its presence wouldn't hurt anyone.

ZOS could experiment with Crag. Give us the option to play it as intended with a vet version. Maybe also consider a version of Imperial City as difficult as the original.

vilio11 · May 2020

majulook wrote: »

If you truly want more difficulty, you can do several things:

1. Remove your Champion Points
2. Use Blue or Green gear.
3. Use gear a level below your current level.
4. Do not use food or drinks to buff your stats.
5. Use Potions that are below your level, or just what you find in loot drops.
6. Do not use Potions at all.
7. Do not put skill points into Racial passives, Gear, or Weapons.
8. Play with out some equipment. (as in no jewelry, or shoulder, or head, or what ever pieces)

You can remove your CP, use green or blue gear or gear that is below your level but this is killing the sense of progression.

vilio11 · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

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joerginger wrote: »

But there is absolutely nothing to do in this famed 'overland' once you're done with exploring and questing. So I don't really understand the desire to turn it into a vet paradise. The only reason that forces you to go back to regions you're actually done with is picking up surveys.

I have been playing casually for 4 years and I am nowhere CLOSE to finishing this aspect of the game.

I haven't even started Morrowind, Elsweyr, or Summerset yet. I only recently (a few months maybe?) finished the vanilla quests...

There is a crapload of content in this game's overland, it's actually pretty incredible how many quests and zones there are...

It's just a shame that the gameplay is so shallow.

The interesting part is that I am a casual gamer. I am like exploring, doing quest and doing normal dungeons but the game is so easy that is killing my joy of questing and exploring. Someone may say "dude you should try vet dungeons and trials" yeah dude I would love to but I am a casual player.
Even as a casual player I can handle harder gameplay. I am still playing competitive games as LoL and Dota.

robertthebard · May 2020

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

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robertthebard wrote: »

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

I think there's something wrong with the premise that "every second I spend out of town should be a torrent of sweat inducing experience". I was totally immersed in the Lord of the Rings novels. I've read them about 20 times, and never once felt the need to have orcs chasing me around my living room. The story was engaging. I didn't need them jumping out of the screen when I watched the DVDs either. If the only engagement one gets from an MMO is combat, then that's where they need to spend their time, instead of trying to change a game into something it's not.

Here's what I know for a fact: In swtor, before they introduced lvl sync to make all combat relevant, people would camp out on the starter planets at cap, one shotting every thing due to the level difference. It's the same in DDO, if you play quests that are x below your current level. It would seem that we have different experiences about what other MMOs did, yes? More specifically, about what players in those MMOs did. I never played WoW, but I did see that South Park episode where they leveled up killing badgers, for 1xp each because of that guy that was farming them while trying to level. So even there, situations like what we have here with Cadwell's Silver/Gold wouldn't be "rewarding", because nothing was going to give you anything but the quests.

In Rappelz that "engaging" content was picking a corner of a level appropriate dungeon, and killing the same mobs for hours on end, until you eventually outlevel them, and have to move to the next one. If you tried to do the same thing overland, change that hours to months, or even years, depending on what level you were, and what level you were trying to reach. So yeah, completely different experiences, with the caveat that, even when zones were level appropriate, swtor and DDO both had a plethora of variants of this very thread... Of note: I played Rappelz for over 5 years, and never had a toon at cap. It used to be that there were quests to about 80, and then the leveling experience was the aforementioned dungeon grinds.

So just like I'd tell someone trying to change vet content to something they can solo, maybe that content isn't designed for you. It's there to participate in, but it's purpose isn't to make you feel like you've completed a Trial every time you kill a mob. It's purpose is to be accessible to everyone, and if there's not a high percentage of the player base that's going to utilize it, it's not worth diverting developer resources to. I'm not going to try to assign a value there, that's a design decision best left to people that have access to numbers that would actually show whether it is or not. If, however, they did make something along these lines, it should be with the caveat that it is what it is, and calls to nerf it later will be summarily ignored. You see, that's exactly what happened the last time I saw a campaign like this succeed. I had players there insisting I was wrong, and yet, here I sit, recounting that not only was I not wrong, those players weren't happy about being called on it, to the point where I got a nice forum ban for using their usual rallying cry against them.

robertthebard · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

A huge proportion of this game revolves around questing and exploring in the overland content. So I don't believe it's reasonable to tell high level or experienced players who find this content too easy to just go spend all their time in Veteran Dungeons and Trials instead. That's not a "happy medium". That's a position that assumes the bulk of this game's content shouldn't be designed to accommodate seasoned ESO players. This is especially the case considering ESO is a MMORPG and meant to played long term for years (maybe even decades).

Also: adding an optional Veteran version of each overland zone (like they already do with dungeons) should please everyone. That way experienced or high level characters can enjoy this content as well as newer or inexperienced players who prefer things easier. That's a better solution then simply telling experienced players that 75% of the game (probably even more than that to be honest) isn't for them.

They've already tried a vet overland region, it was Craglorn before they revised it into what it is now. It was meant for vet groups but didn't get much use because, shockingly, the vets and people able to do the content thought it was too hard.

Seasoned players have vet dungeons and trials, that is what they design for us. Sure overland is meant just as much for you but that d

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Except that the content in question is designed to enable everyone playing to get to the endgame. That's why it's called "endgame". It shouldn't have to accommodate vet players, that's exactly what vet content is for. I'll be right there with anyone else picking up my pitchfork and torch if someone suggested that the vet content should be toned down so it can be solo'd, after all. That's not what the content is designed for. It's designed to accommodate players that are looking for a challenge.

I also can't help but wonder how many people would actually use this system for more than a few days. I would also wonder how many would sign a waiver that said something to the effect of "If I use this mode, and post on the forums that it's "stupid hard" or "you didn't do it the right way", you can suspend my account for 7 days"? Because I can tell you right now what my response to a thread like that would be: Play a lower difficulty. Of course, on DDO's forums, when this exact thing happened, I got a nice permanent ban from the forums. I guess those elite players were just to fragile to hear it?

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

So... Pretty much "Veteran players, forget about the RPG aspect, interesting exploration and questing. This is not for you anymore. This is now reserved for casuals. And be happy that you have a few dozens of straight corridors to explore for the 50th time", right?

I'm about cp 1380 and I don't have this problem. I've still got lore books to find and content to clear on other toons. You're not suddenly barred from content you just can't have every enemy set at 3mil HP because you're bored.

Also, why can't overland be a part of the endgame by making it fun for everyone to go back to? We know for a fact that it perfectly worked in old MMOs and this is what many players are craving for now. Veteran content, no matter how fun it can be, is extremely limited and repetitive, and the beautiful zones and quests of the game turn tasteless because of the direction you mention (enable everyone to get to endgame).

Overland is fun to go back to unless you're only looking for high level challenges which you and the people that post these threads are. The reason these threads meet with such resistance are adding it will cause more problems than its worth and there's no way to make overland content hard barring just giving them a big boost of HP which makes for boring content.

Being told to stick to instances in an open world MMORPG really strenghten my opinion that there is something wrong with modern MMOs.

I mean this isn't new in MMOs, every one I've played in the last 20 years is structured like this.

Specifically regarding your comment about Craglorn, that place didn't work because there was only one possible difficulty, "get your arse kicked or get out". I also know someone IRL who started Craglorn back in the day who quit it because it was too rough. He didn't want to grind his toon just to play there.

Their solution was to nerf it... which is fine for that crowd, but it wasn't for me. Now it's just like all the other zones, that is to say, boring. It was the one zone I was really looking forward to, but by the time I got there it was nerfed after the whole CP system came out. It was interesting at first but then they nerfed it again, now it's just a normal zone.

So it was too hard. It's what everyone's looking for, challenging content, but too hard? I'd suggest it's time to close this thread then, and any others like it, maybe with a link to a thread about how content that was introduced to do exactly what is being called for here had to be nerfed because it was too hard.

Alomar · May 2020

As a 9 months pre-launch beta tester I can adamantly say regular ESO pve has become 1000% easier. So much so it’s a detriment to the game, don’t know anyone who likes the change...not one. Kind of pathetic rolling around like a demigod, if people wanted that they’d play an arpg.

Arunei · May 2020

Sarousse wrote: »

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kichwas wrote: »

Overland is not built for the challenge it's built for the quests and story.

Yes it was. It was challenging (and fun and we remembered about strong enemies kicking our arses) before a megaton of [snip] asked for less difficulty.

It's an elder scrolls game, it's supposed to be challenging, it's not WoW.

[edited for baiting]

So...a lot of people complained that the game was too hard and so ZOS lowered the difficulty, yet the people that found it too hard are seemingly worse than the people who now complain it's too easy and want it harder?

This is the problem with this topic. Difficulty is subjective, people who find x difficult will always want it easier, people who find x too easy will always want it harder. Who is ZOS supposed to cater to, when there will always be some group unhappy with how things are?

It's easy, they cater to whichever group will get them the most money. And if the group making them more money are the ones wanting things to be easier for overland, that's who they listen to.

Also maybe people shouldn't make fun of others who actually do find the game hard by saying stuff like "how bad do you have to be" and the like.

Zulera301 · May 2020

because ZOS's goal is to bring in new players, most of whom at first can barely tell the pointy end of a sword from the handle. and what do 99.5% of new players start off with when they get into the game? overland content.

as someone who was max level on NA and then went to a no-CP character on EU during that Summerfall event, lemme tell you: it's a lot harder starting out (especially without a crafter, but I digress). ZOS doesn't want people saying "yeah I played ESO but I got my butt whooped at lv.3 and couldn't get past the first zone". they want to lure you in, make you enjoy the game, and buy more stuff. that's business.

eKsDee · May 2020

Okay, can people stop assuming that when we say difficult, we mean a "sweat inducing experience"? Sorry, but this misunderstanding is seriously irking me, because it shows me that you're not actually reading what we're saying.

Nobody is asking for overland difficulty to be "Dark Souls but in ESO" level. We're simply asking for overland difficulty to be a few notches above "I can basically one-shot most trash mobs without even trying, with no buffs up".

If you're gonna provide counter arguments, don't throw up strawmans based on your misunderstanding of the conversation.

eKsDee · May 2020

Arunei wrote: »

This is the problem with this topic. Difficulty is subjective, people who find x difficult will always want it easier, people who find x too easy will always want it harder. Who is ZOS supposed to cater to, when there will always be some group unhappy with how things are?

And this is why you offer multiple options, either through multiple zone instances or (ideally) through a scaling debuff automatically applied to the player, which allows players to choose the difficulty that they want.

Arunei wrote: »

It's easy, they cater to whichever group will get them the most money. And if the group making them more money are the ones wanting things to be easier for overland, that's who they listen to.

And they can appease the other group without ever impacting the more casual group, by simply doing what I mentioned above.

asuzab16_ESO · May 2020

Zulera301 wrote: »

because ZOS's goal is to bring in new players, most of whom at first can barely tell the pointy end of a sword from the handle. and what do 99.5% of new players start off with when they get into the game? overland content.

as someone who was max level on NA and then went to a no-CP character on EU during that Summerfall event, lemme tell you: it's a lot harder starting out (especially without a crafter, but I digress). ZOS doesn't want people saying "yeah I played ESO but I got my butt whooped at lv.3 and couldn't get past the first zone". they want to lure you in, make you enjoy the game, and buy more stuff. that's business.

The problem is that we moved from ZOS (and every other MMO developer) not wanting players to say "yeah, I played ESO but I got my butt whooped at lv.3 and couldn't get past the first zone" to a point where it's okay for players to say "yeah, I played ESO and I never got my butt whooped in two years of gaming, and I made it to max level without understanding what any of my abilities does". Simply look at the videos at the top of this page. They perfectly illustrate what is wrong and what people are complaining about. Nobody is asking for Dark Souls difficulty, as the previous poster says, we're simply asking for a chance to use our class outside of instances.

starlizard70ub17_ESO · May 2020

My wife just started playing ESO with a new account, character, everything. When you don't have a few years of CP, gold and most importantly, crafting mats stored up, overland can be challenging. People tend to forget what it's like playing without 810cp. If overland was much tougher, new players would have no chance.

eKsDee · May 2020

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

My wife just started playing ESO with a new account, character, everything. When you don't have a few years of CP, gold and most importantly, crafting mats stored up, overland can be challenging. People tend to forget what it's like playing without 810cp. If overland was much tougher, new players would have no chance.

Again. Read the thread before posting. At least the last 2-3 pages. Nobody is asking for a universal increase in overland difficulty. We're asking for optional increases, that only affect individual players.

vilio11 · May 2020

Zulera301 wrote: »

because ZOS's goal is to bring in new players, most of whom at first can barely tell the pointy end of a sword from the handle. and what do 99.5% of new players start off with when they get into the game? overland content.

as someone who was max level on NA and then went to a no-CP character on EU during that Summerfall event, lemme tell you: it's a lot harder starting out (especially without a crafter, but I digress). ZOS doesn't want people saying "yeah I played ESO but I got my butt whooped at lv.3 and couldn't get past the first zone". they want to lure you in, make you enjoy the game, and buy more stuff. that's business.

I do not think that "the new player argument works". As I said it before many of my friends are leaving the game after 10 hours because the game is easy for them. They were bored because the game was braindeath(they told me that). This is not only the story of my friands. Many gamers who tried ESO are saying that the game was boring because was too easy.

robertthebard · May 2020

eKsDee wrote: »

Okay, can people stop assuming that when we say difficult, we mean a "sweat inducing experience"? Sorry, but this misunderstanding is seriously irking me, because it shows me that you're not actually reading what we're saying.

Nobody is asking for overland difficulty to be "Dark Souls but in ESO" level. We're simply asking for overland difficulty to be a few notches above "I can basically one-shot most trash mobs without even trying, with no buffs up".

If you're gonna provide counter arguments, don't throw up strawmans based on your misunderstanding of the conversation.

So what is it you propose, a 20% increase, 50%? Too low, it won't matter, too much and it's "but that's not what we asked for"? They could double overland, and it wouldn't be challenging for a lot of us, anything more than that and it'll be summarily ignored by the majority of people here wanting it because "but we're not looking for Dark Souls". As regards to reading the thread, that's good advice, and you should follow it, because there have indeed been posts asking why it's not sweat inducing.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

eKsDee wrote: »

show previous quotes

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

My wife just started playing ESO with a new account, character, everything. When you don't have a few years of CP, gold and most importantly, crafting mats stored up, overland can be challenging. People tend to forget what it's like playing without 810cp. If overland was much tougher, new players would have no chance.

Again. Read the thread before posting. At least the last 2-3 pages. Nobody is asking for a universal increase in overland difficulty. We're asking for optional increases, that only affect individual players.

Reread the the thread before posting, we know you want an optional difficulty for overland. There is no way to implement one on overland without messing up overland completely.

mikemacon · May 2020

YAWN.

vilio11 · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

vilio11 wrote: »

Twilanthe wrote: »

I think a lot of MMOs these days are like this. WoW is for sure now. The thing is that you have a lot of different people with different skill sets playing this game, and the developers want everyone to be able to enjoy some aspects of the game.

If ZOS made even the questing challenging, the skilled players probably wouldn't bat an eye, and some would likely enjoy it, but a lot of people who aren't as skilled, or have medical/physical issues that make gaming hard for them, wouldn't be able to play anymore.

For the people who want challenges, there is PVP, and Vet dungeons and trials. These things are unobtainable by anyone who for whatever reason finds regular solo questing a challenge. But ZOS doesn't lower the difficulty of trials for them, there's no reason they should raise the difficulty of the easy stuff for you.

It's a happy medium that can please the most amount of people, but nothing will please everyone.

Apping up the difficulty does not mean to make this game a Dark Souls.
You can make the game slightly more difficult. Many new players are leaving the game after 10 hours because the game is easy for them. I have many friends that tried the game and they were bored because the game was too easy for them and they told me: "this game is braindeath and the combat do not feel powerfull".

Exactly. I tried to get my brothers and a couple RL friends to join ESO and they abandoned ship after a couple hours because it's a joke.

I hoped one day they might change their mind, and I was also hoping for a different difficulty setting or something one day.

That day has never come, and now that WoW classic is out there is literally no hope. For people who enjoy questing and exploration but who have never immersed themselves in ES before (and hence don't know what they're missing), they see this game as just another copy/paste MMO with mindless fetch quests and boring, easy combat designed for little girls.

There is NO WAY they are going to grind to end game to "get to the good stuff". Both my brothers are married with kids now, there is simply no way in hell I am going to convince them to drop 100+ hours into a game just so they can get to the fun stuff later.

Yep you have to grind many hours of fetch quest and kill many mobs in a boring and easy combat go get to the fun parts(trials and vet dungeons). So if you are a hardcore player you would not want to waste time on a MMO with easy overland just to get to the endgame.

Everest_Lionheart · May 2020

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

I’ve been back and forth on this topic here in this very thread and thought possibly instanced delves with a difficulty slider could be one solution. I got some pushback from people here saying even that wasn’t the best idea. Plus as mentioned above, who will
Run harder content for the same rewards outside of a handful of people that have already maxed everything out and don’t need the rewards anyway.

Tougher enemies are really the answer anyway. What the game needs is content where mechanics are tougher. It’s already available in certain increments if you know where to look. Public dungeons for instance though once you’ve hit the gear Cap you’ll find little challenge in them. Also given this is an MMO you may enter an instance with either and OP solo player or a guild running a group that takes any challenge out of the equation.

The next step is soloing 4 man dungeons. Mobs are bigger, tougher and have more mechanics. Bosses have more complicated and less predictable mechanics as well. Some have mechanics that are way easier when you group up because you need a tank to aggro or a healer to buff/heal you through certain death mechanics, but can be worked around if you build for it. Of course those builds are sub optimal for actual group content because you’ll need a larger toolkit to get past certain content. Of course some of this content can simple be out DPSed but the average player looking for harder content will get more of a challenge this way. And some 4 man dungeons simply aren’t soloable because there are lockdown and instadeath mechanics that are impossible to control. Best to look those up before jumping in head first or you will have a bad time!

You’ve got other ways to challenge yourself too. Non CP BG is an adjustment once you’ve got used to you high CP face stomping days with PvE. Of course it’s all in the build there as well, which if you are soloing 4 man dungeons you’ll take some pieces of that build directly to a PvP build. The human aspect of it also makes it a challenge because while playing PvE you’ll learn patterns where a live person will sometimes adjust in real time.

So that’s it. There are ways to work harder in this game but you’ll have to think outside the box a bit to challenge yourself outside of the obvious disable CP and run around naked options, nobody wants to do that!

Dahveed · May 2020

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

I’ve been back and forth on this topic here in this very thread and thought possibly instanced delves with a difficulty slider could be one solution. I got some pushback from people here saying even that wasn’t the best idea. Plus as mentioned above, who will
Run harder content for the same rewards outside of a handful of people that have already maxed everything out and don’t need the rewards anyway.

Tougher enemies are really the answer anyway. What the game needs is content where mechanics are tougher. It’s already available in certain increments if you know where to look. Public dungeons for instance though once you’ve hit the gear Cap you’ll find little challenge in them. Also given this is an MMO you may enter an instance with either and OP solo player or a guild running a group that takes any challenge out of the equation.

The next step is soloing 4 man dungeons. Mobs are bigger, tougher and have more mechanics. Bosses have more complicated and less predictable mechanics as well. Some have mechanics that are way easier when you group up because you need a tank to aggro or a healer to buff/heal you through certain death mechanics, but can be worked around if you build for it. Of course those builds are sub optimal for actual group content because you’ll need a larger toolkit to get past certain content. Of course some of this content can simple be out DPSed but the average player looking for harder content will get more of a challenge this way. And some 4 man dungeons simply aren’t soloable because there are lockdown and instadeath mechanics that are impossible to control. Best to look those up before jumping in head first or you will have a bad time!

You’ve got other ways to challenge yourself too. Non CP BG is an adjustment once you’ve got used to you high CP face stomping days with PvE. Of course it’s all in the build there as well, which if you are soloing 4 man dungeons you’ll take some pieces of that build directly to a PvP build. The human aspect of it also makes it a challenge because while playing PvE you’ll learn patterns where a live person will sometimes adjust in real time.

So that’s it. There are ways to work harder in this game but you’ll have to think outside the box a bit to challenge yourself outside of the obvious disable CP and run around naked options, nobody wants to do that!

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

Ideally, they wouldn't just be "bullet sponges". Yes, each individual enemy would take longer to kill, i.e., 6 hits instead of 3 (for example). But they would also hit much harder (ideally SEVERAL TIMES harder, but that's a different discussion).

That means if that you are not paying attention and you get 3 enemies on you at once, you will be in trouble... since you can't just burst down your main target in a couple seconds, its attacks become impactful, as do the attacks of the other 2 enemies also hitting you at the same time. Suddenly your decisions become important. Do you have CC? You'd better use it. Are they winding up a power attack? Dodge it, or it will hurt! Is there a mage sending a volley of fire up your butt? Get out of the way, that will sting!

All these decisions would become relevant, because the NPCs actually stay alive long enough to do stuff, and they actually hit hard enough to become dangerous if you're asleep at the wheel.

Plus as mentioned above, who will
Run harder content for the same rewards outside of a handful of people that have already maxed everything out and don’t need the rewards anyway.

I think you'd be surprised.

Similar counter-arguments arose against WoW Classic... For YEARS on the Blizzard forums, new threads would pop up like whack-a-moles about "bring back Vanilla servers!" and people (not just Blizzard, but other players) would say "No, we don't want that!" .... With of course the now infamous quote, "You don't want that.... you think you do, but you don't."

There was even what people called a "Wall of No" in the forums with something like 84 reasons why vanilla servers could never come back.

Well look now. They brought back Classic WoW and the servers are literally overloaded. As recently as last week I had to sit in a server queue for over an hour just to log in.

I think more people than you might think would enjoy this.

Finally, regarding your other suggestions (soloing dungeons, world bosses etc), yes I do that stuff sometimes, when I have the time. Soloing 4-mans is quite fun, but takes a VERY long time and you have to be willing to sit through a several hour long experience.

(It's also frustrating when you get to a boss after a couple hours and realize he's impossible to solo because of specific mechanics... There is one pirate skeleton boss, forget its name, which does a mind control and resets the fight, and there's nothing you can do about it...)

Everest_Lionheart · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

I’ve been back and forth on this topic here in this very thread and thought possibly instanced delves with a difficulty slider could be one solution. I got some pushback from people here saying even that wasn’t the best idea. Plus as mentioned above, who will
Run harder content for the same rewards outside of a handful of people that have already maxed everything out and don’t need the rewards anyway.

Tougher enemies are really the answer anyway. What the game needs is content where mechanics are tougher. It’s already available in certain increments if you know where to look. Public dungeons for instance though once you’ve hit the gear Cap you’ll find little challenge in them. Also given this is an MMO you may enter an instance with either and OP solo player or a guild running a group that takes any challenge out of the equation.

The next step is soloing 4 man dungeons. Mobs are bigger, tougher and have more mechanics. Bosses have more complicated and less predictable mechanics as well. Some have mechanics that are way easier when you group up because you need a tank to aggro or a healer to buff/heal you through certain death mechanics, but can be worked around if you build for it. Of course those builds are sub optimal for actual group content because you’ll need a larger toolkit to get past certain content. Of course some of this content can simple be out DPSed but the average player looking for harder content will get more of a challenge this way. And some 4 man dungeons simply aren’t soloable because there are lockdown and instadeath mechanics that are impossible to control. Best to look those up before jumping in head first or you will have a bad time!

You’ve got other ways to challenge yourself too. Non CP BG is an adjustment once you’ve got used to you high CP face stomping days with PvE. Of course it’s all in the build there as well, which if you are soloing 4 man dungeons you’ll take some pieces of that build directly to a PvP build. The human aspect of it also makes it a challenge because while playing PvE you’ll learn patterns where a live person will sometimes adjust in real time.

So that’s it. There are ways to work harder in this game but you’ll have to think outside the box a bit to challenge yourself outside of the obvious disable CP and run around naked options, nobody wants to do that!

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

Ideally, they wouldn't just be "bullet sponges". Yes, each individual enemy would take longer to kill, i.e., 6 hits instead of 3 (for example). But they would also hit much harder (ideally SEVERAL TIMES harder, but that's a different discussion).

That means if that you are not paying attention and you get 3 enemies on you at once, you will be in trouble... since you can't just burst down your main target in a couple seconds, its attacks become impactful, as do the attacks of the other 2 enemies also hitting you at the same time. Suddenly your decisions become important. Do you have CC? You'd better use it. Are they winding up a power attack? Dodge it, or it will hurt! Is there a mage sending a volley of fire up your butt? Get out of the way, that will sting!

All these decisions would become relevant, because the NPCs actually stay alive long enough to do stuff, and they actually hit hard enough to become dangerous if you're asleep at the wheel.

Plus as mentioned above, who will
Run harder content for the same rewards outside of a handful of people that have already maxed everything out and don’t need the rewards anyway.

I think you'd be surprised.

Similar counter-arguments arose against WoW Classic... For YEARS on the Blizzard forums, new threads would pop up like whack-a-moles about "bring back Vanilla servers!" and people (not just Blizzard, but other players) would say "No, we don't want that!" .... With of course the now infamous quote, "You don't want that.... you think you do, but you don't."

There was even what people called a "Wall of No" in the forums with something like 84 reasons why vanilla servers could never come back.

Well look now. They brought back Classic WoW and the servers are literally overloaded. As recently as last week I had to sit in a server queue for over an hour just to log in.

I think more people than you might think would enjoy this.

Finally, regarding your other suggestions (soloing dungeons, world bosses etc), yes I do that stuff sometimes, when I have the time. Soloing 4-mans is quite fun, but takes a VERY long time and you have to be willing to sit through a several hour long experience.

(It's also frustrating when you get to a boss after a couple hours and realize he's impossible to solo because of specific mechanics... There is one pirate skeleton boss, forget its name, which does a mind control and resets the fight, and there's nothing you can do about it...)

I’m not entirely sure you could make an overland mob hit hard enough or often enough. There has to be some separation of difficulty between trash mobs and world bosses. Also if you are burning through more rss shouldn’t you get some small incentive even if it is extra gold as a result? Since you would be fighting more often you would proc your enchants more often which would need to be refilled more often plus the cost of equipment repairs. In the grand scheme of things that’s all basically negligible anyway but for a character the relies on buying potions or equipment instead of crafting it themselves they would certainly need to offset the costs.

Also certain overland 1 shot mechanics I do like. Certain farming zones are more lucrative if you can extend through them and wipe out a few trash enemies. I like 1 shooting wolves, spiders and beetles in certain zones to get a half dozen extra nodes. The regular farmers don’t bother with some the the extended zone because they are busy running the regular loop with unguarded nodes. The easy fights net extra gold and junk you can sell for more gold

The 4 man dungeons you can exit at anytime and come back into a portal where you left off. At least the first time through anyway, I’ve not repeated any so I don’t l know for sure but I’ve come back to a few after leveling up a skill in the overland that I needed to power through a boss.

The unsoloable boss mechanics do suck though which is why I check the internet first before I walk in and get hugely disappointed. I can’t fault the game for this though I mean the content is intended for groups, losing the time is a kick to the pants though.

asuzab16_ESO · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

Ideally, they wouldn't just be "bullet sponges". Yes, each individual enemy would take longer to kill, i.e., 6 hits instead of 3 (for example). But they would also hit much harder (ideally SEVERAL TIMES harder, but that's a different discussion).

That means if that you are not paying attention and you get 3 enemies on you at once, you will be in trouble... since you can't just burst down your main target in a couple seconds, its attacks become impactful, as do the attacks of the other 2 enemies also hitting you at the same time. Suddenly your decisions become important. Do you have CC? You'd better use it. Are they winding up a power attack? Dodge it, or it will hurt! Is there a mage sending a volley of fire up your butt? Get out of the way, that will sting!

All these decisions would become relevant, because the NPCs actually stay alive long enough to do stuff, and they actually hit hard enough to become dangerous if you're asleep at the wheel.

Exactly. Just giving mobs more HP is not the right solution. With the current difficulty, your decisions have an extremely low, if any at all, impact on the outcome of overland fights. The idea behind that was to simply take away any possibility that the player might get frustrated for making the wrong decision. It follows years of changes made to eliminate frustration, believing that casuals/new players will be happier and stay if they can't die.

But are they? Is it that crazy to believe that it actually turns them away from the game, with the more experienced players too? It did for absolutely every single person I tried to bring to ESO or WoW, no matter whether they were new to MMOs or not. And every single time, it was for the same reason: "This is not rewarding". And it is easy to understand why. The gameplay simply doesn't reward you for playing well. It just gives you cookies and a pet on the head for standing there, but nothing intrinsic, no feeling of accomplishment, improvement, etc...

Some people seem to still strongly think that this no decision making/frustration trend is the way to go to get and keep new players, but as MMOs bleed out players and the two only that don't and gain in popularity (FFXIV and Classic) are the ones that don't follow that trend, maybe it's time to wonder if this level of "non-difficulty" is not actually what turns away both casual and experienced players.

I personally believe it does and I would like to see ESO and WoW (and future MMOs) bring back impactful decision making and stop assuming that casuals / new players are not good enough to (learn how to) take the right decisions and that 90+% of the game, the whole open world, needs to be dumbed down because of that.

Everest_Lionheart · May 2020

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

Ideally, they wouldn't just be "bullet sponges". Yes, each individual enemy would take longer to kill, i.e., 6 hits instead of 3 (for example). But they would also hit much harder (ideally SEVERAL TIMES harder, but that's a different discussion).

That means if that you are not paying attention and you get 3 enemies on you at once, you will be in trouble... since you can't just burst down your main target in a couple seconds, its attacks become impactful, as do the attacks of the other 2 enemies also hitting you at the same time. Suddenly your decisions become important. Do you have CC? You'd better use it. Are they winding up a power attack? Dodge it, or it will hurt! Is there a mage sending a volley of fire up your butt? Get out of the way, that will sting!

All these decisions would become relevant, because the NPCs actually stay alive long enough to do stuff, and they actually hit hard enough to become dangerous if you're asleep at the wheel.

Exactly. Just giving mobs more HP is not the right solution. With the current difficulty, your decisions have an extremely low, if any at all, impact on the outcome of overland fights. The idea behind that was to simply take away any possibility that the player might get frustrated for making the wrong decision. It follows years of changes made to eliminate frustration, believing that casuals/new players will be happier and stay if they can't die.

But are they? Is it that crazy to believe that it actually turns them away from the game, with the more experienced players too? It did for absolutely every single person I tried to bring to ESO or WoW, no matter whether they were new to MMOs or not. And every single time, it was for the same reason: "This is not rewarding". And it is easy to understand why. The gameplay simply doesn't reward you for playing well. It just gives you cookies and a pet on the head for standing there, but nothing intrinsic, no feeling of accomplishment, improvement, etc...

Some people seem to still strongly think that this no decision making/frustration trend is the way to go to get and keep new players, but as MMOs bleed out players and the two only that don't and gain in popularity (FFXIV and Classic) are the ones that don't follow that trend, maybe it's time to wonder if this level of difficulty is not actually what turns away both casual and experienced players.

I personally believe it does and I would like to see ESO and WoW (and future MMOs) bring back impactful decision making and stop assuming that casuals / new players are too dumb to (learn how to) take the right decisions.

MMO’s in general have a steep learning curve that can also be a turn off to casual players. RPG’s have that grind that can also turn off casual players. What we are in a niche market but a large enough niche where more than 1 game can profit. Not all MMO’s and RPG’s are one size fits all either. I find ESO either appeals to the style of the person playing it or it doesn’t. I don’t feel like combat really matters either way to a totally new player coming into this style of game. What I can see as a big turn off however are other systems such as crafting which is kind of essential to games like this. The learning curve for players new to the genre is steep.

You also got people that maybe haven’t played TES or other fantasy type RPG coming to this game that maybe don’t know that 98% of the time will be spent traversing the map in all directions doing menial tasks for 30 minutes in between any potential meaningful fights. Say you’ve got 60-90 minutes of real play time per day, 2 meaningful battles jammed between half a dozen quests can seem boring especially if you’ve come here from an action RPG or shooter. Now the good thing is here when you do engage in the meaningful stuff it is fast and furious (even if your skills don’t fire, I don’t have this problem but I digress!)

Now personally I play every type of RPG out there and with the exception of a few which I can count on 1 hand every one of them is easy once you learn mechanics and level up. Are there challenging fights to be had here, yes but they are few and far between but you have the option to point eight at that content and run it endlessly forever like we used to do back in the day running the same PvP maps I’m with the same 8 players over and over again back on the original X-box on ghost recon! Back the. We had fun because of the players and didn’t care about the content.

So I would not say it’s the difficulty causing people to leave so much as ESO just isn’t their cup of tea. Maybe difficulty factors into that but every other game on the market save for those games I can count on 1 hand is super easy and they don’t seem to be hurting for players either.

Twilanthe · May 2020

I am the first to admit I am wrong, and after reading some more posts on this thread I take back what I said earlier. I support the idea of increasing the challenge of content.

It got me thinking of my time in Vanilla WoW and actually having to ask for help with group quests. And I remember the first time I felt WoW was failing me, was when I asked for help with a group quest in zone and the response was "lol L2P noob anyone can solo that" and my heart sank. And I remember when I was younger, playing my first games on nintendo or sega and me and my friend passing the controller back and forth trying again and again and again to beat a difficult part and the rush of pride and excitement at finally succeeding.

I would welcome this feeling in ESO. One of the things I love about the combat in this game is the blocking and interrupting mechanic. I'd love it if Delve bosses required you to actually use these mechanics that you learned in the tutorial, and if you didn't you could die.

That said, I do think that gaming is mainstream now, and the more mainstream it is the more companies want to make a game that everyone can play from 8 year olds to those adorable grandmas you see playing Skyrim on YouTube. The harsh reality is companies will do whatever makes them the most money and they feel that making a game playable for the most people is that answer, whether we agree or not. I think its probably unlikely that we could convince ZOS to make overland content difficult enough to challenge people with vet-content skills, as that might alienate too much of the casual playerbase. And creating some kind of difficulty tier system would be a lot of work for something that would cater to only a portion of the player base when that time could be spent making new money grabs in the cash shop.

Not that I agree with that stance or defend it, or want to assuage anyone from trying to convince ZOS to inject some challenge into the overland content. Just saying I find it unlikely.

Rave the Histborn · May 2020

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Dahveed wrote: »

What’s the real difference between 1 shooting and 3 shooting overland anyway? Even buffing so they take 5 shots, what will that accomplish? Turning overland into bullet sponges is not a good idea plus almost nobody is going to work even a little bit harder without extra incentive (rewards.)

Ideally, they wouldn't just be "bullet sponges". Yes, each individual enemy would take longer to kill, i.e., 6 hits instead of 3 (for example). But they would also hit much harder (ideally SEVERAL TIMES harder, but that's a different discussion).

That means if that you are not paying attention and you get 3 enemies on you at once, you will be in trouble... since you can't just burst down your main target in a couple seconds, its attacks become impactful, as do the attacks of the other 2 enemies also hitting you at the same time. Suddenly your decisions become important. Do you have CC? You'd better use it. Are they winding up a power attack? Dodge it, or it will hurt! Is there a mage sending a volley of fire up your butt? Get out of the way, that will sting!

All these decisions would become relevant, because the NPCs actually stay alive long enough to do stuff, and they actually hit hard enough to become dangerous if you're asleep at the wheel.

Exactly. Just giving mobs more HP is not the right solution. With the current difficulty, your decisions have an extremely low, if any at all, impact on the outcome of overland fights. The idea behind that was to simply take away any possibility that the player might get frustrated for making the wrong decision. It follows years of changes made to eliminate frustration, believing that casuals/new players will be happier and stay if they can't die.

But are they? Is it that crazy to believe that it actually turns them away from the game, with the more experienced players too? It did for absolutely every single person I tried to bring to ESO or WoW, no matter whether they were new to MMOs or not. And every single time, it was for the same reason: "This is not rewarding". And it is easy to understand why. The gameplay simply doesn't reward you for playing well. It just gives you cookies and a pet on the head for standing there, but nothing intrinsic, no feeling of accomplishment, improvement, etc...

Some people seem to still strongly think that this no decision making/frustration trend is the way to go to get and keep new players, but as MMOs bleed out players and the two only that don't and gain in popularity (FFXIV and Classic) are the ones that don't follow that trend, maybe it's time to wonder if this level of "non-difficulty" is not actually what turns away both casual and experienced players.

I personally believe it does and I would like to see ESO and WoW (and future MMOs) bring back impactful decision making and stop assuming that casuals / new players are not good enough to (learn how to) take the right decisions and that 90+% of the game, the whole open world, needs to be dumbed down because of that.

Is it not rewarding because of simple gameplay or because these people aren't into MMOs? Youre saying the same thing happens in ESO and WoW so is it more that RPGs aren't for them2)

Dahveed · May 2020

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

I personally believe it does and I would like to see ESO and WoW (and future MMOs) bring back impactful decision making and stop assuming that casuals / new players are not good enough to (learn how to) take the right decisions and that 90+% of the game, the whole open world, needs to be dumbed down because of that.

What really irritates me is that people forget the fact that WoW became one of the most successful, lucrative and wildly popular video game perhaps EVER in the history of planet Earth back before Cataclysm came out, when vanilla leveling was still fundamentally unchanged (aside from a few minor tweaks and class rebalances).

People died all the time, I died all the time. Level cap was 80 when I first started and it took me literally months to get there, but that didn't push me away, it didn't push my friends away, and it didn't push away the something like 10 or 12 millions subs they had at their peak.

I used to run alts all the time before Cataclysm came out, because I wanted to explore, quest and BG with all the different class mechanics to shake things up.

I only have one alt in ESO and I rarely play him (I just wanted to do Thieves Guild and DB quests on a sneaky type). I made a Necromancer partly for fun, and partly to make the video demo I linked in this thread, and all I'm doing on that guy is just pressing literally one button over and over again until my magicka runs out then autoattacking.

There are literally no decisions to make. It's terrible.

robertthebard · May 2020

Dahveed wrote: »

show previous quotes

asuzab16_ESO wrote: »

I personally believe it does and I would like to see ESO and WoW (and future MMOs) bring back impactful decision making and stop assuming that casuals / new players are not good enough to (learn how to) take the right decisions and that 90+% of the game, the whole open world, needs to be dumbed down because of that.

What really irritates me is that people forget the fact that WoW became one of the most successful, lucrative and wildly popular video game perhaps EVER in the history of planet Earth back before Cataclysm came out, when vanilla leveling was still fundamentally unchanged (aside from a few minor tweaks and class rebalances).

People died all the time, I died all the time. Level cap was 80 when I first started and it took me literally months to get there, but that didn't push me away, it didn't push my friends away, and it didn't push away the something like 10 or 12 millions subs they had at their peak.

I used to run alts all the time before Cataclysm came out, because I wanted to explore, quest and BG with all the different class mechanics to shake things up.

I only have one alt in ESO and I rarely play him (I just wanted to do Thieves Guild and DB quests on a sneaky type). I made a Necromancer partly for fun, and partly to make the video demo I linked in this thread, and all I'm doing on that guy is just pressing literally one button over and over again until my magicka runs out then autoattacking.

There are literally no decisions to make. It's terrible.

As I remember it, WoW got really popular for dumbing down the game because people were complaining it was too hard. Now, I can't be sure of the time frame, I never played, because I was inundated with "if you don't make this more like WoW it's going to fail" or "this is just another WoW clone" in posts that had to be edited by moderators for whatever reasons... I mean, when they're in the closed beta forums of Aion, it's an issue, and I decided early on, I didn't want to be a part of that community. I mean, there was even a tin foil hat theory that they were paid by Blizzard to do it. There's tin foil hat theories for everything, it seems.

I come across dead people a lot, and I come across people that would have been dead if I didn't help them. I haven't been dead all the time, but at this stage in my gaming history, I'd be surprised if any game's OW stuff, aside from PvP, could kill me. I've been playing these games for around 20 years, and I've been a progression raider in all three trinity roles. I make plenty of decisions during questing overland, and plenty of decisions when it comes to what gear sets and what skills I use. I guess that's the advantage of not using someone else's template for what my character should be? I've never been very good at following the herd though, which is, in and of itself, a decision. So sorry, hyperbole isn't going to persuade me.