ChaosWotan wrote: »

A casual player can choose easy mode, as already mentioned.

What is most fun for a newbie during a mini quest: 1) I come along and instakill all the mobs he is fighting, or 2) he sees me being busy dodging, blocking and interrupting, before going up in flames, while he kills the mob?

Rewards are important, (especially when mini quests have mediocre storylines). That's just elementary psychology.

But an alternative is not to hide dye rewards behind the current wall of boredom aka "mini quests". Then I can get these dyes and drop tons of solo quests, ... and find another game which has more and better content.

They can choose easy mode right up until you offer different and better rewards for hard mode then they feel compelled to make the move. You proved that with your elementary psychology comment. I would like sometimes to have a more challenging experience doing overland activity. It would be fun. I don't need a reward for having more fun. The fun is the reward.
If there is a game out there that provides you with more fun why grind for dyes in this game? Games are about entertaining yourself for a while. Don't make it a grind by feeling you need some reward. You are falling for the same thing you want to push on casual players with extra rewards in harder instances. Linking harder game play to better rewards is going to get more push back from more players. ZoS is also less likely to add the harder options knowing the backlash they will face in linking rewards to those options. If you really want harder content it would be a good idea to quit linking it to added rewards.

kargen27 wrote: »

ChaosWotan wrote: »

A casual player can choose easy mode, as already mentioned.

What is most fun for a newbie during a mini quest: 1) I come along and instakill all the mobs he is fighting, or 2) he sees me being busy dodging, blocking and interrupting, before going up in flames, while he kills the mob?

Rewards are important, (especially when mini quests have mediocre storylines). That's just elementary psychology.

But an alternative is not to hide dye rewards behind the current wall of boredom aka "mini quests". Then I can get these dyes and drop tons of solo quests, ... and find another game which has more and better content.

They can choose easy mode right up until you offer different and better rewards for hard mode then they feel compelled to make the move. You proved that with your elementary psychology comment. I would like sometimes to have a more challenging experience doing overland activity. It would be fun. I don't need a reward for having more fun. The fun is the reward.
If there is a game out there that provides you with more fun why grind for dyes in this game? Games are about entertaining yourself for a while. Don't make it a grind by feeling you need some reward. You are falling for the same thing you want to push on casual players with extra rewards in harder instances. Linking harder game play to better rewards is going to get more push back from more players. ZoS is also less likely to add the harder options knowing the backlash they will face in linking rewards to those options. If you really want harder content it would be a good idea to quit linking it to added rewards.

This is what a lot of these type of threads go down to: "I want a harder overland with better rewards!" As much as people claim that 'everyone' wants a challenge, it always makes me wonder... If the 'higher rewards' part weren't there, would people still want to do the harder overland just for the challenge?

And then I see that the number of people going to fight the (harder than basegame) WBs in Vvardenfell, Hew's Bane, NElsweyr, etc.; all of the dragons in NElsweyr except the one by the wayshrine; the SElsweyr WBs until they started dropping the SoS motif... Really the only bosses that see action are the Gold Coast ones (and that Minotaur motif sells really well), the Harrowstorms (now that we've got a bunch of brand new high priced drops - before they were nothing special), and now the base WBs that drop leads (but that's also cooled off by now).

Yeah - I don't think most people want 'the challenge.' They want the 'increased rewards' part.

And more interestingly, I notice you're talking about cosmetics as your 'increased rewards.' One of my biggest pet peeves is locking cosmetics behind really hard content. Look at the number of people complaining that the Nord boat can only be obtained by clearing vKA - sure there are a lot of endgame players who are into housing, but there are a lot of housing players who can't do endgame content. See also the personalities locked behind vDLC challenger achievements (especially now that Necro is a class and Greymoor has a big werewolf focus). Or the fact that the best black dye is locked behind Legate rank in PvP.

ChaosWotan wrote: »

Again, having two options, one for those who prefer easy mode and another option for veterans, will increase freedom of choice and "play as you want".

And you're immediately also suggesting that people who aren't 'good enough' shouldn't be able to get the cosmetics they want. If it really is 'play as you want,' shouldn't that mean that vet mode gets bragging rights and nothing else? Then people who are only interested in dyeing their dress a pretty color don't have to gamble with getting one shot by a mudcrab for it.

I play as I want when I'm questing - I RP walk, listen to all of the dialogue, and spend ages trying to get screenshots of my fights (to the point that I've died to story bosses since I've got the UI off and am too busy trying to line up a shot than attack back. Heck, sometimes I stop fighting and let them kill me so I can reset the fight since I didn't get a good enough shot). I also don't have my good sets on since I don't want my screenshots ruined by a Monster Helm effect. In short: for me, 'play as you want' is a storytelling mode where the game is low-no stakes, and the danger is made up in my head when I'm writing. I've spent hours just sitting at an outfit station just trying to decide what boots go best with my character's outfit, and I've got well over 5 pages just for my character's backstory. I can't wait to start my next character, but I'm still trying to decide his name and haircolor (and wishing beyond anything that ZOS will finally release the Short Mussed Wave, since I think it's perfect for him)

But in order to unlock the Beast personality, I couldn't play as I wanted. I had to learn how to do my role, grind for sets, practice, etc. It's still fun, but it's a different way to play. It really did mean putting my casual RP playstyle on hold while I played 'right.' I do like it, and it's fun to do vet dungeons/trials and unlock stuff. But I am starting to miss my old RP stuff as well...

Point here is - sometimes 'play as you want' and 'grind to unlock' are not the same thing.

We do have achievements to grind for if there's still something you want to get. I know I haven't done any trifectas (I've actually only gotten one vDLC nodeath so far), so there's still a lot for me to strive for if I want to. But there's also the fact that I miss my casual playing, and I like that I've finally gotten most things I need for my story to be fun for me.

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

Does it make you feel better, calling yourself a veteran.? And what makes a "veteran".?

I wasn't calling myself a veteran. I was referring to the period in ESO history prior to champion points. Back then after level 50 you'd become veteran rank 1 and could progress to veteran rank 12, then 14, and then the whole system was rejigged. Zones were having steady ranks for each alliance, so your first Caldwell silver zone would be veteran rank 1, the next one veteran rank 2, and so on. And the difficulty level spiked to the point that you could (and did) die to a group of 3 mudcrabs.

I would love a harder overland and firmly believe that the lack of difficulty in overland is actively harming players, but random one-shots is absolutely not the way to handle it. Random one-shots offer very little opportunities to learn, ultimately frustrating the player long before they realise the mistake their making.

Damage dealt needs to be carefully balanced, such that it's high enough to make the player realise they're making a mistake and instill a sense of urgency towards fixing said mistake, while also being low enough to give the player the opportunity to recover and fix said mistake.

One-shots in general cover the former, but not the latter, which is why they generally just result in frustration. You'd need something more along the lines of a 1.5-2 shot's worth of damage to cover both.

I don’t have an opinion either way on this, but the chance of being instantly killed while surrounded by a mob of 20 trash enemies at 15% would be insanely high. It would be difficult to see the tell, and if several happened to initiate the kill move all around the same time, you would be hard pressed to survive them all. Add in the snares and hard CCs the majority of mobs have, and players would die an awful lot.

I love the idea of harder overland content. I remember after launch when I teamed up with a couple of friends and went to higher level areas cause I would die if I went there by myself.
Like in wow when you NEED others help with elite quests etc.

I don't want the level system back since it makes low level areas useless once leveled out.

But a good example IMO would be something like Diablo 3 difficulty system. Increasing difficulty increases exp/loot etc.
And for group questing "the more people in your group the stronger tamriels monsters become"

Elder scrolls games foundation is adventuring and the online feature in ESO enables adventuring with friends.
The thing is I miss quest/overland content that requires/rewards you for group play.

If it just effects the player using it then fine, I’m happy to sit and watch them die

Personally if I want to spend time screaming in frustration I will go to work ☹️

If a player chooses hm overland, is it really that difficult to create an algorithm which simply adds a 5-15 % instakill risk to each mob NPC attack? This can be done without changing any combat mechanics of the NPCs, so why do you need an extra instance for this kind of hardmode?

"But one-shots? Lazy and un-fun mechanic."

Having to pay attention to what the mob is doing is better than just instakilling them. What's the fun in doing that? What is more lazy than that?

The other alternatives is to remove dye rewards from these (silly) mini-quests or make them (plus fishing) account wide, so that you can finish the zones with many alts, thereby getting variety in combat.

Now, however, a lot of quests go to waste, from a vet perspective, simply because devs don't care enough to make them exciting. Too bad...

Why and how willl hardmode in solo quests overland split the population when it's not two instances but only one, with the only difference for hardmode is that you risk not getting the best rewards if not paying attention to quickly blocking, interrupting or dodging instakills?

I wonder how much hate I will get in chat from newbies when I steal all their kills with my vet toon.

And again: de-skilling my toon is not an option. I have tried that, and it's boring like hell, similar to the "fun" of slowly killing a vet boss dummy in my house.

Rewards matter. How many would have done endless dungeon grinding (in the past) if there were no rewards at the end of it?

How many would have done scrying if there was no mount reward or no Wild Hunt ring?

But ESO will just ignore this debate, so no point continuing it.