So that's about 1% of the overland content we're talking about. As far as I know none of that is blocking progression in any of the questlines, so if you are that fussed about playing with other people, it can be just ignored. Otherwise with the same logic you could argue to nerf dungeons and trials too.

I would suggest to look at the current event in Skyrim now: harrowstorms and world bosses are overwhelmed with people. If you can't be bothered to gather a group in normal times, during these events it's very easy to complete all the related achievements.

dazee wrote: »

The type of customer or primary target they want is one that plays MMO's and will eventually sub. People complaining about how hard content is to solo in an MMO is near or at the bottom of a companies list. they need people to do content together to feed the game. My advice would be to join a guild and ask for help, if you are in one then /gquit and find one that will help you with the content you are having trouble with like the majority do.

You realize that catering to the classic MMO fan is not what ESO needs to do to succeed right? That's precisely what will make people quit and play the many other games which have always done that part far better- and with actual bug fixes.

I realize you are having a bad morning or night and should step away and take a walk, we don't need toxicity in our ESO community.

dazee wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

massive multiplayer online roll playing game

Oh do tell. So the fact that it's multiplayer means you MUST be grouped, and soloing somehow makes it less fun?

How very fascinating, especially since ESO only ever has had a niche in large part BECAUSE it doesn't force grouping to get decent gear and rewards.

You want to play a game where the best gear is only from group content, do us a favor and stop playing ESO and play something else. PLENTY of other games do far superior group content, more challenging but more fair, better design, less bugs.

[snip]

If MMOs were supposed to FORCE grouping, it would be MFMO, Massively Forced Multiplayer Online.

well your whole argument can just be reversed and i could sitting here an writing in the same manner:

You want a game where you can solo everything and you dont have to group up with others, nor you want to see anybody else in the whole word, go and play something else. PLENTY of other games do far superior solo content, less challenging but mor fair, better design, less bugs.

im sorry, but this is not skyrim online, if you want that experience, you now where to go

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xTAKISx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

alenae1b14_ESO wrote: »

Is this a joke?

No. This content legit gets abandoned. People who want real difficulty don't do Overland and people who want casual content don't do trials. Instead of trying to force the issue, which is obviously not working, they should leave casual content to casuals. So that all of it has a healthy population. Instead of a ghost zone and little hope of farming

I don't think their intent is to punish casuals, ESO is the most casual mmo out there today. Zone bosses have to be hard so that people have to group up, hence M...M...O. If not this would be just another Elder Scrolls RPG.

Except casual players do have to group up for geysers and do have to group for the other worldbosses. This game got by for years on content of that difficulty in the overland zone, and it didn't stop people from raiding, pvp, etc in groups.

An MMO doesn't mean that there is no soloable content. I can't name any other that I have played that had zero soloable content. So it's genre isn't a reason for it to be that way.

But this game has tons of soloable content. 99% of the overland is quite easy to solo (I would argue too easy to solo) to the point there is really no reason to group up for any of it. Most of the monsters would be dead before the other group members could even hit it with anything. So I don't think one can criticize this game for having a lack of solo content.

Dragons, Harrow Storms and some World Bosses are really the only exception. And it's not such a bad thing to have at least a few things on the overland where a group is desired in an MMO, no?

Yes. It is because then the content doesn't get done after the first months. Abandoned content doesn't help anyone.

Well, as I said in my initial post - I wouldn't oppose adding some tools to help players form groups for these activities. That's a better solution I think then to get rid of the tiny amount of group activities that are still left in the overland on this game.

In the meantime you might want to try asking in zone or guild chat. It's not unusual for people to come help.

They will help for maybe as long as it takes to do a daily. They will not help you farm. It is unusual for people to help, especially during off hours. That's what the phrase abandoned means.

Nobody.is.doing.this.content

I still kill Dragons on occasion and usually find help when I do. Not always. But usually. So we'll have to agree to disagree about no one else doing it. But who knows, maybe I just got lucky.

Anyway, the new set collection system may help bring more players into the older areas so this may get better soon. Maybe we can agree that adding some new tools to help players find groups for these activities would be a good thing. But I would really hate to see Harrow Storms and Dragons get nerfed (especially Dragons) because I really enjoy those.

rrimöykk wrote: »

That's why most who want a challenge run trial hardmodes which are the only content worth it.

For you.

those of us with the reactions of a 66 yr old and who get enough of an adrenaline rush from putting their socks on in the morning find plenty of adventure in a random normal thanks

rrimöykk wrote: »

Literally harrowstorms are the only content that can't be soloed so far and you want to nerf them too? C'mon, this game is easy enough as it is. That's why most who want a challenge run trial hardmodes which are the only content worth it.

This is by farm the most single player friendly mmorpg ever.

When I want challenging content I do vet trials, arenas, dlc dungeons.

The only new casual content is quests for the past 2 years. That's not casual friendly.

Nairinhe wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xTAKISx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

alenae1b14_ESO wrote: »

Is this a joke?

No. This content legit gets abandoned. People who want real difficulty don't do Overland and people who want casual content don't do trials. Instead of trying to force the issue, which is obviously not working, they should leave casual content to casuals. So that all of it has a healthy population. Instead of a ghost zone and little hope of farming

I don't think their intent is to punish casuals, ESO is the most casual mmo out there today. Zone bosses have to be hard so that people have to group up, hence M...M...O. If not this would be just another Elder Scrolls RPG.

Except casual players do have to group up for geysers and do have to group for the other worldbosses. This game got by for years on content of that difficulty in the overland zone, and it didn't stop people from raiding, pvp, etc in groups.

An MMO doesn't mean that there is no soloable content. I can't name any other that I have played that had zero soloable content. So it's genre isn't a reason for it to be that way.

Problem with WB/HS/dragons/geysers - why they get abandoned - isn't that they are difficult, it's that they aren't rewarding and nobody wants to do them unless there's some special event loot.

As for soloable-ness - where's the balance? How do you make same WB fun for a bunch of max levels and a solo lvl 7 no CP char? How much dynamic scaling needs to be slapped on it for a case where bunch of max levels joins a lvl 7 on a WB in progress?

If they are that rewarding everyone would be doing them, and then the market would crash, and then they'd go back to being unrewarding. There's no way to stop leeching in world content. Nor should there be.

With instanced content, it retains it's value because less people can participate.

This is why overland content is generally designed for casuals and instanced content like raids are designed for hardcore players.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

rrimöykk wrote: »

Literally harrowstorms are the only content that can't be soloed so far and you want to nerf them too? C'mon, this game is easy enough as it is. That's why most who want a challenge run trial hardmodes which are the only content worth it.

This is by farm the most single player friendly mmorpg ever.

When I want challenging content I do vet trials, arenas, dlc dungeons.

The only new casual content is quests for the past 2 years. That's not casual friendly.

Assuming you have a group of 5-6 players and want to somewhat challenging content, what do you do?
Dragons and Harrowstorms are pretty much the only thing you can do.

PvP, Vet Trials, lose a player and go do vet dungeons and get skins

So you group up for other content but want overland nerfed? I know NA is down for maintenance but do you have to troll to get entertainment.

Just my 2 drakes.
Yes, I have played since closed beta. Yes I have over 1300CP. Yes I can solo dolmans, FG1 and a few others, etc.
No I haven't finished vMA. No I cant solo dragons, world bosses in the last 4 new chapters and other "group content".
That's ok. Yes, the new content is hard, because there are players better than me that CAN solo that stuff I said and need a challenge. I get that.

But, yea, Harrowstorms.... Dragons were and still are a pain even with a group.

This isn't an issue with old content becoming irrelevant just because new content came out, it's an issue with old content becoming irrelevant because it offers next to nothing to make it relevant in the first place.

Group content like this requires a large commitment in terms of time, effort and coordination, players won't bother doing the content if there's nothing there to justify the commitment they have to make. Achievements that are nothing except a "well done!" phrase with some useless score attached to it is not enough, jewelry pieces from sets exclusive to that zone is not enough once players have collected everything they need.

Players need an actual reason to go back and do old content, especially when that content asks so much of them. Add way more collectibles to the loot table, increase the amount and quality of drops so that running the content has a decent gold return, do something so that players are rewarded for running the content, especially since it's group content.

GW2 has content that's several years old at this point, that is still actively ran today. The Silverwastes RIBA meta, the Auric Basin Octovine meta, the Tequatl world boss fight, the Triple Trouble world boss fight, all of them are several years old (Silverwastes came mid Q4 2014, Auric Basin came early Q4 2015, Tequatl came late Q3 2013, Triple Trouble came early-mid Q1 2014) and yet they're still actively run.

Why? Well, the Silverwastes RIBA meta is a very lucrative gold farm (a little behind latest content, but by far the best of all base game content), same with the Auric Basin Octovine meta, Tequatl gives an easy daily gold farm per character with a decent amount of loot, and Triple Trouble gives a lot of loot and has a ton of achievements associated with it, on top of being the hardest world boss in the base game (arguably the entire game, since if you fail it, you can't redo it, unlike others).

ESO could do the same for older content. Dolmens could have the difficulty scale a lot higher with numbers, meaning the more people are around the harder it becomes, and loot could also be scaled to encourage grouping. Geysers and Harrowstorms could be a harder but more lucrative alternative to dolmens, with Harrowstorms being the hardest and Geysers being in the middle. Dragons could be distinctly group events, where you need a small group at minimum, mid sized group preferably, again with difficulty and loot scaling up the more people are around. Loot could also be overhauled for all, granting more gear, more materials, and maybe chances at unique items for clearing them, not only turning them into a decent gold farm, but also a collectible farm.

Can guarantee you'd see more groups running through older content that way, especially if you tie it to a daily system. People would actually have a reason to go back and do older content.

We have to remember that ESO is primarily a TES game and the majority of TES games are solo. So you are going to have a lot of players that come from single player TES expecting a single player experience but with lots of other people around. I think ZOS does a really good job of providing various levels of difficulty for content that can be done solo.

For the other content, there are alternatives to doing them solo as mentioned above. Form your own groups, make friends, join guilds that do this content on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.

As for nerfing, let's take a look at Craglorn. When launched it was populated and casuals complained because it couldn't be done solo. However, there were plenty of people playing the content at the time that you could group with. When new content was released, the area was pretty much abandoned. ZOS saw this and took action so that the content became relevant again by making it solo-able.

Could ZOS do something similar with Dragons and Harrowstorms in the future? Certainly if they felt the content was being abandoned to the point that no one was playing in the zone. There's no point in having difficult overland content if no one is using it.

I've soloed harrow storms before but it's tedious for sure, regardless it's not difficult content, it's catered towards group play.
That being said scaling these would be fine IMHO.
If I had my way I'd just get rid of them, they don't really make sense.
Anchors for example: I've beat Molag Bal, shut down the great anchor an all that and they're still as active as before, it's like my actions have 0 consequences.

Tabbycat wrote: »

We have to remember that ESO is primarily a TES game and the majority of TES games are solo. So you are going to have a lot of players that come from single player TES expecting a single player experience but with lots of other people around. I think ZOS does a really good job of providing various levels of difficulty for content that can be done solo.

For the other content, there are alternatives to doing them solo as mentioned above. Form your own groups, make friends, join guilds that do this content on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.

As for nerfing, let's take a look at Craglorn. When launched it was populated and casuals complained because it couldn't be done solo. However, there were plenty of people playing the content at the time that you could group with. When new content was released, the area was pretty much abandoned. ZOS saw this and took action so that the content became relevant again by making it solo-able.

Could ZOS do something similar with Dragons and Harrowstorms in the future? Certainly if they felt the content was being abandoned to the point that no one was playing in the zone. There's no point in having difficult overland content if no one is using it.

The problem with this is that Craglorn is not a major story arc, most people there now are grinders that are sick of the Auridon/Alik'r dolmen grind. Because of the story people will still be around it's just that the Dragons are not required to continue the story which is a good thing.