Enough with Overland content that's difficult to do alone/small group

purple-magicb16_ESO · October 2020

Harrowstorms are brutal if you don't have enough players, yes. Enemies are allowed to spam stun and hit outside their red zones, not that that would make a difference anyway because at some point, the entire field gets filled with red circles. Take this with a lack of decent response time for player skills and it becomes very challenging, maybe even frustrating with only a few players. Oh yeah, don't forget the one-shots.

Overland like this should scale down to 4-player when there are less players, otherwise it will get like the dragons where no one will do them because there's not enough players in zone to help. Content goes unplayed for hours, maybe even the whole day. That's not good for business, but I'm still curious, let's see what happens when the event ends.

On the other side of it, the faster a player kills enemies, the faster they could spawn, scaling up for the stronger players who want a challenge.

Chelos · October 2020

Ok, I am no fan of this type of comment, but if overland content is too hard for you you definitely need to learn about the geme mechanics.

Sorry but especially if you managed to get to max level and have the CP for your twinks available overland content gets pretty easy.
You can do the anchors solo without CP, a lot of the overland bosses are soloable with CP, some few even without.

HarrowStorms and Dragons just should not be soloable, there has to be something thats impressive and beyond a single players scope.

It's a very sad attitude to want to make an MMO all soloable, why then play an MMO in the first place?

dazee · October 2020

Not cool or constructive, I think people who use hateful language should not be in OUR community. I hope you get the help you need friend.

[snip]

It's a very sad attitude to want to make an MMO all soloable, why then play an MMO in the first place?

it is this kind of attitude that is destructive. Not everyone plays MMOs becuase they want to be forced to group all the time.

Imagine that! People don't want to be forced to do things! amazing! Not everyone plays MMOs for the multiplayer aspect.. if you have difficulty understanding this at least don't demand changes to suit your own tastes, as it will only hurt others.

[Edited to remove reference to removed content]

eKsDee · October 2020

Chelos wrote: »

Ok, I am no fan of this type of comment, but if overland content is too hard for you you definitely need to learn about the geme mechanics.

Sorry but especially if you managed to get to max level and have the CP for your twinks available overland content gets pretty easy.
You can do the anchors solo without CP, a lot of the overland bosses are soloable with CP, some few even without.

HarrowStorms and Dragons just should not be soloable, there has to be something thats impressive and beyond a single players scope.

It's a very sad attitude to want to make an MMO all soloable, why then play an MMO in the first place?

I feel that a lot of the time it's someone who's primarily here for the Elder Scrolls part of Elder Scrolls Online, not the Online part. They're here because it's the latest game under the TES umbrella (that isn't a *** mobile game), and they don't care about the fact that it's an MMO.

I think it's fine if you want to play it as such, but since it is your choice to play it as such, you should be the one dealing with the fact that you're trying to do so in an MMO, not Zenimax. The game shouldn't be dumbed down and made exceedingly solo-friendly to appease the people who are wanting it to be a traditional TES game, it should be on them to adapt.

eKsDee · October 2020

dazee wrote: »

Not cool or constructive, I think people who use hateful language should not be in OUR community. I hope you get the help you need friend.

[snip]

It's a very sad attitude to want to make an MMO all soloable, why then play an MMO in the first place?

it is this kind of attitude that is destructive. Not everyone plays MMOs becuase they want to be forced to group all the time.

Imagine that! People don't want to be forced to do things! amazing! Not everyone plays MMOs for the multiplayer aspect.. if you have difficulty understanding this at least don't demand changes to suit your own tastes, as it will only hurt others.

They came into a massively multiplayer game, not wanting to play it for the multiplayer aspect, it should be on them to deal with that. Not to mention, they are also demanding changes to suit their own tastes, going against the very genre of this game. If they want to play a single player RPG, they should go play a single player RPG, not demand that an MMORPG be bent into some weird single player "MMO" hybrid.

dazee · October 2020

The game began to be dumbed down BECAUSE of the people demanding it be made more like a vanilla MMO. Ever since One Tamriel vastly improved the game, the dumbest players have been demanding it be changed to be more like WoW or the like.

Truly baffling since those other mmos do that mmo thing way better than ESO with far less bugs. why not play those and leave the elder scrolls fans alone and not demand that ESO be made vanilla and unremarkable- and with all the bugs objectively inferior to other mmos?

RodneyRegis · October 2020

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.

Really? Skyrim is 9 years old and ESO is 6 years old. I don't think there are many TES fans joining ESO now expecting a TES game.

SickDuck · October 2020

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SickDuck wrote: »

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.

No. You can't argue with the same logic to nerf trials. Trials aren't abandoned content and are working because they are designed for the people who play them. I would appreciate it if you don't put words in my mouth.

I guess HS, dragons and WBs are content designed for the people who play them too. If people do not play them that's not necessarily the fault of being group content but the reward. I can accept some changes would be welcome on some of these events, but not on the difficulty. We are still talking about 1% of the overland content, which may cause a mild inconvenience that sometimes it takes some time to find other people to do it. No thank you, I don't want baby dragons. Hell, I liked dolmens more when they were much harder to solo - go to Alik'r Desert and see how much fun they are now.

Also, bare in mind that lot of the current, solo overland content is abandoned too. ESO managed to recycle many of the neglected content by adding them to dailies or events. So again, the issue is not the difficulty but the lack of interest.

dazee · October 2020

RodneyRegis wrote: »

[
Really? Skyrim is 9 years old and ESO is 6 years old. I don't think there are many TES fans joining ESO now expecting a TES game.

Even if true, that's no argument for making ESO like all the other vanilla flavor MMOs. ESO will -never- be as good at that as they are and people need to stop demanding it try. All that accomplishes is the game losing players steadily to the games that actually do that crap well- without bugs everywhere you look.

How about we accept that ESO should embrace its actual strengths, the freedom to play how you want- or at least more how you want than most games.

The reason were losing that ability is due to the demands of folks who want ESO to be like every other mmo. They are as much to blame or more for the games decline as ZOS.

I hope ZOS continues to never listen if this is the kind of suggestions they'd be listening to. ESO needs to stay unique or die.

Amarthiul · October 2020

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It's a nightmare. Please stop with content like Harrowstorms and Dragons, instead scale the content difficulty based on who is using it .

I'd be ok with that. No-one seems to do Northern Elsweyr dragons any more, aside from the one in the top of the map. Makes the 3 dragons daily take ages. You can see something similar happening with Harrowstorms when the next chapter comes out.

Another alternative might be to have some 'double drop' weeks every once in a while - not a proper event with tickets and items to collect, but double rewards from dailies, bosses, resource nodes etc. That would give more life to the older DLC zones without making people feel burnt out on event tickets / limited time items.

Rex-Umbra · October 2020

Omg this is serious? Overland is stupidly pointless every thing dies 100 or less damage a hit if it lives long ebough to hit you.

eKsDee · October 2020

dazee wrote: »

The game began to be dumbed down BECAUSE of the people demanding it be made more like a vanilla MMO. Ever since One Tamriel vastly improved the game, the dumbest players have been demanding it be changed to be more like WoW or the like.

Truly baffling since those other mmos do that mmo thing way better than ESO with far less bugs. why not play those and leave the elder scrolls fans alone and not demand that ESO be made vanilla and unremarkable- and with all the bugs objectively inferior to other mmos?

People have been asking for difficulty to come back to overland, not for it to go back to the way it was before. The way it is now, it's literally designed for absolute beginners, despite the fact that it could absolutely be a tangible part of the end game experience, for everyone.

Guild Wars 2 proves that, arguably being the second most casual friendly MMO on the market behind ESO, as its overland is designed to be accessible for everyone, and yet everyone participates in it, even veterans. GW2 overland is arguably the end game content of GW2, while still being accessible for everyone.

In this very thread, people have outright said they don't want it to become a clone of yet another MMO. They just want it to break out of the "everything is ultra easy solo mode, except the huge minority of instanced content" mould it's currently in. ESO could easily etch out its own identity in MMO's, without steering away from being an MMO, as it currently is.

ESO also launched like a vanilla MMO, so it absolutely is the other way 'round. The people driving ESO early on came from DAoC, and designed ESO to mirror DAoC. It's why we have a three-faction Cyrodiil, and why, on release, Cyrodiil was the only content beyond overland and basic dungeons. It was the end game of ESO back on launch, trials came later.

So yes, those wanting a single player RPG experience were the ones who caused the game to become dumbed down. Zenimax moved away from PvP as the end game because those who expected "Skyrim, but online" and stayed with ESO hated it, Zenimax moved away from a traditionally leveled and more towards an ultra easy solo mode everywhere for the same reason, Zenimax dumbed combat down to the point where proc sets are now king, for the same reason.

And yes, I know this won't ever changed. The "Skyrim, but online" crowd has been catered to so much over the 6 years that ESO has been around for, that they're now undoubtedly the #1 source of ESO's income, so Zenimax would absolutely been shooting themselves in the foot if they changed. Still, can't fault me for trying.

dazee · October 2020

People have been asking for difficulty to come back to overland, not for it to go back to the way it was before. The way it is now, it's literally designed for absolute beginners, despite the fact that it could absolutely be a tangible part of the end game experience, for everyone.

Guild Wars 2 proves that, arguably being the second most casual friendly MMO on the market behind ESO, as its overland is designed to be accessible for everyone, and yet everyone participates in it, even veterans. GW2 overland is arguably the end game content of GW2, while still being accessible for everyone.

OK I agree with you there, but as things stand right now you can't apply the logic which works for GW2 to ESO at all.

ESO will need some major changes to make that work.

I've played GW2 at level 80, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire maps, and I gotta say I both love and hate HoT maps, but the reasons I hate it are largely negated when I am in a group- and it is SO MUCH EASIER to find a group on HoT maps despite it being almost 2 expansions old.

Until ESO can say the same for its older overworld content and grouping becomes much easier for it, it can't do the same.

First step would be a group finder tool similar to FF14's party finder, people post ads, set their own expectations, people see the ad and join up.

Omg this is serious? Overland is stupidly pointless every thing dies 100 or less damage a hit if it lives long ebough to hit you.

[snip]

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

etchedpixels · October 2020

RodneyRegis wrote: »

eally? Skyrim is 9 years old and ESO is 6 years old. I don't think there are many TES fans joining ESO now expecting a TES game.

Quite a lot of the people I know and see are doing exactly that. They've come to ESO to play it like Skyrim because they've now realised they have another decade (or two) to wait for the next Skyrim. Sure - they may go on to other stuff and join guilds aimed at solo players to do some of the group content later.

You don't need to do any of the group content for the storyline and for the solo play. You can completely ignore all the farming stuff by just buying the odd materials you need on a guild store instead of from a blacksmith as in Skyrim. Some of the public dungeons add to the storyline a bit as do some of the group dungeons but generally not very much, and even then you need to do it with a group who will do the quests and take their time not a bunch of speedrunners or wait until you've mastered the game a bit and gotten to CP160 at which point a fair number of them are soloable.

World bosses and events don't really have any direct story relevance although some fit into the story (dragons, dolmens, geysrs notably) so don't really matter for that kind of play.

There are plenty of solo oriented guilds who just get together now and then for group stuff to do the storylines etc.

spartaxoxo · October 2020

Chelos wrote: »

Ok, I am no fan of this type of comment, but if overland content is too hard for you you definitely need to learn about the geme mechanics.

Sorry but especially if you managed to get to max level and have the CP for your twinks available overland content gets pretty easy.
You can do the anchors solo without CP, a lot of the overland bosses are soloable with CP, some few even without.

HarrowStorms and Dragons just should not be soloable, there has to be something thats impressive and beyond a single players scope.

It's a very sad attitude to want to make an MMO all soloable, why then play an MMO in the first place?

Where did I state that I cannot solo other Overland content or ask for ALL content to be soloable? Why do people keep just making things up that I said?

spartaxoxo · October 2020

SickDuck wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SickDuck wrote: »

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.

No. You can't argue with the same logic to nerf trials. Trials aren't abandoned content and are working because they are designed for the people who play them. I would appreciate it if you don't put words in my mouth.

I guess HS, dragons and WBs are content designed for the people who play them too. If people do not play them that's not necessarily the fault of being group content but the reward. I can accept some changes would be welcome on some of these events, but not on the difficulty. We are still talking about 1% of the overland content, which may cause a mild inconvenience that sometimes it takes some time to find other people to do it. No thank you, I don't want baby dragons. Hell, I liked dolmens more when they were much harder to solo - go to Alik'r Desert and see how much fun they are now.

Also, bare in mind that lot of the current, solo overland content is abandoned too. ESO managed to recycle many of the neglected content by adding them to dailies or events. So again, the issue is not the difficulty but the lack of interest.

All of the new repeatable overland content has been made for people who don't even actually play it for the last 2 years. Can we stop acting like the base game content is new?

eKsDee · October 2020

dazee wrote: »

People have been asking for difficulty to come back to overland, not for it to go back to the way it was before. The way it is now, it's literally designed for absolute beginners, despite the fact that it could absolutely be a tangible part of the end game experience, for everyone.

Guild Wars 2 proves that, arguably being the second most casual friendly MMO on the market behind ESO, as its overland is designed to be accessible for everyone, and yet everyone participates in it, even veterans. GW2 overland is arguably the end game content of GW2, while still being accessible for everyone.

OK I agree with you there, but as things stand right now you can't apply the logic which works for GW2 to ESO at all.

ESO will need some major changes to make that work.

I've played GW2 at level 80, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire maps, and I gotta say I both love and hate HoT maps, but the reasons I hate it are largely negated when I am in a group- and it is SO MUCH EASIER to find a group on HoT maps despite it being almost 2 expansions old.

Until ESO can say the same for its older overworld content and grouping becomes much easier for it, it can't do the same.

First step would be a group finder tool similar to FF14's party finder, people post ads, set their own expectations, people see the ad and join up.

Omg this is serious? Overland is stupidly pointless every thing dies 100 or less damage a hit if it lives long ebough to hit you.

Try playing more than a couple hours, and go try to solo a dragon and a harrowstorm.

This is literally what people have been asking for. They've been asking for an overhaul of group content in overland, to bring enough groups back into zones to be able to move to something like GW2, with an ESO spin on it.

As I said in my first reply to this thread, the reason why old content is dead is simply because there's not enough rewards given to make the content worth running.

The entire reason why GW2 has so many groups on older maps is because, despite being 4-5 years old, these maps give a lot of loot, enough to keep up with even the latest Living World maps, which are the best gold farms in the game right now.

According to this website, the Drizzlewood 2x South meta (Drizzlewood North and South are the 2 latest Living World maps) averages out to around 32 gold per hour, when converting the spirit shards (basically XP, you get 1 spirit shard every time you level up once you hit the level cap) you earned into gold.

Dragonfall, which is around a year and a half old now, is just over half a gold behind Drizzlewood when converting spirit shards, if you haven't gotten any daily chests (ie if Dragonfall isn't the Living World Season 4 daily map). If you have gotten daily chests, it actually pulls ahead of Drizzlewood by just under 2 gold.

Auric Basin (specifically the Tarir meta event), which came with Heart of Thorns just under 5 years ago, again pulls ahead of Drizzlewood with spirit shards, but is a bit behind Dragonfall with spirit shards and daily chests.

Silverwastes, which is a base game map that came around 6 years ago, is around 9 gold behind Drizzlewood when converting spirit shards, but for a base game map that's not too bad, and it's a lot faster than the others, being completed in half the time.

Those aren't the only gold farms, there's at least a dozen others listed there, but these are the 4 most common ones you'll see, and they range from brand spanking new content (Drizzlewood), to content that wasn't released that long ago (Dragonfall), to content released years ago (Auric Basin & Silverwastes).

Zenimax could do something similar for ESO. They could beef up dolmens, geysers, harrowstorms and dragons, both in terms of loot and difficulty (both scaling with the amount of players), enough to make them fairly lucrative gold farms (maybe with unique collectibles for each zone in the case of dolmens, to encourage spreading of groups), and I can guarantee you'll see more players doing them.

Give players a reason to run the content, and they'll run it. It's that simple.

spartaxoxo · October 2020

xTAKISx wrote: »

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.

Yes. Overland content is meant to be done with randoms. It's supposed to be things that people who happen to be in the zone do to work together.

If they aren't doing it, that's a problem. It doesn't take hours to get a group together for literally any other content, because the other content caters to the people who will continously do it.

Olauron · October 2020

MMO has nothing to do with playing in groups. At all. You can remove all the group content from the game and it will still be MMO, because there are other players, you see them in towns and you can trade with them directly or in guild stores.

You should also keep in mind that developers when creating ESO didn't even called it MMO. They called it Elder Scrolls Online, because it is a game aimed at Elder Scrolls players with the ability to interact with other players. Ability doesn't mean necessity.

spartaxoxo · October 2020

Olauron wrote: »

MMO has nothing to do with playing in groups. At all. You can remove all the group content from the game and it will still be MMO, because there are other players, you see them in towns and you can trade with them directly or in guild stores.

You should also keep in mind that developers when creating ESO didn't even called it MMO. They called it Elder Scrolls Online, because it is a game aimed at Elder Scrolls players with the ability to interact with other players. Ability doesn't mean necessity.

Not to mention in most MMOs that I have played, the Overland stuff is fairly easy. Either because lots of people will always be running it, or because it can all be soloed.

Then the next tier up is the dungeons and stuff. And the endgame raids and PVP are the true endgame and the ultimate challenge.

This game had a similar curve that worked well Overland > dungeons > trials, until they decided to cater to the people who wanted Overland to be harder because they didn't want to do dungeons and trials.

And guess what? It turns out there wasn't a lot of them. Because the VAST VAST majority of those players are gonna do dungeons and trials for their difficult content.

And so now your left with content that doesn't work for anybody except people who want things to be dead and difficult for hours upon hours on the off chance they decide to do a difficult Overland thing that week with their guildies for 1-2 hours.

eKsDee · October 2020

Olauron wrote: »

MMO has nothing to do with playing in groups. At all. You can remove all the group content from the game and it will still be MMO, because there are other players, you see them in towns and you can trade with them directly or in guild stores.

You should also keep in mind that developers when creating ESO didn't even called it MMO. They called it Elder Scrolls Online, because it is a game aimed at Elder Scrolls players with the ability to interact with other players. Ability doesn't mean necessity.

See, you say that, but then you go back and look at how the game was originally designed, what with traditionally leveled zones, alliance-v-alliance PvP being the end game, next to no actual TES features, and it distinctly looks like your typical MMO, just set in the TES universe. Hell, a lot of the people originally driving ESO came from DAoC, and literally designed the game to mirror DAoC in terms of how the PvP worked and how the PvP was the end game content.

It only started truly moving towards the TES-friendly design that we see today when it was clear that people didn't want an MMO, just set in the TES universe, they wanted a TES game they could play with their friends. And so we saw the move away from PvP and the shift of PvP being put on the backburner, we saw the introduction of actual TES features like the justice system, we saw the removal of traditionally leveled zones, and we saw overland drastically shift towards a story-driven format, with challenge taking a backseat.

It didn't start out like that, it became that. What the developers say doesn't matter, when the gameplay reflects something entirely different, and launch ESO gameplay did. If it was meant to be "TES, but online", it wouldn't even have PvP, at least not like we have it now. It has PvP like we have now, because the devs were trying to mirror DAoC, because that's what the people in charge came from.

dazee · October 2020

This is literally what people have been asking for. They've been asking for an overhaul of group content in overland, to bring enough groups back into zones to be able to move to something like GW2, with an ESO spin on it.

I'm all for that but first we need the tools in place to make it possible for it to succeed in ESO like it does in GW2.

PrimusNephilim · October 2020

Was farming Dragons in Southern Elyswer for leads this past weekend, wiped several times and took roughly 25 minutes to bring one down and I wouldn't change a thing.

Took a look at the map and saw two small groups trying to bring down dragons in two separate locations, players should be checking their maps to see where the action is and consolidate their efforts....other words....teamwork. I know this is a difficult subject for some when it comes gaming but its a reality in certain situations. BTW, after 3 hours of this, the lead dropped

PN

vgabor · October 2020

Nairinhe wrote: »

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.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

The reward does not have to be something high value just something the people actually want. An example - especially with the coming reconstruction - adding one guaranteed green transmutation geode (with small chance for occasional higher quality) to the dragons loot I'm pretty sure would make people start doing them in higher number...

Olauron · October 2020

eKsDee wrote: »

It didn't start out like that, it became that. What the developers say doesn't matter, when the gameplay reflects something entirely different, and launch ESO gameplay did. If it was meant to be "TES, but online", it wouldn't even have PvP, at least not like we have it now. It has PvP like we have now, because the devs were trying to mirror DAoC, because that's what the people in charge came from.

No idea where did you get that ESO didn't start as story-driven game. Main quest has always been solo only. Guild quests have always been solo only. Alliance zone quests were soloable with the ability to get help from other players. There were 21 zones for doing story with fully voiced dialogues. PVP as a possible end game could be ignored completely and was ignored completely by a huge number of players.

The thing is, for players from single-player games there is no need for end game. ZOS acknowledged it and implemented the expansion pack approach (called DLCs and then Chapters).

Yes, zones were levelled. So what? Zones in TES 3: Morrowind were levelled too. There was nothing in the design at launch that would be in conflict with the design of single-player games (except having other players in zones and extra fast respawn of enemies).

Irfind · October 2020

Or Zos could implement new quest for WB, Dragons and HS (rotating like the dungeons?)

The rewards would be geodes, with the new sticker book people want them anyways. In the end more players would do older content.

spartaxoxo · October 2020

vgabor wrote: »

Nairinhe wrote: »

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.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

The reward does not have to be something high value just something the people actually want. An example - especially with the coming reconstruction - adding one guaranteed green transmutation geode (with small chance for occasional higher quality) to the dragons loot I'm pretty sure would make people start doing them in higher number...

Maybe that would work since transmutes can't be sold. I still think an item based approach will not work. There are valuable furniture recipes and alchemy ingredients in these already.

But whatever it is, I just want there to be steady traffic. This idea that overland should have content that you can't link up with overland players and just do is absurd to me.

Xiomaro · October 2020

I think when people are asking for more challenging overland content, they're not necessarily meaning more group content. I totally get your argument about older group content being hard to run because people aren't interested anymore.

However, what I would like to see (and I'm sure there are others) is more challenging solo content. And to be fair, there is a new solo arena coming in the next DLC. But that's not overland content.

The problem is that overland solo content is so easy that you could have completely mismatching gear at CP 160 and still have no issues doing everything. So if you do have semi-appropriate gear, and we're talking greens/blues here, overland content is a complete face roll. ESO has really cool mechanics like dodge roll, block, interrupt etc but you can completely ignore all of these mechanics in overland content and get on just fine. The only way to get any semblance of challenge as a purple/gold geared character is to solo DLC world bosses. So I guess we have that, at least!

So to reiterate - people who want harder overland content aren't necessarily asking for more dragon-like content. They're asking for solo-able content that requires you to make use of all of ESO's mechanics to be successful.

spartaxoxo · October 2020

Xiomaro wrote: »

I think when people are asking for more challenging overland content, they're not necessarily meaning more group content. I totally get your argument about older group content being hard to run because people aren't interested anymore.

I think they are if the offended reactions to the idea that dragons and harrowstorms should scale to a solo difficulty if only one person is attacking them is to go by.

If something is semi-challenging (until they learn mechanics than easier) for one player geared to the nines, 2-3 casuals can do it. And that's a small enough amount that you'd probably have people doing it all the time.

To prevent an Alikr Doleman situation, just have the content scale up with more difficulty. Have the boss start spawning mini-bosses or something if 5+ people are there or something like that.

SickDuck · October 2020

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SickDuck wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SickDuck wrote: »

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.

No. You can't argue with the same logic to nerf trials. Trials aren't abandoned content and are working because they are designed for the people who play them. I would appreciate it if you don't put words in my mouth.

I guess HS, dragons and WBs are content designed for the people who play them too. If people do not play them that's not necessarily the fault of being group content but the reward. I can accept some changes would be welcome on some of these events, but not on the difficulty. We are still talking about 1% of the overland content, which may cause a mild inconvenience that sometimes it takes some time to find other people to do it. No thank you, I don't want baby dragons. Hell, I liked dolmens more when they were much harder to solo - go to Alik'r Desert and see how much fun they are now.

Also, bare in mind that lot of the current, solo overland content is abandoned too. ESO managed to recycle many of the neglected content by adding them to dailies or events. So again, the issue is not the difficulty but the lack of interest.

All of the new repeatable overland content has been made for people who don't even actually play it for the last 2 years. Can we stop acting like the base game content is new?

Sure, and there is an excuse or reason for everything. It is an MMO and others already wittingly pointed out the second 'M' standing for multiplayer. I would like to point out the first 'M' standing for Massive. ESO is massive and if you can't find enough content to enjoy then [snip]

[Edited to remove Bating]