Rudrani wrote: »

I realized that the quests are REALLY cool.
...
The next thing I realized is...

You have realized some things, but you have failed to realize the main thing: this is not a MMO, this is Elder Scrolls Online. The huge percent of players is here for solo overland quests and quests only.

You can remove dungeons and trials, and I will not care at all (maybe I would even pay fot it). You remove overland quests, and this game is not worth playing any more.

I wouldn't mind if they put in a mechanism ( I've suggested food and drink that lowers instead of raises stats) that made overland more difficult. No better rewards though. Having a good fight should be reward enough.

Vet zones are probably not a good idea. The world needs to feel populated and splitting the population might cause more seemingly empty zones.

Those conclusions seem a bit biased.

Rudrani wrote: »

1. there is a social element completely absent in other TES games.
2. we aren't getting immersed at our own pace in things, we are playing with other people at THEIR speed
3. you have to keep us subscribed, which means you have to focus on REPEATABLE content.

1) Yes, that's the main purpose of "Online" games.
2) That is completely up to you. Nothing prevents you to have a solo session, and take it at your own pace, or group up with friends and tell them which pace you want.
3) ZoS won't make much money out content you may repeat infinitely. There are plenty of repeatable content though, and that includes quest givers in each zone.

Rudrani wrote: »

1. A certain percentage of players never even play a very large percentage of that content
2. And even those who do play it, would very rarely play it more than once.
3. A player interested in being OP literally has almost zero reason to touch any of that content (the rewards are junk, and the difficulty level is hysterical)

1) Yes, but that's true in general for all RPGs. Many Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind players never even went through the main quest, and that was not a problem AFAIK.
2) At that point, I'd like to ask how many you think/mean exactly. ESO players are known to make alt characters, many RP around, so there is a large number of players going through main/non-repeatable quests with several characters. IDK how many 100% clear ESO's quests whith each character, but we are clearly not in the "one-time go and never go back" scenario you seem to describe.
3) That is an online game, with efforts towards some kind of balance. Being OP is against the game's logic, and if you happen to get something truly OP, it will very likely be nerfed at some point. So indeed, a player interested in being OP will litterally have troubles sooner or later. A player interested in having a consistent build will have to go through various dungeons, overland content and other activities to level up, gather gear and collect upgrade materials. With dedicated drops, you may focus on some specific part of the world, but for xp and materials, you can go anywhere. On top of that, you do have to go everywhere to collect skill points, with each character.

So,
- Asking ZoS to focus on repeatable content may be a good idea, but that's counterproductive for ZoS' profit.
- Asking ZoS to overhaul the full overland content to dungeons and trials difficulty and rewards would probably be counterproductive for ESO's players, as we would struggle to group up (see how long it takes to group up for a limited list of dungeons ? Imagine how things would turn if people have to group for everything ?)

Also,
As stated in your title, you're not able to do dungeons ? Most dungeons are completely soloable for veteran players, and some mechanics only require 2 players to go through the dungeon. Indeed, overland difficulty is a bit low, but that could be fixed with enemies scaling to player level, no need to add a separate instance on each zone.

It seems you have (or had, until you started actually doing overland quests) a very restrictive view of what ESO is, and a biased opinion of what player community as a whole do in the game. IMO, you should probably step out of your usual comfort zone and see for yourself all aspects of ESO before jumping to conclusions and asking ZoS to change focus.

I would bet the vast majority of the actual ESO players (not the forum players) do overland quests a lot more frequently than dungeons/trials.

There is a very obvious explanation why ESO is still growing and adding players while the endgame performance (both PvE and PvP) has been going downhill for years: people that do those content are a likely a minority.

I've came to know a handful of players that have never set foot inside of a trial. Tried maybe 1 or 2 dungeons. Never really went to Cyrodiil or Imperial City. And still have thousand of hours invested in the game.

I think ZOS knows this by now. They won't really focus on endgame PvE or PvP because this would affect only a small percentage of the actual playerbase (again, not just players that frequent the forums).

ESO is becoming more and more a casual game. This trend has been happening for years now.

lol. They should reverse their priorities for a smaller portion of the playerbase because you discovered you were missing out on content by ignoring said content? And not only should they put that energy into repeatable content but content that regularly gets ignored because everyone is in a rush for the rewards.....

Dungeon characters and stories are underappreciated now because it's rare to take the time to experience them.

amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »

Olauron wrote: »

Rudrani wrote: »

I realized that the quests are REALLY cool.
...
The next thing I realized is...

You have realized some things, but you have failed to realize the main thing: this is not a MMO, this is Elder Scrolls Online. The huge percent of players is here for solo overland quests and quests only.

You can remove dungeons and trials, and I will not care at all (maybe I would even pay fot it). You remove overland quests, and this game is not worth playing any more.

I am the opposite.

As a huge fan of the mainline TES games (Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are my 3 favorite games of all time), the solo overland questing content in ESO is so mundane, tedious, and boring. I actively despise it, and it drove me away from the game for quite awhile until I came back and discovered dungeons, and then came back again and discovered trials.

I love that people are enjoying the overland content, and I certainly want it to be there for them to enjoy, but if this game's overland content was all it had, I would have been done with it after 2 weeks.

I like the quests, but once you know the basics about the game, they become way too easy.

And it is not that i want a challenge, but to follow a story line, you end up spending 90% of your time in dialogs and 10% actually doing stuff because everything dies so easily. To me, it feels more like an interactive movie than a game. I end up abandoning a lot of quests midway because of that.

When you are doing overland content you are free to do it as you please.

Want to charge through and get your skill points and move on - go right ahead.

Listen to all the npc dialogue at each step, also a valid way to play. Most of the npc's standing around have extra things to say, not just those with arrows above their heads.

Stop and take screenshots every time you turn a corner - also acceptable.

Want to play a non-meta build, go ahead, some content might actually be a challenge.

All of those need to have depth, for the sake of the story, for replayability - alts are a thing in this game, you aren't playing as Geralt etc and because they form the basis of why other content is nearby in 4 or more player dungeons.

In that group content, the 1st time you encounter it is probably not going to be the 1st time for everyone else, unless you are exclusively progressing as a guild etc. Anything that slows people down, e.g. extended monologues gets more tedious each time you run that dungeon. Putting more time into that side of dungeons is not a good investment, unless they are going to include a storymode option so you know why there are 4 minibosses and a local warlord at this location.

Masses of recorded speech isn't going to impress people trying for veteran and hardmode achievements. Waiting around for example WOW's Ragnaros speech every time you ran MC didn't really improve the final encounter. It was fine the 1st time in there, not so much after a few months.

Adding more mechanics to the fights is going to get a mixed reaction and is probably a large part of why most players aren't running around in perfected versions of gear.

Investing in making sure those dungeons run smoothly is a separate issue.

Rudrani wrote: »

2: Repurpose all the existing overland content by allowing zones to have VET INSTANCES where the difficulty and rewards are draaaaaaaastically higher.

Difficult content should not have better rewards. You already reward yourself with desired challenge, why should you become better items then me, who likes playing on normal difficulty? Forcing me to go into difficult content to become that better rewards, pissing me off with that system and absolutely bore me, forcing me to quit.