I would tend to agree.

Its a complex issue because as the game has moved on, with astronomical levels of power creep, it has effectively broken overland and dungeons, with only DLC vet providing any kind of challenge. That was not inevitable, it has been managed very very poorly from the start, sadly.

In order of difficulty I would say it is thus...

Base game normal
Base game vet
DLC normal
DLC vet

There is some cross over and blurred lines between base game vet and dlc normal, these can be quite similar levels of challenge depending on the dungeon.

Therefore, one hugely needed overhaul I feel is the dungeons, to bring them into line with power creep. I mean we just dont even need healers anymore. I ran every pledge yesterday on vet, with no healer. Thats just a broken system, given the core mechanics of so much of the game is healing, dps and tanking, for one to simply be irrelevant in so much dungeon content (not all), seems deeply flawed.

Yeah, would be nice to see some additional difficulty modes, so players can select the difficulty that fits for them.
For me personally I'd like to see something harder than the current hardmodes, especially for the older content. Some of those old dungeons and raids have some really fun mechanics. But since they were balanced in a time when dps, hps and damage mitigation were much lower we don't really see those mechanics anymore.
Additionally I think the jump between normal and vet is too drastic in some cases for new players, so it would be nice to have some inbetween difficutly there.

The problem is that normal difficulty isn't anywhere close to veteran difficulty in terms of punishing you for not doing the mechanics. This may be good for beginner groups, but it makes doing normal absolutely useless as a tool to prepare you for doing the dungeon on veteran. People ought to be doing normal versions to learn mechanics, and once you master those mechanics, you do veteran, where the difficulty is cranked up because incoming damage and boss/minion HP is increased.

The issue is Easy, Medium, and Hard are completely subjective.

That would be interesting!

if you want hard content do them naked

Difficulty is very subjective, and depends on whole group, not individual. And please, no scaling rewards. I am on the verge of ragequitting every second time I try to pug daily pledge, because people with 300cp go to vetdlc, do the quest, do 5k damage, and try to enable hm. After some wipes, they say, that it is their first run, they do not know any mechanics but they absolutely need hm. And not even vetdlc have this. Just this week, me (as healer) and my tank friend had to duo Tempest island last boss. Both dps admitted, that they do not know mechanics, just decided to be carried for transmutes. Since me and my friend are not faking our roles, we were forced to spend 15 mins on a single boss. If rewards will be scaled or dungeons get any more difficult, random groups will not be able to do this content, since everyone will choose higher difficulty, and secretly hope for carry. As for not going with randoms, sometimes people play as duo, trio, and pick last person as random. I wonder, if upcoming companion system will let me have npc dd, that hits more than 5k, and stays alive longer than some actual players.

Rudrani wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

Everything you described already exists.
Current normals = easy
Current vet = medium
Current hard mode = hard

Some dungeons and trials also have option to activate HM for other bosses not just last boss.

Not at all...

Vet on base game stuff is too easy, and the hard mode makes no difference. So I am saying keep normal as easy, make vet medium (hm is a bonus on final boss), make a more difficult version for hard.

Vet on DLC stuff is sliiiiiiiightly too hard, especially the hard modes. So keep it as the hard version of the dungeon/trial, and make something easier as the medium.

Agree, only reason to not do HM in most base dungeons is if very weak group or fake tank, Yes you can hold soft taunt on the atronauts in BC2 or use inner fire but you will take some damage.

Yup, i've been thinking this for a while now.

HM should be set at the start of the dungeon, not just the last boss, and there should be gold jewel drops for the clear

Dont we already have a hard mode I ran a vet hard mode last night isnt that what your looking for not sure how its activated but it was a lot harder than normal vet

I do not thing you got my point...

We have normal content which is a walk in the park for pretty much everyone.
We got Veteran content with optional hard modes which make things pretty complicated. Try to pug a trial on veteran and you are guaranteed to join a wipe fest party. Turn Hard mode on and watch.

What I wanted to say is that we need something in between normal and veteran but a mode that also have its own hard mode. Most people are used to normal and veteran content so it make sense that we get something in between and named it veteran and then veteran content should be renamed to something else much more fancier.

I pug a lot in zone chat so I have a bit more experience there over some core teams and guild runs most of you are having. I do core raiding too but for ex even there we struggle. Why? Because many players do not have the luxury to play the game too much and for that reason they cannot practice or improve in some content. And right now normal content teach you literally NOTHING. While veteran is like umm now what?

Starlock wrote: »

MakeMeUhSamich wrote: »

The issue is Easy, Medium, and Hard are completely subjective.

Yes, this is generally the issue.

We do know the developers apparently track completion rates, which they probably use an indicator of difficulty to help iron out the subjectivity. Wouldn't it be interesting if they would share completion rates across platforms for various dungeons with the player base?

the OG vet DLC dungeons we were able to see completions a bit based on the completion achievement on consoles.

it was less then 2% of the entire player base.

and over time as the new dungeons released and there reputation for being overly difficult grew that completion rate has only declined. new dungeons are most likely under .5% completion rate by players.

most players just dont care for that content, and you cannot force people to do hard stuff, they will just move on to another game.

Kwoung wrote: »

I will agree that the jump from Normal to Vet on the current system is sorta ridiculous and there should be a mode between that actually teaches the mechanics and requires you use them, while not necessarily destroying and demoralizing the group attempting it who may not be ready for full on vet, but walks through normal modes.

That was my experience with most vet dungeons when I was growing up in game, normal was way to easy so we tried vet... and literally had zero chance of completing it. A stepping stone that trained the mechanics would have been nice, since the normal dungeons basically don't have any mechanics that you notice. Normal is like: Oh, were we supposed to do something there? Nevermind, the boss is dead already.

^^^ This!

A "middle/medium" or whatever you wish to call it, where players that have gotten comfortable with normal clears, but have never seen any of the mechanics, need a "step" between normal and vet modes.

A level that introduces the dungeon mechanics into the gameplay while not brutalizing the players continuously while they're attempting to figure them out! This would do wonders for MANY PLAYERS that wish to step into this arena, but are gun shy of attempting it in vet mode with spreed-running try-hards (or others) that expect a person to already know all of them. Turning these players off to doing them completely and thus removing fresh future prospects from existing and new dungeon/trial content.

After a while, players that have used this mid-level to learn the mechanics and have gotten comfortable with clearing, will step up again (as they did from normal to medium) to the vet and harder content in a more natural learning curve. They'll be more confident in their ability to understand what they're seeing, what they should be doing at any given time and overall contribute positively to the group outcome.

This should make for a Tamriel that sees a lot more players (competently) engaging in the harder end game content, which should make everyone happy!