Zos, please add self nerf foods to the game to fix difficulty

zvavi · August 2021

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Where do you draw the line though? Almost all content can be played in a group. I think solo arenas might be the only enforced solo content. Even story instances are usually shared with others (which is super annoying when some random other person advances the story before you hear an NPC's dialogue).

It was pretty self explanatory. This guy got it. he just forgot PvP.

Saieden wrote: »

You draw the line at "Overland", which is everything except Dungeons, Arenas and Trials.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

I actually think this is a great idea! It allows people to still min/max sets and stats and CP, so they can hop in PVP or trials without having to constantly spend gold and time resetting everything.

Plus they could do some fun gimmicky stuff with naming these foods and adding silly particle effects to them...

I propose at least one of these self-mutilating dishes be deemed the "[Pork of Horripilation]!"

Iccotak · August 2021

Just going to post here what I have already said before

How many times must I explain that Self Nerf and while Sharing the same instance would NOT work and would in fact cause way more problems then solve....

1. The problem is the enemies not the players, because the enemies are so incapable that the bar for "Skill" is very very low. It takes very little knowledge of the gameplay mechanics for Overland to be a cakewalk.
A "Self Nerf" is NO different from wearing trash gear and using one skill. - and its been said many many times that doesn't work.

2. Everyone being on different difficulty settings and also sharing the Same instance would be a balancing nightmare. It would result in balancing affecting both sides, with both constantly complaining about unfair changes. Also a major part of what would make an online difficulty fun is if it applies to everyone within that instance.

That is not a compromise - I would consider it worse then doing nothing - because it's a completely ineffective solution that would cause problems instead of fixing any.

If there is to be a "Vet Overland" then don't Half-A** it. The only way to effectively balance a "Vet Overland" is in its own instance where it is not affected by the normal instance players.

Keep them as two separate instances so then balancing is fair, real challenge can happen, and it doesn't lose the aspect of progression which makes RPGs. Ideally do this when servers are doing better.

It's a Terrible Idea - I cannot emphasize that enough

and for anyone that says; "But that's what Skyrim does!!"

1. Skyrim is a single player game that doesn't have everyone sharing an instance.
2. In Skyrim, enemies became increasingly more powerful as you leveled up. Using more powerful gear and spells.
3. Skyrim Enemies had a hierarchy where some enemies were clearly more dangerous than others

Enemies operating under Skyrim's mechanics were more able and dangerous, and became increasingly more dangerous as you leveled. This was especially true when playing on higher difficulties.

(There were even places that just had enemies of higher levels than others.)

the game does level matching, and if you develop your character poorly then game gets much harder even on medium settings.

Yes, Skyrim punished the player if they didn't learn how to play the game and made poor decisions in building their character. Like branching out too much instead of focusing on select skills. Using poor gear and weak spells were very likely to get you killed.

The difficulty setting and adapting system of Skyrim was different from ESO and saying that a Self-Nerf will more or less replicate what Skyrim had is simply not true.

Separate instances is the way to go
"But it would split the player Base!"

We are talking one separate instance, not 9 like Pre - 1T which separated you based on level, location, and alliance.

I swear this forum is anti-grouping while also anti-playing alone at the same time

People on these threads say it's bad to encourage people to play together, or you don't want to incentivize it at all for questing in an MMO, but you want everyone together in the same instance...so then no one is alone while they play alone??

Then they make this contradictory argument:
there's hardly anyone who would use it - But at the same time - it would split the player base too much

Make up your minds!

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

Iccotak wrote: »

Make up your minds!

As someone who has posted threads requesting an instanced difficulty slider with adjusted loot tables in the past, I can say that while I do actually prefer that option, having some nerf foods in-game wouldn't necessarily cause these major problems people are imagining.

Like for example, you could just make them not do anything in group or PVP content.

Also sad no one liked my Pork of Horripilation suggestion.

Fennwitty · August 2021

There's no balance to maintain in public zones. Everything scales.

A debuff on a level 50 player in a public dungeon doesn't make the new level 10 player suddenly have a more difficult fight.

Just like not using set bonuses or CP or setting your stats to zero doesn't have the least impact on anyone else (unless you're grouped with them and they get annoyed at you).

I'd like 'vet' instances sure. But a bandaid of self-debuff I can turn on and off would be at least something. It would mean while playing around questing I can affect my game experience without respeccing into uselessness in case someone in a guild asks for help (Yeah I'll be right there to help you tank! Let me just reset all my skills and attributes! ... Ok I'm ready! What's that? You already found someone to help?).

Kalik_Gold · August 2021

Love the idea. They already have self inflicted poison potions.

Make moldy, stale, food poisoning items.

francesinhalover · August 2021

I don't get people, if you want a hard game make the game harder for yourself, use crap sets. maybe use sets you drop randomly from enemies, Don't use food,

people do open world with their mlg gear and complain it's easy.

I for one am tired of mobs attacking me constantly during quests. i'm tired of actually killing stuff that isn't mandatory.
Tired of having mobs attack me while i want to mine or harvest it's annoying.
I don't need these annoying enemies to be stronger. Let them stay weak.

I just wish the boss of some of the quests had more hp just that, a bit more hp and maybe dmg.

starlizard70ub17_ESO · August 2021

Versispellis wrote: »

What if spoiled food lowered your stats?

There. I saved the world.

That would provide for some interesting player decisions,... "hmm, those mushrooms don't look that bad."

redlink1979 · August 2021

Foods are fine as they are.

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

(...)
-Why dont you just nerf yourself?
Answer:
I did, I played Alikr naked with only a weapon and it wasnt much of a challenge (...)

If you want to really nerf yourself it's got to be done in the CP side not on the gear side, since CP has a greater impact on everything.

driosketch · August 2021

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

I did, I played Alikr naked with only a weapon and it wasnt much of a challenge, but it was BORING.
The reason it was boring was because when you play naked you lose all sustain so combat goes from dynamic fun combat to your character gasping for air after each skill. So it is: heavy attack - skill - heavy attack skill.

I dont want to trade easy combat for boring combat.

So why not use a drink to buff your sustain then? The fights will be just as long and tedious with self nerfs either way I think. Plus some one on easy will come by and finish your enemy from time to time.

Saieden · August 2021

fiender66 wrote: »

Saieden wrote: »

fiender66 wrote: »

@Grandchamp1989 and @Saieden,

I don't think you read my suggestion correctly. It's not for people going back to content, though that is an option, it's about doing the stories and actually feeling like the hero of said story and not a one-shot-god.

Then I fear I'm missing something. Do you really think that any vanilla new player may feel it necessary to be self-nerfed?
Please be so kind to elaborate the sentence cited above, for this is how I understood it, and I may be wrong.

But If I'm wright, then I utterly disagree. Create a new toon, give it nothing and go to Stonefalls and see how long it survives (the killing bugs of the islands may be enough, LOL). This is what may happen to any new player, especially now that the initial tutorial has become so ineffective.

As I said, I often roam Overland one way or another, and I see countless low levels struggling with the delve content. OFC many do not struggle at all, and they often populate the spots where one can lot a scry bonus. These are clearly backed by an inheritance of CPs, that they do not give up, figure self nerfing.

No, it would not be for new players, and I think the difficulty for a casual player with no knowledge or experience of the game is just fine (assuming they don't read up guides on how to optimize and try figure things out for themselves). The idea is that you would unlock it for your account by doing achievements. My favorite is through Undaunted, as I've mentioned already, because the idea of being so accomplished in the thrill-seeker guild that you need to weaken yourself to find greater challenge is pretty cool. You could think of it as a self-imposed "veteran mode", which is far more realistic than trying to implement an optional veteran mode and new mechanics on the environment and enemies.

As for new toons, I've done this no problem. If I was to start another toon now, the first place I would go to get to level 10 are public dungeons, and then start daily group dungeons immediately. The main reason, imo, that brand new players struggle in overland is that they don't understand the gear scaling, that at toon lvl 20, white lvl 20 trash gear is better than 2 lvl 10 purple 5p sets.

PS: The story of yourself and your SO is touching and endearing, but, allow me, it proves nothing. If you have cleared vMA not to say all the rest, no wonder you find a stroll any overland content, and whoever is backed by you is super helped, even if u throw only some hit once in a while. Still, I fail to see how lengthening any boss' life can make the story more interesting, and not only more boring.

You seem hyper-focused on the increased boss life aspect (technically, lower self damage). The increased damage you take is an integral part of making the fights more interesting. The bosses, and even trash, all have mechanics, but the mechanics don't matter because they can't kill you. If you get knocked over by a heavy attack as dps build in a delve, it's a slight nuisance. If the same happens in almost any vet content, you are either dead or very, very, lucky. When a Daedric Prince charges up a massive attack for a few seconds, and a clean hit does under 25% health of my health, it's an instant buzz-kill for the fight because I immediately know I barely have to do anything.

As for it being easy for my SO, I meant without me around. On her main, which has Grace of Gloom, Thunderbugs and Chokethorn, and only destruction staffs (no ice), she is literally unkillable in 99% of overland situations. And believe me, she has tested this extensively. She will sometimes do Harrowstorms and Dragons just for the opportunity to die to something other than falling or slaughterfish.

Maybe it's me, but once I've learned the mechs (2 runs are usually enough), any vet dungeon becomes devoid of fun for me, and useful only for farming.

I think that's just you. For me, I find fun in many things in dungeons. Knowing and experiencing the mechanics the first few times is only the beginning for me. I enjoy getting better at them, learning from deaths and wipes, blitzing through in a pug where everyone is in sync, helping lower level/experience players learn and get clears, and even those intense crisis moments where the group is barely able to stabilize the fight. With the kind of self-nerfs we're talking about here, I would be able have similar experiences in delves and group dungeons without the risk of accidently nuking everything and essentially robbing new players from experiencing the game.

Saieden · August 2021

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

Yeah, would be nice to have an easy to apply self nerf food (or even better, a memento).
However, I think the values affected should be damage done, damage taken, healing taken and shield size. It should be quite easy to code that, as they could simple take the original thrassian stranglers, swap it to reduce your damage done instead of increasing your spell damage and replace the proc condition with a reliable way to activate it.

Additionally, I think such a memento should work in premade groups. There are actually a lot of nice boss mechanics that you only see when you have relatively low dps and some that only matter if your survivability is much lower.

And I don't want ANY benefits for using this self nerf (apart from maybe some achivements to keep track of what I've done).

Second this immensely. No extra gold, xp, gear, mats, etc. Nothing. Just. Stronger. Enemies.

Toxic_Hemlock · August 2021

Meh, if you want to shoot yourself in the head to "enjoy" your overland experience I can see nothing wrong with it. As for adding bonuses to said nerf items I'm not ok with that as it further divides the haves from the have nots. I suspect there is an ulterior motive in these threads, such as wanting to be rewarded MUCH more then is let on by the "we just want a challenge crowd".

But So long as it does not infringe upon my experience then fine. nerf yourself, and then maybe we can finally let these threads die.

Kalik_Gold · August 2021

francesinhalover wrote: »

I don't get people, if you want a hard game make the game harder for yourself, use crap sets. maybe use sets you drop randomly from enemies, Don't use food,

people do open world with their mlg gear and complain it's easy.

I for one am tired of mobs attacking me constantly during quests. i'm tired of actually killing stuff that isn't mandatory.
Tired of having mobs attack me while i want to mine or harvest it's annoying.
I don't need these annoying enemies to be stronger. Let them stay weak.

I just wish the boss of some of the quests had more hp just that, a bit more hp and maybe dmg.

Get the mount perk where you can ride thru almost a pack of mobs and they don't attack, unless you hang around long. Trust me on my main I have it and it's worth it.

Shadow Rider
Aggression radius from hostile monsters is decreased by 50% while mounted.

Biro123 · August 2021

Why a food debuff?

Wouldn't a debuff-slider in the options be more user-friendly? No need to stack ingredients, buy or craft them, ability to turn it on or off depending what you're doing, ability to still use your normal food as part of your normal build.

Aardappelboom · August 2021

Biro123 wrote: »

Why a food debuff?

Wouldn't a debuff-slider in the options be more user-friendly? No need to stack ingredients, buy or craft them, ability to turn it on or off depending what you're doing, ability to still use your normal food as part of your normal build.

I agree, self nerf food seems weird. All I need is a slider that I can move up during storymode!

EF321 · August 2021

Quest in no-cp Cyro with PvP loadout.

Darkstorne · August 2021

Unslot your FG or MG skill that boosts your crit chance. Unslot the skill giving you Major Brutality/Sorcery, or stop chugging the potions that provide that. Unslot your CP stars.

Those changes alone will make combat last noticeably longer, since Major buffs are ludicrously powerful in this game to the point that your build is "wrong" if you aren't affected by those buffs. That's bad game design since they aren't optional. If I could make one change to this game it would be to axe those Major buffs entirely, and redesign all the skills they're tied to so they become far more interesting and genuinely optional again.

Seriously, just try playing without any buffs and overland questing will feel a lot more fun. You'll still be powerful, but you'll get to see boss mechanics again.

Chips_Ahoy · August 2021

if it is optional why not?

although I do not understand, the fights in PVE are scripted, after 10 fights with any boss you know the movements, when to dodge, when to block, when to interrupt his attack, etc.

doing less damage or increasing boss health is just going to make the fight last longer but with the same script battle, that's boring.

if you want to nerf yourself with food/drink, drink a bottle of tequila before playing.

try to play with your feet, with one hand...

CaffeinatedMayhem · August 2021

So, just a random comment...

If I ride by an see you "struggling" with a world boss and stop to help, am I going to get yelled at for "ruining" your PvE?

Because it happens now as is... much less when you don't know if someone is purposefully wanting a challenge.

Maybe get your super hard challenge in a non-openworld instance, or in a single player game?

Aardappelboom · August 2021

Darkstorne wrote: »

Unslot your FG or MG skill that boosts your crit chance. Unslot the skill giving you Major Brutality/Sorcery, or stop chugging the potions that provide that. Unslot your CP stars.

Those changes alone will make combat last noticeably longer, since Major buffs are ludicrously powerful in this game to the point that your build is "wrong" if you aren't affected by those buffs. That's bad game design since they aren't optional. If I could make one change to this game it would be to axe those Major buffs entirely, and redesign all the skills they're tied to so they become far more interesting and genuinely optional again.

Seriously, just try playing without any buffs and overland questing will feel a lot more fun. You'll still be powerful, but you'll get to see boss mechanics again.

I actually did this and to be honest, while my dmg lowered, my incoming dmg was still very low. I just couldn't die, even if I wanted to.

I don't like that.

I might also add, that I find it fun to improve my character, including CP and sets-wise, to complete challenging content.

I love the solo-area's for example, playing them on veteran is very satisfying, same goes for Craglorn POI's, I loved those and I remember changing my setup to cope with the extra challenge, which is part of the fun.

Nerfing is a fine solution, but I'd love to keep eating food, changing sets and slotting CP to overcome challenges.

On a side note, it's not so much the desire to make combat last longer (at least not for me) it's more a thing of having to use the core mechanics (dodge, block, disrupt) to survive an encounter.

A simple solution could be a difficulty slider that nerfs you character, the same slider can be used in group content in the same way the group leader decides whether or not veteran is activated, they could even integrate current difficulty settings for dungeons in the "nerf" scaling and centralize difficulty in single UI-element.

Player choice just seems to be the best way forward in this case (without extra rewards)

alanmatillab16_ESO · August 2021

six2fall wrote: »

Go to church select respec remove all morphs/skills so you only have couple base skills. Then go into inventory & drop everything so you are not wearing anything & replace weapons with generic white garbage. Finally remove all your cp. Done & it only takes a minute plus bunch of gold

Been there done that was still easy with the exception of the werewolf fight in Daggerfall. The problem is there is no threat to standing in an overland mobs aoe, or not blocking/dodging a heavy attack.

Magdalina · August 2021

Honestly at this point I'd take it. I mean, maybe I could actually go play zone's storyline without feeling my immersion ruined by 2-shotting all the big baddies. It REALLY hard to immerse yourself in the story when all of it builds up to that big climatic fight against the Big Bad Enemy that whole armies couldn't take down and only you due to amazing miracle and many sacrifices might have a chance to defeat...then you do 4 attacks naked and it's dead. I would love to actually, well, be able to enjoy those stories and feel rightfully epic, not like everyone's playing a joke on me by pretending they can't kill something with 100k health.

However, I disagree with the premise that it's a good solution to easy overland content. I'd gladly take it along with something else but I'm afraid if they ever were to do that (granted, at this point it's looking like they aren't gonna do anything at all, but still, a girl can dream) it'd be the one and only bone ever thrown to the 'we want harder content' community and all hopes for more difficult zones could be abandoned for good.

Many of us worked (yes, I know, it's not 'work', it is a hobby. But we dedicated our time, effort and money to this hobby and it's important to us) hard to get where we are, to progress, to improve our fighting skills, reaction times, to get better at reading enemy cues, to get better gear, to get down the perfect rotation, etc. I think it's unfair that we're down to begging for a way to NERF ourselves just so we can enjoy open world content. I think it's way beyond time that we get an actually more challenging zone. Yes, another Craglorn, if you wish, except without the things that made Craglorn fail, like the god awful quest phasing, hard forced grouping (4 people for pads or no quest for you) and 0 meaningful rewards in the whole zone.

Just one zone. C'mon, ZOS, give it a try. Do it instead of one of the dungeon packs if you have to.

kargen27 · August 2021

The reason food would work better than memento is you could have a variety of foods. They would last as long as the traditional foods or until you replace them by eating something else. Different foods could affect different stats and/or hinder the character in other ways. For instance you could have a food that lowers resistances and speed. Would make avoiding AoE attacks harder adding some difficulty to the fight.

And if you do not want to use the food you do not have to. You wouldn't even know others were using the food unless they told you.

kargen27 · August 2021

Iccotak wrote: »

Just going to post here what I have already said before

How many times must I explain that Self Nerf and while Sharing the same instance would NOT work and would in fact cause way more problems then solve....

1. The problem is the enemies not the players, because the enemies are so incapable that the bar for "Skill" is very very low. It takes very little knowledge of the gameplay mechanics for Overland to be a cakewalk.
A "Self Nerf" is NO different from wearing trash gear and using one skill. - and its been said many many times that doesn't work.

2. Everyone being on different difficulty settings and also sharing the Same instance would be a balancing nightmare. It would result in balancing affecting both sides, with both constantly complaining about unfair changes. Also a major part of what would make an online difficulty fun is if it applies to everyone within that instance.

That is not a compromise - I would consider it worse then doing nothing - because it's a completely ineffective solution that would cause problems instead of fixing any.

If there is to be a "Vet Overland" then don't Half-A** it. The only way to effectively balance a "Vet Overland" is in its own instance where it is not affected by the normal instance players.

Keep them as two separate instances so then balancing is fair, real challenge can happen, and it doesn't lose the aspect of progression which makes RPGs. Ideally do this when servers are doing better.

It's a Terrible Idea - I cannot emphasize that enough

and for anyone that says; "But that's what Skyrim does!!"

1. Skyrim is a single player game that doesn't have everyone sharing an instance.
2. In Skyrim, enemies became increasingly more powerful as you leveled up. Using more powerful gear and spells.
3. Skyrim Enemies had a hierarchy where some enemies were clearly more dangerous than others

Enemies operating under Skyrim's mechanics were more able and dangerous, and became increasingly more dangerous as you leveled. This was especially true when playing on higher difficulties.

(There were even places that just had enemies of higher levels than others.)

the game does level matching, and if you develop your character poorly then game gets much harder even on medium settings.

Yes, Skyrim punished the player if they didn't learn how to play the game and made poor decisions in building their character. Like branching out too much instead of focusing on select skills. Using poor gear and weak spells were very likely to get you killed.

The difficulty setting and adapting system of Skyrim was different from ESO and saying that a Self-Nerf will more or less replicate what Skyrim had is simply not true.

Separate instances is the way to go
"But it would split the player Base!"

We are talking one separate instance, not 9 like Pre - 1T which separated you based on level, location, and alliance.

I swear this forum is anti-grouping while also anti-playing alone at the same time

People on these threads say it's bad to encourage people to play together, or you don't want to incentivize it at all for questing in an MMO, but you want everyone together in the same instance...so then no one is alone while they play alone??

Then they make this contradictory argument:
there's hardly anyone who would use it - But at the same time - it would split the player base too much

Make up your minds!

Using food to debuff would be exactly the same for everyone else as if the player was using no food. If a players food runs out the content doesn't suddenly change for all the other players. Why would eating a food that lowers your health cause others to have new problems. We can already make potions that will do things like ravage health. So why not a food. Only difference would be they last longer.

And to those concerned about dungeons trials and PvP...why would we care if someone wants to lower their abilities to do that content? I doubt there would be many (maybe a few) trolls that would nerf themselves just to try and make a group fail. In PvP taking a poison food would just make them easier targets. So let them it all the bad food they want.

zvavi · August 2021

kargen27 wrote: »

The reason food would work better than memento is you could have a variety of foods. They would last as long as the traditional foods or until you replace them by eating something else. Different foods could affect different stats and/or hinder the character in other ways. For instance you could have a food that lowers resistances and speed. Would make avoiding AoE attacks harder adding some difficulty to the fight.

And if you do not want to use the food you do not have to. You wouldn't even know others were using the food unless they told you.

you could have a variety of momentos too... heck, momentos are better because you will be able to use them anywhere, always, without usage of inventory space, and without it affecting group activities.

kargen27 · August 2021

zvavi wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

The reason food would work better than memento is you could have a variety of foods. They would last as long as the traditional foods or until you replace them by eating something else. Different foods could affect different stats and/or hinder the character in other ways. For instance you could have a food that lowers resistances and speed. Would make avoiding AoE attacks harder adding some difficulty to the fight.

And if you do not want to use the food you do not have to. You wouldn't even know others were using the food unless they told you.

you could have a variety of momentos too... heck, momentos are better because you will be able to use them anywhere, always, without usage of inventory space, and without it affecting group activities.

I'm thinking foods would be better. Other than inventory space all the stuff you mentioned would apply to food. The difference being mementos would be account bound. Poison foods and the ingredients to make them could be bought and sold. A player wanting to try a debuff wouldn't need to first earn the memento and slot it.

Editing to add either would accomplish what is being asked for. I simply think foods would be easier for the players to obtain and use.

MrGhosty · August 2021

I take no issue if they wanted to make self nerf food, it's worth a shot and doesn't affect me. I don't personally want overland to be grindy unless I choose to go grind. I hated traveling across vet zones back in the day because everything had to be a fight and sometimes you just want to get to a quest objective or farm nodes in peace.

As for the solo instances and personal quests, I do wish they came in two difficulties. Story and Hard Mode, Story mode obviously would be the default but then be able to access a page in our collections UI that would allow us to replay quests at which point we could turn on a hard mode to make the quests far more of a challenge. Some of the Dragon boss fights in Northern and Southern Elsweyr were really cool and would benefit greatly from a hard mode. It would probably be too much to go back through all old quest content but it could be designed for going forward with the occasional older quest getting the treatment. I feel like these quest revisions could be tied thematically to new content and released when they drop new dungeons. (like doing some of the Ravenwatch quests in the same release as dungeons featuring some of those characters)

This could add new achievements, dyes, and also bring older quests up to the reward standards we're now seeing in Chapters where completion of quest chains reward cool style items. By bundling it into the dungeon DLCs people would either need to buy the content or get ESO Plus to access it which further incentivizes ZOS to put some man power onto the project. For me, I don't usually bother buying dungeon DLC because I'm not usually interested enough but I could be convinced if it came with a bunch of revised vanilla quests to go back and play.

zvavi · August 2021

kargen27 wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

The reason food would work better than memento is you could have a variety of foods. They would last as long as the traditional foods or until you replace them by eating something else. Different foods could affect different stats and/or hinder the character in other ways. For instance you could have a food that lowers resistances and speed. Would make avoiding AoE attacks harder adding some difficulty to the fight.

And if you do not want to use the food you do not have to. You wouldn't even know others were using the food unless they told you.

you could have a variety of momentos too... heck, momentos are better because you will be able to use them anywhere, always, without usage of inventory space, and without it affecting group activities.

I'm thinking foods would be better. Other than inventory space all the stuff you mentioned would apply to food. The difference being mementos would be account bound. Poison foods and the ingredients to make them could be bought and sold. A player wanting to try a debuff wouldn't need to first earn the memento and slot it.

Editing to add either would accomplish what is being asked for. I simply think foods would be easier for the players to obtain and use.

we got free momentos in the past (tools) no reason we will need to "earn" them.

SirAndy · August 2021

What's wrong with playing naked?

Much simpler to do and does not require any work from ZOS ...