ZOS: You have a golden opportunity to learn from the success of Elden Ring

spoqster · March 2022

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

Elden Ring is a massive success. Not only because it is difficult, but also because it's a beautiful and massive world with uncountable secrets, has no map markers, less and more meaningful quests, a great combat system - the list goes on. Of course ESO is inherently a different game with a different audience. So not all that is great in ER is great for ESO and vice versa. For example the missing quest markers and the less elaborate quests would not be something that would be right for ESO. And ESO already has a wonderful world with lots of content and an intricate combat system.

But I think ESO can still learn from what made ER successful: The difficulty of the open world.

The current state of affairs in ESO is that the open world is not only easy, it's trivial. And this is particularly problematic with quest bosses. It feels completely underwhelming whenever you spent time on a quest, get the boss built up by the quest dialog and then just beat him in 10s. It devalues the quest and ultimately the experience. Imagine how a new player coming to ESO will feel about the game when they played ER before ESO. They might just drop ESO after a few days because it feels trivial - a long time before they encounter the interesting stuff like vet dungeons and trials.

A more difficult story section of the game makes the experience more memorable. People will have to google how to beat bosses or call in their friends. They might have to level up first, which sends them to the old content. And for all ESO endgame players a harder new zone will definitely not be an unsurmountable challenge. And in the end gaming is about the experience as a whole - not just the story. That's why people game instead of watching Netflix, and that's why ER is so successful - because the experience is so engrossing.

I know ESO had a more difficult open world on launch, and players complained and then the difficulty was reduced. I always felt like that has been a mistake. But regardless, today the game looks different. With all the old content, those few new players that would get frustrated by a higher difficulty new zone will have plenty of old content to go to and play through before tackling the new zone.

Speaking to @ZOS_RichLambert , you essentially have a great opportunity here to try out something new, depart from your old recipe slightly and make the new zone harder. Yes there is a small chance players won't like it. But I think the probability is much higher that players will love it - both new and old alike. And Elden Ring's success is a strong indicator that I am right about this. This change could make the new chapter much more successful than previous ones.

In terms of difficulty: How difficult? That's a whole different discussion. Off the top off my head I would say to make a medium sized step. Not go all the way to vet level difficulty. But somewhere between normal and vet Maelstrom arena might be a good starting point. Of course some of the more grindy achievements may have to be slightly adjusted. For example the achievement for completing 30 delves would be much more tiresome if the a delve were actually interesting content and not just a 2min run through ignoring all adds. So maybe reduce achievements like that to 10 from 30.

That's my 2 cents on this. Thanks for reading!

Sir_Hammock · March 2022

spoqster wrote: »

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

Elden Ring is a massive success. Not only because it is difficult, but also because it's a beautiful and massive world with uncountable secrets, has no map markers, less and more meaningful quests, a great combat system - the list goes on. Of course ESO is inherently a different game with a different audience. So not all that is great in ER is great for ESO and vice versa. For example the missing quest markers and the less elaborate quests would not be something that would be right for ESO. And ESO already has a wonderful world with lots of content and an intricate combat system.

But I think ESO can still learn from what made ER successful: The difficulty of the open world.

The current state of affairs in ESO is that the open world is not only easy, it's trivial. And this is particularly problematic with quest bosses. It feels completely underwhelming whenever you spent time on a quest, get the boss built up by the quest dialog and then just beat him in 10s. It devalues the quest and ultimately the experience. Imagine how a new player coming to ESO will feel about the game when they played ER before ESO. They might just drop ESO after a few days because it feels trivial - a long time before they encounter the interesting stuff like vet dungeons and trials.

A more difficult story section of the game makes the experience more memorable. People will have to google how to beat bosses or call in their friends. They might have to level up first, which sends them to the old content. And for all ESO endgame players a harder new zone will definitely not be an unsurmountable challenge. And in the end gaming is about the experience as a whole - not just the story. That's why people game instead of watching Netflix, and that's why ER is so successful - because the experience is so engrossing.

I know ESO had a more difficult open world on launch, and players complained and then the difficulty was reduced. I always felt like that has been a mistake. But regardless, today the game looks different. With all the old content, those few new players that would get frustrated by a higher difficulty new zone will have plenty of old content to go to and play through before tackling the new zone.

Speaking to @ZOS_RichLambert , you essentially have a great opportunity here to try out something new, depart from your old recipe slightly and make the new zone harder. Yes there is a small chance players won't like it. But I think the probability is much higher that players will love it - both new and old alike. And Elden Ring's success is a strong indicator that I am right about this. This change could make the new chapter much more successful than previous ones.

In terms of difficulty: How difficult? That's a whole different discussion. Off the top off my head I would say to make a medium sized step. Not go all the way to vet level difficulty. But somewhere between normal and vet Maelstrom arena might be a good starting point. Of course some of the more grindy achievements may have to be slightly adjusted. For example the achievement for completing 30 delves would be much more tiresome if the a delve were actually interesting content and not just a 2min run through ignoring all adds. So maybe reduce achievements like that to 10 from 30.

That's my 2 cents on this. Thanks for reading!

Shadowlands did exactly this in their zone "the maw" because people had complained about how easy overland mobs are. You know what happened? It became the most hated zone in wow, no one wanted to go there because it was tedious and most eso players are even more casual than wow players. They'll never do this because 98% of the playerbase would hate it and the only way you'll get hard content is to handicap yourself basically.

Meiox · March 2022

spoqster wrote: »

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

May I ask, how many games from FromSoft have you played and finished? How many hours did you play Elden Ring?

Dark_Lord_Kuro · March 2022

spoqster wrote: »

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

Elden Ring is a massive success. Not only because it is difficult, but also because it's a beautiful and massive world with uncountable secrets, has no map markers, less and more meaningful quests, a great combat system - the list goes on. Of course ESO is inherently a different game with a different audience. So not all that is great in ER is great for ESO and vice versa. For example the missing quest markers and the less elaborate quests would not be something that would be right for ESO. And ESO already has a wonderful world with lots of content and an intricate combat system.

But I think ESO can still learn from what made ER successful: The difficulty of the open world.

The current state of affairs in ESO is that the open world is not only easy, it's trivial. And this is particularly problematic with quest bosses. It feels completely underwhelming whenever you spent time on a quest, get the boss built up by the quest dialog and then just beat him in 10s. It devalues the quest and ultimately the experience. Imagine how a new player coming to ESO will feel about the game when they played ER before ESO. They might just drop ESO after a few days because it feels trivial - a long time before they encounter the interesting stuff like vet dungeons and trials.

A more difficult story section of the game makes the experience more memorable. People will have to google how to beat bosses or call in their friends. They might have to level up first, which sends them to the old content. And for all ESO endgame players a harder new zone will definitely not be an unsurmountable challenge. And in the end gaming is about the experience as a whole - not just the story. That's why people game instead of watching Netflix, and that's why ER is so successful - because the experience is so engrossing.

I know ESO had a more difficult open world on launch, and players complained and then the difficulty was reduced. I always felt like that has been a mistake. But regardless, today the game looks different. With all the old content, those few new players that would get frustrated by a higher difficulty new zone will have plenty of old content to go to and play through before tackling the new zone.

Speaking to @ZOS_RichLambert , you essentially have a great opportunity here to try out something new, depart from your old recipe slightly and make the new zone harder. Yes there is a small chance players won't like it. But I think the probability is much higher that players will love it - both new and old alike. And Elden Ring's success is a strong indicator that I am right about this. This change could make the new chapter much more successful than previous ones.

In terms of difficulty: How difficult? That's a whole different discussion. Off the top off my head I would say to make a medium sized step. Not go all the way to vet level difficulty. But somewhere between normal and vet Maelstrom arena might be a good starting point. Of course some of the more grindy achievements may have to be slightly adjusted. For example the achievement for completing 30 delves would be much more tiresome if the a delve were actually interesting content and not just a 2min run through ignoring all adds. So maybe reduce achievements like that to 10 from 30.

That's my 2 cents on this. Thanks for reading!

I would absolutly hate it, want too play elden ring? go play it

markulrich1966 · March 2022

I am cp1700 on my main account.

Lately created a second, now cp350.
Tried to do some blackwood and elsweyr worldbosses with a level 25, cp350 toon.

Finally gave up. In blackwood, we failed with 3 players to defeat warchief Zathmos. Others I had to solo, not strong enough, no other players around (xbox).
What adds up are the bugs since november, heavy staff attacks broken, skills not firing.

The answer to solve such issues is not "make it even harder".

The anser, or 2 answers must be:

1.) fix the bugs so the game works as intended
2.) add the difficulty scaling I request since 2 years already. It is not fun to burn down a WB in 10 seconds on events, and to give up fighting them outside of events.

I currently am so frustrated with these issues, that I actually limit my gameplay to events, endeavours, and levelling up toons hanging around at dolmens. As this often gets boring, I then watch videos instead.

spoqster · March 2022

Meiox wrote: »

spoqster wrote: »

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

May I ask, how many games from FromSoft have you played and finished? How many hours did you play Elden Ring?

Sure. I did not previously play a FromSoft game. Elden Ring is my first. I've spent just over 100 hours in ER as of now.

FakeFox · March 2022

While I would personally like difficult open world content, I don't think it it would be particularly successful. The MMORPG playerbase in general and ESO playerbase in particular, seems to have very little interest in any form of difficulty. Most successful MMORPGs, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, Guildwars 2, Lost Ark for example, create a large audience by being as accessible as possible. Actually challenging content, higher difficulty dungeons and raids, ranked PvP, are usually niche content most players barely engage with. More "hardcore" MMO's, for example Mortal Online, usually only attract a very small playerbase.

Further Elden Ring is certainly a successful release, but I would not call it a massive hit. From Software has built a large following over the years and that shows in Elden Ring's player numbers. But similar to MMORPGs, "souls like" games are a niche genere for a very specific audience. The two genres have, in my opinion, very little overlap.

spoqster · March 2022

Sir_Hammock wrote: »

spoqster wrote: »

TLDR: One of the most important reasons ER is such a massive hit is it because it's notoriously difficult. With the upcoming new chapter around the corner, you have a golden opportunity to change the ESO formula and make the content in the new zone much harder. I think players will love it.

Elden Ring is a massive success. Not only because it is difficult, but also because it's a beautiful and massive world with uncountable secrets, has no map markers, less and more meaningful quests, a great combat system - the list goes on. Of course ESO is inherently a different game with a different audience. So not all that is great in ER is great for ESO and vice versa. For example the missing quest markers and the less elaborate quests would not be something that would be right for ESO. And ESO already has a wonderful world with lots of content and an intricate combat system.

But I think ESO can still learn from what made ER successful: The difficulty of the open world.

The current state of affairs in ESO is that the open world is not only easy, it's trivial. And this is particularly problematic with quest bosses. It feels completely underwhelming whenever you spent time on a quest, get the boss built up by the quest dialog and then just beat him in 10s. It devalues the quest and ultimately the experience. Imagine how a new player coming to ESO will feel about the game when they played ER before ESO. They might just drop ESO after a few days because it feels trivial - a long time before they encounter the interesting stuff like vet dungeons and trials.

A more difficult story section of the game makes the experience more memorable. People will have to google how to beat bosses or call in their friends. They might have to level up first, which sends them to the old content. And for all ESO endgame players a harder new zone will definitely not be an unsurmountable challenge. And in the end gaming is about the experience as a whole - not just the story. That's why people game instead of watching Netflix, and that's why ER is so successful - because the experience is so engrossing.

I know ESO had a more difficult open world on launch, and players complained and then the difficulty was reduced. I always felt like that has been a mistake. But regardless, today the game looks different. With all the old content, those few new players that would get frustrated by a higher difficulty new zone will have plenty of old content to go to and play through before tackling the new zone.

Speaking to @ZOS_RichLambert , you essentially have a great opportunity here to try out something new, depart from your old recipe slightly and make the new zone harder. Yes there is a small chance players won't like it. But I think the probability is much higher that players will love it - both new and old alike. And Elden Ring's success is a strong indicator that I am right about this. This change could make the new chapter much more successful than previous ones.

In terms of difficulty: How difficult? That's a whole different discussion. Off the top off my head I would say to make a medium sized step. Not go all the way to vet level difficulty. But somewhere between normal and vet Maelstrom arena might be a good starting point. Of course some of the more grindy achievements may have to be slightly adjusted. For example the achievement for completing 30 delves would be much more tiresome if the a delve were actually interesting content and not just a 2min run through ignoring all adds. So maybe reduce achievements like that to 10 from 30.

That's my 2 cents on this. Thanks for reading!

Shadowlands did exactly this in their zone "the maw" because people had complained about how easy overland mobs are. You know what happened? It became the most hated zone in wow, no one wanted to go there because it was tedious and most eso players are even more casual than wow players. They'll never do this because 98% of the playerbase would hate it and the only way you'll get hard content is to handicap yourself basically.

I haven't played Shadowlands, so I can't say anything about that. But you make a nod to a very important aspect here. It's not a good idea to just simply increase the difficulty without doing anything else to the typical zone recipe. If you keep the same mob density and the exact same achievements (see my original post) you're bound to make it tedious for players. And that's obviously not my goal here.

My suggestion is based on the assumption that players prefer a more meaningful experience. Of course players also want an experience that is not tedious. So you shouldn't make the experience more meaningful at the expense of convenience, as they may have done in the Maw zone.

Just to give you an example: If they make the mobs less sparse, so that the zone is more easily traversible - as they have done already in Blackwood for example - and instead make the mobs more meaningful, you could achieve both at the same time - more meaningful AND less tedious experience. Players would have less hassle riding from point A to point B, but once they engage in a quest they would encounter fewer, much more meaningful encounters that would improve the quest experience dramatically.

Currently ESO has an unfortunate mixture of great quest stories and rich dialogue, paired with trivial mob encounters that you can all pretty much one-shot. It's a mix that devalues their storytelling and pretty much lets that work go to waste a little bit.

Sarannah · March 2022

NO!

And there is already a stickied thread open about overland difficulty.

Charon_on_Vacation · March 2022

trying to engage the player through difficulty is just one way to do it, and it is a way that only works for a certain niche of gamers.
i don't think eso as a whole would profit from such an approach, though a minority of players surely would like that to happen.
you also have to keep in mind that is not only about the engagement, but also about the fantasy that they want to convey.

ghost_bg_ESO · March 2022

seems nice game, haven't played elden ring (yet).

judging from nexus mods as cheat engines are the most downloaded mods people definitely "like" its difficulty

ApoAlaia · March 2022

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread#latest

Please.

Let's not go back to the 'weekly thread about overland difficulty'.

Brrrofski · March 2022

I mean, they're apples and oranges.

I don't think what one makes successful automatically translates to others.

I think Elden Ring's popularity is because of many things, not just difficulty.

I mean, Dark Souls is a successful franchise, but not on the scale of Elden Ring at the moment.

But you can't compare Dark Souls to ESO. One is a more linear single player game, one is an MMO.

So why compare ER to ESO? One is (primarily) a single player RPG, the other and MMO. All they share different from DS is that they're open world.

ESO is an MMO. Creating different instances of overland would just separate th player base, which is not what an MMO is about.

So making new zones harder would just stagger people's progress and separate them. That's how the game was. It moved away from that with One Tamriel, and it was welcomed with open arms by the majority of players.

Plus what would be the point? The game is currently built around a lot of gear being viable. XP beyond a certain level is largely irrelevant, so wouldn't matter if it gave more really. Plus it's be quicker to grind in standard mode.

So what would the new difficulty give you? If you want it for the challenge alone, play another game that gives you that. Play ER.

I don't think it would work for ESO. There is hard content in the game, but instanced. Which I think is fine. The option is there.

And honestly, the success of a game for most people is how much money it brings in. I get the feeling ZOS makes plenty from the crown store already.

kwinter · March 2022

The same thing was said when new world was release and now there are question if the game will survive. While I wouldn’t mind some harder overland content in ESO it has formula that has be working for them and they are unlikely to change.

Kessra · March 2022

What is actually hard? Is it avoiding stuff? Paying attention to your surroundings? Is it pulling off decent to good damage (like 70k+) in order to kill stuff before it is able to kill you?

When Maelstrom arena was released, almost all players died there frequently until they learned the spawn locations and how to counter certain mechanics. Plenty of players now run it like there is no other thing and don't even die there regardless of what char they go there with.

But did they really improve how players act to more dynamic encounters? If so, almost everyone beating Maelstrom arena should have obtained immortal achievements in vet-dungeons and trials by now. But the reality is, the number of players who have these achivements is rather limited.

IMO one of the big flaws of ESO is that it allows you to skip mechanics by simply out-DPSing them. This simply leads to situations where a player who learned to deal decent amount of damage in a short period dosn't have to fear most of the mechanics at all. But when those players are suddenly confronted with something they can't burst in a couple of seconds they are probably most likely to die as they aren't used to counter such.

I still remember old veteran content in Cadwells gold and silver zones where pulling unintended mobs could easily lead to your death. Sure, players were by far not that familiar with the game and gear didn't allow for really high DPS numbers, but people needed to pay attention on where they went to and which mobs they pulled. You hardly could ride by mobs in order to skip those and people usually teamed up to get their quest done. With One Tamriel though ZOS revamped the whole system and nerfed the content notably to attract probably the core audience of this game, former Elder Scrolls players who were used to play solo.

While I do believe that a bit more of tuning is needed to at least bear the danger of dying, I don't think old veteran zone "difficulty" is appropriate for a large amount of players. I am also strongly against ZOS decissions for one-shot mechanics as they just feel dull and uninsprired IMO. A tank should have a HP pool for a reason but block on the other side mitigates just to much damage allowing healers to focus more on the DDs in order to throw in some support-love.

RisenEclipse · March 2022

Every time a popular game comes out, people charge in here screaming for ESO to be that game... if you don't want to play ESO then don't play it. Elden Ring is new and shiny. It's reminiscent of Dark Souls, which already has a large fan base by the way. So your point of it being so popular because of game play is moot. Wait a few years, then come back and tell ESO it needs to become Elden Ring because the game mechanics is what's making it popular, not that it's new and the fan base already around it...

Mayrael · March 2022

I wish the OP would, but alas, it won't happen. The chapter is probably in the final touches.

ArchangelIsraphel · March 2022

While I wouldn't mind having the option to have a more difficult story mode unlocked so that I could replay a quest on a more challenging setting, I am against the idea of making ESO anything like Elden Ring. Changing overland difficulty without making it optional would only make all of the horrible changes ZOS is making to the game that much worse.

Not a fan of the "Dark Souls" formula and never was.

redlink1979 · March 2022

There's already a thread for this...
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread#latest

ZOS_Ragnar · March 2022

Hello folks,

We have closed this thread as we already have an active discussion about the difficulty of ESO’s overland content. We encourage you to share your thoughts on this matter in the Overland Content Feedback Thread.