Why High Skill Ceiling and Skill Gap is actually good for a game

LordDragonMara · July 2022

ESO direction to narrow the Skill Gap and lowering the Skill Ceiling in the game for quite some time, is completely wrong on every single level, and it's bad for the lifespan of the game.
Let me explain:
Firstable it's up to the people to know in what they are getting into it. This is Online/Multiplayer game, this is a MMORPG games, and it's such there obviously going to be complexity all around, but more importantly depth, which is a great thing, because if the game has no depths, then it's going to become extremely boring really fast.
Multiplayer games from the down of gaming is about playing with other people, and competitiveness its part of it. As well as your skills as a players.
Multiplayer Gaming, and Gaming as a whole is just like the real world sports. It's the same. People play it/train it for fun, and for the competitive nature of it.
If you don't want any part of the competitive nature of the sport/game, you should do it in alone, and not complain about it, aka in single players games. As they are there for a obvious reason.
But you can't order a Burger and complain that it doesn't taste like a Pizza. Or order a Family car and then start complaining it doesn't feel like a sport care, right ?

Let's look at the sports Worldwide. Tennis for example. The sport is at all time highest, because of the extremely high ceiling, and because of players like Djokovic, Nadal and Federer defining the sport to a whole new level. Does someone complain that the other ones are miles behind(aka skill gap is extremely high) ? No! People loves this, and paying for this. Also people that starting with the tennis, they don't want to be like the regular guys like Dimitrov or so for example, they want to be like Federer, Nadal or Djokovic. They know in order to get there, they have to put major efforts on it.
So should anyone trying to change the rules to the game, because the skill gap is too high, and the ceiling is insanely high ?
Same in Football. Ronaldo, Messi and so on was miles ahead of the competition. And the reason for it, it's because they are most devoted and put most efforts into it, and also train/play in smartness way.

Everyone can jump into any sports and play it for fun, but not everyone can become a PRO, or even good enough for amateurs, because you need to extra efforts, like doing strength and conditioning training, you have to practice a lot, got to do Cardio Sessions and so on.
But that doesn't stop new people to try and play the sports, hasn't it ? You just doing it for fun. Fun is different for certain people, are some find fun in challenging themselves and to prove they are better than others, because that is the nature of playing with other peoples, just like in the sports, just like in the gaming.
And people that just play for straight fun and not want to put much effort, should they start crying, that they can't compete with the Pro/Amateur, and they can't get out of the neighborhood playground and play real matches on a stadium or participate in Champions League in Football or GS in Tennis terms ?
There is literally no sense in that, right ?
I want to add something else here. When you enter a Fitness GYM or a Martial Arts GYM for a first time or for a 10th time, you are not on the level of the people that trainers for years, right? You won't be pushing weights that are they are pushing, and neither you are going to do things/moves that experienced people in Martial Arts are doing. Some people that are lazy never going to catch on, but the smart ones and fast learners(because they know the concept and how things works), they will shorten the gap, climb the ranking and even become better than some doing the right things.
But ESO doesn't explain the things you need to do, to improve, to climb and so on.

It's the same with U35, there is absolutely no sense in that patch.

The big numbers in player population is in Multiplayer gaming. Competitive gaming, E-Sports is also huge, and it's because of players skills, and because people are trying to be better than the other one.
Games like CS:GO, Fortnite, Apex Legends, League of Legends, DOTA, and actually all MP games and genres like FPS, Battle Royale MOBBAS, and so on, are on all time high, because people loves to compete, and they find this as a sport. Just look at Twitch and where the viewers are, exactly in this games. They want to see people outplay other people, they want to see players that are superbly skilled, just like they want to see footballers or Tennis players that are superbly skilled and do their magic, like pulling 1 vs 2 or 1vs3 or 1vs5 moves and so on.

And everyone is winning big money from it. Hardware components as well. People are paying to get top notch Internet connection, Top PCs for performance, top Gaming Mouse, Top optical/mechanical keyboards, top headphones, top monitors for High FPS so they can get as every advantage they can over the competition.
Everyone is trying to push himself as a gamer, to have better mouse, control, to move faster, to have great hand-eye coordination, have great micromanagement, to have good positioning, to have good APM and etc.

And then MMORPG genres as a whole are crying that the genre is slowly but steady losing players to other genres, eh isn't the reason obvious, why ?
And ESO developers are trying to nerfing and pretty much said a Hard NO to this type of players, that are dominating the gaming scene. Good luck with that approach.

Even if a player likes the world, likes the story, likes the MMORPG as a whole, he would still search for challenge and that competitive nature, and the skills that separate him for the rest.

I have spend plenty of time in Improving my WPM, my APM, my Mouse Control(i'm pretty much a top aimer in FPS games, around 2k hours in Aim trainers and i'm top 10% in most aiming scenarios), and ESO is pretty much telling me a hard no. You will be down to the level of a people that are just miles worst than you, but in our game, you will be equal ....

I'm giving you a hard NO too ESO. I love the World in this game, it's the most complex and beautiful i have yet to seen. The story is great, the questing is great, the end game stuffs are great as well. And there was a options for everyone for the so call casual gamers, for the ones that they themselves to a more serious levels, for the top and for the pros. You RUINED all that with U35.

And this will just make a lot of people leave, and i don't see how this will make the game more accessible and how will bring new blood to the game. And you are doing this, when the game is in great health, have a very stable and big playerbase. You are literally ruining your own game for nothing and being stubborn.

I will do one last comparison with a Path of Exile. The game has millions flaws, and it's the least new player friendly game of them all, everything is so complicated, and the tutorials doesn't explain things at all. You will end up at End Game, not knowing what to do at all. The resources are all outside of the game, and so on.
But the game is super healthy, and the main reason for that is not the accessibility, the low skill gap, low skill ceiling and so on and so on. The reason for that dear ESO is, because they are constantly introducing new skills, new builds, and most importantly every new league they are bringing new End Game Content that makes people want to comeback.
They are not messing around with Core game mechanics like Combat, they are just giving their playerbase something to look for, something to comeback for, and new experience and new fun.

This is it for me. I'm truly sad with the U35, that literally kills the fun for me, and until you understand that you make a huge mistake, and stop messing with Skill in this game, i will be away from the game, reading forums in the waiting that you finally understand that you made a huge mistake.

Kiralyn2000 · July 2022

LordDragonMara wrote: »

The big numbers in player population is in Multiplayer gaming. Competitive gaming, E-Sports is also huge, and it's because of players skills, and because people are trying to be better than the other one.
Games like CS:GO, Fortnite, Apex Legends, League of Legends, DOTA, and actually all MP games and genres like FPS, Battle Royale MOBBAS, and so on, are on all time high, because people loves to compete, and they find this as a sport.

Yes, and all those people are playing those games - actual competitive games, designed to be competitive, and focused just on that.

They're not playing the unbalanced PvP tacked on to the side of MMOs, or doing progression raiding leaderboards.

(not to say that there aren't "competitive" people here, there obviously are. But it's not the majority of the playerbase, it's not the total focus of the game. With a dedicated PvP/esports game, clearly that's what everyone is there for.)
edit: heck, even back when I was playing early WoW, they said that it was only like 2-5% of the playerbase that was doing major raiding.

...there's a reason no MMO is an "esport". They're not built & designed around PvP & competition. And they're imbalanced by nature of them being MMOs, with levels & loot & all that other stuff.
(heck, most MMOs don't even have "PvE leaderboards", the only 'competition' in endgame is for the three or four absolute top progression guilds getting the "world first clear" on the newest elite raids. i honestly think having PvE leaderboards in this game was a big mistake, as it spread the 'competitiveness' stuff into areas it didn't need to be. PvE doesn't need to be a competitive activity. It's just silly.)

Even if a player likes the world, likes the story, likes the MMORPG as a whole, he would still search for challenge and that competitive nature, and the skills that separate him for the rest.

That's true for some people. (see: all those "Gamer Personality Test" things, that categorize gamers by what aspects they enjoy/look for). Personally, I'm not really competitive in games. I don't care that you got there first, I don't care that you have a shinier sword. I don't care to "beat" you at anything. I don't keep turning up the difficulty of single player games because they're "not hard enough". I'm here for the experience, the story, the exploration & sights. I'm just here for the world of it. Sure, I'll try to push my way through stuff to see new things and get interesting loot... but I'm not going to go too far with that. "Medium" achievement is okay.
I have no desire to beat my head against the Cliffs Of Difficulty until I conquer them, standing at the top and screaming my victory to the gods! That just seems stressful, honestly. (needless to say, my least favorite aspect of games is Grand Boss Fights. Nope, no desire to play Souls-likes or Monster Hunter.

)

Been playing videogames since the late 70's. I got over my need to get a high score decades ago. /shrug

----

And I really wish they'd never used the phrase "skill gap". What they're trying to do is narrow the DPS gap (as I've said in other threads, every other MMO I've played has tried similar patches at times), not remove the 'skill' needed to play at the highest levels.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Yes, and all those people are playing those games - actual competitive games, designed to be competitive, and focused just on that.

They're not playing the unbalanced PvP tacked on to the side of MMOs, or doing progression raiding leaderboards.

(not to say that there aren't "competitive" people here, there obviously are. But it's not the majority of the playerbase, it's not the total focus of the game. With a dedicated PvP/esports game, clearly that's what everyone is there for.)
edit: heck, even back when I was playing early WoW, they said that it was only like 2-5% of the playerbase that was doing major raiding.

Completely untrue. If you look at the forums, the first thing people complain is something not been fair or not been balanced.
You will find that in any game, and more so on most MOBBA games. There is always some unbalanced character with unbalanced abilities or so. But if you are good enough you can overcome this.

In every single genres of this, the mast majority of people are actually the casual players. It's the same in Apex, it's the same in CS:GO, it's the same in MOBBA and so on. But they still balanced the game towards the highest possible skill ceiling, because that's the right thing, and how you push the game going forwards.

Numbers most people throwing off, are just some imaginers numbers to make some people feel better or to use it as a facts, which in reality, no one really has the numbers, and how many % are the hardcore, how many % is the casual, and most importantly, how many % want this or that.

Just because you are a "casual" gamer" that doesn't mean you aren't striving to become a top one, one day. Or you not starting the game with that in your mind.

[snip]

I gave the example with certain sports/genres, because i have played them for quite a while(except for tennis, but the concept is clear).

But it's still the same, there is millions or even billions of people playing football, tennis and so on, but just a handful that are playing at top levels, and they still balance the sports towards the very best, right ? How can you argue that.

Vast majority of people play CS:GO and Apex(games i have plenty of experience) are casuals. A lot of them don't care becoming top players. But just like in MMORPG, where you have normal, vet and hard content, there is ranking in this games, and Matchmaking that will match you with people of your skills or close to it.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

That's true for some people. (see: all those "Gamer Personality Test" things, that categorize gamers by what aspects they enjoy/look for). Personally, I'm not really competitive in games. I don't care that you got there first, I don't care that you have a shinier sword. I don't care to "beat" you at anything. I don't keep turning up the difficulty of single player games because they're "not hard enough". I'm here for the experience, the story, the exploration & sights. I'm just here for the world of it. Sure, I'll try to push my way through stuff to see new things and get interesting loot... but I'm not going to go too far with that. "Medium" achievement is okay.
I have no desire to beat my head against the Cliffs Of Difficulty until I conquer them, standing at the top and screaming my victory to the gods! That just seems stressful, honestly. (needless to say, my least favorite aspect of games is Grand Boss Fights. Nope, no desire to play Souls-likes or Monster Hunter. )

Been playing videogames since the late 70's. I got over my need to get a high score decades ago. /shrug

And there is nothing wrong with that. ESO, and every other MMORPG are giving you that. You can complete the whole game, and compete in pretty much most of the end game on normal difficulty, and if you want to challenge yourself to push it harder, where is the problem with that ?

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

And I really wish they'd never used the phrase "skill gap". What they're trying to do is narrow the DPS gap (as I've said in other threads, every other MMO I've played has tried similar patches at times), not remove the 'skill' needed to play at the highest levels.

It's exactly the skill gap and skill ceiling they are lowering, and in terms of DOT they are completely removing it from the game.
You was actually having to pay attention to whats going on with your rotation and to have a clear idea what you need to do, and to have some average to say APM to do so(like 150-180).
Micromanagement is a skill itself. Making it 20 seconds, they are removing this, and making the extremely boring.

Also they are artificially closing the gap between players that spamming LA weaving, aka doing it the wrong way, but still gets something from it, and the guys that are doing it perfectly. Trying to perfecting your LA Weaving is giving you diminishing return at certain point.

And btw every genre should look to improve and evolve. Battle Royale that are ruling gaming nowadays, and are so successful are just coming the best from both worlds.
They are introducing team plays that so many people want, they have taking Characters, Abilities and Big Open Worlds from RPG and so on, and FPS part is obvious.
MMORPG are losing player base, because they stale for long time, and refuse to introduce new stuffs and to evolve.
But i have hopes, cause a lot of the new MMOs are trying to go the new route, introducing action combat bases, which there is way more skill involves and so on.

But what ESO currently doing is trying to backwards, which won't work.

[edited for baiting]

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Something i forget to mention is this:
I will talk about Apex, cause i have very deep knowledge in the game.
It's good to say that in Apex there is a lot of skill levels, and the skill gap is quite clear. It's not a typical low, mid, high.

How they give a chance to the lesser player compare to the ones that are better/above them in the mechanical parts, aka skills with movement and aiming.
They make some Legends(characters) new-player/noob friendly, and obviously some abilities more noob friendly and in some terms OP. Same with some of the weapons. But they are not OP in every skill level, but just in lower skill levels.
This is the best way to balance things out.

Apex Pro players are around 100. Really top players are around 1000. The games is played by millions. Most people are playing Pubs, not even going for ranked plays.
Ranks levels are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Apex Predator.
Before Predator was just 500 people, now it's 750.

Vast majority of people playing the game, like 90% or even more, are reaching maximum/at best Platinum.

But still there is a lot of better players, who are in lower ranked, compare to other, because of team, how they play and so.

Kiralyn2000 · July 2022

LordDragonMara wrote: »

[snip]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree, [snip]

Eh, whatever. Good luck.

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

[snip]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree, [snip]

Eh, whatever. Good luck.

Which one of my point exactly are not true ? That the playerbase of this games are vast majority of casual players? Everyone knows that. There is even numbers for Apex and you can look at them. It's the same for most games actually.
In POE vast majority of the players are casuals. Yet the Devs always balance and design the game for the top players and towards end game. There was a stats the vast majority of the players never even played the end game at all.

POE doesn't even have PVP(it have, but no one played and neither the game is balanced or focused on it), neither any competitive nature in terms of Player vs Players.

[edited to remove quote]

FischyJones · July 2022

No, to all of your points.

dmnqwk · July 2022

If we consider the three pillars of why people do sports, we might get a clearer picture as to why it's not good to compare a Sport to a Video Game, even if you disguise it as an Electronic Sport.

1) Accessibility.
Some sports are vastly more popular than others in terms of participative members due to either the ability to play the sport in any given location; or the cost involved in participating. Equestrianism is not as popular as Tennis simply because it's a lot more expensive to purchase a mount than it is to buy yourself a racquet. Same goes for Cricket against Football - even though Cricket has a major following in Asia, which has a highly dense population, there is still more people who play Football is a few markers for a goal and some rolled up newspaper.

The Accessibility within a video game is about how easy it is to get into and how much it costs to buy/maintain.
MMOs already have a higher accessibility cost than FPS games because they require a subscription to maintain, reducing how many potential players there are in the world.
A free to play MMO already has a low accessibility barrier, meaning it has a larger pool of players. Whether it balances around end game or not, there are people who play it because it's the only option they can reliably afford.

2) Popularity.
In this one I do not refer to the popularity of the sport itself, but as to the popularity (fame) gained by the individual for participating in the game. When you consider the largest Instagram account in the world belongs to Ronaldo, there is a hefty allure for some to be drawn into playing a sport so they can become famous (there can be ulterior motives, such as campaigning for social change, on top of purely wanting to be famous).

MMOs were a huge hit at one point, but are now slowly deteriorating in popularity. When the internet was much younger, before youtube and other streaming platforms, there used to be more of a buzz around MMOs and the activities of the end game crowd - where people would want to emulate their heroes. With the modern streaming approach and the popularity of visual media you are more likely to see games with simplistic plots being celebrated, like MOBAs and FPS games, than you are the raids of an MMO. So if the popular streams are not showing ESO end game, but are either showing other games or maybe someone jumping in pvp with a resto staff equipped there is limited resources encouraging end game play.

3) Commercialism.
Money does indeed make the world go round and the Sporting world is no stranger to this. While some people go into sport to work hard, others are working hard to go into sport for the monies it can put in their pocket. Whether they are earning on the court/pitch/table or if they are shooting a commercial for a soft drink, there is a large segment of the audience would see the monies being made and go 'I want that!'.

With Video Games - MMOs are definitely at the forefront of monetization of the game. This usually means that people invest a lot of money into an MMO before they tire of it - and at that point they dont want to stop playing because they've invested a lot of money into it. This means keeping those players who have reached end game is less important than getting new players to the point of no return, wherein they keep playing out of habit. This is better achieved by ensuring the game stays popular and fun for new people with big numbers, and making it as accessible as possible (considering the high costs involved).

It's easy to try and think MMOs should care more about the end game, because back in the 90s this was 100% true. But times have moved on and MMOs are no longer as popular as they used to be. Casual gaming has taken over from hardcore raiding as the leading design choice for a lot of MMOs and ESO is no different - if far too important to ensure entry-level dps is balanced to worry too much about end game numbers - as frustrating as that is to people who are still end game raiding (I'm afraid I stopped hardcore raiding in video games back in 2013, with last year in swtor spent doing a bit during lockdown) so I can sympathise with those who never got to enjoy it at the height of MMO popularity.

But I must categorically state 100% no matter how much I personally loved hitting number 1 DPS on world of logs for 2 bosses simultaneously as a tank (not tank 1, but overall 1 due to broken vengeance in wow) I will never EVER support end game raiding showing disdain to entry-level players. It wreaks of failure to understand how important they are to the game!

Dagoth_Rac · July 2022

You don't need to be a professional gamer or professional tennis player to have any hope of competing in those other games and sports. There is challenging, enjoyable, satisfying game play for players of all skill levels. Normal is so easy in ESO and Veteran so hard in ESO (never mind Veteran Hard mode!), that there is a giant gap where you literally cannot play the game with any enjoyment.

It is the equivalent of (American) football if the only places to play were Pop Warner flag football, the SEC, or the NFL. Once you outgrow Pop Warner flag football, how do you get to the SEC? Yes, of course you need to practice and study game film and do drills and get coached, etc., etc. But you also ... ya know ... want to play the game. Junior Varsity, Varsity, Division II college, Division I small schools, Division I major programs, college Bowl games, NFL special team players, NFL starters, NFL Playoffs, Super Bowl. There is a lot of opportunity to play the game and face a reasonable challenge for your skill level. There is a serious lack of that in ESO. You reach this wall where you have a huge, extended expanse of nothing but meta-gaming and dummy parses before you can get back to actually playing the game.

I think you could make the case that this is more of a content gap than a skill gap. But it does not change the fact that the skill gap is hurting ESO in ways it does not hurt those other games.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

dmnqwk wrote: »

If we consider the three pillars of why people do sports, we might get a clearer picture as to why it's not good to compare a Sport to a Video Game, even if you disguise it as an Electronic Sport.

1) Accessibility.
Some sports are vastly more popular than others in terms of participative members due to either the ability to play the sport in any given location; or the cost involved in participating. Equestrianism is not as popular as Tennis simply because it's a lot more expensive to purchase a mount than it is to buy yourself a racquet. Same goes for Cricket against Football - even though Cricket has a major following in Asia, which has a highly dense population, there is still more people who play Football is a few markers for a goal and some rolled up newspaper.

The Accessibility within a video game is about how easy it is to get into and how much it costs to buy/maintain.
MMOs already have a higher accessibility cost than FPS games because they require a subscription to maintain, reducing how many potential players there are in the world.
A free to play MMO already has a low accessibility barrier, meaning it has a larger pool of players. Whether it balances around end game or not, there are people who play it because it's the only option they can reliably afford.

2) Popularity.
In this one I do not refer to the popularity of the sport itself, but as to the popularity (fame) gained by the individual for participating in the game. When you consider the largest Instagram account in the world belongs to Ronaldo, there is a hefty allure for some to be drawn into playing a sport so they can become famous (there can be ulterior motives, such as campaigning for social change, on top of purely wanting to be famous).

MMOs were a huge hit at one point, but are now slowly deteriorating in popularity. When the internet was much younger, before youtube and other streaming platforms, there used to be more of a buzz around MMOs and the activities of the end game crowd - where people would want to emulate their heroes. With the modern streaming approach and the popularity of visual media you are more likely to see games with simplistic plots being celebrated, like MOBAs and FPS games, than you are the raids of an MMO. So if the popular streams are not showing ESO end game, but are either showing other games or maybe someone jumping in pvp with a resto staff equipped there is limited resources encouraging end game play.

3) Commercialism.
Money does indeed make the world go round and the Sporting world is no stranger to this. While some people go into sport to work hard, others are working hard to go into sport for the monies it can put in their pocket. Whether they are earning on the court/pitch/table or if they are shooting a commercial for a soft drink, there is a large segment of the audience would see the monies being made and go 'I want that!'.

With Video Games - MMOs are definitely at the forefront of monetization of the game. This usually means that people invest a lot of money into an MMO before they tire of it - and at that point they dont want to stop playing because they've invested a lot of money into it. This means keeping those players who have reached end game is less important than getting new players to the point of no return, wherein they keep playing out of habit. This is better achieved by ensuring the game stays popular and fun for new people with big numbers, and making it as accessible as possible (considering the high costs involved).

It's easy to try and think MMOs should care more about the end game, because back in the 90s this was 100% true. But times have moved on and MMOs are no longer as popular as they used to be. Casual gaming has taken over from hardcore raiding as the leading design choice for a lot of MMOs and ESO is no different - if far too important to ensure entry-level dps is balanced to worry too much about end game numbers - as frustrating as that is to people who are still end game raiding (I'm afraid I stopped hardcore raiding in video games back in 2013, with last year in swtor spent doing a bit during lockdown) so I can sympathise with those who never got to enjoy it at the height of MMO popularity.

But I must categorically state 100% no matter how much I personally loved hitting number 1 DPS on world of logs for 2 bosses simultaneously as a tank (not tank 1, but overall 1 due to broken vengeance in wow) I will never EVER support end game raiding showing disdain to entry-level players. It wreaks of failure to understand how important they are to the game!

1. Accessibility:
It's the same for the game, there is more popular, and ones that are not that popular. Same with some price cost more than the others, and not everyone could be on sub all the time for example.
Yeah it's not the same obviously, but principle is similar.

2. Popularity:

The people with tons of followers or so, are either the ones that are highly skilled players like Shroud, who is highly skilled player that the moment he switch a game, his followers do the same, which brings huge attention and popularity to that game. A lot of games are actually paying this streamers to advertise/promote their game, like Valorant for example.
But he always try to play games, where his skills as a player can be shown.
Yeah he is skipping MMORPG, because he believe there is not much skill involved in the current ones.

The other ones that are being highly followed are for the content their create, and that they are funny, being hilarous and so on, like ShivFPS(Apex) and Dr Disrespect's(Apex, Warzone).
A lot of fans want to be like them, and are playing the games they play and putting efforts cause they want to be like them. Exactly the same as with the sports.
When i was younger and was into Kyokushin Karate i was huge fan of Andy Hug, and that influence my choice, even though there wasn't a dojo nearby, and i could have easy time with other martial arts, that was super close to me.

I know many people that played Warcraft 3, because of players like Grubby, Happy, Moon and Lyn. Same with CS:GO and so on.

3. Commercialism:
The first part of your essay can be said exactly the same for Twitch. Many people want to become streamer, because of the money. Yeah some works hard, and to be good, but other wants to stream and get money from it.

The next part with

This means keeping those players who have reached end game is less important than getting new players

, i'm sorry but this makes zero sense. Anyone that is working in some corporation or was study business knowing this ain't true. It's usually cost you between 4 to 7 time more to bring a new player, in comparison to keep an existing one.
On top of that, in MMORPG it's even more important to keep your stable playerbase, cause they obviously are loyal and stable.
And you also don't know for how long the new player will be in the game. A lot of players just try the game, not like it, and straight up leave in a month or even less. Also they may not bring any money to the game, so this is terrible business.

Also it's up to the game/product to keep their already established and loyal customers happy, pretty much at all cost. In MMORPG it's actually not that hard, just release new content they have interest in.

Next point about the end game, and how it was before, but now it's not that important.
Another point that is completely wrong.

Now more than even people want more end game, and the game to offer more and more content.

The difference is back then, MMORPG was all about team, and you pretty much couldn't play solo. Now this is a huge + to the current ones, that allow for you to play Solo not just the game, but most if not all of the end game content. And Casual players should be extremely happy with what Devs have given to them with that.

Anyway you are saying the the numbers in MMORPG are getting lowers, maybe this is one of the reason ? They forget what makes them unique ? And where the focus lies?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juR8h1htw5k&t=994s

Yeah this is a bit older video, but he is 100% right.

And btw without it's hardcore fanbase, MMORPG are absolutely nothing. Same with any other genre. You drive your hardcore playerbase, and no matter how big the numbers of casual players currently is, the game will 100% die.

And every casual and new player should be thankful to most of the hardcore gamers.
I'm a new player in ESO as well, and the game is dead easy. I don't want anything to be given to me, neither someone to artificially gap the skill difference.

And btw, if it wasn't for the so call hardcore gamers(no-lifers as some may want to call them), we wouldn't have a single guide for this or that. Not a single build. The game doesn't tell you many things. And just open youtube, and you can have 10+ different beginners guide that explain in depth how to let's say prepare and what to expect, and explain everything you need to know.

Most casuals are straight up lazy, good luck knowing what is the best set, hell what is the best ability, best rotation, best character for this or that, best gear, how to Weave, how to use your Dots, when to swap bars, when to dodge, when to block, when to attack and millions more.

This people makes casual people life 1000x time easier.
Same for the people that make the addons that easier people life. I'm against addon myself, but you get the point.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

You don't need to be a professional gamer or professional tennis player to have any hope of competing in those other games and sports. There is challenging, enjoyable, satisfying game play for players of all skill levels. Normal is so easy in ESO and Veteran so hard in ESO (never mind Veteran Hard mode!), that there is a giant gap where you literally cannot play the game with any enjoyment.

It is the equivalent of (American) football if the only places to play were Pop Warner flag football, the SEC, or the NFL. Once you outgrow Pop Warner flag football, how do you get to the SEC? Yes, of course you need to practice and study game film and do drills and get coached, etc., etc. But you also ... ya know ... want to play the game. Junior Varsity, Varsity, Division II college, Division I small schools, Division I major programs, college Bowl games, NFL special team players, NFL starters, NFL Playoffs, Super Bowl. There is a lot of opportunity to play the game and face a reasonable challenge for your skill level. There is a serious lack of that in ESO. You reach this wall where you have a huge, extended expanse of nothing but meta-gaming and dummy parses before you can get back to actually playing the game.

I think you could make the case that this is more of a content gap than a skill gap. But it does not change the fact that the skill gap is hurting ESO in ways it does not hurt those other games.

The gap is huge between amateur and pro, you know ?
The gap is ESO is anything but huge. You just need to be smart and know how to achieve it. It doesn't need years of practice, compare to real sports or actually any FPS games, where building top aim to try to be just a good player, require years of hard practice, at least 2-3 hours at day.

In ESO you can practice all that by playing the game in Overland Content or in normal mode of the stuffs.

The gap between amateur to pro level in Football(i'm talking about Football, not Rugby(don't know that sport and can't talk about it)), or actually any other sport is huge. You are going to put insane amount of effort, and mostly physical.
You got none in ESO or video games. The road here is way, way easier.

Improving in ESO in terms of your gameplay, is a child play, compare to do that in FPS, MOBBA or in BR.

ESO require very little mechanical skills, would say to a basic level, compare to the rest of the genre mentioning. The huge difference in skill gap is the - Knowledge. Top players knows how to adapt and get where they want.

Parasaurolophus · July 2022

No, you're wrong. There is no competitive PVE in eso to compete. Who do I compete with when I want to farm a mask from vCT, but start a dungeon with gruptools, I get a player who spams a venomius arrow and the other one spams a heavy attack. Why do I need competition here when I want the content to work?

Even if it's PVP, I want to have a lot of worthy opponents around me and I don't care how much time a new player spends to improve his skill. I just want the content to work, and the gameplay was fun and interesting.

UPD: Literally, the vCT run was excruciating for me yesterday. But I didn’t leave, because I feel moral satisfaction helping the players.
UPD2: The desire of ZoS to reduce the skill gap is quite reasonable. But ya, the U35 combat change is insane.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

No, you're wrong. There is no competitive PVE in eso to compete. Who do I compete with when I want to farm a mask from vCT, but start a dungeon with gruptools, I get a player who spams a venomius arrow and the other one spams a heavy attack. Why do I need competition here when I want the content to work?

Even if it's PVP, I want to have a lot of worthy opponents around me and I don't care how much time a new player spends to improve his skill. I just want the content to work, and the gameplay was fun and interesting.

UPD: Literally, the vCT run was excruciating for me yesterday. But I didn’t leave, because I feel moral satisfaction helping the players.
UPD2: The desire of ZoS to reduce the skill gap is quite reasonable. But ya, the U35 combat change is insane.

There is a plenty like achievements, or to do the hard content. It's what players make it in his mind and his goals.
Or do certain thing way faster and so on, and so on. Depends on people playstyle.
Same in the PVP. People are different i guess.

And care to explain how exactly reducing the skill gap is reasonable ?

Mik195 · July 2022

Well, sure after all purchasing the game and my monthly ESO Plus only costs me half of what it does you. Oh, wait, that's the problem with the skill gap and all of your examples.

I don't get a price break because nearly all the "competitive" content is impossible for me. That's a problem when I see ZOS roll out new stuff for you every quarter and I only get new stuff twice a year. You can argue whether this is the right way to go about it, but making more content available to more people is generally never a bad business move.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

I guess we will see in 2-3 months time.
I'm new player as well i just don't agree with removing skill from the game, and artificially closing the skill gap.
And ESO always bring something for all type of players. Plenty of new stuffs with every update.
And you guess what, vet and hard content are open for everyone.

Carcamongus · July 2022

I find this insistence on calling casual players or anyone who doesn't "wanna be the very best" or who fails to catch up with the pros lazy very objectionable. The world is a bit more complex than the "git gud" meme would suggest.

It's important to stress that ESO has its competitive side, but the cooperative one is far more relevant. It's possible to grow in the game without having to constantly feel superior to "worse players". During my early days as a tank I wouldn't slot a taunt because I thought it was silly to attract the bad guys' attention; years later I at last got into vet DLC trials. Cooperation with other players made this progress possible.

As I stated in another thread, I'm against such wide-ranging nerfs. Instead of clumsily bringing this "reviled" ceiling down, it'd be much better to take a look at the process players have to undergo in order to improve their skills and consider whether or not it could be improved. Suggestions included buffing some starter sets, making fights less visually confusing (which isn't the same thing as dumbing them down) and I've seen other people call for better tutorials.

Parasaurolophus · July 2022

LordDragonMara wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

No, you're wrong. There is no competitive PVE in eso to compete. Who do I compete with when I want to farm a mask from vCT, but start a dungeon with gruptools, I get a player who spams a venomius arrow and the other one spams a heavy attack. Why do I need competition here when I want the content to work?

Even if it's PVP, I want to have a lot of worthy opponents around me and I don't care how much time a new player spends to improve his skill. I just want the content to work, and the gameplay was fun and interesting.

UPD: Literally, the vCT run was excruciating for me yesterday. But I didn’t leave, because I feel moral satisfaction helping the players.
UPD2: The desire of ZoS to reduce the skill gap is quite reasonable. But ya, the U35 combat change is insane.

There is a plenty like achievements, or to do the hard content. It's what players make it in his mind and his goals.
Or do certain thing way faster and so on, and so on. Depends on people playstyle.
Same in the PVP. People are different i guess.

And care to explain how exactly reducing the skill gap is reasonable ?

First, you are clearly exaggerating the problem. No new player will be able to get GS or PB in a week or even half a year, even if these terrible changes in U35 are live. No. But if a player still wants to start mastering veteran content of the vSG HM or vCA level, then his path is thorny, difficult and full of disappointment. Therefore, most players prefer casual content such as questing or overland. But the problem is that such a player leaves quickly. Yes, there remain some enthusiasts of housing or RP. But for most players, especially the console audience, they do the quests and leave. Do you think why ZoS constantly arranges these useless events? To temporarily raise the player population. Now ZoS wants more players to pay attention to pve content, as it is good and able to keep players longer. But for this it is necessary to start some kind of movement towards greater friendliness for the mass player.
Secondly, achievements and hardmodes are not competitive but cooperative content.
I'm not saying that the skill gap shouldn't exist. No, it must not exist. But in the case of teso, it is simply huge, catastrophically.
Also, looking at the massive U35 changes, I get the impression that the situation is so bad that statistically the average player can't even finish nFG1.

TaSheen · July 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

No, you're wrong. There is no competitive PVE in eso to compete. Who do I compete with when I want to farm a mask from vCT, but start a dungeon with gruptools, I get a player who spams a venomius arrow and the other one spams a heavy attack. Why do I need competition here when I want the content to work?

Even if it's PVP, I want to have a lot of worthy opponents around me and I don't care how much time a new player spends to improve his skill. I just want the content to work, and the gameplay was fun and interesting.

UPD: Literally, the vCT run was excruciating for me yesterday. But I didn’t leave, because I feel moral satisfaction helping the players.
UPD2: The desire of ZoS to reduce the skill gap is quite reasonable. But ya, the U35 combat change is insane.

There is a plenty like achievements, or to do the hard content. It's what players make it in his mind and his goals.
Or do certain thing way faster and so on, and so on. Depends on people playstyle.
Same in the PVP. People are different i guess.

And care to explain how exactly reducing the skill gap is reasonable ?

First, you are clearly exaggerating the problem. No new player will be able to get GS or PB in a week or even half a year, even if these terrible changes in U35 are live. No. But if a player still wants to start mastering veteran content of the vSG HM or vCA level, then his path is thorny, difficult and full of disappointment. Therefore, most players prefer casual content such as questing or overland. But the problem is that such a player leaves quickly. Yes, there remain some enthusiasts of housing or RP. But for most players, especially the console audience, they do the quests and leave. Do you think why ZoS constantly arranges these useless events? To temporarily raise the player population. Now ZoS wants more players to pay attention to pve content, as it is good and able to keep players longer. But for this it is necessary to start some kind of movement towards greater friendliness for the mass player.
Secondly, achievements and hardmodes are not competitive but cooperative content.
I'm not saying that the skill gap shouldn't exist. No, it must not exist. But in the case of teso, it is simply huge, catastrophically.
Also, looking at the massive U35 changes, I get the impression that the situation is so bad that statistically the average player can't even finish nFG1.

I'm the average player. I can't complete nFG1. Well, actually I'm not even the "average player - I'm far less than that.

Remathilis · July 2022

The biggest problem with ESO vet content is that you have to do three things:

1. Learn to flawlessly perform your rotation by muscle memory.
2. Learn to avoid the various mechanics of each encounter.
3. Learn to flawlessly perform your rotation while avoiding the various mechanics of each encounter.

The first is accomplished by spending hours parsing, the second by reading guides written by content providers, and the third of finding a prog group willing to run the content on repeat. The issue is the game itself gives you almost no help on any of these things. There is no smooth on ramp from overland to normal to vet in game (PvP is similar if you go from under-50 to no CP to standard, but it's also a very steep curve.) If you could learn the game by just playing the game, it might be easier to see players who can handle harder content. But unless you have hours to devote to studying streamers or dummy humping, you can't jump from blasting Molag Bal to facing Lady Thorne on HM just by playing the game.

TmzOS · July 2022

Talking as someone who peaked in some specific aspects of one or other game years ago all I can say is every game needs its "hard level". Games that are too much easy or doesn't deliver a minimal challenge become boring and it isn't only bad for the game but for the human itself (especially because difficulty makes us grow better against random situations, if you are burning your time with something pointless you are converting your time to something pointless so.. well it is terrible in terms of progress).

Now, going to game facts, ESO isn't a normal MMO. The community is clearly splitted in two groups: MMO players and TES players.

MMO players are often adapted to progressive difficulties, raids, open world pvp, complex builds, constant social interaction/dependency (at least should be) and whatever.

But TES is a franchise much more single player, historically talking, so we have a curious conflict here. It is hard to deal with, but for our situation we need keep both sides satisfied, because it is TES but it is still a MMO.

Anyway, most MMOs are becoming cheesy as hell, recently I decided to play WoW with some friends and we got the KSM achievement without much problem (it was easy, considering the time spent.. and tons of people pays lots of gold to get it), with a class I never played well. So yeah, it is a trend, they want more casuals inside games, but curiously WoW raiding is becoming harder (or looks like this), the number of mechanics involved are too high, maybe to keep the "tryharders" satisfied (or to counter the bloat of addons telling you what to do).

This game is a place for different people, from the concept, from the franchise. It evolved to fit different people and will be a nightmare to keep up whatever we think about it. I see people who liked to see this game more single player (FFXIV is following this path apparently), others see this idea as a really bad thing (me included, when I want single player I just play TES V). So, the problem is big, but the devs need to use a bit of common sense keeping respect for both groups.

Now about the U35, it's too much, it's going to hurting everyone, especially the casuals who have difficult to understand complex aspects of games, we who learn and adapt easily will suffer much less, keep it in mind, so the actions of this patch looks like terrible ideas in the end (and without the right adjusts will make the endgame even more far from the average player base).

There are other ways to increase endgame interest and quality, things like giveaways to increase player pool, better content marketing, tournaments, better rewards, etc... but I feel the devs are failing to promote the game entirely, monetization is confuse, too much splitted content causing player segregation, some values are often considered too high, overall satisfaction isn't that great with the latest content (not so bad but nothing great, pretty "ok"). For me everything matters and if the base is running strange we can't even expect more complex details to be good at all.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Remathilis wrote: »

The biggest problem with ESO vet content is that you have to do three things:

1. Learn to flawlessly perform your rotation by muscle memory.
2. Learn to avoid the various mechanics of each encounter.
3. Learn to flawlessly perform your rotation while avoiding the various mechanics of each encounter.

The first is accomplished by spending hours parsing, the second by reading guides written by content providers, and the third of finding a prog group willing to run the content on repeat. The issue is the game itself gives you almost no help on any of these things. There is no smooth on ramp from overland to normal to vet in game (PvP is similar if you go from under-50 to no CP to standard, but it's also a very steep curve.) If you could learn the game by just playing the game, it might be easier to see players who can handle harder content. But unless you have hours to devote to studying streamers or dummy humping, you can't jump from blasting Molag Bal to facing Lady Thorne on HM just by playing the game.

But this is the life in pretty much every MMORPG. Again if you want to buy a sport car, buy a sport car. Don't complain when you buy a family car, that doesn't feel like a sport one.

If you want to do the vet/hard content, this things is a must. MMORPG is a depth and complex game.
You can't expect to jump into MMORPG, and to be on par with vet players that have spend thousands hours to perfecting their characters and have been playing for years.
You just can't.

And btw rotation is something you can start hitting and learning from the get going, same for the LA weaving.

Monster mechanics are learn by playing them, and if not, by looking at 5 minutes video how to do, if you just cannot do it.

Reading a guide for your character how to optimal and so, will take you no more than 30 minutes(at worst), to fully understand your character, gear/set you need, rotation you need, and so on. And all of this, thanks to the Hardcore community, that have discover all of this by themselves.
You don't have to waste months to discover what is BIS, what ability to use, the optimal rotation and etc. It's all done for you by the so call "bad guys", aka hardcore guys.

P.P. ESO rotation is the easiest of pretty much all MMO out there. You literally have 6 skills in each bar, and 1 is ult, and 1 is your spammable. Some MMORPG have 20+ ability you have to deal and put an you on.
If you can't deal with 4, then maybe that genre is not for you.

And while i agree that the game itself doesn't provide enough guidance, with every MMORPG, ARPG, and pretty much MP game is like that.
It's up to you to understand what is optimal, and we are living in an era, where everything is already given to you, by the hardcore community.
Back in the day MMORPG was tons harder, and actually gaming as a whole.

LordDragonMara · July 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

First, you are clearly exaggerating the problem. No new player will be able to get GS or PB in a week or even half a year, even if these terrible changes in U35 are live. No. But if a player still wants to start mastering veteran content of the vSG HM or vCA level, then his path is thorny, difficult and full of disappointment. Therefore, most players prefer casual content such as questing or overland. But the problem is that such a player leaves quickly. Yes, there remain some enthusiasts of housing or RP. But for most players, especially the console audience, they do the quests and leave. Do you think why ZoS constantly arranges these useless events? To temporarily raise the player population. Now ZoS wants more players to pay attention to pve content, as it is good and able to keep players longer. But for this it is necessary to start some kind of movement towards greater friendliness for the mass player.
Secondly, achievements and hardmodes are not competitive but cooperative content.
I'm not saying that the skill gap shouldn't exist. No, it must not exist. But in the case of teso, it is simply huge, catastrophically.
Also, looking at the massive U35 changes, I get the impression that the situation is so bad that statistically the average player can't even finish nFG1.

Most players prefer casual approach, because they don't care. They play for fun, and doesn't give a ..... for the rest. They don't want to learn this or that, and it's all of them. They also don't want to waste time being in guild, find groups and so on.
Most people will never ever come to forums, cause they don't want to lose their time, and just play the game, when it's get boring they move on and repeat.

Even if they remove the skill gap completely, that won't change for the large part of people, but it will drive the hardcore base, and then the game slowly but steady will just die.
It's simple as that.

The gap is huge between new and vet players, because the difference is years of playing and thousand of ours, it's a MMORPG, you obviously have to spend plenty of time to get where the people spend thousands/years are.
And the problem is not the skill gap, neither the ceiling.