iaminc wrote: »

Uninstalled, unsubbed a few weeks ago as I knew this was a total ****show and after being back in Eorsea on FF14 I can’t understand why I played this dumpster fire in the first place.

Nefas did a video comparison of eso "tutorial" with ff14's. I was speechless. There is absolutely no excuse for why they can't make a decent one. None. And then their answer is to nerf everything because new players complain about difficulty when the game literally never taught them how to play it. It's embarrassing.

Farmed a Behemoth mask recently. All the same, the damage is still the same big.
Completed vIR hard mod. Everything is great. All bosses died in less than one minute, except last of course.
Oh... Listen guys. No, I'm not trolling. Especially since I haven't been to the trials yet. But it looks like the patch hit the weakest non-meta players.

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Dawnblade wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Riptide wrote: »

So what exactly is improved in this patch? Which players are better off today than Sunday?

People who do not engage in veteran content but delight in the discomfort of those who do. That is the truth of it.

Thankfully such petty people are very rare. Unfortunately they are very vocal, even eloquent.

A few people are stating that they've found U35's changes to be basically unnoticeable or even a little bit of a buff to some of their characters. How is that taking "delight in the discomfort of those who" "engage in veteran content"?

A few are stating that, but not most.

Also, they most likely play easy content that isn't challenging AND they do not measure their performance in any quantifiable way to give an accurate comparison.

They could also just be trolling and lying.

No. Not simple. All veteran dungeons I've done since the release of U35 have been unchanged. DPS is still as big as before. vHoF HM is the same.

Logs or it didn't happen. Plenty of logs can be seen in real time on streams from high end groups and they don't support that.

Things are getting better as more top end adapts, but I don't think it's fair what we did to mid and low. We should build some way for people to understand rotations in amoury or bring back battle corner

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Farmed a Behemoth mask recently. All the same, the damage is still the same big.
Completed vIR hard mod. Everything is great. All bosses died in less than one minute, except last of course.
Oh... Listen guys. No, I'm not trolling. Especially since I haven't been to the trials yet. But it looks like the patch hit the weakest non-meta players.

Yes, all these balance shakeups are "sink or swim". The trick is, not all players come here to swim. They bought that game and it's their right to trade, do quests, RP, take screensshots. I don't see any value in housing and won't see it no matter what. There are people that see zero value in veteran content and won't see it no matter what. It's ok. ZOS made a logical mistake: some players do not engage in PvE endgame not because they can't, but because they can to not engage.

All I have to say about it is that it feels like ZOS wants to have a war of attrition with it's user base.

"How unfun do we need to make the game to get people to quit?"

I can't think of any other MMO I've played that's been out for years that suddenly gets the urge to make it's game less fun to play.

If I managed the team that put together the misguided road map (if there ever was one, sure don't seem like it) for these nonsense changes, I'd fully expect to be fired. In the least, I'd expect them to have the guts to address the community and explain why this was allowed to go live despite the changes being completely antithetical to the problems they stated warranted them.

WHERE are the final fixes for the hybridization changes? That was like a year ago. You're too busy making card games and murdering the combat system to even finish what you started! The meta changes - AGAIN! Now we've got to farm more mats and gold so we can afford gold jewelry since the upgrade materials are ridiculously rare, and that's obnoxious.

ZOS peeps - your community is TIRED. And by that I literally mean exhausted. This game has become such a chore to play due to the constant moving of the goalposts that logging in literally induces sleep, and nerfing everyone's damage sure ain't gonna help that.

The formula has gotten old. If you want this game to be one of those MMO's that hangs around and has a long life, you should think about the content for users to experience and not tinkering with the core of how the game operates. It's probably 7 years too late for that.

My experience with U35? No experience at all. Having 12 alts and having most of most of them builded with gold gear, based on what I've read on the forums, I decided to not login at all, and to take a break. It would hurt too much for me to see with my own eyes the sad truth I already know. I followed all the threads on the PTS section and, while I've to say (unpopular opinion) that ZOS listened to some feedbacks and complaints from the player base, implementing some fixes in the PTS cycle, the outcome was quite clear since day 1. Some things were fixed or changed, some weren't. There is no time for everything, PTS cycles are too shorts and live release deadlines are fixed and known. Heck, to be honest I don't even know if the changes are good or bad for the long term. But the question is: is there really a long term? This game keep changing fundamental stuff 8 years after its release, on a cyclical base. I don't know if a long term will ever exist at this point. May be the long term vision is too keep changing stuff. What i know is that I'm done farming stuff, golding stuff, trying to find a build for a Magplar, a Stamblade or a Magcro just to enjoy it for some monts (or even weeks, sometimes), and having to start from scratch again with most of them every 3 or 6 months. Not because I don't like it. It's always fun to try a new build. But, the point is, I have to continuously change them not because i want it, but because I have to. I give up at this point.

Riptide wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Riptide wrote: »

So what exactly is improved in this patch? Which players are better off today than Sunday?

People who do not engage in veteran content but delight in the discomfort of those who do. That is the truth of it.

Thankfully such petty people are very rare. Unfortunately they are very vocal, even eloquent.

A few people are stating that they've found U35's changes to be basically unnoticeable or even a little bit of a buff to some of their characters. How is that taking "delight in the discomfort of those who" "engage in veteran content"?

Mate, you yourself have said you are doing normal content. Overland and normal, of course you will see little difference,. The wind could blow in a certain direction and you feel a “little bit of a buff”. It is not challenging content.

To you-- it is "not challenging" to you. And not challenging to a lot of other players, I'm sure, because I'll be soloing a world boss and have someone come along, melt it, and then go running off.

But I see a lot of other players in zone chat asking for help with world bosses, because they can't solo them. I wasn't always able to solo them, either, and I still can't solo some of them. So for you to make a blanket statement that "It is not challenging content" without adding any qualifiers, such as "to me," or "to a lot of players," sort of comes across to me as some of that "thinly veiled nastiness" which you have accused others of, as though you're completely dismissive toward anyone who does find it challenging, as though they don't matter in the slightest. That may or may not be what you intended, but it comes across that way to anyone who does find certain overland content challenging.

Riptide wrote: »

Very large swings in balance, in either direction, will rarely be felt strongly there by most people, and that is the brass tacks.

On the contrary, the update that came out a few years ago was strongly felt, both by me and by many other people. I'm sorry, but I can't supply the name of the update, and am not sure if it was two or three years ago, but it was the one where resource costs of skills, as well as resource recovery, changed to the point where many, many players were complaining in the forums about running out of Stamina and then not being able to recover from it. I found myself unable to solo certain PvE content after that, and it took me a long, long time to adjust my fighting style to accommodate to those changes.

And then I took another hit from last year's update, when I went overnight from being able to solo all of the world bosses in Northern Elsweyr to not being able to solo at least one of them on my PC EU main, although my PC NA main could still do it.

That content might not be challenging to you, but it is to me, and I enjoy doing it. And U35 hasn't affected my ability to solo that content the way previous updates did.

Riptide wrote: »

Veteran content, as you well know, is several orders of difficulty more challenging, and there is where anyone will see the the differences in balance changes in stark relief.

And you do not have people saying they are able to do things in normal or overland they were unable to do before. Merely anecdotal “feels fine”. And they may “feel fine” but that doesn’t mean they are “better off” any more than the grifted are “better off” when they buy some snake oil. They “feel fine”, sure. It doesn’t mean they are “better off”. Is a person “better off” if the max speed of their automobile is reduced 20kph, even if they do not “feel” it since they only drive in school zones? Those who use the autobahn know neither of them are, despite the exclusive school zone driver “feeling fine”.

More than one poster here, who “feels fine” after doing some overland or normal dungeons, have went out or their way to make multiple posts intimating that the nerfs, which they don’t “feel”, were initiated because veteran content consumers intimated that overland was too trivial and desired a more challenging mode for it. And go out of there way, repeatedly, to intimate that they got what they asked for.

It is thinly veiled nastiness, is what it is. Those folks have played the forum minigame for years with their foil being endgame content consumers that they resent, and they read like an open book about it. I submit that if you haven’t seen the comments for what they are then you choose not to. Or, you share the view and are friendly to the approach. Which, more power to you.

But a spade is a spade.

Thank you for clarifying which types of comments you were alluding to, but it seems like both sides of the "vets vs. casuals" divide can suffer from a lack of sympathy toward the other side.

Experience in one play session:

Yesterday was raid night. Two people couldn't make it and we had to call the raid BECAUSE THERE ARE NO FILLS. No one knows anyone who is still playing who was willing to DPS in our trial. It used to be you could throw a sweet roll and hit a DPS willing to jump in.

To me, this is why the patch failed regardless of anything else. It occurred to me last night that perhaps this patch was REALLY a way to attack inflation, because as I was listing things in the guild store I wondered if I was pricing things too high because demand is probably going down.

Instead, our dungeon group decided to play. We trio'd Falkreath Hold on normal for a bit waiting for our fourth player to farm Pillar of Nirn gear. And from a "beating the content" perspective I will say I do feel bad for folks who are saying normals are too slow now. We had no issue. It was super super fast to clear. Did not even bother with Dungeon Finder to get a fourth and we didn't really tweak anything for the patch. Three templars... 2 magplar DPS and one hybrid DPS/heals. The latter was me, because next up was Dread Cellar no death runs and I was too lazy to switch my CP and morphs to full DPS. Reading through everyone's feedback, I really agree with people who say we need better tutorials.

The jabs change makes me want to cry. My poor templar looks like she is going to fall over every time she pulls out the spear. I hate the change so much. I have been using this skill since beta and loved it as part of my templar identity. If the animation had been shortened but left otherwise the same, it is something perhaps I could get used to but it is just the worst. It feels wrong, it looks wrong, it's not fun.

In harder content as a full healer aligning my timers/buff felt a little off, but I really need more time with different setups in more dungeons and trials to say how I have been impacted there.

The only other thing I noticed was that my damage, as a hybrid wearing all healing slottables, was often, pull per pull, comparable to the numbers my full DPS friends were pulling. No idea what that means but it seemed wrong. You know, kind of like a game had a bunch of combat changes thrown against the wall, and as a result some skills were over nerfed and some were missed such that by mere happenstance I could keep up because I maybe hit skills that were less gutted.

For reference, skill wise, my friends/ our team is considered intermediate. We've cleared stuff like vMOL HM but struggled with vKA HM as a team. We are not super elite. That said, if we can't find 12 people to play at the same time suddenly all trial content has become inaccessible which is a huge step backwards!

I didn't have time to PvP or try my other characters yet.

I said before that I lost 40% of my DPS on my PVE builds. It sucks but for some reason I figured my PVP build would be mostly fine.

I can't even heal damage from NPCs in Cyrodiil anymore, let alone players. I told everyone I'd take care of a resource, something I could easily solo last week, and not only could I not put a dent in the NPCs' health, my HOTs and burst heal did next to nothing. I died in less than 10 seconds.

I don't understand why some people say nothing has changed for them, and meanwhile I can't even play anymore outside of overland quests. It's like I'm back to when I started the game last year.

I've had my progress accidentally reset in single player games. It sucks, but I eventually play back to where I was. It hits different in a social MMO. I was excited about a guild event this weekend, and now I have nothing to contribute. I've spent so long trying to catch up to other players so I could join in, and that progress is gone.

To you-- it is "not challenging" to you. And not challenging to a lot of other players, I'm sure, because I'll be soloing a world boss and have someone come along, melt it, and then go running off.

But I see a lot of other players in zone chat asking for help with world bosses, because they can't solo them. I wasn't always able to solo them, either, and I still can't solo some of them. So for you to make a blanket statement that "It is not challenging content" without adding any qualifiers, such as "to me," or "to a lot of players," sort of comes across to me as some of that "thinly veiled nastiness" which you have accused others of, as though you're completely dismissive toward anyone who does find it challenging, as though they don't matter in the slightest. That may or may not be what you intended, but it comes across that way to anyone who does find certain overland content challenging.

Certain. That is the operative word. “Certain” overland content. World bosses make up 1% or so of overland content, 5% at the very outside. Respectfully, to focus on that, while ignoring the 95-99% is the very definition of a straw man.

Thank you for clarifying which types of comments you were alluding to, but it seems like both sides of the "vets vs. casuals" divide can suffer from a lack of sympathy toward the other side.

I very strongly disagree. Almost all of us who participate in end game content actively help new players. You would be hard pressed to find an end game player who has not at least one example of mentoring a new player. Most of us have many, many examples - and actively do so constantly. Not only do most endgame players have sympathy for new players but actively spend our time to help make their experience better.

The better word to unpack is empathy. By virtue of every single endgame content consumer having in fact been a new player, every one of them understands what it is like to be in that situation, which makes it very easy to feel compassion for them.

Contrarily, people who have not participated actively in end game content like progression trials must needs imagine and hypothesize at the drives and concerns of those that do. And often attribute negative connotations that do not exist, supported by fictional situations whereby world bosses make up the bulk of overland content and the like.

I mean this respectfully, but indeed my post that you responded pointed out thinly veiled negativity, punctuated with the adage of calling a spade a spade. And so to infer that I or others share said negativity, by presenting a thinly veiled fallacy (that world bosses make up overland content) - it goes right to the heart of what I am getting at. A penchant quite a number of folks on this forum have for pretending a spade is a rake in order to utilize end game content consumers as a foil, when all along they are there to help.

I wonder….did you feel thankful to the person who came along and helped with the world boss? Or did you have a negative reaction? That is a rhetorical question, but I submit some folks deeply resent that sort of thing, even though it helped them and the other person was in fact trying to be helpful. Some of those sort of folks are active posters here, and are driven by that inexplicable agenda.

I have never, not once in ESOs history, found in game a person who resents new or casual players. Not once. But I have however found quite a bit of resentment towards endgame players by a handful of casual players. And those are the folks that are universally thought poorly of once people see them for what they are, because they truly are toxic, and certainly create angst everywhere they go.

My first impression was it seemed to take a little longer to get through some minor encounters that were trivial or instant. I ended up just running and ignoring the useless mobs in PVE as it's not worth the engagement any more. I'll play a bit more but must admit I'm spending less time online since the U35 announce. Will see over time if this makes any meaningful difference to me personally. I am not an elite player. I was able to solo dungeons a few patches before and that stopped recently and with one other and companions it was almost not doable for just about every dungeon. Will see if that changes to none of them doable with our play style. If so, I'll look elsewhere. And given the constant tweaking i don't even bother with trying to "get gud" on this or even bother with CP allocations since seems they do nothing.

Love the game, don't get me wrong.

Riptide wrote: »

To you-- it is "not challenging" to you. And not challenging to a lot of other players, I'm sure, because I'll be soloing a world boss and have someone come along, melt it, and then go running off.

But I see a lot of other players in zone chat asking for help with world bosses, because they can't solo them. I wasn't always able to solo them, either, and I still can't solo some of them. So for you to make a blanket statement that "It is not challenging content" without adding any qualifiers, such as "to me," or "to a lot of players," sort of comes across to me as some of that "thinly veiled nastiness" which you have accused others of, as though you're completely dismissive toward anyone who does find it challenging, as though they don't matter in the slightest. That may or may not be what you intended, but it comes across that way to anyone who does find certain overland content challenging.

Certain. That is the operative word. “Certain” overland content. World bosses make up 1% or so of overland content, 5% at the very outside. Respectfully, to focus on that, while ignoring the 95-99% is the very definition of a straw man.

Thank you for clarifying which types of comments you were alluding to, but it seems like both sides of the "vets vs. casuals" divide can suffer from a lack of sympathy toward the other side.

I very strongly disagree. Almost all of us who participate in end game content actively help new players. You would be hard pressed to find an end game player who has not at least one example of mentoring a new player. Most of us have many, many examples - and actively do so constantly. Not only do most endgame players have sympathy for new players but actively spend our time to help make their experience better.

The better word to unpack is empathy. By virtue of every single endgame content consumer having in fact been a new player, every one of them understands what it is like to be in that situation, which makes it very easy to feel compassion for them.

Contrarily, people who have not participated actively in end game content like progression trials must needs imagine and hypothesize at the drives and concerns of those that do. And often attribute negative connotations that do not exist, supported by fictional situations whereby world bosses make up the bulk of overland content and the like.

I mean this respectfully, but indeed my post that you responded pointed out thinly veiled negativity, punctuated with the adage of calling a spade a spade. And so to infer that I or others share said negativity, by presenting a thinly veiled fallacy (that world bosses make up overland content) - it goes right to the heart of what I am getting at. A penchant quite a number of folks on this forum have for pretending a spade is a rake in order to utilize end game content consumers as a foil, when all along they are there to help.

I wonder….did you feel thankful to the person who came along and helped with the world boss? Or did you have a negative reaction? That is a rhetorical question, but I submit some folks deeply resent that sort of thing, even though it helped them and the other person was in fact trying to be helpful. Some of those sort of folks are active posters here, and are driven by that inexplicable agenda.

I have never, not once in ESOs history, found in game a person who resents new or casual players. Not once. But I have however found quite a bit of resentment towards endgame players by a handful of casual players. And those are the folks that are universally thought poorly of once people see them for what they are, because they truly are toxic, and certainly create angst everywhere they go.

It almost sounds like you want to exclude world bosses from overland content because you don't think it makes up enough of a percentage. If you want to talk about the majority of overland content, then say "the majority of overland content." When you use a blanket all-encompassing term rather than clarifying that you aren't referring to all of it, the implication is that you are referring to all of it.

I do question your percentage, though. How did you calculate it? Was it based on the amount of a zone's surface area? If so, then the rocks and trees make up a larger percentage of overland content than the world bosses do. Except I don't see any daily quest givers in the zones handing out jobs to go deal with troublesome rocks and trees. They don't ask you to go kill the overland mobs, either. No, they ask you to go do a delve, go kill a world boss, and maybe (depending on the zone) take care of a "world event" such as a harrowstorm or dragon, or do some other zone-specific job like recover Ashlander relics. So if you look at world bosses in terms of overland content that players are encouraged to engage in day after day, by virtue of a zone's daily repeatable quests, they make up a lot more than 1% of the overland content.

When you ask me whether I ever felt thankful toward players who came along and helped me with a world boss, is that meant as a rhetorical question that you believe you already know the answer to? Yes, I was grateful for players who helped me kill a world boss that I couldn't solo. No, I don't feel particularly grateful toward clearly-OP players who come along and melt a world boss that I'm in the midst of soloing. On the other hand, if I'm soloing a world boss and other players join in without melting it in mere seconds, I tell everyone "gg" after we all finish off the boss together. And if I see someone ask for help with a world boss in zone chat, I go to help them if I'm not too busy with something else-- not because I want their gratitude, but because I want to help them have fun.

And that last word, "fun," is exactly why I don't feel particularly grateful toward an OP player who comes along and melts a boss that I was soloing-- because they just ended my fun prematurely. I don't fight world bosses just for daily quest rewards, or for zone gear drops, although of course I sometimes do it for those rewards. But most of the time I do it because I have fun engaging in a fight that isn't over in a few seconds. I would fight them even if there were no rewards, because to me the fight is a reward in itself. I don't want the fight to go on forever, but I don't mind if it goes on for a long time as long as there are real opportunities for me to slip up and die. For example, I don't enjoy troll bosses that constantly regenerate their health, since the "fight" boils down to damaging their health faster than they heal, which is tedious and boring to me. But a boss that takes a long time to kill because it spawns waves of adds that must be dealt with, and that attacks you in ways that need to be dodged or blocked or interrupted, is a lot more fun to me because I'm not just bashing away on it like it's a test dummy.

You suggest that I'm concocting some sort of fictional strawman argument. I suggest that you seem to be marginalizing any sort of overland content that doesn't fit into your "overland is not challenging" narrative. And I repeat what I said-- it might not be challenging to you, but that doesn't mean it isn't challenging for anyone. And when you make a sweeping generalization like that without qualifying it, and seemingly without allowing for any exceptions-- and even going so far as to suggest that any exceptions which someone mentions is just a strawman argument-- you are essentially belittling any players who do find any challenges in overland content.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Riptide wrote: »

To you-- it is "not challenging" to you. And not challenging to a lot of other players, I'm sure, because I'll be soloing a world boss and have someone come along, melt it, and then go running off.

But I see a lot of other players in zone chat asking for help with world bosses, because they can't solo them. I wasn't always able to solo them, either, and I still can't solo some of them. So for you to make a blanket statement that "It is not challenging content" without adding any qualifiers, such as "to me," or "to a lot of players," sort of comes across to me as some of that "thinly veiled nastiness" which you have accused others of, as though you're completely dismissive toward anyone who does find it challenging, as though they don't matter in the slightest. That may or may not be what you intended, but it comes across that way to anyone who does find certain overland content challenging.

Certain. That is the operative word. “Certain” overland content. World bosses make up 1% or so of overland content, 5% at the very outside. Respectfully, to focus on that, while ignoring the 95-99% is the very definition of a straw man.

Thank you for clarifying which types of comments you were alluding to, but it seems like both sides of the "vets vs. casuals" divide can suffer from a lack of sympathy toward the other side.

I very strongly disagree. Almost all of us who participate in end game content actively help new players. You would be hard pressed to find an end game player who has not at least one example of mentoring a new player. Most of us have many, many examples - and actively do so constantly. Not only do most endgame players have sympathy for new players but actively spend our time to help make their experience better.

The better word to unpack is empathy. By virtue of every single endgame content consumer having in fact been a new player, every one of them understands what it is like to be in that situation, which makes it very easy to feel compassion for them.

Contrarily, people who have not participated actively in end game content like progression trials must needs imagine and hypothesize at the drives and concerns of those that do. And often attribute negative connotations that do not exist, supported by fictional situations whereby world bosses make up the bulk of overland content and the like.

I mean this respectfully, but indeed my post that you responded pointed out thinly veiled negativity, punctuated with the adage of calling a spade a spade. And so to infer that I or others share said negativity, by presenting a thinly veiled fallacy (that world bosses make up overland content) - it goes right to the heart of what I am getting at. A penchant quite a number of folks on this forum have for pretending a spade is a rake in order to utilize end game content consumers as a foil, when all along they are there to help.

I wonder….did you feel thankful to the person who came along and helped with the world boss? Or did you have a negative reaction? That is a rhetorical question, but I submit some folks deeply resent that sort of thing, even though it helped them and the other person was in fact trying to be helpful. Some of those sort of folks are active posters here, and are driven by that inexplicable agenda.

I have never, not once in ESOs history, found in game a person who resents new or casual players. Not once. But I have however found quite a bit of resentment towards endgame players by a handful of casual players. And those are the folks that are universally thought poorly of once people see them for what they are, because they truly are toxic, and certainly create angst everywhere they go.

It almost sounds like you want to exclude world bosses from overland content because you don't think it makes up enough of a percentage. If you want to talk about the majority of overland content, then say "the majority of overland content." When you use a blanket all-encompassing term rather than clarifying that you aren't referring to all of it, the implication is that you are referring to all of it.

I do question your percentage, though. How did you calculate it? Was it based on the amount of a zone's surface area? If so, then the rocks and trees make up a larger percentage of overland content than the world bosses do. Except I don't see any daily quest givers in the zones handing out jobs to go deal with troublesome rocks and trees. They don't ask you to go kill the overland mobs, either. No, they ask you to go do a delve, go kill a world boss, and maybe (depending on the zone) take care of a "world event" such as a harrowstorm or dragon, or do some other zone-specific job like recover Ashlander relics. So if you look at world bosses in terms of overland content that players are encouraged to engage in day after day, by virtue of a zone's daily repeatable quests, they make up a lot more than 1% of the overland content.

When you ask me whether I ever felt thankful toward players who came along and helped me with a world boss, is that meant as a rhetorical question that you believe you already know the answer to? Yes, I was grateful for players who helped me kill a world boss that I couldn't solo. No, I don't feel particularly grateful toward clearly-OP players who come along and melt a world boss that I'm in the midst of soloing. On the other hand, if I'm soloing a world boss and other players join in without melting it in mere seconds, I tell everyone "gg" after we all finish off the boss together. And if I see someone ask for help with a world boss in zone chat, I go to help them if I'm not too busy with something else-- not because I want their gratitude, but because I want to help them have fun.

And that last word, "fun," is exactly why I don't feel particularly grateful toward an OP player who comes along and melts a boss that I was soloing-- because they just ended my fun prematurely. I don't fight world bosses just for daily quest rewards, or for zone gear drops, although of course I sometimes do it for those rewards. But most of the time I do it because I have fun engaging in a fight that isn't over in a few seconds. I would fight them even if there were no rewards, because to me the fight is a reward in itself. I don't want the fight to go on forever, but I don't mind if it goes on for a long time as long as there are real opportunities for me to slip up and die. For example, I don't enjoy troll bosses that constantly regenerate their health, since the "fight" boils down to damaging their health faster than they heal, which is tedious and boring to me. But a boss that takes a long time to kill because it spawns waves of adds that must be dealt with, and that attacks you in ways that need to be dodged or blocked or interrupted, is a lot more fun to me because I'm not just bashing away on it like it's a test dummy.

You suggest that I'm concocting some sort of fictional strawman argument. I suggest that you seem to be marginalizing any sort of overland content that doesn't fit into your "overland is not challenging" narrative. And I repeat what I said-- it might not be challenging to you, but that doesn't mean it isn't challenging for anyone. And when you make a sweeping generalization like that without qualifying it, and seemingly without allowing for any exceptions-- and even going so far as to suggest that any exceptions which someone mentions is just a strawman argument-- you are essentially belittling any players who do find any challenges in overland content.

Bolded emphasis mine

I just want to point out that THAT is exactly why people ask for harder overland. Not because they just want to mindlessly beat on something for a long period of time, but because they enjoy the challenge of performing mechanics and succeeding! It’s why people enjoy doing vMA and vVH, even if it’s not the weekly. We want to enjoy a challenge, particularly from story bosses who are hyped to be incredibly powerful.

It’s not what this patch was about, at all. U35 mostly affects veteran content because, as others have pointed out, the more difficult something is the more you’re likely to feel the changes and it’s done in a way to just slow down dps and make it take longer; it’s not necessarily engaging depending on the fight. My partner was saying it felt like playing on EU where he has 1/3 of the CP (500 vs 1500) in terms of TTK. Was he more in danger of dying? Not in the particular content he was in at the time. And, depending on the fight, it actually becomes impossible or sets the actual mid tier prog groups back multiple patches in terms of their progression through content.