Lately there has been a new "hardcore" trend going on in games with higher difficulty. I have been playing HC WoW Classic lately and the difference is staggering. My level 12 paladin just died horrifically to 2 (yes TWO) random Defias bandits in Westfall, level 12 and level 13. That would never happen in this game.

The main thing keeping me away from new characters in ESO (and coming back to this game generally) has been the absolute joke that combat and PvE single player content.

If I make a new character it's almost impossible to fail anything, and none of my decisions matter. Everything is way too easy, there is way too much loot, crafting is too easy, quests are too easy... and nothing hurts when I get hit. It makes my class choice purely a cosmetic one, since none of the buttons I press even matter. Some people claim that the "difficulty" of older MMOs was just an illusion because of nostalgia goggles, but they are absolutely wrong. In older games, literally every point mattered and one misclick could mean your doom. In ESO everything is just constant faceroll and nothing ever really hurts you.

As an example, here is a video of my brand new, naked character with no CP, no skills, no gear and no weapon literally just standing there as I press no buttons, and I am unable to die because my passive health regen is greater than the mob's damage output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTDMjZJXoqE

It's completely broken.

I was hoping (perhaps naively) that other devs of other games might take notice of the recent surge in popularity of WoW classic (and other DS-type games) and have a version of ESO that actually packs a punch.

Examples of changes I'd implement:

- Drastically reduced resource regeneration during combat, making stam/magicka management crucial in the open world
- No passive health regeneration (ever), making food and potions meaningful
- Greatly increased damage output from all open world enemies, actually forcing you to roll dodge and block
- Faster enemies, faster animations, and no "warning" animations when you get too close
- greater aggro radius
- WAY less loot (like 90 percent less chests, less magic items, less loot in general... It is absurd that you can kill a random wolf and find a battleaxe, a pelt, and 2 or 3 other random lootables)
- A return of old-school leveling (i.e. no more de-leveled zones)
- An actual penalty for dying, not just a corpse run (Not HC char deletion per se but dying should suck).

This would just be a start, there are many other absurd things about this game which make questing super boring and easy, with no consequential decisions in your character build.

I'd be happy however with just some very basic changes, like having open-world enemies that actually deal damage when they attack you and don't give you a full two second warning before they engage.