"skill issue"

boi_anachronism_ · November 2023

joergino wrote: »

Lags wrote: »

You cant solo every world boss?

(...)

And vet dlc dungeons are supposed to be a challenge.

I was not talking about soloing any world bosses. I'm happy enough that I have actually managed to solo at least some (base game!) world bosses. I meant that at least since Southern Elsweyr world bosses were designed to instakill entire groups of players while two or three players (usually) used to be enough for at least one of the players to stay alive at all times and eventually kill the boss. In Necrom, most bosses are simply huge annoyances.

Also, I was absolutely NOT talking about vet DLC dungeons. During the entire life of my account I have done less than a handful of vet dungeons, none of them DLC, of course, and those experiences were so utterly horrible that I most likely will never ever try another vet dungeon again. Mind you, all of the ones I did were base game, with City of Ashes 2 being the last one I ever did with a group of people I used to play with when I started about five years ago.
Apart from me, only one other player from this group still logs in regularly these days and the streamer among us does at least the dungeons once and then plays the chapter main quest after chapter release. The rest of the year she is busy playing good games, including GW2.
Vet content is completely out of the question for me, lacking a group this will hardly come as a surprise. The complete un-fun-ness of doing a vet dungeon doesn't help at all, I'm afraid.

One extremely important aspect of the utterly horrible non-elite-player ESO experience I missed in my original reply was sort of the most important one, especially considering the incredibly annoying and extremely lengthy quests to unlock the most recent companions - public dungeons.
They used to be good for 1.333 skill points and they also helped a lot with filling the sticker book for their respective region. Nowadays you have to be lucky enough to be around in the extremely rare situation that a second player turns up to try and tackle the group encounter. Yeah, in a way I feel incredibly proud that I managed to solo the (arena!) boss(es) in Gorne on two or three of my 20 characters, but I absolutely hated every single second of those fights. That the public dungeons are parts of the quests to unlock companions is utterly abysmally bad design, btw.
These days public dungeons are only yet another place to avoid completely because the newer ones were obviously only made for the crowd demanding horrifically bad (or: utterly impossible) new content.

You absolutely dont need to fight the main boss in the public dungeon in necrom to get the companion. You literally can just walk around on the left side of the map and dont go into the courtyard, all the little side bosses are only a little more difficult then delve bosses.. The only truely difficult to solo public dungeon boss is zenithar in black wood. Blackwood as a chapter was notoriously overtuned so it tracks.

Eso is really quite a strange animal. People forget that it is in fact a massive multi-player game. Because of the universe it is set in it has drawn more solo players but the fact is that games like this are by design built for a lot of people to play together at once. If everything was built for any solo player at any level to zip through them where would the multi player be? There would nothing. It would just become a boring blitz even for small groups of lower level plays with crafted gear. I love that some world bosses need people. We had a guy in zone in vvarden ask for help with a wb the other night and my whole raid team just showed up to help him and he was so excited. How do you get those interactions if every player is just able to do it themselves without any challenge? 2 nights back we posted in crag for a dps who needed to get their vmol skin and we just took him through.

We really need to stop this vet vs causal way of thinking. Realistically competitive folks, we don't care that much and arent sitting there bashing new or folks who play a few hrs a week. We aren't interested in destroying anyone else's experience but there also has to be something for us. Even folks at a medium level blitz all overland stuff. Its not only the .01% that feel this way so instead of antagonizing eachother we need to take a step back and look at the community as a whole. Its not just the super elites that have no issue with reg vet dungeons. Most of the elites exist in the trial world, many dont even have dungeon trifectas because we havent bothered and there are plenty of folks running vet dungeons that have either never step foot in a trial or plain dont want to, they just prefer 4man. The point here is that everyone needs to be able to play. This isnt skyrim, you cant change the difficulty to story mode so they have to split the difference as best they can. I mean even being on the high end of the player spectrum there are still things i cant do myself. You have to adapt or accept that there will always be things that are out of your reach. Eso has to be a spectrum because there is such a varied experience level in the player base. You wouldnt go speed run skyrim on your first play through and go fight the final boss expecting to win. You learn the game, the combat, the ins and outs and progress until you can, no?

Lags · November 2023

araminta63 wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

A lot of this is being forced from endgame. Not everything is actually dps race.

Things will improve once endgame players don't have an monopoly on endgame. Like how many millions does it cost for even veteran hrc..

It won't be perfect but after end game loses their iron grip on trials then we can have better diversity . It's actually what happened to dungeons. It used to be if you are the wrong race then kick

Trials are the PvE Endgame for eso. If you don't like the way people do them then form your own group or stay out of them.

If you are not willing to get an Endgame pve build don't expect others to let you take part in Endgame pve.

... and I don't.

I don't do trials. I don't pvp. I don't do group dungeons that I can't solo.

I don't even like to group for the darned Crow [snip]. All I want is to complete the quest. I don't need a lecture on how stupid it is to be an arcanist and not use that stupid beam attack. [snip] The crow is dead. No players died. Why the heck are you still sending me tells 30 mins later when I haven't responded? Oh wait.. I can't even /ignore you because my list is full from all the gold sellers I've reported.

My point is that other than twice a year for Pelinel celebrations I do not intrude on the 'real' players of this game. I'm a casual and I know it.

So [snip] just leave me alone.

[snip] No one is [snip] on you for playing how you want, but when people see someone doing something that is completely backwards of course they might try to help. Especially if you're lower CP or on a under 50 character.

The arcanist class is literally designed for players like you, and still you dont want to use it. all you have to do is throw on a build that makes sense for damage, and beam. But still you refuse. You could literally have the damage that you claim you cannot, without having to play fast like i would have to on my sorc or necro or dk or whatever.

[snip]

It just gets really annoying to see the same thing from players when you have the tools to do anything, even if you cant play fast. The game i loved has been dumbed down and slowed down over the years for a small minority of players who cannot play fast, or dont want to improve, and still want to do hard content. And while i do sympathize with players who are disabled or have problems playing, you cant balance a game around that. But zos has chosen to do that, so please dont say you cant do it, you can. Its your choice not to use the arcanist beam. You could literally just beam and do more damage than anything else you're doing.

But if you're fine not doing hard content than great. The problem is the people running around with random useless builds but still want to do hard content. If thats not you then fantastic, enjoy your game. im just saying, the options are there for you and have been for a couple years.

[edited for baiting, profanity bypass & to remove quote]

Lags · November 2023

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

The blame isn't on Elitist players....though their attitudes certainly doesn't help.

The Blame lies with the devs and the absolute gulf they created between the casual and hardcore players, in terms of skill, in terms of rewards, and now in terms of new repeatable content...and nothing demonstrates that as much as EA.

One of the devs at this years Blizzcon said something that caused the crowd to erupt in applause. "Telling players they aren't working hard enough is basically giving the finger to the majority of our customers, everyone should have rewarding viable content, not just content for the 5%" The new expansion is completely reworking overland content.

I just think the devs needs to reexamine their priorities if all of the elder game is for 5% of the player base the other 95% isn't going to stick around, especially since games like FFXIV, WoW, SWTOR and several upcoming MMO's ...have or are... completely changing their priorities

This is just completely backwards. Most of the game is casual friendly. Like it almost seems like some people dont want to put in the tiniest amount of effort, like using damage sets when you want to do damage for example. As i said in another post, oakensoul and arcanist have made it so players can actually do harder content with minimal effort. That being said, still most of the game could be done by low level players with little experience or game knowledge. And personally i dont think this is a good thing. Its way too casual friendly and easy. People like to be challenged sometimes, people like to have a reason to improve, an incentive to improve. But thats the main issue.

The reward system of eso sucks and always has. And there is no incentive to improve. Instead of dumbing things down zos should work on that. I understand some of the better rewards are locked behind pretty hard endgame content, but thats zos being greedy. You should be rewarded at every level of the game. But the rewards need to make sense, and get better as things get more difficult. And they need to take into account time and difficutly. Such as putting in the time for master angler, or some of the exploration achievements. Or the time, effort, and difficulty of getting emperor. Or something like flawless conqueror or godslayer. These things are different but all still take effort.

And then dungeons should have good rewards as well, getting better as they get more difficult. I think they need to rework rewards and incentive from the ground up. From the base game to dlcs. But they never will, they just throw a mount and a couple pets into the new chapter and think its all well and good. Its better, but only for necrom.

Sakiri · November 2023

Erm...

Casual players can be just as skilled as hardcore veteran players. Casual vs hardcore mostly is determined by play time availability, not necessarily how seriously you take the game.

This is why I get labeled hardcore when in reality I'm still leveling here and in most games I don't raid or anything. Because I'm a homemaker and have all freaking day to play the game.

If you're super focused and stuff, you can get good at the game even when you only have a few hours a week to play. It's about efficiency at that point.

And while I have all the time in the world to play, I'm also kinda bad. I'm on NA playing from EU, so my latency is a bit higher(it's not unplayable, I don't notice it 99% of the time) and prefer one bar builds right now because switching I can't do by muscle memory. I need to be "reminded" somehow.

So there's that.

Xandreia_ · November 2023

Jack-0 wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Instead of creating more and more different playstyles like these, ZOS listens to a few elite players and removes those playstyles to where they are no longer viable.

I really do not like this anti-elitist rhetoric. What's no longer viable? Oaken builds are doing just fine at the moment; the next update seems a bit heavy handed but I don't think it spells the end of the 1 bar HA build.

Current end-game players, by and large, do not out and out gatekeep, this strikes me as a very unfair and harmful misconception that perpetuates the 'us' and 'them' split in the community. I'm an endgame player and trial leader myself, I work with 2 others to run 3 trials per week and not a single one of us insists on 2 bar builds only.

My personal opinion on oaken builds is that they are a good gap-closer between the floor and the ceiling, and indeed I'd encourage anyone that's not very good at LA weaving to go oaken, but I'd also keep encouraging them to keep putting the time and effort in with a 2 bar, LA-weaving build because the ceiling is higher (as it should be - it's substantially more demanding than an oaken build is, and with fewer boons to aid survival).

The "toxic elitist" thing comes from people being told they do no dps, the people who run content with them are mean by telling them they can't pull more than low dps while light attacking and running away from healers. Sadly you can labeled as toxic elitist by simply helping now a days

Xandreia_ · November 2023

Sparxlost wrote: »

The "skill" gap between casual and hardcore players is too large.....

I hate being the guy that "sucks at the game" because i chose a different playstyle that 90% of all others who just want higher damage numbers and will do anything to get them...
I shouldnt be expected to look up build videos or ask for help ESPECIALLY if i am a seasoned fantasy rpg gamer...
There are so many fun playstyles in the game that could be effective but just suck in all aspects of the end-game when they really should be viable but instead we have got these insane "stack as many defenses and buffs as you can (cheese) without losing optimal damage" builds. Idk i always hated games where you only had one or two ways to play your class and i dont think eso was meant to be that way..

ive played through the fun parts of the game enough times to be over it an new content isnt really doing it for me so i will probably just pick up another game and come back purely to reexperience base game factions + a few dlc.. so no biggie just if you're wondering why pvp is fokn ded 24/7 and end-game pve is pure toxicity to play..

I'm gonna be honest here. There isn't really a huge gap. Hitting 80k (I've seen that in alot of trainer guilds this is the minimum needed for their harder content) isn't hard right now, the only issue is that people don't want to realise that in end game harder content like vet and hard mode trials there is a meta you have to stick to just to compete. There's a reason for the meta and that is to pump out as much dps as possible to kill things and get content done. If you are running weird setups and light attacking with a bow/have low APM you are NOT going to clear. If all 8 dps are doing that, you won't get through a trash pull.

We endgame players do not gatekeep. Our builds are in videos and logs.

We help people through trials to show them how it's done. My friends and I give out free carries for people that can't do content. Just last weekend we did 20 vmol and 8 vas carries for people who struggle to complete, all for free.

The "us and them" divide really has to stop. We might tell you your dps is really bad, stand infront of healers, don't run around etc... but we do it so you learn, not to be mean

Overland and dungeons you can play how ever you want. But in trials it's all about team work. You HAVE to be optimised to get through it. It's not cheese to have buff sets. That's the whole point... to give buffs.

Also. PVP. Its dead because its been neglected for years, no cosmeti map changes, bad set rewards, performance sucks, there's alot of factors as to why its alot deader than normal.

Endgame pve isn't toxic. People just don't want to hear the truth on their build and skill level

Warhawke_80 · November 2023

Lags wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

The blame isn't on Elitist players....though their attitudes certainly doesn't help.

The Blame lies with the devs and the absolute gulf they created between the casual and hardcore players, in terms of skill, in terms of rewards, and now in terms of new repeatable content...and nothing demonstrates that as much as EA.

One of the devs at this years Blizzcon said something that caused the crowd to erupt in applause. "Telling players they aren't working hard enough is basically giving the finger to the majority of our customers, everyone should have rewarding viable content, not just content for the 5%" The new expansion is completely reworking overland content.

I just think the devs needs to reexamine their priorities if all of the elder game is for 5% of the player base the other 95% isn't going to stick around, especially since games like FFXIV, WoW, SWTOR and several upcoming MMO's ...have or are... completely changing their priorities

This is just completely backwards. Most of the game is casual friendly. Like it almost seems like some people dont want to put in the tiniest amount of effort, like using damage sets when you want to do damage for example. As i said in another post, oakensoul and arcanist have made it so players can actually do harder content with minimal effort. That being said, still most of the game could be done by low level players with little experience or game knowledge. And personally i dont think this is a good thing. Its way too casual friendly and easy. People like to be challenged sometimes, people like to have a reason to improve, an incentive to improve. But thats the main issue.

The reward system of eso sucks and always has. And there is no incentive to improve. Instead of dumbing things down zos should work on that. I understand some of the better rewards are locked behind pretty hard endgame content, but thats zos being greedy. You should be rewarded at every level of the game. But the rewards need to make sense, and get better as things get more difficult. And they need to take into account time and difficutly. Such as putting in the time for master angler, or some of the exploration achievements. Or the time, effort, and difficulty of getting emperor. Or something like flawless conqueror or godslayer. These things are different but all still take effort.

And then dungeons should have good rewards as well, getting better as they get more difficult. I think they need to rework rewards and incentive from the ground up. From the base game to dlcs. But they never will, they just throw a mount and a couple pets into the new chapter and think its all well and good. Its better, but only for necrom.

That is your perception...so many Vet gamers have this mindset ""Why can't the casuals just get good?" and there is a lot of mitigating factors they don't consider, and shouting "just work harder" isn't going to work...also yes Oaken soul is an I win button...but how many casuals can achieve that item?

No one is asking to dumb things down...if anything I was asking to make he game more dynamic

Braffin · November 2023

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Lags wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

The blame isn't on Elitist players....though their attitudes certainly doesn't help.

The Blame lies with the devs and the absolute gulf they created between the casual and hardcore players, in terms of skill, in terms of rewards, and now in terms of new repeatable content...and nothing demonstrates that as much as EA.

One of the devs at this years Blizzcon said something that caused the crowd to erupt in applause. "Telling players they aren't working hard enough is basically giving the finger to the majority of our customers, everyone should have rewarding viable content, not just content for the 5%" The new expansion is completely reworking overland content.

I just think the devs needs to reexamine their priorities if all of the elder game is for 5% of the player base the other 95% isn't going to stick around, especially since games like FFXIV, WoW, SWTOR and several upcoming MMO's ...have or are... completely changing their priorities

This is just completely backwards. Most of the game is casual friendly. Like it almost seems like some people dont want to put in the tiniest amount of effort, like using damage sets when you want to do damage for example. As i said in another post, oakensoul and arcanist have made it so players can actually do harder content with minimal effort. That being said, still most of the game could be done by low level players with little experience or game knowledge. And personally i dont think this is a good thing. Its way too casual friendly and easy. People like to be challenged sometimes, people like to have a reason to improve, an incentive to improve. But thats the main issue.

The reward system of eso sucks and always has. And there is no incentive to improve. Instead of dumbing things down zos should work on that. I understand some of the better rewards are locked behind pretty hard endgame content, but thats zos being greedy. You should be rewarded at every level of the game. But the rewards need to make sense, and get better as things get more difficult. And they need to take into account time and difficutly. Such as putting in the time for master angler, or some of the exploration achievements. Or the time, effort, and difficulty of getting emperor. Or something like flawless conqueror or godslayer. These things are different but all still take effort.

And then dungeons should have good rewards as well, getting better as they get more difficult. I think they need to rework rewards and incentive from the ground up. From the base game to dlcs. But they never will, they just throw a mount and a couple pets into the new chapter and think its all well and good. Its better, but only for necrom.

No one is asking to dumb things down...if anything I was asking to make he game more dynamic

Unfortunately that's not correct. While a lot of players, including yourself, are asking for a more dynamic and rewarding experience (which is perfectly fine imo), there has always been a small (but nonetheless very loud) minority, which is permanently asking to dumb things down.

A few examples:

1) With the introduction of Necrom we immediately had demands to nerf the WB's over there. Same goes for BN. After several days of discussion it turned out, that those complaints mainly weren't brought up by "casual" players but quite seasoned veterans, which were unhappy with the time they had to spend to get all the shiny rewards they were after.
A poll I started in this very forums showed that almost 75% of participants were fine with the difficulty as is, proofing the claims of the few wrong. Of course I got (unsuccessfully) reported for trolling and baiting after that, because some players indeed don't want to the see the truth.

2) In the thread regarding difficulty of EA some players were very clear about their intentions:

I'm not interested in the content. ... I will do it because I have to, not because I want to.

Some people even admitted, that they refuse to try the new content till nerfs were done. So they're asking for dumbing down the content without knowing it.

---

These are the people asking for nerfs across the board. These are also the people trying to maintain the gap between "casuals" and "veterans". Because they are the profiteers, as it's definitely more promising to call oneself "casual" and agitate against omnious "Elitists" and "Gatekeepers" when calling for nerfs than honestly admitting it's about farming.

I'm completely with you, when you suggest to stop the quarreling between "casuals" and "veterans" and instead start working together (as we already do in-game btw) for the better of us all.

But to achieve this, it will be necessary for all of us to stick to the truth and to stand up together (casuals and veterans) against the unhonest and harmful behaviour described above.

MaleAmazon · November 2023

IMO the key is to not care too much.

Yes, there are elitist players. Personally, I used to be pretty pissed off when 'people' (I´m using the term very loosely) would stunlock me and burst me down in IC when I was doing quests or farmed (killing farmers, even low lvl, is more understandable though, but still...), and then teabag me.

But then I thought about my life and their lives.

My life isn´t great at the moment. I´ve had a crappy 10 years basically, because of past personal trauma and problems. But now, I am resolved to changing my life for the better, and already it´s moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction. While I do this, I play some ESO for fun or just to kill some time. Now, I´ll admit I played PvP a few years back to get emperor, and I played sub50 with gear crafted by alts since I played solo and did it as a personal challenge to see if it was possible. So, I am not innocent here. Still, I only did it to get emperor as a solo player, I achieved that, and I don´t kill low lvls for... fun? anymore.

Instead, I try to challenge myself, not play too much, and just chill. There´s tons of content in the game, I have a few DLCs where I haven´t even touched the questlines because I wanted to beat veteran Vateshran and do other things.

People who spend their days and nights in IC, killing my lvl 15 or lvl 20 toons who are in blue gear with some Forgotten Adventurer´s XXXXXX mixed in, to get their 254 Tel Var and do their little dance... I mean, really? So nowadays, when they attack, I just drop the controls and let them kill me. Had a guy actually get the message (perhaps) the other day and he just stopped attacking me.

It is also quite possible to do endgame content with non-meta builds. You will need to find a friendler group though. but it is perfectly possible. Crafted sets are perfectly viable endgame and in PvP, it is just some players are very rigid and might not let you play that way. Just ignore the more obnoxious elitists ("WTF you play tank and are not a DK!?") and find decent people.

As for skill gap though... I mean, what makes combat fun in ESO is that it is actually real-time skill based. LA weaving is also not hard unless you have a physical problem or internet connection problems. In which case I do feel for you, but you have both Oakensoul and Velothi Ur-Mage to compensate for this and to make your own build.

If anything, it´s gotten a lot better over the years. I was here when the game launched in 2014, and I hope I will be at a point in 2024 when I will quit ESO to do more meaningful things in life, finally finish my medical degree, and move on. Ten years is enough - more than enough. But, for example, it used to be that the morph "choice" 99% of the time was "magicka pick this, stamina pick the other". The change to have skills scale by max stats has opened the game up buildwise and I think that´s a good thing.

Lastly, as for PvP... I basically had an existential crisis last time I went in there. It is largely pointless and repetitive to me, but to each their own.

Best of luck to all

Joy_Division · November 2023

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I don't understand the "I don't like your playstyle, you have improve so you can use mine...". I do me, why do you think I need anyone approval but mine?

I sometimes like the ease of the one-bar oakensoul heavy attack. It is fine just as it is, easy use for less damage. I am working on a 2 bar NB build and that too is fun for me. It's not a "Heavy attach"build, but I like to HA with my lightning staff. I'm not chasing maximum damage. I just want to have fun and be able to enjoy most content. I do very little vet, and no trials.

I would expect to get thru at least arc one (for the daily) of EA on either build. If that's as far as I get so be it. I think I am improving but at my pace and for my reasons. Nerfing one of the playstyles I like in an effort to make me improve isn't something I'm for.

That's not what most people are saying. I could care less about approval or how other people play.

But in a competitive environment with other players, deliberately running non-optimized builds or not bothering trying to improve or playing how you want is going to consequences that the devs are not going to be able to do anything about.

If I am in a trials progression group and we spend and hour and half wiping on a boss, or if I am in dungeon where the group keeps wiping, then at that point I and the other 10 (or 3) players are going to want to open the logs and see whose DPS is at the bottom and who has died the most often. This isn;t meant to be mean, this isn;t meant to single a person out, this isn;t meant to be elitist, it is meant to offer that player the opportunity to improve. I want that player to take a moment of introspection and ask themselves: "is this trial (or dungeon) something my competitive desire wants to accomplish or is the effort I would have to put in worth the time?" If the answer is "yes, I want to do this," then like anyone else in any other aspect of life, it would be cool for them to seek advice from more experienced people to help them in their efforts not to be on the bottom of the list. This doesn't mean they have to run X build, but it does mean some general principles would have to be adhered to. To this day I still run the "bad" race of Nord on my magicka templar because that was and is my main and that's what the character will always be regardless. People still ask me to do the game's challenging content because I do adhere to the basic principles of not standing in red and the point of a skill rotation. I want the player to answer "yes" because in the future I might run with that person again and having friends in an MMO is a big selling point of the genre,

If the answer is "no," then that's fine too. I don;t want to force anyone to do content that they don;t find enjoyable. There is no they have to do anything. They go their way and we go ours. Now we can stop banging our heads against this wall of a boss.

Warhawke_80 · November 2023

Braffin wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Lags wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

The blame isn't on Elitist players....though their attitudes certainly doesn't help.

The Blame lies with the devs and the absolute gulf they created between the casual and hardcore players, in terms of skill, in terms of rewards, and now in terms of new repeatable content...and nothing demonstrates that as much as EA.

One of the devs at this years Blizzcon said something that caused the crowd to erupt in applause. "Telling players they aren't working hard enough is basically giving the finger to the majority of our customers, everyone should have rewarding viable content, not just content for the 5%" The new expansion is completely reworking overland content.

I just think the devs needs to reexamine their priorities if all of the elder game is for 5% of the player base the other 95% isn't going to stick around, especially since games like FFXIV, WoW, SWTOR and several upcoming MMO's ...have or are... completely changing their priorities

This is just completely backwards. Most of the game is casual friendly. Like it almost seems like some people dont want to put in the tiniest amount of effort, like using damage sets when you want to do damage for example. As i said in another post, oakensoul and arcanist have made it so players can actually do harder content with minimal effort. That being said, still most of the game could be done by low level players with little experience or game knowledge. And personally i dont think this is a good thing. Its way too casual friendly and easy. People like to be challenged sometimes, people like to have a reason to improve, an incentive to improve. But thats the main issue.

The reward system of eso sucks and always has. And there is no incentive to improve. Instead of dumbing things down zos should work on that. I understand some of the better rewards are locked behind pretty hard endgame content, but thats zos being greedy. You should be rewarded at every level of the game. But the rewards need to make sense, and get better as things get more difficult. And they need to take into account time and difficutly. Such as putting in the time for master angler, or some of the exploration achievements. Or the time, effort, and difficulty of getting emperor. Or something like flawless conqueror or godslayer. These things are different but all still take effort.

And then dungeons should have good rewards as well, getting better as they get more difficult. I think they need to rework rewards and incentive from the ground up. From the base game to dlcs. But they never will, they just throw a mount and a couple pets into the new chapter and think its all well and good. Its better, but only for necrom.

No one is asking to dumb things down...if anything I was asking to make he game more dynamic

Unfortunately that's not correct. While a lot of players, including yourself, are asking for a more dynamic and rewarding experience (which is perfectly fine imo), there has always been a small (but nonetheless very loud) minority, which is permanently asking to dumb things down.

A few examples:

1) With the introduction of Necrom we immediately had demands to nerf the WB's over there. Same goes for BN. After several days of discussion it turned out, that those complaints mainly weren't brought up by "casual" players but quite seasoned veterans, which were unhappy with the time they had to spend to get all the shiny rewards they were after.
A poll I started in this very forums showed that almost 75% of participants were fine with the difficulty as is, proofing the claims of the few wrong. Of course I got (unsuccessfully) reported for trolling and baiting after that, because some players indeed don't want to the see the truth.

2) In the thread regarding difficulty of EA some players were very clear about their intentions:

I'm not interested in the content. ... I will do it because I have to, not because I want to.

Some people even admitted, that they refuse to try the new content till nerfs were done. So they're asking for dumbing down the content without knowing it.

---

These are the people asking for nerfs across the board. These are also the people trying to maintain the gap between "casuals" and "veterans". Because they are the profiteers, as it's definitely more promising to call oneself "casual" and agitate against omnious "Elitists" and "Gatekeepers" when calling for nerfs than honestly admitting it's about farming.

I'm completely with you, when you suggest to stop the quarreling between "casuals" and "veterans" and instead start working together (as we already do in-game btw) for the better of us all.

But to achieve this, it will be necessary for all of us to stick to the truth and to stand up together (casuals and veterans) against the unhonest and harmful behaviour described above.

Hey your not wrong...but I just don't see how anyone can take those calls for nerfs seriously....but yes lets stand together against that sort of nonsense just like we should the "Git Gud" crowd....nothing will change until we do.

Elyu · November 2023

As usual for a post talking about 'preferred playstyles' it seems to have devolved into finger pointing, name calling and elitism (from both the hardcore players AND the RP players, let's not pretend otherwise).

As for my 2 cents on the issue (and I'll try to avoid being partisan here, but for the sake of transparency, I AM one of 'those elitist PvE players') - ESO has many different parts of the game, that cater to different people and different playstyles, and over the years the playstyle that has received the most 'attention' (in terms of areas of the game that cater to them) has overwhelmingly been the casual players.

When I first started playing the game soon after launch, overworld content was decently challenging and actually required paying attention to combat mechanics (interrupts, blocking heavy attacks etc) but was very quickly given a HEAVY nerf to to complaints from the vocal majority of RP players who just wanted overland to essentially be a 'story mode', this continued with the 'One Tamriel' update, removing even the rather minor need to be 'on-level' for the easiest content in the game.
Then Craglorn was introduced, the premise of which was an 'adventure zone' - an overland content that had increased difficulty and would likely require a group to complete the content, this, too was nerfed to be doable solo.
Lastly, the introduction of companions, who if geared for either healing or tanking render even the slightly reduced challenge negligible.

This process has been mirrored in dungeons. There used to be a progression of difficulty, the normal dungeons below level 50, then continuing the story of the normal dungeons, the 'sequel' (veteran) dungeons above level 50, but once again, there were cries of 'gatekeeping' the content behind a difficulty barrier, and so the old veteran dungeons had a normal mode added (hence the 'Wayrest I', 'Wayrest II' etc) and normal dungeons are so easy even relatively inexperienced players can breeze through even the DLC dungeons on normal mode.

All this is the context in which these conversations take place.

The game was marketed even before release as the 3 factions PvP game, but when soon after release it ran into bot problems the heavy-handed anti-bot code the introduced completely killed PvP.
It has received only the occasional QoL update, but nothing to restore it back to the state it was in at launch.

With PvE dungeon content, with the problem of power creep, and a lack of a 'trial finder', and in-game voice chat has severely hindered any kind of progression (and for those who say 'just join a guild' - all the PvE guilds I've come across all run their organised groups at the same time, and thus are only accessible to those free during those specific hours).

So the general sentiment amongst the PvP and PvE community has been that their preferred playstyle has for years now been sidelined in favour of the easier-to-develop single player casual overland content (less mechanic design / game balancing / optimisation of game engine etc is required to produce these) and that the wishes of the casual majority always takes precedence over their opinion, even in the area they choose to play in.

Now I could talk about toxicity amongst these 3 competing factions, but that's a separate discussion, and in this context I feel it always acts as a strawman argument (i.e. some pvp/pve player complains about something pvp/pve related, then someone relates some toxic behaviour they've experienced from some pvp/pve player in the past and says "aha, see your opinion matters not because 1 person was horrible to me that 1 time") - yes, it is an issue, but it's a symptom of some underlying problems. e.g. pve player kicks someone from group because they were using a sub-optimal build is a symptom of there not being enough options of non-meta-yet-still-competitive builds.

Anyway, to wrap up this word salad of a post that's gone on far longer than I expected it to - ZOS needs to hire more community-related staff positions (in order to connect with their customer-base, and work out a way to balance the 3 separate areas SEPARATELY, although I will note they have done this to a small extent so far, with the release of 'challenge modes' in vet dungeon+trial content, and the release of pvp-specific monster sets.

boi_anachronism_ · November 2023

Sakiri wrote: »

Erm...

Casual players can be just as skilled as hardcore veteran players. Casual vs hardcore mostly is determined by play time availability, not necessarily how seriously you take the game.

This is why I get labeled hardcore when in reality I'm still leveling here and in most games I don't raid or anything. Because I'm a homemaker and have all freaking day to play the game.

If you're super focused and stuff, you can get good at the game even when you only have a few hours a week to play. It's about efficiency at that point.

And while I have all the time in the world to play, I'm also kinda bad. I'm on NA playing from EU, so my latency is a bit higher(it's not unplayable, I don't notice it 99% of the time) and prefer one bar builds right now because switching I can't do by muscle memory. I need to be "reminded" somehow.

So there's that.

Ok so i gotta start with what exactly is your definition of "skilled" relative to combat in game? When you talk about hardcore veteran players most people assume that you are talking about the top 1 - 10% of players which, im sorry no casual player of 3hrs a week no matter how efficient they are will reach that. They can get good but never to that level. Time doesnt equal skill but skill demands time. That is like saying an athlete that practices 3hrs a week can be on the level of someone who practices 3hrs a day. Its not realistic.

With regard to pve: No player who spends 3hrs a week will walk into a xs, a single run dlc trifecta or an unchained run and do well unless their entire weekly play time is devoted to that. That takes practice, a lot of it and practice takes time. This is why prog teams are 1-3 days a week and typically an hr or 2 each session depending on what you are doing. Its not solely for just for you either but with your teammates because it requires synergy. You have to be able to anticipate mechanics and how your team will handle them. Even a more casual prog is typically 2hrs once a week. In otherwords if they wanted to do that much they would have to spend a bare min of 2/3rds of their play time doing that. Now a casual player can indeed have excellent dps but that is not a true measure of skill. A floor dps does no dps. I will take someone who does 85k and stays alive over someone at 120k who is floored.

With regard to pvp: again this takes time and a ton of practice. Not only that but to actually be good you have to know and understand tooltips. You have to be able to create a build that is viable for your specific class and play style and you have to understand counterplay for many more. While this may be the easier option in terms of time constraint you are largely up against true experts. Your going to have to sit there and watch your povs to figure out what you can do better and your going to die a lot. There is going to be a lot of time out of game as well as in. Yes in this case because it can be done completely solo you could become very good. If you played 3hrs a week.. for a lot of years.

If hardcore vet refers to those doing regular vet dlc dungeons. Sure, you could get to that level but the reality is that a couple heavy sorcs can zip through most of those with a few exceptions with little skill involved. So the reality is there is really nothing "hardcore vet" about it, thats about mid level to experienced.

You might be surprised to know that a lot of folks who play, even at high level are adults with fulltime jobs and responsibilities. My progs are always scheduled for late evenings when everything else is done because its sustained play time. After work i'll hop on to parse for 20 minutes and then go visit my folks, clean my place, or take my dog to the vet, pay bills, whatever i gotta do like anyone else. I also dont really watch tv which is a couple hrs that a lot of folks use for leisure during the week that i couldnt care less about, i prefer interactive entertainment. If you want to do it you figure out a way without disrupting your life. If you dont thats fine but you wont reach any kind of skill without time.

So im gonna ask again: how do you define "hardcore vet" and what kind of skill are you talking about?

Rkindaleft · November 2023

I understand the "are you a casual or veteran player" isn't really ever going to have a conclusive answer because it's up to your own interpretation of what those words mean to you in order to define it.

This is strictly my opinion - no player who is in a raid group who regularly runs veteran trials or does progs is a casual player, regardless of how much time you play a week. You still needed to put in the time to farm sets, parse, do research on mechanics/builds or even practice basic game mechanics like roll-dodging or bashing. Maybe the last one is pretty universal, but a "casual" player isn't going to regularly be doing the first three as it requires much more investment into the game than what the average ESO player would do most of the time.

I only have 4-5 hours to play each week, which might seem to some people as "a casual" amount of time to play, but that play time is exclusively me playing with my raid group (our group has several trifectas, we finished XS a few weeks prior, starting to work on DSRhm) but like I said before I still had to find the time to perfect my weaving/parse or farm sets even though the time I can play is pretty limited. I might throw in writs once a day or maybe some overland quests if time allows me.

Tannus15 · November 2023

To me it really comes down to if you are scheduled to do something or you just play whenever you want.

A "casual" player can take a week off and impact no one. They have no "responsibilities" in game. If you need to meet your sale quota or have a group of friends who expect you to be on friday night for dungeons, pvp or trials then you're not casual. You might not be "hardcore" but it's not a binary anyway.

Casual players might play a lot, more hours per week than me, but then they might stop for a month because they want to play starfield. Or they might stop entirely because whatever.

I only play a few hours a week right now, but i'm not casual. I have people depending on me and I don't want to let them down. Not showing up because I don't feel like it isn't an option, my relationship with the game isn't casual, it's an obligation. I don't say this in a negative way. As someone else pointed out, it's like being on a sports team. You signed up, so show up.

I play a lot of games casually and I avoid having too many "serious" games that are either competitive or involve other commitments.

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

Joy_Division wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I don't understand the "I don't like your playstyle, you have improve so you can use mine...". I do me, why do you think I need anyone approval but mine?

I sometimes like the ease of the one-bar oakensoul heavy attack. It is fine just as it is, easy use for less damage. I am working on a 2 bar NB build and that too is fun for me. It's not a "Heavy attach"build, but I like to HA with my lightning staff. I'm not chasing maximum damage. I just want to have fun and be able to enjoy most content. I do very little vet, and no trials.

I would expect to get thru at least arc one (for the daily) of EA on either build. If that's as far as I get so be it. I think I am improving but at my pace and for my reasons. Nerfing one of the playstyles I like in an effort to make me improve isn't something I'm for.

That's not what most people are saying. I could care less about approval or how other people play.

But in a competitive environment with other players, deliberately running non-optimized builds or not bothering trying to improve or playing how you want is going to consequences that the devs are not going to be able to do anything about.

If I am in a trials progression group and we spend and hour and half wiping on a boss, or if I am in dungeon where the group keeps wiping, then at that point I and the other 10 (or 3) players are going to want to open the logs and see whose DPS is at the bottom and who has died the most often. This isn;t meant to be mean, this isn;t meant to single a person out, this isn;t meant to be elitist, it is meant to offer that player the opportunity to improve. I want that player to take a moment of introspection and ask themselves: "is this trial (or dungeon) something my competitive desire wants to accomplish or is the effort I would have to put in worth the time?" If the answer is "yes, I want to do this," then like anyone else in any other aspect of life, it would be cool for them to seek advice from more experienced people to help them in their efforts not to be on the bottom of the list. This doesn't mean they have to run X build, but it does mean some general principles would have to be adhered to. To this day I still run the "bad" race of Nord on my magicka templar because that was and is my main and that's what the character will always be regardless. People still ask me to do the game's challenging content because I do adhere to the basic principles of not standing in red and the point of a skill rotation. I want the player to answer "yes" because in the future I might run with that person again and having friends in an MMO is a big selling point of the genre,

If the answer is "no," then that's fine too. I don;t want to force anyone to do content that they don;t find enjoyable. There is no they have to do anything. They go their way and we go ours. Now we can stop banging our heads against this wall of a boss.

Ok, I did say I don't do trials. As long as the HA oakensoul builds are left alone for as long as I (and others) want to use them I don't really care about the rest of it.

Idelise · November 2023

I don't think being in a trading guild constitutes suddenly not being a casual player...ZOS made sure to make it a baseline for this game if you ever want to get any money (instead of introducing a simple auction house that won't get you kicked if you don't provide regular income in a month - but I digress.)
The fact people like Tannus start thinking about a game that is meant to be an enjoyment and entertainment (that -could- be dropped if one gets tired of it) more in terms of responsibilities makes me feel like becoming an 'experienced' player means making this game your job - which, is honestly a rather depressing outlook on any MMO. If you started playing a game to have fun and enjoy it with friends and ended up playing a second job, perhaps you do need to re-evaluate your relationship with the game overall.
I agree that the game does not help it - if a newcomer wants to stay in any way competitive, they will need a lot of money, or a lot of grinds to get the necessary mats and equipment to become somewhat relevant. Then, if they want to try any harder content, that might mean reviewing skills and gear you use.. which is another large investment of time and money, at least if they want to remain on top of the meta.
The general learning curve and gearing curve for a new player is honestly rather massive - and overwhelming unless you have experienced players ready to help you out (and you pretty much accept the fact you won't be able to use the skills you personally find fun as they are not optimal). It can be discouraging for a lot of players, who come from rather linear gear progression in games like FFXIV or WoW are thrown into ESO, and are told they can think of any gear combo-skill combo they can think of, to satisfy their own class fantasy... only to hit the glass ceiling when starting vets and learn that what they came up with and are proud of is simply not feasible. I find it a strange thing about ESO - a game that markets any playstyle you want, but which community actually pushes 1-2 main playstyles. It's very limiting for the creativity and shows how unbalanced devs left the skills and gears they gave the players to play with. It's like giving a child a box filled with colourful crayons, only for the child to realise that most of them are broken so they are forced to use black and yellow anyway...

colossalvoids · November 2023

Idelise wrote: »

The fact people like Tannus start thinking about a game that is meant to be an enjoyment and entertainment (that -could- be dropped if one gets tired of it) more in terms of responsibilities makes me feel like becoming an 'experienced' player means making this game your job - which, is honestly a rather depressing outlook on any MMO

People like us treat it more in line with playing in a band or being in a sports team etc - it's not a second job but a hobby you dedicated your free time to, with some obvious time commitments for all 4-12 of us. It might help understand that part a bit clearer I guess.

S1L3NTL4DY420 · November 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

The problem with this is two-fold. One: The DPS gap is too large, and two: Elite players do not accept other playstyles other than the barswapping/LA weaving one.

1: The DPS gap between skilled and non-skilled players in similar build/gear is too large, where this is bad for both of those groups. The 'bad' players will get kicked and experience toxicity, where the elite players will have to kick bad players and have to wait for replacements. The DPS gap should be closed/removed somehow.

I don’t like this attitude at all from people who don’t run “end game builds” and then lumps everyone into the same category. I do PUG runs all the time and don’t really care whether you’re CP 160 or 3000. I don’t care if you’re wearing the right gear or not, heavy attacking your way through bosses or know your rotation.

In a couple guilds also - some who actually are quite sweaty, and one who is a social guild who’s just getting into trials. No requirement for dps, no required sets etc. just come along and let’s see how we do. Again. Don’t make assumptions. Yes, there are people who are *** canoes out there - but we aren’t all like that. And even the sweatier guild I’m in, they don’t care about experience level and want to teach newer players or those who are just getting into trials.

I’d actually rather run with someone with less experience than someone who’s a total sweat and doesn’t have the time for someone who’s learning. I want to help those with less experience because how do they get better and have a good experience if we aren’t willing to be patient?

Velocious_Curse · November 2023

So the gist I'm getting is, players who didn't take the time to practice their rotations nor want to get better should have the same dps as those who did take the time to hit high dps numbers.
Rigggghhhhhht

boi_anachronism_ · November 2023

S1L3NTL4DY420 wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

The problem with this is two-fold. One: The DPS gap is too large, and two: Elite players do not accept other playstyles other than the barswapping/LA weaving one.

1: The DPS gap between skilled and non-skilled players in similar build/gear is too large, where this is bad for both of those groups. The 'bad' players will get kicked and experience toxicity, where the elite players will have to kick bad players and have to wait for replacements. The DPS gap should be closed/removed somehow.

I don’t like this attitude at all from people who don’t run “end game builds” and then lumps everyone into the same category. I do PUG runs all the time and don’t really care whether you’re CP 160 or 3000. I don’t care if you’re wearing the right gear or not, heavy attacking your way through bosses or know your rotation.

In a couple guilds also - some who actually are quite sweaty, and one who is a social guild who’s just getting into trials. No requirement for dps, no required sets etc. just come along and let’s see how we do. Again. Don’t make assumptions. Yes, there are people who are *** canoes out there - but we aren’t all like that. And even the sweatier guild I’m in, they don’t care about experience level and want to teach newer players or those who are just getting into trials.

I’d actually rather run with someone with less experience than someone who’s a total sweat and doesn’t have the time for someone who’s learning. I want to help those with less experience because how do they get better and have a good experience if we aren’t willing to be patient?

1) This is exactly the issue. Im in several guilds and help out in a ton of runs to teach absolute newbies all the way to hm if they want. The only qualification was that you want to learn. We encouraged folks to work with one bar builds or those they are confident with so if they do choose to try something else they already know the mechanics they can just focus on how to work their new build or toon in content.

2) there will always be a massive skill gap in anything in life between those who choose to try and excell vs those who do it as a more casual hobby. In sports for example there are Olympians and there are folks who train a few hrs a week. Same with musicians. You have those who take take lessons 3x a week and practice every day because they want to do it professionally and those that spend a little time every week. Some people just have a natural aptitude like any other skill. We also pretend there isnt a middle ground in this game. It isnt true. There are plenty of folks hitting 50k to 80k. There arent just these 2 groups of players and but it seems like thats the perpetual assumption.

Tannus15 · November 2023

colossalvoids wrote: »

Idelise wrote: »

The fact people like Tannus start thinking about a game that is meant to be an enjoyment and entertainment (that -could- be dropped if one gets tired of it) more in terms of responsibilities makes me feel like becoming an 'experienced' player means making this game your job - which, is honestly a rather depressing outlook on any MMO

People like us treat it more in line with playing in a band or being in a sports team etc - it's not a second job but a hobby you dedicated your free time to, with some obvious time commitments for all 4-12 of us. It might help understand that part a bit clearer I guess.

exactly this. I enjoy the hell out of trials, it's far and away the most fun to be had in ESO for me personally. If real life wasn't an issue then I'd be doing far more than the single run a week I get in at the moment.

If trials ever got to the point where it's not fun for me anymore and I don't want to do it I would consider stopping. I'd probably make sure someone could fill my spot for me first so I wouldn't leave my people in the lurch, but it is what it is.

I never lose sight of the fact that 11 other people are counting on me to show up. That's why I don't do more runs, I can't promise that I will be available every week at that time.

Obligations and responsibilities and fun and entertainment are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.