How Long Should it Take to Kill an Overland Bear?

Smitch_59 · January 8

We're getting harder overland. In your opinion, what is the ideal length of time it should take you to kill a single bear in a base game overland zone?

Franchise408 · January 8

I feel like this is a very loaded question

Etherea1 · January 8

30 seconds

I voted for 30 sec. Bear if formidable foe and should not die like mudcrab.

JustLovely · January 8

5 seconds or less

2 hits should do it, 3 at the most. So like 2 seconds give or take 1 second.

Oh wait, the question was how long SHOULD it take, not how long DOES it take.

Ya, a bear should be harder to kill than other lesser beasts, like wolves.

sarahthes · January 8

2-5 GCDs depending on some factors.

Tandor · January 8

Impossible to say without knowing the player's level and stats etc. Also, are we talking about a single difficulty level or are we assuming that there will be optional difficulty levels?

valenwood_vegan · January 8

I mean, for who exactly? For a new player with like 2 skills and mismatched gear? Maybe 15-30 seconds. For my 3000+ cp, trial-ready dps? Probably bout the same as now. I really hope the plan isn't to make us spend 5 min killing every trash mob.

We also don't really know what we're getting other than one line in Matt's letter, listed under the heading: "Here are some of the ideas that we are working on, some of which you may see on the live servers as tests in 2025 and beyond."

So I'd say we "may" be getting harder overland in some unknown form, but it's a little hard to speculate without any details.

whitecrow · January 8

5 seconds or less

In base game it takes me a few seconds on my main.

In real life I expect it to take more than 10 minutes.

SilverBride · January 8

5 seconds or less

Matt also said "These systems and ideas will be clearly marked as "experiments" in patch notes and are ideas that may or may not be fleshed out into full game systems."

So it's not definite that there will be any increased overland difficulty once the experiments are complete.

MrGarlic · January 8

More context needed.

What level am I?
What gear am I wearing?
What class and race am I?
How recently has the bear eaten?
Is the bear protecting cubs?
Are any of my peers watching me embarrass myself?

Estin · January 8

There's no info on this yet, so I don't think it's right to assume that it's going to be a global increase that affects all players.

Solo mobs don't have a lot of HP anyway when it comes to increased difficulty areas. They really only get more defense. Bosses/Elites are really the only thing that get a noticeable change in places like vMA or vVH. Regular mobs still have rather low HP and can die fast regardless of build or skill level.

Ugrak · January 8

I think the real issue and question is how long it should take for the overland bear to kill the player. Currently it is not given that the bear will be capable of killing an AFK player at all.

I don't fundamentally have a problem with a challenging gameplay regime where the TTK can drop to 5 seconds or less in both directions, through high and low player skill respectively.

Typically that might hover somewhere above that. If current Craglorn enemies are used as an example.

Another thing though is that fighting a single bear in ESO tends to be somewhat boring. Whether it's Graufang the world boss or Foulhide the dungeon boss, or just the usual overland bear.

Most of the time when I have fun in ESO combat, it is when there are a large anough number of different enemies that they create a bit of chaos, or at the very least die fast but the number of them makes it a bit satisfying. Challenge comes from being able to fail. To be in danger of death. Not so much from the enemy being a bullet sponge.

Credible_Joe · January 8

This is a loaded poll that doesn't represent what difficulty means in video games.

Fight length does not equal difficulty. It's often a crutch that's used to present the illusion of difficulty, but if the path to victory is impossible to stray off of, then the fight isn't difficult. It's just long. Egoraptor went over this in his Sequilitis episode on The Ocarina of Time.

Everyone can agree that long fights that are easy is bad design. People have been complaining about invuln phases in recent content for a couple of years now.

What most of us that have been lobbying for harder content actually want is for the narrative to be engaging no matter what the content. Facerolling the big bad of the chapter in fifteen seconds is boring. Inflating that time won't make it more difficult or more engaging. We already know this because most of us self-handicap by fighting without gear or champion points.

Making it more dangerous and giving us the threat of failure is what makes it difficult.

The poll shouldn't be "how long should it take to kill a bear." It should be, "How much of a threat should a normal bear present to your character?" And in my opinion, a bear should be able to kill any adventurer at any level. You might be geared up to fight daedra and legendary warriors, but 1,160 PSI of bite force applied to your skull will still end your story like any other sword or spell.

cyclonus11 · January 8

Infinite if they have cubs

Thumbless_Bot · January 8

5 seconds or less

Depends on the level/build of the toon.

emilyhyoyeon · January 8

10 minutes or longer

45min is my very serious answer for a bad faith poll

spartaxoxo · January 8

5 seconds or less

Trash mobs should be easy. Elite Mobs should be medium. Bosses should be hard.

Just my opinion.

Trash bears like these with no shielded health bars should die easily and quickly. Same as skeevers, spiders, etc.

Meanwhile stuff like mammoths with shielded health bars are meant to be more elite. These shouldn't fall over as easily.

Those symbols should mean something. 🤷🏿‍♀️

ArchMikem · January 8

1 minute

Depends heavily on the fighter and the weapon being used. Lvl 5 StamDK with a white or green Sword? More often than not you should probably end up losing that encounter, it's a freakin Brown Bear.

Lvl 50 CP 2,000 MagSorc? One spell and you're looting some Alkahest.

Avran_Sylt · January 8

5 seconds or less

If we want gritty, realistic, and hard:

They need to add targetable weakpoints to aim for (but that isn't something that ESO supports)

They need to scale drops based on the creature and how long it takes (not just a paltry chance at a leatherworking material)

They should introduce a skinning life-skill mini-game (but they rarely make new crafting skills)

If they're making all overland harder, I expect them to try to emulate to a degree survival crafting games. And if not, I'm not interested.

Avran_Sylt · January 8

5 seconds or less

Credible_Joe wrote: »

This is a loaded poll that doesn't represent what difficulty means in video games.

Fight length does not equal difficulty. It's often a crutch that's used to present the illusion of difficulty, but if the path to victory is impossible to stray off of, then the fight isn't difficult. It's just long. Egoraptor went over this in his Sequilitis episode on The Ocarina of Time.

Everyone can agree that long fights that are easy is bad design. People have been complaining about invuln phases in recent content for a couple of years now.

What most of us that have been lobbying for harder content actually want is for the narrative to be engaging no matter what the content. Facerolling the big bad of the chapter in fifteen seconds is boring. Inflating that time won't make it more difficult or more engaging. We already know this because most of us self-handicap by fighting without gear or champion points.

Making it more dangerous and giving us the threat of failure is what makes it difficult.

The poll shouldn't be "how long should it take to kill a bear." It should be, "How much of a threat should a normal bear present to your character?" And in my opinion, a bear should be able to kill any adventurer at any level. You might be geared up to fight daedra and legendary warriors, but 1,160 PSI of bite force applied to your skull will still end your story like any other sword or spell.

And a well-placed thrust into the heart of a bear through a braced spear or sword will kill it quickly in one strike through a Direct damage + DoT effect, as would a well-placed axe to the nape of the neck with enough force (Critical).

Sarannah · January 8

5 seconds or less

There is a reason why I gear, level, choose powerful skills, and build my characters up. All to become stronger. After killing molag bal and other big baddies, regular mobs should die quickly.

The entire powerfantasy and reason to become stronger would be broken if regular monsters would be 'difficult'.

LanteanPegasus · January 8

An American or an European bear?

Sorry, I just couldn't NOT ask...

Dawnblade · January 8

5 seconds or less

Time to kill is irrelevant to difficulty.

If they just increase the HP on everything, ttk would increase, but not difficulty.

Boring no threat mobs would still be boring no threat mobs, they would just take longer to kill.

bmnoble · January 8

5 seconds or less

For a high level player in good gear 5 seconds or less, got no desire for bullet sponge enemies, though it would be nice to able to make use of more than two skills on my bar before stuff drops dead.

For a low level player 10 seconds to a minute.

The main mobs I remember having trouble with when I was starting out and low level back in 2018 were things like trolls with their regenerating health, though at the time I was stupid enough to face them in random pieces of heavy armour, with a sword and shield, even had a passer bye help me out on one occasion due to how long a fight against a troll was taking.

Jaimeh · January 8

5 seconds or less

I think no more than 2-3 GCDs. I don't know if they've said anything about the new difficulty being the default or if there will be a toggle to activate it, but I sincirely hope it's the latter. No one wants to go to the days where it took 5 minutes to kill a wasp in Craglorn...

Warhawke_80 · January 8

5 seconds or less

This seems like one of those questions you'll end up regretting

SilverBride wrote: »

Matt also said "These systems and ideas will be clearly marked as "experiments" in patch notes and are ideas that may or may not be fleshed out into full game systems."

So it's not definite that there will be any increased overland difficulty once the experiments are complete.

Well that's good to hear...I think whatever they do they should put on a toggle that way if you want more difficulty you just flip a switch, but for some odd reason certain folks get really upset if it's not mandatory for everyone...

Shara_Wynn · January 8

10 seconds

More time than it currently takes for sure. Overland is a joke.

Kyip · January 8

5 seconds or less

I just don't understand why people feel the need to make the base game content harder for casual players. Lots of people enjoy the game as it is. It's relaxing. Harder pve content is already there if people want it, in all the veteran content. I just want to relax when playing a damned game, for the limited time I have outside work. Doing dailies in overland zones is relaxing. For people who want something harder, we can already go into vet solo Infinite Archive, Vateshran, Maelstrom, etc.

TaSheen · January 8

Kyip wrote: »

I just don't understand why people feel the need to make the base game content harder for casual players. Lots of people enjoy the game as it is. It's relaxing. Harder pve content is already there if people want it, in all the veteran content. I just want to relax when playing a damned game, for the limited time I have outside work. Doing dailies in overland zones is relaxing. For people who want something harder, we can already go into vet solo Infinite Archive, Vateshran, Maelstrom, etc.

While true, this doesn't take into account the many players who would love to quest, but find questing too easy for various reasons. (Note, I'm not one of them.) There are a pretty fair number who have posted in the humongous stickied thread that immersion goes begging when overland questing in zones is too easy. So yes, there are those who want harder overland, without having nowhere to go for it but instanced content.

Even people who can run through Vet HM dungeons without issue can want to do zone quests that feel more "impactful" to them....

Kyip · January 8

5 seconds or less

Then I sincerely hope whatever solution ZoS decides on will be a toggle, not a broad increase to difficulty.

TaSheen · January 8

Kyip wrote: »

Then I sincerely hope whatever solution ZoS decides on will be a toggle, not a broad increase to difficulty.

Well, me too. But if not, I'll just drop ESO and go back to Oblivion and Skyrim full time (I still play them alongside ESO....)

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How Long Should it Take to Kill an Overland Bear?

How Long Should it Take to Kill an Overland Bear? 81 votes