spartaxoxo wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

rrbreezy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The game grew in number every year until it cut the small zone dlcs. And it's been losing players ever since due to a lack of casual content (while simultaneously not giving vet players what they want).

I don't know why people are convinced that catering to people who don't play is a better strategy than keeping the customer base you cultivated for many years happy. But it seldom works out. This game almost died when it ignored the "Skyrim with Friends" players and exploded in popularity when the overland worked for them.

Sliders have worked in many other games. So, I don't understand the basis of saying they can't work in this one.

You keep saying this, but you also keep saying there can’t be a reward structure attached to it. LotRO has a decent enough implementation of this. In order to encourage you to do it, this of course includes some rewards.

I didn't say I was opposed to rewards, just unique ones tied to doing the quest on the harder difficulty.

I want the increased exp and gold gain that LOTRO has, for example.

I also don't care about green vs blue drops.

I also wouldn't be opposed if they could figure out a way to do it that did not involve give unique rewards tied to quest completion because then new players could do it at their convenience without permanently locking themselves out of stuff by playing the game without it.

My primary concern about rewards is that quests are one and done. So, tying things to quest rewards is not fair because it punishes someone for playing it at the lower difficulty permanently on that character.

Vet dungeons I have no issue with having unique stuff because you can comeback later and get it if you don't get it your first playthrough.

Everything you say keeps confirming that there should be no two overland difficulties, because it will bring tons of issues. The only and only viable and simple to implement solution is to just increase the difficulty of overland all together and that's it. Not to the point where you need a beefed up group to tackle it, but enough to make it challenging and engaging. Test it, see how it works, if the players will enjoy it and if the numbers will grow, and in worst case revert it. It's that simple.

They already did that at launch and nearly killed the entire game. They tried creeping up the difficulty and it made casuals quit.

There were a lot of reasons why early ESO nearly failed, and it wasn't because it was "too hard".

Overall it was a poorly designed game, with very simplistic mechanics, and most notably, it locked people away from playing with each other through not just faction locking, but also locking people in different instances determined by quest progress, so if you and a friend were on different stages of a quest, you couldn't group up. Cadwell's Silver and Gold wasn't a problem of being "too hard", it was the fact that it was just a rehash of all the content you just did, but now you were faction locked to another faction. This was so detrimental that the change was literally the name sake of the new version of ESO; One Tamriel - due to no longer being faction locked. There were some issues with the design of how the vet levels during that time played out, but the largest contributing factor to ESO's bad state early on was the locking people out of being able to actually play together. Removing the faction lock, quest stage instancing, and allowing players to actually explore in an Elder Scrolls game, are what saved it.

SilverBride wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

There were a lot of reasons why early ESO nearly failed, and it wasn't because it was "too hard"...

Cadwell's Silver and Gold wasn't a problem of being "too hard", it was the fact that it was just a rehash of all the content you just did, but now you were faction locked to another faction.

I played back then and the difficulty was a huge issue. I remember dying to mobs of wolves and other overland mobs just trying to quest.

I also was one of the few that completed Caldwell's Silver and Gold, and those zones were progressively more difficult. I did it on one character then ended up leaving until One Tamriel, because of the difficulty.

It was also not unusual to spend days to defeat a story boss.

Caldwell's Silver and Gold took the player through the other faction's zones, but the zones and stories and quests were not the same ones being rehashed. They were the same zones and quests that are in the base game now. The problem was the difficulty.

I understand that you and some others might have had a difficult time fighting regular mobs, but you must understand that vast majority of players did not. I've been playing since PC beta and then moved to console on launch and neither I or any of my friends and guildmates had a slightest issue defeating mobs or quest bosses solo. It was quite easy. We only had to do world bosses in pairs.

What i know people had difficulty with is understanding the core mechanics and skills as they thought it will be Skyrim on-line (many even called it that way).

As a poster before said that there was a massive issue with playing with friends. I just had a flashback how annoying it was to some and made them leave the game. The whole point of "explore the world with friends" was taken away the moment you went ahead in a quest or selected a different faction. It was ruining the fun and Immersion. ESO has fixed most of its problems now, and it's time to try to get people to try it again and fix it's reputation.

I'm part of the most popular mmo website of my country and every time ESO news is posted everyone in the comments say one of these or all of them together:

- this game with wooden, combat
- this game with god awful animations that make me not want to look at my character when it runs
- this single-player game
- not again this boring game with zero progression because you kill everything with 1 skill
- this game where there's no point to group up at all
- a game for lonely people
- let it die already, it's a house decorator not an mmo
- a game that made a buzz with Cyrodil and let it die right after

Some of these comments are on point and some are still based on the first impression of the game they had when they tried it 10 years ago. It pains me to read it because I absolutely love ESO and I think it could be the best mmo ever made if it took itself a bit more seriously.

I'm very glad that the Devs finally are trying a new approach. If the game will cater to the broader audience, it will get more funding. More funding will mean more options and content for people of any skill to enjoy.

Surgee wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

There were a lot of reasons why early ESO nearly failed, and it wasn't because it was "too hard"...

Cadwell's Silver and Gold wasn't a problem of being "too hard", it was the fact that it was just a rehash of all the content you just did, but now you were faction locked to another faction.

I played back then and the difficulty was a huge issue. I remember dying to mobs of wolves and other overland mobs just trying to quest.

I also was one of the few that completed Caldwell's Silver and Gold, and those zones were progressively more difficult. I did it on one character then ended up leaving until One Tamriel, because of the difficulty.

It was also not unusual to spend days to defeat a story boss.

Caldwell's Silver and Gold took the player through the other faction's zones, but the zones and stories and quests were not the same ones being rehashed. They were the same zones and quests that are in the base game now. The problem was the difficulty.

I understand that you and some others might have had a difficult time fighting regular mobs, but you must understand that vast majority of players did not. I've been playing since PC beta and then moved to console on launch and neither I or any of my friends and guildmates had a slightest issue defeating mobs or quest bosses solo. It was quite easy. We only had to do world bosses in pairs.

What i know people had difficulty with is understanding the core mechanics and skills as they thought it will be Skyrim on-line (many even called it that way).

As a poster before said that there was a massive issue with playing with friends. I just had a flashback how annoying it was to some and made them leave the game. The whole point of "explore the world with friends" was taken away the moment you went ahead in a quest or selected a different faction. It was ruining the fun and Immersion. ESO has fixed most of its problems now, and it's time to try to get people to try it again and fix it's reputation.

I'm part of the most popular mmo website of my country and every time ESO news is posted everyone in the comments say one of these or all of them together:

- this game with wooden, combat
- this game with god awful animations that make me not want to look at my character when it runs
- this single-player game
- not again this boring game with zero progression because you kill everything with 1 skill
- this game where there's no point to group up at all
- a game for lonely people
- let it die already, it's a house decorator not an mmo
- a game that made a buzz with Cyrodil and let it die right after

Some of these comments are on point and some are still based on the first impression of the game they had when they tried it 10 years ago. It pains me to read it because I absolutely love ESO and I think it could be the best mmo ever made if it took itself a bit more seriously.

I'm very glad that the Devs finally are trying a new approach. If the game will cater to the broader audience, it will get more funding. More funding will mean more options and content for people of any skill to enjoy.

A bit of a broken record me thinks. Is the tactic just to wear us all down?

Surgee wrote: »

I understand that you and some others might have had a difficult time fighting regular mobs, but you must understand that vast majority of players did not.

This stream with Rich Lambert says otherwise. (It's long so I placed the transcript in the spoiler tag below.)

The entire stream was taken down after an incident, but someone had saved the first part which you can see here.
https://clips.twitch.tv/BovineLovelyGrassTakeNRG-IGkmH8s1XHeD9P2u

Franchise408 wrote: »

Quick_Talos87 wrote: »

Overland content is fine. No changes needed to satisfy Soulslike players who aren't playing this game anyway?

Souls players aren't the ones asking for this difficulty. I don't want Souls level difficulty in this game. I just want a purpose to actually collecting sets and leveling up a character with specific strengths and weaknesses and have those actually matter.

I always thought the purpose of collecting sets and leveling up with specific strengths and weaknesses was to prepare for more challenging content, such as veteran dungeons and arenas and trials. Not to go back to the story questing areas to seek a challenge.

Franchise408 wrote: »

And as somebody who has been playing this game since beta and launch, I simply put do not trust Rich Lambert's perception of the situation.

Searching up Cadwell's gold let's me see quotes complaining explicitly about the difficulty. I see low population numbers before the difficulty is removed and the game steadily growing after. I don't really see any reason not to believe Rich on this personally.

Surgee wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

I understand that you and some others might have had a difficult time fighting regular mobs, but you must understand that vast majority of players did not.

This stream with Rich Lambert says otherwise. (It's long so I placed the transcript in the spoiler tag below.)

Can we get a vet mode for delves and quests? Uh, so we had that ... at launch. It was called Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. Nobody did it and everybody hated it, so we took it out. We put the challenge into World Bosses, and into solo Arenas, and into Dungeons and Trials.

[Speaks about skyshards then returns to the topic.]

People didn't do it because they had to go through their own alliance first? That's not actually true. A ton of people completed their own alliance storylines to get to silver and gold. A ton of people did. People just did not like the extra difficulty in the story stuff.

I get there’s a lot of people that do like the harder difficulty, but a HUGE portion of our player base just wants to do story, and they don’t want to have to struggle with difficult things. And so that was why we did what we did and said story is soloable and crit path will always be soloable and if you want the extra challenge you can go seek out other things to challenge you.

I totally hear you on the difficulty thing. I like things to be more difficult. But you know, the data doesn’t lie. And we have never been more successful than we are today. And a lot of that has to do with just how much freedom players have to go and experience story.

And yes, go look at Craglorn. There’s not a lot of people in Craglorn and that’s not super difficult but it’s more hard than the regular overland.

Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it why do it? The satisfaction's there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time.

So, you know like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it.

The entire stream was taken down after an incident, but someone had saved the first part which you can see here.
https://clips.twitch.tv/BovineLovelyGrassTakeNRG-IGkmH8s1XHeD9P2u

Broken record to wear us down?

Just giving the facts, which is that difficulty WAS a problem before One Tamriel, and not just for a few.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I support difficulty options. But, it is a fact that Rich told us that both feedback/data showed us that difficulty was a problem before. Disregarding this is the official position of Zenimax (well, as conveyed by Rich Lambert) doesn't help convince them to change things. Ultimately, our discussions aren't about convincing each other. It's about creating a positive change (at least for those of us who want a change).

If they weren't about convincing each other, this thread wouldn't be nearly 300 pages long and 3 years old with the same people shouting down any suggestion people have made about this specific topic. If it was about convincing ZOS, this thread could have been over 2 1/2 years ago and let ZOS decide for themselves what to do about the situation and let the feedback given speak for itself.

At the end of the day, what we think will or won't work doesn't matter, because ZOS knows what they are capable of and what is feasible. So shouting people down about how this, that or the other solution isn't feasible doesn't do anything. Nobody here is in the know of what ZOS is capable of behind the scenes.

These discussions clearly have evolved into trying to convince each other, but as you said, none of us are making the decision. We can tell ZOS what we want, and then they can decide from there.

But ultimately, it's not on us to convince ZOS to make changes we want to see, it's on ZOS to entice us to want to play their game. As it is, the difficulty setting is not enticing for a lot of players to play their game. If ZOS wants us as customers, they will need to address that and convince us to stay. If they don't want us as customers, then they don't need to do anything, and we can either choose to play this game as is, or play a different game. But ultimately, it's not on us to convince ZOS of anything. We are the customer, and they need to convince us to consume their product.

And that should not be taken as a threat, or anything else. There are plenty of people who are consuming the current product as is. Those numbers might be more beneficial to ZOS than the potential numbers they could gain from a change, and if that's the case, then they won't have convinced us to stay.

But considering this thread was mod created 3 years ago, and now we are seeing movement on actual game implementation, something tells me that they are trying to convince us to play the game.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They are doing something about difficulty because of us asking for it for so long and passionately. It's not just us in the thread. But players on social media, Reddit, etc.

They removed the difficulty because of a lot of feedback. And now they are adding difficulty back in thanks to feedback. I hope it's not mandatory. I very much doubt it would be.

Every indication points to it not being mandatory.

I haven't played since the difficulty increase announcement. I logged in to pts for 3 min to check green champion point changes. If things are going to be made harder by any amount, then there is no point in playing anymore. The fact they will not comment on the difficulty feeds my fear that it will be a massive, forced difficulty increase, which means there is no point in playing. I am the primary caregiver for my mom who has stage 4 cancer. I don't want stress or difficulty of any kind. I want to walk through all content like GOD. If there is a difficulty increase of any kind, even though I've played off and on since beta, I am done!

DeathStalker wrote: »

I haven't played since the difficulty increase announcement. I logged in to pts for 3 min to check green champion point changes. If things are going to be made harder by any amount, then there is no point in playing anymore. The fact they will not comment on the difficulty feeds my fear that it will be a massive, forced difficulty increase, which means there is no point in playing. I am the primary caregiver for my mom who has stage 4 cancer. I don't want stress or difficulty of any kind. I want to walk through all content like GOD. If there is a difficulty increase of any kind, even though I've played off and on since beta, I am done!

I'm sorry to hear about your mom. If it makes you feel any better, they actually commented early last year that they didn't want to lose players with a vet overland, so even though they're offering something now, I doubt they changed their mind on that.

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

old_scopie1945 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They are doing something about difficulty because of us asking for it for so long and passionately. It's not just us in the thread. But players on social media, Reddit, etc.

They removed the difficulty because of a lot of feedback. And now they are adding difficulty back in thanks to feedback. I hope it's not mandatory. I very much doubt it would be.

Every indication points to it not being mandatory.

Yeah I made a list of that and everything. I'm not actually worried about it.

I'll believe it when I see it. At this point, I'm not a really trusting person.

I mean, fair enough. But, at the same time what if you let yourself be upset for no reason and come April it's as optional as you had hoped?

I think stressing about it isn't going to do anything but spoil the game. At least, that's what it would do to me. So, I just take the changes as they come instead of assuming the worst. I can't speak for others but for myself, the game is a lot more fun than way.

I was pretty disappointed when i first saw the announcement about increasing general overland difficulty. But then I remembered how Bastion Nymics are considered an answer to that, and I feel like it will be some challenging events inserted in Overland rather than making the story more difficult. Especially since they know and have stated that many players just do not want difficulty in the story.

I just hope this experiment is such that it will please enough players that we can put this discussion to rest for good.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

DeathStalker wrote: »

I haven't played since the difficulty increase announcement. I logged in to pts for 3 min to check green champion point changes. If things are going to be made harder by any amount, then there is no point in playing anymore. The fact they will not comment on the difficulty feeds my fear that it will be a massive, forced difficulty increase, which means there is no point in playing. I am the primary caregiver for my mom who has stage 4 cancer. I don't want stress or difficulty of any kind. I want to walk through all content like GOD. If there is a difficulty increase of any kind, even though I've played off and on since beta, I am done!

I'm sorry to hear about your mom. If it makes you feel any better, they actually commented early last year that they didn't want to lose players with a vet overland, so even though they're offering something now, I doubt they changed their mind on that.

TaSheen wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

old_scopie1945 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They are doing something about difficulty because of us asking for it for so long and passionately. It's not just us in the thread. But players on social media, Reddit, etc.

They removed the difficulty because of a lot of feedback. And now they are adding difficulty back in thanks to feedback. I hope it's not mandatory. I very much doubt it would be.

Every indication points to it not being mandatory.

Yeah I made a list of that and everything. I'm not actually worried about it.

I'll believe it when I see it. At this point, I'm not a really trusting person.

I mean, fair enough. But, at the same time what if you let yourself be upset for no reason and come April it's as optional as you had hoped?

I think stressing about it isn't going to do anything but spoil the game. At least, that's what it would do to me. So, I just take the changes as they come instead of assuming the worst. I can't speak for others but for myself, the game is a lot more fun than way.

Oh, I wouldn't say I'm "upset" or "stressing about it". I'm fully engaged at this point with the Pursuits that popped this morning, including making some new characters to do certain parts.

What I AM is prepared to no longer play, depending on what happens with this. Upset/stressed? No. Resolved, yes. Resolved that if these game devs think that I'm too old/decrepit/broken to play their game, well.... I can cut my losses and go play Skyrim and Oblivion.

ESO has been a lot of fun for me for 7 years, and I've spent a lot of money on it. I'll be sorry to leave it if I have to, but I won't put myself into a tailspin over difficulty that's too hard for me - the way the last few zone story bosses are.

That's definitely fair! I hope whatever changes they make works out for you and everyone else.

So do I. Should the worst happen, yes, I will be a tad bummed. But I haven't lived this long without "backup plans". So I'll be fine no matter what.

I cannot imagine that after three years of this thread, after years of attempts at alternatives which have failed to change anyone's mind about overland being too easy and after the endless negative feedback over the enhanced difficulty in West Weald, that they would continue down that same path, with further attempts and floundering with "creative" solutions. ZOS has a (somewhat understandable) reputation for not listening to players, or for listening and then taking a completely different approach than what people were asking for, but this is one of the larger and more pressing issues on their plate and I can't imagine that they're going to take all of the available data and do something nobody ever actually wanted. Not this time, because we're we've all been here, in this thread, for years now, providing reams worth of feedback about ideal solutions.

I've said before that I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I still am. While I think it's understandable to prepare for the worst, I feel like there's a better chance that they know what we need from them now.

Franchise408 wrote: »

disky wrote: »

I cannot imagine that after three years of this thread, after years of attempts at alternatives which have failed to change anyone's mind about overland being too easy and after the endless negative feedback over the enhanced difficulty in West Weald, that they would continue down that same path, with further attempts and floundering with "creative" solutions. ZOS has a (somewhat understandable) reputation for not listening to players, or for listening and then taking a completely different approach than what people were asking for, but this is one of the larger and more pressing issues on their plate and I can't imagine that they're going to take all of the available data and do something nobody ever actually wanted. Not this time, because we're we've all been here, in this thread, for years now, providing reams worth of feedback about ideal solutions.

I've said before that I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I still am. While I think it's understandable to prepare for the worst, I feel like there's a better chance that they know what we need from them now.

From my perspective, the more realistic "worst case" isn't that they are going to go too far, it's that they aren't going to go far enough. That's ultimately what I'm prepared for, is something that doesn't make combat anymore interesting or challenging, but just some basic band aid like higher HP for mobs, invulnerability phases, or something like that. Until shown otherwise, I'm still prepared to not engage with overland content.

Yeah. I'm speculating of course, but I really don't see anything that's going to dramatically alter the current state of things as a possibility in the near future. I would always set expectations for the most middle-of-the-road option, because this game is not intended to cater to a specific group of people. The philosophy seems to have been that overland is deliberately easy for below-50s/casuals/etc. and that everything else is harder for vets, but as that changes and the intention shifts to allow for more people who want a challenge to spend time in overland, they will still want to accommodate those players who like things as they are. After all, the people who like the game already and stick around for years tend to be the ones paying the bills.

Setting big expectations and making ambitious requests is a losing game. It's often a resource-intensive timesink and a risk for the team. No developer wants to be deliver the next SWO NGE, so if we're going to think about feedback we have to consider options that are relatively light and work for the largest number of players. Obviously, the devs can't please everyone, but they can do their best to minimize backlash and frustration.

I think that's the primary reason why they made attempts at pleasing people like you and me with alternatives. It didn't work, but I'm optimistic that they aren't going to make the same mistake.