Has ZOS officially stated what "Harder Overland" means to them? I would assume the following would increase Overland difficulty:

• The inability to self revive on the spot, like being killed in PvP. This means a difficult boss fight will send you back to the nearest wayshrine if you don't have an ally to resurrect you — good for a co-op challenge.
• Survival elements, such as the need to manage hunger, thirst, and temperature. Traveling across the overworld means you must prepare for harsh climates, such as the heat of the Alik'r Desert or the chill of Eastmarch. This makes overland more challenging to navigate.
• Enemies being buffed, with stats or new mechanics like invulnerability phases or new attacks. This wouldn't really work without making a separate instance to isolate Harder Overland players from everyone else.
• Players being debuffed, such as having their stats capped (would affect Subclassers and Pureclassers equally if the cap could be reached with either) or reduced by a percentage. Maybe it disables functionality rather than make players weaker.
• A time limit for completing quests, before they expire for being in your Quest Journal for too long. This means you must restart the quest if you "fail" it. A speedrun challenge would make Overland harder.
• More Area of Effect caps, to reduce the effect cleave has on enemies. Players will need to deal with groups of enemies more carefully or be overwhelmed.
• Reduced/removed Stealth/Invisibility capacity, or increased hostile enemy aggression range. Suddenly, players will have to actually fight these enemies, rather than run past them.
• Reduced range on abilities and weapons, so players have to put themselves closer to dangerous enemies.
• Random encounters with dangerous enemies. Though, that's the purpose of Wandering World Bosses.
• New debuffs that increase in effectiveness over time, that must be cured by an NPC in a town. That would make trips to town more important, and combat more dangerous.
• Armor and Enchantment effectiveness scaling with durability/charge. Your armor and enchantments currently maintain 100% effectiveness until they break or run out of charge — so if enemies could reduce your armor durability and enchantment charge faster, and they started scaling off of their remaining durability or charge, then you'd have less Physical and Spell Resistance and less help from your weapon enchantments the longer you went without repairing and recharging your equipment.

There are other ways to increase the difficulty of Overland content not listed here. We don't know which approach(es) ZOS will take — so the only way we can definitively answer the question of if and how Harder Overland will be affected by Subclassing is if we discuss every possible implementation of Harder Overland.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

While all of these speculative discussions have been very interesting, I think it is important to keep in mind that this thread has accomplished an important goal, Kevin saying he will pass on this thread so the concern is known. We may never know if this affects the outcome of a hopefully optional harder overland, but it may and that’s a good thing. 😊

sans-culottes wrote: »

Again, I’ll believe it when I see it. ZOS knew the fanbase wanted clarity on overland difficulty, and yet the initial announcement video conveniently sidestepped the topic. When it finally came up during the livestream, the response felt unrehearsed—like it caught the devs off guard. And, true to form, we got their signature line: “We’re looking into it, but it’s too early to share details.” At this point, that phrase feels less like transparency and more like ritual deflection. The lack of planning isn’t just frustrating. It’s revealing.

I'm trying to be optimistic that things will move forward so we can finally resolve the long standing issue of overland difficulty. I watched the stream (the first one I ever watched) just to see what they were planning, and I agree that it felt off guard and unrehearsed.

This now makes me wonder if there will be a difficulty option, because in Matt's letter it was one of the features listed as tests or experiments that may or may not be fleshed out into full game systems.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Blood_again wrote: »

Subclassing is described in PTS patch notes and available for testing on PTS. It is a real feature with known details and known release dates.
The overland difficulty tweak is a "we are working on it" thing from the devs. AFAIK there are no real details or terms from the developers, while there is an overwhelming amount of wishes and speculations from players about it.

Two known things may be matched and compared. Known vs slightly imaginable one... it is nonsense.

What are you trying to compare? Patch notes vs dreams? Would the Canterville Ghost beat David Benavidez for the lightweight champion title?

I wasn't comparing anything. I was asking how 2 different features that appear that they may conflict with each other would work together.

I just hope the harder overland features are substantially harder, like what we'd expect from the hardest difficulty in the singleplayer TES games. That way not even Subclassing can make it feel trivial.

Are we talking oblivion remaster hard? Or skyrim hard?

Rogue_Coyote wrote: »

How will they separate those who toggle for a harder overland content vs those who play vanilla eso? Will there be more "instances" of each zone, further taxing the already over taxed NA server?

No one knows the answer to that question at this point, probably not even ZOS since they are still working on it.

SilverBride wrote: »

Rogue_Coyote wrote: »

How will they separate those who toggle for a harder overland content vs those who play vanilla eso? Will there be more "instances" of each zone, further taxing the already over taxed NA server?

They won't need to be separated because we already have players of different levels and skill styles all playing in the open world together.

I doubt that the mobs will be changed, but rather I speculate that there may be a debuff on the player that varies depending on how much difficulty the player chooses.

I wonder if we'll get to carry that self debuff into other content (like Arenas, Dungeons, Trials, Cyrodiil, Imperial City, and Battlegrounds) rather than just have it restricted to Overland (which probably includes Delves and Public Dungeons as well as instanced story content).

It'd be weird if this "harder" difficulty suddenly went away just because we entered a different zone.

I am looking forward to the idea of subclassing. I am absolutely brand new to the game, but not at all new to MMOs and RPG Tabletop gaming. Subclassing solves a problem that has been present in MMOs since the internet became stable enough to play such games, and that was class restrictions. I have always hated having my hands tied by developers telling me what my character can wear, carry, or do based on their class. Here would be a nice place for a Monty Python reference.

When I started playing Oblivion, I found it to be tedious and monotonous on the main quest line with closing all of the Oblivion gates, but the thing that kept me playing was the fact that I could train in any skill I wanted to. As a player who only plays video games when I do not have a consistent Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) or Magic: The Gathering (MTG) group. I measure each MMO and RPG I find against D&D and MTG to see if they will meet my needs as a gamer. One of my most important needs as an RPG gamer is the true ability to role-play and create my character as freely as I could if I were to write them on paper.

I place more value on quests, storyline, and exploration than I do rewards my character receives. As a person who is intrinsically motivated, I receive joy from doing the task itself rather than receiving some reward for doing the task. I do not volunteer within my community and do my best to help people for the reward I receive at the end of the day; I do these things to experience the journey and gain an education. I play games for the same reason.

With the idea of subclassing, it allows my character to be more of a tabletop D&D build rather than a computer-generated image bound by the rules of the dev team. I think it will also help put us in the right direction of addressing elitism within gaming. The idea that if you are not in the world to grind for XP or participate in end game content then somehow you are a lower class of being and you do not belong on "their" game is pretty atrocious, and unfortunately, it is an attitude that drove me away from the MMO community many years ago.

Subclassing will allow my character to begin their career as a mage or fighter and then transition to a thief or healer. This usually means this character would not be exceptionally good at both of these schools, but they would be proficient at both. They would never be a master unless they chose to pursue one path more strongly than the other. I think this brings a breath of fresh air and realism to the game.

Another thing this shows is that the developers want to push their players to change their gameplay style and evolve with the ideas the dev team has for their game. Only in the video game world have I ever seen or heard players complain that the game changed. We, as tabletop gamers, expect and demand these changes, or people will stop investing in the story. In MTG, we change expansions every 3 months and get a new core set each year. This means half my deck becomes unplayable at the start of the 4th month, and I need to increase my library to include the newest sets. The developers of the game do not tell you how to use the new mechanic or which color has taken a slight hit over another. They leave this to the player to figure out the puzzle of the game they created, which marks the evolution and next chapter of gameplay. Sometimes old mechanics come back, cards get reprinted in new sets, and mechanics get a boost, but for the most part, we gain a mechanic and lose a mechanic.

The idea behind this is that when players show up to tournaments at Friday Night Magic at their local game shops, they are challenged to find the puzzle that will complete the set and make a deck competitive. This prevents the game from getting stale, and it also ensures that players do not sit on one deck or mechanic forever. People are forced to evolve and live at the pace of society if they choose to engage in the activities society is enjoying at the time; we call that being present.

One thing that has always driven me away from MMOs is the community of players who neglect the experience only to chase the dragon. I understand the dopamine hit that might provide to a person with an addictive personality, which is why I choose to play on my own, usually. What I accomplish in this game has no impact on my real-life experience or the way I feel about myself when I am finished playing the game. If anything I am doing turns into a negative experience, or one that I am stressing about throughout my real life, then it is time to find another hobby. I do not think anything that a dev team decides to do with the game they allow me to play should impact my stress or mental health negatively. That would mean my positive coping mechanism for entertainment and stress relief has turned toxic and is no longer a positive influence in my life.