So, I logged in and saw the Master tag on the loading screen, opened the character menu and saw it was set to Master. I think that UI element is a little on the big side, doesn't really blend with the rest of the UI but it does stand out. When I ran to a nearby dungeon to test combat I didn't notice any difference when I entered, only to find I was set to normal somehow. Aside from that the system works well enough, and I appreciate the fact that it exists so it can be built upon.

My issue is, once I got the difficulty set, is that fights didn't really change much, basic fights we still just as basic, since many enemies spend so much time preparing to attack or using attacks that do bugger all that their increased damage didn't matter. And when I went to Wrothgar to try out Old Orsinium I did die a few times. It actually put a smile on my face, until I realized that the only thing that ever really did me in was multiple ranged mobs all doing basic attacks. I mentioned this ages ago in the Overland Content Feedback Thread, that simply making enemies hit harder and us hit weaker was not only something we could do ourselves with gear, but it wouldn't address the main pressure point I feel with most encounters outside of dungeons and trials.

Enemies at large are just way to basic, years ago when the whole pass was done where "increased the damage but reduced the health of tank enemies" and what not, there isn't anything differentiating one enemy class from another, all mobs are just as durable, deal just about as much damage, give so much grace with their special attacks that they're normally debuffs for the attacker, hence why the light attack barrage was the biggest threat. My reason for preferring instances over debuffs was because I feel, to be impactful, most enemies need to do more in combat. Yes they need more health to live long enough to act, and they need enough damage to justify paying attention to, but without anything else to make them more, I guess the term is 'stand out', overall enemies remain a giant grey glob, doesn't matter if you're fighting bandits, deadra, or ghosts. I know it can't be easily done with a player sided modifier, but if enemies could use more advanced attacks against specific players, that could do something, though again, that'd bleed over onto players who don't want harder content, but as it is I either noticed nothing different or just got instantly gibbed at the start of the fight because I didn't hard cc all the ranged mobs, harder, yes, and I have to pay attention, but if that's it then I don't really feel like challenging myself on that highest difficulty, just seems tedious.

And in addition, the biggest feedback will be how it feels to be in the middle of a fun fight, only to have a player on a lower difficulty clear the fight without noticing me, and being left waiting for the enemies to respawn, it's an issue that already exists in the game, and once this goes live I'll just have to wait and see how often fate puts that situation on me.

Was the system easy to use?
Yes

What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?
On vestige difficulty the world bosses with multiple adds/bosses posed the most difficulty, as they provide fewer offensive windows. I think the world boss difficulty is in a good spot.

Did the risk feel appropriate for the reward?
Reward doesn't matter to me, I was looking forward to the challenge to reinvigorate what I saw as dead content (overland mobs).

Did you enjoy the system overall?
I am a little disappointed as vestige difficulty is still too easy. I am normally a PvPer and this was the thing I was hoping would pull me back into some PvE. So with minimal prep I set off with my PvP build, however I found the overland mobs and incursions can still be solo'd fairly easily. The overland mobs still die in 3-4 hits and the damage is easily negotiable with use of the core combat abilities. I guess I was just expecting more like a 10 second fight per plain overland mob.

Any general feedback?
Please make vestige difficulty harder, I think the damage reduction could be greater as many of the fights with non-elite mobs were still not long enough to see their unique mechanics. In my opinion it should be a playstyle where every mob poses a threat, not just a marginally longer fight.

Edit: Adding to my feedback, there could be room to add another difficulty above vestige. My dream would be a 'soul crushing' mode. 99% mitigation, 1000% more damage. I want every trip between towns to feel like an adventure, with a need to theorycraft specialized builds for the occasion, and worry about running out of soul gems/potions/gear breaking in between.

I tested Vestige difficulty with a high damage Magicka Warden setup. High damage, some survivability but not a lot.

First test: Red Rook Camp in Glenumbra

First reaction: Is this actually on? I could still two-shot the enemies with my spammable. Tweaking the setting to adventurer and back a few times, I could see that yes, it was indeed doing something but the the overland enemies (at least, in a early game zone) still felt like tissue paper.

I then proceeded to walk over one of the traps that are on the ground in that area, and got one-shot for 40K. So apparently it affects those too. After several more trap deaths, I let myself get hit by an overland enemy and found it took away about 3/4 of my health.

Conclusion: In environments with packs of one or two enemies, I could still kill them before they ever became remotely a threat to me.

Second test: Hircine’s Haunt in Craglorn

For reasons I cannot explain, this delve is my favorite place in the entire game. Even on live, the enemies are bulky enough and come in larger enough groups that there’s some degree of basic challenge. I can definitely notice the difference between my well-built characters and my wearing-whatever-happens-to-be-in-my-inventory ones. So I wanted to give it a shot on Vestige.

This was a much more interesting experience than the Red Rook Camp. The packs of enemies were large enough that I couldn’t burst them all down before they could react, and they survived long enough that if I stood still they would swarm me. It still only took 2-3 hits to kill me, so if they reached me, I died. However, any given any still died if I focused on it for a moment, so backpedaling + bursting was very effective. I tried out a few more defensive abilities (damage shield, Major Resolve) and that gave me a bit more tankiness, but didn’t really change the feel much - even with those I would die after a few hits, and I could still burst everything down while backpedaling.

The two bosses in there (crocodile, werewolf) were fine. The werewolf killed me when I first pulled him without even looking at me - apparently I was hit by a 60K swipe as soon as he pulled without any sort of animation. Beyond that, it was fine because I had Isobel there to tank. She seemed to have zero issue with damage from them (I guess the setting doesn’t affect companion damage taken? It seemed that way at least) and could keep the bosses’ attention. I died to an add that spawned at the very end of the werewolf fight, at the same time the boss died.

Conclusion

With the current Vestige balance, individual enemies still feel like paper with a proper damage setup, but can also kill you equally fast. The difficulty therefore depends on how many enemies there are - low density areas will remain pretty trivial, but areas with high enemy density can pose a bit more challenge. The inherent mechanics of most overland content make this pretty easy to workaround - enemies can chase you a long ways before resetting, so kiting them is easy.

For my tastes, I think making enemies a bit tougher to kill but the player a bit less squishy would be more enjoyable (and yes, I’m aware I could accomplish that myself with gear choices). That would also make the experience better in lower density areas, since there’s less of a dependency on adds swarming you in order to be threatened.

For pure class gameplay, Vestige is only available for DK and Arcanist. Other classes don't have their own "beam" unless you count new werewolf channeled attack, which is insane and on par with Arc beam.

Was the system easy to use? No. The write up indicates it is at the log in screen.

Feedback:

Provide a visual indicator that indicates the setting your character is currently at.

Increase challenge overall, but also increase Ultimate Generation as an added reward.

I'm not someone who really wanted harder overland, though I often wish delve and public dungeon bosses were more challenging. I tried Seasoned and Master difficulties, and preferred the seasoned level, though I didn't discern much of a difference between that and Adventurer difficulty for the most part (DLC WBs were definitely harder though).

On Master, I would have liked trash mobs to deal less damage, because some of them could kill me if I wasn't paying attention, which is really strange. Trash mobs should always be on the easy side, I think. On seasoned, trash mobs were fine, but I would have liked public dungeons bosses to be more challenging (have more health, for example).

I have always believed that trash mobs should be easy and bosses should be hard, and I don't get that dichotomy from any of the challenge modes. I don't think I'd bother with challenge difficulty as the gameplay wasn't that much more fun for me, and the rewards weren't a draw either.

[*] Was the system easy to use?

Yes, it felt seamless and straight-forward.

[*] What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?

Having to really watch for fast interrupt on some enemies, and ensure being built for survivability. Charging into and stacking multiple pulls of adds is dangerous as being pelted by multiple enemies very dramatically ramps up in damage taken. World Bosses require a tank.

[*] Did the risk feel appropriate for the reward?

The exp and gold looked noticeably improved but hard to really say as my pts character also had enlightenment. More gold in particular looted from slain enemies would definitely incentivize the higher difficulties.

[*] Did you enjoy the system overall?

I am of the opinion that this system is not ideal and would have prefered just plain veteran overland instancing as we had before at game launch. I easily forsee the frequent unintended griefing to occur when other players inevitably join in or "pass through" on easier difficulties. But for what it provides and does, it's better then trying to self-nerf myself on live. At least with this system I can immersively collect and utilize quest rewards and use transmutation system, enchants, and tempers to attempt to min-max these looted drops and 5pcs for a zone for survivability and sustain if needed and avoid the immense power creep. On live my only option is to remove all cp and never ever equip a 5pc bonus set.


[*] Any general feedback?

Currently the values are:

Seasoned: You will take 100% more damage from monsters and do 20% less damage.

Master: You will take 300% more damage from monsters and do 50% less damage.

Vestige: You will take 600% more damage from monsters and will deal 80% less damage.


My suggestions:

Seasoned: You will take 100% more damage from monsters and will deal 50% less damage.

Master: You will take 200% more damage from monsters and will deal 70% less damage.

Vestige: You will take 300% more damage from monsters and will deal 90% less damage.


This system absolutely needs tweaking. As it stands now, Master and Vestige difficulties feel too much like an FPS shooter. You either burn down the mobs or they burn you down. If we use the standard vet group dungeons as an example, a trash pack there can quickly kill a dps player, while a tank can indefinitely tank, but will take a while to whittle them all down if no dps skills are slotted. A middle ground should be approached for overland. Even at 80% reduced damage done, most of the mobs die exceptionally quick. While most World bosses can also be quickly burned. However alot of these enemies are also grossly over-tuned for having 600% damage recieved. World bosses should not be landing stronger light attacks on my tank then Trial Hard-mode 3rd floor Falgravn, while having less "health" then a HM dungeon boss that hits for substantially less light attacks on my tank. My dps friend with 25k buffed resists and self-healing would get very regular one-shot pelted by random adds in split seconds before I even had a chance to taunt as many of a selection of adds that I could.

For additional reference the primary sample size we used for all difficulty options was Lake Olo WB in West Weald. On Vestige difficulty we could get to the 1st split phase consistently, but we ultimately gave up on progging it. Every miniscule bit of random damage or untaunted add(and boy I had a LOT to taunt) would just insta-gib my dps friend through 25k resists and 25k health with all blue defense cp slotted. The boss itself was capable of one-shotting my tank with 55k+ light attacks against 34k armor, all defensive blue cp slottables and I was in Swarming Scion form when I finally let go of block to see how much damage it would do. I would have needed over 60k health to safely endure one unblocked light attack.

We toned it down to Master and were able to secure a 4 minute kill clear on it. My friend still died a few times, but this time it felt like he could react to adds and even the big ones weren't clipping his 25k health pool with a basic light attack. I still had to permanently never let go of block while the Boss was active in the arena, but I could survive its light attacks in Swarming Scion(they now were clocking for 40k, which without swarming scion this would clean one-shot me, I had 35k health base.) The damage we were taking felt appropriate for Vestige difficulty. But of course, this was on Master.

For additional sample reference, with our same duo composition we can duo Group dungeon HM Unhallowed Graves Kjalnar. Kjalnar on HM does less light attack damage on my tank, and theres plenty of reaction-able things that are capable of insta-gibbing my dps friend. This is a HM group dungeon. We secured Kjalnar kill on a no death clean pull at 11 minutes. Just the two of us.

Laka Olo on Seasoned difficulty was straight forward and pretty fun for duoing WB. The boss was landing 21k light attacks on my 34k resist and all defensive blue cp tank. My dps friend could handle untaunted adds reasonably. We secured a smooth 2 minute kill clear on it.

We then did Lake Olo on Adventurer for the full sample experience. 10k light attacks on my tank, I didn't really put much effort into taunting anything else. We secured a 1 minute clear on it.

On live(adventurer) I can solo Lake Olo with a 4 minute clear. I know of others that can solo it on live in 2 - 3 minutes. Just for some additional anecdotal referencing.

- Was the system easy to use?
yes, simple as can be

- What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?
only tried base game public dungeons and delves, and I would say damage received at vestige feels overtuned

- Did you enjoy the system overall?
I can safely say this is the only way I'll be playing overland after update 50. While it needs tweaking this is absolutely one of my favorite changes made to the game in years

- Any general feedback?
The main reason I want to comment - It feels like there's a missing difficulty level missing between master and vestige. Vestige is great for overland, questing, and delves, but public dungeon bosses were killing me in 2-3 hits with 23k armor (medium armor with a heavy reinforced chest, major/minor resolve, armor CP), and health food. The reduced damage done is a pretty good level, but it's just not a reasonable jump in damage recieved. The ideal scenario imo is quest and public dungeon bosses to feel something like a difficult veteran arena boss or like soloing a veteran dlc dungeon, having it sustain a reasonable amount of damage and being dangerous enough that you're forced to respect mechanics. Fair but difficult enough that it should be played with a proper build that you would use for those kinds of instances. But just being destroyed by basic attacks is not so great. Master difficulty results in fights being too short for this, while I've pretty much described my issue with vestige. Also, I honestly think a bit stronger penalties to damage done would make it better. Even on vestige these fights aren't very long.

The system is awesome. Playing on the highest difficulty makes it so that systems and aspects of the game that go mostly unnoticed in the regular game actually shine here. This includes how npcs are positioned, the terrain, the little upgrades you get while leveling, that random item you looted, consumables, etc. All of that makes a difference to whether you live or die.

Here is my main problem with it: when other people in lower difficulties show up and one shot your mobs, it ruins the whole experience. Almost feels like you are getting griefed.

• Was the system easy to use?: Meh. I had to go into the Help files to find out how to turn it on, but once I knew that, it was easy enough.
• What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?: I bumped it up one or two notches (Seasoned on one character and Master on another, I think) and encounters don't melt anymore, but mob packs were still more annoyance than obstacle. Note that I'm CP2350-ish and all characters are decently kitted. They aren't meta unless by accident, but they run useful sets, mythics, food buffs, and the like.
• Did the risk feel appropriate for the reward? I think I'm only getting XP from it and XP is mostly "whatever" at my level. If there is extra gold dropping, it wasn't enough of a difference to notice.
• Did you enjoy the system overall? I can't speak to Vestige difficulty, but Seasoned isn't noticeably different from Adventurer. Master is noticeably tougher.
• Any general feedback? If I were deciding how this was going to look on the live servers, I'd give a pop-up notice that the difficulty options are available and give the player an immediate chance to change the setting with instructions on where to find the setting in-game if they want to change it again later. Having to go look in the Help files to find out where it is was a bit much.

Was the system easy to use?
Yes
Did you enjoy the system overall?
Yes
Did the risk feel appropriate for the reward?
Yes
What was the most challenging aspect of encounters?
Unpredictable oneshots

Any general feedback?
The Vestige difficulty level isn't particularly challenging overall. You can even play without any gear (no weapons, jewelry, or armor). Any of the three current channeling skills (Arcanist, DK, Werewolf) easily shreds mobs with 32k HP. Meanwhile, an active Crit Surge (which can be paired with Leeching Strikes) makes the character virtually immortal while channeling.

There are two main issues:

1) Slow mob attacks: it feels like they only attack once every 3 seconds or so. Most of the time, they die before they can even land a hit.

2) Oneshots: and this is the biggest problem. When the original mob damage was designed, no one anticipated a +600% modifier. As a result, some mobs deal 20k+. It’s not that the damage is too high, it’s just unpredictable. You sitting at half HP (19k/40k) thinking everything is fine, then get hit for 21k and insta flop. I still have some ideas how to play, even with that. Heavy dot build with damage shield spam, for example.

But generaly speaking: Vestige is fine. Maybe reduce damage to 90%.
Here’s a pic of a naked character with zero gear shredding a mob in 5 seconds on Vestige difficulty:

I haven't tested yet, as I'm not one who's bothered by the current difficulty of Overland, but I would like to point something out. The whole "people on lower settings come and make battles trivial" thing already happens, just in the opposite direction. Someone battling a WB might be testing a new build or just having fun and Mister McFiveHundredThousandDPS comes along and absolutely nukes it in two seconds.

WBs aren't meant to be claimed by any one person to beat, honestly no Overland content is (aside from instanced stuff clearly). Usually though, you can find WBs that aren't being camped or anything (especially these days when Tome Challenges have people going between a few specific WBs, haven't tested the rerolls on the PTS to see of there are a wider range of Bosses for U50 yet), and even on Live it's rare that I'm doing stuff and see people jumping into random fights with trash packs, so I doubt there's going to be much worry about your fights being interrupted a whole lot by people on lower settings. Most of us staying on Adventurer aren't going to bother going after mobs unless they're near something we want/need to collect

And Public Dungeons and Delves also aren't typically super busy unless it's Witches Fest or people are doing a "complete Group Event in X/Y Public Dungeon" Challenge, or it's a place where Leads drop. So I would say it's likely the same thing, in that you won't be running across too many people that are 'stealing' kills.

Also someone mentioned mobs still having basic attacks. I don't think it's realistic for every kind of mob in Overland to get entirely new mechanics added, but maybe it could be coded that the higher the difficulty setting, the more often and faster mobs attack and use things like Snares, Knockbacks, and Roots? That way you have to be paying more attention, react faster, and be smart about your resources.

I'd be lying if this wasn't at least slightly funny, but maybe make the environmental traps not scale with combat difficulty?

I'm here for the MMO combat, not to play Minesweeper.

Did a few more tests and my final thoughts:

Master difficulty: really fun to play with 0 armor and no damage sets. It feels almost perfect — enemies hit hard, but there are little to no oneshot bursts. Have a lot of fun with power Flame Lash, provides very strong healing and damage right out of the box without any gear.

Vestige difficulty: it feels like player damage should be cut by 90%, while monster damage should be increased only to 400% or 500%. This would actually require using full sets/mythic. However, if that happens, Master and Vestige might end up feeling a bit identical. In one case you nerfed yourself, in the other, difficulty level nerfed you.