Overland Content Feedback Thread

Franchise408 · May 12

rockDokRock wrote: »

Wow, so much to unpack here.

Not all of us are as physically able as each other. I'm an older gamer and button bashing isn't really my thing so I guess I should not be able to get anything good because you won't feel special then. I mean, seriously, if NoobMaster123 gets a good item how does it affect *your* gameplay, it doesn't. This is just gatekeeping at it's finest.

What you want ALREADY exists. Perfected gear, for example, much of that many people will already never get their hands on.

The "increased rewards", as specified thousands of times, would just be an upgraded version of the same gear; i.e.: a purple instead of a blue, or a blue instead of a green.

And if you are one of those people who is less capable, and playing on the lower difficulty, then you don't need that upgraded gear anyways, so no you're not missing out on anything.

Deserrick · May 16

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Folks, wanted to update here. As many know, this thread was created several years ago to discuss overland difficulty. With Challenge Difficulty on the way to solve the core overland difficulty issue, we plan to close this thread down once the current PTS Cycle is over. Given the length and multitude of conversations here, we want to give folks time to wrap up any loose ends to any conversations had here before closing the thread happens.

Thank you for all of the feedback and conversations here.

Even if the creation of this thread is going to be retconned into being just about overland difficulty instead of overland content, challenge difficulty still doesn’t solve the supposed purpose of the thread. The initial way of handling complaints about overland being too easy was to make it harder for everyone, with every dlc escalating the difficulty of world and story content. Challenge Difficulty would have to be able to move in both directions to fix the difficulty overtuning that was done in absence of selectable difficulty and has left players behind.

ESO_player123 · May 17

Deserrick wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Folks, wanted to update here. As many know, this thread was created several years ago to discuss overland difficulty. With Challenge Difficulty on the way to solve the core overland difficulty issue, we plan to close this thread down once the current PTS Cycle is over. Given the length and multitude of conversations here, we want to give folks time to wrap up any loose ends to any conversations had here before closing the thread happens.

Thank you for all of the feedback and conversations here.

Even if the creation of this thread is going to be retconned into being just about overland difficulty instead of overland content, challenge difficulty still doesn’t solve the supposed purpose of the thread. The initial way of handling complaints about overland being too easy was to make it harder for everyone, with every dlc escalating the difficulty of world and story content. Challenge Difficulty would have to be able to move in both directions to fix the difficulty overtuning that was done in absence of selectable difficulty and has left players behind.

Why do you think it's retconned? I remember when this thread was created there were threads about "overland is too easy' followed by posts "is this that time of month already?". I always thought that this thread was a response to the abundance of "overland too easy" threads and treated it as such. If you care to skim through the thread you will see that the overwhelming majority of the posts are on this topic and the posts on other overland issues are odd ones out.

spartaxoxo · May 17

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Deserrick wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Folks, wanted to update here. As many know, this thread was created several years ago to discuss overland difficulty. With Challenge Difficulty on the way to solve the core overland difficulty issue, we plan to close this thread down once the current PTS Cycle is over. Given the length and multitude of conversations here, we want to give folks time to wrap up any loose ends to any conversations had here before closing the thread happens.

Thank you for all of the feedback and conversations here.

Even if the creation of this thread is going to be retconned into being just about overland difficulty instead of overland content, challenge difficulty still doesn’t solve the supposed purpose of the thread. The initial way of handling complaints about overland being too easy was to make it harder for everyone, with every dlc escalating the difficulty of world and story content. Challenge Difficulty would have to be able to move in both directions to fix the difficulty overtuning that was done in absence of selectable difficulty and has left players behind.

Why do you think it's retconned? I remember when this thread was created there were threads about "overland is too easy' followed by posts "is this that time of month already?". I always thought that this thread was a response to the abundance of "overland too easy" threads and treated it as such. If you care to skim through the thread you will see that the overwhelming majority of the posts are on this topic and the posts on other overland issues are odd ones out.

Yeah, I agree with this post 100%. It honestly feels like it was only nominally made about overland more generally because they didn't want to callout individual groups of users. This thread was made because the overland difficulty topic was being made often enough that it was disruptive to users that didn't want to talk about it. They would complain it existed because it was popping up enough to feel like it was being spammed even though it wasn't and it was just something many others wanted to discuss. So, since it was so divisive, they gave it its own thread. That way people who didn't want to talk about it could easily ignore it as the conversation was limited to one thread. And the players that did want to talk about it could do so.

Technically, since it was made for overland content more generally, posts about other topics outside of difficulty were permitted and there would be occasional conversations about those subjects. But the overwhelming majority of the feedback was about difficulty, and it was the topic of difficulty that caused this thread to be made in the first place.

ESO_player123 · May 17

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Deserrick wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Folks, wanted to update here. As many know, this thread was created several years ago to discuss overland difficulty. With Challenge Difficulty on the way to solve the core overland difficulty issue, we plan to close this thread down once the current PTS Cycle is over. Given the length and multitude of conversations here, we want to give folks time to wrap up any loose ends to any conversations had here before closing the thread happens.

Thank you for all of the feedback and conversations here.

Even if the creation of this thread is going to be retconned into being just about overland difficulty instead of overland content, challenge difficulty still doesn’t solve the supposed purpose of the thread. The initial way of handling complaints about overland being too easy was to make it harder for everyone, with every dlc escalating the difficulty of world and story content. Challenge Difficulty would have to be able to move in both directions to fix the difficulty overtuning that was done in absence of selectable difficulty and has left players behind.

Why do you think it's retconned? I remember when this thread was created there were threads about "overland is too easy' followed by posts "is this that time of month already?". I always thought that this thread was a response to the abundance of "overland too easy" threads and treated it as such. If you care to skim through the thread you will see that the overwhelming majority of the posts are on this topic and the posts on other overland issues are odd ones out.

Yeah, I agree with this post 100%. It honestly feels like it was only nominally made about overland more generally because they didn't want to callout individual groups of users. This thread was made because the overland difficulty topic was being made often enough that it was disruptive to users that didn't want to talk about it. They would complain it existed because it was popping up enough to feel like it was being spammed even though it wasn't and it was just something many others wanted to discuss. So, since it was so divisive, they gave it its own thread. That way people who didn't want to talk about it could easily ignore it as the conversation was limited to one thread. And the players that did want to talk about it could do so.

Technically, since it was made for overland content more generally, posts about other topics outside of difficulty were permitted and there would be occasional conversations about those subjects. But the overwhelming majority of the feedback was about difficulty, and it was the topic of difficulty that caused this thread to be made in the first place.

Another clue that pointed to the real purpose of this thread was that any threads related to overland difficulty were closed and redirected here while threads on other overland issues stayed open.

SilverBride · May 17

This thread was started November 2021 to address multiple threads about overland being too easy and requesting a separate veteran overland. A thread would pop up that would soon devolve and be closed, only to have another pop up a week or so later. This went on for quite awhile.

The OP was edited January 22, 2025. I believe that was done to include a more broad range of overland issues and not just difficulty, although for most difficulty remained the prominent topic being discussed.

Wildberryjack · May 27

Back on topic, I don't see the point in choosing the greater difficulty. If you toss stuff on traders it's easy to make gold and many of us have all our characters at max level and tons of CP so we don't need the increased XP gains. Why would we choose to effectively be depowered then? If I want a challenge I'll go into vet content.

AlterBlika · May 27

Wildberryjack wrote: »

Why would we choose to effectively be depowered then? If I want a challenge I'll go into vet content.

To experience questing and exploration. The game has so much overland quests it's literally a crime that they're locked behind braindead difficulty

maximusrex45 · May 27

I was extremely disappointed to learn today that ZOS has already started to go back on their promise to keep this as an optional system by adding achievements with reward like titles and dyes to it. And it's not already out and people are asking for even more rewards.

The game not being "too easy" is supposed to be the reward. The Gold and XP buffs are fair as they help to compensate for the increased time to kill.

ESO_player123 · May 27

maximusrex45 wrote: »

I was extremely disappointed to learn today that ZOS has already started to go back on their promise to keep this as an optional system by adding achievements with reward like titles and dyes to it. And it's not already out and people are asking for even more rewards.

The game not being "too easy" is supposed to be the reward. The Gold and XP buffs are fair as they help to compensate for the increased time to kill.

@maximusrex45 Could you please provide the source for the bolded statement?

disky · May 27

Wildberryjack wrote: »

Back on topic, I don't see the point in choosing the greater difficulty. If you toss stuff on traders it's easy to make gold and many of us have all our characters at max level and tons of CP so we don't need the increased XP gains. Why would we choose to effectively be depowered then? If I want a challenge I'll go into vet content.

Yeah, fun is the point. That's the entire reason I've been in this thread for...several years now? I just want to have fun. I don't even care about the rewards.

Muizer · May 27

Wildberryjack wrote: »

Back on topic, I don't see the point in choosing the greater difficulty.

It's no different from the reason people pick a higher difficulty level in any other game. As for vet content, that's not just harder it's a very different type of game play. As I said before, might as well be a different genre. If you happen to like both, congratulations! But there's nothing self evident about that. It's basically a coincidence.

Deserrick · June 2

ESO_player123 wrote: »

maximusrex45 wrote: »

I was extremely disappointed to learn today that ZOS has already started to go back on their promise to keep this as an optional system by adding achievements with reward like titles and dyes to it. And it's not already out and people are asking for even more rewards.

The game not being "too easy" is supposed to be the reward. The Gold and XP buffs are fair as they help to compensate for the increased time to kill.

@maximusrex45 Could you please provide the source for the bolded statement?

https://eso-hub.com/en/achievements/category/recent-seasons/challenge-difficulty

ESO_player123 · June 2

Deserrick wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

maximusrex45 wrote: »

I was extremely disappointed to learn today that ZOS has already started to go back on their promise to keep this as an optional system by adding achievements with reward like titles and dyes to it. And it's not already out and people are asking for even more rewards.

The game not being "too easy" is supposed to be the reward. The Gold and XP buffs are fair as they help to compensate for the increased time to kill.

@maximusrex45 Could you please provide the source for the bolded statement?

https://eso-hub.com/en/achievements/category/recent-seasons/challenge-difficulty

Thanks. If someone really wants that dye or achievement they can just slap on the required difficulty, wait for an Adventurer(s) to show up, and land a couple of hits. I would go for these if we had separate instances, but since we do not, I do not really see a reason to pursue them.

SilverBride · June 2

ESO_player123 wrote: »

If someone really wants that dye or achievement they can just slap on the required difficulty, wait for an Adventurer(s) to show up, and land a couple of hits.

I was ok with optional difficulty, but things like this are quickly turning me against it. The point of these achievements is for a player to obtain them while using difficulty, not to wait for someone not using difficulty to come along and do it for them.

Mandragon · June 4

I just had to pop back on and say FINALLLLLLLY!!!!! I left this game a few times now because i always fell asleep while playing due to it being so ridiculously easy that you never needed CP, gear or skill to play the overland content... aka 90% of the game.

Now i may just have to redownload the game and see if i can actually enjoy it.

About time this 350k thread was listened to and they actually took action. Will be interesting to see how many people come back to the game because of this news. I expect it to be a lot

Galatherys · June 4

As long as certain important rewards like furnishing plans, motifs, etc aren’t locked behind the higher difficulty overland content, then I don’t have any problems with this at all.

As a solo player my enjoyment with ESO comes from the chill things like exploration/questing/farming/character creation and of course decorating - NOT being challenged at every turn with intense gameplay…Sure there are plenty of players that want to be challenged relentlessly but that’s not all of us so as long as that balance is struck then this should please everyone

Mandragon · June 5

Let the rewards flow!!! give PVP players rewards for enjoying that aspect. Give raiders their fair share. Let the the crafters thrive and be rewarded. Let the casual explorers enjoy their set of rewards.. let the challenge freaks get there own set of rewards.

MMO's have tons of rewards you will never achieve unless you are a oddity who loves all types of game styles. I for one will never enjoy PVP and dont have the time commitment for raids... ill never get those rewards.. should be feel "Locked out"

No way!!! Just let ppl be rewarded and have fun with the style they enjoy the most.

Ppl are so "I want it all and be damn everyone else"

So lock it away!!! Im locked out of pvp and raids.. but thats ok!

SilverBride · June 6

Different content having different rewards makes sense. But difficulty is not different content. It's the same overland mobs and quests for everyone no matter which difficulty level is chosen. The player changes rather than the enemies so the rewards on the enemies would remain the same.

spartaxoxo · June 6

Mandragon wrote: »

Let the rewards flow!!! give PVP players rewards for enjoying that aspect. Give raiders their fair share. Let the the crafters thrive and be rewarded. Let the casual explorers enjoy their set of rewards.. let the challenge freaks get there own set of rewards.

MMO's have tons of rewards you will never achieve unless you are a oddity who loves all types of game styles. I for one will never enjoy PVP and dont have the time commitment for raids... ill never get those rewards.. should be feel "Locked out"

No way!!! Just let ppl be rewarded and have fun with the style they enjoy the most.

Ppl are so "I want it all and be damn everyone else"

So lock it away!!! Im locked out of pvp and raids.. but thats ok!

Yeah, all content is rewarded in an MMO. And all MMOs have different rewards for different difficulty levels because they are not the same fight. The math is totally different and the higher the difficulty, the more of the player's time and effort it takes to complete.

I am not really in favor of it rewarding the important unique cosmetics still because I do recognize there should be content that everyone can go in and collect everything important. New players need to feel rewarded too.

But it's honestly shocking and disappointing to me how many people think vet players should be treated differently to them and have their playtime be completely unrewarded. Some don't even want us to get the same exp as them. Players describe that they'd feel penalized if vet aren't penalized for choosing a higher difficulty. I can't get behind that mindset at all.

I think every activity in the game should have rewards. And that every player should feel rewarded for spending time in the game. Time is the most precious resource any of us have in this world. The game developers should try to ensure that any player that chooses to spend their time with them will have a good experience. In a video game that means content designed to be entertaining and rewarding.

This doesn't mean every piece of content needs to give the biggest rewards. But it should all give something.

SilverBride · June 6

First of all this is not a vet issue. Players choosing difficulty are not all vets and not all vets will choose difficulty. It's a matter of personal preference. I'm a vet and I never intend to even try difficulty.

Second, the enemies aren't changing. Everyone will be fighting the same enemies just as we do now. It's logical that the same enemies will drop the same rewards for everyone as they do now. If a level 30 and a CP 3600 both fight and defeat the same enemy they will both get rewards from the same loot table. The CP 3600 doesn't get higher quality rewards because they are a vet, and the level 30 doesn't get higher quality rewards because it was harder for them to defeat.

Rewards aren't based on how hard it is for each individual to defeat. It's the same exact enemies so they should drop the same exact rewards for everyone.

I don't think vets should be treated differently, which means any player should not receive increased rewards for fighting the same exact enemies as everyone else just because they chose to make the fight more difficult for themselves.

LunaFlora · June 6

i like Veteran dungeons and think dungeons should have more rewards for all its difficulties,
but Challenge difficulty for Overland reduces your damage done by 80% and people asked for this feature mainly for making story quest bosses feel challenging.

Not a feature that needs unique rewards, but the quests should get more rewards regardless of selected difficulty.

spartaxoxo · June 6

SilverBride wrote: »

First of all this is not a vet issue. Players choosing difficulty are not all vets and not all vets will choose difficulty. It's a matter of personal preference. I'm a vet and I never intend to even try difficulty.

Second, the enemies aren't changing. Everyone will be fighting the same enemies just as we do now. It's logical that the same enemies will drop the same rewards for everyone as they do now. If a level 30 and a CP 3600 both fight and defeat the same enemy they will both get rewards from the same loot table. The CP 3600 doesn't get higher quality rewards because they are a vet, and the level 30 doesn't get higher quality rewards because it was harder for them to defeat.

Rewards aren't based on how hard it is for each individual to defeat. It's the same exact enemies so they should drop the same exact rewards for everyone.

I don't think vets should be treated differently, which means any player should not receive increased rewards for fighting the same exact enemies as everyone else just because they chose to make the fight more difficult for themselves.

It's not the same enemies. The modifier is on the player simply, so others don't have to deal with it. But changing either the player or the enemy results in the same thing. The fight takes longer and is a more difficult version. It's like going from normal to vet.

Vets would be treated differently if there was not increased rewards. They would have a more difficult fight that takes longer for less rewards than those doing it on normal.

An enemy whose heavy attack cannot kill you and dies in 5 seconds is fundamentally a different fight than an enemy whose heavy attack will one shot you and who takes 2 minutes to kill. You can ignore the non-lethal mechanic in normal, but most follow it on hard. This is not different than the dungeons.

The modifier was on the player instead of the enemy simply so that people who wanted to opt out didn't have to fight the harder enemy. If the changed the enemy instead of the player, as many people wanted, they'd have to either separate the two groups or force everyone into the same fights. Things that many casual players asked them not to do. This comes with drawbacks to the challenge mode such as not being able to offer new mechanics. A drawback added to the challenge mode specifically to make things nicer for the casual players should not then be used as a reason to treat vets questers differently to everyone else.

All other gameplay modes have their own rewards. Excluding vet players from literally any rewards would be penalizing them.

It's pure math and objective.

If takes me 10 seconds to kill an enemy and I earned 100 coin and now it takes me 30 seconds to kill that same enemy but I still only get 100 coin, then I without any rewards I am incurring a penalty and make less coin per second.

I'm opposed to unique motifs and the like. But nobody should be punished for wanting to play at a harder difficulty. And I cannot support vet players to not being treated equally in the questing areas. It shouldn't be better to be a vet player in the area. But, it also should not be worse.

There's only one mathematical solution to equality. And that is to offset the losses with exp and coin.

SilverBride · June 6

The enemies are the same for everyone. They aren't changing.

Players asked for this. Why should they receive special rewards and treatment for getting what they said they wanted?

And difficulty is a personal preference, not a vet issue.

spartaxoxo · June 6

Not everyone who will use the feature asked for it. Most will not have. And feature requests aren't a reason for bad game design. It's not supposed to be a monkey paw. Anyone who interacts with the system, regardless if they requested it or not, should find it just as fun and rewarding as every other part of the game.

They aren't being given special treatment. They are being given equal treatment. All content has rewards. From the most simple content like crafting writs to the hardest vet trial, all content has rewards.

The name assigned to harder content in this game is vet. The difficulty slider enables a harder mode that takes more time and effort to beat. Players shouldn't be punished for having a preference. They should not get less rewards for their preference and be the only group excluded from rewarding content.

As much as it is possible because some people just inherently don't like PvE, all players should find quests to be fun, rewarding, and functional.

SilverBride · June 6

Players asked for more difficulty.
They asked for fights to take longer than 2 seconds.
Of course more difficult fights will take longer and more effort to fight, which is exactly what was asked for.

Getting the same rewards for fighting the same enemy is not getting less rewards. It is getting equal rewards for the same enemy fight. Rewarding these players now with better rewards for something they asked for is unfair in my opinion.

LunaFlora · June 6

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Not everyone who will use the feature asked for it. Most will not have. And feature requests aren't a reason for bad game design. It's not supposed to be a monkey paw. Anyone who interacts with the system, regardless if they requested it or not, should find it just as fun and rewarding as every other part of the game.

They aren't being given special treatment. They are being given equal treatment. All content has rewards. From the most simple content like crafting writs to the hardest vet trial, all content has rewards.

The name assigned to harder content in this game is vet. The difficulty slider enables a harder mode that takes more time and effort to beat. Players shouldn't be punished for having a preference. They should not get less rewards for their preference and be the only group excluded from rewarding content.

As much as it is possible because some people just inherently don't like PvE, all players should find quests to be fun, rewarding, and functional.

Choosing the higher Challenge difficulties is choosing to deal less damage and take more damage.
We fight the same enemies regardless of which Challenge difficulty we choose.
There are no extra mechanics.
You get more experience points and gold, that is more rewards technically.

spartaxoxo · June 6

It is less rewards. It is only the same fight if we ignore everything that makes it that fight.

Let's take Nocturnal's Champion.

She has 334,069 HP according to the wiki.

I found this video of the fight. I didn't watch the whole thing because I just wanted a few numbers.

https://youtu.be/DsDlLvyIhFI

This person appeared to take 2k damage from a light attack. And then there appears there was some attack that did somewhere around 5k damage. there also seems to be some ground dot they stood in during the second phase that appeared to do around 1k per second. They were able to stand in it and then just backup and heal. They had about 18k hp at full. Those aren't precise numbers, but I don't have access to those, and these are a good base to work with. I'm also going to assume 80k DPS because that's on the lower end for someone who is welcome and are able to do vet trials on my server. Not elite but can get invite to regular clears of hard content.

334,069÷80,000≈4.18 second fight time.

At time stamp 3:26 they took 2k damage shortly after boss was summoned. And another at 3:28. They dodge another at 3:30 and then at 3:31 I stopped watching because the boss would already be dead.

So, if I just stood there, I would have beat the first phase in 4 seconds and took 6k damage. It was difficult to tell if the attacks were more frequent in the second boss phase but for the sake of argument let's say it was. And that the second boss boss phase instead of every 2 seconds it was 1 unless I kept moving around like the user did to dodge them. So, I take 4 of those attacks in as many seconds for 8k damage.

In total, my boss fight time is roughly 8 seconds. I took 14k damage. And never had to move, use a heal pot, or even see the ground dot or big attack.

Let's assume I enable vestige mode now.

First of all, each attack from the boss now does 14k damage. Which means that one light attack from this boss is now the same amount of damage I took across the entire fight in normal.

The big 5k attack becomes 35k damage. This is a one shot that I cannot shield through. I will need to learn the telegraph for this and to roll dodge it.

And the ground dot now does 7k damage per second. 18,000/7,000≈2.57 seconds from full HP into death. I can't just stand in it but I do have time to move out of it and then heal up.

It will also take me around 20.88 seconds to kill this boss now, if I were dummy parsing it. Which I cannot because I would have been dead in 2 seconds if I just stood there like in the normal mode. Let's say roll dodging, blocking, healing up, and running around cover to give myself time to recover as the user in that video did added another 10 seconds to the fight. That should be enough time to add a few potions, roll dodges, moves, and heals assuming pretty ideal gameplay.

Final Results

Fight Time
4.18 seconds vs 30.88 seconds.

Total Damage Taken
14k vs 98k damage taken

Fight Mechs

Did not have to move vs had to roll dodge, kite, and heal

Now let's take a look at the rewards for beating this boss. In the video they got 218 exp and 11 coins.

Normal Mode

Total Time ≈ 4.18 seconds
Total EXP Earned = 218
Total Coin Earned = 11
Total EXP per second ≈ 52.15
Total Coin per second ≈ 2.63

Vestige

Total Time ≈ 30.88 seconds
Total Exp Earned = 436
Total Coin Earned = 33
Total Exp per second ≈14.12
Total Coin per second ≈1.07

For Vestige mode, the offset is not enough to overcome the additional time taken. And that's without even counting the expenses of additional repair and potions needed. It's a very modest reward design only to offset some of the loss. It represents a roughly 59.31% loss in coin farming efficiency and 72.94% loss in exp farming efficiency. This makes Vestige mode strictly inferior for leveling alts to the normal mode. But, since at least since they attempted to offset the losses some, it doesn't feel as punishing. And it sounds like they intend to maybe add some dyes or something since this is not ideal.

Bottom line is that players would be getting penalized for entering the game mode in terms of loss of functionality of the quest in exchange for increased enjoyment of the content. If what you want to do level an alt quickly, you're better off playing on normal. Casual players are in no way punished by this offset. This is not special treatment. It is equality. It is treating everyone's time as valuable.

If someone feels unfairly penalized that someone else got a mere 33 coins from the fight because it took longer, when the amount of coin they made per second is still MUCH higher than the person on Vestige, then that's their problem. People on Vestige should not have their time valued any less than a casual player. This means understanding that they are incurring significant additional costs, time, and effort and therefore deserve some form of some small reward to offset those losses.

It is not the same fight. Not in mechs needed to perform. Not in time spent. Not in reward.