Suggestion: An update for the difficulty setting

Bobargus · June 26

Hi,

I think the difficulty setting feature of ESO could have two additional features in the future.

The first feature is adding a seperated instance system for each difficulty, because a player playing on an easier difficulty setting being able to invade the combat moment of another player who is playing on a harder difficulty setting seems immersion breaking to me.

The second feature that i would like to suggest is for the difficulty setting in ESO to have the options to make things easier, instead of making it harder. If the "adventurer, seasoned, master, and vestige" represents "normal, hard, very hard, and legendary" difficulties, then there should also be "easy, and very easy" difficulty options as well. easy could lower the difficulty and reward to %50, and very easy could lower them to %25.

Thanks for reading, and have a good day.

frogthroat · June 26

Bobargus wrote: »

The first feature is adding a seperated instance system for each difficulty, because a player playing on an easier difficulty setting being able to invade the combat moment of another player who is playing on a harder difficulty setting seems immersion breaking to me.

Will not happen.

Here's why.

Bobargus wrote: »

The second feature that i would like to suggest is for the difficulty setting in ESO to have the options to make things easier, instead of making it harder. If the "adventurer, seasoned, master, and vestige" represents "normal, hard, very hard, and legendary" difficulties, then there should also be "easy, and very easy" difficulty options as well. easy could lower the difficulty and reward to %50, and very easy could lower them to %25.

You... you can kill overland mobs with light attacks while having no armour, CP, and only white weapons. How much easier you want it and why?

I would have to say it already has the very easy and easy modes. It doesn't have normal.

Adeventurer -> very easy
Seasoned -> easy
Master -> hard
Vestige -> very hard

There's a significant jump between Seasoned and Master. (Or it could be my build's limits.)

LunaFlora · June 26

i do also wish for a difficulty option lower than Adventurer

Aliniel · June 26

Bobargus wrote: »

The second feature that i would like to suggest is for the difficulty setting in ESO to have the options to make things easier, instead of making it harder. If the "adventurer, seasoned, master, and vestige" represents "normal, hard, very hard, and legendary" difficulties, then there should also be "easy, and very easy" difficulty options as well. easy could lower the difficulty and reward to %50, and very easy could lower them to %25.

Adventurer is pretty much "Very Easy". And they make all difficulties easier with each patch because they add power to the players. You can even use a companion to make it even easier. No, we don't need any lower than this. Even this is already very disruptive to the higher difficulty levels.

BXR_Lonestar · June 26

TBH, the biggest thing they need to do re: difficulty mode is to create separate instances for those playing on different difficulty levels.

Don't get me wrong, my group was fighting dragons on Vestige last night and it was an absolute nightmare. Could not have done it w/o people being set on a lower difficulty. But the fact that you can have people there on a lower difficulty carry you through the encounter is just ridiculous. It might actually be fun to have 20 of your guildmates comped out in their own instance to take one of these guys on, although the Ice dragons cheat on vestige, I swear!

allochthons · June 26

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

TBH, the biggest thing they need to do re: difficulty mode is to create separate instances for those playing on different difficulty levels.

Again, will not happen.
Here's why (post from @ZOS_Finn).

Solvar · June 26

The one use I could see for lower difficulty levels is to be able to more easily solo world bosses or other content designed for groups.
But for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it would be a good thing for that to happen.

LunaFlora · June 26

Solvar wrote: »

The one use I could see for lower difficulty levels is to be able to more easily solo world bosses or other content designed for groups.
But for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it would be a good thing for that to happen.

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

HerowynKerowyn · June 26

I’d like to voice support for adding difficulty options below Adventurer.

Not everyone plays ESO for challenge or optimization. A huge part of the community is here for:

role‑play
immersion
exploration
story and worldbuilding
accessibility needs
relaxing, low‑pressure gameplay
playing at off‑hours when group content isn’t populated

For these players, even Adventurer can feel over tuned in certain situations—especially world bosses, incursions, and story moments that assume multiple players will be present.

An Easy or Very Easy mode wouldn’t hurt anyone who prefers higher difficulty, but it would open the door for more people to enjoy the game’s lore without stress or frustration. Other Elder Scrolls titles have always embraced flexible difficulty, and ESO adding a couple of lower tiers would simply continue that tradition of accessibility and player freedom.

More options help more players enjoy the world, and that feels very in‑spirit with what ESO has always been about.

Bguk · June 26

LunaFlora wrote: »

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

While I can understand the desire for a lower difficulty, this would cause harm to the economy. If players with a lower difficulty setting could solo any boss/dungeon/incursion/anything, with the same loot tables, would flood the market with what would have been hard to get items. I could see the economy crash. If this were a single player game, I would agree to no limit on any difficulty, higher or lower. Being a multiplayer, interconnected game, there has to be some sort of hard floor.

wolfie1.0. · June 26

Everyone needs to realize that pretty much the only way option 1 will be an option is if ZOS recover the game from its foundations... which means its not an option.

Regarding option 2, its not going to be an option so long as option one is not an option.

We don't need a god mode character running around and one shotting world bosses and incursions.

Like everything else in the game, if you want to easy mode something go find some like minded people and run around as a group and do all the things. Its easy mode at that point on adventure settings.

The ONLY way ZOS can make things easier for all of yall is to allow companions to not count as part of the 12 player cap in overland land content.

LunaFlora · June 26

Bguk wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

While I can understand the desire for a lower difficulty, this would cause harm to the economy. If players with a lower difficulty setting could solo any boss/dungeon/incursion/anything, with the same loot tables, would flood the market with what would have been hard to get items. I could see the economy crash. If this were a single player game, I would agree to no limit on any difficulty, higher or lower. Being a multiplayer, interconnected game, there has to be some sort of hard floor.

what hard to get items? We all get the same overland sets in overland

Deserrick · June 26

Being able to create a separate instance for delves and public dungeons would be nice.

DestroyerPewnack · June 26

LunaFlora wrote: »

Solvar wrote: »

The one use I could see for lower difficulty levels is to be able to more easily solo world bosses or other content designed for groups.
But for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it would be a good thing for that to happen.

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

Have you tried using a companion tank? They're pretty strong, especially if you use skills that can off-heal them, (Echoing Vigor, Power Surge, Extended Ritual, etc.)
Should be more than enough for most base game world bosses, and many of the DLC ones.

The other way to do this would be to run a very tanky character and sacrifice a bit of damage. The fights will take a little longer, but you'll never die. Infinite Archive builds designed to push high arcs would be perfect for this.

LunaFlora · June 26

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Solvar wrote: »

The one use I could see for lower difficulty levels is to be able to more easily solo world bosses or other content designed for groups.
But for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it would be a good thing for that to happen.

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

Have you tried using a companion tank? They're pretty strong, especially if you use skills that can off-heal them, (Echoing Vigor, Power Surge, Extended Ritual, etc.)
Should be more than enough for most base game world bosses, and many of the DLC ones.

The other way to do this would be to run a very tanky character and sacrifice a bit of damage. The fights will take a little longer, but you'll never die. Infinite Archive builds designed to push high arcs would be perfect for this.

Yes and i can defeat most World Bosses solo, but not all and certainly not Harrowstorms. i can solo base game world bosses without Companions, my build is not the issue here.
Some people want more challenge and others want less challenge.

oh infinite Archive

Yes the fights indeed take longer with a tanky build.
i wish i could skip the Stage fights and only do Cycle boss fights. it takes so long to get to higher Arcs, i run out of energy and never get to Arc 4.

DestroyerPewnack · June 26

LunaFlora wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Solvar wrote: »

The one use I could see for lower difficulty levels is to be able to more easily solo world bosses or other content designed for groups.
But for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it would be a good thing for that to happen.

yes i want lower difficulty options to solo world bosses and incursions, because there are often zero or very few people around to help when i play ESO at night

Have you tried using a companion tank? They're pretty strong, especially if you use skills that can off-heal them, (Echoing Vigor, Power Surge, Extended Ritual, etc.)
Should be more than enough for most base game world bosses, and many of the DLC ones.

The other way to do this would be to run a very tanky character and sacrifice a bit of damage. The fights will take a little longer, but you'll never die. Infinite Archive builds designed to push high arcs would be perfect for this.

Yes and i can defeat most World Bosses solo, but not all and certainly not Harrowstorms. i can solo base game world bosses without Companions, my build is not the issue here.
Some people want more challenge and others want less challenge.

oh infinite Archive
Yes the fights indeed take longer with a tanky build.
i wish i could skip the Stage fights and only do Cycle boss fights. it takes so long to get to higher Arcs, i run out of energy and never get to Arc 4.

Cool, cool. Then yeah, I'd definitely take the tanky build route. All attribute points into health, heavy armor with health enchantments, Ring of the Pale Order, maybe subclass to get Crit Surge, Siphoning Attacks and something else for loads of passive healing. You'll be impossible to kill, but will definitely take a bit longer to clear certain activities.

I sometimes ruin my sleeping schedule, and hate it when I can't find anyone to do trials/arenas/PvP with. So believe me, I get where you're coming from. But I also wouldn't like it if everything were so easy and players didn't need each other to progress in the game. I love it when someone asks in guild chat for help with a world boss, and I get to play the hero who saves the day. :P