Hilgara wrote: »

I like the difficulty. I have levelled a NB and a sorc and enjoyed the completely different challenge of both. Some bosses I found easy to solo on the NB but hard on the sorc and vice versa. I have had to be very inventive (especially with the NB) and this has forced me to do some research into all the skills to find the synergies that make for powerful combos that do lots of damage, generate enough resources and keep me alive. I see some really poor builds in the game. E.g. sorc running with two pets. Seriously, pets are crap in this game. They target anything you CC, do next to no damage or give next to no resources and take up two slots on your bar. Every time I see a sorc with two pets I try to avoid them because I know they have no idea about how to play the game. Yes you can play as you want....but don't expect to be as effective in a build you threw together because you liked the look of the spells and abilities as you will be with one that you researched and tested to maximise effectiveness and exploit the synergies between active and passive abilities.

While it's a bit offtopic, I'd like to respectfully disagree on pets part:) Twilight Matriarch was a great help on <vet content, as both dps and backup "OH ***" heal. In vet content she pretty much gets dead within 3 second after fight starts so she is indeed rather useless. Clannfear now? He's priceless. I mean, I'm sure you can make a good viable build without him, but I LOVE him. His damage might suck, but he's a great tank with his health more than two times bigger than mine. He'll effectively distract a mob while I deal with it/other mobs.

This actually works great even in dungeons and even in some vet dungeons. If our tank dies, Clannie'll survive for a few, giving me chance to resurrect the tank, he'll distract an ad if needed, trigger some nice Daedric Summonning passives and he's very easy to resurrect when/if he dies=) So don't just go calling my favourite pet useless;)

Far as actual topic goes? Vet difficulty is way over the top, IMO. I'm not a MMO player, this is pretty much my first MMO ever. I enjoy some challenge - levels 1-50 just felt too easy for me aside from a couple fights(Molag Bal not included). Vet 1 was perfectly fine, I had just started vet 2 and it seemed fine, too, and then that magic patch came. And...dear gods. I admit I liked the challenge at first, for a couple of levels, but it got tiring, and besides, mobs seem to be getting a HUGE buff every zone while I get...what, +15 to my stats every vet level and like +20 armor? What a joke. I'm vet 6 now, btw.
I'm certainly not the best player there is, even tho I do play the "favoured" breton sorcerer with resto/destro. But guess what, no amount of healing helps when I get ONESHOT by Harvesters. I have 1400 health since I put most of my points into Magicka, they hit for 1500+ damage(and it doesn't seem to depend on either Spell Resist nor Armor, I can overcharge both and still get oneshot). Harvesters in Coldharbour didn't oneshot me. Hell, BOSS twin harvesters in Banished Cells veteran did NOT oneshoot me. Do you see the problem? BOSS harvesters do LESS damage than TRASH harvester of the same level(vet 5) does.

mad.ferretb16_ESO wrote: »

What I see in a lot of posts is people thinking that VR content is 'most of the game' it really isn't...

I've spent about twice as long getting from V1 to V5 as I have spent getting from 1-50. VR content is going to make up about 4/5 of my leveling experience, so yes, it is 'most of the game'.

Lemme point iut that this was not supposed to be a niche game.

This was supposed to redefine "MMORPG".

They wanted to grab TES players that never played MMOs. They wanted MMO players that never played TES.

TES games are not a niche market. Not by a long shot. Making this game one after it was never meant to be one would be a financial *disaster*.

Remember that.

I've commented on other threads on this same topic before and just want to reiterate how ridiculously hard the VR trash mobs are. Tried playing last night and got my ass handed to me by two snakes. I am a VR2 Templar with all blue and purple gear with two different sets giving me multiple bonuses. None of this seems to matter as I am always dying no matter what I do. I finally just quit the game and decided to play Dragon Age 2 again. At least on there I can set the difficulty to Casual.

mad.ferretb16_ESO wrote: »

I actually agree with the person who said that 1-50 should be scaled to VR content. That would probably be more my level of difficulty. Isn't it supposed to be difficult is t that what end-game is?

Why do a few keep saying the VR level 1-12 are end game ? Name me one MMO where leveling to max level was end game. I bet you cant find any.

End game is raiding, trials and veteran dungeons tuned to the highest level like in WOW. Not leveling your toon to max level.

Arundo wrote: »

Why do a few keep saying the VR level 1-12 are end game ? Name me one MMO where leveling to max level was end game. I bet you cant find any.

End game is raiding, trials and veteran dungeons tuned to the highest level like in WOW. Not leveling your toon to max level.

^^^^
this


I think there are 2 issues that often get put together and muddy the water in this debate.

a) Some people don't like VR because they want to be at max level after finishing their first alliance.

b) Some people don't like VR because the strength of the mobs is too high.

Some people are in both camps, but I'm just in camp b. I don't mind leveling taking a long time, I just don't want it to be a complete slog grinding through OP trash.

If you develope and offer a zone with lvl 32 - 37 mobs inside which are grey to a VR9 player while being on a greyed out quest, and he wont be able to do it all on his own but dying 20times until even getting close to the 2nd boss, you should realize you`ve failed your job, just sayin.
Diminishing returns, anyone? Its basics for any game since 15years or so.

Magdalina wrote: »

Dayv wrote: »

@Magdalina‌, I actually found that VR6 was almost a bit of respite after VR5. Designed for new players (and then sloppily upscaled for VR) it doesn't have the density of 3 packs you get in later areas. In 1-50 you gradually get bigger packs to deal with, but you're getting more powerful. In VR your power is diminishing, but there's no accounting for this in density of packs.

Thank you, that inspires optimism:) Despite being vet 6 for a while, I just now got to vet 6 zone because Bangkorai main quest was broken for a week. Maybe it'll be a bit better...for a while.

Far as density goes tho, some of it is outrageous. There's a few places in vet 4-5 zones like that goblin-infested ruin place in Bangkorai(one with Stibbons)...supposedly it should be soloable, right? It has goblins in pack of 3 EVERYWHERE, and they're superpullable - once you pull 1, 2-3 more will inevitably join, no avoiding that. They're all like 10 m away from each other. There're also gargoyles wandering all around(do you know what the most common msg is in Bangkorai vet 5 chat? "Help me kill those ****** gargoyles smb PLEASE"). So...goblin shamans can do up to ~900 with their magic fire attack. Best course of action for me, a fragile mage, when meeting a pack of tough 3 is lots of rolling and dodging and running. Summon Clannfear, use a spell, dodge. Use a spell, run. Dodge, dodge, heal, use a spell, dodge. It works good even tho it can be a bit slow and very tiring. Except that in a place like that I CAN'T do this. First time I rolled to dodge a spell I accidentally pulled 3 more mobs and was done in 5 seconds. Second time I tried to carefully roll where there were no goblins...and pulled an upcoming Gargoyle.
Since all the damn quest is basically "run through 100500 goblins there, do this, run through 100500 goblins back, say this, run through 100500 goblins to the opposite end of the ruin, run..."...you get it...I eventually gave up and just ran til I died then quickly ghost-ed to the opposite end. Same result(death), much faster and easier. This is seriously atrocious. The damn place is supposed to be able to solo, is it not? I can easily tackle a goblin 1v1, I can with some effort tackle 3, even with shaman, I might get a gargoyle if I'm lucky, but no way I can do it in a place packed with 100 goblin and 10+ gargoyles 10 m away from each other. You'd need like a full group to get thru them every time.

P.S. I apologize for the length of my posts:) I hope it doesn't discourage at least some of you from reading them.

I found Bangkorai to be hell too with all the three packs. People keep convincing themselves of stuff like "VR is supposed to be a challenge" (I'm sure it is, but not the point it kills people's interest) and "You're not supposed to solo it" and stuff like like that. But I'm pretty certain, it's because it's a rush job. They just added a scaling algorithm to the mobs and hoped everything would turn out ok and this is the cause of several problems

- provisioning ingredients overlooked
- VR5 more difficult than VR6 because VR6 is an upscaled starter area
- medium/heavy armor builds less viable because their damage mitigation doesn't scale anything like the mobs damage so magicka supply is much more useful for damage mitigation

People will keep claiming that this is what Zenimax intended, but all the evidence show's that it's what they ended up with through lack of attention rather than what they were hoping for.

What I've read about VR leveling reminds me of this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UD40W81eTDE

Alphashado wrote: »

Casual players are quietly leaving, and there are a lot of them. I have seen it myself, talked to them myself, and personally had two very good friends already leave. You won't see very many of them admit that they are leaving because it's too hard for them to enjoy it because they are embarrassed and do not want to get ridiculed.

Failing to miss one block against a trash mob and dying is hardcore gaming man. leave it in the dungeons.

And please quit commenting on how easy this game is then admitting that you haven't played VR content yet.

Casual players aren't dumb or stupid. They aren't asking for tips or tricks or advice. They understand perfectly well what is required to play VR ESO and they don't enjoy it.

Marry just wants to quest her way to lvl cap and enjoy the game. She isn't interested in dungeons or raids or PvP. She has always respected the type of player that enjoyed challenging stuff like dungeons and raids and PvP, but it just wasn't her thing because she knew that it would take a lvl of gaming that she just doesn't enjoy. She doesn't want to die every time she misses a block. She doesn't want to die every time she doesn't dodge roll out of a spell. She wants to have fun and enjoy the game while being imperfect.


Does Marry have a place in ESO? No

And Marry has a lot of friends.

They all pay for subscriptions.

For Marry's sake, toss the casuals a bone. Give them something to do. Or she and her friends will just continue to leave and take their game supporting
money with them.

I think Marry failed to realize what VR content is all about. First, we should call it what it actually is. Veteran Ranks. As in you have completed the mandatory content and are now pursuing something extra, something above and beyond. You don't get skill points from gaining these levels, and most of the advancement comes from steadily gaining better gear. So really, the VR zones are basically a way of giving level capped players (level 50) something to do, with the VR ranks being the slight reward. The mobs are tougher, they hit harder, and in general completing these areas shows a certain persistence and commitment to your character.

Nowhere have i seen it written that players have a right to solo every mob. I skip pulls of three mobs all the time. The reward for killing them isn't great, and it slows me down. And could it be possible that the developers didn't want player characters to be all be Aragorn, mowing down hordes of orcs with ease? So i sneak by these groups(sneak is available to every character btw) and look for easier paths to my goal. Also, some builds really suck. You don't have to use a theory crafted cookie cutter to succeed, just make sure you actually read skill descriptions. Someone earlier mentioned difficulty with skeletons, did you try silver shards? It prones undead and does serious damage, all while using stamina, which most players have in excess.

I don't think Marry has friends, because if she did they would help her out with content she finds difficult. Is Marry an ostrich with her head in the sand? Does she realize she is playing an MMO? Don't get me wrong, I love and prefer to solo when I level. But I don't rage and cry about unfairness is something proves tough. I call for backup.

Now here is the kicker. A lot of us don't care if Marry leaves, because she is the type of player we don't want to deal with. Marry complains until they nerf solo content. Then she complains that she can't do public dungeons, so they nerf those. Then she complains that she can't find another ostrich to run a 4 man dungeon with, so they nerf those. Then she complains that she can't get really good gear because nobody wants to carry her barely thought out character through the trials. So finally, after all the elitist jerks she hates so much are gone, the developers stop making content and instead push out a cash shop that lets everyone have their moment of glory, for the small price of $29.99

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

I think they misjudged their mass market.

The obvious area for them to pull in new players was in the vast pool of people who loved TES games but had rarely or never played MMOs, with a few exceptions it seemed they had this right in the pre-VR content. Lots of lore, decent stories and so on.

But ultimately the TES brand has been about freedom to play in your own style, to explore with no purpose but to explore, to follow one questline but ignore others, to have a thousand viable flavours of 'build'.

VR content says 'no!'. You must play a build that has a particular set of skills or you will die, if you aren't a power gamer you will die, if you explore you will die & if you don't do every single quest, dungeon, WB and mob you will not progress.

If you mention any of this people will insult you or condescend to you as if not having lightning reflexes and the perfect MMO brain was somehow a failing in life.

I understand that for ZOS getting at least some of the existing MMO market was important but the real value lay in the TES brand and the pool of players available just dying to share their favourite world with like minded people. The MMO people will shake their heads and move on if this fails, the TES players will probably never venture online again and may never buy from Zenimax again.

In 'short' post Bal content needs to be accessible and rewarding to the majority of players if this game is going to sustain itself long term.

You are equating things that simply aren't true. From what you wrote in your mind you think they made 1-50 for TES fans and VR content for MMO powergamers and that simply isn't true as multiple forum threads attest to this fact. The difficulty of VR pve is something everyone has been complaining about and was the result of a bad dev call thinking harder zone content on the same main character instead of making alts would solve peoples felt need for alts to experience the world and allow them to do it all on one toon. His solution was let them experience the enemy zones and make it harder but he failed to understand WHY most make alts. Most make them to experience a different class rather than to see an enemy zone and his solution made experiencing another class a real pita now cause not only do you have 1-50 you now have VR content as well to fully realize a character which basically makes it 150 levels...argh. Stop blaming MMO players and instead blame the source...the dev that did it. It isn't about builds or being a power gamer to do VR because it is killing them too and no particular build will make it easier. Fact is VR content after the first few zones gets tough and hits like a truck with named mobs doing stupid one shot damage of 2600+. You will die a ridiculous amount. The MMO players are fed up with it too but it wasn't for them that it was done. It was a bad call by a dev.

Pausekey wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

Casual players are quietly leaving, and there are a lot of them. I have seen it myself, talked to them myself, and personally had two very good friends already leave. You won't see very many of them admit that they are leaving because it's too hard for them to enjoy it because they are embarrassed and do not want to get ridiculed.

Failing to miss one block against a trash mob and dying is hardcore gaming man. leave it in the dungeons.

And please quit commenting on how easy this game is then admitting that you haven't played VR content yet.

Casual players aren't dumb or stupid. They aren't asking for tips or tricks or advice. They understand perfectly well what is required to play VR ESO and they don't enjoy it.

Marry just wants to quest her way to lvl cap and enjoy the game. She isn't interested in dungeons or raids or PvP. She has always respected the type of player that enjoyed challenging stuff like dungeons and raids and PvP, but it just wasn't her thing because she knew that it would take a lvl of gaming that she just doesn't enjoy. She doesn't want to die every time she misses a block. She doesn't want to die every time she doesn't dodge roll out of a spell. She wants to have fun and enjoy the game while being imperfect.


Does Marry have a place in ESO? No

And Marry has a lot of friends.

They all pay for subscriptions.

For Marry's sake, toss the casuals a bone. Give them something to do. Or she and her friends will just continue to leave and take their game supporting
money with them.

I think Marry failed to realize what VR content is all about. First, we should call it what it actually is. Veteran Ranks. As in you have completed the mandatory content and are now pursuing something extra, something above and beyond. You don't get skill points from gaining these levels, and most of the advancement comes from steadily gaining better gear. So really, the VR zones are basically a way of giving level capped players (level 50) something to do, with the VR ranks being the slight reward. The mobs are tougher, they hit harder, and in general completing these areas shows a certain persistence and commitment to your character.

Nowhere have i seen it written that players have a right to solo every mob. I skip pulls of three mobs all the time. The reward for killing them isn't great, and it slows me down. And could it be possible that the developers didn't want player characters to be all be Aragorn, mowing down hordes of orcs with ease? So i sneak by these groups(sneak is available to every character btw) and look for easier paths to my goal. Also, some builds really suck. You don't have to use a theory crafted cookie cutter to succeed, just make sure you actually read skill descriptions. Someone earlier mentioned difficulty with skeletons, did you try silver shards? It prones undead and does serious damage, all while using stamina, which most players have in excess.

I don't think Marry has friends, because if she did they would help her out with content she finds difficult. Is Marry an ostrich with her head in the sand? Does she realize she is playing an MMO? Don't get me wrong, I love and prefer to solo when I level. But I don't rage and cry about unfairness is something proves tough. I call for backup.

Now here is the kicker. A lot of us don't care if Marry leaves, because she is the type of player we don't want to deal with. Marry complains until they nerf solo content. Then she complains that she can't do public dungeons, so they nerf those. Then she complains that she can't find another ostrich to run a 4 man dungeon with, so they nerf those. Then she complains that she can't get really good gear because nobody wants to carry her barely thought out character through the trials. So finally, after all the elitist jerks she hates so much are gone, the developers stop making content and instead push out a cash shop that lets everyone have their moment of glory, for the small price of $29.99

Something extra? VR lvls are 2/3s of the content. Have you been there?

You do indeed get stat increases every VR https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9571/kw/stats for veteran ranks

So Marry has to wait until one of her friends are around before she can do anything but sit and watch the screen? Assuming of course that she can actually duo the quest she is on, since you have to solo 50% of them due to phasing.

You better care if marry leaves. Because she pays for the game. Pull your head of of the box and try to understand what that means for the game. Elitist players like you that come to these forums spouting flat out lies and incorrect information, then saying good riddance to the casual players are the same people that are gonna be stomping their feet 5 months from now complaining about a dead game then you will just quit.

Now there is no casual gamer or elitist gamer. Then what?

There are a lot of elitist hardcore games out there... How many accounts do they have? They are not AAA games. They are not even AA games. They are niche games that cater to a certain crowd. You really believe that an Elder Scrolls game wants to be or ever has been designed for a niche crowd? If you do, I suggest you google the definition of niche.

Pausekey wrote: »

Yep, been there.

I said skill points, nothing about stat points.

I hesitate to say what Marry should do because at this point it seems like she is actively trying to find faults with the game. She could try asking a friend to come, instead of waiting. They could use the travel to player option. She could ask a guild member to come. She could ask in zone. She could ask players she sees walking by.

You're right, I should care. And I hope she leaves. Because my money is as good as hers. If not wanting the game to cater to the lowest denominator makes me elitist then I guess I am. These low players will never group, or contribute to the raiding scene so their absence wouldn't really make the game dead. But if the raiders, PvP crowd and the average player who does a little of everything leave, then I will care. And the raiders, PvP crowd and the avg. majority will leave when Marry gets her wishes.

That is where you are mistaken. Marry isn't the lowest denomination. Just take a look at your guild rosters. Scroll down and look at how long so many accounts have been inactive.

I will say it until I am blue in the face. ESO is the only AAA MMO that makes solo questing as hard as heroic dungeons. There is a reason successful AAA games do not do that.