Soothy wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

Ok I apologise. So lets be constructive. Some people in this thread are finding the content difficult. Some aren't. The ones that aren't are doing something different from the ones that are (different classes aside of course). Now I have been in the position of those that found it difficult and you know what I did. I asked the ones that didn't for advice. I'm not a theory crafter or hard core. I'm lazy, I stole their ideas. I watched their videos. I read their very informative guides on various forums.

You too can be a lazy bast*rds just like me

@Hilgara I'm all for trying something different, I just don't understand how I am meant to do that.
My current build clearly isn't very good (2H Heavy Armour/Healer Stamina/Magicka even split based Templar) and I guess I fell into the 'play how you want' trap fairly heavily. How do I change it? I'm VR3 now and I have harvested (and used) all of the available skyshards up to this point although I have only just started out in Greenshades so I haven't harvested all of the ones here. I've used the skyshards, you know, playing how I want. Yeah, that trap again.

The only way I understand I can 'do something different' is to respec. I'm willing to do that but it will likely cost me all my gold (I only have 40,000g), so if I respec and between VR3 and VR12 I find that whatever my next build is, isn't quite right either, then what? I certainly won't have enough gold to respec again.

Ok sorry I missed this first time round. Templars are the only class I haven't played and seem to fall into the "broken class" bin with NB's.

The only advice I can really give is very generic to all classes. 1st. Kill priority. Anything with a staff dies 1st. next circle your target. Never stop moving. There is a commonly used mechanic in this game where mobs have to stop tracking you to cast or wind up a hit for half a second. That is too short a time to block or interrupt reliably but if you are continually circling you move out of their cone of attack. Try to find some long duration buff abilities that persist through a bar swap. I use elude, harness magica and mutagen. All are 20 second casts that stay on when I switch to my normal attack bar and give me lots of damage mitigation, lots of magicka regen and lots of health regen for the following 20 seconds. by which time I should have finished the fight.

The last one you probably won't like but as things stand now magicka is the way to go until they address the stamina issues. It does much more damage and all the set bonuses for magicka are far better (and more numerous) than the stamina bonuses.

Hope this helps.

Hilgara wrote: »

The last one you probably won't like but as things stand now magicka is the way to go until they address the stamina issues. It does much more damage and all the set bonuses for magicka are far better (and more numerous) than the stamina bonuses.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for replying to my post. I already do pretty much what you outlined, but the last point is why I've started again for the moment as a sorc. I like the game, knew I would since the NDA months. It just means for now I start an alt a little earlier than I was planning. Least I can craft just about anything for it on my main Again I appreciate the reply.

And @Feimerdre you may be surprised but I agree with you too

Just wait until you get to the later vet levels. Guys, it's not hard, it just tedious and it gets old getting beat down by random bandits on the side of the road because one of your abilities didn't fire off, or your weapon swap was delayed, or you had some latency. It's an MMO, not Dark Souls. I expect this stuff with bosses, not gutter trash that my powerful character should dispose with ease. I want to seek out the challenges myself.

inb4 why didn't you block or roll...

ArRashid wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

Kwas wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

Add daily quests that are easier and allow people to out level content they find difficult.

You can't out level VR stuff. Just saying ...

...

Yes you can. it may be a revelation to you but doing VR 4 content when you are, Oh I dunno, VR7? is out leveling. In fact most of us do it. There are some bosses that I just decided to leave for a couple of levels. It's no biggie. If I can't manage it now I'll come back later.

And VR7 is better than VR4 by how much? 2%? 3%? Even most caps stay stupidly low on VR (including all 3 regens), so at best you get +20 dmg with spells.
When I went from VR1 to VR4 my spells went up by MAGNIFICENT 10 damage on average. Great boost huh? especially since monsters gain like +25% strength with each VR level. And you also have to fight 2-3 on average at the same time.

You are fixating on vertical progression. Most of the advantages you gain through vet content come from horizontal progression. That's a large part of why people are struggling. The power creep is very small here. You get stronger at a much shallower curv than the mobs. You are expected to make up the difference in skill and improved game play. This is by design I suspect because any game that relies solely on power creep as a progression mechanic is doomed.

If killing a level 10 mob with a level 10 sword is exactly the same as killing a level 50 mob with a level 50 sword then where is your progression? Horizontal progression requires you to improve. It demands that you use other means to overcome your enemy other than just wielding a bigger sword.

This game it trying to avoid the power creep trap that plagues most other MMO's by making you have to think

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw&feature=kp

Dayv wrote: »

@Hilgara, haven't you just somewhat negated your own point about overleveling in VR?

I haven't. I'm under levelled. NB is V5 in V6 zone. But I will admit there are some bosses I bypassed on the way but the bosses aren't the issue here. Its the open world trash mobs that people are saying is too tough. All I'm saying is that its not the case for everyone and in fact not the case for most if the poll was anything to go by.

Hilgara wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

RianaTheBosmer wrote: »

Then you agree when the dev stop releasing content for you all to grind through that the game was for the elitest. More power to you and those like you. You are not paying the bills, the minority can't pay the dev, server, etc bills.

There you go again. Where are you getting 'minority' from. How do you know that the people not finding the difficulty too hard are in the minority? You are making this crap up. Unless you can produce figures then all you can do is say is YOU find it too difficult.

ok instead of arguing about numbers that I concede NO side of the arguement has access to. Would you be willing to concede that with the numerous massive threads on the sudject , and that accepting that the forums are a reasonable sample of peoples experience.

That there clearly is a problem. It might not be a prpoblem for you or me (i,m already vet 12) but if its a problem for a large amount of your fellow players Then it is A problem ?

you can argue about the size of the problem till christmas but only a blinkered fanboy can argue that there is no problem. It is a problem and its unarguably a big enough problem for enough folk to be a big problem for the health of the game..

to say otherwise is foolishness

Yes its a problem....for some.....That is my point. The thread started of by saying that it was a problem for MOST and that only a few hardcore elitists found it ok. That is plainly wrong. Even form the small sample size of this forum MOST people dont have a problem with the difficulty. The ones that do have an option. experiment, change your build, find something that works (and no that doesn't always mean cloth and two staffs). This is the preferred remedy to the problem because is you make the content easier then we, the MAJORITY cant compensate for that.

you dont know its a majority who find it fine , any more than i know its a majority who know theres a problem.. so stop clinging to one poll thats almost 50/50 anyway . plus as has already been stated the poll was started before 1.1.2 and the "accidental" buffing of vet mode that the hotfix failed to roll back...

but even if it was 30% who found it too hard.. that would be a major problem this is what you cant seem to grasp. Tho personally i think its much higher

Hilgara wrote: »

Dayv wrote: »

@Hilgara, haven't you just somewhat negated your own point about overleveling in VR?

I haven't. I'm under levelled. BN is V5 in V6 zone. But I will admit there are some bosses I bypassed on the way but the bosses aren't the issue here. Its the open world trash mobs that people are saying is too tough. All I'm saying is that its not the case for everyone and in fact not the case for most if the poll was anything to go by.

it's not the case for everyone depending on the class you play. it also depends on when you played through that content (i.e. before or after craglorn), the level you were at, the gear you were wearing and the build you were utilising. there are many variables at play here.

i mean for example, there i was (vr10, heavy armor, 2H) having trouble with a 3 mob pack whilst questing wednesday night, when along comes a sorc (vr4, light armor, staff), rounds up about 8-10 mobs and AoE nukes them down in seconds.

he's not having a problem obviously. but yet i am - so does that make me a bad player, or is it my gear, my build, my technique or that my class is bugged?

honestly, i'd be fine with an open world mob health nerf - keep the damage up, keep the challenge up, just make it a little less dps focused to burn through the hp of the mobs.

when my main tactic to employ, is focus down 1 mob of 3, so there's only 2 left to deal with after i die then rez, there's a problem.

problem is, there's many problems.

• it could be gear related - but at low VR who wants to spend all their crafting mats on making a top notch set of gear to find out.
• it could be build related - but who wants to spend all their gold respeccing to adjust a couple or morphs, or into a skill line they haven't fully levelled, which will then be a struggle to play with and to level, which they then have to pay huge amounts of money to respec out of again because it's not working.
• it could be class related - but who can fix their class balance issues? not the players.
• or is that i just suck? i've been playing mmo's for years and i spent plenty of time during the open beta weekends figuring out which class, race and playstyle i wanted to play. is it my fault that i want to play a 2H templar aedric spear build? which i had no trouble levelling 1-50 with, but as soon as i hit VR levels i had dps issues both from resource management and from sub-par stamina based dps.

it leaves a couple of choices.

L2P - have done.
re-spec - have tried, ran out of money, now to make more, i need to quest, but i can't quest because i keep dying, which costs me more money - which becomes and endless cycle of grief
reroll - i've tried, but the thought of VR1-10 again is horrifying.
quit - which is something i'd prefer not to do.

so yea. the poll is not only invalidated by the fact only people who read the forums have voted on it, but also from the specifics i pointed out which the poll has no way of taking into account. level/class/gear/prior experience.

the only people who know exactly what is going on is zenimax. but the feedback i've seen on the forum as well as other community sites definitely suggests that the current difficulty of overworld VR mobs is tuned too high and has only really been a problem since the craglorn patch when they somehow ramped up the damage and hp of VR mobs.

plenty of people have cited how there are overworld mobs with more HP than elite dungeon bosses of the same VR level and mob type. thats not right. that indicates 1 of 2 things. either the boss mobs have been nerfed, which is unlikely, or the outdoor mobs have been buffed significantly - which is more likely the case considering it was admitted by zenimax as a mistake and they have taken measures to roll it back.

difficulty is subjective, but the evidence we have that zenimax screwed up VR mobs and that they are now more difficult for the majority is much more fallible. whether or not it has led to massive sub-losses is also subjective, but that is also something zenimax is able to see for themselves - all we can do is speculate.

hamon wrote: »

you dont know its a majority who find it fine , any more than i know its a majority who know theres a problem.. so stop clinging to one poll thats almost 50/50 anyway . plus as has already been stated the poll was started before 1.1.2 and the "accidental" buffing of vet mode that the hotfix failed to roll back...

but even if it was 30% who found it too hard.. that would be a major problem this is what you cant seem to grasp. Tho personally i think its much higher

There is no MMO on the planet that has difficulty scaled to please everyone but anyone who has spent any time in MMO's know that a very common complaint is that the content is too easy. This is one of the most difficult things to do in an MMO because there are no mechanics to allow you to customize the difficulty to your abilities. All the developer can do is aim to make a challenging game that has doable content. If you see someone of the same class as you killing a mob that you cant it implies that the content is not too difficult but instead you are not using the right combination of skills and build. if its doable by enough people then you have scaled the difficulty about right.

Lets be honest. You and I have seen many people playing better then us. We have seen people steam roller through all the present content and thought "WTF are they doing that I'm not" Whenever I see that it confirms to me that its not the game that is too difficult. Its me that isn't skilled enough.

It is indeed no fun for 3-mob trash groups to be so brutal for certain specs. Some specs are simply far more powerful than others. That's just the way it is. Unfortunately, the most fun specs for a lot of people - single target stamina based melee - often are much harder in VR...

A bigger problem I feel is that a lot of VR content really needs groups, but the game makes grouping in the open world so difficult.

Hilgara wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

what certain people appear to be either missing deliberately or because it's too difficult a concept to grasp. It's not the difficulty per se that's the problem. It's that grinding through it is just plain boring and irritating.

And again you are trying do derail the main argument. Check the thread title.
Overall gameplay is too DIFFICULT
That is what is being discussed here. Whether you find it boring is irrelevant to this particular argument. And no, the two are not intrinsically linked. if you are suggesting that difficult is ALWAYS boring then that is a character trait of yours not representative of the whole player base. But I think the 'boring' thing is a red herring to avoid having to admit its just too difficult and you don't want to have to adapt.

I'm not interested in you setting the terms of the debate thanks. Welcome to internet forums.

I'm not interested in discussing whether or not the game is boring. This is a purely subjective thing. I have even agreed that the content needs changes to make it more engaging. That's is a separate issue from the difficulty though. making the content more engaging will benefit all. making it easier wont.

again wrong. if it is more fun and egaging folk will be much more willing to put up with a level of hardness that otherwise they wouldnt.. this is the problem with FAKE difficulty which is what we have. Simply giving mobs more health and having them hit harder is a cheap way to ramp the slider up.

its like in resident evil when you put the slider up it more or less just gives you less ammo as fake difficulty. the gameplay is exactly the same. you just can't afford to miss as much.
for example someone like yourself could give yourself fake difficulty by playing vet mode in level 1 equipment. the diffrence being if you got stuck you could stick your proper gear on and progress.

this is part of the problem. the gameplay is EXACTLY the same as levelling from 1-50 except less rewarding and more frustrating due to too much fake difficulty.
hence why heaps of folk are unwilling to put up with it

MrMT wrote: »

It is indeed no fun for 3-mob trash groups to be so brutal for all except the chosen specs. There is no balance in this game; some classes and specs are simply far more powerful than others. That's just the way it is. Unfortunately, the most fun specs for a lot of people - stamina based melee - completely suck in VR.

Absolutely. And this is my argument. Fix the classes because you benefit everyone. if you just make it easier for the less able classes and players you may harm more people than you help

Do not scale difficulty to the least able classes and players.

Hilgara wrote: »

I parked my NB at level 50 after completing the main quest line. I then levelled a sorc to vet 11 with all the higher levelling done after craglorn. I then went back to my NB and am now at vet 5 with him. You are correct about the variables. Lots of ways to play but many of them just won't be viable. Finding the elusive few that are is to me part of the attraction. I'm not playing with staffs although I had to concede that medium armour wasn't working because stamina is underpowered but I'm still duel wielding.

I intend to level one of each class and maybe I will hit a wall with one of them but If I do I will just roll the next one. So far I have levelled what is supposed to be an over powered class (sorc) and an under powered class (NB) and had fun with both. if you were to make content easier my sorc would be massively over powered and the NB would be boring. The difficulty is scaled just about perfect for my NB now. Any change would ruin my game. Am I representative? I don't know. All I know is that the people I play with have lots of complaints about this game but difficulty isn't one of them.

the bolded part completely contradicts the mantra of the game "play the way you want to play" not play this way or die.

there are massive balance issues in this game, zenimax have a mountain to climb and as much as you might enjoy finding the "right way to play" - i would expect most to want to play their own way with abilities that are balanced, there should be builds that pull ahead of the pack, but not as substantially as they currently are.

the mere fact that stamina is massively sub par to magicka builds kills off likely half of the playerbase - you may be up to the challenge, but others will quit out of frustration and it's those "others" that can make up a large percentage of the subscriber base.

the balance needs to be addressed and soon - but along with that balance comes the relative difficulty of the overworld mobs. get the balance right, the mobs will feel right, but as it is, they dont.

also, i'm not suggesting nerfing all the content - not by a long margin. specifically only the overworld trash mobs. quest bosses, delves, dolmens etc shouldn't be nerfed. they can stay at their current difficulty, as that is the intended group content. it's the solo quest trash mobs that are OP.

hamon wrote: »

yes you have no grasp of how difficult the content is as a templar cos you probably play sorc or DK.. both of which are magnitudes of easy mode away from templars... trust me ive played both.

but dont let that stop you telling everyone its all fine and there is not problem.

You obviously didn't read that correctly. I play a NB (another so called broken class) I am doing just fine without resorting to staffs. I have a few guild mates who play Templars and they seem to be doing just fine too although they have had to adapt form their initial concept. Stamina is universally accepted to be underpowered and most (not all) people have moved to magicka as a main resource. To me that is a small price and I actually really enjoy the play style now. I probably wont go back even if they do fix stamina.

hamon wrote: »

So either i add my voice to those pleading for some changes to hopfully spread the fun around a bit more... or i take your attitude of "this is it, like it or lump it"

You either didnt get my point (wich is thinkable as I anot native English speaking) or you don't want to. I got the impression over some of your posts that you shoot fast and tend to think you comprehend as fast.
Stopping a second thinking about what you read may let you come to the conclusion that even someone you disagree with in the first point says something viable. You tend to not allowing this to happen.

My point (I try once more, hope to get it clearer) was:
If you do not like the concept of a game (this includes Vetlevels and cross realm questing) and the game mechanics (aka fighting in ESO) it will make no sense if you come posting on the forums about your fun. You will not find it if they make mobs easier or stamina builds more valid as you simply will never be tuned into this game.
I didnt mean that you should not raise your voice on obvious problems this game still has. Stamina builds are one of them for examples. The whole concept of fighting, as it is set up now will not allow stamina builds if you come to ask me. Stamina builds arent POSSIBLE as you consume stamina for defensive purpose and general movement. The stamina based attack skills are planned terribly wrong (or the use of stamina for defense). If you use magicka for DPS and stamina for defense you are perfectly well suited. So this means as things are today there is no way to buff stamina builds. Making defense costs lower or buffing stamina DPS will lead to massive balancing issues as magicka based builds will suddenly get access to high DPS stamina attacks.
But this is only one more of my very personal opinions

Hilgara wrote: »

smokes wrote: »

also, i'm not suggesting nerfing all the content - not by a long margin. specifically only the overworld trash mobs. quest bosses, delves, dolmens etc shouldn't be nerfed. they can stay at their current difficulty, as that is the intended group content. it's the solo quest trash mobs that are OP.

Why nerf the difficulty? You have just given some very good examples of improvements that would benefit everyone (fix stamina, fix under par classes)

Surely they would be better solutions to the problem?

Overworld mobs give the world immersion. Its supposed to be a dangerous place. If you don't have to give a second thought to how to get from A to B then there's a massive part of the whole TES concept out of the window. Navigating was always a major part of TES. Exploring had its dangers. You had to work out how to get to your next objective and consider whether to fight your way there or sneak your way there. Of course you had the fall back of being able to save and reload if you made a bad judgement. This something you don't have here. You live or die by those kind of decisions but even so, If you cant kill the open world normal mobs then you either have a very sub par build or you are not using the correct skills.

Why should the difficulty be scaled to your level of ability. Why use the weakest classes and least able players as your template?

as per my previous post, i would only nerf the health of those mobs to make it easier for the currently underperforming classes to have more of a chance until class balance fixes can be rolled out.

when overworld trash mobs have more health than delve bosses and quest bosses of the same VR level and mob type - i'm asking for a fix, not a nerf.

also, as much as you cant tailor mob difficulty to the lowest common denominator, you cannot scale it to that of the highest common denominator either. you have to scale it to the median - unfortunately, that median line is currently out of reach for many due to the imbalance between classes and builds.

so in summary. no the overall difficulty of the game is not too difficult. but VR content and some classes/builds are severely underperforming in relation to others, when they were fine in the 1-50 content.

as a developer, obviously the long term goal is balance - but that is not quickly, nor easily achieved. a quick short term fix would be to nerf the mob health in overworld areas until such time that class and build balance can be addressed more thoroughly. - which is why i am suggesting it.