icapital wrote: »

Some of you remember difficulty levels that no longer exist in this game.

Starlock wrote: »

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Hmm.

The problem with creating difficult overland content is that the people that want it don't actually seem to want it. I say that based on the fact that you don't see these players regularly at the difficult overland content that already exists. Assuming there are a lot of you, I don't see a lot of you around doing the world bosses and harrowstorms.

If I had to guess, I'd say this happens because most people don't stand in one spot and kill one mob over and over again.

But like I said, it's just a guess.

I'm talking about the collective, not the individual.

If the people who claim they want hard overland content actually wanted it they would be all over the hard overland content that already exists. Obviously i t wouldn't be the same person standing there every time, but if you visited a harrowstorm or a world boss, this demographic who claims they want hard content would be doing the hard content. So why aren't they consistently and reliably there?

Where are they? What they want exists in the game already right now. Where are they? Considering they aren't doing the difficult overland content now, what makes anyone think they would consistently do the difficult overland content that gets added? I don't think they would. What I've observed doesn't support the conclusion that these players who claim they want this stuff would actually do the stuff, and neither does the history of the zone that was Craglorn.

Starlock wrote: »

Hmm.

The problem with creating difficult overland content is that the people that want it don't actually seem to want it. I say that based on the fact that you don't see these players regularly at the difficult overland content that already exists. Assuming there are a lot of you, I don't see a lot of you around doing the world bosses and harrowstorms.

So... where are you? Why aren't you doing this content that you say that you want? I remember running through (attempt to, anyway) some of the harrowstorms on my tank a few weeks ago and they were basically impossible to do because nobody would show up. I still remember the one I stubbornly tried to do hoping people could be bothered. They did, sort of, but we had like 4 mini bosses up at any given time and it was... awful. it was only fun for maybe the first couple minutes of "wow, I can't believe I'm managing to tank all this OK" until it became just an awful "where the bleep is everyone else please make it stop!"

newtinmpls wrote: »

icapital wrote: »

Some of you remember difficulty levels that no longer exist in this game.

If the "difficulty of the game" was the only factor, you would be right.

But it's not.

It's kiting without thinking about it.
It's knowing the "tells" when the boss is gonna do something nasty (or even a random 2-hand-weilder)
It's having the right passives
Using the right skill combo with the right type of armor.

For someone new to the game, who doesn't know how to notice the tells, the red, who doesn't keep track of is their food expired and what potions are they using - it is a very different game.

And to run a long term game, ZoS can NOT make overland hard enough to crush those people, because they are the new players and the new money.

So
-play with only one hand, to represent lack of intuitive use of coordination of mouse/keyboard
-wear a mix of armor types; less than 5 of any sort; not enough of any one set to get more than 1 bonus by accident
-No improvements to armor via glyphs or crafting
-turn your combat metrics so that you Can NOT see the red
-only use one skill per actual minute of gameplay; the rest is medium attacks only (not light so no ulti regen, not heavy so no resource regen).

This is what overland is set to.
If you are playing with more skill than this, then it will not be a challenge, so IF you want a challenge THEN go to another part of the game.

Yes, I'd totally be in favor of a "difficulty slider". But there isn't one at this time.

CP5 wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

icapital wrote: »

Some of you remember difficulty levels that no longer exist in this game.

If the "difficulty of the game" was the only factor, you would be right.

But it's not.

It's kiting without thinking about it.
It's knowing the "tells" when the boss is gonna do something nasty (or even a random 2-hand-weilder)
It's having the right passives
Using the right skill combo with the right type of armor.

For someone new to the game, who doesn't know how to notice the tells, the red, who doesn't keep track of is their food expired and what potions are they using - it is a very different game.

And to run a long term game, ZoS can NOT make overland hard enough to crush those people, because they are the new players and the new money.

So
-play with only one hand, to represent lack of intuitive use of coordination of mouse/keyboard
-wear a mix of armor types; less than 5 of any sort; not enough of any one set to get more than 1 bonus by accident
-No improvements to armor via glyphs or crafting
-turn your combat metrics so that you Can NOT see the red
-only use one skill per actual minute of gameplay; the rest is medium attacks only (not light so no ulti regen, not heavy so no resource regen).

This is what overland is set to.
If you are playing with more skill than this, then it will not be a challenge, so IF you want a challenge THEN go to another part of the game.

Yes, I'd totally be in favor of a "difficulty slider". But there isn't one at this time.

You said it yourself in that having game knowledge makes overland easy, having challenging fights that used more engaging mecanics would both make the fights less boring for experienced players and give newer players the chance to learn how to play, the only people who suffer would be those who are half afk trying to auto-piolet through content without responding to the game. Having newer players learn those things, as well as explore provisioning, alchemy, and the like, would all be good changes. Those restrictions you listed only serve to lengthen boring fights, it doesn't matter if it takes me 3s or 10s to kill a boss if they are too busy monologuing to fight back.

And as an experienced player, I want to enjoy the vast majority of the game but can't because of how painfully dull it is, eating cardboard at least has texture, and saying to "go to another part of the game," is basically saying, "your only place is in those tiny instanced areas and the rest of the game is for others, have fun" and that's not a mentality I think will get us far.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

DukeCybran wrote: »

Try to withdraw your CP and to run without a set, or go to Craglorn or craft yourself a set of level 5 gear.

Gimping yourself is not the same as more difficult content unless you get a reward for it. I want to use the gear that took hours/days/weeks/months to collect. I am not withdrawing my CP every time Im doing a quest, then have to allocate them for a dungeon run and having to withdraw them again for doing a quest. Ive done Craglorn mostly solo but thats just one zone, the new quests are often not in Craglorn.

I would be fine with an item that equips in my costume slot that lets me take more damage, deal less damage while gaining more XP/loot/gold for example.

And every one of these threads always goes to the same place.

"I'm too powerful because I built myself specifically to be powerful, so you need to give me harder content that matches my elite skill level, and then give me good rewards for beating it so I can get even more power so I can set myself even further above the other noobs in zone!"

It really makes me wonder what the average DPS of players on the forums is versus what it is in game. If the average DPS in game were what it was on the forums, we'd never hear any comments about failed PUGs since people would be able to DPS anything down without effort.

I get wanting more out of the story. I'm one of those people who'd love to be able to solo dungeons for the stories. Give me back the quests, get rid of the 'you need two people' mechanics like the second Direfrost plate or the pins, and just let me see the dialogue. No rewards, no bonus XP, no gold, nothing. My reward would be finally getting to see the storyline. I get that this is probably one of the points of the Companions system. But Companions won't reset the dialogue for the quests I've already done.

Also remember they had adventure zones, and they failed since people said it was too hard. Yes, now we have the benefit of CP and power creep, but there's also a decent nerf to DPS coming up in the next patch. Besides, there are enough people who need help and nobody wants to go do it - I know so many people park their characters in Vivec/Alinor/Rimmen, but how many new players in those zones can actually find people to help with the WBs? Even though there are quests to get them, I very rarely see people taking on WBs in Vvardenfell or NElsweyr, or dealing with any of the dragons outside of the one by the wayshrine. As a result, new Lv. 25 players with white gear, no sets, and no consumables are getting one shot by these, not getting help, and then think that overland is too hard. Sure, we could have the 'veteran' instance of a zone, but then that still leaves all the noobs together so they can't complete anything unless they go to the vet when they're not ready.

Mostly there's just no incentive for the devs to do that - I doubt people would want to pay for overland versions of the same zones, and that would take as much work to redo all of the overland encounters as it would be to make a new chapter. People are already complaining "is that it?" with the antiquities, and now there are more complaints about companions and how that one feature isn't worth the cost of a chapter. How would people react if ZOS came out and said "hey, $60 and you get the same game, but all we did was buff Bittergreen the Guar to be on the level of Z'Maja!"

Sevn wrote: »

My God the number of post that keep mentioning WoW or other games that do this or that, suggestion, go play that game that plays the way you want?.

Every week such a pointless request.

One, what level of difficulty are they going to use? Normal dungeons? Vet dungeons? Hard mode vet trial boss? Just how many different overworlds will be needed? I'll bet you anything if you put a poll up asking what level would be cool you'd get a split vote, so not even the folks who keep asking for this can agree on difficulty.

Two, just how often will they have to keep redoing overland? It doesn't matter what level they make it, some will still find it easy, blow through it all in no time and be right back here asking for more and more tweaks and better rewards. They will NEVER be content.

Which brings us lastly to rewards. If it's really about challenge than stop asking for better rewards to incentivize you. Period. Wasting the devs time on this is your reward because I know most have zero interest in actually paying for anything like this.

Players build up this super beast of a character and then complains the game is too easy and refuses to do anything about it themselves because they put so many hours into creating this godlike toon. Well duh the content is too easy then and it ALWAYS will be if you keep getting better gear/items and you know it, so why keep asking for better rewards for incentive when it will put you right back where you started?

Because it's really about the loot.

Starlock wrote: »

ke.sardenb14_ESO wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Hmm.

The problem with creating difficult overland content is that the people that want it don't actually seem to want it. I say that based on the fact that you don't see these players regularly at the difficult overland content that already exists. Assuming there are a lot of you, I don't see a lot of you around doing the world bosses and harrowstorms.

If I had to guess, I'd say this happens because most people don't stand in one spot and kill one mob over and over again.

But like I said, it's just a guess.

I'm talking about the collective, not the individual.

If the people who claim they want hard overland content actually wanted it they would be all over the hard overland content that already exists. Obviously i t wouldn't be the same person standing there every time, but if you visited a harrowstorm or a world boss, this demographic who claims they want hard content would be doing the hard content. So why aren't they consistently and reliably there?

Where are they? What they want exists in the game already right now. Where are they? Considering they aren't doing the difficult overland content now, what makes anyone think they would consistently do the difficult overland content that gets added? I don't think they would. What I've observed doesn't support the conclusion that these players who claim they want this stuff would actually do the stuff, and neither does the history of the zone that was Craglorn.

...we already beat it all because there is so little actual challenging overland content you can blaze through it in a few hours if you're on the right spawn timers.

So what this tells me is that what you are really looking for is NEW content more than DIFFICULT content.

If the real mentality is "I want to beat this difficult content once then I'm not going to do it anymore" let's consider for a second what that would mean for the long-term accessibility of various overland zones in the game. Once the "I want difficult content" crowd finishes a zone, it becomes a ghost town and everyone else struggles to get anything done at all in that zone. This happened with Craglorn when it was a group zone, and it happens now with the difficult content that already exists in overland.

That's why the developers aren't giving you this, guys. Keeping older zones populated and active is a major priority in GaaS because nothing leaves a worse impression of your game than a huge open-world game that is empty of players. If entry-level content in particular is overly difficult, you get players washing out before they even get started.

As I recall, staff have mentioned they looked into something like a personal difficulty slider at one point. That's a far better idea to get behind than "just make it all more difficult" when that isn't going to be healthy for the game. While we wait for the developers to add a handicap toggle, we can do it ourselves, as others have already suggested.

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

DukeCybran wrote: »

Try to withdraw your CP and to run without a set, or go to Craglorn or craft yourself a set of level 5 gear.

Gimping yourself is not the same as more difficult content unless you get a reward for it. I want to use the gear that took hours/days/weeks/months to collect. I am not withdrawing my CP every time Im doing a quest, then have to allocate them for a dungeon run and having to withdraw them again for doing a quest. Ive done Craglorn mostly solo but thats just one zone, the new quests are often not in Craglorn.

I would be fine with an item that equips in my costume slot that lets me take more damage, deal less damage while gaining more XP/loot/gold for example.

And every one of these threads always goes to the same place.

"I'm too powerful because I built myself specifically to be powerful, so you need to give me harder content that matches my elite skill level, and then give me good rewards for beating it so I can get even more power so I can set myself even further above the other noobs in zone!"

It really makes me wonder what the average DPS of players on the forums is versus what it is in game. If the average DPS in game were what it was on the forums, we'd never hear any comments about failed PUGs since people would be able to DPS anything down without effort.

I get wanting more out of the story. I'm one of those people who'd love to be able to solo dungeons for the stories. Give me back the quests, get rid of the 'you need two people' mechanics like the second Direfrost plate or the pins, and just let me see the dialogue. No rewards, no bonus XP, no gold, nothing. My reward would be finally getting to see the storyline. I get that this is probably one of the points of the Companions system. But Companions won't reset the dialogue for the quests I've already done.

Also remember they had adventure zones, and they failed since people said it was too hard. Yes, now we have the benefit of CP and power creep, but there's also a decent nerf to DPS coming up in the next patch. Besides, there are enough people who need help and nobody wants to go do it - I know so many people park their characters in Vivec/Alinor/Rimmen, but how many new players in those zones can actually find people to help with the WBs? Even though there are quests to get them, I very rarely see people taking on WBs in Vvardenfell or NElsweyr, or dealing with any of the dragons outside of the one by the wayshrine. As a result, new Lv. 25 players with white gear, no sets, and no consumables are getting one shot by these, not getting help, and then think that overland is too hard. Sure, we could have the 'veteran' instance of a zone, but then that still leaves all the noobs together so they can't complete anything unless they go to the vet when they're not ready.

Mostly there's just no incentive for the devs to do that - I doubt people would want to pay for overland versions of the same zones, and that would take as much work to redo all of the overland encounters as it would be to make a new chapter. People are already complaining "is that it?" with the antiquities, and now there are more complaints about companions and how that one feature isn't worth the cost of a chapter. How would people react if ZOS came out and said "hey, $60 and you get the same game, but all we did was buff Bittergreen the Guar to be on the level of Z'Maja!"

Nice story but you have to understand that giving players an option will change nothing for players who dont change the difficulty. Every argument comes back to the point that overland difficulty is not too easy for inexperienced players, which doesnt explain why couldnt be more challenging for experienced players. Similar to dungeons and trails for example.

In the first period of the game there was no difficulty option for dungeons and trails, they were simply leveled to match the party, either to the leader or lowest level group member I dont remember exactly. Eventually ZOS recognized that there is a difference in skill level which led to dungeons and trails getting an easier version with normal mode.

Now the experienced players ask for overland content to match their skill level and its not possible? Yes, there are plenty challenges if you look for them, you can solo WBs, dragons, harrowstorms or vet dungeons but that wont change the fact that new quest lines from DLCs are boring for experienced players who have been supporting ZOS for a long time.