Honestly, you don't even need to make them *harder*. Just make them more interesting.

King Kurog was an incredibly fun and interesting fight. It wasn't terribly difficult, but the atmosphere, sound/graphic effects, dialogue and the mechanics made it enjoyable and made it feel like an epic solo fight.

Do all Quest Boss fights on that level.

I like the HM scroll idea, and I would happily use it. At this point, my Vestige appreciates a challenge from supposedly powerful enemies.


That being said, I think that there are easy (and cheap) ways ZOS could alleviate the concerns of those who are afraid of getting "stuck" on a boss fight.
- Companions, it's the obvious new feature that's basically instant backup
- Quest companions, where say that after you die once, you get the option to have Valsirenn come help you against K'tora or a Fighters Guild person helps you against Doshia. Just recycle the AI from the quest NPCs that can already serve as our companions.
- Let players group up for the fight after we die. I don't think we need to lose instances fully, but we should be able to pull in or "summon" another player to help out in a fight. Maybe it would be unimmersive for my SO to teleport in to help me against Mannimarco, but frankly it was kinda unimmersive to not be adventuring together in the Main Quest anyway. Being able to summon in help from a friend or guildmate would be nice.


The benefit of harder Quest bosses:
Every time I've gotten "stuck" on a boss, it's because I wasn't doing something right. Maybe there was a mechanic I didn't understand. More often, I needed to learn something about how to fight effectively. Whether my sustain was lacking, or my balance of healing vs damage was too one-sided, or I had to do a better job of kiting, I needed to learn from my mistakes and try new things to improve. Very rarely was it a simple "I need to do more damage" solution.

I realize that being "stuck" is no fun. I think everyone who's run vMA for the first time understands the sheer frustration of dying to a boss again and again. But the experience of dying, learning from one's mistakes, and trying again (and again, and again, and...well, I died a lot, okay?) is the point of those fights. It makes us better players and prepares us for the harder content in the game - be that dungeons or harrowstorms.

This game is not designed for players to only ever play easy quests. Just because players can do that doesn't mean that's what it's designed for. ESO is designed to encourage players to experience every type of content that the game has to offer. Harder Quest bosses help provide teach the progression of tactics and battle awareness that prepares players to experience all the content ESO has to offer.

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

That being said, I think that there are easy (and cheap) ways ZOS could alleviate the concerns of those who are afraid of getting "stuck" on a boss fight.

I'm not "afraid" of getting stuck. I just do not enjoy spending hours, or even days, being unable to progress to the next story.

VaranisArano wrote: »

The benefit of harder Quest bosses:
Every time I've gotten "stuck" on a boss, it's because I wasn't doing something right. Maybe there was a mechanic I didn't understand. More often, I needed to learn something about how to fight effectively

As I said in an earlier post, I don't want to learn to get better because I am good enough for how I play. I can see how learning mechanics would be relevant for dungeons and trials, particularly vet ones, but this is just the base game story. It needs to be at a difficulty level that everyone of every playstyle can complete.

VaranisArano wrote: »

This game is not designed for players to only ever play easy quests. Just because players can do that doesn't mean that's what it's designed for. ESO is designed to encourage players to experience every type of content that the game has to offer. Harder Quest bosses help provide teach the progression of tactics and battle awareness that prepares players to experience all the content ESO has to offer.

No one can say for sure what this game was designed for except ZoS. I don't think they care how we choose to play... they just want us to play. And I don't need to be taught mechanics that will prepare me for all the content in ESO because I never intend to explore all the content... at least not at this time. But if I ever decide to explore vet content, a hard story boss isn't going to be enough preparation.

I'm not trying to insult you and you aren't the only person I've seen say thing like not wanting bosses to get harder.

I certainly understand you looking at the game through your lens, as a player who does not intend to ever do anything harder, who does not want to learn game mechanics, and who doesn't want to get stuck. From your point of view, I see why you argue against anything that might make your experience harder.


On the other hand, I do think that's a limited perspective. Most players are going to benefit from ESO bosses teaching them to respect basic combat mechanics, especially if they ever do anything harder than overland questing.

I'm suggesting that we get more bosses like K'tora, Doshia, Mannimarco, and Lady Belain in conjunction with the tools for players like you to overcome those challenges if they need extra help. Those three are what ZOS already thinks is acceptable for players to fight in solo instances - my full suggestion would give you the option to make those bosses easier if you were getting stuck. Harder boss fights also would benefit players who don't play like you do - players who do want to transition to harder content. Yes, teaching players game mechanics like blocking, interrupting, dodge rolling, and "don't stand in stupid" does make progression to harder content easier when new players aren't unlearning bad habits picked up from facerolling story bosses that are too easy. That's pretty important when ZOS throws group events like Harrowstorms or Geysers into the same zone as relatively easy story bosses. It's much easier to learn from a story boss than it is during the chaos of a group event or the pressure of your first time in a dungeon.


Finally, even if it's as simple as running dungeons during the Undaunted event or running arenas during the Witches Festival, ESO is expressly designed to encourage players to run all the content it has to offer. Not all players leave their comfort zone - whatever that comfort zone may be - but that's their choice. ZOS wants players to explore and so its good game design to prepare players who want to move on to the next step with the skills to help make their experience better.

I don't expect you to agree with me or even to like my suggestion. In fact, it seems clear that you have strong reasons to dislike it. Nevertheless, I suggest it because I think that having harder story bosses along the lines of K'tora, the old Doshia, Mannimarco, and Lady Belain would be greatly beneficial to most players, including most new and casual players.

While I wouldn’t want overland made more difficult in general and would actually like to see the aggro range of most animals decreased, I would love for the difficulty and general toughness of bosses and especially story bosses to scale better or simply have the option of a more challenging and interesting fight. There doesn’t need to be any more or better loot, just that main antagonists that the story has been building to should take some effort on my part not to die and/or to kill them.

VaranisArano wrote: »

ESO is expressly designed to encourage players to run all the content it has to offer. Not all players leave their comfort zone - whatever that comfort zone may be - but that's their choice. ZOS wants players to explore and so its good game design to prepare players who want to move on to the next step with the skills to help make their experience better.

No one knows what ESO was designed for, or what ZoS wants except ZoS.

I play what is fun for me. It has nothing to do with comfort zones, bur rather what I find fun.

Companions are being introduced in part so players like myself can explore more content they may not otherwise because of not wanting to be subjected to toxic behavior in dungeon and trial groups... and it does happen.

But the bottom line is that the story bosses are part of the base story that is for every player of every skill level. They need to be left as they are. I would be ok though if they made a scroll like has been suggested so players can choose for themselves how much of a challenge they want. But I will never agree to forcing harder story bosses on everyone.

I wouldn't mind the quest bosses being scaled to our level. Everything else does more or less so why not them too... At least it would make things a little harder but not completely unbeatable.

As has been suggested, I think giving quest bosses a scroll for a hard mode option would be a great solution. While ZOS might not be willing to do it for existing content at least at first, they could do it for new content going forward and call it a new feature 🙂

Elvenheart wrote: »

As has been suggested, I think giving quest bosses a scroll for a hard mode option would be a great solution. While ZOS might not be willing to do it for existing content at least at first, they could do it for new content going forward and call it a new feature 🙂

I hope it's something more than just a scroll.
Maybe a dialogue option that makes the rest of the quest harder, or a second door to the same boss that makes it harder.

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

Daraklus wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I am against this for the main reason that I don't want to be stuck from progressing. When the game was new, I remember being stuck on one boss fight for days, and I wasn't the only one. This proposal could hurt a large portion of the playerbase.

I fail to see how it would be a bad thing to put a challenge for players to overcome. It would realistically inspire them to overcome the challenge and in return try to be better in the game for it, no?

I say this as someone who just beat a challenging encounter in Outriders after failing several times and feeling really good about it.

Because most players are casual. ZOS, I'm sure, doesn't want to lose their casual players. We have 40+ hour a week jobs. We play games to release the stress from the normal world. We don't need more.

Having a job doesn't mean you can't enjoy at least enough challenge for boss fights to feel immersive. I mean, you're free to feel otherwise, to each their own, but let's not imply that it's just kids or some geek kids living in their parents' basement or something that want this lol. Most hardcore players I know, including myself, do have jobs, many have families etc. We also majorly play the games to release stress a lot and challenging immersive fights help us with that:P

In fact, right now it's actually pretty bad for stress release for us - if we can't find/don't feel like getting group for harder group content, like all there's left to do is MA/VH because everything else is excruciatingly boring. If I don't feel like either group content or vet arenas there's pretty much nothing in the game for me to do - I'd LOVE to quest but I really can't anymore, it just isn't immersive:/

At the very very least they could throw us a bone and make quest bosses (which are already mostly in solo instances so not like it'd affect others) actually able to pose a challenge akin to vet/vet hm dungeons vs normal ones (toggleable optional difficulty).

Not just more health though...

If you make story bosses harder, new people will to have to find a group.

Most quest bosses are instanced right? Why not give players an option to take on the boss in normal or veteran mode? You could have something like a HM scroll you burn to increase the difficulty of the fight.

I really feel that quests are designed for the general public (often new players) while veteran players (ie loyal customers) are completely ignored. I understand the majority of the players would probably do the bosses on normal difficulty but its shouldnt be too hard to increase the boss' health and damage output to give veteran players a good fight.