Arunei wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Agreed. Over the years, players who felt that Overland was too easy - and sometimes suggested optional ways to increase its difficulty - were often told by other players that they 'must do Dungeons/Trials/solo Arenas instead' because 'Overland is supposed to be easy.' Comments like that didn't really address the issue or helped foster a constructive discussion.

In essence, I agree with your post by the way. But I think it’s important to recognize that it goes both ways. While some players now fear that they might not be able to enjoy Overland content in the future, other players haven't been able to enjoy it for years. Respecting all playstyles is key.

I agree that both playstyles are important, and they are both provided for by ZOS. The question is whether or not both playstyles should be supported in all types of content. Currently, overland supports one playstyle and dungeons/trials support the other. If you think overland should be made more difficult to support the latter style, then do you also agree that dungeons/trials should have an easy/story mode to support the former playstyle?

This content already have a normal (easy) mode to participate in if you are newer to the game or don't enjoy challenge. But Devs already said that story/solo mode is coming, so it's a matter of time as it's decided upon, again to support more options for different kinds of players.

Except a lot of the older DLC Dungeons AREN'T easy even on Normal. They're considerably harder than base game Normal Dungeons and some are even harder than some base game Vet Dungeons. It was only, what, two or three years ago that they started making Normal DLC Dungeons more on par with base game Normal Dungeons? And even started adding rewards for clearing Normal instead of locking them all behind Vet mode achievements.

You might not see it easy, but by company's standards it is, hence it's named normal difficulty. Same as no one sees any difficulty mode the same way, not even HM's. For some it's a breather but still that's how it is. Yet again, because of that there will be a story mode and there will be different option for an overland.

disky wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Agreed. Over the years, players who felt that Overland was too easy - and sometimes suggested optional ways to increase its difficulty - were often told by other players that they 'must do Dungeons/Trials/solo Arenas instead' because 'Overland is supposed to be easy.' Comments like that didn't really address the issue or helped foster a constructive discussion.

In essence, I agree with your post by the way. But I think it’s important to recognize that it goes both ways. While some players now fear that they might not be able to enjoy Overland content in the future, other players haven't been able to enjoy it for years. Respecting all playstyles is key.

I agree that both playstyles are important, and they are both provided for by ZOS. The question is whether or not both playstyles should be supported in all types of content. Currently, overland supports one playstyle and dungeons/trials support the other. If you think overland should be made more difficult to support the latter style, then do you also agree that dungeons/trials should have an easy/story mode to support the former playstyle?

This content already have a normal (easy) mode to participate in if you are newer to the game or don't enjoy challenge. But Devs already said that story/solo mode is coming, so it's a matter of time as it's decided upon, again to support more options for different kinds of players.

Except a lot of the older DLC Dungeons AREN'T easy even on Normal. They're considerably harder than base game Normal Dungeons and some are even harder than some base game Vet Dungeons. It was only, what, two or three years ago that they started making Normal DLC Dungeons more on par with base game Normal Dungeons? And even started adding rewards for clearing Normal instead of locking them all behind Vet mode achievements.

You might not see it easy, but by company's standards it is, hence it's named normal difficulty. Same as no one sees any difficulty mode the same way, not even HM's. For some it's a breather but still that's how it is. Yet again, because of that there will be a story mode and there will be different option for an overland.

Right, the fact that people experience dungeons differently, and want different things from them, is exactly why the feature should exist.

Guess you're trying really hard to point out that I do not actually like it from the tone of my message and you're partially right. Whilst I see no issues in that for others, mostly, for people like me it would be a worse experience. What I mean by that is that I was an absolute worst casual player you can possibly imagine, bought ESO to read lore books essentially. If easy options existed I would probably never experienced harder difficulties, partially because I didn't noticed veteran tags in queue and wasn't even aware of it's existence. So if I've joined the game next year with solo dungeons, I would probably miss the biggest part of the game I'm enjoying right now. Luckily I'm not a new player and had my experiences the way they were already to care too much about it, hence it's fine.
People are different, and in more ways they might think, a lot of folks forget it here.

disky wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

disky wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Agreed. Over the years, players who felt that Overland was too easy - and sometimes suggested optional ways to increase its difficulty - were often told by other players that they 'must do Dungeons/Trials/solo Arenas instead' because 'Overland is supposed to be easy.' Comments like that didn't really address the issue or helped foster a constructive discussion.

In essence, I agree with your post by the way. But I think it’s important to recognize that it goes both ways. While some players now fear that they might not be able to enjoy Overland content in the future, other players haven't been able to enjoy it for years. Respecting all playstyles is key.

I agree that both playstyles are important, and they are both provided for by ZOS. The question is whether or not both playstyles should be supported in all types of content. Currently, overland supports one playstyle and dungeons/trials support the other. If you think overland should be made more difficult to support the latter style, then do you also agree that dungeons/trials should have an easy/story mode to support the former playstyle?

This content already have a normal (easy) mode to participate in if you are newer to the game or don't enjoy challenge. But Devs already said that story/solo mode is coming, so it's a matter of time as it's decided upon, again to support more options for different kinds of players.

Except a lot of the older DLC Dungeons AREN'T easy even on Normal. They're considerably harder than base game Normal Dungeons and some are even harder than some base game Vet Dungeons. It was only, what, two or three years ago that they started making Normal DLC Dungeons more on par with base game Normal Dungeons? And even started adding rewards for clearing Normal instead of locking them all behind Vet mode achievements.

You might not see it easy, but by company's standards it is, hence it's named normal difficulty. Same as no one sees any difficulty mode the same way, not even HM's. For some it's a breather but still that's how it is. Yet again, because of that there will be a story mode and there will be different option for an overland.

Right, the fact that people experience dungeons differently, and want different things from them, is exactly why the feature should exist.

Guess you're trying really hard to point out that I do not actually like it from the tone of my message and you're partially right. Whilst I see no issues in that for others, mostly, for people like me it would be a worse experience. What I mean by that is that I was an absolute worst casual player you can possibly imagine, bought ESO to read lore books essentially. If easy options existed I would probably never experienced harder difficulties, partially because I didn't noticed veteran tags in queue and wasn't even aware of it's existence. So if I've joined the game next year with solo dungeons, I would probably miss the biggest part of the game I'm enjoying right now. Luckily I'm not a new player and had my experiences the way they were already to care too much about it, hence it's fine.
People are different, and in more ways they might think, a lot of folks forget it here.

I should say that when it comes to rewards, I don't think any implementation of a story mode should include any kind of substantial rewards. As far as I'm concerned the whole point of the mode is to experience the story, to be able to stop and look around without the pressure of someone racing through without you.

I might personally not see the logic having rewards for even more downgraded difficulty but if the option is here I don't see it as an issue if there are rewards, even unique ones for solo dungeons. Each difficulty mode current has some form of achievement etc. associated with it and anything implemented difficulty wise be it solo dungeons or vet overland would probably have at least some incentives, at the very least new achievement associated with them as zos adding achievement nowadays that are almost rewarding breathing or being in a world, that are not about achieving anything so won't be surprising if literally anything new would have some associated achievements or rewards exclusively for those modes, I just don't know what's appropriate in their current or a new to be seen model.

But generally rewards is the part that bothers me the least about any content as I've had my fair share in a honeymoon period of the game, but it surely important to be a main attraction for a majority players. And zos surely want everything to be played for one or the other reason and not just laying around as an option that's not really used.

Just like the reward for increased overland difficulty is the challenge itself, but I sure see people arguing there should be additional reward.

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

Just like the reward for increased overland difficulty is the challenge itself, but I sure see people arguing there should be additional reward.

I want to make it clear that I count myself among the people who would take advantage of a story mode feature, but I would never expect that I would receive the same kind of reward as someone who played through the dungeon in a group-focused veteran mode, or even normal mode. I don't consider myself to be reward-driven, but especially in MMOs achievement generally has some kind of material value associated with it, otherwise it diminishes the incentive to achieve, and that dramatically deflates motivation for reward-driven players. If you start playing a Zelda game and you walk into the first cave you find, and there's a hermit who hands over the Master Sword along with every bit of gear you need, you're missing out on the fun of adventuring to gain those important items. What's the point of even doing it? Just go kill Ganon and find another game to play.

There should be a base-level difficulty at which rewards are given, and I think it's logical to provide higher-tier rewards for greater degrees of achievement. The reward of a story mode is that you get to experience the story in a setting which normally precludes it due to the way dungeon groups tend to work.

Kyip wrote: »

I actually expected the poll to more drastically favor lower difficulties but it does seem to corroborate the idea that while people who want a challenge are in the minority, there are enough players that desire a challenge for the upcoming changes to be worthwhile.

I think the number of people who favor lower difficulty are underrepresented because many casual players never visit the forums. Most folks who come here have been playing the game longer and are better at it, just judging from what I have seen here the past few weeks. I hope they consider things like this and make the upcoming difficulty increase something like a normal-vs-veteran toggle, rather than an across-the-board difficulty increase.

There's seems to be a lot of negativity about what ZOS *could* be planning, which I think is kind of justified given how vague the announcement was and because of past experiences, but I'm giving ZOS the benefit of the doubt and assuming they understand how negatively a global change would affect many players. It has taken years for this announcement to happen and they haven't just ignored people in that time. We've had a lot of what I consider to be #insightful conversation in this thread and while I doubt ZOS is just going to lift a design spec from the forums, I think there are some good ideas for how to manage a change like this without alienating anyone, and if nothing else, this thread can be a tool for the devs to understand what players want to happen. Relatively few people seem to want something that affects everyone.

The problem ZOS has is that players seem to want

1. To see character progression, i.e. if they go back and do the same content, it gets easier, because their character has in some way improved.
2. To get more challenge from going back to the same content, because it gets harder.

It's not going to be easy to satisfy both requirements, whatever they do.

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Agreed. Over the years, players who felt that Overland was too easy - and sometimes suggested optional ways to increase its difficulty - were often told by other players that they 'must do Dungeons/Trials/solo Arenas instead' because 'Overland is supposed to be easy.' Comments like that didn't really address the issue or helped foster a constructive discussion.

In essence, I agree with your post by the way. But I think it’s important to recognize that it goes both ways. While some players now fear that they might not be able to enjoy Overland content in the future, other players haven't been able to enjoy it for years. Respecting all playstyles is key.

I agree that both playstyles are important, and they are both provided for by ZOS. The question is whether or not both playstyles should be supported in all types of content. Currently, overland supports one playstyle and dungeons/trials support the other. If you think overland should be made more difficult to support the latter style, then do you also agree that dungeons/trials should have an easy/story mode to support the former playstyle?

This content already have a normal (easy) mode to participate in if you are newer to the game or don't enjoy challenge. But Devs already said that story/solo mode is coming, so it's a matter of time as it's decided upon, again to support more options for different kinds of players.

When/where did they say story/solo mode was coming? I must have missed that.

SilverBride wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

When/where did they say story/solo mode was coming? I must have missed that.

They said story mode for dungeons is on the list.

"Lambert says storymode for dungeons is “really hard because it’s essentially a third difficulty mode”; it’s on the list but probably isn’t happening any time soon."

https://massivelyop.com/2024/01/18/elder-scrolls-onlines-gold-road-chapter-takes-players-back-to-oblivions-best-city-on-june-3/

Thank you!

Kyip wrote: »

I actually expected the poll to more drastically favor lower difficulties but it does seem to corroborate the idea that while people who want a challenge are in the minority, there are enough players that desire a challenge for the upcoming changes to be worthwhile.

I think the number of people who favor lower difficulty are underrepresented because many casual players never visit the forums. Most folks who come here have been playing the game longer and are better at it, just judging from what I have seen here the past few weeks. I hope they consider things like this and make the upcoming difficulty increase something like a normal-vs-veteran toggle, rather than an across-the-board difficulty increase.

I kind of feel differently. I've no objective data to back this, but in my experience, all members of my guilds (most of which advertise themselves as "casual") who I've played with either find the low difficulty laughably easy, never struggle with overland except for a WB here and there, and/or don't engage with it because it's so easy.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, especially since I do genuienly believe all viewpoints should be valued, but I think people (not you specifically) either severely underestimate the skill of "casuals" (whatever this even means???) and/or overestimate how many "casuals" actually enjoy how the overland as it currently is. From my perspective, it's a top 5 issue people have with this game.

I dont even remember the last time I saw someone die (or struggle/put effort) in overland unless it was against one of the harder WBs or incursions (e.g dragons or harrowstorms). Otherwise, virtually everyone I've seen above lvl 30-40 seemingly clears the overland content quite easily. I've never, ever, seen a non-afk player with over 150 CP (which is very easy to reach) struggle against any NPC that wasn't a WB, Necrom herald, or the NPCs that spawn during harrowstorms. Heck, against 90%< of the overland you can't/don't even need to play through a full rotation. So just pushing back on this because I'm just very unfamiliar with these "casuals" folks speak of on the forums because I genuinely don't run into them anywhere near as often as you'd expect based off of the comments here.

colossalvoids wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Agreed. Over the years, players who felt that Overland was too easy - and sometimes suggested optional ways to increase its difficulty - were often told by other players that they 'must do Dungeons/Trials/solo Arenas instead' because 'Overland is supposed to be easy.' Comments like that didn't really address the issue or helped foster a constructive discussion.

In essence, I agree with your post by the way. But I think it’s important to recognize that it goes both ways. While some players now fear that they might not be able to enjoy Overland content in the future, other players haven't been able to enjoy it for years. Respecting all playstyles is key.

I agree that both playstyles are important, and they are both provided for by ZOS. The question is whether or not both playstyles should be supported in all types of content. Currently, overland supports one playstyle and dungeons/trials support the other. If you think overland should be made more difficult to support the latter style, then do you also agree that dungeons/trials should have an easy/story mode to support the former playstyle?

This content already have a normal (easy) mode to participate in if you are newer to the game or don't enjoy challenge. But Devs already said that story/solo mode is coming, so it's a matter of time as it's decided upon, again to support more options for different kinds of players.

Except a lot of the older DLC Dungeons AREN'T easy even on Normal. They're considerably harder than base game Normal Dungeons and some are even harder than some base game Vet Dungeons. It was only, what, two or three years ago that they started making Normal DLC Dungeons more on par with base game Normal Dungeons? And even started adding rewards for clearing Normal instead of locking them all behind Vet mode achievements.

You might not see it easy, but by company's standards it is, hence it's named normal difficulty. Same as no one sees any difficulty mode the same way, not even HM's. For some it's a breather but still that's how it is. Yet again, because of that there will be a story mode and there will be different option for an overland.

I personally don't find even the older DLC Dungeons hard on Normal. Some things annoy me like trash mobs that can OHKO you, but aside from that I can handle them easy enough. But that doesn't change the fact that they AREN'T easy for many others, because if they were, ZOS wouldn't have needed to start making them easier a couple years ago.

Also, no, normal does not mean easy. EASY means easy. There is no easy setting in ZOS, there's regular and hard. I don't ever recall any of the devs saying normal is supposed to be considered ESO'S version of easy, it's just normal, so none of us can claim they've meant it to officially be the game's standard version of easy. Unless I've missed them saying that somewhere, in which case I'd like a link to the post or article in case there's other stuff I also missed.

Finally, them saying something is 'on the list' doesn't mean it's officially been said to be getting released 100%. Spellcrafting was 'on the list' but we never got it, and got Scribing instead. I don't think we should be making claims that make it sound like something is 100% confirmed to be coming to the game unless it's been specifically stated to be something that WILL be added in a future update. After all, I believe the reason Spellcrafting was scraped was because it was more technically difficult to implement than they originally expected.

Edit for autocorrect being dum.

disky wrote: »

Kyip wrote: »

I actually expected the poll to more drastically favor lower difficulties but it does seem to corroborate the idea that while people who want a challenge are in the minority, there are enough players that desire a challenge for the upcoming changes to be worthwhile.

I think the number of people who favor lower difficulty are underrepresented because many casual players never visit the forums. Most folks who come here have been playing the game longer and are better at it, just judging from what I have seen here the past few weeks. I hope they consider things like this and make the upcoming difficulty increase something like a normal-vs-veteran toggle, rather than an across-the-board difficulty increase.

There's seems to be a lot of negativity about what ZOS *could* be planning, which I think is kind of justified given how vague the announcement was and because of past experiences, but I'm giving ZOS the benefit of the doubt and assuming they understand how negatively a global change would affect many players. It has taken years for this announcement to happen and they haven't just ignored people in that time. We've had a lot of what I consider to be #insightful conversation in this thread and while I doubt ZOS is just going to lift a design spec from the forums, I think there are some good ideas for how to manage a change like this without alienating anyone, and if nothing else, this thread can be a tool for the devs to understand what players want to happen. Relatively few people seem to want something that affects everyone.

Well said.

Kyip wrote: »

I was very, very surprised to see some comments deleted on the sub-topic of ESO being a TES game, a conversation here which grew out of this thread's main topic, and was clearly related to it, since we were talking about difficulty. Especially after we were forced into this thread when the separate, independent topic was locked.

Is what it is, man. I can understand the justification. To be fair, things did get kind of off-topic, since we've been talking about dungeon story mode for a while and that did come out of that original post.

My last thought on increased difficulty is that I hope it doesn't turn out like other games where players hollered for increased difficulty then after the devs increased the difficulty all those vocal players left the game, and the remaining players were stuck with the difficulty that wasn't needed to start with.

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

So in conclusion, a little bit of a mix of Scaling so we can go anywhere, with some regular npc Mobs scattered in that make us a little cautious. Updating the HP & Damage of all the overland npc's in the game times 10 might make overland a bit more interesting.

I feel like you can scale everything as long as there is a reasonable level of difficulty within the scale, and that things make an amount of sense. Seekers are tough, they have some challenging abilities and that's good, they should be. They're not quite at the level of a DLC world boss, but a little under that. I think that's a good level for a challenging roamer and there should be more like them, but it can still exist within the level scaling system.