Overland Content Feedback Thread

spartaxoxo

Rungar wrote: »

given that there are no more chapters.. how many stories do you have left to do to make use of this feature? I mean if youve already completed them all, then whats the value? What are the chances that new players who dont have 3000 cp and all gold equipment are asking for this feature?

I see new players cite the difficulty as a reason for uninstalling sometimes.

For them it seems to be floaty animations and over monetization, and too complicated to make a group build mostly. But, lack of difficulty in the stories is not an uncommon complaint.

Beyond that, a lot of vets would replay the stories if they were engaging imo. The base game came out 10 years ago. There's plenty of quests that I don't remember and would enjoy experiencing again, personally.

Rungar

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

given that there are no more chapters.. how many stories do you have left to do to make use of this feature? I mean if youve already completed them all, then whats the value? What are the chances that new players who dont have 3000 cp and all gold equipment are asking for this feature?

I see new players cite the difficulty as a reason for uninstalling sometimes.

For them it seems to be floaty animations and over monetization, and too complicated to make a group build mostly. But, lack of difficulty in the stories is not an uncommon complaint.

Beyond that, a lot of vets would replay the stories if they were engaging imo. The base game came out 10 years ago. There's plenty of quests that I don't remember and would enjoy experiencing again, personally.

The combat isn't great and lacks impact ( though it could be with some minor tweaks!) ill agree but i don't think its over monetized. Its a basically free game, optional sub and you can get all chapters and the game on deep discount frequently if your patient. It doesn't have any pay to win so while i think their seasons idea is overpriced and not worth it, i don't feel they are over-monetizing the game in general. Its actually one of the better models. zos has made 2 billion over 10 years .. 200 million a year gross isnt that great for a studio the size of zos but its not the worst either. Surely enough to fund the next game though and keep the lights on.

i don't think the character build is that complicated but generating dps is complicated and demanding ( unless your an arcanist) and combined with the groupfinder generates "bad quit level" outcomes for new players. Which is why players tend to quit at the six week mark. The dungeons are also linear and could use a major upgrade. Most players dont find them compelling and i imagine sales have been weak on this content.

As long as you can just keep throwing yourself at the content i don't feel that just increasing the difficulty will change anything. There's still no sense of danger and that's always been an issue with this game. You dont really fail in this game that often. Its mostly throwing yourself at it until you win which is why i thought the no self res in the zone would provide that enhanced sense of danger people were missing.

perhaps some would redo content but i feel that would be a handful of players. Really zos should of stopped making every zone a newbie zone about 5 years ago but they did that because they rely on player churn to make money and it is what it is but most of those areas are massively underutilized. I really dont feel that players that have weak builds and poor combat competency feel that the game stories are too easy. I feel thats mostly cp powered and geared players doing the later chapters which i agree its way to easy for these people. But that time has passed now so the real value of that toggle is diminished. This is why i feel the temporary zone rehash would provide something fun for a broad range of players and playstyles at minimal development cost, not just a few people.

Muizer

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

SilverBride

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

That quote was taken from a thread I started to address a concern I have about how subclassing and increased overland difficulty would work together and not just cancel each other out. When I look at it in that context I take it to mean that overland will scale to balance with subclassing in mind. But I believe overland will also have difficulty options as Rich talked about in the stream.

I just hope it also takes into account that not everyone will use subclassing, and not scale the base difficulty to those that do.

Franchise408

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

spartaxoxo

Rungar wrote: »

. This is why i feel the temporary zone rehash would provide something fun for a broad range of players and playstyles at minimal development cost, not just a few people.

All of those complaints are easily found in things like Steam reviews when looking at people who don't have a ton of hours. Or from self-described new players in other social media places.

A lot of new players aren't looking at whether or not a game is p2w at first because that's a high level concern. They're looking at how every time they see a nice cosmetic, it's locked behind a pay wall. Or how many expansions they need to buy to get all of the features. How their bag is filling up with tons of stuff and they have very little storage space and the best solution is to open their wallets. Things like that don't make a good first impression and they nope out long before they ever have to care about endgame balance.

Rungar

If they dont profit, you dont get to play for free. I find their model reasonable because theres no sub or pay to win. I fully expect them to monetize convenience and cosmetics to the best of their ability.... I fully expect them to put out as many expansions as possible and charge what they feel they can get for them. If they don't the game dies. Some people don't understand that its not free, and while that's fine, its not a valid complaint in this case.

They literally had a sale on over Christmas where you could buy every dlc chapter for $25 Canadian!

getting back to the topic.. zos will likely put in a toggle of some sort.. will it get used.. doubtful. Its just the cheapest path to say they added the feature. Its stuff like this where they lose my money. If i see honest best effort, i reward, if i don't.. i don't.

spartaxoxo

This is not a free to play game. Almost nobody is playing for free. I have played f2p games with less monetization. ZoS themselves have made a number of changes to the game to make it more rewarding, likely in response to that very valid feedback.

Players who leave the game are lost potential money.

ETA
A lot of players asked for a toggle, so they'd be giving players what they wanted with that one.

Muizer

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

I don't quite see how "the potential for scaling is limited" is the opposite of "this will keep overland vastly underpowered". Those seem to be quite compatible statements.

sans-culottes

We’ve been hearing versions of this for years now. “We’re looking into it.” “We’re exploring options.” “We’re taking player feedback seriously.” Each time, the thread is passed along, the concern is acknowledged, and nothing materializes. The base game zones remain trivial. The new zones are tuned to the same floor. The gap between player power and encounter design continues to widen.

The most recent statement—about difficulty scaling “with subclassing in mind”—is not particularly reassuring. It reads less like a bold new direction and more like a quiet concession that power creep has outpaced design. Whether this results in meaningful change or yet another toggle that does little but pad a patch note remains to be seen.

No one is asking to get one-shotted by a skeever. What’s being asked is that overland content function as something other than ambient storytelling. Many players want encounter design that respects build choice, encourages tactical awareness, and creates conditions for failure, rather than frictionless movement through a static world.

ZOS has had years to address this. At this point, I don’t need more reassurances. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Franchise408

Muizer wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

I don't quite see how "the potential for scaling is limited" is the opposite of "this will keep overland vastly underpowered". Those seem to be quite compatible statements.

Scaling is the main, determining factor for the current state of the undertuned overworld. Everything scales to the player, and does so in a way to keep things very simplistic and easy. I can't see how using that mechanic as a tool to address overland difficulty will make for an acceptable overland experience to those of us who are seeking something new. Using the tool that is the root of the problem to fix the problem is... counterintuitive.

Muizer

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

I don't quite see how "the potential for scaling is limited" is the opposite of "this will keep overland vastly underpowered". Those seem to be quite compatible statements.

Scaling is the main, determining factor for the current state of the undertuned overworld. Everything scales to the player, and does so in a way to keep things very simplistic and easy. I can't see how using that mechanic as a tool to address overland difficulty will make for an acceptable overland experience to those of us who are seeking something new. Using the tool that is the root of the problem to fix the problem is... counterintuitive.

Oh. To be honest I was thinking he was referring to scaling as the under-the-hood mechanism for a difficulty slider. So not some automatic scaling relative to the player strength, but something that can optionally be varied independently of it.

GloatingSwine

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

I don't quite see how "the potential for scaling is limited" is the opposite of "this will keep overland vastly underpowered". Those seem to be quite compatible statements.

Scaling is the main, determining factor for the current state of the undertuned overworld. Everything scales to the player, and does so in a way to keep things very simplistic and easy. I can't see how using that mechanic as a tool to address overland difficulty will make for an acceptable overland experience to those of us who are seeking something new. Using the tool that is the root of the problem to fix the problem is... counterintuitive.

That's not really true. Nothing scales to the player, the gameworld content is roughly fixed to a hypothetical level 50 character with on-level gear but no set bonuses or anything, characters under 50 get a declining stat bonus (roughly equivalent to having max points points in all three stats at level one and reducing to zero by level 50).

If you're meeting that gameworld with an actual gear setup, you're overpowering it.

And there's just too much power available to players to both make the general overworld compete with them *and* have them feel like their gear and build investment matters there. You'd have to clamp player DPS down to something as low as like 7500 to make enemies not die before they can do anything, put in invulnerable phases in story bosses with high damage mechanics (see: Shada), and if you do that then basically all your build investment is dead in overworld.

If you want to feel less powerful in overworld, put on non-set gear (or utility sets), don't upgrade it past green, take off your oakensoul ring and monster hat, and play at the power level the game is scaled to.

(I think the opportunity for hard solo content is veteran/elite level delves.)

colossalvoids

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

twisttop138

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'm sure you all caught this but I cannot seem to find it here

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just to add to this. We are still working out how overland will scale overtime. But, we have the added benefit of scaling this feature with subclassing in mind. But since this is actively being worked on, don't have all of the answers right now. However, we will pass this thread on so that the general concern is known.

So they are thinking of some scaling mechanism.

As you probably know, I'm not a fan of this idea. I think it's got a very limited potential to make combat harder in a way that is satisfactory. Just think where that trajectory is headed: getting one-shot by a single skeever if you do not block or dodge. Of course we won't see that in game, but the harder the difficulty, the more it's going to feel like that.

Then again, if I read this correctly, ZOS are in part developing this to balance the power creep of subclassing (which probably says something about accepting pure classes are getting comparatively weaker, but that's for another thread).

I actually think the opposite.

If current scaling is anything to go by, a potential scaling for this will just keep the overland vastly underpowered. ESO doesn't do a very good job with level scaling. My hopes for this new overland difficulty have just dropped.

I don't quite see how "the potential for scaling is limited" is the opposite of "this will keep overland vastly underpowered". Those seem to be quite compatible statements.

Scaling is the main, determining factor for the current state of the undertuned overworld. Everything scales to the player, and does so in a way to keep things very simplistic and easy. I can't see how using that mechanic as a tool to address overland difficulty will make for an acceptable overland experience to those of us who are seeking something new. Using the tool that is the root of the problem to fix the problem is... counterintuitive.

I would temper your expectations around something "new" This is only a guess now, but I see them putting a way to turn on a debuff on yourself or something to make the enemies hit harder and have more defense stats, so be harder to kill. I don't see them reworking everything to make vet overland something new and fresh, with mechanics. Now that would be ideal for me, not on trash mobs but elite enemies having stuff like interrupts you need to do or attacks that have to be roll dodges cause if you block they will enrage. I think though that they will just hit harder and have more HP and you will hit less hard. This still has the potential to be fun and be combat you have to think about though. I guess we're gonna have to wait and see. I'm just gonna keep my expectations low here and hopefully be surprised.

twisttop138

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

That's why it would be, hopefully, optional. I personally think, since they're instances content, making delves and PD have an optional vet instance would be cool. Maybe just on PD's, beef up the mechanics of the group event boss. As it is now, I can just walk through a PD and casually destroy everything in my path, swat away the bosses and boom. This is also fun sometimes and I know it's great for many so I wouldn't want that to go away. Let's please stop with this "less than a percent" argument that gets thrown around all the time when people who like hard stuff speak up. It's been used in many games over the years and it's as tired as Leroy Jenkins. You can do better.

GloatingSwine

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

Questing is the hardest bit to meaningfully change the difficulty of though.

The problem, and this is why they never did another Craglorn, is that most people just don't want to spend extra time fighting mobs. But without that there isn't any curve to the difficulty, you have to have a curve from mobs to story bosses not have one be irrelevant and the other actually tough.

So the first question to ask when you say "questing made relevant" is "What should the minimum TTK of a common enemy be?". How long is every single mob guaranteed to be able to live against the strongest build a player can bring?

Because everything else about difficulty has to proceed from that.

Dahveed

GloatingSwine wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

Questing is the hardest bit to meaningfully change the difficulty of though.

The problem, and this is why they never did another Craglorn, is that most people just don't want to spend extra time fighting mobs. But without that there isn't any curve to the difficulty, you have to have a curve from mobs to story bosses not have one be irrelevant and the other actually tough.

So the first question to ask when you say "questing made relevant" is "What should the minimum TTK of a common enemy be?". How long is every single mob guaranteed to be able to live against the strongest build a player can bring?

Because everything else about difficulty has to proceed from that.

I don't care about length so much as I care about impact.

I don't want a slider that's just going to make it take longer with the same guaranteed success. I want the world to feel dangerous and not boring as hell.

If I am by myself and on foot, and there is a literal fricken giant 9 feet away from me, my life should feel like it's in danger.

And not just him turning around and giving me that little "warning" animation. It should be spontaneous, like holy crap, it turns out that a 14 foot tall humanoid with legs twice the length of mine can cover ground very fast!

And not just "oh I might have to drink a potion" danger. Like... If that thing hits me, I'm paste. There is literally no spontaneous danger ANYWHERE in the ENTIRE GAME.

The only danger is the type where I literally have to walk up to it and shake its hand before it can agree to be dangerous. Oh look, a world boss that literally stands idle at the exact same marked location on the map forever and ever until I decide it's safe to engage. Too tough? Was I wrong to try to fight it? No problem! Just sprint in a straight line and he won't catch you. (i.e. you're not actually in danger.)

And if you're terrible enough at video games to actually die? No problem. You literally press a button and your character is completely fine. No consequences whatsover, other than a 128 gold repair bill, which will REALLY stretch your bank account of 2,880,483 gold.

Dahveed

I just want to also point out how stale the design has become for me.

Not just ESO but this type of game in general, MMO, MMORPG, online action game, online role-playing, I don't care how you classify it.

Like... does every single dungeon/delve, quest, etc have to have the exact same formula?

2-4 archetypal eNeMiEs (an archer maybe, a tanker, a ranged mage) confront you around the first corner and you crush them without a second though.

Exactly 6 seconds later, 2-4 "different' (lol) archetypal EnEmIeS confront you again, this time a healer (ON NOES THEY HAVE A HEALER THIS TIME HE MIGHT HEAL THEM LOL) who you instantaneously crush in 2 seconds.

Then you walk around a different corner and... guess what? 2-4 eNeMiEs confront you, exact same scaling, exact same bland archetypes, no surprises, no spontaneity, no fun whatsoever just casually murdering another handful of useless NPCs for what is supposed to pass as "gameplay".

I would much rather have literally nothing. And I mean that sincerely... If I have to explore a spooky crypt for storytelling purposes, having to cleave through 28 bandits like warm butter, by myself, as an invincible one man army, absolutely destroys the atmosphere for me.

I mean obviously it's too late to rip this game apart from the roots up, but hopefully *something* can at least *kind of* change in the design going forward. I'm up to High Isle now and my first "crypt" quest against these evil knights is just such... such a damned boring *sigh*. Oh no, evil bad guy knights who want to do evil bad guy stuff. They are such a huge threat, right? Nope, they are just as laughable and pathetic as any other quest enemy in the game, I end them in 2 buttons and my magicka, stamina and health bars don't budge.

I'd rather travel through an abandoned crypt with NO enemies at all, rather than have to cleave through 22 incompetent useless fools who just make everything look like a huge joke.

colossalvoids

GloatingSwine wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

Questing is the hardest bit to meaningfully change the difficulty of though.

The problem, and this is why they never did another Craglorn, is that most people just don't want to spend extra time fighting mobs. But without that there isn't any curve to the difficulty, you have to have a curve from mobs to story bosses not have one be irrelevant and the other actually tough.

So the first question to ask when you say "questing made relevant" is "What should the minimum TTK of a common enemy be?". How long is every single mob guaranteed to be able to live against the strongest build a player can bring?

Because everything else about difficulty has to proceed from that.

That I would agree with, instanced content is way easier endeavour as we already have standards for veteran solo/group instances to just copy and paste over. Overland requires more gradual and probably nuanced system rather than updating to some already existing standards due to it's nature.

Ttk wise it could be a relevant metrics in content where the playing field is more or less even - score pushing basically, at the very least trifectas groups but even those can vary heavily in skill and execution. In any other scenario overall player skill can't be determined as easily as it's the content all the player base going through from the skyrim enjoyers to the sweatiest of sweats. Hence the content is currently scaled to the new player level, who's not familiar with any mechanics whatsoever yet.

GloatingSwine

Dahveed wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every time people do mention how it's good to make delves/pd's more relevant challenge wise I want to mention thousand and first time that personally, it's about questing and stories made relevant instead. Surely it was beaten up a ton already, but if it's not the first aim and focus I can see how the feature can fall flat because wrong initial focus. Questing is still the most played part of the game and always will be, if the focus would go into instances again it would be still a change for less than a percent of playerbase and might not even make it past the PTS halting other progress the game can make.

Questing is the hardest bit to meaningfully change the difficulty of though.

The problem, and this is why they never did another Craglorn, is that most people just don't want to spend extra time fighting mobs. But without that there isn't any curve to the difficulty, you have to have a curve from mobs to story bosses not have one be irrelevant and the other actually tough.

So the first question to ask when you say "questing made relevant" is "What should the minimum TTK of a common enemy be?". How long is every single mob guaranteed to be able to live against the strongest build a player can bring?

Because everything else about difficulty has to proceed from that.

I don't care about length so much as I care about impact.

I don't want a slider that's just going to make it take longer with the same guaranteed success. I want the world to feel dangerous and not boring as hell.

The game can only "feel dangerous" if the enemies can live long enough to hit back, but there's going to be an upper limit on how long people will tolerate fighting mobs. If the most basic mob in the game took 10 seconds for the sweatiest DPS to kill, nobody would want to play the game.

So you have to figure out the TTK issue before you can try and balance difficulty in because everything else depends on it. Once you know how long enemies are allowed to live you can use that to decide how hard they're allowed to hit and how often, how fast they should aggro and move, etc.

If I am by myself and on foot, and there is a literal fricken giant 9 feet away from me, my life should feel like it's in danger.

And not just him turning around and giving me that little "warning" animation. It should be spontaneous, like holy crap, it turns out that a 14 foot tall humanoid with legs twice the length of mine can cover ground very fast!

And not just "oh I might have to drink a potion" danger. Like... If that thing hits me, I'm paste. There is literally no spontaneous danger ANYWHERE in the ENTIRE GAME.

I'm going to tell you a secret, keep it to yourself: The only spontaneous thing in any videogame ever is another player. ESO does have the thing you want, it's in Imperial City where your life is in danger because enemy players can come and gank you. (It just turns out that not many people do want that)

PvE MMOs are not designed to be that. They're designed to be a menu of challenges which, ideally, players will organise among themselves to take on on their own terms (because the planning and organisation of the team necessitates the players setting the timetable).

Overland can't be "spontaneously dangerous", it can present defined challenges you can choose to accept, this is the role of world bosses and group events, and would also be the role of "veteran delves".

(And yes, quite a lot of the time games with large quantities of content do have to have the same formula because that's what the development tools are designed to build.)

twisttop138

Dahveed wrote: »

I just want to also point out how stale the design has become for me.

Not just ESO but this type of game in general, MMO, MMORPG, online action game, online role-playing, I don't care how you classify it.

Like... does every single dungeon/delve, quest, etc have to have the exact same formula?

2-4 archetypal eNeMiEs (an archer maybe, a tanker, a ranged mage) confront you around the first corner and you crush them without a second though.

Exactly 6 seconds later, 2-4 "different' (lol) archetypal EnEmIeS confront you again, this time a healer (ON NOES THEY HAVE A HEALER THIS TIME HE MIGHT HEAL THEM LOL) who you instantaneously crush in 2 seconds.

Then you walk around a different corner and... guess what? 2-4 eNeMiEs confront you, exact same scaling, exact same bland archetypes, no surprises, no spontaneity, no fun whatsoever just casually murdering another handful of useless NPCs for what is supposed to pass as "gameplay".

I would much rather have literally nothing. And I mean that sincerely... If I have to explore a spooky crypt for storytelling purposes, having to cleave through 28 bandits like warm butter, by myself, as an invincible one man army, absolutely destroys the atmosphere for me.

I mean obviously it's too late to rip this game apart from the roots up, but hopefully *something* can at least *kind of* change in the design going forward. I'm up to High Isle now and my first "crypt" quest against these evil knights is just such... such a damned boring *sigh*. Oh no, evil bad guy knights who want to do evil bad guy stuff. They are such a huge threat, right? Nope, they are just as laughable and pathetic as any other quest enemy in the game, I end them in 2 buttons and my magicka, stamina and health bars don't budge.

I'd rather travel through an abandoned crypt with NO enemies at all, rather than have to cleave through 22 incompetent useless fools who just make everything look like a huge joke.

That sounds super cool. What game are you basing that off of cause I'd love to give it a try. (I'm not being sarcastic, it genuinely sounds cool) Unfortunately though I don't think that's what they have in mind. It sounds like a different game tbh. Another poster said it best though, in a response to you. You'll find danger in pvp. That's how star wars galaxies was. It was dangerous man. You could lose it all. Try imperial City.

Dahveed

twisttop138 wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

I just want to also point out how stale the design has become for me.

Not just ESO but this type of game in general, MMO, MMORPG, online action game, online role-playing, I don't care how you classify it.

Like... does every single dungeon/delve, quest, etc have to have the exact same formula?

2-4 archetypal eNeMiEs (an archer maybe, a tanker, a ranged mage) confront you around the first corner and you crush them without a second though.

Exactly 6 seconds later, 2-4 "different' (lol) archetypal EnEmIeS confront you again, this time a healer (ON NOES THEY HAVE A HEALER THIS TIME HE MIGHT HEAL THEM LOL) who you instantaneously crush in 2 seconds.

Then you walk around a different corner and... guess what? 2-4 eNeMiEs confront you, exact same scaling, exact same bland archetypes, no surprises, no spontaneity, no fun whatsoever just casually murdering another handful of useless NPCs for what is supposed to pass as "gameplay".

I would much rather have literally nothing. And I mean that sincerely... If I have to explore a spooky crypt for storytelling purposes, having to cleave through 28 bandits like warm butter, by myself, as an invincible one man army, absolutely destroys the atmosphere for me.

I mean obviously it's too late to rip this game apart from the roots up, but hopefully *something* can at least *kind of* change in the design going forward. I'm up to High Isle now and my first "crypt" quest against these evil knights is just such... such a damned boring *sigh*. Oh no, evil bad guy knights who want to do evil bad guy stuff. They are such a huge threat, right? Nope, they are just as laughable and pathetic as any other quest enemy in the game, I end them in 2 buttons and my magicka, stamina and health bars don't budge.

I'd rather travel through an abandoned crypt with NO enemies at all, rather than have to cleave through 22 incompetent useless fools who just make everything look like a huge joke.

That sounds super cool. What game are you basing that off of cause I'd love to give it a try. (I'm not being sarcastic, it genuinely sounds cool) Unfortunately though I don't think that's what they have in mind. It sounds like a different game tbh. Another poster said it best though, in a response to you. You'll find danger in pvp. That's how star wars galaxies was. It was dangerous man. You could lose it all. Try imperial City.

I'm playing AC Valhalla right now, and it has very much the same overarching "template" as ESO, with many obvious differences of course. You run around in an open world and do quests, progress through a story, find gear, level up etc.

Sometimes when I'm out in the world some bandits/soldiers will just appear out of nowhere from behind a tree and scream that they want vengeance because you killed their friends/family or something.

It is absolutely spontaneous, and depending on your character's level, gear etc., and obviously your skill, it is absolutely dangerous and life-threatenting, about as close as you can get to the "pvp ganking" you can get from NPCs. It's really well done and I'm astounded that more games don't do this very basic thing to add spontaneity to their world.

I mean... in Elder Scrolls we literally have MULTIPLE canonical groups of assassins whose entire purpose for existing is to gank high-profile targets with reputation and power (sounds kind of like the player, no?), and not one ESO developer in its entire 10+ year history has thought, even for a second, to try to assassinate the player with an NPC?

THAT's what I mean when I complain that the devs formula is stale as hell and needs shaking up. They don't ask the question: "What will we put in this delve?" Instead the ask the question: What will be the flavour of the copy/pasted archetypal leveled NPCs which we will clump together in small, digestible groups that the player can kill 7 to 10 times before getting to the named mini-boss?"


How about this: Don't actually put a boss? Don't put regular trash NPCs for once? Instead have 2 or 3 encounters of assassins appearing from the shadows who surprise me. Have NO npcs in the entire dungeon, but instead have just one powerful, ruthless assassin trying to kill me before I reach my objective. Have ONE npc, or a group of NPCs, who I have to chase down, but who keep foiling me putting dangerous traps and pitfalls.

I mean these thoughts literally spilled out of my brain in 3 seconds of spitballing. ESO devs can't come up with anything like this over a decade? Or are they too afraid to try anything different? They certainly have the resources to experiment even just a little.

Hell even in Skyrim we had at least that one derpy DB assassin who would bum rush you incompetently, then you kill him and you get the assassin's note. (Thank god for mods, people really transformed that encounter into something fun and dangerous.)

I could go on and on. Give me a week and I could come up with 100 different scenarios of something DIFFERENT than "small clumps of generic template NPCs which the player swats down after 3 seconds." Over and over again. Forever. (Do we really imagine that 5-10 years from now we'll STILL be getting these copy/pasted delves in this exact same formula???)

GloatingSwine

Dahveed wrote: »

I mean... in Elder Scrolls we literally have MULTIPLE canonical groups of assassins whose entire purpose for existing is to gank high-profile targets with reputation and power (sounds kind of like the player, no?), and not one ESO developer in its entire 10+ year history has thought, even for a second, to try to assassinate the player with an NPC?

Yes? There's a few times where NPCs appear out of nowhere. There's one everyone runs past as part of the Daggerfall zone story (he'll respawn every time you go between the castle and wayshrine until you clear that quest stage). Nobody cares, it's just an NPC with standard NPC combat balance, does about 800 damage a hit to players with 20k+ health.

So we're back on combat balance in a wildly divergent gamespace, spec out an NPC assassin encounter that can reasonably threaten a 100k dps full-sweaty endgame player character which is also accessible content for a level 5 player just out of the tutorial. Those characters are playing together in a group.

ESO_player123

I generally avoid the whole conversation about overland difficulty and prefer to wait and see what ZoS will come up with. I'm fine with what we have now but I'm also open to trying the optional difficulty increase. However, I would not do it if they introduce consequences for death such as gear loss.

One on the reasons that I stayed with ESO is that I do not have to beat a timer to reach my grave or, alternatively, pay a hefty fine to get my items back (like in Runescape) or have to haul a bunch of expensive trash death items because by design you drop the most expensive items on death (like in now dead Asheron's Call).

Dahveed

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

I mean... in Elder Scrolls we literally have MULTIPLE canonical groups of assassins whose entire purpose for existing is to gank high-profile targets with reputation and power (sounds kind of like the player, no?), and not one ESO developer in its entire 10+ year history has thought, even for a second, to try to assassinate the player with an NPC?

Yes? There's a few times where NPCs appear out of nowhere. There's one everyone runs past as part of the Daggerfall zone story (he'll respawn every time you go between the castle and wayshrine until you clear that quest stage). Nobody cares, it's just an NPC with standard NPC combat balance, does about 800 damage a hit to players with 20k+ health.

So we're back on combat balance in a wildly divergent gamespace, spec out an NPC assassin encounter that can reasonably threaten a 100k dps full-sweaty endgame player character which is also accessible content for a level 5 player just out of the tutorial. Those characters are playing together in a group.

Yes they have "mechanics" in game, hell even the random group of Molag Bal from Vanilla would be "spontaneous" if they weren't such a complete laughing stock.

The problem is damage multipliers, yes, I wholeheartedly agree. But the implementation is also underwhelming. I mean they literally just appear 10 feet away from you and stand there. Forever. Doing literally nothing. Forever. You don't even have to engage with them if you don't want to.

I still remember the first time I ever came across one of these "mini-anchors" in vanilla, and I thought my game bugged. I legit thought it was a bugged encounter which was supposed to do something cool and fun, so I just left it and thought, "well that spoiled the surprise, I hope it works properly next time."

But no...I asked in chat when it happened again, and 3 derpy pushover NPCs standing there literally forever, not moving, no animations, no patrol, no nothing, literally just STANDING THERE FOREVER, was a feature, not a bug.

THIS is what I mean by "stale" game design. This is something that needs shaking up. In a "hard mode" for ESO it would be great if those NPCs appeared more quickly, attacked immediately with greater urgency and range, and packed a whallop. Then it would actually feel like Molag Bal (you know, the big bad meanie who wants to destroy the entire world or something) is actually more threatening than a newborn kitten.

twisttop138

Dahveed wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

I just want to also point out how stale the design has become for me.

Not just ESO but this type of game in general, MMO, MMORPG, online action game, online role-playing, I don't care how you classify it.

Like... does every single dungeon/delve, quest, etc have to have the exact same formula?

2-4 archetypal eNeMiEs (an archer maybe, a tanker, a ranged mage) confront you around the first corner and you crush them without a second though.

Exactly 6 seconds later, 2-4 "different' (lol) archetypal EnEmIeS confront you again, this time a healer (ON NOES THEY HAVE A HEALER THIS TIME HE MIGHT HEAL THEM LOL) who you instantaneously crush in 2 seconds.

Then you walk around a different corner and... guess what? 2-4 eNeMiEs confront you, exact same scaling, exact same bland archetypes, no surprises, no spontaneity, no fun whatsoever just casually murdering another handful of useless NPCs for what is supposed to pass as "gameplay".

I would much rather have literally nothing. And I mean that sincerely... If I have to explore a spooky crypt for storytelling purposes, having to cleave through 28 bandits like warm butter, by myself, as an invincible one man army, absolutely destroys the atmosphere for me.

I mean obviously it's too late to rip this game apart from the roots up, but hopefully *something* can at least *kind of* change in the design going forward. I'm up to High Isle now and my first "crypt" quest against these evil knights is just such... such a damned boring *sigh*. Oh no, evil bad guy knights who want to do evil bad guy stuff. They are such a huge threat, right? Nope, they are just as laughable and pathetic as any other quest enemy in the game, I end them in 2 buttons and my magicka, stamina and health bars don't budge.

I'd rather travel through an abandoned crypt with NO enemies at all, rather than have to cleave through 22 incompetent useless fools who just make everything look like a huge joke.

That sounds super cool. What game are you basing that off of cause I'd love to give it a try. (I'm not being sarcastic, it genuinely sounds cool) Unfortunately though I don't think that's what they have in mind. It sounds like a different game tbh. Another poster said it best though, in a response to you. You'll find danger in pvp. That's how star wars galaxies was. It was dangerous man. You could lose it all. Try imperial City.

I'm playing AC Valhalla right now, and it has very much the same overarching "template" as ESO, with many obvious differences of course. You run around in an open world and do quests, progress through a story, find gear, level up etc.

Sometimes when I'm out in the world some bandits/soldiers will just appear out of nowhere from behind a tree and scream that they want vengeance because you killed their friends/family or something.

It is absolutely spontaneous, and depending on your character's level, gear etc., and obviously your skill, it is absolutely dangerous and life-threatenting, about as close as you can get to the "pvp ganking" you can get from NPCs. It's really well done and I'm astounded that more games don't do this very basic thing to add spontaneity to their world.

I mean... in Elder Scrolls we literally have MULTIPLE canonical groups of assassins whose entire purpose for existing is to gank high-profile targets with reputation and power (sounds kind of like the player, no?), and not one ESO developer in its entire 10+ year history has thought, even for a second, to try to assassinate the player with an NPC?

THAT's what I mean when I complain that the devs formula is stale as hell and needs shaking up. They don't ask the question: "What will we put in this delve?" Instead the ask the question: What will be the flavour of the copy/pasted archetypal leveled NPCs which we will clump together in small, digestible groups that the player can kill 7 to 10 times before getting to the named mini-boss?"


How about this: Don't actually put a boss? Don't put regular trash NPCs for once? Instead have 2 or 3 encounters of assassins appearing from the shadows who surprise me. Have NO npcs in the entire dungeon, but instead have just one powerful, ruthless assassin trying to kill me before I reach my objective. Have ONE npc, or a group of NPCs, who I have to chase down, but who keep foiling me putting dangerous traps and pitfalls.

I mean these thoughts literally spilled out of my brain in 3 seconds of spitballing. ESO devs can't come up with anything like this over a decade? Or are they too afraid to try anything different? They certainly have the resources to experiment even just a little.

Hell even in Skyrim we had at least that one derpy DB assassin who would bum rush you incompetently, then you kill him and you get the assassin's note. (Thank god for mods, people really transformed that encounter into something fun and dangerous.)

I could go on and on. Give me a week and I could come up with 100 different scenarios of something DIFFERENT than "small clumps of generic template NPCs which the player swats down after 3 seconds." Over and over again. Forever. (Do we really imagine that 5-10 years from now we'll STILL be getting these copy/pasted delves in this exact same formula???)

In Fallout 76 they have random encounter spots that trigger, well, random encounters. They can trigger anything from a secret vendor to a mysterious pipe sticking up from the ground to super mutants. I won't get into scaling or if those encounters are difficult when they're combat related but I think if we could have some more of something like this that's more difficult, maybe have them be elites with mechanics, that'd be cool.

Lirkin

The zones are fine the way they are.

The solo dungeons are ok but are only worth doing for the skyshards once you have done them once.

Rewards in this game suck!

I don't do anything group related because I prefer to play my own way and do my own thing. The times i did group stuff the players zoomed through the dungeon like they had a timer one them. That sucks.

GloatingSwine

Dahveed wrote: »

Yes they have "mechanics" in game, hell even the random group of Molag Bal from Vanilla would be "spontaneous" if they weren't such a complete laughing stock.

The problem is damage multipliers, yes, I wholeheartedly agree. But the implementation is also underwhelming. I mean they literally just appear 10 feet away from you and stand there. Forever. Doing literally nothing. Forever. You don't even have to engage with them if you don't want to.

Right, they follow the aggro rules of an MMO, because this is an MMO, the content isn't happening to any one particular player.

Which is the nub of the rest of it, attacked who more quickly, packed a wallop to who? Because what packs a wallop to one player might be trivial to another and the game doesn't know which is which, and if you make content that is a challenge for the sweatiest possible build then the players will gang up on it because this is an MMO and that's what they're supposed to do, but that also fundamentally implies players setting the timetable for the encounter (which makes it not "spontaneous" again).

Like your idea of a delve being Scourge Harvester, if there's 7 players in there who is it "hunting"? Does it just get instantly minced as soon as it spawns because everyone quickly realises that the fastest way to do the delve is for everyone to stack until it decloaks then they all attack. (which usually happens to actual Scourge Harvester even with only 4).

You have to plan around the game the way it actually works, your frames of reference were all singleplayer games. This is an MMO, unless something is spawning for a quest step it's spawning agnostic of any particular player and even if it does spawn for a quest step it's still spawning for everyone in that zone.

Which is why overland is pretty much always going to be a flat playing field. It's also just a volume game, a lot of people already run past content when it only takes 2-3 seconds to kill because there's such a lot of it, (and 2-3 seconds generally means a non-boss enemy averages 1.5 attacks because they seem to act every 2 seconds or so, and remember those actions are server mediated and might have to update to hundreds of clients depending on the zone population so they can't necessarily just turn that rate up and maintain stable performance) so if you make enemies much tougher people will just avoid the content even harder. They literally learned this with Craglorn, they made a zone where all the mobs were tougher and people didn't like it (albeit it's powercrept now and you can solo the "group" instances).

So there's just a limited amount of space to make the enemies tougher before players don't want to engage with them., there's a technical limitation on making them faster due to server tick rate (that's also one of the reasons they put things like your resource recoveries and sticky dots on a 2 second tick from 1 second IIRC so that Cyrodiil doesn't explode when hundreds of players are all ticking on each other), and so the only thing they could maybe do is jack up damage by about 500% and include resistances in the declining buff new characters get.

But that doesn't really make "tough" solo content, it just means you have to maybe slot a self heal. Maybe, because the enemy density and toughness in overland content has a very limited range to increase.

Once again, the answer to "harder content tuned for solo" is punching up instanced content to at least the level of Shada's Tear. (Denser packs that hit harder then bosses with more health and at least one mechanic you have to pay attention to or die.)

Dahveed

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Yes they have "mechanics" in game, hell even the random group of Molag Bal from Vanilla would be "spontaneous" if they weren't such a complete laughing stock.

The problem is damage multipliers, yes, I wholeheartedly agree. But the implementation is also underwhelming. I mean they literally just appear 10 feet away from you and stand there. Forever. Doing literally nothing. Forever. You don't even have to engage with them if you don't want to.

Right, they follow the aggro rules of an MMO, because this is an MMO, the content isn't happening to any one particular player.

Which is the nub of the rest of it, attacked who more quickly, packed a wallop to who? Because what packs a wallop to one player might be trivial to another and the game doesn't know which is which, and if you make content that is a challenge for the sweatiest possible build then the players will gang up on it because this is an MMO and that's what they're supposed to do, but that also fundamentally implies players setting the timetable for the encounter (which makes it not "spontaneous" again).

Like your idea of a delve being Scourge Harvester, if there's 7 players in there who is it "hunting"? Does it just get instantly minced as soon as it spawns because everyone quickly realises that the fastest way to do the delve is for everyone to stack until it decloaks then they all attack. (which usually happens to actual Scourge Harvester even with only 4).

You have to plan around the game the way it actually works, your frames of reference were all singleplayer games. This is an MMO, unless something is spawning for a quest step it's spawning agnostic of any particular player and even if it does spawn for a quest step it's still spawning for everyone in that zone.

Which is why overland is pretty much always going to be a flat playing field. It's also just a volume game, a lot of people already run past content when it only takes 2-3 seconds to kill because there's such a lot of it, (and 2-3 seconds generally means a non-boss enemy averages 1.5 attacks because they seem to act every 2 seconds or so, and remember those actions are server mediated and might have to update to hundreds of clients depending on the zone population so they can't necessarily just turn that rate up and maintain stable performance) so if you make enemies much tougher people will just avoid the content even harder. They literally learned this with Craglorn, they made a zone where all the mobs were tougher and people didn't like it (albeit it's powercrept now and you can solo the "group" instances).

So there's just a limited amount of space to make the enemies tougher before players don't want to engage with them., there's a technical limitation on making them faster due to server tick rate (that's also one of the reasons they put things like your resource recoveries and sticky dots on a 2 second tick from 1 second IIRC so that Cyrodiil doesn't explode when hundreds of players are all ticking on each other), and so the only thing they could maybe do is jack up damage by about 500% and include resistances in the declining buff new characters get.

But that doesn't really make "tough" solo content, it just means you have to maybe slot a self heal. Maybe, because the enemy density and toughness in overland content has a very limited range to increase.

Once again, the answer to "harder content tuned for solo" is punching up instanced content to at least the level of Shada's Tear. (Denser packs that hit harder then bosses with more health and at least one mechanic you have to pay attention to or die.)

You're stuck in the same mentality they are.

"You can't do that, it's an MMO, it's not allowed!"

Says who? Who wrote the laws that you're not allowed to do anything? You can come up with clever ways of implementing different ideas... as ESO themselves have done.

If Infinite Archives didn't exist yet, and I pitched the idea: "Hey guys we could create an Infinite Archive, it would be cool! What do you think?", then people like you would come along and tell me "no dummy, we can't do that, this is an MMO."

Of course we can try new things. It doesn't always have to be perfectly balanced and doable by everyone all the time.

This is why we get the repetitive, soulless slop we do now for most of the game. No imagination.