Hey gang, back again with another video essay. This week we're talking about ESO's difficulty curve and how detrimental it can be to the growth of the game.
Arttea's video:
• Zeal Of Zenithar Gold ...
Nefas's video:
• ESO's Easy Overland Co...
Josh Strife Hayes's video:
• It Gets Better After 1...
Worst MMO Ever playlist:
• Worst MMO's Ever
ESO Dungeon Banter:
• ESO Dungeon Banter - E...
#ESO #ESOfam #ElderScrollsOnline
Hey gang, I got content stricken again by WWE for including another wrestling scene, so if you're confused about the random static that's why. As much as I would love to keep including wrestling jokes because it's such a big part of my life it seems I won't be able to. Sorry but just felt the need to include a comment now that I've had to trim that bit from the video.
THERES NO WAY THAT if your a werewolf in town should your identity be known throughout the city, you dont even look like your base character. The invincibility of the guards and bounties incurred for doing basic vampire and werewoolf things really kill the game for me. AND YES, Every qust given to u feels brainded not challenging, and suddenly engame ramps all the way up makes no sense!!!!
Yep, its a huge shame. There are so many good quests and they are all fully voice acted and the quest dialogue hypes up what is essentially a face roll every single fight.
i got 5 minutes into the game and decided it was too easy and i was already bored and quit
Judging by the other comments that's pretty standard experience lol
Same here, I tried for 2 hours though
Long time ESO (and generally MMORPG) veteran here. Had this pop up in my recommended and was really curious about the take. I am coming from a background where my days of scheduled progress raiding or competitive DPS meters are in the past, when I was in school and later university. Now, I am just your average, casual ES lore enjoyer who likes to make thematical builds with no concern for what is meta or not. I still occasionally run DLC Vets or rarely DLC Vet HMs but only when there is good reason to. Even coming from that background, I find myself agreeing with the sentiment that we need a "middle ground". Well put together argument.
Thank you! And thanks for watching! My oldest school days were of grinding ICC weekly with my guild in Wrath on WoW so I remember what that was like, the MMO meta has definitely changed.
I agree was almost everything you said. I gifted my friend ESO in december, so he had no choice but to try it. I helped him A LOT with gear, food, pots and xp, so he could get to 300cp as quick as possible. But sadly he quit short after that for Lost Ark... I do remember how awkward it was to explain that its gonna be very easy and boring after you get used to simple combat. And I agree that the entry difficulty is crucial to the future of eso. Dont know if its gonna be changed :/ ESO has this identity crisis where its trying to be an mmo based on single player games while pleasing very different generations of players.
Yeah I had to physically keep showing my friends what was waiting at the end to keep them interested.
Thats the problem with "rush" type of player, usually those type of people quit as soon as they got everything, you gave your friend the gear and setup he needed so he had nothing else to do, nowhere to progress but CP and felt a void in the game, of course you want to do the veteran dungeons in HM and all, but thats some of us, for them there is no point in doing that, they already have the meta gear they needed
Sorry dude, that's not the problem. TL;DR - ESO probably has the most casual gamer player base I have ever seen in my 20 years of gaming. The game has been designed around them. Seriously what games did you ESO players grow up playing? You have to ACTIVELY TRY to die in ESO to actually die. Even in VETERAN dlc dungeons, tanks and healers are just a waste of time...... I have no idea how it happened, but SOME HOW, ESO has been out for YEARS and the player base STILL LMFAO STILL HASN"T REALIZED THIS. The open world you don't even need armor, abilities, or dodging...... just LA spam everything to death. I was fake tanking as soon as dungeons became available.... as I played more I learned debuffs help, a lot.... and I also realized for whatever reason, everyone expects the tank to go full tank, taunt, and have all the debuffs... Why? Have you ESO players EVER heard of a meta? The typical meta for MMO dungeons is tank, healer, and 2-3 dps... but believe it or not, not all MMOs are copy pastas. You don't need a tank or a healer. Someone with taunt (which isn't actually needed either), at least 2 sanguine altars, the "tank" can run all the debuffs. As I was farming my way to level 300 for vet DLC dungeons, I was constantly teaching level 2000+ players how to do dungeons.... You fucking people will literally sit in que for over 30 minutes because you're all still too scared to tank dungeons, even as a "real" tank. Meanwhile I'm over here getting insta ques, doing probably 2 or 3 dungeons for every one the level 2000+ players are doing The amount of reaching people do, due to bias. NO man, no lol... ESO open world isn't brain dead easy to put more focus on story, it's because they had no idea how to balance their game. The stories can be played in any order, but they're best played IN order.... why in the fuck would you destroy the entire open worlds gameplay, just so players can do the story out of order? Plus it adds the problem of making the story harder to get immersed in.... Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to find any villains intimidating when I can just walk up to him and 1 shot him.. Me: "watch out you 20 foot arch demon! I'm level 1 and I know how to use this wooden sword!" smacks demon on the thigh Arch Demon: "how? HOW HAVE YOU DEFEATED ME AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" Some old man: "I knew there was great potential in you, my friend. You've done a fantastic job. Though my ancestors often struggled against the Three Evils and their minions, I've always lived a shut-in, scholarly life. I'm glad that my wisdom aided you. Now, I wish to leave this place. Though Heaven's Gates are a marvel to behold, I hope I won't have to see them again for many, many years. Please talk to Tyrael about leaving this place now!"
@@whatNtarnation90It's very obvious that Zenimax made level scaling so people had more reason to buy the Chapters and Plus. New players will feel more tempted to buy the newest expansion when they can just drop in there from level 1. I mean, there's still people who would buy it anyway (I did a mistake like that on another MMO), but it's definitely less than with level scaling.
Man I remember back in 2015 overland was more challenging. Then One Tamriel happened.
That was before my time, but I'm seeing that's a common consensus so I'm curious what that was like
@@OldSaltySean1 I played beta in 2014 and the reason overland was difficult was the fact that the game was leveld old school style. So higher level mobs where more difficult to beat. They changed that so that all levels can play equal and the leveling system is more a progression counter towards full skill sets etc. Btw do not dislike this change, it gives newbies a fast way to get into the game. And yes content is realy way more difficult below 50 (actually 20).
@@wasilinovratidis1960 also agree, I love the go anywhere do anything playstyle, just wish they had tuned the enemies a little higher than they did
Agreed. Also, questing should have difficulty levels, and players should be able to quest together at all times. If I got to play ESO questing like I get to play Halo or Destiny questing (synchronized story dialogue for all grouped players, selectable level of difficulty, & constant togetherness-not separation in special quest instances), it would mean the world to me and my friends. I’m sure of it! When it comes to quest dialogue options, the group leader could be in charge while other group members would simply be observers.
That would be so sick!
I think one of the biggest sins is for dps roles. The game doesn't even attempt to explain how your dps rotation is nearly 100% reliant on light attack weaving and animation cancelling. Zenimax doesn't even try to tweak this either so that there's options for dps where your actual abilities are more important and there's zero build diversity for dps. Every single dps build no matter what is just light attacking and animation cancelling with a few nearly meaningless stamina or magicka abilities weaved in there.
Also a great point, weaving is an essential skill and it's never explained.
Weaving is idiotic.
Spot on when you talked about the 2 level caps. It was so hard to get my friends to 50, dragging them into daily dungeons over and over just for them to get off after. And then when they do hit 50, they have to get to CP 160 just to get max gear. Now that they are CP 160, they realize just how fun the content is when it is challenging and they can make their builds. Now they are the ones telling me to get on
100%, it's so fun when you get there but getting there can be a total slog
I’d suggest 2 things. The first is don’t rush to level 50 without doing some PvP in Cyrodiil. There is such a big difference between the under 50 campaigns and the post 50 ones and you can never go back. Even if PvP isn’t your thing, it’s super fun to ride about capturing keeps and using seige with your friends. Personally I wouldn’t try to power level, I’ll just play the game, but I can see how players coming from other games might perceive the endgame as the only thing worth doing and want to level up fast. The only time it is genuinely necessary is the moment from CP 10 to CP 160, where your actualy relative power is weakest, but you haven’t yet reached the gear cap. That’s when I would guzzle XP scrolls and do whatever gave me max XP. Thankfully as CP is shared, you’ll only ever have to do it once.
@@PalaceofVision Its definitely a struggle when getting other friends up. On one hand I always tell people to not rush to 50 and just play the game like you want but also wanting my friends to get to the point where we can do the veteran content together.
dude, you said exactly what i been sayin for so long. norm is super easy and vet is super hard with no middle ground. we need some form of progression with a clear path on where to go next with real increase to difficulty along the way.
Agreed, glad to hear it's as common as I thought. Thanks for watching!
Bro I’m loving this content! Watching every video man please keep them coming! Love your soft RP style you’re inspiring me to try to learn more.
Really kind words and I really appreciate them!
great video! agree with everything you said, also the editing and format was very enjoyable to watch. would love to see more stuff like this. got my sub!
So happy to have discovered this channel! Awesome 👍
Thank you and thanks for watching!
I have played since beta. I can't tell you how many people I see playing this game that do not know how to play. No blocking, dodge rolling, or interrupting. They stand in the red stuff and just expect to be healed through it. The moment they even have a skeever add on them they start backpedaling towards the dungeon entrance. They complain about the fake tanks and healers (normals need neither) but do such terrible DPS that most legit tanks and healers avoid the group finder all together to not sit in a dungeon for 30 minutes.
You've earned another sub. This was extraordinarily well done and you hit the subject perfectly. Been playing since console launch day. And I can attest that the difficulty from when the game launched was more engaging, even if it wasn't implemented well.
Thank you and thanks for watching! I've been hearing a lot of people saying launch difficulty was more difficult which has me very curious. Going to have to investigate some gameplay videos from that time.
@@OldSaltySean1 Yessir. Vet Rank days are going to be what you're looking for. The reason it failed wasnt because of the difficulty though. It failed (partially) because of how they created Craglorns open world instances requiring 4 person grouping at all times to get past simple mini dungeons rather than it just being difficult and letting players decide how to approach it. The other reason it failed was because the game was just incredibly different then and did not have many of the items, tools, sets, and gameplay elements that are in the game now. They are afraid to increase difficulty because of how badly Craglorns launch affected the casual player base. But they didnt examine why it failed
@@nelson_rebel3907 great information, thank you so much, I'll def investigate that
Your critique is on point, f'lah.
Thanks for watching as always sera
@@OldSaltySean1 a pleasure, serjo
I honestly thought I'd find myself disagreeing and to a degree I still do but you make some fair points. I don't know how I feel about changing the overland content. I think I would prefer if there was a challenge mode where you can make encounters more difficult and get better XP or drops, like a veteran instance of overland content.
This is a great take on the difficulty curve in the game. Soloing things is the only real way to experience important mechanics to learn as it is now. A big step forward would be to make that “veteran” option in the group menu make delves, public dungeons, and quest instances veteran options while outside in the overworld, the difficulty remains as it is. Id kill for some veteran public dungeons
Thanks for the response and that's actually one I'm planning to include in my follow up video in the future =)
1000% my feelings toward this game. I timed, it took 2 MINUTES for an enemy to kill me doing absolutely nothing. Fucken original Mario is more difficult. It is absurd.
Yeah that tracks lmao
Honestly, outside of Mythic+ and the extra hard challenge modes in WoW and FFXIV, ESO veteran dungeons are harder than anything those two games have to offer. I take bigger issue with the fact that those dungeons, once looted to completion, will never again offer any reason to run them outside of daily quests and/or leveling alts.
That's surprising to hear, I never played it but I always felt like FF14 players thought their content was the hardest. Also great point, I never thought of the content being irrelevant after you get all the drops, I guess that's true, never thought of it that way
@@OldSaltySean1 Oh don't get me wrong, if you consider that ESO only has a "normal" and a "hard" dungeon mode, FFXIV's hard mode is far harder than ESO's vet. I just wish ESO would do something like FFXIV or WoW, and add a 3rd difficulty, with scoring similar to ESO arenas and WoW M+. It would give people a reason to run dungeons as premade groups outside of farming events.
I agree. I remember when I started playing ESO with 2.0 Tamriel Unlimited and basically played the pre-champion leveling phase like it is some sort of Skyrim Hybrid. Once I hit 160 CP and Veteran Dungeons the game suddenly became "unplayable" for me. Imo ESO has a huge problem with explaining players which never played a MMO before in their life (like me back then) what a combat rotation is, how build crafting works, how mechanics work in Dungeons and especially how Stats are weighted in your build crafting. I had to get help from my ESO expert friend to understand the game first and he did the total build crafting for me back then. Now, today I am doing it myself. Back then, I would have quit the game if I wouldn't have gotten the help from my buddy. And that is another potential "quit moment" as our boy Josh Strife Hayes said in the very same video.
Agreed on all counts, thanks for watching!
That's a really balanced take I agree there needs to be more challenge to certain parts of the game. There are time I will run certain dungeons like volenfell naked and solo just to make it more of a challenge. Awesome vid look forward to the next one 😄
Thanks for watching as always and great idea, I'll have to try that sometime!
@@OldSaltySean1 it's so fun 😂 it was mostly born from stupid challenges people would request but it is something I now enjoy
I'm the game is great from the get go. The joy is in exploration, diverse environments, outfits, mounts, and furnishings. I still haven't even started dungeons yet. I do agree it's too easy at points, they could use a few story dungeons to teach you a role, and more mounts earnable in the game. That would be perfect.
Really glad you're enjoying it! Hope you stick with it! I def think there's enough there in the story content for people who enjoy it.
Erotic Dunmer fan fiction?!! YES!
That's what i said. New video when
👀🙏💖
I was very close to starting ESO online and getting ESO plus. I did some research, and it looked like something I could have fun sinking a lot of time into. Then I decided to look into it just a little more, and that's when I found out that the game is pretty much devoid of any real challenge, so I decided it wasn't for me. I don't need Dark Souls level of difficulty in every game, but if I'm not being challenged at all, I knew I would get bored, and not get very far. Shame, because other than this one issue it really looked good to me. I just don't understand why they can't have a higher difficulty level for those that want it. This would completely solve the issue.
Yep, pretty common issue. There is challenging content but it's locked behind an omega long grind of easy content. Here's hoping heroic mode is introduced somewhere down the line.
Good video. Exellent analysis of the game in general. If youre not familiar with pvp theres a similarity with the lack of mid tier players in the population, makes me assume its a problem with eso as a whole. Lookimg forward for a video on possible solutions for these problems
Def a good idea, better than me just complaining so maybe I'll make that in the future 😅 On the subject of PVP I just started doing that over the past couple weeks so keep an eye out for that upload too.
Really good argument. I simply wish they had areas of harder content out in the world. I don't mind easy, but ESO overland is just non revelant. Part of the fun is at least having a little challenge so when you do defeat a big bad it feels good.
Agreed on both counts
Josh S is very smart. He is a very level thinker. He looks at problems at an analytical way and not an emotional perspective.
Agreed, glad I found his channel
@@OldSaltySean1 there are too many people that act emotional and not logical. Hard not too since MMOs take a ton of time and connection to it. There is no reason why people can't try to look at all the different angles of the situation
@@zombiejesus7445 Hard agree
@@OldSaltySean1 what other MMOs have you played?
@@zombiejesus7445 WoW, Guild Wars 1 and 2, SWTOR, those were the ones I invested real time into. Then I played a bunch of junk ones when I was younger like Secret World lol. That's actually how I found his channel was I wanted to see what was going on in that game now lol.
This was a very good video, very pertinent. I love this game, I've played Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall originally came out... a long time now. Hope a dev gets this pointed out to them.
Unlikely that it will but here's hoping, I mainly just wanted to get a dialogue going and see how people felt about it since I've heard a number of other people talking about it and felt like I had a good perspective having just helped 3 players get to vet dungeon content. Thanks for watching!
I feel like a huge part of the problem is that they group just anyone together looking for group. I was level 48 with 350ish cp from my main. Qued for my daily dungeon and got a dlc instance. Healer had over 2k champ points and was geared, complained about lowbies in a dlc and bounced. Then you run a non dlc random and get a 2k cp toon that solos the instance so fast you can't even keep up with them. If they pugged people together that were approx same level / experience they would get more education but if they don't then you may as well sit at the entrance and wait
I can say honestly... wow. Great video, great points you bring up. It's such a weird grey area in the game... not just combat but everything. Sometimes eso holds your hand and baby walks you explaining the stupidest things then drops you in the middle of nowhere without a map lol, but people are just expected to know.
100% agree, like going from overland content to trying a DLC vet dungeon are such dramatically different experiences. Thanks for watching!
I can totally agree with your points here. The game feels like an Elder Scrolls game in the Story and Quest Elements. But many bosses just feel so weak. So that you never have any stakes in the game and no tension is build. And a such the end of Quests often feel impactless. Ofc I could do dungeon solo to challenge me. But than the Quests would still lack because they r too easy to feel relevant.
Totally agree
The 300cp lock on vet dlc dungeons is only for the queue. You can always go in early manually with a group.
Right, I should've mentioned that, but I was speaking more for players to queue up for it on their own
After playing this game for 2 weeks, I can say that the most "fun" way is to play without summons that serve as a tank, sword man or assassin type or something like that, only then the difficulty feels a little more
I would definitely play ESO again if they released Group version of Zones like Craglorn. Age of Conan had group instances like that, I think ESO could really benefit it. Right now GW2 is the only MMO with challenging overland content.
100% my dude.
Lord of the Rings Online allows you to alter the difficulty now for its own overland content in Legendary Servers. Teaching you how to play your class and how to play the game well.
That's awesome and something I wanted to bring up as a potential work around in a follow up video. Thanks for sharing!
Understandable on all points man. I'm playing for some years now but it gets pretty boring now while I'm an actual TES lore lover. I hope they'll implement something like this to make this game even better and more immersive. oh and praise Azura! (Vonzura is my name in ESO :p)
Praise be to Azura! And agreed, maybe some day
There are some dlc dungeons that can help with the learning curve but no guide to it That's a problem for newer players
Agreed the curve between dlc difficulty is pretty wild. Thanks for watching!
I spend lots of effort trying to pull as many enemies towards me so I can fight them all at once and have somewhat of a challenge. But my conjured daedra ends up killing half of them before I can start attacking lol. The only difficulty I'm experiencing is trying to make things more difficult. The difficulty of this game is lower than elementary. I don't love the lore enough to have to spam one ability to hear it. It's the challenging engagement that makes the lore an experience, and makes you feel one with your character. Right now I just feel like I'm moving a cursor around and clicking on tidbits of information, rather than an adventurous argonian who serves the ebonheart pact trying to save tamriel.
Soooooo well said man. Nice one
Thanks and thanks for watching!
How do you get the torch that you can walk with at the 9:10 mark?
It's the treasure hunter personality!
@@OldSaltySean1 Thank you! Your videos are fun!
@@Violins77 Thank you! That means a lot!
Thx for a good video. I hope the Eso developers sees this!
Thanks for watching! Unlikely they will but you never know 😅
Totally agree. To escalate overland dificulty to player level was a big mistake. And you also shouldnt be able to complete 4 player vet dungeons alone.
I started on PC 2015. Yeah the forced progression through specific zone order could be a drag at times, you were eagerly anticipating your first trip to Crag. Ok, fast forward to the end of 2020. I had to quit PC ESO because… life/family drama, so I picked up ESO on Xbox. Everything in the overland game and delves set to player level, (OneTamriel)? Ugh. Not gonna lie, I miss the days when I had to avoid certain area and zones because it was too hard and therefore, something to look forward to playing. A constant, steady challenge to keep me engaged. I also think it would be possible for m.kzhead.info to “unhook” part of that code in order for the leveling experience to be an experience in-and-of itself. (My two cents. AND the link provided, was supposed to be a call out to Zen if they have the ability for page reference retrieval. Maybe they … never mind. Who am I kidding? They don’t listen to their customers.). 🤷🏼🤷🏼🤷🏼 Edit: words are hard.
I generally like the player scaling in terms of letting you quest where you want but I think it's just so poorly tuned that nothing is a challenge. And yes I really dont like dungeon content being soloable, should never be okay IMO. Thanks for watching!
@@OldSaltySean1 yeah maybe if its done better. Anyway i like the feeling when you go to a zone high above your level and you feel small and squishy hehe good vid! 👍
@@nebu7612 also true!
I really enjoy soloing dungeons (albeit normal ones). They present a completely different challenge to doing it with a group. You can pace yourself, take all the time you want and you have to deal with all the mechanics, some of which I’d never seen as either the tank has to deal with it or bosses are burnt so fast they never get to do their mechanics. And as a bonus, once I’m done I can really explore the dungeons, which again is a completely different experience. I do like bosses which have been set up to require that players work together, so I’m happy if some aren’t soloable for that reason. I’d rather not have obvious roadblocks as in the pads in Direfrost.
I like you approach to it, even if I dont necessarily agree with your, or atleast not fully. On the point of builds etc and the freedome to it, you are right atleast now, ESO is awesome that way. However back in the day I think SWG(Star Wars Galaxies was overall better in total freedome for the player to put the skills pts into whatever they wanted). While I do see the point your presenting and partially agree, I think that you may be wrong in the asumption that increaseing the challenge will help. Yes it will help for the ppl who then go onto the VHM etc, but in the end just how many do that? thats a fairly niche group in most mmo's. And by makeing the other content you may end up alienatieng or make the other bulk of players just give up, "this is too hard". My point is that I'm hopeing/convinced that Zenimax who is behind ESO have run the numbers and still are doing so to make the content "as best as it can be". In the end its subjective for you and I, but for Zenimax its about the bottom line, and I'm hopeing for their sake their on the ball. I can give you an example of it in a different way. You run a chilli shop, serveing chilli. However you have the friend who comes to eat there who enjoy 150k on the scoville. And he is trying to bring his other friends into likeing 150k, but they cant stomach more than 120k So your idea is to up the regular dishes being served which atm is 80k to 110k. This will make the group who is used to 80k make it feel like their mouth is burning and wont come back. While the niche party that is prepping for takeing it to the next lvl is now getting more accustomed to getting their tastebuds challenged, so when they get the dish that is 150k they are ready.. But you the owner now have a niche group of ppl who dig the 150k, but the general mass is now not returning at all, and you go out of business.
Thanks for the well thought out response, I appreciate the honest feedback! I guess I always pictured vet hm as the goal for most players but that might just be my survey groups. I def see your points tho, thank you!
And just in general, dying in this game seems nearly impossible
Coming from a guy who was talking about fighting games and how they have gotten easier to a guy who loves ESO is something I'd never expect in my feed I also love this game and I have a long way to go
Fighting game casual-ification is a real problem imo, high skill ceilings in older games like +R, Xrd, Blazblue, etc is what got me into those games
100% behind this video!
Thank you my dude!
Well I got the game for free recently and have about 3h... I dont think I can play this for more than 1h without being bored out of my mind. The story is ok (the little that I saw of it) but the gameplay just puts me to sleep mainly because I dont have to do or learning anything because I dont think I ever saw the health bar go down. With just 3h in it just felt like I was wasting my time and gave up.
Well said... I wish there were more CC's saying what you're saying about PVE content. At least it seems the new DLC overland bosses are group required... now they just need to work on the delves not being so cookie cutter and mind numbingly boring.
Agreed and thanks for watching!
Great video
Appreciate it!
I suppose there are multiple dimensions to this issue. Your video is primarily about how the difficulty is scaled from incredibly easy to the the later vet dlc content creates 'quit moments.' I agree and I have had a similar difficulty at getting several people to play long enough to get to the parts I think they would enjoy. And those problems were exacerbated by them having no interest in the lore. Personally I love elder scrolls lore, but I would add that my own experience has been lessened by the lack of difficulty in overland questing. I've always played oblivion and skyrim on the hardest difficulty setting even without fast travel because not only was the game much more challenging it expanded my immersion in the lore and the game. Dragon priests, lichs, and early stuff like bears were things to think about. Lots of fun Anyway I also understand that is not an experience most people are looking for. And I am aware that a common argument to the difficulty status quo is to simply play more vet dungeons or trials. But this is where, I think, those people are missing the point. It's not just the harder difficulty that is fun it's how that heightens the immersion of open world questing. Unlike your friend repeating the same vet content over and over again isn't that interesting to me because I think that it is a repetitive experience. Overland quests are open world that takes countless hours doing stuff across all of tamriel. And I don't think that particular experience is fulfilled by doing the same vet dungeon 20 times :(
Perhaps something similar to the battle spirit in cyrodiil could be put in place for Overland difficulty but only applicable to people who want a higher difficulty Because self handicapping in Overland questing removes all the rpg gameplay features people enjoy. Self handicapping means no enjoyment from gear progression or even stuff like alchemy or cooking
@@Junior-zw2bm Great points! I'm actually working on a follow-up for this video in probably about a month but I've got a couple ideas on how to remedy the issues I presented as well. I think the self-restrictions are great and something I did a lot in Oblivion like limiting the fast travel because it made the journey feel so much more important, but I think that can only get you so far in an MMO where limiting yourself means you're actively falling behind other players. That said, as mentioned I do have a couple potential fixes I've thought up so keep your eyes peeled on the channel, and thanks for watching!
Completely agree. This is why I don't play it. I desperately want to play it. But it's just not worth the time investment when you only have an hour or two to play here and there.
The game definitely need to be harder.
I completely agree. if you have to play for 100 hours just to get good/interesting content... that's honestly 100 hours wasted. the combat above ground is definitely too easy, unrewarding, and does nothing to prep you for any of the delves/dungeons which are all about 10x harder than anything you face on the surface. worst thing you'll run into is a troll and it's just a hit and move simulator. Even if it hits you, it's not doing that much damage, so you can more or less just stand in front of it as long as you're wearing armor if you wanted. It's pretty bad when normal mode in Skyrim is more difficult than this. Skyrim at least scales with your level as you level up. Morrowind at least had the decency to slap you around from the very start. You had to EARN your power in that game. Legit at level 1 a grub would kill you if you weren't careful. idk, today it feels like game devs have no concept of what good level progression is anymore. Oh, and side rant: this tether distance nonsense the game does with mobs is annoying for a solo player. imagine kiting an hard to kill enemy down to almost no HP only to get slightly too far from where it spawned having it go invincible, heal back to full from like 5hp and run back to where you started fighting... and now everything between you has also respawned and you have to fight through it all again for no good reason, just to restart that fight that ended completely against your will. This is yet another "quit moment". this is the game disrespecting and wasting your(the player's) time. what's worse is it lets you just cheese caves by running past everything and not even engaging with the mobs as long as you have the heals(which you do because the daily login rewards flood you with insane amounts of healing potions). might as well just delete them, because they're doing almost nothing.
Nailed it. Way. Too. Easy.
I am lvl 20 after week or so of casual gaming, and frankly i dont know if i am going to play much longer, its so easy and i am literally just running through content.
This was exactly my fear for new players. It does get significantly harder in the end game but it takes so long to get there I can't recommend it. It's going to be that easy for a while I'm afraid.
@@OldSaltySean1 Its strange game design, if i want to i can kill all the mobs in a dungeon at the same time by just getting aggro and just spamming one key, and it seems as if all mobs in the entire game are level scaled.
@@r3fotzirx They are, basically anything not on veteran difficulty is going to be a breeze. Pretty much everything is easy until DLC dungeon hard modes
Its 2024 and this problem is still exists. Im only playing when I have nothing else to play. Bought Necrom for $13 during last years big sale so I figured id give it another shot. Created a new toon, no companion, no CP( Im 1000+) , no crafted gear( just drops w/training), and played solo. "Bosses still melt with an ult and a few button presses. Most of the best looking skins, mounts, etc are still locked behind expensive af loot crates. Its like $50 for 15 crates. Oh and Rich Lambert still here for some reason 🤷
My girlfriend sucks at games. Is stressed when she dies practically anytime in any game. Can't shoot or dodge things... And got bored and quited ESO. The difficulty problem is amazing. I stayed for half a year only because I loved TESO lore and games, but I came fast to dropping too... I'm a souls player. And the only problem is not "overland is too easy and you have dungeons later". WHO CAREs about dungeons. It's an small % and repetitive part of the game. The game OFFERS YOU HUNDREDS, THOUSAND of hours or amazing, beautiful QUESTS and WORLDs to explore. Make that challenging too! Too many people seem to say "okay, overland is easy, because challenge is in dungeons". To hell the dungeons! They why they keep throwing thousands of quests and world to explore every year, we should enjoy that too XDDDDD Specially when it's SO EASY to add difficulty levels that players could choose to quest and explore!!
the fact all of this that you mention is still very relevant today is sad i stopped playing realizing this game is a trap
They really need a way to fix this. Love playing slowly through the game for 6 years now but it honestly feels like I'm playing Pokemon. I currently only have half my skill points used and completely naked and I can still DESTROY everything.
Yeah heroic difficulty overland/quest content is still my favorite idea.
I think the easiest fix for the game would be, when you level up, it actually means something. 1 to 50 you are exactly the same because of scaling. You never have a sense of becoming powerful and that's extremely boring. Also eliminating potion buffs in pvp. I think with those two things, you could take a interesting but boring game and make it a lot more fun. Like you said 200 hrs then the fun starts, that's too long.
True and Real. I have to say 2 things: 1. Game is fucked. 99% of content is WAY too easy, there is absolutely no ADVENTURE in ESO. 2. Game can not be unfucked. There's something about ESO combat and power scaling with champion points + respawn on the spot when not fighting dungeon/raid boss... I feel like ESO can't be made hard enough to actualy become interesting for people who seek any challenge in the open world, simple quests, delves etc. I like to play ESO from time to time for map completion, so even I can find other things to keep me around, but I do miss difficulty a lot.
True, I dont play as much anymore but its a large part of why I migrated to PVP.
This is very true. My first character was a Redguard Nightblade. I didn’t understand the skill bar at all, so I was using non morphed abilities from just one category. I never put any points into any attributes because I wasn’t dying and I didn’t understand why I had so many skill points. I got to level 50 easily and I only died once - ironically, to fire because my character got stuck behind a barrel and I panicked. I mean… you have to love Elder Scrolls lore to level in this game. Otherwise it’s total shit.
Huge Elder Scrolls lore junkie here. I wanted to play ESO strictly for the story content and learning the lore. I really have little interest in playing dungeons multiple times, just enough to get the story. This game's dead easy gameplay killed it all for me. Trying to get into the story and take it seriously just to have the "threats" pose little to no real challenge was heartbreaking for me. Especially since there is so much content to experience. All these writers creating all of these wonderful stories for it all to be soooooo booooring. I quit the game. And I'm personally never coming back until they add a difficulty slider or something to actually make the overworld content challenging or difficult.
Dont blame you, it's hard to take a fight with Mehrunes Dagon seriously when your health never dips below 95%
here from lucid button masher
Praise be to the funny slayer man
It could off been the lag that's a big reason y I stop playing every now an then lol. But I do agree with all you have said aswell
I know a lot of people are complaining of lag issues lately so hopefully the team is working on fixing them. Thanks for watching!
I think it would be awesome if you could switch on why it's like veteran overland difficulty you know what I mean instead of just crazy super easy it's actually quite challenging and you have to actually try like even dolphins and stuff you know what I mean for each individual player
I agree, I've got a follow up video coming out in a few weeks and I've got a similar idea to propose
i just want an enemy that hits me and takes about 1/5th of my hp in one basic swing. AT LEAST 1/5th!
I recently started playing and it's mind numbingly easy. Combat is just super limited with only 6 skills per bar. That single fact is probably what will have me quit sooner than later. Dungeons are just zerging at this point. I don't know if it actually gets to the point where you need a plan, but I haven't played an mmo that actually requires crown control since vanilla wow. The only semblance of challenge so far has been soloing world bosses, and I'm doing that before level 50. Only times I've died was doing a world boss with adds.
I totally agree. ESO lacks middle ground. I won't even touch, or even LOOK at DLC dungeons or trials... Never stepped foot in many dungeons.
Yeah that's been a huge hurdle for a lot of people I've talked with
New (3 week player) coming from wow & ffxiv. The community seems super strict on "play meta only" and the game is dead easy starting and it's the only exciting part is theory crafting builds. The community seems like "people who play but don't truly enjoy the game themselves." Trying to see the light
For the record, I LOVE the game, thats why I made content on it for as long as I did, but I think it locking off the fun/challenging content until way, way, WAY too late in the game is detrimental to it's growth. I think most people who play it actively really enjoy it, there's just a lot of complaints about how things are implemented because a lot of us have friends we want to play with who are (understandably) not willing to put up with the braindead content it takes to get to that point. Just my two cents. I don't make opinion pieces on the game anymore for a reason.
Started playing eso today after picking it up in steam sale, I’m a novice mmo player, I think the game looks amazing and the storyline is good but none of the enemies seem to lay a glove on me, had a hairy moment when about 9 dwarven spiders came for me but I just ran away, I haven’t died yet.
Lol yeah that tracks
3 modes, Story (current overland), Training (ramping difficulty starting with base game dungeons), and veteran (current endgame content) my wife plays for story, making it require skill early would have been a quit moment. Now she's ready for vet dungeons and normal trials, soon she'll be up for some of the real endgame content. but this was a long trail for her. she'd totally take storymode until she had the game down.
Agreed, a couple people have brought that up and I think that's the ideal system.
Even when eso first came out, overland was pretty easy. The only challenge was fighting the overland bosses by yourself. I think there was a point in time when the original vet dungeons were hard but then people learned about dps rotations, synergy between sets, and power creep eventually making the original content a breeze.
Word, I wish there was a way for me to check it out besides watching old videos to see if I think it was better. Thanks for watching!
@@OldSaltySean1 well everything was new to players back then. We didnt know how to properly do damge and I guess that lack of knowledge made the game seem hard at first? Well not hard but take more time... No one knew about light attack weaving. Not even the developers lol. But when someone discovered it, it caught on and the developers were cool with it. And I think theyve been balancing the game around it ever since. Also you use to gain stamina while blocking. But that was like the first thing the developers nerfed. Tanks were pissed when that happened.
@@reffa2858 Pretty wild stuff lol, thanks for sharing!
I enjoy lower difficulty levels than some players. I'm okay with optional higher difficulty levels for those who want it, but I prefer a nice and easy casual experience while playing.
To each their own homie! I agree I'd love to see them implement a higher difficulty as an option so that everybody wins!
market, it Part of the problem with upgrading some content like delves and Public Dungeons is there are already daily quests around a lot of it, and not being able to solo those dailies is also a problem because it becomes a frustrating roadblock. I played Final Fantasy 11 as my first MMO, and while there was a lot to love, needing a group to get any little thing done in it past level 10 was really devastating for me as a player. My friends were much higher level than me meaning we couldn't team up, so I was reduced to having to find PUGs every night, and some nights it didn't happen. While ESO is massively less punishing than FFXI, not being able to get something done due to needing a group can become a sore spot. The difficulty of basic world mobs can also be a problem, having to mob grind to travel isn't fun, I would certainly not want to see those mobs be more difficult than they are now. Dungeon difficulty feel is going to change a lot based on experience as well. A friend from another MMO talked me into playing ESO with him, and I brought a friend of mine I have known since WoW launched in 2004 with me. We have a lot of WoW type experience, and several of us have done some of the hardest raid content in WoW and SWTOR, but the gameplay style of ESO is so different, and Tanking, which I do, is so different that when we started the dungeons didn't feel face roll easy, and the early vet dungeons felt like an nice step up. If everything was harder that would have been a real roadblock for my friend group coming in, though I solo and 2-man dungeons all the time now. And DLC Vets are still not a joke depending on the dungeon. So, while I get the difficulty problem, it would be really easy to swing it the other way and that would be even worse for more players, making it a dangerous thing for ZOS to mess with. They made it faster with the CP revamp to get to CP 300, so that is a bit of something.
Def see your points, and not saying it all needs to swing wildly in the other direction, but I do think it needs a step up from where it is now, content that is soloable (with the exception of veteran DLC dungeons) should still be soloable in an ideal system but something that takes at least some level of focus. Most soloable content right now you can just blindly mash through with no issues and that goes especially hard for leveling quests when you're not maxed where quest NPCs die to a stiff breeze.
By the time u unlock enough for the game to be fun, youl be so powerful you dont need it anyway. I beat fg1 on a level 5 with no armour or cp and only sugar skulls spamming brawler
That tracks lol
Yes yes yes, completely agree. Are other people in the community pushing for this? I just recently started playing the new High Isle DLC and found myself getting bored QUICKLY. I am Champion level 300 and that's only because I did a lot of solo questing (and a fair amount of dungeons but I enjoy questing more) . I have decent gear that I crafted, but I'm not the kind of guy who enjoys min maxing for damage. I want some challenge in the questing, maybe a possibility of dying a few times, along with some rewards that I can actually use. Right now, I'm basically playing for the dialogue because at CP LVL 300 there is almost zero reward for doing all these quests and zero challenge.
I haven't SEEN many people pushing for this outside of Nefas (but I'm also not super invested in the community so who knows) but I do think its an issue for growth in the game and I wanted to at least get a discussion going about it to get people's thoughts and a lot of people seem to be thinking along the same lines. I don't expect ZOS to make any changes just from a small time content producer like me but I'm hoping to at least get some people talking about it and maybe we'll see some changes some day. Thanks for watching!
About 22 hours game time is all it takes running randoms with 2 crown scrolls to get to 160 cp So fun after that lol
Agreed, end game is worth it, but I also dont like to rush people the first time they play.
Main reason I gave up game after like 20 something hours. There is zero challenge. Gaining a level isn't fun either when you just dump every point into stam or magicka. Also not a fan of the combat system but that point is more subjective
Cant blame you, as mentioned the end game is significantly more challenging, but I cant blame people for giving up before then when everything just dies to a stiff breeze along the way and it takes as long as it does to actually get to that point
I quit eso for the reason you described here. Loved the game, would like to play it again, but the braindead easy gameplay makes me unable to appreciate it.
Well bad news they're about to raise DOT and Buff uptime and making weaving do next to no damage so skill ceiling is only getting lower 😂
I love this game, and I could not agree more.
Me too, it's frustrating watching friends stop playing because they're just bored
wait what? its one of the most difficult mmos I played! I played wow, ffxiv, other stuff... eso is really difficult, try fang lair hardmode lol
I said the end game is difficult, it's just the road getting there that's the problem
I'm not playing eso because the solo gameplay is to easy. I just can't do it.
Totally understandable. I do think the end game group content is worth the time investment it takes to get to it but I completely understand not suffering through the super easy content to get to it.
I need a good challenge to enjoy a game. Would love to get into this game as I love the lore and the voice acting and world design is awesome but they need to add a world tier syster like diablo 4. Just no fun to playing overland
I've been saying the same thing for awhile and pushing ZOS to change with feedback. I love the zone stories and general overland content, but it's all just way too easy.
And unfortunately it's only getting easier with update 35
So I realized something lot people like me use random dungeon for transmute geodes cuase we hate pvp but we are also have very high damage at pve so best way stop that from happening is give more transmute geodes from vet trials
I'm always for more transmutes from every source honestly
I NEVER die in this game. Ever. Beat molag Bal and all of coldharbor with pretty minimal effort or damage taken, and I wasn’t even that high of a level. Kinda aggravating and my biggest complaint with this game
Yep, it's pretty rare outside of vet hard mode content.
I agree on you with a lot of points. ESO should definitely have a middle ground. I also believe people play MMOs for different reason. Not everyone gonna like the hardcore endgame content obviously which is why I quit ESO. ESO should also have variety of other stuff rather than only having cool pvp and hardcore dungeons in end game. A lot of casual players wouldn't wanna do that and quit. I personally like the progression, I slowly do the quests, dungeons etc while leveling and when the real grind starts I quit lol.
Totally valid and I know ESO has a very heavy casual audience for that reason. Thanks for watching!
I actually left the game because I felt everything you could do solo just died to all I dished out and it felt dull to have the story behind every quest hype me up only for me to OHKO that which we were hyped for.
Yep, until veteran dlc content it's just face rolling in PVE and I'm not surprised people bail because its boring
After finally deciding to try getting in to this game for the first time since the Warden was new, I was immediately struck by how effortless everything was. Blasting monsters with a magical staff and chucking a spear at them when they get too close is fun, but once the novelty wears off, that leaves the game in a pretty underwhelming place. Instead of feeling like I'm powerful and I'm a hero with unique talents, I feel like I'm just doing some showy roleplay.
I am a returning player to ESO (have abandoned the game 2 times already for more than a year), and my experience is: 1) Overland content is easy and boring (people will swarm latest expantion content untill the next comes up) and its boring because they dont add nothing new to it, I mean yes new questline but nothing else... Anchors (all the same), Overland Bosses (same), delves same, and so on. Imagine having an overland event where the main city gets invaded or something, I dont know. 2) Getting the gear you will use for ever is easy and doing damage is getting easier every time, I remember the times when 60k dps was top, now arround 40 to 60 is average... 3) Due to number 2) the game gets monotonous, you can skip entire mechanics because of this and do hard content in 10 minutes (not trials ofc), thats the reason why no one wants to play as a tank and sometimes as healer, because one dps can take the entire stuff by himself if hes good enough, they just need a tank standing and keeping them alive, same for healers. 4) There is no challenge for the other roles (tanks and heals), okay tanking sunspire is "hard" until you just do it so many times you learn the whole thing, now thats good because it takes practice, but pretty much everything else is boring for those roles (not much a healer player, im a main tank and I enjoy it a lot, Im talking for the other tanks out there that sometimes seems to complain and I understand them), what I really enjoy as a tank is saving wipes, soloing bosses but thats it. 5) Havent played High Isle yet (cant afford it rn) but we all know, some of the skill lines out there are really boring to level up and very tedious to do, we all know some of them are OP but come on, at least make it funny, not traveling to point A to B to get either a book or psijic... All that "effort" to just get one skill you might even end up not using in the future. + I still enjoy the game and I am in a nice social guild (not a hardcore player anymore) but there is a point where you stop having things to do in the game.
Yep, definitely needs some things to shake things up
3week ago great. I was only just speaking to a moderator about the difficulty yesterday I was like. Is it always gna stay this the easy going??. And they were like we have vet dungeons. We'll why not a overall vet difficulty????
Agreed, hoping it's something they try and implement
Actually, I came back to this video because Lord of the Rings online just released difficulty options for players. It's baffling that a game, that is older, has less players, and less funding than ESO, the game created by ZeniMax the same studio that was purchased for over 7 billion dollars by Microsoft can't seem to do the same as Lord of the Rings online. ESO needs to add difficulty options for overworld content desperately. I have never reached level 50, and I have been playing since beta. The game difficulty is so boring.
Glad to hear that for LOTRO!
@OldSaltySean1 here is hoping we get it in ESO. I won't hold my breath, though
Difficulty isn't the problem, it's the proc bu!!$#!]
Word, what's the issue with procs? First I've heard of them being a problem but I'm still learning a lot.
It’s just a story game to me at this point & I have over 2K hours into it. Everyone that I’ve asked to give it a shot have quit because the gameplay is boring so 🤷♂️
That's the way some people play it and it's fine for those who are okay with that, but I feel like most people who aren't that into Elder Scrolls tend to get bored with it quickly. Thanks for watching!
It may depend on what types of games they give time to. I'd be a fool to invite first person shooter, sports, and fighter players that don't really try anything else. Even those who love play GTA mindlessly may fall short. Everything isn't for everyone.
I played this with my cousin and younger sister. We got to like lvl 15 and that was it. We were having no fun throughout the story and quests. We never died a single time and whats worst is the quests make you quest like we were on individual quests…why if we’re teamed up questing together do things not count for one another? So was like we played a single player game…but in a group…idk man this game is a mess. It doesn’t know what it wants to be.
I am so heartbroken over this game. I was looking for a nice RPG to play with my GF, and ESO looks perfect in almost every way, but the braindead easy questing really destroys everything. I wish I had tried this game before One Tamriel. :-(
I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand I agree with you, especially about the leap between the "regular" dungeons vs. the DLC dungeons. I think the combat system, in particular the weaving, is awful as it causes me actual physical discomfort to do. I gave myself a finger injury in my right index, basically arthritis, in my 20's playing Diablo. It has stayed with me in a lesser degree since, and LA weaving can really, really aggravate it at times. I also just don't think LA weaving is hard? People get angry when I say I don't like it, as if I'm advocating making the game even easier, but I'm just not convinced that for a serious minded player LA weaving is hard. I think the combat system could use a big refresh, and there is more I could say about it. Anyways, that was kind of a tangent. More to your point about difficulty in general. Again I agree, but then I also have witnessed players in the world who seem like they are, well, struggling. Enemies seem to take a very long time for them to kill compared to me. Sometimes they will even be using the same weapon and class as me, and I am by no means a world class player. Not even close. So the disparity in skill level is there, even for "mid" players like myself, compared to much of the community. I have witnessed people light attacking, no spells to be seen, and standing in the bad more than a few times when it comes to the questing content. Not sure if you're familiar with the difficulty options that LOTRO's devs tinkered around with, but I think a system like that could work for ESO. There are a lot of factors to consider though. The game seems a nightmare to balance. The massive skill selection + morphs, the weapon lines, the passive traits, the CP system, everyone can potentially heal, but some can heal more than others. Then the variety of skill levels. It's just, I imagine, a huge headache. People rightly trace the origin point of this problem back to One Tamriel, but it has been years since, and that ship has sailed. I don't hate the ESO devs or anything, but they did help make this monster, and they often seem very tone deaf. Sorry for the thesis, but your video resonates with me, especially as someone with both a younger brother and a spouse who didn't grow up with MMO's like I did, and who both struggle to see why I enjoy them.
I hear ya, I dont play the game as much anymore so I dont have as strong of feelings as I once did. While I still feel like overland is too easy I also know the chill feelings works for some people. The difficulty slider is just so all over the place in this game. But I'm done with opinion pieces on the channel.
Thanks for saying it. I quit the game after 3 months because it provided ZERO challenge AND the NPCs talk your head off with extremely bad writing (sorry fans, the writing is mostly word vomit and generic fantasy).
I hear ya homie, hoping for improvements but woof