Apparently you have to reach Veteran rank before anything of real challenge faces you. I admit it, I only reached L15 so I am basing this off of people I have talked to in my guilds and those voicing their opinions on Youtube, but are they all lying or is the game too easy?

If it were harder people would be more inclined to group up(in so many areas in DAoC I remember you had to join up with groups) and solo'ing would be more fun as the risk of death along with its rewards would be higher. I did fight one battle which was part of the mages guild line which I had to flee against some tough Clanfear monster before killing him on my 2nd try but that is all I can recall for what would be considered 'tough' fights.

I'd be happy if they increased monster HP across the board by 25% and damage output by 10%. That might not fix the issue but it could only make things more fun.

The 4 man dungeon bosses can get quite difficult and that's way before you get to level 50.

Take your armor off, play with underpowered weapons, only use 2 skills.

There is a lot of flexibility in this game to find the level of challenge you personally enjoy most.

If an area is too tough, you can team up with a friend and if it's too easy, you don't need to remove your armor or handicap yourself, simply move on to a new area you haven't explored yet. Trust me, you will find areas that will be just perfect for the level of challenge you enjoy.

In my case, if I'm not dying frequently in any game, I get bored with combat. So I'm usually exploring places where enemies are higher than my level, particularly when I've teamed up with a friend.

The most fun evening I've had playing the game so far was when a friend and I were just randomly exploring Bal Foyen and ended up finding a passage to a higher level area. We then stumbled upon a portal to Evergloam at level 5 (Crow's Wood), and it was brutally challenging.

We died at least 30-40 times fighting a single bear, over the course of a few hours. We had to keep trying different tactics to succeed, and of course we died so many times that our armor was useless. When we finally killed him it was glorious. It took us about 8 or 9 hours to explore this single dungeon.

We also stumbled into Riften at level 8, and did a number of quests that were quite challenging, sneaking around level 41 mountain lions to steal a bucket of water, etc. That area was a bit too challenging, so we headed off and explored parts of Deshaan and Shadowfen.

Unfortunately, this is good advice. In games where you cannot set the difficulty, you are left with what is given to you. If it is too easy, all you can really do is try and modify it through other means.

On one of my alts, I'm tempted to go full out magicka, soft caps and all. If the game is indeed on the easy side, the loss of effective health will end up being a good thing, by indirectly making the game more challenging

Yeah, this is how I always view the complaint to Low level isn't hard enough. Keeping your starter armor and starter weapon until you reach level 50 should make leveling exciting. I mean what is the different, ZOS makes it so you hit half as hard or The mobs have twice the health and hit you twice as hard or you just use crappy gear and at some point you'll be hitting half as hard as you could be and the mobs will be hitting twice as hard as they were. One way I get to control my difficulty, the other way I get a blanket difficulty increase.

Yes, gimping yourself will be the road to take if you want to get more difficulty.

Will have to find out which gimps are the most appropriate.

For example not using any ultimates, not using attribute points, no weaponswap, using less than 5 abilities, staying in first person.

A combo of those sort of things.

I could even wear an eyepatch and use only one hand while playing? brilliant! haha jk, just pointing out that the ease of the game is going to bore a lot of players out I fear before they hit higher levels and most will not take these steps. I will definitely give it a go though thanks for advice.

Yea, that might be a good call for me. Just follow the main questline and skip early content until I hit areas with the appropriate toughness. I still feel that the questing and fighting is going to bore a lot of players before hitting 50 because its just too easy so unless they take measures like you are suggesting, many will just move on. I will just have to see but still have a suspicion that adding more group required areas will add a lot of fun.

Are these ESO locations or a different game?

This was in ESO.

What faction were you? I was Alderi Dominion because that is what faction my race was.

I've tried each of the factions. The area I mentioned was in Ebonheart Pact.

So... who wants to create a guild of naked warriors? We shall fend off Molag's forces with nothing but our stubborn will. It seems fitting that we all make Nord warriors and carry a ton of mead with us, too.

Hmmmm sounds like fun. I was so impressed by AD's landscape and scenery and architecture and stuff that I didn't even have time to look at other places.

I think it's perfect the way it is they already made the mobs harder in the starter zones?

Last beta I died against 2 of those beetle things that fire lightning.

Well it was more because of the name of the places. "Evergloam" and "Crow's Woods" etc... sound like dark, dreary kind of.. you know scary places.

Like Duskwood used to be in WoW because it was nearly pitch black with a lot of undead and stuff.

I like those sort of environments for their dark/oppressive atmosphere.

Like Diablo games!

Amazing, how so many believe all classes play the same, or play is executed in precisely the same manner I have played it, spec to the spec I specced.

Or all players experience what I have experienced. Therefore all players are the same. All classes are the same. There is zero variable involved.

Some classes or players have had no trouble with anything, therefoer the game is too easy, this is an informal fallacy.

There are no combinations or anything in the game where any player must be cautious about any engagement.

I have played one uncertain class with a set of uncertain skills and uncertain rotation, with uncertain gear, and uncertain perks my subjective opinion has conclude the game is too easy and I wish it to be harder.

Yeah, I've tried four different builds in four beta weekends and had dramatically different experiences with each in terms of difficulty. Pre-nerf gutsripper for instance -- at level 8, two of my chars (second and fourth) one-shotted him, the other two couldn't kill him till later. It's certainly not true that all builds are created equal.

But it's also true that different players will have different levels of skill, and also different learning rates. Players who kinda svck for the first ten levels may be supremely competent by level 50, but they will hit the sweet spot at different times.

MMOs are supposed to be easy early on. Questing content is not supposed to be as difficult as endgame content, since not everyone is a MMO veteran. As someone said earlier, handicap yourself if you want an extra challenge.

Tell me one class that has a hard time playing early game? I could literally wield a 2h sword(or any weapon type for that matter) with 1 spammable skill any class has to offer and roll through content.