Mojmir wrote: »

I got the skyshards,did the trials,grinded there til it got nerfed. Haven't been back since

Because lack of good rewards? Don't like group quests? No replayability? Or because other content took your attention?

Craglorn failed, not because of the group content per se but because of the Forced grouping (mechanics that require a certain number of players to open doors, etc) and quest phasing that needed everyone to be on the exact same step at the same time. These things made it difficult to grab a couple of people from zone to complete anything and just share quests. You had to have a static group willing to play at the same time to complete the quest lines.

If they redid those things and scaled DSA and the Trials, they could easily bring it back to life. There are some beautiful exterior delves I wouldn't mind visiting again.

petraeus1 wrote: »

I wanna ask the veterans of ESO: how do you like Craglorn? What are its most glaring issues? Would Craglorn be 'fixed' simply by rescaling it (or by VR removal)?

I want to like Craglorn, it's fun zone. The main quest is interesting and fun to do. What I don't like about it is the forced Group aspect of everything in the zone other than Farming. Now, if your leveled high enough and/or geared properly, the zone can be almost solo'd other than some gates that require multiple players to get past. But, not all characters that are successful at other PvE zones can be successful in this zone as it stands now.

What I like about Wrothgar is the zone gives a ton of Experience. Content could be a little harder, but battle leveling is tricky to balance. I took 2 characters from VR12 to VR16 just with the content and some dailies.

So, to fix Craglorn, they need to remove or reduce the Group Requirement, and increase the experience earned to be in line with Wrothgar/Hew's Bane activities. Not much really.

crislevin wrote: »

It needs to be scaled in terms mob numbers.

A zone that can't be 90% soloed is a dead zone.

Nestor wrote: »

So, to fix Craglorn, they need to remove or reduce the Group Requirement, and increase the experience earned to be in line with Wrothgar/Hew's Bane activities. Not much really.

Is soloability a requirement for a new zone? If so, what would make an Adventure Zone stand out from a normal zone? Should they drop the idea of Adventure Zones altogether or redefine it?

Would the group requirements be less annoying if they were less 'static', i.e. more on-the-fly similar to how public dungeons work? Would public quests similar to high-end 'dynamic events' in Guild Wars 2 be an option for an Adventure Zone?

1. Scale everything to v16. Mobs, trials, delves, quests.
2. Add world bosses that required a group.
3. Add unique sets and drops from those bosses, as well as a possible chest or some reward at the end of the delve completion. Possibly a daily thing?
5.???????
6.Profit

Crag is a really nice zone with interesting quests and unique delves. It's a shame it has been rendered useless unless you're farming nirn. The game is 99% solo content. A nice, difficult zone to mess around in with friends, while gaining appropriate level rewards, is sorely needed. You can only dungeon and trial so much.

Edit: The whole, needing to be on the same stage of each quest thing needs to go as well.

I really like Craglorn, and I didn't realize til I ran through the whole content how much work had actually been put into this zone. But many people probably missed the chance to experience anything there because they never found a group to explore it with. Basically what @Xendyn said

The rewards felt somewhat low as well.

With the battle-leveling the zone could be accessible to more people, while still focusing on group play; that's also quite likely for any future content.

delete

read ZOS's statement, ESO is not a MMO, its an online TES. That tells you clearly what the direction is.

crislevin wrote: »

petraeus1 wrote: »

crislevin wrote: »

It needs to be scaled in terms mob numbers.

A zone that can't be 90% soloed is a dead zone.

Nestor wrote: »

So, to fix Craglorn, they need to remove or reduce the Group Requirement, and increase the experience earned to be in line with Wrothgar/Hew's Bane activities. Not much really.

Is soloability a requirement for a new zone? If so, what would make an Adventure Zone stand out from a normal zone? Should they drop the idea of Adventure Zones altogether or redefine it?

Would the group requirements be less annoying if they were less 'static', i.e. more on-the-fly similar to how public dungeons work? Would public quests similar to high-end 'dynamic events' in Guild Wars 2 be an option for an Adventure Zone?

YES, drop it, adventure zone is a joke.

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Sadly ESO problem is trying to ahrd to be like the single player games and in doing so lost its identity...any zone thats 90% solo in an MMO is a failure.

[...]

ESO will always be stunted as long as it caters to single players...its the biggest thing. ZOS is so good at creating good group qaulity content but that skill is currently being wasted...

I agree with Rinaldo. They can drop it, sure. But if they're only gonna make single player content, I'd rather play single player RPGs who frankly do that better than ESO. Is there no solution to open world, story-based group content that they can continue with Adventure Zones?

sirrmattus wrote: »

petraeus1 wrote: »

Hello ZOS and fellow forumpeeps,

we all know the wails of new players who reach VR and see Craglorn and are like: what's that? - only to find out there's not much going on there anymore. I know firsthand how hard it is to find a group to enjoy the content. Craglorn, ESO's first adventure zone, was initially an update to cater to ESO's finest and the people of the highest level, and people who wanted to have quests designed for group play. Veteran Ranks have caught up with the zone however, and VR16s have no real reason to go there apart from sightseeing.

A long time ago, at Quakecon 2014, ZOS showed us Murkmire, supposedly the new adventure zone. No news since.

I wanna ask the veterans of ESO: how do you like Craglorn? What are its most glaring issues? Would Craglorn be 'fixed' simply by rescaling it (or by VR removal)?

I wanna ask everyone of ESO: what do you feel an 'Adventure Zone' should look like? Is another 'Adventure Zone' something ESO needs, aimed at high-level group players, or should this audience be content with dungeons and trials?

What lessons should ZOS take from Craglorn's successes and failures?

Just because you hit VR1 doesnt mean you can go to crglorn and have a good time. You will get owned by the mobs there. You need to be at least VR5 and be geared out pretty good. GL.. Your better off in wrothgar or hews bane

You read something that's not written. I never said what VR my character had, nor what my expectations were. I spoke about the zone being depopulated and the difficulties of finding a group.

Sure, they can fix grouping mechanism to be like Diablo III. I don't see them doing that. In the meantime, they are making cash off popular zones, shocker! all soloable zones! There isn't any incentive to fix the "adventure" zones.

petraeus1 wrote: »

Hello ZOS and fellow forumpeeps,

we all know the wails of new players who reach VR and see Craglorn and are like: what's that? - only to find out there's not much going on there anymore. I know firsthand how hard it is to find a group to enjoy the content. Craglorn, ESO's first adventure zone, was initially an update to cater to ESO's finest and the people of the highest level, and people who wanted to have quests designed for group play. Veteran Ranks have caught up with the zone however, and VR16s have no real reason to go there apart from sightseeing.

A long time ago, at Quakecon 2014, ZOS showed us Murkmire, supposedly the new adventure zone. No news since.

I wanna ask the veterans of ESO: how do you like Craglorn? What are its most glaring issues? Would Craglorn be 'fixed' simply by rescaling it (or by VR removal)?

I wanna ask everyone of ESO: what do you feel an 'Adventure Zone' should look like? Is another 'Adventure Zone' something ESO needs, aimed at high-level group players, or should this audience be content with dungeons and trials?

What lessons should ZOS take from Craglorn's successes and failures?

Craglorn fit the VR11-VR14 stretch (specifically lower Craglorn V11-V12, upper Craglorn VR13-14) after Cadwell's Silver (VR1-5) and Gold (VR6-VR10). But with the three reductions in experience needed for VRs, the extra XP gain for subs, etc, those VR ranges rarely match progression any more and VR is being replaced, so the future of Craglorn is wide open.

Those like me who are completionists still want to visit with our many alts and are frustrated that there are few people there and that those who are still there mostly want to do writs or farm mats. I am not sure making it VR16 (or the Champion System equivalent) is adequate or would be a simple fix.

I do like the idea of zones meant for groups. There will be plenty of zones (Orsinium, Abah's Landing, Gold Coast, and those not yet revealed or determined) for solo play with some group content mixed in. But the content of such zones needs to be sufficiently rewarding and groups need to be easier to find. The improvements to the group finder tool will hopefully continue and help with that but much more is needed.

Some will say grouped content made Crag unpopular, and for some people that was true, but, look at some of the delves. They were kind of small, empty, and boring. Yet for some reason others were more elaborate and had more design effort. It was very uneven and the more generic delves had little replay value. They were quest props more or less. New mechanics like darkness and underwater areas could help past and future adventure zones by spicing up open world and delve content.


Another issue was how long some quest chains took. Group content that has long quest chains can be really frustrating because many folks won't want to commit to it, and if someone leaves in the middle, what then? There was also the problem of people at different stages of the same quest not being able to help each other, though that has been corrected.


So, my advice and lessons to take to heart:

- just being at a harder difficulty level isn't enough, though scaling would certainly help by adding more people available for groups; throw in fun mechanics that require a diverse group (tank, healer, dd) and make it shiny and pretty (or bloody and gruesome).
- consider new grouping mechanics for adventure zones like major open world (i.e. non-delve/non-instanced) events that automatically group those in range when the event starts; for delves scaling will help but give a reason to do them other than main story quest completions (maybe give them an additional repeatable quest like Orsinium delves) so that players always have someone to do them with.
- break up the quest chains into short related pieces and make sure it's easy for group members to help each other catch up; no one wants to sit around waiting for a chance to do the next part of the story by finding people at the same stage of the quest--if anyone at all .
- if you are going to have related quest chains with a big reveal/unlocked quest at the end, make sure that there are great rewards (gold, gear, etc) for those who, unlike me, aren't completionist or story driven so we have people to play with.
- make 30-40% of the questing solo friendly for a base/introductory "main story", but to get the full story/final resolution to the events unfolding build group-based chains where each part can be done in a short time; keep it doable by people who can't get a group willing to grind through content that takes a long time.
- moar achievements woven in

So, for Craglorn, you had people doing anomalies for grinding before the vet points for them were nerfed, and if you weren't doing the only quest related to anomalies no one was doing them any more after they were nerfed. The same for the bosses at the Seeker's Archive--the Shadow boss used to be a great grind but hew cared about the associated daily. People could get a repeatable quest for Burial Mounds but why bother after grinding there became passé?

I mean, because that's what Crag mostly ever was: grind vet ranks, do trials for gear, do the rest if you're a die-hard completionist.

For a Crag retrofit (as a way of speaking to future "adventure zones"):

- have a quest giver in Belkarth who gives daily quests for anomalies and burial mounds like the quest giver for world bosses in Orsinium. You still have to talk to the person at the mound or hit the gem at the anomaly to start the event. If you are nearby, grouped or not, you get quest and group invite for the event while existing groups at the event are merged. This way the event can be truly hard and scale to the number of people there when it begins, with more mobs, more wave of mobs, whatever. Make sure the rewards are really good.
- have a quest giver in Dragonstar who gives daily quests for normal delves (skyreach instances not included). Take some of the smaller/less developed delves and build them up. Make sure the rewards are really good. This way those doing the main quest in the delves can run with those just doing dailies.
- give a "vet" mode or whatever it will be called after VR are removed for the Skyreach instances that has mobs, loot, and rewards that are scaled up.
- give an extra "hardcore" mode for Trials (including DSA) beyond the current regular/vet modes that has mobs, loot, and rewards that are scaled up.
- give extra xp for everything when in a group so that players who can still solo stuff have a reason to join mere mortals, and so that doing a group-focused zone pays off


It would be a shame to see adventure zones go away and the one we have sit empty, but I'm not sure ZOS has the time or resources to do a refit and to put in new mechanics to make them more friendly/accessible. If the group mechanics (from getting grouped to how long chunks of grouped content lasts to how fun/rewarding group content) were friendly to solo players banding together to get things done, then zones with more group-oriented content would be more popular. But another Craglorn as it was originally released just isn't viable.

If Rich Lambert or someone involved in zone design is reading, how about a /lurk. We know that "you can do anything but you can't do everything", and obviously a full Crag refit like the one described here won't be on the table for 2016 given everything on your plate, but what about trying these kind of principles for some limited group content design for a zone still in development? If it works out there is your proof of concept and if not the zone will still sell well since it would still be viable for solo players, too.

crislevin wrote: »

read ZOS's statement, ESO is not a MMO, its an online TES. That tells you clearly what the direction is.

Read it again , it is not a *typical* MMO, but that really just means MMOs keep changing and "typical" isn't "typical" anymore unless a player wants a "new old school" game, in which case CU is the way to go.

There is still room for group content done properly, and ZOS has a chance to experiment and figure out a winning formula for such content. They have solo stuff well in hand and those who enjoy it will have a steady supply. I ZOS can learn their lessons and also make group content fun, accessible, and rewarding, particularly for players who are normally inclined to solo-questing, they will be positioned very well in the MMO market for the long term.

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

crislevin wrote: »

read ZOS's statement, ESO is not a MMO, its an online TES. That tells you clearly what the direction is.

Read it again , it is not a *typical* MMO, but that really just means MMOs keep changing and "typical" isn't "typical" anymore unless a player wants a "new old school" game, in which case CU is the way to go.

There is still room for group content done properly, and ZOS has a chance to experiment and figure out a winning formula for such content. They have solo stuff well in hand and those who enjoy it will have a steady supply. I ZOS can learn their lessons and also make group content fun, accessible, and rewarding, particularly for players who are normally inclined to solo-questing, they will be positioned very well in the MMO market for the long term.

Feed into the hype.

They're trying to nickel and dime the TES experience without giving us a real TES experience or a good MMO experience.

You're still here, they must be doing something right.

All it would take for me to get into Craglorn more often than a Nirn farm or Trial run, is if all the quests and their rewards where actually decent and scaled up to VR16. The daily quests are decent enough but the rewards aren't very rewarding as 9/10 it's just a crappy green generic item. If the armor sets that came along with Craglorn (Martial Knowledge, Way of Fire, etc.) scaled up to VR16 and would be rewarded as quest rewards, then I could see myself bothering to do them with alts (an increase in Nirn trait on armor and weapons for research would be appreciated as well).

I don't mind the grouping aspect for some quests but I don't think it should be a requirement for the MQ, at least. Since the MQ of Craglorn is impossible to complete alone, just because you require 4 players to do 2 quests in Lower Craglorn, it makes doing the MQ more hassle than its worth in the long run.