Let's talk about delves

Wahee

I love delves, they mirror that dungeon diving experience from past TES games. Unlike quests with specific things to do, delves are just fun places to go tearing around in with a nice boss at the end and a chest or two along the way. I did every delve in the game while leveling up and had a great time.

Fast forward to the present....I haven't done a delve in over 10 months.

Why? The XP was nerfed to make entering a delve a waste of time except for your first time there for the completion XP. I understand that there were issues with exploitable XP gains and boss drops, but frankly making delves pointless is not a solution. 1.6 is coming and I can think of no better way to enjoyably earn champion points than to go back and re-explore all the delves I did so very long ago. Make them scale to player level so you can go explore every zone and revisit each one as many times as you want (they are already instanced, it really can't be any harder than player scaling dungeons). Running delves is infinitely more fun than grinding. Offering player leveled delves that offer competitive XP gains is the perfect way to offer repeatable solo PVE content for players to do for CP. Sure, some people would grind delves in a never ending loop, but how is that any worse than grinding spellscar in a never ending loop? The current delve XP nerf never prevented XP grinding or boss farming, it just moved it outside.

If delves aren't changed no one will ever set foot in them again once they've done them all, at that is a real shame as they were one of the more enjoyable leveling activities.

dharbert

Delves are not instanced, therefore they cannot be scaled to your level. They are public, just like public dungeons do not scale according to your level.

jeevin

Zos has made a mess of the xp gains across the game in the hope of preventing players grinding. Blanket nerfs like dungeon xp ruin the game for everyone. Grinders gonna grind but explorers and dungeon delvers get screwed.

UrQuan

The only problem I see with this idea is that in order to scale the delves to your level they would have to be solo instances (or group instances like the group dungeons, I suppose) unless they introduced a whole new way of scaling (which is possible, but would be a significant amount of work).

As so much of the game can be completed solo anyway, I don't know if switching so much content to be forced-solo is a good idea. I would like to see a couple of forced-solo dungeons that are intended to be scaled challenges for a solo player in the same way that the group dungeons are currently scaled challenges for group players. I don't think doing this to all of the delves is a good idea, though.

Having said that, I would love to see more replayability in the delves.

Wahee

dharbert wrote: »

Delves are not instanced, therefore they cannot be scaled to your level. They are public, just like public dungeons do not scale according to your level.

I meant to say that they are a separately loaded and independent part of the game world. A public instance. Make V14's load into a public V14 version, etc. It is semantics really, just pointing out that delves are easier to scale to a players level than the general game world is.

Jando

What if there were two modes. the regular mode we all currently know. But then also a max level mode that opens up at.....max level?

UrQuan

Wahee wrote: »

dharbert wrote: »

Delves are not instanced, therefore they cannot be scaled to your level. They are public, just like public dungeons do not scale according to your level.

I meant to say that they are a separately loaded and independent part of the game world. A public instance. Make V14's load into the to public V14 version, etc. It is semantics really, just pointing out that delves are easier to scale to a players level than the general game world is.

Ah, I see... That's not a bad idea. It would be better if it was instanced to a range of levels - so everyone level 1-5 gets one instance where the mobs are level 3, everyone level 6-10 gets another instance with level 8 mobs, etc. If a group goes in, they go into the instance that's the right level for the group leader.

Actually, this seems like a great idea.

AssaultLemming

Giving you the option when you are at the door to enter the public version or a solo/group instance scaled to the leader would be great

SteveCampsOut

dharbert wrote: »

Delves are not instanced, therefore they cannot be scaled to your level. They are public, just like public dungeons do not scale according to your level.

But what if they could make it so that entering a delve that has already been completed creates a phased instance for just you and your group if you are grouped? That would be my solution to the mass of people who would be redoing them.

dharbert

AssaultLemming wrote: »

Giving you the option when you are at the door to enter the public version or a solo/group instance scaled to the leader would be great

Yes, that would be nice, but not feasible. There would be thousands, if not tens of thousands of instances of delves. The megaserver can barely handle the load that it has now.

Wahee

dharbert wrote: »

AssaultLemming wrote: »

Giving you the option when you are at the door to enter the public version or a solo/group instance scaled to the leader would be great

Yes, that would be nice, but not feasible. There would be thousands, if not tens of thousands of instances of delves. The megaserver can barely handle the load that it has now.

As @geoffreyb14_ESO suggested a single veteran mode and normal mode would prevent the problem you described. Or you could go with my suggestion and have all V14's load into one instance, all V10's into another, and so on. Do it every 5 vet ranks or so.

As far as adding new content goes, making delves repeatable seems like an obvious and easy fix to give players more content to run in 1.6 while we wait for new content via DLC.

TheShadowScout

More options would be nice... heck, I would like to see an "Veteran" version of already played through "home alliance" maps where everything is veteran rank... but I guess that's not too likely to happen...

Dwelves... well, it would be nice. Though also server resouce gobbling to have one seperate instance for everyone who enters...

But maybe they could someday add one instanced and scaling dwelve-sized "minidungeon" to each map? Though I suppose one can always visit dwelves in the last map of "gold" or in cyrodil and craglorn...

Audigy

Wahee wrote: »

I love delves, they mirror that dungeon diving experience from past TES games. Unlike quests with specific things to do, delves are just fun places to go tearing around in with a nice boss at the end and a chest or two along the way. I did every delve in the game while leveling up and had a great time.

Fast forward to the present....I haven't done a delve in over 10 months.

Why? The XP was nerfed to make entering a delve a waste of time except for your first time there for the completion XP. I understand that there were issues with exploitable XP gains and boss drops, but frankly making delves pointless is not a solution. 1.6 is coming and I can think of no better way to enjoyably earn champion points than to go back and re-explore all the delves I did so very long ago. Make them scale to player level so you can go explore every zone and revisit each one as many times as you want (they are already instanced, it really can't be any harder than player scaling dungeons). Running delves is infinitely more fun than grinding. Offering player leveled delves that offer competitive XP gains is the perfect way to offer repeatable solo PVE content for players to do for CP. Sure, some people would grind delves in a never ending loop, but how is that any worse than grinding spellscar in a never ending loop? The current delve XP nerf never prevented XP grinding or boss farming, it just moved it outside.

If delves aren't changed no one will ever set foot in them again once they've done them all, at that is a real shame as they were one of the more enjoyable leveling activities.

Coming from an MMO that is all about dungeons these days, I must warn you. Demanding that dungeons are the one and only thing in a game is very bad for the actual game itself.

Quests will become meaningless and the world will die. At the other game you hardly meet anyone in the world, hardly anyone knows where dungeon entrances are or what the story is all about. From level 15 on, they use the dungeon browser and skip everything.

If now someone wants to explore the story of a dungeon he is facing a bunch of rush monkeys that do nothing else than running dungeons all day to max their XP or Currency to later buy items.

I understand that you don't want to do quests and explore the story, everyone to his own, but it would really dump down the game to the lowest level if dungeons become a viable source of XP and Gear. Clicking a button in the LFD Browser is always easier than questing or crafting, so that players will be forced to do it especially now with the CS in place.

Not sure about the numbers but I believe in the game we don't speak of, running 10 dungeons grants as much XP as doing 50 quests, while requiring less coordination and time. Not saying ESO must become like this, but its a very dangerous business if dungeons get buffed.


Delves are as others mentioned public dungeons, so they could never scale to anyone´s level unless you make them "veteran versions" with a queue button for solo gamers like our current story scenarios that we can visit for the guilds etc.

Wahee

Audigy wrote: »

Wahee wrote: »

I love delves, they mirror that dungeon diving experience from past TES games. Unlike quests with specific things to do, delves are just fun places to go tearing around in with a nice boss at the end and a chest or two along the way. I did every delve in the game while leveling up and had a great time.

Fast forward to the present....I haven't done a delve in over 10 months.

Why? The XP was nerfed to make entering a delve a waste of time except for your first time there for the completion XP. I understand that there were issues with exploitable XP gains and boss drops, but frankly making delves pointless is not a solution. 1.6 is coming and I can think of no better way to enjoyably earn champion points than to go back and re-explore all the delves I did so very long ago. Make them scale to player level so you can go explore every zone and revisit each one as many times as you want (they are already instanced, it really can't be any harder than player scaling dungeons). Running delves is infinitely more fun than grinding. Offering player leveled delves that offer competitive XP gains is the perfect way to offer repeatable solo PVE content for players to do for CP. Sure, some people would grind delves in a never ending loop, but how is that any worse than grinding spellscar in a never ending loop? The current delve XP nerf never prevented XP grinding or boss farming, it just moved it outside.

If delves aren't changed no one will ever set foot in them again once they've done them all, at that is a real shame as they were one of the more enjoyable leveling activities.

Coming from an MMO that is all about dungeons these days, I must warn you. Demanding that dungeons are the one and only thing in a game is very bad for the actual game itself.

Quests will become meaningless and the world will die. At the other game you hardly meet anyone in the world, hardly anyone knows where dungeon entrances are or what the story is all about. From level 15 on, they use the dungeon browser and skip everything.

If now someone wants to explore the story of a dungeon he is facing a bunch of rush monkeys that do nothing else than running dungeons all day to max their XP or Currency to later buy items.

I understand that you don't want to do quests and explore the story, everyone to his own, but it would really dump down the game to the lowest level if dungeons become a viable source of XP and Gear. Clicking a button in the LFD Browser is always easier than questing or crafting, so that players will be forced to do it especially now with the CS in place.

Not sure about the numbers but I believe in the game we don't speak of, running 10 dungeons grants as much XP as doing 50 quests, while requiring less coordination and time. Not saying ESO must become like this, but its a very dangerous business if dungeons get buffed.


Delves are as others mentioned public dungeons, so they could never scale to anyone´s level unless you make them "veteran versions" with a queue button for solo gamers like our current story scenarios that we can visit for the guilds etc.

I made two suggestions only.

1. Make delve XP competitive
2. Implement some form of veteran delves or level scaling

The goal is simply to add repeatable solo content for players who have already completed all the quests and give them an enjoyable activity to gain CP with until DLC drops.

I fail to see how these changes would negatively impact questing or would dumb down the game. Another fun and viable method to earn XP at endgame is, IMO, the very opposite of dumbing down. Dumbed down would be killing spellscar packs in craglorn for 1,000 hours because you have no repeatable solo content left to earn XP with.

Edit: Also, delves are not the same as the instanced 4 man dungeons and trials.

Wahee

Also, just to clarify, by competitive XP I mean make mobs inside delves worth the exact same as their open-world counterparts. A bandit in a delve is worth significantly less XP than the very same bandit standing out in a field, which makes no sense at all.

Dekken_Blake

TheShadowScout wrote: »

More options would be nice... heck, I would like to see an "Veteran" version of already played through "home alliance" maps where everything is veteran rank... but I guess that's not too likely to happen...

This is something I would really like to see. I'm EP, so it would be cool to see some kind of content that involved taking back Bleakrock isle. The other starter areas like this have at least a functional city. Veteran content in these areas I think would be fun, but yeah, its not likely to happen.

UrQuan

Audigy wrote: »

I understand that you don't want to do quests and explore the story,

Do you understand that OP said nothing of the sort?

Attorneyatlawl

UrQuan wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

I understand that you don't want to do quests and explore the story,

Do you understand that OP said nothing of the sort?

Dunno, either he did see that but flamed anyway, or didn't and is still off topic. I really want to see all activities be good ways to level champion xp and vet xp in general. Delves are nice fun but you get little for repeating them since the major nerfs done to them. Pvp should be strong xp, weighted towards higher since it is very spikey by nature in terms of local area action levels. Even group vet dungeons should be restored to good xp, at one time it was.

Long story short, revert some of the reactionary and forum-whine inspired nerfs done to all other xp sources except questing. Public dungeons should send you into a level appropriate range version, spaced enough that you aren't always alone (say, vr 1-4, vr5-9, and vr10-14) in those delves. Restore 4man dungeons etc to normal xp levels as they were many moons ago, and do this for trial and dragonstar mobs too. Make player kills in cyrodiil worth MUCH more xp than they currently are and make good on the promise of pvp leveling being truly viable. With the champion system these disparities can't be left to fester as they had been, without harming the game.

UrQuan

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

I understand that you don't want to do quests and explore the story,

Do you understand that OP said nothing of the sort?

Dunno, either he did see that but flamed anyway, or didn't and is still off topic. I really want to see all activities be good ways to level champion xp and vet xp in general. Delves are nice fun but you get little for repeating them since the major nerfs done to them. Pvp should be strong xp, weighted towards higher since it is very spikey by nature in terms of local area action levels. Even group vet dungeons should be restored to good xp, at one time it was.

Long story short, revert some of the reactionary and forum-whine inspired nerfs done to all other xp sources except questing. Public dungeons should send you into a level appropriate range version, spaced enough that you aren't always alone (say, vr 1-4, vr5-9, and vr10-14) in those delves. Restore 4man dungeons etc to normal xp levels as they were many moons ago, and do this for trial and dragonstar mobs too. Make player kills in cyrodiil worth MUCH more xp than they currently are and make good on the promise of pvp leveling being truly viable. With the champion system these disparities can't be left to fester as they had been, without harming the game.

So much agree that merely clicking agree wasn't enough.

Contraptions

I very much like the delves in ESO as they have that nice solo exploratory vibe to it. However, I feel the problem with delves is their "one and done" nature, which means once I clear the delve and get the shard and the achieve for it, there really is no reason to ever go back again. This is a shame, especially when ZOS has spent dev time expanding and snazzing up the look and size of these delves.

I agree delves could be more rewarding, but am wary of increasing mob drops and xp because I don't want a repeat of what happened at launch: bots camping delve boss spawns 24/7, or looping around the delve killing everything. Also given the fact that T:U is happening soon, the chance of bots returning is there. I don't want to make things easier for them.

Instead, I have a more "lore-friendly" way of solving this problem. Anyone who has the "Bounty Hunter" perk can go to Cyrodiil and get repeatable quests from the Fighter's Guild there. What if, once the player has joined the FIghter's or the Mage's guild, they could accept quests from them sending them to specific delves in that zone? Mage's guild quests could point players towards Dwemer, Ayleid or Nordic ruins and ask them to retrieve books or artifacts (ala Long Lost Lore) while Fighter's guild quests would instruct players to clear bandit hideouts, beast dens or undead infested tombs. In return, players would get a sum of gold, good amount of XP and perhaps a random piece of equipment. Yes, this might change the mob grind into a quest grind, but this method seems less bottable and far less boring then looping around the same location for hours on end.

In fact, if this system could be expanded to include other "one and done" things like dolmens or world bosses or even Craglorn delves it would go a long way to giving the content more longevity. Implement delve scaling or character scaling as suggested above and this could even alleviate the "no solo end game content" to an extent.

zward887_ESO

I like these ideas a lot. +1 to this thread.

I am just about to hit VR14 on my first toon (had to take some time off due to traveling for work) and I am really worried about running out of content that is worthwhile for obtaining champion points. Something like this would be great.

I am really sad this game won't receive the fixes that it so desperately needs until the end of summer... It kind of feels like they have abandoned their PC players to chase after consoles

liquid_wolf

I'm a fan of that bounty hunter re-visiting delves suggestion.

Or some kind of quest-board that scales upward in levels sending you back into the delves at a challenging level.

LIQUID741

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I see with this idea is that in order to scale the delves to your level they would have to be solo instances (or group instances like the group dungeons, I suppose) unless they introduced a whole new way of scaling (which is possible, but would be a significant amount of work).

As so much of the game can be completed solo anyway, I don't know if switching so much content to be forced-solo is a good idea. I would like to see a couple of forced-solo dungeons that are intended to be scaled challenges for a solo player in the same way that the group dungeons are currently scaled challenges for group players. I don't think doing this to all of the delves is a good idea, though.

Having said that, I would love to see more replayability in the delves.

Not sure why they couldn't implement a cooldown timer for the individual player and the delve. This way grinders can grind, and explorers can explore.

Seraphyel

As long as there are only 5 types of delves whilst there are over 100 delves out there, they get boring pretty quickly. Sure, they are a nice side task but the copy & paste factor is just hilarious.

starkerealm

Seraphyel wrote: »

As long as there are only 5 types of delves whilst there are over 100 delves out there, they get boring pretty quickly. Sure, they are a nice side task but the copy & paste factor is just hilarious.

It's a little closer to 20, with a handful of unique ones (like that dance club), but, yeah, it's a fair point.

jeevin

starkerealm wrote: »

Seraphyel wrote: »

As long as there are only 5 types of delves whilst there are over 100 delves out there, they get boring pretty quickly. Sure, they are a nice side task but the copy & paste factor is just hilarious.

It's a little closer to 20, with a handful of unique ones (like that dance club), but, yeah, it's a fair point.

Aren't there 4 per zone? So 20 per faction plus Coldharbor, plus Cyrodiil.

starkerealm

jeevin wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Seraphyel wrote: »

As long as there are only 5 types of delves whilst there are over 100 delves out there, they get boring pretty quickly. Sure, they are a nice side task but the copy & paste factor is just hilarious.

It's a little closer to 20, with a handful of unique ones (like that dance club), but, yeah, it's a fair point.

Aren't there 4 per zone? So 20 per faction plus Coldharbor, plus Cyrodiil.

6 per zone, 16 zones, works out to 96 delves in game (not counting Craglorn). There's roughly 20 different configurations in the game right now, including a mix of the old loops, and the new larger interconnected complexes. Actually the unique number might be higher, now that I think about it. Though I'm not terribly inclined to go wandering through the game just to check, right now.

Keron

Scaling for public delves:

1. Have every delve at several levels: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50/vr1, vr3, vr5, vr7, vr9, vr11, vr13
2. Assign players to these levels based on: -2 to +3 levels (-0 to +1 VR) go in the respective instance
3. ?
4. Profit

Seeing that each delve exists several times depending on player load (there may be more than just one instance of the respective delve active, if too many players want to join at the same time), the server load shouldn't even increase significantly.

infraction2008b16_ESO

When they eventually remove vet ranks this could open up many possibilities regarding scaling and replayability of various delves in the game. For a start instead of the vet zones getting separated by a rank everything in the last two factions will be at level cap.

Secondly for scaling of group dungeons or any other content you won't run into the issue of people having to run the dungeon at different vr ranks and everyone getting split that way and scaled dungeons for endgame players would just br at level cap itself keeping players together.

UrQuan

Seraphyel wrote: »

As long as there are only 5 types of delves whilst there are over 100 delves out there, they get boring pretty quickly. Sure, they are a nice side task but the copy & paste factor is just hilarious.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you haven't gone in any delves in a long time. Since they started making them all bigger and more varied (not all have had this treatment yet, but I think most have), there are far more than 5 types of delves, and there's way less copy paste factor.

Toophat82

While this topic is old and a lot has changed just wanted to state that things like farming and grinding are part of MMOs and they should never try to prevent it as long as it only effects the person who is doin it then no reason for anyone to care or be concerned period as people should be able to enjoy and play their games the way they like and not others want them to. Only time they should be concerned is when in doing so it effects other player's experiences like in a competitive mode like PvP which also isn't the case considering how PvP works in ESO and every other MMORPG period. The only time farming becomes an issue in any MMO is only per bad design like for example originally when ESO launched and had phasing/instances issues which in turn was causing farming to be an issue due to design not the farming which in turn led to it then being fixed so that farming bosses and etc was no longer a problem for both people who farm and didn't.

So don't see why anyone would try and prevent grinding and farming and don't believe that is or was the case and that it was simply more about bad design choices then anything in the first place and not intentional considering a lot of what has already been changed and fixed since this topic first was started proves it and nevermind that it is part of how MMOs are played along with most games like RPGs in general. Think about it once players have done everything they like to go back and replay the same content again either to farm certain areas or bosses for gold or the best loot for their character or depending on design in most cases for their ALTs. It's all normal and players should be able to like to and want to rexplore or replay areas they have already cleared but honestly in ESO it is hard to want to when enemies stop dropping loot or gold if you out level a specific area or zone which I don't understand because every other MMORPG I have played that isn't the case and either there is some sort of scaling either with enemies or loot to where you will want to replay areas or zones again and for example the loot simply scales to that enemies level instead of the player or vice versa so you still get gold or loot no matter whatever that zone is. So for example you kill a level 10 enemy they drop something no matter what but it just might be level 10 loot Instead of your level whatever you are in worst case scenario others simply scale to your level depending if it is a dungeon or etc so to say it can't be done because it is public dungeon or otherwise is far from true it can be done if they really want to just requires work like anything else.

No matter what I am happy with how far ESO has come in short amount of time and all that has been addressed and fixed and am confident they will get it all right in time.