SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Toxicity and gatekeeping have been around longer than subclassing, longer than the Arcanist class, longer than "HA builds" became a "thing," and... wait for it... longer than ESO has been around! ZOS didn't create them, and doesn't encourage them. In fact, "toxicity" is one of the things you can report another player for-- although there isn't really a subcategory under it that seems appropriate for comments which insult or belittle other players.

Yep. This is a People problem before anything else.
Run with a decent (as in attitude towards others) pre-made group of people, and these problems don't exist.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

But the thing you don't see in other games is the second best build being less than 75% of the best build. And that's a lot of what we're seeing here.

On paper!

As I have been telling min/maxers in MMOs for over 25 years - the player matters. The "meta" is the build that on paper has the maximum (100%) damage potential. That doesn't mean every player can reach that maximum; some will not because the playstyle will not suit them, they will have a lack of engagement of (basically) working a job rather than having fun. Boredom breeds mistakes.

If the next build down is 75% of damage potential (it's really not that much of a gap) but the player loves the build, the playstyle, the class, the role, then they will be running at 100% of their efficiency on that build, but say theu are only 74% efficicency on the meta build because they can't stand it - which is the better option?!

The OPs point highlights this lack of thinking that exists within the playerbase. ZOS (imo) made the problem worse with introducing sub-classing, it will lead to less build diversity at end game, but a fair chunk of blame lies with the players. AS demonstrated by the OP.

Let's say that we have player A who is playing meta and is 100% efficient. And then we have player B playing off-meta, is 100% efficient with a build that can only do 75% of the meta. And then let's remember that no one is ever going to run consistently at 100% efficiency, no matter how much they like a build or how good of a player they are. And when the gap is at least 25% (at 100% efficiency) that disparity is likely even more pronounced for the hundreds of other players who are never going to be 100% at any build but are still pretty good and would still like to be an asset to their team.

The player matters, yes. I don't disagree. But throwing some numbers at it and saying "see, it's not that bad" doesn't fit this particular conversation.

It has multiple reasons. The first Vengeance Test people were happy, finally something was done for PvP, it was something new, many participated and rightfully gave the feedback it runs great. Yet even in the first Vengeance there was a huge divide between PvP Opinion and PvE Opinion, PvE people think its great, because its so easy to get in and they won't get nuked by skilled people.

The second Test added Weapon lines, huge change and had a golden Pursuit, yet it was already evident after just a few days how the population got lower. It was not new anymore, not exciting it simply had no long term value playing after finishing the Golden Pursuit.

The third test now happens parallel to the biggest PvE Event without a golden pursuit. You could argue thats a reason people don't play it, but there is the point, PvE people do not play it because their event is more important to them, PvP people do not play it, because its just way to dumbed down. If Vengeance had any chance of longterm success people would still play it. PvP people often do not care for the Undaunted Event yet they are also not there. I think that shows very clearly that Vengeances "Success" Story is just short term, something you can do once in a while but not permanently. Those who play PvP regulary leave it be, those who don't leave after a few days, in the end thats just a downward spiral until no one plays PvP anymore.

licenturion wrote: »

I don't know where are this doom and gloom posting comes from in the recent weeks.

I find random dungeons, group finder trials, battlegrounds within 3-5 minutes. And when I put stuff up for sale I am usually annoyed that everything has sold withing 24 hours and I have to put up new stuff or my guild master is mad. XD

And when in public dungeons or delves I am usually 'oh no all the bosses are dead already' and have to wait. So the game is absolutely not dead.

I also expect a huge influx of players for the wall event and the next Vengeance test. Especially now that the summer season is over on the server that I play.

That's PC EU. Maybe on PC US everything is super dead, no idea... But you don't need 100 000 concurrent steam players to have fun in ESO.

3–5 minute queues in an MMO aren’t healthy, man. There’s plenty of data showing the population is dropping. Don’t turn this into politics, it’s a game, not a campaign.Yeah, you do need more people for it to be fun. Waiting 10 minutes for a 4v4 BG is ridiculous. I’ve got a life, do they really think people actually love BG that much?

Idk man, I haven't experienced this, because I spent time finding the right guilds. The right group of people is important, and I never pug vet. I know that some don't have the inclination to find a guild but it'll up your game experience so much.

As for heavy attacks. Some players are just stupid. My main guild in which I'm an officer, the co GM (husband and wife team) she is a HA sorc. She is an amazing player and has very high DPS, in the high 120s. We never have an issue with her pulling her weight and she has many hard mode clears. So I wouldn't be so quick to kick a HA build out of hand even if the play style isn't for me.

frogthroat wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

With the "small technique" I once refined 2.000+ Platinum without getting a single Chromium.
Being in small sizes or big chunks, such a terrible RNG shouldn't happen IMO.
(EDIT: I think I was near 4.000 refinement when it finally dropped. Only happened one time, but still... It's a huge bummer)

Sorry to hear that. However...
If it is truly random, this kind of bad luck should absolutely happen. Random does not mean uniformly distributed. Sometimes there might be 10 "jackpots" in a row, other times there might be a "dry spell" for 1000 mats.

In fact, if you would look at a list of random things, say, a 1000 die rolls or coin flips, you can easily see if it is truly thrown or if a human just wrote something random down because they couldn't be bothered to actually throw a die or a coin 1000 times. If the numbers are uniformly distributed with no more than maximum 7 same results in a row, it's probably human generated. If there's strange, long streaks in the mix, that is a good indication it is randomly generated.

That's why different music player providers have to tweak their "shuffle" function because truly random would not feel random.

My opinion tends to be that anything that has RNG (crates, leads, plans, mats, motif, gear...) should have a pity system. Such bad RNG shouldn't happen IMO, because it pushes away players.

Astronomical season
21 March – 21 June
Meteorological season
1 March – 31 May

If ZOS meant the meteorological spring season...