A plea for Instanced Quest Areas

adriant1978

My girlfriend and I finally got around to completing Dragonhold last night, after putting it off for ages due to a mixture of computer problems and playing other things. Over a year after release the zone had been relatively quiet, which is nice for smell the flowers types like us, but towards the end we had the misfortune to bump into a couple of other players apparently also trying to wrap up the story.

First issue: after defeating a miniboss we are rewarded with an NPC offering some exposition dialogue. Unfortunately the other group steamed in behind us and caused the encounter to reset while we were in the middle of the conversation. Had to quickly break out of dialogue and run away if we didn't want to have to do the whole fight over again, spoiling the moment.

Second issue: the other group reached the boss fight ahead of us and the boss was already at about half health when we arrived, plus we also missed out on some further exposition which I assume triggers at the beginning of the encounter but not once it is already in progress. With four people there the boss died super quickly even by ESO quest boss standards and we were left feeling very very un-heroic.

This isn't even the first time this has happened. I remember when playing Summerset that during one quest a boss infamously died two rooms away by another player's hand, and my own quest updated without me ever having even seen said boss.

Wouldn't it be so much better if quest areas were group instanced? Does anyone really rely on having random ungrouped players around to help with quest fights? Pretty sure most people do them solo or with a group of friends/guildies.

Jackey

I agree with you, it's annoying when I'm doing quests with my gf and it gets unintentionally spoiled by other players.
It doesn't happen that often but sometimes it does and it can really ruin the experience.

This change would also open up the possibility for higher difficulties within these instances, which for me at least would make the quests a lot more interesting.

Nairinhe

Agree. For each region at least it's main story quests absolutely must be instanced.
Also no action of other players should ever advance any quest for you (e.g. killing a boss or interacting with objects).

KaGaOri

This is why I quest preferably at 3 a.m. Hate when there is story dialog among NPCs going on and some yahoo runs in and nukes everything, or just stumbles through the emotional sceen looting stuff and doing whatever. Only time I'm happy to see another player in-game is group dungeons and DLC world bosses.

Smitch_59

Yet more evidence that single player games are far superior to MMOs.

Matchimus

I disagree. I acknowledge the frustration other players can bring but I appreciate the chaos they can bring more.

adriant1978

Matchimus wrote: »

I disagree. I acknowledge the frustration other players can bring but I appreciate the chaos they can bring more.

So you really think there's something to be appreciated about another player updating your quest by killing a boss several rooms away??

VaranisArano

Can you imagine how many instances ZOS would have to run when a new Chapter or DLC zone launches?

I think they could refine how quest objectives update so that nearby ungrouped players don't do the quest for you, but I suspect that running many individual or small group instances across an entire zone just isn't feasible.

adriant1978

VaranisArano wrote: »

Can you imagine how many instances ZOS would have to run when a new Chapter or DLC zone launches?

I think they could refine how quest objectives update so that nearby ungrouped players don't do the quest for you, but I suspect that running many individual or small group instances across an entire zone just isn't feasible.

Can't really argue this as nobody except the devs know exactly how much load an instance puts on the servers, but I really wanted to float the idea in the hopes something might be tweaked to aid immersion.