Discussion : Joining Encounter in Progress is destroying dungeon experience

zharkovian

This new feature is horrendous, new players can no longer enjoy the lower level dungeons, if some enthusiastic pug tank or dps wishes to drag everyone through a dungeon at high speed for a pledge or a plunder skull, there is no choice, heavy sacks, chests are meaningless as there is no chance to dawdle, insignificant mini-bosses meaningless, horrible. I've played this game for over 8 years now and this new "joining encounter in progress" is far too aggressive. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Nerouyn

I've been playing MMOs since before WOW so remember the days when dungeons were something you COMPLETED, not mostly sped through to reach the end and get the special shinies.

I don't know if they're responsible for the shift but the first placed I noticed speed-running was Guild Wars 2.

I never liked it in that game or any other. It feels artificial. Immersion breaking. Except in games like Warframe where you're a tech enhanced agent with a specific mission and meant to get that done ASAP and then exfiltrate.

I don't enjoy so don't play ESO's dungeons so don't know exactly how this new thing works but it sounds like the same as Warframe where upon starting a mission you can end up in someone else's instance of it which has already begun and sometimes almost finished.

There I often appreciate it because it means I have less work to do. Since I don't enjoy the dungeons I'd probably also personally appreciate it in ESO but it must suck for those who do want to play them properly.

zharkovian

There was a thing, in Wayrest Sewers I, if you did not kill all the crocodiles in the first room, then one of those enemy "dots" would stay there and prevent access to a boss fight further on in the dungeon, ie, your group members could get through a door and you could not because of aggro from a previous fight. So ZoS put a "joining encounter in progress" trick to get around that. That was helpful.

This new feature, just yanks a slower player from where he is, looting a box, heavy sack, chest, looking at the flowers, smelling the coffee, into the "encounter in progress" boss fight, based on the fastest runner in the group engaging the boss. It has come to my attention over the last week or so and it is truly a negative thing for new players.

Erickson9610

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

vsrs_au

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

So why can't the player about to be pulled to the boss location be given a choice? Skip the teleport and risk missing the boss fight, or accept it and miss some dungeon content? At least that way, if the player chooses to stay, (s)he can always do that dungeon some other time while skipping any story content.

Metafae

The problem isn't this feature, the problem is expecting everyone to play your way when you queued for a random.

You get what you get. If you don't like it, do a premade.

Erickson9610

vsrs_au wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

So why can't the player about to be pulled to the boss location be given a choice? Skip the teleport and risk missing the boss fight, or accept it and miss some dungeon content? At least that way, if the player chooses to stay, (s)he can always do that dungeon some other time while skipping any story content.

Maybe the group queue isn't right for that player, then. Once the group finishes the dungeon, the slow player is either going to be kicked out by the timer, or if they're the group lead, they'll walk through the rest of the dungeon and miss out on story events that happened during those boss fights.

zharkovian

Erickson9610 wrote: »

The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while


Oh I agree, it has been around for a long time, but it has been tweaked to be FAR more aggressive than it ever was. That is my point.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Erickson9610 wrote: »

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose.

Is that going to be something that occurs to newer players though?

AzuraFan

I've been running dungeons a lot lately and I think it's necessary for two reasons. First of all, stragglers. I'd say 20% of the time when pugging, someone falls behind. Maybe they're looking around. Maybe they're lost. Maybe they went to the bathroom. Who knows? Given that about 50% of the people in pugs don't seem to want to say "boo" in chat, asking them where they are or what they're doing has limited success. So it's good for the game to catch them up with the group at boss fights.

Second, and this just happened to me today, sometimes when there's a gate that's opened to the boss area, it shuts before the entire group is through. Today two of us ran into this. We weren't that far behind the group, the gate shut, so we had two players inside the boss area and two outside, unable to progress. Fortunately the game allowed both of us to "join the encounter in progress."

And I agree with another poster. The dungeon finder isn't the place to go if you want to dawdle through a dungeon and explore every nook and cranny. I'm not saying every dungeon will be a speedrun. I've only run into that about 10% of the time when pugging, where there's one player who just sprints ahead and aggros everything. It's quite satisfying if they die, which they sometimes do. Ninety percent of the pugs I've been in progress through the dungeon at a quick but reasonable pace, the operative word here being quick. If you want to listen to all the quest dialogue, etc., you need to go with guildies or put a request in the group finder, making it clear that it will be a slow run.

vsrs_au wrote: »

So why can't the player about to be pulled to the boss location be given a choice? Skip the teleport and risk missing the boss fight, or accept it and miss some dungeon content? At least that way, if the player chooses to stay, (s)he can always do that dungeon some other time while skipping any story content.

Because the group might not be able to succeed at the boss fight without you. When you join a group for a dungeon, the goal is to finish the dungeon, working as a group. If you're not interested in working with a group to kill bosses because you want to look around and take your time, you shouldn't be using the dungeon finder.

Gabriel_H

zharkovian wrote: »

This new feature is horrendous, new players can no longer enjoy the lower level dungeons, if some enthusiastic pug tank or dps wishes to drag everyone through a dungeon at high speed for a pledge or a plunder skull, there is no choice, heavy sacks, chests are meaningless as there is no chance to dawdle, insignificant mini-bosses meaningless, horrible.

It has been that way long before "Joining Encounter In Progress". It's the nature of the playerbase.

vsrs_au

Erickson9610 wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

So why can't the player about to be pulled to the boss location be given a choice? Skip the teleport and risk missing the boss fight, or accept it and miss some dungeon content? At least that way, if the player chooses to stay, (s)he can always do that dungeon some other time while skipping any story content.

Maybe the group queue isn't right for that player, then. Once the group finishes the dungeon, the slow player is either going to be kicked out by the timer, or if they're the group lead, they'll walk through the rest of the dungeon and miss out on story events that happened during those boss fights.

With respect, I think you misunderstood me: I was proposing a CHANGE to the way it works now, i.e. the game should be updated to offer a choice in this particular situation.

SteveCampsOut

zharkovian wrote: »

This new feature is horrendous, new players can no longer enjoy the lower level dungeons, if some enthusiastic pug tank or dps wishes to drag everyone through a dungeon at high speed for a pledge or a plunder skull, there is no choice, heavy sacks, chests are meaningless as there is no chance to dawdle, insignificant mini-bosses meaningless, horrible. I've played this game for over 8 years now and this new "joining encounter in progress" is far too aggressive. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

I don't know where you've been, but this is not new. It's been going on for over a year now.

colossalvoids

They either do doors and other stops and group checks or this, joining encounter in progress is way more player friendly option that has the least griefing potential as the point of a dungeon is it's completion and it's enabling it.

I do not know where in the game's lifespan pug became the default experience that dungeons should be tweaked around but those are meant to be played by four people grouping up for an experience they want to get, not to expect what you personally want from 3 other random people you've never met where fast completion is the most likely wish for the whole team after initial release week.

Orbital78

As long as they update the older quests so that they don't require players to solo parts that take a bit longer. I don't see an issue, unless it's stopping quest progression.

EF321

In Banished Cells 2 you literally can't do Maw mechanic anymore, because you keep getting teleported to middle of the room when trying to position Maw on the grill.

Sarannah

Well, we see how trolls affect the community as a whole: In dungeons they are speedrunners/fake role'ing, in the new PvP BG's they are now waiting for timers to expire. These players do this on purpose, there is no reason any of this should be possible!

ZOS should fix all instances of players being able to troll in groupcontent or cheat their way into groupcontent. Currently the MMO part of ESO is beyond broken, and I'm not confident they will ever fix it. Which is stupid as this is an MMO, and everyone should have pleasant experiences in all group content.

I love this game, but as soon as I run out of solocontent and this isn't fixed yet, I'll be gone from ESO. Sadly!

LatentBuzzard

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

I don't know where you've been, but this is not new. It's been going on for over a year now.

It is new for the below dungeons which only had the feature added in update 44, which is what the original poster was reffering to.

zharkovian wrote: »

new players can no longer enjoy the lower level dungeons

Wayrest Sewers II
Elden Hollow II
Cradle of Shadows
Fungal Grotto II
Banished Cells II
Vaults of Madness
Selene's Web
Blessed Crucible
Blackheart Haven
Volenfell
Tempest Island
Direfrost Keep
Crypt of Hearts I
City of Ash I
Arx Corinium
Wayrest Sewers I
Elden Hollow I
Darkshade Caverns I
Spindleclutch I
Fungal Grotto I
Banished Cells I

lardvader

I like this feature. Let the group know you do the quest from the beginning of the dungeon.
Been pug'ing on PCEU since 2016 and had very rarely much issues with fakes and being pulled to the fight before I'm ready. It does happen but not a big issue IMO (on PCEU)

thegreeneso

I don't mind this feature, but I agree that dungeon experience is absurd at this point. I think the real issue is that the game puts level 10 and level 3000 characters in the same dungeon and also encourages the latter to finish it as quickly as possible. On the other hand, dungeons being so rewarding is the reason they are still so active, so there's no perfect solution I suppose.

MindOfTheSwarm

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

Soloing works to a point. But some encounters have mechanics that require you to be rescued from a dungeon one hit kill. So those present an issue.

MindOfTheSwarm

One solution would be to make “Join Encounter” and optional request. So players that are getting chests and such could reject and then join it later with a buttons press. But that could lead you to getting kicked if 3 of the team are rushing forward. It causes most issues with dungeons that have optional secret bosses as many of these are required for antiquity fragment leads.

Elvenheart

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

Soloing works to a point. But some encounters have mechanics that require you to be rescued from a dungeon one hit kill. So those present an issue.

I’ve learned that they need to get rid of those mechanics that prevent dungeons being soloed with gimmicks or work arounds.

DenverRalphy

Metafae wrote: »

The problem isn't this feature, the problem is expecting everyone to play your way when you queued for a random.

You get what you get. If you don't like it, do a premade.

All too often, it's the person who runs ahead aloof of the others who queued random.

The intent of the Random Daily is to encourage others to fill empty slots for premades who don't have enough to fill the party.

Just sayin.

jaws343

Elvenheart wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

Soloing works to a point. But some encounters have mechanics that require you to be rescued from a dungeon one hit kill. So those present an issue.

I’ve learned that they need to get rid of those mechanics that prevent dungeons being soloed with gimmicks or work arounds.

On normal, it's only 6 dungeons right now that have group mechanics that make the dungeons difficult to impossible to solo. And only two of them are actually impossible to solo.

Direfrost - you can do a work around to get through

Fang Lair - precog will get you through the mechanic
Blackheart - precog can get you through
Fungal Grotto 2 - precog can get you through

Wayrest 2 - Impossible solo
ICP - Impossible solo

The mechanics for Direfrost, Wayrest 2, and ICP, should absolutely be removed, as they are outliers compared to the large number of dungeons we have. The other 3 are fine as is, since a skill can be used to get through the mechanic.

tsaescishoeshiner

Metafae wrote: »

The problem isn't this feature, the problem is expecting everyone to play your way when you queued for a random.

You get what you get. If you don't like it, do a premade.

But that's just as true for the person who's skipping ahead as the person who doesn't want to lol! If someone wants to skip really fast, they can make their own premade : p I'm not blaming them at all, just pointing out it goes both ways.

I think the issue is how the game uses daily random transmute rewards as a way to fill specific dungeons that players have queued for. It helps if you're trying to queue for a specific dungeon that you'll get fills from transmute stone farmers, but a side consequence is that it leads to people rushing through all the time.

Maybe it would be a bit better if we could see through the guild menu and group menu what content our guildies/friends are queued for (with a settings option to keep it private, of course). Then people would be more likely to fill each other's queues and stuff. Even in the most social guilds, people don't post to chat every time they queue for anything, so implementing it into the social interface could help.

o_Primate_o

jaws343 wrote: »

On normal, it's only 6 dungeons right now that have group mechanics that make the dungeons difficult to impossible to solo. And only two of them are actually impossible to solo.

Direfrost - you can do a work around to get through

Fang Lair - precog will get you through the mechanic
Blackheart - precog can get you through
Fungal Grotto 2 - precog can get you through

Wayrest 2 - Impossible solo
ICP - Impossible solo

The mechanics for Direfrost, Wayrest 2, and ICP, should absolutely be removed, as they are outliers compared to the large number of dungeons we have. The other 3 are fine as is, since a skill can be used to get through the mechanic.

FG2: DOTs + Ulti can kill a leashholder fast enough too.
ICP: you can solo ICP on a nightblade using the shade you can teleport to.

Servadei

Not all new players care about the quest or want to go slow. Why do so many people use new players as an excuse to get what they want?

This is a good change to bring all the old dungeons up to date with what's been around for years now.

pklemming

People that act like they are solo running a dungeon are votekicked. I usually do this just before the last boss. It is a group dungeon, play as a group.

pklemming

jaws343 wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Most dungeons on Normal difficulty are relatively easy to complete. Each dungeon has 3 item sets to collect from it, so players who are looking to farm gear (or just complete their daily random dungeon) want to do so as quickly as possible.

If you want a slower experience, you have the option of making a group in the Group Finder for that purpose. Alternatively, you could try soloing it with or without a Companion (you can bring friends along for this if you'd like).


The "joining encounter in progress" feature has been around for quite a while, and it helps because the people being left behind still get an opportunity to fight the current boss. If that feature didn't exist, the busy players might even defeat the final boss before the slow players finished listening to every bit of dialogue, which would mean the slow players wouldn't get a chance to fight any bosses at all.

Soloing works to a point. But some encounters have mechanics that require you to be rescued from a dungeon one hit kill. So those present an issue.

I’ve learned that they need to get rid of those mechanics that prevent dungeons being soloed with gimmicks or work arounds.

On normal, it's only 6 dungeons right now that have group mechanics that make the dungeons difficult to impossible to solo. And only two of them are actually impossible to solo.

Direfrost - you can do a work around to get through

Fang Lair - precog will get you through the mechanic
Blackheart - precog can get you through
Fungal Grotto 2 - precog can get you through

Wayrest 2 - Impossible solo
ICP - Impossible solo

The mechanics for Direfrost, Wayrest 2, and ICP, should absolutely be removed, as they are outliers compared to the large number of dungeons we have. The other 3 are fine as is, since a skill can be used to get through the mechanic.

The workaround was 'fixed' in direfrost because for some reason they wanted people to not solo it. I dunno, maybe the lewtz.

Wayrest 2 used to be soloable with a Sorc, using the sorc pet on the boss and hiding in the alcove at the top

ICP gates at the end are just annoying. Everything else, including the 2nd boss are easily soloable on vet. Most of the dungeons there are problematic on vet, not normal. You can often burn to avoid mechs on normal, you can not on vet.

Soarora

Before it was added, have you ever been locked out of a boss fight for being a little too slow? I have. It’s far worse than being pulled. People should not be “dawdling” in a dungeon out of respect for other peoples time. If you see chest or heavy sack, say so and people may come back or may stop and wait for you. If it’s a dungeon you have all the gear in, then there’s limited use in looting chests.