Upcoming Patch Highlights & In-Progress Updates

ChairGraveyard

ghoxenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

Worst, laziest change possible.

It also doesn't fix the core problem people had with public dungeons, which is the inability to get credit due to bosses dying too quickly.

Now, instead of fixing that problem (which could have been done easily via scaling bosses) this change has compounded it, and also removed a lot of fun gameplay from the game.

Zenimax you guys have been doing a great job, but this is exactly the sort of LAZY pathetic non-fix that I hoped I would never see out of you. It doesn't fix anything, it just makes the problem worse, and the game LESS FUN.

So not only did it NOT fix the issue, it made it worse. Great.

I disagree strongly. The reason people were unable to get credit was because too many people were camping bosses. This change has made camping bosses for repeated drop of loot pointless, therefore there will not be nearly as many camping the bosses, if any at all.

This solution fixes two problems: it allows players an easier time getting credit due to reduced number/eradication of campers, and it prevents people from farming the boss for drops, which is not the intention of the delves/public dungeons.

Scaling the boss will not stop people from camping the boss. Although the first problem of players not being to get credit may be resolved, the second issue of players camping bosses for loot will not be.

Your argument failed to show how this solution does not fix the issue, or how it compounded the issue. Your argument relied on purely irrelevant premises and thus failed. My conclusion is simply that you want to camp bosses for loot, and is distressed that this future patch will prevent you from doing so.

Too bad you're wrong. Putting timers on everything is the LAZIEST possible way to "fix" these issues, and doesn't actually fix them at all, it simply guts the gameplay in favor of this "pseudo-fix" which will only make things worse.

By your logic, everything should have timers.

Want to loot a corpse? Nope, there's a daily timer. One loot per day.

Want to play a quest? Nope, timers on quests. One per week.

That would be ***, and so is the public dungeon timer.

ChairGraveyard

Zed wrote: »

I hope Zenimax reconsiders. Simply adding a timer isn't going to stop bots from camping bosses. They'll sit there and whack away at it until the timer runs out and people will still complain about not being able to get credit for loot and achievements. And loot timers are never fun for normal players either.

This. Not only does it NOT fix the problem, it makes it worse and makes the game less fun.

kcolasaccob14_ESO

I can't wait to see all the same people complaining later that they're getting WTF pwned by the dungeon bosses now that there won't be a group there to help take them down.

This is a stupid change unless the timer is short. I personally like to stay at a boss until I get the blue item and then I leave.

lichmeister

great news Jessica! Thank, thank very much!... on sooo many diff levels!
1st, i am glad to hear the missing space is still being taken seriously!

also in would like to add my 2₵ about the loot timer since so many seem to be freaking out about it: also awesome! i see waay too many people just camped right on the bosses spawn spot. sometimes there are so many people camping that they can die without you even getting a chance to hit them once. i swear, i am seeing bosses die in less than a second because 30 people have been standing over his spawn location hoping to farm some item they can sell to noobs for too much gold. Kill the boss, get your skyshard and mooove on! On the rare occasions when i entered a delve and didn't encounter a mob camping the miniboss, it was always a fun fight. Mostly, though, you come around a corner and see 5, 10, 20 players standing/bouncing around 1 spot and think: "well, at least i know where the boss spawns in here!"

that said, there is something to the argument some will make (have made) that they would happily move on once they got their blue item. This seems a fair and decent compromise. make the timer on boss loot engage once you have aquired the unique blue item. Or maybe make the items like Bosri's Sword unique so a character can only have 1 at a time?

i had 1 question about the missing vault space: i am loathe to buy any vault upgrades until this is resolved. its just so damned expensive! i bought the 1st upgrade to 70 because 60 was unmanageable. i am curious if we will be reimbursed in any way for vaults space bought twice? i am not sure exactly how much that cost but im guessing its in the ballpark of 12-15k. so if i spend that again while we wait for your fix, will we be compensated somehow? (free horsies! /nudge /nudge )

ChairGraveyard

I know, how about they just add timers to everything?

Want to log into the game? Timer - one login per week (including failed logins).

Want to loot a corpse? One corpse loot per day.

Want to take a quest or complete one? One quest per week.

Want to mount your horse? One mounting per hour.

Timers locking you out of gameplay are obviously the MOST FUN THING EVER.

Zenimax, please add lockout timers to every aspect of the game. It's not fun unless the game restricts me from performing more than one action per week.

kcolasaccob14_ESO

Making the blue item unique to only carry one at a time would actually go a long way to stopping the issue that many are complaining about without hurting people who do want to stay at a boss until they get the blue item. A lot of people do rely on those pieces as they level.

ChairGraveyard

kcolasaccob14_ESO wrote: »

Making the blue item unique to only carry one at a time would actually go a long way to stopping the issue that many are complaining about without hurting people who do want to stay at a boss until they get the blue item. A lot of people do rely on those pieces as they level.

Um, no it wouldn't. People complain about the bosses because they can't get credit, not because they drop loot (what kind of idiocy is that anyway?).

But wait, never mind. You're right.

Zenimax needs to remove all loot from the game, otherwise people might GASP! farm materials.

THE HORROR!

Yeah, obviously the only solution is to simply remove all loot from the game.

Thechemicals

8-14 people camping a boss looks stupid. Some people complain about grinding and having to farm but they pigeon hole themselves into farming for hours. A week of this games release and people were farm camping monsters as if their was nothing else to do.
The timer is a bad idea however. It almost seems like someone said "lets add a timer" and everyone else agreed instead of offering other options. For one, you could have just made it so they would have to exit the dungeon after killing bosses and reenter it to get loot. This little change would create traffic flow instead of a traffic jam at the boss.

ChairGraveyard

Thechemicals wrote: »

8-14 people camping a boss looks stupid.

Only because the boss is tuned for 3 people or whatever and dies instantly when there are that many.

If Zeni fixed the ACTUAL PROBLEM, which is that the boss dies too quickly with lots of players, getting credit would no longer be an issue.

But no, lazily slapping lockout timers on the entire game is SUCH A BETTER SOLUTION than actually fixing the problem.

MOAR TIMERS.

They should put timers on everything.

Looting a corpse (one day is appropriate).

Taking quests (a week seems reasonable)

Deconstructing items (two weeks)

Mounting your horse (once per hour)

Light/heavy attacks (once per 10 mins).

Activating abilities (once per 30 mins).

Games are only fun when they don't give you any rewards, lock you out from playing constantly, and rely on lazy bandaid fixes to problems instead of actual solutions.

Targanwolf

They made AvA kill 20 missions a 1x per day event(for a 90% of the time unusable award). How hard is it to do the same for some of these quests that are being farmed ?

PVT_Parts

Games always have a money grinding system. No one buys the blues from public dungeons anyway, so what's the problem. Let me farm him because that's my time I'm using while other people move on with the questing to lvl up. How am I supposed to efficiently lvl blacksmithing without farming a boss that drops heavy armor and weapons? Just because the complainers aren't willing to take the time to grind with the rest of us doesn't mean that there is a problem with game mechanics. For every complainer about something in game, there are 10 people who are happy with it how it is. I'm happy with how it is, just wish they spawned faster so I could fill up more. Maybe making the soul gem drop as rare as the blue item would work. as it is, I only get 4-5 blues in the 90 items my bag can hold. Loot timer? WTF is that? "Sorry (insert character name here), we know that you like to complete all the public dungeon bosses as soon as you enter a new zone, but we decided to add a loot drop timer so every other dungeon you complete won't give you anything because you completed the dungeons too quickly"

ChairGraveyard

Targanwolf wrote: »

They made AvA kill 20 missions a 1x per day event(for a 90% of the time unusable award). How hard is it to do the same for some of these quests that are being farmed ?

That was just as stupid as this is.

Timers are a lazy bandaid solution that addresses symptoms instead of actual problems.

But nah, never mind, you're right.

Th game should have timers on EVERYTHING.


Looting a corpse (one day is appropriate).

Taking quests (a week seems reasonable)

Deconstructing items (two weeks)

Mounting your horse (once per hour)

Light/heavy attacks (once per 10 mins).

Activating abilities (once per 30 mins).

Vartra

I'm going to stick my neck out here and mention that in many places the botters aren't farming the boss at all, but all of the regular mobs that drop whites, greens and soul gems in public dungeons. A whole inventory of vendor junk can be had for 1000+ gold per run, per character in the botnet (I've seen 4-5 at a time synchronized) in the time it takes the boss to respawn half a dozen times.

I'm concerned about timer creep too, we've already seen Cyrodiil's quests capped as dailies (which I believe was wholly unnecessary, and simply treating symptoms to a larger problem with the quests) and now a timer slapped onto dungeon bosses globally. I sincerely hope that these are stop-gap measures while the underlying causes are being looked at from a design standpoint, because the last thing most of us want is to have everything timer-bound whenever a problem presents itself instead of fixing the real problem.

dynamite7673b14_ESO

How about adjusting boss difficulty depending on how many people are in a dungeon. This would make it not insta-killed and give it the opportunity to kill bots.

ChairGraveyard

dynamite7673b14_ESO wrote: »

How about adjusting boss difficulty depending on how many people are in a dungeon. This would make it not insta-killed and give it the opportunity to kill bots.

THIS!

Exactly what I've been saying all along, and it addresses the *actual problem* rather than the symptom.

Targanwolf

I have grown increasingly less confident about ESO's ability or desire to really improve things.Hence my suggestions take advantage of their already displayed capabilities and inclinations.

LordSock

Thanks for the heads up. Looking forward to the bank fix. I'm scared to upgrade my bank till that fix is in. Using 7 mules right now

smuggl3r

So many angry botters complaining about timers, lol. It was *** to see every public dungeon boss camped by 8-10 bots with names like dgrtzegfgfgfgdew.

Janzix

I wouldn't be opposed to a zone out loot lock. At least that would give the people in the dungeons a chance to get their updates while the botters work their way back down to the boss again. Maybe add a 5 or 10 min lockout timer to each individual dungeon at that point too, but only after successfully killing the boss. Then the people can get their updates, the player farmers can still farm the instance for their blue drops, granted it is a little more work and time then, but still farmable.

Cuddlekins

There are all sorts of ways to help stop and thwart botters. Implement things that affect and hinder them, and leave the rest of us alone (aka, don't just bandaid the problem by putting timers which essentially punish all of us for the misdeeds of the bots).

Ideas:
- If a character is in a spawn spot and has not moved outside of a 30 tile radius of the mob which drops a special for a certain amount of time, port them outside of the entrance. Then make it so that account can't enter the dungeon again for x period of time. You'll then get bots that path away from the boss to avoid this, but you can implement secondary checks against this.
- - Characters in the same delve/dungeon killing the same mob for more than 30 minutes get ported outside and combat disabled, account flagged for investigation.
- Have a smallish team of gamemasters whose entire job is to go and check these botters to see if they're responsive. If not, disable their ability to enter combat for an extensive period of time. Can also check their inventory - if full of soul shards for insta-res'ing and blues, but not a lot else, it's pretty obvious they're a bot. Ban on repeated offenses.
- Implement a system where if the same player is reported by more than 15-20 unique accounts of fellow players for botting, the reports get instantly escalated to someone who's doing nothing else and can address it quickly. If a player falsely reported someone to troll, they get punished.
- Diminishing returns AFTER the blue is dropped for a specific account. So, if someone gets the blue from the boss, their chance to receive another one diminishes by a fair chunk. If they get another one the same 24-hour period, it reduces further and so on until they're not able to receive more. They'd still be able to get a handful a day, but in tandem with other anti-bot measures, it would help the issue.
- Scale the bosses. Someone mentioned this earlier and I'm not sure anybody bothered to actually comprehend what they were saying. Scale the bosses based on how many players are in range. So if there's only 1-2, the boss stays as easy as it ever was, but if there's 20, then the boss becomes a 1-2 minute fight rather than a 1-2 second fight.

Honestly, there are tons of things to do to stop these botters, you just have to actually want to fix it rather than slap a half-assed bandaid on it so you can make it look like you're working on problems rather than actually addressing them in helpful ways. The best solution to this problem lies in a multi-layered resolution, not just one thing. I sincerely hope this timer issue is just a temporary solution while the devs work on something more elegant and sensical.

ketzerei84

ghoxenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

Worst, laziest change possible.

It also doesn't fix the core problem people had with public dungeons, which is the inability to get credit due to bosses dying too quickly.

Now, instead of fixing that problem (which could have been done easily via scaling bosses) this change has compounded it, and also removed a lot of fun gameplay from the game.

Zenimax you guys have been doing a great job, but this is exactly the sort of LAZY pathetic non-fix that I hoped I would never see out of you. It doesn't fix anything, it just makes the problem worse, and the game LESS FUN.

So not only did it NOT fix the issue, it made it worse. Great.

I disagree strongly. The reason people were unable to get credit was because too many people were camping bosses. This change has made camping bosses for repeated drop of loot pointless, therefore there will not be nearly as many camping the bosses, if any at all.

This solution fixes two problems: it allows players an easier time getting credit due to reduced number/eradication of campers, and it prevents people from farming the boss for drops, which is not the intention of the delves/public dungeons.

Scaling the boss will not stop people from camping the boss. Although the first problem of players not being to get credit may be resolved, the second issue of players camping bosses for loot will not be.

Your argument failed to show how this solution does not fix the issue, or how it compounded the issue. Your argument relied on purely irrelevant premises and thus failed. My conclusion is simply that you want to camp bosses for loot, and is distressed that this future patch will prevent you from doing so.

This change doesn't change the issue because bots are automated, they are still going to be there. They are still going to be attacking the boss, whether they get loot or not, they are still going to be killing it too fast for the average player to even get a hit in.

So now, if you are lucky enough to find one without any bots camping it, and you really need that drop for an upgrade, guess what? Too bad, you get a white and an empty soul gem. Now by the time the loot timer resets you're no longer alone, the bot armies have arrived and you cant get a hit in

Scaling the bosses up, instead of nerfing loot would be a much better option. Banning the bots would be an even better option. The same issues will exist here with this "fix" because the bots are automated, they don't CARE if there's a loot timer, they'll just keep on killing and looting. The regular players however will be stuck in PDs for endless hours to get their upgrades, or decon material, or soulgems.

Now, as to the bot armies: I saw this a lot through Glenumbra(5-15) and Stormhaven(15-23). But once I reached Rivenscar(late 20s ish) there were few bots, and a lot of the time there was nobody even in the public dungeon, which meant that I was able to cap a boss for a blue 1h sword for myself because I could actually get hits in. It took me about 30min to get the blue drop, because of RNG - so add a timer to this, and now I'm stuck using that crappy lvl13 green sword I got from a chest that's failing me when I most need it.....

TLDR: This is not a "fix" - a fix would be having active GMs come around all the PDs and SDs and ban all the bot accounts. A fix would be enhancing gameplay, not detracting from it. What is happening here is that the playerbase is being penalized because of the activities of gold sellers.

zabbos

Wow, I am hating these maintenances, main problem of the game with me. Zenimax thought of bringer servers down any time other than the MIDDLE OF THE DAY? I don't know if the maintenance is so frequent because of it just being a new game, but its the LONGEST downtime out of MMO's I've played. The main reason i am debating whether to SUB

kcolasaccob14_ESO

smuggl3r wrote: »

So many angry botters complaining about timers, lol. It was *** to see every public dungeon boss camped by 8-10 bots with names like dgrtzegfgfgfgdew.

Pretty much a dumb comment. Do you really think botters are coming to the forum to discuss it? Also, I seriously doubt your numbers. I play the game too and rarely see any botters, I see real players farming it but your assertion that there are 8-10 people with stupid names like you just listed is just an insane fabrication of the truth.

r4gz

I don't see how adding a loot drop timer lines up with the ESO "Play how you want to play" idea.

I enjoy farming them for the Intricate/Ornate items they give. I don't see the issue. If there are too many people in a public dungeon, then create more instances for the new people entering them. Timers are a lazy mechanic to make a non-issue a huge problem.

miss_indica

I wasn't sure where to post this since I can't find a clear suggestion forum, but I figured I might put in my 2 cents about things I'd like to see added in the future. Naturally, this game is in its very infancy but it's always prudent to have a game plan for the future.

1) Guild Hall Instances: Designate a few locations to have guild halls. This will be a building with a closed door. Click the door, highlight the guild hall instance for the guilds you are in, and enter. Guild halls should be available for purchase via gold (not based on member size). This will afford guilds a nice meeting and interacting area and is rather simple to do. If you want to expand upon it more, make it customizable. Allow crafters to make furniture and allow people to move furniture in a grid system. Or offer multiple furnish styles with different pricing. Have a small access list controlled by a guild leader/officers so a few non-guild member can enter. The list of available instances will be determined by a player's access to various guild houses.

2) A barber! I am sure people would love to occasionally change adornments, hair, and markings in game for a gold cost. Easy way to keep gold cycling out of the system.

3) Paid name change! Everyone has a wished to be able to change their name at some point. Perhaps they were in a silly mood and named a character Mr Nosepicker. Fast forward, they are level 30 and regretting their choice. Offer a character name change once every 90 days for a nominal fee like 12-20 dollars. Easy database change for extra revenue!

Jeebuus

I was affected by the bank slot issue over the weekend. I submitted my ticket for tracking. I am optimistic that you will figure out a way to restore the bank slots when the fix it applied!! /cross-finger /hold breath

Cherryblossom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

Thank you for continuing to share your feedback and concerns with us. We’ll continue to read and listen, and update you on known issues and their status.

Will you be taking the Item sets available in each zone away now, as it will unlikely you will get a full set before you out level it? Or will you be increasing the drop rate of normal Mobs to compensate?
Perception and reality are two different things, for every one person coming across a group of Boss farmers there are 8 - 10 Farmers. Which group is the minority???

Cherryblossom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

Thank you for continuing to share your feedback and concerns with us. We’ll continue to read and listen, and update you on known issues and their status.

Will you be taking the Item sets available in each zone away now, as it will unlikely you will get a full set before you out level it? Or will you be increasing the drop rate of normal Mobs to compensate?
Perception and reality are two different things, for every one person coming across a group of Boss farmers there are 8 - 10 Farmers. Which group is the minority?

smuggl3r

kcolasaccob14_ESO wrote: »

Do you really think botters are coming to the forum to discuss it?

Yes, only they have to loose from the timer changes. I don't think any normal person considers fun standing in the same place killing the same boss over and over again.

kcolasaccob14_ESO wrote: »

I play the game too and rarely see any botters

Are you kidding me? YOU RARELY SEE ANY BOTTERS IN A PUBLIC DUNGEON??? What a dumb comment.

bstecb14_ESO

Ojustaboo wrote: »

You didn't need to nerf Doshia

Agreed!!! Doshia is HARD and that's GOOD! DEVS! Project managers! HEAR ME PLEASE! Don't give in to the whiners!

I beat Doshia, she kicked my butt over and over until I figured out how to do it. It was a CHALLENGE and it was IMMERSIVE and it was FUN!

Please please please accept customer feedback but don't give in to the whining without a special effort to understand where it's coming from first.

I love what you've created. I don't want to see it become another whiner's paradise of item hoarders.

If you give in to the whining... it can only lead to the dark side of MMO... boredom.

Strad
IMMERSE ME DAMMIT!