Discussion : Joining Encounter in Progress is destroying dungeon experience

Sakiri · December 2024

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Personally, I think if anyone attacks a boss while another party member is in dialogue with an NPC or interacting with a chest or Heavy Sack, the game should pull the one who started the fight back to the other player. But what do I know?

When there's three people at te boss we call dragging behind impolite.

i11ionward · December 2024

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

When I make a new character and go through all the dungeon quests again, I just write in the chat that I'm doing the quest and people stop playing the speedrun (usually).

Oceanchanter · December 2024

I politely disagree with the OP on that.

This feature has it's downsides, yes, but perks too.

I'm particularly annoyed by AFKers in the team, and maybe it's just my luck, but I've seen them often in recent weeks after I came back to finally play Gold Road.

I've had people, usually DPS, that stands there, take damage, die, refuse ressurections, get up after the fight is done.
One time a player straight up used sit emote and did nothing.

I can understand long loading times or something happening IRL, but if they are forced to join the encounter, and for the whole fight they are just standing there, doing nothing, it's clear they are an AFKer.

If it's a Fungal Grotto-easy level of a dungeon, I pay no mind.
I just want to have it done, get my daily rewards and/or pledge, it's simple and quick, I can do enough damage even as a healer to clear it.
But higher level ones? I'd rather have my Companion in their place.

And this feature saved me a lot of time grinding some dungeons cause some Vamp ran in stealth just to teleport us to the boss, or some tank speedran us.

i11ionward wrote: »

When I make a new character and go through all the dungeon quests again, I just write in the chat that I'm doing the quest and people stop playing the speedrun (usually).

Same. I personally never had issues with people when I said I have a quest to be done in the dungeon.
I get the "experience" aspect but after making 15 characters it would be a chore without this feature.

CalamityCat · December 2024

Sakiri wrote: »

I don't see how it's so hard to make a group to run slow through the place.

I see a ton of people making groups in guilds and in zone chat, why can't you do that for your purposes?

I would say that those who want to go really fast or really slow should be grouping up with others who want the same.

In a random group it seems a bit selfish for a single player to set the pace the other three are going. I'd rather players ask first and respect the speed the majority want to go. Unfortunately this yoink mechanic plays into the hands of the fastest and most impatient.

CaptainVenom · December 2024

Actually dungeon speedrunning is destroying the new player experience. Older basegame dungeons could use some changes to prevent people from rushing like that (AKA Fungal Grotto skipping).

Mesite · December 2024

I got lost in an unfamiliar random dungeon the other day but I wasn't worried at all because I knew that any moment I would be dragged into the next fight. Problem solved

ESO_player123 · December 2024

CalamityCat wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

I don't see how it's so hard to make a group to run slow through the place.

I see a ton of people making groups in guilds and in zone chat, why can't you do that for your purposes?

I would say that those who want to go really fast or really slow should be grouping up with others who want the same.

In a random group it seems a bit selfish for a single player to set the pace the other three are going. I'd rather players ask first and respect the speed the majority want to go. Unfortunately this yoink mechanic plays into the hands of the fastest and most impatient.

True, but this "yoink" at least guarantees that no one gets locked out of boss fights and everyone can complete the random dungeon.

kind_hero · December 2024

Recently I had an awful experience with the random daily dungeon, and with the random dungeon group experience.

I am a veteran player, playing for 10 years, but during this time, I focused on two chars to do most of the content.

But with Necrom, I created an arcanist which I wanted to level during the New Life festival.

I did all the dungeons many years ago, when the content was much harder, save some DLC dungeons that I didn't care about.

For a non-cp player it is quite difficult to follow a group that fast forwards through the dungeon. 1st of all I want to do the dungeon quest for xp and skill point, second, I can't follow a group that has the mythic speedbuf ring.

So, with the joining encounter, I skipped some quest objectives in the dungeon, and couldn't complete the quest for the xp and skill point. I can let go the story behind it since I did it a long time ago, but to me most of the run was a waste of time.

Think how this feels for a new player. I think there should be a check mark for new players, so they shouldn't join a group of veterans or speed runners. If I were a new player I would most likely quit the game.

Someone mentioned WoW. I played wow for many years before ESO, and I can remember that dungeons were the backbone of social interaction in vanilla and burning crusade. I met most of my wow friends doing dungeons. In the early years of ESO this was the case with ESO as well. But now this system needs some options. With my new arcanist I had to abandon two dungeon quests in a day because of uncompleted steps due to speed runs. I don't think this is OK, even though for me it's not an issue, since I don't plan to invest much in my alts. But for the future of this game, I think the system has to be changed somehow.

SolarRune · December 2024

Like others have said - when someone says they have the quest etc I go at their speed.

However, having levelled a new char recently, it does seem that all the nice players that do slow their run to the speed of someone questing are in this thread because my experience was awful with players running ahead. I did end up having to setup private groups to run the dungeons because of this, but just imagine if I was a new player to the game levelling for the first time - it would be a massive turn off.

People can't complain about shrinking populations and not enough tanks/healers if when people are trying to level or learn a new role they don't get the chance to learn.

Whatever happens here there will be winners and losers, and ZoS should do whatever is in the best interest of the game as a whole. Equally if they make no changes they should actually come out and say they have looked at it and this is the best solution in their opinion - at least then people know where they stand

Leading vet trial training for newer players - there are players now coming through that think this behaviour is normal and dont see the issue with it. I've seen trial achievement runs wrecked by an idiot running ahead and pulling everyone else to a boss when trying to clear trash for a speedrun.

Hypertionb14_ESO · December 2024

make dungeons catchup a togglable option.

I had it happen where the catchup actually broke the quest while i was doing Wayrest 1. i had to re-que to clear for the skillpoint.

Given i have that dungeons fully stickerbooked and only did it for the quest skillpoint, it was very annoying.

Im sorry, but its the sort of thing that should not be forced.

Sakiri · December 2024

kind_hero wrote: »

Recently I had an awful experience with the random daily dungeon, and with the random dungeon group experience.

I am a veteran player, playing for 10 years, but during this time, I focused on two chars to do most of the content.

But with Necrom, I created an arcanist which I wanted to level during the New Life festival.

I did all the dungeons many years ago, when the content was much harder, save some DLC dungeons that I didn't care about.

For a non-cp player it is quite difficult to follow a group that fast forwards through the dungeon. 1st of all I want to do the dungeon quest for xp and skill point, second, I can't follow a group that has the mythic speedbuf ring.

So, with the joining encounter, I skipped some quest objectives in the dungeon, and couldn't complete the quest for the xp and skill point. I can let go the story behind it since I did it a long time ago, but to me most of the run was a waste of time.

Think how this feels for a new player. I think there should be a check mark for new players, so they shouldn't join a group of veterans or speed runners. If I were a new player I would most likely quit the game.

Someone mentioned WoW. I played wow for many years before ESO, and I can remember that dungeons were the backbone of social interaction in vanilla and burning crusade. I met most of my wow friends doing dungeons. In the early years of ESO this was the case with ESO as well. But now this system needs some options. With my new arcanist I had to abandon two dungeon quests in a day because of uncompleted steps due to speed runs. I don't think this is OK, even though for me it's not an issue, since I don't plan to invest much in my alts. But for the future of this game, I think the system has to be changed somehow.

A new character has access to your main's CP.

SteveCampsOut · December 2024

Sakiri wrote: »

kind_hero wrote: »

Recently I had an awful experience with the random daily dungeon, and with the random dungeon group experience.

I am a veteran player, playing for 10 years, but during this time, I focused on two chars to do most of the content.

But with Necrom, I created an arcanist which I wanted to level during the New Life festival.

I did all the dungeons many years ago, when the content was much harder, save some DLC dungeons that I didn't care about.

For a non-cp player it is quite difficult to follow a group that fast forwards through the dungeon. 1st of all I want to do the dungeon quest for xp and skill point, second, I can't follow a group that has the mythic speedbuf ring.

So, with the joining encounter, I skipped some quest objectives in the dungeon, and couldn't complete the quest for the xp and skill point. I can let go the story behind it since I did it a long time ago, but to me most of the run was a waste of time.

Think how this feels for a new player. I think there should be a check mark for new players, so they shouldn't join a group of veterans or speed runners. If I were a new player I would most likely quit the game.

Someone mentioned WoW. I played wow for many years before ESO, and I can remember that dungeons were the backbone of social interaction in vanilla and burning crusade. I met most of my wow friends doing dungeons. In the early years of ESO this was the case with ESO as well. But now this system needs some options. With my new arcanist I had to abandon two dungeon quests in a day because of uncompleted steps due to speed runs. I don't think this is OK, even though for me it's not an issue, since I don't plan to invest much in my alts. But for the future of this game, I think the system has to be changed somehow.

A new character has access to your main's CP.

If it's his first alt, it's likely he didn't go through the process of assigning his CP. Whether he had access to them or not was not the point. He merely said that for a "Non-CP player". He could have been referring to himself with no cp assigned, or he could have been referring to new players.

CalamityCat · December 2024

ESO_player123 wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

I don't see how it's so hard to make a group to run slow through the place.

I see a ton of people making groups in guilds and in zone chat, why can't you do that for your purposes?

I would say that those who want to go really fast or really slow should be grouping up with others who want the same.

In a random group it seems a bit selfish for a single player to set the pace the other three are going. I'd rather players ask first and respect the speed the majority want to go. Unfortunately this yoink mechanic plays into the hands of the fastest and most impatient.

True, but this "yoink" at least guarantees that no one gets locked out of boss fights and everyone can complete the random dungeon.

But it shouldn't be possible for players to get locked out of boss fights IMHO, I don't see what purpose that actually serves. Also, I'd support better "stuck" options if they're needed for players to teleport eg to a group member in the dungeon/trial if they become separated for some reason.

I have had the yoink recover me when my char got stuck once, so I don't hate the mechanic itself. I just think it should require a majority of the group for it to trigger.

blktauna · December 2024

thorwyn wrote: »

gamergirldk wrote: »

saying that you need quest dont do jack ***, was in a random today, 2 low lev 30 ish and 2 high lev me and a tank, he just storm through all . I stayed with them so they did not die from mobs trying to catch up. we got pulled to all boss fights

Just because that happened once does NOT mean saying "quest" doesn't do ***. I can not remember a situation where a quester was ignored. Don't generalize, keep communicating.

Happens nearly every time I'm levelling a new toon.

This is on PCEU and PCNA

AllenaNightWood · December 2024

this can be avoided 90 percent of the time if the new player states there new and its there first time in and doing the quest but if nobody says anything in group which is far more common then it should be how does anyone know

DenverRalphy · December 2024

I think dungeon bosses should simply just not spawn if any member of the group has an active quest that hasn't been completed up to that point. That way if nobody has an active quest then speed through all you wish.

randconfig · December 2024

Agreed, I shouldn't be forced to skip dialogue, skip opening chests, skip doing the quest, etc. Just because one player wants to speed run the dungeon.

randconfig · December 2024

Soarora wrote: »

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.

So cater the game to vets who could simply do a premade group, instead of the new player experience? Seems like you want the game to die then.

MidniteOwl1913 · December 2024

kind_hero wrote: »

Recently I had an awful experience with the random daily dungeon, and with the random dungeon group experience.

I am a veteran player, playing for 10 years, but during this time, I focused on two chars to do most of the content.

But with Necrom, I created an arcanist which I wanted to level during the New Life festival.

I did all the dungeons many years ago, when the content was much harder, save some DLC dungeons that I didn't care about.

For a non-cp player it is quite difficult to follow a group that fast forwards through the dungeon. 1st of all I want to do the dungeon quest for xp and skill point, second, I can't follow a group that has the mythic speedbuf ring.

So, with the joining encounter, I skipped some quest objectives in the dungeon, and couldn't complete the quest for the xp and skill point. I can let go the story behind it since I did it a long time ago, but to me most of the run was a waste of time.

Think how this feels for a new player. I think there should be a check mark for new players, so they shouldn't join a group of veterans or speed runners. If I were a new player I would most likely quit the game.

Someone mentioned WoW. I played wow for many years before ESO, and I can remember that dungeons were the backbone of social interaction in vanilla and burning crusade. I met most of my wow friends doing dungeons. In the early years of ESO this was the case with ESO as well. But now this system needs some options. With my new arcanist I had to abandon two dungeon quests in a day because of uncompleted steps due to speed runs. I don't think this is OK, even though for me it's not an issue, since I don't plan to invest much in my alts. But for the future of this game, I think the system has to be changed somehow.

Yes this is a problem I too have run into. I'm not trying to go slow, I've heard all the dialogue numerous times. But I need to tick the box to get the reward and that takes time. I'm so very annoyed by the speedrunning jerk who won't stop for 20 seconds while I fast click thru the lines. Usually they are the "tank" or "healer" in my experience fakes and speedrunners often overlap.

AzuraFan · December 2024

CalamityCat wrote: »

But it shouldn't be possible for players to get locked out of boss fights IMHO,

It's possible. Some bosses are in gated areas. After the first couple of group members reach the boss, the gate closes. I've been locked outside the gate. If not for this mechanic, I would have been outside watching the fight, unable to participate.

SteveCampsOut · December 2024

AzuraFan wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

But it shouldn't be possible for players to get locked out of boss fights IMHO,

It's possible. Some bosses are in gated areas. After the first couple of group members reach the boss, the gate closes. I've been locked outside the gate. If not for this mechanic, I would have been outside watching the fight, unable to participate.

They could fix this by not locking the gate!

AzuraFan · December 2024

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

But it shouldn't be possible for players to get locked out of boss fights IMHO,

It's possible. Some bosses are in gated areas. After the first couple of group members reach the boss, the gate closes. I've been locked outside the gate. If not for this mechanic, I would have been outside watching the fight, unable to participate.

They could fix this by not locking the gate!

Of course. But as it stands, the "joining encounter in progress" mechanic prevents you from getting locked out of boss fights. I said upthread that I don't understand why they do the locked gate thing. The worst that could happen is the group runs away and the boss resets.

Desiato · December 2024

I would love it if I never, ever felt compelled to play a random normal again.

To understand why I do feel compelled to, one must go back in time to when ZOS implemented and subsequently refined the dungeon finder.

Finding groups wasn't a problem for experienced mmo players like me. We just used zone chat. In Crag and the Undaunted enclave areas, zone chat was full of players handling their own matchmaking. I actually just duo'd most dungeons with a friend so we could play how we wanted.

But the casual player who ZOS wanted to play dungeons wasn't as comfortable with these approaches. They struggled with the content so needed mentorship and a system to find groups.

With the original implementations of the dungeon finder, they could find each other but still lacked the mentorship and the queues were long.

So ZOS started incentivizing the dungeon finder with rewards too good to ignore. They are effectively paying experienced players like me rewards to help their casual audience with dungeons.

I know the casuals I play with probably think I'm too fast, but that doesn't mean they would agree with each other about what a correct pace is. I think it is important to most players that the content is completed in a reasonable amount of time like 15-30 mins, but others don't mind spending all day there.

So as I say here a lot, be careful of what you wish for. But for my interests, by all means ZOS, remove all the incentives for me to play random normals!!!

ESO_player123 · December 2024

Desiato wrote: »

I would love it if I never, ever felt compelled to play a random normal again.

To understand why I do feel compelled to, one must go back in time to when ZOS implemented and subsequently refined the group finder.

Finding groups wasn't a problem for experienced mmo players like me. We just used zone chat. In Crag and the Undaunted enclave areas, zone chat was full of players handling their own matchmaking. I actually just duo'd most dungeons with a friend so we could play how we wanted.

But the casual player who ZOS wanted to play dungeons wasn't as comfortable with these approaches. They struggled with the content so needed mentorship and needed a system to find groups.

With the original implementations of the group finder, they could find each other but still lacked the mentorship and the queues were long.

So ZOS started incentivizing the group finder with rewards too good to ignore. They are effectively paying experienced players like me rewards to help their casual audience with dungeons.

I know the casuals I play with probably think I'm too fast, but that doesn't mean they would agree with each other about what a correct pace is. I think it is important to most players that the content is completed in a reasonable amount of time like 15-30 mins, but others don't mind spending all day there.

So as I say here a lot, be careful of what you wish for. But for my interests, by all means ZOS, remove all the incentives for me to play random normals!!!

That is what I'm always trying to point out. If all the useful rewards are removed, why would anyone return to a dungeon unless to get the skill point/initial undaunted XP for an alt?

kind_hero · December 2024

Sakiri wrote: »

kind_hero wrote: »

Recently I had an awful experience with the random daily dungeon, and with the random dungeon group experience.

I am a veteran player, playing for 10 years, but during this time, I focused on two chars to do most of the content.

But with Necrom, I created an arcanist which I wanted to level during the New Life festival.

I did all the dungeons many years ago, when the content was much harder, save some DLC dungeons that I didn't care about.

For a non-cp player it is quite difficult to follow a group that fast forwards through the dungeon. 1st of all I want to do the dungeon quest for xp and skill point, second, I can't follow a group that has the mythic speedbuf ring.

So, with the joining encounter, I skipped some quest objectives in the dungeon, and couldn't complete the quest for the xp and skill point. I can let go the story behind it since I did it a long time ago, but to me most of the run was a waste of time.

Think how this feels for a new player. I think there should be a check mark for new players, so they shouldn't join a group of veterans or speed runners. If I were a new player I would most likely quit the game.

Someone mentioned WoW. I played wow for many years before ESO, and I can remember that dungeons were the backbone of social interaction in vanilla and burning crusade. I met most of my wow friends doing dungeons. In the early years of ESO this was the case with ESO as well. But now this system needs some options. With my new arcanist I had to abandon two dungeon quests in a day because of uncompleted steps due to speed runs. I don't think this is OK, even though for me it's not an issue, since I don't plan to invest much in my alts. But for the future of this game, I think the system has to be changed somehow.

A new character has access to your main's CP.

CPs are not the point.

I was level 30ish... so, I didn't have the mythic Ring of the Wild Hunt to keep up with the others, and I didn't want to go through all the shortcuts, because of the dungeon quest (I don't mind skipping dialogue). TBH, even on my main char, I totally dislike the glitchy shortcuts that some players take, because it usually happens that at least someone fails to do that jump/whatever, ends up dead or gets aggro from some mobs. Think of City of Ash 1&2 for example.

There should be a checkbox for new players, so you don't join if you want a speedrun.

cptscotty · December 2024

Kind of an odd problem to see in an MMO to be honest.

So the bosses are locked in an area behind gates...which could lock people out of the encounter if someone ran ahead...so they added a mechanic that auto pulls everyone into the encounter to ensure they get credit for the fight in hopes to solve the problem created by adding the gates.

But why add the gates? Because the aggro system. A tank can run up to something...and multiple enemies can then run past the tank...down the hall...turn left...and chase a person picking a chest...as the tank struggles to get aggro on them all. Now...do that situation on a boss...and it runs out and resets. If you had someone who was not wanting to keep up, now everyone is punished...especially if that someone was a tank. So the temp solution? Gate off the area.

Just fix the root problem with the aggro system. Give tanks better aggro control. Remove the gates. Allow bosses and fights to be reset when pulled out the area. No need for the "joining encounter" mechanic to be added.