Options Discussion: Splitting Speedrunners From Story-Pace Players in Dungeons

Aurielle · January 2025

The only way to satisfy the those who get up in arms about other players who don’t want to read every line of dialogue and open up every urn (besides encouraging them to use the group finder) is to give them their own super easy solo story mode where they don’t have to interact with other people. Strip away the transmute stone rewards and perhaps only allow the final boss to drop set items (maybe no set items at all), so that the super easy solo story mode isn’t abused by people who want to get transmutes and gear sets even faster with zero effort.

manukartofanu · January 2025

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

Adaarye · January 2025

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Most people ignore group finder for dungeon runs and use dungeon finder instead.

It's faster.

kringled_1 · January 2025

manukartofanu wrote: »

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

I disagree. This is very heavily a developer created issue.
Conceptually, I understand having backstory and lore behind the dungeons, and at a high level I prefer it to "dungeon with arbitrary loot pinata bosses A B and C" but the way the story is delivered is in high conflict with how dungeons are mostly run.

The pacing for the most part is ok for someone who is comfortable getting the high level cliff's notes version of the story and filling in some of the detail with repeated runs. But a lot of the dungeons have extensive additional optional dialog and text lore lying around.

The problems with getting a group for this are multiple.
First off, relatively few people are motivated to do a slow run for lore for any particular dungeon after their first run.
But if people aren't on board, then sometimes npc dialog will be advanced before someone's gotten to it.
One of the frequently posted solutions here is "Just look it up on uesp/watch it on youtube" which is really such a diminishing of the experience that I'm not surprised it's often not received well.
Otherwise, you're asking people to make social connections, so that they can go do an activity (listening to npc dialog) which is intensely unsocial. It's a weird and awkward mix that doesn't work well for a lot of people which is why this has been a long standing sore point.

It's like having a book club, but instead of the book club being "read this chapter on your own time, then we discuss", its "we will all sit in a room and read the same page at the same time, and if you're a slower reader than the others, too bad, and if you're a faster reader than the others, expect to be bored".

The original base game dungeons are even worse, because several have NPCs that are not present when the quest isn't being run, so their dialog is not accessible. Fortunately that's not so much an issue in the DLCs.

Some groups have "slower" runs at dungeon launch, which I've participated in a few times, and is nice, but doesn't really cover people who come later to a particular dungeon, and personally when I'm new to a dungeon I tend to have low retention on lore/story because my attention is on learning new mechanics/encounters.

SteveCampsOut · January 2025

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Well, most people aren't using "Group" finder. I didn't even know it had these extra options over using random normals. Thanks for that information! I just looked and found the "Story" setting.

Adaarye wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Most people ignore group finder for dungeon runs and use dungeon finder instead.

It's faster.

And it comes with the added rewards. I will however be trying my hand at Groupfinder now that I know it has a story option.

AlnilamE · January 2025

A lot of the dungeons can be done with 2 players and 2 companions easily, so you might want to find one other person that wants to do the story and try it that way. If a particular dungeon is too hard, you can then regroup / ask for other players.

I don't like rushing dungeons, but I've done some of them so many times I can recite the dialogue in my sleep, so if nobody mentions they are doing the story, I will try to keep moving.

Now, I mostly queue for randoms for the XP as I'm filling the sticker book and only have a few dungeons where I've completed all sets.

That said, I usually stay in group at the end and just leave the instance in case someone wants to backtrack and loot all the things.

valenwood_vegan · January 2025

Problem is, everyone wants a one click, zero effort, easy group. But then they also expect that group to conform to their expectations of how the dungeon should be run.

One really can't have it both ways... put in some time and effort to find like-minded people to group with and you'll never deal with the random dungeon drama again.

Of course there are probably various little things zos could do to solve some of the random finder problems. But personally I'd rather take action and take things into my own hands, even if it means more effort on my part... than wait and hope that zos will make the changes I want. Just my two cents, good luck to all dungeon runners.

HatchetHaro · January 2025

A grand majority of players would choose the speedrun option.

Think about it logically: you only need to experience the dungeon story once. On the other hand, there are as three times as many Undaunted Pledges as there are days in a lifetime, and there are generally 45 unique set pieces of weapons and jewelry in each dungeon and you can only loot one per run, so that's another 44 times you gotta run that dungeon to collect everything.

manukartofanu · January 2025

kringled_1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

I disagree. This is very heavily a developer created issue.
Conceptually, I understand having backstory and lore behind the dungeons, and at a high level I prefer it to "dungeon with arbitrary loot pinata bosses A B and C" but the way the story is delivered is in high conflict with how dungeons are mostly run.

The pacing for the most part is ok for someone who is comfortable getting the high level cliff's notes version of the story and filling in some of the detail with repeated runs. But a lot of the dungeons have extensive additional optional dialog and text lore lying around.

The problems with getting a group for this are multiple.
First off, relatively few people are motivated to do a slow run for lore for any particular dungeon after their first run.
But if people aren't on board, then sometimes npc dialog will be advanced before someone's gotten to it.
One of the frequently posted solutions here is "Just look it up on uesp/watch it on youtube" which is really such a diminishing of the experience that I'm not surprised it's often not received well.
Otherwise, you're asking people to make social connections, so that they can go do an activity (listening to npc dialog) which is intensely unsocial. It's a weird and awkward mix that doesn't work well for a lot of people which is why this has been a long standing sore point.

It's like having a book club, but instead of the book club being "read this chapter on your own time, then we discuss", its "we will all sit in a room and read the same page at the same time, and if you're a slower reader than the others, too bad, and if you're a faster reader than the others, expect to be bored".

The original base game dungeons are even worse, because several have NPCs that are not present when the quest isn't being run, so their dialog is not accessible. Fortunately that's not so much an issue in the DLCs.

Some groups have "slower" runs at dungeon launch, which I've participated in a few times, and is nice, but doesn't really cover people who come later to a particular dungeon, and personally when I'm new to a dungeon I tend to have low retention on lore/story because my attention is on learning new mechanics/encounters.

I agree, but original poster said:

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

For years, half the playerbase have zoomed ahead to finish dungeons as quickly as possible (AoE pulls), while the other half want to take their time and enjoy the story, etc.

If there’s really a 50/50 division, why is it a problem? Half of the player base wanting to read the quests should be more than enough to find the party you want.

Your explanation perfectly fits my question:
Is it that others don’t want to read at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Yes, it’s boring to wait for others. But if quest readers are toooooo bored to wait for each other, why demand that of random strangers? Where’s the logic in that?

katanagirl1 · January 2025

manukartofanu wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

I disagree. This is very heavily a developer created issue.
Conceptually, I understand having backstory and lore behind the dungeons, and at a high level I prefer it to "dungeon with arbitrary loot pinata bosses A B and C" but the way the story is delivered is in high conflict with how dungeons are mostly run.

The pacing for the most part is ok for someone who is comfortable getting the high level cliff's notes version of the story and filling in some of the detail with repeated runs. But a lot of the dungeons have extensive additional optional dialog and text lore lying around.

The problems with getting a group for this are multiple.
First off, relatively few people are motivated to do a slow run for lore for any particular dungeon after their first run.
But if people aren't on board, then sometimes npc dialog will be advanced before someone's gotten to it.
One of the frequently posted solutions here is "Just look it up on uesp/watch it on youtube" which is really such a diminishing of the experience that I'm not surprised it's often not received well.
Otherwise, you're asking people to make social connections, so that they can go do an activity (listening to npc dialog) which is intensely unsocial. It's a weird and awkward mix that doesn't work well for a lot of people which is why this has been a long standing sore point.

It's like having a book club, but instead of the book club being "read this chapter on your own time, then we discuss", its "we will all sit in a room and read the same page at the same time, and if you're a slower reader than the others, too bad, and if you're a faster reader than the others, expect to be bored".

The original base game dungeons are even worse, because several have NPCs that are not present when the quest isn't being run, so their dialog is not accessible. Fortunately that's not so much an issue in the DLCs.

Some groups have "slower" runs at dungeon launch, which I've participated in a few times, and is nice, but doesn't really cover people who come later to a particular dungeon, and personally when I'm new to a dungeon I tend to have low retention on lore/story because my attention is on learning new mechanics/encounters.

I agree, but original poster said:

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

For years, half the playerbase have zoomed ahead to finish dungeons as quickly as possible (AoE pulls), while the other half want to take their time and enjoy the story, etc.

If there’s really a 50/50 division, why is it a problem? Half of the player base wanting to read the quests should be more than enough to find the party you want.

Your explanation perfectly fits my question:
Is it that others don’t want to read at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Yes, it’s boring to wait for others. But if quest readers are toooooo bored to wait for each other, why demand that of random strangers? Where’s the logic in that?

This is not the complete description of the playerbase when actually running the dungeons. Most realize they won’t get to hear the story but just want other players to slow down enough so that they can quickly click through the dialogue and be able to turn in the quest. Some dungeons like Vault of Madness and Banished Cells are the worse. If the group immediately disbands in the first BC you will get booted before they finish the dialogue and will have to requeue and run again to get the skill point. This is absolutely not fair to anyone for any reason.

SilverBride · January 2025

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

I would propose adding a third option to the two existing options of 'Veteran' and 'Normal', called 'Story'. This option would be at the same difficulty as 'Normal', and its queue description would imply that it was a queue for people who wanted to move through the dungeon at a leisurely pace, to enjoy the story, etc.

They said story mode for dungeons is on the list.

"Lambert says storymode for dungeons is “really hard because it’s essentially a third difficulty mode”; it’s on the list but probably isn’t happening any time soon."

https://massivelyop.com/2024/01/18/elder-scrolls-onlines-gold-road-chapter-takes-players-back-to-oblivions-best-city-on-june-3/

Alinhbo_Tyaka · January 2025

I would not expect a third mode would be "really hard" as the game already has a third mode more or less in public dungeons. Taking the normal mode dungeon and adjusting the damage tables to public dungeon levels should be relatively straight forward. There might need to be some adjustments here and there to keep things flowing but ZOS shouldn't have to write a whole new combat system support story mode.

Taril · January 2025

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

I would not expect a third mode would be "really hard" as the game already has a third mode more or less in public dungeons. Taking the normal mode dungeon and adjusting the damage tables to public dungeon levels should be relatively straight forward. There might need to be some adjustments here and there to keep things flowing but ZOS shouldn't have to write a whole new combat system support story mode.

It depends on exactly what their goal for a story mode is.

Creating a setting where all enemies are nerfed down to public dungeon levels is easy. But doesn't necessarily solve the problem whereby people might want to tackle the "Story Mode" at different paces (Even more so if loot still drops, so gear farmers would do these to speed up loot acquisition).

If they're wanting to create solo friendly "Story Mode" then they would have to actively redesign dungeons and encounters. Between hardstops like the levers in ICP (Can't pull both levers alone and NPC's like companions don't interact with these) and insta-kill moves (Like Dranos Velador in CoS) or in general just annoying facets of NPC's not being targeted (I.e. While Spindleclutch I is easy to solo, the last boss is annoying as you get stunned every few seconds as the only target of all of her attacks)

Sakiri · January 2025

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Ah, interesting. I'm a returning player who has never really used this tool.

Do you still get the Premium Undaunted Exploration Supplies from using the Group Finder tool? If not, that's the problem.

Alternatively, they should add story playstyle functionality into the Dungeon Finder tool, as that's where the issue lies. People are usually running speed playstyle to get Undaunted Exploration Supplies as quickly as possible.

If you get the group together through group finder and then do random normal/vet through the queue, then yes.

This solution still adds an admin step of forming a group manually, which is probably too big of a hurdle for it to occur as the norm?

If you have a different goal than the majority of players doing the activity, then that's what you need to do.

Frankly, the majority in this game WANT to speed run it.

Alinhbo_Tyaka · January 2025

Taril wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

I would not expect a third mode would be "really hard" as the game already has a third mode more or less in public dungeons. Taking the normal mode dungeon and adjusting the damage tables to public dungeon levels should be relatively straight forward. There might need to be some adjustments here and there to keep things flowing but ZOS shouldn't have to write a whole new combat system support story mode.

It depends on exactly what their goal for a story mode is.

Creating a setting where all enemies are nerfed down to public dungeon levels is easy. But doesn't necessarily solve the problem whereby people might want to tackle the "Story Mode" at different paces (Even more so if loot still drops, so gear farmers would do these to speed up loot acquisition).

If they're wanting to create solo friendly "Story Mode" then they would have to actively redesign dungeons and encounters. Between hardstops like the levers in ICP (Can't pull both levers alone and NPC's like companions don't interact with these) and insta-kill moves (Like Dranos Velador in CoS) or in general just annoying facets of NPC's not being targeted (I.e. While Spindleclutch I is easy to solo, the last boss is annoying as you get stunned every few seconds as the only target of all of her attacks)

As I said there might have to be some adjustments but actions that require multiple players should not be complicated to resolve. All they need do is add a test for story mode and/or number of players to eliminate completion blocking mechanics or to adjust a specific behavior.

To handle the level/pad activation problem just add a test for the number of players and if it is one then only require the activation of one lever of pressure pad. If you want to keep the complexity then when it is one player disable the timer to allow the player to activate each device one at a time. Heck it would be a twofer as it would fill a long standing player request to fix normal mode dungeons so they can be soloed. Since it is story mode they probably wouldn't even have to worry about testing for one player and just simplify the mechanics for any size group.

Again Boss mechanics should not be an issue. I would expect any one shot mechanics to be driven from the damage tables which would already be getting adjusted. As a result change the damage levels so they aren't a on shot. For things like the stun they could adjust the timer so it is longer or since it is story mode eliminate it completely. It shouldn't be that complicated.

My general experience before retiring is when someone doesn't really want to do something or allocate project resources it frequently becomes "really hard". I don't think coming up with a comprehensive design would be really hard but would be time consuming to ensure all areas are covered. It would also require someone with very good knowledge of the game's systems. After that it should be pretty straight forward to implement.

prof-dracko · January 2025

Easiest solution is just to add a book or two at the entrance to each dungeon after the first clear that summarizes the story. People who don't care don't have to engage.

BXR_Lonestar · January 2025

Best way to do dungeons for storyline content is to find other players who are like-minded who will runt he dungeon at your pace.

I know it is irritating/frustrating when you are trying to get a quest done and people keep ruining it by running off, but try to understand that you only need to run a particular dungeon once for a quest - but people running it to farm, complete randoms, complete pledges, etc. have probably run it 100's of times and can probably hear the dialog options in their sleep. Most people are just not going to be interested in slow-walking a dungeon after they've seen it for the 100th time.

Yes, courtesy should work both ways, but if your queing up with random players, you also need to adjust your expectations accordingly.

Sarannah · January 2025

Making only a story mode for dungeons will fail. As this only takes into account a handful of dungeonrunners, while still not making it useful for everyone else.

ZOS needs to come up with a way where every type of dungeonrunner/player can run dungeons in the way they want and how fast they want. The easiest and basically almost already existing solution, is a +3 companions random dungeonqueue. This would allow everyone to go at their own pace through dungeons, from 0% fast to 100% fast. And at the same time it would make companions more useful and fun to play with! Win-win-win for everyone. (Even speedrunners could/would/should use +3 companions randoms to no longer fear getting kicked while still going at their fast pace, and would/should no longer be negatively impacting three other players every time they queue up for a random dungeon.)

This way the only players who queue up for dungeons, really want to meet with and play with other players. Creating a much more friendly MMO environment for everyone.

anadandy · January 2025

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Yes, but most people ignore what the option says, and they always run. It doesn't matter if it is a "story" option dungeon...

This. When I was trying to get the last piece of the Shipwright crafting station from Wayrest II (not soloable) I made Story Groups in group finder, because I figured since all I really needed other people for was Malubeth I might as well help out people who wanted to do the story or newbies slow.

Six runs, all but one had players who rushed ahead and/or quit when the rest of the group lagged behind.

alpha_synuclein · January 2025

I do not believe we should have solo modes for group content. This is very much an issue that could be easily resolved by players itself. There is enough players who enjoy story modes to make is possible to find a group for everyone who reach out. You have guilds, you have group finder. You have the freedom to do what you want already.

Playing with others will always have a risk of not meeting ones expectations 100%, different players might have slightly different pace in mind, but it's not something that cannot be remedied by talking to each other before the start. And if the fact that someone will read the dialogue 30sec slower is such a bother, then the problem is not the game.

Sarannah · January 2025

anadandy wrote: »

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Yes, but most people ignore what the option says, and they always run. It doesn't matter if it is a "story" option dungeon...

This. When I was trying to get the last piece of the Shipwright crafting station from Wayrest II (not soloable) I made Story Groups in group finder, because I figured since all I really needed other people for was Malubeth I might as well help out people who wanted to do the story or newbies slow.

Six runs, all but one had players who rushed ahead and/or quit when the rest of the group lagged behind.

This may actually be a language issue, where players only see the notes of the groupfinder in their native language and can't read everything else someone wrote in there. Happens on EU a lot, due to so many languages. Example: I have had cases where I made a groupfinder group for the IA for long runs(arc 5+), and some players join and only complete the quests and leave. Basically wasting my time. But this seems like a language/understanding problem with the groupfinder itself. People will be people, hehe.

manukartofanu · January 2025

katanagirl1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

I disagree. This is very heavily a developer created issue.
Conceptually, I understand having backstory and lore behind the dungeons, and at a high level I prefer it to "dungeon with arbitrary loot pinata bosses A B and C" but the way the story is delivered is in high conflict with how dungeons are mostly run.

The pacing for the most part is ok for someone who is comfortable getting the high level cliff's notes version of the story and filling in some of the detail with repeated runs. But a lot of the dungeons have extensive additional optional dialog and text lore lying around.

The problems with getting a group for this are multiple.
First off, relatively few people are motivated to do a slow run for lore for any particular dungeon after their first run.
But if people aren't on board, then sometimes npc dialog will be advanced before someone's gotten to it.
One of the frequently posted solutions here is "Just look it up on uesp/watch it on youtube" which is really such a diminishing of the experience that I'm not surprised it's often not received well.
Otherwise, you're asking people to make social connections, so that they can go do an activity (listening to npc dialog) which is intensely unsocial. It's a weird and awkward mix that doesn't work well for a lot of people which is why this has been a long standing sore point.

It's like having a book club, but instead of the book club being "read this chapter on your own time, then we discuss", its "we will all sit in a room and read the same page at the same time, and if you're a slower reader than the others, too bad, and if you're a faster reader than the others, expect to be bored".

The original base game dungeons are even worse, because several have NPCs that are not present when the quest isn't being run, so their dialog is not accessible. Fortunately that's not so much an issue in the DLCs.

Some groups have "slower" runs at dungeon launch, which I've participated in a few times, and is nice, but doesn't really cover people who come later to a particular dungeon, and personally when I'm new to a dungeon I tend to have low retention on lore/story because my attention is on learning new mechanics/encounters.

I agree, but original poster said:

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

For years, half the playerbase have zoomed ahead to finish dungeons as quickly as possible (AoE pulls), while the other half want to take their time and enjoy the story, etc.

If there’s really a 50/50 division, why is it a problem? Half of the player base wanting to read the quests should be more than enough to find the party you want.

Your explanation perfectly fits my question:
Is it that others don’t want to read at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Yes, it’s boring to wait for others. But if quest readers are toooooo bored to wait for each other, why demand that of random strangers? Where’s the logic in that?

This is not the complete description of the playerbase when actually running the dungeons. Most realize they won’t get to hear the story but just want other players to slow down enough so that they can quickly click through the dialogue and be able to turn in the quest. Some dungeons like Vault of Madness and Banished Cells are the worse. If the group immediately disbands in the first BC you will get booted before they finish the dialogue and will have to requeue and run again to get the skill point. This is absolutely not fair to anyone for any reason.

On one hand, yes, it happens. But on the other hand, I once complained in a group, saying, "Why are you rushing? I have a quest," and they told me it was my own fault for not mentioning it at the start of the dungeon. Since then, I always let people know beforehand. Occasionally, there are minor issues, but they happen no more often than when I mess up my own quest by forgetting to stop somewhere to interact with something. Sometimes people even remind me if I’ve missed something. Sure, there are rare cases where someone ignores everything and rushes ahead, but those are so uncommon that it doesn’t feel worth turning into a serious discussion.

katanagirl1 · January 2025

manukartofanu wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

This topic keeps coming up: people who read quests often complain that others don’t want to join them in reading quests. Clearly, there are plenty of you out there. So why not gather together and read each other's quests? Seriously, what’s stopping you?

Is it that others don’t want to read exactly the same quests you’re interested in? Then why do you expect random people to do so?
Is it that others don’t want to read them at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Why do some players spend so much time complaining that others won’t read the quests they like, instead of accepting that everyone has their own preferences? And why not focus on finding a group of like-minded readers instead of demanding that random people cater to their interests? It’s not the responsibility of developers or other readers to solve this problem for them—it’s up to the players themselves to take initiative and compromise.

Seriously, share the real reasons—ones that don’t just boil down to a basic unwillingness to spend your time helping others, which is exactly why others don’t want to spend their time helping you. If you can identify those reasons, maybe a solution can be found.

I disagree. This is very heavily a developer created issue.
Conceptually, I understand having backstory and lore behind the dungeons, and at a high level I prefer it to "dungeon with arbitrary loot pinata bosses A B and C" but the way the story is delivered is in high conflict with how dungeons are mostly run.

The pacing for the most part is ok for someone who is comfortable getting the high level cliff's notes version of the story and filling in some of the detail with repeated runs. But a lot of the dungeons have extensive additional optional dialog and text lore lying around.

The problems with getting a group for this are multiple.
First off, relatively few people are motivated to do a slow run for lore for any particular dungeon after their first run.
But if people aren't on board, then sometimes npc dialog will be advanced before someone's gotten to it.
One of the frequently posted solutions here is "Just look it up on uesp/watch it on youtube" which is really such a diminishing of the experience that I'm not surprised it's often not received well.
Otherwise, you're asking people to make social connections, so that they can go do an activity (listening to npc dialog) which is intensely unsocial. It's a weird and awkward mix that doesn't work well for a lot of people which is why this has been a long standing sore point.

It's like having a book club, but instead of the book club being "read this chapter on your own time, then we discuss", its "we will all sit in a room and read the same page at the same time, and if you're a slower reader than the others, too bad, and if you're a faster reader than the others, expect to be bored".

The original base game dungeons are even worse, because several have NPCs that are not present when the quest isn't being run, so their dialog is not accessible. Fortunately that's not so much an issue in the DLCs.

Some groups have "slower" runs at dungeon launch, which I've participated in a few times, and is nice, but doesn't really cover people who come later to a particular dungeon, and personally when I'm new to a dungeon I tend to have low retention on lore/story because my attention is on learning new mechanics/encounters.

I agree, but original poster said:

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

For years, half the playerbase have zoomed ahead to finish dungeons as quickly as possible (AoE pulls), while the other half want to take their time and enjoy the story, etc.

If there’s really a 50/50 division, why is it a problem? Half of the player base wanting to read the quests should be more than enough to find the party you want.

Your explanation perfectly fits my question:
Is it that others don’t want to read at your pace? Again, why demand that of random strangers?

Yes, it’s boring to wait for others. But if quest readers are toooooo bored to wait for each other, why demand that of random strangers? Where’s the logic in that?

This is not the complete description of the playerbase when actually running the dungeons. Most realize they won’t get to hear the story but just want other players to slow down enough so that they can quickly click through the dialogue and be able to turn in the quest. Some dungeons like Vault of Madness and Banished Cells are the worse. If the group immediately disbands in the first BC you will get booted before they finish the dialogue and will have to requeue and run again to get the skill point. This is absolutely not fair to anyone for any reason.

On one hand, yes, it happens. But on the other hand, I once complained in a group, saying, "Why are you rushing? I have a quest," and they told me it was my own fault for not mentioning it at the start of the dungeon. Since then, I always let people know beforehand. Occasionally, there are minor issues, but they happen no more often than when I mess up my own quest by forgetting to stop somewhere to interact with something. Sometimes people even remind me if I’ve missed something. Sure, there are rare cases where someone ignores everything and rushes ahead, but those are so uncommon that it doesn’t feel worth turning into a serious discussion.

That’s the usual response I get. Players on PC must be more considerate than those on PS based on my experience.

Grega · January 2025

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Group finder was made for this purpose. It has a speedrun and a story option.

Ah, interesting. I'm a returning player who has never really used this tool.

Do you still get the Premium Undaunted Exploration Supplies from using the Group Finder tool? If not, that's the problem.

Alternatively, they should add story playstyle functionality into the Dungeon Finder tool, as that's where the issue lies. People are usually running speed playstyle to get Undaunted Exploration Supplies as quickly as possible.

If you have story mode queue, that would work.

The problem is - I think you’d be surprised just how very few people are interested in it. Likelihood is, you will be queued in story queue for hours before a match is made.

The group finder, available now, would work much better for that. But, likewise, interest for such thing is so low you rarely (but not never) see it.

FYI: I see nothing wrong with story mode. I’d utilize it from time to time. But - as I can solo pretty much any dungeon on normal that doesn’t have any invuln/bashby2ppl mech - I can do story mode by myself, whenever I want to.

KekwLord3000 · January 2025

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

For years, half the playerbase have zoomed ahead to finish dungeons as quickly as possible (AoE pulls), while the other half want to take their time and enjoy the story, etc. We have all experienced this, and we all generally fall into one camp or the other. How do we fix it? This post is not designed to say which of the two approaches is right or wrong, but to discuss queueing solution to resolve the issue.

I would propose adding a third option to the two existing options of 'Veteran' and 'Normal', called 'Story'. This option would be at the same difficulty as 'Normal', and its queue description would imply that it was a queue for people who wanted to move through the dungeon at a leisurely pace, to enjoy the story, etc. The rewards would be the same as 'Normal' difficulty. People who wanted to go quickly would know to queue for 'Normal', while people who wanted to take their time would know to queue for 'Story'.

Would this solution work? Could it be altered/improved upon? What other ideas have people had to address the issue?

I wonder if the devs can create bots like in the wow dungeon tutorial that help with taunt/heal/dps at least for the first few dungeons