thorwyn wrote: »

Because on vet, the Reef Heart is a wipe mechanic, meaning you either play it, or you die. It's not just more damage or anything, you simply wipe the group. And since the mechanic is also rather complex and is pretty hard to "explain" without voice com, which many casual groups via groupfinder don't have acces to, they decided that it should be possible to skip. I don't really care about normal, but I think it's ok-ish, because new players are frequently complaining about the so called one-shot-mechanics and consider them unfair.
You analogies about CoA and VA are off the mark. You can't compare a dungeon to a solo arena. While the lava in CoA is just a way to get from a to b, the lava in VA has a mechanic attached to it (the sigil).
In terms of trials, one could argue that the portal mechanic in nCR is similar to the reef mechanic in terms of complexity and wipe potential. But Cloudrest is older than Dreadsail, so I guess they figured out later that normal trials should be toned down and don't have wipe mechs.

Edit: by sigil I mean that fiery orb of course.. not the actual arena sigils.

So maybe the answer is to make the boss immune to damage until the heart is destroyed or something along those lines. Doesn't wipe the group but they have to deal with the mechanic.

So maybe the answer is to make the boss immune to damage until the heart is destroyed or something along those lines. Doesn't wipe the group but they have to deal with the mechanic.

That would be a solution, yes. However, many people think that scripted immunity phases are bad design and I tend to agree with that. See Lair of Maarselok.

kargen27 wrote: »

thorwyn wrote: »

Because on vet, the Reef Heart is a wipe mechanic, meaning you either play it, or you die. It's not just more damage or anything, you simply wipe the group. And since the mechanic is also rather complex and is pretty hard to "explain" without voice com, which many casual groups via groupfinder don't have acces to, they decided that it should be possible to skip. I don't really care about normal, but I think it's ok-ish, because new players are frequently complaining about the so called one-shot-mechanics and consider them unfair.
You analogies about CoA and VA are off the mark. You can't compare a dungeon to a solo arena. While the lava in CoA is just a way to get from a to b, the lava in VA has a mechanic attached to it (the sigil).
In terms of trials, one could argue that the portal mechanic in nCR is similar to the reef mechanic in terms of complexity and wipe potential. But Cloudrest is older than Dreadsail, so I guess they figured out later that normal trials should be toned down and don't have wipe mechs.

Edit: by sigil I mean that fiery orb of course.. not the actual arena sigils.

So maybe the answer is to make the boss immune to damage until the heart is destroyed or something along those lines. Doesn't wipe the group but they have to deal with the mechanic.

Given the number of people continuing to heavy attack a gold health bar at Mirrormoors I doubt it would help much. They'd probably just continue to HA until they got bored and declare the boss bugged

sarahthes wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Personally, as an endgame raider, I think the difficulty jumps between normal, vet, and HM in the newest trials are spot on.

I've wondered about this with Lucent Citadel. I'm not ultra endgame raider but I do have some regular vet trial clears, including in Lucent. Lucent felt like a good difficulty for regular vet for me because it is doable in pugs but they won't all clear and mechs do need to be paid close attention to. The Crags are outdated at this point. But is the hard mode too easy? Or is it in a good spot, difficulty wise? I haven't done it but I'd hope it would be challenging to those who enjoy that level of challenge.

The hard mode is fairly mechanical, and the clear rate is pretty low right now. It's difficult to pug with an inexperienced group. I do think it's the right difficulty though, or maybe could be even a little harder.

Like DSR, it requires the dds to pay attention to mechanics and can't be carried by supports. Which is a good thing, I think.

Nice! That's good to hear. It seems like they really nailed the progression then on that one between the three different difficulties.

Renato90085 wrote: »

it why if i join a pug ndsr try help , alway no anyone take dome/do bash/do reef/no swim/no break free in any boss
oh and when they join vet,it happen too
i think have a story mode and not drop reward/a training mode in normal trial is good change

story mode and not drop reward/a training mode in normal trial is good change

Yea! that alternate solution, and It' s better than making stupid explanation.

"Hey folks! ! This orb is dangerous!! Don't leave it!" <----Oh boy, please....

When I was playing "Dead Space", I could easily understand what will happen if I put my Issac to the
dangerous appearance facility on the field...(LoL). Just I was hearing monster's creepy voice and air duct noise only.
No stupid NPC explanation in there.

I think ZOS is not good at visual explanation style for making good game.

Orbital78 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Easy mode is supposed to be more forgiving than normal and have less mechs. If you'd prefer vet trials, just run those.

The problem is that it doesn't get you ready for vet trials if you can just roll your face across the keyboard and clear it. But I stopped doing normals a long time ago, indeed.

I agree and disagree. More difficult normal trials would discourage people exploring trials who are not currently guided - especially if you’re pugging yourself via group finder. How many PUGs for MOLs and DSRs disband when it becomes a prog on the twins?

There’s also the fact that most of the time normal trials are rounded out/filled by experienced vet and vetHM players who explain the mechs in voice (and often do a lot of damage) when the RL doesn’t have a full roster of new raiders so there’s going to be added ease compared to if it was a bunch of inexperienced new trial players figuring the trial out for the first time by themselves. We have a similar level of ease if you’re running a vet or vet HM trial with an experienced group versus if the trial just came out and you’re trying to see what works and learn the mechs and progging the bosses.

In my opinion finding an experienced raiding guild is how you really prepare for veteran+ more than having a difficult normal trial. Normal trials are to train you for vet but it’s not just mechs, it’s teaching new raiders basic trial moves like LoSing, blocking, roll dodging, stacking, getting into discord, listening to raid leads, reading boss telegraphs, getting trial sets, and learning raiding culture and etiquette which IMO are all far more important to building a solid raiding foundation than merely mimicking the vet mechs.

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Normal does punish for missing a reef but its differant.. the boss just enrages and can one shot a unblocking tank easily, even some blocking ones.

That is not a great solution though. If the tank survives this (either on their own or with help of a healer) the message DDs are getting is still "I can ignore stuff, it's fine". Most won't notice that they are causing the enrage unless they are told so. Putting extra pressure on supports just because DDs are choosing to ignore part of their role is not ok.

(this is probably not such a big thing to deal with, but still, the concept is flawed)

randconfig wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Normal dungeons and trials used to be harder. And they didn't just get easier because of power creep. They were made easier to appease a subset of the playerbase.

Dunno if nDSR got that treatment though since I was on hiatus for a couple years that encapsulated its release.

I always hated this change, my problem was not that I needed the normal dungeons to be a thoughtless act, it was that the mechanics were never clearly communicated or easy to understand.

I don't even try veteran dungeons because normal dungeons don't really teach me the mechanics, and I don't wanna have to alt + tab multiple times and rush search for information on the mechanics before someone in the group just quits, and I especially don't want to have to type out everything I find online to the group to try to teach everyone the mechanics too...

I wish they would make the mechanics matter in all content and for all difficulties, and implement a very simple way to explain the mechanics to people in-game. Like if the group wipes on a boss, show a pop-up explaining the mechanic they died to. That alone would be big enough change to teach people the mechanics.

That is good idea! A more detailed death/wipe recap would be very useful.
And yeah, "casual player" doesn't mean "stupid and inept". Casual content doesn't need to be challenging, but making it completely brainead easy isn't great either.

Koshka wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Normal dungeons and trials used to be harder. And they didn't just get easier because of power creep. They were made easier to appease a subset of the playerbase.

Dunno if nDSR got that treatment though since I was on hiatus for a couple years that encapsulated its release.

I always hated this change, my problem was not that I needed the normal dungeons to be a thoughtless act, it was that the mechanics were never clearly communicated or easy to understand.

I don't even try veteran dungeons because normal dungeons don't really teach me the mechanics, and I don't wanna have to alt + tab multiple times and rush search for information on the mechanics before someone in the group just quits, and I especially don't want to have to type out everything I find online to the group to try to teach everyone the mechanics too...

I wish they would make the mechanics matter in all content and for all difficulties, and implement a very simple way to explain the mechanics to people in-game. Like if the group wipes on a boss, show a pop-up explaining the mechanic they died to. That alone would be big enough change to teach people the mechanics.

That is good idea! A more detailed death/wipe recap would be very useful.
And yeah, "casual player" doesn't mean "stupid and inept". Casual content doesn't need to be challenging, but making it completely brainead easy isn't great either.

That's a great point. Casual players aren't inept. We have great teaching runs in my social guild, with casuals, the elderly and people who are handicapped, deaf etc. It annoys me when I hear that things should be easier for them because they're amazing and capable.

I do want to point out though, specifically for dungeons. In many dungeons you see the mechanics of the next boss previewed by the adds before said boss. When I was being taught vet dungeons this was pointed out to me repeatedly and holds true for many dlc dungeons. Just something to watch for. I know some say you shouldn't have to go to outside sources or do homework for a game, but since I'm doing team play, I very much research fights ahead of time. There's nothing wrong with that as well as a way of learning fights.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Easy mode is supposed to be more forgiving than normal and have less mechs. If you'd prefer vet trials, just run those.

The problem is that it doesn't get you ready for vet trials if you can just roll your face across the keyboard and clear it. But I stopped doing normals a long time ago, indeed.

I agree and disagree. More difficult normal trials would discourage people exploring trials who are not currently guided - especially if you’re pugging yourself via group finder. How many PUGs for MOLs and DSRs disband when it becomes a prog on the twins?

There’s also the fact that most of the time normal trials are rounded out/filled by experienced vet and vetHM players who explain the mechs in voice (and often do a lot of damage) when the RL doesn’t have a full roster of new raiders so there’s going to be added ease compared to if it was a bunch of inexperienced new trial players figuring the trial out for the first time by themselves. We have a similar level of ease if you’re running a vet or vet HM trial with an experienced group versus if the trial just came out and you’re trying to see what works and learn the mechs and progging the bosses.

In my opinion finding an experienced raiding guild is how you really prepare for veteran+ more than having a difficult normal trial. Normal trials are to train you for vet but it’s not just mechs, it’s teaching new raiders basic trial moves like LoSing, blocking, roll dodging, stacking, getting into discord, listening to raid leads, reading boss telegraphs, getting trial sets, and learning raiding culture and etiquette which IMO are all far more important to building a solid raiding foundation than merely mimicking the vet mechs.

This is how I feel about it as well. I like that normal gives people who normally would never be able to consider a raid a chance to enjoy one. I feel they do a decent job of providing the building blocks for it. And I also think that PUG groups are a fantastic entryway into raiding in pretty much any game. Yes, dedicated guilds are always going to be the best experience. Anyone serious about it should find one post haste! They will guide them, teach them, and generally provide a better and more competent experience. That's true of any game. But, not everyone is ready for that level of commitment right away or don't even know if they like the concept of doing large group content at all yet. PUGs groups provide an entry way and potentially an organic point of connection between new raiders and the guilds that love raiding.

I also think that having normal > vet > vet HM with greater and greater levels of mechanic knowledge demand (and even previously unseen mechs) is a good way to add some progressive difficulty to the game that isn't just stuff hits harder. I find that a more interesting way to handle difficulty in group content.

I agree but regards to the level of commitment if you’re just signing up for random training runs there is no commitment beyond that single run since you’re not signing up for a prog. Single training runs are an excellent way to acclimate yourself to raiding and build your experience, gear/sets, and skill set. Once you’re comfortable in normal understanding the basics of the trial and start joining vet training runs you can consider joining a prog with its long term commitment once you meet the RL’s standards regarding sets, skills, CP, DPS/HPS thresholds and so on. I think that far too many people underestimate the benefits of doing the crawl/walk/run methodology when it comes to end game content instead of just jumping straight into vet with its higher expectations of performance.