Are we learning yet?

Layenem

I'm a HUGE supporter of what ZOS is doing. I've PTS tested since January and provided a novel's worth of feedback. I've seen good solid changes and some changes that I looked at wondering why it even mattered or how it was going to affect the game...

The ones that have me worried though are the changes that haven't been made. The KEY change at this point is the fact that we all, every single one of us from PTS, told ZOS that Craglorn was too easy. Overall, far too easy. Their comments about it was that it was a "group orientated zone" which, to me, meant that it would be mechanically challenging for a group with elements that would challenge healing, DPS, and tanking. So far there are three areas where this exists... Shada, the School of Blades, and the trio of mages inside of Zalgaz's Den (sp).

There was a third but the three lamia no longer respawn if you don't kill them together and that fight is now only a challenge to a group of Vet 2s (maybe).

So are we learning yet ZOS? Are you seeing the WAVE of people who are leaving because the game offers no challenge? Or those of us who do LOVE the game and what it can become that you refuse to give the challenge to? Are you really going to let WoWStar take your place at the top of the three games coming out this year?

You're an amazing development team... SCREW the publisher and GIVE US WHAT WE WANT!!! WOWStar won't even survive if they refuse to provide difficulty. Where do we go next? We won't just play a crap game, I'll tell you that much. Keep the MMO genre alive and give us what we NEED! Not what the publisher wants.

Remember... without you, they have no purpose! There HAS to be synergy between the developers, the publishers, and the players...

Laura

this guy gets it. People bash devs but from my experience they usually agree with the player base and they CAN NOT tell you because of disclosure agreements!

+1 awesome I agree with everything about this post

Tanabe

you nailed it with the 3 placed that have some challlenge to em.
shame they let vet 1-9 enter craglorn, they could just keep em out and boost the mobs 3-5 times then, so it was just i tiny bit fun in there.

Layenem

I would like to shamefully add that the response to (or lack thereof) our feedback about Craglorn and the way it currently functions, coupled with the immediate kneejerk reaction that comes down from the publisher, is the reason why my brother and I (and quite a few other people I know) are now playing WoWStar on the side (I hate saying that...) so that we can get REAL raiding.

ZOS I love what you're doing. Publisher... I hate your faces and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

ZOS_GinaBruno

@Layenem, can you let us know what you feel is too easy in Craglorn? Everyone else is welcome to chime in as well, if you're feeling the same way.

Anlaemar

I haven't entered Craglorn, yet. But if people can solo content that's designed for groups, the mobs need buffed and/or it should be required that you be in a group to enter.

Rantolo

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌

Burial Grounds / Anomalies... What could have been phased for 4 / 8 man groups to force some coordination and teamwork have become nothing more than grind fest for everyone and their dog to beat down on, where you have 20+ people killing it and your are lucky to get 2 or 3 hits in. There is no skill involved and forget about worrying about mechanics of the fight or getting out of the red....

Trials (which is the end all be all in the game atm).... Last I looked groups were completing in 15 minutes?

When Craglorn launched I went in with a group of 4 (Levels V1, 2, 3, 4) and we were able to start the quest and complete the first delves no problem. This content is supposed to be V9+, should be no way our group should have been able to complete without a lot of deaths... I don't think we died 1 time.

Layenem

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌

I feel as though I'm going to start a long list of "why I hate ESO" but you must understand that I love this game! Otherwise I wouldn't be here... it's just how Marines are.

The first disappointment for me is seeing people beating these trials with a 10 minute stamp on them. I understand that the Trials are meant to be some form of "competitive weekly end game" system and I fully understand now why you guys stayed as far away from calling them raids as possible... But the FIRST video you guys put out about the Trials stated that our first attempts would take an hour and a half to two hours and as we learned them over the next few weeks we would achieve times of 30-40 minutes at our best. Week One: 14 minute Trial run smashes its way onto the boards and through the hearts of end gamers.

There was a point in time when raids (end game) was meant for those who had devoted their free time (some say we have no lives but we just wish to enjoy our lives on the internet with our friends, not out and about doing other things...). There was another point when ZOS had stated (or rather the publisher forced the words through choked lips) that this content would not be something meant for casual players to take on with ease. They do.

Then let's look at delves. As far as Craglorn's delves go we were told these would be akin to dungeons on a much smaller scale. When I explored Craglorn and found 12 of these bad boys I nearly peed myself with delight! I mean... the EQ1 side of me rose up and almost started crying... I proceeded to beat that *** back down and told him to wait his damned turn!

When my team (during PTS) ventured into Zalgaz's Den and found the final boss took us about an hour and a half to take on (on v9 template characters, no mundus stones, no set gear) we found this as a welcomed challenge and thought that it was good for the first, very short dungeon. Then we did Tombs of the Na-Totambu and laughed at how easy the entire delve was. Except for the trio boss fight (caster, sword and board, and nightblade who then summon a two hand wielding final fight which was ridiculously easy compared to having to take on three bosses) there was no challenge in this one... The final fight was an oversized gargoyle who had a single wave of adds that we managed without flinching and then it died. Where was the tank challenge on this? What was supposed to make the healer cringe? We did this at v9 and cut off at the knees and this is supposed to be a challenge for a group of v10-12? No.

We figured it was just not complete or some of the values were overlooked so we reported it as a bug and moved on. Surely ZOS knows what a challenge for players is and that this was a one time accident that would be fixed. Then on to Mtharnaz... Where there was no challenge to be found. Even I went full on DPS as a v9 tank in this dungeon. The final boss was a oversized dwemer spider that summoned two spheres that died so fast that I didn't even realize we had adds until I watched the video again afterwards. I didn't block ANY of the attacks from the spider, just to find a reason for my healer to heal me... though they didn't break through my 2200 armor (this is with JUST bound armor on... at v9). Again we reported it.

Someone had passed a rumor around that the Magical Anomalies and the Burial Sites were instanced to 4 players so we decided to take on an Anomaly. Our first go at it was bad because we had a psuedo dps (a tank pretending to be dps) so we basically had 2 tanks, a healer and a dps... We failed but came back later with our 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps setup. Now THESE are sound fights. Enjoyable! Fun! Challenging enough to make us want to do them!!!... Then we get to live and they are wide open to the public making them completely useless unless you're grinding out exp. Why?

Quick Summary:

There is currently only one delve that is a challenge: Balamath

Only two of the area quests are a challenge: Shada's Tear and Rahni'Za, School of Blades (I'd like to note that The Seeker's Archive WOULD be a fun challenge if it wasn't open to more than 4 players...)

And the Trials already have ranked timers less then the 30 minutes that the Publisher listed as the "by the time you get really good and learn the mechanics" end all be all times.

If you want me to list why all of the other places are too easy I will, but it will be a longer list which is fine. I'd like to note that we have already listed these items and sent them in as feedback items while we were on PTS but I, and others that I play with, will be more than happy to do so IF IT MEANS that it will actually result in an increase in difficulty. That's why we're here. Because we've been shown that ZOS listens but we're currently being shown that ZeniMedia pulls the strings.

PS. Trials (even with increased difficulty) won't ever please the raiding community. We need real raids. PvP won't ever carry a game... Even DAoC was the lowest on the popularity list in its time slot... EQ1, EQ2, Eve were all above it. I'm just saying.

PSS. Sorry it was SO DAMN LONG lol

Defatank

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌

I'm going to break craglorn down as a whole and label each thing of numerically.

1) The Zone: General exploration of Craglorn is cool, by yourself yea you have to be careful killing things by yourself but I have seen people out by themselves soloing multiple monsters, if craglorn is intended to be for groups the monsters should be wrecking people by themselves.

2) Burial Sites / Anomalies: Small group, yea they're a challenge, but getting a small group to take on either of these is a challenge itself. You may start as a small group but quickly over run by a herd of stampeding zerging players that make the challenge disappear in no time. Also to add, if your a tank.... FORGET getting VP for doing these b/c of this same reason.

3) Delves: Great idea, but out of the delves I have done its go in kills some trash that's simple, get to the boss that has very minimal mechanics and what they have are simple mechanics. A couple of the boss are pretty cool but overall they need to be more challenging. For example the 3 snake boss in PTS they respawn if you didn't kill all 3 at the same time, it was a challenging boss. I think it was the real only challenge we had in PTS, but now apparently it's been fixed so they don't respawn.... That's not a fix

4) Trials: This is the only place that I have really had a lot of fun in craglorn, I have yet to kill a boss but I am extremely concerned b/c we're down to like 10 minutes where players are completing the entire trial???? I'm hoping HOPING this is through an exploit, if it's legit times of people doing the fights the way they're intended and capable of doing it in 10minutes thats a HUGE problem.

In closing I feel we need content that will push groups to the limits in dealing with mechanics in boss fights. Force players to do mechanics and not just be a dps burn fest. Boss fights shouldn't be lasting 2 minutes, you should be in boss fights for 8 - 12 minutes and it be pure hell of mechanics and you doing the mechanics correctly is what will make you successful in overcoming the encounter.

P.S. Belkarth needs a lot of icons added to the map for where things are located.

Kraven

Going to copy and paste because I have about 4 minutes before leaving work. Probably already touched on if so then take it as my agreement with OP.


I wish the Burial sites and Anomalies were phased to a group of 4 (8 max if insist on easy mode) these could be fun if they weren't on farm/grind status 24/7. I personally HATE the knee jerk reaction of removing all loot and xp from the mobs summoned via spirit stones in certain dungeons, might as well just take them out of the game completely.

There was a Lamia fight in one of the delves during pts, many of us found it the perfect level of difficulty, in fact it was the only one that was. Instead of bringing difficulty of others up to be on par, this fight was made easier this drives me nuts. All in all this zone is far from the end game content I was expecting or hoping for personally.

Trials...I like the trials, I find them pretty fun and currently pretty difficult since I've yet to kill a boss. However, with completion times of 10 minutes and with casuals throwing pugs together to do these trials this is not raid content. This is not the end game progression raiding that keeps hard core raid guilds interested long term. Sure it's great for their competitive nature but the only competition at all is how fast can you go. Where is the progression? How long will easily farm-able content keep people interested?

PvP... poor, poor pvp. It's a great system and extremely fun until everyone in the game left their campaign to all flood into one single campaign. Cyrodiil in it's current state during peak hours is a catastrophe. If you're on Wabbajack you can't move and player vs player turns into lag vs lag, if you're on another campaign it might as well be another PvE zone.

Vet dungeons are some of my personal favorite content, I was so excited when I learned the delves in craglorn were going to be for a full group (truthfully a good duo/trio can do many of them). Unfortunately just about every vet dungeon has ways of exploiting and negating boss mechanics, some of these are getting fixed. With things like treasure chests in VR dungeons dropping level 15 items (which we reported several times back in January) taking so long to get resolved I have to wonder how long it will be.

I know some folks are trying out Wildstar, even if it has the best raiding though I require more than just that from a game. So I personally hope that over time it can grow, so many have faith but faith can only carry so far.



PS.
We NEED real raid content. I'm sorry if there are some devs who thought this would suffice. It's a nice competitive speed run but this is not going to keep hard core raiders interested, which means there is nothing for hard core gamers to aspire to. Which means there is nothing for casual gamers to be jealous of and wish they were able to do. There has to be a goal, play hard play well and be rewarded.

Dubah

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

@Layenem, can you let us know what you feel is too easy in Craglorn? Everyone else is welcome to chime in as well, if you're feeling the same way.

EVERYTHING is too easy... There is only one fight we struggled with and it's because the healer has to seperate from at least one group member and everyone had to pay attention to what they were doing. This whole zone is junk and to be honest i was expecting more.

12 man trials, good touch however the problem is the loot tables are so horrible that there is really nothing worth getting, especially if you are a healer, there are no new sets except a 10% crit set that i would like that even makes me want to enter the trials. EVERYONE is farming and getting to VR12 in a matter of a day. I was really expecting more and you guys didn't deliver. I remember the first time we entered a veteran dungeon and i applauded you guys, it took us a bit to get even the trash fights down, i was expecting that in craglorn. The mobs have no health and they don't even hit light armor wearers very hard. This zone should be horrible for someone to walk around solo and i don't fear a thing in there. @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ i hope something happens cause this is not group content it's casual content. I play games hoping someone adds some difficulty into it. Not for how easy it is to complete... I want more loot better sets than just 1 or 2 new crafted sets and 20 sets that apply to a dps/tank and only 1 set that a healer can use... Another thing i think you guys should look at is stats. I love the system you guys have but the armor sets and skills are especially weak. I don't feel stronger if i put a piece of equipment on, i put it on just to keep people from say wow this guy is only wearing v1 items. I think stats on the gear will help out with this plus add enchantments to change said stats.

This zone needs a revamp really bad. And you also have people doing trials in 11 minutes...,. That is the worst part. I can go on for days but i know myself and tons of other people have requested difficulty and you guys just aren't going through with it.. I can go for days on this but I'd rather just go play Wildstar and hope they can do something better and if you guys ever make anything difficult i will be back but it doesn't seem like it's gonna be anytime soon

ZOS_GinaBruno

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Passed all this along to the team so they can review it.

Snit

Anomaly gameplay is as follows:

- Join zerg
- Run between two points, spam stuff on bosses before their five-second lifespan comes to an explosive end
- Hope you got exp
- Grab your loot
- Repeat until V12

This is the path of least resistance, and it's awful gameplay. It's similar to the current way people farm motifs, in that it mimics how professional gold farmers grind away their miserable work lives. Who the heck thought that encouraging players to grind boring garbage like this would help keep them subbed?

Kingslayer

Hey it might do but some don't want to get stuck in the drone fest that is vr content them anomaly grinds help those people. Although they should cater to both.

Cogo

I am just lvl 41 but heard from players inside the game I know, that they not only can solo in Graglorn but solo several mobs?

I agree completely that Graglorn should be what was published. A group ONLY zone where even if you peak in as 1 player, the first encounter would almost kill you if you do not run away.

The ESO player who likes this type of game, WANTS this type of challenge.

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO

I thought while Craglorn was being developed, it was suppose to be a Massive 4 man PVE Zone Dungeon map. Like a standard PVE zone created to be sorta like a open 4-man raid. (Think of it like Firelands Cata Raid http://www.wowwiki.com/Firelands).

Was very sad to see it a boring / zerg feast. Can't even enjoy the content with my 3 buddies...

SidKain

Craglorn has more stuff then herds of low lvls zerging anomalys?

I would love to see anomalys/ other group style quests in cyrodiil rather then craglorn... im all for lazy people grinding, and having that mechanic there for them, but everything should have = consequences. (Vet 14 public dungeon in Cyro

I get low on gold because i pvp a lot, i dont mind, but i dont want to hear "farm anamolys" every time im low on Gems/Gold. when u feel unished for not grinding anomalys, something is wrong!

bean19

Geez. Well, now we know why the Veteran levels are ridiculously difficult. They have an Everquest 1 fan who admits to writing "novels" on the PTS server forums.

There is a reason why Everquest only ever got 1 million customers and why WoW easily got 3 times their numbers MONTHS after launch despite EQ having a very similarly-made-to-EQ1 sequel launch at the same time as WoW.

The VAST majority of players do not want to play games that are restrictively difficult or that require group play. The entire zone of Craglorn is designed like early EQ1 expansion content. . . what's worse is that many game devs started MMOs around EQ1 and, as a result, they actually think that the way to profitably differentiate themselves from the industry leader is to copy some or all of the mistakes that EQ1 made that kept it from growing past 1 million subs despite being the industry leader for years and having next to no competition because all their competitors before WoW copied their same mistakes. Plus, there have been several MMOs since EQ1 that chose to copy some elements from first generation MMOs and they all tanked with those elements being chief among the player's complaints (like the difficulty of veteran levels currently are among the player-base for ESO)

Group dependency is bad unless groups are easy to form and manage. This has been learned in game design for every genre and perhaps especially for MMOs, but ESO is designed with an extremely rudimentary group finding tool and very low incentives for grouping (dungeons do not provide xp and the loot is negligible).

Only a tiny portion of the endgame (raids) should be made exclusive through punishing difficulty, and even that should be beatable by normal players should they invest time in it and learn. It should NEVER be tested against actual raiders because (having been one and a raid leader), I know that we do things that normal players NEVER do that make us significantly better at mitigating damage and dealing damage. Even in a game like ESO that has extremely weak gear progression (literally a level 35 green sword has 50% of the damage of a VR12 legendary if you don't count the enchant), min/max raid power-gamers are going to be doing 20-50% more damage and with amazing buffs, shields, and heals, easily resisting boss damage from ever being threatening. . . and yet normal players are going to find these fights we all consider "easy" impossible to beat.

So how do you fix that? Ideally, this is done with fight mechanics. So called "hardcore" gamers who are dealing ridiculous amounts of damage and easily mitigating it can still be killed if you have instant-kill boss mechanics that are telegraphed enough that players can avoid them or that are devastating enough that players cannot mitigate against more than a few hits. So either shots that will absolutely destroy even a tank if they are not dodged, but that are well telegraphed or that have a counter (an interrupt, dodging out of LoS with pillars around meant for this, using a synergy made for the fight that lets you grab a nearby NPC as a living shield, dodging out of a ground "fire" area, etc.) The other option rather than instant death is to cause so much group damage that it puts the healers out of magicka if it happens more than once in a short period. This is very common and you see it with mechanics like "fire" (environmental damage), highly telegraphed AoE attacks, spells that bounce between group members that are 2-5 yards away from one another (meaning it dies if you stack - fun fight when you have both ground fire AND need to stack during alternating phases). Anyway, the point I'm making is that if things are done well, then the difficulty is in learning the fights and their mechanics.

What WoW does is the above with game mechanics that are challenging for everyone AND they create ridiculously powerful gear progression so that even players who are terrible eventually get enough gear that they are able to derp their way through the content. ESO won't have this as a crutch or as a barrier. Since gear isn't strong in ESO, of course the best min/max gamers are going to find it "easy".

Power-gamers are going to, seriously, deal 20-50% more dps than normal players with similar gear because they learn the skills that deal the fastest dps, and that have the most efficiency (dps/resource). They equip the BEST gear for dps meaning they actually test all the different sets and the different resource configurations to actually see which ones are the highest dps. Then they learn a skill rotation and they test not only which skills are the best, but which rotations are the best meaning they factor in the cooldowns of skills so they can mitigate them by putting in the proper place within a rotation or they kick them out after learning that they are suboptimal for a rotation. They maximize their white damage and learn to put it inside a rotation so that they are hitting with skills and then normal hits and then a skill to increase their total dps. At the same time, the same characters (and not just the healers and tank) are learning to mitigate damage with spells or buffs the best way that they can, and which ultimates to use for maximum dps. All of this then decides the build FOR a power-gamer. They aren't using a build because they are RPing an ice sorceress or because they enjoy those skills and feel powerful seeing their character use them or because they don't have good finger dexterity and find weapon-swapping difficult during fights like normal players. . . power-gamers have their build chosen for them by what the combat designer currently has made most powerful and normal players HATE playing like that even when a powergamer reveals all his/her information to them and explains it. . . something that they will be less encouraged to do in a situation of competitive PvE trials that time these players.

Additionally, power-gamers have seen every fight mechanic out there. We have names for them and can easily choreograph a fight after a handful of runs. Normal players have not encountered every fight mechanic and even after learning it, they have trouble communicating the details to their groups, and teaching them the skills needed to deal with them. It's one thing to know that you need to stack and to dodge fire to the right, but then what do you do when your group hits a wall and you can't go right or there are adds you need to take out and your character is melee but moving out of the group will make your whole group take much more damage?

You just can't test endgame content vs. powergamers. You'll end up serving a ridiculous master who will ALWAYS think your game is too easy because your gear is weak and thus there will never be content that has a dps check (often referred to as a gear check in WoW) that is so high that skilled power-gamers cannot beat it. Again, they'll be doing 20-50% more damage than normal players even before they get VR12 legendaries from min/max. . . that is, unless you want to add in ridiculously powerful gear that steps up dps and damage mitigation dramatically so that you can create gear checks. That's the only thing that is going to stop power-gamers. . . if you make the content impossible for them to beat unless they've farmed the latest gear. . . and ESO's weak gear makes this impossible. . . of course, the downside of that is that you then have to come up with a system (like WoW's LFR and Justice/Valor Point systems) for normal gamers to get enough gear that they can derp their way through the content (or at least older content), AND you'd have to completely remove the soft-cap because creating strong gear progression would be meaningless if you banged immediately into the soft-cap with it.

Since those kinds of changes seem incredibly unlikely, the correct course to take would be to invite players who are of various other levels to playtest trials out with a power-gamer "trial-leader". See how effective the normal players with VR12 characters with legendaries and builds they construct are against these trials even with one powergamer to lead them. This would help inform powergamers AND would give you actual metrics on how challenging you should make your trials because with such weak gear progression you'll NEVER satisfy power-gamers. It would also reveal power-gamer strategies because they would have to educate their teams on which builds and strategies to use in order to dominate. This would result in having learned about the formerly ridiculously powerful resto-staff/AoE ultimate synergy on test servers instead of the first day Craglorn went live too.

Seriously, find 5 min/max power-gamers from the top-scoring trials this week and ask if they'd like to be test-trial leaders who would teach randomly invited test players from the community (all of which are below VR12) to test the trials. It would be some work for the community managers to setup, but then you'd get some actual metrics that are useful and meaningful. If you're balancing your game based on PTS forum feedback given by powergamers, then you are going to end up making an endgame that only serves this ridiculously small minority. Get real metrics with a proper test and then trust them.

SidKain

we all also want Pack Guars! a Pack Guar that follows usaround and stores Mats... And by "we all" i mean me

Cogo

@bean19

Hello.

Regarding your view of everquest you are wrong at server points.
EQ had up to 2.5 M unique accounts at its prime.

You also describe EQ as anything like WoW. DEAD wrong.

WoW was a new type of MMO, since at the time, the base for MMO seamed to be like EQ. IT is not.

Either you did not play Everquest or someone feed you some horribly wrong info about Everquest.

Regarding WoW. Their first year was very unstable. Both in servers up and and and sometimes for a full day!

Also WoW had huge problems with class balancing. BUT as ALL MMO who keeps going. WoW worked on their problems, fixed/changed and created a NEW type of MMO. NOTHING like EQ.

Then like ALL long term MMO, the start of the MMO is NOTHING like the current one. WoW for example evolved into an MOO where the game starts at high level, easy access to most things is a feature. A CORE thing in wow is that every players is supposed to be able to experience EVERYTHING.

Now you can even buy a high level char, with decent gear and instantly join a public raid that almost 100% drops epic loot for you.

There still is a small feature in WoW called Normal/Heroic raiding. This is open to all players, but NOT promised that everyone will be able to kill the hardest raid boss on the hardest setting.

WoW pretty much removed leveling. You can be naked and level from 1-85, solo.
This is niether right or wrong. This is what WoW as MMO is offering.

Also, WoW is the KING in the feature Action house. It wasnt their idea, but their version, evolvement is such a big FEATURE of WoW, that you can call that feature alone one of the main type of MMO that WoW is.

Now, what so many people gets wrong, is that MMOs have different types/Core features. WoW is still the king regarding unique active accounts. About 5-6 mill right now? Their top was 11.5 I believe and made the guiness world of record.

This doesnt mean if you want to make an MOO it has to be features like WoW.

ESO is breaking new MMO ground, by using lots of different ideas/features from other games. Polished/changed/added them and put it all together with their own features, and by so created a new BRAND if you will among MMOs

Lets see where it takes us. Already ESO is changing/fixing/evolving and you have a great list of what to expect.

ESO is a new type, where you find playing different to any other MMO.

For me, this is what ESO makes so very interesting!

And I have to correct a mistake you make about ESO, which alot of players do as well. ESO is NOT only about your gear and char skill. It is about player skill and adaptation. Also teamwork and cooperation means more in ESO then ANY game.

Layenem

bean19 wrote: »

Geez. Well, now we know why the Veteran levels are ridiculously difficult. They have an Everquest 1 nerd who admits to writing "novels" on the PTS servers

I'm sorry but at this point I stopped reading. Insulting others is the quickest way of me knowing you have nothing important to say nor any unique ideas of your own. I imagine you went on to say something about WoWs population vs EQ1 and yet you have NO CLUE that the maximum load of the overall MMO community was only about 400 thousand players when EQ1 broke ground and brought another 2 million into the industry. WoW only capitalized by created a "pretty" MMO for the new blood. That's all they did. Go learn something kid.

bean19

@Cogo - I'm not sure how to respond to your post because it seems like you didn't read or didn't understand my first post; in fact, there are several times when you "correct" me and then state exactly what I said as your correction or add one detail I didn't mention but then verify my overall point in spite of the detail you added. I'm not flaming or being dismissive to you here and I hope you don't get that impression, but I don't know how to respond to you other than to refer you back to my first post.

bean19

Layenem wrote: »

I'm sorry but at this point I stopped reading.

@Layenem‌ - You're right that calling you an EQ1 nerd was insulting. I was going for hyperbolic humor but it didn't translate. I'll edit it out and I hope you'll take the time to respond constructively as I am interested in a well-argued opposing opinion (assuming you will disagree based on the fact that you are an EQ1 nerd - kidding. ).

Voodoo

BUMP!

Have not done Craglorn yet. Glad I am too busy to play this game. Hope they get the kinks out by the fall when I can seriously play...

@bean19 :You have a point about hardcore raiders wanting things harder (and easy too them is hard to regular players) BUT! It is sounding like Craglorn is coming up way! WAY! off the mark set by the devs and ZOS themselves. After all this is supposed to be largely V10-12 content. Trails are supposed to take 30-40mins by an "experienced" team. NON of what I am reading about this new zones sounds like what ZOS was describing it as.

One suggestion: Perhaps make the entrance area of Craglorn easier, meant for V1-5 then as you progress further inward it becomes harder and harder. Also have you not learned from open dungeons yet? It is just a zerg/farm/bot zone, stop making boss encounters open to public (or atleast instance those areas to a player cap?)

Summery: Craglorn sounds like a zone that is not living up to what it was advertised as. Simple fix! Make it harder - Progressively harder the further in you go ...so those "regular" players have time to learn and adapt, and the raiders can have some peace of mind!

bean19

@Voodoo - I think you make a fair point but the fact is that the reason that trials teams are getting absurdly fast times is that they were using resto-staff spam to build ultimate and then stacking multiple standards of Might and Storm Atronach Ultimates on all the trash and bosses. With today's patch, they've made large changes to how much ultimate can be earned with Resto-staff (particularly Siphon power), lowered global ultimate gain dramatically by removing additional ultimate for critical hits, and lowered the damage mitigation of Dragon Knight Standard.

Will it be enough? I'm not sure, but that's the problem. The content was tested against people who weren't using these tactics, so Zenimax has to decide whether they further curtail these tactics with skill changes (and what impact that has on the rest of the game) or if they want trials to only be for DKs, Sorcs, and ONE Templar so that they make the content hard enough to challenge powergamers who use this tactic.

My guess is that they are taking a slow approach (well other than the global crits don't build ultimate change which was dramatic) and dial in changes to how these ultimates work. Really, what they need to do in order to make it work well is simply write code so that you do not earn any additional ultimate WHILE sustained AoE dps ultimates are in use. This would mean that each DK and Sorc only get ONE Standard or Storm Atronach to place and they would not be able to do it in every fight.

The other issue is the open world being "easy" because the zones are shared and thus all of the fights are "zergs". Well, that will only get worse as more players reach max level and crowd into one endgame zone. . . . which is why endgame content is usually instanced. That's just a bad game design choice they are going to have to live with or see shifted to the next new area as they add new content. That's what you get when you decide to make group content open world - either players ignore it because they can't find groups easily or they do it in zergs. This is also why you don't see open-world group content in most modern MMOs.

Kingslayer

They just need to throw more instanced stuff in there leave whats already there

Dubah

bean19 wrote: »

@Voodoo - I think you make a fair point but the fact is that the reason that trials teams are getting absurdly fast times is that they were using resto-staff spam to build ultimate and then stacking multiple standards of Might and Storm Atronach Ultimates on all the trash and bosses. With today's patch, they've made large changes to how much ultimate can be earned with Resto-staff (particularly Siphon power), lowered global ultimate gain dramatically by removing additional ultimate for critical hits, and lowered the damage mitigation of Dragon Knight Standard.

Will it be enough? I'm not sure, but that's the problem. The content was tested against people who weren't using these tactics, so Zenimax has to decide whether they further curtail these tactics with skill changes (and what impact that has on the rest of the game) or if they want trials to only be for DKs, Sorcs, and ONE Templar so that they make the content hard enough to challenge powergamers who use this tactic.

My guess is that they are taking a slow approach (well other than the global crits don't build ultimate change which was dramatic) and dial in changes to how these ultimates work. Really, what they need to do in order to make it work well is simply write code so that you do not earn any additional ultimate WHILE sustained AoE dps ultimates are in use. This would mean that each DK and Sorc only get ONE Standard or Storm Atronach to place and they would not be able to do it in every fight.

The other issue is the open world being "easy" because the zones are shared and thus all of the fights are "zergs". Well, that will only get worse as more players reach max level and crowd into one endgame zone. . . . which is why endgame content is usually instanced. That's just a bad game design choice they are going to have to live with or see shifted to the next new area as they add new content. That's what you get when you decide to make group content open world - either players ignore it because they can't find groups easily or they do it in zergs. This is also why you don't see open-world group content in most modern MMOs.

Realistically they are focusing on the wrong stuff. They need a class balance and this game lacks it, but nobody wants to admit it or is nerfing all the wrong stuff. For instance previous patch they nerfed the *** out of the templar's piercing javelin or whatever it was.... Really? The only REAL constant dps skill that templars had? When DK's are running around with this DK standard and it lasts for a long time, i think 10+ seconds, with an insane damage over time + damage reduction... Then templars get this solar prison, good ability but it only lasts 6 seconds? How is that balance ZOS? You guys are way too busy focusing on the wrong stuff, there is already zone messages looking for people to run trials and all they want are DK's and Sorcs. ARE YOU GETTING THE HINT YET!? Do i need to come in here and start swinging the "Dang your dumb" bat at ZOS? You created a good concept on a game, and sadly i am starting to believe this game is going to fail if this does not get fixed... Sadly i dont think you got what it takes ZOS. But I would love for you to prove me wrong. IN FACT I would pay $15 a month for you to prove me wrong, but at this time, i am unsubbing.

Dubah

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌ this group is not the only ones talking about these issues either, i figure i would direct your attention to:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/103435/dk-solos-craglorn#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/102854/trials-completion-in-11mins#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/105520/vr-6-nightblade-solo-craglorn-bosses-video-without-invisible-stays-full-health#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/105018/players-are-no-longer-inviting-templar-damage-dealers#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/104585/class-fixes-ill-do-it-for-you-zos#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/103298/so-when-will-u-give-us-real-endgame-update-cause-recent-1-is-a-joke#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/105814/change-everything-about-anomalies#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/103545/what-is-more-annoying-12-man-group-anomaly-grind-or-the-fact-zos-screwed-it-up#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/106104/zenimax-and-people-must-have-realized-by-now#latest

I'll add more as i see them because apparently no one is paying attention

The list keeps going and going, do i need to add more?

EDIT: Ok, now I'm done and hopefully you guys are seeing the picture by now... Love this game, but its not looking good, and every MMO developer has not been able to get it right in years, they want to make the game their way and not the way it should be. Simply put you guys need to look back at your roots, look at EQ1 and see that they are still up and running after 15+ years... This game needs you to pull through and start developing something because from what ive seen so far this game wont make it a year... And I hope to all things that i don't understand and possibly holy that you guys get this right and fix this, put in some REAL endgame content and add something in that people will look back and actually be proud to say "I Play Elder Scrolls Online"

Kililin

The solution for anomalies is the same that would have been a good solution to delve bosses, scaling.

Scale them according to the number of people around, hitpoints scale linear, give them aoe attacks, agro resets, whatever, do NOT scale damage linear it shouldnt be a death/revive zerg fight.

Also change xp gain mechanics, it is really dumb that its dps based.

On another note, what i got from the OP was: we provided feedback and you ignored us.
What ZoS reads is: Craglorn is to easy.
In my opinion the real problem is the first point, it wont help to open PTS to public if you ignored Tester feedback until now. You need to start listening to feedback.
At least start some way of 2 way communication and tell the Testers that you hear them, but will not change X because of Y. This could lead to usefull discussions instead of pissing of the people caring the most about your game.

Dubah

Kililin wrote: »

The solution for anomalies is the same that would have been a good solution to delve bosses, scaling.

Scale them according to the number of people around, hitpoints scale linear, give them aoe attacks, agro resets, whatever, do NOT scale damage linear it shouldnt be a death/revive zerg fight.

Also change xp gain mechanics, it is really dumb that its dps based.

On another note, what i got from the OP was: we provided feedback and you ignored us.
What ZoS reads is: Craglorn is to easy.
In my opinion the real problem is the first point, it wont help to open PTS to public if you ignored Tester feedback until now. You need to start listening to feedback.
At least start some way of 2 way communication and tell the Testers that you hear them, but will not change X because of Y. This could lead to usefull discussions instead of pissing of the people caring the most about your game.

The biggest problem is the damage, nothing hits hard in craglorn and any half way decent tank could survive anything. Only 3 bosses have given me a reason to fight in my heal spec while all the others couldn't even touch my tank much less any of the dps. There is only 2 abilities that anybody fears atm, and one is the fire mages little flame trail and the second is the archers with snipe. After that everything else is a joke. The bosses should be doing a ton of damage to even a good tank, and making the healer clench his butthole the whole fight, but its just not there, trials i do like the damage out of them, but nothing lasts, the fights are very well constructed but class balance is missing, so you got 2 classes that are putting out so much dps they are just running through these bosses and trash. Sadly reducing ultimate gain is not going to help, they need class balance, and i give them credit for at least attempting to fix it, but they are doing it the wrong way. Instead of actually fixing the problem and nerfing DK's and sorcs they just reduce their ultimate gain, but that doesn't change the fact that those 2 classes will always out DPS a NB or Templar. The system sucks classes need another look at and a huge fix.

Another issue that i see, is ZOS is trying to be sneaky with their updates, much like craglorn, when everyone asked when is it coming out the only response we could get was "Soon". WTH is that supposed to mean? We need more Dev's to come up and say yes we realise this is a problem this is our intended fix do you guys feel it is going to be enough, ok lets go test it. Thats the point of the PTS i thought, put stuff out there and see if it works, you can't mess that server up because its not as important as live

bean19

@Dubah - A bit of a derail about specific class balance complaints, but I hear you. The DK's Standard of Might costs 100 Ultimate less than the Templar's Nova, deals the same amount of damage, mitigates almost as much damage (in a different way which is nice for stacking them - 20% now after the nerf while Nova reduces enemy's power by 30%), but the big difference is that the Standard is around for 15 seconds once it is morphed while Nova is only half that long at 8 seconds. The Sorcerer's Storm Atronach deals a bit more damage than both but doesn't have the buffs and debuffs of the others and lasts 18 seconds, and the Nightblade's often forgotten Veil of Blades does a good amount of damage with excellent damage mitigation, nice synergies, and lasts 15 seconds. . . so should Nova only last 8 seconds while everyone else gets 15? I don't understand why they balanced it this way, but I could compare similar skills in all classes and with all weapons and come up with a ton of other weird comparisons. . . basically, I don't understand their combat designer's thinking.

My point is larger than that though. There is always going to be bickering over class imbalance and perceived class imbalance because players want their build to be as powerful as the most powerful min/max builds they see powergamers use in Youtube videos. . . but that's the thing. . . those Youtube videos exist because of powergamers understanding synergies and min/maxxing to "break" the game. . . and that can actually be REALLY fun and make games super interesting. Their goal with balancing shouldn't be to make everything perfectly balanced but to nerf skills to eliminate the cheapest strategies while boosting other skills to make more possible builds fun and powerful. . . and in the end, they'll STILL have powergamers saying everything is "easy" because they are giving us enough rope that powergamers can "break" the game and bad players can "break" their characters.

Honestly, I don't find the veteran levels challenging. I find them too difficult. That may seem like it doesn't make sense, so I have to explain. They are not challenging to me because I know a couple very strong character builds for each of my characters that are able to deal with Veteran content well; however, the content is so difficult that I feel that I HAVE to use an optimal build. In pre-veteran content, I could switch skills around and have fun playing with new builds all the time for experimentation or just to keep the gameplay from becoming mind-numbingly boring and redundant. Also, I know that players who haven't figured out optimal builds or who justifiably refuse to play optimal builds because they want to play the character they lovingly constructed the way they built it will find it frustratingly difficult. . . this is why it should never have been tuned for power-gamers. Power-gamers are ALWAYS going to say that a game is "too easy". Always.

The only way to cater to them without ruining the game for everyone else is something like the difficulty sliders in City of Heroes or on mission doors in DDO. This requires instanced content though, so ESO isn't really designed for it. Still, they could make a "hard" server where they just do a global boost of 50% HP on all the mobs HP and damage output. Then players who want a "challenge" could toggle they want hard difficulty and they'd be placed on the heck-mode server. Most of them would stick around on the regular servers and complain that the game is too easy still, but at least we could tell them to go to heck (the server, I mean).