Forced-Solo Bosses Too Hard For You? ESO, Here's a Solution!

Nova Sky

Everyone:

Some folks don't mind forced-solo confrontations with single-player story bosses, while others are a bit more colorful in how such situations, well, distress them.

So, after encountering several situations in the SP campaign that left me with badly damaged armor, no potions and a bruised ego, I altered tactics and beat those bast, err, bosses. But, I also had time to think of a workaround that would keep the diehard ESO fans happy while *not* driving away the more casual-minded players.

Here it is:

Namely, a player will have "x" chances to defeat a boss at full strength. Doing so within that frame will result in full experience points being awarded, along with whatever spectacular loot the quest giver gives the player for completing the trial.

Should the player fail to beat the boss within that frame, the next time the player takes on the boss, it will be 25 percent weaker. But, there would also be a trade off: While the boss would be easier to defeat, the player would also only get 75 percent of the potential experience points, and end-quest loot that's a level or two below what s/he would have earned had s/he defeated the boss at full strength.

The cycle would repeat one more time after the initial 25 percent drop. In other words, a boss could drop to *half* its normal difficulty if a player finds it impossible to beat at normal or near-normal difficulty. But, the player, upon finally defeating the boss, would get only 50 percent of the normal experience points, and end-quest loot that's even lower than the 75 percent of normal loot.

Does that make sense? I think it does, but here's a "table" of sorts for folks to also chew on:

NORMAL STRENGTH (1-5 ATTEMPTS)
• Boss strength: 1000 hit points.
• XP reward: 1000 points
• Reward(s): 500 gold plus Tier 1 weapon/shield/staff/jewelry

75 PERCENT STRENGTH (6-10 ATTEMPTS)
• Boss strength: 750 HP
• XP reward: 750 PTS
• Reward(s): 375G plus Tier 2 weapon/shield/staff/jewelry.

50 PERCENT STRENGTH (11 OR MORE ATTEMPTS)
• Boss strength: 500 HP
• XP reward: 500 PTS
• Reward(s): 250G plus Tier 3 weapon/shield/staff/jewelry.

In conclusion, it's my belief that such a system would satisfy diehard players and casual players, thus keeping the subs from both populations for ZeniMax to further improve ESO.

I'm not a programmer, ZeniMax, but I bet if you could implement something like this, it'd go far in improving the SP experience.

Nova Sky

P.S. For folks worried about the lost XP, it's not really lost. You would simply have to take on a more mobs to replace what was lost due to hard boss battles. Same holds true for the lost goodies — you'd simply have to find them in-world, or have another player craft you the really good stuff.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

FFXIV has this, it's called the Echo buff (Echo is part of the lore of the game), after failing a fight twice (you need to have beein fighting at least 3 minutes to count) then your stats get boosted a bit: the buff can be removed if you don't want it.

It works very well, those who want a 'challenge' can hit their head against their brick wall to their heart's content while the rest of us don't get blocked from progressing due to something being too hard.

Xanthro

Steal the echo buff if you can't balance the fights.
Some fights are literally impossible (with some class and builds) unless the boss bugs.
The biggest issue is that auto attack is more dangerous than special attacks on many bosses. That's just bad bad programming.

Syntse

Easier would be just to make it possible to group on those.

Forztr

When I got stuck on a boss I'd just leave the instance , level up a couple of levels, gear up bit more and then go back.

MW2K

Syntse wrote: »

Easier would be just to make it possible to group on those.

This. We are playing a multiplayer game after all.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

PeterRJG wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Easier would be just to make it possible to group on those.

This. We are playing a multiplayer game after all.

And every time I log in I see many scores of them .. your point is?

Group content is fine but when you can let 3 or 11 others carry you it's no test of personal skill.

MW2K

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

And every time I log in I see many scores of them .. your point is?

My point? I'm agreeing with the guy who says the guild solo quests should be groupable. I've been saying that from beta days.

Everything should be groupable.

Soloeus

No.

Reduced exp? Reduced difficulty? What is the cooldown? This is a lame idea.

Syntse

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

Group content is fine but when you can let 3 or 11 others carry you it's no test of personal skill.

Isn't this just personal choice? If someone wants 11 others to carry him, how is that concerning you in any way if you just want to solo stuff. Only exception being if things will be upped to the lvl that they should be done in group of 12.

If Zenimax says that this is intended to be soloed but you are free to bring your friend with if you struggle then there should not be issue. And it can be referred to any groups that do it and complain afterwards that it was too easy.

Hilgara

What if I don't want the boss to get weaker if I lose. I want be beat the bast....boss as designed with all the abilities and health that was originally considered soloable. I don't mind dying to a tough boss. Gives me a chance to see what his abilities are and adjust.

JKorr

Hilgara wrote: »

What if I don't want the boss to get weaker if I lose. I want be beat the bast....boss as designed with all the abilities and health that was originally considered soloable. I don't mind dying to a tough boss. Gives me a chance to see what his abilities are and adjust.

You missed part of the post:

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

FFXIV has this, it's called the Echo buff (Echo is part of the lore of the game), after failing a fight twice (you need to have beein fighting at least 3 minutes to count) then your stats get boosted a bit: the buff can be removed if you don't want it.

It works very well, those who want a 'challenge' can hit their head against their brick wall to their heart's content while the rest of us don't get blocked from progressing due to something being too hard.

People who don't want it don't have to have it. People who want it can use it.

Or let people group. I'm still trying to get past Mannimarco on one character. I'd be happy with either solution.

D0gstar

I'm currently stuck trying ( and failing ) to beat MB.Hate the forced solo element of this game and have almost cancelled my sub, whole point of this game for me is to group and quest.I'm nearly 60 now so really don't need any extra challenges in my life other than getting up and going to work and maybe bending down without my back locking up.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

JKorr wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

What if I don't want the boss to get weaker if I lose. I want be beat the bast....boss as designed with all the abilities and health that was originally considered soloable. I don't mind dying to a tough boss. Gives me a chance to see what his abilities are and adjust.

You missed part of the post:

No, he chose to ignore it as it didn't support his agenda.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

D0gstar wrote: »

I'm currently stuck trying ( and failing ) to beat MB.Hate the forced solo element of this game and have almost cancelled my sub, whole point of this game for me is to group and quest.I'm nearly 60 now so really don't need any extra challenges in my life other than getting up and going to work and maybe bending down without my back locking up.

I'm 61 in August, I've beaten MB three times (twice on Templar and once on Sorcerer) and am a pretty bad player (I don't min/max stats, I don't follow cookie-cutter builds and don't use add-ons to help me play) .. so age is no defense.

Hilgara

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Hilgara wrote: »

What if I don't want the boss to get weaker if I lose. I want be beat the bast....boss as designed with all the abilities and health that was originally considered soloable. I don't mind dying to a tough boss. Gives me a chance to see what his abilities are and adjust.

You missed part of the post:

No, he chose to ignore it as it didn't support his agenda.

No actually he's right, I missed it.

dsalter

halve the numbers of deaths, dying 11 times is no fun for anyone thats not bos raiding.
personally this could work BUT, dont reduce the quest, just the boss reward as questing alone is bad enough exp as it is in VR

Hilgara

I'd be happy if you didn't have to do the whole damn quest again if you stop before the final battle. I remember fighting my way to Mannimarco the 1st time. Got there and decided to turn in for the night expecting to pick up where I left off. Wong!

Animus0724

I say no, most of the forced solo bosses have specific tactics that make them a helluva lot easier, yea helluva is a word, anyway I nearly face rolled almost every solo forced boss by just paying attention what NPCs say, most of the time they give you a good hint or two, sometimes they down right tell you what to do.

Your solution is to reward players who lack the attention span to actually understand how to beat a boss.

The only ones complaining about "OMG boss to hard, nerf now" are those that either skip all dialogue and jump into the fight head first and *** when they get laid out. Or those with a seriously bad build...

dsalter

Animus0724 wrote: »

I say no, most of the forced solo bosses have specific tactics that make them a helluva lot easier, yea helluva is a word, anyway I nearly face rolled almost every solo forced boss by just paying attention what NPCs say, most of the time they give you a good hint or two, sometimes they down right tell you what to do.

Your solution is to reward players who lack the attention span to actually understand how to beat a boss.

The only ones complaining about "OMG boss to hard, nerf now" are those that either skip all dialogue and jump into the fight head first and *** when they get laid out. Or those with a seriously bad build...

ever fought the forced solo fight vs VR storm anchronacs? (spelling sucks) it's not fun unless your a destro dress wearing DK

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Animus0724 wrote: »

I say no, most of the forced solo bosses have specific tactics that make them a helluva lot easier, yea helluva is a word, anyway I nearly face rolled almost every solo forced boss by just paying attention what NPCs say, most of the time they give you a good hint or two, sometimes they down right tell you what to do.

Pretty sure the first time you meet Doshia you have no idea W-T-F is going on and why she heals to full repeatedly.

RylukShouja

dsalter wrote: »

Animus0724 wrote: »

I say no, most of the forced solo bosses have specific tactics that make them a helluva lot easier, yea helluva is a word, anyway I nearly face rolled almost every solo forced boss by just paying attention what NPCs say, most of the time they give you a good hint or two, sometimes they down right tell you what to do.

Your solution is to reward players who lack the attention span to actually understand how to beat a boss.

The only ones complaining about "OMG boss to hard, nerf now" are those that either skip all dialogue and jump into the fight head first and *** when they get laid out. Or those with a seriously bad build...

ever fought the forced solo fight vs VR storm anchronacs? (spelling sucks) it's not fun unless your a destro dress wearing DK

Not true. I can dance around as a healing Templar and heavy attack my way to victory after about 12 painful minutes.

...oh wait, you said not fun. Carry in.

Blooddancer

I have not encountered any forced solo boss that I could not defeat... eventually. One of the primary creeds of on-line gaming:
"If it's too hard, do something else, level up, gear up and try again", the ultimate player buff.

Besides that I like being reminded that my character can do more than the same two moves over and over when fighting mobs, boss mobs are very good at making me rethink what I am doing and utiilising more abilities.

In relation to the OP - reducing the gear reward is funny as I think they have already applied the quest reward debuff.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO

I also prefer possibility to group up for these bosses.
Gutripper is now nerfed into oblivion and doshia.. Lol she dieed after stealth attack and single DW skill used. She did not even transform into harvester :-(

Also heritance bosses on the island behind skywatch were nerfed and we COULD group up for those! I don't like faceroll content :-(

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Blooddancer wrote: »

I have not encountered any forced solo boss that I could not defeat... eventually. One of the primary creeds of on-line gaming:
"If it's too hard, do something else, level up, gear up and try again", the ultimate player buff.

Fine, good for you, I hope you don't have a problem with Molag Bal because over-leveling isn't a practical option.

You also presumably never played games like FFXI and FFXIV where leveling is locked behind such fights (group or solo) and so in that case over-leveling isn't even theoretically possible.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

Blooddancer wrote: »

I have not encountered any forced solo boss that I could not defeat... eventually. One of the primary creeds of on-line gaming:
"If it's too hard, do something else, level up, gear up and try again", the ultimate player buff.

Fine, good for you, I hope you don't have a problem with Molag Bal because over-leveling isn't a practical option.

You also presumably never played games like FFXI and FFXIV where leveling is locked behind such fights (group or solo) and so in that case over-leveling isn't even theoretically possible.

I have fully leveled resto staff, but because I had also light armor fully leveled I felt it as waste to use it further so I started to use heavy armor with sword abd shield.

When I defeated Molag Bal I was using heavy armor(full set) and resto staff. It took some time, but I got him for first try.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

When I defeated Molag Bal I was using heavy armor(full set) and resto staff. It took some time, but I got him for first try.

Cool, my Sorc used one two, my Templars didn't.

I was simply making the point that anyone stuck on this fight doesn't have over-leveling as an option, which seemed to be what you were saying was the mitigation for what I would argue are some crassly over-tuned solo-only fights: Lyris @ 30 springs readily to mind.

eaton68_ESO

Keep it simplified. Solo for people who want the challenge...able to group up for folks who don't care about that and want to just progress.

Blooddancer

Fine, good for you, I hope you don't have a problem with Molag Bal because over-leveling isn't a practical option.

You also presumably never played games like FFXI and FFXIV where leveling is locked behind such fights (group or solo) and so in that case over-leveling isn't even theoretically possible.[/quote]

I did have trouble with MB initially but I changed what I was doing and got through.
And no, I have not played the other games you mentioned but this is not about them. I have played other games where you must group to get past some levelling content and that really sucks if you do not want to group or are not able to get a group.

We are stuck with the system we have, personally I do not currently believe there is any need to dumb down the bosses for story line content, I'll let you know if I think differently after I have taken down (or not) MB with all 4 classes.

LonePirate

Xanthro wrote: »

The biggest issue is that auto attack is more dangerous than special attacks on many bosses. That's just bad bad programming.

A million times this. I am astonished by the sheer number of skills that are completely useless in boss fights while the vanilla mouse click light and heavy attacks are the only ways to deliver any effective damage. This is absolutely horrible game design.

Then you have bosses like Faolchu in Glenumbra. The NPCs kept telling me he was weak against fire. As a DK who can equip an Inferno staff, I thought this fight would be a walk in the park. Boy was I wrong. All of my fire based class and weapon skills barely damaged this VR1 monster who supposedly was weak against fire. When I stopped attacking him with my all of my fire abilities and let him chase me around the room, the fire from the fallen debris he would stupidly stand in would melt him like butter on a hot summer afternoon. This is incredibly bad game design and programming.

Jimm_ay

I remember that fight - I think it was part of the storyline that you were to trick him into the falling fire rather than just dps him to death. I thought the same thing being a templar. Instead I just ran in and out the doors in circle and jumped over fire...I guess that was more of a puzzle boss than a hard kill.