Difficulty: Challenging vs. Cheap - Why do we need "insta-kill" mechanics in normal mode?

Merlin13KAGL

Xjcon wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

I The only dungeons I've ever made it through in what I found to be a time period that I felt was still fun was when I've been grouped with someone who has taken the time to study the fights and can tell the group what the boss does and give us the strat for defeating them. Sadly, that ALSO takes the fun out of it for me because then it just feels like I'm just clicking through and dealing with mechanics rather than being part of an actual fight against scary monsters. Frankly, I'm not really sure what can be done about it.

It doesn't take that much time to watch a few fights on YouTube to understand the mechanics. It probably takes less time then it took to write your last post.
But you just said you don't like knowing the mechanics cause it takes the fun out of the fight. That makes no sense. It's not fun wiping to mistakes made due to lack of understanding of mechanics.
So many people want to play a part of a game that takes coordination but don't want to take time to learn the mechanics of it.

@Xjcon , I think what @MornaBaine‌ is getting at is that some people want to see the mechanics first hand and determine what to do from there.

Is it more inefficient? Yes. Does it add something to the game for some people to determine how to counter and develop their own strategy on their own, without a walkthrough/video telling them what to do? Yes, again.

I can see merit in both. It's harder to do with the Vet Group Dungeons, because they are less forgiving. I think there's a huge grey area in between.

Personally, it wouldn't have taken anywhere near the four hour mark the OP speaks of to know it wasn't gonna happen.

Blackheart is probably one of the uglier non-vet dungeons. Roost Mother can be rough (at least she doesn't disappear anymore), and Capt's mechanic (similar in Grotto, Sewers, CoH in regard to making your party temporarily -1) is also not to be taken lightly.

On one hand, you're following what can arguably be the fastest way from point A to point B. On the other hand, you're never getting the chance to figure it out for yourself (and your party) instead of "being part of an actual fight."

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Every single boss ability that can kill you in one go (or at least take away most of your health) comes with a warning. Any group worth their salt should be blocking or avoiding these mechanics with no trouble at all. There's nothing "cheap" about it.

Unfortunately, that's NOT true. If the animation leading up to the attack doesn't fire (and this seems to often be the case) -- or maybe the animation/warning effect is so minor as to be something you'd never notice even after umpteen tries -- you go from nearly full health to no health in an instant, followed by the summary sheet that leaves you wondering when the particular events (multiple) that killed you in that instant occurred... since you never saw them.

How many times have I had an insta-death and the summary sheet showed four or more effects doing damage? Almost every time.

I have encountered zero (0) boss abilities that don't have a warning sign to let you know that a major attack is coming. If you're experiencing lag, that's a different issue, but you get plenty of opportunity to avoid boss attacks.

Or, to put it another way, if the boss mechanics are broken, why are so many groups able to complete the dungeons with no issue?

Hate to push you off your elitist pedestal, but it isn't a lag issue (I'm 50ms from the servers) and LOTS of people are experiencing the same thing. In any event, lag would not cause an animation not to fire; it would only delay it.

I ran an experiment earlier this afternoon; same fight (mini-boss) repeated multiple times (with the same result): the summary sheet showed three light attacks (doing minimal damage) followed by a heavy attack that killed instantly; the AI never changed.

Invariably, there were one to two light attack (melee) animations; but NEVER a heavy attack animation; in other words, no tell whatsoever to give a player an opportunity to dodge or counter the attack. What's more, the heavy attack appeared to occur instantly after the last light attack animation.

The summary sheet always showed the same sequence of events.

So, it doesn't matter if you're just a fanboi, an elitist, a shil, or an employee of the marketing department, it IS happening and people are going to notice even if you claim in the forums that it doesn't happen .

Did Sewers the other night. Lich came with periods of straight-up lock-up. It wasn't even the usual lag/rubber banding. Things would fire for a few seconds, animation and response would freeze (unlock the previous where you could move but not skill and then get snapped back).

Finally had to Alt F4 it. (In advance, it's not the machine, the connection (my end), the video card drivers, etc, etc, etc. This machine was built for ESO and more than capable of handling the processing required.) It's an ongoing mystery in-game glitch - one probably buried so deep they don't even know where to start.

Couple that with code that doesn't do what's expected and often adds more issues, separate issues, than it fixes and you end up where we are now.

Lack of testing, coder testing, not PTS-please-find-our-mistakes-so-we-can-ignore-your-reports-on-them, leads to where we are now.

I love the potential this game has. Love the series, though it's starting to seem like a better idea on Bethesda's part to have steered clear and consulted for lore only.

It's a different venue, yes, but their publishings don't crash as hard and as fast as what ESO seems to be doing as the norm these days.

Players are ticked. PTS people are ticked. It's becoming a not-small thing very quickly.

I digress.

@Lord_Kreegan ,@nerevarine1138

I think you're both right. The tells would be great if the game was responding the way it should. However, it's not, and catastrophe is usually the result.

And the counter to the

Or, to put it another way, if the boss mechanics are broken, why are so many groups able to complete the dungeons with no issue?

lays in why are VR14 DS Arena/Trials Champs posting on the forums that they're getting their butts handed to them in VR4 scaled dungeons?

Some of the boss mechanics are flat out random.

Let me rephrase: Some of the boss mechanics are flat out ESO-random.

Dumb luck is fine, to an extent. You don't want the same fight twice, obviously, but sometimes it seems to go the other extreme - with what very much appears to be skewed results in one direction or the other.

Luck/random should be a part of it (who the boss decides they're gonna target with a particular effect, for instance), but it should rarely be the determining factor in winning or losing a fight.

All too often, that is not the way it often feels now.

MornaBaine

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Xjcon wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

I The only dungeons I've ever made it through in what I found to be a time period that I felt was still fun was when I've been grouped with someone who has taken the time to study the fights and can tell the group what the boss does and give us the strat for defeating them. Sadly, that ALSO takes the fun out of it for me because then it just feels like I'm just clicking through and dealing with mechanics rather than being part of an actual fight against scary monsters. Frankly, I'm not really sure what can be done about it.

It doesn't take that much time to watch a few fights on YouTube to understand the mechanics. It probably takes less time then it took to write your last post.
But you just said you don't like knowing the mechanics cause it takes the fun out of the fight. That makes no sense. It's not fun wiping to mistakes made due to lack of understanding of mechanics.
So many people want to play a part of a game that takes coordination but don't want to take time to learn the mechanics of it.

@Xjcon , I think what @MornaBaine‌ is getting at is that some people want to see the mechanics first hand and determine what to do from there.

Is it more inefficient? Yes. Does it add something to the game for some people to determine how to counter and develop their own strategy on their own, without a walkthrough/video telling them what to do? Yes, again.

I can see merit in both. It's harder to do with the Vet Group Dungeons, because they are less forgiving. I think there's a huge grey area in between.

Personally, it wouldn't have taken anywhere near the four hour mark the OP speaks of to know it wasn't gonna happen.

Blackheart is probably one of the uglier non-vet dungeons. Roost Mother can be rough (at least she doesn't disappear anymore), and Capt's mechanic (similar in Grotto, Sewers, CoH in regard to making your party temporarily -1) is also not to be taken lightly.

On one hand, you're following what can arguably be the fastest way from point A to point B. On the other hand, you're never getting the chance to figure it out for yourself (and your party) instead of "being part of an actual fight."

.

Yes, exactly! I'm glad you get it.

DimeN3Pennys

I did that dungeon last night.. The roost mother does teleport but does absolutely nothing for 3-5 seconds afterwards.. And any ability she has cannot ohk unless you're a vampire or you're too low on max health or something. Sounds like a bad player in a bad group trying to blame someone or something else, like all bad players and bad groups in all games do..