Sanctum Ophidia - The Serpent

JuL1aN

Hello everyone,
Today I talked with a GM about the Orbs/Pink Bubbles/Shields (or however you want to call it). He told me that the Random-Spawns of the Bubbles are intended and because of this you have to be lucky that everybody gets a Bubbles.

And as xMovingtarget said: "Theres no place for luck in a game where you have leaderboards."

There is also a Latency Problem/Bug with the Orbs -> CLICK

To fix Problems like that, the best Thing would be to fix the Latency Problem/Bug and/or maybe increase the Time until the Explosion. (3 Seconds +/-)

Please let me know what you think about this. I would be happy to hear some opinions and I hope you understood my English.

Hope you all have a great day,

Greetings Julian.

Gyudan

An easy fix could be a change in the orb mechanics.
Assign 1 orb to each player. Only that one is visible. Everyone has to run towards his own orb and there will no longer be the risk of stealing each other's stuff because of connection delay between players.
I think that this could be equally challenging as the current system, even if less coordination would be involved.

Aeratus

Gyudan wrote: »

An easy fix could be a change in the orb mechanics.
Assign 1 orb to each player. Only that one is visible. Everyone has to run towards his own orb and there will no longer be the risk of stealing each other's stuff because of connection delay between players.
I think that this could be equally challenging as the current system, even if less coordination would be involved.

This is a pretty good idea.

JuL1aN

Aeratus wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

An easy fix could be a change in the orb mechanics.
Assign 1 orb to each player. Only that one is visible. Everyone has to run towards his own orb and there will no longer be the risk of stealing each other's stuff because of connection delay between players.
I think that this could be equally challenging as the current system, even if less coordination would be involved.

This is a pretty good idea.

Pretty good idea, indeed.

SirEwan

Yes, as xMovingTarget said there is no place for luck in a game where you are actively competing for leaderboard positons.

The two suggestions above seem they could be implemented easily and it would lead to a more coordinated and skill based fight, rather than a fight of pure luck.

Another idea would be to simply make the postions of the orbs fixed and consistent so we could devise a proper positioning strategy for each member of the raid.

Alcast

I have also had the problem with the latency, i got to the orb first and another dude stole it and BAM in your face=dead.
Also it is kind of annoying if you get to the boss with no deaths and then you die because of things you can NOT foresee.

Ty for looking into this ZOS.

xMovingTarget

Yea, this need to be reviewed by the Developers. The Orb machanic is just frustrating.

Gyudan

JuL1aN wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

An easy fix could be a change in the orb mechanics.
Assign 1 orb to each player. Only that one is visible. Everyone has to run towards his own orb and there will no longer be the risk of stealing each other's stuff because of connection delay between players.
I think that this could be equally challenging as the current system, even if less coordination would be involved.

This is a pretty good idea.

Pretty good idea, indeed.

Feel free to send a /feedback explaining the issue and including this idea or any version of it. It's more effective than forum comments

Butters21

I think this is keeping competition tight, if everyone gets the bubbles every time and its too easy you will constantly see really good times because this is the crux for everyone's times at the moment. Only the best and most organized groups are getting sub 50 mins times.

Alcast

Butters21 wrote: »

I think this is keeping competition tight, if everyone gets the bubbles every time and its too easy you will constantly see really good times because this is the crux for everyone's times at the moment. Only the best and most organized groups are getting sub 50 mins times.

Dude it is not even about if you are organized or not, it is only LUCK and latency problems lolz.

JuL1aN

Alcast wrote: »

Butters21 wrote: »

I think this is keeping competition tight, if everyone gets the bubbles every time and its too easy you will constantly see really good times because this is the crux for everyone's times at the moment. Only the best and most organized groups are getting sub 50 mins times.

Dude it is not even about if you are organized or not, it is only LUCK and latency problems lolz.

^this

pppontus

Gotta love some latency orbs.

Katniss_Everdeen

The point is that it should be possible to take every orbs every time ONLY for good organized groups. If its just luck and random then every group can do it just by coincidence and that shouldnt be ok in my personal opinion.

JuL1aN

push

xMovingTarget

Katniss_Everdeen wrote: »

The point is that it should be possible to take every orbs every time ONLY for good organized groups. If its just luck and random then every group can do it just by coincidence and that shouldnt be ok in my personal opinion.

What Katniss said. +1 *Here i have a taco for you*

TehMagnus

Agreed with JLN

JuL1aN

push again

Oinabilac

I disagree completely, the randomness of the orbs add to the difficulty of the game. It is not like there is no solution, it can actually be mastered.

Kraen

Disagree.

Shields are random, but you can reduce the random factor on minimum by having your eyes open and knowing the game. And those 2 virtues should count.

You are best PvE players of your respective alliances. Please, dont complain about difficulty of this already easy game.

Vixen

It's an easy game and even easier when you always have buffs! Just don't raid without them people

Kraen

Vixen wrote: »

It's an easy game and even easier when you always have buffs! Just don't raid without them people

Because buffs really matter when you are looking for the shields. -.-

Elder Scroll of Healthy Eyes: + 10% Awareness about encounter


Seriously, leave in game passion behind and lets try to keep PvE in this game at least a bit challenging.

Vixen

So challenging!

Alcast

Kraen wrote: »

Disagree.

Shields are random, but you can reduce the random factor on minimum by having your eyes open and knowing the game. And those 2 virtues should count.

You are best PvE players of your respective alliances. Please, dont complain about difficulty of this already easy game.

And what do you do when orbs dont appear because of the lag-troll? It is challenging right, but if you die bc of lagspikes or bad megaserver performance then well...

Kraen

Alcast wrote: »

And what do you do when orbs dont appear because of the lag-troll? It is challenging right, but if you die bc of lagspikes or bad megaserver performance then well...

Yes, this happens and its annoying. If you mean the moment when you cant see the purple lights, and you see just circle of light on the ground, that is of course annoying bug. Basically, particle effects disappear totally, sometimes.

Zenimax should fix this, because especially when you want to have a good time, this can screw you.

Its a bug, tho. Randomness in shields spawn has nothing to do with it. I enjoy the fact that you can reduce the randomness by quality of play and experience. If the lag or bug kills you, its of course something that needs to be fixed asap.

By the way, this is by far not the only issue in SO. We had several runs with very good times, and then someone crashed in Serpent´s room and we needed to start the fight in 11, because for unknown reason, person that crashes gets teleported to the start of the Trial instead of to the last dead boss like it is in dungeons. I dont understand to the reason of this.


In game bugs should not lead to nerfs, tho. Bugs should be fixed. Another thing is if Zenimax is capable of fixing stuff. They already showed us many times how much they dont care about PvE in this game. (especially the competitive top of the iceberg is screwed by the PvP buffs and crazy class imbalances)

ZOS_JoeBlackburn

In update 6, we have increased the time that the shields are available before despawning. This should allow you to more consistently get shields to all your party members. We encourage everyone to hop onto the PTS when update 6 is available to try it out.

ZOS_The_Adoring_Fan

Yes. What Joe said.

bFunk

ZOS thanks for the upcoming SO nerf. Now ESO will be completely easymode.

Kraen

If we are going to take the path of nerfing things because one group of players dislike it, then it wont end well.

igohamnchz

Just like Vet DSA pre-nerf, if you don't take the time to try to strategize and just go the face-roll method, you are going to have a hard time with the pink orb phase. And also like Vet DSA pre-nerf, with a little bit of planning you can manage this challenging (not SOLELY luck based) mechanic to make it totally manageable. When our 33m super group forms, it's very surprising to have more than 2 deaths at the first pink orb phase because of how we deal with it. Even those deaths don't matter much, because the serpent is already at 40% health at that point. It just takes some practice and planning.

Our first night attempting speed runs we got the serpent to 8% with 1 minute left to kill him for the 33m achievement, and the reason we didn't complete had nothing to do with pink bubbles. We know we are going to be able to accomplish this before the nerf, and after the nerf I'll treat normal mode the same way I do Vet DSA now that it's been nerfed. I won't be returning on a competitive level again, and will only return if I happen to still need loot or my guildmates want me to go on a casual run with them.

igohamnchz

One solution I can think of for future end-game content is adding another tier/togglable option to the difficulty of the final boss. For example, instead of just normal mode and a togglable hard mode, maybe there can be some other type of choice made by player interaction with the environment to attempt the instance at a lesser degree of difficulty (basically an "easy mode" toggle). In this case people who dislike the pink orb mechanic can run the instance without it and (possibly) receive inferior loot for not beating the entire instance.

For the argument that you can't be competitive with a "luck-based" mechanic and it shouldn't be present in a trial with leaderboards, that's not the case here and shouldn't be the basis for a nerf to the difficulty of the instance. There is no arguing that there is some RNG in the spawning of the pink orbs, but as I said before with a little bit of planning you can (very) reasonably expect to have all but 1 or 2 of your entire team left to complete the trial and post a sub 35m time. My group manages the pink orb phase differently than any other method I've came across before but its not some ingenuity-soaked brainchild of a rocket scientist, and any group could do it. If your group goes with the "you run there and I run here" method then you are allowing the RNG to dictate how much chance to succeed you have after that mechanic. The blame there isn't "bad luck," its a bad approach to that phase allowing luck to play that big of a role.

f047ys3v3n

I find it sad that the leaderboards do not have times for Hard mode of SO as well as AA and HR as it is precisely those modes that are challenging for the very best players. Perhaps adding this would offer some consolation for the nerfing of content.

As for my opinion on the bubbles, first off they do actually need to work all the time. Frequently they do not currently always bubble a person when they are run through. They will sometimes just despawn. They will also sometimes bubble you but not show the animation leading people to grab more bubbles killing allies. The first nerf the bubbles need is to actually work. Maybe that isn't a nerf but it will sure make things go better and remove some of the randomness that folks are bothered by. It is pretty unfair randomness for the mechanic to be sometimes just plain broken.

As for the randomness of where bubbles spawn, there are a variety of random aspects to trials such a troll stomps on the manti and the far more problematic general server instability with its frequent DC's. This mechanic is unique for an intended mechanic in that when it is coupled with the short timer it is much more difficult to have everyone in your group survive. Whether it is too difficult or not probably comes down to how much you want ping rate and personal reaction time to matter in the game. Currently the mechanic is such that it is unreasonable to expect a good group to be clean through a phase where the bubbles are lopsided if anyone has less than ideal ping or is a bit older and has a slower than ideal internal ping. The time is simply to short to be waiting for the spawn to move if all factors are not ideal.

To be honest, for my part ill be happier to have a bit more time as either myself or my connection are not fast enough to make it to a bubble without moving before they spawn leaving me sometimes quite without anywhere to go when a spawn is particularly lopsided. I am also happy it is the time being increased rather than the spawns made non-random as I prefer people to still have to think on their feet rather than just pre-coordinate where they are going. If anything this will make for more thinking on ones feet as currently most groups just go their pre-assigned directions and pray. One problem I have with trials is that stack and wack strategies are consistently the most successful as well as requiring the least dynamic play. I understand from the videos I have seen that this has even come to dominate vet dsa where high enough dps can break even the final bosses mechanics allowing more reliable and much faster clears. The more mechanics, such as the Lamia and pink bubbles, that require a group to be unstacked the better if you ask me. I expect the troll poison was also intended to do this but has obviously failed.