Please implement "Learning" Mode for Trials and Veteran Dungeons

Joy_Division

@‌baratron

I don't think Zenimax can write very useful death recaps because it is really hard to determine just from damage what killed you. Plus most of the times, their intended mechanics put in place for dungeons / fights are not the ones players wind up using or are the best. To This day I have no idea what that yellow circle is there for the Storm Atronach boss in AA...I recall something about it being a safe zone - but nobody uses it.

This is going to sound stupid, but I really think learning to play this game is a lot like sex: you can read about it and watch simulations of it, but until you actually do it, you have no idea what you are doing. And there is no way ZoS can put that in a tutorial or a death recap. What this means is that you learn by doing, asking, experimenting - ideally with people you enjoy - and eventually you get the hang of it.

Damage mitigation is one of those terms that gets thrown out there by the types of people who play this game for hours a day, i.e. by folks who know what they are doing. During difficult fights where high incoming damage is predictable, players will use skills designed to increase player defenses or limit enemy damage such as Circle of Protection from the fighters guild or the Nightblade Ultimate Veil of Blades. If groups are unfamiliar with this concept and just try to "tank" or heal through predicable damage, they will wipe on fights like Prazin and will never get past the second Boss in the AA trial. In fact I would contend this is what most distinguishes the experienced from the inexperienced: the former drop their ultimates at key points and avoid much of the enemy's damage entirely whereas the latter use their ultimates randomly and have to blow through much of the resources to simply survive.

Things like block-casting and animation cancelling are not explained in any instruction manual and people only learn from the more experienced (getting back to the sex analogy). I will tell you right now the best players in the game more or less hold down block in an AOE situation whenever they are in danger of being attacked because getting charged by even a trash mob will take 80% of your health and they recover the magicka simply by using the spell symmetry skill from the mage's guild.

The dungeons have become harder since 1.5 (except Crypt of Hearts...this was nerfed and brought into line with the other dungeons). Banished Cells I think was VR3 or VR4...at VR12 the final boss will quickly murder DPS and healers and many players just exploit the forth boss that spawns the Daedra adds because that fight is difficult. I wish there were more guilds and groups that were dedicated to training newer players to dungeons. The community is decent for stuff like trials and PvP, but I think it is just kind of assumed that people either know what to for dungeons or can pick it up quickly.

My advice for a "casual" guild is that some of their members periodically play with groups and do content with people they normally do not associate with. Eventually these "casuals" will be in groups with very good players. PAY ATTENTION and ask how and why they did certain things. And sometimes, "casual" groups will invite friends of friends that maybe a very good. Be open to new ideas if they suggest doing something different.

Two frustrating examples. A group wanted to do Wayrest Sewers and needed a DPS. I joined. By the time we got to the 2nd boss, I could tell the other members of the group were inexperienced players and the Lich boss would be a huge struggle in we didnt exploit it (I was not the healer). I told them to tank it in the corner and have it face the wall - if done this way the lich doesn't do his beam attack. They didn't listen, not only did they want to use the awful tunnel "exploit" where the group basically sits in a huge red circle, they insisted that I go in with them (which is dumber than dumb...there is zero reason for the DPS to stand in the red circles in the Tunnel). I refused to take part in their stupidity but couldn't stop them from putting their own heads in a noose. Wipe. Wipe, Wipe, Wipe. Pride goeth before a fall I guess.

Last Sunday I got invited to do a Hel - Ra run. I asked the raid leader when she wanted me to negate...she said "we don't use Negates." So, yes we just charged into all those Gargoyles and Flame Spinners because the raid "leader" was either too stubborn to change her ways or lacked the knowledge of the game to lead a raid. After we had lost some 30 lives just getting to the Warrior boss, I tried to subtly and politely stress the importance of damage mitigation during the star fury phase where players take huge amounts of damage: namely players need to be stacked in one spot, novas/veils dropped, and healers spamming healing springs. She told me they had a system and for me not to use an atronach...Im a sorcerer..no negate, no atronach...what am I supposed to use? Yes, I dropped a meteor on him!!! Needless to say the "system" didn't work: people were not stacked, no Nova was dropped, and no off healer was assigned to help with healing springs (I did this anyway because I knew it was needed but obviously it didn't help). I felt bad for the other 10 members of the raid because they were nice people, but what could I do? I tried.

Ironically that same Sunday, I got invited to do a Sanctum Ophidia run with a group that is legitimately challenging the world's best time. The raid leader is VERY confident in himself and his ability to play the game, but is ALWAYS asking questions to other players how things can be done differently, soliciting suggestions, and just tries different things every run.

That speaks for itself

onlinegamer1

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

Syntse

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

There are people who are willing to ask what you use in your bar and give hints that maybe try this. And prolly it was not you that ruined the run on spindle, maybe they didn't block or use enough quick aoe on the spiders and wiped because of that, there's no way you can save everyone with heals if that part takes more than 2-3 seconds.

Anyway best is to find friendly guild that has similar people and are willing to learn and teach.

DschiPeunt

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

1st question that comes to my mind is: have you told them before that you have never healed before?
2nd thing: vet spindle is not the easiest thing to start with. if you are completetly new to the role you want to play, you should know (just by knowing that veteran dungeons are harder than normal dungeons) that a veteran dungeon may not be the best place to start healing. so "there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting." is just not true. start with a normal dungeon.

and to answer your question:
just yesterday i did vet bc the first time without using the exploit at one of the bosses, because one in my group didn't know the mechanics (random group btw) and we did it anyway.
last week we did a completely different approach to AA with my some guild members, that have never done AA before.

just because you have made some bad experience doesnt mean the whole community sucks. communication is the key

onlinegamer1

DschiPeunt wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

1st question that comes to my mind is: have you told them before that you have never healed before?

Spend 3 straight hours posting "v14 healer lfg pledges, never healed before but willing to learn."

0 invites.

You are just making my point.

Casdha

FYI to the OP there was a training mode before they started scaling to your level. You could go in over leveled and not get any XP or Loot, but you could complete any of them with exception of maybe the last few solo (Group Dungeons not trials), but like I said you didn't get any gain for it unless a skill point was tied to it, you would get that and a white marker on your map upon completion but nothing else. If they gave you the option to go back to the old way, I could go for that.

DschiPeunt

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

DschiPeunt wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

1st question that comes to my mind is: have you told them before that you have never healed before?

Spend 3 straight hours posting "v14 healer lfg pledges, never healed before but willing to learn."

0 invites.

You are just making my point.

I'm not trying to disprove you in any way. I want every player to be succesful, because that will lead to a community with a lot of capable players to play the content with.
I just think that a learning/easy/casual (call it as you like) version is not a good idea or just isn't needed.

One important thing is and I must admit I'm part of the problem in a way: I sometimes just don't have the time to go in a dungeon with someone that doesn't know the mechanics. Sometimes I can only come online for an hour a day and just want to do the veteran daily and get the loot. And I feel that goes for a lot of other players too.
That is an important thing: every other player is a person, who wants to optimize the time they spent in the game.
Why would I spent 3 hours teaching someone the mechanics, if I never see them again? That is why it is so important to be in friendly/social guilds, because you stay in contact with better/other players, who can teach you some stuff.

In my mind your problem is not that the dungeons are too hard, but that you don't find enough people to learn it with.
If you would just find 3 other people and start with the easier normal dungeons, improve your skills/builds and then progress, that would solve all your problems imho.
Just making bosses easier won't teach you how important timing, dodging, blocking etc. is. I learned all these things not by doing the first dungeons, but by doing the content, that was too hard for me in the beginning. As I started the game, I had no clue, how to play or what to do and what build to use. After I hit VR14 I started to care and improve and now I would call myself a relatively "good" player.
None of the elite was elite from the beginning.

cozmon3c_ESO

baratron wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Let's analyze that Praxin fight and try to envision how a "training" run might possibly help players. I've done this fight over 100 times and I this is what all groups need to do:

1) mitigate the damage from first horde of spiders. If they do not do this, it is an instant wipe.
2) aoe them down and spam healing springs.
3) second wave isn't nearly as bad since less spiders and tank can taunt big boss, but mitigation and aoe still necessary
4) third wave: this is a huge DPS check, specifically AOE. Groups must quickly take down the trash while the tank holds aggro on the mini-bosses. Healers need to be CCed and killed as priority targets.
5) fourth wave: there probably will still be stuff alive from wave three. More adds, at this point there will be a spider boss, a charger boss, and a nightblade type boss. This stuff has to die quickly before Praxin becomes hostile.

In a training wheels scenario, how is a group supposed to learn ANY of these mechanics? I'm totally serious.

You make some good points.

I think the problem is that the mechanics are not obvious to a lot of players. All you know is that you're dead again. The Death Recaps are useful in showing you what killed you, but they are less useful in showing you what you're doing wrong - especially what you plural are doing wrong as a group.

Perhaps what we need is not to have the content made easier but to have the game give a lot more hints on the Death Recap screens. Even just having the waves broken down, so you don't have to try to fight all of them at once. It's one thing reading a guide or watching a YouTube video, and another to have the game itself flashing up ideas for how to improve. Also YouTube videos are very inaccessible since they are so rarely subtitled.

Unfortunately, this sort of "training mode" would require a lot more effort on Zenimax's part than simply reducing the difficulty, and so I doubt it will ever get done. Which is a shame, because it's what a lot of us "casual" players need in order to be able to progress.

In all honesty, I'm not even 100% sure what you mean by "mitigate the damage". How does one reduce damage while also attacking? I recently found out that you can hold the block button while using a staff for attack (yes, I've been playing for almost a year and I only just found out that you can block with a staff, because it was never explained anywhere that you could). But that screws up my Magicka management, since I usually hold down the attack button all the time so that I'm casting heavy attacks to restore my Magicka while hitting the various special ability buttons (1-5).

Also, I really do swear that Veteran Dungeons have become much, much harder since 1.5. It used to take maybe 3-5 attempts to do each boss, now we repeatedly get stuck for over an hour. We end up so exhausted that we're playing badly and have to give up. I just want to be able to finish, you know?

The other thing that would help would be if instanced dungeons allowed mixed-Alliance groups. Then we could all bring in our "best"/most-suited for the dungeon character rather than having to make do with the characters that happen to be in the same alliance.

I agree with @Giles.floydub17_ESO though. This probably should go on the main Discussion rather than the PTS form. Although it'll get spammed to death there, and gods only know how many more "LOL"s I'll get for being honest about being a lousy player .

sounds like you need some major coaching, pick one vet dungeon and stick with it until you finish it every time with out dieing and then move onto the next. hell im an elite pvper and i despise doing spindleclutch, but i dont want it removed, i know there will be a challenge for me whenever it comes up on the undaunted quest rotation. i only just beat crypt of hearts for the first time the other day, only because i wasnt the one healing and we got a templar healer, sorc healing is tough on a lot of bosses.

the two vet dungeons i need to learn to master is SC and COH, and you know what im fine with that. all the others i have mastered including that new that i cant remember the name of.

so treat them like raids, pick one, master the fights and the next time it pops up on the undaunted rotation, own the f out of it. rinse repeat for all the vet dungeons and bam pro gamer.

AlnilamE

Joy_Division wrote: »

I would contend that the 1-50 content is the steady learning curve or it is supposed to be. My problem is that from my experience the content got relatively EASIER rather than harder from 1-50 and then once you hit Vet ranks: BAM, you are in the deep end of the pool. So this is a problem of execution rather than design.

Yeah, I hear you. If you are even minimally interested in quests, there's no way you won't overlevel stuff and things will become much easier as you move along. Getting to the Silver zones isn't bad either. They are not too hard (well, at least not on my sorc, but I've improved since my NB first set foot in Glenumbra).

It's definitely a problem of execution and of it not being obvious in which order content gets harder (a V11 delve in Craglorn is easier than a V4 normal dungeon, never mind a vet version!)

The Tier 1 Vet dungeons were originally scaled to be easier, the problem with this was two-fold: the were still *a lot* harder than the dungeon in Coldharbor (the name eludes me) and became so trivial when you reached Vet 7 or so that they were no longer worthwhile doing.

The Vaults of Madness. My favourite normal dungeon!

To the point, I will agree that 1-50 does not adequately prepare players for the difficulty in veteran content. But we don't need more "training sessions" that will reinforce bad habits already accumulated from playing 50 levels.

I'm not really advocating for the training version of the dungeons. Though a "do not scale" version like they had before 1.5 would totally accomplish that.

What I'm saying (and we seem to agree on this) is that the path of content difficulty needs to be more evident. That way one can work on removing one or two bad habits at a time and become a better player in the end.

AlnilamE

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

DschiPeunt wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

1st question that comes to my mind is: have you told them before that you have never healed before?

Spend 3 straight hours posting "v14 healer lfg pledges, never healed before but willing to learn."

0 invites.

You are just making my point.

If you are experimenting with a build, looking for a Pledge group is really not the best way to do it, unless you are doing it with friends. As someone else pointed out, nobody wants to spend half their day trying to get the gold key.

You really want to join a social PvE guild that has people experienced in dungeons. It shouldn't be too hard. Then you can go with a group you know to a dungeon that will present a moderate challenge and get used to what healing is like. I've gone through it and I have friends who are learning how to be healers (or tanks), and it's a lot of fun going out with them, but there is no pressure to finish the dungeon before lunch or whatever.

Magdalina

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

To anyone opposed to this idea, answer this question legitimately:

Do you want someone in your group who is experimenting with skills/how to complete a Vet Dungeon or Trial?

I have a DPS Templar, and someone needed a healer for Vet Spindle daily pledge. I have all the healing skills trained and maxed, and Resto staff, but I have NEVER healed a group before. I said "I can heal" and joined.

I ruined their run, and we all disbanded after the 1st or 2nd boss.

Now, I will never volunteer to heal on my Templar, ever. Because there is no way for me to practice it on an easier, more forgiving setting.

If it's your first time healing you may want to start with exactly what you described - casual dungeon. In this case, nonvet Spindle. Vet Spindle has one of hardest fights in game, it is not surprising you had problems with it on your very first time.

And yes, sure. I run with casuals, returning players and people experimenting with their builds all the time. I will wipe endlessly with friends, and if you tell me it's your first time/you need help and are willing to learn, I will wipe with you to help you learn, too:) I won't call you for a speedrun nor COA helm farm, but I will find time and a chill team and we will do our best to help you get into it. But you need to explain your problem and try to learn, not just be surprised that you cannot best Praxin first try.

helediron

OP has made a good suggestion. It could be extended a bit. I played earlier Dungeons and Dragons Online. It had four difficulty levels: casual, normal, hard, elite. Casual allowed learning and soloing. Some players were happy to stay in casual all the time. Hard difficulty was most popular. Elite players used elite difficulty.
All achievements should record the difficulty level used. How does it sound to finish veteran DSA at elite difficulty?

WarrioroftheWind_ESO

helediron wrote: »

OP has made a good suggestion. It could be extended a bit. I played earlier Dungeons and Dragons Online. It had four difficulty levels: casual, normal, hard, elite. Casual allowed learning and soloing. Some players were happy to stay in casual all the time. Hard difficulty was most popular. Elite players used elite difficulty.
All achievements should record the difficulty level used. How does it sound to finish veteran DSA at elite difficulty?

No. No. No. No. No.

This is the reason why. If you continue expecting a developer to add multiple levels of difficulty, it further dilutes the significance of the content and basically awards poor reaction time and bad thinking.

Speaking as a 10 year WoW vet, back in the day you had 5 mans, 10 mans (old Scholo/Strath) 15 mans (UBRS best ever!) then the monster 40 man raids.

BC introduced Heroic mode, which provided a steeper curve, difficulty, and much better loot. Some of the 5 mans were notoriously hard, but they basically provided training for mechanics found in the reduced 25 man raids.

LK introduced first Hard Mode raids with Uld then switched to doing Heroic modes with ToC and ICC. Again increased difficulty and better loot.

Then along comes Cata with the introduction of the horrible LFR system. Instead of expecting people to be aware of their surroundings and adapt, they basically gave us loot pinatas and sticks and left off the blindfolds. Even then I always saw people die to easily avoidable mechanics. I even got angry at a fellow guildie for continuing to attack the boss during a phase when that was a strict nono, despite people screaming in chat not to do so.

ZOS does not need to put training wheels on this game. Not only is it bad MMO design, it goes against the spirit of any ES game by taking away the power of learning and adaptability from the player.

If you feel you are entitled to experiencing endgame content and don't have the sense or patience to learn it the hard way, tough cookies. ZOS shouldn't be handing out special star stickers just because you want them.

I've recently been doing AA atronach runs with a friend. We die alot becuase of the punishing amount of time you have to respond. I don't expect to go further in AA. I don't WANT to I had my fill of 'endgame raiding' in WoW. I'll leave the raiding to those who want to pursue it with a passion, because that is who the content is meant to be for.

Adding more difficulty modes just places more strain on the development team, because they have to create new mechanics, balance damage, address exploits, make new loot tiers. It would just open up a can of worms that would spill over into all aspects of the game. Then before you know it you have normal mode, heroic mode, challenge mode, mythic mode etc. All designed so some fraction of the population can preen over how much better they are than the guys below them.

Leave raids as they are; only meant for the best of the best. Let the devs focus on refining 1.6 and getting back to work on IC, Murkmire, and Wrothgar.

Mantic0r3

I would like to see a "learning mode" for trials (and only trials) changes would be

1) no loot
2) no ep
3) no achievements
4) no hardmodes

5) endless souls
6) possibility to skip stuff (if you only want to train 3rd boss, get ported there ie)
7) no equip dmg (like pvp)


basicly you can do anything you want, how long you want without beeing handicapped by any system. In exchange you get nothing out of it besides (hopefully) working tactics for your next normal run

do NOT change mobs hp/dmg output/rotation it would only work against your goal of finding out a new tactic

baratron

DschiPeunt wrote: »

In my mind your problem is not that the dungeons are too hard, but that you don't find enough people to learn it with.
If you would just find 3 other people and start with the easier normal dungeons, improve your skills/builds and then progress, that would solve all your problems imho.

Way to misunderstand the problem. My friends and I can run "normal" instanced Dungeons from V11-V14 in half an hour or less with typically no more than 5 deaths in the whole thing.

But it takes us many hours to finish a Veteran Dungeon, if indeed we manage to get past a boss whose tactics we can't figure out. In one memorable case, it took seven hours and three changes of personnel. And we got the Silver Key. The same Silver Key we could have got from running a nice, easy, "normal" Dungeon.

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

sounds like you need some major coaching, pick one vet dungeon and stick with it until you finish it every time with out dieing and then move onto the next.

Coaching from whom? Are you volunteering to come onto our Guild voice chat and talk us through it?

There are virtually no FAQ/Walkthroughs for instanced dungeons in ESO. It would be great if more people who understood the mechanics would write detailed FAQs with short, extremely well-annotated video segments. Sounds like a lot of effort, though.

@Joy_Division - thanks for your post. It was really useful.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Damage mitigation is one of those terms that gets thrown out there by the types of people who play this game for hours a day, i.e. by folks who know what they are doing.

But I dooooo play this game for hours every day! That's my exact point - I've been playing this game for a minimum of 2 hours every day since pre-release, and I've learned a lot about how to play it - but still not enough. I have three Veteran characters and I still suck. Anyway. Enough whining.

Joy_Division wrote: »

During difficult fights where high incoming damage is predictable, players will use skills designed to increase player defenses or limit enemy damage such as Circle of Protection from the fighters guild or the Nightblade Ultimate Veil of Blades. If groups are unfamiliar with this concept and just try to "tank" or heal through predicable damage, they will wipe on fights like Prazin and will never get past the second Boss in the AA trial.

OK. I understand. The problem then becomes skill management. I think my bars were set up something like:
Destruction Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Impulse / Thundering Presence / Crushing Shock / Greater Storm Atronach
Restoration Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Daedric Minefield / Mutagen / Illustrious Healing / Soul Strike

And I was struggling to find space for one more ability. Otherwise I'd have put Circle of Protection on there.

Still don't know whether Thundering Presence, Bound Aegis, or Hardened Ward is the best protection for myself in any given situation. I've read the tooltips in Live and PTS, and I know that they increase Armor and Spell Resistance, Armor only, or provide a Damage Shield respectively - but I have no idea how to tell in a given situation whether I need to increase my armour or use a damage shield!

Part of the problem I have with almost all of my friends is trying to get us to work as a group. My Nightblade is Level 12, so I don't know much about them, nor have I used any Stamina-based weapons other than 1 Hand and Shield - but I can have a pretty good discussion about Sorcerer, Dragonknight, and Templar skills. I try asking people what they have on their bars, or what armour they're using and they get all cagey and defensive!

Joy_Division wrote: »

In fact I would contend this is what most distinguishes the experienced from the inexperienced: the former drop their ultimates at key points and avoid much of the enemy's damage entirely whereas the latter use their ultimates randomly and have to blow through much of the resources to simply survive.

Oh dear gods, yes. One of my friends drops an Ultimate just because it's ready. Even when I've just dropped my Ultimate. Why?

Joy_Division wrote: »

I will tell you right now the best players in the game more or less hold down block in an AOE situation whenever they are in danger of being attacked because getting charged by even a trash mob will take 80% of your health and they recover the magicka simply by using the spell symmetry skill from the mage's guild.

Can you explain to me why people like Spell Symmetry so much? If I'm already in danger of dying because of too many monsters, how is reducing my Health further going to help? I really don't get why it's a standard part of a lot of mage PvP builds.

Syntse

baratron wrote: »

There are virtually no FAQ/Walkthroughs for instanced dungeons in ESO. It would be great if more people who understood the mechanics would write detailed FAQs with short, extremely well-annotated video segments. Sounds like a lot of effort, though.

There was someone who was doing web page to explain the mechanics of vet dungeons. Unfortunately I cannot remember what the url was. Hopefully someone in this thread will or I'll find it otherwise and post here. And I think there are some vids in youtube too but might not be many that gives easy step by step instructions.

If I would be in NA server I would gladly come with you and go through the boss fights.

Is there some specific dungeon or boss you struggle with that you would like some advices?

Edit, found the link but seems it is still in the making.

http://www.dungeondwellersguild.com

runagate

Anyone saying in /zone that they want to try out a new role on a vet dungeon is wasting anyone's time who's dumb enough to invite them. Pay your dues, learn your role.

Part of the problem is that a monkey with a pot on it's head can get to level 50 in this game, and very little forces you to learn to block-cast, roll-dodge, stay out of red telegraphs on the ground, etc.

But I think a more fundamental problem is that if *one* person in a group of 4 isn't performing well (not to mention a 12-person group) then it becomes all the harder to learn the mechanics of particular dungeons, bosses, etc. as the group wipes, so it is an issue, but it's a social issue, not a game issue. If people do not try to learn, they should never even force other people to be subjected to their foibles, and not invited to endgame content. The number of guilds I've ran with where the lack of communication and holding others accountable for wasting others' time - which does NOT have to be impolite, but if someone's not mature enough to listen to others and learn, kick them - is considerable, and it's a real problem, but it's a social problem, not a game mechanics problem.

I've had the guildmaster who was inflexible once learning dungeon mechanics (and had a gaggle of terrible players who were never, ever held accountable for, say, being 45 minutes late to a scheduled Trial, not a word spoken nor allowed) actually have the gall to tell me he was constantly dying (as the healer) against the dragon daedra boss in Crypt of Hearts because - and I am not making this up - I was staying out of range of his heals, as I had said beforehand I'd heal myself and stay far away from the other people who couldn't seem to stop overlapping the ground fire AoEs on top of one another and reacting to the telegraphs. Unbelievable.

Even in endgame content like Sanctum I've seen plenty of people who seem not to know how to interrupt enemy healers, or just don't pay attention and stand in red for a long time. I've actually seen a group member in the end of AA lecturing people on standing in the lightning AoE while actually standing in it and apparently trying to kill everyone, odd being that she wasn't the raid leader and was right that moment being the problem. So the lesson is that taking personal responsibility to learn and perform correctly and skillfully isn't enough, you also have to cultivate friends or join a guild with standards, and do NOT subject your incompetent friends on others and waste their time. It happens far to often, and it's hard enough to find quality players (soooo many are arrogant and bad, a disastrous combination), so spend the time to find them. It's precisely why the LFG system will never work; the mere fact that someone finds pugging acceptable makes me suspicious that they'll waste a huge swathe of my time. Contrariwise, I've found almost all the skillful players, with some notable exceptions, friendly and helpful and they form networks of known good allies. Learn the best you can, be humble, ask questions (NOT in the heat of battle) and search out mentors before just jumping into the fray, as each random group you join will have entirely different dynamics anyways, and there's rarely a preset list of actions you can take. Learn, adapt, follow other's lead, and communicate.

Cody

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

"you can faceroll all the vet dungeons"

how about... no? ok? ok, cool:)

now about this "learning mode"

i personally don't think its needed. Just get some friends/guildies to run it with you so you can learn it; or find a casual group.

Cody

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This difficulty setting would allow people with bad builds and horrible hand-eye coordination to complete them.

Thanks!

Can't tell if you're serious or no.

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

@DeathDealer19‌ , yeah since scaling was implemented? Unless you're talking about delves (not Vet Group Dungeons), I think I'm gonna have to request proof of this or call BS in a big way.

he/she did not two man any vet dungeons, he is lying off his/her a** and talking big BS. Maybe if they scaled one down to VR1 with a VR14... but even then that wont help beat spindleclutch

Cody

ZOS needs to make the 1-50 dungeons difficult again.(yes they used to be difficult, even hard) now they can be speed thru with almost no effort(save for i think 2 of them) these dungeons DO NOT prepare players adequately for vet dungeons

Joy_Division

baratron wrote: »

@Joy_Division - thanks for your post. It was really useful.

YW!

But I dooooo play this game for hours every day! That's my exact point - I've been playing this game for a minimum of 2 hours every day since pre-release, and I've learned a lot about how to play it - but still not enough. I have three Veteran characters and I still suck. Anyway. Enough whining.

Hmm...if you doooooooo play and have not come across people harping on the concept of damage mitigation enough to fully understand its importance, then to my point above, you ought to diversify the people who you do play with. I get it, easier said than done. I did not find a core group of experienced players until a lucky "need 1 DPS for Fungal" message appeared in zone chat when I was VR2. Nevertheless, these experiences do happen and people do find their way into guilds that work for them.

OK. I understand. The problem then becomes skill management. I think my bars were set up something like:
Destruction Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Impulse / Thundering Presence / Crushing Shock / Greater Storm Atronach
Restoration Staff: Critical Surge / Inner Light / Daedric Minefield / Mutagen / Illustrious Healing / Soul Strike

Hmm...my initial response to this is "jack-of-all-trades is master of none." I'm looking at this bar and I *think* you are DPS, but you have 4 skills that do not help in this regard and a 5th that is redundant (Critical Surge).

4 person groups are supposed to by more than the sum of their parts. The reason why you have a tank is so you don't have to waste a slot and resources on Thundering Presence. Same with healing. It's ok to slot *one* off heal just in case if you have nothing better (and as a sorc, trust me, having nothing better happens a lot), but if you are healing the group, you aren't DPSing and why is there a healer in the group? If you are questing on your own, yes, you need these skills. But 4 quest builds thrown grouped together will be noticeably less effective than a dedicated 4 person group with specified roles.

My DPS PVE arrangement as a sorcerer:

Destruction Staff: Mage's Fury (BTW this skill is mandatory for DPSing. It is their only competitive damage skill). Elemental Ring, Crushing Shock, Critical Surge, Inner Light, Flawless Dawnbreaker.
Restoration Staff: Healing Springs (trumps Illustrious Healing), Spell Symmetry, Lightning Flood, Evil Hunter or Something else, Inner Light, Atronach or Negate depending.

I will occasionally slot Crystal Fragments for certain encounters and put Critical Surge as the "something else" on the Resto bar, but that is only cast on an "instant" proc and if the target can be knocked down.

9 of my skills are dedicated to DPSing. Healing Springs is mostly there because the Sorcerer has a lot of stinkers when it comes to class skills. The tank should slot circle of protection.

Daedric mines is expensive, inflexible, and weak damage. You don't need Thundering Presence. You certainly don't need Critical surge twice. Having mutagen OR Healing springs is ok (mutagen is good for building ultimate if casted occasionally. healing springs is good for emergencies).

Still don't know whether Thundering Presence, Bound Aegis, or Hardened Ward is the best protection for myself in any given situation. I've read the tooltips in Live and PTS, and I know that they increase Armor and Spell Resistance, Armor only, or provide a Damage Shield respectively - but I have no idea how to tell in a given situation whether I need to increase my armour or use a damage shield!

None If I need to slot protection for myself in a 4 man raid, then I need to find a better tank. When I PvP and thus have no tank or if I find myself with an unskilled tank, I use Hardened Ward.

Part of the problem I have with almost all of my friends is trying to get us to work as a group. My Nightblade is Level 12, so I don't know much about them, nor have I used any Stamina-based weapons other than 1 Hand and Shield - but I can have a pretty good discussion about Sorcerer, Dragonknight, and Templar skills. I try asking people what they have on their bars, or what armour they're using and they get all cagey and defensive!

Working as a group *should* come naturally provided each player more or less sticks to their designated role and stays out of red circles. Some players jealously guard their "secrets." I think you will find that most are apt to brag about how good they are though.

Can you explain to me why people like Spell Symmetry so much? If I'm already in danger of dying because of too many monsters, how is reducing my Health further going to help? I really don't get why it's a standard part of a lot of mage PvP builds.

Because it is the best skill in the game for a magicka DPS. To be clear, I *hate* the spell because it trivializes resource regeneration and renders basic attacks a huge DPS loss. But that is just my opinion and I'd be a fool not to use this spell as it can literally double your DPS, or at least for DKs with their Flames of Oblivion skill.

Now all this assumes, group content. I never use Spell Symmetry is PvP or solo questing because I don't have a dedicated healer to circumvent the supposed penalty for using this skill. What this spell does is *very* effectively turn a healer's mana pool into huge amounts of DPS. Provided, of course, your healer is not the weak link in the proverbial chain that are 4 person groups.

If I sense early in a raid that the healer is struggling, either because of their own inexperience or the tank fails to maintain aggro, I then will slot something different and not use the spell. There is something of an art to learning how and when to best use this skill, that is when you won't get yourself killed or drain your healer's mana pool.

Jaerlach

Cody wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This difficulty setting would allow people with bad builds and horrible hand-eye coordination to complete them.

Thanks!

Can't tell if you're serious or no.

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

@DeathDealer19‌ , yeah since scaling was implemented? Unless you're talking about delves (not Vet Group Dungeons), I think I'm gonna have to request proof of this or call BS in a big way.

he/she did not two man any vet dungeons, he is lying off his/her a** and talking big BS. Maybe if they scaled one down to VR1 with a VR14... but even then that wont help beat spindleclutch

It could definitely Be done. I've two manned v12 blood spawn. Bs has 155,000 health so he will die in time to a dps dealing 1600 dps and a tank dealing 250.

To do entire dungeons you would each need multiple specs and build swaps, but it could definitely be Done. Id start with darkshade caverns.

Black_Wolf88

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This setting (on or off) would allow people to learn the harder content with weaker monsters, loot and XP.

i.e. There would still be just "Normal" and "Veteran" dungeon modes, but you also have a checkbox "[ ] Learning Mode". If checked, monsters are easier, but loot and XP are dramatically nerfed (10% XP, very low level loot)

Thanks!

if you want learning mode, then there already is one. its called guides.
there is lots of websites that offer full explanation of bosses+more, and even video of all dungeons and trials as they go trough it and talk about all hte important parts/mechanics.

if you cant complete a dungeon or a trial after watching and reading guides, then that means your team suck. either find a better group or try to work out the problems.

onlinegamer1

Black_Wolf88 wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This setting (on or off) would allow people to learn the harder content with weaker monsters, loot and XP.

i.e. There would still be just "Normal" and "Veteran" dungeon modes, but you also have a checkbox "[ ] Learning Mode". If checked, monsters are easier, but loot and XP are dramatically nerfed (10% XP, very low level loot)

Thanks!

if you want learning mode, then there already is one. its called guides.
there is lots of websites that offer full explanation of bosses+more, and even video of all dungeons and trials as they go trough it and talk about all hte important parts/mechanics.

if you cant complete a dungeon or a trial after watching and reading guides, then that means your team suck. either find a better group or try to work out the problems.

The above reply is the kind of player that needs to be banned, or at least never considered by ZoS when designing content. They are called "elitists" (internet term) and should have no consideration in the design of MMO content.

Cody

Jaerlach wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

This difficulty setting would allow people with bad builds and horrible hand-eye coordination to complete them.

Thanks!

Can't tell if you're serious or no.

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

@DeathDealer19‌ , yeah since scaling was implemented? Unless you're talking about delves (not Vet Group Dungeons), I think I'm gonna have to request proof of this or call BS in a big way.

he/she did not two man any vet dungeons, he is lying off his/her a** and talking big BS. Maybe if they scaled one down to VR1 with a VR14... but even then that wont help beat spindleclutch

It could definitely Be done. I've two manned v12 blood spawn. Bs has 155,000 health so he will die in time to a dps dealing 1600 dps and a tank dealing 250.

To do entire dungeons you would each need multiple specs and build swaps, but it could definitely be Done. Id start with darkshade caverns.

right. and im dovahkiin.

You are going to have to show me a video of this being done if you want to convince me.

Jakhajay

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

Are you a DK?

I'm a casual player (v14 Sorc DPS), and have a great bunch of other casual players that we often run through things with. Yet we struggle with some endgame content. We only managed to do vet CoH when we could scale it down to v1 (That Spider Daedra boss...) We had a couple of cracks at Vet CoA, first hitting the playwall with the 2nd boss and the 3rd. We also attempted normal mode DSA and after 8 hours we got to the final boss only to be absolutely and thoroughly steamrolled. Not by him, but by his boss adds.
We followed what written guides we could (video guides are rubbish with the game running in the background) and most of them are like, 'oh, the second boss is really straightforward' and yet we wipe again and again and again until it's not fun anymore. Like the Fire Maw in Vet City of Ash, he does not need adds. He's hard enough without them.
So we stop and think and change our skills and try different tactics, and it doesn't help.

Don't tell me this content is easy. Don't tell me I need a better crew. Just point me to a well written guide which caters to non-DKs

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

Cody

Jakhajay wrote: »

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

Are you a DK?

I'm a casual player (v14 Sorc DPS), and have a great bunch of other casual players that we often run through things with. Yet we struggle with some endgame content. We only managed to do vet CoH when we could scale it down to v1 (That Spider Daedra boss...) We had a couple of cracks at Vet CoA, first hitting the playwall with the 2nd boss and the 3rd. We also attempted normal mode DSA and after 8 hours we got to the final boss only to be absolutely and thoroughly steamrolled. Not by him, but by his boss adds.
We followed what written guides we could (video guides are rubbish with the game running in the background) and most of them are like, 'oh, the second boss is really straightforward' and yet we wipe again and again and again until it's not fun anymore. Like the Fire Maw in Vet City of Ash, he does not need adds. He's hard enough without them.
So we stop and think and change our skills and try different tactics, and it doesn't help.

Don't tell me this content is easy. Don't tell me I need a better crew. Just point me to a well written guide which caters to non-DKs

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

the content is not easy. Anyone that says it is is lying to you, trolling you, or being a closed minded inconsiderate fool.

Which vet dungeon/trial are you trying to do? or do you just want general help?

Joy_Division

Jakhajay wrote: »

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

Are you a DK?

I'm a casual player (v14 Sorc DPS), and have a great bunch of other casual players that we often run through things with. Yet we struggle with some endgame content. We only managed to do vet CoH when we could scale it down to v1 (That Spider Daedra boss...) We had a couple of cracks at Vet CoA, first hitting the playwall with the 2nd boss and the 3rd. We also attempted normal mode DSA and after 8 hours we got to the final boss only to be absolutely and thoroughly steamrolled. Not by him, but by his boss adds.
We followed what written guides we could (video guides are rubbish with the game running in the background) and most of them are like, 'oh, the second boss is really straightforward' and yet we wipe again and again and again until it's not fun anymore. Like the Fire Maw in Vet City of Ash, he does not need adds. He's hard enough without them.
So we stop and think and change our skills and try different tactics, and it doesn't help.

Don't tell me this content is easy. Don't tell me I need a better crew. Just point me to a well written guide which caters to non-DKs

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

He doesn't need to be a DK...just someone with the best gear who has all the fights memorized such that they know exactly how to exploit every challenging dungeon fight.

*Every* group I run in CoA uses the door exploit vs the Fire Maw so you don't have to fight the adds. They exploit the Lich in Wayrest Sewers. I actually ran with a group who literally just ran past the Guardian Boss in CoH. They claim the content is catered to casuals and don't even realize they very reason it is so trivial to them is that the intentionally make it that way.

He also won't admit the tough fights you can't exploit - like the Ash Titan in CoA - is legitimately difficult if even one member of your group is inexperienced. It is very difficult to "carry as casual" through that fight because the tank must know exactly what they are doing to kite the atronachs, the healer expends a crazy amount of mana healing that fight, and the DPS need to kill the Titian fast before the tank and healer run out of resources. I have been in numerous groups with three players who knew what they are doing wipe and wipe and wipe on that boss because of one inexperienced player. You can't just read a guide for that fight. You have to intuitively know to dodge the fire waves, block/avoid fire rains, and not make a single mistake in your defined role or else the raid will wipe. It is a very unforgiving fight because the best and most experienced player is dependent on the weakest and least experienced doing her job correctly.

Jaerlach

Joy_Division wrote: »

Jakhajay wrote: »

DeathDealer19 wrote: »

lol this is hilarious. Vet dungeons are already tuned for casuals. You can faceroll all of them. Ive 2 manned some vet dungeons lol. Trials.....AA and HRC are so easy its ridiculous. SO is difficult and I LOVE IT. so fun. Any casual player can complete everything aside from maybe Vet DSA and Sanctum Ophidia. Even those. We carry casuals all the time through them

Are you a DK?

I'm a casual player (v14 Sorc DPS), and have a great bunch of other casual players that we often run through things with. Yet we struggle with some endgame content. We only managed to do vet CoH when we could scale it down to v1 (That Spider Daedra boss...) We had a couple of cracks at Vet CoA, first hitting the playwall with the 2nd boss and the 3rd. We also attempted normal mode DSA and after 8 hours we got to the final boss only to be absolutely and thoroughly steamrolled. Not by him, but by his boss adds.
We followed what written guides we could (video guides are rubbish with the game running in the background) and most of them are like, 'oh, the second boss is really straightforward' and yet we wipe again and again and again until it's not fun anymore. Like the Fire Maw in Vet City of Ash, he does not need adds. He's hard enough without them.
So we stop and think and change our skills and try different tactics, and it doesn't help.

Don't tell me this content is easy. Don't tell me I need a better crew. Just point me to a well written guide which caters to non-DKs

On the other hand, I can see that a training mode is a bad idea. What would be better would be to tone them down a bit. Not nerf them into Oblivion, but helpful things like spawning fewer adds each time you wipe

He doesn't need to be a DK...just someone with the best gear who has all the fights memorized such that they know exactly how to exploit every challenging dungeon fight.

*Every* group I run in CoA uses the door exploit vs the Fire Maw so you don't have to fight the adds. They exploit the Lich in Wayrest Sewers. I actually ran with a group who literally just ran past the Guardian Boss in CoH. They claim the content is catered to casuals and don't even realize they very reason it is so trivial to them is that the intentionally make it that way.

He also won't admit the tough fights you can't exploit - like the Ash Titan in CoA - is legitimately difficult if even one member of your group is inexperienced. It is very difficult to "carry as casual" through that fight because the tank must know exactly what they are doing to kite the atronachs, the healer expends a crazy amount of mana healing that fight, and the DPS need to kill the Titian fast before the tank and healer run out of resources. I have been in numerous groups with three players who knew what they are doing wipe and wipe and wipe on that boss because of one inexperienced player. You can't just read a guide for that fight. You have to intuitively know to dodge the fire waves, block/avoid fire rains, and not make a single mistake in your defined role or else the raid will wipe. It is a very unforgiving fight because the best and most experienced player is dependent on the weakest and least experienced doing her job correctly.

That's crap, I've done no death runs of coa without the door glitch, and the pipe thing in wayrest is harder than the real fight since the wraith spawn can one shot the tank.

As far as skipping Ibelgast or other skippable bosses (eh, bc have them), all those bosses are very easy for their instances. People skin em to save time.

vet city of ash is the most recently released content in the game and is one of only 3 things that is v14 (dsa and so). It is very hard when you have not learned the bosses or are not well equipped. Ash titan is 10x harder when the dps is not excellent because the tank kiting isn't sustainble. Many groups copy the kite/ignore strat without acknowledging they lack the dps to execute it.

Lets not talk about vet coa and vet bc in the same discussion. Coa is supposed to be a lot harder.

Jakhajay

I get what you guys are saying. And I have the best gear I can currently get, as do my crew.
I guess we just need to step back, push our frustration aside, and analyse things more between wipes. And keep trying.