ESO Mythbusters

MissBizz

So, it came to me yesterday that there are some things that as players we have always heard about, and often take as truth, although there has never been any official statements. The one that got me thinking is..

Group XP Bonus
It was talked about by ZOS in beta, but really hasn't been discussed since. It appears that it is a 10% XP bonus while 2 (possibly more?) are grouped together and within a certain range. (People seemed to have tested this at some point and it seems to be true, but details can be cloudy)

What other "myths" can you think of? Or pretty much what game features (such as a group xp) have you found/heard of that you can't seem to find any official word on?

Yes, there is FOR SURE the myth of not closing the pinions in order to get a general to appear. I feel this is high RING though and it would take a LONG time to get a big enough "evidence pool" to consider it a myth or truth.


PS - I was thinking it may be fun to try and explore some of these, see if I could have any better understanding of any of them.. or better yet, find some concrete evidence

Drasn

Weighing in on the group xp. There is a 10% bonus is in a group of two and only two. Adding a third person drops the xp to unreasonably low levels and it further diminishes per person added. This is easily tested and confirmed in game in less than 5 minutes.

My myth addition: Templars are the only class that can heal.

MissBizz

thomas.k.grayb14_ESO wrote: »

Weighing in on the group xp. There is a 10% bonus is in a group of two and only two. Adding a third person drops the xp to unreasonably low levels and it further diminishes per person added. This is easily tested and confirmed in game in less than 5 minutes.

My myth addition: Templars are the only class that can heal.

Does adding the third person lower the extra group xp, or lower your base xp? (As is, you would earn more alone). If it's the prior, technically the group bonus still exists.. just isn't any good

Ooh good one, but I bet we will have a few people coming in to say their a nightblade/sorc healer Heck, I even saw a dragonknight healing through Vet Spindle (streaming) the other night! Although can someone BEAT a Templars heals? That would be interesting

Psychobunni

thomas.k.grayb14_ESO wrote: »

My myth addition: Templars are the only class that can heal.

I haven't seen that myth, only that they are the best/easiest/most effective/whatever class to do a healer due to the oh sh** BOL heal and their healing specific class line. Never "only" though

Parrotbrain

Myth or not: Do bloodfiends only spawn during the new moon and werewolves during the full moon? My personal experience contradicts this. Was it ever like this? Some people claim that spawns syncs were broken after the first patch the week after early access, but I can't confirm it myself as I was still a lowbie at this stage (took me about a month and a half to get to v1 from early access)

MissBizz

Interesting. Personally I have never found either, but really only tried looking for werewolves a handful of times.

starkerealm

Parrotbrain wrote: »

Myth or not: Do bloodfiends only spawn during the new moon and werewolves during the full moon? My personal experience contradicts this. Was it ever like this? Some people claim that spawns syncs were broken after the first patch the week after early access, but I can't confirm it myself as I was still a lowbie at this stage (took me about a month and a half to get to v1 from early access)

It's not "only." They can spawn at other times too. I think this was a response to the early camping parties that were trying to artificially control the bite market, but it could just be a bug.

daemonios

starkerealm wrote: »

Parrotbrain wrote: »

Myth or not: Do bloodfiends only spawn during the new moon and werewolves during the full moon? My personal experience contradicts this. Was it ever like this? Some people claim that spawns syncs were broken after the first patch the week after early access, but I can't confirm it myself as I was still a lowbie at this stage (took me about a month and a half to get to v1 from early access)

It's not "only." They can spawn at other times too. I think this was a response to the early camping parties that were trying to artificially control the bite market, but it could just be a bug.

Early camping parties? I haven't found a bloodfiend or werewolf in 2 weeks. Seems like people are back to killing spawns to get a freaking hour's worth of gold for a bite, once a week.

Bite often, bite for free!

nimander99

My myth addition...

New content every 4 to 6 weeks (Bug fixes and quality of life do not count imo, although appreciated)

MCMancub

nimander99 wrote: »

My myth addition...

New content every 4 to 6 weeks (Bug fixes and quality of life do not count imo, although appreciated)

derpsticks

Where the "super bonk" is still in the game. Its apparently left in as an easter egg but I haven't heard of anyone finding it. They mentioned this on eso live when they talked to the sound guy.

MissBizz

derpsticks wrote: »

Where the "super bonk" is still in the game. Its apparently left in as an easter egg but I haven't heard of anyone finding it. They mentioned this on eso live when they talked to the sound guy.

Ah! I'll need to find that ESO live and watch it.. must have missed it... hm...

derpsticks

It is supposed to be in the wailing prison if I remember correctly.

MissBizz

derpsticks wrote: »

It is supposed to be in the wailing prison if I remember correctly.

Hmm.. I wonder if that was before the wailing prison revamp though. Definitely a good one though!

Alabyn

Here's one! Early on ZOS mentioned playing "smart", i.e. dodge-rolling, blocking at appropriate times would earn more xp!

LameoveR

Parrotbrain wrote: »

Myth or not: Do bloodfiends only spawn during the new moon

Myth. It's random nighttime.

RDMyers65b14_ESO

Here's one:

Leave all four pins until the last one is open will increase the chance of a general spawning at the dark anchors.

The Devs have time and time disputed this but there are still people who swear by it.

MissBizz

RDMyers65b14_ESO wrote: »

Here's one:

Leave all four pins until the last one is open will increase the chance of a general spawning at the dark anchors.

The Devs have time and time disputed this but there are still people who swear by it.

I had already mentioned that one in the opening post, and I think it's too much RNG to really figure out. You would need a HUGE sample.

kungmoo

heres one im still fighting to prove wrong..

magicka Templar cant dps

so many laughs in groups when I say im a dps... till I post it

jopeymonster

MissBizz wrote: »

RDMyers65b14_ESO wrote: »

Here's one:

Leave all four pins until the last one is open will increase the chance of a general spawning at the dark anchors.

The Devs have time and time disputed this but there are still people who swear by it.

I had already mentioned that one in the opening post, and I think it's too much RNG to really figure out. You would need a HUGE sample.

No - it's already been debunked. It is still a valid strategy, but for other reasons. If soloing a dolmen, or if in a group and tackling a high level dolmen, you can slow the spawns by leaving the pinions up. If all 4 pinions are lit, there won't be a spawn until one of them is closed. You can camp just 1 pinion and keep closing it while limiting spawns as you see fit. Then when the main spawns stop dropping, close all pinions and proceed to pwn (or be pwned) by boss.

As for other myths, I'll take a shot at a few:

MissBizz wrote: »

Group XP Bonus
It was talked about by ZOS in beta, but really hasn't been discussed since. It appears that it is a 10% XP bonus while 2 (possibly more?) are grouped together and within a certain range. (People seemed to have tested this at some point and it seems to be true, but details can be cloudy)

This is correct.

thomas.k.grayb14_ESO wrote: »

Weighing in on the group xp. There is a 10% bonus is in a group of two and only two. Adding a third person drops the xp to unreasonably low levels and it further diminishes per person added. This is easily tested and confirmed in game in less than 5 minutes.

My myth addition: Templars are the only class that can heal.

Answered there, and yes, Templars are the only class that can heal. All other classes only use the resto staff as decoration.

Alabyn wrote: »

Here's one! Early on ZOS mentioned playing "smart", i.e. dodge-rolling, blocking at appropriate times would earn more xp!

Actually, this is kinda true. There's this hidden thing called "finesse", and its a gauge of how well you play in battles. You get higher "finesse" for blocking properly (but not too much), dodge rolling at the right times, countering, and overall less damage taken/more damage deal in a certain time frame. "Finesse" normally doesn't affect XP, but will improve the chances of better drops when the battle is over. This is why some people seem to get better RNG then others. It really does come down to how well you play.

derpsticks wrote: »

Where the "super bonk" is still in the game. Its apparently left in as an easter egg but I haven't heard of anyone finding it. They mentioned this on eso live when they talked to the sound guy.

Still in game. *HINT* - still in the Wailing Prison.

kungmoo wrote: »

heres one im still fighting to prove wrong..

magicka Templar cant dps

so many laughs in groups when I say im a dps... till I post it

Magicka DPS for Templars is situational. You do a trial recently? If you did, then you'd know your DPS is really garbage. Nothing against you as a player, but Templars really have no sustainable DPS, and that is all that matters. Getting a 100k DPS read on trash or a 1 min fight is not special, its situational. When people talk DPS, they talk V14 Sanctum/DSA, max level stuff. But if that's really what you ARE doing... I'm going to need screens to believe you. Not laughing, but I *REALLY* want to believe you...

Now, as a burst DPS, Jesus Beam shooting clothie, you could do well in PvP... for about 15 secs. Then the entire battlefield focus fires you and you end up a spot in the grass.

Any other myths ya'll need debunked?

AlnilamE

kungmoo wrote: »

heres one im still fighting to prove wrong..

magicka Templar cant dps

so many laughs in groups when I say im a dps... till I post it

I ran vet Spindle with a magicka Templar DPS last week. Stuff just melted.

daemonios wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Parrotbrain wrote: »

Myth or not: Do bloodfiends only spawn during the new moon and werewolves during the full moon? My personal experience contradicts this. Was it ever like this? Some people claim that spawns syncs were broken after the first patch the week after early access, but I can't confirm it myself as I was still a lowbie at this stage (took me about a month and a half to get to v1 from early access)

It's not "only." They can spawn at other times too. I think this was a response to the early camping parties that were trying to artificially control the bite market, but it could just be a bug.

Early camping parties? I haven't found a bloodfiend or werewolf in 2 weeks. Seems like people are back to killing spawns to get a freaking hour's worth of gold for a bite, once a week.

Bite often, bite for free!

I have seen a few bloodfiends both in the Rift and in Bangkorai the last couple of weeks, on randoms nights. First time I saw them was just before the full moon too.

I was accidentally infected with vampirism last year when I was going through the Rift with my main.

MissBizz wrote: »

thomas.k.grayb14_ESO wrote: »

Weighing in on the group xp. There is a 10% bonus is in a group of two and only two. Adding a third person drops the xp to unreasonably low levels and it further diminishes per person added. This is easily tested and confirmed in game in less than 5 minutes.

My myth addition: Templars are the only class that can heal.

Does adding the third person lower the extra group xp, or lower your base xp? (As is, you would earn more alone). If it's the prior, technically the group bonus still exists.. just isn't any good

Ooh good one, but I bet we will have a few people coming in to say their a nightblade/sorc healer Heck, I even saw a dragonknight healing through Vet Spindle (streaming) the other night! Although can someone BEAT a Templars heals? That would be interesting

The way it works is that if a mob gives X amount of XP to 1 player killing it, if two players kill it, it will give X+10% to each player.

Once you add a third or fourth player to the mix, total XP given by the mob still goes up (for example 2.5X), but it is then divided by the number of players. I've seen numbers that went up to 4 players, not sure how it curves after that.

I think ZOS was trying to encourage people to group, but there's really a limit on how much the extra XP incentive can be. I mean, if you think that the more players you have, the easier it is to kill a mob, it makes sense that the XP is divided even as the total XP per mob is still going up.

Nestor

Alabyn wrote: »

Here's one! Early on ZOS mentioned playing "smart", i.e. dodge-rolling, blocking at appropriate times would earn more xp!

I still think there is finesse in the game. I find if I use more skills in the rotation, take some damage, block, dodge roll etc, I get better gear from the drops. It has happened too many times where I put more into the fight that I get more loot out of it, where if I just spam the two main skills, take little or no damage and just stand there at range that I get piddly drops. RNG does factor into this somewhat but I have gotten better loot from protracted fights too many times to think that RNG is the only reason for that.

Nestor

kungmoo wrote: »

heres one im still fighting to prove wrong..

magicka Templar cant dps

so many laughs in groups when I say im a dps... till I post it

Me and you should go put on a demonstration then. I have run with some people that can't believe how fast the mobs drop before my Templar. She is all magic too. I can kill mobs faster with her than with any of the other 3 classes.

MissBizz

@jopeymonster Thank you so much for your insight! Do you possibly have a link to the research done to debunk the pinion myth? I always thought it was a myth, so it's not that I don't believe you, but kind of my point of this thread is to find solid evidence rather there hearsay.

It sounds like you have found the easter egg in the wailing prison and I'm excited you did not say how to find it! I think this will be the first one I will tackle!

Nestor

jopeymonster wrote: »

No - it's already been debunked. It is still a valid strategy, but for other reasons. If soloing a dolmen, or if in a group and tackling a high level dolmen, you can slow the spawns by leaving the pinions up. If all 4 pinions are lit, there won't be a spawn until one of them is closed. You can camp just 1 pinion and keep closing it while limiting spawns as you see fit. Then when the main spawns stop dropping, close all pinions and proceed to pwn (or be pwned) by boss.

I don't know about that.I tend to leave the pinions up for no other reason than I would rather fight mobs than close pinions and the spawns come as fast or as slow as they do. There is also like, what, 4 waves of mobs at a dolmen (lately I have been doing most of them solo or with one or two others so that could be one reason why there are less mobs) and once mob waves are done, they are done. Early on the game would keep throwing enemies at you until the Pinions were closed, but that is not the case anymore.

Natjur

So what the 'busted list so far?

1. 10% Bonus exp when grouped with just 2 player (this 10% is lost when 3 or more are grouped)
   TRUE
2. General spawning at the dark anchors is higher if fully cleared with 4 pins up before triggering them
   UNKNOWN, as the posts about this being false by the devs was before the dolmen changes of patch 1.6
3. Vampire and Werewolf 'bite' spawns are based on the moon cycle
   FALSE, they are timed but not linked with the moon cycles, just the server uptime
4. Exp and Loot in groups is based on
   -(DPS) Doing a min of 8% of the bosses health in damage or
   -(Healer) Doing a min of 20% healing of the bosses health in heals
   -(Tank) Doing X finesse moves (dodge etc)
   UNKNOWN, there was a few posts of the devs about this but no clear testing.

I have farmed the General at dark anchors for the title on a new alt (started post patch 2.02) and did 100 dolmens trigger the pins as soon as I could and 100 dolmens triggering the pins only at the end. Both seemed to have a 1 in 5 chance of a boss spawning. (Non Vet Zones) but Cyrodiil did seem to have a high chance of bosses spawning. I did my General farming in non vet zones to make it more likely to get the bosses I wanted.

But random being random, its still hard to say and it only takes a few extra mins to leave the pins up and almost everyone I meet in Cyrodill want the pins to stay up to the end, so no harm doing so. Cyrodiil seems to be a 1 in 3 ratio.

I will see if I can find the old posts and update this this I find them again.

MissBizz

Natjur wrote: »

So what the 'busted list so far?

1. 10% Bonus exp when grouped with just 2 player (this 10% is lost when 3 or more are grouped)
   TRUE
2. General spawning at the dark anchors, high is fully cleared with 4 pins up before triggering them
   UNKNOWN, as the posts about this being false by the devs was before the dolmen changes of patch 1.6
3. Vampire and Werewolf 'bite' spawns are based on the moon cycle
   FALSE, they are timed but not linked with the moon cycles, just the server uptime
4. Exp and Loot in groups is based on
   -Doing a min of 8% of the bosses health in damage or
   -Doing a min of 25% healing of the bosses health in heals
   -Doing X finesse moves as the tank (dodge etc)
   UNKNOWN, there was a few posts of the devs about this but no clear testing.

@Natjur Could you please link to the Dev posts you referring to? Or any non-dev research done?

jopeymonster

Nestor wrote: »

kungmoo wrote: »

heres one im still fighting to prove wrong..

magicka Templar cant dps

so many laughs in groups when I say im a dps... till I post it

Me and you should go put on a demonstration then. I have run with some people that can't believe how fast the mobs drop before my Templar. She is all magic too. I can kill mobs faster with her than with any of the other 3 classes.

Damnnit Nestor - get out of this thread. There's only room for one TrollingTemplar!

Nestor wrote: »

jopeymonster wrote: »

No - it's already been debunked. It is still a valid strategy, but for other reasons. If soloing a dolmen, or if in a group and tackling a high level dolmen, you can slow the spawns by leaving the pinions up. If all 4 pinions are lit, there won't be a spawn until one of them is closed. You can camp just 1 pinion and keep closing it while limiting spawns as you see fit. Then when the main spawns stop dropping, close all pinions and proceed to pwn (or be pwned) by boss.

I don't know about that.I tend to leave the pinions up for no other reason than I would rather fight mobs than close pinions and the spawns come as fast or as slow as they do. There is also like, what, 4 waves of mobs at a dolmen (lately I have been doing most of them solo or with one or two others so that could be one reason why there are less mobs) and once mob waves are done, they are done. Early on the game would keep throwing enemies at you until the Pinions were closed, but that is not the case anymore.

I want to say 5 minimum, 6 to 7 waves max IIRC (been ages since I did any dolmens, that ach cleared months ago). That's the strategy though is to slow those last couple if you need to. You can kite the first 4 groups of spawns around the center or some other scenery and the dolmen will stay live for you to complete at your leisure. And ya.. i remember those first couple weeks of endless dolmen spawns... that was still some good times. I wished they would have kept it that way.

MissBizz wrote: »

@jopeymonster Thank you so much for your insight! Do you possibly have a link to the research done to debunk the pinion myth? I always thought it was a myth, so it's not that I don't believe you, but kind of my point of this thread is to find solid evidence rather there hearsay.

It sounds like you have found the easter egg in the wailing prison and I'm excited you did not say how to find it! I think this will be the first one I will tackle!

OR maybe I just wanted to watch you go on a wild goose chase on your Twitch channel?

Sacadon

What are the requirements to obtain the Mara XP bonus? For example, just wearing the rings or wearing the rings and being grouped or being grouped and within proximity to each other or both online and in proximity to each other etc. Does it stack with the 2-group bonus or cancel it out.

kgold0

Don't stand on top of Drelzna's spawn spot or she won't have the jboots.

MissBizz

Sacadon wrote: »

What are the requirements to obtain the Mara XP bonus? For example, just wearing the rings or wearing the rings and being grouped or being grouped and within proximity to each other or both online and in proximity to each other etc. Does it stack with the 2-group bonus or cancel it out.

I should be able to figure this one out whenever I have time.. just need to update the other PC and get my bf to log on again for a test.
[EDIT]
In true myth fashion.. how I believe it used to work is that you had to both be wearing the rings and in a group. You didn't need to be near each other at all. I didn't know about the group xp at the time, so no clue.
[/EDIT]

OR maybe I just wanted to watch you go on a wild goose chase on your Twitch channel?

Ooooh, you are SO mean! lol

Actually plan was to try finding it on my own time, and once I found it... do a half pretend run of finding it That way I don't waste 20 hours of everyone's lives looking. Haha.

...who ARE you? (on twitch)