New vet dungeons are too easy! Make them harder!

Doctordarkspawn

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Okay, this is the fundamental issue with this game. Just as many people have stated in response to the 'it's supposed to be easy' ideology, the NORMAL mode is for NORMAL people, casuals, low CPs, seeing the content, grouping up and having fun. VETERAN versions are for people that enjoy a challenge. There are still a LOT of people that like being challenged. Trials are 12 man, vmsa is solo. So when you consider the actual CHALLENGING 4 man content in the game, you literally have vdsa. That's IT.

Let's be real here. 95% of this game is soloable, casual scrubs have all 16 normal zones, starting zones, wothgar, hews bane and the Gold Coast, multiple delves, easily soloable public dungeons, quests, world bosses which require a pug or two, and farming. All the dungeons in the game (including vmsa and vdsa) have a super easy scrub mode for people who aren't end game, and on top of that, all the things considered veteran really aren't hard at all aside from maelstrom, trials and dragonstar. All the trial gear and dungeon gear can be acquired in super easy scrub mode so you can get best in slot gear EXTREMELY EASILY compared to other MMO's. (Craftable gear is best in slot? Wth zenimax...) The only exceptions to this are malestrom and dragonstar weapons. Wheres the incentive to run the hard content if you can just gear up end game with trash content? For a game that claims to be an MMO, there's an awful lot of content that promotes soloing and scrub-play. Even more so now that craglorn is just like all the rest of the trash zones.

I understand that they're trying to appeal to new and casual customers and that's what one tamriel is supposed to be geared toward but let's be honest here, that's trash for a game that has been out for 2 and a half years already.

if they want this game to have the longevity and legacy of world of Warcraft or league of legends, they need to make consistent content that can appeal to ALL 3 types of players: casuals, raiders and pvpers EQUALLY. WoW does this extremely well. ESO...well..just doesn't. Casuals will like the game for a bit, play through the story and then leave, and what's left? The hardcore players. This game won't last another 2 years with the hype if they don't give some fulfilling rewards for your effort and stop releasing 1 piece of new, quality raiding content every 8 months.

...If the three types of players are Casuals, Raiders, and PVPers, then we pretty much allready have that. It's just people trying to do one of two things. A, debate what the casual audience actually wants, and B trying to turn the dungeons into some insane raider content.

As for the worthwhile rewards, given the games extent in crafting sets and the fact most of the meta endgame builds run crafted sets...it's kinda hard to do that without making gained rewards massively overpowered.

Please give clearcut suggestions on existing mechanics you wish to see harder. Shouting "This game is easy, it needs to be harder!" over and over is just using a buzzword and solves -nothing-. On top of the issues I and others have stated with just. making it harder for the forum audience. That example from SWTOR is still a very valid one, even after what I've said on this thread.

deadlychaos1991

im not explaining or going into detail about what exact mechanics need to get changed. All I'm saying is that they're making this game casual scrub friendly. There should be an actual distinction between normal and veteran modes, otherwise, there's no reason to actually HAVE a vet mode. Regardless of how good of a player you are, you shouldn't be able to walk into a veteran dungeon designed for 4 people and solo the damn thing. If you don't believe me, look up YouTube videos.

If you want actual specifics, look at the business model and update changes for games like WoW or LoL, and GW2, those kind of updates are what MMO's SHOULD do to make sure they're satisfying the varied types of people that play their game. I've known SO many people who have just up and left this game because of the design decisions.

Warcraft, for example, has been out for 12 years and they still are pumping out expansions that are getting great reviews. Tell me, with the way this game is heading after 2 years, do you think it will still be that amazing after 12?

It's just extremely sad to see a game that has a LOT of potential to rival WoW just screw itself over because of bad developer decisions.

Dubhliam

@deadlychaos1991 , the reason casual players quit playing ESO is because they cannot progress.
As soon as new players start doing veteran pledges, they are hit hard with what seems to them as hard content, while in fact, it is really easy.
All because the overland difficulty is balanced for toddlers.
Then, after that initial wake up call, they finally get a hold of a decent set, and they start doing pledges regularly. Even veteran ones.
And then comes ICP as gold.
The initial wake up call is nothing compared to this jump in difficulty. It's like smashing your car into a brick wall that was hiding around the corner, and you had no way of anticipating that.

The new veteran dungeons are a perfect opportunity to smoothen the difficulty curve, yet it will be wasted.

Doctordarkspawn

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

im not explaining or going into detail about what exact mechanics need to get changed. All I'm saying is that they're making this game casual scrub friendly. There should be an actual distinction between normal and veteran modes, otherwise, there's no reason to actually HAVE a vet mode. Regardless of how good of a player you are, you shouldn't be able to walk into a veteran dungeon designed for 4 people and solo the damn thing. If you don't believe me, look up YouTube videos.

If you want actual specifics, look at the business model and update changes for games like WoW or LoL, and GW2, those kind of updates are what MMO's SHOULD do to make sure they're satisfying the varied types of people that play their game. I've known SO many people who have just up and left this game because of the design decisions.

Warcraft, for example, has been out for 12 years and they still are pumping out expansions that are getting great reviews. Tell me, with the way this game is heading after 2 years, do you think it will still be that amazing after 12?

It's just extremely sad to see a game that has a LOT of potential to rival WoW just screw itself over because of bad developer decisions.

If you refuse to give a concrete example of what you want to see changed, you are complaining for the sake of it. Or complaining because wanting higher difficulty is 'in vogue'.

Please, give some details or just stop posting.

Oh. And nothing is going to 'rival wow'. This game is made fundementally for a different audience. And the people still playing WoW, have been playing it for ten bloody years and will likely never stop until the game goes down. "WoW killer" is another set of buzzwords I despise.

Destruent

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Please, give some details or just stop posting.

What about enemys doing damage so you need a tank and healer?

deadlychaos1991

Dubhliam wrote: »

@deadlychaos1991 , the reason casual players quit playing ESO is because they cannot progress.
As soon as new players start doing veteran pledges, they are hit hard with what seems to them as hard content, while in fact, it is really easy.
All because the overland difficulty is balanced for toddlers.
Then, after that initial wake up call, they finally get a hold of a decent set, and they start doing pledges regularly. Even veteran ones.
And then comes ICP as gold.
The initial wake up call is nothing compared to this jump in difficulty. It's like smashing your car into a brick wall that was hiding around the corner, and you had no way of anticipating that.

The new veteran dungeons are a perfect opportunity to smoothen the difficulty curve, yet it will be wasted.

No I'm talking about raiders, guildies, people I play with. I'm sorry but if you're hitting a wall while playing these cake-walk vet dungeons, you probably should just put your controller down and start bashing your head in with a brick.

deadlychaos1991

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

im not explaining or going into detail about what exact mechanics need to get changed. All I'm saying is that they're making this game casual scrub friendly. There should be an actual distinction between normal and veteran modes, otherwise, there's no reason to actually HAVE a vet mode. Regardless of how good of a player you are, you shouldn't be able to walk into a veteran dungeon designed for 4 people and solo the damn thing. If you don't believe me, look up YouTube videos.

If you want actual specifics, look at the business model and update changes for games like WoW or LoL, and GW2, those kind of updates are what MMO's SHOULD do to make sure they're satisfying the varied types of people that play their game. I've known SO many people who have just up and left this game because of the design decisions.

Warcraft, for example, has been out for 12 years and they still are pumping out expansions that are getting great reviews. Tell me, with the way this game is heading after 2 years, do you think it will still be that amazing after 12?

It's just extremely sad to see a game that has a LOT of potential to rival WoW just screw itself over because of bad developer decisions.

If you refuse to give a concrete example of what you want to see changed, you are complaining for the sake of it. Or complaining because wanting higher difficulty is 'in vogue'.

Please, give some details or just stop posting.

Oh. And nothing is going to 'rival wow'. This game is made fundementally for a different audience. And the people still playing WoW, have been playing it for ten bloody years and will likely never stop until the game goes down. "WoW killer" is another set of buzzwords I despise.

I'm not asking for the vet dungeons to be on par with vet malestrom or vet sanctum Ophidia. I get that casual scrubs want to be able to beat something that has the word 'veteran' on it and feel like they accomplished something. A medium difficulty would be nice. If you don't know what medium difficulty is, go Play a game with an adjustable difficulty bar and set it to the middle one. If I really have to spell this out for you, how about...uhh I don't know, maybe having everything have more health and do more damage so I can't walk in and solo it. That's pretty much the essence of increase difficulty..in any game...ever. There's your specifics

Bobby_V_Rockit

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

Destruent

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

We are not talking about elite-difficulty. But it's called veteran, why should it cater to non-experienced (non-veterans) players?
If it's too hard do normal (same story etc) Why do we need a veteran difficulty if it is easy as f***?

sadownik

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

And how much content caters to that mythical 1%. I haven't log into game for over 3 months now so i try to not post here since i feel like one tamriel will, be my last try to get into game but such remarks truly irk me. I am a very lazy player, i dont grind much, i dont have much achievements in ESO to show off but i want to have difficult content that is there... on horizont that i can try and reach if i want to. Otherwise whats the use of lvls, whats the use of different grades of gear? You want casual? Lets take one tamriel one very little step ahead and abolish all lvls, gear is standardized and content is easy enough for a lvl 3 player to do it all. And then what?

deadlychaos1991

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

How do you get boxed out of end game? Every single piece of end game content (without exception) has a super-easy-scrub-mode called 'normal.' You know what, we should just start having leaderboards for normal versions of everything. That way, no ones precious feelings get hurt and bad players can feel like they accomplished something.

Destruent

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

How do you get boxed out of end game? Every single piece of end game content (without exception) has a super-easy-scrub-mode called 'normal.' You know what, we should just start having leaderboards for normal versions of everything. That way, no ones precious feelings get hurt and bad players can feel like they accomplished something.

Sounds good imo, but this should exclude characters, who are already at the vet-leaderboard or have been in there. To avoid this leaderboard getting flooded with elite-players

deadlychaos1991

Destruent wrote: »

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

How do you get boxed out of end game? Every single piece of end game content (without exception) has a super-easy-scrub-mode called 'normal.' You know what, we should just start having leaderboards for normal versions of everything. That way, no ones precious feelings get hurt and bad players can feel like they accomplished something.

Sounds good imo, but this should exclude characters, who are already at the vet-leaderboard or have been in there. To avoid this leaderboard getting flooded with elite-players

Perfect. Let's just make everyone feel like a winner. No incentive to get better, just play the same terrible quests with your trash build over and over. THAT makes a good MMO.

Destruent

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Maybe not everything needs to cater to the top 1%... Perhaps the "casual scrubs" are the ones keeping the game alive, by oh, I dont kniw, buying it recently, getting DLCs questing, etc. Elitist veteran snobs are the reason why casual scrubs get boxed out of end game

How do you get boxed out of end game? Every single piece of end game content (without exception) has a super-easy-scrub-mode called 'normal.' You know what, we should just start having leaderboards for normal versions of everything. That way, no ones precious feelings get hurt and bad players can feel like they accomplished something.

Sounds good imo, but this should exclude characters, who are already at the vet-leaderboard or have been in there. To avoid this leaderboard getting flooded with elite-players

Perfect. Let's just make everyone feel like a winner. No incentive to get better, just play the same terrible quests with your trash build over and over. THAT makes a good MMO.

If people want to compete on a low level, why not just let them do this? As long as only the normal version cater to them it's ok imo.

Doctordarkspawn

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

deadlychaos1991 wrote: »

im not explaining or going into detail about what exact mechanics need to get changed. All I'm saying is that they're making this game casual scrub friendly. There should be an actual distinction between normal and veteran modes, otherwise, there's no reason to actually HAVE a vet mode. Regardless of how good of a player you are, you shouldn't be able to walk into a veteran dungeon designed for 4 people and solo the damn thing. If you don't believe me, look up YouTube videos.

If you want actual specifics, look at the business model and update changes for games like WoW or LoL, and GW2, those kind of updates are what MMO's SHOULD do to make sure they're satisfying the varied types of people that play their game. I've known SO many people who have just up and left this game because of the design decisions.

Warcraft, for example, has been out for 12 years and they still are pumping out expansions that are getting great reviews. Tell me, with the way this game is heading after 2 years, do you think it will still be that amazing after 12?

It's just extremely sad to see a game that has a LOT of potential to rival WoW just screw itself over because of bad developer decisions.

If you refuse to give a concrete example of what you want to see changed, you are complaining for the sake of it. Or complaining because wanting higher difficulty is 'in vogue'.

Please, give some details or just stop posting.

Oh. And nothing is going to 'rival wow'. This game is made fundementally for a different audience. And the people still playing WoW, have been playing it for ten bloody years and will likely never stop until the game goes down. "WoW killer" is another set of buzzwords I despise.

I'm not asking for the vet dungeons to be on par with vet malestrom or vet sanctum Ophidia. I get that casual scrubs want to be able to beat something that has the word 'veteran' on it and feel like they accomplished something. A medium difficulty would be nice. If you don't know what medium difficulty is, go Play a game with an adjustable difficulty bar and set it to the middle one. If I really have to spell this out for you, how about...uhh I don't know, maybe having everything have more health and do more damage so I can't walk in and solo it. That's pretty much the essence of increase difficulty..in any game...ever. There's your specifics

Your just barking for difficulty because you have no idea how to actually do it, or you want to sound 'in vogue'.

More heallth and damage is lazy, has been tried before, and didn't work then and dont work now. It just drew out the fights on basic trash and not in the good way. ICP and WGT were like that at launch with basic mobs having 300K health. And in fact, the damage wasn't anything -noteworthy-. In order to make it so you cant solo things, you need to raise the bar so high, it would be impossible for anyone but a well versed group to beat it. And that's clearly not what they want to do. Otherwise they would have done that.

If the game ain' difficult enough for you and you cant find a specific way to make the mechanics harder (Lets be honest here, are we really arguing for ultrahard trash? No.) Then go play a different game, because your nebulous, undefined concept of difficulty flat out -isn't enough-. Maybe the real difficulty for you is defining what difficulty is. DIFFICULTY CEPTION.

Just stop, please, just stop. If we follow this philosophy then players will leave the game in droves and the only thing you will have succeeded at, is killing a game. I would say 'before it''s time', but I'm not sure about that.

Destruent

It would be ok for me, if enemys would atleast do some damage and i think most people here would agree. But they just hit like a wet noodle...why should i bring tank and heal for those so called "Veteran"-dungeons?

Doctordarkspawn

Destruent wrote: »

It would be ok for me, if enemys would atleast do some damage and i think most people here would agree. But they just hit like a wet noodle...why should i bring tank and heal for those so called "Veteran"-dungeons?

Bosses. And as a tank, I can tell you, the bosses, even in the vet dungeons, do not hit like wet noodles. (Do an experiment. Go to Elden root, pile around the boss real close to each other and see if a 30 K health tank survives the blast. And we're talking on live, mind you.)

A mark of a good tank and healer combo is they know the damage patern enough to supress it.

The reason no tank in the game, as people have brought up on threads before, is that ZOS does not want for the tanks to be a crutch for the group. Their ment for bosses, that's it. And if you can out DPS them, that''s absolutely great for you, but quite frankly we shouldn't be ballancing the game around that.

Destruent

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

It would be ok for me, if enemys would atleast do some damage and i think most people here would agree. But they just hit like a wet noodle...why should i bring tank and heal for those so called "Veteran"-dungeons?

Bosses. And as a tank, I can tell you, the bosses, even in the vet dungeons, do not hit like wet noodles. (Do an experiment. Go to Elden root, pile around the boss real close to each other and see if a 30 K health tank survives the blast. And we're talking on live, mind you.)

A mark of a good tank and healer combo is they know the damage patern enough to supress it.

The reason no tank in the game, as people have brought up on threads before, is that ZOS does not want for the tanks to be a crutch for the group. Their ment for bosses, that's it. And if you can out DPS them, that''s absolutely great for you, but quite frankly we shouldn't be ballancing the game around that.

So for which boss (in non-DLC-dungeons) do you need a dedicated tank?

Doctordarkspawn

Destruent wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

It would be ok for me, if enemys would atleast do some damage and i think most people here would agree. But they just hit like a wet noodle...why should i bring tank and heal for those so called "Veteran"-dungeons?

Bosses. And as a tank, I can tell you, the bosses, even in the vet dungeons, do not hit like wet noodles. (Do an experiment. Go to Elden root, pile around the boss real close to each other and see if a 30 K health tank survives the blast. And we're talking on live, mind you.)

A mark of a good tank and healer combo is they know the damage patern enough to supress it.

The reason no tank in the game, as people have brought up on threads before, is that ZOS does not want for the tanks to be a crutch for the group. Their ment for bosses, that's it. And if you can out DPS them, that''s absolutely great for you, but quite frankly we shouldn't be ballancing the game around that.

So for which boss (in non-DLC-dungeons) do you need a dedicated tank?

There's obviously Elden root, both the first and final bosses you will need, in order to keep the boss away from others so you dont need to group up and get slaughtered. Bogdan requires a tank as someone who can keep alive and redirect his slow spread of the flames. At the very least, it's a nice thing to have.

Both Crypt of Hearts and Banished cells in order to keep the adds under control until critical mass hits and we can kill boss. Again, you could do it without a tank but I wouldn't -want- to.

It's nice for city of ash, because while his (The final boss that is) really nasty attack is AOE, you will be the only one geting petrified so DPS does not slow or the heals dont stop coming. Also the second and first major bosses, to keep them and in the case of the second boss, adds under control while the DPS DPS's.

Fungal grotto is one of the exeptions where most of the gold mechanics are healer checks, and alot of things are AOE. Darkshade is somewhat on that list too, exept for maybe hive lord.

In spindleclutch, it's extremely advantagous to have a tank. Blood spawn is not much. Praxin is annoying, however. Keeping his conal attack pointed away from melee DPS is a -must-. Wayrest sewers is also extremely advantagous to keep the final bosses together in order to speed DPS. Otherwise it'd be Benny hill theme central.

That's off the top of my head. It's not 'required', no, but it is advantagous in all but two cases. If we're including the ones I wouldn't do without a tank, that's four dungeons. Out of eight. And two of the rest at least give the tank something to do to make the fights easier. Can you solo these? Probably, someones probably filmed themselves doing it. But then again, those guys are dedicated to their craft and pretty much deserve it anyway.

This is not counting the tanks inherent roll, and their ability to give the DPS breathing room to DPS unmolested.

Oh. And all that's based on what's on the live server. It could get tweaked this update.

Destruent

None of those bosses kill can kill a DPS if he is carefull...why not? why do bosses not hit for 20k+ through block against a DPS? damage would be quite low for a tank, but oneshots DDs. All those old vetdungeons can be 2 manned with 2 DPS. There is no need for a tank at all. And yes, even hardmode is possible.

Doctordarkspawn

Destruent wrote: »

None of those bosses kill can kill a DPS if he is carefull...why not? why do bosses not hit for 20k+ through block against a DPS? damage would be quite low for a tank, but oneshots DDs. All those old vetdungeons can be 2 manned with 2 DPS. There is no need for a tank at all. And yes, even hardmode is possible.

Okay. Buuuut that'd take hours.

...So why take hours to ballance for and make impossible one thing, that two people will likely do for kicks, than never do again?

Also, the 20 K health rule became a rule so people wouldn't get oneshotted. Are you really arguing for people to get dumber?

Destruent

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

None of those bosses kill can kill a DPS if he is carefull...why not? why do bosses not hit for 20k+ through block against a DPS? damage would be quite low for a tank, but oneshots DDs. All those old vetdungeons can be 2 manned with 2 DPS. There is no need for a tank at all. And yes, even hardmode is possible.

Okay. Buuuut that'd take hours.

...So why take hours to ballance for and make impossible one thing, that two people will likely do for kicks, than never do again?

lol...no...what about 20...40 mins at max?

why make 2 roles useless only bc some tanks/healers can't handle incoming damage?

Doctordarkspawn

Destruent wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

None of those bosses kill can kill a DPS if he is carefull...why not? why do bosses not hit for 20k+ through block against a DPS? damage would be quite low for a tank, but oneshots DDs. All those old vetdungeons can be 2 manned with 2 DPS. There is no need for a tank at all. And yes, even hardmode is possible.

Okay. Buuuut that'd take hours.

...So why take hours to ballance for and make impossible one thing, that two people will likely do for kicks, than never do again?

lol...no...what about 20...40 mins at max?

why make 2 roles useless only bc some tanks/healers can't handle incoming damage?

Why ballance the game around something 1% of the playerbase will do before they get bored and leave? Quit avoiding the question. I've allready stated why tanks make the damn activity easier, and the healers should be obvious. So riddle me this. Why should we ballance the game around these guys who will do this once and giggle at how exploitable the system is, then -leave-? And again. 20 K health minimum was put in place so players wouldn't get oneshotted, the meta -adapted- to that. Are you arguing we need to be dumber?

code65536

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

More heallth and damage is lazy, has been tried before, and didn't work then and dont work now. It just drew out the fights on basic trash and not in the good way.

I agree... for trash. Nobody likes trash--it's tedious, and it doesn't make a dungeon more difficult. If you look at my posts during the previous PTS cycle, I explicitly called for a reduction of the trash health in vRoM because it didn't serve any purpose aside from wasting people's time.

But boss health and damage can and should be increased. Why? Because many bosses actually do have mechanics, but the mechanics can usually be ignored because they do not sufficiently punish players for not following them, and/or the mechanics can be avoided by simply melting the boss down.

Take, for example, the first big boss in Vaults of Madness. The Harvester. She has a mechanic where she will paralyze one person and draw their essence to her in the form of four orbs. The victim cannot break free of this, and the only way to free the victim is to destroy the orbs. If the orbs are not destroyed, they heal the boss. I have never run Vaults with a group that actually followed this mechanic. Why? Because it doesn't really punish you for ignoring it, and with a full four-person group, she's usually dead before she gets a chance to do it.

To give you an idea of how weak this mechanic is, when I am soloing Vaults, there is no way to do the mechanic because I'm paralyzed. So, because I'm soloing, I'm forced to fail the mechanic 100% of the time. Yet I have no difficulty killing her despite that. First, she does damage to you while you're paralyzed, but the damage is so weak that the HoT that I keep on myself easily outheals the damage. The orbs eventually reach her and heal her, but the healing done to the boss is so weak that it doesn't really matter. Now, imagine if the paralyzed victim takes on additional damage during this time, so there is more urgency to getting the orbs destroyed. Or maybe if the orbs actually healed the boss a lot--to full, even. Then the mechanic will actually matter.

So I strongly disagree with your claim that adding health and damage is meaningless, at least for bosses--it's precisely because the health and damage are out of alignment that we have mechanics that don't work or don't matter. Fix that, and suddenly people will be discovering mechanics that have existed all along but that they have never noticed.

This has worked very well in the revamping of the trials (aside from the Sanctum trash, which is just horrifically tedious). It used to be that you can completely ignore the Storm Atronach's mechanics in AA--the boss is usually dead before the first lightning phase, and if you did see a lightning phase, the damage is so low just standing in the Springs of one healer will keep you alive. Now the boss has enough health that you'll have to deal with this mechanic multiple times, and the damage is high enough that you actually have to follow the mechanics instead of just standing in the red and letting your healer heal you through it.

Doctordarkspawn

code65536 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

More heallth and damage is lazy, has been tried before, and didn't work then and dont work now. It just drew out the fights on basic trash and not in the good way.

I agree... for trash. Nobody likes trash--it's tedious, and it doesn't make a dungeon more difficult. If you look at my posts during the previous PTS cycle, I explicitly called for a reduction of the trash health in vRoM because it didn't serve any purpose aside from wasting people's time.

But boss health and damage can and should be increased. Why? Because many bosses actually do have mechanics, but the mechanics can usually be ignored because they do not sufficiently punish players for not following them, and/or the mechanics can be avoided by simply melting the boss down.

Take, for example, the first big boss in Vaults of Madness. The Harvester. She has a mechanic where she will paralyze one person and draw their essence to her in the form of four orbs. The victim cannot break free of this, and the only way to free the victim is to destroy the orbs. If the orbs are not destroyed, they heal the boss. I have never run Vaults with a group that actually followed this mechanic. Why? Because it doesn't really punish you for ignoring it, and with a full four-person group, she's usually dead before she gets a chance to do it.

To give you an idea of how weak this mechanic is, when I am soloing Vaults, there is no way to do the mechanic because I'm paralyzed. So, because I'm soloing, I'm forced to fail the mechanic 100% of the time. Yet I have no difficulty killing her despite that. First, she does damage to you while you're paralyzed, but the damage is so weak that the HoT that I keep on myself easily outheals the damage. The orbs eventually reach her and heal her, but the healing done to the boss is so weak that it doesn't really matter. Now, imagine if the paralyzed victim takes on additional damage during this time, so there is more urgency to getting the orbs destroyed. Or maybe if the orbs actually healed the boss a lot--to full, even. Then the mechanic will actually matter.

So I strongly disagree with your claim that adding health and damage is meaningless, at least for bosses--it's precisely because the health and damage are out of alignment that we have mechanics that don't work or don't matter. Fix that, and suddenly people will be discovering mechanics that have existed all along but that they have never noticed.

This has worked very well in the revamping of the trials (aside from the Sanctum trash, which is just horrifically tedious). It used to be that you can completely ignore the Storm Atronach's mechanics in AA--the boss is usually dead before the first lightning phase, and if you did see a lightning phase, the damage is so low just standing in the Springs of one healer will keep you alive. Now the boss has enough health that you'll have to deal with this mechanic multiple times, and the damage is high enough that you actually have to follow the mechanics instead of just standing in the red and letting your healer heal you through it.

Suprisingly enough I agree with you on this point. A great example of this point in practice was Direfrost vet. I didn't even know she summoned frost atro's and turned into a snow-woman. But given the devs are geting better at making slash and burn and ignoring mechanics harder I think the focus needs to be put away from this. It's a good tool to -use-, but I feel like if we're gonna make things harder this needs to be a tool used carefully. (For record, I am in favor of adding new mechanics to the vanilla dungeons. I'm just not in favor of the 'IT NEEDS TO BE HARDER BECAUSE IT DOES" bit.

Osteos

Ok.. This is not about catering to a specific group of players. Its not about casuals vs. elites. Calling people scrubs or snobs accomplishes nothing.

This thread is about creating content for all types of players. It is also about creating a real balance between normal and vet dungeons so people know what to expect when they group. As it stands right now there is a big divide between vet dungeons. Someone who completes the new vet dungeons is not going to be prepared for the difficulty in the DLC vet dungeons. This is a problem to me. That is not saying that I think all vet dungeons should be the same difficulty or on par with DLC dungeons but there should be a progressive tiers of difficulty.

For example, to me, Spindleclutch, Fungal Grotto, Banished Cells, Wayrest Sewers, Darkshade Caverns and Elden Hollow should be the easiest. City of Ash was in the next tier of difficulty so Arx, Crypt of Hearts, Tempest Island, Volenfell and Direfrost Keep should be on par with City of Ash. Following that Blackheart Haven, Selene's Web, Blessed Crucible and Vault of Madness should be the hardest base game vet dungeons. Final tier will be DLC dungeons. At least this way people know that the dungeons will be more challenging when the move into the next tier.

The system we have right now provides no information about the level of difficulty of each dungeon. People don't know what they are getting into. This causes groups to fail, get frustrated, and it also increases the divide in players. Hence the "lf experienced (role) for CoS" because people want to have fun and finish the content.

Right now the new vet dungeons are too easy. They don't offer enough of a challenge and someone who is new to vet dungeons who completes one is not going to be prepared if they decide to try RoM because its vet level too. Making content easy isn't doing anyone any favors. It says a lot when people in the group ask several times "are you sure this is vet?" It would be better to just have the helm drop on Normal then to have the vet difficulty nearly identical to the normal level.

Apherius

Dungeons are too easy , make them harder

This is my comment .