Zone bosses and dolmens in One Tamriel

Origin

One problem that I noticed since the beginning of ESO in the public delves and dungeons and then during the IC event, I see it now again at the dolmens and the zone / world bosses:
in all these events / locations the bosses and their minions are not scaled up with the number of the players that are participating. Now that the people have access everywhere, it should be expected to have large groups farming these locations.

It is good that we have a level scaling, but It may be a good idea to consider increasing the difficulty of these events / bosses. Right now the dolmens are very easy and the world bosses can be taken solo or with 2 - 3 players. For ex. you don't even have time to cast a spell in a dolmen fight before the last boss is killed, not to mention the minions. It was the same in the IC event when Molag Bal was killed every time within seconds.

I cannot stop myself to compare these events / bosses from ESO with the ones in SWTOR, GW2 or Blade and Soul and other MMO. A quick search on youtube would show how big is this difference.

ValkynSketha

What they should do is that with each player at the dolmen, mobs and bosses should have 1% increase to their health and damage.

Origin

or to spawn more. I guess that there are several way to address this. It should be the ZoS decision here.

tinythinker

This came up at PC launch, but as higher level zones became less populated and it became common to see only one to three people hitting that stuff, it kind of lost steam.

I think more and faster spawning would be good if FPS didn't drop into the toilet, and maybe having more "dread" versions/bigger things spawning would be good. Also, how about non-mob initiated AOE like bombs being lobbed from Colharbor? The number/frequency could also be based on the number of players, with fun combinations of patterns/effects.

But in any case yeah, the anomalies in Crag and the dolmens is base-game Alliance zones really get rapidly swarmed and can last less than a minute. By scaling the difficulty, these places work whether players numbers are high or low as the game develops and hype starts and fades in cycles.

Origin

The access to the high zones problem was solved by One Tamriel.

tinythinker wrote: »

This came up at PC launch, but as higher level zones became less populated and it became common to see only one to three people hitting that stuff, it kind of lost steam.

I think more and faster spawning would be good if FPS didn't drop into the toilet, and maybe having more "dread" versions/bigger things spawning would be good. Also, how about non-mob initiated AOE like bombs being lobbed from Colharbor? The number/frequency could also be based on the number of players, with fun combinations of patterns/effects.

But in any case yeah, the anomalies in Crag and the dolmens is base-game Alliance zones really get rapidly swarmed and can last less than a minute. By scaling the difficulty, these places work whether players numbers are high or low as the game develops and hype starts and fades in cycles.

The access to high level zones problem was solved by One Tamriel. This is why I think that now it is a good moment to consider it. Maybe @ZOS_GinaBruno could notify her colleagues to take a look at this.

tinythinker

Origin wrote: »

The access to the high zones problem was solved by One Tamriel.

tinythinker wrote: »

This came up at PC launch, but as higher level zones became less populated and it became common to see only one to three people hitting that stuff, it kind of lost steam.

I think more and faster spawning would be good if FPS didn't drop into the toilet, and maybe having more "dread" versions/bigger things spawning would be good. Also, how about non-mob initiated AOE like bombs being lobbed from Colharbor? The number/frequency could also be based on the number of players, with fun combinations of patterns/effects.

But in any case yeah, the anomalies in Crag and the dolmens is base-game Alliance zones really get rapidly swarmed and can last less than a minute. By scaling the difficulty, these places work whether players numbers are high or low as the game develops and hype starts and fades in cycles.

The access to high level zones problem was solved by One Tamriel. This is why I think that now it is a good moment to consider it.

Right, which is why it's a good time to bring this up again. We had some great ideas before that got no attention. I appreciate you starting this thread to get the conversation going again.

ElBiggus

Just logged out to post something about this, so I'm glad it's not me. I had one Dolmen unaccounted for in Malabal Tor so I thought I'd camp out at it, but when I arrived there were literally a dozen other people camping. Once it activated the entire process from start to finish took one minute and six seconds, with the final enemy dying almost before it had finished spawning (we all knew exactly where it would appear, so everybody was stood aimed at the spot).

Having three times as many players on the server, having the "destroy the Dolmens" dailies, and having everything scaled so it's always going to drop useful loot, this strikes me as a problem that's not going to go away in a hurry.

(Ditto world bosses; there was one right next to the Dolmen, and people seemed to be just running between the two, and unless you had a super-fast horse the boss was likely to be dead before you can get there...)

glavius

When there are world bosses in a game, they will always be too easy for a zerg. This goes for any game, unless the boss has extremely difficult aoe mechanics, which would cause it to be impossible for everyone but the most hardcore groups.

DHale

How bout we keep it as it is and after I get all the stuff I want. Then you can make it complicated, since I have to farm for multiple hours I would rather just get it done. I am not doing this part of the game... for fun or a challange.

tinythinker

DHale wrote: »

How bout we keep it as it is and after I get all the stuff I want. Then you can make it complicated, since I have to farm for multiple hours I would rather just get it done. I am not doing this part of the game... for fun or a challange.

It's not about being challenged or making the events complicated, though some may want that too, it's about not having things over so quick that only people who camp the sites and throw out large AOEs can participate. Right now you have to stay right next to a site because if it takes you more than 30 seconds to get back the event might be over before you get a chance to do anything if there are 15+ people there.

If it scales at an appropriate rate in difficulty based on player number people can still effectively grind the sites and even have rewards scale as well. I also think there should be more to do (more/faster spawning fishing holes, etc) near the sites to give farmers something to do between events. The events themselves could also respawn more quickly if they are lots of players waiting.

The scaling then is to make it better for everyone who wants to participate, whatever their reason.

ElBiggus

tinythinker wrote: »

it's about not having things over so quick that only people who camp the sites and throw out large AOEs can participate. Right now you have to stay right next to a site because if it takes you more than 30 seconds to get back the event might be over before you get a chance to do anything if there are 15+ people there.

That. It used to be that if you heard one spawning you often had a chance to get there from quite a distance away, and more often than not it was just you and maybe one or two other players tackling it, but now by the time you've heard it it's too late.

The events themselves could also respawn more quickly if they are lots of players waiting.

I have a feeling they do (although more by accident than design) -- I ran through three or four instances of the same one in a rapid succession before I got bored, and it seemed to be "take down the Dolem, kill the nearby world boss, then head back to the Dolem and sort through the loot you just grabbed"; there couldn't have been more than a minute or two before it respawned so I suspect if all the Dolems in a zone are being camped they'll cycle round a lot quicker than before.

Maybe people will get bored with it eventually, but it seems such an easy way to farm CP and loot that it may prove too hard to resist.

Origin

glavius wrote: »

When there are world bosses in a game, they will always be too easy for a zerg. This goes for any game, unless the boss has extremely difficult aoe mechanics, which would cause it to be impossible for everyone but the most hardcore groups.

@glavius, I can give you as example for comparison the world bosses meta events Guild Wars 2. These fights are not easy and they take quite a while, but you also don't need a super hardcore group to do it. Usually the people come to join it and they have time to arrive. These events are in fact a succession of smaller events that are culminating with the end boss fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCk58hzhLxg

I think that @tinythinker has pointed out exactly the issue with the events in ESO:

tinythinker wrote: »

Right now you have to stay right next to a site because if it takes you more than 30 seconds to get back the event might be over before you get a chance to do anything if there are 15+ people there.

If it scales at an appropriate rate in difficulty based on player number people can still effectively grind the sites and even have rewards scale as well. I also think there should be more to do (more/faster spawning fishing holes, etc) near the sites to give farmers something to do between events. The events themselves could also respawn more quickly if they are lots of players waiting.

The scaling then is to make it better for everyone who wants to participate, whatever their reason.

In my opinion it is absolutely ridiculous to have a MMO game event that can be completed in under 1 min and where the end boss is killed in a matter of 1 - 2 seconds, but this is exactly what I have also witnessed these days and everybody can see it. I was trying to get the necropotence jewelry from the dolmens in Rivenspire and I was using a fully upgraded horse for speed plus the retreating maneuver alliance skill and sprinting which makes it super fast to travel from the dolmen to the wayshrine. I had to hurry without any pause, because a couple of seconds of delay could mean arriving to late.

BTW, I have also noticed what may be a scaling mechanism. Usually if you fight the dolmens alone the number of NPC that are spawned is very low. I started one alone and then another 2 players joined. Immediately I noticed that more NPC were spawned. However, the problem was still there: the difficulty of the NPC was very low and the event was finished also very fast with the end boss eliminated in seconds as usual.

Glamdring

why not have a hardmode like in dungeons?

Dubhliam

Why not reduce the item set drop rates?

Mojmir

Things are like this because people are farming new stuff,in 2 weeks they'll be crying you can't solo and get your ***.

Sharee

The dolmens actually do scale to the number of players in the area - they spawn more mobs. But with a big enough zerg it does not matter how many spawn. Anyway, as said above, this is only a temporary rush until people get the set pieces they want.

AshTal

I think the problem will die down, now everyone is camping them for gear in 3 months time no one will be and completing a dolmen will go back to being tough and lots of standing around.

Robert89

Just started a new character for one tamriel, just to experience it all again and i must say i find the zones mutch more crowded and alive then before.

That being said, i came across a dolmen and there were just so many players around it that the final boss was just facerolled back to oblivion! i managed to get 1 hit on it before it died. This really brakes the immersion because these dolmes kinda represent the invasion of daedric forces into nirn.

My opinion is that dolmens should be really hard to complete something for a group of at least 8 people or more (with one tamriel this should't be a problem because there are enough players online)

Imagine harder dolmens with better rewards and more time in between them (lets say a respawn time of an hour) The longer the dolmens last the harder it gets to destroy it with daedric forces spreading across the zone (or to the nearest town/quest hub) forcing players to group up and take action otherwise it will be hard just to complete some quests.

Majic

Though not perfectly, Guild Wars 2 has been scaling events based on player participation for over four years.

I'm pretty sure ZOS can figure out how to do this.

SirAndy

Dolmens still spawn more mobs when there are more players around, just like before ...

I soloed a dolmen last night and only the minimum number of mobs spawned.
Waited for the dolmen to reset and had about 10 other players arrive for the 2nd clear and there were a *LOT* more mobs that spawned. More waves with more mobs. It also spawned more of the harder/tougher ones.

Acrolas

Origin wrote: »

For ex. you don't even have time to cast a spell in a dolmen fight before the last boss is killed

That's a bit of an exaggeration. I've intentionally waited a few seconds and still gotten my minimum damage in. It changed this patch.

"In order to get loot and XP credit for killing a mob, you now only need to deal 3% of its maximum health instead of the previous 10%."

On an 80k dolmen boss, that's 2400 damage. Up to 33 people can get credit on it if everybody uses a little bit of restraint and trades their ultimates for light attacks. You don't need to cast anything.

Origin

Acrolas wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

For ex. you don't even have time to cast a spell in a dolmen fight before the last boss is killed

That's a bit of an exaggeration. I've intentionally waited a few seconds and still gotten my minimum damage in. It changed this patch.

"In order to get loot and XP credit for killing a mob, you now only need to deal 3% of its maximum health instead of the previous 10%."

On an 80k dolmen boss, that's 2400 damage. Up to 33 people can get credit on it if everybody uses a little bit of restraint and trades their ultimates for light attacks. You don't need to cast anything.

I'm sorry, but it is not. Each time when there are more than 3 - 4 people fighting at a dolmen the last boss is killed within seconds. I experienced this more than one time. I've been farming the dolmens in Rivenspire. You can go and see for yourself.

And I don't say that you don't get the reward. Of course you get it as long as you are in time to participate. My observation is about how unusually fast an event boss is getting killed with a relative small group (<10 players) and this compared with a world boss event in GW2.

The problem here is the fact that the dolmens are done really fast. If you are not are in the proximity with a super fast horse, you are missing the event because it is done before you arrive.

Sharee

Origin wrote: »

The problem here is the fact that the dolmens are done really fast. If you are not are in the proximity with a super fast horse, you are missing the event because it is done before you arrive.

Just pick one and stay at it. They respawn in exactly 5 minutes. You can read a book in meantime

idk

@Origin

It is one thing to scale the difficulty of an instance based on the number of characters in a group and I have seen this done. It is more complicated to scale something that is not instanced based on the number of people participating in the fight since it is not possible to determine who is actually fighting and the difficulty cannot be adjusted after the event begins. This is especially so with bosses since they are typically spawned already unless players are camped waiting. More so, players often join in after combat has begun.

hrothbern

Majic wrote: »

Though not perfectly, Guild Wars 2 has been scaling events based on player participation for over four years.

I'm pretty sure ZOS can figure out how to do this.

10-15% higher boss health per different player that hit a mob before the boss spawned and/or the boss will already help a lot to get the more time needed.
It does not need to be that precise: no leaderboards involved.

Origin

Sharee wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

The problem here is the fact that the dolmens are done really fast. If you are not are in the proximity with a super fast horse, you are missing the event because it is done before you arrive.

Just pick one and stay at it. They respawn in exactly 5 minutes. You can read a book in meantime

Well, maybe for some players camping a location is an acceptable workaround solution to the problem of content that is too easy that is finished in no time, but it doesn't in fact addressing the issue. Others may find the camping boring and may want to do something else meanwhile and also be able to reach an event that is announced by the game.

I guess that this depends on the play style and personal preferences.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

AshTal wrote: »

I think the problem will die down, now everyone is camping them for gear in 3 months time no one will be and completing a dolmen will go back to being tough and lots of standing around.

I agree ^ , I wouldn't go "fixing" dolmens and world bosses in a knee jerk reaction just yet. With just a little over a week pasted, I don't even try to sell green or blue set items on my guild vendors. The market is all ready becoming over saturated with lower level items. Purple set items are the only things that are selling now, that and maybe blue rings of certain sets. I believe in another week or two, all the activity around dolmens and world bosses will die down to normal levels and people will go back to whatever they did before to farm gold.

Sharee

Origin wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

The problem here is the fact that the dolmens are done really fast. If you are not are in the proximity with a super fast horse, you are missing the event because it is done before you arrive.

Just pick one and stay at it. They respawn in exactly 5 minutes. You can read a book in meantime

Well, maybe for some players camping a location is an acceptable workaround solution to the problem of content that is too easy that is finished in no time, but it doesn't in fact addressing the issue. Others may find the camping boring and may want to do something else meanwhile and also be able to reach an event that is announced by the game.

I guess that this depends on the play style and personal preferences.

Well there are two possible reasons why one would want to do a dolmen. Either they are after the loot, or they are after the challenge. When i advised you to just stay at one dolmen, i assumed you are after the loot. That solution obviously isn't good for you if you want challenge. For that, you will just have to wait until the initial rush dies down, i'm afraid.

Even if ZOS tripled the mob health at dolmens and made them hit 3 times as hard, they would still be wiped out before they could make a single swing under the present circumstances, and this change would make the dolmens next to impossible under normal circumstances(2-3 low level players). It would also mean diverting resources to fixing a problem that will fix itself in time anyway(for ex. i already stopped doing dolmens as i got the jewelry i need).

Just give it a week.