Increase Group Dungeon difficulty, make them 5-man groups

Jamini

No matter what is done, there will always be too many DD players and not enough healers or tanks.

Why? Because for most younger kids, there is no desire to do anything else but "Max Damage". Mage and Rogue archtypes, especially edgy-appearing Mage and Rogue archtypes, are far and above more popular than a Priestly or Knight archtype. Normally the ratio is close to a factor of THREE to FIVE. This is not helped by how little damage ESO tanks can do. If you don't stack nearly everything into a damage attribute, you won't deal damage on a tank no matter how good you are.

Adding a fifth slot to groupfinder would not fix this.

---
How to get more people to play as tanks:

1. Increase. Potential. Tank. Damage. - Add some health scaling to skills, without reducing the damage a pure DD will deal with said skills.Tanks are already dealing with terrible critical ratings and low Weapon damage. Adding scaling to certain unpopular skills would make running as one more palatable to players. Ideally you want your tanks able to deal a third to half of a DPS' damage assuming equal gear. (So 20k DPS groups should have a 7k DPS tank, 30k/10k, 40k/13k)

2. Make tanks fun in PvP. - Right now playing a tank as support in PvP is hilariously un-fun (which is why so many people run tremorscale and damage sets). Taunts are worthless, damage is crap and less than a third of any CC you throw is completely ignored because of *** mechanics. Taunts need to reduce damage output on the taunted target except to the tank by 30% (and mark the tank for the target), CC immunity needs to be drastically reduced, and snare immunity needs to be cut in half or outright removed.

3. Make monsters hit harder. A lot harder. - Most enemies in the game hit anyone in heavy armor like a kitten. This allows pure DPS groups to run dungeons without needing a tank, essentially removing the only thing tanks have going for them (group play). As a tank, very little outside of select bosses and Vet Trial mobs hit very hard at all. Enemies overall need to hit harder, especially bosses, and apply defile status more to negate water-hose healing. Even a modest 10% damage for low-end enemies would be sufficient in most places.

4. Oneshots need to go - Nothing sucks more than doing VMA or CoS and getting randomly one-shotted through 30k health and max resistances. If you couple increased overall damage and a vastly decreased reliance on one-shot mechanics you end up with a tanking experience that is overall far more engaging than the current Taunt+Yawn method.

--

That all said and done, I would still support two more party slots in regular groups. If only because 6-man groups are much more enjoyable than 4-man.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO

I don't really like the idea. Mainly on the consoles you end up with people that more often that not do not know the mechanics of a fight. This is a pain for a healer. Having the dungeon more difficult and the mechanics more complex would be even worse. Keep in mind that most of the people on the console do not use the voice chat and writing is not an option if you do not have a keyboard plugged in (most people don't even know you can plug one in).

I would rather have the group tool improved, such as avoiding matching a level 14 with CP characters (the level deviation is huge and ends up making it hard for everyone).

Rungar

as a tank the queue is non existant. I can even queue up any dungeon (not even a pledge or random) at all and often get that within a couple of minutes. That will tell you how few tanks there are.

id rather see more filters for groups like:

1) HM filter (300+cp)
2) more keys for HM
3) more dungeons and less raids though I would be open to 4 man dungeons where two or even three individual groups are in the same Dungeon but are completely separated and have to work together in interesting ways to complete it efficiently. Like one group has to turn off a shield, another group has to block a passage and the third group kill the boss. The soft teamwork aspect could be avoided but that would be like playing HM+. The raids they have now are wow-esque and I don't think there's much interest. Wasted resources imo. This is not that game. Dungeons and overland content is the strength of this game.

improvements to tanks so more will play:

frost staff improvements/dedicated alteration tanking staves
out of combat quick wardrobe system
more taunts
more interesting tanking gear/ways to tank
2nd bonus for 2handed weapons.

RoyalPink06

I like this idea, OP. I would love 5 or 6-man content (perhaps just as optional modes for existing content) just simply so that I don't have to exclude friends all the damn time. I also like the idea of improved rewards to go along with it.

zaria

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

I don't really like the idea. Mainly on the consoles you end up with people that more often that not do not know the mechanics of a fight. This is a pain for a healer. Having the dungeon more difficult and the mechanics more complex would be even worse. Keep in mind that most of the people on the console do not use the voice chat and writing is not an option if you do not have a keyboard plugged in (most people don't even know you can plug one in).

I would rather have the group tool improved, such as avoiding matching a level 14 with CP characters (the level deviation is huge and ends up making it hard for everyone).

Make level cap for random normal DLC level 50.
Put random veteran DLC in an own group, give it some bonus over other random.

If you do an normal random and get 3 below 20 and wayrest its just fun, IcP not so much.

SpearDusk

Dunno about you guys but apart from dlc dungeons, all other normal difficulty dungeons seem doable with newbies without too much of a headache. And over the past 2 weeks, queuing as DD, the maximum I waited was probably around 30 mins, thats queuing everyday, for about 2 weeks while leveling up my new dd

Mojmir

Just remove the number restriction period, just let 10 ppl zerg the dungeon and do what attacking they want.it would be hilarious

ArchMikem

Khami wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'm trying to think of ideas that may lessen the wait times in the Finder and make compromises along the way. Trying to find a pug as a DPS is like going to the DMV, yet i get groups as a Healer within seconds.

• Turn 4-player group dungeons into 5-player, adding a 3rd DPS slot so more players queueing as DPS find groups a bit more quickly.
• Increase dungeon difficulty in some way to compensate for extra DPS player.

Or more people just start playing Healers and Tanks i dunno.

Go play WoW if you want five-man groups.

I want shorter queue times for DPS players, what are you talkin' about?

Izaki

Krayzie wrote: »

Why so I can have a 3rd guy light attacking with bow in the back while I do 95% DPS with my healer while warden tank runs around for dear life

^ That is very accurate

jaschacasadiob16_ESO

SnowFury wrote: »

And over the past 2 weeks, queuing as DD, the maximum I waited was probably around 30 mins

Having to wait 30 minutes just to see a 630CP leave the dungeons as soon sa he notices he's been grouped with a level 15 is not acceptable. First for the layer itself. 30 minutes is way too much. Second for the other people of the group, since many DD end up queuing as tank, resulting in several wipes and everyone leaving.

And yes, setting level 50 min for DLC content would be wise. Honestly, why are level 10s allowed there when they aren't even strong enough to push the front door of the gold tower open?

DeadlyRecluse

I'd rather they make more types of group content than add a 5th slot to existing dungeons and adjust HP/Damage accordingly.

A 6-man dungeon that splits the party periodically, for example, could be cool.

theher0not

tunepunk wrote: »

Isn't it better to change the dungeons to not require tank and healer? Make them doable with 4 dps, as long as they bring some form of self heal. I think roles and generally make the game less enjoyable, especially since you have to wait around in queues when most people like to deal damage.

Why not redesign the dungeons so you can go with whatever character/build/role you want. Add more hp/resists to enemies, and make them deal a bit less damage.

Most classes and skill lines have some form of self heal. It's easier to switch a skill or two for a bit more healing, than require a dedicated healer/tank to tag along.


* add a damage component to healer type skills/morphs
* add group heal component to DPS self sustain skills/morphs
* add group damage shield or resist buffs to tank type skills/morphs.

That sounds super boring. Not everyone likes DPS playstyle.

idk

The solution is simple. Magicka dps can have an off spec for healing and stamina damage s can have an off Spec for tanking. With this three get faster queues and help others out. It's not hard to tank or heal most dungeons.

With well over 350 SP available (and 300 SP easy to get) it's easily done.

Vercingetorix

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'm trying to think of ideas that may lessen the wait times in the Finder and make compromises along the way. Trying to find a pug as a DPS is like going to the DMV, yet i get groups as a Healer within seconds.

• Turn 4-player group dungeons into 5-player, adding a 3rd DPS slot so more players queueing as DPS find groups a bit more quickly.
• Increase dungeon difficulty in some way to compensate for extra DPS player.

Or more people just start playing Healers and Tanks i dunno.

Sounds good! We could go a step further and introduce 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11-man dungeon queues, too.
But why stop there?

Let's just do a "scaling queue" system where currently queued players can vote to start immediately or wait and fill up even more players, up to a cap of 30. The dungeon monsters' HP and damage scales in proportion to the size of the queued group when it launches. You can effectively turn every dungeon in the game into a trial.

Doctordarkspawn

See, this I'm in favor of.

If your going to rely on DPS burn mechanics for most of the game, and this game does, it makes sense to have three DPS instead of two. I fully support this.

Doctordarkspawn

Jamini wrote: »

No matter what is done, there will always be too many DD players and not enough healers or tanks.

Why? Because for most younger kids, there is no desire to do anything else but "Max Damage". Mage and Rogue archtypes, especially edgy-appearing Mage and Rogue archtypes, are far and above more popular than a Priestly or Knight archtype. Normally the ratio is close to a factor of THREE to FIVE. This is not helped by how little damage ESO tanks can do. If you don't stack nearly everything into a damage attribute, you won't deal damage on a tank no matter how good you are.

Adding a fifth slot to groupfinder would not fix this.

---
How to get more people to play as tanks:

1. Increase. Potential. Tank. Damage. - Add some health scaling to skills, without reducing the damage a pure DD will deal with said skills.Tanks are already dealing with terrible critical ratings and low Weapon damage. Adding scaling to certain unpopular skills would make running as one more palatable to players. Ideally you want your tanks able to deal a third to half of a DPS' damage assuming equal gear. (So 20k DPS groups should have a 7k DPS tank, 30k/10k, 40k/13k)

2. Make tanks fun in PvP. - Right now playing a tank as support in PvP is hilariously un-fun (which is why so many people run tremorscale and damage sets). Taunts are worthless, damage is crap and less than a third of any CC you throw is completely ignored because of *** mechanics. Taunts need to reduce damage output on the taunted target except to the tank by 30% (and mark the tank for the target), CC immunity needs to be drastically reduced, and snare immunity needs to be cut in half or outright removed.

3. Make monsters hit harder. A lot harder. - Most enemies in the game hit anyone in heavy armor like a kitten. This allows pure DPS groups to run dungeons without needing a tank, essentially removing the only thing tanks have going for them (group play). As a tank, very little outside of select bosses and Vet Trial mobs hit very hard at all. Enemies overall need to hit harder, especially bosses, and apply defile status more to negate water-hose healing. Even a modest 10% damage for low-end enemies would be sufficient in most places.

4. Oneshots need to go - Nothing sucks more than doing VMA or CoS and getting randomly one-shotted through 30k health and max resistances. If you couple increased overall damage and a vastly decreased reliance on one-shot mechanics you end up with a tanking experience that is overall far more engaging than the current Taunt+Yawn method.

--

That all said and done, I would still support two more party slots in regular groups. If only because 6-man groups are much more enjoyable than 4-man.

Thiiiiis I dont agree with, on some things. I'll adress each individually.

1. This I agree with, because quite frankly this is the buggery we lost when the stamina block changes went through. Back in the day, the tank roll was far more often.

2. I dont really know but if my experience with the PVP crowd is anything to go by this will likely lead to "NERF TANKS' threads and nothing much will get done.

3. Honestly I dont think so. Not unless ZOS is willing to fully flesh out tanks, I dont think in the roll's current, slapdash, pidgeonholled state this could lead to good things.

4. Oneshots have no place period.

heartburnkid

Wish this would be better for dps to que. I have one of each role and my tank and healers are in a dungeon almost instantly (with low level dps 9/10 times which makes for a miserable experience) while my dps waits forever. I believe it's because the game tries to make 'perfect groups' one of each role. If there were an option we could select or not to disable 'perfect grouping,' dps would be much easier to que.

heartburnkid

Another thing that stinks is when dps que as healers and tanks just to get in quicker when they aren't equipped for either role. Ruins runs and makes for a terrible play experience.

eso_nya

That:

heartburnkid wrote: »

Wish this would be better for dps to que. I have one of each role and my tank and healers are in a dungeon almost instantly (with low level dps 9/10 times which makes for a miserable experience) while my dps waits forever. I believe it's because the game tries to make 'perfect groups' one of each role. If there were an option we could select or not to disable 'perfect grouping,' dps would be much easier to que.

Would lead to:

heartburnkid wrote: »

Another thing that stinks is when dps que as healers and tanks just to get in quicker when they aren't equipped for either role. Ruins runs and makes for a terrible play experience.

Jamini

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Thiiiiis I dont agree with, on some things. I'll adress each individually.

1. This I agree with, because quite frankly this is the buggery we lost when the stamina block changes went through. Back in the day, the tank roll was far more often.

2. I dont really know but if my experience with the PVP crowd is anything to go by this will likely lead to "NERF TANKS' threads and nothing much will get done.

3. Honestly I dont think so. Not unless ZOS is willing to fully flesh out tanks, I dont think in the roll's current, slapdash, pidgeonholled state this could lead to good things.

4. Oneshots have no place period.

2. PvP players will scream nerf for anything that kills them. Zeni just needs to learn to let them scream at empty air and actually focus on nerfing things that show as properly overused in their metrics. As it is, CC is garbage in PvP outside of setting up a 1v1 killburst. This is really unacceptable, and the only reason it happened is because there are very few tanks period.

3. The role will remain boring, slapdash, and pidgeonholed in PvE so long as generic monsters aren't a real threat. Adding more teeth to generic trash will make people realize that they just can't face-roll dungeons with 3-4 DPS anymore.

MisterBigglesworth

SoLooney wrote: »

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

For the leveling content they could also have a hidden modifier applied to all the mobs and bosses that changes depending on your group composition.

Thus, if you have 3 dps + healer: boss doesn't hit as hard, but the mobs/bosses health pools are larger.

If you have 4 dps: there is less unavoidable damage, but more avoidable (i.e. telegraphed) damage.

if youre talking about for pugs no thanks. the success rate for when I pug vet dlc dungeons is already horrific, having to explain mechanics literally everytime and almost always having a bad tank, healer or dps.

Yea. solution, find a good guild or friends, but the chance of a pug clearing vet dlc dungeons is already low

I'm talking for specifically random queueing, non-vet, below 50.
Just basically lift the role restrictions (again, meaning the actual group finder mechanic) so people can quickly get in, see the dungeon, complete it with minimal hassle (and minimal reward)

zaria

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

SoLooney wrote: »

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

For the leveling content they could also have a hidden modifier applied to all the mobs and bosses that changes depending on your group composition.

Thus, if you have 3 dps + healer: boss doesn't hit as hard, but the mobs/bosses health pools are larger.

If you have 4 dps: there is less unavoidable damage, but more avoidable (i.e. telegraphed) damage.

if youre talking about for pugs no thanks. the success rate for when I pug vet dlc dungeons is already horrific, having to explain mechanics literally everytime and almost always having a bad tank, healer or dps.

Yea. solution, find a good guild or friends, but the chance of a pug clearing vet dlc dungeons is already low

I'm talking for specifically random queueing, non-vet, below 50.
Just basically lift the role restrictions (again, meaning the actual group finder mechanic) so people can quickly get in, see the dungeon, complete it with minimal hassle (and minimal reward)

Problem is that this will reduce the success rate a lot, an weak team will fail also self heal is class and build specific, you expect low level scrubs to know how to self heal?
They probably run off with boss having it reset, an tank keep boss so DD can focus on their job.
It will also depend a lot on dungeon, darkshade 2 low level group without an healer sound fun
Yes 5 man group would probably been better however changing this would be an major issue.

acw37162

Adding a third spot for DPS does not add tanks and heals to the que.

If you don't already PUG dungeons on a tank or healer for awhile yes you get into groups quicker but somehow between the horrid DPS, occasional disasters that are PUG runs in online games, people quitting out of frustration it takes longer to complete content.

My hat and and unabridged thanks go to every tank and healer who uses activity finder for daily dungeons you are amazing people and I salute you.

Caligamy_ESO

FFXIV had an issue like this and then they introduced bonus exp/gold rewards for tanks and healers that queued with duty finder. Adding a 5th member wouldn't really improve anything except lower FPS numbers in an already horribly optimized experience.

disintegr8

I get around the DPS queuing issue by grouping with a friend first, one of us on a DPS and the other on a healer or tank - actually doing the roles we queue for rather than pretending. Then we change characters and queue again if we want to run them on multiple characters.

Haven't used dungeon finder in several months but this always worked for us. Can't really role nothing but DPS and expect others to fill the 'boring' roles for you.

ArchMikem

acw37162 wrote: »

Adding a third spot for DPS does not add tanks and heals to the que.

You missed the point. Adding a third DPS slot would make it so more DPS go through the Queue a bit more quickly because more DPS would get into a group than before, even if it's just by one.

4-man: 2 > 4 > 6 > 8 > 10

5-man: 3 > 6 > 9 > 12 > 15

See? By just adding a third DPS slot to the groups, in five PuGs, five more DPS players would have gotten into a group than previously. Is it simple unnecessary math? Yeah, but does it still give proof that it might make Queue times a bit shorter for DPS? I believe so.

kargen27

Krayzie wrote: »

Why so I can have a 3rd guy light attacking with bow in the back while I do 95% DPS with my healer while warden tank runs around for dear life

You just perfectly described my pledge run last night except I only did 86% of the damage.

qsnoopyjr

Magdalina wrote: »

One of the biggest issue with groupfinder is the abysmal dps level you usually get - so people who do have healer/tank characters actually tend to prefer queueing up as dps so they don't have to deal with 10k group dps. Given ZOS religiously refuses to introduce any kind of ingame learning curve, this is only gonna get worse too and there's no real solution as it is now.

Introducing another dps to the group could be interesting but would require rather a significant rebalancing of the dungeons which I don't think they're willing to do. It also wouldn't really solve the problem, you'd still spend forever looking for tank and healer.

What this guy said.

Everyone knows PUG groups have terrible DPS.
More DPS focused and another poor DPS player???

Already enough people whining they never kill the final boss due to DPS based dungeons.

They need to show everyone who is LFG and let people talk about setting up a group rather than having a computer try its best to set up a group.

Like old school MMO style group finder.
Bunch of people looking for group, you see them with LFG, you whisper them, you set up a group.

Make2k15

I have pugged all the dungeon content in the game in all roles. IMO the best way to shorten the dd queue times would be to make tanking a bit more enjoyable experience with pug groups. Furthermore making tank more viable option for doing solo content would help more players to become tank mains.

As stated before in this thread the average group dps in pug groups is pretty bad something like 10k dps and thus being the most defining factor for the pug gaming experience. For this reason as a good maxed cp player in average you can expect to have best time as dd when pugging veteran dungeons. And also as a good maxed cp dd you can solo carry through most of the non dlc veteran dungeons if needed.

Templar healer is not far behind dd what comes to pugging experience you can do pretty decent dps (15-20k dps single target or about 40k dps aoe) and be a legit healer at the same time for the following reasons:
-Good single target/aoe spammer skill Puncturing Sweep.
-Destro ulti for melting mobs.
-Ritual of Retribution heals and aoe damage from one skill.
-Can use lightning staff for aoe dmg + magicka regen.
-High crit chance boosts heals and dps both.

In contrast to dd and healer as a legit one handed and shield (/two hander backbar) dragon knight tank you can do only some single target dps (10-15k dps at best case scenario) and not much aoe. There is no good single target or aoe spammer skill for dk tank (puncture is a bit too low damage and wrecking blow is a bit clumsy). None of the stamina weapons do aoe damage with heavy attack. For dk tank there is half a decent ultimate for melting mobs though: standard of might. Considering all this you can expect to have pretty awful experience in pug groups as a maxed cp tank where average group dps will be something like 10k dps.

IMO to make tanking a more enjoyable experience with pugs following kind of skill changes would be needed to improve tank's carry potential (and to improve tank's solo content viability):

(1) Redesign mace/maul heavy attack to do conal area damage instead of single target damage.

(2) Two handed skill line:
-Uppercut skill is a bit clumsy -> Reduce it's channel time to 0.5 sec.
-Redesign Cleave skill to do damage to nearby enemies (8m radius). Increase damage a bit.

(3) One handed and shield skill line:
-Redesign Deep Slash skill as aoe spammer with taunt: Conal area damage; Increase damage; Add area taunt; Remove maim.
-Increase damage of Puncture skill a bit.

Flameheart

Krayzie wrote: »

Why so I can have a 3rd guy light attacking with bow in the back while I do 95% DPS with my healer while warden tank runs around for dear life

Just spouted my tea on my keyboard, an awesome from me.