Should Dragonstar Arena and trials have a group finder?

rileynotzb14_ESO

Tasear

Yes, it's about time.

/dreaming always

rileynotzb14_ESO

Yes, it's about time.

I've been trying to find vDSA group for a week now.

AzraelKrieg

There shouldn't be one. Join a guild that does trials.

Aliyavana

Yes, it's about time.

on the condition that pugs don't whine that normal are too hard but in reality they are uncordinated

MattT1988

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

Not voting due to biased poll.

There should be one only for normal.

EDIT ON 10th April: oh and 8 days later I’ve accidentally voted. LOL whoops.

wolfxspice

a friend told me that a long time ago their was, sorta, he said you could q up for quests in a zone and it would match you with other people, he said the first time he ever did it thats how he got it done.

phaneub17_ESO

Yes, it's about time.

That No is biased. FYI.

Bhaal5

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

HOLD UP THERE, let zos fix the current one before putting it to other broke parts of the game

If you spend hours finding trials heres a suggestion.
1: find a guild (social or trial based)
2: make sure guild uses discord/band/teamspeak for organization
3: trials rosters should be pre organised so when you jump on, it takes minutes not hours

starkerealm

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

I'd rather spend hours looking for a group that can actually clear a trial than spend three ****ing hours in nHoF because the ****ing healer can't do their ******* job, and that ******** khajiit would actually listen to the mechanics instead of just saying, "boobies," and giggling, at irregular intervals.

Look, if you haven't actually run trials yet, I fully understand where you're coming from. As someone who's cleared every normal trial in the game, and a few on vet... no, you do not want this.

I know you think you do. This sounds really appealing on the outside looking in, but Trials require way more coordination than dungeons. It's not just paying attention to mechanics, it's organizing your team. Here's a few examples:

HRC: After clearing the first boss, you need to split your group into two pieces. A tank, a healer, and four DPS need to go with both groups. (Only, because it's group finder, one of your "tanks" is a snipe spammer in medium armor. RIP.)

AA: You need to get everyone on the pads. You need a tank in the middle with three DPS. You need a healer on both sides, and DPS with them. Honestly, this is hard enough to orchestrate with new players who are serious about coordinating. I don't even want to think about the pad mechanic in a PUG. I'm also not even thinking about AA boss mechanics, because that is the only faceroll trial otherwise.

SO: My first though is, hey, you might actually be able to pug this... then I remembered the poison mechanics. That would be hilarious in a GF PUG, and not in a good way.

MoL: *Psychotic laughter* Okay, so, normally the Twins aren't a stumbling block for an experienced group, but for a PUG? Let me explain. The room has a line of candles across the middle. On either end of the candle line is a boss. A tank, healer, and four DPS sneaks across the room, between the bosses, and sets up there. Now, the tank must aggro (but not taunt) one of the bosses, then taunt the other one. At the same time the other tank needs to taunt (at range) the untaunted boss. This is when you learn your second GF tank doesn't know what taunts are. And, for more fun and games, at various points in the fight your tanks will need to trade bosses. Also, if any player from one side approaches a player from the other, they'll both detonate, killing one another and probably instigating a wipe. And... we're not even done.

MoL Continued: *More psychotic laughter.* Okay, somehow you got through the twins, and made your way to the final boss. At various phases in the fight you need to send three runners (technically two can do the job if they really know the paths), who will venture out of the boss fight, where they must kill six hidden ritualistic, before they wipe the group. I've seen relatively competent players get confused on this point causing wipes.

*Sixty-Three wipes later*

HoF: So, that three hour thing wasn't a random scenario I pulled out of a hat; that happened to me. The other tank was CR153 (remember this, you're going to queue into a trial with level 20s who have no CP), the healer and at least one of the DPS were utter spazzes. Why do I bring this up? Because one player can cause wipes in HoF.

The first boss you encounter is actually a pair. You need to split them up, and then the tanks rotate them back and forth allowing the DPS to burn one and then switching off. While this is happening, the DPS are being mauled by poison. Also, because this isn't enough fun.

The second boss is in the same room. In this fight, at various times, you'll need to send four DPS to the upper platform, where they can disable an enemy and reset a system before coming back down. Surprise, turns out if anyone's DPS is low, when they go up, they'll kill the entire group. You can also accidentally kill yourself up there if you're not careful.

The next to last boss (I'm skipping the spider. I think it's a PUG wrecker, but I don't feel like writing that one up right now), is another group fight. This time there's three. But these mechanics are special. So, each tank can take the bosses on the sides. The center one never moves. While they're together they're immune to damage, so the tanks (plural, again) need to pull those two off of the guy in the center, then each group needs to burn their version. When the bosses get to certain thresholds they become immune to damage again, and need to be reconnected. This will burn out their immunity if all of them were at those thresholds. So... yeah, that's not happening with a PUG. Coordinated groups can get stuck on this. My first attempt took almost 45 minutes on this boss alone (see the aforementioned healer and draw the connection, though this was before that guild drove off almost all of its good players because of, yeah, that healer again.)

Now you're at the last boss. You're going to wipe. When you die he creates a clone of you. If he draws aggro on anything he can't reach, he jumps. When he jumps three times in a row, everyone dies. When he gets to certain health thresholds you need to stop DPS on the boss, because he will reflect that damage back on you. Also, when the tank dies you probably can't rez them unless you get stupidly lucky. He also gasses parts of the room. Hope you weren't planning on standing there. Electrifies others, yeah the wiring here is terrible, and releases spinning blade traps in the rest. And that's the safest space in the room. Meanwhile you're wiped by your own clone.

*One-Hundred-and-Thirty-Seven wipes later.*

You never see execute phase, you don't know what it looks like or if it's even real. You've never seen him below 75% health because your DPS keep killing themselves when he walks to the center of the room.

AS: The two side bosses are fine. The main boss is annoying. Good luck getting your PUG to deal with the adds that grant invulnerability to the boss. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, because they also grant invulnerability to the side bosses. In theory you can kill them first before clearing the fight, but that will never happen because of that idiot who sprints straight in and triggers hard mode because they saw something to attack.

Yeah... I'll pass, thanks.

OrdoHermetica

Yes, it's about time.

MattT1988 wrote: »

Not voting due to biased poll.

There should be one only for normal.

Why? It's pretty comparable to some of the harder DLC dungeons, and you can use Group Finder to find groups for vet versions of those...

Enslaved

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

No. Even the regular dungeons result in grief when game teams you up with fake healer and fake tank. Imagine horror if this would be seen in trials or DSA.

Also, if you spend hours looking for groups for these, you are doing it wrong. Join PvE guild, its 2018, not 1362.

AlienatedGoat

Yes, it's about time.

Yaaaas.

Trying to get a group for vDSA is damned hard. Nobody wants to do it.

starkerealm

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

MattT1988 wrote: »

Not voting due to biased poll.

There should be one only for normal.

Why? It's pretty comparable to some of the harder DLC dungeons, and you can use Group Finder to find groups for vet versions of those...

Normal trials are comparable to some of the harder DLC vet dungeons. If you're trying to clear vFH in a GF PUG... good luck. Same with vBloodroot, vCradle of Spiders, vRuins, vICP, or vWGT. I mean, if you're supremely lucky you might get a good team who knows what they're doing. I don't even want to think about pugging vFL or vSC. That just doesn't sound fun.

TelvanniWizard

Yes, it's about time.

Much needed feature.

Bhaal5

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

Its not hard to socialize and find a guild that does trials? Or is eso really going "elder scrolls 6: one tamerial multiplayer optional edition"

Revokus

Yes, it's about time.

Yes and preferably with scaling to carry low dps people like in other games !

Anotherone773

Yes, it's about time.

Yes, If some players are put off by " PUG" groups not living up to their standards they should just avoid group finder PUGs. I dont see any negative effects ( besides complaining from the usual suspects) of it. And it gives people a place to practice( and wipe) before they try it with a trial guild.

Bhaal5 wrote: »

Its not hard to socialize and find a guild that does trials? Or is eso really going "elder scrolls 6: one tamerial multiplayer optional edition"

If i PUG(group finder) a trial, i can PUG it when its convenient for me. If i do it as part of a trials guild, well lets face it, they make you jump through a bunch of hoops for a chance to do trials even after you met the requirements. But if you do manage to get on a trial team you have to do it when the leader wants to do it. That may be 7 pm on thursday, except i may be busy on thursday but free on wednesday. With a PUG i can queue on wednesday and run the trial. No need to go through more hassle than getting on an olympics team just to play content i paid for when i dont care if my group is a bunch of pros or complete newbs that dodge roll into the big red circle instead of out of it.

Edit: In short, not having PUG trials, i might actually do LESS group than more, since i have zero interest in jumping through someone else's hoops like i am a dog at a dog show.

Edziu

Yes, it's about time.

why not?
in wow we have raids in group finder but on different and easier mode, enough to be able to learn atlest mechanics here as begginer and thanks this you arnt forced to join to raid guild to just learn mechanics...it just making easier for everyone, guildmates dont need to teach you everything and dont need to waste time for amking guild slow "trahs runs" jsut to learn 1-2 persons in group how something work

MaleAmazon

Yes, it's about time.

vDSA yes. I might change my mind if it was implemented and we wiped 3000 times, imo though it would be worth a shot. Few people do it and I would be fine changing group members and explaining mechanics. The 2 hardest things about vDSA are finding a group to do it with and finding a time to go through all stages.

Reverb

Not voting, the biased options make clear that OP wants an echo chamber rather than honest dialogue.

I don't wait hours for groups, because I have guilds that run normal and vet trials and dsa on a regular basis. If I felt like pugging a trial I can go stand in Craglorn for 5 minutes and wait for someone to recruit pugs in chat.

While groupfinder selected groups would do fine in normal trials and arena, they stand a very low liklihood of clearing them on vet difficulty. I think it would be more frustrating to the players involved than it would be beneficial, and would ultimately be detrimental to the ESO raiding community as a whole.

tinythinker

From a two week old thread on the same topic including a link to an older thread on this topic:

tinythinker wrote: »

Knowledge wrote: »

In many modern MMORPGs such as Final Fantasy XIV you can participate in the normal versions of raids via a party finder/duty finder/group finder. I think it would be beneficial to implement such a feature for the masses in Elder Scrolls Online. This will enable a larger percentage of people to enjoy the content available to them without the hassle of hunting down a PUG or trying to argue for a spot in a raid group despite having low CP.

What do you think?

I've suggested this before (may find link and edit it in later). To follow the FFXIV model a bit, you would have normal versions unlocked with a particular quest completion or reaching a minimum CP level. So basically go to the NPC who first reveals the place/gives you the basic completion quest and hit CP ??? for that trial.

In order to qualify for the vet version of a particular trial, you would unlock the option in group finder by beating it once. So if you had beaten Vet Hel Ra, it would be something you could queue for. Or, you could make beating it with the extra hard mode the requirement to queue for vet runs in a particular trial.

I also think instanced boss fights would be fun (click here to see what I'm thinking of or see the spoiler below).

Those newer to the game may have heard about how some quest bosses like Balreth and Doshia and Doppleganger Lyris used to be hardcore. Maybe you like some dungeons and trials mostly because of one boss, the highlight of the run.

Sooo...

Consider what it would be like to have these NPCs in a new type of instance, buffed up with some new abilities and mechanics and maybe some adds, that you can queue into. Just grab a few friends and jump in and there is your big bad boss ready to smash you into paste.

The dungeon/trials devs could have soooo much fun thinking up ways to revamp the bosses, similar to the buffing of world bosses (hey, maybe some of those could make an appearance). We would get new ways to experience old challenges and of course achievements and other rewards. Toss in some kind of insanity mode for those who need that kind of thing. Each boss could even get different version of itself over time so that you wouldn't go "***-hum that one again", perhaps even some random elements to it that combine to make different types of challenges.

The devs could start off with some limited number, and players could speculate over which ones are going to be added next.

The goal isn't to replace dungeons and trials, but to have a quick run challenge for PvE like a "battlegrounds". And to maximize use of existing assets to allow more creative experimentation from the devs to help better revamp old content and make new content. The current dungeon/trial gear drops and such still come from doing that longer content. Plus, most of us have our favorite fun quest bosses, mini-bosses, dungeon bosses, etc. and not all are repeatable unless you roll a new toon. Getting them buffed with new, expanded, or altered abilities and surrounding mechanics, especially with some randomized elements, also gives us more to do that isn't as routine. To iterate on this idea, there could even be a chance for players who wished to do a string of these bosses to earn challenge achievements.

I hate to give examples of what this might look like, because your imagination is better than what I can write and I don't want to limit the possibilities by giving something to "represent" those possibilities, so please take this as a the lowest level of quality possible for my idea. Imagine Balreth fighting like you imagine he would versus the Covenant invaders, with a huge AoE rain of fire that is forcing your healer to rapid burn their magicka to keep you alive. The DPS have to set sigils or crystals or totems up to summon the water rain magic to stun Balreth and increase the damage he takes (for the hard mode the rain to make him vulnerable to any damage). The scamps in the fight come to steal the totems which starts the fire rain again until the scamps are caught, killed, and the totems set up again but the scamps are fast and teleport. But Balreth summons skellies that go after whoever has the totems and their attacks interrupt the set-up process.

So that is a partial example of an enhanced Balreth fight, and you can add randomized elements to it like having Balreth use ice magic instead of fire to snare and immobilize players, or perhaps poison/disease damage to keep DoTS on players and make healing a bigger pain, etc. The sequence of certain attacks and phases could be changed. You could replace the scamps with trolls. These are, again, not the best of the best ideas, just example of how wide open the variations can be. To flesh out the ice version of Balreth a little, during his room-wide AoE phase everyone is snared (think of the quest in the rift where you had to light fires to stay alive) and sometimes frozen by a whirlwind (think of the start of Aetherian Archive) while the totems are set up. These activates a localized fire rain over Balreth to stun him and have him take more damage/be vulnerable. But now the whole floor is slick ice, and moving your character causes them to slide. So you have to chase then sprinting/teleporting scamps this way, with big AoEs dropping from the sky that freeze you in place (lucky and skilled players can try to pair these with the fast slide effect to get someplace then put on the brakes). Once you get the totems back the continual snare/AoE damage phase starts again to slow you down trying to get the totems into place.

The plot and lore for this could be Vaermina, with these enhanced versions and weirdly modified versions of boss fights being terrors that she manifests from/within her nightmare realm of Quagmire. Some locus or intersection with her realm has been found in Tamriel, though maybe NPCs don't know that's what it is, they only know the rumors of the insane horrors found in that haunted place...

killimandrosb16_ESO

Yes, it's about time.

Hi. I finished nAS the other day, im sure it was the tenth time in a row. Joined a PuG group in Craglorn. Squishy NB here. No wipes at all. Ive also done randomly other trials organized as pug warbands from Craglorn. No wipes so far. This is normal mode. Maybe im just super lucky, but it SEEMS normal trials could be introduced with maybe a CP check on queueing

troomar

Yes, because we need more fake healers and fake tanks. It's not been happening in trials yet )

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Yes, it's about time.

Why not, at least it would make the forums interesting for a while.

Kuramas9tails

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

I should have a queue for VMA for the queue buff. This is bs ZOS.

Joking aside, dungeons usually take 20 minutes on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less. VDSA can take up to an hour, or two, or three or never completed. But hey, if you can't find a group via area chat/guild chat, sure, lets add a queue to it. I personally would never pug through a queue for VDSA because I already seen what happens via area chat. I don't even like doing VDSA without my normal group because I know they can DPS and heal through it. With that, I know people in my guilds who would queue for VDSA that I know would not get through it because they have bad DPS and no sense of their surrounding and die to everything, which is why they would queue because us who have completed it would not take them in there. You could get away with a DPS like this in a Vet trial, I have many many times to the point we just leave that person to stay dead, but for VDSA....no. BUT.......

pug your little hearts out! ZOS should give it to you guys. I would personally never use it because I know a lot of people I would never run that content with would queue for it and I don't want that headache. But you do so ZOS should give it to you.

tinythinker

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

I should have a queue for VMA for the queue buff. This is bs ZOS.

Joking aside, dungeons usually take 20 minutes on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less. VDSA can take up to an hour, or two, or three or never completed. But hey, if you can't find a group via area chat/guild chat, sure, lets add a queue to it. I personally would never pug through a queue for VDSA because I already seen what happens via area chat. I don't even like doing VDSA without my normal group because I know they can DPS and heal through it. With that, I know people in my guilds who would queue for VDSA that I know would not get through it because they have bad DPS and no sense of their surrounding and die to everything, which is why they would queue because us who have completed it would not take them in there. You could get away with a DPS like this in a Vet trial, I have many many times to the point we just leave that person to stay dead, but for VDSA....no. BUT.......

pug your little hearts out! ZOS should give it to you guys. I would personally never use it.

For longer content they can divide it by each stage, and limit the ability to queue for a stage to characters who've completed the previous stage. Or, make it that to queue for any stage you have to have beaten the whole thing.

redspecter23

First off, please learn how to keep your bias out of the poll or it really is a pointless poll.

Second, by all means there should be a group finder for normal trials and DSA. It would be less than useless for vet versions. Vets are intended for well coordinated groups which is the exact opposite of a queue pug. Vets are simply not balanced for the types of groups that a queue would put together and lead to frustration and failure and the eventual call for nerfs because some people think queue pugs should be capable of completing any content in the game.

ccfeeling

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

Pug?
Will u kick low cp toon?

MattT1988

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

MattT1988 wrote: »

Not voting due to biased poll.

There should be one only for normal.

Why? It's pretty comparable to some of the harder DLC dungeons, and you can use Group Finder to find groups for vet versions of those...

You can’t compare Vet Dragonstar to he dungeons. It’s much longer and it’s harder. You know what will happen. Pugs will go in, fail miserably, come onto the forums and complain like THEY ALWAYS DO. ZOS will nerf it and it’ll be *** easy and we lose another piece of challenging content.

As for trials. A pug 12 man trial group??? Yeah nah.....

Apherius

No, I like spending hours looking for a group.

They need to fix how the group toll work before.

Imagine a second if you join a group ... you spend hours helping Pug ( or they help you ) and once you reach stage 10th, they kick you and invite one of their friend to get the final chest.