Worlds first veteran blackprison & "The Unchained" by Hodor

Alcast

@Turelus @Eweroun

The only reason vMOL was not cleared on PTS was because it was technically IMPOSSIBLE to get past 2nd boss due to crashes.

It is funny tho that people think vmol was "harder" when it launched on pts. Reality is, ZOS just had very buggy Trials back in the day where you could not finish a single fight without someone getting booted from the server on pts.And because could not get past the 2nd boss nobody could really check out the last boss.

Halls of Fabrication was the first trial on PTS which was somehow semi stable and doable.



But yes, power creep is completely out of control in this game.

Azurya

Love Wizard wrote: »

firedrgn wrote: »

Did you use any magsorcs? Im just here to be salty.

A magicka sorc healer if that counts

Love that!

Turelus

Alcast wrote: »

The only reason vMOL was not cleared on PTS was because it was technically IMPOSSIBLE to get past 2nd boss due to crashes.

It is funny tho that people think vmol was "harder" when it launched on pts. Reality is, ZOS just had very buggy Trials back in the day where you could not finish a single fight without someone getting booted from the server on pts.And because could not get past the 2nd boss nobody could really check out the last boss.

Halls of Fabrication was the first trial on PTS which was somehow semi stable and doable.

Interesting. So the chases on live in the past were mostly just because of bugs rather than the challenge of the content?
I had always assumed it was more to do with just new mechanics or balance passes happening at those times which made it take a bit longer to progress through.

I know you've expressed desires for a mode akin to Nightmare from other games, for those modes would you say it's just balance of characters or boss numbers or would they need harder mechanics as well to really push a group to something new.

Also how do your groups feel about the mini-game style mechanics used in other games raids, like players being set as specific colours and needing to stand on corresponding or opposing coloured platforms to damage bosses or avoid powerful attacks.

spartaxoxo

Carbonised wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

albesca wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

My gripes are always more about the general disappointment that content is cleared within the first hour every update. Hodor are great at what they do and I respect that, but something needs to change to stop these first hour clears on live every new trial/arena.

I understand the hard position ZOS is in to make things accessible to the moderate skill players (like myself) but surely even for ZOS (and Hodor) there is some level of sadness that this keeps happening.

I'd be curious to know how many PTS runs they needed to be able to clear the arena so fast and how many times they died in their first run.

That said, fiendishly difficult content that tasks even top player would serve only a very niche customer base, and adding a third tier on top of normal and veteran would mean adding new mechanics that, again, very few people would see, but would need a top player testing team to fine tune.

From what I saw they beat veteran first try, not a no death run, but Alcast streamed it and it was cleared within a couple of hours.

The days of challenging PvE for the end game guilds are long gone, I don't think we've seen slow progression since vMoL or vHoF.

That's funny, because for the average player, content keeps getting harder and harder. I watched a few minutes of Alcast's video for the new 4 man arena, and I just shut it off half way through. There's no way I'm going to remember all THAT... Run over here, run over there, catch the ghosts, purge the curse, blah blah blah.

I like the ORIGINAL ESO, where monsters would pop up and you just had to kill them. Healers healed, tanks tanked and DPS deeped. Why can't we have that kind of gameplay back? I don't want to watch YouTube videos like I'm studying for the LSAT every friggin time a new DLC comes out!

Agreed. Why do people post negativity on these brag/"first" posts? Because content is becoming harder and harder. Trials become harder, vet dungeons become harder, arenas become harder. And everytime some try-hard from Hodor posts these "first" posts 5 minutes after the servers come back up, the devs see it as an excuse to make content even harder the next time.

I've done vet Scalecaller simply to get my Zaan gear, other than that I haven't run a single of the newer dungeons on vet, not to mention any of the trials on vet ever since vMoL, and I would prefer ZOS uses my subscriptions money and crown store purchases to make content that I actually intend to interact with, instead of creating content that's only catering to Hodor and the 0.1 % margin.

That's why people react the way they do in these posts, not out of envy or spite.

This. I can't help but feel the nerf to shields is because of stuff like this, tbqh. They claim that power creep is out of control so ZOS does stuff that nerfs everything instead of just the ceiling, meanwhile vet content has some of the lowest completion ratios of any MMO I have ever been in because the game isn't actually easy at all.

Alcast

Turelus wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

The only reason vMOL was not cleared on PTS was because it was technically IMPOSSIBLE to get past 2nd boss due to crashes.

It is funny tho that people think vmol was "harder" when it launched on pts. Reality is, ZOS just had very buggy Trials back in the day where you could not finish a single fight without someone getting booted from the server on pts.And because could not get past the 2nd boss nobody could really check out the last boss.

Halls of Fabrication was the first trial on PTS which was somehow semi stable and doable.

Interesting. So the chases on live in the past were mostly just because of bugs rather than the challenge of the content?
I had always assumed it was more to do with just new mechanics or balance passes happening at those times which made it take a bit longer to progress through.

I know you've expressed desires for a mode akin to Nightmare from other games, for those modes would you say it's just balance of characters or boss numbers or would they need harder mechanics as well to really push a group to something new.

Also how do your groups feel about the mini-game style mechanics used in other games raids, like players being set as specific colours and needing to stand on corresponding or opposing coloured platforms to damage bosses or avoid powerful attacks.

Maw of Lorkhaj was also the first "real trial" after the huge rework of the game. People were used to vAA, HRC, SO speeding through in 5 minutes, no shields no mitigation no nothing because just target dummies.

vMOL was the first trial that changed that a bit. So people had to adjust. But yes, the only reason it was not cleared on pts was because you could NOT get past 2nd boss due to disconnects/crashes xD. That way you could not really try out last boss and therefore had to do that on the live server.

The only real challenge this game ever offered was Tick Tock Achievement, because that one has everything, no death, speedrun, hardmode with a very long trial where you can't make any mistakes. But even that is a joke now because you can just nuke every boss into the ground thx to CP increase and other changes.
Trial was about 40 minutes long, dps was decent so we actually had to redo most mechanics several times, you could not slack because time was really short calculated to finish it in time.

Nowadays, mini trials we do not even need to try to get speedrun, it just "happens" xD

Nightmare mode, just remove CP and change nothing else. You loose so much dps, you loose max resources bc of no cp, have to invest more in heallth points etc. You loose the completely broken red defensive CP which make everything hit like a noodle.

Tbh I am not even sure if some of the content could be completed without CP, Would be interesting to find out.

About different mechanics, yes I would like to see more mechanics like that, but look at the new arena, ZOS just is so lazy creating new content. They just copy paste everything from old content into the "new" one. No new exciting mechanics or group splits. Even DSA had freaking groupsplit on stage 9 where you had to go down and kill the ghosts. New arena zos puts defile debuff on every single mob so a healer stays "relevant" in the content. Only way you can really die is because of one shot mechanics, which there are plenty of, nobody likes those.

GreenhaloX

Congrats, guys. Tell you what.. having lots of practice on this or not, it's still a lot of time and efforts being put in. Such luxury I don't have for this game; hence I am the long time casual ESO player. However, you guys would be dangerous if ESO ever transcend to a professional competition venue with its trials.

ccfeeling

Zos : Too easy? Ok

Love Wizard

Thanks for the nice comments, means alot!

Inig0

oh my god how dare you do content at your convenience smh my head.

Horowonnoe

Wow great job!

Audens

Rich said they used respawn sets

TheMythicDawn

Audens wrote: »

Rich said they used respawn sets

the best of the best couldn't get a no death without Phoenix cheese? interesting

Linaleah

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

albesca wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

My gripes are always more about the general disappointment that content is cleared within the first hour every update. Hodor are great at what they do and I respect that, but something needs to change to stop these first hour clears on live every new trial/arena.

I understand the hard position ZOS is in to make things accessible to the moderate skill players (like myself) but surely even for ZOS (and Hodor) there is some level of sadness that this keeps happening.

I'd be curious to know how many PTS runs they needed to be able to clear the arena so fast and how many times they died in their first run.

That said, fiendishly difficult content that tasks even top player would serve only a very niche customer base, and adding a third tier on top of normal and veteran would mean adding new mechanics that, again, very few people would see, but would need a top player testing team to fine tune.

From what I saw they beat veteran first try, not a no death run, but Alcast streamed it and it was cleared within a couple of hours.

The days of challenging PvE for the end game guilds are long gone, I don't think we've seen slow progression since vMoL or vHoF.

That's funny, because for the average player, content keeps getting harder and harder. I watched a few minutes of Alcast's video for the new 4 man arena, and I just shut it off half way through. There's no way I'm going to remember all THAT... Run over here, run over there, catch the ghosts, purge the curse, blah blah blah.

I like the ORIGINAL ESO, where monsters would pop up and you just had to kill them. Healers healed, tanks tanked and DPS deeped. Why can't we have that kind of gameplay back? I don't want to watch YouTube videos like I'm studying for the LSAT every friggin time a new DLC comes out!

THIS. SO. MUCH. THIS. I have to quote this because *** it THIS.

and Turelus had EXACTLY the sort of response that annoys the crap out of me. from his replies has hasn't actualy personaly even done that, he just saw that Hodor did a no death run on live and immediately decided that arena is not challenging enough. meanwhile I have guildies who were having seriously trouble with stage 4 and they are infinitely better players than I am....

you see, I think what Hodor manages IS impressive. and they absolutely deserve congratulations. but that. does. not. mean. that content is too easy.

its like judging difficulty of ... I don't know - american ninja warrior obstacle courses as easy on a basis of highly skilled and highly trained professionals being able to traverse them in a single continuous run..... its insane. and completely inapplicable to us average humans.

spartaxoxo

Linaleah wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

albesca wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

My gripes are always more about the general disappointment that content is cleared within the first hour every update. Hodor are great at what they do and I respect that, but something needs to change to stop these first hour clears on live every new trial/arena.

I understand the hard position ZOS is in to make things accessible to the moderate skill players (like myself) but surely even for ZOS (and Hodor) there is some level of sadness that this keeps happening.

I'd be curious to know how many PTS runs they needed to be able to clear the arena so fast and how many times they died in their first run.

That said, fiendishly difficult content that tasks even top player would serve only a very niche customer base, and adding a third tier on top of normal and veteran would mean adding new mechanics that, again, very few people would see, but would need a top player testing team to fine tune.

From what I saw they beat veteran first try, not a no death run, but Alcast streamed it and it was cleared within a couple of hours.

The days of challenging PvE for the end game guilds are long gone, I don't think we've seen slow progression since vMoL or vHoF.

That's funny, because for the average player, content keeps getting harder and harder. I watched a few minutes of Alcast's video for the new 4 man arena, and I just shut it off half way through. There's no way I'm going to remember all THAT... Run over here, run over there, catch the ghosts, purge the curse, blah blah blah.

I like the ORIGINAL ESO, where monsters would pop up and you just had to kill them. Healers healed, tanks tanked and DPS deeped. Why can't we have that kind of gameplay back? I don't want to watch YouTube videos like I'm studying for the LSAT every friggin time a new DLC comes out!

THIS. SO. MUCH. THIS. I have to quote this because *** it THIS.

and Turelus had EXACTLY the sort of response that annoys the crap out of me. from his replies has hasn't actualy personaly even done that, he just saw that Hodor did a no death run on live and immediately decided that arena is not challenging enough. meanwhile I have guildies who were having seriously trouble with stage 4 and they are infinitely better players than I am....

you see, I think what Hodor manages IS impressive. and they absolutely deserve congratulations. but that. does. not. mean. that content is too easy.

its like judging difficulty of ... I don't know - american ninja warrior obstacle courses as easy on a basis of highly skilled and highly trained professionals being able to traverse them in a single continuous run..... its insane. and completely inapplicable to us average humans.

Using these people to judge whether this content is too difficult is like if your coach judged whether or not you were pulling your weight on your track team by using Usain Bolt's records.

It is insane.

Facefister

"Content too easy"
meanwhile
your average random dies at Spindle1hm on last boss because he can't time his dodge.

iceman784

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

albesca wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

My gripes are always more about the general disappointment that content is cleared within the first hour every update. Hodor are great at what they do and I respect that, but something needs to change to stop these first hour clears on live every new trial/arena.

I understand the hard position ZOS is in to make things accessible to the moderate skill players (like myself) but surely even for ZOS (and Hodor) there is some level of sadness that this keeps happening.

I'd be curious to know how many PTS runs they needed to be able to clear the arena so fast and how many times they died in their first run.

That said, fiendishly difficult content that tasks even top player would serve only a very niche customer base, and adding a third tier on top of normal and veteran would mean adding new mechanics that, again, very few people would see, but would need a top player testing team to fine tune.

From what I saw they beat veteran first try, not a no death run, but Alcast streamed it and it was cleared within a couple of hours.

The days of challenging PvE for the end game guilds are long gone, I don't think we've seen slow progression since vMoL or vHoF.

That's funny, because for the average player, content keeps getting harder and harder. I watched a few minutes of Alcast's video for the new 4 man arena, and I just shut it off half way through. There's no way I'm going to remember all THAT... Run over here, run over there, catch the ghosts, purge the curse, blah blah blah.

I like the ORIGINAL ESO, where monsters would pop up and you just had to kill them. Healers healed, tanks tanked and DPS deeped. Why can't we have that kind of gameplay back? I don't want to watch YouTube videos like I'm studying for the LSAT every friggin time a new DLC comes out!

I mean if you just want something to kill just make it yourself. Get a bunch of target dummies, make a course akin to a trial in your house and go have fun with your friends... or alone because just hitting stuff with no mechanics is boring af and it would be hard to find people for that

Danksta

ArchMikem wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

albesca wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

My gripes are always more about the general disappointment that content is cleared within the first hour every update. Hodor are great at what they do and I respect that, but something needs to change to stop these first hour clears on live every new trial/arena.

I understand the hard position ZOS is in to make things accessible to the moderate skill players (like myself) but surely even for ZOS (and Hodor) there is some level of sadness that this keeps happening.

I'd be curious to know how many PTS runs they needed to be able to clear the arena so fast and how many times they died in their first run.

That said, fiendishly difficult content that tasks even top player would serve only a very niche customer base, and adding a third tier on top of normal and veteran would mean adding new mechanics that, again, very few people would see, but would need a top player testing team to fine tune.

From what I saw they beat veteran first try, not a no death run, but Alcast streamed it and it was cleared within a couple of hours.

The days of challenging PvE for the end game guilds are long gone, I don't think we've seen slow progression since vMoL or vHoF.

That's funny, because for the average player, content keeps getting harder and harder. I watched a few minutes of Alcast's video for the new 4 man arena, and I just shut it off half way through. There's no way I'm going to remember all THAT... Run over here, run over there, catch the ghosts, purge the curse, blah blah blah.

I like the ORIGINAL ESO, where monsters would pop up and you just had to kill them. Healers healed, tanks tanked and DPS deeped. Why can't we have that kind of gameplay back? I don't want to watch YouTube videos like I'm studying for the LSAT every friggin time a new DLC comes out!

Has a point.

Players keep saying content is too easy. The devs idea on changing that is creating a bunch of combat mechanics you have to keep track of ontop of the usual rotation and staying healthy. I still have no idea what half the stuff going on in Cloudrest really is and ive run it several times now.

That's the way trials should be. If I wanted to just stand there and do my rotation until the boss is dead I'd either beat on a test dummy or go do Craglorn trials. I much prefer extra mechanics over "let's just make everything hit harder and slap some more HP on the boss".

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Congrats on getting it done. No hating on y'all for it. Yeah you playtested the hell out of it on PTS.... so would anyone who wants to get it right on day one.

What i'd like to see is ZOS create and release a "private trial" where it has been made and tested by them only, so no player base practice and is then released on all platforms at the exact same time. That way there's a race for "world's first."

Also make it so addons that basically hold your hand through it don’t work so it's literally player and team skill. Or let consoles have addons too to give a fair playing field for the game.


Would HODOR get the world's first on such a trial. Maybe, maybe not. Would be cool to see.

Cheezits94

ChrisToTheCanvas wrote: »

Audens wrote: »

Rich said they used respawn sets

the best of the best couldn't get a no death without Phoenix cheese? interesting

@ChrisToTheCanvas
They uploaded the whole run to youtube, there clearly is not a single proc of either Phoenix or Yokeda. So no, they were obviously not wearing any of these sets.
I watched the whole video.

BlazingDynamo

Honestly this world's first stuff in ESO isn't even a feat anymore. Go back and watch Redeem's 19 hour World's First Last Wish raid run in D2. Now that's a World's First worthy of being called so. No practicing the raid for months before release. Completely blind and on your own. Racing against many many other groups. So sweaty.

I wish ESO would stop with PTS raid testing. Kills any credibility for world's first clears.

Get salty but it's truer than true. There's zero excitement for ESO when a new raid launches. We all know Hodor is god tier.

Put them in blind next time and drop the raid a week after the launch of the new patch to give all teams a fair fight. Would pay to watch that.

TheMythicDawn

@Cheezits94

If Rich said they used respawn sets, then they used respawn sets, period. It doesnt matter what the OP shows on youtube, or in their cropped screenshots.

they probably used phoenix as an insurance policy to guarentee they could get the unchained achievement asap and farm that juicy worlds first salt.

if you dont think a group like that could get multiple no death / close to no death runs back to back you aren't giving them credit, no one is really saying otherwise.

However if Rich said they used respawn sets, then thats what they did. Someone from the group is free to say otherwise. Cropped screenshots and youtube videos dont matter when achievements are character specific, not accountwide and this is a question of world's first unchained achievement

The op even admits they only had one death in there first run so it probably went something like this

1st run - speedrun, hardmode, 1 death (take screenshots of achieves)
2nd run - speedrun, hardmode, no death (use phoenix as insurance policy, take screenshot of last achieve)
3rd run (after the nerves for scrambling for worlds first in which they are the only ones racing are gone) - speedrun, hardmode, no death (on an alt character hours later), upload THAT vid to youtube

ccfeeling

That's why they join PTS

max_only

Facefister wrote: »

"Content too easy"
meanwhile
your average random dies at Spindle1hm on last boss because he can't time his dodge.

That was me! Couldn’t see what the hell I was supposed to be dodging for the longest time.

Wolfkeks

Congratulation peeps!

Cheezits94

@ChrisToTheCanvas dude you can check that the video they uploaded are the same characters that popped up highest on the leaderboards shortly after the patch went live, no alts. I play on PC EU. The leaderboard is very short. xD no "uploading good run hours later on alts", list is too short. First alt-run they did was even livestreamed yesterday. I dunno what world you live in. I was searching the forums everywhere for that "they used Phoenix" confirmation by @ZOS_RichLambert , I couldn't find anything, and then I found this conversation on Twitter where Rich seemed to troll a bit and they seemed to kid around with each other. Is that what you mean? I would not call that proof.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1054371678397128704?s=19

TheMythicDawn

@Cheezits94

i haven't checked out the video because i dont want to spoil the content, and no you are right razzing on twitter is hardly proof of anything.

but alcast has used phoenix to secure no death achievements before like mountain god from scalecaller peak so when it was mentioned above the group did the same thing for blackrose it wouldnt suprise me

not that there is anything wrong with using phoenix imo, apart from being a little cheesey. i still would be interested to hear someone from the group admit if they ever had respawn sets on during their runs up until the unchained clear just for transparency

but again not like it even matters or devalues from the achievement, because it doesnt

ATomiX96

GreenhaloX wrote: »

Congrats, guys. Tell you what.. having lots of practice on this or not, it's still a lot of time and efforts being put in. Such luxury I don't have for this game; hence I am the long time casual ESO player. However, you guys would be dangerous if ESO ever transcend to a professional competition venue with its trials.

ESO will never turn into something competetive with real life prizes bound to it, dont you worry.
For that the public interest, audience and competition is way too small.
The games golden age is already over, its only getting worse from here on.

xMovingTarget

GG Nerds ))

Alcast

ChrisToTheCanvas wrote: »

@Cheezits94

If Rich said they used respawn sets, then they used respawn sets, period. It doesnt matter what the OP shows on youtube, or in their cropped screenshots.

they probably used phoenix as an insurance policy to guarentee they could get the unchained achievement asap and farm that juicy worlds first salt.

if you dont think a group like that could get multiple no death / close to no death runs back to back you aren't giving them credit, no one is really saying otherwise.

However if Rich said they used respawn sets, then thats what they did. Someone from the group is free to say otherwise. Cropped screenshots and youtube videos dont matter when achievements are character specific, not accountwide and this is a question of world's first unchained achievement

The op even admits they only had one death in there first run so it probably went something like this

1st run - speedrun, hardmode, 1 death (take screenshots of achieves)
2nd run - speedrun, hardmode, no death (use phoenix as insurance policy, take screenshot of last achieve)
3rd run (after the nerves for scrambling for worlds first in which they are the only ones racing are gone) - speedrun, hardmode, no death (on an alt character hours later), upload THAT vid to youtube

Rich was trolling lmao, its a meme at this point because we used those sets when Scalecaller Peak was bugged. We did NOT use Pheonix or Yokeda in the arena, dps would be too low. The FULL video is on youtube and throughout the full run nobodies health ever drops to 0.

TheMythicDawn

well I got trolled hard, I will eat my words lol