PTS Update 21 - Feedback Thread for Frostvault

code65536

If we took the final boss of Frostvault and scaled him up for 12 players, he'd make a more worthy final boss for vHoF than his half-brother. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that the final boss's hard mode is harder than most vet DLC trials hard modes.

For those in the audience who haven't experienced the insanity of vFV HM, here's a recap of the differences between non-HM and HM:

• More boss health, more boss damage
• More adds
• The blade arm now damages everyone regardless of where they are standing and can easily kill a non-tank if they don't react quickly to mitigate that damage when it comes.
• An unpurgeable healing debuff that gets applied to the entire group, reducing healing taken by 75% (for comparison, vCR's healing debuff is 85%). This happens fairly frequently and this huge debuff has a crazy high uptime of around 50%.
• Skeevaton phase is completely different
  • Whereas in non-HM, there are four identical skeevatons for your group to use, in HM, the four skeevatons are different. There's one Guardian (tank), one Repair (healer), and two Assault skeevatons (damage) available for your group. The skeevatons have different abilities--the tank rat has speed boost, a group shield, and the ability to disable a pylon. The healer rat has speed boost, two healing abilities, and the ability to disable a pylon. The damage rats have damage abilities, but lack the ability to disable pylons and have no speed boost, no shield, and no heal.
  • You have a time limit.
  • There are hostile spiders.
    • They spawn infinitely. So you can never kill them all.
    • When they attack you, they will snare you and eventually immobilize you. And then kill you.
  • The most potent damage abilities have substantial cooldowns. So use them carefully. If you miss, you're kinda screwed. There is one damage ability that you can kinda spam, but it hits like a wet noodle.

The upstairs phase is substantially harder, particularly on the tank. Our healer was basically on tank babysitting duty. But the real challenge is in the skeevaton phases.

In non-HM, the skeevaton phases are fine. They're not that difficult and pretty fun. Each person picks a path, gets to a pylon, and disables it, and you're done. In HM, you can't split up like that. You either all travel together or split into two groups of two. Since only two players have the ability to disable a pylon, you'd need to backtrack and return to the center to recharge.

All the while dealing the infinitely-spawning enemies--fighting them using the clunky assault abilities. It's a whole new style of play that you need to learn and master. Except that, in order to practice it, you have to actually make it to the first skeevaton phase, at which point you have only a few precious moments to practice the art of awkward skeevaton combat. Progression in this fight is exceptionally frustrating because of this. The skeevaton phase is ****ing hard, and on top of that, you're not in control of your character--you're in control of a skeevaton that behaves very differently from your character, using abilities (with long un-ESO-like cooldowns) that you are not familiar with--and you are trying to get used to all that while running a maze, avoiding traps, and racing against the clock. And each opportunity to practice the skeevaton stuff requires going through a long stretch of "topside" combat.

For example, we'd be racing along, and a couple of spiders latch onto whoever is at the tail of the group. They're snared and in trouble, so we stop, turn around, but that lets the enemies catch up and converge, and now we're suddenly dealing with four enemies instead of just one. Or, after disabling a pylon, we'd turn back and head towards the center to recharge, but then run into a group of enemies that had been pursuing us through the maze. If we stop to kill the spiders, it just takes too much time (the time limit is excessively short) and since the enemies spawn infinitely anyway, it doesn't matter since more will come to immediately reinforce the ones we killed. Oh, and did I mention that all this is a maze? In a game that has no minimap...

I say to anyone who thinks that the skeevaton mechanic is fun: Go try it on HM and then tell me if you still think it's fun.

The time limit. The nonstop spawning of enemies. The clunky skeevaton combat model. All of them put together is just excessive. Getting rid of just one of those would make the it much more reasonable (it'll still be much, much harder than non-HM), but having all of them feels like you're just throwing the kitchen sink at us.

After beating vMoS HM, I thought I had seen the apex of 4-man hard mode insanity. vFV HM, at least in its current state during PTS 1, frankly makes vMoS HM look like a leisurely stroll through the park. Are you sure that's really what you want?



PS: What's with this huuuuuuuuuuge difficulty gap between vFV non-HM and vFV HM versus the relatively modest difficulty gap between the non-HM and HM of the other dungeon? You threw everything and the kitchen sink at us in vFV HM, whereas I'm having a hard time identifying the differences between vDoM non-HM and vDoM HM. On top of that, vFV non-HM was already substantially harder than vDoM non-HM. I don't think I've ever seen such a large difficulty gap between two dungeons from the same DLC.

PPS: To the forumgoers complaining about the vFV collectible just needing a Conqueror achievement and not Challenger... with how insane this HM is at the moment, I suspect you'd want to rethink wanting to lock the collectible behind HM.

TheNightflame

the skeevaton phase can be nerfed a little for sure (but keep its high requirement for group coordination and role specialization and all that) but don't nerf the upstairs boss portion please! edit: for hardmode. Especially since the reward is just a title now, let it be hard

dowinterfor6

A similar post and conclusions as @code65536, our group decided to run vFV HM after the other dungeon started bugging out on hard mode. I'd like to note that @ZOS_Seiffer was present on Tea_The_Khajiits stream during most of the fight, commenting on our 3 DPS 1 tank group composition. I'll also add a disclaimer that, although I am offering insight to the problems with the hard mode fight, I can not think of many effective solutions as of now.

Our initial run through wasn't too bad, most of the dungeon bosses were nice, had some sort of niche mechanic, and provided an interesting experience. However, what is worth giving feedback would be the last boss. Similar to the Assembly General in vHoF, standing at around 4 million health for non-HM and over 7 mill for HM, we knew we were in for a long fight, and we weren't wrong. Running with two magblades and a stamblade, I was on a nord sorcerer tank running ebon and leeching, as well as the new resource return set. That did not go well. Taking a break, I switched to a 50k health setup with plague and warrior poet, along with engine guardian, I could survive the 100%-75% health mechanics without a healer, and a single blood altar from the group.

The reasoning behind the switch was the 50-60% uptime of a defile (code estimates to be roughly 75%) that is put on the group that cannot be purged. As soon as I saw this mechanic, I knew that it had to follow the similar train of thought other recent content contained: "We should add a massive defile to force healers to be viable in content". Unfortunately, I believe this is a very poor direction to take. Having such a large defile on the tank means that content with said mechanic will require the healer and tank to depend on each other much more than they should. In an organized group of 3 DPS nuking down the adds, I was able to stay alive if I didn't make a single mistake. In a PUG, most likely wont ever succeed. Any deaths that the tank suffers, therefore, will result in being mostly the healers fault, as only one of the mechanics (as far as my combat metrics indicated) could be blocked from the boss.

This raises an interesting question. What exactly is the role of a tank in that dungeon? Once I got comfortable, I could hold the dwarven centurion as well, while the DPS dealt with the smaller adds (or knocked them off for fun). I can't exactly debuff the boss, as even when we swapped in a healer I didn't risk lowering my health by more than 10k. The defile is too brutal of a mechanic for the tank to be expected to do much more than hold taunt and survive, yet there are so many adds and mechanics happening at the same time. According to one of the DPS, the dwarven centurion has a light attack that cannot be roll dodged, and chunks a DPS' health, meaning that they were intended to be tanked.

We got to as far as the skeever phase, past 75%. Teleporting into the room, we were met with confusion as none of the skill icons were clear, they were different from before, and we had spiders snaring and killing us. We knew what we had to do, yet spent much of our time actually opening our skill menu to try and figure out what the skills were before the spiders killed all of us, because they weren't intuitive. The timer didn't help as it was such a short time, causing us to panic, and before we knew it we wiped within the first 20 seconds.

After 6 hours of PTS dungeon progression, we finished off non-hm (a breeze without the defile and spiders, and 3-4 million less health, but my health was still fluctuating constantly), and went back to clear the other dungeon on non-hm (to avoid the bug). Our healer later commented that she felt "useless" for most of the dungeon's bosses except for the vFV hm boss pulls, where she was having panic attacks whenever she looked at my health bar.

In conclusion, I'll probably update this more whenever we decide to go in there again, but it wasn't a great experience. We've done other dungeons on the PTS, and I've tanked all but vCR hard mode trials in the game, and this fight has got to be the most challenging in terms of raw survivability (but not much else).

TL:DR
- Defile mechanic is brutal, forces groups to have healer
- Tanking is unfun and unrewarding (with or without healer)
- Skeever phase unintuitive, locked behind 25% of boss health to even start learning
- Will be basically impossible for PUGs

A section here for the tanking aspects of this fight, as I did not take a standard tanking class (attack names will be paraphrased). I tanked this on an imperial sorcerer with around 50k health:

- Gear (no healer) - Engine Guardian, Plague Doctor, War Maiden (probably Green Pact if warden in group) (infused tristat big
pieces, sturdy health small pieces, tristat stam cost reduction jewelry, absorb health weapon enchants [I didn't have time to
change them])
- SnB front, lightning staff back (tried DW for quick cloak for evasion, mitigation didn't seem noticeable)
- Using Lingering Health Potions (Restore health, Major Vitality, Lingering Health) whenever defiled, and have a group member
put down blood altar (either morph is fine, preferably overflowing)
- DPS can focus flame arm first, as blade arm damage can be completely mitigated by roll dodging
- Flame arm mechanic can be vigor + meditated through, but health will still go down slowly
- Spend a lot of time heavy attacking with SnB during other mechanics, as almost all the damage cannot be blocked
- Centurion will spawn to the left or right (if you stand by the stairs opposite the entrance/hard mode button) and slightly
behind, try to taunt before they move beyond the arms as the hitbox is pretty bad, roll dodge the heavy attacks if possible
- Personally, I used balance whenever I heal to full after the defile just ended, as my only burst heal is the clannfear, which is
expensive.
- During the defile, I try to mitigate incoming damage with my empowered ward
- If health drops too low, can use the blood altar synergy or burst heal, but try not to use both unless actually dying, it is
preferable to use them after the defile ends
- Keep up maim (heroic slash) on the boss at all times, and front barring the psijic ult for minor protection also helps a lot
against the unblockable damage
- When the boss starts spinning with his flame arms, I like to heavy attack with my lightning staff for resources while bashing
spheres that are casting. If left unbashed, the attack can be blocked. Stick close to the boss as the flame moves faster
around the edge
- While using flame reach and draining shot is fun, it takes two hits to knock a sphere off the edge, which wasn't a good use of resource and time

code65536

dowinterfor6 wrote: »

We knew what we had to do, yet spent much of our time actually opening our skill menu to try and figure out what the skills were before the spiders killed all of us, because they weren't intuitive. The timer didn't help as it was such a short time, causing us to panic, and before we knew it we wiped within the first 20 seconds.

LOL! I had forgotten about that. The first couple of times we made it to the skeevaton phase, it was spent just looking through the skill tooltips to try to figure out what we have to work with. And we didn't even have enough time to read through it all! I resorted to screenshotting the skills for my assault skeevaton so that we could review them after we wiped. Our tank clipped the part of his stream where he was going through the skeevaton skills. But our healer didn't save his, so we had to get the healer skills on our next trip to skeevatonland. And none of us thought to look at the ultimate ability, since the icons were so generic and indistinct that it wasn't obvious to us that the ultimate for the assault skeevatons had changed from what they were in non-HM. So it wasn't until several pulls later before we even realized that assault skeevatons lacked the ability to disable the objective pylons.

This is, as you put it, not intuitive. The level of coordination and time commitment needed to just learn this fight is staggering for a dungeon--this is something that should've been put in a vet trial (man, this would've made vHoF so much more interesting), not in a group dungeon (can we just... like... swap the Assembly General with his half brother?)

Aliyavana

@ZOS_Finn can you add a skeevaton operation journal somewhere before the last boss fight that will show us in order what the skeevaton abilities are? it would be a QOL change to see what the abilities are that way so we don't have to open up our journal and get killed in mouse form

TheNightflame

^ deaths should be to rule things out, test things, and learn. Not be a speed-reading test

Valkner

My group went in thinking this Frostvault HM would be similar difficulty with MHK HM, but soon realized this was not the case. This had to be one the most unfun fights to tank due to the unpurgeable defiles, dots, and vast amount of adds. After a few hours of making no progress, we cleared on normal vet without issue. I pray this fight does not get released in it's current state, and falls more in line with MHK HM.

Aliyavana

TheNightflame wrote: »

^ deaths should be to rule things out, test things, and learn. Not be a speed-reading test

QOL changes are there to make things less annoying though

TheNightflame

I said that in agreement with you/as backup justification (in case it was taken the other way). From the sounds of it, it does not seem like purposeful deaths, more just like necessary ones which have no need to be necessary. edit: I awesome-d your post

Olith

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

The story is connected to the Season of the Dragon in that, assisting Tharayya in getting both halves of the Wrathstone tablet in Frostvault and Depths of Malatar provides context for how Abnur Tharn has them in the prologue quest. If you do not do the Dungeons, that's fine, some other adventurers helped him... but if you did, its an awesome pay off to see your hard work in the Dungeons with your friends be rewarded with a cool story element, don't you think? It's not something that has happened before and we are excited to finally bring this experience to players who enjoy our group content.

Are you equally excited to not bring this experience to players which don't enjoy your group content? I made the mistake to insta-buy the whole thing when I heard about Elsweyr, dragons, necromancers... Now I can watch it on Twitch or Youtube if I want to experience that cool story element. Great.

macsmooth

Anyone got any details about the story because all I can see is boss mechanics for us people that don’t have Pts or pre made hard mode trial vet people to run it with

I was wondering what the great year long story is? Why is Abnur Tharn looking for dragons or is it the tablets I’m not sure, when last I heard he was going to spend his life trying to unlock the amulet of kings, what made him give up on it or is the dragon a way to access the amulet because of the whole dragon born requirement and will he start sacrificing people or kats to power the amulet or tablets or to the dragons

I guess we will have to wait till YouTube posts it

Alcast

@ecru @Casdha

If the dungeon can not be soloed, why not go through it in normal with a group of 4? This should not take long and is fairly easy compared to veteran mode and you can still enjoy the story. You need to find 4 people that enjoy the lore otherwise people will probably rush through, but I am sure there is guilds out there that cover that.

Casdha

Alcast wrote: »

@ecru @Casdha

If the dungeon can not be soloed, why not go through it in normal with a group of 4? This should not take long and is fairly easy compared to veteran mode and you can still enjoy the story. You need to find 4 people that enjoy the lore otherwise people will probably rush through, but I am sure there is guilds out there that cover that.

It's not that I don't want to, It is that I don't want to the first time.

I hate spoilers and I hate feeling rushed, and no matter how much someone says take your time it is just not the same.

I will overlook spoilers for my part If I think it will help the game, but I don't go out of my way looking for them unless I think it is necessary, like I did trying this dungeon.

Agalloch

In every MMO dungeons must be fun and accessible to every player .

I am not an elitist even I finished all the dungeons besides the last dungeon dlcs HM ( Wolfhunter) .

I am sure that many of the player base don't like that every new DLC dungeon is harder than before .

I understand that on VET or HM they must be harder ,,but they ( last DLC dungeons ) are full of One Shot mechanics ...even on normal.

I like so much almost all the dungeons in ESO but making them harder and harder ..will make them inaccessible to the majority of players.

I like many mechanics also..but an inflation of them is not a good direction.

Please make the dungeons at the same difficulty like Version II of the base game dungeons..and more players will do them.

Every day in the zone chat I see only " LFG Pledges non DLC" .

The majority of players don't do the DLC dungeons because they are too hard and very time consuming.

We play for fun not to learn a dungeon's mechanics in weeks . ..or maybe months ...

Ok.we can do them with people from our guilds...but anyway...the problem is almost the same.


Sorry for my bad english,

Kagukan

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

The story is connected to the Season of the Dragon in that, assisting Tharayya in getting both halves of the Wrathstone tablet in Frostvault and Depths of Malatar provides context for how Abnur Tharn has them in the prologue quest. If you do not do the Dungeons, that's fine, some other adventurers helped him... but if you did, its an awesome pay off to see your hard work in the Dungeons with your friends be rewarded with a cool story element, don't you think? It's not something that has happened before and we are excited to finally bring this experience to players who enjoy our group content.

Horrible plan.
What about players that enjoy content period? Why not have content accessible to almost all of the player base? You can tier these dungeons and tier the reward system and take nothing away from anyone. The solo player can enjoy the dungeon and get a little reward at the end. The player that enjoys hard group dungeons can enjoy the dungeon and get their massive reward at the end. A win for everyone.

DeathStalker

1. Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
No

2. How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
too hard. I believe any dungeon on normal that is harder than Darkshade cavern is too hard. that's my POV

3. Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
normal

4. Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
none

5. What level and build was the character you used?
Level 50 cp810 RG Stamsorc.

6. Do you have any other general feedback?
Please put the difficulty for both dungeons as the same as Darkshade caverns on normal. Put as many one-shot mechanics as you want on Vet difficulty. make it as hard as you want on Vet difficulty. but please put it with similar mechanics and difficulty as Darkshade caverns on normal. That way those of us who don't like to group but love the story can enjoy the entire dragon story this year. I am opposed to grouping because of the " I am God you are a pathetic nothing" attitude of almost everyone that groups. Most people who group up in this game take all the fun out of playing and name call and treat you in a bullying and horrible manner. Please, I beg you not to lock the story in a way where we have to deal with these people.

Casdha

max_only wrote: »

It seems like People that love your dungeons/challenging group content don’t care about story. You have observed how it’s all skipped.

It seems like People that love your story don’t care about dungeons/challenging group content. Remember Craglorn?

This is an Elder Scrolls title. You are known for a compelling story and your rich world of Tamriel.

It’s too late in development to make the dungeon easier, so please consider a future implementation of a no rewards Story Mode.

It's not too late in development, they did it with Public Dungeons. Solo mode doesn't need anything more than another icon added to the Group page and The dungeons themselves dropped to 10 - 25 % Damage and Health compared to normal Mobs and bosses (depending on the dungeon and one shots only be 25% of health instead of 100)

Edit: If this never gets added, At the very least have these dungeons no harder than the first couple rounds of group dungeons on normal.

Mormo

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Our group very much enjoyed the new dungeon. It is probably one of my favorite DLC dungeons to date.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
I feel that the veteran level of difficulty here is perfect for a group that is on mic with each other. However, I can see this being a little difficult for a group that found each other via the group finder. I think that it is on par with other DLC releases in terms of difficulty, albiet WAY easier than Depths of Malatar.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran, non hardmode

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
Easily the last encounter. While our group was a little thrown off when we were turned into mice, it was actually a really fun encounter and we finished the dungeons with smiles and laughter, ready to try again and do hard mode.

What level and build was the character you used?
High Elf Sorcerer, Sorrow + Julianos, no pet

Do you have any other general feedback?
My only complaint about this dungeon is with the laser boss--specifically, the laser mechanic. The concept of the laser mechanic made complete sense to our team, however the visual cue to determine which side of the laser is the origin and which side is the destination is NOT easy to see at all, especially if you're color blind. I feel that either one or both sides needs to be tweaked a bit so that they are distinguishable. Either changing the color of the laser's origin or making the splash of the laser bigger so its more obvious which side you need to avoid. I love the mechanic, just not the execution of it.

Carbonised

From all the feedback provided here, it seems pretty safe to conclude that mixing the lore/story aspect with the dungeon/mechanics aspect is NOT a success, and NOT something ZOS should do more in the future.

Personally I enjoy the lore/story aspect very much, while also doing quite a lot of the mechanics/gameplay, and have done some of the new DLC dungeons on vet as well as done quite a lot of PvP.

But - I am NOT going to grind myself against hardcore vet and HM mechanics just for the sake of doing them, and I don't agree that dungeons is the greatest place to put emphasis on any kind of story content. People who play ESO PvE competitively, don't care a thing about the story or the lore, and will in most cases not be helpful if you actually take time reading dialogue or enjoying the scenery. Sure you can do that in base dungeons, either solo or with friends, but the DLC vet dungeons have become so hard that many people struggle to do them even on normal, and the people I know who run them on vet let alone HM are miniscule.

With this ever increasing emphasis on mechanics difficulty, you're basically excluding the majority of your playerbase from the content.
Sorry to say, but ESO will never be a competitive or hardcore game, so you may as well stop pretending that it is. The majority of the players play it for the story, the lore, the setting and all that, not to play competitively in trials or dungeons against extremely hard mechanics.

That said, I appreciate that you locked the cosmetics and collectibles behind vet mode and not all the challenges, which would be unobtainable by 99.9999 % of us. You can get a title from the nodeath and HM and all that, that should be plenty sufficient for anyone's fragile ego.

aubrey.baconb16_ESO

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

The story is connected to the Season of the Dragon in that, assisting Tharayya in getting both halves of the Wrathstone tablet in Frostvault and Depths of Malatar provides context for how Abnur Tharn has them in the prologue quest. If you do not do the Dungeons, that's fine, some other adventurers helped him... but if you did, its an awesome pay off to see your hard work in the Dungeons with your friends be rewarded with a cool story element, don't you think? It's not something that has happened before and we are excited to finally bring this experience to players who enjoy our group content.

@ZOS_Finn
A significant proportion of vocal solo players feel that they are being very, very badly treated and that the balance between solo and group players has been upset in favour of group players by this move.

ZOS_Mika

We have removed some unnecessary back and forth from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil, constructive, and on-topic. Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to receiving more of your feedback.

RaddlemanNumber7

Can we expect that the Q3 story content will be locked away behind un-soloable Dungeons as well?

Edit grammar

andy_s

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Yes, it has a nice design and not too many trash packs (unlike the other dungeon from this DLC).

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
The last boss is hard, but the rest is the same difficulty (not difficult at all tbh).

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran Hardmode, after a countless amount of wipes. Props to @ZOS_Finn and @ZOS_Seiffer

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
The last boss, because of the mouse mechanic obviously.

What level and build was the character you used?
Dragonknight Tank. Chudan + Ebon + Dragon sets.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Recorded the video from my point of view. I think there are enough posts already about the hardmode difficulty. I can't say how difficult it will be on the live servers, PTS ping for EU players definitely makes the fight extra difficult, but there are 2 obvious things that need adjustements:
1. Extreme healing debuff on all players is too much. Nobody likes healing debuffs, nuff said.
2. Mouse Phase. There are places with fire and blades next to each other, and blades also do shock damage to nearby players, so it's impossible to avoid damage. It makes this phase too long, but it's also possible that we just need l2p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR-Dhqkl8DY&feature=youtu.be

ZOS_Finn

Thanks for the feedback folks. We are reading all of it both in regards to the story elements and balance. Some specific points...

Re: Hard Mode Balance - Keep the information coming. This is the first iteration for everyone to see and the first chance for players to dive in and get a chance to tackle it. We will be making adjustments in future PTS updates so, please revisit this often and let us know what you think.

Re: Normal Balance - We have heard you loud and clear on this too and we are looking at some of the abilities that are causing pain points and will be making adjustments as well.

Disturbed125

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Yes, many of the bosses are interesting and the dungeon was generally fun to clear.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
The last boss HM is definitely the hardest piece of 4 man content existing right now, the rest of the dungeon is on par with past DLC releases.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Both plus pulls on HM

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
The last boss, as difficult as the fight is, its still fun.

What level and build was the character you used?
cp 1035 magblade (zaan/master architect/spell strategist)
cp1035 stamblade (velidreth/advancing yokeda/war machine)

Do you have any other general feedback?
Code and dowinterfor pretty much cover my feedback on this dungeon. One thing id like to add is that hit box on the final boss's middle seems to be a little small. on my stamblade I noticed that you had to be within the inner most blade trap ring to be able to use abilities like surprise attack/rending slashes. It wasn't a massive issue but It would make the fight a bit easier on melee users if the hit box was just a little bit bigger.

CaffeinatedMayhem

Requesting story mode for dungeons. To be able to read the quest text, and find lorebooks. Don't need lootables or chests, just the ability to hear the story, after the group runs through, disbands immediately, and hopefully you got the quest turned in for a skill point (maybe).

Aliyavana

Alcast wrote: »

@ecru @Casdha

If the dungeon can not be soloed, why not go through it in normal with a group of 4? This should not take long and is fairly easy compared to veteran mode and you can still enjoy the story. You need to find 4 people that enjoy the lore otherwise people will probably rush through, but I am sure there is guilds out there that cover that.

You would have to go at 3 other peoples pace and be rushed. Its hard to get people to run for story when most people who run for story arguebly suck and are afraid of the challenge.

Aliyavana

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback folks. We are reading all of it both in regards to the story elements and balance. Some specific points...

Re: Hard Mode Balance - Keep the information coming. This is the first iteration for everyone to see and the first chance for players to dive in and get a chance to tackle it. We will be making adjustments in future PTS updates so, please revisit this often and let us know what you think.

Re: Normal Balance - We have heard you loud and clear on this too and we are looking at some of the abilities that are causing pain points and will be making adjustments as well.

Both first bosses seem to be a bit non solo friendly for the dungeon's normal mode

martygod12

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

The story is connected to the Season of the Dragon in that, assisting Tharayya in getting both halves of the Wrathstone tablet in Frostvault and Depths of Malatar provides context for how Abnur Tharn has them in the prologue quest. If you do not do the Dungeons, that's fine, some other adventurers helped him... but if you did, its an awesome pay off to see your hard work in the Dungeons with your friends be rewarded with a cool story element, don't you think? It's not something that has happened before and we are excited to finally bring this experience to players who enjoy our group content.

Well I enjoy group content but this is a very stupid idea ... Lots of people will never have the chance to know the story but you will see

Edit: Why do you feel that group players needs more exclusive content? They are basically getting 4dlc's per year while solo players only get 2 lol

Artim_X

Did you enjoy this new dungeon? Hell yeah! Lots of fun to be had in here and the entire place looks amazing!

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions? The mechanics on normal aren't too crazy about what you'd expect from a DLC dungeon. It's a lot easier than Moon Hunter Keep that's for sure (trash mobs are easier to counter).

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)? I beat it twice on normal. I only do vet dungeons when I need something specific.

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why? Stonekeeper for sure. Felt like we were fighting a trial boss and controlling a skeevaton was very interesting (took a bit of trial and error to get a hang of it the first time around).

What level and build was the character you used? My CP is a lot higher than the cap so basically CP 810. When I played DPS I used 5 Burning Spellweave, 2 Ilambris (1 med/1 heavy), Maelstrom's Inferno Staff, and Infallible Aether jewelry/lightning staff. When I tanked it I used 5 Icy Conjuror, 2 Iceheart (1 med/1 heavy), Maelstrom's Ice Staff, and Infallible Aether jewelry/lightning staff.

Do you have any other general feedback? Q1 would have been the best time to introduce the guild finder so that people who want to focus on enjoying the story would have an easier time finding likeminded individuals.