Reminder: PTS Dragon Testing Today, April 25 from 2-4pm EDT [COMPLETE]

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 25

Hi all! Just a reminder that we'd like everyone to focus on killing Dragons in Elsweyr today on the PTS from 2-4pm EDT so we can collect some data. While you’re participating, please also equip the Blue Dragon Imp pet so we can gather some technical data on the pet; you can purchase this from the Crown Store.

If you plan on streaming during this time, let us know so we can watch. Also remember this is a test, and things may get a little bumpy at times (but that's the whole point of testing!)

Once the test has concluded, below are some questions from the team that they'd love feedback on:

Did you have a good time?
Was there always a Dragon spawning that you could chase?
What did fighting the Dragon feel like with a large group? Small group? Raid?
We tried to balance Dragons to around 8 players - did this feel right?
Were you ever in combat when you thought you shouldn’t be?
Did your framerate drop during the event?
- If so, what were you doing? What was the Dragon doing?
- How many players were around you?
Were you ever kicked to character select?
Did you crash?

Thanks!

ManwithBeard9 · April 25

I'll be there, streaming on Mixer.

Davadin · April 25

as long as it doesn't float above our reach when it's dead, i think it'll be fine... (yes, I've submitted a bug)

SantieClaws · April 25

Khajiit will hopefully be sending her US cousin Tickle Claws if all is well and other business is concluded in good time.

A good old fashioned stress test crash fest! Ahhhhh!

Worth it to get the dragons off the lawn of this one.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

MyNameIsElias · April 25

Anyone here that will be streaming the testing on Twitch?

Gythral · April 25

18:00 to 20:00 UTC (or 19:00-21:00 BST, 20:00-22:00 CEST)

MissBizz · April 25

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

I'll be there, streaming on Mixer.

@ManwithBeard9 link?

xynode · April 25

Will be streaming early tonight to take part in this, see you in a couple of hours i guess

Rustyfish101 · April 25

I'll be there, will try to stream on my twitch. twitch.tv/rustyfish101

Jaeysa · April 25

If I get home in time I will!

ManwithBeard9 · April 25

MissBizz wrote: »

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

I'll be there, streaming on Mixer.

@ManwithBeard9 link?

https://mixer.com/ManwithBeard9

JHartEllis · April 25

I'll be slaying dragons on Twitch: twitch.tv/jhartellis

🐉

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 25

Awesome, thanks everyone! Once the test has concluded, below are some questions from the team that they'd love feedback on:

Did you have a good time?
Was there always a Dragon spawning that you could chase?
What did fighting the Dragon feel like with a large group? Small group? Raid?
We tried to balance Dragons to around 8 players - did this feel right?
Were you ever in combat when you thought you shouldn’t be?
Did your framerate drop during the event?
- If so, what were you doing? What was the Dragon doing?
- How many players were around you?
Were you ever kicked to character select?
Did you crash?

Edit: Also adding these questions to the original post

Gythral · April 25

Too far to wayshrines,
far far far too slow respawn timer

MyNameIsElias · April 25

10 min into the event, i haven't seen a dragon spawn in 5 minutes now.

EDIT: 10 min since i saw a dragon active now

Gythral · April 25

And when one does spawn it is dead, long before you can move from a(n out of the )wayshine to the group

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 25

Hey all, just FYI it may be several minutes in between dragon spawns. We're all making notes and collecting data though - appreciate the time and effort!

Gythral · April 25

dragon icons are several minutes behind reality - icons show in combat dragons that have been dead for 4 minutes

MyNameIsElias · April 25

Gythral wrote: »

dragon icons are several minutes behind reality - icons show in combat dragons that have been dead for 4 minutes

I am getting the same issue. Dragon icons appear on the map, but there isn't actually a dragon there.

HanzeeBokeem · April 25

Over 20 minutes waiting for a respawn?

ManwithBeard9 · April 25

The icon for dragon fight in action was up well after the dragon was defeated. Feel like the dragons should be more violent.

Gythral · April 25

28mins in 2 dragons seen... (1 converted to a corpse, the other already a corpse)

MyNameIsElias · April 25

Finally a dragon spawned! Took about 34min to spawn but it happened! When i reached the fight it was already at 60% health remaining, and it died very quickly, took about a min because everyone else ran super fast to the location.

Enodoc · April 25

While you're testing dragons, please do also test my new add-on for World Events!

(Pops a notification when a dragon spawns)

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info2335-WorldEventAlert.html

VaranisArano · April 25

Question for the Dragon Hunters: is the "only 12 people get loot" limit in effect for Dragons?

max_only · April 25

Well there’s over 50 people absolutely going maximum effort on the spawns so at no time can we see mechanics. The one time I saw one live, it was sitting down looking around while being attacked. It didn’t “do” anything.

MyNameIsElias · April 25

Enodoc wrote: »

While you're testing dragons, please do also test my new add-on for World Events!

(Pops a notification when a dragon spawns)

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info2335-WorldEventAlert.html

Seems to work fine on my end!

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 25

Thank you so much for assisting in our testing event today! We got a ton of valuable data and will be reviewing everyone's feedback. At this time, we have everything we need, but you're welcome to continue killing Dragons or doing additional testing on the PTS. Thanks again, all. Really appreciate everyone coming together to help.

CyberOnEso · April 25

Did you have a good time?
Yeah, it was okay,

Was there always a Dragon spawning that you could chase?
Wait time was around 3 mins after each kill.
I don't think the solution here is to increase the spawn rate but to increase the fight time. People were constantly arriving at a dragon fight after the dragon had been slain, which is not a good experience.

What did fighting the Dragon feel like with a large group? Small group? Raid?
Like 30 or so people hitting a punching bag

We tried to balance Dragons to around 8 players - did this feel right?
That would certainly make the fight harder, but in my opinion, there should be at least some basic mechanics that need to be played. I.e. Stack in a circle to survive a dragon breath. Or block to avoid a dragon one shotting you when landing. Otherwise, you can just stand there spamming force pulse.
You need something where a player can die by doing something wrong, you should have to think about what you're doing whilst fighting a dragon.
I pulled a dragon and held aggro of it as a magicka Necromancer (19k hp), I was able to block or roll dodge every attack the dragon did for the duration of a fight, which I think shouldn't be possible.

Were you ever in combat when you thought you shouldn’t be?
I don't believe so

Did your framerate drop during the event?
~75 After the event,
~65 During the event when no dragon was alive,
~45 During the event when a dragon was within draw distance of the client,
~25 During the event when in combat with a dragon

How many players were around you?
Around 25 during dragon encounters, around 7 at idle.

Were you ever kicked to character select?
No

Did you crash?
Yes, the client completely crashed when approaching a dragon (South of the Defense Force Outpost)

Additional Feedback

I hope you don't intend to push this to live without giving the Dragon's unique names beyond 'Dragon'. Get 100 dragon names and pick a random one each spawn.
The fights should overall be buffed, it should feel different than a dolmen or a world boss.
You should feel like you achieved something for killing a dragon, it should be something you exclaim in zone chat that you did. Not just like killing a world boss.
Did you intend on having multiple dragon 'types' I believe seeing a screenshot where you has 'fire', 'frost' and 'shock' dragons. Do you intend on adding these?
The 'Dragon Hunter' achievement should give you the title 'Dragon Hunter' to give people a reason for doing them.
You should think about your overall methods to incentivize players to do content, once people have the achievement I cannot imagine people wanting to do them again.

I believe your perfect solution would be this:

Make Dragon spawns rarer, make them harder. Give them more resistances- they are dragons it would make sense for them to be these special enemies that have more than 18.2k resistances.
Increase the rewards to incentivize players of all skill levels and play time to want do to these 'dragon hunts'. The way I see it there should have to be a dragon hunting group killing dragons where someone who knows what is going on wants to help others do the encounter. Think GW2 World Bosses (They are amazing)
Make Enodoc's addon a base game feature, this will encourage players, especially newer ones to go and try to kill these dragons, It fits so well there is no reason why this shouldn't be in the game by default. It will encourage newer players to experience these fights.

Killing a dragon should be a cool and exciting thing, not something that you can do every 5 minutes with your eyes closed.

@Enodoc Your addon seemed to work perfectly for me.

SantieClaws · April 25

Did you have a good time?

There is always a good time when good friends get together to make a giant handbag

Was there always a Dragon spawning that you could chase?

No. There was quite a wait between spawns - at least for the first half - then they seemed to appear faster

What did fighting the Dragon feel like with a large group? Small group? Raid?

Felt like Khajiit was dying a lot. Possibly because she took off all her armour to make dancing easier

We tried to balance Dragons to around 8 players - did this feel right?

Khajiit is very bad at maths but there were more than eight travellers she thinks

Were you ever in combat when you thought you shouldn’t be?

No

Did your framerate drop during the event?

Not noticeably

If so, what were you doing? What was the Dragon doing?

Khajiit was dying and the dragon was responsible

How many players were around you?

Many, many

Were you ever kicked to character select?

No

Did you crash?

No

max_only · April 25

[*] Did you have a good time?
It was like chasing wb in Wrothgar during an event. When you got to see it, amazing, but frustrating all the way up to it.
[*] Was there always a Dragon spawning that you could chase?
small wait, but riding to the location was the worst part. It felt like more cliffs than Vvardenfell and Wrothgar combined lol and it was dead before I got there the first couple times.
[*] What did fighting the Dragon feel like with a large group? Small group? Raid?
Well if the encounter is supposed to scale based on number of players I couldn’t tell you. There were at least 2 raids at all times. For that many people, it felt fine, a bit easy actually. It was a stack and burn fight and I didn’t notice any mechanics like a wb would have. Seems like Gryphon Run, Abyssal Alchemist and even poor old Nyzchaleft was harder. The dragon could use a giant knockdown upon landing. The Fire breath strafing in the air was absolutely amazing.
[*] We tried to balance Dragons to around 8 players - did this feel right?
couldnt tell you, there was up to 4 raids doing it.
[*] Were you ever in combat when you thought you shouldn’t be?
no
[*] Did your framerate drop during the event?
a bit. But no more than wb in Summerset.
[*] If so, what were you doing? What was the Dragon doing?
fire has always been a problem for my rig, Graveld’s fight is consistently the worst frame rate drop I’ve experienced and it wasn’t near as bad as that. It was between 11-30 FPS. 30 as I ran up to the fight, 11-23 when he was on the ground spraying fire. 15 when he was in the air spraying fire.
[*] How many players were around you?
looked like 3 full raids
[*] Were you ever kicked to character select?
No
[*] Did you crash?
No

Two different dragons seemed to be stuck in “sitting” mode. One of those was under 5% health, maybe he doesn’t have a frenzy/“oh snip I’m going to die” mode? The other came out of the “sitting” animation to flap one wing in defense. The others did things like flyings, landing, taking off, dragon shouts, spraying fire etc. if they were supposed to have unique flavors, mechanics, stages, adds, etc I didn’t experience it.