Scalecaller Peak Vet - not PUG-able

FishFace16

So, I'm not at all suggesting this dungeon is nerfed. I did eventually attempt this dungeon with a group of friends over discord:

Tank: 297
Healer: 950
DD: 270
DD: 202

It was a challenge and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It took us over 3 hours to master the mechanics of each fight and voicechat was invaluable.
Finally completing this and killing the last boss gave us a great sense of achievement.

My concern with this dungeon is that it really can't be completed using the dungeon finder with 4 random people who don't know each other, don't have voicechat and are new to the veteran mode.

I tried the dungeon finder more than 10 times and wasted countless hours just on the first boss. It's common for people to instantly quit the group when they're randomly matched to this dungeon in veteran mode.

Considering how many magika dps sets include the Zaan head piece, it's putting this piece of gear out of reach for many solo players.

I am not a solo player, I am fortunate to have a guild and friends who enjoy persevering through these dungeons.

Whilst most people in my group were able boast that they've completed their gear setups, those of us who needed Zaan have had to wait considerably longer.

My suggestion isn't that the mechanics are nerfed.
I would like the mechanics to be more clear and obvious. Despite explaining all the mechanics to the random groups I've joined, people either don't listen, or their English is too poor and they don't understand.
Visual changes to the fight, directing people to the necessary mechanic at certain stages in the fight. Allowing them to figure out what must be done after a few deaths at each boss. I've seen groups of 1000+ CP players wipe over and over at just the first boss in this dungeon.

They either ignore players who try to teach them, or they don't understand what is being said.

FishFace16

Sorry, the DD of 270 should have said 370

El_Borracho

Voice chat definitely helps here. But have done it a few times with pugs without ears, with the HUGE caveat that everyone knew the mechanics and we did the "stand close to the statues" route.

But you are right. Without voice chat, its extremely hard to describe the mechanics for someone who has never done it before.

DraconicFalcon

A lot of Scalecaller's mechanics are actually clear enough. Hell the game even calls out what mechanic is happening what you need to do to avoid them for the first boss. The ice ball and and the ice pillars? The NPC Jorvuld will actually call them out, same goes for the tremor and the icicles. And if you happened to be targeted by a certain mechanic, the game will actually display a message to inform you of that (this is not part of an addon, it's built into the dungeon).

The gargoyle boss pretty much shows well enough what you need to do to deal with the stone orbs. And for the Matriach and the Plague Doctor boss, the dungeon actually shows you the mechanic just before the boss fight.

FishFace16

I agree with you, but somehow, 95% of the people joining from the group finder, lack the necessary brain power or life skills to understand this.

FishFace16

My suggestion is not because I believe these people are entitled to such a dumbed down explanation of the mechanics.

My suggestion is because this dungeon in veteran mode is almost impossible to complete using a random group from the dungeon finder. In my experience, people never complete this in random groups, people abandon their groups before even killing the first mob.

I completely agree with you, the fights and the mechanics contain everything you need to understand the tactics and complete the fight.
What still stands however, is that a huge majority of the community cannot complete this dungeon when pugging. They entirely ignore and fail to grasp the mechanics. Unfortunately, these ignorant, brain dead halfwits, are what make up the player base and whilst I don't agree with making things easier for these people, this dungeon in vet mode is pretty much off-limits to pug groups.

I do not want the mechanics nerfing, I enjoy a difficult fight. I want something putting in place to give these walking liabilities, the benefit of the doubt.

Sparr0w

I mean... it's soloable

DraconicFalcon

Then those people you group up with clearly needs to l2p. I know this sounds harsh and toxic, but it is how it is. The dungeon itself already directly tells you the mechanics clear as day, and if players miss all those prompts and alerts the dungeon provides, then it's on them.

Also, vet Scalecaller PUGs in my experience usually are not too bad (I can't speak for you of course) except for the few who can't even DPS or the highly inexperienced character who never done a dungeon before that decides to jump into the dungeon of high difficulty straight away.

But the thing is, I know you want the mechanics to be more clear and obvious, but the dungeon itself already tells you the mechanics and tells you what to do with them. Dialogue keeps getting called out, message prompts appear. I am not sure how can the mechs be even clearer than they already are.

paulychan

My first vscp clear was a pug. Nobody was 810

Asardes

I recently PuG-ed that dungeon, ended up with a CP750 "DD" that was just spamming light attacks, warned him 2 times about using at least a simple rotation, he kept spamming light attacks, kicked him without batting an eye. Got some people from my trade guilds, we did it quite easily. CP is not that important really, as long as people know their build well, try to do a rotation, do the mechanics. I wouldn't recommend going there under CP300 though. Usually when I queue as healer and the group DPS is weak, I switch to my DPS build and keep just 1-2 heals on.

Davadin

FishFace16 wrote: »

I agree with you, but somehow, 95% of the people joining from the group finder, lack the necessary brain power or life skills to understand this.

then they should not be able to complete it, obviously.


i dont see the problem?

Nestor

DLC Vet Dungeons are always considered to be unpuggable when they first release. After a while time or familiarity makes them doable as most of the PUG has experience with the content. If they were doable by A PUG the first time through, that would not be much of a challenge.

We have enough easy content in the game (which I like btw), but we need stuff that makes us work out the solution and do a little knuckle sweating.

Alienoutlaw

totally Pug=able

Asardes

I just PUG-ed vBF HM last evening on my Mag Warden. First I queued as healer, no pop for 15 minutes, then grabbed my universal tanking gear (Ebon+Torug+Earthgore) from the bank and queued as tank. Almost instant pop. The first group I got was dismal, 30K group DPS, with full CP810 players. We got to the Hagraven boss, but they couldn't even kill the stranglers so we wiped 3-4 times. I told them to concentrate, but they were clearly bad. When you see someone using Acid Spray as spammable in PvE it's a clear sign they have no clue. I just left that group, waited a bit more, and queued again. Got 3 DDs that were quite good, and we reached the last boss fast, with no wipes, we had 5-6 wipes on HM but got it done in the end. My 10th Forge Breaker. I hope I get lucky tonight with vFH. I expect do the HMs on the first 6 DLC dungeons on all characters. The rest are optional on alts.

markusloveFTM

Despite my recent post about ruins of Mazzatun being too hard, I did PUG this on vet and got a light divines Zaan and was donated a medium Invigorating zaan, but they’re was a few wipes.

Wasn’t fun and we definitely didn’t do hard mode.

AndyMac

It’s very PUGable - I’ve pugged it many times including needing to step out mechanics - but it totally depends on the group.

Some players can do what’s required, some just can’t.

With PUGing vet DLC’s you have to expect some wipes, kicks and, tbh, some total fails.

TheUndeadAmulet

PUGable dungeon for sure, I've done it as a tank and dps. It can take a while bu it's not impossible.

Valykc

The best was watching the ZOS team run this.. that was the funniest livestream I ever watched

Kurat

Every dungeon is pugable.

Dubsky

vSCP is a joke in my opinion. I've pugged it with HM so many times that I find it hard to believe people still have trouble with it.

CrashTest

I don't think that would help because so many players don't care especially in pugs. ZOS could put a giant neon sign and pointing arrow that says, "Stand here!" and that will be the one place where they won't stand.

You can see this in action now in fights where you have to just stand still, but people will yolo run all over the place even after multiple wipes and repeatedly telling them to stand still.

TelvanniWizard

I completed it with a pug and no voice chat.

BeamsForDemacia

ofc the dung is pugable but it depends like all (dlc) Dungeons on the Group, if everyone knows it scp is one of the super easy one s where u can nuke so much, if only tank and 1 dds know what to do ok u can still do it if he has some dps but with 3 inexperienced ppl gonna be hard, and i wouldnt want to do that,

Stevie6

CrashTest wrote: »

I don't think that would help because so many players don't care especially in pugs. ZOS could put a giant neon sign and pointing arrow that says, "Stand here!" and that will be the one place where they won't stand.

You can see this in action now in fights where you have to just stand still, but people will yolo run all over the place even after multiple wipes and repeatedly telling them to stand still.

Heh maybe a visually worded sign/or in game detailed explanation should be given. Personally, I have a problem with red, green, and black. The learning curve is a bit rough but doable given a lot of time. Most people I’m with leave the pug and just left standing alone in vscp.

I have an idea for the devs. Have a visual clue placed on the weapon bars. “Bar swap” flashing box or some indicator to hit a certain spell or an advised spell to be slotted ect. Vast majority of players are below 20k dps and will never hit optimal sustained dps. Should the devs have an dps academy for each class to train players on weaving? I never knew about weaving for about a year into the game. Most casual players just smash buttons hopping for 30k dps and going wtf only 5k. So in the end, doing vet dungeons in a pug is going to be really bad. I can see where a lot of people want soloable vet dungeons.

Reverb

I’ve pugged it several times, including HM once. All without voicecomms.

Asardes

Just PuGed almost all DLC dungeons, except Scalebreaker (only did those on my first character), on veteran on my new Stamina Necromancer, mostly as tank - I went DD just for vFV. Did HM on the first 3 DLC packs: IC, SotH, HotR, and for DB, WH, WS just veteran w/o HM. For some of them it took a few tries, and I had to dump as many as 3 groups till I found a capable enough one. Most players were naive, trying to use basic but flawed pseudo-rotations like Acid Spray spam, and group DPS was as low as 30K. Predictably those groups failed at the first, or at most the 2nd boss in the dungeons.

But at the other end of the spectrum I've found a few very good groups for example for vBF HM which I did with almost 100K group DPS (2 DD + heal) - the Earthgores melted with some well timed ulti dumps. Also I've had a very good group for vMHK after 2 failed ones, managing to do speed run w/o any wipes. In vVoM I've even learned some tanking methods for certain bosses from a player, but only after I dumped 2 groups for naive type DPS as explained earlier.

In general if people know their role reasonably well (have a general idea of game mechanics, know their rotation, slot a self heal), and listen to what I tell them we can pull trough. For example for vFH we managed to clear the HM after a few wipes even if group DPS was really weak, around 45-50K DPS, because the other players listened to what I told them and learned the mechanics as we went.

I used to be in a couple of PvE guilds but I eventually left because, on average, player quality and, most disappointingly, attitude was equal to what I got by pressing a button in a random grouping tool. It's one thing to lack coordination using text chat with people you barely met, and quite another thing having the same lack of coordination, and bad attitude even on Discord with guild mates. So I decided that it's better to fill those slots with more trading guilds and just use the tool till it works out

Eormenric

In my experience as a tank, there's only one way to successfully pug something:

Communication.

Very clearly lay out the mechanics in a simplified format. No walls of text; no jumping around information. Do a short-hand recap at the end of your explanation to tie it into a nice bow. Try the fight. Observe. If people fail to a mechanic multiple times, they can't grasp it and may need to be replaced. If group DPS isn't there, some Dps will need to admit that they aren't pulling their weight and be replaced--hey, it 'is' a team environment; and we have vote-to-kick for the unruly ones.

As for Scalecaller's first boss, this is what I would type:

1) Priority is killing both bosses at the SAME TIME or we'll automatically wipe. [If you're a tank, keep them separated or it's a likely wipe.]
2) Kill skeevers.
3) If you have a circle under you wherever you run, you're targeted by an ice spike. Run into the roaming shards (yellow circle) to get stunned but survive the ice spike. Watch for the text on your screen.
4) When big icicles spawn, get behind the large one to avoid the AoE from the middle boss.
5) Stay out of bad stuff on the ground.
Recap: Kill bosses at the same time. Kill adds. Watch for icy stuff; yellow is good. Avoid AoE.

P.S. If you encounter people whose English is a secondary language, find out what language they speak. Just go to your favorite search engine and translate the mechanics into rudimentary speech. Trust me, they'll understand it the same way we understand non-native speakers. I've talked with Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese players this way. The most rewarding thing? They thank you for working with them. It's a great feeling.

naturebased

I did vet scalecaller with a pug group and it went well and i didnt feel like it was too hard. I had a harder tome doing normal MGF

p00tx

You got unlucky. I pugged my first HM clear and subsequent follow-up speed run/no-death for the skin (didn't intend to, but the run went so well leading up to the final boss, the tank suggested we go for it). It definitely wasn't easy, but we all communicated so we could adjust our builds and strats to get it right. It's all a gamble when you use dungeon finder. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it's a raging dumpster fire.

AWinterWolf

I've done it with pugs before now, makes it harder but not impossible, as long as people either know what they're doing, or are willing to listen to and follow the mechanics.

x48rph

I've pugged this dungeon plenty of times on both vet and normal and like most pugging it's mixed results. Some go really well cause everyone already knows what to do or are fast learners when you explain it to them. Other times it goes horribly wrong even on normal cause people don't listen, try to bypass all the mechanics , or they just don't learn very fast even when trying. That's been a pretty typical and dare I say normal expectation when you pug. You win some and you lose some.