Why I hate ESO group dungeons and never participate in them.

Dahveed

I ALWAYS try to solo the group dungeon quests in this game. Why?

Because whenever I join a dungeon via the group finder, I just join up with 3 other random players who never talk or have any patience for actually playing the game. They are just there to burn through the dungeon ASAP, and the only "challenge" is being able to actually complete my quests and talk to the NPCs before everything is dead.

The only reason I ever have to join one of these is because the dungeon has mechanics which preclude the possibility of completing them solo (i.e. stun mechanics, 1-shot mechanics etc.)

I just got through moon hunter keep, the entire thing took about 10 minutes or so. God was it not fun. It was incredibly stressful... NOT because it was difficult, on the contrary, it was a breeze. I was stressed out the entire time, because I had never done it before and I wanted to fully experience this new content, and participate in the quests, actually explore the place, read the books, talk to the NPCs, figure out why I'm actually there.

And by the time I'm finished talking to the first NPC, the first boss is almost dead already and I am frantically running to catch up, running around after that looking for the quest item (some plant, I don't know why the hell I need it because I'm just burning through dialogue trying to figure out what they want from me).

So I just blast through everything in a few short minutes, then everyone leaves the dungeon... So I think to myself, ok fine, I'll at least explore a bit when I'm by myself and have time to spare.

LOL NOPE. The game just arbitrarily puts up this timer that kicks me out of the dungeon for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just "YOUR DUNGEON IS OVER GTFO."

So I can't explore anything, can barely even get through the final NPC dialogue because the clock is ticking, click on your shiny reward box then GTFO.

I guess my question to the devs is, why even bother crafting dungeons and quests if we don't even have ONE MINUTE to experience them? It's all just a watered-down "get in, burn everything in 30 seconds, get shiny reward and get out."

Jesus, at least don't KICK ME OUT of the place for no reason when other players leave the group.

I've been playing this game for years now and I've only ever done maybe four or five group dungeons. Every time I play one I remember why I'll never do another one ever again. Such a cheap experience, which just cheapens the entire game.

Either let me actually experience the dungeons, or stop adding cheap 1-shot or lockdown mechanics preventing me from soloing them...

AlnilamE

Have you considered making friends?

I ran Moonhunter Keep on my Nightblade this weekend, with guildies and while we didn't get into EVERY nook can cranny, we sure got most of them.

And the timer to end the instance is there so the game can spin up a new instance for a new group.

VaranisArano

This is maybe a silly question, but I'll ask.

Did you let the group know you were doing the quest?
Many groups won't go super slow for exploration, but they will at least be polite enough to let you read the questgiver dialogue.
I try to ask if anyone needs the quest, but sometimes I forget and invariably I realize we've left someone behind talking to a quest NPC. It's hard to wait when we don't know.
If you did tell them and they didn't wait, yeah, that's disappointing.

Have you considered looking for likeminded players in guilds or zone chat to form a pre-made group?
This "I want story-mode" or "I want to take my time in dungeons" is a semi-frequent topic on the forums, so I expect you'd be able to find some players who are willing to give it a try in-game.
If nothing else, running with a premade group that expects to go slow for questing and exploration is going to be smoother than hoping your random teammates will go slow during the Undaunted event.

Grimlok_S

AlnilamE wrote: »

Have you considered making friends?

INCONCEIVABLE

No room for friends in these Wayrest streets, lesser man and mer cannot handle these light attack slaps.

Mindcr0w

Man, people's lack of understanding of what a random group is rivals their lack of understanding of how random loot works.

If you elect to play with random people the chances are high that their approach to completing the dungeon will not be the same as your preferred approach.

This is not a shortcoming of the game, the devs, or the randos you get grouped with. It is simply the nature of playing with randos.

Don't like it? Start a group with people who will be on the same page from the start. The person ultimately causing your current frustration is yourself.

Tremuto

VaranisArano wrote: »

This is maybe a silly question, but I'll ask.

Did you let the group know you were doing the quest?
[/i]

Pretty much this. As a DPS main I generally do have that brain dead mindset of speed running Fungal Grotto I, but whenever someone says that they have the quest or to hold up for dialogue, I always make time to wait a bit for the person spamming E on the quest dialogue.

If people don't make it evident that they want to do the dungeon in a particular way, or if they're lagging behind because of the quest, it's hard to feel sympathy for those who get irate at the group once we're all done parsing the final boss.

As for your want to exploring the dungeon and looking through every nook and cranny for secrets and lore, the answer is to not join PUGs, or use the Dungeon Finder. The DF is strictly to wait and group up with 3 other individuals who want to either do the pledge or the Random Normal dungeon for their transmute crystals and their Undaunted key. If you really wanna experience the dungeon's atmosphere, there's plenty of guilds and people out there who would group up with you and do so.

bmnoble

You have to let the group know your doing the quest, many will slow down and let your read the dialogue, some will still rush ahead it varies depending on what kinda players the group finder gives you.

But I think its asking too much of a PUG group if you want them to slow down and comb every inch of the dungeon, if you want to do that you really need to form a group with that intention from the beginning.

Eedat

I think expecting random people to sacrifice a bunch of their free time while you read every word in every book is pretty selfish tbh. I will agree that people running ahead while someone is waiting for dialogue to finish for a quest is kinda a *** move though. The good news for you is that there seems to be a good chunk of players like yourself. I would suggest trying to link up with some of them and going in as a premade team with the set goal of exploring and getting into the narrative. Expecting random people to do it is unrealistic and not fair.

theyancey

I don't group either. This year's Undaunted event, like last year's, is useless to me. In prior years the solo Undaunted quest counted. Now zip, zero, and nada. Just another nail in the ESO coffin

Jaimeh

Don't join PUGs if you want to experience the story in a dungeon, odds are they will go too fast for you to go through all the dialogues, and although people should always wait and clear a bit that's important to the quester (for eg., the lamias at the beach in Tempest, the skeletons in the middle of Blackheart Haven, etc.), they can't realistically wait every time someone wants to read all of the dialogue. That's why there's such a thing as story-mode guilds and discord groups, you will certainly find them through the guild finder, and they specialize in slow, immersive runs, where you can experience all of the story and explore the dungeon as much as you like.

Dahveed

The last time I tried forming my own dungeon group (last year maybe? I can't remember), I gave up after something like two or three hours.

I admit that I can't expect other players to cater to my needs, I'm just using this one experience as an example of how things are structured...

For the most part I play this game solo (it's an MMO, I know, I'm not blind), I'm just saying that the difficulty of normal is tuned to be incredibly easy and zips past in minutes... I previously tried on Vet mode and the players were just toxic garbage and everyone cussed eachother out and left after the second boss.

I guess I could be more patient and try to find like-minded people, but even people from my guild seem to be dungeon and raid-runners who probably couldn't be bothered to group for a random (for them) dungeon that they would have to run on turtle mode...

I used to 2-man dungeons back a few years ago with a RL friend, and that was quite fun... but even he quit playing because he found it too frustrating when we couldn't complete a dungeon on the first few tries.

I guess it's a tough situation with no easy solution.. At the very least they shouldn't just kick me out of the place at the end of the dungeon... give me at least 10 minutes at the end to breathe and look around a bit before unceremoniously kicking my arse out the door?

kargen27

Most of the guilds I have been in have a weekly event for people that want to do the dungeon in story mode. The dungeons rotate or players can request a specific dungeon.
Would be nice if we could queue with a random group that wants to run the dungeon a specific way but that would cause the queues to be ridiculously long so next best thing is find friends or guildmates that are willing.

Mindcr0w

Dahveed wrote: »

The last time I tried forming my own dungeon group (last year maybe? I can't remember), I gave up after something like two or three hours.

You are doing something wrong if you can't get a dungeon group going after 3 hours of trying.

Join a quality PvE guild, show that you youself are a skilled and patient person to run with, and you'll never have this problem

Norith_Gilheart_Flail

I agree with searching for other like minded players.

Be it a Discord, Forum, or city zone chat, there are RP'ers, or more measured pace groups that are focused on being social.

Athan1

I fully get you, I've felt the same way about dungeons and groups... Generally lots of toxicity from elitist players.

I completed all dungeon quests in a rush and never had time to read through the story. To make up for it, I am now rewatching all dungeon quests on YT, there are several videos were players take it slow and show you every aspect of the dungeon story. A link here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7016869 but you can find other videos online too.

Now I understand the story of the dungeons and I enjoy them much more when I play through them!

Keep looking for nice people and eventually you will find the right ones, I've encountered many polity and nice players around.

jedtb16_ESO

i have done dungeons frequently over the past few weeks, with friends.
that is the key... with friends. helps if you can talk to the people you are playing with. can be a lot of fun.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

theyancey wrote: »

I don't group either. This year's Undaunted event, like last year's, is useless to me. In prior years the solo Undaunted quest counted. Now zip, zero, and nada. Just another nail in the ESO coffin

Just go solo fungal normal 1 (you only need to do first 2 bosses and last boss if you know the skip)
its super easy and you get your box within about 10m.

Viewsfrom6ix

My only suggestion is to use the guild finder and shop around for a beginner friendly PvE guild. There are tons of them more than willing to do slow dungeon runs with you.

I may not be much of a lore or questing person, but I'm 100% there are a lot of players out there that are. You just need to find them.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

After you've been playing these dungeons for hundreds of runs each, you tend to want to get them over with quickly. However, as others have said, simply communicating you're doing the quest will usually be sufficient for most groups to slow down. But if you really want to savour every nook and cranny of a dungeon, then group finder is not the right place at all.

Khajiitihaswares

Dahveed wrote: »

I ALWAYS try to solo the group dungeon quests in this game. Why?

Because whenever I join a dungeon via the group finder, I just join up with 3 other random players who never talk or have any patience for actually playing the game. They are just there to burn through the dungeon ASAP, and the only "challenge" is being able to actually complete my quests and talk to the NPCs before everything is dead.

The only reason I ever have to join one of these is because the dungeon has mechanics which preclude the possibility of completing them solo (i.e. stun mechanics, 1-shot mechanics etc.)

I just got through moon hunter keep, the entire thing took about 10 minutes or so. God was it not fun. It was incredibly stressful... NOT because it was difficult, on the contrary, it was a breeze. I was stressed out the entire time, because I had never done it before and I wanted to fully experience this new content, and participate in the quests, actually explore the place, read the books, talk to the NPCs, figure out why I'm actually there.

And by the time I'm finished talking to the first NPC, the first boss is almost dead already and I am frantically running to catch up, running around after that looking for the quest item (some plant, I don't know why the hell I need it because I'm just burning through dialogue trying to figure out what they want from me).

So I just blast through everything in a few short minutes, then everyone leaves the dungeon... So I think to myself, ok fine, I'll at least explore a bit when I'm by myself and have time to spare.

LOL NOPE. The game just arbitrarily puts up this timer that kicks me out of the dungeon for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just "YOUR DUNGEON IS OVER GTFO."

So I can't explore anything, can barely even get through the final NPC dialogue because the clock is ticking, click on your shiny reward box then GTFO.

I guess my question to the devs is, why even bother crafting dungeons and quests if we don't even have ONE MINUTE to experience them? It's all just a watered-down "get in, burn everything in 30 seconds, get shiny reward and get out."

Jesus, at least don't KICK ME OUT of the place for no reason when other players leave the group.

I've been playing this game for years now and I've only ever done maybe four or five group dungeons. Every time I play one I remember why I'll never do another one ever again. Such a cheap experience, which just cheapens the entire game.

Either let me actually experience the dungeons, or stop adding cheap 1-shot or lockdown mechanics preventing me from soloing them...

Let the group know. We pug one person time to time which is a dps. We ask if they need the quest.
Also do what MMO designed and socialize as well make friends to clear content... What we did we all met thru game over time and socialized and figured we enjoy dungeoning together so we just do it.

Also it is a dungeon. Some are soloable but they're not tuned around solo experiance.

asuitandtyb14_ESO

Whenever a core feature of the game creates this sort of frustration, it is a critical design flaw. Half of this game's content is dungeons. They're all designed this way, with optional quests and dialogue. Players are given full power to control other player's ability to interact with those quests. It is inevitable that this creates friction between players, which is a design flaw.

A good design would be either to create a natural point in which the story mandatorily stops all players to monologue the dialogue, and/or allows for the amount of time for anyone to go through quest dialogue (the best design would be to scrap the quest dialogue, and just do monologues). Pretty much every other game does this. I play a lot of D2 and WoW, and in those games they stop the flow when it's time to hear something, or you hear it while you're fighting. They don't tuck it away on an optional npc.

hexentb16_ESO

Dahveed wrote: »

I ALWAYS try to solo the group dungeon quests in this game. Why?

Because whenever I join a dungeon via the group finder, I just join up with 3 other random players who never talk or have any patience for actually playing the game. They are just there to burn through the dungeon ASAP, and the only "challenge" is being able to actually complete my quests and talk to the NPCs before everything is dead.

The only reason I ever have to join one of these is because the dungeon has mechanics which preclude the possibility of completing them solo (i.e. stun mechanics, 1-shot mechanics etc.)

I just got through moon hunter keep, the entire thing took about 10 minutes or so. God was it not fun. It was incredibly stressful... NOT because it was difficult, on the contrary, it was a breeze. I was stressed out the entire time, because I had never done it before and I wanted to fully experience this new content, and participate in the quests, actually explore the place, read the books, talk to the NPCs, figure out why I'm actually there.

And by the time I'm finished talking to the first NPC, the first boss is almost dead already and I am frantically running to catch up, running around after that looking for the quest item (some plant, I don't know why the hell I need it because I'm just burning through dialogue trying to figure out what they want from me).

So I just blast through everything in a few short minutes, then everyone leaves the dungeon... So I think to myself, ok fine, I'll at least explore a bit when I'm by myself and have time to spare.

LOL NOPE. The game just arbitrarily puts up this timer that kicks me out of the dungeon for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just "YOUR DUNGEON IS OVER GTFO."

So I can't explore anything, can barely even get through the final NPC dialogue because the clock is ticking, click on your shiny reward box then GTFO.

I guess my question to the devs is, why even bother crafting dungeons and quests if we don't even have ONE MINUTE to experience them? It's all just a watered-down "get in, burn everything in 30 seconds, get shiny reward and get out."

Jesus, at least don't KICK ME OUT of the place for no reason when other players leave the group.

I've been playing this game for years now and I've only ever done maybe four or five group dungeons. Every time I play one I remember why I'll never do another one ever again. Such a cheap experience, which just cheapens the entire game.

Either let me actually experience the dungeons, or stop adding cheap 1-shot or lockdown mechanics preventing me from soloing them...

If you're not doing vet dungeons you should. I rarely get this problem with vet dungeon pugs. More reward too.

katanagirl1

Yep, that describes my group dungeon experiences too.

I’m in a 500 player active guild that kicks inactive players after ten days and I can never find anyone to group with me so I queue.

I’m always told to wait until later to run, or roll a tank or healer instead.

Vet dungeons do have better players, but I don’t want my first run through a new dlc dungeon with complicated mechanics to be on vet. For things like the event, I want to get a quick run on normal instead. If I need a helm I run vet.

Pre-made groups are not an option for everyone.

Starlock

Wow. The OP's experience is the exception to the general rule in my experience, but... okay. Sorry you had ban runs?

Youmee

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Pre-made groups are not an option for everyone.

Why not?

ZaroktheImmortal

This is why it's better to get to know other players who want to run at your pace cause yeah pug groups can be rather meh sometimes you get a good group but more often not.

Hotdog_23

Wish ZOS would add a story mode to 4-man dungeons and 12-man trials. No drops or skill point just so people can enjoy the dungeon story at their own pace. Just give the adds and bosses the same health as a delve area.

Be safe and have fun

Vignar_Giantsbane

I would love a Story Mode like in swtor

Done most of the Dungeons on most of my 6 chars (skillpoints); have sort of a "Basic" understanding of why I'm at each one and fighting things but to truly experience the content a "Story Mode" Dungeon would be super amazing.

Integral1900

I would happily pay for a solo story mode version of these dungeons.

The only reason I have the DLC ones because they come with the subscription.

I’ve tried getting together groups of like-minded people but there always seems to be some *** in there that despite having signed up for a storytime dungeon type run immediately start skipping through quests and enemies and all the rest of this nonsense.

I can definitely understand why people get angry about it. To this day I’ve got absolutely no idea what the story is in most of the DLC dungeons. For me games are about story first and absolutely everything else second. It’s why I generally avoid dungeons these days as well, I can’t indulge on the part of them that I play the game for in the first place.

Also I understand the comments about veteran dungeons being an absolute acid pit. I gave up on doing those when March of Sacrifices came out. All that snarling, backbiting, toxic meta nonsense combined with a player base where maybe one in 100 would be capable of doing that content in the first place

TheImperfect

AlnilamE wrote: »

Have you considered making friends?

I ran Moonhunter Keep on my Nightblade this weekend, with guildies and while we didn't get into EVERY nook can cranny, we sure got most of them.

And the timer to end the instance is there so the game can spin up a new instance for a new group.

Not everyone can play regular hours or has a lot of time to spend forming groups of people who are usually busy doing their own thing.

Prof_Bawbag

Integral1900 wrote: »

I would happily pay for a solo story mode version of these dungeons.

The only reason I have the DLC ones because they come with the subscription.

I’ve tried getting together groups of like-minded people but there always seems to be some *** in there that despite having signed up for a storytime dungeon type run immediately start skipping through quests and enemies and all the rest of this nonsense.

I can definitely understand why people get angry about it. To this day I’ve got absolutely no idea what the story is in most of the DLC dungeons. For me games are about story first and absolutely everything else second. It’s why I generally avoid dungeons these days as well, I can’t indulge on the part of them that I play the game for in the first place.

Also I understand the comments about veteran dungeons being an absolute acid pit. I gave up on doing those when March of Sacrifices came out. All that snarling, backbiting, toxic meta nonsense combined with a player base where maybe one in 100 would be capable of doing that content in the first place

Yeah, funnily enough, the only dlc ones i have paid for are the IC ones and the hist ones. The rest are just fodder or I just use them to farm certain gear as and when. Couldn't tell you what any of the dlc dungeon stories entail. Simply no time to stop and listen to their idle chat if you want to keep up with the grp. Some I've done so many times I no longer care 1 jot about what the story is.