Solo player trying out dungeons for the first time - They can be pretty frustrating

Rouz

I've been trying to do more dungeons these past few months on PC. Normally I'm more of a solo/open world player myself. But I've been dipping my toes into normal random dungeon finder. Generally its been a 5/10 or 6/10 experience. But the thing that really irks me are the following.

1. Story mode - Seriously, why is there no story mode? You put all this work into voice acting, environmental design, lore books, quests, etc. Yet the entire culture around group finder is gotta go fast. It makes no sense to me why there is no story mode version of dungeons this far into release of the game. I'm absolutely flabbergasted. Like this new dungeon DLC isn't even a week old and I still felt rushed in the mode as everyone ran off ahead going at the speed of light. For the love of god, just give me an easy version of the dungeon. No loot. No achievements. No chests. Just a super easy mode where I can complete the quest at my own pace, explore all the nooks. Read all the books. Like it just frustrates me to hell that this game has almost been out for 10 years and something like this isn't in the game. A game where story is one of its biggest draws. And yes, I know I can go around spamming map chat looking for people who want to take it slow. But the chances of finding a group for that decreases by the week and we both know a majority of people wont bother to do this. Hell, just give the player a powerful buff and enemies a debuff in the story version with no loot. On the surface it just seems so simple (I know it probably isn't). But man the absolute lack of this frustrates me to no end.

2. Visuals - Seriously, what's with visual indicators in some of these dungeons? I had to download an addon to give me more indication of what the hell is going on AoE wise. The game shouldn't need that. Nevermind that some of the mechanic visual indicators are just horribly designed. The most recent dungeon is an example of this. In the hall of the scriveners. The spider boss part. Its default color is red. AND ITS ENRAGE INDICATOR IS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SHADE OF RED? For the love of god, why? This is not the first dungeon I've seen where its like "Here is a bad animation that tells you what to do. It is a slightly different color of something else, making it hard to see". Make the spider yellow. Make it black. Make it freaken anything other than the SAME COLOR.

#1 though is the most important thing. Hard for me to care for this deep story you put in these things when you don't give me the tools to experience it. #2 can be fixed with mods and even without it, its not too punishing on normal. I watch most veteran videos and people have it so addon-ed up with pink colors and indicators everywhere, it looks like an 80s laser tag room. So obviously if I want to take this more seriously with veteran dungeons, I'll have to do the same. But please just give me a story mode version of the dungeon. Let me experience your story without being rushed or people acting all impatient in chat or getting kicked at the end of a dungeon before the NPCs even finish talking.

DarcyMardin

Along with other players, I’ve been asking for story mode for dungeons for, literally, years. It was always difficult to find a random group who would be willing to wait for folks who want to do the quest, look for chests, listen to NPC dialogue, etc., but ever since they introduced the 10 crystal reward for doing random dungeons, it has been pretty near impossible.

I’ve given up on dungeons unless I can solo them or run them as a duo with my husband. Which means that there are a fair number of dungeons, especially vet and DLC ones, that I have never been able to finish.

I’ve sadly come to conclusion that either ZOS doesn’t care about players who would love to do all the content without speed running through it or that they can’t technically solve the problem of story mode for some unknown reason.

Liguar

It's the stupid outcome of having a daily that mashes players together, irrespective of personal goals/preferences/experience. For all the longer-term players who have done the dungeons a thousand times before, it's a minor annoyance, but for newer players it ruins early impressions of the game

DarcyMardin wrote: »

I’ve given up on dungeons unless I can solo them or run them as a duo with my husband. Which means that there are a fair number of dungeons, especially vet and DLC ones, that I have never been able to finish.

Same here. We duo what we can with our companions.

It's been a fun ride from our first ever dungeon (spindleclutch 1) which was a challenge on our fresh lvl 15 duo, to now having the companions and CP and such. It's always fun going back there and remembering that first time
It's a shame if newer players experience an awkward dungeon finder group instead.

Dragonredux

I guess they have to code it as another difficulty and they somehow find it hard. Just turn it into a "daily" and take away the gear rewards and skill point from the quest. Companions aren't the answer when they die any aoe that grace their presence or any special dlc mechanic.

Luke_Flamesword

For now only difference between normal and veteran are enemies strength and some mechanics - making story mode without rewards, chests and other elements may need much work, maybe even whole rewrite of dungeons code! I remember how devs told us, that is imposible to change small thing to Dragonstar Arena - timers of enemies (people complain because on normal you melt mobs and they spawn forever). The reason is that they scripted it in the way, which blocks this possibility and to make this small change only option is to rewrite whole arena code from scrach, which obviously will not happen. With dungeons it may be same thing, maybe at this point it's too late to made story mode.

Quethrosar

Sorry but as an architect in software, there is no such thing as can't fix code. There is a sorry we are too lazy to. But there is no such thing as can't. And the people saying you need to rewrite are the people who were hired later and aren't smart enough to understand it.

FrancisCrawford

Quethrosar wrote: »

Sorry but as an architect in software, there is no such thing as can't fix code. There is a sorry we are too lazy to. But there is no such thing as can't. And the people saying you need to rewrite are the people who were hired later and aren't smart enough to understand it.

True. But there definitely is such a thing as "Can't add this feature inexpensively."

That said, to satisfy players who want "story mode", all they'd have to do is:

• Give everybody a massive buff.
• Annihilate loot tables.
• Add a bit of content and/or UI elements to manage this.

The first and third would probably be easier by creating a new location in the game to go do this, with a new NPC to manage it accordingly..

• Why for the buff? Because that gives a straightforward way to manage when the buff begins or ends.
• Why for the UI? If a dungeon has some weird mechanic that makes this plan not be workable, they can simply leave it out.

Hell -- this could even be described in-game as some kind of tourism experience. Then the list of available dungeons can beas complete or incomplete as ZoS finds easy to supply.

endgamesmug

Different times i suppose when i started on dungeons it was sort of right of passage to solo all base dungeons(that were available at the time), similar to how maelstrom was treated for awhile. I dont remember doing randoms till later down the track, if you say something in zonechat especially in a starter area youre bound to get help.😀

SleepyJoe90

What really allows this behaviour is that some members of a group can advance through the dungeon without everyone else.
If bosses or rooms further into a dungeon weren't activated, appeared or be accessible unless the whole group had advanced beyond a certain point then it would go someway in helping.

The option to run dungeons in this manner could be presented when queuing in dungeon finder.

Necrotech_Master

SleepyJoe90 wrote: »

What really allows this behaviour is that some members of a group can advance through the dungeon without everyone else.
If bosses or rooms further into a dungeon weren't activated, appeared or be accessible unless the whole group had advanced beyond a certain point then it would go someway in helping.

The option to run dungeons in this manner could be presented when queuing in dungeon finder.

a good portion of dungeons (though mostly newer dungeons) are more restrictive in this, though it usually requires a boss or mobs to just be killed in order to progress

some older dungeons are like this too where they have mandatory mobs to open a door, but in either case it simply still comes down to just killing something

there are a few dungeons which limit progress by requiring multiple people (direfrost levers, ICP levers), but those make it insanely annoying for people who actually want to solo a dungeon

pelle412

I suspect ZoS doesn't have a high priority on this since there is already a way to accomplish this by joining up with a few others who want the same thing and running the dungeon on normal. This could of course change if they choose to invest their development budgets towards single player focus and skipping planned multiplayer content, but that will also come with negative consequences as many want more such content over single player content.

TheImperfect

+1 Story mode is the most needed thing in the game in my opinion. Absolute must have.

SeaGtGruff

@Rouz, if you're primarily a solo player, my suggestion would be to try soloing the dungeons; that way you can take as much time as you like and focus on whatever you prefer-- the quest and story, looting every container, killing every mob and boss, or just racing through as fast as possible doing the minimum required.

First, go to the Group tab and make sure your dungeon mode is set as you prefer-- normal or veteran. If you're just starting out with dungeons, normal is probably the way to go; but if you're a seasoned player with a powerful character, you might prefer veteran. There's nothing wrong with choosing normal, IMHO, especially if you're attempting a dungeon for the first time.

Second, it's a good idea to try soloing the dungeons in the order of the zones in each alliance storyline, as follows:

- Aldmeri Dominion = (1) Auridon, (2) Grahtwood, (3) Greenshade, (4) Malabal Tor, (5) Reaper's March
- Daggerfall Covenant = (1) Glenumbra, (2) Stormhaven, (3) Rivenspire, (4) Alik'r Desert, (5) Bangkorai
- Ebonheart Pact = (1) Stonefalls, (2) Deshaan, (3) Shadowfen, (4) Eastmarch, (5) The Rift

In the original game, each zone-- and each of its three subzones, which no longer exist as separate areas per se-- was aimed at a specific range of character levels, so presumably the original base game dungeons were designed for whichever range of character levels was expected to be playing through whatever subzone a given dungeon is in. You can also refer to the list of dungeons in the Group Finder, since the minimum character level for each dungeon presumably reflects the way that zones and their subzones were originally leveled. Thus, the base game dungeons in Auridon, Glenumbra, and Stonefalls should be easier than the ones in Grahtwood, Stormhaven, and Deshaan, etc.-- although your perception of how easy each one is may vary depending on the mechanics used in them, not to mention your given character's build.

Note that the order recommended above applies only to the single-version and version I base game dungeons. The version II dungeons and the DLC dungeons were added later, so you might want to tackle them later as well, presumably in the order in which they were added to the game-- although that's probably more pertinent to the DLC dungeons which were part of a given year-long story arc.

Third, if you encounter a dungeon which you can't solo, either keep practicing until you're able to learn and handle whatever mechanics are involved, or-- if the mechanics seem to require at least two players-- recruit a friend or guild member who has the same preferred playstyle and goals as you with respect to how fast or slow you want to go, whether or not you're focusing on the quest, whether or not you want to stop and kill/loot every possible thing in the dungeon, etc.

isadoraisacat

Rouz wrote: »

I've been trying to do more dungeons these past few months on PC. Normally I'm more of a solo/open world player myself. But I've been dipping my toes into normal random dungeon finder. Generally its been a 5/10 or 6/10 experience. But the thing that really irks me are the following.

1. Story mode - Seriously, why is there no story mode? You put all this work into voice acting, environmental design, lore books, quests, etc. Yet the entire culture around group finder is gotta go fast. It makes no sense to me why there is no story mode version of dungeons this far into release of the game. I'm absolutely flabbergasted. Like this new dungeon DLC isn't even a week old and I still felt rushed in the mode as everyone ran off ahead going at the speed of light. For the love of god, just give me an easy version of the dungeon. No loot. No achievements. No chests. Just a super easy mode where I can complete the quest at my own pace, explore all the nooks. Read all the books. Like it just frustrates me to hell that this game has almost been out for 10 years and something like this isn't in the game. A game where story is one of its biggest draws. And yes, I know I can go around spamming map chat looking for people who want to take it slow. But the chances of finding a group for that decreases by the week and we both know a majority of people wont bother to do this. Hell, just give the player a powerful buff and enemies a debuff in the story version with no loot. On the surface it just seems so simple (I know it probably isn't). But man the absolute lack of this frustrates me to no end.

2. Visuals - Seriously, what's with visual indicators in some of these dungeons? I had to download an addon to give me more indication of what the hell is going on AoE wise. The game shouldn't need that. Nevermind that some of the mechanic visual indicators are just horribly designed. The most recent dungeon is an example of this. In the hall of the scriveners. The spider boss part. Its default color is red. AND ITS ENRAGE INDICATOR IS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SHADE OF RED? For the love of god, why? This is not the first dungeon I've seen where its like "Here is a bad animation that tells you what to do. It is a slightly different color of something else, making it hard to see". Make the spider yellow. Make it black. Make it freaken anything other than the SAME COLOR.

#1 though is the most important thing. Hard for me to care for this deep story you put in these things when you don't give me the tools to experience it. #2 can be fixed with mods and even without it, its not too punishing on normal. I watch most veteran videos and people have it so addon-ed up with pink colors and indicators everywhere, it looks like an 80s laser tag room. So obviously if I want to take this more seriously with veteran dungeons, I'll have to do the same. But please just give me a story mode version of the dungeon. Let me experience your story without being rushed or people acting all impatient in chat or getting kicked at the end of a dungeon before the NPCs even finish talking.

Don’t feel to bad I’m an older solo player who just started doing group stuff this year. I started doing pledges to get transmuted to improve my gear.
I have done a few dungeons with my guild members and it was fun.

Today I got way rest sewers I’ve done it on normal a number of times just fine. Today I decided to take the plunge and do the vet version without guild members in the finder.

The voted to kick someone
Out I didn’t vote because it’s rude.
I guess the person left and the one guy decided to make fun of my cp level of 580 and mock me.

It was horrible.

1. I just started group content in the last month prior I’ve only done story solo content. (I didn’t even touch world bosses )

2.I work 7 days a week and I can’t devote so much time to get my cp up in a jiffy.

It’s a real shame it made me want to go back to playing just solo story content.

Either they need to offer more transmutes for normal and also being a story mode for dungeons so people can solo them and enjoy the story because forget about the story when your are in a finder group or “pug” in mmo lingo I don’t Subscribe too.

At this rate people will progress more slowly with their gear as they will be afraid to try vet content for more tabsmutes and more experience literal xp and literal experience learning the game. And part of the story will never been seen. I’ve seen so many rush through just to kill the bosses and not even care about the actual story.

KaosWarMonk

It's probably the one thing that truly annoys me about ESO - the group-walling of a large portion of the new and best content.

There's numerous reasons not all of us can or want to play the game with other people as posted above.

If there is one thing I could change this would be it. We have vet difficulty, why can't we have solo?

colossalvoids

KaosWarMonk wrote: »

If there is one thing I could change this would be it. We have vet difficulty, why can't we have solo?

I would guess that devs don't want to open this can of worms just yet. Narrative currently is that overland content is an easy solo friendly option that covers majority of released content while dungeons, arenas and trials are a reservation for challenge and a group environment in contrast with solo arenas. If they'll decide a story mode as a requested feature this would inevitably bring the harder task on them, making overland vet and group friendly by making instances with a way upped difficulty, and this process won't be automated as difficulty isn't equal more health and incoming damage, it's mechanical thing more so. They also don't want to split the playerbase as one of their motd's, might also be a thing about no solo dungeons.

Also semi-mandatory (you still can solo most dungeons and arenas) grouping forces people out of their bubbles and potentially granting them an opportunity for new experiences, some aren't aware that can highly enjoy grouping or PvP when never tried it before, so need a push in its direction.

KaosWarMonk

In a perfect world I'd ask for a story mode and a difficult solo, the latter being my preference, with a difficulty similar to a public dungeon or the base zone group dungeons.

I don't see why this would necessitate changes to overland. Dungeon's are already instanced and have two levels of difficulty, pls add more.

We're not talking about arena's or trials.

endgamesmug

I love soloing stuff and that was the way to go and the thing you did back at the beginning of the game. Sometimes i try to duo with a newish player because i think he'll learn like i did or something resembling. But unfortunately 50% of the time its oh no no healer/tank waah so guess its just maybe a generation thing.

Mik195

How difficult would it be to scale new dungeons to the number of people? Like 1 person faces "x" hit points, 4 people get 4x and if you have 4 people and 4 companions, you get 8x. If unbreakable pins don't appear until 3x, you'd still have a range of mechanics that people could work through in different dungeons as they get better.

pelle412

isadoraisacat wrote: »

The voted to kick someone
Out I didn’t vote because it’s rude.
I guess the person left and the one guy decided to make fun of my cp level of 580 and mock me.

It was horrible.

Internet is like a warm blanket where "undesirables" can be themselves safely. In the real world they'd get smacked. These people don't matter. Play your dungeon, put them on ignore list. You will not get away from this if you queue with random people. Obviously a majority of players are not like this, only the really immature ones.

Northwold

isadoraisacat wrote: »

I guess the person left and the one guy decided to make fun of my cp level of 580 and mock me.

It was horrible.

1. I just started group content in the last month prior I’ve only done story solo content. (I didn’t even touch world bosses )

2.I work 7 days a week and I can’t devote so much time to get my cp up in a jiffy.

It’s a real shame it made me want to go back to playing just solo story content.

I mean, look at it this way. The kinds of people who think their achievements in a video game are something to bully people about are the kinds of people you'd scrape off your shoe if you met them in the street. Laugh at them.

nemesrichard

Rouz wrote: »

2. Visuals - Seriously, what's with visual indicators in some of these dungeons? I had to download an addon to give me more indication of what the hell is going on AoE wise. The game shouldn't need that. Nevermind that some of the mechanic visual indicators are just horribly designed. The most recent dungeon is an example of this. In the hall of the scriveners. The spider boss part. Its default color is red. AND ITS ENRAGE INDICATOR IS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SHADE OF RED? For the love of god, why? This is not the first dungeon I've seen where its like "Here is a bad animation that tells you what to do. It is a slightly different color of something else, making it hard to see". Make the spider yellow. Make it black. Make it freaken anything other than the SAME COLOR

Could you share the name of that addon?

frogthroat

DarcyMardin wrote: »

I’ve given up on dungeons unless I can solo them or run them as a duo with my husband. Which means that there are a fair number of dungeons, especially vet and DLC ones, that I have never been able to finish.

When I started I played with one friend who then quit the game after a couple of months. Our experience in dungeon finder was horrific due to the abundance of toxic players.

So when my friend left the game I played solo. Only solo. Then I saw someone in overland with a name in my native language and started talking with him. He said he was in a nice guild and asked if I wanted to join. I did. And started to do random normal dungeons with them. Then a bit of veteran dungeons... Veteran hard modes... Trials...

I still like to solo dungeons for the challenge, don't get me wrong, but for group content I can't recommend a guild enough. Just try to find one you enjoy.

And for the stories, the guild I am in has story listening tours every time a new dungeon comes out. We go there with the explicit purpose of listening to every line of speech, going through every nook and cranny.

There are nice and lovely guilds out there. I'm sure you can find one.

Braggar

DarcyMardin wrote: »

Along with other players, I’ve been asking for story mode for dungeons for, literally, years. It was always difficult to find a random group who would be willing to wait for folks who want to do the quest, look for chests, listen to NPC dialogue, etc., but ever since they introduced the 10 crystal reward for doing random dungeons, it has been pretty near impossible.

I’ve given up on dungeons unless I can solo them or run them as a duo with my husband. Which means that there are a fair number of dungeons, especially vet and DLC ones, that I have never been able to finish.

I’ve sadly come to conclusion that either ZOS doesn’t care about players who would love to do all the content without speed running through it or that they can’t technically solve the problem of story mode for some unknown reason.

I can wait for other players in dungeons. If someone started a quest, needs to listen to a NPC why not? Need time to loot urns, crates sure go for it. I´m not the pushy type, like several others. But it is harder to find 3 players, who think like me about this.