The human dynamics of Bastion Nymic don't work

Jimbru

Bastion Nymic, intended for a group of four. Which you will definitely need unless you're a real raid tier player. I have tried twice to get in with groups.

The first group was only three people. We found that each group of trash mobs cumulatively has as many HP as a world boss, and when we got to the actual first boss, we couldn't finish him off and ended up giving up.

The second group, we had four players and were actually in the instance and I thought we were ready to start. Then suddenly everyone's meds wore off simultaneously and they were like "I don't have the quest, we need to kill Seekers", ran out all the way to Telvanni Peninsula and scattered all over looking for Seekers. I gave up trying to get everyone back together, and now I'm probably going to miss the daily because nobody seems to be doing the daily now and there is no LFG function for it.

This kind of thing simply isn't going to work, especially not as a daily quest. Bastion Nymic either needs to be changed to scale for solo play, or there needs to be a LFG, or group mechanics somehow need to be changed to allow for this kind of chaotic behavior. The simplest solution probably would be to rework it as a dungeon and let it use the regular dungeon queue.

Alphawolf01A

From what I've read on the PTS forums, this was mentioned repeatedly with little to no response from ZOS. On top of that, the last boss has a stun/lockdown/silence attack followed by a one hit mechanic that makes it very difficult, if not impossible to solo.

BergisMacBride

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s a great concept with absolutely terrible design and execution. I got the quest, farmed the 5 bits (takes too much time but most of them I soloed. Opened the portal but couldn’t get a group as folks were at all stages of the quest (that’s a BAD sign on the first day). Decided to give it a go solo. Made it to (I guess?) the end boss with 3 mobs each 1.8-2-4 million hit points. Died, ressed and then focused the main boss, killed him and I immediately died to some adds. Spent well over an hour. Abandoned the quest and gave up. I’m pretty sure I could probably solo the area I was in but it simply wasn’t worth the time.

NOT fun at all, ZOS. It’s a total shame cause the area you zone into looks real neat with secret areas, different wings and such.

I’m not sure why they didn’t make this like the oblivion portals in Blackwood - open world.

In any event if they’re going to keep it instanced for 4 players or less then they either need to scale difficulty based on number of players or add it to group finder.

I do note that all of this type of feedback was already given by many others on the PTS forums. Of course that was ignored.

With the current design this is content that will be skipped by the vast majority of players. After the new wears off IMO these will be consigned to the graveyard of unplayed content.

Taggund

Just started reading about this event, and watched a couple youtube videos. I still have not tried one, but my thoughts are like yours. (and how annoying the seekers can be while doing anything in the zone is just another added factor.)

Alphawolf01A

I forgot to mention the Tribute fragment and the handful of Antiquities leads that are also in there, adding to the "necessity" to complete it.

BergisMacBride

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I forgot to mention the Tribute fragment and the handful of Antiquities leads that are also in there, adding to the "necessity" to complete it.

Yeah, gating stuff like that behind content so terribly designed is next level sadistic, lol.

BlueRaven

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I forgot to mention the Tribute fragment and the handful of Antiquities leads that are also in there, adding to the "necessity" to complete it.

Apparently the ToT bit now falls from the overland bosses, so event completion is not needed.

valenwood_vegan

Yeah this was brought up early in the PTS cycle and totally largely ignored.
(EDIT to add: well not totally ignored if they changed the ToT deck drop, so that's nice at least).

see https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/631700/bastion-nymic-daily-who-is-the-intended-audience-for-this for some more thoughts on it from back in April.

But it's really a shame, because I think it was a fun new direction for them to go in... executed quite poorly in terms of actually being accessible to most of the player-base.

LonePirate

I completed this once earlier today and it was clearly designed by someone who has never played the game. During my run, I counted no less than 10 bosses/enemies each with at least 1.5M health, all of which spawned numerous trash mobs and/or other mechanics that inflicted a lot of pain or even death if you were positioned wrong. Essentially, it was a vet dungeon but with much less XP and even worse rewards.

There is no reason whatsoever to kill five seekers at the start of the quest. It's unnecessary busy work that eats up valuable player time with no purpose other than killing five dungeon boss level enemies. It might not be so bad except these seekers (along with the world boss that also counts toward the five kill count) are scattered across the Telvanni and Apochrypha maps which prevents masses of players from taking them down. It's nothing but a pointless time sink. Why not kill 1 or even 2? Why does it need to be 5?

Worse yet, after you have killed these five seekers, you have to group up with at most three other players or embark on a solo suicide mission through a labyrinthine, instanced dungeon fighting more bosses for no reason, some with lethal mechanics that follow some sort of RNG placement. After a few boss encounters and some scattered groups of trash mobs, you finally reach the end boss, which was the 10th boss overall for my group, if count the 5 seekers at the beginning. It was a tedious fight with no purpose, just like everything else in the quest, except it was made worse by completely useless junk as a reward. Maelstrom, Vateshran, Blackrose and Dragonstar at least offer somewhat useful loot that you makes the grind tolerable. I cannot say the same for the Bastion Nymic event. The loot was trash which made the entire experience even worse, especially since you can clear Maelstrom and Vateshran faster than you can clear Bastion Nymic.

I honestly don't know what ZOS was thinking, if they were, when they implemented this. There are several things that need to change.

1. Cut the number of seekers to kill initially to either 1 or maybe 2. If that number must be left at 5, then reduce the spawn points to one location in Telvanni and one in Apochrypha. There is zero need for there to be several (a dozen or more?) of these spawn points.
2. Kill the instanced dungeon aspect of the back half of this event. Nothing will kill this content faster than forcing people to group but giving them no mechanism to find a group apart from zone or guild chat. The entire back half needs to be open to all users, just like the Deadlands portals in the Blackwood zone.
3. The bosses apart from the final boss in the back half need to have their health reduced. There's no need for these bosses to be 1.5M health each, especially in that one encounter where you have three of them in one fight.
4. Increase the health of the very last boss provided you open up the fight to the public player base, just like with the Deadlands portals.
5. Give something decent as a reward for killing the final boss. I received nothing but junk I could receive in other overland content. Given the time needed to clear this event, the rewards are easily the worst in the game. Why not drop some sort of magical fragment or part that requires 50 or even 100 pieces to craft a mount or maybe a deed to a house whose pieces can be sold in guild stores? People are not going to play content that requires 30-45 minutes or more for trash rewards.

This content will be dead in 4-6 weeks, if not sooner, unless major changes are made to it. It may well be the worst piece of content ZOS has ever included in this game since its inception.

BlueRaven

This is a world event which is primarily instanced (not in the “world”), nor even a semi random event.

It’s not a “world event” at all, it’s simply a mess.

I am sure they are going to heavily nerf the instance bit, and change the overland boss parts down to fewer kills, and even then this “daily” is going to be a mess.

No one wants to manually form a group for a daily every day. No one.

Maybe once to be curious, maybe a second time, if you see someone else asking for more people, but the novelty of this will wear thin quickly.

Did zos forget the lessons learned from Craglorn?

BergisMacBride

LonePirate wrote: »

It may well be the worst piece of content ZOS has ever included in this game since its inception.

Completely agree with everything you said, but this last quote nails it IMO.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

I went into Bastion Nymic with a level 5 arcanist on my DK, given they were only level 5 I might as well of soloed it, didn't die once although I will say it is way too much for a daily quest, the rewards for doing it are not good enough.

Alphawolf01A

BlueRaven wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I forgot to mention the Tribute fragment and the handful of Antiquities leads that are also in there, adding to the "necessity" to complete it.

Apparently the ToT bit now falls from the overland bosses, so event completion is not needed.

Thank you for the heads up on that change. Much appreciated.

RevJJ

I agree with what most have said so far - the execution of this idea is absolutely terrible. I’ll go in there a few times to get the achievements and hopefully some plans or furnishings but after that I will probably never set foot in it again.

- 5 seekers is way too much. Plus, if a player is in a fight with one halfway across the map you get hit by tentacles even if you’re just trying to dig up an antiquity - idk who came up with that but it’s a terrible idea. And even though they roam around they can reset if they go beyond a certain boundary and then the “fun” starts all over.
- as usual, the in-game explanations are nowhere to be found. You’ve got NPCs following us around trying to sweet talk us into doing DLC quests but you can’t add an NPC here who explains what’s going on? I went in with a group and after seven wiped to the one shot mechanic we got lucky because we guessed what we had to do. A bit of direction would have been nice.
- The rewards are terrible.

Basically, this sums it up well:

LonePirate wrote: »

This content will be dead in 4-6 weeks, if not sooner, unless major changes are made to it. It may well be the worst piece of content ZOS has ever included in this game since its inception.

Treselegant

The problems with Bastion Nymic were discussed in depth early on in the pts cycle with many players giving their feedback as to how it could be improved. Other than the removal of the deck fragment, absolutely nothing appears to have changed despite the wealth of feedback that was given. My own experience of it was one of increasing and excruciating frustration that gave way to boredom. I don't mind a challenge but it felt awful to play through.

Vahlyance

I'm honestly surprised by this thread, I had an absolute blast and I solo'd the place on stream and thought it was relatively easy but challenging.
Was actually the most fun I had on ESO in a while going through it myself, and having my smooth brain figure out the puzzle loot super quick made me a happy goob.
But it is absolutely super tuned up for a daily thing, if they made the loot nicer, that'd be nice.
I personally can't wait for the endless dungeons, and hope it's something like the Bastion Nymics, I loved it.

colossalvoids

UndauntedValiance wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised by this thread, I had an absolute blast and I solo'd the place on stream and thought it was relatively easy but challenging.
Was actually the most fun I had on ESO in a while going through it myself, and having my smooth brain figure out the puzzle loot super quick made me a happy goob.
But it is absolutely super tuned up for a daily thing, if they made the loot nicer, that'd be nice.
I personally can't wait for the endless dungeons, and hope it's something like the Bastion Nymics, I loved it.

You're defo not the only one on that, I've yet to met an actual player disliking it but on forum. Was a breath of fresh air.

Hamish999

This is ZOS's answer to those that shouted insistently for harder overland content.
When it fails miserably, as it sounds like it will, ZOS can say that no-one did the harder content and ignore those doing the shouting again.
Working as intended lol

colossalvoids

Hamish999 wrote: »

This is ZOS's answer to those that shouted insistently for harder overland content.
When it fails miserably, as it sounds like it will, ZOS can say that no-one did the harder content and ignore those doing the shouting again.
Working as intended lol

If they're drawing parallels between overland and instanced content on an overland's "soil" that they already should be fine on that front as dungeons and arenas are already situated there lmao. But can't be sure with how zos interpreting user's input and what's being done with it.

vulonsil

IMO it was nasty that it nowhere announced that it was for max 4 people - we had 6 in group, two on cp and others ranging from level 5 to level 25, and it was not a fun surprise when two couldn't enter. We did it later again with 4 where one was on cp and others on low-levels and it just took so long no one wanted to do another set of dailies.

It's probably fun with a leveled up group, but a really weird choice for a 4 man content you can't even queue for - would be better that if people are on low level characters they can have more than 4 in. Dailies are usually stuff people run in random number groups and it's not fun that if you have e.g. 5 people for dailies someone always has to stay out instead of playing with the rest of the group.

NeuroticPixels

LonePirate wrote: »

People are not going to play content that requires 30-45 minutes or more for trash rewards.

This content will be dead in 4-6 weeks, if not sooner, unless major changes are made to it. It may well be the worst piece of content ZOS has ever included in this game since its inception.

^ THIS.

DJfriede

I soloed it. But I don't think I will do that again -- it just takes so much time. Basically, I thought the "group" indicator was more of a suggestion, like the crow boss stage in the yearly witch's event. Next time I'll try finding a group or some guildies.

That being said, every stage in this quest feels more artificially long-winded than usual. I can't see myself doing that daily.... daily.

prof-dracko

I've seen theories that this is deliberately difficult and unappealing so ZOS can turn around and say 'Aha, I knew you didn't all want harder overland content" and then never think about it again. This will all get nerfed in a month or two and ZOS will never try it again.

vulonsil

I don't really see an issue with the seekers - with leveled up characters it should be fine, and you can have x number of people and call for help on zone. The problem comes with the portal which only allows 4.

People generally do dailies in friend or guild groups and limiting doing dailies to 4 because of one quest is not great. If it was a separate thing and not a daily it would be fine imo, but if you plan to do multiple dailies in a group I don't like it that people can't come and go as they please, or that some in group have to e.g. duo content others do as 4. Why not put all in the same insta, unless it's a reasonable split into two groups? Since it's not a dungeon or a arena, it could just have a flexible limit of e.g. 4-6 and if you have 7 it would split into 2 groups. But a split for 4+2 is just not cool, esp. when one of the 2 is a level 5.

Luke_Flamesword

It's just awful implemenation - we already have 4-man harder content as dungeons and THIS IS a dungeon but without group finder... Really? It would be a great idea if it was solo content (with option to bring mates for these ones who struggle to do it), because we need more harder SOLO content.

Just nerf it and amrk as solo and it will be fine...

Snamyap

UndauntedValiance wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised by this thread, I had an absolute blast and I solo'd the place on stream and thought it was relatively easy but challenging.
Was actually the most fun I had on ESO in a while going through it myself, and having my smooth brain figure out the puzzle loot super quick made me a happy goob.
But it is absolutely super tuned up for a daily thing, if they made the loot nicer, that'd be nice.
I personally can't wait for the endless dungeons, and hope it's something like the Bastion Nymics, I loved it.

Making stuff harder is always tricky because what some people find fun others will find tedious and too time consuming. Haven't tried them myself, focusing on other thingies for now.

Rkindaleft

Difficulty balancing aside, this "world event" will be dead in a few weeks when most people have gotten the antiquity leads/furnishings they want and when the new chapter hype slows down unless they add LFG or alter them to remove them as instanced areas like the Blackwood portals.

They are going to turn out just like the Harrowstorms have been for the past 2 years where barely anyone runs them anymore outside of events because they are simply not worth the effort for such a pathetic level reward, but worse.

Also nobody wants to do a potentially 30+ minute daily quest where the "reward" at the end is essentially the same as the 90 seconds it takes to sprint through a base game delve and just kill the boss there.

xclassgaming

I think for a start this should be a public dungeon, just like the Deadlands, if zos wants players to communicate and group up still for it? easy, the seekers, players can co-ordinate to hunt them.

Cireous

This gives such past-Craglorn vibes. It's the exact thing we hated about Craglorn, resurrected. Forced group content. Everyone on different elements of the quest. Too long. Too boring. Too hard to solo in a situation where grouping is cumbersome. Impossible to just walk up to, join, and find other people doing it. I'm kind of shocked at the devs poor memory of exactly why this kind of content doesn't fly in the open world.

This is not the harder Overland we asked for.

When solo questing, we just want to take MORE of a beating while bosses and tougher mobs take LESS of a beating.

That's it.

Find a way to let us break free from the all prevalent, super embarrassing, easy-mode story questing.

Instead of overcomplicating things by turning areas of Overland into group content no one wants.

Snamyap

Cireous wrote: »

This gives such past-Craglorn vibes. It's the exact thing we hated about Craglorn, resurrected. Forced group content. Everyone on different elements of the quest. Too long. Too boring. Too hard to solo in a situation where grouping is cumbersome. Impossible to just walk up to, join, and find other people doing it. I'm kind of shocked at the devs poor memory of exactly why this kind of content doesn't fly in the open world.

This is not the harder Overland we asked for.

When solo questing, we just want to take MORE of a beating while bosses and tougher mobs take LESS of a beating.

That's it.

Find a way to let us break free from the all prevalent, super embarrassing, easy-mode story questing.

Instead of overcomplicating things by turning areas of Overland into group content no one wants.

I just wanted to post something similar. It seems ZOS has interpreted the call for optional(!) harder content as a call for more group content.

I did a world boss in Apocrypha, forgot name, it split up in to several (4-5) seekers. First time I did this, so not sure on mechanics, but those seekers had a ton of hps. Not sure if I could solo them like I usually can, but it seems it would take forever and a day.

Kisakee

You all just speak for yourself - we did is as three and it was harder than we thought but fun nontheless. We really enjoyed it and wish that more of this harder content comes up in the future.

Enough with this wishy-washy "I am the chosen one and kill everything in Overland with two klicks" casual baby content. Finally we're having a real challenge and i want it to stay that way. If anyone can't complete it you should start becoming serious about your character, green gear and random skills are not cutting it anymore.