The human dynamics of Bastion Nymic don't work

Maitsukas

kind_hero wrote: »

I undestand that ZOS wanted players to group, but what happens is you get people in the group which are on different stages, like one has all ichors, some two, and others have just started collecting. So, the group is going back and forth killing like 10 seekers until the dungeon could be started.

The player who has collected all 5 ichor can open the portal and enter the Bastion. Players with less than 5 can also enter the portal, skipping the grind and advancing towards the next stage of the quest.

Michaelkeir

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

People did not want harder group content. They wanted harder solo content.

The game is stuffed to the gills with difficult group content, and all of it is easier to group for and easier to get everyone on the same page. So why do this convoluted, difficult group content?

"Harder overland" absolutely has to be instanced. We understand that. There is no way around that. You cannot have some players toggled to "super difficult" fighting side by side with players toggled to "super casual". It would be like having a Trial group where 6 players are on Normal and 6 are on Veteran Hard Mode. That just will not work in any way, shape, or form. You cannot have some players able to faceroll the enemies that are supposed to be a challenge to the players next to them.

But if it must be instanced, let it be a solo instance. And let players use their Normal/Veteran toggle to control difficulty, just like with Maelstrom or Vateshran.

"Harder overland" should have been daily mini-arenas that are solo instanced and can be done either normal or veteran.

There are 25 base game 4-man veteran dungeons.
There are 28 DLC 4-man veteran dungeons
There is a base game 4-man arenas.
There is a DLC 4-man arena.
There are 3 base game 12-man trials
There are 9 DLC 12-man trials.

Difficult group content, both moderately difficult and extremely difficult, is well covered.

There are 2 DLC 1-man arenas.

Difficult solo content is severely lacking. This would have been a great chance to add that. And maybe even a first step toward adding more of these daily solo mini-arenas to other zones, gradually expanding solo content. Instead we got awkward, tedious, 4-man group content that is not as much fun and not as rewarding as literally dozen and dozens of existing 4-man content instances. Heck, even Craglorn stuff like Rahni-Za and Shada's Tear is more enjoyable 4-man quasi-overland content than this.

This guy gets it.

RoseVex

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.

I had the ToT piece that is supposed to drop from Herald's Seekers drop from one of Gorne's bosses

Necrotech_Master

RoseVex wrote: »

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.

I had the ToT piece that is supposed to drop from Herald's Seekers drop from one of Gorne's bosses

i think there is one from the delves, one from public dungeons, one from heralds, one from regular WBs, and one from a quest

did you get the one that is supposed to drop from public dungeons or the one from heralds in a public dungeon?

Luke_Flamesword

Anyone know what happens when you logout or leave Bastion in half of doing it? Can you go back with no problem or you have to kill 5 seekers again? I want to do it solo with all puzzles, but don't know if have to prepare more free time or just casually go and continue later if I will be short of time...

Necrotech_Master

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Anyone know what happens when you logout or leave Bastion in half of doing it? Can you go back with no problem or you have to kill 5 seekers again? I want to do it solo with all puzzles, but don't know if have to prepare more free time or just casually go and continue later if I will be short of time...

based on what ive seen others say, it does not save your progress inside of the nymic (i dont think you have to get more ichors, but you do have to complete the entire nymic instance in one sitting)

Elsonso

Enodoc wrote: »

I never even managed to get into Bastion Nymic on PTS. Dolmens, Geysers, Harrowstorms and Volcanic Vents all can be joined dynamically when you see one is open on the map, similarly when Dragons spawn in Elsweyr, and Oblivion Portals in Blackwood/Deadlands you can just enter which means it doesn't matter if they're not mapped. But for Bastion Nymic you can't really do it dynamically as there's never enough people around at the right time to kill a Herald's Seeker. Since I never even got that far on PTS I don't even know how to open the Edifices after that.

These events seem a lot more formal than they should be. I ran across someone taking out a Seeker and helped them kill it, and my thought at the time is that they should have given me the quest and access to get into the dungeon thingy, but it was "move along".

The barrier to entry seems rather high.

mickeyx

Jimbru wrote: »

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.

Been trying to find group for two hours but i can't find anyone to do seekers. So i am basically stuck on first step.

16BitForestCat

I'm tweaking this post after a little experimentation!

For people looking to hunt Seekers: do the Libram Cathedral world boss event! The Prime Cataloger WB and all its Seeker adds completed the ichor requirement for me without trying (maybe not the Seeker adds? See edit.) I didn't even know about the hunt-Seekers-for-ichor part of the daily yet because I was in a bit of a rush before bed (this is also a rushed post, so sorry for any mistakes or repetition); I just happened to come across people doing that WB and joined in to complete it.

EDIT: I just got The Prime Cataloger WB as a daily, but I only got one ichor off the main boss itself for Bastion Nymic. I wasn't getting anything off the Seeker adds, but they weren't behaving the same way they did last night and just kept fading out. If I didn't get all 5 ichor from that fight last night, then I don't know where it came from--I have never fought a single Herald's Seeker, only did The Prime Cataloger fight once, and I already had all the ichor before I joined a group for Bastion Nymic. Maybe something else gave me the ichor drops? I really wasn't paying attention from being in such a rush to finish my dailies. Still, The Prime Cataloger isn't a bad place to get your ichor if no one is doing Herald's Seekers.

As a note: some people in zone chat are claiming that all WB's in Apocrypha and Telvanni Peninsula drop ichor. However, I just fought Valkynaz Dek (not a Seeker-type WB), and he didn't drop any ichor.

The best part is that the WB spawns in a fixed area, unlike the wandering world boss Herald's Seekers, so everyone can gang up on it at once and get the drops easily.

I don't know if this is working as intended or if it'll be patched out as a bug, but that's what happened for me last night.

Beyond that, I agree 100% with the complaints about Bastion Nymic. I jumped in a group for it last night thinking it would be a 5-10 minute event since it was for a daily. I wasn't expecting a freaking group dungeon run that ate up a good portion of my limited free time last night. I'll do the stupid Bastion for the achieves, but after that, I'll never set foot in it again. Actually, no, you know what? I'm not going to do Bastion Nymic for the achieves. I just dropped my daily quest for it, half-completed on the ichor. I'm not wasting my limited free time and limited human lifespan doing game content I dislike. If people reject this dungeon/daily and just don't do it, maybe that will be the kick in the pants ZOS needs to fix it. An MMO where people are getting fed up with running the newest content so close to launch isn't a healthy MMO. A real pity, because Bastion Nymic is a cool as heck lookin' zone.

P.S. ZOS: PLEASE knock it the eff off with the Herald's Seekers Abyssal Tendrils spawning on wayshrines and people not involved in the fight! I am already so sick of my lower-tier alts dying the moment they portal into a wayshrine, and Necrom has only been out three days. I even died while talking to random-spawn NPC's and digging up Antiquities nowhere near the fight. You're ensuring that I will avoid these zones as much as possible after I complete the content for it a single time.

NoSoup

Solo'd one last night with no dramas at all, its really not that difficult so I don't think there needs to be any scaling introduced

Tenthirty2

Jimbru wrote: »

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.

Is Bastion Nymic the "Endless dungeon" they talked about?

EDIT: NM, I saw someone else post about hoping the endless dungeon is not like this. So this is not that. Yay

RoseVex

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

RoseVex wrote: »

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.

I had the ToT piece that is supposed to drop from Herald's Seekers drop from one of Gorne's bosses

i think there is one from the delves, one from public dungeons, one from heralds, one from regular WBs, and one from a quest

did you get the one that is supposed to drop from public dungeons or the one from heralds in a public dungeon?

i got both of them from Gorne, the public dungeon one and the Herald one

Erissime

Finally something challenging and engaging. We did this as a group of 3 ( unssucesfully - gave up on final boss:P) - to be fair - we were noobs of levels between 10 and 20 with NO armour ( unless you count random greens and blues from in-world drops, miss-matched) - and one of us even had whites from starter game. Can't wait to do it properly with ACTUAL chars - because yes! Finally some novelty and challenge without all the bulk of players hoarding in just to catch a shot. I personally love it, and congrats on it all. If it's just once a day - very doable.

vsrs_au

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

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.

Is Bastion Nymic the "Endless dungeon" they talked about?

No, the endless dungeon's being released later this year.

Tenthirty2

vsrs_au wrote: »

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

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.

Is Bastion Nymic the "Endless dungeon" they talked about?

No, the endless dungeon's being released later this year.

Thank you! Really looking forward to that (fingers crossed)

Erissime

Is Bastion Nymic the "Endless dungeon" they talked about?

I don't think so - I heard those will be for including just 2 players and/or 1 player + companion?

jle30303

Suggestions:

(1) Make the ichors collectible even if you are not on the quest, or in a group. From the roaming Herald's Seekers. Happen to get in on killing one, whether as part of a group or solo? Get an ichor. Everybody who gets loot from a Herald's Seeker gets an ichor, like it was a regular World Boss or even like a Dragon.

(2) Make it so that entrance to the "instanced" area leads to a preliminary room, from which passing to the *second* room requires a total set amount of something, which may be contributed *by any member of the group*. If someone's turned up without enough, but someone else has too much? They can contribute their surplus instead. Someone wants to solo it? They gotta collect ALL of the stuff. Like if 4 people need 2 each, 1 person needs 8. Also, if the group as a whole doesn't have enough, then individuals or the whole group can back out of the instance and go farm more, and the instance will be saved so long as at least one person remains in it (the rest may leave to go get what they need, and come back when they have it.

(3) Anyone who leaves the group prematurely, leaves the instance and loses the quest (and may get it again). But there should be no disbanding or booting, the only person you may remove from the group is yourself (i.e. leader may leave but may not boot or disband, only way to disband is if it gets down to 2 people and one leaves.)

(4) Reward needs to be, frankly, on the tier of purple or even gold crafting materials with a chance of it being jewelry materials (and I mean platings, not grains). Even if it was something like 30% dreugh wax / 30% tempering alloy / 30% rosin / 10% chromium plating.

jle30303

Also... frankly Dragonstar Arena, Blackrose Prison and the various adventures in Craglorn (Shadas Tear, Rahni Za, Elinhir, Spellscar, Seekers Archive and the three parts of Skyreach) need Group Finders, though some of them are reasonably completable solo. (And some are NOT really reasonable to solo: Shada's Tear and Rahni Za, I'm looking at YOU.)

RevJJ

Two things I discovered today.

1) if everyone has the exact same daily, then all ichors looted will count towards the five so if you’re in a group of four with the same daily you only need to kill two seekers. If you have a different daily then only your own looted ichor counts. So the best way to do the daily is to form a group and then have one person share the quest.

2) if one person has collected five ichor they can open the portal, others can port to them and the quest will update to the next stage.

Erissime

RevJJ wrote: »

Two things I discovered today.

1) if everyone has the exact same daily, then all ichors looted will count towards the five so if you’re in a group of four with the same daily you only need to kill two seekers. If you have a different daily then only your own looted ichor counts. So the best way to do the daily is to form a group and then have one person share the quest.

2) if one person has collected five ichor they can open the portal, others can port to them and the quest will update to the next stage.

That is very interesting indeed and I too noticed a discrepancy of drops even if all three (3) of us got the daily in the same day, only one got it from a share, whilst the other got it (like me) from the npc. As we went about the seekers, my quest ( and the one's who got my share) would update by leaps and bounds ( 2/4/5 ichorrs = 3 seekers needed only) - but we still have to do them all , because the 3rd member of my group for some reason.... wouldn't have the same updates!

Insightful ty.

Erissime

jle30303 wrote: »

Suggestions:

(1) Make the ichors collectible even if you are not on the quest, or in a group. From the roaming Herald's Seekers. Happen to get in on killing one, whether as part of a group or solo? Get an ichor. Everybody who gets loot from a Herald's Seeker gets an ichor, like it was a regular World Boss or even like a Dragon.

(2) Make it so that entrance to the "instanced" area leads to a preliminary room, from which passing to the *second* room requires a total set amount of something, which may be contributed *by any member of the group*. If someone's turned up without enough, but someone else has too much? They can contribute their surplus instead. Someone wants to solo it? They gotta collect ALL of the stuff. Like if 4 people need 2 each, 1 person needs 8. Also, if the group as a whole doesn't have enough, then individuals or the whole group can back out of the instance and go farm more, and the instance will be saved so long as at least one person remains in it (the rest may leave to go get what they need, and come back when they have it.

(3) Anyone who leaves the group prematurely, leaves the instance and loses the quest (and may get it again). But there should be no disbanding or booting, the only person you may remove from the group is yourself (i.e. leader may leave but may not boot or disband, only way to disband is if it gets down to 2 people and one leaves.)

(4) Reward needs to be, frankly, on the tier of purple or even gold crafting materials with a chance of it being jewelry materials (and I mean platings, not grains). Even if it was something like 30% dreugh wax / 30% tempering alloy / 30% rosin / 10% chromium plating.

1 - if this is a once a day thing (only) - which it appears to be - the whole collecting of the extra ichor is actually fun. So no.

2 - Couldn't be more unfair even if you asked for. So if a player is more capable than another player they should be cut off on their loot on account of the carry? No, I like it when we all work towards the same goal ... equally. Unless of course you mean luckier, and here comes the rng in which you mean to talk about a cummulative drop for progression. Still - why? Whatever it is you mean to say feels cumbersome and unclear.

3. - Never been in a quit situation ( too early in the game, not enough time to experience things ) - but if they made it so that even if one person leaves the entire group looses it? I already adore it.

4 - Also no. Why? Well because all the others who cannot do it will whine for the unfairness of it all, and want access - and after enough whining in the forums the devs will end up nerfing everything and ruining it altogether, so that everyone can do it. At least without the loot the whining is less. The game itself SHOULD be the incentive for doing anything in it - not the rewards! You payed to play a game not get shiny preferably with no play!

colossalvoids

Seems at this thread would be monitored for feedback so here's mine.

Five ichors is kinda an overkill (but absolutely fine when grouped), three would be plenty but I'd prefer them dropping even without a quest so we can store or discard any amounts on will. Free entrance to zone would be good after the first clear but can perfectly understand the need for a barrier.

Difficulty wise I personally really like how it's tuned, for solo/duo it is. With more people would most probably get too boring and face rolly which would definitely reduce the fun to challenge factor.

Seems it gonna be nerfed according to forum feedback so I'd at least hope there might be a solution to still have some difficulty left there for one's who desire to play it how it was designed initially, make it a "scroll" at the start or something but if it will get rekt it still will be undesirable content for ones complaining and big fat nothing for ones who actually preferred it to usual dolmen like zerg fests.

Erissime

colossalvoids wrote: »

Seems at this thread would be monitored for feedback so here's mine.

Five ichors is kinda an overkill (but absolutely fine when grouped), three would be plenty but I'd prefer them dropping even without a quest so we can store or discard any amounts on will. Free entrance to zone would be good after the first clear but can perfectly understand the need for a barrier.

Difficulty wise I personally really like how it's tuned, for solo/duo it is. With more people would most probably get too boring and face rolly which would definitely reduce the fun to challenge factor.

Seems it gonna be nerfed according to forum feedback so I'd at least hope there might be a solution to still have some difficulty left there for one's who desire to play it how it was designed initially, make it a "scroll" at the start or something but if it will get rekt it still will be undesirable content for ones complaining and big fat nothing for ones who actually preferred it to usual dolmen like zerg fests.

Get your group before the quest - and have one person only take the quest then share to the entire group. Come back and share feedback - will it take less seekers to kill for the entire group? (if not sure what I'm talking about scroll up - wrote more above as an answer).

RevJJ

Erissime wrote: »

Get your group before the quest - and have one person only take the quest then share to the entire group. Come back and share feedback - will it take less seekers to kill for the entire group? (if not sure what I'm talking about scroll up - wrote more above as an answer).

I can confirm (as I did in my previous post) that if you’re grouped and all have the same shared quest, you need to kill less seekers because every person looting it will contribute to your total of five.

colossalvoids

RevJJ wrote: »

Erissime wrote: »

Get your group before the quest - and have one person only take the quest then share to the entire group. Come back and share feedback - will it take less seekers to kill for the entire group? (if not sure what I'm talking about scroll up - wrote more above as an answer).

I can confirm (as I did in my previous post) that if you’re grouped and all have the same shared quest, you need to kill less seekers because every person looting it will contribute to your total of five.

It's the case, yes. Basically you need two if grouped with 3+ people.

Luke_Flamesword

Eh, overland full of Seekers is annoying - there are too many of them. ZOS, why you always choose extremes? When people complain on too easy overland where even quests "bosses" have something like 135k health, you throw enemies with 1,8 million HP... Whole Bastion Nymic have this problem - too much health, especially on trash. It don't make fight very difficult, but very long, boring and tedious (especially on solo and little reminder - by "harder overland" we want SOLO content, because there are already harder group content (and we get more and more with every update).

Can we have some scaling - for example lower health of enemies when you are solo?

Jaraal

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Eh, overland full of Seekers is annoying - there are too many of them.

To be fair, there's an area in Apocrypha where there are two that path fairly close to each other, and if you time it right, you can pull both and solo 2 at once. Saves a lot of time, since the fights are unnecessarily long and full of the gimmicky "undamageable" phases that they fell in love with in the Oblivion portals.

JoeCapricorn

Bastion Nymic was a total curveball, I did not expect it to be as hard as it was. I tried to solo it.

I haven't had much difficulty finding groups for it though. There are two strategies one can go about doing the daily. One - find someone who is ready to form the Bastion Nymic 4-person group that already has the ichors. You don't need any if there is at least one person in your group that can open a portal. Two - gather the ichors and advertise in Apocrypha zone chat that you are seeking 3 victims assistants for the run. I guarantee you will find 3 people quickly who are opting with option one.

This definitely seems to eliminate both the problem of events finishing after 15 seconds, and 800 people all trying to do the thing in one place causing lag. But for longevity, I think down the road it should be toned down. In the short term, lowering the ichor requirement from 5 to 1 or 2 (or even 3) would help boost the number of players that are group ready. A nerf to the dungeon itself might be warranted after next year's chapter makes this one less played.

Ronin37

ZOS please don't nerf these instances, its finally challenging overland content. I would suggest reevaluating the rewards. I would have expected rewards on par with the solo arenas for the trouble.

Ronin37

Credible_Joe wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey all. Wanted to follow up here. We have been passing the feedback from players regarding Bastion Nymic to the dev team for them to address. We'll follow up as we get more information. However, please continue to provide your feedback here on your experience in Bastion Nymic. We'll continue to pass feedback and bugs on to the team as they work to address issues. Thanks, all.

Thanks Kevin.

I was excited for Nymics as an overland event that I would be able to solo in an instanced environment, taking NPC companions or guild mates with at my leisure. This made the hard group checks and group-oriented difficulty very disappointing.

If I recall correctly, there was some dev comments regarding overland content feedback that mentioned these world events as a measure to address those criticisms. I really feel that the mark was missed; if we can't solo them, then the whole point is moot, and overland difficulty is exactly the same.

I think group play should be rewarded, and solo play shouldn't be punished. Nymics should definitely be difficult to solo, but not impossible.

Not everything in the game needs to be solo able and the overland difficulty is an order of a magnitude easier than these instances.