Do you consider normal Trials to be endgame content?

Dragonnord

Normal trials are not endgame content

Toanis wrote: »

For me, endgame starts when you use your character like a gaming piece that fulfills a certain role in a team, you're in endgame... you, the player, join a group and consider respeccing or logging to another char that is better suited for the task ahead, you're in endgame.

Like participating in a group that will do Role Play walking through the city and your role is crafting a long sword and dressing up in gold clothings, since you represent a fair protector king saluting the townfolks, correct?

That's endgame, right? Since it fits your description above.
 
 

Ardriel

Normal trials are not endgame content

It is of course a question of definition, as has already been said here. I consider all veteran content to be endgame content. These are the things you can only do when you've reached max level. That is, level 50 in ESO. You can join a normal raid at any level. If the other players accept you, of course. But you can't get into a vet dungeon or raid instance below level 50.

ShatteredRose6

Normal trials are not endgame content

My beautiful brother's and sisters, english is *not like my first 3languages so pardon my mistakes,while I give my opinion with 10k hours of doin group content and some dabbling in pvp.
Veteran trials consists of nonHM, HM, TRIFECTA, scorepushing. Each with varying levels of difficulty, coordination between players, players time invested in honing their skills and mechanics knowledge about the trial and in game as general.
Craiglorn trials are the easiest for HM and NONHM dabbling to get a taste of endgame on varying difficulties of nonHM and HM.
then comes Older dlc trials vSS, vKA, vCR, VAS, NON HMwhich require group coordination and everyone doin mechanics and slight dps checks so supports aren't overburdened, but still can be done if 2-3 dps and 1tank+healer knows full layout of trial and how it works and actively helps in the completion.
The newer trials nonHM vRG, vDSR, VSE require 3-5dps, 2 tanks 2 healers,knowing and willing to do mechanics for completion.
Regarding HMs all the DLC trials need everyone to know mechanics and actively help in various roles say tombs, portals, reefs/bridges, kite/block/spread out mechanics and many more for completion
Trifectas are same but everyone has to be perfect while min maxing while scorepushing brings it up to a notch with no room for errors.
Now normal trials, no they are not remotely close to endgame or starting position for them in my opinion as eso makes them different then others, example : you can straight burn everything with half decent dps in purple crafted gear and don't have any mechanics except 3-4 bosses which might be a chore at best which again can be completed with 1-2 people are doing mechanics in crafted purple gear. Also all of them can be done with half the required team 6/12 so theirs no comparision to difficulty spikes/mechanics punishment/coordination/dps checks/burdening of supports as compared with veteran trials.
Whatever you guys choose I hope it will bring you guys joy and fun and make you smile at the end of the day, cuz that's the point of video games.

Edited for some typos and grammer

Muizer

Normal trials are not endgame content

In my opinion, end-game is "anything that is open-ended", because that means it is content you never run out of (even if you might get bored with it).

- Repeating content for a place on a leader board

- Non-repeating content (PvP).

- Player creations: Housing, fashion, role playing, perhaps trading.

Other content can definitely be exhausted (quests, achievements, champion points, collecting things etc.) and isn't endgame in my book. That's not meant in a disparaging way btw. I think many players progress to end-game before every coming close to completing all non-endgame content.

Toanis

Normal trials are endgame content

Dragonnord wrote: »

Toanis wrote: »

For me, endgame starts when you use your character like a gaming piece that fulfills a certain role in a team, you're in endgame... you, the player, join a group and consider respeccing or logging to another char that is better suited for the task ahead, you're in endgame.

Like participating in a group that will do Role Play walking through the city and your role is crafting a long sword and dressing up in gold clothings, since you represent a fair protector king saluting the townfolks, correct?

That's endgame, right? Since it fits your description above.
 

Let's phrase it like this: any content where I need to pulI myself together to not ruin other player's experience is Endgame, that might include roleplay. Same goes for solo content where I need to chose gear and skills for functionality rather than fun.

The condescending attitude of the vet trial crowd feels kinda cute when you come from a progression raiding background.

Tandor

SilverBride wrote: »

Since there is no concrete definition for endgame, I am basing my opinion on what I've seen it defined as over many years of gaming in many different MMOs. And instanced group content for max level characters was consistently referred to as endgame.

I would certainly agree that the common perception of trials in the many MMOs I've played since 1997 is that it is an elite level of content generally undertaken at endgame.

Endgame is really what each of us chooses it to be. I don't do trials personally, but if I were to do so in any MMO it would certainly be something I'd leave until I'd reached max level and run out of other things to do. Fortunately my playstyle in terms of both playing at a pace that prevents burnout while leaving me time to do other things (and games) and also running multiple characters (not main and alts, nor toons, but equal individuals throughout their full development) means I never get anywhere near max level and "endgame" in any MMO I play.

For me it's all about the journey and not the endgame destination that many players seem to be disappointed with when they reach it quickly anyway. As such I would never contemplate running trials for the sake of a few seals, any more than I would contemplate going to Cyrodiil or Imperial City for them as I have even less interest in PvP than I have in trials.

SilverBride

Normal trials are endgame content

A couple of things stand out for me with these replies.

• Some players define endgame by its difficulty.
• Some players define endgame by the type of content it is.

I fall in the second category.

A normal trial can be done with a group of 12, even though it can possibly be done with less, but because it is a trial it allows for 12.
A normal trial is in the same place, albeit less difficult and less mechanics than on veteran, but still the same place and story.
A normal trial has never been promoted as casual or solo content, so does not fall into that category.

Alpheu5

Normal trials are endgame content

I very much doubt any trial guilds in 2015 were proclaiming to be "hardcore midgame raiders" simply because the HRC was also a walk in the park back then.

SilverBride

Normal trials are endgame content

I never even heard the term "midgame" until it came up in another thread recently, and I've been gaming for a very long time.

autocookies

Normal trials are not endgame content

deleted

Tra_Lalan

Normal trials are not endgame content

I understand that it is hard to try new things, I also had to leave my comfort zone when I decided to do my first normal trial. And it was easier than I expected.
Sometimes the game pushes us to try new things, for those who hesitate, I encourage you to try them.

tincanman

Normal trials are not endgame content

No, any level can do normal trials and often do.

I can see why some might see them as end-game due to the organisation/grouping involved, though.

Lots of 'social' guilds run normal trials for any/all with zero restrictions etc all the time - best way to get introduced to normal trials and any other group content in game.

c160 used to be a slight bar for gear trading but the sticker book/collections eliminated that.

A new character with a handful of skills and starting rags can jump in, amply boosted by level-scaling - for older, crag trials anyway.

Cast_El

Normal trials are not endgame content

Pvp is the true endgame content

Blood_again

Normal trials are not endgame content

This January I participated in mid-level trial runs twice.
The whole group were <50 lvl, it was a leader requirement. Mostly PUG players, no gear requirements. We successfully ran all 3 trials in Craglorn.
What endgame are you talking about?!

CP5

Normal trials are not endgame content

SilverBride wrote: »

I never even heard the term "midgame" until it came up in another thread recently, and I've been gaming for a very long time.

It's fairly common in some areas of gaming to define games in terms of "Early Game", "Mid-Game", and "Late Game." Early Game in an rpg is where you're wearing whatever you can find, fighting basic enemies, leveling rapidly, and learning the ropes. Mid-Game is the area where you're finally filling out what your character can do, gaining more options rather than just growing more powerful, getting set on your equipment, and are moving into more challenging content. Late Game is the time where your character is fully developed, and you've had the experience needed to face the more demanding encounters the game has to offer.

End Game caps off the Late Game, where players go to, essentially, push the limits of what they can do with the games systems. A player still in early/mid-game facing a challenge is them learning still, whereas the end game equivalent is instead a more punishing test of knowledge that requires more precise execution, or in some games is a test of skill to reach higher scores or better times, depending on the type of challenge.

Necrotech_Master

in my opinion based on all of the games contents, i would probably see trials as late-midgame content

end game to me is vet content, starting with vet dungeons and scaling up to vet HM or trifectas

SilverBride

Normal trials are endgame content

It's interesting to see how players look at this from such different perspectives. I wish there was a concrete definition but I don't know if that is even possible.

mocap

The endgame is too personalized. Everyone chooses their own, so to speak.

For someone endgame is to get top 10 vMA/vShran.
For someone to make a trifecta in trial.
Someone will close vetHM dungeon in solo and call it an endgame (start with Falkreath Hold, easisest dungeon for that).
Someone will enjoy oveland quests as and endgame.

Soarora

Normal trials are not endgame content

For those who are defining normal trials as endgame due to it being grouped: what about the solo arenas and solo dungeon communities? Is Maelstrom, Vateshran, or a solo dungeon trifecta not endgame? Maelstrom, Vateshran, and IA can be scorepushed. Solo dungeon can’t but only the best of the best can solo, say, SCP, MHK, or MoS tri.

LunaFlora

Normal trials are endgame content

Soarora wrote: »

For those who are defining normal trials as endgame due to it being grouped: what about the solo arenas and solo dungeon communities? Is Maelstrom, Vateshran, or a solo dungeon trifecta not endgame? Maelstrom, Vateshran, and IA can be scorepushed. Solo dungeon can’t but only the best of the best can solo, say, SCP, MHK, or MoS tri.

those are endgame to me too.

SilverBride

Normal trials are endgame content

Soarora wrote: »

For those who are defining normal trials as endgame due to it being grouped: what about the solo arenas and solo dungeon communities? Is Maelstrom, Vateshran, or a solo dungeon trifecta not endgame? Maelstrom, Vateshran, and IA can be scorepushed. Solo dungeon can’t but only the best of the best can solo, say, SCP, MHK, or MoS tri.

I don't consider a normal trial as endgame just due to it being grouped. I consider it that because a normal trial is in the same place as a the veteran version and is still basically the same type of content, regardless of the different difficulties. In my mind if one trial is endgame, they all are.

I consider arenas endgame also, but if I put up a poll about that I am sure others would probably have different perspectives on it... just like with this poll.

Necrotech_Master

i usually rate stuff by how "difficult" i find said content lol

normal solo arenas i would put as easier or on par with soloing a non-dlc normal group dungeon (normal maelstrom the majority of non boss enemies are actually even weaker than overland and trash mobs only have like ~16k hp compared to the normal ~32k)

vateshran is probably on par with most of the non-dlc dungeons in terms of difficult

archive, because its scaling, is going to heavily depend on the arc, with arc 1 being like mostly equivalent to maybe a normal group dungeon (some of the cycle 3 and 4 bosses may be closer to an easier normal dlc dungeon due to the mechanics presented)

thats why i presented normal trials as "late mid game" in the scheme of actual difficulty, where i think even non-dlc vet dungeons would be more challenging to less experienced players than running a normal trial in terms of the actual enemy difficulty

Ishtarknows

Normal trials are not endgame content

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

If you have to optimize & min/max - then it is an "End Game" imho.

Trials and group arenas, do not have MM / group finder. The only way to do them is to join a guild or try "player made" activity finder. And it very often means that you are being inspected what class are you, what sets do you have etc, so it is gatekeeping you form clearing the instance at least once. It is same as Ball Groups / Group play in PvP. You are being asked to use specific gear/skills/class etc or we don't want you in the group.

Normal trials require no min/maxing at all though. They can be completed "naked" ie no armour, with less than half the usually required number of people and with a full team of sub 50 characters.

There's also a group finder for trials now so guilds are not necessary

Muizer

Normal trials are not endgame content

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't consider a normal trial as endgame just due to it being grouped. I consider it that because a normal trial is in the same place as a the veteran version and is still basically the same type of content, regardless of the different difficulties. In my mind if one trial is endgame, they all are.

If I may ask, if not difficulty, what criterion does make trials endgame?

Araneae6537

Normal trials are not endgame content

Sheridan wrote: »

Yes, all trials are endgame content by definition. There is nothing beyond them. Endgame content, as everything else, can have different modes, but it's endgame nonetheless.

Based on the comments above, I guess many of those who clicked "no" were actually answering the question "Do you consider normal Trials to be difficult", which is not the same thing.

I don’t understand what you mean by saying that there is nothing beyond trials. There are vet trials and hardmodes beyond normal trials. And many DLC dungeons are more challenging than many normal trials. I would say the normal versions of whichever activity are casual while vet is endgame in the sense of being the next step, with hardmodes and trifectas the ultimate. In terms of difficulty, certainly this varies wildly with the normal mode of some content being more challenging than the vet modes of most older content.

Araneae6537

Normal trials are not endgame content

SilverBride wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

For those who are defining normal trials as endgame due to it being grouped: what about the solo arenas and solo dungeon communities? Is Maelstrom, Vateshran, or a solo dungeon trifecta not endgame? Maelstrom, Vateshran, and IA can be scorepushed. Solo dungeon can’t but only the best of the best can solo, say, SCP, MHK, or MoS tri.

I don't consider a normal trial as endgame just due to it being grouped. I consider it that because a normal trial is in the same place as a the veteran version and is still basically the same type of content, regardless of the different difficulties. In my mind if one trial is endgame, they all are.

I consider arenas endgame also, but if I put up a poll about that I am sure others would probably have different perspectives on it... just like with this poll.

That means that you would consider all dungeons, even everyone’s favorite example, Fungal Grotto I, to be endgame, right? Just making sure I understand correctly, even though I confess I don’t understand why the existence of a more challenging variation of an activity should make the entirety of an activity endgame. Endgame is certainly a nebulous term. In one sense PVP and housing are the ultimate endgames as they can never be finally completed or defeated — there are always more builds and new goals.

SilverBride

Normal trials are endgame content

Muizer wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't consider a normal trial as endgame just due to it being grouped. I consider it that because a normal trial is in the same place as a the veteran version and is still basically the same type of content, regardless of the different difficulties. In my mind if one trial is endgame, they all are.

If I may ask, if not difficulty, what criterion does make trials endgame?

What I said above. They are the same type of content as veteran trials, which many are saying is endgame. Same place, same story, just more a more difficult version.

Does the difficulty of a veteran dungeon mean that the normal isn't a dungeon any more? Or 4 man group content? And should have a completely separate classification category?

CP5

Normal trials are not endgame content

But, the actual gameplay experience is different. If they set up a trial that doubled as a player home, would that player home be 'end game' because it shares the same location? I can see why you're so against vet overland with this mindset (that'll be the last of my mentioning it) but difficulty significantly redefines the content. A normal dungeon is a normal dungeon and a veteran dungeon is a veteran dungeon. It is part difficulty, [Normal/Veteran] and part activity [Dungeon/Trial/exc.] and ignoring the difficulty part skips the entire progress from easier content to harder content, where players do the whole learning and growing part. Having nothing between casual and end game is like having a book with an introduction and a climax, but with no story to span between the two, and normal trials are part of that middle section of most players stories.

spartaxoxo

Normal trials are not endgame content

SilverBride wrote: »

Does the difficulty of a veteran dungeon mean that the normal isn't a dungeon any more? Or 4 man group content? And should have a completely separate classification category?

It's more like there's casual/endgame solo content and casual/endgame group content.

For me....

Solo/group refers to the number of players it's designed for

Early/Mid/Endgame is the expected level of knowledge, experience, gear, etc needed to do well.

Trial/Arena/Dungeons are the types of content.

Soarora

Normal trials are not endgame content

SilverBride wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't consider a normal trial as endgame just due to it being grouped. I consider it that because a normal trial is in the same place as a the veteran version and is still basically the same type of content, regardless of the different difficulties. In my mind if one trial is endgame, they all are.

If I may ask, if not difficulty, what criterion does make trials endgame?

What I said above. They are the same type of content as veteran trials, which many are saying is endgame. Same place, same story, just more a more difficult version.

Does the difficulty of a veteran dungeon mean that the normal isn't a dungeon any more? Or 4 man group content? And should have a completely separate classification category?

If normal dungeons are endgame, I've been an endgamer ever since I started, still wearing a heavy armor set on my dps, still thinking classes determined what role you can play, not even being cp 160. I did normal trials when I didn't understand what I was doing either. I was still a clueless casual, not an endgamer. I only became an endgamer once I truly built skill in my role (which was healer at that point, doing vet hardmode trials) and even then I didn't feel like one. I only felt like an endgamer once I started doing trifectas.
I'm not arguing that endgame is trifectas however I am arguing that normal content is just not endgame-- I not only didn't believe myself to be an endgamer when I was pre-vet, I didn't know what I was doing, at all.

I've been doing dungeons since the beginning. Fang lair might've been my first, I sure spent a lot of time in there (hence my pfp). To argue that normal content is endgame is to argue that endgame and casual are not mutually exclusive. Which they could not be in general but in the realm of ESO I have only ever heard them used to describe questers versus difficult pve players.

One could argue that endgame is "the end of the game" which would solely be hardmode content as there is no difficulty level past hardmode.