REWORK OVERLAND EVENTS

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO

gonna say it cause am not seeing post about it. but yeah overland event need a rework and hard. Was doing a Harrowstorm earlier today, there was 6 of us 6!!! and it nearly took us a hour to down one harrowstorm!!! seriously!!! ididnt know harrowstorm were trials or vet dungeons.

Now let be legit that i got my rant out of the way, overland like harrowstorm are just to strong for the way the content is, with the player base over on console being the size it is it take immense work to down these events. the fact they summon high ly champions on par with Bosses form vet dungeon in terms of HP is just downright to much for 5 year old content with a player base that doesnt even do it much anymore. Not to mention the wicker totem omg that alone is agonizing BS. each totem have upward to 3 Mil HP with three of them not to mention the constant Champion spawn and add spawns is to much effectively it a warfront at that point not some overland event, where the 40 man calavary charge form the Pact or Dominion.

Overall i think alot of overland content needs reowrk to be able to be handle by a base of 1 to 4 players with average builds not some OP meta build as most console player are casual at best.

MasterSpatula

I mean, you can't really judge all world overland events by Harrowstorms. Harrowstorms were always badly designed, with poorly thought out mechanics that result in a sort of "reverse scaling." In other words, the fewer players at a Harrowstorm (and especially if they're weaker characters) the most enemies is will spawn--and particularly the more high-damage, high-health, frequent-one-shotting minibosses. All of this was called out when it was on the PTS and in the year after Greymoor's release. They actually were tuned down a bit, but once Blackwood released and Harrowstorms were no longer the new shiny, they became a nightmare--as predicted.

Now let me be clear: None of that is, in my opinion, really excusable. But that doesn't mean that those flaws translate to other overland world events. I used to think Dragons were too OP, but I've come to appreciate the challenge level--and the consistency of the challenge in particular. Vents and Portals actually scale correctly to the number of players. Geysers are a cakewalk if you know how to keep a general from spawning, and still perfectly soloable even if one does spawn.

Bastion Nymics, though, there you have a point. Overly long, overly complicated, with encounters I would consider more frustrating than fun. I don't know many people who enjoy them. Hopefully, ZOS has learned a few lessons from them. We shall see.

Ugrak

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO wrote: »

gonna say it cause am not seeing post about it. but yeah overland event need a rework and hard.

There is plenty of content in the game I've found too hard at first. But I just learned how to play them and it became quite manageable. Harrowstorms are one of them. Many world bosses too have melted me instantly and made it seem hopeless, until I paid attention to the mechanics and then it became doable, sometimes even easy. Other times I've had to approach with different gear or skills better suited to the situation.

In harrowstorms, the ghosts heading for the pikes heal them when absorbed, and they also summon bosses when enough ghosts are absorbed. Snare them, chain them, immobilize them and kill them. Just keep them off the pikes. Then the pikes won't heal and there won't be a single boss until the last one that arrives when all pikes are down.

When soloing, this ghost mechanic is very tricky to work with because they're spread over a large area, so the other option is just to ignore everything but raw damage to one pike at a time until it's down. If high damage cannot be maintained, the ghosts will heal the pike faster than you can damage it. Area damage is preferrable to simultaneously burn down adds so it doesn't get too out of hand.

It just took me between five and ten minutes to solo a harrowstorm that way. I'm a medium skilled player with an entry level endgame build, if that.

I just ignore everything but one pike at a time, stack AoE on it and circle close to the pike while alternating heavy attacks and damage shield. And if a boss is charging some big attack I roll or move or whatever is called for so I don't get one shot. Avoid kiting enemies away from the action when under pressure though. Keep them in your AoE as best you can.

This was on a no pet sorcerer with oakensoul, sargeant, order's wrath (light) and one light slimecraw.

Skills: elemental blockade, razor caltrops, hardened ward, lightning splash, hurricane and the negate ult. Not a bad build to be fair, but nothing crazy either, even low for an oakensorc. 58K on a trial dummy (35,5K on a 6mil dummy) without making any adjustments from how it's played. A number like that should be well within what six casual and undergeared players could achieve with a little bit of teamwork.

But the secret sauce here was almost certainly down to familiarity, because I really struggled with soloing these a couple months ago.

Tra_Lalan

Unless something has been changed with u41, you can basicaly solo the harrowstorm with a good build.
Did you guys focus the pikes? 6 people doing it for 1 hour really seems to me unbelievable.

SpacemanSpiff1

what were 6 people doing for an hour? were you trying to set a world record?

Braffin

I advise you to play mechanics like intended instead of blaming the Harrowstorm for "being too hard" without doing so.

It could help with lessening the time it takes to bring it down.

I_Luminosa

One thing I would like ZOS to do would be to make all world events scale in difficulty, and with rewards, based on how many people are doing it, but that may be a 'me thing'

However....I'm missing the context on what six people were doing for all that time. If I were playing a Harrowstorm with five other people we'd have it down in 10 minutes AT MOST. Were you prioritising the pikes? Were you killing the enemies that walk to the pikes?

If you've never done Harrowstorms before then I get that they can look a little confusing because there's so much going on at first, but first and foremost, destroy the pikes and focus on a pike that already has a player dealing damage to it to get it down faster

Tenthirty2

Harrowstorms are supposed to be that hard by design? Same thing with dragons or WWBs in Deadlands, High Isle, Galen.
Some people have been able to solo or duo them, but I think the difficulty is fine as is.

There is a huge amount of content that is already soloable like delves, pub dungeons, WBs, most dungeons, the Craglorn group delves, some arenas. But there needs to also be content that calls for larger groups of players.

They could see about adding a difficulty slider in settings that would scale all game content to the player (except perhaps trials).

But I'm not a fan of that option and One Tamriel was launched a few years back to do just this automatically anyway.
Prior to 1T I have heard things were very lively, especially Craglorn and it's content

As someone who tries to solo everything I say leave as it is. It puts some things out of reach to be done alone, but that is ok too.

Optionally if you're trying to farm just wait for the zone celebration events. You have small armies of ppl showing up to the big events and they finish in seconds.

BXR_Lonestar

Honestly, they should rework how the DLC "anchor" events work for all of the DLC areas after Summerset. The dragons and harrowstorms, in particular, are bad times if you don't have overwhelming numbers to help you with them. Instead of their difficulty being fixed, they should scale with the number of players in the area (as should future content like this). I understand the vocal cries of a few who wanted hard overland content, but overland content is not endgame content. It should be doable without having a dozen or so players with you, and I think dynamic difficulty scaling would be an ideal way to do it.

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Unless something has been changed with u41, you can basicaly solo the harrowstorm with a good build.
Did you guys focus the pikes? 6 people doing it for 1 hour really seems to me unbelievable.

dude once agian harrowstorm are multiplayer event one player can stop all three pike spawn ghost by themselves, so in time depending on output of DPS your gonna get mini bosses. that were the probelm is there no fine tuning or scaling with this event that make it easy or even averagely diffcult it just downright Vet level diffculty in a world event.

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

what were 6 people doing for an hour? were you trying to set a world record?

god i wish overall it was me being the highest level at 900 something and a few under level 50 players, they kept dying like crazy so i kept having to take the group of miniboss anbd kite them around the edge slowly whittle them away as a MNB

Hapexamendios

From what you have said OP, it sounds like the event itself wasn't the problem rather the levels of the players. Since a lot of them were lower level, they may not have had a good understanding of the mechanics or dps rotations.

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO

Hapexamendios wrote: »

From what you have said OP, it sounds like the event itself wasn't the problem rather the levels of the players. Since a lot of them were lower level, they may not have had a good understanding of the mechanics or dps rotations.

maybe but even so the event need to be bettered scaled to incorporate this sort of issue, otherwise it content that not viable for other players

davidtk

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Unless something has been changed with u41, you can basicaly solo the harrowstorm with a good build.
Did you guys focus the pikes? 6 people doing it for 1 hour really seems to me unbelievable.

Unfortunately what I see on a daily basis practically all the time and it doesn't really matter what World event it is. Almost nobody doing right simple mechanic or even bashing! And then they're extremely surprised that they get killed by Atro at vent when Atro cast some ability where a simple bash is all you need to stop it.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

From what you have said OP, it sounds like the event itself wasn't the problem rather the levels of the players. Since a lot of them were lower level, they may not have had a good understanding of the mechanics or dps rotations.

The worst part is that even from experience, sometimes low levels are more "experienced" (Maybe they were just paying attention in the tutorial where it all shows) than some high CP level. Yes of course, with low level you can't tell if it has high CP (levels below 50) or it's an alt account (low CPs). Many times I've seen a real low level (even CP under 100) doing proper mechanics and even weaving and high CP either don't care and fight with light attacks without block or bashing

FlopsyPrince

MaverickConnor22b14_ESO wrote: »

gonna say it cause am not seeing post about it. but yeah overland event need a rework and hard. Was doing a Harrowstorm earlier today, there was 6 of us 6!!! and it nearly took us a hour to down one harrowstorm!!! seriously!!! ididnt know harrowstorm were trials or vet dungeons.

Now let be legit that i got my rant out of the way, overland like harrowstorm are just to strong for the way the content is, with the player base over on console being the size it is it take immense work to down these events. the fact they summon high ly champions on par with Bosses form vet dungeon in terms of HP is just downright to much for 5 year old content with a player base that doesnt even do it much anymore. Not to mention the wicker totem omg that alone is agonizing BS. each totem have upward to 3 Mil HP with three of them not to mention the constant Champion spawn and add spawns is to much effectively it a warfront at that point not some overland event, where the 40 man calavary charge form the Pact or Dominion.

Overall i think alot of overland content needs reowrk to be able to be handle by a base of 1 to 4 players with average builds not some OP meta build as most console player are casual at best.

I have noted this a couple of times and got mostly shouted down.

So much "hard overland" is now ignored. It really needs some tuning for lower player counts.

Try a Harrowstorm with 2 people!

FlopsyPrince

davidtk wrote: »

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Unless something has been changed with u41, you can basicaly solo the harrowstorm with a good build.
Did you guys focus the pikes? 6 people doing it for 1 hour really seems to me unbelievable.

Unfortunately what I see on a daily basis practically all the time and it doesn't really matter what World event it is. Almost nobody doing right simple mechanic or even bashing! And then they're extremely surprised that they get killed by Atro at vent when Atro cast some ability where a simple bash is all you need to stop it.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

From what you have said OP, it sounds like the event itself wasn't the problem rather the levels of the players. Since a lot of them were lower level, they may not have had a good understanding of the mechanics or dps rotations.

The worst part is that even from experience, sometimes low levels are more "experienced" (Maybe they were just paying attention in the tutorial where it all shows) than some high CP level. Yes of course, with low level you can't tell if it has high CP (levels below 50) or it's an alt account (low CPs). Many times I've seen a real low level (even CP under 100) doing proper mechanics and even weaving and high CP either don't care and fight with light attacks without block or bashing

I will die much more quickly if I move in close enough to bash!

FlopsyPrince

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

Harrowstorms are supposed to be that hard by design? Same thing with dragons or WWBs in Deadlands, High Isle, Galen.
Some people have been able to solo or duo them, but I think the difficulty is fine as is.

There is a huge amount of content that is already soloable like delves, pub dungeons, WBs, most dungeons, the Craglorn group delves, some arenas. But there needs to also be content that calls for larger groups of players.

They could see about adding a difficulty slider in settings that would scale all game content to the player (except perhaps trials).

But I'm not a fan of that option and One Tamriel was launched a few years back to do just this automatically anyway.
Prior to 1T I have heard things were very lively, especially Craglorn and it's content

As someone who tries to solo everything I say leave as it is. It puts some things out of reach to be done alone, but that is ok too.

Optionally if you're trying to farm just wait for the zone celebration events. You have small armies of ppl showing up to the big events and they finish in seconds.

This means that a great deal of content will never get used and is thus a complete waste, except perhaps for 2 weeks during an event.

All the work that went into the portals in Blackwood for example. How many go in there now?

Waiting until you have large armies that may finish it before you can get there also makes it useless.

Yet it is "fine as it is"? Really?

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

With there already being a thread opened on this subject here, we're going to go ahead and close this one down.

Thank you for understanding.