Please give Story mode for dungeons

ZOS_Kevin

We have passed this feedback along before, but will be sure to note it again for the dev team. Nothing to announce regarding this, but it's on their radar to consider along with other player requests.

dmnqwk

I don't think there should be a story mode.

I don't object to people asking nor want to convince them otherwise, I just want to state I think there should not be one.

MMOs were invented as group activities, to play with others. Gradually, over time, players started to demand ways to avoid playing with others and so MMOs get turned into single player games.

There are several single player ESO games, but this one is meant to be an MMO - so inventing single player dungeons will add a strain to servers needlessly, which could be used to power more group activities (maybe even that silly cyrodil people love so much).

Khressandra

I made a thread awhile back about improving / filling out the Undaunted, with story mode as part of it:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611898/my-submission-for-undaunted-ult-quests-dungeons#latest

katanagirl1

I would like a story mode because even though I do Undaunted pledges and trials, I have never been able to learn the story behind any of these areas.

It doesn’t matter whether I queue or run with guildies, everyone has already done the dungeon/trial so I have to click rapidly through the text and run to catch up.

Even in trials with my group the lead sets the difficulty and ports in and when I get there the quest has already been picked up. They don’t stick around for dialogue after a boss because they are running to the next boss or mobs.

It would also be a stepping stone for players who, for whatever reason, are hesitant to start normal group dungeons and maybe they would enjoy it enough to work up to the next step.

VisitHammerfell

dmnqwk wrote: »

I don't think there should be a story mode.

I don't object to people asking nor want to convince them otherwise, I just want to state I think there should not be one.

MMOs were invented as group activities, to play with others. Gradually, over time, players started to demand ways to avoid playing with others and so MMOs get turned into single player games.

There are several single player ESO games, but this one is meant to be an MMO - so inventing single player dungeons will add a strain to servers needlessly, which could be used to power more group activities (maybe even that silly cyrodil people love so much).

The skill point and gear can be reserved for group play. I am not a why does my Skyrim online have people in it type.... I do multiple trials weekly (some of them HMs) and have a dungeon HM/trifetca group (got Silver Rose yesterday). I literally just want to experience and listen to dungeon storylines. That's it, I literally just want to actually listen to and understand the story

spartaxoxo

Since some of the quests are literally skipped when attempting to do them in groups, and the quests contain a lot of dialogue, imo a story mode should include quest and skill point.


To me...Story Mode should include quest, exp, overland gear from the zone the story is in, undaunted skill line progress (you can literally progress this skill in delves).


It should not include pledge progress, dungeon finder rewards, keys, dungeon gear, monster helms, special bonus loot, any event rewards for the various events in the game that include dungeons, and style page drops.

Marronsuisse

Another vote for story mode.

I can't solo the more recent DLC dungeons and it bothers me that I can't experience the stories tied to the prologue and chapter quests.

When I have done dungeons with people who also want to see the story, many times someone accidentally skips the dialogue forward and I can't read it all. Not any player's fault, just the quest design in this game is not suited to multiple people doing quests together.

sshogrin

They really just need to make it so you can get the quest, go thru the dungeon, then turn in at the end. The quest giving NPC just needs to appear and not have to have a long dialogue before you can turn in.

The base game dungeons suck with this since the NPCs talk for forever, you have to wait, and if people go ahead, they'll lock you out of what you have to do to finish the quest.

Avoriaa

I think a somewhat doable solution is to have a sort of companion "guide" for when you go in solo. This character will act like a companion but with all preset gear and abilities and even have a tie to the dungeons lore, this coupled with a normal companion can make the dungeon soloable without having to balance a new difficulty. NPC companions can be reused across multiple dungeons to save on Dev time.

and if I haven't convince you, these guides could be unlockable as permanent companions if you complete all their associated dungeons and maybe a few extraneous achievements.

Uvi_AUT

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We have passed this feedback along before, but will be sure to note it again for the dev team. Nothing to announce regarding this, but it's on their radar to consider along with other player requests.

Very nice. Option is always good. Maybe in the meantime it would be easier to go through the dungeons and make sure there are no mechanics that have you have 2 people? (Like Oneshots and Pressure Plates etc.). That way the soloing would be possible.

But if there is consideration of a storymode, can you also do a harder difficultymode for Overland-Content? (which is like 90% of the whole game). In the state it is it is mindnumbingly boring and actively keeping me from recommending the game to anyone.

EchoesofThunder

Maybe they could write the stories into 2 or 3 of the region's delves? No, wait, that's probably more work than a 3rd difficulty level. Actually, why is a 3rd difficulty level so ... hard to create? Just nerf the bosses and adds, right?

Hotdog_23

If they ever do a story mode, and I hope they do. My wish is that it is repeatable so that it can be done over and over if desired. Done some of the story's years ago and have forgotten most of them and would run again just for the story.

In the same thought, if and when that ever do this, I really hope they extend it for trials as well. I have never once been able to enjoy the story of them or taken the time to enjoy the scenery.

Disable all drops and achievements is my idea.

Stay safe

mocap

All dungeons can be soloed atm, including Imperial City Prison. Just checked - Shadow Image is still working to pull levers.

Other than that:
Wayrest Sewers 2 - dd companion and heal him standing as far away as possible on first boss.
Blackheart haven - werewolf on last boss. Maybe it still works.
Direfrost keep - Snipe + Charge on troll at the end of the hallway standing outside the door to fly over it. Then kill the boss, exit the dungeon, enter again, jump into the portal.
White gold tower - max level auto lockpick, also use any companion to increase chance of the boss not respawning.
Fang lair - super tricky use of Precognition on skeli ghost boss. Use it immediately right after last pull tick.

The only dungeon in which mechanic are not very clear (at least for me) is Fungal Grotto 2, spider boss. She pulls player into portal and then it seems to be pure random - boss may or may not respawn.

alpha_synuclein

Trial quests have the advantage of being repeatable. And the story parts are concentrated in the starting and ending dialogue. One can easily port in the instance way ahead of group run and read up at their own pace.

With end part all you need is one person to not leave the group, so you can stay in the instance. They don't need to even stay online. Finding one person willing to do that is not difficult in a guild run. All you have to do is ask.

As for the in between parts, afaik usually there is not that much to stick around for. Especially in the newest trials npcs often are not even hanging around or have interact option. I tried multiple times to talk to npcs in between fights, while group was taking a brake, someone was discussing stuff or we waited for disconnected players to come back (there is quite a lot of possibilities here actually, as long as you're bothered to try...). Most of what I was getting from those interactions was something like: "hey, you promised to kill the bad guy, get on with it!" (exclamation point included specifically for Divyath Fyr ). Not really much of a story to miss here.

There is soooo many ppl that want to play stories that I really cannot get why you just can't get together and do it. You have options. Multiple.

And if you are so against playing with other ppl in any way, maybe single player rpg is a better option? Because coming into a multiplayer game and requesting solo mode for every piece of group content is really rather silly...

manukartofanu

What's the problem with finding just one more person who wants to read the dungeon story? All dungeons on normal mode can be completed by two people. Most are completed solo. If two people aren't enough, you can find two more and suffer through them as a group of four on normal mode, but at least you'll get to read the story.

The developers have already added a mode for finding groups directly in the game, so you can just gather a party there. Is it really that difficult?

And if it is indeed difficult, why do you assume that it will somehow make it easier for you to find a group of random players for questing through the dungeon you need? If people aren't interested in reading the dungeon story for the hundredth time, then the addition of another mode won't change that. You'll just end up complaining on forums that the rewards for this mode aren't good enough and they need to be significantly increased.

Sarannah

A +3 companions random dungeonqueue would solve everyone's dungeon problems, as that would allow all players to go at their own pace. Both slow and fast, and anything in between. While keeping all the current dungeon options available.

katanagirl1

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Trial quests have the advantage of being repeatable. And the story parts are concentrated in the starting and ending dialogue. One can easily port in the instance way ahead of group run and read up at their own pace.

With end part all you need is one person to not leave the group, so you can stay in the instance. They don't need to even stay online. Finding one person willing to do that is not difficult in a guild run. All you have to do is ask.

As for the in between parts, afaik usually there is not that much to stick around for. Especially in the newest trials npcs often are not even hanging around or have interact option. I tried multiple times to talk to npcs in between fights, while group was taking a brake, someone was discussing stuff or we waited for disconnected players to come back (there is quite a lot of possibilities here actually, as long as you're bothered to try...). Most of what I was getting from those interactions was something like: "hey, you promised to kill the bad guy, get on with it!" (exclamation point included specifically for Divyath Fyr ). Not really much of a story to miss here.

There is soooo many ppl that want to play stories that I really cannot get why you just can't get together and do it. You have options. Multiple.

And if you are so against playing with other ppl in any way, maybe single player rpg is a better option? Because coming into a multiplayer game and requesting solo mode for every piece of group content is really rather silly...

My trials group is doing Vmol right now. There is a lot of dialogue after the first boss but I can’t stick around and hear what they have to say. There is also dialogue on the way to the twins I think, during one of the longer trash pulls but you would have to stop and the group goes into the cave for the ogres. Someone in the group said he liked the story for that one but I have no idea what it is.

ZoeliTintanie

Sarannah wrote: »

A +3 companions random dungeonqueue would solve everyone's dungeon problems, as that would allow all players to go at their own pace. Both slow and fast, and anything in between. While keeping all the current dungeon options available.

This is a great idea. Yes please to being able to take 3 companions with us into dungeons if we're the only player in the group.

GuuMoonRyoung

How about an entire update just adding story mode to all available dungeons and nothing else? I think it would be an extremely amazing QoL update for all players.

BasP

GuuMoonRyoung wrote: »

How about an entire update just adding story mode to all available dungeons and nothing else? I think it would be an extremely amazing QoL update for all players.

All players? I don't think everyone would be satisfied with that as the only update for a whole quarter. If the same update would also include an optional Veteran Overland toggle, however, that might make it a bit better.

CrashTest

sarahthes wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Base game dungeons do not need adjusting to solo or just play for story. They are only a tiny bit more difficult than base game public dungeons.

they do not need adjusting for you.
not for everyone.

please understand that there would not be so many people agreeing to this post if you truly spoke for everyone.

it is great that some people can solo normal mode dungeons, but as is very very clear for years not everyone can.

i can solo some dungeons which is nice, but i cannot solo all of them.
And know that it is also possible some people cannot solo Fungal Grotto 1, yes even the dungeon so many people think is the easiest ever.

i know i struggled with base game public dungeons in the past so i cannot even fathom thinking everyone is able to do those.

Perhaps the difference is that I think people should elevate themselves to the content, rather than expecting the content to be lowered to them.

Progression, not regression. Stop limiting yourselves behind "I can't" and think instead of "how can I?"

Most people won't or can't for one reason or another. People still die to base game world bosses. ESO is mostly super casual.

Silverfaerie

sarahthes wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Base game dungeons do not need adjusting to solo or just play for story. They are only a tiny bit more difficult than base game public dungeons.

they do not need adjusting for you.
not for everyone.

please understand that there would not be so many people agreeing to this post if you truly spoke for everyone.

it is great that some people can solo normal mode dungeons, but as is very very clear for years not everyone can.

i can solo some dungeons which is nice, but i cannot solo all of them.
And know that it is also possible some people cannot solo Fungal Grotto 1, yes even the dungeon so many people think is the easiest ever.

i know i struggled with base game public dungeons in the past so i cannot even fathom thinking everyone is able to do those.

Perhaps the difference is that I think people should elevate themselves to the content, rather than expecting the content to be lowered to them.

Progression, not regression. Stop limiting yourselves behind "I can't" and think instead of "how can I?"

that's nice... if you are lucky enough to have so much free time on your hands to actualy do that. most people have limited time to play video games at all, let alone get good enough at them through various grinds - to be able solo content that was DESIGNED TO BE GROUPED FOR.

how can I? oh I don't know, by finding a large suitcase of money so that I don't have to worry about bills, and a magic potion that gives me better reflexes.

not everyone has the same circumstances. people have to deal with variety of limitations and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. the game offers modes you "elevate yourself" to already. they will still be there for you, without gatekeeping large chunk of the content from a good portion of players, especially now that they stopped doing a story DLCs for last quarter and are focusing on general game upgrades instead, so the only new stories that come out other then main expansion - are dungeons.

Silverfaerie

sshogrin wrote: »

They really just need to make it so you can get the quest, go thru the dungeon, then turn in at the end. The quest giving NPC just needs to appear and not have to have a long dialogue before you can turn in.

The base game dungeons suck with this since the NPCs talk for forever, you have to wait, and if people go ahead, they'll lock you out of what you have to do to finish the quest.

this and other replies like this are completely missing the point as to WHY people are requesting story dungeons. the whole point is that we WANT to see the stories, we WANT to listen to NPC's we WANT to experience the lore, we do NOT want to skip it. the opinions on skill point, gear, etc may vary (I'm perfectly content with story mode awarding no skill points and a piece of overland gear at the end - after all its how storymode dungeons work in SWTOR and I love that they are an option)

but the whole point of story/solo mode IS TO EXPERIENCE THE STORY. NOT to skip it.

ChaoticWings3

I think story mode is honestly a good option for a few reasons. The main one from my experience is that I don't have much time to play the game every day so it usually boils down to whoever is in my guilds at night, not doing trials or dungeon achievements, and whoever is ok with going at a slower pace through the dungeon. Even when I do managed to get some guys together they can still go a bit too fast and have me miss a quest tick or worse I teleport to them when I'm trying to listen to dialogue which is then skipped after said boss is beaten. Depends on the dungeon too. There are some that only have a few interactable characters then there are others where there is at least 5 or 6 (sometimes with like 3 lines each but if you are listening to dialogue it can feel like an eternity to your group). Not to mention even if you don't have a quest tick the characters can still have extra dialogue, quips or what not. I like to experience as much of the game that the developers poured time and energy into.

The reason why I am cool with a story mode is because I am trying to read and listen to all the lore in the game in a relaxed manner. Its how I play the Elder Scrolls anyway. I played ESO with the intention of trying to get to endgame as soon as possible originally so I could experience trials and try to get some of the skins from dungeon achievements. This resulted in me pushing through dungeons and not paying any attention to what was being said because the rest of my group is already about 3 rooms ahead of me and getting mad because I was the tank trying to enjoy the story. So I stopped caring what the story was and just completed the dungeons for skill points. Couldn't go back to listen to quest dialogue because quests are not repeatable so I was stuck trying to find a video online for the story or worse some dialogue on a wiki so I could at least read it....that was very boring to do.

It isn't just about the dialogue in the quest but lore books as well and if you want to have full context of the area you are exploring you may want to read them in the location you are exploring otherwise it feels disconnected when you read them later. I honestly only know the storylines to probably 6 dlc dungeons and the vanilla dungeons most of which I had to read from wiki information. I feel like you should get to experience the story at least once.

Story mode could be a thing where the quest is repeatable, no boss mechanics, craglorn delve difficulty, no dungeon rewards (no set drops), cannot get undaunted pledges, and no achievements. The reason I suggest this is to not encourage players to focus on the mode as a source of getting sets or other rewards and to be exclusively used to experience the story, voice acting, and lore book that are scattered around the dungeon.

ADarklore

dmnqwk wrote: »

I don't think there should be a story mode.

I don't object to people asking nor want to convince them otherwise, I just want to state I think there should not be one.

MMOs were invented as group activities, to play with others. Gradually, over time, players started to demand ways to avoid playing with others and so MMOs get turned into single player games.

There are several single player ESO games, but this one is meant to be an MMO - so inventing single player dungeons will add a strain to servers needlessly, which could be used to power more group activities (maybe even that silly cyrodil people love so much).

You do realize that there is a very good reason WHY most MMOs these days are trending towards adding more soloable content versus group content, right? It's because the vast majority of gamers don't want to play with others, BUT, they want a game they can play for a long time... that constantly gets updated, they have random encounters, new things added over years, etc. All things you cannot get from a single player game... which is why they turn to MMOs.

The concept of 'group content only' disappeared about 10 years ago, when developers started to realize that the group-oriented players were now spread so thin between all the MMO games, that they had to start looking for ways of reaching more players. Then they began to realize there was a large, untapped segment of gamers... solo-centric players and casuals who preferred to play solo, yet wanted a long-term game investment.

So yes, MMOs WERE initially invented for people to get together and play with others, however, it was not sustainable financially for devs to focus on. Thus, the term MMO now simply means a massive number of players playing the same game at the same time, and NOT necessarily in group-focused content.

MreeBiPolar

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Dunno why Story Mode would have to be a 3rd difficulty level.

Just make it identical to Normal mode, but tie it to an Activity where you can't vote kick. Add in an incentive with completion rewards similar to Random Daily does, or an achievement that unlocks a weapon/armor style.

Then someone rushes forward, messing the quest up for other people (LOTS of those dungeon quests are "someone hit fast forward, next stage, skip the story for the others") and they can't even get kicked 🤣

TheImperfect

Also if you are grouped and using any sort of voice chat (or just even ordinary text chat) the other players don't know when you are hearing dialogue and talk or message through it which is distracting and completely ruins the immersion and concentration on the story.

alpha_synuclein

katanagirl1 wrote: »

My trials group is doing Vmol right now. There is a lot of dialogue after the first boss but I can’t stick around and hear what they have to say. There is also dialogue on the way to the twins I think, during one of the longer trash pulls but you would have to stop and the group goes into the cave for the ogres. Someone in the group said he liked the story for that one but I have no idea what it is.

This indicates that you have at least one other person interested in trial stories.
If it's a prog it is unlikely for ppl to want to go slow, but maybe there are more people in your group/guild that would like to do a story oriented run? Maybe it would be worth trying to inspire a discussion within the guild or to organize such a run yourself/suggest to the guild to put some out? Did you try to find out what your options are?

GuuMoonRyoung

Another quick alternative to story mode dungeon can be what FF14 does with their dungeons. The entire dungeon is an event with multiple objectives, we need to complete the 1st objective to unlock the second one and so on. And when we complete the entire event, the dungeon is complete. No need to accept any quest and so on. Those who complete the event for the first time on a toon, they get one skill point.

Hurbster

One of the reasons I've not come back to be honest.