Dungeon runs are worse than ever before

xXSilverDragonXx

I've been playing ESO on and off since 2016. Every time I return to the game I find myself needing to adapt to some new level of foolishness. Today takes the cake. And really, something needs to change.

Had a dungeon run today where yet again another player decides the run is all about what they want and charges through the dungeon skipping and pulling bosses, triggering the boss fight so everyone gets pulled into it. Problem is that someone was doing the quest. Having been a person in this situation I am mindful to try to be sure people can get their quests done. Short take of how this went down which was captured in chat:

I said someone is doing the quest. Player continued to charge on bypassing a boss. Keep in mind they are the healer.

I said 'how about you let the person do the quest". They say Ok.

The mob they pulled trying to skip got out of control and oh yes, they as the 'healer' didn't heal. Everyone but them is dead and this 'healer' continues to solo fight the boss.

I wait to see if this person can solo the boss, but it becomes evident that they cannot nor do they try to rez. I asked them to die so we could reset. The rest is in the chat. Yes, I was salty. I am sick of this garbage behavior. Tired of being polite to rude selfish little idiots.

Zos, something needs to be done about this behavior and these situations. Fake tanks, fake healers, full dungeon pull speedruns that drag everyone into a boss fight so that a person can't even have a conversation with an NPC to update their quest. It's really ridiculous out there.

Before people say run with a guild or friends, one should be able to do a basic low level dungeon on normal and complete the quest without this level of BS. There are ways to solve this. ZOS either is oblivious to the degree of absurd that it has become or doesn't care. Which is it?

Juju_beans

I'm one that likes to take my time and quest, kill stuff and loot crates so I stay solo.

The very same is happening in delves and public dungeons....

Speed runners going right for the boss and a huge train of mobs behind them.

Honestly someone needs to make a game where you enter a room and kill the boss....maybe that would make these speed runners happy.

Grega

You stated “one should be able to get basic low level dungeon done”. Agreed. One can and should be able to solo it, avoiding what you posted.

Horny_Poney

xXSilverDragonXx wrote: »

There are ways to solve this.

What do you suggest?

Juju_beans

Grega wrote: »

You stated “one should be able to get basic low level dungeon done”. Agreed. One can and should be able to solo it, avoiding what you posted.

I know that I could not solo dungeons while I was leveling up.

Grega

Juju_beans wrote: »

Grega wrote: »

You stated “one should be able to get basic low level dungeon done”. Agreed. One can and should be able to solo it, avoiding what you posted.

I know that I could not solo dungeons while I was leveling up.

Well I think Sharp-as-Night could help. Or at least, he’d have something to say about it 🫠

xXSilverDragonXx

Grega wrote: »

You stated “one should be able to get basic low level dungeon done”. Agreed. One can and should be able to solo it, avoiding what you posted.

My level 38 legit tank should be abl to solo? Interesting.

xXSilverDragonXx

Horny_Poney wrote: »

xXSilverDragonXx wrote: »

There are ways to solve this.

What do you suggest?

Since the main issue here is about trying to get the quest done, then probably just final boss kill and no NPC conversations to during the dungeon because that become problematic when people are speed running. You will never be able to change their behavior, but you can make modifications so that their behavior doesn't cause others to lose their chance to get the quest done. I will just go back and get it later. But newer low level players have a large learning curve in this game. So making it so if there is some speedrunner pulling bosses and mobs that caused them to miss conversations that are needed to update the quest a thing that won't negatively impact their ability to complete the quest would be nice.

I don't see how we can change player behavior. But we can change the system so they get the quest completed at the end.

Veinblood1965

I've ran into that before, some people are just rude and not group oriented and you can't get enough people to vote kick if they are healers or tanks you want to kick.

Maybe there should be a "vote" option at the end of each run that all can see when they first group like champion points but ayes, nay and neutral. If you get tipped over let's say 25% nays then you cannot group with anyone for a day or a week etc? After your penalty is up you can group again, that might make them be a little less inconsiderate.

moo_2021

Juju_beans wrote: »

The very same is happening in delves and public dungeons....

Speed runners going right for the boss and a huge train of mobs behind them.

What's wrong with that? If you follow them you would skip some of the annoying mobs. If they had killed everyone, it's likely you'd have to do it all over again because they respawn too fast.

valenwood_vegan

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

colossalvoids

You can't really rule out people who doesn't care about other's experience. "Lul kik me" also suggests a language gap here.

DigiAngel

Adapt. That's all you can do. You can't force people to be decent. Slot a heal, and hang back and help the people quest. Recently I was in a dungeon as a tank and noticed people stopping to do what was obviously the quest, so I said "Questers...cool". At which point I was dogged out about being down on questers.....huh? Shrug. People are just tense and misread things all the time. Maybe I could have put something different, but I would have thought my actions of going slow would have added to my statement.

Trejgon

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

I really hope this is some lost to text form sarcasm, because if that's serious suggestion, then it might be the single worst idea I have seen on these forums this year....

valenwood_vegan

Trejgon wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

I really hope this is some lost to text form sarcasm, because if that's serious suggestion, then it might be the single worst idea I have seen on these forums this year....

I mean, I didn't see any actual suggestions of how to solve the problem so I thought I'd offer.

Certainly the quests could be streamlined so that completion doesn't get blocked by other players' actions, but the overall complaints of this type seem to involve random players behaving in ways that are different from another's expectations. This really can't be solved.

And yes, /s.

sans-culottes

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

I lol’d. Always boggles my mind when people can’t detect sarcasm, wry humor, etc.

valenwood_vegan

sans-culottes wrote: »

I lol’d. Always boggles my mind when people can’t detect sarcasm, wry humor, etc.

lol glad at least someone enjoyed that... and sarcasm aside, my list was made up of actual complaints I've seen people make about randoms on the forum and in guild chats over the years.

DenverRalphy

colossalvoids wrote: »

"Lul kik me" also suggests a language gap here.

Nah. It suggests a generational/age gap. It's the lazy phonetic typing vernacular popular with younger generations (funny that they phoneticly spell LOL as if they'd literally say "Lul" out loud if they were in a speaking conversation).

DenverRalphy

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

Or they could skip all that and simply create a trigger to the Boss spawns so that they don't spawn if any player in the group has an active quest that hasn't completed up to that point.

Desiato

I'm frustrated by the same thing. I think as an oldschool AvA player, I have stuck in combat PTSD. I am triggered any time it happens. So I can't stand it when someone decides they want to jump ahead of the rest of the group for any reason and keep me stuck in combat.

But also, there are practical reasons. Resource recovery is much higher out of combat and movement speed is 20% faster via steed's blessing.

So I would argue it's faster just to melt the trash and always be at full resources and moving at full speed -- plus always reaching the boss with full ult.

On top of that, many players like to have trash and boss setups, but are unable to switch while in combat.

So I think it's lazy and usually counter-intuitive to skip, unless the trash/encounter can be skipped cleanly without any impact.

But I think any solution to the problem will be more annoying than the problem itself, creating annoying rules and barriers with collateral impacts. The problem itself won't be solved because the problem is individuals with different ideas about how things should be done and how much consideration they show others. Nothing we or ZOS can do will change those things. They will manifest in other ways.

This is pug life. Grouping with total random strangers from a pool of players spanning several generations, continents, cultures from all walks of life will always require compromise. Considering this, I think it's amazing pug dungeons work as well as they do.

When I encounter something I do not prefer in a PUG, I either try to make the best of it which is most of the time, or I just opt out by leaving. I respect the player I don't vibe with is entitled to play how they want and move on.

Juju_beans

moo_2021 wrote: »

Juju_beans wrote: »

The very same is happening in delves and public dungeons....

Speed runners going right for the boss and a huge train of mobs behind them.

What's wrong with that? If you follow them you would skip some of the annoying mobs. If they had killed everyone, it's likely you'd have to do it all over again because they respawn too fast.

I actually like going through and killing mobs, looting chests and doing the quests.
When that train of mobs return to their original spots I have to be prepared to fight them.

Not nice at all.

kargen27

I'm still an advocate of you don't get last boss rewards or dungeon completion unless all bosses and 95% of trash is killed. The 95% is because sometimes an add or two will get stuck in a wall and can't be killed. Take away all incentives to rush ahead and the behavior will end.

I do have an exception though. This would only apply to groups formed in group finder. Pre-made groups can do whatever they wish as everybody should know what to expect going in. That way players farming gear can still do so without dealing with all the trash. No daily rewards for random though if everything doesn't die.

Warhawke_80

Yet more reasons the game needs a Story mode for Dungeons...especially with the rise of folks who enter the Dungeon Finder just to grief....and before someone defines MMO to me...that term means a lot of different things to a lot of different people and no one definition is more valid than the other....

I know Story Mode Dungeons and Trails are on the devs radar...I even listed it as one of the current pain points in Kevin's Thread...but I really wish they would speed up the development, because a lot of folks are quitting once all the quest are done...I'm trying to do my part and run folks through as much as possible but it's a losing battle

tmacedo

I always respect the tank's pace (if he is in a reasonable speed, not dc'd, not trolling etc) stopping before groups of adds so he can have his fun too (grouping mobs, cc'ing them is fun too!). When I tank I go relatively fast and stop before a group of mobs so people can catch with me jf I'm ahead. Mostly groups wait for me to pull so its nice.

What im seeing more frequently is the healer wannabe dps when I'm tanking so my runs ends up being a marathon simulator, which is really annoying and perfectly fits the OP situation.

Now cant really say for delves and PD, since there is no control when someone is going to enter and who is already inside. I'd bet the general environment is nicer than pug dungeons. Always regret when arrive seconds later of a kill (like keep captures in cyrodiil), but dont (and cant) really blame anyone for doing the content. Sometimes farming buddies compliment each other, wish good luck when leaving and etc.

Imza

Please give us a Story Mode that can be done solo or in a group- no rewards required or expected - just the ability to do the story and gain the skill point.
Then remove the skill point from the group dungeon!

Warhawke_80

Imza wrote: »

Please give us a Story Mode that can be done solo or in a group- no rewards required or expected - just the ability to do the story and gain the skill point.
Then remove the skill point from the group dungeon!

Without some form of reward system the mode will basically be left abandoned...while I don't expect the exact same rearwards a Ticket system that could be traded for halfway decent sets would attract a lot of traffic to the Dungeons and Trials

The exciting part of this however is that they could really do something significant with a Dungeon story mode you can begin doing regular quest which will lead you to the Dungeon story....that would make the entire game much more dynamic.

heaven13

DenverRalphy wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

Or they could skip all that and simply create a trigger to the Boss spawns so that they don't spawn if any player in the group has an active quest that hasn't completed up to that point.

Oof, I could see this being abused. Wait to see who has to backtrack to do something and then kick them and hope the next person who comes in doesn't have the quest.

DenverRalphy

heaven13 wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

With recent advances in tech, they could just have an AI review the build of every player who signs up for a random dungeon.

It could then monitor the run to make sure all players perform sufficiently. If the AI detects any player not pulling their weight, such as going too fast, too slow, failing to pick a treasure chest lock on the first attempt, missing a taunt, dying, skipping any side boss or trash mob, doing less than 50k dps, failing to heal, wearing non meta gear, failing to provide other players with the gear they request at the end of the run, not saying hello at the beginning and tyfg at the end, speaking any language other than english, making any requests of the other group members, stopping to read quest dialogue, getting lost, lacking knowledge of any mechanic, or any other behavior it deems rude or selfish, it could instantly kick the offending player and issue a 1 week grouping ban, or even a 1000 crown fine.

Logs could then be reviewed at the end to confirm.

Or they could skip all that and simply create a trigger to the Boss spawns so that they don't spawn if any player in the group has an active quest that hasn't completed up to that point.

Oof, I could see this being abused. Wait to see who has to backtrack to do something and then kick them and hope the next person who comes in doesn't have the quest.

What backtrack? You couldn't get to a point requiring a backtrack, as the boss wouldn't spawn until all players with an active quest are in the boss' area/arena. Anybody who speeds ahead will just have to wait.

Warhawke_80

So this is my vision of a Story Mode system for Dungeons. Admittedly what we end up with the difficulties of development won't probably be anywhere near with what we end up with, but without further ado....




Dungeon Finder: Story Mode

The Story Mode within the Dungeon Finder system offers a flexible and engaging experience for 1-3 players, with no role restrictions. Players can either:

Enter solo for a personal adventure.
Group up (2-3 players) for a cooperative experience.
Dungeon Structure
Each dungeon is designed with two distinct narrative elements:

Main Storyline – A one-time experience per character that delves deep into the lore, challenges, and unique encounters within the dungeon. Completing this grants exclusive rewards and progresses your character’s story.
Side Storylines – These can be played an unlimited number of times, offering replayability with dynamic objectives, enemy variations, and lore expansions that enhance world-building.
Rewards System & Adventurers' Guild
Every dungeon completion grants one Ticket, a special currency redeemable at the Adventurers' Guild for various rewards, including:

Gear & Weapons – Strengthen your character with new equipment.
Furniture & Housing Items – Customize your personal space with unique decorations.
Consumables & Utility Items – Potions, scrolls, and other helpful tools.
Potential Expansion: Crafting & Scrying
This system could introduce new mechanics tied to Crafting & Scrying, allowing players to:

Craft unique dungeon-themed items using materials obtained from Story Mode.
Scry for hidden secrets within dungeons, unlocking additional lore, special encounters, or rare crafting components.
Enhance gear through dungeon-based crafting, adding further depth to customization.
By integrating these mechanics, Story Mode becomes more than just an alternative dungeon experience—it opens the door for deeper player engagement, economy interaction, and long-term content viability.



Anyway that's what I would like to see, it would be great if the devs could do even half of this...but there are always unseen challenges.




Oh Thanks CHATGPT for taking my random thoughts and putting them into presentation form.

tom6143346

Rnd normal = basically story mode , at least all non dlc dungeons you can solo them even under level 50 , sorry but that just the way it is . I’m excited to see how people will deal with increased overland .

tom6143346

And if you on a tank , just use a DD setup on the arsenal table and you good . It’s a rnd it means I take what I get and deal with . You want change people , but you can adapt.