U50 Feedback Thread for Dynamic Encounters

ZOS_Kevin

This is the official feedback thread for the new Dynamic Encounters System. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• How would you describe yourself as a player? (Examples: Casual quester? High end trial runner?)
• Which event did you join?
• Where you able to complete the event?
• Did you understand the event objectives?
• How many players were in the event with you?
• Did you enjoy the activities in the event?
• Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate?
• Any general feedback?

DoofusMax

• How would you describe yourself as a player? (Examples: Casual quester? High end trial runner?): Somewhere between those two. Perhaps more toward casual than tryhard, but the only things I tend to actively avoid are PvP and Trials.
• Which event did you join?: Farm Aflame (twice, but the first time was accidental)
• Where you able to complete the event?: Yes, and even with Challenge Difficulty set (Master, I think)
• Did you understand the event objectives?: Yes, but more in general feedback.
• How many players were in the event with you?: Just me and companion
• Did you enjoy the activities in the event?: It was fine and not too far outside of other side-quests in the various zones.
• Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate?: Meh. Nothing in the reward chest stood out, but also not "all that work for this?"
• Any general feedback?: I think my biggest "complaint" was the repeating NPC dialogue. "Lady, I know you've got a problem here. I'm working on it. Like REALLY working on it. You don't need to keep yelling that you have a problem and are going to be ruined if it's not solved. I'm here because I heard you the first time." The mechanics of the encounter were a little wonky. Get the horses into the corral, put out all fires, and run the trash baddie gauntlet while accomplishing those two. If you want to call it an issue, killing enough of the trash baddies causes the boss baddie to spawn in and everything goes on hold until the boss is dealt with (all the while hearing how the lady is going to be ruined if something isn't done). I think the horses phase has a timer (too busy running the trash baddie gauntlet to pay close attention). If so, it was long enough to get all three into the corral, which moved the objective to putting out the fires.

MartianPhoenix

I think a pulsating icon (like the ones for dolmens and other incursions) will help to focus attention on the encounter as it happens, as of now it kinda just looks like any other POI.

DoofusMax

Different encounter, different take.

• Which event did you join? The one in Stonefalls (Werewolf boss)
• Where you able to complete the event? No. More in general comments.
• Did you understand the event objectives? Not really. More in general comments.
• How many players were in the event with you? Just me and Ember (tanking)
• Did you enjoy the activities in the event? "Less than enthused" comes closest.
• Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate? Don't know.
• Any general feedback? Below
  [/quote]
  
  Chasing the answer to a different question at the time, but running between the three locations (Auridon, Glenumbra, and Stonefalls) until one of them fired and it just happened to be goodies for grandma that fired first.
  
  Instructions on Phase 1 were unclear. Had an 8m timer in which to gather unknown quantities of things with green arrows. The timer might have been longer, but the encounter started when I wasn't at the location and it was at 8m by the time I got to it. Wasn't sure if I was supposed to gather, fish, or both and no idea how much of whatever was needed. Gathered first since the character wasn't perked out for fishing and kept fingers crossed. Nodes respawn very quickly, so I ended up gathering 110% with just plants and that ended Phase 1. Chest appeared and off to grandma's house we went.
  
  Phase 2 was a relatively standard escort mission except that the NPC can take damage and like most NPCs, has no idea how to avoid damage. The character's backbar was some Healer stuff, but there are problems. Probably the biggest was that the Resto staff Regeneration abilities will not target them. So fight Shalks, drop AoE heals, fight Shalks, drop heals, fight Shalks, etc. It kept them alive, but Regeneration not being able to target them meant that they couldn't heal up between encounters. Chest appeared after the last of those encounters.
  
  Phase 3 was the boss fight (4.3M health bar). Ember and I were handling the boss reasonably well, but the NPCs were catching damage from the boss' AoEs so same problem as the other encounters of trying to maintain their health while also keeping Ember in the fight and managing the boss. Unknown to me, the fight was on a timer. We'd beaten down about half the boss' health or a bit more when "we'll try again when it's less dangerous" ended the encounter.

Vaqual

The Vampire Hunt event in Glenumbra just vanished when I arrived. I don't know if it was a timing thing or I failed something instantly, but there was no more indication for me what I should have done.

shadoza

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the new Dynamic Encounters System. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

How would you describe yourself as a player? (Examples: Casual quester? High end trial runner?)
I am a solo runner that does group events when my friends are up for it. I am not a groupie. I do not play casually but I do not play PvP in this game or group. I take my gaming seriously and do not use outside sources or min/max to complete content. I rely on gaming skills not gimmicks.

Which event did you join?
There was no joining to the event. I was running cross country on a quest and the event happened upon me. It was the Event in Glenumbra. Save a vampire killer and do something with the relics. I was not looking to complete the encounter as I do not enjoy working group content alone.

Where you able to complete the event?
Alone? No.

Did you understand the event objectives?
Only what the game threw at me during the event. Keep the hunter from dying.

How many players were in the event with you?
None. As stated I just wandered into the area, fought a wolf that followed me, then took out a foe that attacked me and suddenly the event is telling me to do this and that. Another player arrived just after the hunter died. They were not happy.
This event is flawed as it assumes that someone wandering into the area and hitting something is wanting to participate. If one of the objectives is protect something and that one individual moves on, the whole event is ruined for those still moving toward the event. In this case, there should be a tag-in mechanism so encounter is activated on purpose rather than on passing.

Did you enjoy the activities in the event?
No. I do not enjoy group content on most occasions.

Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate?
What reward?

Any general feedback?
My opinion ==> This game does not need more group events. Some, if not most, players don't mind group content if it is their choice, but when development attempts to force group play, they don't like it. Dynamic Encounters needs to be activated so one passing soul does not incidentally start a group event where there is no group available.

CP5

So I went to Glenumbra and saw the vampire hunter event was up. I went up, saw the glowing gold objectives, and could clearly read to return the things to the npc. It was obnoxious to have the giant text pop-up that the objective would fail if the npc died, made worse by no apparent health bar to track it. I suppose I could fiddle with my health bar settings for over head bars, but I'm pretty sure I already had that set to turn on if the friendly npc was wounded, yet I saw none. I was there alone, on master difficulty, and while it was easy to dispatch the enemies at the objective, picking up the objective and being locked out of my basic attacks and skills made returning the thing to the npc a chore, and the one time I went to use the heavy attack heal, the npc died and the objective failed. Should I have known going in to slot a heal to use on her? Maybe, though you can't really know which heal will be useful if the npc will move or not, but honestly without a lot of people on this objective, doing that retrieval task 10 times alone and having to defend the npc on the return trip with the magic based attack just didn't feel good.

FabresFour

How would you describe yourself as a player? (Examples: Casual quester? High end trial runner?)

I’m a casual solo-content player: I do quests, delves, public dungeons, and that kind of thing.

Which event did you join?
I participated in all three events multiple times.

Where you able to complete the event?

The first time? Not really, I arrived with about 20 seconds left before it ended. It might be a good idea to only start the event timer once a player actually engages with it; otherwise, it’s pretty frustrating to show up and see it about to finish.

Did you understand the event objectives?
Yes, I understood the objectives. At first, I’ll admit I was a bit confused since it doesn’t follow a very common ESO pattern, but it turned out great.

How many players were in the event with you?
The first time I did it solo, but I also ended up doing the event with up to three other players.

Did you enjoy the activities in the event?

Yes, I absolutely LOVED the activities, and I think the game really LACKS overland group content like this. Honestly, I did it solo, but it’s much more fun with other people. The whole “race against time” dynamic and helping each other was very engaging. The activities were fun and felt polished, I’d love to see a bigger rotation of things to do, like escorting caravans between cities while fending off bandits, dragons attacking locations, and similar ideas. The world felt MUCH more alive with just these three events. I think every map should have at least a few of these (2 or 3 per map). I know that’s a huge undertaking, but it would be amazing.

Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate?
The rewards are interesting: the Coldharbour Vampire skin looks like it’s going to be really cool (even though it doesn’t have a model on the PTS yet), and the house we’ll get also caught my attention. As for the rest, I didn’t care that much. The challenge, however, was GREAT! It’s perfectly balanced for solo play and scales well with more players.

General feedback:
Increase the time to engage with the event, or only start the timer when players are actually there. Also, add more event variety per map, not everything needs to be super complex. Like I said, adding caravan escorts and similar activities could really breathe new life into older maps.

Overall, this feels like a FANTASTIC start for the system.

MoonPile

I traveled around but couldn't find any active ones at the stated locations. Did not see any icons either (flashing icon would help, as MartianPhoenix said). Maybe I'm just too late; are they still going this week?

EDIT:
I saw an event icon for the first time in Glenumbra, but when I got there it disappeared from the map. It was still showing on the Compass, but nothing was happening.

Still no luck actually getting an active one.
Agree with Freelancer below, The frequency of the activities might be a little low.

EDIT 2:
Ok, finally got one. But Nimineh died in less than a minute -_-

That was really unclear; She said "seek out Stendarr's gifts" so I ran to do that. Then ran back to her when it said the event would fail if she died, but I was too late – in such a short time! Why does she apparently have zero armor / health? I guess this is not soloable?




EDIT 3:
Tried the Glenumbra one again. Kept her alive longer this time, but the timing is practically impossible solo and generally not fun. Maybe with more players, Idk. Basically the same experience CP5 had.

Freelancer_ESO

How would you describe yourself as a player? (Examples: Casual quester? High end trial runner?)

Veteran Casual.

I've played for a long time and I've read a ton about the game but, I'm not very skilled and my PC isn't great.

Which event did you join?

I joined all three events.

Where you able to complete the event?

I was able to complete all three events eventually.


Did you understand the event objectives?

Mostly. I did try to deliver the eels to the person not the donkey at first which didn't work.

I and several others at the Vamp end fight failed to fully grasp the mechs fast and hit issues with getting CC then dying a few times and it took some people a while to realize how to damage things in that fight.

How many players were in the event with you?

I did the Auridon event solo, the Glenumbra with multiple other players, and the Stonefalls with one other person.

Did you enjoy the activities in the event?

Yeah. I think they make the world feel more alive.

Did the challenge and reward of the event feel appropriate?

As long as you aren't trying to solo it on a non-optimized character the reward/challenge is probably fine.

Any general feedback?


I'd suggest getting rid of some of the timeouts or making them last longer. I showed up to fish and gather with a few minutes left and as a result I couldn't get it done in time and the npc gave up saying it was too dangerous. (Later on I realized you can just skip fishing and only gather so you can get done in time if you show up without much time on the timer. Is that intended behavior?)

The reminders while fishing got a bit old as I was doing the best I could but was going to run out of time because I arrived too late to complete it by fishing.

The range on the warnings about the npcs coming under attack also maybe go too far. I gave up on the Vamp one solo as my character was too weak to solo it and I was getting warnings from the fight despite having left the area.

The frequency of the activities might be a little low.