Boss Camping Has To Be Dealt With

Thepal

Vhalkyrie wrote: »

Yesterday afternoon I witnessed 5 bots autoswinging in Del's Claim. The only way I was able to finish the achievement was when a dragonknight was lucky enough to pull it out of the way. The gold farming issue aside, this is a game breaking experience for people just playing the game.

I reported them, but when I came back later in the evening to check on them, they were still there. All a dev or CSR needed to do was go look inside of Del's Claim and they'd see them plain as day autoswinging.

I just did this quest a couple of hours ago. The same issue was there for me. There was a group of about 5 people sitting at the boss's location constantly swinging. Considering I'm playing the game for the story it kinda sucked that the only interaction with the boss I got was him flashing on the screen and then me quickly killing him faster than the bots/campers.

Those that are saying that this is what MMOs are about, it is only what they are about for some people. Some don't care about levelling as fast as they can and doing high level dungeons over and over. I enjoy playing the game as an actual story-based game. I listen to the dialogue. I explore. I'm developing my character, yes, but I'm not power-levelling. And there are plenty of players like me. There are players that go more in for the hardcore RPing as well. There are more casual gamers that log in to do a few quests with some friends.

For everyone that isn't trying to manipulate the game to get items/gold/levels as fast as they can (ie, the majority of the player base, whichever game style they fall under) this sort of thing detracts from the game. And considering the massive issues the game is having with gold sellers and such, it seems this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Personally, I like the idea of making it so the boss can only be looted once by each person each time they enter the dungeon (or once for a given amount of time). Slowing down spawn times isn't a good solution, since it means that people there for the right reasons would have to sit around and wait (something that I've been very glad I haven't had to do in ESO yet). I'm not a fan of instancing everything either. I'm enjoying seeing other people run through dungeons and occasionally having us help each other out.

Herbatio

"I did it for the soul Gem" - Limp Bizkit

cultmethod

Here's a crazy idea. Is there any reason why ESO can't simply ask the player a bit about their play-style when rolling a character, or upon dungeon entry? I.E. Simple questions like:

1. Would you prefer a more story-oriented experience, or do you enjoy grinding for fame and fortune?
2. Do you prefer fast paced and highly populated public dungeons, or would you prefer a more isolated and challenging experience?

The game could then manipulate instances and phasing to supply the end user with an experience that is tailored to their specific play-style. If you're focused on the story, you get placed into public dungeons with other players that have also selected this option, and potentially less populated instances.

This forum thread seems to be filled with two distinct camps:

• MMO veterans that enjoy building riches through "the grind"
• Lore-hungry explorers that appreciate immersion and story.

Personally, I see my reflection in both sides. I love carefully devouring the lore and experiences that this game provides, but I would by lying if I said that I didn't also love grinding to build (in the words of Jessie Pinkman) fat stacks of loot. I actually plan on rolling two characters, one dedicated to a more immersive run through, and another for power-leveling and aggressive resource collection. I think it would be a mistake to cripple one of these play-styles at the expense of another if the problem can be solved in a way that satisfies both.

Give the end user more choice.

Nebb

There was a plan to do it but they scrapped the idea Never said why ....

Sorpaijen_ESO

The idea that it is intended to "camp" or "farm" the "Boss" of a dungeon is ludicrous to begin with, from a story standpoint. The mere fact that the boss respawns, alive again and good as new, is bad enough. But to then see folk just standing around waiting for the TOUGHEST foe in the dungeon to be resurrected, only to die in a hailstorm of attacks in seconds... that's just plain silly.

The easiest solution is to simply make it so that the boss only drops loot ONCE for a given player. After you've gotten your loot from that boss, there's no reason to continue to "farm" it, except purely to grief others. Alternatively, simply phase players who defeat the boss into a new phase where the boss never appears again.

The idea that "farming" is something someone would want to do, something that the game would let, or condone, someone doing, just boggles the mind. If allowed, it certainly should not in any way impact people choosing to play the game the way it was ~intended~ to be played.

Evergreen

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Now with the game in full swing for a week the usual gamers have slithered their way into ESO. Every dungeon has a group of clowns camping the boss. It takes away from players having a satisfying boss fight experience, and even takes a few tries in order to get the dungeon completion because you can't even get a hit off.

Suggestion: Make it so that once you kill a boss a timer kicks in. So for example, once a boss is killed by a player, that same player cannot kill it again for an hour. Instead of having it glow red make it glow yellow for an hour before reset (do not change respawn time for sake of other players running through). This will deter campers and keep them moving along.

Edit: This can also be applied to deter the issue of werewolf/vampire camping and then selling bites to other players for gold.

I ran into this exact situation yesterday where 15 or more people were camping the boss in the first public dungeon Mel's Claim. What was really annoying is that half of them being way over leveled for the dungeon would instantly kill the boss spawn. They just stood there and did this over and over. Wasn't sure if these people were griefing as some did a dance animation between spawns.

The only chance I had to even get one hit in before an instant kill by high levels camping was keeping my bow drawn. After about 20 min I got lucky and finally managed a hit before the high level campers got him.

Please Zenimax make an option for public dungeons to be private and soloable so we don't have to be griefed by these sort of shenanigans.

Plagued00

How does boss farming even affect you as a player? Should bots be dealt with? Definitely. But you can shove your opinion about getting rid of boss farming entirely. You still get credit for the dungeon. So you're basically upset that you aren't getting loot while other people are? Do more damage. Join a party. Wait out all of the non-bots. I particularly enjoy farming the bosses. It's a great way to get deconstruction items, particularly for blues that are otherwise difficult to come by. Farming the bosses is a pretty important part of crafting, specifically for upgrading.

djodars

david.ankenyb14_ESO wrote: »

How does boss farming even affect you as a player? Should bots be dealt with? Definitely. But you can shove your opinion about getting rid of boss farming entirely. You still get credit for the dungeon. So you're basically upset that you aren't getting loot while other people are? Do more damage. Join a party. Wait out all of the non-bots. I particularly enjoy farming the bosses. It's a great way to get deconstruction items, particularly for blues that are otherwise difficult to come by. Farming the bosses is a pretty important part of crafting, specifically for upgrading.

Because people farming bosses not only destroy immersion but also destroy the economy of the game... You shouldn't be able to stay in one spot for 12 hours just holding the mouse button and looting whatever drops for money, items and soul gems...

You want to farm mobs? Fine... go out in the world and farm them. But boss farming on a ~30 seconds respawn timer is ridiculous and should be dealt with as quick as they can.

Vyndetta

@djodars How does it destroy the economy if people can only use guild stores? There's no AH in this game. You have to join different guilds to get access to different player offerings stores. Ridiculous argument. Is this your first MMO or something?

Kraven

Simple solution: Remove XP from public dungeon bosses all together and up the XP for the achievement. Then you get xp for only one kill.

This removes the bots and the only ones that remain are the item farmers. Item farmers are not that big of a deal, they get a few they move on. Even the ones that fill up bags from one boss don't mind sharing to a certain extent, since there is no KS in this game.

djodars

Vyndetta wrote: »

@djodars How does it destroy the economy if people can only use guild stores? There's no AH in this game. You have to join different guilds to get access to different player offerings stores. Ridiculous argument. Is this your first MMO or something?

1. Easy items to sell for profit and inflate items in the long run because everyone farming like that has more money.

2. Easy items to deconstruct and level a profession or sell for profit or transform into stronger items to sell for even more profit.

This wasn't a ridiculous answer and if your "first MMO" insult made you feel better, good for you! But no, I've played MMOs for the past 10 years and I'm pretty knowledgeable when it comes to their economy.

If you're going to argue without facts and by being arrogant, fine by me but I won't be part of your discussions.

cheeser123

Vyndetta wrote: »

@djodars How does it destroy the economy if people can only use guild stores?

Because people who want to get the loot are too weak to get the loot because they can't get the loot. Camping, griefing , etc. to hog loot from bosses keeps new, inexperienced, casual, or incompetent players from getting loot. I guess you can rag on the last of those four categories, but what about the rest?

peechwurmnub18_ESO

An auction house is NOT a requirement for there to be an economy. Auction houses just allow the masses to track and visualize the economy in a game easier, and they also make that economy easier to manipulate. However, so long as there are items to trade and there are people who want those items, then there is an economy.

GreenPenguin

Kraven wrote: »

Simple solution: Remove XP from public dungeon bosses all together and up the XP for the achievement. Then you get xp for only one kill.

This removes the bots and the only ones that remain are the item farmers. Item farmers are not that big of a deal, they get a few they move on. Even the ones that fill up bags from one boss don't mind sharing to a certain extent, since there is no KS in this game.

So far, for my playing style, this solution makes the most sense. I tend to play in a party with others, and sometimes one party member runs off to collect node that they saw, and miss the boss fight. The idea of the delay time between boss fights would hinder the party member's from assisting the one that wandered off, and would then delay the group from moving on for that time span, should the person have difficulties killing the boss (i.e. heavy support characters).

Westcoast14_ESO

Shift the players that have killed the boss and gotten the completion achievement to a mirror of the public dungeon that is no different than the normal public dungeon.

For the non-camp instance, you could give a 100% drop for the boss loot for players that have not completed the public dungeon and and you disable loot drops for players that have completed the dungeon. For the camp instance set the loot drops however you will.

Players that want to complete the public dungeon without campers can and players that want to camp can.

Evergreen

Westcoast14_ESO wrote: »

Shift the players that have killed the boss and gotten the completion achievement to a mirror of the public dungeon that is no different than the normal public dungeon.

For the non-camp instance, you could give a 100% drop for the boss loot for players that have not completed the public dungeon and and you disable loot drops for players that have completed the dungeon. For the camp instance set the loot drops however you will.

Players that want to complete the public dungeon without campers can and players that want to camp can.

Excellent idea to separate campers into a separate dungeon with a lowered drop rate for loot.

SaibotLiu

*facepalm* This is what the World of Warinstance does to people. MMO's used to mean a large open world, fully accessible to other players while you also adventure there. MMO now seems to mean "uniquely crafted content just for ME, if someone interferes with MY experience, its everyone elses fault".

People are just going to have to learn to share the space. If you'll notice, the majority of the time quest bosses dont drop any special loot, this is how the Devs have discouraged camping them, because theres no benefit, and it works. For random dungeon bosses, there's no quest, your progression is not tied directly to killing that boss, you just get an achievement to say you killed it. Its fair game, that's why it drops decent loot. Lets not act like the spawn times on them arent insanely high anyways, you missed it the first 2 times? That took what, 5 minutes? Sheesh.

Mahalin1012

I don't even understand why these dungeons are open anyways.

It's great to be an original game with cool ideas to promote teamwork, but sometimes utilizing what previous MMOs have learned is a good idea. These dungeons should be instanced, or some other type of method that involves a cooldown so you cannot farm a boss over and over. You should only be able to down a boss once per cooldown, and once you are done killing the final boss you get teleported out of the instance.

Achromatis

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi folks,

We are looking at addressing the concerns expressed in this thread and others about public dungeon boss farming, from the development side. The act of manually farming these bosses, while possibly not very courteous of others who are trying to have a shot at the content too, is not against our Terms of Service. (Purposefully griefing is another story, entirely.) That said, there are some very valid concerns here, and we are looking at ways we can improve upon how public dungeons and the bosses in them work.

If we make any changes to public dungeons and bosses, we'll call them out in patch notes.

Thanks for this reply. I highly suggest a scaling system similar to Guild Wars 2, and applying it to Dark Anchors and overworld bosses as well.

SuperScrubby

Don't forget the monthly fee. So a single player game with an interactive story that can only be played online for a monthly fee, which for some actually breaks the bank. TESO:Single Player game with mandatory online connections.

I wonder if people on the EU server complain about the stupid stuff that gets complained about here. I know that in some of the other games I've played with an Asian population their forums have no trash threads like this.

Mahalin1012

Minnus wrote: »

Are people going to cry till there is nothing left here but an interactive story that is instance to one per person?

The game, as is, is just fine. It's the players and poor attitudes that ruin things. If the players in this game exercised civilized etiquette then people wouldn't be complaining.

Sakiri

Vyndetta wrote: »

@djodars How does it destroy the economy if people can only use guild stores? There's no AH in this game. You have to join different guilds to get access to different player offerings stores. Ridiculous argument. Is this your first MMO or something?

You mean people can't sell stacks of rare tempers in zone chat without a guild store?

Blasphemy.

PS: it's often cheaper to buy from some guy in /zone than it is in guild stores.

Sakiri

Westcoast14_ESO wrote: »

Shift the players that have killed the boss and gotten the completion achievement to a mirror of the public dungeon that is no different than the normal public dungeon.

For the non-camp instance, you could give a 100% drop for the boss loot for players that have not completed the public dungeon and and you disable loot drops for players that have completed the dungeon. For the camp instance set the loot drops however you will.

Players that want to complete the public dungeon without campers can and players that want to camp can.

Terrible idea.

Those bosses have decent loot, and over half the time there's nothing on the boss for me.

if I want that item I might have to kill it a few times. So basically you're like "one kill period."

Great. Not.

Stiler

The bosses need to scale based on the number of players near them.

So a boss that has "campers" will have a lot more health, etc vs the same boss when there's just one/two people there.

SuperScrubby

Scaling solves everything, especially for things that are public. It allows people to get more hits and get more drops, spreads the loot out more evenly. I like public dungeons since it allows me to help others or for them to help me clear a group of mobs. Fosters some sort of interaction and assistance which is pretty rare in MMO's these days.

Mahalin1012

Stiler wrote: »

The bosses need to scale based on the number of players near them.

So a boss that has "campers" will have a lot more health, etc vs the same boss when there's just one/two people there.

+1

Kyosji

All I can say is this. If I'm actually physically at my computer fighting a boss for items, that's none of your business. Had people yelling at me yesterday because I was there for like 2 hours. To hell I'm leaving a boss that drops the entire dragon set and warlock set. Picked up 2 sets of each for my guildies, and some for me to sell.

ashley-jamesb16_ESO

I have to say i am guilty of camping to a certain degree, i will enter a dungeon get to the boss and will kill until the blue item drops, now this could be on my first try if it is i then move on, if not it could take another 5-6 tries, then again i move on.

kiagenwa

Stiler wrote: »

The bosses need to scale based on the number of players near them.

So a boss that has "campers" will have a lot more health, etc vs the same boss when there's just one/two people there.

Good idea actually
Scaling with level also would make it funnier.
Like if there are only 4 or less people in the area the boss will have normal hp. Higher than 4 and the boss' hp will be multiplied by the number of people.
It could be added as a buff so if people somehow just passing by then the hp will drop.

badmojo

I'm not a fan of too many people camping the boss spawn. But a few people sitting around waiting for players to come along isn't a bad thing at all and in many cases it helps those players who arrive alone.

For example I stumbled upon a boss that was pretty difficult to fight, usually there were 3 or 4 people camping it all the time. But the times where it was just me, I would give the next player a shot at killing the two bosses on their own and 90% of the time I had to jump in and either heal them up or finish off the bosses for them.

Not saying this is always the case, but I know a lot of people actually stopped to thank me for helping them fight the boss. So we're not ruining it for everyone.