Boss Camping Has To Be Dealt With

Mahalin1012

Kyosji wrote: »

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.

Or you could let other people have a turn, you know, since this is a Massively Multi-player game and not your own personal single player title.

ricku1967

i think it would be funny if every time a boss re-spawns he puts out a massive AOE that would kill anyone standing in the immediate vicinity where he re-spawns....bet you wont see anyone standing in that spot for long..people that die will have to spend money just to repair..you hurt them where their gold is

Holycannoli

YourNameHere wrote: »

Just ran into this today in Illessan Tower.

7 players standing right on top of where Gaetane spawns. All gibberish names. No responding to tells or anything. Not even one second after the spawn they all attacked, mob dead.

Rinse and repeat for about half an hour (yes I timed it)

So lucky you all, I reported every single one of your names and took a screenshot.

There are players like me who would like to get the achievement and move on, but your selfishness is just stupid and idiotic.

Yeah I was there today trying to get them stuck to screw them up. Two of them got stuck behind the tables but I couldn't get the rest.

It was almost laughably obvious which ones were the bots. They had gibberish names and either stood there or ran toward the back wall then back. Sometimes they'd all swing at nothing.

Apolonius

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

Look at it this way. When ZOS designed the public dungeons, when it came to the boss fight, did they have in mind a mental picture of 10+ players standing on a spawn point of 10+ corpses with auto attack on macro. I don't think so.

Did they think, "we'll make these bosses work to meet expectations of loot farmers". Again, I don't think so.

I think ZOS will do something about this sooner or later cause it simply isn't what they intended imo.

I like that youre in the head of ZOS tell me, Why all the bugs and broken quest? Why is the mail system down yet again?

To everyone else....Honestly there are enough other problems in the game that this small point of contention just seems pointless. Band together for the removal of all the gold spammers or for them to fix the bugs in quest...of even to stop the random "Unknown error" msgs.

Honestly, farming a mob, any mob is just part of the game. Its no different than farming normal mats. As long as its not something being exploited. I know someone posted a link on here and the "lock out" was labeled as exploiting and the one locked said they didnt do it. Not saying the did, but honestly, would you expect them to admit it they did. Ive been on both sides of this, Ive farmed bosses for a couple of blue weapons, and been passing through when I got credit, honestly I go into the public D's for skyshards anyhow, the boss and loot is simply a bonus, it doesnt make or break my game.

eol

I agree with the OP. It takes a lot of the fun out of the entire dungeon to find the final battle camped by a bunch of farmers. There are lots of places to go farm that don't require messing up our dungeons. The developers should implement the changes the OP suggested. And the idea that somehow boss farming is a necessary part of an MMO is just plain stupid.

Vyndetta

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.

So, I may have in the past been in groups where we'd start the fight, boosting the mob stats and run off just to screw the other ppl over. Just pointing out, not the easiest solution to really go with, but if done right could work.

eol

Midgardian wrote: »

No one is hampering your experience. You can fight the boss. You can quest. You can still play the game. You are the one asking to change a fundamental mechanic just so you can "fight" a pointless boss.

if the boss is pointless it wouldn't be there. The whole point of a boss is to give a more challenging encounter. That is so obvious I am surprised it needs to be pointed out. By taking away that challenge, and preventing players from having it, you are diminishing the game for them. You are treating the boss as simply a loot-source when in fact its more than that. Saying they can 'fight' the boss is silly, because its not a fight in any meaningful sense. I mean, why not just make all the monsters have 1 hit point and let us gather loot that way? Sure you can have the encounter, sure you can kill the monster, sure you can get the loot, but where's the fun and challenge? You do realize some people play this game for fun, right? And by fun I don't mean standing in the same place for 3 hours killing the same boss over and over to collect loot.

Zarec

Cherryblossom wrote: »

The Mechanic works fine now. There is only a tiny minority on this thread that "think" there is an issue.

What's your definition of tiny? Cause...ummm....the people against this practice are starting to pop out of the woodwork.

Baraz

+1 to disallowing "Boss" camping, which is non-conceptual, ridiculous

I would block out that given quest for at least one full day as far as I am concerned.

Adernath

Devilfish85 wrote: »

Is there a reason the boss of these dungeons needs to have such a high loot drop rate? Most of said dungeons are incredibly easy, and you're already getting the quest XP. There are better places these loot drops could be moved to, so people can still treasure hunt without being such knobs about it... such as rare spawns in the dungeon, or chests.

Remove the special loot drop rate from single player dungeon bosses, and the problem is solved. I'm okay with missing out on a few blue items that I just deconstruct 20 minutes later anyway.

Imo the OP suggested a better idea; the loot still drops but can not be farmed anymore.

DBHAShadow

Not sure if previously stated, but maybe have it phase you into a "completed dungeon" after you get the dungeon achievement for killing the boss?

Evergreen

Earlier I was critical those very high level players just standing in the starting dungeon doing AOE damage killing the low level boss instantly. It was just frustrating working on my alt character getting hung up because I couldn't get a shot off from my bow to hit the boss and get completion credit so I could move on.

I've sort of changed my opinion on this as today in a 20+ dungeon there was a farming mob running around that I was very grateful to tag along with to complete it and get out.

I think the most helpful suggestion from this thread in my opinion is simply scale the boss up in hit points depending on how many are camping it so that everyone has a chance to hit it for completion credit. Farming a boss is not the issue and its probably good for players wanting to build their crafting skills; its just how fast an over leveled camping mob takes down a boss that is the problem.

nudel

Banning or discouraging farming is a risky maneuver. Where does it stop? Currently proponents want to outlaw farming a boss. However, you could apply that same argument to farming crafting nodes. If a VR 10 crafter goes down to a lvl 8 area to farm materials, is he/she griefing now? By taking those materials, they are depriving lower lvl players in the same phase of having them. However, they cannot get those materials from any areas their level. What if they want to make some armor for an alt or a friend that's low level? Are they griefing you since they got the node that you wanted? You could complain that a lvl 50 is killing all the animal mobs in a given low lvl area. What if they need the Rawhide for an alt? How else are they to get it?

As others have pointed out, some bosses have unique drops. I do not think allowing a player to only get ONE chance at a drop is a wise choice. It's not fair, since you're essentially saying only the lucky few get to have the drop. And it's not fun.

I also don't think the timer would be a good idea for a variety of reasons. First, as others have pointed out, you're going to have a hard time getting help from others if they have to wait to kill said boss. Second, those saying that you could simply go do other things for an hour - 24 hours (however long the timer is) do not seem to understand how the drop system works. If you are 6 levels over your kill, you do not receive any loot. The only exception is medium armor materials which drop from creatures across Tamriel regardless of your level and necessarily so. So, if I kill a boss and I have to wait 1...2...3...24...how ever many hours, am I likely to not have leveled past it in that time? More than likely, I'll be overleveled and have no more shots at the loot. So, a timer would be the same as giving you only one chance at the drop. It's not fun and it's not fair.

Phasing you into a completed version of the dungeon is an even worse solution. Considering people are already frustrated that they cannot help eachother in content that one of them has completed due to phasing, this would only exacerbate that problem. How much of this game do you want to be a forced solo experience?

The vamp and were spawns need to be addressed of course and botters need to be banned. However, the people in this thread seem to be calling for general restrictions on all farming ever. That I cannot get behind.

The only two solutions I've seen that are even remotely reasonable are:

-- reduce the number of players in a phase

-- scale the boss by active combatants

Neither is without flaws. Reducing the players in a phase could lead to population being too low in some phases. Frankly, I've had quite a lot of fun getting/giving impromptu help from/to nearby players. I would also hate for all content to be instanced for this very reason.

Meanwhile, scaling could create griefing scenarios itself. If 5 people commit a single attack each on said boss to lvl it up and then sit there and watch you struggle alone against a much harder boss.

Talmet

Zarec wrote: »

Cherryblossom wrote: »

The Mechanic works fine now. There is only a tiny minority on this thread that "think" there is an issue.

What's your definition of tiny? Cause...ummm....the people against this practice are starting to pop out of the woodwork.

Actually, only a very tiny percent of people who play, ever visit the forums. Most people who play video games, spend their time actually...playing video games, not posting in the forums about them. And most who visit the forums, never post, but instead just come on to read dev posts/patch notes/server status.

There's a general rule of thumb, linked below that applies to any webiste with user created content (i.e. posts, wikipedia entries). Basically, lurkers are the vast vast majority of users....It seems that a majority of posters in this thread are anti-farming. But even of people who visit the forums (an already small percentage), people who make posts are less than a 25%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)
"A 2014 study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research by Trevor van Mierlo found that the 1% rule was consistent across four separate digital health social networks (support groups for problem drinking, depression, panic disorder, and smoking cessation). During the study period 63,990 users created 578,349 posts, but less than 25% of users made one or more posts. The applicability of the 1% rule was confirmed as Lurkers (90% of users), Contributors (9% of users), and Superusers (the 1%) accounted for a weighted average of 1.3% (n=4668), 24.0% (n=88,732), and 74.7% (n=276,034) of all content."

cheeser123

Talmet wrote: »

Actually, only a very tiny percent of people who play, ever visit the forums. Most people who play video games, spend their time actually...playing video games, not posting in the forums about them. And most who visit the forums, never post, but instead just come on to read dev posts/patch notes/server status.

Good job re-discovering the rediscovery of power-law distributions.

As for your comment, it's a red herring. There's no reason to believe the people on the forums are more or less inclined to be against griefing and other nonsense than the larger population. You can't just assume "I don't care about this problem, and even though 100 people on the forums are complaining, me plus the 10,000 who have not commented outnumber them" because those 10,000 might not be happy either.

Alphashado

Some people like to explore to get their Xp/loot, some people would rather farm the same mob over and over. It has been and always will be this way. It is unreasonable to expect other people to enjoy the game exactly the same as you. On the rare occasion that there were so many farmers that I was unable to credit for the kill, I just logged into a different shard. No big deal IMO.

CTraveler

As a joke, why not turn all of the Bosses into Flame Atronachs for a day? :33 Make them explode upon death across the entire room! That'll teach those Bot Campers a thing or 3! XP

ShinChuck

I'm going to go with the people opposing this idea.

The game is fresh: there are a lot of campers, yes, but that will dwindle with time, probably faster than you know, as people level up, move to other games, get bored, and so forth. Let's not make drastic changes to the system (like hourlong cooldowns on early-game bosses) until the numbers have evened out.

Until the playerbase has normalized, we can't get an accurate read on whether this really is an issue or simply a launch-week problem.

lukewin8b16_ESO

Have a boss room and then phase it out for a minimum amount of players per phase and therefore per boss.

Cherryblossom

Zarec wrote: »

Cherryblossom wrote: »

The Mechanic works fine now. There is only a tiny minority on this thread that "think" there is an issue.

What's your definition of tiny? Cause...ummm....the people against this practice are starting to pop out of the woodwork.

The fact that one person is going into a dungeon finding 9 people farming means 1 in 10 are not farming, hence minority

blackwolf7

Really funny post ) you are playing an MMO. You cant expect people to not farm or grind in an MMO game. It is always part of an mmo experience and people should not be deprived of doing what they want.

If you want to solo a dungeon, go play a single player mmo. You cant deprive people who loves farming their loot.

What is a good suggestion though that they should make public dungeons solo instance. Since it is really easy, i dont think players will be having a hard time finishing it.

Both sides will be happy, since those farmers can grind dungeons without bothering others who are centered on lores

cultmethod

So, again, why can't the game just ask the player what kind of experience they want?

Rather than slapping timers on bosses and making blunt and sweeping changes to drop rates, this issue can be solved entirely by user input.

1. Query the user via dialogue box or provide a settings toggle that determines preferences (immersion/story vs grind/farming)
2. Players who want/value immersion get placed with similarly minded users in less populated instances of the dungeon
3. Players who don't care as much are placed in a higher traffic instance with players who also selected this option.
4. Optionally, to address world economy, the idea of drops providing diminishing returns after X number of boss kills would be a healthy change. First kill should give "the good stuff", and n kills thereafter have lower chances of yielding rare loot. Scaling boss difficulty in proportion to the number of players in the area is also another good idea.

How is this not a workable solution that addresses both issues? Grinders get to grind, explorers get to explore uninterrupted.

Aenima_pt

I like boss farming, i stay in a dungeon for my level and if im in the mood i stay giving the boss at least 1 hit to get the loot while socialising with other farmers there while waiting for it to respawn.

The times i did it it was all civilized ppl there, no bots for sure, also no high levels in the mix so gave it enough time for everyone take at least 1 good hit at the boss.

But as soon i get my bag full i move away and go do other stuff.

I can see the problem if thers high levels camping low level bosses and they 1 hit kill them, but if they are not bots why not just /say that you need to hit the boss for the sake of completing the dungeon/ quest. If they are not *** im sure they dont mind to miss one respawn to help other get the dungeon done. At least i dont minded as most times while socializing i missed the respawn because was chatting.

jaggedrelief

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.

I love this idea.

MercyKilling

jdkorreckpreub18_ESO wrote: »

but realize that actual farming is a core mechanic in all mmo's.

No, farming is an activity, not a game mechanic.

A good example of a game mechanic would be random loot rolls. Hit rolls. Damage rolls. NPC spawn point/population. Mapserver location pings to determine where your character is every few milliseconds. THOSE are game mechanics. They are what make the game work.

Farming is just an activity. It's what players do, not how the game works. My proof for that statement?

You don't have to farm to play the game. You don't have to farm to advance in the game. You don't have to farm to acquire loot, for it falls from the mobs like mana from the sky.

Farming is a loophole activity. IMNSHO, it's borderline cheating. You're manipulating normal game flow and mechanics to your advantage.

I'm 100% certain the developers over at Zenimax DID NOT sit around a table asking each other "How can we cater to players who like to farm for items and ingame currency?" No. They sat around a table asking each other, "How can we make a fun, engaging game that no matter what activity you like to do, everyone will find something to enjoy?"

Yes, some people actually enjoy mindless activity. It boggles my mind, personally. Nothing is more soul crushing or mind numbing or hope destroying than farming. Yet some people swear they find it fun. I'm not going to care about what THEY do until it affects what -I- like to do. If someone's farming a mob or boss prevents me from progressing, I'll ask if I can tag the boss or be part of killing it JUST ONCE so I can move on.
What happens then depends upon the farmers responses and ranges from fun for everyone involved to me reporting people for griefing and harassment and including screenshots so chat can be verified.

Lookoutitsdomkeub17_ESO

Vyndetta wrote: »

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.

So, I may have in the past been in groups where we'd start the fight, boosting the mob stats and run off just to screw the other ppl over. Just pointing out, not the easiest solution to really go with, but if done right could work.

It would scale dynamically to how many people are there, similar to how GW2 bosses work. I love how bosses in GW2 are, and I feel like it should be a trait that gets implemented into EOS.

crocigator_ESO

These mobs are suppose to be smarter, so I think that the best way to fix some of this issue is that every so often the boss mob get so big and strong it will need more than just the farmers to kill it. It should be determined by the time it takes to kill it on the previous 30 or so attempts and on the number of people in the dungeon on average at that time. A level 50 boss in a level 20 dungeon would at least add some challenge to the game and perhaps some of us that are there to finish a quest can actually get a hit off before it dies.

Aenima_pt

The idea to increase boss HP and resistance stats depending on how many ppl are inside the dungeon is indeed a good idea. And would also increase the chalenge to defeat him.

casselna_ESO

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

This is what you are always going to run into with open dungeons. Honestly it isn't a big deal since there are other instanced dungeon where you get the loot. Those public dungeons are nice for a shot at the loot. The only real reason they are there though is give you the skyshard.

This, kinda. However, the dungeon complete reward is a good chunk of EXP.

I do condone this for the werewolf/vampire camping, but nothing else. As people camp these bosses for loot/exp/to help others

FezzikVizzini

Zarec wrote: »

Cherryblossom wrote: »

The Mechanic works fine now. There is only a tiny minority on this thread that "think" there is an issue.

What's your definition of tiny? Cause...ummm....the people against this practice are starting to pop out of the woodwork.

Zarec,

Are you in a guild that I could join ? I really like your stand on this issue and your incisive comments in other posts. You are the god of TOC interpretations as far as I am concerned. I would be honoured to be in game with the likes of you.

NOT