Public Dungeon Boss Farming...

adamwigan

I'm not normally the type of player who comes on the forums to whine about things I have experienced in-game, however today I'm going to make an exception.

Today, as I have experienced many times before, I was left feeling extremely annoyed after running through one of ESO's many public dungeons, only to finally come face to face with the final boss which, once again, was surrounded by several players waiting for the said boss to respawn (again). Evidence of their foul deeds lay evident on the ground, in the form of numerous boss sized corpses littering the floor.

Today out of all the days, this really p***ed me off, as the dungeon in question was related to a quest which I had taken a very keen interest in and couldn't wait face this beast which I had heard rumoured about during a very intriguing conversation with an NPC. I'm sure you can relate to the complete disappointment I felt when I wasn't able to complete the said dungeon due to being unable to get a hit in against this boss mob (as killing the final boss is what marks the dungeon as cleared on the map) due to the farmers killing and beating me to it the moment it respawned.

What makes this worse is that I have reason to believe that these horrible farmers are not people wasting their time on camping such mobs, but instead automated bots. I tried numerous times today and in previous encounters to communicate with these people to which I have never received a response. Maybe they have their /say and /tell
turned off in their settings, But every single 'player'? I highly doubt it.



I plead with you Zenimax, please take action against such exploits. Not only does it have to potential to ruin the games current economy if these so called players are indeed bots, but it also has a serious negative impact on my (and I assume many others) game-play experience and immersion. Change the respawn system for such mobs? Reduce the amount of players allowed within each public dungeon? Give players the option to have solo dungeons instanced to themselves (with limited mob respawns to prevent farming in such an area)?

Something needs to be done.

Terminus

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

Saerydoth

Terminus wrote: »

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

That's a good idea. But keep in mind that the farmers (whether they are bots or not) will simply move somewhere that is more profitable to farm.

adamwigan

Terminus wrote: »

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

Good idea.

audrieltheelf

I'm having this exact same problem. Apparently the Dev's do not consider this exploitation when, by definition, it absolutely is. I think on the last public dungeon I crawled down I got one hit on the boss and because of the farmers I didn't get a single ounce of loot. I just wanted my fair chance, preferably solo, to take this man down. Nope. No such luck. This frustrates me more than the gold spammer and guild recruiters.

I like the diminishing returns idea!

Arawn

Terminus wrote: »

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

Hmm good idea but difficult to impliment. How do you set up a daily trigger?
Only if you have a daily resetting bosslist in the accountbackground that counts.

Stonie

The biggest issue for me is in fact that almost all dungeons are public.
Instanced dungeons would have been the best way to give the player a proper game experience.
With public you will never feel the sence of danger and people wont have a reason to learn the potential of their characters.
Its just too easy.
Im not suprised that some are already screaming about nerfed content due to the fact that they have never been forced to actually learn the game and its abilities.
With instanced dungeons the npc enemies wont respawn after being killed and that would also fix these farmers you are talking about with a dungeon reset timer.
Not even older games have been abel to completely stop bots/farmers but at least this would make it harder for them.

gstringbass_ESO

maybe once you kill the boss move the player into a phase that is "completed" and to reset it you have to leave and re-enter?

Pantemporal

They'll have to do something about sooner or later. The farmers and bots completely destroy the game experience. I have yet to have a quest dungeon I've entered where I didn't have to wait in line to try and spam a single hit on whatever supposed boss there is. Wow, yeah, this is epic heroics here, boldly queuing up like I'm at the DMV to get my boss completion handed out by getting in a single hit.

Instance or phase the dungeons off, or put in diminishing returns.

Inupis

Till these bots are handled I can not recommend this game to anyone.

Arawn

Stonie wrote: »

The biggest issue for me is in fact that almost all dungeons are public.
Instanced dungeons would have been the best way to give the player a proper game experience.
With public you will never feel the sence of danger and people wont have a reason to learn the potential of their characters.
Its just too easy.
Im not suprised that some are already screaming about nerfed content due to the fact that they have never been forced to actually learn the game and its abilities.
With instanced dungeons the npc enemies wont respawn after being killed and that would also fix these farmers you are talking about with a dungeon reset timer.
Not even older games have been abel to completely stop bots/farmers but at least this would make it harder for them.

You will feel the danger the bigger and deeper a dungeon is. That works too and is even more realistic.

Draconiuos

Meh, doesn't effect immersion for me. I just think of it of a bunch of worthless heroes waiting for something to get conscious again so they can feel good about themselves. I step in hit to be able to say I helped defeated it an move on. I pit myself against the world mini bosses more. They are especially fun when no one is around because they are harder then any public dungeon boss.

FezzikVizzini

Terminus wrote: »

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

Which would require the game to remember which character had killed which boss at which time and how many times.

Sounds nice but as ZOS have clearly demonstated that half the time they are incapable of recognising my IP address or are too busy wiping my bank then I think not.

Tuesday Patch: We have inplemented diminishing returns on public dungeon bosses.

Tuesday Patch + 1 Minute: Dead CS, I am not getting any experience, loot or quest completion on public bosses even though I have never been in that dungeon before.

RockSolidWiff

I agree, have hit several (4 or 5) public dungeons where this was the case.
First time, I ran around trying to find the boss, thinking the group was parked at the door. The real problem is you need to get in enough damage fast enough to get credit for the kill. Very tough on a low DPS toon.
Had not considered they were bots, but the bodies still on ground would indicate they are not farming the loot, just the XP.
The limited boss XP is a good idea, rather than daily, which would be harder to track, it should be based on entering the instance.
Boss XP once, very little otherwise. Of course, they could camp just about any other spawn the same way.
Variable location spawns would help this, or spawns with different adds may help.
Boss (and adds) should target the character that has been around that location the longest first, may knock one off every once in a while.
Not sure how much higher level these players were than the boss they were camping.

LunaRae

So I'll chime in and say that I've farmed bosses several times, even recently as two days ago. I usually grow tired of it after a half hour, but the resources you get from them are ridiculously good - too good to pass up! Guaranteed full soul gem of your level, guaranteed drop of high level potions (health, magicka, stamina), a very high chance for a green or blue item drop which can either be sold or extracted for resources (bonus for blue items) AND finally numerous white item drops which have traits for research, can be sold (bonus for ornate items) AND can be extracted for crafting gear.

I mean, currently for me I get most of my hides/leathers, etc.. (medium armor gear) from extracting from gear like this. Do you know how long it takes to get hides/leathers from just killing mobs in the wild? Way too long. And you don't get nearly as much benefit for double the time invested as farming a boss.

While I agree I don't think it's cool to see a bunch of people chilling around a boss farming, there is a reason why it is happening. I kind of agree with some of the posts, suggesting reduce drops after X kills or maybe make better incentives to be doing other things in the game. Currently it's just way too good to pass up boss farming.

Also - on your note about completing the quest, how are you not able to do this? All you need to do is land one hit, whether by melee, ranged, skill, magick, etc... it seems very easy to me. I have definitely seen my fair share of overly populated dungeons with 20+ players farming, but I've always been able to land a single hit (literally) to complete a quest.

I share your pain friend! Here's hoping for some changes in the near future

Malidon

Heres a idea make ESO a one player game then every one will get what they want add Easy,Med and Hard mode's and no more problems. Look this is a MMO its the nature of the beast if you want a game like WOW go play WOW public dungeons are for the public they will do what they do learn to do more damage so you can get a hit in or go back later on when no one is there.

Dracovar

I wouldn't look for them to do anything soon. They'll probably wait for the game to level out and normalize and see what they have. And they have stated that boss farming is not against the TOS:

"...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."

Yes, they need to do something about bots. But for regular players, if they want to stand there and kill the same thing over and over for ten hours, more power to them. I kill the boss for the quest (if it has one), and for loot after, for items to deconstruct to level my crafting profession, and to get a few soul gems and potions, and it is just as valid a reason as any other, including killing the mob for a quest. Nobody can tell me their way of playing is more important than mine, or that their time comes before mine, that I have to defer to you, the "holy" immersion quest completer, because your priorities are more important than mine. I have just as much right to kill the mob as anyone else, as many times as I want, and Zenimax said so; "...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." Killing a boss faster than another does NOT equal "blocking" or griefing. It's a PUBLIC dungeon. It's not your dungeon, and it certainly isn't your mob/boss. You (and your style of gaming) aren't more important than anyone else. It's a public dungeon in an MMO during launch for crying out loud! There will be people stepping all over each other until enough time passes so everyone spreads out more, especially public dungeons. Get over yourself. You can't impose restrictions on gameplay, whether farming or gathering or whatever, especially this close to launch when Zenimax doesn't even know what they have yet. If a person is so inclined, and has the time, they can, and should, be able to play as they see fit, as long as it doesn't violate the TOS - and boss farming does not. And if that means gathering for ten hours, or killing dungeon bosses for ten hours, it doesn't matter, and it doesn't make it wrong. And Zenimax agrees.

Now, another person suggested that boss health scale with the number of people in proximity. The boss would take longer to kill, everyone would get their hits in, the looters would get loot, the questers would get their quest complete, and everyone is happy.

But no, you don't get to dictate/restrict how I choose to play this game. A mob/boss belongs to everyone, to kill whenever, and however many times, they want.

Endolith

Dracovar wrote: »

I wouldn't look for them to do anything soon. They'll probably wait for the game to level out and normalize and see what they have.

Actually, they announced just a while ago they're putting the bosses on a timer.

Dracovar

Endolith wrote: »

Dracovar wrote: »

I wouldn't look for them to do anything soon. They'll probably wait for the game to level out and normalize and see what they have.

Actually, they announced just a while ago they're putting the bosses on a timer.

Oh? Didn't see that. Where?

Endolith

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/78524/upcoming-patch-highlights-in-progress-updates#latest

I think a lot of people have missed it, with the threads going by in here.

Malidon

Amen Dracovar Amen and as far as this botting idea goes just because there all just standing there does not mean there bots i mean really if your farming a boss like this there is no point in moving just get near it and kill away then loot rinse and repeat.

RufusTheHound

I think that public dungeons should b instanced so that the starting area is uninstanced, so u can see everyone in it to make it easier to group, but the rest should b instanced to individual players or groups, and that way, it may make the dungeon harder, but u won't get loads of bots farming unless u accept them into ur group. i know its not the easiest thing for them to program but i think it would help

i know it makes them very similar to private dungeons, but what would u rather, boss farming, or this?

adamwigan

Endolith wrote: »

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/78524/upcoming-patch-highlights-in-progress-updates#latest

I think a lot of people have missed it, with the threads going by in here.

Thanks for this link, I wasn't aware that ZOS had begun working on a fix. To save anyone else taking the time to read through the list of upcoming fixes, here's a quote from the official post related to this issue:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

Anoteros

Endolith wrote: »

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/78524/upcoming-patch-highlights-in-progress-updates#latest

I think a lot of people have missed it, with the threads going by in here.

So let me get this straight.
If I decide to go on a public dungeon marathon in a zone and finish them all off in one go i'm going to get jack all loot? What the hell is that?
So much for 'play the game your way' -_-

I'm smelling AoC all over again.

Daethz

Ill farm bosses as long as I want, ESO - Play how you want to.
The real fix is increasing the bosses health based on nearby players, or players in combat.

Vedrix

Just agro a mob before the boss, bring it near these guys, they'll chase it, run it away and leave them in another room. If they're actually playing they'll run back... well they probably wont chase the mob. Bots chase it and stay still in the other room.

Tetrasoli

I'm getting increasingly concerned with the fact that ZOS's solutions to problems are almost always restrictive and unimaginative. It's turning into a tangled mess of "you can't do this here, and can't do that at this level". Seems regressive for an IP built around freedom. It would be one thing if these were temporary fixes, but we may never know, given the vague and infrequent communication on such things.

woodlandwoodsb14_ESO

Terminus wrote: »

Diminishing returns on boss kills.

Kill it twice in 1 day, full experience.
Kill it a 3rd time, half experience.
4th time? Nothing. No loot, no experience.

This. ^

Seriously.

Alpha_Protocol

Just phase the boss for 1 hour after a kill.... fixed.

Menetheran

+1 for the diminishing returns idea. I'd also like to see the scaling difficulty which was also suggested though I can imagine this would be more challenging to implement.

RufusTheHound

i think I've seen these "people", as in I've seen people boss farming and after yelling some form go away message along the lines of "f*** off u d***s ur ruining the game experience", I've heard no reply of them disagreeing with me, so i agree they might well be bots