It's time we talk about Public Dungeon Miniboss farming and crafting.

Iseldiera

It is the elephant in the room that most of us are conveniently ignoring.

The public dungeon minibosses in the zones were built around the idea of the PTR level of populations and they are beyond broken at the moment.

Being able to kill a mob by spamming a key which can be easily botted with the simplest of macro making mouses roughly every 40 seconds, which drops:

1. gold
2. soulstone (at lvl 30 each one can be sold for 22 gold)
3. a gear piece which may or may not have a trait that can be used for selling to merchant for repair costs or deconstructing for a very solid gain in crafting through inspiration as well as mats such as upgrade tempers or trait stones.
4. a few level appropriate healing/mana/stamina potions

The result is players camping these mobs, farming green and blue tempers (i.e. dwarven oil) and rushing through the crafting grind without a sweat.

The argument "let those who want to play the game this way play it" fails in the same sense that the argument "let those who want to use those combat addons use it", because a person getting a benefit that will affect my characters performance in the long term, through the use of these methods, will affect my character indirectly, if I opt not to use it.

So, if I play the game the way it is meant to be played, roughly at every level gained in PvE I would obtain perhaps 5 dwarven oils, while utilizing this method I would gain 30+ dwarven oils. Same applies for the speed in which I gain inspiration, which will affect my deconstruction success rates, my research times and many other aspects of my craft.

Furthermore, looking at it from the perspective of the alchemist, currently a very important market for their craft, i.e. the healing/stamina/mana potions, are simply impossible to sell because everyone has 500 of these for each level stocked up in their bank or guild bank. Please save your argument "but the alchemists make the real cool stuff like crit and invisibility potions". I personally in no game paid any heed to anything that gives me a 10 second buff, let alone in the system of ESO where you can quickslot only 1 potion. Even if all other potions are godly and there is a great market for them, %x of the market is destroyed for the alchemists because they cannot sell a single health/stam/mana potion.

What do I propose as a fix?

Either play with the drop table of these minibosses, where their drop rate deteoriates after x number of kills per Y minutes, or simply increase their spawn time to discourage the farmers.

I am the guy who loves to explore and check every corner and do every quest and read every book. But now to be able to compete with other crafters in the guilds I am in who hoarded 500+ dwarven oils etc, I find myself spending a lot of time doing something I dont enjoy, which results in overleveling the actual cool content. I know most of you will say "well if you dont enjoy it, dont do it" but please look at it from the market perspective and think again.

Please reply to this if you think alike or if you are ok with the current system.

Opioid

You're proposing a fix to something that really isn't broken. If people want to waste their time standing in one spot farming one mob over and over, so be it. I don't see how it affects you at all. You can go run around and do all the quests and clear all the exploration points and get just as much loot yourself.

As for the perceived issue regarding blacksmithing tempers, just level your character and BS high enough to put 3/3 points into extraction and all the drops you get from doing the standard questing and dungeons will give you plenty of tempering materials. If you're in a trading guild where someone has tanked the guild store market on something you're trying to sell, then go join another trading guild. There are hundreds, if not thousands of them.

kieso

I reported some players yesterday for macro-ing in front of a Public dungeon boss, I didn't care that they were macro-ing but I did care that the mob died in 1 second flat so in order to get my kill and achievement i had to sit there in front of the spawn and spam my attacks and that affects me negatively.

Jirki88

The macroing and botting is certainly a problem... But should all such be nerfed because some people cheat? I dunno man. I like the fact that I can actually kill a boss a few times sometimes to get some gear to deconstruct (because Blacksmithing is a royal PITA to level up ).

PVT_Parts

I see no problem how it is. I take the time to farm the boss for BS XP. You take the time to lvl up your character doing quests. Should I say that you level too quickly and it is unfair to me, the mob grinder, and that you should be made to slow down how you play. The "Let those who want to do it and those who don't not do it" argument works great here because you could do it if you wanted to, just like I could do quests all day if I wanted to.

clocksstoppe

Camping blue tempers from dungeon boss is a VERY *** way to obtain them. that is a bad argument.

With the potions i agree, only because i have never seen a green tier or better potion. Assuming they do not exist, your concerns in this case are well founded.

Nerfing stuff simply because YOU are not willing to do it is a trash argument so drop it dude.

Chomppa

The only problems I have are botters camping bosses , other than that I don't have problems with players camping bosses . I do see your point with Alchemy , why buy potions from me when you could just kill a boss over and over and gets potions for free .

dennissomb16_ESO

Issue for me is not so much the camping of dungeons, or boss in the dungeon, but as always the Bots, which support the gold sellers. If a player wants to stand in a dungeon for materials, I have no more issue with that then said same player racing to 50, or any other play style they choose. But bots, bot programs etc. ruin all aspects of the game, not just dungeon bosses.

Raash

I dont think many are against players grind some bosses really, Im an optimist and think they would e decent enough to let people get their kill and get the completion of the quests. The problem is when its bots that multiboxin killing the boss in 1-2 seconds. Ive found it pretty easy to test them out, if your a dragonknight with the pulling chain skill just stand far away and spam the button and take the mob as it shows and the whole bunch of "grinders" stays in the same spot doing nothing. tried it for 4-5 boss spawns and they just stood there the whole bunch. obviously bots.

Jirki88

Raash wrote: »

I dont think many are against players grind some bosses really, Im an optimist and think they would e decent enough to let people get their kill and get the completion of the quests. The problem is when its bots that multiboxin killing the boss in 1-2 seconds. Ive found it pretty easy to test them out, if your a dragonknight with the pulling chain skill just stand far away and spam the button and take the mob as it shows and the whole bunch of "grinders" stays in the same spot doing nothing. tried it for 4-5 boss spawns and they just stood there the whole bunch. obviously bots.

Yeah, with those sausagefiestas of bots it can be near impossible to get a hit in. If it's regular players, usually the boss is up for long enough for anyone not asleep to get a hit in. :P

LadyInTheWater

PVT_Parts wrote: »

The "Let those who want to do it and those who don't not do it" argument works great here.

That argument never works great anywhere.

People seem to forget that their playstyle in an online game, however minor, has a chance of affecting someone else's gameplay.

The thing that makes any MMO flourish is the cooperation, interaction, and mutual "fun" of many different players. The selfishness and sense of entitlement prevalent among the current MMO community is the reason that many games tend to socially/economically implode. Players tend to disregard the fact that other players are involved in the economy, in pvp, and in pve.

When a class in any MMO is too powerful in PvP, we collectively ask for a rebalancing to allow things to be fair for everyone. We don't simply say "let them play how they want". The other classes want a fair and equal chance of winning as well.

The same goes for PvE/Raid content; If, for example, only Nightblades were able to do seriously massive amounts of damage, and sorcerer damage was minimal to the extreme, we wouldn't collectively agree that everyone should "Just reroll as a nightblade if you want to PvE". No, we'd ask for steps to be taken to allow everyone to be equally viable in a Raid environment.

So, in my opinion, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that something be done about bosses being farmed by groups repeatedly. In my own personal experience (being a new player and not quite "good" at it), I've had a lot of difficulty even being able to kill a boss to get the achievement for completing a dungeon, since there are usually 5-6 "bots" standing over its spawn point, killing it within seconds of it appearing.

Thankfully, browsing the patch notes, I see that the Devs are placing a loot cooldown on these bosses already, to hopefully minimize the chances of this happening in the future.

Tobiz

Simpler solution, make the boss spawn in random locations. A public boss spawning on the spot every time is an invitation to botters and farmers. If you have to move you've added a level of complexity.

imowen70_ESO

They are actually wasting my time. I am running the dungeon normally. I get to the boss and 12 players are killing it in 3 seconds before I can get one hit in. I get nothing. So now I have to sit there a couple spawns so i can get enough hits in to get any drop at all. Allowing players to get drops only once would be great. I am hoping this game will thin out the small minds after a while. Once their free month is up they may go back to WOW or some other social wasteland of a game. I hope anyway.

doggie

While I leveld up Blacksmithing I purchased cheap blue items at the trader, sometimes players sold them at 50g, but I paid up to 200g, now I have a stack of Dwarven oil, but I fail to see what I'm supposed to do with it other than selling it. I don't see any point in buying more cheap items to deconstruct as the dwarven oil will just take space in the bank.

I don't see myself use much blue items at 50+ since I mostly wear epics now at 40+. I still save up epic tempers though.

PVT_Parts

Your problems aren't the people farming. Your problem is that you haven't figured out how to get credit for the kill. 10 people killing a boss means that all 10 of those people potentially get credit for the same kill. For instance, I just face the spawn and spam my 2 ability which is the dual wield multistab, other do the fire slash ability. What is stopping you from just staring at the spawn and mass pressing a number button till he spawns. You will get credit for the kill, unless you are a very very low lvl in which case, you don't need to be there anyways. I brought a lvl 8 to a lvl 28 boss in shadowfen, he got credit for the kill on the second spawn. You just aren't doing it right, stop saying that needs to be nerfed because it isn't an issue. I'm not a good PVPer, does that mean I should call for all PVP stuff to be nerfed because I can't figure it out? Just go try the mass pressing an ability that only activates when an enemy appears and then stop complaining once you get credit for the kill after 1-3 spawns.

Doskias

Actually the alchemy issue you regard to is not accurate. Alchemist can make many potions that are superior to regular health/magicka/stamina potions. Some even give all three benefits in one potion. Some do even more things. The potions that drop are inferior and you get new potions for every level anyways in dungeons so they are obsolete faster.

understeer

It's not in the spirit of the game but it's in the sprit of a MMO. I don't like because I don't do it because its wrong. It should be fixed, its not right, it's not how to game should be played but because its an MMO, oh he's doing it, I'll do it.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO

Opioid wrote: »

You're proposing a fix to something that really isn't broken. If people want to waste their time standing in one spot farming one mob over and over, so be it. I don't see how it affects you at all. You can go run around and do all the quests and clear all the exploration points and get just as much loot yourself.

As for the perceived issue regarding blacksmithing tempers, just level your character and BS high enough to put 3/3 points into extraction and all the drops you get from doing the standard questing and dungeons will give you plenty of tempering materials. If you're in a trading guild where someone has tanked the guild store market on something you're trying to sell, then go join another trading guild. There are hundreds, if not thousands of them.

It affects others. Just the stupidity that you go to do the dungeon and you have no boss to fight... it ruins my experience.

Alpha_Protocol

Raash wrote: »

I dont think many are against players grind some bosses really, Im an optimist and think they would e decent enough to let people get their kill and get the completion of the quests. The problem is when its bots that multiboxin killing the boss in 1-2 seconds. Ive found it pretty easy to test them out, if your a dragonknight with the pulling chain skill just stand far away and spam the button and take the mob as it shows and the whole bunch of "grinders" stays in the same spot doing nothing. tried it for 4-5 boss spawns and they just stood there the whole bunch. obviously bots.

I've done the same with my DK. It's both sad and hilarious.

They should make a small army of GM's do this in shifts once a week and insta-perma-ban them on the spot.

UniscornScarebear

I haven't really had a big issue with this, depending on the class I am playing at that time I either chain-pull or knock the mob away from them.
It's not hard to spot where it will spawn since they all stand in a little circle every time
I kill them twice or so and move on, just for the soul gem really.

Celless

I'm not a fan of what appears to bot/macro/macro-like camping of the delve bosses. I can get kill credit on the second spawn, but the first spawn it's usually me running into the room and noticing a stockpile of boss corpses and people. Sometimes I get exploration credit for just walking into the room, sometimes I have to compete a little for it.

The camp method is also significantly more efficient for crafting IP than spending the equivalent amount of time (or more) gathering. My belt swap partner spent time camping and he ended up getting higher in all crafts, three of which he did not spend any points into. Versus someone like me who *was* dedicated to just one craft and then getting surpassed by a guy standing in a dungeon for a few hours.

As a result, I've joined the campy side, making idle chatter around the heaps of boss corpses.

Dbetz007

The fix to stopping the bots from farming these mobs is to randomize their spawn location or make a set condition of events happen to make them spawn.. This way as in all MMO's they can still be camped and farmed / shared with other players too as the community seems to be very good about. Yet prevent the bots from standing there killing it over and over and making it so that no one else can get a kill in edgewise.

The main issue with these bosses is not that they are being camped but that bots are doing a majority of the camping.