Hadria wrote: »

I did 1-50 absolutely solo, didn't make any real friends that I'd play with daily or anything like that. Just hit v1 bout a week ago and have had no problem filing my friends list up with people that I now play with couple times a day. Almost v2 just from doing wb, dolmens and public dungeons. The zones I'm in are no where near dead. I think only the people that got to top zones so quickly are the ones complaining about it being empty.

Give us who enjoy going at a steady pace to get there and they won't be. Cya in game

I don't have any issues either, though I don't need to party to quest, working alongside others in the same area is just as effective as being physically partied.

But I did see a funny thing today, which may explain some issues some players are having in game. This character by the name of xxx Irenicus was spamming zone chat looking for a group and getting no joy "Anyone?", "Is no one else here?" etc. No replies at all. Five minutes later, a guy with a lore-friendly character name shouted out for help at a wb and not only did I whisper him, but by the time I arrived another 5 had joined us.

So maybe some players having difficulty with the whole social side of the game should consider a name change (only (half) joking).

I love grouping, I've spent hours and hours in MMO grind groups of various flavours. I love both PvE and PvP and I love Questing too. I'm not hardcore although I love theory-crafting and tweaking and learning. My favourite MMO times have been weekend (and it did take us all weekend) WoW raids and DAoC RvR. (Hibbies FTW!) I also like harvesting while listening to Podcasts or audiobooks to relax and kick back and chat in guild. (Thank you EQ2 )

The problem I have with VR is that grouping in this game for questing doesn't really work very well. A lot of people tried it in 1-50 and found it broken because of phasing or instances or whatever. I've never seen an MMO that makes it so difficult to group up properly and play with your friends/new friends.

As such to do the VR content I've had to cookie cutter my character so I can solo. I'm not really bothered by that because I'm a long-term MMO player and I sort of expect there to be a streamlined build for high level content. I also don't have a massive issue killing things at VR, there are tweaks needed (*scowls at the flipping knife throws of ouch*), but mostly I find it all a bit meh.

Some players are bothered by that though, mostly because of the harder difficulty that melee characters have overall is more apparent in VR. I know there are a lot of people who VR melee characters and find it fine, but you can't argue that it's harder than skirt and staff. Thus people like me who love grouping, but aren't perhaps a good enough player to play a melee character feel a bit lost if they don't cookie cutter. Not everyone wants to play a caster and I have had friends leave because they feel it's the only option open to them at VR. You can laugh and say they need to learn to play and/or group, but once again, grouping and questing doesn't work well.

The learn to play is probably true and I've learned a lot playing VR, but I do get frustrated. More so than in any other MMO, because sometimes the trash NPC victories feel... cheap. I know it's partly because it needs balancing better and partly because the rewards are rubbish. Plus soloing group content is always going to be frustrating at times.

I could just ignore the VR stuff and level alts and Quest, but I also want to PvP and do fun Craglorn stuff. I don't feel able to do either of those things until I'm at least V10. So I feel forced to solo group content to get to the end game that I want to play.

MMOs are often grindy though, right? I've ground out factions and levels and factions for quests; to open a door to unlock a mini raid; to grind out craft-able items; to unlock a raid instance that needs 40 of your closest allies with carefully selected classes to do all the right things at the right time to defeat six bosses to get to the point where you have the opportunity to spend a month working out how to kill The Big Evil. You do so and get to hang that shiniest of shiny on the wall of your house. Best Time EVAH!

Through all of that (EQ2 btw :P ) I had a blast. The rewards for the hard work were interesting, diverse and fun. The reward for clearing overly beefed up trash mobs? Not much.

Maybe I need to ditch the Questing and just grind in Craglorn. Yet I love TES and questing and stories too. I don't know that the VR nerf is the answer, but the VR levels are so segmented and not fun that they have to do something about them.

TL;DR: I don't know if the nerf is the right idea, but hopefully it will bring back the vibrancy of the community so future fun times happen.

The_Sadist wrote: »

A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged.

Yes but you dont encourage grouping in empty vet zones simply by making the content unsoloable. Finding an empty zone with mostly group only content just encourages people to skip it.

I don't think that VR zones going from being tuned for 2 players to being tuned for 1.5 players makes it easy-mode.

Innocente wrote: »

* Population plays 1-50 pretty much solo, makes no grouping friends. Gains no grouping skills.

* Population reaches very hard Veteran Zone content, needs friends, does not have any. Has no grouping skills.

* Population raises hue and cry that Veteran Zone content is 'to hard'.

* Zenimax lowers content in Veteran Zones for easy-mode solo play.

* Population plays VR1 - VR10 pretty much solo, makes no grouping friends. Gains no grouping skills.

* Population reaches very hard Veteran VR11-V12 content, needs friends, does not have any. Has no grouping skills.

* Population raises hue and cry that VR11 -VR12 content is to hard.

* Zenimax realizes it has replicated the WoW leveling experience, not in 10 years, but in three to six months. Prepares to make VR11-VR12 content single player friendly.

Good, I want to be able to solo all content and minimize my reliance on others. "Others" aren't very helpful anyway. All of my friends have pretty much left ESO and I am not Mister Socialite, I am not looking for more.

Want a good activity in groups? Go PVP.

That was how I learned to group up and perform well. I was forced to learn it.

Hadria wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

Hadria wrote: »

I did 1-50 absolutely solo, didn't make any real friends that I'd play with daily or anything like that. Just hit v1 bout a week ago and have had no problem filing my friends list up with people that I now play with couple times a day. Almost v2 just from doing wb, dolmens and public dungeons. The zones I'm in are no where near dead. I think only the people that got to top zones so quickly are the ones complaining about it being empty.

Give us who enjoy going at a steady pace to get there and they won't be. Cya in game

I don't have any issues either, though I don't need to party to quest, working alongside others in the same area is just as effective as being physically partied.

But I did see a funny thing today, which may explain some issues some players are having in game. This character by the name of xxx Irenicus was spamming zone chat looking for a group and getting no joy "Anyone?", "Is no one else here?" etc. No replies at all. Five minutes later, a guy with a lore-friendly character name shouted out for help at a wb and not only did I whisper him, but by the time I arrived another 5 had joined us.

So maybe some players having difficulty with the whole social side of the game should consider a name change (only (half) joking).

interesting about the name thing, I haven't really paid any attention to names mostly. whenever someone says they need help with something I usually just say invite then after we do it I ask if they want to go do more and most of the time we do. some break off and we get new people and I add them to my list of buddies for the next time I go out.

Can't help everyone in the zone with everything and still get my own crap done, so I have little rules. It is one of the ways I triage help requests. Yeah, i'll help people with more normal names and pass over people with leetlolballz names. I also don't help people that fast spam requests every 2 secs.

As for a general point, not in response to your post. Everyone jumping ship to Craiglorn and doing grind groups doesn't teach them about their characters, how to play, or how to really group either, just how to AOE spam.

Malpherian wrote: »

3. Your assumption that Hell Mode, and "Inferno Mode", has any place in a TES game.

* TES as a franchise is not and never has been about Supper difficult Elitest content. It "HAS" always been about RP, Exploration, Immersion, Lore, and Character development.

Actually, there was the Legendary difficulty in TES V: Skyrim.
It was quite hard... But it was an option, not like the current VR zones' difficulty.

Anyway, if elitists want a challenge, they just need to wear a medium or heavy armor instead of their light one.

The_Sadist wrote: »

A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged.

If they nerf future content because a minority want to play with / by themselves and not communicate with anyone outside of the odd instanced dungeon I'd rather said individuals up and go back to single player gaming, because ultimately that's what they want.

I'm all for solo friendly content and whatnot, and aside from a few odd public dungeons / hard quests I found my veteran rank 1-5 zones experience relatively solo friendly. Requesting help with world bosses and dolmens isn't a bad thing.

---

Agree with you The_Sadist...and I like choice, so more solo friendly content is something I support. Not by taking away other existing content, but by adding new.

>>>"A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged." <<<

I do not believe a lot of people do not 'understand that grouping was being encouraged', I fully believe that people bought this game and subbed without informing themselves about their purchase and now they are/have/continue to initiate and demand it be changed to what they want - viable soloability in ALL zones and ALL content...irregardless of the affects of said changes.

Apparently, Zeni really is okay with that, despite the two years-plus of advertising to vet MMO players that endgame content in THIS mmo was gonna be group-encouraged, and you know, different than most other recent mmo releases. I await the exact changes taking place over these next few weeks, not only what starts on July 7th.

The_Sadist wrote: »

A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged.

If they nerf future content because a minority want to play with / by themselves and not communicate with anyone outside of the odd instanced dungeon I'd rather said individuals up and go back to single player gaming, because ultimately that's what they want.

I'm all for solo friendly content and whatnot, and aside from a few odd public dungeons / hard quests I found my veteran rank 1-5 zones experience relatively solo friendly. Requesting help with world bosses and dolmens isn't a bad thing.

Sorry, levelling quest content = solo content. You want ot any other way go play a game that does it that way from day one.

Veteran ranks = leveling. Until the numbers stop getting higher, youre levelling.

Anastasia wrote: »

The_Sadist wrote: »

A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged.

If they nerf future content because a minority want to play with / by themselves and not communicate with anyone outside of the odd instanced dungeon I'd rather said individuals up and go back to single player gaming, because ultimately that's what they want.

I'm all for solo friendly content and whatnot, and aside from a few odd public dungeons / hard quests I found my veteran rank 1-5 zones experience relatively solo friendly. Requesting help with world bosses and dolmens isn't a bad thing.

---

Agree with you The_Sadist...and I like choice, so more solo friendly content is something I support. Not by taking away other existing content, but by adding new.

>>>"A lot of people fail to understand this is an MMO and grouping should be encouraged." <<<

I do not believe a lot of people do not 'understand that grouping was being encouraged', I fully believe that people bought this game and subbed without informing themselves about their purchase and now they are/have/continue to initiate and demand it be changed to what they want - viable soloability in ALL zones and ALL content...irregardless of the affects of said changes.

Apparently, Zeni really is okay with that, despite the two years-plus of advertising to vet MMO players that endgame content in THIS mmo was gonna be group-encouraged, and you know, different than most other recent mmo releases. I await the exact changes taking place over these next few weeks, not only what starts on July 7th.

Apparently Vet MMO players were not the ones who decided to buy the game though as we make up only about 10% of the population.

ZOS is a business and must make money, unless the 10% can afford to fund their entire game and servers, they have to go with the majority population's desires, while attempting to retain content which gives veteran MMO players what they desire as well.

Everyone will never be happy, and the best compromises are when both parties leave pissed off, but grudgingly satisfied with the results.

The best business decisions for profitability, are to go with the majority. Not the Minority. Sure people will leave, but the majority will grow larger. And new content to facilitate the "Minority can be added once the game is stabilized. Thus satisfying both sides.

Innocente wrote: »

* Population plays 1-50 pretty much solo, makes no grouping friends. Gains no grouping skills.

* Population reaches very hard Veteran Zone content, needs friends, does not have any. Has no grouping skills.

* Population raises hue and cry that Veteran Zone content is 'to hard'.

* Zenimax lowers content in Veteran Zones for easy-mode solo play.

* Population plays VR1 - VR10 pretty much solo, makes no grouping friends. Gains no grouping skills.

* Population reaches very hard Veteran VR11-V12 content, needs friends, does not have any. Has no grouping skills.

* Population raises hue and cry that VR11 -VR12 content is to hard.

* Zenimax realizes it has replicated the WoW leveling experience, not in 10 years, but in three to six months. Prepares to make VR11-VR12 content single player friendly.

all of which could be fixed with a better grouping tool. no looking for group feature = less people to group with