So, About That Dungeon Scaling

Morvul · November 2014

Jacques Berge wrote: »

They are way more challenging... And I like it... The fact that me and my 3 top tier friends can't just steam roll a vet dungeon is incredibly refreshing. If you're not using a 3rd party voice chat software you're gonna have some issues... Also, this makes pugs far less likely to clear a dungeon smoothly. The dungeon scaling is just another way ESO is encouraging social game play

could not agree more!
The rescaled dungeons my group tried yesterday were incredibly fun!
Lot's of wipes figuring out how to deal with the bosses mechanics tuned to 11... wich meant it took us well over an hour per dungeon.
But all the while, everyone had a really, really good time

abigfishy · November 2014

I really liked the idea someone had of making this scaling optional for greater reward. I tried to do vet BC yesterday with three different PUGs and none of us got beyond that huge flaming dude near the start. One group battled him valiantly for about 30 minutes until the entire dungeon was one giant ball of fire and there was nowhere else to stand. Same every time with every group. All killed 4-10 times until we all give up.

I am glad some people find this fun. Maybe if I was a V14 with a dedicated team of expert players, perfectly decked out for their roles and all on teamspeak this would be a fun challenge. Right now my experience is that for casuals this is the opposite of fun. Why not make this scaling optional?

Another thing. When I first started I remember the fight against Dosha. I went there with a badly designed, badly equipped, two handed weapon wielding, level eight tank. She kicked my butt. I came back at level 10 and was still slaughtered. I came back at level 12 and finally beat her. It was a fantastic feeling of achievement. If she had scaled she would have slaughtered me at 8, 10, 12 and forever. Isn't that one of the basic ideas of a MMO that you get tougher as you level? If the monsters level too then you aren't getting any tougher at all.

Frenkthevile · November 2014

Magdalina wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which one(s) did you try?
I ran new vet 12 DC and BC, and it was totally nuts. The scaling really wasn't thought out that well though, they're mostly okay with good group, but Netch boss in DC and Imril in BC are absolutely crazy. Even with a great team and TS. We wiped at least 30 times on Imril.

I am glad they got buffed but basically...before the buff, me and a tanky friend would occasionally go bored and 2 man some vet dungeons. We 2 manned BC, Spindle, Wayrest, almost all Elden and Fungal. It was fun and extremely challenging - a slightest mistake and we'd wipe because lack of 2 party members doesn't leave much room for mistake. THAT is exactly what new vet dungeons feel like - with all 4 people now.

Yeah what the kitten has happened to Imril, she's so OP now...4 pple vr14 in full purple sets and we wiped TOO much. I disbanded and made it Vr3 because it wasn't worth the effort!
PLZ ZoS, leave insane HP amounts in Trials and let pple do the DAILIES! Daily questing should not be so hard...otherwise nobody will use lfg...

Frenkthevile · November 2014

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

.........Holy hell, Imiril kicked our ass too. In fact, it seems in fights with adds we seem to get roflstomped a good bit.

I dreamed Clannfears tonight

Tavore1138 · November 2014

Audigy wrote: »

ZOS are not feeding me content, everything seems aimed at guilds, groups and pros... Because those people are the only people they listen too... My small 'casual' guild is losing players as they hit the wall of top level VR and return to offline games where they can 'win' without being a pro or having to organise their work & family lives around trying to find viable groups.

I don't understand that sentence to be honest.

Everything you do in a guild requires time, it has absolutely nothing to do with how hard the content is.

If you want to pvp with your guild then you must set up a schedule. If you want to raid or just quest, do RP you must find a common schedule.

Time does not get more if content is harder, its still the same time so that blaming the difficulty is the wrong way. Blame the dependency of guilds at ESO but leave the difficulty where it is please.

I agree, you did not understand my comment.

I am blaming the focus on guilds and grouping. But also that those big guilds are often made up of people who are very experienced at MMOs and are, IMO, not representative of the average player. There should be content for those people but there needs to be content for those of us who love to play, play enough to be more than averagely skilled but will never be l33t and have not got the type of lives that enable us to organise groups all the time.

I want the content to be tough but I don't want it all to be uber-tough and I would like some that can be done solo or duo not just in groups of 4 or 12.

Long term that will help you too ad the game will draw subs from a wider player base and keep going for longet.

Jacques Berge · November 2014

Frenkthevile wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which one(s) did you try?
I ran new vet 12 DC and BC, and it was totally nuts. The scaling really wasn't thought out that well though, they're mostly okay with good group, but Netch boss in DC and Imril in BC are absolutely crazy. Even with a great team and TS. We wiped at least 30 times on Imril.

I am glad they got buffed but basically...before the buff, me and a tanky friend would occasionally go bored and 2 man some vet dungeons. We 2 manned BC, Spindle, Wayrest, almost all Elden and Fungal. It was fun and extremely challenging - a slightest mistake and we'd wipe because lack of 2 party members doesn't leave much room for mistake. THAT is exactly what new vet dungeons feel like - with all 4 people now.

Yeah what the kitten has happened to Imril, she's so OP now...4 pple vr14 in full purple sets and we wiped TOO much. I disbanded and made it Vr3 because it wasn't worth the effort!
PLZ ZoS, leave insane HP amounts in Trials and let pple do the DAILIES! Daily questing should not be so hard...otherwise nobody will use lfg...

Hahahaha yeah... That fight was nuts... Sooo much fun for me... My build of a survivable NB Stam Magic hybrid I tore it up. Because of the adds... I was constantly sitting in my VoB and was nigh untouchable.

TehMagnus · November 2014

Tips that might help you guys for Imril fight:

- Have your tank equip destro staf & elemental ring in 2ndary bar. If you have a DK make him equip talons as well.
- Put max single target DPS on Imril the quickest you kill it the easier it gets.
- Orbs will come flying into you and force you to keep moving. While Imril is out, try to have the tank move around the room backwards while taunting her making sure you turn around the room a bit like the fire guy so that orbs aren't all around the room but in the path you just walked. Rest of the group should be positioned very close/behind the tank. If the whole group keeps moving backwards & DPSing at the same time it should be ok for orbs and healer should have an easier time spaming combat prayer & healing springs on the whole party as well as BOL on tank since I think blocking is bugged in that fight.
- When boss disappears in an orb, get close to it. Put talons unless it's the bats coming out so that the imps/chanfears stay put and just have everybody use elemental ring (including tank) on them. You can use an ult when chanfears come out since they take longer to kill DK banner + synergy will keep adds together for easier DPS. negate will make them stop moving. Veil will mitigate dmg while you AOE everything down. Use ults wisely.

Don't go in with anyone using a stamina build

and don't hate me for saying this, hate Zenimax for not buffing stamina quickly enough. If you're DK or Sorc and aren't using crushing shock build, time to take a look in Tamriel foundry to find a new build.

Rair.Kitani · November 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Tips that might help you guys for Imril fight:
Don't go in with anyone using a stamina build and don't hate me for saying this, hate Zenimax for not buffing stamina quickly enough. If you're DK or Sorc and aren't using crushing shock build, time to take a look in Tamriel foundry to find a new build.

I really appreciate the tips you gave, but not taking people with stamina to group isnt too polite...
Had two runs yesterday, both successful though we had a few wipes as well
one with
sorc tank, temp heal, NB & temp dps
and one with
sorc tank, temp heal, and two NB (one stamina)
and it worked out quite well.

Frenkthevile wrote: »

PLZ ZoS, leave insane HP amounts in Trials and let pple do the DAILIES! Daily questing should not be so hard...otherwise nobody will use lfg...

OH PLS KEEP the "insane" HP for vet dungeons. Only by this way you really have to play the encounters and not just overdamage them.
If you want to do dailies, pls go to the non-vet-undaunted.

andreasv · November 2014

abigfishy wrote: »

... I tried to do vet BC yesterday with three different PUGs and none of us got beyond that huge flaming dude near the start. One group battled him valiantly for about 30 minutes until the entire dungeon was one giant ball of fire and there was nowhere else to stand. Same every time with every group. All killed 4-10 times until we all give up ...

Had the same problem yesterday. Found a group within a minute of picking up the undaunted challenge. One V14, V11, V7 (group leader), and my V8 tank. The problem was that due to the insane health of the maw the room was a flaming inferno after 5 minutes. I just couldn't lead that beast along the walls anymore so that my group in the middle could do damage.

I do like the challenge, but would appreciate to see some light at the end of the tunnel. At best we managed to bring down 50% of its health.

Rune_Relic · November 2014

Leeric wrote: »

Its exposing bad builds and play styles balance issues more so than previous dungeons.

Fixed that for you

Origin · November 2014

Zos has nothing to do with this. This is all Sheogorath's doing. He unleashed all the monsters in the game. He had enough crying for nerfs.

Duccea · November 2014

abigfishy wrote: »

I am glad some people find this fun. Maybe if I was a V14 with a dedicated team of expert players, perfectly decked out for their roles and all on teamspeak this would be a fun challenge. Right now my experience is that for casuals this is the opposite of fun. Why not make this scaling optional?

Exactly this. This new level of challenge is perfect for well-coordinated teams of well-geared and well-skilled players. For casual groups and pugs, not so much.

As a consequence, I expect to see a lot more elitism, kicking people from group and "L2P, noob" style comments and I can't see how this would help to improve the community.
While I agree that some degree of mastery of one's class should be neccessary to partake in activities like dungeons, the difficulty right now more or less demands a flawless performance, not just an average one.

So ... make the scaling optional, and maybe give the scaled version a somewhat better chance for better drops compared to the normal versions, as an additional reward for those that take up the challenge. Casual players can still enjoy their fast, casual after-work runs, those looking for a challenge will still find one with the scaled versions of the dungeons.

Lord_Kreegan · November 2014

Syntse wrote: »

Elf_Boy wrote: »

Be nice if there were a difficulty slider somewhere.

There is but you just cannot control it. The more you get your behind wooped the easier it should get. However I have not heard anyone testing this mechanics.

Yesterday one of my characters died FOURTEEN times before I quit trying.

At no time did the fight become any easier.

The mechanic did not work.

It's Doshia all over again [at release].

cracker81 · November 2014

Ok. I read all comments. In my opinion it is perfect.
Reason.
1. Vet dungeon suppose to be hard.
2. If you want less challenge or no to worthless gear in vet make party leader VR1 and the rest VR14. You can change the difficulty by increasing party leaders VR lvl.
3. Normal is fine I did a pug last night to a VR10 dungeon with a set up tank VR 14, healer VR 10, and 2 VR 1. It was slow. I tanked and healed on last boss. I had to tell ppl to cc break. I notice a lot of ppl stand in fire. No epics I swear is in that fire regardless of what you think.
4. Solo I have not tried yet but will.
so, if you say it is to hard and make it easy yourself. In my opinion of this form of asking to make it easier is void.
Sorry for any grammar mistakes I am on my phone.

Syntse · November 2014

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Elf_Boy wrote: »

Be nice if there were a difficulty slider somewhere.

There is but you just cannot control it. The more you get your behind wooped the easier it should get. However I have not heard anyone testing this mechanics.

Yesterday one of my characters died FOURTEEN times before I quit trying.

At no time did the fight become any easier.

The mechanic did not work.

It's Doshia all over again [at release].

So now it seems it's tested and not working or then 14 times is not yet enough in the minds of developers. Anyway that is what was said in patch notes that if person is having difficulty the game should notice it and ease a bit.

Curragraigue · November 2014

Agree with other comments. Did Vet BC pre patch and had no real problem with it, some challenge but if you knew the mechanics before straightforward enough.

Did it post patch with a VR4 group leader with a VR5, 6 and 14 and it was ridiculous in parts. As others have mentioned Imiril was dropping more balls than she did in the pre-patch VR1 version, she was hitting harder with damage from the instant damage AoE she was dropping and had a disproportional higher HP increase than going from VR1 to VR4.

I'm hoping there was a mistake somewhere in the changes otherwise I doubt I'll be doing many more VR dungeons.

Rair.Kitani · November 2014

In my opinion yesterday was just like we entered banished cells for the first times with vr1-3 --- Scaling workes fine imho

Fight against Imriel has a lot to do with ressource management. When she spawns the clanbans and every dps is oom it takes too long to kill them. Try have a ultimate ready when they arrive - negate stuns them, veil takes away 30% dmg, nova does the same.

She drops more balls the longer the fight lasts, has been the same pre patch.

cote-bmsb16_ESO · November 2014

Rair.Kitani wrote: »

In my opinion yesterday was just like we entered banished cells for the first times with vr1-3 --- Scaling workes fine imho

Fight against Imriel has a lot to do with ressource management. When she spawns the clanbans and every dps is oom it takes too long to kill them. Try have a ultimate ready when they arrive - negate stuns them, veil takes away 30% dmg, nova does the same.

She drops more balls the longer the fight lasts, has been the same pre patch.

The bouncing blue balls' red AOE isnt right either, they explode upon impact not all slow and nice as the red aoe suggests.

Armitas · November 2014

I don't mind the dying if I'm not doing something right. My main issue was the health. I found that for several bosses I was thinking "good Lord is this still happening, die already." Made me feel like I was using a wet noodle to attack the boss.

Observant · November 2014

Armitas wrote: »

I don't mind the dying if I'm not doing something right. My main issue was the health. I found that for several bosses I was thinking "good Lord is this still happening, die already." Made me feel like I was using a wet noodle to attack the boss.

Agreed. I love the new scaling, but my group was stuck on the second last boss in BC (the one that shoots blue orbs and has waves of adds)

We got him down to about 30% every time (even down to 9% at one point) but the amount of HP sucked. 200k+ with 2 DPS was just taking forever. It pissed me off not being able to finish the dungeon and I just rage quit and went to Cyrodiil.

It would be different if we were missing a mechanic and wiping, but this was just an OP boss and we were doing everything necessary until our sustainability as Nightblades caught up with us.

Elsonso · November 2014

Syntse wrote: »

There is but you just cannot control it. The more you get your behind wooped the easier it should get. However I have not heard anyone testing this mechanics.

I have tested this and it is true.

abigfishy wrote: »

Another thing. When I first started I remember the fight against Dosha. I went there with a badly designed, badly equipped, two handed weapon wielding, level eight tank. She kicked my butt. I came back at level 10 and was still slaughtered. I came back at level 12 and finally beat her. It was a fantastic feeling of achievement. If she had scaled she would have slaughtered me at 8, 10, 12 and forever. Isn't that one of the basic ideas of a MMO that you get tougher as you level? If the monsters level too then you aren't getting any tougher at all.

This statement is only true if you give up each time at 8, 10, and 12. If you stick with it, you will win.

I tested three aspects of the scaling yesterday.

When entering instances where the character is over-level and the quest is grey, it is nice and easy. They scaled to my level but not my capability. I got loot and XP out of the deal that I would not have received otherwise.

When entering instances where my character was in the level range and the quest was green or yellow, it still seemed to scale up to me. These battles were much more difficult because they were more on par with my capabilities AND they had a level boost. Noticeably more challenging.

The final test was the scaling down of an instance. This fail safe mode took a while to trigger, as measured by death, but once it did it was apparent. Once this happens, the instance is noticeably easier. This was not a scientific study, I was more interested in getting out so I could go do something other than ESO.

Based on my experience, if you can control the impatience and frustration and treat death as a strategy, there are no solo instance bosses in this game that cannot be beaten by people at or above the instance level.

Oolou · November 2014

I liked the scaling. It made the dungeon difficult, and I had to really think about what I was doing, rather than just steaming through. Lots of deaths and lots of fun times working out how to approach the various bosses.

It also made me think about rolling up a tank as my guild has plenty who are dps/healer types and I can appreciate now why a tank is needed when the content is more challenging.

Good times.

Lord_Kreegan · November 2014

Syntse wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Elf_Boy wrote: »

Be nice if there were a difficulty slider somewhere.

There is but you just cannot control it. The more you get your behind wooped the easier it should get. However I have not heard anyone testing this mechanics.

Yesterday one of my characters died FOURTEEN times before I quit trying.

At no time did the fight become any easier.

The mechanic did not work.

It's Doshia all over again [at release].

So now it seems it's tested and not working or then 14 times is not yet enough in the minds of developers. Anyway that is what was said in patch notes that if person is having difficulty the game should notice it and ease a bit.

UPDATE:
Bumped into another player having similar issues and we teamed up (not a formal group; just an ad hoc "we're in the same place" group) and we managed to beat the intermediate bosses together (which is where the problem lied).

The final boss, however, was mandatory-solo. In the past, it was necessary to kite the heck out of it regardless of class. Not this time; it was insanely easy.

So, the change may be working, but they didn't think it through. If what I experienced was due to the changes, they need to rework it. The intermediate bosses were harder than hell because of the nerfs to various skills/weapons made them immpossible to beat, and they never got any easier. The final boss evidently scaled down.

Or it could all be coincidental... either way, I found it to be rather ironic.

Alphashado · November 2014

If you guys want to argue about scaled VR dungeons being easy/hard/toohard, then fine. That is not nearly as much of an issue as the fact that the "nornal" pledges with terrible crappy blue rewards are just as difficult as the VR version.

If you are in a group of players that are VR12-14 then you might as well be doing the VR version of the dungeon because it's just as challenging. And that is the main issue here. Normal mode is supposed to be less of a challenge for casual players and hense the "lesser" reward.

Why have a Normal mode and a VR mode when there is literally no difference between the two? Now toss in the fact that you get a crappy reward for the Normal mode and you have a very serious problem.

Anyone with any sense what so ever would understand that the normal mode is supposed to be easy and casual friendly. Right now it is anything but casual friendly.

Just make the normal modes = to the 4 man dungeons in Craglorn and be done with it.

Khivas_Carrick · November 2014

cracker81 wrote: »

Ok. I read all comments. In my opinion it is perfect.
Reason.
1. Vet dungeon suppose to be hard.
2. If you want less challenge or no to worthless gear in vet make party leader VR1 and the rest VR14. You can change the difficulty by increasing party leaders VR lvl.
3. Normal is fine I did a pug last night to a VR10 dungeon with a set up tank VR 14, healer VR 10, and 2 VR 1. It was slow. I tanked and healed on last boss. I had to tell ppl to cc break. I notice a lot of ppl stand in fire. No epics I swear is in that fire regardless of what you think.
4. Solo I have not tried yet but will.
so, if you say it is to hard and make it easy yourself. In my opinion of this form of asking to make it easier is void.
Sorry for any grammar mistakes I am on my phone.

Bro, the gear that drops at vr14 is garbage too. Hell the dailies are garbage as well.

Drazhar14 · November 2014

Dungeon scaling is one of the worst design decisions they have made so far. The whole point of leveling up is to get more powerful in order to beat content you could not previously. If that content levels up with you, what is the point of even leveling your character?!

Khivas_Carrick · November 2014

Alphashado wrote: »

If you guys want to argue about scaled VR dungeons being easy/hard/toohard, then fine. That is not nearly as much of an issue as the fact that the "nornal" pledges with terrible crappy blue rewards are just as difficult as the VR version.

If you are in a group of players that are VR12-14 then you might as well be doing the VR version of the dungeon because it's just as challenging. And that is the main issue here. Normal mode is supposed to be less of a challenge for casual players and hense the "lesser" reward.

Why have a Normal mode and a VR mode when there is literally no difference between the two? Now toss in the fact that you get a crappy reward for the Normal mode and you have a very serious problem.

Anyone with any sense what so ever would understand that the normal mode is supposed to be easy and casual friendly. Right now it is anything but casual friendly.

Just make the normal modes = to the 4 man dungeons in Craglorn and be done with it.

I felt that the normal modes were easier.

itsBishop · November 2014

Ran BC with a pug group last night that consisted of two stam dps running bow/de and bow/2h. Despite my advice that aoe was crucially important for the Imiril fight I consistently saw them putting out single target dps on the adds. Needless to say we wiped numerous times; there's only so much additional damage from accumulated mobs that I can heal through.

Immediately after one of the dps dropped we grabbed a competent dk and cleared the fight first try. If you're having issues on this content you need to step back and take a look at your build, bars, etc. Change something in response to the demands of each fight. Don't be the kind of player that does the same thing over and over and expects results (and then runs to the forums crying for nerfs the SECOND day that new content is out). Just think a little bit, everyone.

IMO casual shouldn't be a synonym for incompetent, but it sounds like a lot of the complaints here are from people upset that their solo builds (or craglorn grind builds) aren't viable in veteran dungeon content. Or that they can't just chip away at a mob of enemies one by one using single target dps. It's just not going to happen.

cote-bmsb16_ESO · November 2014

I just gota mention that the Demon Souls/Dark Souls series is really difficult. It's not difficult because the bosses have 200k health, its difficult because the bosses have mechanics and move sets that you have to figure out.
I feel like ESO is copping out on the mechanics side, and just dumped a crap ton of health points into their bosses and let their fights turn into endurance fights. Its not fun to chip away at a boss for 15 minutes.

Khivas_Carrick · November 2014

itsBishop wrote: »

Ran BC with a pug group last night that consisted of two stam dps running bow/de and bow/2h. Despite my advice that aoe was crucially important for the Imiril fight I consistently saw them putting out single target dps on the adds. Needless to say we wiped numerous times; there's only so much additional damage from accumulated mobs that I can heal through.

Immediately after one of the dps dropped we grabbed a competent dk and cleared the fight first try. If you're having issues on this content you need to step back and take a look at your build, bars, etc. Change something in response to the demands of each fight. Don't be the kind of player that does the same thing over and over and expects results (and then runs to the forums crying for nerfs the SECOND day that new content is out). Just think a little bit, everyone.

IMO casual shouldn't be a synonym for incompetent, but it sounds like a lot of the complaints here are from people upset that their solo builds (or craglorn grind builds) aren't viable in veteran dungeon content. Or that they can't just chip away at a mob of enemies one by one using single target dps. It's just not going to happen.

Could also be a rather hefty issue with DKs and what I'm assuming was a staff being just that op and that this game is pretty much a zerg fest.