Might have figured out the problem with scaling in dungeons

xaraan · November 2014

OK, so tonight's Undaunted daily was vet Elden Hollow. Our little group has a handful of different V14s, so we swap around and do them in different groups.

Our first group, with our mains, everything went smoothly - no problems at all. Finished hard mode, etc, etc.

We switched roles and characters and ran it again. Things were a bit tougher on guys we don't use as our mains because we are less polished on them, but still, got the hard modes done.

Our last group, we had 3 v14's and my V8 Templar. (Side Note: ZoS, if you are running a 4 man dungeon up-leveld, you should get more xp, not less - they aren't carrying me - I have to work to keep up. That's not a grind, it's a 4 man where each member has to contribute) I digress -- So we get to the first main boss after deadroth - Dark Root. And she destroys us. One shotting with her big AoE thing she does. My healer was doing well keeping everyone topped off, but they were dropping from full to zero every blast she did. We tried to fight her about a dozen times. No luck.

So we switch, me and the sorc ported out and changed roles. He came back with his V14 templar healer and I came back on my dps V14 sorc to make sure there was no healing issue with my guy underleveled. Now the other two stayed in, so the instance didn't change.

Still, no luck. He may have been able to maintain magicka a bit better here or there, idk, we didn't really last long enough to truly find out. She just kept destroying us. So this time we took each character out two by two and got back on our mains where we breezed past her the first time. Once we were all four back in - still with same instance mind you, we decided to try her again.

We did do a better job I think, though my tank ran annulment this time to try and add another damage shield that I didn't have the first time we did it (I didn't even need the protection first time). We made it around her execute range but she still was able to one shot guys a few times during the fight and finally she got enough and adds out that it got us all.

There was a HUGE power difference. I'm not sure about her health, we didn't check first time to see, but her output was power was major. This might be a source of one of the balance problems if so. (I remember running SC with some pugs that were V3-5 the other day, I was V8 and we couldn't even make it to first boss - I chalked it up to bad players, but could be more to it) Perhaps a problem with mixed level characters? - or mixed at too far of a level spread?

As a side note: we run dungeons all the time, we love it. We have a pretty good feel for them. We've done all the hard mode pledges so far, no problem, city of ash, 3 manned crypt of hearts, etc. So we aren't crazy lol, but I'm interested to see if others might be able to test the theory as well.

Edit: Probably should add: @ZOS_GinaBruno I'll be filing a bug report on this before I get off tonight as well.

Edit 2: filed bug 141106-000173

Valymer · November 2014

It took us quite a few tries to down her today as well, we eventually just stacked Circle of Protection x3 on top of her (not sure if this even protects against her aoe) and spam healed when she got low, and got lucky with the AoE somehow.

But after we beat her we were talking about how she was at a pretty good level of difficulty, all things considered. We went ahead and cleared the dungeon including the last boss on hard mode and it made me realize something.

The majority of problems that myself and others seem to be having is with bosses that spawn adds. I believe the reason behind this is that the flat increase to HP and damage on all mobs also included the adds that spawn during boss fights.

The problem is that the timing of boss mechanics were originally tuned with adds of a certain power. Just giving the adds a blanket increase in stats without readjusting things such as the rate at which they spawn or their number leads to the overall fight just being a little too strong.

The last boss on EH is tough, and he does spawn adds but due to their nature they weren't too bad. I am thinking more along the lines of bosses with waves of adds like the netch in Darkshade and the Keeper in Banished Cells.

It might be best for Zenimax to go through and individually adjust some of these particular add-spawning bosses rather than just nerf everything all at once, because some of the fights are really right where they need to be. I realize that this would take a lot more time and resources but it honestly seems like the best solution.

xaraan · November 2014

They definitely need fine tuning each dungeon, but my concern was more the difficulty on the fourth try vs the other three, even when taking our first group back through. Definitely seemed off to us and might be an issue there.

Shinra · November 2014

xaraan wrote: »

They definitely need fine tuning each dungeon, but my concern was more the difficulty on the fourth try vs the other three, even when taking our first group back through. Definitely seemed off to us and might be an issue there.

If it really is as you described, than it's a bug, probably. They aren't supposed to get stronger when their level gets lower.

I also heard from a friend that they failed yesterday when taking a vet. 8 templar healer with them.

cracker81 · November 2014

Problem? What problem? If you wiped with your off toons on a vet dungeon rank vr12 mobs then I think it is good. If you wanted it a little easier why didn't you make the VR8 your leader? Do not ask for nerfs because it is a slippery slope. When you can easily change the difficulty by group leader. The only thing I see is maybe solo scale for ppl that cannot play so well. Could make a setting for them easy, normal, and vet. Then gear scales from that as well.

xaraan · November 2014

cracker81 wrote: »

Problem? What problem? If you wiped with your off toons on a vet dungeon rank vr12 mobs then I think it is good. If you wanted it a little easier why didn't you make the VR8 your leader? Do not ask for nerfs because it is a slippery slope. When you can easily change the difficulty by group leader. The only thing I see is maybe solo scale for ppl that cannot play so well. Could make a setting for them easy, normal, and vet. Then gear scales from that as well.

I know it was a long post, but sounds like you scanned it and didn't read it.

That's not the complaint. The complaint is one v12 scaling felt way more powerful than the other v12 scaling even with same characters going back in (in same instance). We didn't want it easy or at v8. I'm talking about a real issue here, not a request for a nerf. We tried the same instance on our mains that coasted through the dungeon a bit before (by only having a couple of us leave at a time and come back with the mains) and the problem was the same. It's not about the challenge, we like that.

Edit: I don't know if my explanation is weird, but let me add some more detail:

Try 1 with mains, all v14: Success, no problem, pretty smooth run really.
Try 2 with first alts, all v14: Success, rougher b/c alts, but did it.
Try 3 with 2nd alts, all v14: same as first alts- a rough success.
Try 4 with 3rd alts, 3 v14 and 1v8 - the crazy wipes.
-- So we stay in same instance (ie we dont' all leave) and replace v8 with v14. Still crazy wipes.
-- So we stay in same instance again and return player by player with those first mains because at this point we think something is up and want to test it -- still wipe, can still feel a big difference in the way it leveled up vs. first time.

Trust me. We do enough dungeons and do them well. We know the difference in the feel of the power level of the boss, especially with our mains having just played it that many times in a row. Also, this isn't just me saying this, but doing the post on behalf of our whole four man team that could tell a difference.

Shinra · November 2014

cracker81 wrote: »

Problem? What problem? If you wiped with your off toons on a vet dungeon rank vr12 mobs then I think it is good. If you wanted it a little easier why didn't you make the VR8 your leader? Do not ask for nerfs because it is a slippery slope. When you can easily change the difficulty by group leader. The only thing I see is maybe solo scale for ppl that cannot play so well. Could make a setting for them easy, normal, and vet. Then gear scales from that as well.

When my friend played, the V8 was the leader. Dungeon scaled down to V8. The healer wasn't the best, but still he thought the dungeon didn't scale right.

I want to add too, that the normal dungeon scaling, when everybody is V14, is, in my opinion, pretty well done actually. My only concern is that there may be a bug which is causing trouble with the dungeon scaling as soon as a group of players with different levels enters a dungeon.

zaria · November 2014

Shinra wrote: »

cracker81 wrote: »

Problem? What problem? If you wiped with your off toons on a vet dungeon rank vr12 mobs then I think it is good. If you wanted it a little easier why didn't you make the VR8 your leader? Do not ask for nerfs because it is a slippery slope. When you can easily change the difficulty by group leader. The only thing I see is maybe solo scale for ppl that cannot play so well. Could make a setting for them easy, normal, and vet. Then gear scales from that as well.

When my friend played, the V8 was the leader. Dungeon scaled down to V8. The healer wasn't the best, but still he thought the dungeon didn't scale right.

I want to add too, that the normal dungeon scaling, when everybody is V14, is, in my opinion, pretty well done actually. My only concern is that there may be a bug which is causing trouble with the dungeon scaling as soon as a group of players with different levels enters a dungeon.

Can be we did elden root with vr13+3xvr14 and it was easier than BC with vr5,13,14,14.
Same problem add spawning bosses is harder, if more adds its harder, just a few is not a problem but packs is.

SteveCampsOut · November 2014

It doesn't help when you tell the tank in Selene's Web to ignore the panthers and take out the GD Archer only to have him running in circles swatting kitties til the group wipes because the healer can't keep them all healed with this spastic target and the unlimited adds with nobody hitting the guy spawning all of them! Rinse and Repeat til the group breaks up!

Shinra · November 2014

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

It doesn't help when you tell the tank in Selene's Web to ignore the panthers and take out the GD Archer only to have him running in circles swatting kitties til the group wipes because the healer can't keep them all healed with this spastic target and the unlimited adds with nobody hitting the guy spawning all of them! Rinse and Repeat til the group breaks up!

We are talking about a bug here, not about bad players.

And please only complain about healers and tanks once you have actually played them yourself. If you did, you would know that just healing the whole group against that boss won't work. And you would know that only tanking the boss, while ignoring the kitties isn't the best decision either.

Epsilon_Echo · November 2014

I agree with you idea. I led a group of VR14s with my VR4 alt on BC. We got completely wrecked on the Keeper that dual wields. It leads me to believe that there is some sort of issue with the mid-lower VR scaled dungeons scaling in- properly. I think today or tomorrow I'm going to test the difficulty of groups with lower VR leaders vs higher VR leaders.