Thought on pledge and improvement for the community

schroed360 · December 2014

To start I ll just quickly tell you my yesterday pledge story ...
7-8PM : go darkshade scale at vet 14 with 3 vet 14 and 1 vet1( tank ).Not an awesome run but not bad either (2wipe on the nech and 1 on last boss).
11.30PM : I have time so let s go do the normal pledge .See a LFM healer .
I am mainly tank, an average/good DD but healer is my last spec...( I m DK)
Ask the lvl they were all vet 1. So I accept and of course it was a walk in the park .
So I talk a bit with them to give us some advice because one of them was suppose to be the tank but had no taunt ... and realise that the guys were really happy^^But I mean "really"( for me the same happiness would be finishing vet dsa : i just get to stage 5 before nerf and never try again since then .Will try friday night if some are interrested ( EU pact )).WHY? Because they were on that dungeon since a long time and it seems have not been lucky to find help.

On the forum we can see quite a lot of opinions on pledge's difficulty .
If I make an overly simplistic sum up we end up with:

- This is too hard and impossible to do(especially for pug group.)
-This is too easy when you know them, and play only with poeple who are properly build (and properly playing it).

I run a lot of pledge in pug( limited time due to IRL constraints ) so as soon as i log on I just look at zone chat and try to go in the first group i can.
In my opinion those 2 statement ( hard/easy ) that poeple opose are BOTH true .

The real problem (still just my opinion) is that usually poeple who find them too easy with their team tend to play... with their team.

And new comer without team tend to play with...other new comer.And this add to the difficulty since it is a lot easier to learn when half or 3/4 of the team already know what to do.

So what could be a good thing( for me who like the difficulty as it is) would be to ease the learning process of new comer by creating incencitive for more experienced player to play with/help them.

Personnaly I d like to see something like the pvp rank except that it would be the "undaunted rank".To earn rank you would have to earn points.That would be granted by completing pledge of the day And helping other completing it with some multiplier if the poeple are of lower rank.That could grant fluff things ...costume,tittle ...

I know that some might think " hey we already have undaunted rank" yes but they are tied to achievement and the daily quest.If you have done the daily and already have all achievement there is no point going to it again to help.I think of it more as a reputation .

Some could say "yes but no thx because it will just replace the link X achievement by oh you have not enought reputation..."
But if as i propose you would earn the maximum point with let s say 2poeple with hi rep and 2 with low rep.Then the 2 hi rep would have a run that might be not so easy and the 2 low rep would not feel like it is impossible^^.

So any thought ?
Do you have other idea to help the community to be less fragmented ?

Ps: sorry for my english and for the lenght .

Cuyler · December 2014

schroed360 wrote: »

....creating incencitive for more experienced player to play with/help them.

Personnaly I d like to see something like the pvp rank except that it would be the "undaunted rank".To earn rank you would have to earn points.That would be granted by completing pledge of the day And helping other completing it with some multiplier if the poeple are of lower rank.That could grant fluff things ...costume,tittle ...

It could be as simple as a person who has completed the dungeon gets a much higher drop rate for OP gear when playing with 2 or more players who have not completed it. This could create incentive for experienced players to pug. You kind of say the same thing.

I'm sure they're a host of issues with this approach

leandro.800ub17_ESO · December 2014

V12 versions are indeed hard but again hard for the drops they give.
I can get like the double of drops in a vr1 version then a vr12 so to begin with allot more gold.

Beesting · December 2014

I think there is no pve endgame other than the vet pledges and ds and trials, so i have come to the conclusion there is no point resisting that fact.

I have not spent 8 months doing quests and researching and trading to give up now.
The trials are easier than the vet dungeons for sure, but if loads of people keep doing the daily pledges it will get easier and easier to find a decent pug group, because people like me remember the mechanics and loose the fear.

I do find vet dungeons very taxing though, very tiring and last week after doing vet CoH for the first time i had a massive headache the next day and could not take in much new info at work (like reading long emails) i was completely overloaded and exhausted...

When i did it last sunday and spent 5 hours in CoH it went much better, i still wiped many many times but i did not have the headache the next day.
So somehow my brain had gotten used to the intense fighting.

I dont know why people play eso ofcourse, but the endgame is very different from the beginning, how the game was in april, when i did a dungeon once a week for the skill point and messed around questing and crafting the rest of the time.

Like a relaxing sunday drive is very different to going around on a racetrack...

That might mean some people just can't or won't do the vet dungeons because they don't spend the time to research the mechanics and watch vids on boss fights and try again and again.

I don't know how to close that gap that the OP is talking about i will join a pledge guild very soon, so the future looks bright enough to fill many dark winters day...

schroed360 · December 2014

To cuyler : Your solution sounds good to me.But I imagine that it will create a lot of disagreement since some poeple would feel "forced " to play in pug...that is why I only propose rewards such as tittle ,costume...etc.
But I would not say no to a better drop rate of savior/wormcult/ebony ^^.

To beesting : just WOW ! I remember hard time when I was starting vet dungeon in my low VR but.... nothing near comparable.The worst was a failure of the group and a stop(usually on hard point: imril, praxin ...) but I never exceed the 2hours (except for my first DSA). So I m impressed by your patience.Hopefully it will get easier the more you ll practice .And it can become trivial(my record for CoH was 24mn but it was before scaling) if you have found a good guild .
So keep improving your on the good way ^^.

Thanks you all for your feedback.

Merlin13KAGL · December 2014

What? You guys don't like the daily interview process for a job that's supposed to last 20 minutes?

A difficulty option would change so much of this with such a simple fix.

Newer people wouldn't get as frustrated. Geared out people could crank it up.

I originally was in a Dungeon Running guild, and that made a world of difference. I rarely said 'no' to a run request.

About the only time I say no now is if it's quickly approaching bedtime...gotta sleep somewhere in there.

Maybe it's time to reform a new guild, or look for the callout of one's that do this regularly and well. After 1.5, I don't even see as many of the zone advertisements for that sort of thing.

We'll see. Maybe it's starting to bounce back.

schroed360 · December 2014

I usually play in group during the 11PM-1 AM frame time.So usually that is when guildies say no because :bed time or are already doing something.
In addition if you are usually playing in weird hour it can take a lot of time to learn who is who and have time to know each other.
And in this game I have seen myself just starting to know poeple when either the guild collapse or the guy you appreciate leave (@Goudja are you there?).

All this to say : sure good guild is great and have to be promote.But improving the community as a whole is good too...at least in my opinion.

Cuyler · December 2014

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

A difficulty option would change so much of this with such a simple fix.

Newer people wouldn't get as frustrated. Geared out people could crank it up.

I've been a vocal advocate of a player controlled sliding scale difficulty from the day they announced the forced scaling. Agreed.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Maybe it's time to reform a new guild, or look for the callout of one's that do this regularly and well. After 1.5, I don't even see as many of the zone advertisements for that sort of thing.

We'll see. Maybe it's starting to bounce back.

Yes it helps immensely to have a dungeons guild to do runs. I have noticed a slow down in guild adverts as well since update 5.

I think there is a large disparity between the players who have these guilds to play with and the ones either still looking or playing only with a small group of friends.

Occasionally I get no takers for dungeons runs from my guilds. When this happens I'm obv forced to pug (not that often). I have spent time putting out requests for dungeon guilds and they are very few and far between at the moment (not sure why).

It's that "outside looking in" kinda feeling for a pug that seems to go on and on until your lucky enough that a guild rep hears your plea for help, chooses to act on it and send an invite. It can be quite discouraging for this to span a week of play time. In the end I think it boils down to needing a better LFG tool (or fix the one we have) and even adding a LF guild tool.

The use of zone chat for guild recruitment is just as bad as trying to get an Aether set from the RNG. I'm spoiled in a way and usually have a group of players to run with. But when I do pug I can't help but thinking, "how do people pug all the time this is so frustrating to find a group".

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom are there any changes coming soon the LFG tool?

Cuyler · December 2014

Actually just found this on another thread, was posted on Dec. 2nd.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, we’d like to give you an update as to what’s going on with the Grouping Tools. We are currently working on a backend fix that will ensure you are placed into a group faster if you meet all requirements, without having to wait for other players in front of you in the queue, and are aiming to get this fix out in the next incremental patch. The actual design of the tool will still remain in that a player searching for a group will require 4 players for the group to form - one tank, one healer, and two DPS - and be within 5 levels (or 5 Veteran Ranks if applicable) of each other.