WHAT ARE THEY THINKING ABOUT V DUNGEON AND TRIAL DIFFICULTY?

newtinmpls · May 2015

First thanks for the lovely and specific comments - I am severely subtle-impaired (I wish I could do the "Kids in the Hall" riff on 'it's not sarcasm, it's a speech impediment'). I'll answer what I can.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

1. There is more than one way to achieve victory in these fights, there just happens to be one "best way".
2. It sounds to me like you had a disturbing lack of Damage output.
3. Your tank...is awful. He needs to play better if he's dropping like that. I tried to come up with an encouraging way to say that, but there isn't one. Your tank clearly needs to learn how to play. One does not sit in fire and let it eat up resources, one moves from the fire in a manner that protects his party. Generally staying out of the middle of the room and tanking into corners is enough for the DPS to burn down this beast.
4. Are you people still wearing gear you found while questing? Are you taking advantage of set bonuses and synergies?

Sorry, but as much as I want to offer encouragement, that entire incident sounds like you had little to no DPS and a tank who didn't know what he was doing. No, you shouldn't have to constantly change your preferred playstyle to a specific way of doing things to play, but if you want to do the content that many people would consider "End Game" then you have got to be flexible enough to recognize that your way might just be terrible.

1-I sure hope so.

Also, for purposes of this discussion, I'm going to Describe the characters: Mol is a sorc/tank who I've discussed before in the forums, and got alot of feedback and suggestions (mostly on the necessity of taunting well); I do pretty well with the S&B taunt, but I just can't seem to get the hang of the guild one. I hate found armor, and he runs with a combo of Night Mother and Hundings rage (4 and 5 respectively), his standard jewelry is glyphed to add damage. I usually adventure with Fianna, templar/healer. She puts most of her stats into magicka and wears a combo of Warlock and Seducer (5 & 5). We usually do most adventures together - no, we don't usually have much in the way of DPS, and sometimes deliberately even take longer than needed so she can practice her heals. She rarely runs out of magicka (I think in general her armor is all glyphed to boost it).

The other couple we played this with run a DK who alternates between bow and S&B (she LOOVES the dragon/wing/jump ultimate), and a stamina based Templar who uses bow and prefers med armor (presumably for the criticals?).

2-Yes, we have a disturbing lack of damage output. Unless it's facing daedra and the two templars do dual radiant destructions to folks who have been whittled a bit.

3-The tank was not sitting in fire. He was attempting to occupy flaming-halitosis (there - that's my new name for this boss), initially having problems with it - 'cause damn, the fires set by that bugger just do not go out. Eventually kept trying to lead in circles round the edge of the room. And the 60,000+ damage was a one shot.

4-bonuses and synergies - as the tank I was pretty occupied trying to juggle taunt, scoot, drag his nastiness into as many corners as I could - I'm sure I attempted to hit some synergies but I'm not very confident I actually got them.

pppontus · May 2015

newtinmpls wrote: »

First thanks for the lovely and specific comments - I am severely subtle-impaired (I wish I could do the "Kids in the Hall" riff on 'it's not sarcasm, it's a speech impediment'). I'll answer what I can.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

1. There is more than one way to achieve victory in these fights, there just happens to be one "best way".
2. It sounds to me like you had a disturbing lack of Damage output.
3. Your tank...is awful. He needs to play better if he's dropping like that. I tried to come up with an encouraging way to say that, but there isn't one. Your tank clearly needs to learn how to play. One does not sit in fire and let it eat up resources, one moves from the fire in a manner that protects his party. Generally staying out of the middle of the room and tanking into corners is enough for the DPS to burn down this beast.
4. Are you people still wearing gear you found while questing? Are you taking advantage of set bonuses and synergies?

Sorry, but as much as I want to offer encouragement, that entire incident sounds like you had little to no DPS and a tank who didn't know what he was doing. No, you shouldn't have to constantly change your preferred playstyle to a specific way of doing things to play, but if you want to do the content that many people would consider "End Game" then you have got to be flexible enough to recognize that your way might just be terrible.

1-I sure hope so.

Also, for purposes of this discussion, I'm going to Describe the characters: Mol is a sorc/tank who I've discussed before in the forums, and got alot of feedback and suggestions (mostly on the necessity of taunting well); I do pretty well with the S&B taunt, but I just can't seem to get the hang of the guild one. I hate found armor, and he runs with a combo of Night Mother and Hundings rage (4 and 5 respectively), his standard jewelry is glyphed to add damage. I usually adventure with Fianna, templar/healer. She puts most of her stats into magicka and wears a combo of Warlock and Seducer (5 & 5). We usually do most adventures together - no, we don't usually have much in the way of DPS, and sometimes deliberately even take longer than needed so she can practice her heals. She rarely runs out of magicka (I think in general her armor is all glyphed to boost it).

The other couple we played this with run a DK who alternates between bow and S&B (she LOOVES the dragon/wing/jump ultimate), and a stamina based Templar who uses bow and prefers med armor (presumably for the criticals?).

2-Yes, we have a disturbing lack of damage output. Unless it's facing daedra and the two templars do dual radiant destructions to folks who have been whittled a bit.

3-The tank was not sitting in fire. He was attempting to occupy flaming-halitosis (there - that's my new name for this boss), initially having problems with it - 'cause damn, the fires set by that bugger just do not go out. Eventually kept trying to lead in circles round the edge of the room. And the 60,000+ damage was a one shot.

4-bonuses and synergies - as the tank I was pretty occupied trying to juggle taunt, scoot, drag his nastiness into as many corners as I could - I'm sure I attempted to hit some synergies but I'm not very confident I actually got them.

You can't run damage armor as a tank, you'll run out of stamina and take way too much damage. Try making something like Hist Bark, Alessias Bulwark or something similar. It must be heavy armor. Get all heavy armor and S&B passives you can. Glyphs on jewelry should be reduce block cost mainly. Block everything you reasonable can and dodge everything else, pretty much. The frontal cone fire must be avoided, simply sidestep it. You got the right idea about putting it in circles at the edges, put the fires as close as you can to save space. Taunt every 10 seconds.

Healer gear sounds ok for the level, shouldn't be too bad.

The 60k damage must be from standing in the frontal cone fire, nothing else in there would hit that hard. That is telegraphed quite a bit in advance and has a unique tell from the boss when he stops and leans forward to breathe fire.

The DPS probably need to look at their builds but that is way more complicated than a message here can help with really.

Victus · May 2015

What I see so far is a tank with damage enchants and dps armor sets, that should likely be geared towards more health and stamina cost reduction.

On paper the healer and stamina Temp/bow user should be fine.

The DK using bow/S&S I hope is all stamina, and really doesn't need to be using S&S in the vet dungeons anyway, unless the tank went down during a fight. Not much DPS using those weapon setup.

HeroOfNone · May 2015

timidobserver wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

I think they are way too easy. Sanctum Ophidia was lately completed by a group consisting only out of 6 players...

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/169957/serpent-trial-with-6-people-beyond-infinity

So let me ask this, what should be done to "raise" the difficulty to stop this, if it was an issue?

The easiest way for ZOS to fix it without putting in a lot of resources is just to come up with another increased difficulty mode for trials and dungeons. Rather than only applying to the final boss, come up with an increased difficulty mode that applies to the whole trial. I would have it to add an additional boss or two, increase all enemy damage done, increase all enemy health, add new mechanics, ect.

I would explain it by having some new antagonist show up and start granting enemies extra power. Putting the new difficulty into another mode is good because it allows the more advanced players to have a greater challenge without impacting the players that currently have trouble with content.

again, WHAT should make it more difficult? More mechanics, more stats required? A DPS requirement? They do have a lot of things in these dungeons and trials that make it difficult when you first do them, which makes them entertaining, but once you have a pattern down then most seem to be annoyed with the grind. Other games like WOW or EQ have issues where they place the difficulty with stats and gear, so no mater how much you train, you're not doing it until you grind AA for so many runs, then he rah, then you can do SO, just to get gear that makes it all easier. In here though, you can run these nearly naked if you can dodgeroll or block properly. I just see a lot asking for the challenge, then mitigation stacking when it's too hard or complaining when that fails.

Did you read what you responded to? This line right here answers your question~~~>" Rather than only applying to the final boss, come up with an increased difficulty mode that applies to the whole trial. I would have it to add an additional boss or two, increase all enemy damage done, increase all enemy health, add new mechanics, ect.

Though, what they do is really irrelevant to me. The point is that the content is very stale at the moment. Particularly since the Champion System made everything so much easier. I don't really care what they do to increase the challenge as long as they do something.

I did, however I'm reading it as macro level "they should make all bosses hard" and I'm discussing the micro level "how to make each boss hard", or more specificly the mechanics. We talk on increasing health, ok, how much should they have and is that a dps gate if folks aren't running an armor set? We talk enemy damage, should it be a 1-2 shot kill, or something less that you can block and hopefully live? We talk mechanics, are we talking something that requires all 12 players be up? What about the randomness in running to certain safe areas? Also how will this culminate with the final boss, who as I'm sure most have noticed, each boss has precursor moves that the prior bosses and trash display in some fashion?

Not saying things can"t be improved, but some of the things used to make the game "hard" are simply tedious grinds and padding rather than entertaining challenges

UrQuan · May 2015

newtinmpls wrote: »

First thanks for the lovely and specific comments - I am severely subtle-impaired (I wish I could do the "Kids in the Hall" riff on 'it's not sarcasm, it's a speech impediment'). I'll answer what I can.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

1. There is more than one way to achieve victory in these fights, there just happens to be one "best way".
2. It sounds to me like you had a disturbing lack of Damage output.
3. Your tank...is awful. He needs to play better if he's dropping like that. I tried to come up with an encouraging way to say that, but there isn't one. Your tank clearly needs to learn how to play. One does not sit in fire and let it eat up resources, one moves from the fire in a manner that protects his party. Generally staying out of the middle of the room and tanking into corners is enough for the DPS to burn down this beast.
4. Are you people still wearing gear you found while questing? Are you taking advantage of set bonuses and synergies?

Sorry, but as much as I want to offer encouragement, that entire incident sounds like you had little to no DPS and a tank who didn't know what he was doing. No, you shouldn't have to constantly change your preferred playstyle to a specific way of doing things to play, but if you want to do the content that many people would consider "End Game" then you have got to be flexible enough to recognize that your way might just be terrible.

1-I sure hope so.

Also, for purposes of this discussion, I'm going to Describe the characters: Mol is a sorc/tank who I've discussed before in the forums, and got alot of feedback and suggestions (mostly on the necessity of taunting well); I do pretty well with the S&B taunt, but I just can't seem to get the hang of the guild one. I hate found armor, and he runs with a combo of Night Mother and Hundings rage (4 and 5 respectively), his standard jewelry is glyphed to add damage. I usually adventure with Fianna, templar/healer. She puts most of her stats into magicka and wears a combo of Warlock and Seducer (5 & 5). We usually do most adventures together - no, we don't usually have much in the way of DPS, and sometimes deliberately even take longer than needed so she can practice her heals. She rarely runs out of magicka (I think in general her armor is all glyphed to boost it).

The other couple we played this with run a DK who alternates between bow and S&B (she LOOVES the dragon/wing/jump ultimate), and a stamina based Templar who uses bow and prefers med armor (presumably for the criticals?).

2-Yes, we have a disturbing lack of damage output. Unless it's facing daedra and the two templars do dual radiant destructions to folks who have been whittled a bit.

3-The tank was not sitting in fire. He was attempting to occupy flaming-halitosis (there - that's my new name for this boss), initially having problems with it - 'cause damn, the fires set by that bugger just do not go out. Eventually kept trying to lead in circles round the edge of the room. And the 60,000+ damage was a one shot.

4-bonuses and synergies - as the tank I was pretty occupied trying to juggle taunt, scoot, drag his nastiness into as many corners as I could - I'm sure I attempted to hit some synergies but I'm not very confident I actually got them.

First off, you get an awesome for the Kids in the Hall reference... I make references to them all the time at work, but I find that most of my co-workers are too young to get them. Also, they look at me funny when I'm imitating Monsieur Pied-Lourde. Or when I'm crushing their heads.

Anyway, as others have said, I think the issue may have to do with the fairly unorthodox setup of your group. Your healer sounds like a good setup for a healer, but the rest of your group sounds fairly sub-optimal.

Night Mother and Hundings Rage are good sets for damage output, but not so much for tanking. You can tank non-vet dungeons in those fine, but for vet dungeons it's probably a good idea to use different sets (keep your current gear for PVE questing, though, because it's probably quite decent for that). I've recently started using 5-piece Hist Bark and 4-piece Shalidor's Curse on my tank, and so far I'm finding it very tanky (once my tank is closer to max level I'll probably start using some more optimal dropped sets, but for now I like my crafted sets just fine).

If the DK with bow and S&B (who I'm assuming is doing the DPS role, and I'm assuming is a stamina build) likes getting in close with the Dragon Leap ultimate, then swapping out the S&B for two-handed would go a long way towards increasing DPS. I went for a long time trying to make bow/S&B work with a Nightblade DPS, and was so underwhelmed with the combo... When I switched out S&B for two-handed, that character almost instantly went from the one who struggled the most to wrecking face.

The stamina-based bow-using templar... Actually without more info I can't say whether that character needs tweaking or not.

But yeah, if you think DPS is a problem for your group, you're probably right. I think the lack of good single-target DPS was the single biggest issue my group had with this particular dungeon.

The 60K damage from one-shot does sound like the flaming cone that the daedroth boss does. I got hit by that once in that fight and died instantly. The only way you should miss the fact that it's about to hit you is if you're distracted by all of the fire everywhere on the ground. That's what happened to me... Otherwise you should have plenty of time to avoid it (whether through a dodge-roll or just stepping out of the cone).