I had some really bad experiences on online games, especially on a very well known F2P MOBA where being new to the game and not knowing all the mechanics was the best way to be insulted/flamed/reported. Since then, I decided to stop playing online games for the group content, unless I am playing with people I know.

When I bought the game, one year ago, I bought it with four other friends, but two of them stopped playing after less than a week, and the others left after about a month or two. But I kept playing solo, because the content was interesting enough for me : apart from Skyrim, I was new to the ES universe, and discovering every race, every culture, one by one, is in my opinion a perfect introduction to this world.

I kept playing and reached CP250 while playing alone. I PvPed occasionally, because in zergs and large random groups, people will rarely get angry at a single player - most of the time, they won't even communicate. I tried once Banished Cells as a low-level templar healer for laughs, and soloed my way to the second boss with a ridiculously low DPS, before dying because I didn't know his attacks at all. And, of course, it wasn't an issue to help a lone player on a dark anchor or a world boss. I progressively discovered the ESO community wasn't that bad, after all.

I then had to stop playing because of the TG patch and the change in system requirements (my video card was compatible with DirectX 10.1, not DX11, my system was optimised more for music production than for gaming, and while I needed a better computer, I just couldn't afford it). But when I finally came back on ESO one month ago, I discovered some of my friends actually came back on the game, and we finally ran our first dungeons : The reason why I didn't ran dungeons before was the fact that I still lacked some confidence, I was afraid I wouldn't be competitive enough. But with friends, you just don't care about dying or failing, you're just having fun together, as you should be.

While I still haven't played through dungeons with random people, I noticed I'm grouping more and more with random people for other things. Maybe I'll give it a try, someday, as soon as I'll have some experience carrying my low-level friends in this kind of content.

I haven't played yet because I'm not wasting my hard earned money on unfinished / broken content.

missjackieb14_ESO wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

missjackieb14_ESO wrote: »

MopeyHat wrote: »

I keep seeing people say they've never done a dungeon, or only done one or two.

What keeps you out of dungeons? Is it the dungeon finder being glitchy? Players turn you off? Does PvP or roleplaying keep you busy?

Why? I'm too scared the community might be similar to WoW's community. If you're new to the dungeon, they might kick you for not knowing what to do and/or don't have the patience to allow you to learn.

I started playing WoW a few months ago and after hitting 100 I started doing some of the Draenor heroics to get my self ready for LFR/normal raids. I had only done one of the normals before this and I have literally never been vote kicked for not knowing what I was doing.

I haven't either (this was before I hit 100 on my pally). However, I have heard horror stories from people on the forums. But, they could be just anecdotal evidence of the community. I mostly solo on my 100 pally though, since I don't want to be responsible for tanking for people, heh.

Try out ret! They are ridiculous right now from what I hear.

AshTal wrote: »

I don't want to stand around shouting - Sorc looking for a group over and over again. If group finder actually found me a group I would like to do a dungeon.

When I queue as a tank, I'm usually in a group within seconds. I always make sure I have all my affairs in order before I queue as a tank, whereas as a DD, I would queue early, before I'm fully ready, because I know it'll take a while.

And that's just a matter of simple supply and demand. You want to run more dungeons without waiting for a long time? Then either join a guild and stop PUGing or make sure your character can do one of the support roles. Every one of my DDs can gear-swap into either a healer or a tank. The reason DDs wait so long in the queue is because so many people prefer it as a no-special-responsibilities role.

The age-old MMO mantra "PUGs suck" basically sums it up for me.

I ran dungeons almost constantly when the grouping tool was introduced. Prior to that change, I was sitting in Eldenroot begging in trade chat to let a pre-made group allow me to tag along.

I don't mind PUG's. I've made some decent friend contacts from PUG-ing, even gotten guild invites from a PUG.

Right now, the very thing that made dungeon content possible for me, is what is currently holding me back- the grouping tool is not working, so no PUG's for me to explore new content. I'd have thought for sure, with 2 new dungeons, that the grouping tool would be nearly insta-queue, but the reality is "forever-queue."

ZOS- if you're reading these threads, please fix the grouping tool for dungeons, and if I may suggest something, add an option of "Random/Specific trial" to the grouping tool. I have done every dungeon a number of times, except the two new ones, but I have NEVER done a trial. The main reason- can't find a PUG that big to run it. The bigger the group, the longer it takes to form up and organize, and by the time 11-12 random people get their collective selves together, SOMEONE always gets tired of waiting on everyone else and bails, then a few more bail, and you have to send someone back to town to recruit replacements... you may spend 2-3 hours just getting a team together and that is the duration of total play time for most casuals.

Hey community- what do you guys thing of being able to queue up for a trial in the grouping tool?

No hurry two 4 man dungeons is all the content we got, not going to rush it

I don't play well with others.

I can dig up my ancient report cards from my childhood. They all say it.

Asmael wrote: »

I had some really amazing times in some dungeons, and there are some boss mechanics that I'd actually like to see in action. An example? Do any new player knows about the Mad Architect glass move? I'm pretty sure they don't, because this fight, like many others, has turned into a "stack & burn" strategy.

First time I went into Vaults my group wiped on both that ability and the one where he summons up spirits or what have you from the ground around him. It was so very worth it because not only did I now know what to watch out for but it was a pretty cool effect too (one of the most epic ways to die IMO, lol). You don't get to enjoy that anymore because most groups will pretty much drop him in 30 seconds or less.

Actually there's a lot of mechanics that people don't seem to know or care about. Part of that is because with so many groups you'll never encounter it considering how fast you can kill so many bosses (Mad Architect being a perfect example) . Part of it is also because folks take it for granted that someone else will handle it.

Major example of that is First Mate Wavecutter in Blackheart Haven. Nearly every time I do that dungeon not only do I have to explain that interrupting her Volley attack is crucial because it's a hard hitting AoE that can end up causing a wipe, many times I am the only one who will actually interrupt her.

It's gotten to the point where every time I face this boss I'm sorely tempted to just ignore it and see if anyone else steps up. I don't want to be mean but if that's what it take to get folks to care then that may be what I start doing. After all, if I keep doing it for them then they'll likely never bother to learn.

Asmael wrote: »

If you want to rework old content, I have no issue with this, even better, I'll encourage it, but toning the difficulty down will do nothing more than increase the insane gap between a very easy "run, press 1 AoE ability twice, move on to next room" and a "you need perfect BiS gear, very good positioning, need to block every single AoE, or you'll die instantly".

This is a very good point too and one I agree with.

I think it would be a much better effort to try to do more to prepare player for and encourage them to rise to the challenge of over coming more difficult content but there needs to be a gradual progression in difficulty. That's just not there right now and it's desperately needed. There's a major jump there in difficulty between open world and dungeons. As well as between normal and veteran difficulty. It's like going from training wheels strait into the Tour de France. It's staggering and it's not hard to see why people would be intimidated.

Lowering the difficulty of content has the potential of becomes a crutch. Especially if it's taken too far, too often. There has to be some challenge otherwise there's nothing to test ability, nothing to learn from, nothing to build upon. Nothing to encourage improvement.

I would rather see (and whole heartedly support) the idea of an Undaunted tutorial quest chain and mentor program added as an alternative to the idea of lower the difficulty. I feel such features would go much farther towards helping player. Giving them a means to learn and practice different builds, mechanics and even whole dungeons.

Perhaps those features could even include some way for players to progressively adjust between different difficulty levels?

Consider for instance a group being able to run a practice dungeon for either normal or veteran mode with difficulty settings of novice, apprentice, adept, expert and master.

Players can either choose to set the difficulty at a specific level or they can set it to change dynamically according to performance (i.e. the better they perform the the difficulty increases, the worse they perform the difficulty decreases).

At easier difficulties enemy suffer a debuff where they do less damage, attack slower so there's a bigger window of opportunity to interrupt and block attacks, bosses don't use their special attacks as much, ect. So players have a chance to see what's going on and learn the basic fundamentals of combat. However as the difficulty increases the debuff lessens, players have to pay more attention to boss mechanics, positioning, status effects like debuff and conditions, stuns and snare. All the way up until master difficulty which would be being equivalent to playing through the dungeon as if it were set at CP160 with no handicap.

Players are blocked from entering a boss chamber either for sixty seconds or until a ready check is passed to provide a chance for everybody to swap skills or gear, ask questions, explain tactics and so on.

And naturally, practice dungeons wouldn't be eligible for monster helms/shoulders, titles, achievements or anything like that as they're there for the express purpose of practice and not farming.

Sadly I quit doing dungeons. I keep getting teabagged in dungeons. Mostly in Dark Shade Cavern? (Guardian Engine) I'm just not good. Which is true.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Being that this is a topic near and dear to my heart I appreciate this discussion. There is a lot of good information here. Regarding the difficulty - the normal versions of Dungeons we are pretty happy with difficulty wise, but if the general perception is that they are too difficult we will definitely take a look. For Veteran Difficulty, it may be an issue where a couple of Dungeons skew perception about them as a whole. This is something we are very much looking at for future content and as we adjust older content. Part of the concern players have also stems from the pledge system and how players are rewarded. We hope to have that issue addressed in the future as well

Great discussion folks, keep it coming!

Hiya Finn,
In regards to your post (bold part), to adress this, how about adding a "star-system" where difficulty could be ranked by 1-3 stars in the grouping tool and when hovering over a dungeon on the map?

This could either be set by you (ZoS) or by a formula that takes note of the amount of successful dungeon runs, how many player deaths occured and how long it took to complete etc.

Just some food for thought

I just want to give a shout out to the group that I joined to do Maw of Lorkaj with scant time before the server went down - we didn't manage to get through it in time, but everyone was good-natured and friendly and it was fun, even though we didn't finish before the servers went down.

I'd love to see 'public dungeon' versions of the other dungeons.
There is a truth to " true friends are made on the battlefield"
A more natural way of teaming up to overcome a greater challenge, might be the better way to go.
I believe random group finder in mmo's has caused players to not truly appreciate the players around them,and
has made players into "temporary hirelings" rather than "potential friends"
In short,random group finder is an anti social solution that needs replacing.On top of that,group finder is a mess at the moment

One reason I can't do a lot of the dungeon at the moment,is that because i'm behind compared to the rest of my guild.
And if i'm able to run a dungeon,its with my guild.
But they ofcourse prefer to do trials,because thats where all the lucrative rewards are at.
For gold and silver pledges I sometimes get the opportunity to do a dungeon(with the guild cause group finder just wont do)
.Or a random one,when grouped with guild members
But for how many times that random one is Fungal Grotto,i'll grow some fungi myself before i'm able to complete all dungeons

I don't have a ton of time during the week, but on the weekends I used to queue up for dungeons during my all day play sessions. I got in once, but then never again. Eventually, I just stopped queueing.

FFXIV has a pretty cool feature in their group finder that actually tells you how many people are queued in your role in front of you. It's super helpful because I can go ahead and grab lunch if I see I'm the 30th DPS waiting, and I know not to afk when I'm the second in line.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Being that this is a topic near and dear to my heart I appreciate this discussion. There is a lot of good information here. Regarding the difficulty - the normal versions of Dungeons we are pretty happy with difficulty wise, but if the general perception is that they are too difficult we will definitely take a look. For Veteran Difficulty, it may be an issue where a couple of Dungeons skew perception about them as a whole. This is something we are very much looking at for future content and as we adjust older content. Part of the concern players have also stems from the pledge system and how players are rewarded. We hope to have that issue addressed in the future as well

Great discussion folks, keep it coming!

Please! No more nerfing!
You guys have given plenty of tools to help noobies out. Any more help and you might as well scale everyone in all zones/content.

Oh wait... Tamriel One.. nvm