Official Discussion Thread for One Tamriel Dungeons

ZOS_Finn · September 2016

Hey Folks,

Any feedback on the Dungeons that we upped the boss damage on? I would love to hear what your experience is like.

Thanks!

UrQuan · September 2016

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey Folks,

Any feedback on the Dungeons that we upped the boss damage on? I would love to hear what your experience is like.

Thanks!

I haven't had a chance to run any dungeons since that update. As I was one of the people asking for more boss damage I'm hoping to get a chance to do so, and I'll post here if I do.

Contraptions · September 2016

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey Folks,

Any feedback on the Dungeons that we upped the boss damage on? I would love to hear what your experience is like.

Thanks!

I would rather prefer new mechanics for bosses in vet versions of dungeons compared to normal, instead of simply having their health/damage/resistance increased. Having a larger health pool does not engage players in any significant way other than to waste their time. Whittling down a health bar while the same mechanics repeat themselves over and over is not very fun.

For the same boss in normal and veteran mode I would suggest modifying existing normal mechanics slightly such that the vet versions of the same bosses require a bit more engagement/teamwork to overcome. Some examples I can think of now:

Warchief Ozozai in normal Fungal Grotto 1 has a Daedric Blast attack that causes an AOE to form around a player. That player has to move away from the team to minimise damage. For the vet version of Ozozai perhaps the Daedric Blast now appears around all 4 players, and everyone has to move away from each other to prevent overlapping AOEs, in a vein similar to the Mezeluth fight in COH 2. The blast could take off half the player's health, so while overlapping would be death, not overlapping would be easy to heal through.
Dark Root in normal Elden Hollow 2 has a Hammering Light move that damages a random player once in a while. This damage is bursty but easy to heal through. For vet Dark Root, the Hammering Light will now pin a player similar to Ozara's bolts in SO, and the player's team will have to free the targeted player by activating a synergy near the pinned player. The damage is unchanged.

These kinds of small modifications of existing mechanics would help distinguish normal dungeon bosses from vet while not requiring massive increases to health or damage in order to be "challenging". Vet dungeons in my opinion should be more mechanically engaging, and not simply be dps/hps checks. Updating the attacks of old bosses will allow vet versions of dungeons to feel familiar, while providing a fresh experience even for us long time players who by now know most fights by heart.

Dubhliam · October 2016

Now that it has been some time on live servers, here is some feedback on dungeons.
In fact, I am going to tell you a story that happened yesterday.

There was a guy in Grahtwood asking for someone to explain the new difficulty and story modes.
I whispered him with a short and simple explanation. "There are two modes, normal and veteran. If a dungeon has two stories, then it will have 4 total modes: normal story I, vet story I, normal story II and vet story II.
To which he answered: "Thanks, I thought as much, but I still find some dungeons more difficult than others." He then said he went to normal Spindleclutch I with a PUG and they "slammed the dungeon in 15 minutes". Then he said they went into normal City of Ash II and they had "multiple wipes and a terrible experience lasting more than 40 minutes".

This is a clear example how mechanics make difficulty.
I know that he was comparing two normal dungeons, but the same applies when comparing two veteran dungeons. A dungeon that had a veteran mode before OT will have meaningful mechanics that require the group to play around and against instead of simply mindlessly masking buttons to victory.

Please, PLEASE for the love of Meridia, add new mechanics to old dungeons, at least for Hard Mode.

Now let's get more into detail about existing mechanics.

Imperial City Prison
I noticed you made changes to the Gravelight Sentry boss. I LOVE them. Great boss fight.
Next, you probably already know that the changes to the Lord Warden's Council was over the top. Since you changed it with the incremental patch. The idea is good: make people understand that there is a certain danger in having them turn into ghosts.
And last, Lord Warden. I absolutely love this fight, always have. But the amount of glithces and bugs in this fight always made it frustrating. I don't know what you did, or if in fact, you HAVE done anything with it, but I haven't have had any bugs in this fight so far (portals only capable to accept one player, excessive portals spawning etc). Good job! (I hope I don't regret praising you).

Elden Hollow II
The Murklight fight is not engaging at all.
It is a very straightforward boss. Tank turns him around, spank him. Done. The mechanics he does are meaningless. Sure, the red AoE on the ground does some moderate damage, people are best advised not to stand in it. But when those red circles turn into white circles...
NOTHING!
Players still stay outside of those white circles, happily DPSing him with as little heals as a few BoLs now and then.
Make this mechanic meaningful.

Banished Cells II
The Maw of the Infernal boss can still be done by completely disregarding the mechanics.
I am seriously disappointed with this.
I mean, what is the point of a flame breathing, fire spitting daedric monster boss if a vampire can stand in the middle of the fire pool and tank with no issues?
YES! A VAMPIRE! CAN TANK MAW WHILE STANDING IN STUPID!
I mean, isn't the whole point of that boss to be a DPS check? Because the longer the fight goes, the more room would be covered in red?
Fix this!

Auricle · October 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

Banished Cells II
The Maw of the Infernal boss can still be done by completely disregarding the mechanics.
I am seriously disappointed with this.
I mean, what is the point of a flame breathing, fire spitting daedric monster boss if a vampire can stand in the middle of the fire pool and tank with no issues?
YES! A VAMPIRE! CAN TANK MAW WHILE STANDING IN STUPID!
I mean, isn't the whole point of that boss to be a DPS check? Because the longer the fight goes, the more room would be covered in red?
Fix this!

Funny you should say that. A few day ago I was in a PUG in BC II where the tank announced he/she wanted to test just how much red he could stand in and not die. He was full stage 4 vampire, and the healer was getting a kick out of it. It was a joke. Tank wasn't even at max cp... I mean, it WAS funny, but maybe not the kind of humour we want to be seeing in endgame vet dungeons...

Mojmir · October 2016

why the hell did they buff normal dungeons? There supposed to be for beginners.

dotlife · October 2016

Beginners should learn quickly this is'nt rocket science. There is no valid excuse and People need to stop blaming the World and god knows What for shortcommings of Their own. This falling flat on the stomack attitude needs to stop. It is sickening at best, genre destructive at its worst. 'It is too hard' 'nobody Can do this' blah blah. Such weakness. I was bad once, and in some People's eyes I still most certainly still are. Did I ever cry on a forum, no. And I sure would never belittle myself into doing so like the countless entitled weaklings do over and over. Shameful and without any sense of honor. There now I feel better.

Dubhliam · October 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

why the hell did they buff normal dungeons? There supposed to be for beginners.

It's true what you say.

But it takes very little effort to beat normal dungeons, even since the new "buff" they got.

I think this is a healthy approach to make players get out of their comfort zone, also... to make them not avoid normal dungeons like the plague.
If the veteran dungeons are too hard (and they DID get a buff), people should not be discouraged from participating altogether.
If the normal dungeons are at least a tiny bit of a challenge, people will still choose that alternative from veteran.

How many times have I read a nerf thread in this forum where the argument was a simple "it's too hard". When confronted with a solution of "you can always do WGT/ICP/RoM/CoS on normal" those players regularly answered with replies that can be summarized into "normal is for babies".

So you see, making normal worthwhile has more benefits.
Actually, since it requires so little effort to learn to beat them, I can hardly say the increased difficulty has ANY downsides.
It would have if it was a frustrating experience.
But it's far from it.