A Plea to the PVE Community

WuffyCerulei · June 2017

Note that I speak about the higher end of the PVE community who do vet trials and more.

It's sad to see friends who are awesome people and play the game well be driven away from the small PVE community and ultimately give up on the game. I often hear from these people that the PVE community is painfully small, and it's hard to get far if you have any issues with someone, as rumors spread fast in small communities. So, I want to ask something out of the PVE community: branch out. Please, recruit more and more players. Expand. Make new guilds. Teach people how to do trials and more. Clear the toxic air that the community is giving off. Since a lot of people left with Morrowind, the community's just gotten smaller and more offputting to newer and [snip] players, since people tend to run with the best people they know well. And there just isn't enough new people flowing in to keep the air fresh and welcoming. It would be amazing to see PVE vets run more and more training runs to teach people.

[Edit for minor baiting]

brandonv516 · June 2017

"Offputting to newer and scrubbier players"

That's kind of a repellent towards new players right there.

idk · June 2017

The PvE community is robust and active and overwhelmingly friendly. Help is provided within guilds and outside of guilds via forums like this one.

Everything from top end raiding guilds that push leaderboard scores to more moderate guilds that clear the trials and help players get their beginnings.

Thought it does not just happen that someone ends up in an appropriate guild. First guild I joined in ESO touted getting ready for trials in the early days of the game but they never did develop any actual focus on trials.

There is a second of these forums for guild recruitment and also Tamrielfoundry.com has a section in their forums. Probably a good place to start looking for guilds on your server.

Bryong9ub17_ESO · June 2017

From every poll and post i can find its seems PVE has a higher population...

With that being said I only PVE and i have zero problems with it. Every content i do seems to be thriving. Most zones have a huge number of players and the Zone chat is usually booming with people setting up groups for different content.

But I'm only speaking on my experiences on PC NA.

Trinity_Is_My_Name · June 2017

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

It's sad to see friends who are awesome people and play the game well be driven away from the small PVE community and ultimately give up on the game. I often hear from these people that the PVE community is painfully small, and it's hard to get far if you have any issues with someone, as rumors spread fast in small communities. So, I want to ask something out of the PVE community: branch out. Please, recruit more and more players. Expand. Make new guilds. Teach people how to do trials and more. Clear the toxic air that the community is giving off. Since a lot of people left with Morrowind, the community's just gotten smaller and more offputting to newer and scrubbier players, since people tend to run with the best people they know well. And there just isn't enough new people flowing in to keep the air fresh and welcoming. It would be amazing to see PVE vets run more and more training runs to teach people.

What are you talking about? PVE is many times more populated than PVP. The PVE community is very much the larger of the two communities. PVP has been on the decline for a very long time. Go to Cyrodil and see how much area is open. You can travel for a very long time before seeing another player. As for helping others many I know including myself do that every day in game. I craft for new and old players alike. I have no idea where you got the notion that the PVE community is small and many have left since Morrowind. WHAT? Many have bought the game and joined ESO because of Morrowind.

SydneyGrey · June 2017

There are thousands of people who play the game each day. I don't think the PvE community is as small as you think.

Some people are toxic, but that seems to be every MMO ever, because for some reason people think they can act like jerks when they're hidden behind an anonymous fake name.

Betsararie · June 2017

[snip]

This game is about numbers. If your numbers are not there, then you will offer little value.

I'm all for helping out players, but if they are incompetent, then they should be treated as such.

The way to improve the community is to incentivize players into min/maxing their builds, and correcting them if they don't.

Then the bar is moved higher and higher for the minimum level of acceptable play, and the game is made more competitive.

[Edit for baiting]

JWKe · June 2017

Here's a suggestion. Add a raid finder tool. Raid finder tool makes it a larger community hence rumors take awhile to get around.

disintegr8 · June 2017

OM PS4 NA, the PVE world is alive and well, very heavily populated.

I think the OP's post touches on one of my problems with PVE and some newer players - the feeling that experienced players owe them something. Experienced players are not just logged on, doing nothing, waiting for people to ask for this and that, we play the game, we enjoy the game.

A lot of us are happy to help but it is not our prime purpose in game, don't call out in text chat for someone to make level 4 armour and yell in frustration 3 minutes later because nobody has responded. Stop calling out for Skyreach carries in Craglorn to speed up leveling, go and level up by playing the game.

People put a lot of time and effort into maintaining good guilds, not all of them are noob friendly, but a lot are. Once again, even in a noob friendly guild, not everyone is logged on just waiting for your requests. New players can start their own guilds, maybe do that instead of waiting for others to do the work and invite you.

Doctordarkspawn · June 2017

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Note that I speak about the higher end of the PVE community who do vet trials and more.

It's sad to see friends who are awesome people and play the game well be driven away from the small PVE community and ultimately give up on the game. I often hear from these people that the PVE community is painfully small, and it's hard to get far if you have any issues with someone, as rumors spread fast in small communities. So, I want to ask something out of the PVE community: branch out. Please, recruit more and more players. Expand. Make new guilds. Teach people how to do trials and more. Clear the toxic air that the community is giving off. Since a lot of people left with Morrowind, the community's just gotten smaller and more offputting to newer and scrubbier players, since people tend to run with the best people they know well. And there just isn't enough new people flowing in to keep the air fresh and welcoming. It would be amazing to see PVE vets run more and more training runs to teach people.

As someone said community eventually drove off, let me tell you why this will never happen.

Selfishness.

The people doing raids at end game level want those raids to mean something so they'll stop taking anyone who does not meet their exacting standards, then push for the standards of the game to be raised. The reason you see alot of people praising the sustain changes is this very reason, people dont want others to get to their level. It's just that simple.

Their not gonna give up their monopoly. It's better just to find another game. People in the thread are all going on about the glorious guilds and all that, but when it comes down to it, if your more trouble than your worth, if you dont praise the content endlessly, if you dont think like the rest of them, you. Will. Be. Kicked. Out.

I've just started advising new players find a different game to play, honestly. I think that's best for them and this game until it does an about face and stops crapping on it's playerbase for the sake of the entitled few.

tinythinker · June 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

The people doing raids at end game level want those raids to mean something so they'll stop taking anyone who does not meet their exacting standards, then push for the standards of the game to be raised. The reason you see alot of people praising the sustain changes is this very reason, people dont want others to get to their level. It's just that simple.

Blanco wrote: »

[snip]

This game is about numbers. If your numbers are not there, then you will offer little value.

I'm all for helping out players, but if they are incompetent, then they should be treated as such.

The way to improve the community is to incentivize players into min/maxing their builds, and correcting them if they don't.

Then the bar is moved higher and higher for the minimum level of acceptable play, and the game is made more competitive.

There is your response Wuffy in terms of high-end PvP content, the hardest things to clear. Others will comment but these capture what I tend to see expressed. Don't wait on those at the top, who may or may not want to be constructive. If they do, fine. If not, let them keep to themselves or leave when they get bored.

[Edit to matched quoted comment]

paulsimonps · June 2017

Blanco wrote: »

[snip]

This game is about numbers. If your numbers are not there, then you will offer little value.

I'm all for helping out players, but if they are incompetent, then they should be treated as such.

The way to improve the community is to incentivize players into min/maxing their builds, and correcting them if they don't.

Then the bar is moved higher and higher for the minimum level of acceptable play, and the game is made more competitive.

I run end game stuff all the time and teach new people how to do it. Some need more help and teaching than others, but your approach is disgusting. Only caring about how much of a value the others are to you. The game can be made more competitive with more players being included into the folds, don't discredit people to fast, give them a chance. Linking build pages is one thing but some needs to be taught raid mechanics and such. If you can teach and grow your guilds player base that is how you truly flourish. You should not just correct people, you should teach and explain why.

[Edit to matched quoted comment]

vyndral13preub18_ESO · June 2017

I may agree with you about random events. Join a random fella yelling in town about a trail run, and it maybe a nightmare and a pain.

But when I find a guild of pvers I have found exactly the opposite. I have found friendly helpful people willing to take time and teach people who may not be the best. And when time allows willing to try to help them get through some of the games hardest content.

Turelus · June 2017

Sorry not all of us scrubbier players want to step into your toxic little clique.

We quite enjoy our simple scrub lives whilst we watch you all play your drama fuel political games.

MrSaxon · June 2017

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

And there just isn't enough new people flowing in

Huh?

rhapsodious · June 2017

Blanco wrote: »

[snip]

This game is about numbers. If your numbers are not there, then you will offer little value.

I'm all for helping out players, but if they are incompetent, then they should be treated as such.

The way to improve the community is to incentivize players into min/maxing their builds, and correcting them if they don't.

Then the bar is moved higher and higher for the minimum level of acceptable play, and the game is made more competitive.

Everyone was a scrub once.

Hell, I remember very clearly. It was about three weeks after I bought the game - on my birthday, specifically - and I was running Normal Darkshade Caverns 1 (since this was about a year and a half ago) on my level 40-ish, hybrid-ish nightblade using a bow and... man, I don't even remember my second weapon.

We wiped twice on Foreman Llothan. Just getting overwhelmed, I wasn't doing anything particularly stupid.

The other DPS told me, paraphrasing, that I was a garbage DPS and, when I told him I had only been playing for less than a month, he told me "so what, my girlfriend pulls twice as much DPS as you". And then he left. I left shortly after, before telling the tank and healer that I was sorry and didn't want to drag them down.

Was it dickwaving? Yes.

Did it make me feel absolutely awful? Yes.

Shortly after, I joined a group of people who guided me through dungeons and even normal Craglorn trials. They were kind, supportive and had the attitude that as long as you tried and exhibited some basic common sense, they'd be willing to help out. That made me feel great and I wanted to be like them, to be as good as them. To pay it forward a bit.

I'm now in two endgame trials guilds, working on vHOF, pulling big *** deeps on my magblade. And I do pay it forward. I'm patient with people who want to get better but don't know how, and offer advice. But I don't tell them the One True Way to play. Use what works for you, and you can make it work through practice and support. Lots of endgame players I know will take people through dungeons, even if they're pulling 20% of the dps on their tank, because they know that practice leads to progress.

Your attitude is the issue here.

[Edit to matched quoted comment]

Vipstaakki · June 2017

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

The PvE community is robust and active and overwhelmingly friendly. Help is provided within guilds and outside of guilds via forums like this one.

Everything from top end raiding guilds that push leaderboard scores to more moderate guilds that clear the trials and help players get their beginnings.

Thought it does not just happen that someone ends up in an appropriate guild. First guild I joined in ESO touted getting ready for trials in the early days of the game but they never did develop any actual focus on trials.

There is a second of these forums for guild recruitment and also Tamrielfoundry.com has a section in their forums. Probably a good place to start looking for guilds on your server.

Are we playing the same game here?

Feanor · June 2017

Scrub is very subjective. To me it's rather the attitude that's more important than the ability. If you listen you can do almost anything in this game successfully. If you don't, you better pull your weight.

JKorr · June 2017

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Note that I speak about the higher end of the PVE community who do vet trials and more.

It's sad to see friends who are awesome people and play the game well be driven away from the small PVE community and ultimately give up on the game. I often hear from these people that the PVE community is painfully small, and it's hard to get far if you have any issues with someone, as rumors spread fast in small communities. So, I want to ask something out of the PVE community: branch out. Please, recruit more and more players. Expand. Make new guilds. Teach people how to do trials and more. Clear the toxic air that the community is giving off. Since a lot of people left with Morrowind, the community's just gotten smaller and more offputting to newer and scrubbier players, since people tend to run with the best people they know well. And there just isn't enough new people flowing in to keep the air fresh and welcoming. It would be amazing to see PVE vets run more and more training runs to teach people.

I've invited at least half a dozen new players to a few of my guilds over the weekend. Two of the 4 guilds I'm in are constantly at capacity. Another one is for crafters. The last is the first guild I joined, and I won't drop that one; too many friends. I only pve. I don't think the pve community is "painfully small".

Ever consider that the "issues" might be because of the "ultimate min/max gotta do eleventy zillion dps" mindset that many of the super elite uber trials groups? If you aren't "over 9000" cp, they would much rather not even acknowledge your existence, let alone deign to teach the great unwashed/unskilled players anything. If the elites are bickering because someone didn't get that last .000001% of damage, inviting more people isn't going to help. It will give the elites more targets for sniping and putdowns, but I don't see anything constructive as far as making new player feel welcome coming from it.

I avoid those elite trials/pledges min/maxed to the ultimate uber extreme guilds or groups. I'm playing the game for enjoyment. Doing trials with some of the "elite" players would kill that totally.

IronCrystal · June 2017

A lot of guilds (at least on PC NA) offer help to new players wanting to join trials. I myself lead a trial group and within about 2 months they could clear all craglorn vet trials on normal and vHRC on hard mode.

The problem is, a lot of players don't want to join a "progression" group. Different players advance at different speeds and its difficult to keep everyone interested. Those who advance quickly want to do harder content but those who are less competent need more practice. Since it requires 12 people to raid, often they have to be scheduled and it can be difficult to just spawn a random raid.

I know a lot of people that are willing to help new players, but what frustrates us is when new players think they know what they are doing and don't listen to advice from more veteran players. Plenty of people are willing to discuss the ins and outs of how and why they do things in vet trials (unless its secret strats for score pushes).

Players need to be more patient, as learning a vet trial takes much more time than learning a vet dungeon.

Also, different guilds have different opinions on how to form progression groups. Some try to stick 12 new players in a trial and say "figure it out together", while I believe its best to have about half new players and half veteran players to help carry them. The plus side of having more veteran players is you clear, but it doesn't always put more pressure on the new players to perform and improve.

There is also the issue of dps. Everyone is expected to improve in a progression group, and many players offer tips and help, but unless the new player has a desire to improve, they won't get anywhere.

When playing with new tanks and healers, if they don't know what they are doing, it can put a lot of strain on the whole group. So while it can be helpful to have veteran support players, that makes it difficult to train new support players.

kuro-dono · June 2017

its bizarre, but these days ppl dont enjoy games the way they used to. these days its all about speed, and those epic gazillion dps stats. who cares about dungeon quest and storyline? unless you are roleplayer and someone who still enjoy playing as it is.

eso dps rate between casual and elite is just immensely hugely different compared to for example wow dps because of cooldowns, animation cancelling/spell weaving/ block casting. if those elements/mechanics got fixed the game would become more pleasant to everyone as the power creep would get massive blow to the face. sadly zenimax thinks its cool to allow ppl to build them huge egos to be gods among men and solo 4 man dungeons and trials do 20-30min faster than normal human beings. dont tho get me even started about pvp which i do quite lot more than pve.

in all honestly. there is quite lots of ppl who dont care at all on wiping on dungeon trash mobs, or boss or even fall to death, but to some ppl, its waste of time, and wasted time equals to same as not having fun. so there we go. the faster, the better, the more fun you have.

Kodrac · June 2017

Elitists. Taking the fun out of the game since 1999.

Feanor · June 2017

kuro-dono wrote: »

its bizarre, but these days ppl dont enjoy games the way they used to. these days its all about speed, and those epic gazillion dps stats. who cares about dungeon quest and storyline? unless you are roleplayer and someone who still enjoy playing as it is.

eso dps rate between casual and elite is just immensely hugely different compared to for example wow dps because of cooldowns, animation cancelling/spell weaving/ block casting. if those elements/mechanics got fixed the game would become more pleasant to everyone as the power creep would get massive blow to the face. sadly zenimax thinks its cool to allow ppl to build them huge egos to be gods among men and solo 4 man dungeons and trials do 20-30min faster than normal human beings. dont tho get me even started about pvp which i do quite lot more than pve.

in all honestly. there is quite lots of ppl who dont care at all on wiping on dungeon trash mobs, or boss or even fall to death, but to some ppl, its waste of time, and wasted time equals to same as not having fun. so there we go. the faster, the better, the more fun you have.

You PvE Foxey? Surprises every day this game...as for your post: I guess the joys of society trimmed to performance in every aspect just don't stop when it comes to gaming.

Iselin · June 2017

kuro-dono wrote: »

its bizarre, but these days ppl dont enjoy games the way they used to. these days its all about speed, and those epic gazillion dps stats. who cares about dungeon quest and storyline? unless you are roleplayer and someone who still enjoy playing as it is.

eso dps rate between casual and elite is just immensely hugely different compared to for example wow dps because of cooldowns, animation cancelling/spell weaving/ block casting. if those elements/mechanics got fixed the game would become more pleasant to everyone as the power creep would get massive blow to the face. sadly zenimax thinks its cool to allow ppl to build them huge egos to be gods among men and solo 4 man dungeons and trials do 20-30min faster than normal human beings. dont tho get me even started about pvp which i do quite lot more than pve.

in all honestly. there is quite lots of ppl who dont care at all on wiping on dungeon trash mobs, or boss or even fall to death, but to some ppl, its waste of time, and wasted time equals to same as not having fun. so there we go. the faster, the better, the more fun you have.

It has nothing to do with "these days." The separation between casuals and elites and everything in between has always been a part of MMOs.

The problem lies in development when developers think of trials as nothing but ultra difficult content for the few. That's where the elitism begins by design.

What's really needed is more than a couple of difficulty levels for them... like 4 or 5 so that everyone can dip their toes into the content and progress to the higher difficulty versions when they're ready... or not.

Valkysas154 · June 2017

I been in raid guilds in other games 8 years in fact in eq2 and i dough this game is as hard as lets say - bristlebane in eq2 100% insane mechanic fight and you would be surprised on how many 40+ year old cried like babys for no reason
so unless its something just for fun -wow raid finder- i def have no interest in raids the 1% can keep them and 1% = not many

Drummerx04 · June 2017

It's important to realize that the vet trials PvE community is difficult to get into for several I think understandable reasons, and with the fresh release of Halls of Fabrication, those reasons should stand out more.

Most core groups have been playing together for months or years. You getting into the group implies that someone else is removed or quit. (subbing for a day or two aside)
Core groups have already spent dozens to hundreds of hours wiping, perfecting strategies, experimenting etc. We are not keen to spend any more time wiping to old mechanics for two straight hours or more.
It takes a special kind of patience to help with a training run. Sometimes even listening to 5+ minute mechanics explanations from the raid lead can be irritating, because we know that it's a lot of information and 80% of it will go right over the newer group members. Short explanations are key, but extremely hard to give.
Can you imagine being a part of a group that clears the entire vMoL HM trial in 26 minutes with full vitality, then helping with a training run that spends two hours wiping on the first boss?

I don't view it as elitism in the PvE community. It's more like dealing with new players is exceptionally frustrating because we've already gone through wiping dozens of times on a single boss and I for one am not excited to relive that experience.

The PvP community has different requirements. Group composition isn't as important because you can have 24 in a group AND you can have 3 of those groups in the same location with the same objective. If a fight isn't going your way, you can withdraw. If you come back later, it will be a different fight against different opponents. You can respawn at a camp and be back in the fight in 10 seconds. It's much more forgiving to moderate players, so the PvP community can afford to be a little less restrictive to new blood.

PvE Trials require everyone in the instance to be able to pull their weight for the run to go smoothly.

Cuhdalie · June 2017

As a new player, I can honestly say I've enjoyed my time playing the game so far.
OP, I think you've just had some bad experiwnces is all. One example of how cool peoole can be in this game: When I was leveling my crafting the other day in town, I saw someone advertising for HoF. Thinking that all the stuff in the game was going to be my level, I asked to join. I was level 22. I had NO idea raids didnt scale to your level as I am not used to games that scale to your level so I figured it was going to be simple enough. Next thing I know a few other people joined that were high ranked CP. And another person thay was ~lvl 40 alsp joined. Needless to say, the run came to a halt ay the first boss and THAT'S when everyone realized someone under level 50 had joined the raid. I was still completely oblivious but just thought it was a really tough raid. I offered to dip out and everyone was conpletely fine with it, but annoyed no one had stopped to ask about people's levels on the first week of the xpac release. It was fun while it lasted. I in no way expected to be carried, I was just thinking it would be another adventure for the night. One of the raiders even added me as a friend, but I havent done any other in game content with that player yet, so not sure why he added me. But cool! I also have friends who play this game with me and I've traded my own resources for crafted gear to level and in no way expect any handouts. But having a group of friends who play has been a massive help to my enjoying the game thus far. The 4 of us simply play how we want, progress through questing (even though they're all returning and/or have lvl 50 character). And we also do dungeons here and there, but have discovered how glitchy that can be, so we have to manually travel to any dungeon we want to do.

TLDR: Lots of PvE folk out here that aren't toxic at all, especially to "scrubs" like me who legitimately don't know some of the mechanics of the game.

kuro-dono · June 2017

i had tons of fun trying help normal random zone people clear maw of lorkhaj as they struggled to communicate with each other properly. my best fun i had ever was with with german based ebon pact pug guild where they wanted to clear the trial. i joined in when they were on the duo bosses. took total of 6h to finish it and oh boy i had good giggle. so much innocent and real fun to be had. and they were all to excited of all the rubbish/goodies they got after finishing it. ( towards the end i had devoured nearly 2 bottles of redwine

) problem is that communication is so challenging to many ppl these days. no advanced translator programs to instant translate. for example i played with my ipad this pay to win game called king of avalon, they had very pleasantly advanced translator which handled about... 40 languages? not really sure but it was QUITE FEW! ANYWAY. even if communication works... we still have for some reason these silly egos. someone feels hurt if they cause the team wipe. to handle these sort of folks. you just cant shout that you bloody idiot you cant do that! they just feel even worse. i recognized the personality egos clashing issues quite fast, and was able to tame the worst of the group quite well. after that it was just all about slowly but gently teaching the tactics. the wipings on the duo boss... that was like 4h before we succeeded

highest dps there was propably somewhere along 14-16k and i was main tank as their tank who left had seriously... no clue what to do and leader of the group didnt make it any easier by not being able to provide data / information and while being encouraging.

they turned me into leader. and i tamed the group and taught them each stage by in form of wipes. all i explained was the minimum tactics to complete first/second/third/fourth stage of the combat.

after the trial. they were all pretty much celebrating and thanking me and asking me if i needed guild.

it was some very random midweek day. and i was off from work. not much to do, and i agreed to help, i was not worried at all even if it had taken 10 hours because it was damn fun!

i am *** dps, and as an tank i am too much of an loose cannon and i end up experimenting constantly some crazy moves

healing... oh dear.. .i forgot all the time that i was supposed to heal the group and provide buffs instead of "dpsing my way" or facetanking when main tank was not really doing the job or whatever else was going on.

the thing is. communication and able to handle and recognize ego clashes is key in mmo:s. most ppl ignore communication and behave like bosses. and forum fighting...? each nerf begging or requiring buff rarely comes with balance ideas. they come with hidden agendas and ways to buff their own gameplay.

each mmo or game where there is other ppl involved i have come to notice that to have ppl participate in pvp/pve/leaderboard statistics etc they will do their utter damn best to find advantage to combat others. who remembers from pvp first dragon knight batswarmers? impulse choo choo:s, or in pve double mundus/multiple mundus cheaters and certain builds.

its just human nature to do this all. zenimax as an neutral team should ignore the endless whining and crying and try find the golden middle road, and when one aspect of game thrives better than other by miles... DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

and yes! i did my fare share of pve. mostly achieved credit as an loose cannon tank with crazy moves. pretty useless in veteran trials as i just... could not being boring tank and sit with huge patience.

NyassaV · June 2017

As soon as ZoS gets rid of DPS checks in dungeons and trials then I'll be less stingy about recruiting

ZOS_Bill · June 2017

After removing and editing some comments for a mix of flaming and baiting, we've decided to shut this thread down. The discussion isn't going anywhere constructive and is mainly producing rude comments. You still need to follow the forum rules even when disagreeing or feeling like you've been baited.