The issue with solo play

sevomd69 · September 2017

code65536 wrote: »

@Twinner_69 -

To everyone laughing at how someone can have problems with "easy" content: I started playing on the EU/PC server on the side a few months ago. Starting completely from scratch. I had no gear except for what I found. I couldn't craft gear because I didn't have the traits, the appropriate level in crafting, the necessary mats, or even the skill points to put into crafting. I couldn't ask a friend to craft me proper gear because I knew nobody on EU. I couldn't buy proper gear because I was penniless. When I got myself a Witchmother's Potent Brew recipe, I found that I couldn't craft it because I didn't have the provisioning craft leveled enough to craft purple recipes, and leveling provisioning without an massive hireling-supplied store of mats is actually kinda tricky.

Oh, and needless to say, I also had no CP. Not surprisingly, when I tried normal Maelstrom on EU, it took over an hour and at some points it felt more difficult than my vMA runs (I have multiple Flawless Conquerors on NA). Each of these handicaps--gear that's mismatched, underleveled and low-quality, improper food, no CP, limited passives and skills due to being on a skill-point-starved low-level character--are minor on their own, but when combined, you can definitely feel the effect. (Yes, I still cleared nMA without too much pain, but afterwards I scrapped my plans of using nMA as a grind spot to level my EU character.)

When your stats are so weak that abilities hit like that of a tank, when your self-heals have trouble keeping up with some of the incoming damage, when your character has ***-poor mitigation and things actually hurt, it doesn't matter if you know how the play the game or how to do a rotation--"easy" content isn't going to be the kind of blindfolded cakewalk that you're used to it being.

Now imagine adding one more handicap to that list: the lack of player experience. Because at least I still had my experience. I knew exactly how to spend my attributes, what skills I should prioritize getting, how to weave, etc.

Yes, overworld content is a joke... for me and you. But not for someone who's just starting out.

I often hearken back to days when mud crabs used to kill me whilst I munched on Crusty Bread...

MasterSpatula · September 2017

code65536 wrote: »

@Twinner_69

To everyone laughing at how someone can have problems with "easy" content: I started playing on the EU/PC server on the side a few months ago. Starting completely from scratch. I had no gear except for what I found. I couldn't craft gear because I didn't have the traits, the appropriate level in crafting, the necessary mats, or even the skill points to put into crafting. I couldn't ask a friend to craft me proper gear because I knew nobody on EU. I couldn't buy proper gear because I was penniless. When I got myself a Witchmother's Potent Brew recipe, I found that I couldn't craft it because I didn't have the provisioning craft leveled enough to craft purple recipes, and leveling provisioning without an massive hireling-supplied store of mats is actually kinda tricky.

Oh, and needless to say, I also had no CP. Not surprisingly, when I tried normal Maelstrom on EU, it took over an hour and at some points it felt more difficult than my vMA runs (I have multiple Flawless Conquerors on NA). Each of these handicaps--gear that's mismatched, underleveled and low-quality, improper food, no CP, limited passives and skills due to being on a skill-point-starved low-level character--are minor on their own, but when combined, you can definitely feel the effect. (Yes, I still cleared nMA without too much pain, but afterwards I scrapped my plans of using nMA as a grind spot to level my EU character.)

When your stats are so weak that abilities hit like that of a tank, when your self-heals have trouble keeping up with some of the incoming damage, when your character has ***-poor mitigation and things actually hurt, it doesn't matter if you know how the play the game or how to do a rotation--"easy" content isn't going to be the kind of blindfolded cakewalk that you're used to it being.

Now imagine adding one more handicap to that list: the lack of player experience. Because at least I still had my experience. I knew exactly how to spend my attributes, what skills I should prioritize getting, how to weave, etc.

Yes, overworld content is a joke... for me and you. But not for someone who's just starting out.

Well said, @code65536, and much, much better said than my attempt.

Latonia · September 2017

You've had some good advice from those far wiser than me. My only suggestion would be to replace Soul Trap with something more useful for killing mobs and switch to it temporarily when you have a few soul stones that need filling.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · September 2017

Twinner_69 wrote: »

So I'm finding, on nearly every character I play, aside from Warden, that solo play is incredibly difficult. You do well for a time, then run into a named quest mob or fight that just seems unbeatable or takes you a significant amount of time to complete. I'm wondering if this is just the new Morrowind content, which incidentally is the content I started my character with (only got to 3rd level on pre-Morrowind ESO), or if this is indicative of the experience most people suffer through? In the old days I loved a challenge, but I also had a lot of time to complete those challenges, these days for me it's more about fun and enjoying the little time I have to dedicate to a game. With this game I find that I am oftentimes unable to finish a task and when I come back, by the time I get the hang of the fight, I have to log again. Really this is becoming an experience where I regret having spent money on this game, because I find if I do have the time to finish something the battle is just so impossible, I just don't want to play it. Also, the fact they made this so you essentially have to play third person if you want to tell when attacks are coming is so bad for the Elder Scrolls feel. I really hate that. Okay there you go. Fanboi's attack.

erm bro...what game do you play? please tell me the name...cuz I don't think is ESO... seriously ESO needs a buff on solo content...due to the fact u can solo everything with white garbage u get from mobs or vendors... so again please...share with me the name of the game!
I think you could use one of these tough.

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

The Morrowind content is generally more difficult, honestly. I do find it able to be completed though. Who knows if I will always find it that way with every character though?

Enslaved · September 2017

All depends on content you are doing. Some classes/setups have easier time doing same content as others, but still there is a ceiling for every single one of them. Classes with efficient self heal are better if you are soloing, especially if you sacrifice some damage for sustain. On the other hand, I find soloing everything extreme tedious and boring. After all, ESO is a MMORPG, and I tend to play it as one.

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

Enslaved wrote: »

On the other hand, I find soloing everything extreme tedious and boring. After all, ESO is a MMORPG, and I tend to play it as one.

I find grouping everything tedious and boring and sometimes annoying, so I tend to play it as a solo game.
1) Forming a group takes forever either because of looking for competent people or not enough queuing for the right roles.
2) Other people can be however they want, even frustratingly annoying or jerks.

Until they learn the lessons of the old MMO City of Heroes, they need to facilitate solo play for as much as possible of the content. Below are the lessons City of Heroes figured out and applied to great success, just the superhero theme and a rocky start kept it down.

Lesson 1) Make grouping easy to start with simple queue systems(like the LFG interface) and possibly a dedicated global(not zone restricted) grouping channel.
Half the battle is just getting people together.

Lesson 2) Make all content reward equally.
Currency systems that reward players the same exact item from all content that can then be used to purchase or create(welcome back crafting) rewards they desire rather than random junk is always appealing. It allows freedom to run content we enjoy rather than content we hate for a specific item. That helps developers find what they did right and what they can improve very easily.

Lesson 3) Make grouping easier than soloing balanced content.
City of Heroes allowed groups of any role combinations and skill combinations to go into any content and still succeed if skilled and geared. In fact, grouping was easier than soloing because of stacking group buffs that made players actually feel like they were helping the team even if they weren't the healer.

I loved to group in City of Heroes because it was easier and more rewarding and just plain fun because of all the flashy effects going off and hordes of enemies falling before our might.
Does nobody take a hint from games like Bulletstorm and Dynasty Warriors and its spin-off games like Hyrule Warriors anymore? We like big booms and bright lights and multiple rag-doll physics launched enemies.

Enslaved · September 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Enslaved wrote: »

On the other hand, I find soloing everything extreme tedious and boring. After all, ESO is a MMORPG, and I tend to play it as one.

I find grouping everything tedious and boring and sometimes annoying, so I tend to play it as a solo game.
1) Forming a group takes forever either because of looking for competent people or not enough queuing for the right roles.
2) Other people can be however they want, even frustratingly annoying or jerks.

Until they learn the lessons of the old MMO City of Heroes, they need to facilitate solo play for as much as possible of the content. Below are the lessons City of Heroes figured out and applied to great success, just the superhero theme and a rocky start kept it down.

Lesson 1) Make grouping easy to start with simple queue systems(like the LFG interface) and possibly a dedicated global(not zone restricted) grouping channel.
Half the battle is just getting people together.

Lesson 2) Make all content reward equally.
Currency systems that reward players the same exact item from all content that can then be used to purchase or create(welcome back crafting) rewards they desire rather than random junk is always appealing. It allows freedom to run content we enjoy rather than content we hate for a specific item. That helps developers find what they did right and what they can improve very easily.

Lesson 3) Make grouping easier than soloing balanced content.
City of Heroes allowed groups of any role combinations and skill combinations to go into any content and still succeed if skilled and geared. In fact, grouping was easier than soloing because of stacking group buffs that made players actually feel like they were helping the team even if they weren't the healer.

I loved to group in City of Heroes because it was easier and more rewarding and just plain fun because of all the flashy effects going off and hordes of enemies falling before our might.
Does nobody take a hint from games like Bulletstorm and Dynasty Warriors and its spin-off games like Hyrule Warriors anymore? We like big booms and bright lights and multiple rag-doll physics launched enemies.

You should join a guild with ppl that are competent to your own standards. That way, you will have a lot of players to group with with a simple LFG in guild chat.

Sleep · September 2017

maybe yor latency is too high

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

Enslaved wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Enslaved wrote: »

On the other hand, I find soloing everything extreme tedious and boring. After all, ESO is a MMORPG, and I tend to play it as one.

I find grouping everything tedious and boring and sometimes annoying, so I tend to play it as a solo game.
1) Forming a group takes forever either because of looking for competent people or not enough queuing for the right roles.
2) Other people can be however they want, even frustratingly annoying or jerks.

Until they learn the lessons of the old MMO City of Heroes, they need to facilitate solo play for as much as possible of the content. Below are the lessons City of Heroes figured out and applied to great success, just the superhero theme and a rocky start kept it down.

Lesson 1) Make grouping easy to start with simple queue systems(like the LFG interface) and possibly a dedicated global(not zone restricted) grouping channel.
Half the battle is just getting people together.

Lesson 2) Make all content reward equally.
Currency systems that reward players the same exact item from all content that can then be used to purchase or create(welcome back crafting) rewards they desire rather than random junk is always appealing. It allows freedom to run content we enjoy rather than content we hate for a specific item. That helps developers find what they did right and what they can improve very easily.

Lesson 3) Make grouping easier than soloing balanced content.
City of Heroes allowed groups of any role combinations and skill combinations to go into any content and still succeed if skilled and geared. In fact, grouping was easier than soloing because of stacking group buffs that made players actually feel like they were helping the team even if they weren't the healer.

I loved to group in City of Heroes because it was easier and more rewarding and just plain fun because of all the flashy effects going off and hordes of enemies falling before our might.
Does nobody take a hint from games like Bulletstorm and Dynasty Warriors and its spin-off games like Hyrule Warriors anymore? We like big booms and bright lights and multiple rag-doll physics launched enemies.

You should join a guild with ppl that are competent to your own standards. That way, you will have a lot of players to group with with a simple LFG in guild chat.

Sometimes I'm not the competent player. But finding a random group in group finder is often hard, especially when my normal hours are this time of night and earlier(the dead zone lol).

Olen_Mikko · September 2017

DW magblade is viable, especially in solo play and even in vet dungeons, but it is not for vetHM trials or top scoreboard material.

Just don't use any dps skills that consumes stamina, as magicka user, your skills scales from magicka.

Main reason for DW magblade is to benefit from 2x5 set items and 1 monster set.

Use at least 5 light armor and maybe 1 heavy and 1 medium armor, to benefit little from all gear passives.

You definitely do something wrong, as solo quests and overland pve is way too easy atm.

Use set items that benefits your build, like julianos for example.

Keep up, you're gonna do fine!

randomkeyhits · September 2017

If a blade is your first character (like me) you have to accept that at times you are simply.......... squishy and play accordingly.

As a stamblade some bosses, especially the add summoning ones were my bane. Developed tactics to deal with them but sometimes it was touch and go. Refreshing path was one of my favourites as the mobility helped a lot and I started developing bow skills

Those were the points where I actually needed food and potions. On the plus side it felt more of an achievement when I beat them.

In contrast levelling my DK, even without using the now available CP was a piece of cake in comparison, a very large piece with lots of topping....

ArchMikem · September 2017

Smmokkee wrote: »

Let me be completely honest.. everything aside from a select number of vet dungeons and vtrials is a joke. You have to be doing something wrong with your builds.. are you just light attacking?

The problem is Boss attacks. The average DPS Health pool is 16k to 18k. When a Boss' primary attack that hits every 2 seconds takes 14k of your Health away in one hit, then yeah you can understand how people are having trouble.

Magdalina · September 2017

ArchMikem wrote: »

Smmokkee wrote: »

Let me be completely honest.. everything aside from a select number of vet dungeons and vtrials is a joke. You have to be doing something wrong with your builds.. are you just light attacking?

The problem is Boss attacks. The average DPS Health pool is 16k to 18k. When a Boss' primary attack that hits every 2 seconds takes 14k of your Health away in one hit, then yeah you can understand how people are having trouble.

Only things that hit that hard are dungeon bosses and world bosses(well and trials of course). Both of which are indeed pretty hard to solo as a new player but that's okay because you can usually find a group to help you.

Koensol · September 2017

Twinner_69 wrote: »

I switched to Sorcerer and I'm almost the level of my nightblade, so, I guess I'm a Sorcerer now. I'm putting 1/5 Stamina/Magicka. I'm speccing a lot of Daedra Summoning and Dark Magic, so far I haven't died, except when I accidentally attacked a guard setting down my controller. Sigh... I really had my heart set on an Argonian Nightblade, but I just can't take the abuse.

Honestly, don't let yourself get brainwashed by the people in this thread that haven't learned to play NB since beta. Trust me, magicka nightblade is a VERY potent solo class. One of the easiest actually. Don't play sorcerer if you don't like it as much. You will regret it later on.

The problem I see from your posts is that you don't understand a couple of basic principles. 1/5 stamina/magicka... It sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't work like that in this game. Especially when you don't have Champion Points to inflate your damage. What you need is focus. Do you want to be magicka based or stamina based? Magicka uses staves, stamina uses the other weapons. You can ofc use dw or 2h, but only for the passive increase to dmg, but not for dmg skills. the Invest your points into the damage type you want to focus on, and pick abilities that draw from that type of resource. In your situation: magicka.

Make sure you are using a foodbuff/drink that at least gives you a bonus to health. If you are having trouble and are still learning the game, on your bars you want at least 1 shield (light armor skill tree), 1 heal, at least 1 or 2 cc's and the rest damage/buffs. Make sure you use strife as much as you can to keep yourself healed, and put dots on your opponent. Then go in with a cc and burst him down. Don't spam light attack, but try to think of a rotation that will be effective. Dont just spam some ability thinking it makes you good. Be creative.

Aisle9 · September 2017

Strife, man, use strife.

It's in your Siphoning skill tree.

Strife will heal you while you kill stuff. You can use it instead of Concealed Weapon, or you can use both.

Siphoning strikes also helps you, but it takes a bit longer to get it. Once you get it you can even just light attack anything and ignore the fact that they are shooting at you as it restores, even the unmorphed version, 1.4k health every time you light attack.

Another advice, "stay out of the red", I know it sounds cheap, but I had problems seeing some of the telegraphs for a long time. Now you have the chance to change the color.

If you want my advice, change it bright pink, or bright violet. It's easy to see on pretty much every ground.

You can change the color by pressing Esc -> Settings -> Interface, you can pick the color from a palette.

The main issue with survival you need to understand is that sometimes you can't just kill the mobs before they kill you.
Instead you need a reliable self healing strategy.

Magicka nightblades have a pretty awesome healing pretty soon in the form or Strife. It's cheap, it's effective, and you can use it as a spammable.

If you morph it into Funnel Health is an awesome spammable with group utility, while Swallow Soul has a bit more healing, but in my experience it's not that noticeable, unless you're tanking.

Other than that, practice the roll dodge.

Last but not least, make sure to remap every button you don't feel comfortable with, and check out the Controls settings, you might find things you didn't know about. Personally I remapped the rolldodge to Alt, instead of double tap, so I can rolldodge by pressing Alt+directional key. I find it extremely easier to do.

Don't listen to people telling you Dual Wield is not viable for a Magicka Nightblade, I main a magblade and leveling up I used all sort of weapons. Dual wield, Bow, Greatsword, Sword and board... completed all quests, and even solo overland bosses with it (they were easier to kill back in the day). Magicka Nightblade was my main character, so that was before I even knew what champion points were.

Staves allow you to restore magicka when you light or heavy attack, which is nice, but there are a truckload of awesome spammable in the NB skill tree. Restoration staves and active healing is not necessary, but if you like destruction staves, my advice is to go lightning. Flame staves do more damage, but lightning staves restore more magicka when you finish channeling a heavy attack.

Make sure to take all the passives, as there are incredibly good sustain and survival tools there. This also applies to weapon and armor passive (the ones you use, of course), as they are bonus you get without the need to do anything. Just read the tooltip, and take your time doing it, as ESO's tooltips are commonly unclear, or plain misleading at times. If you have to decide to take or not a passive that reduces the stamina cost of your dual wield abilities, it's pretty clear it will be a useless waste of SP if you're not using any dual wield ability.

Death Stroke is a great ultimate, and you should morph it into Soul Harvest asap, for incredible ultimate generation, but you will find Soul Tether (the morph of the siphoning ulti) very attractive for when you are surrounded by enemies, as it stuns, heals, and deal a truckload of damage. Both my magicka nightblade and my stamina nightblade have either Soul Harvest or Incapacitating Strikes (death stroke morphs) on the front bar and Soul Thether on the backbar. Make it a habit to use your ultimate as much as possible, instead of keeping it for "that one boss that might appear later on". There's a trick to generate ultimate, which is to light attack once in a while. You will see the numbers on your ultimate increase for a bit after you do. You don't need to learn how to block cancel animations, or weave light attacks (my advice is a quick YouTube search anyways for "ESO animation Canceling" it's not that hard, and gives incredible results once mastered, but you don't need it right away for overland content, so, do that when you feel you want to improve your game), but make sure to throw a light attack once every few seconds.

Gear and sets are not necessary, up until you reach max level, so don't stress it, and there is nothing hybrid in using dual wield. Also, don't listen to anyone telling you to roll a magicka templar, nightblades are awesome. When I'm leveling up a new character I make myself a lvl 10 training set and use that till I reach lvl50, and that's doing quests, delves, overland bosses, etc, as I find grinding incredibly tedious, and want them juicy SP from the quests. Just use whatever gear you get from the quests, and don't worry too much about it. Of course, make sure to read the tooltips, and learn what passives gives you more bonuses (e.g. 5 pieces of light armor will give you bonuses to magicka damage and sustain, so you might want to use at least 5 pieces of light armor), but don't stress too much about changing gear every level. It's true it gets outdated pretty soon, but you get a pretty steady supply of stuff from quests and loot.

Hope this helps.
Have fun playing a dual wielding magblade.

Tandor · September 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Solo content in this game is extremely easy. I'm willing to bet that it's a build issue with you (you are using the wrong gear/weapons for your class/role, you are assigning points to all 3 attributes instead of specialising, etc.).

While I don't disagree that most solo content is straightforward even for new characters, let's not forget that the players who say it's too easy are all talking about leveling up alts who already have many hundreds of champion points allocated.

TheeDopestDope · September 2017

problem 1. you are treating this game like its a TES rpg, its an MMO, requires MMO gameplay style.
2. you seem to overthink fighting enemies. kill em. dont die. easy.
3. you got 2 weapon slots and 5 skills plus ult. enough to do dps and self heal.
4. gear sets are there for a reason. lots of them out there. easy to get a lot of em.
5. potions.
6. friends
7. getting to 160 cp on main toon is top priority.

Sweetpea704 · September 2017

Twinner_69 wrote: »

Warden Libo, by the way, takes very little damage, but almost always insta-kills me with some attack that I don't see any queue for. Before this it was a few other named mobs, one Kahjitt in a cellar with two other mobs helping her, and then another named mob near Gnisis... really just the three, but it scales, so leveling really doesn't help me. Maybe I am just a terrible player, but I'd like to think with the time I've spent playing Elder Scrolls and MMOs in general (I've been playing since Ultima Online and the Everquest beta) that it's more to do with the game and not me. Also I don't like third person for Elder Scrolls and I don't feel like it should be forced on people as the default aspect.

You can't play this game in 1st person. That is flat out why you can't see the queues and why you are struggling. Also, I would kick you from my dungeon group if I found out you were playing in 1st person and were unwilling to change it. You have to be able to see your feet. This isn't Skyrim. Yes, it was an adjustment for me. I played Skyrim in first person.

This is a beautiful game and worth adjusting your playstyle for. Find a guild that supports new players and join it. Good luck.

Huyen · September 2017

Twinner_69 wrote: »

Umm... I'm not sure what you mean. I was trying to main as a Nightblade with magicka main and dual wield/destruction staff (which might be part of the problem), but overall I am pretty good at evading monster attacks. I've played WoW, Blade and Soul, Terra, etc, so that isn't something new to me, what is, is the fact that you oftentimes don't realize they're occurring because of the terrible vision in first person, my preferred mode of play, and the traditional Elder Scrolls mode. I guess Zenimax was more interested in creating their own Elder Scrolls than stay true to the old. This is particularly evident with the last bane of my existence, Warden Libo, who catches me picking a lock EVERY TIME, because his route is so short you can't complete the task before he sees through hide. Then he attacks, I do fairly well, only to suddenly die with half my life still there... That is the beauty of first person. So maybe I need to stop thinking of this as an Elder Scrolls game and more like a MOD for a popular MMO that Zenimax has created. I could start playing third person and see these attacks coming, I just have to forget about playing like I did in Skyrim, Oblivion, and every other Elder Scrolls game. This is Zenimax's Elder Scrolls evolved apparently. God I hope a new Elder Scrolls comes out soon.

You might want to try invisibility-potions. I too prefer to play first-person, and havent gotten into any trouble yet (apart from a forced desummoning of my bear ultimate while being in stealth...that thing is huge!). Try to see it like Skyrim: you cant be good unless you put the effort in to it.

Mystrius_Archaion · September 2017

Sadly yes, you can't survive against anything that hits hard in 1st-person view. They haven't come up with a way to express distance and direction in a red area in 3D space yet. It needs to be expressed on the ground still.

Now, if they designed it so that the big red stuff wasn't instant death then everyone could play how they choose and it would be more disability friendly.

MaDGaR · September 2017

im super bad my dps sucks but i can solo quest like no other, maybe he is talking about world bosses, at same time iv seen those soloed.

ConeOfSilence · September 2017

Just start a Templar and jab jab jab.