bhagwad wrote: »

1. Mechanics should be obvious. This means you shouldn't need someone to explain the fight. On console, typing the instructions to the planar inhibitor each time is a nightmare. Getting everyone onto coms is frequently impossible.

If an average person cannot instantly understand a mechanic, then there's something wrong with the design. Or how about a tutorial for each boss? In-game tips that need to be explicitly turned off. For example, during the planar inhibitor fight, when the screen turns black/white, people can get a huge, green, glowing, moving arrow over the portals with text that says "DESTROY"!

Whatever the solution, mechanics shouldn't have to be explained. They should be immediately obvious. Otherwise, you're not fighting the dungeon. You're fighting the process of slowly typing. One a console. Much wow.

...
Edit: P.S: Can't wrap my mind around the fact that ESO+ members get the shaft with DLC dungeons in random queue. The non-ESO plus members are the winners here. The paying members are peasants.

1. Yeah, I can see where this is a frustrating part of groupfinder. I used to type out the mechanics to Fungal Grotto II whenever I had low levels in the group on normal. Now I just run the fights and tell them afterwards if they struggled. I've come to accept that the best way for PUGs to change is to try, fail, then get advice and succeed.

However, learning the mechanics is not particularly difficult with practice. Sure, maybe my group wiped a couple of times trying to figure out what the mechanic is - the second to last fight in Crypt of Hearts II comes to mind, Ganme Bandu in FG II, the Planar Inhibitor, and a few others. Still, my friends and I rezzed back up, figured out what the mechanics were, figured out how to execute our response properly and carried on. We learned. We adapted. We overcame. (Admittedly, I've run all of my first time dungeons with friends, so the ability to laugh, scream, rant, and have fun together over voice comms is not to denied while doing a difficult dungeon run.)


As for your edit, this is getting changed. Now, DLC dungeons on normal will be locked until level 45, and certain ones until CP 160 on veteran difficulty.

Loc2262 wrote: »

You can do normal trials without voice communication or "complex setup". Just watch the zone chat in Grahtwood or Deshaan for a while, there are regular "LFMs" for trials.

To get a good score, i.e. run it on vet, have high damage, few (or no) deaths etc., you naturally need coordination and voice communication. This is no different in this game than in other team games.

Same was the case back when I played Team Fortress Classic and Unreal Tournament 2k3 in clans. Fun or spontaneous matches on public servers without voice comms, no problem. Serious clan vs. clan matches? Private server with good connection and voice comms mandatory.

But the difference with shooters (and MOBAs) is that you can become very good at the game playing on your own, at your own pace. You can be a Masters level player in Overwatch or CS:GO without ever joining a competitive clan (just solo queuing everything). There is no such equivalent in MMOs. You need to have the time to dedicate each week to coordinated practice in order to reap the rewards of running that content. This sucks for people who have demanding work/school/family schedules. Success in MMOs is 100% dependant on team coordination. This is why the endgame communities in MMOs tend to be very small (very few people have the time to practice for the content; it's almost like a second job where you need to meet for X amount of time every Y day).

lol

idk wrote: »

1. Mechanics that are simple to figure out at first glance would offer no challenge. I seriously doubt you cleared vet SotH dungeons easily first time. Bloodroot Forge is probably a challenge doing it first time without coms.

2. There are guilds that raid at different levels. It is an MMO after all and it would be absurd to only have small group and solo content. Plenty of social guilds run normal trials and that is a great place to start.

Large group raiding content is a staple of MMORPGs. For someone new to this genre of gaming that may seem overwhelming, but it is actually fun and once with a group of players that do this type of activity it becomes more common place.

Oh, and the normal trials have much lighter mechanics, but it probably a good place to visually see what is going on, and they can still be fun.

Not all of us enjoy trial and error game play.

I don't really consider it challenging dying over and over again until you figure out some weird or complicated "mechanic".

I"m not against adding environmental factors to combat. But as the OP says - they should be obvious enough to where you can figure them out on your own. No fight should require an instruction manual or a seminar on discord.

Blanco wrote: »

lol

This reply is 100% spot on.

Trials I always see people in my guilds running them, 4-6 times a day for the Craglorn ones and the others 1-3 times a week.


The mechanics are not really complicated in normal trials - if it looks scary block it and roll away from it. If you stand near you healers you won't die. That's basically every Craglorn Trial boss except the Mage (don't move!).

On veteran, things should require a time investment from someone. Generally this comes from your trial leader who will have done this half a dozen times or more already. Otherwise there would be no conceivable way to make any thing different or challenging. Other times the investment comes in forming an excellent group who has done it already / making more pots and distributing group tasks

Maybe they could have a thirty second playbook cutscene before the more complicated bosses telling players about the more dangerous or complicated mechanics to expect based on their role. That way nobody would be obligated to explain it over voice or text, and players wouldn't have to quit the game to read guides or watch videos.

Having said that, there will always be players who strive for more challenge and would still require coms and trial and error on the fly adaptation. That is healthy for the game in my opinion.

This must be your first MMO cause "raids" and large group events are in basically all of them. And coordinating with 12 people is a cake walk. Everquest raids are 54 players lol

Form a trial-group with one click is called the Raid-finder in WoW, and its a huge dissapointment. I wouldnt recommend it.
Regarding tactics in trials: on normal they are not harder then your average Vet dungeon. In fact, if you got a group with at least a bit of decent dps, you burn through the bosses without caring for tactics at all.

bhagwad wrote: »

I have done every dungeon in vet (except Falkreath) multiple times, but never a single trial. I don't understand the logic of trials that require 12 people. I mean twelve! And that too for them to all be on coms and know the fight! The amount of coordination and set up that would take before you actually start the content is absolutely insane.

It's not the dungeon content that's hard (though it could be). It's more the set up, the talking, the coordination of times, the finding of guilds. Bleh. Too...much...work. I'm constantly amazed that there are individuals who have completed trials in this game. They must really spend a lot of time talking to other people!

IMHO, all group content should be designed to satisfy the following:

1. Mechanics should be obvious. This means you shouldn't need someone to explain the fight. On console, typing the instructions to the planar inhibitor each time is a nightmare. Getting everyone onto coms is frequently impossible.

If an average person cannot instantly understand a mechanic, then there's something wrong with the design. Or how about a tutorial for each boss? In-game tips that need to be explicitly turned off. For example, during the planar inhibitor fight, when the screen turns black/white, people can get a huge, green, glowing, moving arrow over the portals with text that says "DESTROY"!

Whatever the solution, mechanics shouldn't have to be explained. They should be immediately obvious. Otherwise, you're not fighting the dungeon. You're fighting the process of slowly typing. One a console. Much wow.

2. Finding a group of people to play with should require just a button click.

As an MMO, we have literally thousands of players. It's absurd that we have to manually form a group of 12 people to do a trial! I don't know which is worse - that you need so many people in the first place, or that you have to go around asking people to do it manually.

For this reason, I have never done a trial and unless something changes, I absolutely never will.

Edit: P.S: Can't wrap my mind around the fact that ESO+ members get the shaft with DLC dungeons in random queue. The non-ESO plus members are the winners here. The paying members are peasants.

12 man raids allow you to coordinate roles, abilities, buffs, and spread out sustain and damage for each trial. Typically there are 2 healers per trial. Most AoE heals only affect up to 6 people at a time, so you can imagine that 2 healers can spread their heals nicely across all 12 people. Just an example of why 12 is an optimal number for a raid in ESO.

1. I disagree entirely that mechanics should just be flat obvious. I mean, most are, honestly, but there are some mechanics that took groups good teamwork to figure out. I remember the rush to complete vMoL HM, we worked hard at it, and, in the end, we've gotten to be near flawless in that fight. In that trial in general. I help newer teams complete vMoL often, and I can say that twins fight is a steep learning curve, but once people learn it they really enjoy the fight. It's fun. If you don't like organized raids, then don't participate. I don't think everything should be dumbed down, however, because you find it annoying to explain mechanics. Isn't that the point of a game in this genre? To solve things? To discover? To not have everything pointed out to you obviously? To work together with teammates when the situation calls for it?

I can understand the frustration of people just being dumb in veteran dungeons, but I can say that I group finder dailies almost every day and rarely get a group (even with low CP) that can't complete a veteran dungeon, even on hardmode.

2. You can find a group of people...for a dungeon...with a click of a button. I agree that perhaps normal mode trials should allow for group finder. But veteran trials should always have a need for coordination from the entire group. Come now, it's PvE endgame, if you don't want to be organized, have a team, work for completions and scores, then do normal mode or just don't do endgame trials.

With the attitude you have I don't think you quite understand what you're missing out on. Even if you joined a progression guild, trials are quite fun and if you ever get serious about them, pushing scores is even better. I can't understand why people want to keep dumbing down endgame content. It's ridiculous.

I seriously couldn't wrap my head around Vet WGT... after an hour of trying I had to leave.

All my trails were in the last two weeks. I ran nSO and it was so easy I got confident I could do more.. so with the plunder skulls I agreed to nAA and nMoL.
I didn't really know what was going on with nAA.. I had to sneak for some reason at some point.
Then MoL with the Twins fighting what the hell is happening? I died 4 times just getting hit for 25K by something.

Overall though I just follow the crowd and try to settle into a rotation on the mobs and bosses... getting carried.

It didn't help that this game takes 90% of my computers memory so I can't use discord, the rest of my group was on.

Loc2262 wrote: »

You can do normal trials without voice communication or "complex setup". Just watch the zone chat in Grahtwood or Deshaan for a while, there are regular "LFMs" for trials.

To get a good score, i.e. run it on vet, have high damage, few (or no) deaths etc., you naturally need coordination and voice communication. This is no different in this game than in other team games.

Same was the case back when I played Team Fortress Classic and Unreal Tournament 2k3 in clans. Fun or spontaneous matches on public servers without voice comms, no problem. Serious clan vs. clan matches? Private server with good connection and voice comms mandatory.

What about people who might be deaf or can't speak or something? How do they do these things? Someday these all these game devs will answer for that.