Not a Fan of Boss' Ability to Reset Fights (Edit: Developers Appear to Have Fixed This)

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

Peel_Ya_Cap_517 wrote: »

Also, are you a Nightblade?? Some bosses will reset if you've been successfully Cloaked for a while..

Yes, but I my cloak is currently 2.5 seconds with an 8% duration bonus, so I don't think I could stay in cloak long enough to cause the problem that way.

willymchilybily · January 2016

Spacemonkey wrote: »

Only Healer bosses do that to my knowledge, its not even when they hit 30%, its whenever they were hit a bit with a 15sec-25sec (depending on boss) cooldown.

Makes some of em out there annoying as @)#_%*#% but at least there aren't that many of them.
Most of the time you can save your CC ability for whenever they start the heal. interrupting them has a chance of putting them off and slowly getting towards the kill. But now and then you might also find one that just burst heals through whatever dmg you did even with the CC interruption. These I call DPS wall on them and hate ZOS for making dps the meta. but that's my own fault for running a Tank/Heal hybrid with little DPS abilities. I got stuck in an infinite battle of healing against the healer boss in BadMan's Hollow (Caldwell Gold) once. Very frustrating. The boss did so little dmg there was no way he could ever kill me. But Healed so much.... no way I could dmg it enough or keep it CCed enough to kill it, had to give up and come back with a helper.

So frustrating considering I solo'd all the other ones in that dungeon.

did you remember to use debuffs like pierce armor, and reverberating bash. meaning they take more damage and healing is reduced by 40%. Content will take longer if you are on your own when you quest and if you are set up as a pure healer or pure tank, but i find the game does have the tools available to still make questing like this perfectly viable if not slower.

Edit
@Jeremiah12LGeek take a video next time it happens and we can quickly confirm if it is a bug or something you are doing that is fundamentally causing it.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

willymchilybily wrote: »

Spacemonkey wrote: »

@Jeremiah12LGeek take a video next time it happens an d we can quickly confirm if it is a bug or something you are doing that is fundamentally causing it.

There is a lot of variety to the circumstances, but I considered compiling examples.

In fact, they've all been recorded, but it is a necessity that every couple of days or major play session, I have to delete all my video (the hard drive would fill in less than a week, otherwise.) I do keep anything of interest, and from here on, I'll make an effort to record examples of it when it happens.

Based on people's responses and my own experience, I think I may be in a minority cross-section of people poking at nearly every factor that can make this an issue, which I'll list here, and see if these sound like relevant factors:

- The frequency of the problem is high when I'm playing alone. The problem has never occurred, to my recollection when I've been fighting a boss with other people. There aren't nearly as many examples of me fighting with a group (I'm almost always alone) so it's hard to know for sure if it's a factor.

- Bosses that self-heal can have a wonky attack cycle that might cause the problem? Perhaps I tend to respond to bosses self-healing with a strategy that increases the likelihood of the problem.

- Using "Mark Target" and then following up with a stealth attack can prompt the issue, someone submitted. This is my primary form of attack, so if it is buggy in a way that interacts with boss AI behaviour, this could be a big culprit.

- Some bosses are prone to this behaviour, it has been suggested. I am a completionist, and seeking to fully complete every map before moving on, so I would almost certainly encounter most, if not all of those bosses.

I'll save any video of it happening going forward.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

I looked through yesterday's videos, and found an example very quickly. This fight is typical of my experience. It happens this way almost half the time I fight something that would be considered a "boss."

If embedding doesn't work, here is a link to the video.

It happens twice during that fight. The first time, it's around 10-12 meters from the boss' spawn point. As far as I'm concerned that's way too small an invisible area to force me to fight in, and I wouldn't even consider what I was doing "kiting."

But then there's the second time it happens. At that point, I'm obviously expecting the problem, and I'm practically standing on top of the boss' spawn point when he resets and heals himself to full.

In my experience, every boss fight will have a random number of these "healing" instances. Even though half or more of those instances, the random number is 0, I still consider the mechanic to be seriously broken. It makes almost hald of the boss fights (for me, as I'm obviously in the minority) several times harder than they should be.

willymchilybily · January 2016

@Jeremiah12LGeek
Thanks for uploading, i think i see the problem you are having.
..... The boss reset because you used cloak. Cloak makes you invisbible, if you are invisible and the boss cant target or hit you, you are considered no longer there. He will go for the next player he can target or hit. in this case there was no other players to attack so he reset. like he would have done if you had died.

try not using cloak in your next boss fight and see how it goes

Moonshadow66 · January 2016

I'm getting this every now and then with both bosses and normal enemies. They reset when they're not even drawn too far away from their starting place plus when I'm also still nearby, they just do it.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

willymchilybily wrote: »

@Jeremiah12LGeek

yeah..... The boss reset because you used cloak. Cloak makes you invisbible, if you are invisible and the boss cant target or hit you, you are considered no longer there. He will go for the next player he can target or hit. in this case there was no other players to attack so he reset. like he would have done if you had died.

It's very inconsistent then, even within that video. The first time, he continues to target me for a second or two after I cloak before resetting, and the second time, it looks like he resets at the exact instant that I use cloak. In one of the two cases there was an active target other than me (granted, it was an AI phantom.)

I've also used cloak against bosses dozens of times in every fight, and obviously the vast majority of the time, the boss does not reset when I do so, even if I allow the full duration to expire. In fact, usually when I attempt to cloak and run away, it has no effect, and the boss continues to chase me, regardless. Often well beyond any spawn zone I would have expected them to be leashed to.

I believe you are certainly correct about the culprit, especially in the examples in the video, but I don't feel that the mechanic is consistent or makes sense. 99% of the time that I use stealth it behaves the way that I would expect. I've certainly never had a "non-boss" unit reset in the middle of battle when I used Stealth. And I've also had the reset problem with bosses occur when I haven't used stealth.

Is it common knowledge that I'm not supposed to use invisibility in boss battles? I can rebuild my character, I suppose (although I really don't want to have to.) I've grown very attached to my stealth, but it isn't worth the slots dedicated to it if it's going to turn so many boss battles into a random number of resets.

willymchilybily · January 2016

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote: »

willymchilybily wrote: »

@Jeremiah12LGeek

yeah..... The boss reset because you used cloak. Cloak makes you invisbible, if you are invisible and the boss cant target or hit you, you are considered no longer there. He will go for the next player he can target or hit. in this case there was no other players to attack so he reset. like he would have done if you had died.

It's very inconsistent then, even within that video. The first time, he continues to target me for a second or two after I cloak before resetting, and the second time, it looks like he resets at the exact instant that I use cloak. In one of the two cases there was an active target other than me (granted, it was an AI phantom.)

I've also used cloak against bosses dozens of times in every fight, and obviously the vast majority of the time, the boss does not reset when I do so, even if I allow the full duration to expire. In fact, usually when I attempt to cloak and run away, it has no effect, and the boss continues to chase me, regardless. Often well beyond any spawn zone I would have expected them to be leashed to.

I believe you are certainly correct about the culprit, especially in the examples in the video, but I don't feel that the mechanic is consistent or makes sense. 99% of the time that I use stealth it behaves the way that I would expect. I've certainly never had a "non-boss" unit reset in the middle of battle when I used Stealth. And I've also had the reset problem with bosses occur when I haven't used stealth.

Is it common knowledge that I'm not supposed to use invisibility in boss battles? I can rebuild my character, I suppose (although I really don't want to have to.) I've grown very attached to my stealth, but it isn't worth the slots dedicated to it if it's going to turn so many boss battles into a random number of resets.

@Jeremiah12LGeek
yes this is because there are different things occuring here. different mechanics. The first time he reset i believe it was a combination of cloak and your attack due to his range/leash mechanic.As daft as it sounds you can test it out.

run up to an npc and hit him, then run off. and he will chase you like a greyhound on a rabbit. see how far he goes likely around 100m or more. now hit the same npc. move him 30-50m and hit him once, and he will reset. there is an attack/combat distance and a pursuit distance. They are not the same thing.

This is what seemed to happen. the boss only reset once you hit him after leaving stealth. this is kind of a bug i guess. he shouldnt reset. because he isnt outside his combat range, but by cloaking he went from attack mode to pursuit mode. and when you hit him next he reset. had you not hit him back he would quite happily hit you until you died.

the second time your NPC buddy was dead(on his knees unable to fight on), and your shade despawned at the same time you cloaked. this is the normal 'no more targets to kill' reset.

On final tid bit.....levels of boss Power is depicted by the bosses health bar. The boss you show in the video has the minimum fancy health bar. barely a boss. more like a jazzed up NPC, some people call them "elites". they are normally able to be knocked over and "crowd control" effects will work on them, stun, immobilize and so on. this is probably why cloak is also working on them.

But bosses with fancier health bars normally world bosses these are Genuine bosses. and you cant make them reset, or knock them over.

Check out this boss health bar and compare it to your boss

eso-ciirenas-the-shepherd-veteran-fungal-grotto-dungeon-guide.jpg

EDIT: ps dont change your bar or your skills if you are happy with them. You can start from stealth and even use stealth to boost damage against enemies if you aren't attacking alone. but just dont use the cloak mid combat when questing alone. is my advice. until you figure out which bosses do and which dont reset when you use it.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

willymchilybily wrote: »

EDIT: ps dont change your bar or your skills if you are happy with them. You can start from stealth and even use stealth to boost damage against enemies if you aren't attacking alone. but just dont use the cloak mid combat when questing alone. is my advice. until you figure out which bosses do and which dont reset when you use it.

Thanks for all the info.

I was pretty sure there had to be a combination of factors at work. From what you are describing, I was loosely correct earlier when I said that I probably fell into a small cross-section of poking at nearly every mechanic that can contribute to the problem. It seems that every wonky thing about how they reset is something that my skill set and playstyle is likely to bump into regularly.

I'll have to make a playstyle adjustment, I think, but understanding the different pursuit and combat mechanics that you describe is the only way I'm likely to be able to consistently do that.

I actually just fought a "boss battle" (probably on of the "elites" you mentioned) against the Dark Mane. To push the situation and see what happened, I went out of my way to cloak constantly, and use as many of my stealth-based combos as I could. He didn't reset at all, and I was consistently able to stun him out of invisibility as soon as his CC resistance duration expired.

It is definitely a "case by case" basis as to how likely invisibility is to be an issue, it seems. I'll do as you suggest, and start out using stealth (it is consistently my most powerful tool) but as soon as I realize it causes the boss to reset, I'll switch and stop using it.

Thanks again.

Refuse2GrowUp · January 2016

Cloak in PvE is used to break aggro on many adds. Looks like you are breaking aggro.

Cloak is not a skill you want to use for PvE unless you are trying to avoid fights. Cloak is a PvP skill

Moonshadow66 · January 2016

Refuse2GrowUp wrote: »

Cloak in PvE is used to break aggro on many adds. Looks like you are breaking aggro.

Cloak is not a skill you want to use for PvE unless you are trying to avoid fights. Cloak is a PvP skill

Although this is true as well, I don't use Cloak in PvE (anymore) and it still happens.

exeeter702 · January 2016

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Literally never had this happen to me on any world boss ever on ps4 and pc.

99 percent sure the OP is unfamiliar with mmo mob tethering mechanics

-OP is kiting boss to the breaking point
-boss starts returning to spawn, op follows
thinking it's still fighting
-boss resets and instantly re-establishes threat
since op was following close
-OP sees it as the boss healing
-frustration ensues

No. I am nowhere near far enough away from the spawn point for it to happen like that. In fact, the OP doesn't describe the scenario you seem to have concluded, at all.

It's more like.

-Boss is 5 meters from spawn point.
- Bass is down to 20-40% health.
- Boss is suddenly at full health, and walks 1 or 2 meters towards spawn point before turning around and immediately attacking again.

The op in fact barely describes a scenario at all. The claim was that it happens on multiple bosses, this is not normal nor a widely known bug.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

exeeter702 wrote: »

The op in fact barely describes a scenario at all.

I'm not sure what your point is. Are there more details in particular that you are looking for?

exeeter702 wrote: »

The claim was that it happens on multiple bosses, this is not normal nor a widely known bug.

Well... the claim is true, and whether or not you or some other people know about the problem doesn't actually change anything. So again, I'm not sure what your point is.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2016

Refuse2GrowUp wrote: »

Cloak in PvE is used to break aggro on many adds. Looks like you are breaking aggro.

Cloak is not a skill you want to use for PvE unless you are trying to avoid fights. Cloak is a PvP skill

I disagree strongly. You are clearly using it differently than I am, because I use it regularly in PvE to offensive effect. Perhaps you have not combined it with the same skills that I have, and therefore it is less offensively useful to you, but certain abilities are significantly more powerful when launched from stealth, and invisibility allows you to launch those abilities from stealth in mid-combat.

I rarely need to use invisibility to avoid fights, as stealth alone is enough to do that. I use it when corridors force me to walk right past enemies that I don't feel like fighting. Sometimes I use it to escape, but it is far more reliable as an offensive tool, in my experience.

Not that I'm telling you how to play, just assuring you that Invisibility has offensive PvE applications.

brandon · January 2016

This is the first time that I'm hearing about this. I've been playing this game since original release and I've never had a boss reset except when I get out of range or I stand on something that I'm not supposed to stand on.

Jeremiah12LGeek · January 2018

Apparently the developers took this issue quite seriously, because I came back to playing about a week ago, and I've fought many dozens of elites and bosses without running into it.

It would appear that enough of the factors were tweaked to make it rare, if not fixed entirely.

Also, I might as well double down on how useful stealth is in PvE combat, especially if you spend a lot of time soloing. From the automatic critical to the control effects it adds to other powers, I'd definitely never get rid of it.

monktoasty · January 2018

Did it seriously take 2 years to fix?

idk · January 2018

As has been pointed out, there is something being done that causes the boss to reset based on the description given. WBs, as an example, cannot just be kited to kingdom come. They have an area defined in the game that if they step out of it the boss resets.

It sounds like your situation is really that simple.

Colecovision · January 2018

It occasionally happens to me on the first miniboss of blackheart haven. To avoid getting kicked off the balcony, I fight him in the little room behind him. I’m not perfect, so I usually get kicked into the wall once or twice. That can lead to a reset. Then the second boss gets stuck up in the plants every now and then. I have to use endless hail and caltrops until he’s dead. Very slow, but it’s the only choice since nothing else connects. Am I supposed to report that stuff somewhere?

D0PAMINE · January 2018

Cloaking will do this

Amadis001 · January 2018

TotterTates wrote: »

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

I saw this with the automoton ambush 3 times in vet darkshade one day our group never left that area for gods sake why did it reset

Sometimes the tank needs to manually pull some of the centurions... it's strange, but it keeps the encounter from restting.

You're talking about the mech mob right before the Engine Guardian room, right? They have a nasty habit of resetting if you pull them just a little too far over the river. The solution is to fight them all on _their_ side of the river. The extreme of their tether is too close to the water to fight them on the near side. As soon as someone backs up a little too much while they have one of the centurions aggro'd, the entire fight will reset.

Jeremiah12LGeek · February 2018

monktoasty wrote: »

Did it seriously take 2 years to fix?

Probably not. I took a lengthy break not too long after posting about this. It was back when areas were still leveled, so quite a while ago.

I did play for a couple of weeks about six months ago, and I don't think I was running into the problem then either.

At least, not with regards to stealth or invisibility. They appear to have fixed those, although I've noticed newer responses that mention there are still some reset-and-leash-related issues with some bosses.

Jeremiah12LGeek · February 2018

idk wrote: »

As has been pointed out, there is something being done that causes the boss to reset based on the description given. WBs, as an example, cannot just be kited to kingdom come. They have an area defined in the game that if they step out of it the boss resets.

It sounds like your situation is really that simple.

Um, no, I would say it was a complicated confluence of several different mechanics, as explained across several posts by willymchilybily.

And how can people still claim the problem is me kiting at this point? O.o

It's an honest question because I never once said anything about kiting bosses, and the video contains no footage of me kiting a boss.

Jeremiah12LGeek · February 2018

Colecovision wrote: »

It occasionally happens to me on the first miniboss of blackheart haven. To avoid getting kicked off the balcony, I fight him in the little room behind him. I’m not perfect, so I usually get kicked into the wall once or twice. That can lead to a reset. Then the second boss gets stuck up in the plants every now and then. I have to use endless hail and caltrops until he’s dead. Very slow, but it’s the only choice since nothing else connects. Am I supposed to report that stuff somewhere?

Yup, here's a link: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/bug-reports

Not sure if that's what they're currently using, they've changed it before. If that's out of date, my apologies.

You could also do a search on those bosses for mentions of any workarounds that might help.

Chilly-McFreeze · February 2018

Had this a couple times in Arx Corinium at the boss after the bridge. At least before Dragon Bones update. Haven't tried it again yet. Yep, without kiting. But since this is the only boss I experience this I didn't really care.

Silver_Strider · February 2018

The only bosses that have ever reset on me is that Automation Army before Engine Guardian in DC2 and the Lamia boss past the draw bridge in Arx Corinium.

With the Automations, they'll reset on 2 occasions; if they touch the river OR if they walk behind their spawn location. Fighting them on the walled half of the room usually work but you can not move towards them as the Spheres have a nasty habit of back tracking and it might reset them if it goes too far back.

The Lamia boss after the drawbridge is very similar to the Automations since the trash mob with her are also part of the boss fight and if they get on the drawbridge or close to the doorway past them, it resets them all.