drake88131 wrote: »

A little background on me so the community knows where I am coming from. I am a father of two and I work 50 - 70 hours a week. If I'm lucky I get to play the game for an hour a night and, on Friday and/or Saturday night I may get a few hours in. I really enjoy the game, but I've found it impossible to join/climb the social ladder in vet trials. I've made "core" in several trial groups and completed probably four of the vet trials. However, my "completions" consist mostly of me filling a spot last minute and doing a couple bosses before the group disbands and/or getting in on the last boss. It has been painful and only bit by bit process and I've pretty much given up on doing any of the new DLC Vet Trials as completely beyond my capabilities and/or reach.

That's when the idea hit me: what is wrong with doing vet trials boss by boss and bit by bit? It looks like the PUG trial is coming anyways, so why not implement it correctly? Many of us won't have time to battle through an entire Vet Trial due to work/family/life so why not set up the PUG vet trials by boss with set limits? For example, how cool would it be if in Vet Hel Ra you could PUG into the first boss and then, once the group gets through that boss, if it took too long, etc., you could just disconnect and then, when you are next online you could PUG into the next boss and so on until you are finished and that way you get to "complete" the game.

Of course there would need to be restrictions in place. First and foremost? Limit the PUG progression like in VMA when you disconnect or get kicked. You can only PUG into where you are in the trial by the quest and if you drop out then you are not entitled to any "score". You can only get the rewards after you complete the trial this way just like in VMA.

I think all the other things that people want could be worked out from there. For example - A. a bar like in the crafting stores that might let you set a Minimum CP range that you would want to PUG into (hey, it's your free time right? You should get to choose what sort of group you want to join right)? B. Create a mechanism that punishes people that attempt to PUG in as a healer or tank for vet content that clearly were a DPS (but that is fair to prevent trolling groups from punishing healers or tanks they just don't like). C. anything else that makes this not a stupid and pointless endeavor.

In many ways, ZOS already does this for solo trials (VMA) so why not consider it for Vet Trials?

Please keep in mind this is just a suggestion and whether it is a good idea or not it is just an idea. I'm also not a bad human being and don't post a lot so please...be gentle with me... LOL

What are the community's thoughts?

kylewwefan wrote: »

No way man. I’ve joined in a few thrown together vet trial at last boss...only to find out they had been in there for 3 to 4 hours and wiped many many times and couldn’t beat the last boss.

What happened there is all the good players have left. And you go in there as a decent player surrounded by baddies.

Questioning your own build and skills. Still have very little hope of completing it.

Now, Look to your left and right during the fight.

See how many of these players are wrecking blow spamming, Or dancing around moving all over the place like stepping on hot coals while they fight. Anyone have them very distinguished looking Maelstrom weapons?

You will then know why they’re stuck.

Politely show yourself out.


Or perhaps, all they needed was a decent tank or a healer not out to lunch and you finish up in 5 minutes walk away with some sweet loot.

Also, for this to happen, what they need is a group finder for trials. That we don’t currently have.


One last thing is when pugging a trial vet or normal, you should get all chests as you go IMO. Most players just drop group after last boss. And all chests are in centralized locations now.

kylewwefan wrote: »

Ah. For normal sure. Fine. It would be great.

Vet versions of anything in this game treat casual players pretty lousy In my experiences.

usmcjdking wrote: »

PUG trials is something this game is missing badly.

Anyone who played NWO when Temple of Tiamat was released will say the same thing - that mini trial was a whole bunch of RNG, frustration and amazing. It was primarily amazing because no matter what you tried to do, you were never guaranteed to get into the same instance as your friends or group mates which made the trial a massive RNG fest.

It was fast, brutal and highly unforgiving. Sometimes you didn't have the damage, sometimes you had 2-3 heavy hitters who carried super hard. Sometimes you had 2-3 heavy hitters that just ignored mechanics and you lost.

It connects the subperformers with the top performers and creates more opportunity for the playerbase to interact with people outside of their guild and friends list.

ESO's main hurdle to this is that the three roles with maybe the exception of healer are not explained to any meaningful degree through in-game tutorials or in-game information. ZOS has probably the worst product when it comes to teaching people how to play their game and they rely way too heavily on the playerbase to do the heavy lifting for them when it comes to teaching roles. It is borderline inexcusable that a 720 CP player cannot find the tools and information to hit the 20k DPS mark within the game, or learn the concept of buff/debuffing, or mob control for that matter.

As much as I would like a true PUG trial, the tools for ZOS to implement one are simply not there. The skill advisor is the primary culprit - while this should be the primary tool it's full of *** RP fluff that is useless.