Where is group-based questing?

zachary.wagle_ESO · April 2014

I'm genuinely enjoying ESO, but have to admit, the lack of group based questing is the biggest drawback I have with this game. It plays like a SOLO elder scrolls game with the MMO content thrown in as an afterthought.

Haven't we all played the ES series wishing we could have our friends battling for great justice next to us? Well, now we can, except there is absolutely no interaction between two "grouped" character's independent storylines. This transitions into gameplay that requires my friend and I to constantly make sure we are progressing equally instead of enjoying the content, which feels more than a bit like micromanagement than adventure.

The graphics are next-gen, and so is the class and leveling system. However the lack of grouped synergy is NOT AT ALL what I was expecting from a game that knew exactly what it was walking into with plenty of MMO examples of good and bad ideas. You KNEW that players would want to play together in an epic storyline, and you basically ignored this completely.

Finally, the parts that ARE multi-player feel like they are done so out of convenience rather than genuine design. Why are there dungeons with my quests that have 20 other players killing my quest mobs, removing all the challenge from reaching the objectives, but instanced versions that even splits my GROUP apart for fights like Doshia?

I'd really like to hear from the developers here. What gives guys?

Humor · April 2014

I highly doubt you'll get a response from them. And if you did, it would go something like this; "We're trying to appeal to both audiences, those who appreciate the single player TES games for what they are, and those who come from the MMORPG genre", or something along those lines anyways, and other stuff about not forcing players into groups. (which is totally ironic what with the Guild Stores and all)

I can some what agree, and relate to this, as I came into the game with a couple of my friends, wanting to do some cooperative action and what not, however, they soon after got bored, because, well, their attention span is that of a monkey, and I knew it would happen sooner or later. Thus, I'm actually kind of happy, I'm able to do most things by myself.

To be fair, most of the Single player instanced quests have been dumbed down in some sort of manner, whether or not the bosses HP has been lowered, or whether their damage/defense is lower.

I would also agree to some extent about making some "Public" dungeons solo instanced. Too many times have I wandered into a dungeon trying to complete the achievement by killing the boss, only to have 30+ people sitting at the boss spawn swinging their weapons. Annoying if you ask me. Some of the "Public" dungeons I really do enjoy. One that comes to mind is Dashaan I think. Where there's actually horde's of monsters, and going in solo, you'll more than likely end up dead. Those Public dungeons are fun (my opinion).

Anyways, their new Craglorn/Adventure zones seem to be working, and improving on the multiplayer aspect of ESO. I'm personally looking forward to it.

Nox_Aeterna · April 2014

Humor wrote: »

I highly doubt you'll get a response from them. And if you did, it would go something like this; "We're trying to appeal to both audiences, those who appreciate the single player TES games for what they are, and those who come from the MMORPG genre", or something along those lines anyways, and other stuff about not forcing players into groups. (which is totally ironic what with the Guild Stores and all)

I can some what agree, and relate to this, as I came into the game with a couple of my friends, wanting to do some cooperative action and what not, however, they soon after got bored, because, well, their attention span is that of a monkey, and I knew it would happen sooner or later. Thus, I'm actually kind of happy, I'm able to do most things by myself.

To be fair, most of the Single player instanced quests have been dumbed down in some sort of manner, whether or not the bosses HP has been lowered, or whether their damage/defense is lower.

I would also agree to some extent about making some "Public" dungeons solo instanced. Too many times have I wandered into a dungeon trying to complete the achievement by killing the boss, only to have 30+ people sitting at the boss spawn swinging their weapons. Annoying if you ask me. Some of the "Public" dungeons I really do enjoy. One that comes to mind is Dashaan I think. Where there's actually horde's of monsters, and going in solo, you'll more than likely end up dead. Those Public dungeons are fun (my opinion).

Anyways, their new Craglorn/Adventure zones seem to be working, and improving on the multiplayer aspect of ESO. I'm personally looking forward to it.

There are two kinds of public dungeons , which is funny because most dont even notice this , the group ones and the solo ones.

From what i have seen , each zone got multiple of the solos ones , but only one of the group kind.

It is quite easy to understand the gap once you know it is there , solo dungs usually got packs from 2/3 , while the group dung got 4/6.

Coggage · April 2014

Group up with someone. Go questing. Ta-daaaaah! Group quests.

Thete · April 2014

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

Haven't we all played the ES series wishing we could have our friends battling for great justice next to us?

I'd really like to hear from the developers here. What gives guys?

The developers already gave their response. It was a deliberate decision specifically for all the TES fans who were really after an extension to their single player adventures. I guess the idea was to ease them in.

Now, I personally think there's a little more to it than the official line. Given the lack of abundance of quests as you level up, I think they needed to ensure that there was enough content to get to level cap solo without having to grind in an area (which all popular MMOs have) but don't have the resources to add on group only content (dungeons aside) on top of that.

KerinKor · April 2014

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

I'd really like to hear from the developers here. What gives guys?

Thankfully group-or-die leveling became extinct with FFXI as far as I can see, and good riddance to it; though in FFXIV it makes a return with content locked out by forced-group instances you have to complete to progress.

Craglorn is the group-or-die content you're looking for, soloers apparently don't feature in ZOS' end-game vision as this content update will exclude them entirely.

Nox_Aeterna · April 2014

KerinKor wrote: »

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

I'd really like to hear from the developers here. What gives guys?

Thankfully group-or-die leveling became extinct with FFXI as far as I can see, and good riddance to it; though in FFXIV it makes a return with content locked out by forced-group instances you have to complete to progress.

Craglorn is the group-or-die content you're looking for, soloers apparently don't feature in ZOS' end-game vision as this content update will exclude them entirely.

Yeap that is the way i understood it too , if that is the end game ,which is when most stay/grind , then there is a chance i will just quit when i hit that wall.

I do like to play solo more than in groups , so i see little reason to play at that point if the veteran 10 content in group only.

With that said , im far from veteran 10 and i would still wait to see how it works before i leave.

One way or the other , i still got plenty of days on this anyway heh.

Anastasia · April 2014

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

I'm genuinely...
Group based questing is in the Adventure Zones at lvl 50+.

Perfect fresh plan in my opinion -- gives people during the leveling up period the time and space they need to learn how to play.

Do you know how many games I've been in, getting to cap and a good percentage of maxed players are like, "How do I cc?", "Taunt? Is that a skill?" or, "You mean I'm not supposed to stand in the red stuff?" Over simplication? Maybe a little, but its a very, very COMMON occurrence in many other recent mmo's. People p-l, zooming up to cap, BUY their frickin gear, and think they are at the "endgame IS the beginning of the fun" spot. I like it that the fun starts on day one in ESO! And that there are different features to look forward to than whatever I'm seeing in my earlier levels.

I wouldn't mind a scattering of group questlines, say in the mid levels, but I do not think they are necessary at all. We can solo and/or group as we immerse ourselves in Tamriel, for however long we want.

WHEN we want to finally play at the veteran levels in groups, we OUGHT to be able to contribute to the group fun via knowing our responsibility within the framework of the group compilation.

Its much more FUN to succeed, its much more FUN to know mostly what you are doing and should do so theres an easy atmosphere of joking around as you check out the new group content.

Looking forward to a variety of game features, sprinkled throughout the sections of the game. I think it is an awesome plan instead of putting out all the toys in the first 10 levels and then doing the same-o-same-o with different landscaping all the way to max.

Zenimax, many people are lovin' the online Tamriel journey. Keep focusing on addressing bugs and customer service response as you are doing.

Be calm and carry on ^-^.

Thesiren · April 2014

The Old Republic had this same issue. Whenever you make quest lines and deep stories intermix over time, you wind up with people on different parts of quests with different phasing in place. This is not conducive to teaming.

However, in games where you don't do this (a.k.a. in most MMOs out there), you wind up with 2304987234 "kill 10 of x" quests instead. But then you can team freely.

I don't know about you, but I often felt the bottom dropped out of my reasons for being in MMO # 92 after slogging through so many "kill 10 of x" quests.

I do wish all quests in ESO were at least public, though, so anyone else with the same quest could jump in and help with bosses or extra aggro.

Stautmeister · April 2014

Crows nest of the EP Public dungeon.. impossible to solo, god i hate that one..

rawne1980b16_ESO · April 2014

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

Haven't we all played the ES series wishing we could have our friends battling for great justice next to us?

Nope.

I play them because they are good single player RPG's and even better with mods.

Thete · April 2014

Thesiren wrote: »

The Old Republic had this same issue. Whenever you make quest lines and deep stories intermix over time, you wind up with people on different parts of quests with different phasing in place. This is not conducive to teaming.

However, in games where you don't do this (a.k.a. in most MMOs out there), you wind up with 2304987234 "kill 10 of x" quests instead. But then you can team freely.

I would say there's another way. I would advocate being able to choose to drop into the phase of the least advanced player in the group so that you could still do stuff with friends. Granted, the more advanced ones aren't going to get much xp, but they wouldn't in any system where the group is at different stages.

zachary.wagle_ESO · April 2014

I'm not saying that the quests should be group-or-die, or that the content shouldn't be equally available to solo players. I'm already leveling with a friend and we sincerely appreciate the lack of "kill x of y monsters" style quests.

However, they could should have done better to implement a system that makes quest based leveling with friends seamless instead of a chore.

The way it plays:

Me: "Have you talked to the guard captain yet?"
Friend: "No, I haven't."
Me: "Ok, tell me as soon as you talk to him and them we can go recover the relic from the dungeon where nothing is alive."
Friend: "These graphics are awesome. That chick just sucked that guy's soul out of him."
Me: "Yup"

The way it should play:

Me: "Should we kill him?"
Friend: "Yea... These graphics are awesome. That chick just sucked that guy's soul out of him."
Me: "Yup. Lets go see if we can get to the relic."

Seriously...

Sarenia · April 2014

KerinKor wrote: »

zachary.wagle_ESO wrote: »

I'd really like to hear from the developers here. What gives guys?

Thankfully group-or-die leveling became extinct with FFXI as far as I can see, and good riddance to it; though in FFXIV it makes a return with content locked out by forced-group instances you have to complete to progress.

Craglorn is the group-or-die content you're looking for, soloers apparently don't feature in ZOS' end-game vision as this content update will exclude them entirely.

This is such a shame.

It's ridiculous to expect people to communicate or cooperate on a Massively Multiplayer game.

The entire game should be geared toward solo play. And what are all these people doing in my game right now? Get out!

Noth · April 2014

There is an entire zone coming out dedicated solely to group play.

Trouvo · April 2014

tired of reading walls of texts so ill just say this...

Have done everything so far with my friend duo-ing the entire game just started on glenumbra vr1 stuff, if you want to group you can group if you want to solo you can solo, could we do it all solo? yeah, but didnt want to, should it be harder? well it would be more interesting but both audiences etc etc....craglorn will require multiple people

columbineb14_ESO · April 2014

I'm amazed that I'm coming in here arguing for better grouping, having spent god knows how many years on various MMO forums being told "shut up, solo player, go play a standalone game" ... but grouping in this game is really, really bizarre. Not arguing pro or con, just saying ... bizarre.

Mostly the problem is the phasing on quest objectives, as noted a couple of times above. You have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where your teammate is on the quest because you're not seeing the same thing they're seeing; if one of you isn't a great communicator, then it gets confusing very quickly. My usual teammate is not very good at reading and following quest goals, and sometimes I'm too busy fighting to stop at every step and ask her, "Did you remember to do this?" - end result, a lot of backtracking and immersion-breaking and sometimes bad arguments. On the other hand, sometimes, unexpectedly, the game WILL share a quest goal between us (kill counts in particular) and I'll be like, huh, her kill over there in the other room just counted for me, that's interesting, didn't expect that.

Apart from having a group working on the same quest sharing quest goal progression wherever possible, in a perfect world I'd like to see a change in the way dungeons are instanced ...

There are two kinds of dungeons in a particular zone (I'm not counting the little caves for the Cave Explorer achievement with a map loop, a skyshard, zero challenge, and one boss with twenty people waiting for it to spawn):

1. The "little dungeon" - the small public dungeon (Crow's Wood, et al) with a final boss that usually is actually difficult at level, several quests and smaller bosses, etc. What I'd like to see - since these respond well to duos and small teams - is to have these react differently depending on whether a group enters them. Come in as a group, get your own instance; come in alone, take pot luck on anyone else playing with you in (one or more) public instances. I don't know if that would be horribly hard to implement ....

2. The "big dungeon" - Fungal Grotto and so forth. Since these are apparently designed for teams greater than two people, I don't see why every person or group who enters doesn't get their own private instance, period. (Disclosure of stupid: I've never stepped inside one, because I hate looking for pickup groups and I only know one other ESO player, so if they do that already, forgive me.)

zachary.wagle_ESO · April 2014

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

Nope.

I play them because they are good single player RPG's and even better with mods.

Why are you playing ESO then?