More emphasis on the importance of blocking/interrupting needed

JamuThatsWho · July 2020

Last night, I had a pretty frustrating time trying to do the vMHK Pledge. A lot of the issues came from players not interrupting boss mechanics. I took the time to explain the strats, and the latter half of the run went fairly smoothly.

Now, I'm in no way bashing players, everyone has to start somewhere and I have no problem going through strategies with my team mates. I also appreciate that using the Activity Finder is a gamble, and guild runs would be more efficient.

However, I do think the tutorial should do a better job of highlighting that blocking/interrupting/dodging are important actions you WILL have to use throughout the game. I can only do so much by myself.

I wonder if there should be something similar to FFXIV's "Hall of the Novice" system, which does a good job of preparing players for group play with a step-by-step guide to common mechanics.

tomofhyrule · July 2020

The tutorials have been getting better at showing those standard mechanics. The base game tutorial pretty well had you do a block/interrupt once if at all, but Elsweyr and Greymoor's tutorials really emphasize those during the combat portion.

I think there are a few factors at work here:

People who will just do the tutorial once with one character, maybe ages ago, and then just skip it on every other character. If the only tutorial they've ever run was Morrowind's, they don't have as good of an intro to that mechanic. The tutorials are still lore-based, so they don't have a tip about 'look for red sparks!' or anything.
People who think that something is 'the tank's job' or whatever. I know that a lot of mechanics videos are made from the DPS perspective and continually remind people that everyone, not just the tanks, can bash/interrupt. See also 'don't run around the room if the tank doesn't have aggro, bring the mobs to the center' or 'don't run out of the heals, but do run out of stupid.'
There is really no tutorial for dungeon groups. You pretty well have your intro-to-the-game tutorial, and then are expected to know how to play group content. There's really no training area for support roles outside of joining a guild, and the importance of having good DPS isn't stated. Especially since you can faceroll overland content and still not have the DPS to do a vet DLC.
DLC dungeons are a lot less forgiving on mechanics. Overland mobs can be safely ignored, so the interrupt doesn't matter. Basegame dungeons also have a few interrupts that will throw out nasty attacks, but again those aren't going to completely stop a group. But DLCs? That's where you have the 'interrupt this or your group will wipe' mechanics come in.

I'd love an Undaunted tutorial for specific roles. All I know I've learned from trial and error with my guild, and it's a training guild. At least DPS can try to practice rotations on dummies; healers and tanks really don't have a 'practice area' outside of just running dungeons.

Everest_Lionheart · July 2020

Sometimes I have to smash bash for the bash to actually work. Unless I’m right up against the enemy I often have to move into the bash as the same time for it to land on the target. Bash is a fickle mistress like that sometimes. Bash is also the key to passing certain content or getting a chance to land a decent burst in a tough fight.

Blocking also gets wonky sometimes. Especially when using certain channeled abilities. For some reason I can bash/block cancel out of rapid strikes but not out of sweeps. I can barswap/block faster on my magplar than I can by simple blocking alone when channeling sweeps.

The art of both blocking and bashing need to be learned though and some of that is understanding how to execute both maneuvers out of each slotted skill. Simply pressing block or bash isn’t always the answer.

mairwen85 · July 2020

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'd love an Undaunted tutorial for specific roles. All I know I've learned from trial and error with my guild, and it's a training guild. At least DPS can try to practice rotations on dummies; healers and tanks really don't have a 'practice area' outside of just running dungeons.

Most people probably have a similar story where mostly what they know they have learnt from others whether via friendly advice or snarcy kick reasons. In a game like ESO where group coordinaton and cohesion is really important the higher up the content ladder you go, that's not necessarily a bad thing; the community should be helping itself to learn and grow, but that doesn't mean as individual players we shouldn't be teaching ourselves how to play, and that latter part shouldn't be left to external sources. It's great that we have so many content creators and they all do a really god job and I'm thankful for them, but the basics of this game are sorely overlooked and despite the later tutorials making more of them, once you're out of it, you can pretty much forget it until you hit CP and start doing more challenging content because it isn't relevant until then--nothing along the way forces you to watch out or react to incoming danger... or at least, it doesn't go so far that it is a problem if you don't. Rather than the step inside dungeon x, voila accepted into undaunted, that first quest should be a tutorial in a 3-phase dungeon that teaches you the basics of how to tank, heal, and dps. I think that fits thematically into the game too, like running a gauntlet to prove you are undaunted.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · July 2020

I think the tutorials should have an option to turn on/off combat alerts to teach new players what to look for when they need to dodge/block/interrupt. They shouldn't need an addon for that.

AlnilamE · July 2020

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

I think the tutorials should have an option to turn on/off combat alerts to teach new players what to look for when they need to dodge/block/interrupt. They shouldn't need an addon for that.

Isn't there a setting for that? I get a Hold "RMB + LMB" to Interrupt and that's from the base UI (among other warnings). I don't have an addon for that.

That said, my thing in dungeons is the muscle memory for individual fights. Particularly in DLC dungeons, where you have to keep an eye on five different things, it does take several runs for that to become automated and I know what to expect and where to turn next for the next bit of mechanics.

LightningWitch · July 2020

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

However, I do think the tutorial should do a better job of highlighting that blocking/interrupting/dodging are important actions you WILL have to use throughout the game. I can only do so much by myself.

For 6 long, arduous years, one of the biggest complaints has been the lack of a tutorial.

I'm dumbfounded a company puts these tutorial "tips" on loading screens, but cannot create a "battle arena" to do a proper tutorial.

I do not expect we'll ever get one, because if there's anything I've learned about Zenimax and their studios, they expect the fans to fix what they cannot accomplish.

Kadoin · July 2020

Most players never interrupt or block even in PvP...It's crazy, but yes, I see it in PvE too and agree. It's very annoying when tanking to have to do it all because others won't do anything, more annoying than ice staff heavies IMO

josiahva · July 2020

This reminds me of all the times in zone chat I see this:

"Druitlarg world boss up".

Druitlarg is a great example because he is an extremely easy world boss to solo if you bash his agony attack and block his heavy, and break free of his CC ult. Magicka builds don't have as easy a time because doing all 3 takes a lot of stamina, but since you can heal through his agony just fine, that one is optional, maybe even ignore his cc if you dont have the stam to break free.

Every time I see that in chat though, what I really see is a complete failure of the game to instill the importance of basic combat mechanics in the general population of the game...if people tried to play say...Demon Souls while ignoring the basic mechanics....they will just end up dead over and over again to basic enemies and never even make it to the first boss. Obviously the souls games are a higher level of difficulty than most games, but at least they make players realize that they have to pay attention to be able to get anywhere.

ItsJustHashtag · July 2020

ZOS ruined blocking recently. Be thankful if you get lucky enough to block.

Mortiis13 · July 2020

Quest/overland content simply had to have encounters that, if constantly ignored, will kill you. They also should scale with level/cp so noone can one-shot them anymore.

Healer that actually heal other npc frequently (I would suggest only tanks) so killing them first is needed to kill the tank.
Dd that deal damage and not tickling you, so your base health reg can't outheal 3 npcs.
Give them the ability to dodge attacks/run out of aoe areas by a 20 percent chance or what ever.
Tanks that are tanky/block some attacks so focus heal/dd first to weaken the group tank/able to kill him.

It's not magic, you don't need to be a scientist. After 2.3 whipes even the dumbest player will figure out how to deal with a group of mobs.

In public dungeons you will have to bash/dodge additionally npcs to be successful.
Not much. Maybe one mob (highllited) per group should be cast aoe that hurts. So dogde/bash the cast is needed.

One shot mechanics in norm dungeons (heavily telegraphed)

And so on..

That way every player learn the basic from the beginning and have to constantly repeat them.
=raising the floor without the need of proc sets that "play" for them

I was like 12 when I first entered wow vanilla 2005. It was my first mmorpg.
The time where 2/3 trash mobs could kill u if u not cc'ed em or able to heal yourself, kite or whatever.
It tooked me less an hour to understand what I had to do to kill groups with my class.
An 12 year old punk/goth that was good for nothing and even failed at that

Wow's bfa Island expedition npc' s are really great btw. And the best example for what I mean.

SolidusPrime · July 2020

I agree that blocking and interrupting in particular seem to be a problem for people. It's easy to see a big red circle on the ground and associate that with dodging without much mental processing but the cues for block/interrupt are usually much more subtle.

A large portion of the player base gets very tunnel vison-y in their role. They focus hard on that DPS rotation or are watching health bars for heals and just miss the prompts. I get it. I think that's why tanks tend to be the leaders in most circumstances. They are more familiar with the mechanics because it's in their face and their main focus.

CP5 · July 2020

The tutorial forces new players to do these interactions several times to proceed. I would say like others have that if overland content had threats that required blocking and bashing that would teach players to pay attention in combat. Having that content be so simple only encourages poor habits, but make it slightly harder to encourage people to experiment more with the game and many people won't like that.

zvavi · July 2020

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'd love an Undaunted tutorial for specific roles. All I know I've learned from trial and error with my guild, and it's a training guild. At least DPS can try to practice rotations on dummies; healers and tanks really don't have a 'practice area' outside of just running dungeons.

We all would love it, I even made a long post about it back in the day, didn't get much attention... (And complaints that if I don't like the groups I get I should suck it up & not pug)

Aznarb · July 2020

Tbh you can't blame ZoS for that, these thing are a part of every tutorial and the Elsweyr one was taking more time to do.
I started with Summerset, done the tutorial and never needed anyone to tell me to bash or interrupt when I saw the "sprakle" on mob.

People just need to pay attention at tutorial and apply it right in open world (yes in open world at low level it's live save in some elite/boss to interrupt/block when you don't have CP to breeze the world.

But as someone who take time to teach in pug, I can tell you than an easy 90% of player don't give a damn about game mechanic and improvement.
Way to much players relies on combat add-on to tell them what to do and when.
I still think they shouldn't have allowed these lazy add-on and that why I always have huge respect for console player who clear hard content : they're not assisted.