Enjoy the game, but it's not really group friendly.

Staal · April 2014

Having been playing with a RL friend since Early Access, I have come to the conclussion that ESO makes it hard for groups.
This is especially noticeable with all the phasing, which more or less bugs something everytime for one of us, meaning quest npc's not following one person, or conversations ending too soon, so the other can't watch them, placing items somewhere can bug it for the other person and so forth.
Problems with group leader not showing, members going offline, while being online, aggro system is weird, can run past mobs and they all run to my friend instead of aggroing me etc.

I would really love to see the gameplay improve on the grouping side of things, because it really do become frustrating, to a point where you'd rather want to solo in the game.

Loxy37 · April 2014

I think once all the Major game breaking bugs are sorted that group play will get some love.

bmmatthews87rwb17_ESO · April 2014

My partner and I have noticed all of these problems and it is SO frustrating. For a multiplayer game they haven't really made it multiplayer-friendly.

Myrdreth · April 2014

I experienced the same problems and I hope they will fix it soon.

vyal · April 2014

Have noticed the same. Can't share quests (why not, even if they give no rewards, I want to help my friends) Can't help my friends with their guild or main quests.
Tried doing a group dungeon, the following happened..

Everyone was invisible to everyone else.
Then.
I could see 1 person. then 2. Then everyone logged. and no-one could see anyone.
Then we disbanded, left the dungeon, relogged.
Group leader reformed. He entered first. We all tried to enter. Everyone but the group leader was together.
Finally, the group leader left his dungeon, re-entered and we could join him.
Then the dungeon quest bugged out, we couldn't complete it, so the entire run was a waste of time.

Second time, just myself and a friend working through Glenumbra with alts.
Got the Fighter guild quest to enter Dour-whatever, Doshia's lair. He zones in first, he's group leader, we each get two separate instances, even though we can see each others markers, invisibly, in each.
So, we try various shades of relogging, reforming, disbanding, re-entering, etc. No possible way it would put us both in the same instance/phase.

After the group-dungeon debacle, I'm really hesitant to try it again. It should be as easy as: form group, enter dungeon, play, have fun, get reward.
Now? It's just pure frustration, and it's astonishing to me this product passed QA testing.

Citraka · April 2014

Totally agree, my wife and i play mmos together, always have EQ EQ2 EVE AOC and that warhammer thingy

TESO dissapoints on the group side masively, constant seperation due to the 'solo' elements of the quests looting multiple items on both toons due to getting no credit for being grouped, the grouping element fails bigtime and its really sad, we both love the characters the gfx are typically TES.

To me it feels like there was alot of opposition to change during development and as a result its too much like thousands of people playing a single player game on the same server.

I'd like to hope they can turn it around but have a nagging feeling that it wont because that would require huge code changes to the way combat, instancing, questing etc al work in relation to groups and sadly i think its too late.

In trying to preserve what they and the people who played all the previous TES stuff expected it to be they missed the point of grouping and MMO collective play entirely.

Staal · April 2014

Oh yes Citraka!

Completely forgot about the looting of quest objects, now that's a real annoyance, should be able to get credit for in group, or loot the same objects.

Novox · April 2014

vyal wrote: »

Second time, just myself and a friend working through Glenumbra with alts.
Got the Fighter guild quest to enter Dour-whatever, Doshia's lair. He zones in first, he's group leader, we each get two separate instances, even though we can see each others markers, invisibly, in each.
So, we try various shades of relogging, reforming, disbanding, re-entering, etc. No possible way it would put us both in the same instance/phase.

Doshia is a single player only lair. You can't enter the same instance even if you are grouped. That being said, there should probably be some sort of message that states that if you enter it while grouped.

Thechemicals · April 2014

The problem me and my partner have is that we take actions/steps in shared quests twice such as speaking to someone twice to get the progression, but at other times something me/her does grants us both the credit of progressing in the quest. So if we get used to the latter, we end up on wrong parts of the quest line because one of us missed something. Its hard to explain i suppose but thats the best i can do.

ShinChuck · April 2014

Going to add my name to the list!

It's really inconsistent how it works. Sometimes, we'll receive group credit. Sometimes, we won't. Sometimes, we'll have one NPC following us that will count for both. Sometimes we both have an escort NPC, and further still, sometimes we can see each other's NPC, and sometimes we cannot.

We've had instances where I completed the text and it booted my wife out of the area too before she could see what the guy had to say, others where we both could make a choice and talk to the guy/do the quest, and even a few where we BOTH had to complete the text before it would advance (at one point, while she was finishing some exploring and inventory management in an instance, I kept clicking "Complete", and my quest objective just kept repeating the update that saying it was complete and yet cycling right back to the previous objective! "Completed: Talk to Bob. Next, Talk to Bob.") until she finished up.

We even had a time where my wife completed the dialogue, it booted us both out of the instance, completed for her and DIDN'T complete for me, so I had to go back and redo it!

There seems to be zero consistency. Did they not use a template for their quest designers, and everyone just went with their own preference, or what?

eobethb14_ESO · April 2014

My partner and I experienced this in Beta. Wrote up long detailed explanations of the grouping problem each Beta weekend. It was so frustrating that when game went live we did not even try to group/level together.

It is a big failing of the game that grouping is so very painful.

Elember · April 2014

yes, I have noticed this as well. In the Alik'ir desert (sp) I got into a group for a public dungeon and the quest was for us to pick up 12 relics which would then let us into the final part of the dungeon. The leader of the group was picking up all the relics and I assumed that the count would go to everyone in the group, but no it does not work that way at all. You would have to wait there for each relic to respawn for every player in the group, ridiculous and I don't get why they would make it like that in an MMO.

jonpaul · April 2014

Elember wrote: »

yes, I have noticed this as well. In the Alik'ir desert (sp) I got into a group for a public dungeon and the quest was for us to pick up 12 relics which would then let us into the final part of the dungeon. The leader of the group was picking up all the relics and I assumed that the count would go to everyone in the group, but no it does not work that way at all. You would have to wait there for each relic to respawn for every player in the group, ridiculous and I don't get why they would make it like that in an MMO.

Funny you mention this quest, me and the wife did this exact one just last night. I had collected all of the relics while she had stepped away thinking she would get credit for them too. I noticed when she came back she had none and a large group of people had run in so she has a harder time getting her relics. We kinda laughed at it, but it is something that can get aggravating after a while.

Gulgir · April 2014

truly not enoughh testing for a mmo of this kind. sad but true!

NextGame · April 2014

its strange. Some quests award credit for quest stage completion/item collection etc to all members of a group and some have to be completed individually. Weird lack of consistency.

It hasn't been a massive problem for myself and my wife who have played through to VR2 so far together, but it does mean that you have to pay attention to what is going on.

On the whole though I quite like the questing structure. Wider group play though is less thought out in that party dynamics lack coherence and are in general poor. I also think that a small group should be 5 players, as 4 is definitely too few for entry level to the veteran dungeons due to lack of DPS output as a result of game mechanics that force you down a survivability path from 1-50.

It's not unrecoverable from but a quite a bit of balancing needs to happen imo.