Phasing should be fixed

kyang03ub17_ESO · April 2014

Phasing is something I hate with a passion, Not being able to help or see your buddies doing the quest you have either done already or have not done is a pain. Yeah you can group to do anchors, World Bosses and everything else but not quest? I'm pretty sure this has been addressed plenty of times by many. And most have gotten the same answers, but the real question is What is going to happen? and When is it going to happen? Yeah there are ton's of bugs that needs to be fixed, But why not phasing as well?

Game is going great and all but these issues needs to be addressed and fixed for all to enjoy a good mmo with friends and not have to worry about watching an arrow float around.

stitchersflock · April 2014

Phasing is extremely well done and integral to game play for me.

BETAOPTICS · April 2014

stitchersflock wrote: »

Phasing is extremely well done and integral to game play for me.

What? Are you serious? You sure about that or uneducated why it is bad in this game? I bet the latter.

Syntse · April 2014

Agree that something should be done to it. Maybe set the phasing of group based on the group leader or something.

Just couple days back my wife started new character as she felt like our group of friends playing is missing healer so she could make one. One of the quest bosses turned to be bit hard for her to handle alone. So I logged in one of my chars that is only couple levels higher so I could group and help her to complete it. But I've done that one already and I could not enter the dungeon anymore.

Of course it's not that simple as there might be groups that go on their ways doing their quest and time to time groups up to take bigger challenge. Just using the group as method of communication etc. So it would not work for all if they would be in the same phasing as the leader if they have done the quest. Eg some of the towns that were friendly to them before because they did the quest would now the hostile.

This would require then some kind of grouping options of 'General group', 'Co-op group'. Another solution would be that person could share quest that one has already done, it would put the other person to same stage of the quest and could complete it again of course without the rewards at the end.

BETAOPTICS · April 2014

Syntse wrote: »

Agree that something should be done to it. Maybe set the phasing of group based on the group leader or something.

Just couple days back my wife started new character as she felt like our group of friends playing is missing healer so she could make one. One of the quest bosses turned to be bit hard for her to handle alone. So I logged in one of my chars that is only couple levels higher so I could group and help her to complete it. But I've done that one already and I could not enter the dungeon anymore.

Of course it's not that simple as there might be groups that go on their ways doing their quest and time to time groups up to take bigger challenge. Just using the group as method of communication etc. So it would not work for all if they would be in the same phasing as the leader if they have done the quest. Eg some of the towns that were friendly to them before because they did the quest would now the hostile.

This would require then some kind of grouping options of 'General group', 'Co-op group'. Another solution would be that person could share quest that one has already done, it would put the other person to same stage of the quest and could complete it again of course without the rewards at the end.

The last suggestion except that once completed, you are rerolled to your current quests unless you pair with them again. This way, you will not get setbacks and you are able to help your friends always but if you are ahead, you will not get anything but the fun you get for grouping.

rdudley · April 2014

Yeah the way phasing is working right now you have to play every second the the character has been in the game with the person you're grouped with for regular PVE content to work most of the time, outside of that its not working well. its sort of becoming Massively Online (Single Player) Role Playing Game. but hey for solo leveling its been going pretty darn good for a newly launched game.

SteveCampsOut · April 2014

Are you sure you're not confusing Phasing with Solo Dungeons? You're Supposed to do those particular quests solo for a reason.

kyang03ub17_ESO · April 2014

What I think they should do that will make everyone happy is, Allow the group to Phase into the Group leaders quest *the one doing the quest* and allow players to help BUT removing the option for the players who have already completed the quest to have any say in the quest line. Only the player who needs to complete it should have the option to choose.

morpheusb16_ESO · April 2014

The whole phasing complex is a nice idea, but not all that well done.

People are running around and (while not being grouped with me) influence my quests. It is not only the usual "stealing" of objectives / interactables, it is much worse.

Sometimes the kills or actions of strangers count towards the fullfillment of my quests, sometimes they don't.

Sometimes the actions of my group have no meaning whatsoever for my questgoals (mostly when the task is teadious to begin with) and sometimes they end dialogs and trigger objectives. The latter has ruined quite a few quests for me, as I was forced to miss out on the story that was to be told.

At other times I go for a chest or a node, I see from afar and once I reach it, it phases out, only to return, once I take a few steps back and to re-vanish as I close in again.

Honestly I do not like overcrowded dungeons, that let me walk right to the core, because everyone else has already thrashed everything that moves, only too stand in a crowd of ability spamming, hopping people, hoping, that the essential npc (most likely a boss) spawns that day and that I am fast enough, to actually hit it at least once.

What Zeni is trying to do here, is a good thing. Sadly it lacks the necessary finesse and polish, while changing the rules of engagement on a whim.

Syntse · April 2014

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Are you sure you're not confusing Phasing with Solo Dungeons? You're Supposed to do those particular quests solo for a reason.

I know Main, Fighter and Mage quest lines are solo. However as example Auridon quest where you aid the Queen to finish her ritual and go to the dungeon to kill that mob. You can group to do it IF you are in the same stage of the quest line with person you group with. Once you have done it there is no returning.

bloodwulfe · April 2014

Agree it sucks you can't drop back and help guild members complete quests they are struggling on. The mages, fighters guild and main story should be the exception.

jerich0 · April 2014

I agree. My wife actually quit the game and cancelled her subscription when I couldn't play with her. Made me sad, but there's nothing I could do. I couldn't even see her character 99% of the time, let alone do quests together.

kyang03ub17_ESO · April 2014

yeah its like the goal is to "ONLY" play when your friends on, so you can quest and have to constantly tell each other which option to choose from to stay in the same phase. You can't play with out them or else you will be phased, its starting to *** me off. I mean what GW2 did a decent job at it at least from when i last played it a year ago. It does the pop up menu saying you are about to join "this players quest"
I dont see why they can't implement something close or yet even better.

Syntse · April 2014

jerich0 wrote: »

I agree. My wife actually quit the game and cancelled her subscription when I couldn't play with her. Made me sad, but there's nothing I could do. I couldn't even see her character 99% of the time, let alone do quests together.

Me and my wife have chars that go exactly hand in hand in quests that we play together. Of course we also have alts that can be used to play alone when one is not present or with some other friends.

About the not seeing... you sure you just were in different instances? Usually when we login we do it at the same time which makes us to different instances 99% time. After creating group relogin fixes this issue and places us to the same instance, also travel to player might do the trick.

Think it read somewhere that the megaserver system should put friends to same instances if possible but so far I've noticed it to do it only with grouping.

Falmer · April 2014

If you have a friend, then only play those characters when you are together. Have alternate solo characters for when you are not.

Phasing is pretty integral to how the whole game works and it does it very well. You couldn't have towns under attack and then the same town back to "normal" without phasing.

I personally love it. I have 'grouping' character with friends, and 'solo' characters when I am not with them. The ability to have enemies become non-hostile and to experience towns after massive raids is just awesome.

Can you imagine if they had done more of that in the single player games? Seeing Kvatch before the attack... during the attack, rebuilding later.... Fully repaired again... Would have been awesome.

kyang03ub17_ESO · April 2014

I shouldn't even have to make a new character as I've already built the main to v10 and still trying to get better? I don't see why I should have to stop playing him to play with a friend.

We always travel to player when we group, but still walking through an area and then them disappearing is a pain. Due to the have not yet finished that area.

Viverim · April 2014

The best team-up game I have ever played so far (in my opinion, of course) was City of Heroes. The Mentor / Side-Kick system was very good. It de-leveled high characters who teamed to a low level quest, and it boosted low levels to the high level quests, allowing people of a variety of levels to play together. My solution would be to implement something along those lines. Have the entire group become phased to whomever the group leader is, and have a de-buff on the high levels or a buff on the low levels to put them in the same range. Further, I would only allow progression on those who had not completed the quest, but allow xp to be given to all characters as appropriate for their true levels. This rewards high levels who level down to help others, and it lets low levels team up with their higher level friends without fear of them Power Leveling past all of the in-game content.

xramirez535b14_ESO · April 2014

Its weird how Zenimax hasn't addressed it yet unless I'm missing some interview from an obscure site or tweet where they did. I tried the "fix" where you travel to your friend to help with a quest. This worked ONCE on a quest out of the 10s of quests we tried to stay together in. They weren't guild quests or solo dungeons. I watched my friend as he engaged in intense battles and died continuously. I couldn't even REVIVE him when he died. This game is forcing me to solo most of the PvE content, that's a sad state for an MMO to launch in. I see a LOT of promise with this game since the combat is exceptional and the quests have more depth than a typical MMO quest.

Code2501 · April 2014

The whole game in general is a bit of a mess right now.
There are bots literally hack-teleporting between harvest nodes because Zen in their wisdom made location a client side thing, there are bots farming every dungeon boss, with hundreds of boss corpses piling up.
There is little to no class balance, with some classes getting universal passives that just generally make them easier to play while others get passives with pre-conditions, like NB where all the good passives require you to use specific skills, most of them being melee.
Then you have racism via poorly balanced racial passives, and on top of that its more like twilight than elder scrolls, when every town your in there are dozens of vamps walking around and the guards have nothing to say about it except "greetings". At least the WW are somewhat discrete.
Not to mention the complete lack of a thieves guild or thievery in general, you can ransack every house you come across right in front of the residents and they could not care less.

Viverim · April 2014

Code2501 wrote: »

The whole game in general is a bit of a mess right now.
There are bots literally hack-teleporting between harvest nodes because Zen in their wisdom made location a client side thing, there are bots farming every dungeon boss, with hundreds of boss corpses piling up.
There is little to no class balance, with some classes getting universal passives that just generally make them easier to play while others get passives with pre-conditions, like NB where all the good passives require you to use specific skills, most of them being melee.
Then you have racism via poorly balanced racial passives, and on top of that its more like twilight than elder scrolls, when every town your in there are dozens of vamps walking around and the guards have nothing to say about it except "greetings". At least the WW are somewhat discrete.
Not to mention the complete lack of a thieves guild or thievery in general, you can ransack every house you come across right in front of the residents and they could not care less.

I will not say that I agree or disagree with this. I am just wondering, how is any of this relevant to the topic of this thread? Doesn't it belong elsewhere? Please try to keep your commentary on-topic.

tryia3b14a_ESO · April 2014

I really hope they end up doing the phasing similar to how World of Warcraft has it, which let's face it, is probably where Zenimax got the phasing idea from anyway.

In WoW when you join a group and your friend is in a different phase, it just asks you, "Your friend is in a different phase, would you like to join them?"

The fact that your friends can't join you in the solo instances (like the main quest) sucks too. I hope they take a page from The Old Republic (another story based MMO) and allow you to aid your friend as an observer.

This game is not very friend/group friendly to be honest.

Viverim · April 2014

tryia3b14a_ESO wrote: »

I really hope they end up doing the phasing similar to how World of Warcraft has it, which let's face it, is probably where Zenimax got the phasing idea from anyway.

In WoW when you join a group and your friend is in a different phase, it just asks you, "Your friend is in a different phase, would you like to join them?"

The fact that your friends can't join you in the solo instances (like the main quest) sucks too. I hope they take a page from The Old Republic (another story based MMO) and allow you to aid your friend as an observer.

This game is not very friend/group friendly to be honest.

Excellent post.

kyang03ub17_ESO · April 2014

thats how Guild wars 2 did it as well, it ask you if you'd like to join them on their quest, although you have no say on what the npc ask you can help them. Which i think will make phasing a whole lot easier.

In all just add the pop up menu that ask you if you would like to join the player in their quest and that will solve so much issue with phasing.

Darka · April 2014

Phasing in The Old Republic ( yes I know its considered a “fail” game) is done well
If you want to help someone you can, so to get into a quest area the person who has the quest needs to be the first one in, then it sets it as their instance
That way you can help them, with out affecting your phase
Once done a load screen back to yours would work well
People would put up with that I am sure

Honn · April 2014

Of course phasing needs to be fixed.
The ideal scenario is that once you group up with someone, you are automatically phased together, regardless of the level or the quest you are on.
I suggest that the leader of the group becomes the point of focus for the phasing & everyone else is phased to his shard.

Viverim · April 2014

Honn wrote: »

Of course phasing needs to be fixed.
The ideal scenario is that once you group up with someone, you are automatically phased together, regardless of the level or the quest you are on.
I suggest that the leader of the group becomes the point of focus for the phasing & everyone else is phased to his shard.

I agree with this and others who are advocating similar ideas, however without adjusting levels up and/or down you get massive imbalance. In addition to phasing groups together (and i agree, you should be [phased with the leader of the group), you need to buff low levels up to some point below the leader or de-buff high levels down to perhaps a level or two above a lower level leader. Also xp gains need to be looked at. You don't want a lowbie teaming up with a VR-1 just to get a massive bump in xp, but if they get no xp then that also leads to frustration.

The problem is a complex one, and not one easily solved. At this point in time, however, I do have faith that the developers can overcome these issues, assuming they have the time and the resources to be allowed to do so.