They should do it so it's basically the same diffuculty as a delve. But the bosses don't drop gear sets, instead just random crap gear so you cannot farm it for sticker book and you don't get the skill point etc if you complete the quest.

That's how i would do it, so story mode players can learn the story whilst also having a incentive to use the group finder and do it in social play too.

Yes, dungeons need a solo story mode, with their quests being repeatable in that mode (no rewards of course, for obvious reasons).

I'd take it a little further even and say dungeons also need an exploration mode, as in an entirely empty dungeon (accessible as a group, preferably max size).

The dungeons in this game are gorgeous, and sometimes you just wanna take screenshots, explore, or use a place as a location for a RP adventure without having to clear the place first. I believe Final Fantasy and some other games have a similar mode.

So long as Skyshards, Transmutes, and loot/drops aren't part of it (since those should be limited only to normal runs) then there should totally be an option for Story Mode. Everyone saying "But normal dungeons are easy" aren't considering that's exactly the problem.

People who can solo these dungeons are blasting through them at the speed of light without any regard for someone in their group who might need to do the quest, because they care more about their random daily experience and Transmutes than actually, you know, working with their group. And yes, there are plenty of people who will wait for someone who needs the quest, but there are just as many who won't.

Normal dungeons being easy doesn't make this less of a problem and in fact only makes it worse. Remove the normal rewards (exp, loot, etc), make the dungeons on par with public delves in terms of difficulty so people can solo them, and bam, people can enjoy the story, explore the dungeon, and turn in quests without having to run the dungeon over and over because their team wouldn't give them the time of day.

Also, I say this as someone who's coming up on 1.4k CP and can solo quite a number of dungeons myself, including a few DLC ones.

Quest mode or story mode are both good with this one.

Thanks @ZOS_Kevin for passing on the feedback.

Even base game dungeons have fairly interesting stories, but so few people actually get to experience them. Seems like a waste. Even more so because these quests are not repeatable.

I can solo most dungeons but can't do a few because of pressure plates, levers and one-shot pin mechanics. Really wish companions could help with these, but they seem to be as dumb as my sorc pets. (I know psijic ultimate can help with pin mechanics but it's such a hassle to level a character without doing any dungeon quests AND max out the psijic skill line)

But story mode shouldn't drop any group content gear or skill point.

Love the idea.

Strip out all the loot, experience points and the skill point, then set everything to public dungeon difficulty.

Maybe I’ll finally get to find out what the plot in some of those dungeons is where the mechanics require a minimum of two people.

I’ve tried for years to get story groups running but even if you tell people they’re joining a story group there’s always somebody who clicks through all the dialogue and runs off or just runs off and despawns the NPC

We do need some sort of quest mode, yeah. Other players can break the quest of a dungeon by speedrunning too fast or forcibly fail a specific part of the quest because it is faster that way... For example, Wayrest Sewers quest can break if you kill the final boss outside of the quest's circle, which some speedrunners will do by just forcing the boss to come join with the trash mobs up front and fight her there.

Another annoying part is when you're playing a character who wants to be a hero and save people while doing Ruins of Mazzatun. There's a section where you suppose to save the Elders, which can easily be done but someone who isn't on the quest will just purposely fail all attempts by smashing their interact button to speedrun through that section, making people on the quest fail that specific objective (it doesn't fail the quest at least, but some players like myself may want to actually save them)...

These kind of issues is why I started soloing all dungeons I can so I can get their respective quests done properly and in the way I want to... So either we need some sort of Quest Mode or you can only randomly queue for dungeons you have already done the quest for to hopefully help avoid this issue.

Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »

Regarding the "listening to the quest issue now. I run random normals on 8 characters along with a friend. First thing we do as we enter the dungeon is say hello to the group chat. You know what answer we get most of the time? Silence. We have no issue waiting for a player to listen to the quest or ask for advice. Hell we even rp sometimes or check the amazing environment design while we wait. But usually people don't speak and get carried around like a sack of potatoes.

It's good that you're able to find people who will do that. I know that it's not common to get random PUGs to be okay with going slowly.

I was with a friend on stream yesterday and we were taking a new player through nBDV. Still, we needed a fourth since we wanted to show our new friend the secrets as well. It was at a weird time of day so we didn't have many guildies online so we pugged a healer. We all said hi, and that we wanted to do the secrets. The healer said nothing, messed up my pulls since they sped through the courtyard, and then dropped when they saw that the other three of us weren't moving from the plates. A second healer and a third both dropped once they got in and saw us waiting at the plates. We finally got a new healer who didn't even know about the secrets so we could show them as well.

Point is, "just join a guild!" and "just speak up in chat!" aren't magic solutions to all problems. Some people are considerate enough to do so. But many... aren't.

Now that I've 'git gud' enough to be able to solo these, it'd be nice to see the stories I've forgotten about. At least the new DLC ones are doing most of the story as voiceovers so you don't lose the dialogue, but many of the basegames have their dialogue forever lost after that point. I shouldn't have to go rely on a fansite to find out why Keeper Voranil (who hums off-key) is all of a sudden a boss enemy when I saved him before. I'd like to see it in game even just for fun.

Awesome idea, BUT please keep different difficulty modes like usual dungeons have right now. (Ofc it needs to be downscaled a bit, but other than that just remove mechanics that require more people) Gamers that seek for challenges do exist as well

Yes! The stories are incredibly interesting. I made a thread about this a while ago and just recently updated it with a new video. It's yet another dungeon I feel would be difficult to do alone to hear the story for many people, as it was difficult for myself and I'm a bit above average in terms of skill (though not an elite player by any means). I also flat out couldn't have done Moongrave Fane alone without Bastian there, as he was essential to the second to last boss.

I think a Story Mode is badly needed so that players can view these interesting, unique and fun stories for themselves without being rushed through, or feeling the social anxiety that comes with making people wait while you listen to audio.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/579181/normal-frostvault-storytime-with-bastian-and-why-we-need-a-story-mode#latest

I made some videos of just listening to the story in a few dungeons (3 of them, Frostvault, Depths of Malatar, Moongrave Fane) and despite combat being heavily edited or deleted entirely, the run time of those videos are about 30 minutes each of just dialogue.

Who is going to want to make someone else run an additional half an hour on TOP of the combat time it takes, so that they can listen to the wonderful voice acting? Basically nobody.

Audio in general is bad to share. People who do dungeons together want to socialize, and asking them to be quiet while you listen to an NPC is not great for socializing and having fun. Not to mention you may want to read the lore books in there, which you almost certainly wouldn't have time to do with a group.


I would personally find the trouble solved with one of these two solutions:

Make the Companions immune to Boss AOE and let them trigger any multi-person mechanics so that players can do the normal mode alone with the aid of a companion.

or

Create a new story mode for the dungeons. This would probably be more work than they'd be willing to do but help the most players.

The New Story mode would only allow you to do the quest (I think the undaunted exp and skill point should apply. These are time only quests and one time only exp and undaunted exp can be leveled entirely solo in like delves anyway) but would only drop the loot for the zone it is in and NOT the loot for the dungeon itself, if any loot at all. It's also acceptable for it not drop any gear sets whatsoever. NO monster helm, NO random dungeon credit (so no transmutes), NO dungeon sets, NO heavy sacks, NO pledge keys.

I think by excluding the loot from the table, you would prevent people from avoiding the group version, as most of the reason people go into those dungeons in groups is to farm something or completely a daily. In this way, the group version would still be the superior version of the dungeon with the real rewards, and the story mode can just be focused on getting the quest done while actually listening to it.


Whichever route you take, I will say that it's a huge impediment to hearing and enjoying these stories that there is no way to solo them with either companions or just an nerfed version of normal. Expecting us to take friends to listen to NPCs talk is simply not realistic, as you'd want to socialize with your friends which is detrimental to listening to audio.

@ZeroDPS, my answer is definitely No.

And as you demand explaining that my take is very clear:
What you want to obtain is, literally, zero-effort gaming.
This contradicts the very nature of computer games: the most successful ones are challenging enough and reward with a sensation of progression. Needless to say, ESO overland content is far from being any challenging.

For players who would like to find the harder content matching theirs skills and gear, there are plenty of group dungeons and all of them have different difficulties. Like Fungal Grotto 1 (which is considered to be the easiest one of the bunch) - is designed for FOUR level TEN players (and with One Tamriel scaling it is not hard to solo it on level 20-ish even in a trash gear). There are youtube videos if soloing Eden Hollow 1 with level 6..
You can solo most of base game 4-men (exceptions are FG2 (pin), WayrestSevers2 (cc), CoH2 (cocoon)) - these can be done duo. You can solo many DLC dungeons, but this requires better skills.

There are several reasonable approaches to do them dungeons with no rush:
- get friends and do dungeons in your pace. the game is a MMO, so use it as the MMO: cooperate with friends
- if you are unable to make friends you can buy a carry. As you are paying, your mercenaries will follow your directions
- try soloing. There are many creative ways to counter anti-solo bosses like werewolf form in Blackheart Haven, precognition in FG2, companion in CoH2.. etc
- whine and ask the allmighty game-makers to make you PVE Cyrodiil, immunity in IC, story-mode dungeons..

Why the later? Some achievements require some careful preparations and really hard work, some achievements might be impossible (like you cannot make a solo trifecta in Rockgrove trial).

As for "new players" many posters do appeal to - why to deliver everything right from the very start?
Is not it logical, there are some achievements (example: vMA) that are the real achievements, but not a cakewalk?
Let them level up and git good. Progression is a good sensation. As well as friendship. All of that resolves the problem:
friends, carries, getting better. Applying to game-makers instead means (well for me) unwillingness to get friends, carries, getting better, in general - the unwillingness to apply efforts. Do you think that is the right course ?

Lack of patience and unwillingness to apply any efforts - in my humble opinion this is not what the games are made for.
Situation now is that harder content is not delivered by itself, but players who seek it - can definitely find what they look for.
The topic itself looks like a petition to game-makers to further dumb the game down, removing any progression and complexity.
Nothing personal - you asked for the opinion, and exactly this is my honest opinion.


Murphy's Laws: Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

pelle412 wrote: »

I don't need this functionality, but others have said it on forums many times. If it's going to divert resources away from fixing the servers, then I'd much rather ZoS spends their time on that instead of fixing something that can be accomplished by putting together 3 friends and go through the dungeon at a slow pace.

Or just one friend and a couple of companions...

REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SOLOING A DUNGEON IS TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE

If my character does a random normal and accepts the popup 'Do you want to be on this quest' and takes it because of an accident or they need the skill point at the time -- that's it. The character can never again do the story.

Doesn't matter that the dungeon is soloable or not -- that character misses out.

In the current game the only way to re-do a story quest is roll a new character specifically for the purpose of doing dungeon quests.

Now I have 10 characters total, and it turns out every single one of them had over the course of time completed the 'quest' for Darkshade Caverns 2*. Never was it a slow story group, nor was there really time to think about "If I do the quest now, it's gone forever." As a new player that never crossed my mind.

Telling me to buy a new character slot with crowns and build up a new character with gear etc. enough to be able to solo any dungeon in the game (which by the way isn't possible due to some mechanics) -- is not a great answer.

*DS2 is an example, there are others but I don't remember if all my characters have done them. I do know my 'main' characters have completed about every single dungeon in the game though.

Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »

And eso, when it comes to mmos, is already one of the most solo friendly games.

Slightly off-topic, but I hear this a lot on the forum and I don't agree. As a solo player there is plenty of stuff which is gated behind group content and unavailable to me:

• Good gear including many meta sets are from dungeons and trials
• Transmute stones which are needed to change gear traits and use the sticker book come from dungeons (or PvP)
• Monster helms drop exclusively in veteran dungeons

and, to get back on-topic, there is also story gated behind dungeons since these year long arcs became a thing, hence the topic of this thread.

Now before anyone accuses me of being entitled, I am not saying that I necessarily deserve any of these things except the story. I'm just disagreeing with the widespread belief that ESO is super solo friendly. I wouldn't personally call it such compared to other MMOs I play.