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Harrowstorms should scale to the number of players

SilverBride
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Harrowstorms are way more difficult than the dolmens of the previous zones and require a lot more players to complete them. This is fine when the zone is current but once a new zone is released they become much less populated making it very difficult to get a decent sized group together. The same holds true for the Geysers in Summerset and the Dragons in Elsweyr.

I suggest that these scale to the number of players fighting them so they can still be completed by players who are clearing those zones.
Edited by ZOS_GregoryV on April 16, 2022 3:17AM
PCNA
  • Necrotech_Master
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    i think this would make sense, it takes a lot of skill to solo a harrowstorm in their current state, i do kind of wish their rewards were just a little bit better though too

    i do enjoy the challenge harrowstorms offer in small groups when you have 4 of the big monster guys on you while your trying to kill one of the pikes lol
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  • SilverBride
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    I don't think I could solo one and I don't mind grouping for them anyway. But it's very hard to find enough other players for these.

    The same with the World Bosses in these zones. I can solo many of these in the base zones but the ones in these newer areas are a lot more difficult.
    PCNA
  • Necrotech_Master
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    its a lot harder to solo one now because it marks which one is "active" on the map, so usually more people inevitably show up (i get the same issue when trying to solo an elsweyr dragon lol)

    i dont mind helping those who still need to clear the harrowstorms or bosses (in fact i usually prefer the boss dailies over delve dailies but its faster for me to kill the boss than run through the massive delves)
    plays PC/NA
    handle @Necrotech_Master
    active player since april 2014

    i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (fully filled out with current game), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them

    in progress: acquiring mundus stones (currently only have the thief)

    feel free to stop by and use the facilities
  • RisenEclipse
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    It doesn't help that once a chapter stops being new and shiny, the zone is not active enough to have large enough groups consistently doing the chapter dolmens. But this issue has been brought up before, and the usual response is people just saying "get good"... 🙄 I believe they should be scaled to how many players are doing them. The HS simply do not drop good enough drops for me to find a reason to do one for an hour solo. The dragons are also in the same boat. Geysers in Summerset were actually really nice and I think those are fine. The Blackwood ones, I never really cared enough to actually do those yet... But you'll have a hard time getting anyone to agree, because then you'll have the hard mode overland people complaining about how they basically want to play Elden Ring in ESO, and how something like this will ruin their fun. So I personally think there should be a vet and normal instance of the overworld. Most things in the normal instance could remain as is, with lowering of the difficulty of certain things such as HS and dragons. While vet overland can be way more difficult and they can solo bosses for hours at a time as much as the "I want harder overland" people want.
    Edited by RisenEclipse on April 14, 2022 7:38PM
  • tsaescishoeshiner
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    The main obstacle to soloing them/doing them with small groups are the big adds that the ghosts summon. This is exponentially harder with too few people. The worse you do, the harder and harder it gets.

    Compare this to dragons, which are hard to solo, but don't have a mechanic that punishes you as much because it builds in difficulty the worse you do.

    One potential fix would be to adjust the rate or amount of ghost spawns based on the amount of players. Or, adjust how many ghosts are required to summon an add based on the amount of players.
    PC-NA
    in-game: @tsaescishoeshiner
  • Inaya
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    YES!!! Dragons too! No one does them anymore and I'm sure a lot of people would like to just can't get groups!
  • spartaxoxo
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    The main obstacle to soloing them/doing them with small groups are the big adds that the ghosts summon. This is exponentially harder with too few people. The worse you do, the harder and harder it gets.

    Compare this to dragons, which are hard to solo, but don't have a mechanic that punishes you as much because it builds in difficulty the worse you do.

    One potential fix would be to adjust the rate or amount of ghost spawns based on the amount of players. Or, adjust how many ghosts are required to summon an add based on the amount of players.

    I actually think the bleed attack the dragons do are worse than the ghosts. You can get your companion to hold the ghosts, but they die to the chomp of the dragon. The dragon also has those skeleton spawns which have very hard heavy attacks of the chomps and bleeds of the dragon. I personally think the Harrowstorms are easier to solo.
  • spartaxoxo
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    I agree with Harrowstorms and Dragons, but geysers already adjust to the number of players I believe. I think that they spawn more add phases if there are others and they are more likely (but not guaranteed) to spawn a generic boss instead of a named boss, but I'm not 100% certain on that one.
  • Necrotech_Master
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    spartaxoxo wrote: »
    I agree with Harrowstorms and Dragons, but geysers already adjust to the number of players I believe. I think that they spawn more add phases if there are others and they are more likely (but not guaranteed) to spawn a generic boss instead of a named boss, but I'm not 100% certain on that one.

    you can get the full named boss even while solo, it does depend on how many adds you kill though
    plays PC/NA
    handle @Necrotech_Master
    active player since april 2014

    i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (fully filled out with current game), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them

    in progress: acquiring mundus stones (currently only have the thief)

    feel free to stop by and use the facilities
  • SilverBride
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    spartaxoxo wrote: »
    I agree with Harrowstorms and Dragons, but geysers already adjust to the number of players I believe. I think that they spawn more add phases if there are others and they are more likely (but not guaranteed) to spawn a generic boss instead of a named boss, but I'm not 100% certain on that one.

    I didn't know this about Geysers. I just avoid them normally but may check it out now.
    PCNA
  • RisenEclipse
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    spartaxoxo wrote: »
    I agree with Harrowstorms and Dragons, but geysers already adjust to the number of players I believe. I think that they spawn more add phases if there are others and they are more likely (but not guaranteed) to spawn a generic boss instead of a named boss, but I'm not 100% certain on that one.

    you can get the full named boss even while solo, it does depend on how many adds you kill though

    Okay so this is just my own whacky observations. BUT when I did geysers I consistently got a boss I haven't killed yet when I was the one who started the event by killing the acolyte. When I did not start it, I didn't get a boss that I hadn't done yet. I tested it with someone else and it worked out that a boss spawned that they didn't have, when they started the geyser by being the person to kill the acolyte at the beginning. I would like if some people also test this out to see if it is true or not, or if me and my friend just had a whole day of huge coincidences happen.
    Edited by RisenEclipse on April 14, 2022 8:24PM
  • spartaxoxo
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    spartaxoxo wrote: »
    I agree with Harrowstorms and Dragons, but geysers already adjust to the number of players I believe. I think that they spawn more add phases if there are others and they are more likely (but not guaranteed) to spawn a generic boss instead of a named boss, but I'm not 100% certain on that one.

    you can get the full named boss even while solo, it does depend on how many adds you kill though

    I mean that's why I stated it wasn't guaranteed. Yes, you can get it but it's significantly less likely in my experience. But that's personal anecdote obviously.
  • Amottica
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    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.
  • SilverBride
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.

    I could agree with that for DLC bosses, but the base game should stay as it is. Let players solo some of these things for their own personal satisfaction and to feel like they have really become stronger.

    But for the DLC zones, they shouldn't require a large group when there aren't nearly as many players in the zone any more.
    PCNA
  • DMuehlhausen
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    Then all world events should, and I don't think it should be the people next to the event, or in it, it should be based on players in the zone.

    I would love events like the Rifts from Rift. Where they can spread out to from the event and take over the zone for a time.
  • RisenEclipse
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.


    Again, although good in theory, poor in actual reality. As it requires players to consistently be doing those bosses or have enough interest to generate groups for them consistently. Which is not the case. If there were consistent groups going for them, or enough interest after they are no longer new and shiny, then this wouldn't be an issue. But that's not what's happening right now. So your suggestion isn't helpful or realistic in the slightest. All that is happening is newer players doing these content have a significantly more difficult time doing them, then those that did them when the zone was flooded on release. This could be eased by simply giving way better drop rewards, or doing something to encourage consistent activity in these zones years after they were released. Which is why posts like these have been made to reduce the difficulty of these world events once the chapter is old news, and there isn't enough people in the zones doing these activities to support the higher difficulty of the bosses.
  • spartaxoxo
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.

    I think content should be adjusted to who is playing it and not make demands of players that aren't realistic. It doesn't work. The content just dies.

    Having dynamic scaling allows the content to not be trivialized during events and to not be ridiculous and dead when the zone is no longer very active. Neither end of the population extremes is balanced well and it results in content that largely doesn't provide the challenges it should when people actually are using it. When the content is popular it is absurdly easy and when there's literally nobody else, there is no challenge because it's mostly unsurmontable.

    I think overly idealistic content design hurts content and the players that actually want to use. And this is why many games adjust content after it's popularity has died to keep the population of people doing it at a healthy level.
    Edited by spartaxoxo on April 14, 2022 9:38PM
  • EF321
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    What they should do is stop zapping me 5 times when I am trying to collect "loot" after defeating the boss :s
  • Necrotech_Master
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    EF321 wrote: »
    What they should do is stop zapping me 5 times when I am trying to collect "loot" after defeating the boss :s

    this was one of the largest annoyances i had with harrowstorms lol

    stupid lightning putting you back in combat 1+ times lol
    plays PC/NA
    handle @Necrotech_Master
    active player since april 2014

    i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (fully filled out with current game), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them

    in progress: acquiring mundus stones (currently only have the thief)

    feel free to stop by and use the facilities
  • Amottica
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.


    Again, although good in theory, poor in actual reality. As it requires players to consistently be doing those bosses or have enough interest to generate groups for them consistently. Which is not the case. If there were consistent groups going for them, or enough interest after they are no longer new and shiny, then this wouldn't be an issue. But that's not what's happening right now. So your suggestion isn't helpful or realistic in the slightest. All that is happening is newer players doing these content have a significantly more difficult time doing them, then those that did them when the zone was flooded on release. This could be eased by simply giving way better drop rewards, or doing something to encourage consistent activity in these zones years after they were released. Which is why posts like these have been made to reduce the difficulty of these world events once the chapter is old news, and there isn't enough people in the zones doing these activities to support the higher difficulty of the bosses.

    It works great in theory and practice. It does not require people to be consistently killing the boss as it merely requires a player to be part of a guild with players who are actually active in that guild. Then just call out or set up an event with the guild to do WBs and world events. I have seen it work amazingly well doing it both ways. I have also seen this repeated in previous games I played where WBs require groups.

    Dynamic scaling makes the world events that have it too easy and there is, and will always be, a cap to the dynamic scaling making it pretty much pointless. It is meaningless to solo a dolmen and it would be sad for the game to see the newer zone world events trivialized in the same manner.
  • spartaxoxo
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    The current design works so well I can wait 30 minutes and nobody show up to kill a dragon lol. It works garbage if nobody is using a world event and you have to beg guild mates like it's a dungeon. The content is literally explicitly designed to not require guilds or groups. That it does points to it's utter failure.
    Edited by spartaxoxo on April 15, 2022 2:45AM
  • Molydeus
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.

    Then you just end up with dead content and might as well not even have it in the game anymore because no groups will ever form for a lot of this stuff.
  • umagon
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    If you only have 2-3 people use plaguebreak on the adds and turn them into bombs, then take them to the witch pike and blow them up there. The pikes will go down quickly. Plaguebreak works wonders for some of the overland content with a lot of adds.
  • RisenEclipse
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    Amottica wrote: »
    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.


    Again, although good in theory, poor in actual reality. As it requires players to consistently be doing those bosses or have enough interest to generate groups for them consistently. Which is not the case. If there were consistent groups going for them, or enough interest after they are no longer new and shiny, then this wouldn't be an issue. But that's not what's happening right now. So your suggestion isn't helpful or realistic in the slightest. All that is happening is newer players doing these content have a significantly more difficult time doing them, then those that did them when the zone was flooded on release. This could be eased by simply giving way better drop rewards, or doing something to encourage consistent activity in these zones years after they were released. Which is why posts like these have been made to reduce the difficulty of these world events once the chapter is old news, and there isn't enough people in the zones doing these activities to support the higher difficulty of the bosses.

    It works great in theory and practice. It does not require people to be consistently killing the boss as it merely requires a player to be part of a guild with players who are actually active in that guild. Then just call out or set up an event with the guild to do WBs and world events. I have seen it work amazingly well doing it both ways. I have also seen this repeated in previous games I played where WBs require groups.

    Dynamic scaling makes the world events that have it too easy and there is, and will always be, a cap to the dynamic scaling making it pretty much pointless. It is meaningless to solo a dolmen and it would be sad for the game to see the newer zone world events trivialized in the same manner.

    So basically you are saying that it should be a requirement for any player to do anything in the basic OVERWORLD, is to be a part of a guild? That guilds need to be a mandatory requirement to do basic content because zones are dead and don't generate the people needed to do that content on their own? Do you not see the problem with that? You do understand that not everyone wants to be apart of a guild, and that saying you must join guilds due to issues with even getting pugs to form for basic zone content sounds really wrong. Because that is precisely what you're suggesting. I should not have to join a guild JUST to kill dragons in Elsweyr. I should not have to join a guild to complete the Western Skyrim map. The content itself should generate its own population to complete the content, as it was designed to. But it's not. So when something doesn't work as intended it needs to be adjusted to work. HS and dragons do not have the interest generated enough to have stable groups completing them. I had more people joining me for regular dolmens (not talking about Alikr) then I do for HS. So yeah, despite what you're saying, I still say that the overland events should be adjusted so it's difficulty can depend on how many people are actually doing them.
    Edited by RisenEclipse on April 15, 2022 4:39AM
  • Beilin_Balreis_Colcan
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    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.
    I hope that never occurs. A few weeks ago, I was very pleased with myself, have successfully soloed my first world boss (cue the usual fist punch, "hey yeah!", etc.). I'd like to retain that option.
    PC(Steam) / EU / play from Melbourne, Australia / avg ping 390
  • Arunei
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    Amottica wrote: »
    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.


    Again, although good in theory, poor in actual reality. As it requires players to consistently be doing those bosses or have enough interest to generate groups for them consistently. Which is not the case. If there were consistent groups going for them, or enough interest after they are no longer new and shiny, then this wouldn't be an issue. But that's not what's happening right now. So your suggestion isn't helpful or realistic in the slightest. All that is happening is newer players doing these content have a significantly more difficult time doing them, then those that did them when the zone was flooded on release. This could be eased by simply giving way better drop rewards, or doing something to encourage consistent activity in these zones years after they were released. Which is why posts like these have been made to reduce the difficulty of these world events once the chapter is old news, and there isn't enough people in the zones doing these activities to support the higher difficulty of the bosses.

    It works great in theory and practice. It does not require people to be consistently killing the boss as it merely requires a player to be part of a guild with players who are actually active in that guild. Then just call out or set up an event with the guild to do WBs and world events. I have seen it work amazingly well doing it both ways. I have also seen this repeated in previous games I played where WBs require groups.

    Dynamic scaling makes the world events that have it too easy and there is, and will always be, a cap to the dynamic scaling making it pretty much pointless. It is meaningless to solo a dolmen and it would be sad for the game to see the newer zone world events trivialized in the same manner.
    Dolmens are a bad example, as they're base content that was tuned to fewer players back in the day. They're easy to be solo'd thanks to how 1T worked and they never got any kind of update. World events in other expansions have been made harder, and I don't see how dynamic difficulty would make them trivial. If done right the content gets harder with more people but less difficult while still being a challenge with fewer. It would make it so smaller groups or solo players could actually clear the content after it gets to a certain age that people aren't doing it.

    And asking for help in zone doesn't always work. I've seen people call for Harrowstorms before and no one shows up, heck you even see people calling for WBs sometimes in different zones saying they have quests and hardly get any responses. People rarely go for Dragons in NE because of how inconvenient the spawns are compared to the Wayshrine placement.

    And asking in guilds doesn't work for everyone either. I'm in one of the major trade guilds on PC NA and I've seen people put out calls for help, and get no replies. People shouldn't have to be in guilds to do every piece of content in the game.

    All that aside, it's clearly more of a problem than you want to believe it is, seeing how often this topic comes up. People are tired of paying for content and then not being able to complete certain parts of it. It's one thing when it's end-game trials or dungeons, but normal World Events shouldn't require the same manpower as an end-game HM trial boss. It's just not sustainable once the content is older and less populated.
    Edited by Arunei on April 15, 2022 5:52AM
    PC-NA | Been around since closed beta

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  • DarcyMardin
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    I agree they should be scaled. They can still be kept difficult, but they should not be impossible to solo.
  • SilverBride
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    Arunei wrote: »
    ...normal World Events shouldn't require the same manpower as an end-game HM trial boss. It's just not sustainable once the content is older and less populated.

    Exactly. To keep the older zones sustainable they have to account for the population changes that happen when they are no longer the current content.
    PCNA
  • LalMirchi
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    One word: Yes
  • Amottica
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    Amottica wrote: »
    Amottica wrote: »
    I think all world bosses and this type of event should require a group and never soloable. It should require bringing players together to complete.


    Again, although good in theory, poor in actual reality. As it requires players to consistently be doing those bosses or have enough interest to generate groups for them consistently. Which is not the case. If there were consistent groups going for them, or enough interest after they are no longer new and shiny, then this wouldn't be an issue. But that's not what's happening right now. So your suggestion isn't helpful or realistic in the slightest. All that is happening is newer players doing these content have a significantly more difficult time doing them, then those that did them when the zone was flooded on release. This could be eased by simply giving way better drop rewards, or doing something to encourage consistent activity in these zones years after they were released. Which is why posts like these have been made to reduce the difficulty of these world events once the chapter is old news, and there isn't enough people in the zones doing these activities to support the higher difficulty of the bosses.

    It works great in theory and practice. It does not require people to be consistently killing the boss as it merely requires a player to be part of a guild with players who are actually active in that guild. Then just call out or set up an event with the guild to do WBs and world events. I have seen it work amazingly well doing it both ways. I have also seen this repeated in previous games I played where WBs require groups.

    Dynamic scaling makes the world events that have it too easy and there is, and will always be, a cap to the dynamic scaling making it pretty much pointless. It is meaningless to solo a dolmen and it would be sad for the game to see the newer zone world events trivialized in the same manner.

    So basically you are saying that it should be a requirement for any player to do anything in the basic OVERWORLD, is to be a part of a guild? That guilds need to be a mandatory requirement to do basic content because zones are dead and don't generate the people needed to do that content on their own? Do you not see the problem with that? You do understand that not everyone wants to be apart of a guild, and that saying you must join guilds due to issues with even getting pugs to form for basic zone content sounds really wrong. Because that is precisely what you're suggesting. I should not have to join a guild JUST to kill dragons in Elsweyr. I should not have to join a guild to complete the Western Skyrim map. The content itself should generate its own population to complete the content, as it was designed to. But it's not. So when something doesn't work as intended it needs to be adjusted to work. HS and dragons do not have the interest generated enough to have stable groups completing them. I had more people joining me for regular dolmens (not talking about Alikr) then I do for HS. So yeah, despite what you're saying, I still say that the overland events should be adjusted so it's difficulty can depend on how many people are actually doing them.

    I clearly did not even begin to suggest that it should be a requirement to do ANYTHING in OVERWORLD one must be part of a guild. I obviously spoke only about world bosses and the zone world events. There is considerable content in each zone beyond that.

    Further, you do not have to join a guild to just kill dragons but I have seen it is the easiest solution. This is an MMORPG, not a single-player game so it makes sense to have such content that requires some grouping regardless if it is through a guild or not. The base game WBs and dolmens that can be soloed are trivial and pretty much meaningless and it would be sad to see more of the game become a joke like they are.



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