Question about 4-player Dungeons and ESO Plus

ixmike · July 2022

This may seem like a basic question, but I'm just barely getting into dungeon content after playing mostly PVE and Cyrodiil for years.

So in regards to the 4-player Group Dungeons, if you purchase ESO Plus then that means--theoretically--your wait time in the Dungeon Finder queue will be far shorter because ESO Plus "unlocks" most of the dungeon DLC, correct?

Which means far more randomized Group dungeons are available to you as an ESO Plus member?

deleted221106-002999 · July 2022

Yes.

And no.

You're rationale is correct - access to more dungeons means theoretically shorter queue times.

No, because dlc's have the highest quit rate among random players which might end up increasing your wait times.

You might mitigate the latter somewhat by queueing only for random vets - generally the quit rate is less (unless it's a very poor group for whatever reasons).

But most players use the group tool for random normal transmute crystal farming. Or pledges (vet/normal). For either speed/throughput is the target which is why many players quit/logout as soon as dlc dungeon appears.

ixmike · July 2022

Thanks, comrade.

And for now, my only interest at the moment is 4-player Group Dungeons on Normal. Just to level up and explore more of the base lore.

I will do that veteran and/or trial stuff waaaaay down the road.

I went ahead and purchased a 3-month ESO subscription. Funny, I've done a handful of 4-player dungeons on normal (like about half-a-dozen spanning several years), and I do not recall anyone ever quitting.

El_Borracho · July 2022

I think the DLC dungeons are a lot more fun and have much better gear. If Fungal 1 doesn't pop up for my random normal, I hope its a DLC. You can only run City of Ash so many times.

The quitting you will see is on long dungeons like March of Sacrifices, Mazzatun, Moon Hall Keep, and Lair of Maarselok, for example. Cradle of Shadows is probably the biggest offender. It can be for a variety of reasons, but mostly its a mix of low-level DDs and time. I'll admit that I have queued as a tank and quit on some of these when they pop up. But I typically wait until I see how the group does up to the first boss. You can tell if its going to take 20 minutes or 45 minutes. Most of the time, I'll slog it out, but honestly, sometimes I don't have the time. Its a game, after all.

Good call to wait to do veteran DLCs until you get a good grip on mechanics. But you can easily do veteran base dungeons.

etchedpixels · July 2022

Many of the base dungeons on veteran are easier than some of the DLC content on normal. In fact the whole difficulty thing with the base dungeons is very very random. A bunch just add a rather tiresome insta-kill version of one mechanic and make stuff higher health/resistance, some don't really add much at all - eg vaults of madness, whilst others get much much harder or take a mechanic and make it quite tricky (eg Selene's).

Doing a few base dungeons on veteran will get you monster sets and you'll want those to tackle the DLC ones on normal.

The DLC content in general has the more interesting mechanics, puzzles and group strategy, although it's unfortunate that some of them on PC, particularly on vet, require voice chat but are still in the random generator.

Dawnblade · August 2022

Queue times don't seem to differ between ESO= or not, though the pool of dungeons obviously does differ.

I actually hate having ESO+ when just wanting to do a random for the XP / Xmute stones as I've had terrible luck getting some annoyingly long DLC dungeon that also requires the other members of the party to correctly perform certain mechanics.

Seems pretty stupid to pay extra to have your XP / currency daily go from 'I can solo it in under 10 minutes' activity to a potential failure / group disbanding / 30+ minute slog - though the easy solution has been to queue up with someone who doesn't have ESO+ or who is playing a lowbie (under 45) character.

Don't get me wrong, there are some fun and enjoyable DLC dungeons, and many (especially with a decent group) can be done in not much more time than base dungeons, but I do think the differences in time and commitment level are too far apart when considering the daily random for XP / xmute stones.

I'd love to see them do a tuning pass at some point and normalize the normal / vet dungeons such that the ones sharing a queue are all closer together, which could be making adjustments up and down to all normals to setting up a separate base / DLC queue with each having a daily random reward.

Mesite · August 2022

I will be getting ESO+ later this month, but I'm glad you mentioned the DLC dungeons. I don't usually do randoms when we get free ESO+ weeks due to my unfamiliarity with the DLC dungeons. I'll need to do some research