This dungeon experience is still a defining TES experience, for me

Supreme_Atromancer · December 2022

Like 7 years old or something, and still one of the most memorable and evocative gameplay things in any dungeon. ICP still remains one of my favourite dungeons in the game, and that's saying something, because the dungeon design is up there with world-building in terms of how well they're designed and imagined.

I remember hearing that the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable.

But does this sort of thing highlight that there could be more to core dungeon navigation than stack-and-burn? Aside from novel mechanics intended only for one show-case fight (or in this case, achievement), could stuff like stealth- which could arguably be seen (rather than disrespect for the content) as a wish to engage dungeon play as more than just "wade through all the trash and get to the boss?" Mazzatun's skip chain begins the idea, but I'm reminded of mechanics like TG and DB dailies where stealth IS the main point. I still find these really fun to do. Could design incorporate some of these game-play elements as optional ways to engage the content?

Conversely, opinions on the Official Forums and Reddit suggest a rigid etiquette and way of doing things is the default expectation. At this point in the game's life cycle, are we locked in with our expectations that dungeons are meant for stack-and-burn smashing out? Would design deviating from rigid formula just frustrate those who see dungeons as primarily daily grind, to be done one way and gotten over as fast as possible?

Sailor_Palutena · December 2022

"the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable."

What I find hard to understand and hate is how the mobs find out I have company and just ignore my tank going many meters away from me to fight other players who haven't even joined the fight yet, so I need to go back to grab them. I'm unsure how aggro works in ESO. It seems the mobs pick up players out of the blue based on mood.

If I reach a room alone and hit the mobs with an AOE, they SHOULDN'T run to previous rooms to fight players who are behind listening to NPCs talking about the dungeon quest!

Blood_again · December 2022

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

I remember hearing that the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable.

Except mobs that was specially designed for skipping

If I remember correctly, there is even an achievement for skipping the eyes in ICP.

chessalavakia_ESO · December 2022

Personally, I loathe skipping trash in Dungeon runs.

Much of the time someone messes up and you get a more awkward fight that doesn't save you any time and I'm always worried about messing it up myself.

At one point I was running a Stage 4 Vamp in dungeons just so I could more easily keep up and skip trash more effectively via Unnatural Movement's cheaper and invisible sprinting.

Supreme_Atromancer · December 2022

Blood_again wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

I remember hearing that the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable.

Except mobs that was specially designed for skipping
If I remember correctly, there is even an achievement for skipping the eyes in ICP.

Yeah! I was helping someone get this achievement recently, which got me thinking about it in the first place. Also got the achieve myself, didn't realise I didn't have it til it popped. Karma, ey?

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Personally, I loathe skipping trash in Dungeon runs.

You know, actually so do I. I just remember my early pugging days when its always someone else setting the pace lol. Like, no asking, go go go. Not an enjoyable experience.

With my idea, though, it was more like, maybe there should be a recognition that its not always dastardly players trying to break content (though its absolutely a thing sometimes), but also an expression of a desire to do the dungeon their own way, or engaging other mechanics, like stealth. Instead of working to defeat it, I think it would be fun if it was a deliberately designed-for possibility. Like you *can* mow through everything, OR... put some of those lantern guys in from Thieves Guild, and tell the players to go for it, *if they can*. There's still challenge in it, and risk of stuffing it up, but if you do it well (or learn the patterns), there's a pay-off in sucessfully "defeating" the encounter in a way other than just traditional stack, burn, repeat.

I don't know how many skips have been deliberately designed for. Mazz seems like it was. I think they could definitely go further with it.

heaven13 · December 2022

They’ve actually made dungeons after this (I think it started with SCP and FL) so that if you don’t kill trash certain achievements won’t pop, and then others, like DoM have doors that won’t open until all trash is cleared.

It’s definitely a neat idea but the devs have clearly made dungeons recently that absolutely have to all trash cleared before proceeding.

SeaGtGruff · December 2022

Sailor_Palutena wrote: »

"the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable."

What I find hard to understand and hate is how the mobs find out I have company and just ignore my tank going many meters away from me to fight other players who haven't even joined the fight yet, so I need to go back to grab them. I'm unsure how aggro works in ESO. It seems the mobs pick up players out of the blue based on mood.

If I reach a room alone and hit the mobs with an AOE, they SHOULDN'T run to previous rooms to fight players who are behind listening to NPCs talking about the dungeon quest!

If it's anything like in the real world, it's probably based on who looks and acts the weakest and smells the most afraid.

zaria · December 2022

Sailor_Palutena wrote: »

"the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed are just skipped. Understandable."

What I find hard to understand and hate is how the mobs find out I have company and just ignore my tank going many meters away from me to fight other players who haven't even joined the fight yet, so I need to go back to grab them. I'm unsure how aggro works in ESO. It seems the mobs pick up players out of the blue based on mood.

If I reach a room alone and hit the mobs with an AOE, they SHOULDN'T run to previous rooms to fight players who are behind listening to NPCs talking about the dungeon quest!

Not sure how this work with sneak, but if tank goes in first and drop AoE he has soft taunt for 6-8 seconds.
With stealth I guess it works more like in Cyrodil, all agro the one they see.

Agenericname · December 2022

In ESO dungeons are probably my favorite content. The achievements are fun, but lately Ive been playing through Elden Ring again.

Some of their design choices were made with skipping with mind, although I think they probably view more as an alternate way or gettimg past x than "skipping." There's inherent danger in either choice.

Other times there are multiple paths to get to where you are going.

I do think that developers can incorporate that kind of play into the content, and make it fun, but Id imagine that its much harder in mmos vs single player.

Ive played it single player and coop, up to 4 people. With 4 players its a bit hard to decide how to navigate a space with as many choices as it has, especially since theres no trinity. With 1-2 its fine.

SickleCider · December 2022

I would be happy with fewer dungeon DLCs a year if it meant fewer dungeons had such an on-rails-race-to-the-finish design. I think increasing pledge rewards would be appropriate if that resulted in dungeons that require more time investment, but they COULD also utilize some clever shortcuts to reward people intimately familiar with the dungeons. Yup. Agree.

Darkstorne · December 2022

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

With my idea, though, it was more like, maybe there should be a recognition that its not always dastardly players trying to break content (though its absolutely a thing sometimes), but also an expression of a desire to do the dungeon their own way, or engaging other mechanics, like stealth. Instead of working to defeat it, I think it would be fun if it was a deliberately designed-for possibility. Like you *can* mow through everything, OR... put some of those lantern guys in from Thieves Guild, and tell the players to go for it, *if they can*. There's still challenge in it, and risk of stuffing it up, but if you do it well (or learn the patterns), there's a pay-off in sucessfully "defeating" the encounter in a way other than just traditional stack, burn, repeat.

Interesting! So more traditional RPG game design, where the players have a broad toolset to draw from with how they approach level design and encounters, and they aren't "wrong" for thinking of alternatives to direct combat in each situation they're presented with.

I think an inherent issue with this approach in MMOs though (or at least with ESO's group dungeons) is how PUG groups are expected to confer on their strategies for approaching encounter design in these instances. When you're paired with three strangers and no idea how much they've invested into stealth, persuasion, intimidation (all established non-combat solutions used in solo questing)... I imagine most PUG players don't want to go through that chit-chat each time and will always default to the fastest method. And so I imagine that's why you see ZOS devs experiment with these optional mechanics in solo play, but not so much in group play. It could be interesting in trials though, where organized groups and strategizing are far more commonplace.

Personally, I'm still waiting on a boss rush dungeon design. Because I look at the prevalence of trash-skips (and the fact that people commonly call these encounters TRASH fights... hint hint) as a sign that maybe a boss rush dungeon might be received fairly well? They could still pace boss encounters out too with interesting traversal-based level design, setting up the tone/atmosphere of the next boss fight through scenery and environmental story-telling.

ZOS_Icy · December 2022

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

Elendir2am · December 2022

You're making it sound like such crude proces "stack and burn", OP.

Lets take this out of your post:
"the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed......."

Trash in dungeons are placed with different patterns, pull from pull, trash from trash. A lot of them are designed to make their stacking harder. Hiding mobs, mobs scattered in big room, ....

So it is actually art to stack all mobs perfectly. Tank need to know how is trash distributed, if arrive some adds, what is highest treat for each pull. Also when DDs know place, tanks will do stacking...
It is such harmony of death to observe tanks, who know what they are doing.

Supreme_Atromancer · December 2022

Elendir2am wrote: »

You're making it sound like such crude proces "stack and burn", OP.

Lets take this out of your post:
"the developers hate it when mobs that they've carefully placed......."

Trash in dungeons are placed with different patterns, pull from pull, trash from trash. A lot of them are designed to make their stacking harder. Hiding mobs, mobs scattered in big room, ....

So it is actually art to stack all mobs perfectly. Tank need to know how is trash distributed, if arrive some adds, what is highest treat for each pull. Also when DDs know place, tanks will do stacking...
It is such harmony of death to observe tanks, who know what they are doing.

Lol you're quite right, and my phrasing is a bit cynical. Its very satisfying when everything's been stack so tightly, all the aoes can just go down and everything melts. I take my great tank for granted, and only realise it when I'm in a pug situation (rare these days!). My point is, though, even as satisfying as the process can be, I did wonder if there was room for other gameplay, or if its just combat solutions. Watching how frequently people seem to want to "skip trash", I wondered if that might provide a niche.

Darkstorne wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

With my idea, though, it was more like, maybe there should be a recognition that its not always dastardly players trying to break content (though its absolutely a thing sometimes), but also an expression of a desire to do the dungeon their own way, or engaging other mechanics, like stealth. Instead of working to defeat it, I think it would be fun if it was a deliberately designed-for possibility. Like you *can* mow through everything, OR... put some of those lantern guys in from Thieves Guild, and tell the players to go for it, *if they can*. There's still challenge in it, and risk of stuffing it up, but if you do it well (or learn the patterns), there's a pay-off in sucessfully "defeating" the encounter in a way other than just traditional stack, burn, repeat.

I think an inherent issue with this approach in MMOs though (or at least with ESO's group dungeons) is how PUG groups are expected to confer on their strategies for approaching encounter design in these instances. When you're paired with three strangers and no idea how much they've invested into stealth, persuasion, intimidation (all established non-combat solutions used in solo questing)... I imagine most PUG players don't want to go through that chit-chat each time and will always default to the fastest method. And so I imagine that's why you see ZOS devs experiment with these optional mechanics in solo play, but not so much in group play. It could be interesting in trials though, where organized groups and strategizing are far more commonplace.

I guess the question then would be, who and what are they designing it for? I don't think they can ignore that eventually, the most novel, gorgeous and fun dungeon is going to be par for the 15 minute grind out, so I agree. But what about when its still fun and new, and exploration-based? What about when its irl friends or guildies who are happy to communicate? And last point: if its already a tendency to *want* to skip, and for the developers its *not* intended gameplay (yet keeps happening), embracing it instead of trying to foil it seems like it could be a good idea. I don't know, I think what you say makes a lot of sense- the idea would have to be so engaging and add so much to the experience for enough people that it would outweigh the risk of getting in the way of how the dungeon will be eventually experienced.