katanagirl1 wrote: »

Aislinna wrote: »

So, if you join a random dungeon run and get 3 speedrunners, while you want to run a different pace, you would downvote each player? And they in turn can all downvote you too? So, 1 disapprove and 2 approves for each of the speedrunners and 3 disapproves for you? Are you sure it's the speedrunners who will be playing alone?

Just want to clarify that random group does not mean all players have queued for the random daily dungeon. Some queued for a specific dungeon and got a speedrunner. Everyone glosses over that point.

Still, I don’t see how a rating would help. It would further complicate the game.

At this point, pretty much EVERYONE is looking to speed run the dungeons because EVERYONE has run them 200+ times. I don't want to crawl through Lair of Maerselok one more time than I need to.

If you want to play that way or if you want to get the quest done, why is it so hard to join a guild or make some friends and ask them for help, and then, set expectations before anyone agrees to go by telling them you want to get the quest done? This is an MMO after all, and the point of the game is to meet other players to play with.

All the people with the "I've already run X so many times" Okay, what else do you actually do in the game that you feel the need to run through as fast as humanly possible like it's such a daunting unforgiving chore? lol.


I've run fg1 100000 times since 2014, and I still treat it like I treat every single dungeon and trial I do. By-the-book, pack to pack as a group and via the Tank's lead and pace.

I don’t think it is fair to expect 3 players who might queue for a specific dungeon and have a player who queued for the quick random daily dungeon speedrun and pull all of them from boss to boss when they want to open chests and move at a slightly more leisurely pace and kill all the mobs.

It's also not fair to expect 3 people who just want to get the dungeon done as quickly as possible to wait for one "master historian" who wants to check every inch of the architecture.

Why downvote at all?

Someone speed runs, gift them Pacesetter.
Someone roleplays, give them Undaunted.
Someone guides beginners, they get Champion.

Then you could set preferences when queuing and dedicate the first minute or two to only matching with your choice in players, as over time the search restrictions could loosen.

Aislinna wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Why downvote at all?

Someone speed runs, gift them Pacesetter.
Someone roleplays, give them Undaunted.
Someone guides beginners, they get Champion.

Then you could set preferences when queuing and dedicate the first minute or two to only matching with your choice in players, as over time the search restrictions could loosen.

I think you may have the start of an idea going. The main issue is with other people upvoting/assigning characteristics to other players. I.e., "I don't like the speedrunner" so I'm assigning them "undaunted" and they will then get matched with all the slower paced people that want to explore and then the speedrunner will be taught a lesson. If people can figure out how to weaponize something, people will. Now, if it was a self-assigned role that's something that could possibly be worked into the matchmaking.

Wouldn’t that be contradictory?

If someone wants people who don’t speed run, why would they sacrifice their future experiences by designating someone who does something they don’t like, as someone they would like to play with again? I also don’t think a self-assign works, as people would find a way to flame others for not adhering to their assignments.

I believe that there are more people who would vote appropriately than not, and assuming our designations were per character and reset every quarter, this could be the perfect solution to the problem.

When I did Bedlam Veil for the first time on PS (queued specifically for it, not a random) there were 3 of us doing the quest and 1 who wanted to speed run. It's a fairly straightforward quest that doesn't need any waiting around so it didn't really matter and we mostly kept up except for once we stopped to loot a chest (on the direct path with force lock so it took seconds) and they ran ahead and died to trash.

Then we came to the puzzles. Obviously it was the first time there for most of us so as well as the achievement there was the 3 curated chests, double event drops and empty stickerbooks! I'd had BV turn up as a random on PC so knew what to do and it took 10-15 seconds to solve and grab the loot while the runner raced on in a hurry to die to trash (they were still rezzing when we caught up). The last one didn't have a trash pack after to slow them down tho, so literally as I was about to solve it we were all pulled to the boss.

I get that people like to get dungeons over with quick but we weren't hanging about reading everything and looking into every corner. We were literally right behind them almost the whole way.

This is how most non-speed runners operate. We don't hang about but if theres a chest we want to loot it. How is it right that 1 person gets to unilaterally decide that we can't, just for the sake of 3 seconds?

thorwyn wrote: »

It is, if the one player who waited in the queue and queued for a specific dungeon to do the quest got 3 random daily reward speedrunners who took the short cut in the queue. Players who do quests and check for lorebooks and chests do not take a significant more amount of time to run a dungeon, stop over-exaggerating.

The three other players have been waiting in the queue just as long as the quester.
And yes, players who are searching every corner for chests, listen to every dialogue and read every lorebook DO take significantly more time, so stop talking it down.

First off that's not even true. 3 people who have queued for a random dungeon have waited as long as someone queuing for one specific dungeon? Have you never done that?

Secondly, players who want to look at everything, read everything, listen to everything are not the usual quester. I've never (that I remember) had anyone in a random that wanted to take that much time. Not saying they don't exist but they're nowhere near as common as some would have us to believe.

Most people doing quests are rushing through them too and only stop to wait when the quest forces them to. That's the quest design at fault. It's usually a really stressful situation to be in, waiting for the stupid npc to just shut up! so you can progress the quest before someone pulls you to the next boss.

I'd love to see all the quests become more of the drive-by style of later dlc dungeon quests, but sadly that's not how it is so sometimes we need just a few more seconds

Frayton wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

All the people with the "I've already run X so many times" Okay, what else do you actually do in the game that you feel the need to run through as fast as humanly possible like it's such a daunting unforgiving chore? lol.


I've run fg1 100000 times since 2014, and I still treat it like I treat every single dungeon and trial I do. By-the-book, pack to pack as a group and via the Tank's lead and pace.

For many players, dungeons that they've run 100,000,000x already are a means to an end, a tedious task that must be done to play what they actually enjoy. It's not fun. It's a necessary evil, so to speak, to get to fun. The worst part of this isn't speedrunners, it's that eventually people just get burnt out and tired of the grind for everything in ESO and just quit playing.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but personally, I love speedrunners especially when I'm on a tiny alt that I just want to level.

Can you give me an example of anything that's gated behind thousands of repeated runs through the same dungeon? I participate in all offered content (though admittedly light on the PvP content), and I have yet to be required to constantly run RND's thousands of times. I've run every base game dungeon as much as pretty much anybody else, and yet I've never been under a time crunch. I've never had my gaming day ruined because someone else in the group needed a few minutes longer to get through the dungeon.

The only reason speedrunning is so rampant is because the playerbase is overrun with the "me first" player mentality. They're doing it for no other reason than farming Transmutes or event boxes. That's it. But at a certain point, Transmutes aren't needed to be farmed anymore since stickerbooks fill up and it's often simpler to just decon/recon because the cost is a wash. Some might say for XP as well, but realistically after 1500CP earning XP drops very low on the priority scale.

[edit] Forgot to ask. If speedrunning is because players are just tired of the same ol same dungeons they've run ad nauseum... then why do they immediately drop group the moment they load in and see it's a DLC dungeon that they've not run "thousands" of times? Because by that logic, they should be relieved and happy that they got lucky and get to go through a dungeon they're not sick of yet. No?

I don't group so may be wrong, but based on forum posts and online rants fake tanks seem to be universally disliked. I think any kind of rating system is likely to have a negative impact on people who are learning to tank (not fake, just inexperienced) and in the long run, you'll have fewer tanks.

I would prefer that we got more tanks and healers in dungeon queue, so that if I want to queue as dd I can get group fast. When I tell fast, I mean withing seconds For example, when I queue as tank, I expect instant group - if it takes more than a minute, I start being angry. This means that there is no healer currently in queue...
As a healer, yesterday I couldn't get a group for 6 minutes of queue Sometimes I can explore overland while waiting, but sometimes I only have particular stuff to do which can't be interrupted by sudden dungeon ready check after 15 minutes of waiting.

Instead of rating system, I think there could be better encouragement for people who actually perform their roles. I really don't know if it's possible to do, but I wish to dream here.

In modern days of AI analyzing everything people do everywhere, can it be successfully used to monitor dungeon performance of a player based on their set role? Ignore the custom-formed groups where leader didn't force roles, of course; for example, I did normal Blackheart Haven pledge with two tanks, healer and very weak dd, it was awfully slow run but I knew what I was getting into and everyone in group was happy in the end

For all normal dungeons, I can queue as tank on my actual dd (just use taunt for bosses and adds, to keep them in place focusing me). But often I just want to queue as dd, sometimes even as healer - and I do not want to see fake roles in such queue. I don't mind if instead of tank I get other dd who will actually taunt boss and keep him in place, but if that "tank" runs around cowardly and dies from boss' attacks, this is pure punishment for group members who waited long time in queue.

What if AI could determine by certain combat performance patterns that player uses dungeon queue for a wrong role? And only if player properly performs their role, in the end they could get some extra experience, extra curated set item from the dungeon, extra motif page when in certain dungeons, extra undaunted key? I don't know, something which would encourage more people to become tanks and healers, so everyone has faster queue... And maybe encourage even more people to become better dds, so tanks and healers don't have to endure painfully slow runs sometimes.

How could AI spot a fake tank?

1. No taunt effects were used on mobs by player with a tank role, elite mobs focus dds and healer.
2. No taunt effects were used on bosses by player with a tank role.
3. Taunt effects were used on bosses by player with a tank role, but this player died from every special boss attack (heavy attacks, area attacks, channeled attacks such as Voskrona Poxito flame cone etc).
4. (careful analysis, maybe only for Veteran mode dungeons) No armor or vulnerability debuff effects were placed on enemies by player with a tank role.

How could AI spot a fake healer?

1. No group healing abilities were cast on allies during combat by player with a healer role (so dd with selfish Vigor morph would not pass as a healer)
2. Only in case of tank and dds properly performing their roles, they were allowed to go lower than 30% (?) health in most of combat situations.
3. (careful analysis, maybe only for Veteran mode dungeons) Player with a healer role didn't offer any resource restore opportunities for the group.
4. (careful analysis, maybe only for Veteran mode dungeons) Player with a healer role didn't apply any buffs (pure healing without any secondary effects does not count) to allies.

How could AI spot a fake dd?

1. Each successful boss fight lasted longer than X minutes (insert time based on average expected DPS accordingly to normal or veteran dungeon). Not including certain invulnerable mechanics (afterlife phase of Graven Deep's last boss comes to mind, just running around collecting souls with no boss participation in there). Maybe no more than 2 minutes for Normal dungeon (considering not very experienced or low level characters with no access to some good gear or skills), no more than 5 minutes for Veteran dungeon? Developers might determine more appropriate timers for each of those modes.

These values should be set as not to discourage players who are trying their best but still learning mechanics, but should not reward a fake dd who only does light attacks etc.

2. Non-boss successful fights lasted more than 30 seconds (counted from the very first tick of damage done by a player with dd role). This little detail might be helpful for some special cases when tank aggroes adds and drags multiple packs together to kill them all after. I saw this at the start in Ruins of Mazzatun, where group stops only before the first boss to get rid of all aggroed adds. Messy, but can be done.

Once I was tank in veteran Icereach dungeon and decided to politely leave after the first adds fight lasted more than 5 minutes This discouraged me from tanking for some time back then.

3. Player with a dd role did less than 40% of total group damage on every successful boss fight. Remember, this is all for groups from Group Finder search, not for custom groups with 3 dds and tank. I'd set this value as 40% because I've heard that aggressive healers can do some damage too, but that would be for developers to determine.

If a dungeon is completed, players who met all requirements based on their role get their extra rewards in the mail.
Those who didn't - will hopefully strive to perform better next time in their group.

It would be quite hard to keep simple and fair.

Let's simplify and says each players, after a dungeon, designate a MVP (other than self).
Slowly, we'll rack up MVP points.

Problem is :
I do fungal1, 5 mins, and get MVP from another player.
Then, I do maarselok or reliquary, it last one eternity and a half, and I also get MVP from another player.

The issues is self evident : the easy quick dungeons are more rewarding, wich is bad design in itself.
Sure, we can weight the value of MVP per dungeon, but .. it's starting to look like something quite complicated to implement, for very little added value.

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I've said it before, but if the random queue is really so bad that it requires such extreme solutions, it should simply be removed and people should be forced to communicate and interact with each other.

It's perfectly fine when queuing for normal dungeons. I queue pretty much every day, and 99% of the time, it's fine. I include speedrunners as being fine because if you queue, you take what you get. Can't speak for vet.

All the ideas people are coming up with to "improve" the queue/pugs are basically ideas for making players in pugs behave the way they want them to behave.

Here's the harsh truth: the other players in a pug are not there to serve you, or to make sure you can do anything other than complete the dungeon. You can ask for other things (secret bosses, can we do that optional side boss, can you wait while I talk to this NPC for the quest, etc.), but you can't complain if the answer is no.

When you queue, the only thing you can expect from the pug is to complete the dungeon. That's the goal and the only obligation of the other group members.

If you have a specific goal in mind (like collect lorebooks), you can do that in a pug if you do some preparation beforehand. I collected 98% of the lorebooks in dungeons with pugs, but I didn't go in blind and expect random strangers to wait while I searched for them (could have collected 100% but did a few dungeons with guildies). I researched where the books were and then queued for that dungeon.

Same with the quest. If you want to listen to all the dialogue from a quest giver, you go in to the dungeon on your own, listen to the dialogue, and accept the quest. Then you leave and queue for that specific dungeon. That works for all the DLC dungeons and some base game ones too. I agree that there are some problematic quests in the base game dungeons where you have to talk to NPCs along the way, but that's a problem ZOS should solve. It could start by not putting quests into dungeons, which was a dumb idea to begin with.

I don't see the point of complaining about pugs. What do you want? To make everyone play the way you want them to play because you're somehow more important than they are? I don't like speed runners, but when I use the queue (random or specific), I accept that I'll sometimes get one. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? If it bothers you that much, don't queue.

As far as fake tanks and healers go, not a problem in normal. They should let any combination of roles queue for normal dungeons. I can't speak to vet because I don't queue for that.

OP I do appreciate your sentiment here but we cannot control other people.

My idea would be to make a solo version of every dungeon without the rewards you get from group dungeons. So you would have solo story mode and the bosses would be as powerful as a delve boss , so easy to beat for any player regardless of gear or level. But this game is old and I have no idea what it would take to implement something this huge since we have so many dungeons. Also, this would not entice new players to eso cos most new players want to level up fast, get to endgame asap.

The people that enjoy taking their time in dungeons are either newer players that like questing or older players that are very patient. I would vote that the majority of players I run into and I do random normals and vets a lot of alts too, are speed runners just wanting to complete their pledges or are carrying a lowliest friend through for the xp. To help their friend or guildy level.

Stamicka wrote: »

There’s quite a few like minded players like you on the forums and I’m sure even more on the game and across platforms. Make a guild called “The Slowpokes” or something. This way all of you guys can happily get together for your 25 minute Fungal Grotto 1 runs!

I kinda feel a little sarcasm on this, but this is honestly a really good idea. People get mad when I suggest this as a solution to a lot of problems in game. As I'm sure many people know, a good guild can change the game. Having like minded friends to do things with is great. Feeling like people aren't letting you come to trials or having a hard time learning vet stuff? Make or join a guild dedicated to that sort of thing. Wanna have slow dungeon runs? Make your own guild or in your current guild, speak to an officer. I know I will create whatever event someone wants in discord and I'll @ everyone to promote it. When I came back from a break of several years, I wanted to jump in to veteran content, my GM formed a vet dungeon mechanic learning group she runs twice a week and I've done every vet dungeon in the game and more. The people are out there. You just have to look for them. It may take some work, but they're there. No social credit score needed.