Delves are way too Overcrowded....

Abelon · February 8

How many people you see or don't see is honestly irrelevant to this conversation. A delve isn't made for people to just stand there and look at each other, with 20 people squished into a narrow hallway. Nobody goes into delves for that. Anybody who is trying to act like that's the case, clearly has no argument to make in this discussion.

A delve is made for a specific gameplay loop. You enter, you progress through the linear map killing the enemies on the way (that's why they are placed there, otherwise the devs would have kept the delve empty), you pick up a quest if one is present and do it, you reach the boss and kill it, pick up the skyshard, then leave the delve. That's the loop. That's what a delve is and how it is meant to work. How do we know that this is what a delve is? Because that's what the devs made it. Once again, it is not an empty map with some sort of podium for you to show off your very original crown bought costume. If it were, then that's what it would be built to be.

So if the delve is made for that specific gameplay loop, then when functioning as intended, players should be able to participate in every step of said loop. And that is where we get the issue. A new player walks into the delve and... well it's completely devoid of enemies and instead filled with players. The player walks through empty hallways, picks up a quest, and if it requires killing has to then stand in an empty room scratching their head and waiting for respawns, they then proceed down more empty hallways to an already dead boss. They pick up the skyshard with no additional actions required, because the mobs around already got cleared. The boss respawns, they only have time to do one light attack once before some bomber build falls down from the ceiling and the boss explodes in a sea of visual particle effects. An achievement pops up on the screen, but it surely doesn't feel like anything was achieved. The player scratches their head and leaves the delve wondering if they were doing something wrong.

That player, in that moment, couldn't care less what the game's population is. They did not feel any cool social component. They feel robbed of gameplay, they feel robbed of accomplishing something, they feel a lack of immersion. This same thing will repeat many times in future delves and soon enough the player won't care anymore. Soon they will do the exact same thing everyone does, sprint through the hallways, pick up a letter and skip through dialogue, because who cares honestly, delves are the least immersive content in the game with the way they work, rush to the shard, try to get one hit in on the already dying boss (what was that boss anyways, nobody even has time to see what they look like, what they are called, what the lore is surrounding their presence here) and rush out to continue with better content. Which is a huge shame and will always remain that, because delves actually do have really cool lore sometimes and would be wonderful to experience in their entirety. You just don't get to.

And this experience btw, absolutely does not make the game appear more populated or more healthy. Delves are small and cramped, and they do not require other players due to difficulty. When you rarely manage to do a delve alone, you do not feel like you miss anything. When you do it with others, you do not feel like you gain anything. When you are out in the world and you want to do a world boss and nobody is around, and nobody reacts in chat?? That's when you feel the population being too small. When you queue for some sort of content where you need a group and it takes forever?? That's when you feel the population being too small. When you have been trading for more than 10 years and for years now you notice that you sell less and less and less? That's when you feel the population being too small. And me walking into a crowded delve doesn't change any of that, it is at most a silly illusion that might persist for the 30 seconds you need to clear the thing. So no. People being in the delve doesn't in any way boost the game's population. Nor would people not being in the delve do the opposite. The population is directly related to lack of content, bugs, state of pvp, balancing issues, etc etc. Not to how many people are in a delve.

Emeratis · February 8

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Emeratis wrote: »

I mean, I've been guilty of this but part of the problem is I'm camping the boss for lead drops in downtime because it can be a decent idle activity. I suspect a portion of players are doing similar to me and wouldn't be there if the lead droprates were reasonable to fill out the codex or complete our multi-part lead things. It's not healthy for anyone involved.

Some of the more popular mythics have a near constant group of campers. I myself once camped a delve boss for 20+ kills (about an hour and a half). Would have been 30+ kills, but I keep an eye on the time to know if it's a lootable spawn, or spawning because someone else entered.

Yeah, keeping an eye on it even when semi afk is useful because sometimes someone walking in who doesn't have achievement kill credit spawns the boss at random and it's still a 5 minute timer even if they walked in early enough you don't get loot until the next spawn. I'm relieved I'm done with most of the delve leads except for 8 and most of those are very recent ones and seem to have far lower pop for some reason.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Emeratis wrote: »

Also agree though, it can be very annoying. It doesn't really help that on alts you need to kill the delve boss for the map complete but with accountwide achievements you no longer get the instant pity spawn your first time in there because I assume it checks off achievement and not completed status of the delve. Public dungeons have always been obnoxious though for "boss is dead/someone killed it now do I sit here and wait then maybe have to do that with the other bosses or move foward and try for the other boss and then come back and possibly miss this boss spawning" dilemma so that's not overly new, especially close to zone launch or when a new lead drops there.

Ignore the temptation to run forward. If the boss has just been killed the next one will die just before you get there too. Sit, wait 5 minutes. Move on. (Or do what I do, and clear PD's solo at 3am lol).

Oh I def agree with you on that. I sometimes get the temptation because my main's a bosmer nightblade who often has major and minor expedition up and can sometimes race and make it comfortably but the temptation is not worth it and you don't know the speed and damage of the mystery person ahead of you so these days I just chill at the boss and tab out or admire the scenery or something.

AzuraFan · February 8

I wouldn't mind instanced delves because some of them, especially those in the base game, are small, so all it takes are 2-3 players for there to be a lot of interference with each other.

It's really irritating when I've almost cleared the way to the boss, and a player runs by me and burns it down. I'm not sure why players can't just wait an extra 15 seconds when they know someone else is almost at the boss.

A 5-minute spawn rate is too slow. Make it a minute. Or 30 seconds. Why do we always have to wait 5 minutes? That goes for WBs too. As for the trash mobs, delves are designed to be a loop, so have the mobs quickly respawn. That way if someone comes in behind, the delve isn't empty.

Anyway, I would be okay with instanced delves, but perhaps there are other changes ZOS can make to alleviate some of the existing problems.

SilverBride · February 8

Apollosipod wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Where does it say that delves were designed for one person to clear? If that were the case they would already be private instances.

Delves are an open part of overland, just like dolmens and public dungeons. These can all be cleared by one player but are open content that can be enjoyed by players working together as well.

We are all here for our own enjoyment but that can't come at the expense of the health of the game.

And one person's opinion of what the health of the game is isn't going to be right for everyone. Your original statement was based entirely on your own personal preference. Just because it's yours doesn't mean it's everyone else's. Just like my own preference wouldn't work for everyone either. The health of the game benefits from giving people options. I've had multiple friends try and leave the game because more veteran players just steamrolled everything they wanted to try. I don't really care if your preference is to see other players wandering around. Fine, keep it! By all means!

But giving players the option to actually engage with the world in an interesting way rather than having to watch other people kill everything in front them and make them stand around to kill a delve boss is a net gain for game health because those players might then stick around. No one wants to log in and play a game so they can watch more experienced players do it all in front of them before they can experience it themselves. More options are better.

Not wanting players separated isn't just my preference. It is a requirement that ZOS put in place for the challenge system. Creating private instances for delves goes completely against that.

Warhawke_80 · February 8

SilverBride wrote: »

Not wanting players separated isn't just my preference. It is a requirement that ZOS put in place for the challenge system. Creating private instances for delves goes completely against that.

No, that's not accurate. ZOS designed the Challenge Difficulty to keep players in shared instances for social MMO play, but there's no technical "requirement" prohibiting private delves—rewards like XP/gold boosts are personal, with no leaderboards or competitive leaderboards to undermine.

Private options would just fix overcrowding without breaking anything

SilverBride · February 8

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Not wanting players separated isn't just my preference. It is a requirement that ZOS put in place for the challenge system. Creating private instances for delves goes completely against that.

No, that's not accurate. ZOS designed the Challenge Difficulty to keep players in shared instances for social MMO play, but there's no technical "requirement" prohibiting private delves—rewards like XP/gold boosts are personal, with no leaderboards or competitive leaderboards to undermine.

Private options would just fix overcrowding without breaking anything

They didn't say no to private delves specifically because I don't know if that was even brought up in their discussions concerning overland challenge. But they did decide against separating players and having private delves would go against that.

I usually only see a few other players when in a delve. Maybe it's server specific? What server is the crowding being noticed?

Warhawke_80 · February 8

SilverBride wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Not wanting players separated isn't just my preference. It is a requirement that ZOS put in place for the challenge system. Creating private instances for delves goes completely against that.

No, that's not accurate. ZOS designed the Challenge Difficulty to keep players in shared instances for social MMO play, but there's no technical "requirement" prohibiting private delves—rewards like XP/gold boosts are personal, with no leaderboards or competitive leaderboards to undermine.

Private options would just fix overcrowding without breaking anything

They didn't say no to private delves specifically because I don't know if that was even brought up in their discussions concerning overland challenge. But they did decide against separating players and having private delves would go against that.

Right that was that whole "We want you to meet Lifelong Friends" nonsense....that isn't a realistic expectation especially nowadays when the vast majority of people are Toxic....I mean I got death threats in Delves just for being there

SilverBride wrote: »

I usually only see a few other players when in a delve. Maybe it's server specific? What server is the crowding being noticed?

Not going to announce what server I'm on...too many people want to confront you these days and make threats....and nothing happens if you report it....though some on the forums have already figured it out

SilverBride · February 8

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

They didn't say no to private delves specifically because I don't know if that was even brought up in their discussions concerning overland challenge. But they did decide against separating players and having private delves would go against that.

Right that was that whole "We want you to meet Lifelong Friends" nonsense....that isn't a realistic expectation especially nowadays when the vast majority of people are Toxic....I mean I got death threats in Delves just for being there

SilverBride wrote: »

I usually only see a few other players when in a delve. Maybe it's server specific? What server is the crowding being noticed?

Not going to announce what server I'm on...too many people want to confront you these days and make threats....and nothing happens if you report it....though some on the forums have already figured it out

I'm sorry things have been so toxic and hope ZOS does something about it. But I don't think that is everyone's experience and still think delves should remain public.

tomofhyrule · February 8

I definitely think that delves should have very small instances, considering how small they are. I'd even cap them at 4 players max. There have been plenty of times I'd have liked to be in a delve alone because of the beamers running around ahead of me.

That said, I do still think that the argument about WBs and PubDuns needing to be instanced to each difficulty is not as solid. Those are specifically designed to players can jump in if they are in the area, not so that each of us is expected to wait while someone demands to be able to solo it. That's like going to the DMV and getting annoyed that you're expected to wait in line because other people also decided to go to the DMV that day, but suggesting that your thing is much more important than theirs so they should go home until you finish. That's... not how it works.
If you absolutely have to solo a WB or PubDun, then do it on PTS in the off-cycle. Otherwise, other people have the same right to be there as you do.

But yeah, Delves, being a lot smaller and the bosses having a lot less health, should have very small instances so all players can get the chance to see them.

Orbital78 · February 8

Renato90085 wrote: »

pass last 3 year server very lag,I don't think ESO's server can do instanced delves very well...

They already do, to a point. They just don't detect issues that well as to when a new instance is needed. Until they do, I guess new players get to suffer the experience.

Vogtard · February 9

Normal/veteran split

or open-world pvp