AScarlato wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

We can agree to disagree. If you can't spare ONE MINUTE don't queue.

Also regardless of semantics the end result is the same - a negative experience for a member of your group because and this is not behavior we should be defending.

I never have a problem waiting for someone doing a quest. And by my experience players are normally very accommodating. I am just saying that one person trying to meet their own personal goal isn't any more selfish than another doing the same.

So I will agree to disagree on this point.

Well you have said this never once happened to you. If you are on the receiving end of making a request that would take a minute or two so you can finish a quest or pledge and you are ignored, you may feel differently about how this makes a party member feel.

Moreso if you are a dps and waited a half hour to queue into the dungeon to do it.

I only play DPS. And I know this would be frustrating for the person needing the quest. We all know that which is probably why players are normally very accommodating. I just don't like calling them selfish if they have different goals that day and can't.

AScarlato wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

We can agree to disagree. If you can't spare ONE MINUTE don't queue.

Also regardless of semantics the end result is the same - a negative experience for a member of your group because and this is not behavior we should be defending.

I never have a problem waiting for someone doing a quest. And by my experience players are normally very accommodating. I am just saying that one person trying to meet their own personal goal isn't any more selfish than another doing the same.

So I will agree to disagree on this point.

Well you have said this never once happened to you. If you are on the receiving end of making a request that would take a minute or two so you can finish a quest or pledge and you are ignored, you may feel differently about how this makes a party member feel.

Moreso if you are a dps and waited a half hour to queue into the dungeon to do it.

I only play DPS. And I know this would be frustrating for the person needing the quest. We all know that which is probably why players are normally very accommodating. I just don't like calling them selfish if they have different goals that day and can't.

I suppose I can call them an "unaccommodating person" but that doesn't change the negative experience they create for others or change my opinion of such behavior.

I think bare minimum consideration for your party members when using the dungeon matcher is:

1. Someone may be new and need the quest, so you may need to let them grab it. (Again, this isn't the same as them slowly listening ot everything).
2. Someone may have the pledge, so we may need to not skip some bosses. The devs should do what FFXIV does and make any pledge bosses the ones you NEED to clear to finish the dungeon, which would eliminate this problem of some pledge bosses being optional.

I'm sure if the shoe was on the other foot, the same speed runner ignoring these basic needs of others would be upset if they couldn't finish their pledges/skill point.

Yeah. I understand mistakes happen and it can be easy to accidentally cause someone to miss their quest by just clearing ahead of a boss.

But, if you go into a team activity with no regard for your team and only your own goals, then that's selfish.

There is no "I" in team.

I don't queue into dungeons if needing a minute or two extra for a teammate to accomplish their goals would break my ability to complete it. My time management should only be my problem.

SilverBride wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

I suppose I can call them an "unaccommodating person" but that doesn't change the negative experience they create for others or change my opinion of such behavior.

I think bare minimum consideration for your party members when using the dungeon matcher is:

1. Someone may be new and need the quest, so you may need to let them grab it. (Again, this isn't the same as them slowly listening ot everything).
2. Someone may have the pledge, so we may need to not skip some bosses. The devs should do what FFXIV does and make any pledge bosses the ones you NEED to clear to finish the dungeon, which would eliminate this problem of some pledge bosses being optional.

I'm sure if the shoe was on the other foot, the same speed runner ignoring these basic needs of others would be upset if they couldn't finish their pledges/skill point.

I just feel automatically calling them selfish, or unaccommodating or anything without knowing if there is a good reason is too judgemental, when for all we know this same player may accommodate 95% of the time, but just can't this one time.

I'm fine being viewed as judgmental. In this case I absolutely am, and prefer a more positive experience for all. Especially new players and players that can't solo every goal for themselves.

I also think it's very nice of you to assume all the speedrunners who refuse to help their groups are people who just can't be helpful due to special circumstances outside their control. I don't think that is what is happening at all, but that's for me to "judge."

Several good comments in this thread. I agree it is largely a design problem and one that has been made worse by the "joining encounter" updates. That's great if a person joined late or got stuck in the wall or such. But now one person gets to decide the pace of the run. You don't even need communication in most of these because you see the NPCs and can tell someone is on the quest. I was teleported one time while attacking the boss. To me this is typical of the game now - intent and what actually happened don't match.

Personally I would prefer to see all agro go to the sprinter. As many tanks I know say, you pull it, you tank it. If the person can clear the place solo, I'm ok with that. What annoys me is when they do nearly nothing but force you to go fast. Many places have doors - they sprint ahead and let the people behind kill everything. That doesn't speed anything up.

The other design flaw is what is the point of the RND anymore? As noted we get XP and transmutes. Isn't the intent that people who need a group but may not have guiildies handy can get a PUG? Instead it is just a grinding tool. For that, yeah, get through as fast as possible.

redacted

It hasn't been quite seven days since the last addition to this thread, so I don't feel like I'm actually dabbling in Necromancy with it, but I had a some Dungeon Finder experiences recently which are definite pain/friction points which bear raising, including some which have been raised by previous commenters.

First, queue times are what they are, but often aren't pleasant. I consistently queue as a DD and I've had the queue pop in seconds a few times and a few minutes is more common, but making any sitting in a queue for a random dungeon for longer than about 10 minutes is just wrong (I'll even go 15 if it's during "dead time" on the server - that hour or so between regions quitting and another entering). You can't really get involved in anything else while you're queued, so you end up in some sort of time-waster while waiting on the queue to pop. Meanwhile, your buffs are ticking away to no good purpose while you wait.

Second, the "ready check" is downright annoying. It's on top of everything else and you must immediately say "ready" or lose your queue position. Picking a Master difficulty lock when it pops up and your pick breaks? Tough cookies. Just found that luscious piece of loot? You might not be able to grab it before getting dragged into the dungeon. I know it says you have about 45 second to respond, but you can't do anything else while that timer is counting down in front of you, so you're either ready to lose whatever you were doing or you're not ready and lose your queue position. There is no winning position here unless you're thumb-twiddling (which is a nice way of saying "wasting player time").

Third are speedrunners. They've been done to death in here, so mention and move on, but I think this is something where ZOS really needs to take a closer look at incentives and adjust those accordingly. BTW, I had a group vote pop up a day or two ago to kick a speedrunner. I voted "no" because you ask for a random and you live with what random serves up, so my position is not "hate speedrunners" as much as speedrunning is incentivized while lore-running is not.

Fourth is kind of quest progression. Earlier adjustments to the design of the dungeon story mission seem to bear out the idea that developers got the message that having to interact with multiple bits as you progress through the mission was maybe good for story-telling, but bad group dungeon design. Now it's mostly grab the quest the start and then (maybe) listen to NPC commentary as you progress through before being able to turn in the quest after the final boss and get your skill point.

This assumes that #3 will allow you the time to listen (most don't), but there is an ancillary group of players to the speedrunners. These are the players who drop from the group as soon as they loot the final boss and you're left standing there with the big X for leaving the instance ticking down in front of you. While it's ticking down, the NPCs are dialoguing until someone finally gets an arrow over their head so you can turn in the quest, get your skill point and reward, and leave. The more immediate signal to the player, however, is the big X telling you to get the heck out of the dungeon. I've lost two or three skill points over the past week because of that X. I'll get them eventually and I'm not majorly complaining over the loss (it's not like skill points are an exceptionally scarce resource), but it's a design feature that needs a close look along with the ready check.

Fifth is kind of specific to some dungeons. Unhallowed Grave was the random I got this morning (and did a small bit of headsmacking because I didn't grab Urgarlag's pledge beforehand, which is a different friction point). There were at least four places in that dungeon where a door shut in my face and I had to wait on the "joining encounter in progress" to get caught up with the rest of the group. I'm honestly not sure what purpose time-limited doors actually serve. There are a few where a door won't open until some NPC gets done expositing, but that's a story-telling device. Once a door opens, just leave it open. Keep in mind that thanks to #3, there may be books, chests, Heavy Sacks, or even mini bosses that players may need to backtrack to reach, which also exacerbates the #4 issue.

The short version here is that there are a lot of pain/friction points in the group dungeon gameplay loop. Speedrunners are one and seem to catch the majority of the player ire, but there are others which could be adjusted to smooth out the experience. For my morning headsmack, how about if you're Level 45 or higher and the dungeon is one of the day's pledges, you just automatically get your key(s) along with the automailed reward and that pledge giver doesn't have a daily arrow until tomorrow?

I think part of the problem is all the Veteran Dungeons are lopped into one random pile, regardless of their difficulty, which is frankly all over the place. Some are pretty easy, where as others have a steep learning curve with unintuitive one-one shot mechanics that can take a group hours to learn and master. So many Veteran Players who are just wanting to get their daily done join random Normal rather than risk wasting their time in a random Veteran DLC dungeon.

I use dungeons quest to gather skill points for additional characters. Some players are extra nice, some can't be bothered. Sometimes i just get kicked from group after typing in chat, that I'm doing quest here. Random 😅

DoofusMax wrote: »

It hasn't been quite seven days since the last addition to this thread, so I don't feel like I'm actually dabbling in Necromancy with it, but I had a some Dungeon Finder experiences recently which are definite pain/friction points which bear raising, including some which have been raised by previous commenters.

Good points. While I have nothing against any of the points you raise, I do have some thoughts.

DoofusMax wrote: »

First, queue times are what they are, but often aren't pleasant. I consistently queue as a DD and I've had the queue pop in seconds a few times and a few minutes is more common, but making any sitting in a queue for a random dungeon for longer than about 10 minutes is just wrong (I'll even go 15 if it's during "dead time" on the server - that hour or so between regions quitting and another entering). You can't really get involved in anything else while you're queued, so you end up in some sort of time-waster while waiting on the queue to pop. Meanwhile, your buffs are ticking away to no good purpose while you wait.

Yes. This is a big issue. But I have an idea how to make it better.

DoofusMax wrote: »

Second, the "ready check" is downright annoying. It's on top of everything else and you must immediately say "ready" or lose your queue position.

If the queue times would be reasonable, this wouldn't be an issue. But they aren't so this is an issue. If you lose the prompt by doing something else, isn't the check still in the Notifications? If I queue to RND, it's usually a tank or a healer exactly because of the queue times, so I don't typically have the waiting issue so I don't know what happens if you do something else when the prompt pops up.

DoofusMax wrote: »

Third are speedrunners. They've been done to death in here, so mention and move on, but I think this is something where ZOS really needs to take a closer look at incentives and adjust those accordingly.

This cannot be changed unless ZOS deviates from the "play as you want" mantra. That would mean we place a different value to speedrunning playstyle than to questing playstyle. One would become more valid playstyle than the other and it would no longer be "play as you want".

DoofusMax wrote: »

Fourth is kind of quest progression. Earlier adjustments to the design of the dungeon story mission seem to bear out the idea that developers got the message that having to interact with multiple bits as you progress through the mission was maybe good for story-telling, but bad group dungeon design. Now it's mostly grab the quest the start and then (maybe) listen to NPC commentary as you progress through before being able to turn in the quest after the final boss and get your skill point.

Yes, that change in base game dungeons was to help players complete the quest even when there are speedrunners in the group.

DoofusMax wrote: »

Fifth is kind of specific to some dungeons. Unhallowed Grave was the random I got this morning (and did a small bit of headsmacking because I didn't grab Urgarlag's pledge beforehand, which is a different friction point). There were at least four places in that dungeon where a door shut in my face and I had to wait on the "joining encounter in progress" to get caught up with the rest of the group. I'm honestly not sure what purpose time-limited doors actually serve.

The doors close when you engage with a boss to prevent you from leaving the boss arena. Incidentally, it also locks you out waiting for the "joining encounter" message if you are not in the boss arena when the fight begins. Good thing there is the "joining encounter" mech so you at least get in.

AScarlato wrote: »

As many tanks I know say, you pull it, you tank it.

Been saying it for nigh on 4 decades. Said it not that long ago, outside of me joking with friends, to a speed-runner who decided they were more important than the guy on the quest. After watching him flail for 5 minutes and after some expletives directed my way, he got the point.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Been saying it for nigh on 4 decades.

Like... in Kesmai or some other MUD? I think Neverwinter is only 35 years old.

They just need to stop matchmaking under lvl 50 players with high CP ones. They do it so the queue isn't so long but when Crossplay is added it should be changed.

AScarlato wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

They just need to stop matchmaking under lvl 50 players with high CP ones. They do it so the queue isn't so long but when Crossplay is added it should be changed.

I don't like this as a solution. I know we have a stereotypes thread but some high CP players enjoy guiding and helping new players, and also have patience to let them pick up their quests. This can result in positive experiences for newer players - not just negative ones.

The main experience in Dungeons is fighting the mobs and the bosses more than the quest. It's a better experience when it's actually a little challenging the first time which you won't get in normal dungeons with high CP players.

Twohothardware wrote: »

They just need to stop matchmaking under lvl 50 players with high CP ones. They do it so the queue isn't so long but when Crossplay is added it should be changed.

I'm not a fan of this idea. High CP can be as inexperienced as low CP and low CP can be aces at the game as much as high CP can be. You can't try and base a metric on CP when that's only based on how many experience points you've gotten, not how much skill you have.

I've seen plenty of high CP go slow for other people and wait, and I've seen sub50 and low CP blast through Dungeon like Satan himself was on their ass. This isn't a problem you can solve by trying to segregate low-level players from high, because it's something BOTH low and high-level players do.

Also, another reason I don't do Vet Dungeons is because I don't remember/know the mechs, as it's been ages since I last ran one. I used to do them for Pledges but I haven't done those in years now. I also haven't done a lot of the Vet DLC Dungeons on Normal, let alone Vet, to know anything about them. Now sure, I could learn, because no one knows stuff before they learn it. But I also don't want to slow people down. Plus there's no point in doing Vet since I think the quests (aka Skill Points lol) are only associated with the Normal versions? Though if Vet also gives Skill Points I might need to look into that, especially on my alt account >__>.

its by far the worst part of the game. The people.