A Dynamic Encounter Tracker

Castian · July 22

As farming for an agility gem seems like a very long haul and the ease with which an encounter can be missed with the overwhelming number of participants, it could be very useful to many for there to be a screen to pull up as there was for Night Market skirmishes to know when one is coming up. Thoughts?

Gabriel_H · July 22

Nope. If they are going to have a 30m spawn time, they need to be at set times.

tomofhyrule · July 22

The problem is it varies by instance.

We have no clue how many instances are up, and each of them will be at different times. That also means we can’t just pop over to Glenumbra and expect it to be coming up when Stonefalls went down.

If you went into the Night Market and ported around to others, you may have noticed that the Skirmish timer would change, because that was based on the instance. Each district of the Night Market was the same instance though, so you could see it from any of them.

The only way that this could even work is that you would have to first go to the zone (and be assigned an instance, and then you could see a timer for that instance specifically. It is physically impossible to get anything more than that since it would require everything to be the same instance.

Ryori729 · July 22

Almost anything would be better. Standing around waiting or hoping you catch one, is not what I consider a great system. Yesterday I was waiting for 1.5 hours to catch two of them. Not sure how that worked out if they are really on 30 minute timers.

SaffronCitrusflower · July 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Nope. If they are going to have a 30m spawn time, they need to be at set times.

[snip]
ZOS absolutely should have implemented some kind of timer for tracking these "events". Standing around and waiting for 30 minutes or even 5 is not a substitute for content. It's just mind numbing encouragement to play a different game.

[edited for baiting]

AdonisJorge · July 22

Yes, a timer would be great, better than have to ask how much time left for the people already in the area

Gabriel_H · July 22

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Nope. If they are going to have a 30m spawn time, they need to be at set times.

ZOS absolutely should have implemented some kind of timer for tracking these "events". Standing around and waiting for 30 minutes or even 5 is not a substitute for content. It's just mind numbing encouragement to play a different game.

Nope. I'm being sensible. As usual you fail to understand the wider context. The DEs have varying start times between instances. It can be at xx:55 in one Stonefalls, or xx:50, xx:47, xx:45 in other instances of Stonefalls.

30m is a long cooldown. Even if you have a timer showing you there is 10 minutes to go, you cannot leave that zone - because when you come back in 9 minutes you may get a different instance and have missed the DE.

Having a set time for when they start removes the possibility of missing one because you ported into a different instance.

Taucheranzug · July 22

That is true. Just today while jumping between Auridon, Glenumbra and Stonefalls, I noticed that sometimes, the new DE came up right after my recent one, so at one point, I had 3 DEs in 10-12 minutes. At other times, I had to wait 20 minutes or so....

Not cool. But then, DEs aren't exactly a fantastic new thing anyway. Just another kind of World Encounter, with the one difference that you have to move a couple yards while playing it or that you have to change from putting out fires to killing enemies. Just like with the new favors system that is basically nothing else than your usual kind of dailies with the exception that you get an ingame mail after doing it. Hmmmmm.

Best

baratron · July 22

There were plans to do a lot more with Dynamic Encounters. These were supposed to be the first three with more to come (source: Mike Finnigan on an ESO Dev stream). I don't expect that more will come now.

I have so much sympathy with everyone asking for a timer, but a whole chunk of the Dungeons and Encounters team just got laid off. It's hard for developers to come up with technical solutions to code they no longer have access to.

dubq77 · July 22

So many games do this. Dynamic event timers are MMO 101 level stuff..not sure how this was missed.

Finedaible · July 23

If the map pin could show up like 5min before the start of the dynamic encounter that would already help.

The_Drop_Bear · July 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The problem is it varies by instance.

We have no clue how many instances are up, and each of them will be at different times. That also means we can’t just pop over to Glenumbra and expect it to be coming up when Stonefalls went down.

If you went into the Night Market and ported around to others, you may have noticed that the Skirmish timer would change, because that was based on the instance. Each district of the Night Market was the same instance though, so you could see it from any of them.

The only way that this could even work is that you would have to first go to the zone (and be assigned an instance, and then you could see a timer for that instance specifically. It is physically impossible to get anything more than that since it would require everything to be the same instance.

Than ZOS should make them happen equally across tbe instances, or make them happen at an exact time (i.e. on the hour, 20 past and 20 too)

The_Drop_Bear · July 23

baratron wrote: »

There were plans to do a lot more with Dynamic Encounters. These were supposed to be the first three with more to come (source: Mike Finnigan on an ESO Dev stream). I don't expect that more will come now.

I have so much sympathy with everyone asking for a timer, but a whole chunk of the Dungeons and Encounters team just got laid off. It's hard for developers to come up with technical solutions to code they no longer have access to.

At the same time they should have done this before it came out, releasing it on a botched state is no excuse

Dalsinthus · July 23

baratron wrote: »

There were plans to do a lot more with Dynamic Encounters. These were supposed to be the first three with more to come (source: Mike Finnigan on an ESO Dev stream). I don't expect that more will come now.

I have so much sympathy with everyone asking for a timer, but a whole chunk of the Dungeons and Encounters team just got laid off. It's hard for developers to come up with technical solutions to code they no longer have access to.

I honestly hope we never see more of these. They are poorly designed and unengaging content where the primary activity is waiting. Yet they somehow have a unusually large number of rewards attached to them. These include achievements, item sets from older content, 2 antiquity leads for new housing items, 4 new skill styles, 7 new outfit style pages, a new food ingredient, a new food recipe that benefits a popular pve and pvp setup, and the highly elusive agility gem enhancement for a mythic item (with an associated achievement).

Clearly they wanted to drive people to engage with this content, but the content is boring and frustrating. The drop rates for many of the items are low, the recipe drop was bugged at launch, and the agility gem is basically unobtainable for many players.

Cumulatively, this is a bad experience for me and I have to assume many other players. I went from loving the content we got with U50 (class masteries, veterancy, overland difficulty) to feeling resentful and disrespected trying to do these dynamic encounters.

I have no idea why the devs thought these were a good idea, but please, no more. In the meantime, please add an instance timer so we know when to expect the event to spawn, consider whether the spawn time can be reduced from 30 minutes down to 5 or 10, and reevaluate the drop rate on the agility gem.

Haenk · July 23

Just use the guild channel for an announcement - other guild members can fasttravel, being in the correct instance with the DE. You'd have to be fast though...

msetten · July 23

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The problem is it varies by instance.

The only way that this could even work is that you would have to first go to the zone (and be assigned an instance, and then you could see a timer for that instance specifically. It is physically impossible to get anything more than that since it would require everything to be the same instance.

That would at least be something. If I knew it was 25 minutes waiting, I could go and run around the zone picking up materials, chests, thief trove etc and come back just before the dynamic event starts.

jle30303 · July 23

To be honest: Whoever designed the way these Dynamic Encounters have been implemented... is someone whose design skills are clearly inferior.

If you lock important character upgrades behind it, then YOU WANT PEOPLE TO FARM IT.

If you then go and say "this isn't content we want people to farm, it's content we want people to stumble across randomly"... That's not how it works, it's not how people think, it's not how players play.

If something isn't available all the time, players need to know when it IS available.

And if there are important rare upgrade drops gated behind it, this makes it all the more imperative to make it predictable in some way.

Frankly I'd settle for something simple, like:

Glenumbra (and potentially other Covenant dynamic encounters, if they ever get implemented): At 00 and 30 minutes past the hour.
Auridon (and potentially other Dominion dynamic encounters, if they ever get implemented): At 10 and 40 minutes past the hour.
Stonefalls (and potentially other Pact dynamic encounters, if they ever get implemented): At 20 and 50 minutes past the hour.

Right now I'm wondering just HOW many of these encounters I'm going to have to do before I get the Prowler Gem upgrade. 39 so far (13 of each) and not a dickybird. I also need the Eel Pie recipe, but frankly, if all else fails, there's the mall for that - and I bought three of the Alessian Rebel style pages from other players, after getting the first four and one duplicate.

(Meanwhile, on NA, I got the prowler gem upgrade on just my 3rd Auridon dynamic encounter.)

ZOS_CouchTato · July 23

Upon review, we have gone ahead and removed some unnecessary back and forth. As per our Community Rules, please keep conversations constructive, and refrain from personal jabs or insults.

Ingenon · July 23

Recently I have been trying a different approach to Dynamic Encounters. One and done for Glenumbra and Stonefalls for the day. And once I finish the Blood Scion from Glenumbra in a day or so, then no more Glenumbra DE.

I am not finding it fun to farm these DE over and over on the same day. So, I'm not going to.

SaffronCitrusflower · July 23

ZOS_CouchTato wrote: »

Upon review, we have gone ahead and removed some unnecessary back and forth. As per our Community Rules, please keep conversations constructive, and refrain from personal jabs or insults.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Nope. If they are going to have a 30m spawn time, they need to be at set times.

ZOS absolutely should have implemented some kind of timer for tracking these "events". Standing around and waiting for 30 minutes or even 5 is not a substitute for content. It's just mind numbing encouragement to play a different game.

Nope. I'm being sensible. As usual you fail to understand the wider context. The DEs have varying start times between instances. It can be at xx:55 in one Stonefalls, or xx:50, xx:47, xx:45 in other instances of Stonefalls.

30m is a long cooldown. Even if you have a timer showing you there is 10 minutes to go, you cannot leave that zone - because when you come back in 9 minutes you may get a different instance and have missed the DE.

Having a set time for when they start removes the possibility of missing one because you ported into a different instance.

LatentBuzzard · July 24

baratron wrote: »

It's hard for developers to come up with technical solutions to code they no longer have access to.

What are you talking about ? The code didn't get up and leave with the people that were made redundant. The code is still there, it's still accessible and ZOS still has developers. There's a chance that the person that originally wrote the code is no longer there but that hardly means that other developers can't work on it.

katanagirl1 · July 24

LatentBuzzard wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

It's hard for developers to come up with technical solutions to code they no longer have access to.

What are you talking about ? The code didn't get up and leave with the people that were made redundant. The code is still there, it's still accessible and ZOS still has developers. There's a chance that the person that originally wrote the code is no longer there but that hardly means that other developers can't work on it.

Speaking from experience, it can very hard to understand someone else’s code, especially if they did not leave comments about that they were doing. I’ve even looked at some of my old code years later and it didn’t even look vaguely familiar. I was surprised to look up at the header and see that I had wrote it.

MasterSpatula · July 25

I am legitimately appalled by the sheer disregard for the value of our time baked into the DEs. On screen timers is bare-minimum level stuff for content like this.

allochthons · July 25

There is an add-on on PS that claims to be a dynamic encounter timer. It does put up a timer since the last one it saw, but I don't think it can tell anything if you just enter the zone. But I didn't run it for longer than 45 min because it really screwed up my UI. I couldn't use the map, I couldn't move up or down in my menus, and it was hard to uninstall. I had to restart the game twice, disable it from the character screen and only then could I get it uninstalled.

So avoid it.