I agree. Once through and that's it. An unfortunate and misguided decision was made by someone only interested in forcing players through 300 hours of quests and not letting them play the way they want to. It's really a shame.

Agree with the OP but this has been brought up since week 1 of release (maybe earlier - didn't follow beta forums) and to quote a phrase, you're p*ssing into the wind - multiple patches and only lip service to this glaring issue.
For an MMO this game is extremely anti-grouping and it'll take a ton of bled subs before they get this. People will not pay X per month to spend most of their time questing.

You have identified a very serious problem with the game, and it extends far beyond just dungeons.

The insane amount of phasing, and the inability to join anyone else's phase is also a symptom of trying to make an MMO feel like a single player game.

Basically, fort the game to work as intended, you should only do content once, with other people who are doing it for the first time. You should not attempt to party or help anyone who is not on the exact same step of every quest in every zone that you are.

Why would you push people away from one of the most enjoyable PVE mechanics ESO has to offfer - namely, its dungeons? /boggle

Not everyone thinks of MMO´s as you do. Playing a dungeon crawler is fun for you, but that doesn't mean MMO´s must be like that.

We have a popular dungeon only game created at Irvine, I would advice that you play this one. There you can do dungeons all day and get tons of xp, loot drops and achievements

I enjoy it a lot that ESO isn't all about dungeons, people that do them do them for the fun and the company and not for xp or epics. Working as intended.

Just like to put this out there. Some of your criticisms are not present in veteran tier dungeons. You always get XP and decent drops are available from completing them over and over. Its only in the pre veteran levels that you get little benefit from repeating dungeons. So you should probably spend more time playing the entire game before making sweeping statements. Yes they should probably give more XP for pre-vet dungeon repeats but they certainly give good amounts in veteran dungeons. (the ones you need to grind for good late game gear). Another point is that while levelling to veteran, you can very easily replace gear with better things outside of a dungeon. Its only in veteran dungeons where you are looking for end game sets that you would want to grind these dungeons (in my opinion). No hate, just saying.

Senatour wrote: »

Just like to put this out there. Some of your criticisms are not present in veteran tier dungeons. You always get XP and decent drops are available from completing them over and over. Its only in the pre veteran levels that you get little benefit from repeating dungeons. So you should probably spend more time playing the entire game before making sweeping statements. Yes they should probably give more XP for pre-vet dungeon repeats but they certainly give good amounts in veteran dungeons. (the ones you need to grind for good late game gear). Another point is that while levelling to veteran, you can very easily replace gear with better things outside of a dungeon. Its only in veteran dungeons where you are looking for end game sets that you would want to grind these dungeons (in my opinion). No hate, just saying.

yodased wrote: »

@Senatour couldn't have said this better. Why the hell are you running lvl 35 dungeons over and over? Run them once and move on to the next one, you will outlevel and outperform any gear gotten in those dungeons within a couple of hours of playing, so why farm it?

To the point of "helping" other people. You are not helping them in this situation, they are helping you. If you are farming dungeons for gear and grinding through them to level up that isn't helping someone. I help people through lower dungeons and same level on a regular basis. I just understand that I am going there to HELP the people that need to complete it, not go under false pretense of help in order to get mediocre gear that nooone wants anyway.

Endgame dungeons give you the fix you are looking for.

Beyond that you have to remember that this game is set up as a hybrid really. 1-50 is PvE centric story quest mode. VR1-10 is PvP and hardcore 4 man Pve VR11+ is PvP and super hardcore 4/8/12 PvE and full 40 man raids.

Although you may want them to shift around the priorities, its working as they intended.

TL:DR There are no twinks, keeping yourself at a set level makes no sense and gear from dungeons is mediocre at best. Endgame dungeon is the prize you are seeking.

Yes, yes... I get all of that. But no one is really talking about farming dungeons either...

As a tank or healer in every MMO I've ever played... there is no incentive for me to whisper someone spamming zone chat... at all. So yes, if I'm questing in a zone and a group is looking for someone to tank and I've already done the run... why isn't it helping out another player?

Why do people always feel the need to frame their arguments with polarizing extremes? You're either farming or your running once... no 2-3 runs for fun or to help out another group. Give me a break...

Alpha_Protocol wrote: »

Yes, yes... I get all of that. But no one is really talking about farming dungeons either...

As a tank or healer in every MMO I've ever played... there is no incentive for me to whisper someone spamming zone chat... at all. So yes, if I'm questing in a zone and a group is looking for someone to tank and I've already done the run... why isn't it helping out another player?

Why do people always feel the need to frame their arguments with polarizing extremes? You're either farming or your running once... no 2-3 runs for fun or to help out another group. Give me a break...

Nice to see someone articulate and reasonable on these forums. Paper tigers. Taking a differing viewpoint to the extreme and knocking it down is easy and may make you feel better, but it's useless as a matter of substance. And we do care about substance, don't we?

Most vet MMO players run dungeons for the sheer fun of it. Not to farm lol.

This MMO does not allow you to advance your characters through the traditional group content of dungeons. Thus, there is little reason to level a dedicated healer or tank, and every reason not to. So much for freedom of choosing roles.

This MMO essentially forces you to complete quests (typically solo) to advance your character. So much for freedom to choose manner of advancement.

As the above poster said, it's essentially a single player game with a lot of people running around in the background.

I've been playing MMOs for the last 15 years, and yesterday was the first time I refused a call for a tank or healer to assist a group to complete a dungeon. It's actually kinda comical if it wasn't so utterly shocking that a game company could endorse such a design.

bean19 wrote: »

*A tank isn't really needed in most dungeons as the bosses are not tank and spank and often don't seem to use an aggro table. Also armor stat soft-caps at 30% damage reduction so even "tanks" aren't that tanky.

In my experience in the beginning dungeons, a good tank makes a huge diff, as does a good healer. Without a tank, if you're dps is at level for the dungeon, your healer will become inevitably the tank, and most likely the group will wipe. Ditto without decent heals.

All of the dungeons from the first two zones have trinity mechanics for many of the bosses (tank-heal-dps). If you have overleveled dps, then you may succeed without the trinity, but otherwise it is unlikely. So I'm not sure we're talking about the same game (at least in the first 2 zones).

drogon1 wrote: »

bean19 wrote: »

*A tank isn't really needed in most dungeons as the bosses are not tank and spank and often don't seem to use an aggro table. Also armor stat soft-caps at 30% damage reduction so even "tanks" aren't that tanky.

In my experience in the beginning dungeons, a good tank makes a huge diff, as does a good healer. Without a tank, if you're dps is at level for the dungeon, your healer will become inevitably the tank, and most likely the group will wipe. Ditto without decent heals.

Actually, this isn't correct but that's okay because most people can't get groups in dungeons because the rewards are so "meh" and thus people haven't learned how to play ESO dungeons that well. . . but I didn't explain this well, so you are right to call me on it. I'm copy/pasting this bit from another post I made as it is the same information. Hopefully, you'll find it helpful.

Just by wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor and a shield, you will likely hit the soft-cap on armor which is about 30% damage reduction (which of course is "meh" in the world of MMO-tanking). This is why the job of a "tank" in ESO is so different from other games. Basically, you are a dps whose job it is to take boss hits when they can't otherwise be avoided, and they OFTEN can by: interrupting (your job as your 5th ability in sword-and-board is the best interrupt in the game), kiting and range attacking (dps needs to snare if the boss can be snared and you should run from it), staying out of "fire" (ground AoE), and killing adds. These are all your job as much as the other DPS with the one caveat that you MAY need to eat the occasional big hit from the boss.

Too often, I see tanks in ESO frantically using their taunt on the boss and all the adds to get all the hate at once and then see them just stand still and cower under their shield (or worse, they deal white damage to the boss instead of blocking). This is so wrong! You are going to be a DPS that is all about crowd control and putting the hurt on mobs 85% of the time. You can't and shouldn't hold all the hate. You also shouldn't try to stack your tank stats to be able to do this as it will just make you weak at your actual intended role as an add-killing, trash-stomping, crowd-controlling mofo who happens to taunt and block every now and again in boss fights to better eat a heaping helping of mega-hit.

If you're truly awesome, then you'll learn the boss fights well enough to expect the big hit and use your DK tank ultimate (or at least your class armor-boosting ability if your ultimate isn't up or you aren't a DK) before taking the big hit and/or you'll anticipate it and buff against it with your resto-staff alternate weapon and buff for it before switching back to sword and board to block it. As a guy who heals a lot of dungeons, a truly good tank in ESO who has already adapted to this new style of tank gameplay is a godsend. You guys who think you need to chase around the group of mobs I'm kiting after having snared them and then peal them off to then have them chase you while you aren't blocking necessitating me casting more and more heals instead of just killing the mobs. . . well, you know, there is a learning curve and I certainly can't type all this in-game, and many of you might be offended by it.

Of course, the other problem is that 85% of this job is also the job of those playing DPS 100% of the time, and they get even fewer group dungeons because the rewards are so terrible. That means that they are even less likely to know the boss fights or which skills to use to mitigate damage with crowd control and/or kiting or deal the best dps with synergies and skill usage. I've had to actually remind DPS that they should be ending each fight with empty magicka and stamina bars. . . the goal being to deal as much dps as quickly as possible as some of them will actually sit about dealing white damage and occasionally throwing a skill like it is solo PvE.

Finally, you're right that a good healer is very important. The only effective ones I've seen so far are Templars and higher level sorcs who use the Storm-Calling ultimate and/or Dark Conversion to be able to spam Resto-staff heals/buffs due to their ability to churn out the mana. Templar meanwhile can use Breath of Life for emergency heals and Rites of Passage for a group "I win" for six seconds button (which also helps when low on mana). . . and yet I've still seen PUG Templar healers fail miserably despite only really needing to use these two buttons. . . . well and their instant ranged snare if they get aggro. For some reason a lot of healers can't seem to heal AND kite. . . which is bad because that's your job as a healer in ESO.

TL;DR - Tanking in ESO is more about using the right skills for crowd control and dealing damage than it is about holding aggro and mitigating damage via gear stats. If you're tanking as you do in other MMOs, then min/max of your gear is going to disappoint you.

Go play WoW if you want to do dungeons! ..... Oh wait ... I thought I was one of these idiotic fanboys for a second.
Seriously though ..... if they come out and say that "dungeons are as intended" it will go down in history as one of the DUMBEST decisions in mmo history. I honestly can't imagine that is what they will say though .... especially if they care at all about making money.