Why are they nerfing dungeons?

code65536 · March 2019

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

We will continue this process in the hopes of a better experience for all players. We appreciate that some players like the difficulty of encounters and we strive to maintain some of that while alleviating some of the break points. We hope this has cleared some things up for those players questioning the changes.

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

👍

TerraDewBerry · March 2019

I wish the Devs could just make four mode levels for the dungeons. A normal mode (for people like me who want to see the dungeon but that's about all), vet mode, hard mode, and a madness mode so that the players who consistently complain how "easy" the dungeons are could be "challenged" enough so they don't "breeze" through (according to them), all the dungeons.

The item for enabling the madness mode could maybe be a Sheogorath statue that they have to break to indicate "yes, they really.. really mean it". I would also suggest that there be 3 modes available at the dungeon finder: normal, vet, and hard mode. I'm thinking that should cover most of the complaining.. from the it's too hard to the it's too easy camps.

@ZOS_Finn Please, think about the fun you could have tuning the madness level...

KwarcPL · March 2019

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

There is no other reason for these changes other than looking at numbers and making adjustments (...)

Sadly, but by looking at numbers regardless of context, you've deprived several dungeons of their only hard moments. For example White-Gold Tower. Now it will be soloable on normal difficulty.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

We will continue this process in the hopes of a better experience for all players.

But do we really need this? We are on nerf rush since Murkmire. Maybe it's enough?

ZOS_Finn · March 2019

SaltySudd wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

There is no other reason for these changes other than looking at numbers and making adjustments to get more players into and completing these encounters.

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

These encounters were also stopping groups in normal mode, so would it have been possible to just disable those mechanics for normal mode dlc dungeons but keep them in place for the vet versions for the players who wanted to push themselves throughout the entire dungeon? I agree that those mechanics were a bit much for normal modes, but veteran content is supposed to be more difficult.

Some of these changes also affected Normal modes. We continue to evaluate the Normal modes as well.

@Tyrion87 We have no plans to go back and retroactively make older content more difficult.

frozzzen101 wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

Does that mean that HM Velidreth is unaffected with those changes?

Some of the overall ability changes to Veteran would affect Hard Mode but not overly so.

SaintSubwayy · March 2019

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

They have a very specific reason why they did it. I cannot tell you since we are under NDA but they arent doing it to negatively affect healers in any way. ....

well sounds very likely to be the CP nuke we're expecting to hit with elsweyr

@SaintSubwayy do they intend to make known at a later date what this reasoning was, assuming you're allowed to even tell us that?

I honestly dont really know the reason behind those dungeon nerfs, but with the recent announcement of not increasing CP and investigations on how to preogress with the CP system. I personally would not be surprised if those changes are already made now, so that they can nerf CP again, and older content wont become harder than it is now (or was before this patch).

if they will state the reason behind those changes in the future, I duuno...but if they nerf CP and content will be on the same difficultylvl it was before the patch, then you can count 1+1...and know the reason behind those nerfss....even if they dont tell us

Atm its definetly nice to get more ppl into Vet, and more ppl will get the achievements, which may keep those ppl interessted more in PVE than they are now.

Pevey · March 2019

Thank you for communicating with us directly in this thread. I think taking an objective look at the completion numbers and adjusting accordingly is a great move. Looking forward to seeing where the dev team leads us in the post CP era.

Malprave · March 2019

I’m going to preface my next comment by saying I’m a huge, huge fan of this game and have been extremely pleased with all new content for some time now. But this, this is a bonehead move. PVE endgame outside of trials was just eliminated. What? We can still do hard mode on the final boss? So everything to that point is cake and then we read the scroll and flip on insanely hard mode? Come on! You guys are going to have to do more work on this. The great disparity between normal and veteran modes has long been an issue. So you’re introducing another disparity within veteran mode? The game finally gets it right with dungeons that require tanking and healing and now what? It’s just four dps facerolling these things again? Eliminating a difficulty tier was not what was called for. Posts in these forums have asked for more, not less difficulty levels. There have been many, many requests for a difficulty level between normal and veteran, and a story mode. I refuse to believe that is some kind of mission impossible for you guys. You’ll spend who knows how much effort changing things that absolutely nobody asked for, like racial passives, and then when it comes to important endgame content you come up with a quick fix? And it’s another nerf? You’re really giving ammunition to the forums here.

code65536 · March 2019

Malprave wrote: »

I’m going to preface my next comment by saying I’m a huge, huge fan of this game and have been extremely pleased with all new content for some time now. But this, this is a bonehead move. PVE endgame outside of trials was just eliminated. What? We can still do hard mode on the final boss? So everything to that point is cake and then we read the scroll and flip on insanely hard mode? Come on! You guys are going to have to do more work on this. The great disparity between normal and veteran modes has long been an issue. So you’re introducing another disparity within veteran mode? The game finally gets it right with dungeons that require tanking and healing and now what? It’s just four dps facerolling these things again? Eliminating a difficulty tier was not what was called for. Posts in these forums have asked for more, not less difficulty levels. There have been many, many requests for a difficulty level between normal and veteran, and a story mode. I refuse to believe that is some kind of mission impossible for you guys. You’ll spend who knows how much effort changing things that absolutely nobody asked for, like racial passives, and then when it comes to important endgame content you come up with a quick fix? And it’s another nerf? You’re really giving ammunition to the forums here.

That's what newer DLC dungeons are for.

cynaes · March 2019

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey folks, we wanted to touch base to help explain some of the Dungeon difficulty adjustments in today’s patch and our reasoning behind them. [...]

Up to Bloodroot Forge, I've completed all of these dungeons on Vet - and I still very much like the changes (and the reason why they were changed). Keep on nerfing (where it is appropriate)!

luizpaulom17 · March 2019

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey folks, we wanted to touch base to help explain some of the Dungeon difficulty adjustments in today’s patch and our reasoning behind them. The changes were first started during the Wrathstone update but just didn’t quite get finished in time. These changes were done as part of an evaluation of completion rates and drop off. We took a look at all of the Dungeon bosses and how often they were completed in relation to how often they were fought. We narrowed down several that seemed to be stumbling blocks for players and dungeons as a whole. From there we evaluated the bosses individually, auditing all of their abilities to see what was killing players and how each ability or add related to the fight’s overall difficulty.

There is no other reason for these changes other than looking at numbers and making adjustments to get more players into and completing these encounters. We will continue this process in the hopes of a better experience for all players. We appreciate that some players like the difficulty of encounters and we strive to maintain some of that while alleviating some of the break points. We hope this has cleared some things up for those players questioning the changes.

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

Well @ZOS_Finn... Im really sad to hear that... Speceally the part where U said: " We will continue this process in the hopes of a better experience for all players".

These nerfs will kill the Dgs for me and for a lot of players who are looking for challenge, challenge that we cant find on old Vanilla Dgs... All I can say is please, stop the nerf there! A lot of players will stop buying those DLCs and even quit the game for the lack of challenge... I know ESO is no meant to be a Hardcore MMO, but we are already too powerful for most of the content we have. And HM is ony for only ONE boss... Whats will be the meaning for us to keep grinding and improving if there is no CAP increase (thank U for that, cause CP is broken) and no more hardcore content for end game...

I understand that there are very few people completing thoses DGs, but the main reason is not the difficulty involved, but rather things that were addressed here in this thread, such as: The difficulyt gap between Normal and veteran. Normal is too easy... CAP experient player can just burn the boss and ingnore mechanics... U end up not learning anything... Also, to be honest, the number of people who actualy know how to play the game and hit above 25k is really small... Most people just spam skills rather than learn the rotation for dps... There should be better ways to teach people how to play the game as well so more people can do those Dgs.

I guess the only real salvation is to have a third level of difficulty... So we can have a proper end game content with unique mechanics...

Malprave · March 2019

code65536 wrote: »

Malprave wrote: »

I’m going to preface my next comment by saying I’m a huge, huge fan of this game and have been extremely pleased with all new content for some time now. But this, this is a bonehead move. PVE endgame outside of trials was just eliminated. What? We can still do hard mode on the final boss? So everything to that point is cake and then we read the scroll and flip on insanely hard mode? Come on! You guys are going to have to do more work on this. The great disparity between normal and veteran modes has long been an issue. So you’re introducing another disparity within veteran mode? The game finally gets it right with dungeons that require tanking and healing and now what? It’s just four dps facerolling these things again? Eliminating a difficulty tier was not what was called for. Posts in these forums have asked for more, not less difficulty levels. There have been many, many requests for a difficulty level between normal and veteran, and a story mode. I refuse to believe that is some kind of mission impossible for you guys. You’ll spend who knows how much effort changing things that absolutely nobody asked for, like racial passives, and then when it comes to important endgame content you come up with a quick fix? And it’s another nerf? You’re really giving ammunition to the forums here.

That's what newer DLC dungeons are for.

The game just got smaller. Is that desirable? It got bigger for some people. But, smaller for that small percentage of people that have been alluded to as some kind of elitist minority. I’m no elitist. I’m just a guy that’s played and subbed since day one. Why should my game get smaller? The goal should be to make everybody’s game bigger. One of the developers stated above there was no plan to revisit older dungeons. Why on earth not? All the work that went into those? Why would you not want to get more replay value by adding more difficulty levels to them? Possibly even more mechanics that “everybody” hates. Games continually struggle with replay value. Adding replay value to all dungeons no matter what skill or experience level players are concerned seems like a no brainer to me.

Urvoth · March 2019

KhajiitFelix wrote: »

To make them possible for PvPers because they complain that they are too hard.

Almost every PvPer I know considers vet dungeons to be pretty easy or at least quite doable. In fact, I’ve met more PVEers that are worse at PvE than PvPers.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2019

So I get that ZOS has data that we as players can only speculate. I can speculate based on experience in pug groups that fights like the planar inhibitor causes to many pug groups to fail in their eyes, and I see why this is a bad thing.

I also get that since they plan to continue to release new vet DLC, it makes sense to have a progression in mind (i.e. Frostvault should be harder than WGT) and therefore, some tinkering with older dungeons is in order.

These changes make no difference to me. I have not touched the pinion mechanic in WGT in years. We simply nuke the darn thing. That said, I have played and respected those mechanics in the past more times than I could possibly count.

What concerns me is that by rendering mechanics meaningless, they aren’t doing newer players any favors in preparing them for harder stuff.

I am also concerned the trend is bleeding into the newer content. The recent DLCs on vet outside of HM are frankly a joke in terms of difficulty compared to the last few. I run with a decent group most of the time, but there was no progression to speak of. Almost every fight is a glorified stack and burn, and most of the mechanics at best amount to simple kill priorities.

I think there are two things that should be done. First, they need to separate DLCs in the group finder and make some sort of basic requirement to queue for them. Second, perhaps it’s time to introduce a middle tier of difficulty. I think a super easy way to do this retroactively is with sigils like in VMA or VBP. I would much rather they add sigils that good groups can ignore, than remove content that newer groups will never learn from.

Facefister · March 2019

@Oreyn_Bearclaw
Everything sums up. Take the non-DLC vets as an example, the difficulty difference between normal and vet are minimal, and people think; "Ok the difference between normal and vet isn't that bad, let's try Frostvault!". I took Frostvault as an example because the lethal mechanics on vet are cotton throwers on normal. There is no relation. Newer or less-skilled will inevitable hit a wall once they enter those DLC veteran dungeons which results in endless "nerf" threads.

luizpaulom17 · March 2019

Malprave wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Malprave wrote: »

I’m going to preface my next comment by saying I’m a huge, huge fan of this game and have been extremely pleased with all new content for some time now. But this, this is a bonehead move. PVE endgame outside of trials was just eliminated. What? We can still do hard mode on the final boss? So everything to that point is cake and then we read the scroll and flip on insanely hard mode? Come on! You guys are going to have to do more work on this. The great disparity between normal and veteran modes has long been an issue. So you’re introducing another disparity within veteran mode? The game finally gets it right with dungeons that require tanking and healing and now what? It’s just four dps facerolling these things again? Eliminating a difficulty tier was not what was called for. Posts in these forums have asked for more, not less difficulty levels. There have been many, many requests for a difficulty level between normal and veteran, and a story mode. I refuse to believe that is some kind of mission impossible for you guys. You’ll spend who knows how much effort changing things that absolutely nobody asked for, like racial passives, and then when it comes to important endgame content you come up with a quick fix? And it’s another nerf? You’re really giving ammunition to the forums here.

That's what newer DLC dungeons are for.

The game just got smaller. Is that desirable? It got bigger for some people. But, smaller for that small percentage of people that have been alluded to as some kind of elitist minority. I’m no elitist. I’m just a guy that’s played and subbed since day one. Why should my game get smaller? The goal should be to make everybody’s game bigger. One of the developers stated above there was no plan to revisit older dungeons. Why on earth not? All the work that went into those? Why would you not want to get more replay value by adding more difficulty levels to them? Possibly even more mechanics that “everybody” hates. Games continually struggle with replay value. Adding replay value to all dungeons no matter what skill or experience level players are concerned seems like a no brainer to me.

M8, U talk about elitism when there is no eleitism here... U just have to learn how to play the game to do thoses Dgs... I play with 250 ping, like all other brazilians and people here still can beat all content with no big problems... U just salty cause U dont really want to train your rotation, learn mechanics and get good like everyone else... There is almost no elitism in ESO, people will take U to anythin if U can beat more than 30k, different to Wow where there is a Dps Ladder and people will kick U if U are down on the dps race, even when U are just having a bad day or ping issues... That is real elitism!

Your world is only small while U decide to keep yourself in your bubble and pretending that the game should be like U want and not that U need to get better at it!

Starlock · March 2019

Thank you for these changes, @ZOS_Finn.

I'm among the players who tend to complain about the DLC dungeons. They are all amazingly well-designed. Not only are they beautiful to look at, some of the mechanics are fun too! I *want* to do them more because they are so interesting, but I have found it difficult to follow through on that because they are often brutal with random groups (or even non-random ones). Identifying trouble spots to tone down elements that are causing the most frustration is a welcome change.

I'll miss the old planar inhibitor, though. I don't know why, but I just loved that boss and how stupid the burn/slow mechanic was. I tank a lot, so I guess I'm used to being beat up? XD

max_only · March 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

What's the point of DLC dungeons if they don't have mechanics? Why would I buy them now?

I don’t buy dungeon dlc at all. I buy the pet/mount if I like them and the dlc comes with. Judging on how they price it, they know most people feel the same way. (Horse is 3k, pet is 1k, dlc dungeon pack with pet and horse is 4K)

Malprave · March 2019

luizpaulom17 wrote: »

Malprave wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Malprave wrote: »

I’m going to preface my next comment by saying I’m a huge, huge fan of this game and have been extremely pleased with all new content for some time now. But this, this is a bonehead move. PVE endgame outside of trials was just eliminated. What? We can still do hard mode on the final boss? So everything to that point is cake and then we read the scroll and flip on insanely hard mode? Come on! You guys are going to have to do more work on this. The great disparity between normal and veteran modes has long been an issue. So you’re introducing another disparity within veteran mode? The game finally gets it right with dungeons that require tanking and healing and now what? It’s just four dps facerolling these things again? Eliminating a difficulty tier was not what was called for. Posts in these forums have asked for more, not less difficulty levels. There have been many, many requests for a difficulty level between normal and veteran, and a story mode. I refuse to believe that is some kind of mission impossible for you guys. You’ll spend who knows how much effort changing things that absolutely nobody asked for, like racial passives, and then when it comes to important endgame content you come up with a quick fix? And it’s another nerf? You’re really giving ammunition to the forums here.

That's what newer DLC dungeons are for.

The game just got smaller. Is that desirable? It got bigger for some people. But, smaller for that small percentage of people that have been alluded to as some kind of elitist minority. I’m no elitist. I’m just a guy that’s played and subbed since day one. Why should my game get smaller? The goal should be to make everybody’s game bigger. One of the developers stated above there was no plan to revisit older dungeons. Why on earth not? All the work that went into those? Why would you not want to get more replay value by adding more difficulty levels to them? Possibly even more mechanics that “everybody” hates. Games continually struggle with replay value. Adding replay value to all dungeons no matter what skill or experience level players are concerned seems like a no brainer to me.

M8, U talk about elitism when there is no eleitism here... U just have to learn how to play the game to do thoses Dgs... I play with 250 ping, like all other brazilians and people here still can beat all content with no big problems... U just salty cause U dont really want to train your rotation, learn mechanics and get good like everyone else... There is almost no elitism in ESO, people will take U to anythin if U can beat more than 30k, different to Wow where there is a Dps Ladder and people will kick U if U are down on the dps race, even when U are just having a bad day or ping issues... That is real elitism!

Your world is only small while U decide to keep yourself in your bubble and pretending that the game should be like U want and not that U need to get better at it!

Dude, did you read my post at all? I’ve done all the vet dlc. I am against the nerfs. I don’t run non-dlc because they are too easy for where I’m at in the game.

Ohtimbar · March 2019

Very good. Maybe this will get more players involved. The small minority of players who run more difficult content have a blind spot for the average ESO player. I do not. I'm married to one, and have friends who also fall into the casual category. The average player does not want to be challenged beyond their limits, and they don't want to make this game a life goal. Accessibility matters, and this sort of thing is a step in the right direction. Hard mode isn't being nerfed, and there's no need to be snide about the skill level of players who just want to have fun. Sad, really, that any of that even needs to be said.

Inklings · March 2019

Our worth as a player is not determined by whether or not others complete content

So disappointed today hearing from fellow friends and guildies how upset they are that others will now complete content they "struggled" to complete. This change is over all an amazing thing for the game. Those of us at end game level are the minority. This opens up completing content to so many more players, and will bring a lot more players into content that they currently arnt even attempting

ZoS just didnt nerf this stuff willy-nilly. They have numbers that are far from arbitrary showing major bottle necks on some of these bosses. Its not making players worse, there are still massive amounts of hard content for people to learn mechanics and become better players on.

Look at the bigger picture. Look at whats best for the game and you will see this as a positive change.

Emma_Overload · March 2019

Finally ZOS is doing something to make DLC relevant to the masses.

Keep the nerfs coming until all these DLC are puggable... then they will be worth buying!

JinMori · March 2019

Remind me how the game is balanced around pro or even just above average players, or "elitist" as many people throw around without even knowing what it means.

To me it just seems this is catering to the lowest common denominator, great stuff zos...

I'm sure these "new players" will now be able to complete the content if you make it so easy you can just switch off your brain.

JinMori · March 2019

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

SaltySudd wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

There is no other reason for these changes other than looking at numbers and making adjustments to get more players into and completing these encounters.

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

These encounters were also stopping groups in normal mode, so would it have been possible to just disable those mechanics for normal mode dlc dungeons but keep them in place for the vet versions for the players who wanted to push themselves throughout the entire dungeon? I agree that those mechanics were a bit much for normal modes, but veteran content is supposed to be more difficult.

Some of these changes also affected Normal modes. We continue to evaluate the Normal modes as well.

@Tyrion87 We have no plans to go back and retroactively make older content more difficult.

frozzzen101 wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

As a aside, Hard Modes, in our view, are the space where we can challenge players that seek to push themselves to the limit in four-player content. With this in mind, we have no plans to make any changes to reduce that difficulty.

Does that mean that HM Velidreth is unaffected with those changes?

Some of the overall ability changes to Veteran would affect Hard Mode but not overly so.

This tells me everything i need to know, thanks for being honest.

This game will most probably get worse and worse.

So basically new harder modes to account for cp, are thrown out the window, well, at least you were honest i guess.

Just as i thought, what a surprise.

AbysmalGhul · March 2019

If you're spamming hard casted frags in the red before the changes, what's going to be different after the changes?

In my experience, most people I bring through any form of content have a hard time following instructions or have zero raid awarness. The incoming nerf and many future incoming nerfs are only going to make it easier for me to get unduanted keys

Malprave · March 2019

JinMori wrote: »

Remind me how the game is balanced around pro, or "elitist" as many people throw around without even knowing what it means.

To me it just seems this is catering to the lowest common denominator, great stuff zos...

I'm sure these "new players" will now be able to complete the content if you make it so easy you can just switch off your brain.

I bet their completion percentage on veteran dlc doesn’t improve substantially.

Titansteele · March 2019

Well this one is going to split the people between those who could and those who could not.

I am disappointed

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2019

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Finally ZOS is doing something to make DLC relevant to the masses.

Keep the nerfs coming until all these DLC are puggable... then they will be worth buying!

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit...

Danksta · March 2019

KwarcPL wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

There is no other reason for these changes other than looking at numbers and making adjustments (...)

Sadly, but by looking at numbers regardless of context, you've deprived several dungeons of their only hard moments. For example White-Gold Tower. Now it will be soloable on normal difficulty.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

We will continue this process in the hopes of a better experience for all players.

But do we really need this? We are on nerf rush since Murkmire. Maybe it's enough?

vWGT was soloed 2 1/2 years ago... or at least the first I knew about it.

alanmatillab16_ESO · March 2019

Soul19reaper wrote: »

Well this is a good step afterall it's not a souls game and those vet content were being completed only by a minority of playerbase like 2 or 3% which isn't good for playerbase nor the company , most of dlc dungeons were useless cause only high level elitist are able to complete but now it might be for the rest of audience as well!

Yeah, they took that attitude in WoW and that game went down the tubes. It turned out that the "2 or 3 %" was way more than "2 or 3%", the game dropped in a couple of years from 13 million subs to a tenth of that. If you want to complete dungeon content then learn the fights and beat the fights.

DaveMoeDee · March 2019

Personally, I am happy for all old dungeons to be nerfed. If I'm running it again, it isn't for a challenge. It is a pledge or a daily random vet.

I am so sick of queuing for a pledge and ending up with a group stuck at the Planar Inhibitor and not getting credit for the pledge when we finish it.