Random que restructuing:

locrianol

OK, it seems you need to take another look at the way you've redone the ques. At this time for a Random Dungeon Que, you have many epic games. The random advanced que has 4 maps. When you do a RDQ, you will a majority of the time, get players that haven't even obtained the level to pick a paragon, making them to weak for the map. On some maps you can carry these people, but on others say a Epic GWD or a LOMM, the Tank is under powered and can't keep agro, and the healer can't keep up. It's not their fault, they're new and havent reached a level to gear up yet. Old Epic dungeons need to be placed back into the "Advanced" que. Every random with non-allies I tried yesterday failed, and all because there were people in harder ques with r5's and no paragon. This is going to completely shut down any players want to que publicly. You're going to force groups to stick with friends only, and new players will not find a game. I know I won't be joining any randoms. It's frustrating fighting through a LOMM tooth and nail, and failing at the end boss. Makes it really hard when both the healer and the tank shouldn't be there.

crusthelvete

+1
They really need to do something about this.
Ive spoke to a newer player, he felt bad because he was so "useless", tho i explained the situation but i think many others feeling the same way as he did.

callumf

yes - again - pretty much agree.

As a high level healer I carried a group through GWD which was very painful at times, but also a challenge.

I think the end boss took us about 10 minutes to kill, the mechanics arent clear for a start.

But yeah, for the majority of players it will be guild/alliance runs only.

I enjoy a pug, but I am quite the exception, its actually more of a buzz to complete a run with pugs than a simple alliance run.

armadeonx

Scaling them up to a higher level is insufficient as there are key stats they haven't even begun to work on yet - such as outgoing healing for healers and awareness for tanks, let alone a full unlock of the powers they need.

Soooo poorly thought through.

@nitocris83 all of these changes Cryptic have been making are with the goal of making the game 'new player friendly' but dumping them into something they are completely unequipped for has the opposite impact.

tamtoucan

+1 as well. I tanked a VT and luckily the top DPS was TEN TIMES the 2nd place. The final boss was just us two, everyone else died on the red-stripe run-around-the-room part. Now I actually enjoyed it, but I'm sure the others didn't.

The problem is actually made worse by leveling. You run "GWD" solo, and fight Valindra at the end of "A Loose Thread". Then you get those dungeons and suddenly you're dying all the time.

kisana

I tanked spellplague caverns on an alt last week. Ended up in a group of newbies. They said they had started less than 2 weeks prior. They were all between 17k-25k ilvl. The damage was so low and they had no idea what was going on. I spent the whole 90mins+ of the dungeon explaining things before and during the fights. The poor healer was struggling the whole time because the boss fights lasted a ridiculously long time. Thankfully they took direction well and listened for the most part, but the portals/mushrooms wiped us so many times dps couldn't keep up. One dps repeatedly asked "there's more???" after both boss fights and trash. I felt bad so I stuck around to the end, but it wasn't fun at all for me and I'm pretty sure it isn't for others either because I've gotten an in progress spellplague multiple times now. I didn't even want to look at the death stats at the end. I can't imagine getting this dungeon when I haven't even been playing for 2 weeks yet. They all knew each other and queued together so I can only imagine what their other queues looked like with 4x newbies and a random tank. I just don't think the game has prepared them enough for that dungeon and some others and it's not even their fault the game allows them to queue.

pherrow

As a person who mostly likes running the standard dungeons I can say this particular change has effected my game play quite a bit. But what I really really love about it is cryptic has gifted me the opportunity to interact with their bottom line. In their greedy atempt to craft their game model around new players and force long-time, experienced players to carry all the new folks through content they are not ready for...well, they have delivered those folks to people like me.

On my dps I can now control the experience these new, precious players, are greeted with. Fast paced, keep up or die speedy type runs? Yep, can give them some of that. Big pulls, grab all the stuff and drop it on everyone's head type of battle? Sure, np. It's kinda lovely since you can mix and match if you like. This is now the fun I create for myself since suggestions here usually fall on deaf ears. And don't misunderstand, cryptic has not created this change in error, they know what's up.

On my tank you ask? Well I like to lead a smooth comfortable run. Instilling confidence in these baby warriors. Leading them maybe midway through a dungeon run and throwing out deuces, taking my 30minute penalty with pride and probably leaving them a bit confused. Now in truth, this can be hard sometimes as I know these are people trying to have fun just like me. But as cryptic has ruined my fun substantially, I am just passing the buck...because I can.

Now to any seasoned players I may affect, my apologies in advance. And truly feel free to pm me some choice words and add to ignore. I understand and it will be deserved. And luckily for me, the more long time players who ignore me, the more I will be spoiled with new players who will get a dose of my type of enjoyment

TLDR: To those fighting for some adjustment here, good luck. Truly. But in the mean time, I have work to do with some new joins

rockster

When I run LoMM I expect it sometimes to have a person in it who is new and doesn't know the mechanics. I usually take a lot of time before each boss to make everyone wait and I type out in detail what the mechanics are so we don't fail because once you understand the mechanics, it's pretty easy to do. But that's because I want to. If I feel this becomes standard for every run on every dungeon I don't think I would bother because I'm not getting paid for it and it seems a little bit too much like customer support.

armadeonx

I find it interesting that they now deliver a new player all the basics to reach 30k, like TIL is still all you need.

I have 8 toons, 4 of which are sufficiently geared to hold their own in higher dungeons up to and including VoS - the other 4 are at around 30k, mostly using equipment gained by the other 4 plus account wide mounts and companions.

The 30k toons are not up to the task of running even LOMM, CODG etc and I would not inflict them on a random team. This is mainly due to the lack of mythic companion bonuses, high ranked weapon enchantments and decent weapon sets. The weapon enchantment is especially important and is a key reason why newer players can't properly contribute. This has been made worse by nerfing the majority of them in mod 20, which narrowed the viable options considerably.

I would suggest to Cryptic that if they really want to help new players, they need to change the upgrade requirements on weapon enchs that are below rank 12 so they have a higher than 1% chance to upgrade (so needing a coalescent ward).

They should also look at improving the bonuses on the Fey Touched, Vorpal, Terror & Dread enchantments to improve the number of alternatives to Bilethorn, Bronzewood & Lightning.

pherrow

As it stands, and started with mod 16 I would say, the caliber of player has went down tremendously.
The lack of reading chat, the active learning and just situational awareness seems to be low IMHO. How many times do people have to walk into the little mushrooms in SP to realize they are doing it? Any ways..
The game has taken away the need for players to "learn to play".
So taking this into account, regardless of gear or even IL, these groups of new players just don't have the experience to navigate even the simple mechanics of the mostly simple dungeons. And nothing in the game seems to force them to learn. Least of which is geared, experience players carrying them all on their backs like pack horse for newbs through the content.
To think, I actually liked helping willing new players through content...

earlgreybeard

Haven't finished tyranny of dragons campaign boons ?
you don't get placed in a queue for elol.. cloaked acendancy boons?
no spellplauge. Maybe undermountain should have a baby lomm people would have to party for to finish the adventure?




But some sort of gated system seems to be needed based on a what stage a player is at in their campaign progression
and amount of boons maybe, as well as item level to get into dungeons. Possibly even amount of hours spent in the game on that character. Create a system that unlocks dungeons you can be selected for in the random queue incrementally... weave that into the adventure system... new players leveling still need to earn ad ... alternatly players that have higher iL and time in the game shouldn't be selected in the queue for dungeons players with lower levels and fewer unlocked dungeons are being selected for.


Finish icespire and Vellosk ,do gwd and fh solo instances and when you queue for random you are able to get into those dungeons when you are in a queue. Give new players a goal of unlocking dungeons they are able to queue for.

Match people queueing with the dungeons they have the ability to do, based on the content they have done

maybe easier said than done ..