The developers of the fantasy MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, Zenimax, respond to complaints from the player base and address central issues in game design, aiming to curb the massive camping of cave bosses.
This damages the in-game economy and significantly affects player enjoyment. To tackle this, they are taking unusual measures and introducing internal timers.
Boses in Public Dungeons pose challenges for developers
In The Elder Scrolls Online, there are indeed dungeons – like in other games – that you enter with a group, where each monster must be killed just once for it to remain dead.
However, in the fresh genre gem, there are also so-called “public dungeons” or caves. These are part of a shared world. At the end of one of these caves, a somewhat stronger opponent awaits the player. Defeating him concludes the cave for the hero. This is marked on the map. Additionally, an achievement is recorded. Since this alone wouldn’t be anything special, many of these cave bosses have been given better equipment in their loot tables. Upon their demise, players score big loot.
Blue items flood the market
This has led to numerous players gathering around these bosses, killing them at 30-second intervals, hoping to snag craft materials, gold, or particularly potent items. After all, almost every cave boss has a unique “blue” item, a Rare, in its loot table.
Since the boss has a fixed amount of health points that do not increase with the number of players, it has become a game of patience to deal sufficient damage to ensure the kill counts. A scenario where 10 heroes camp a poor boss is not particularly heroic or immersive. Frustrating – where The Elder Scrolls Online otherwise places so much value on a coherent atmosphere.
Moreover, constant camping threatens to sustainably disrupt the economy of TESO, as players may soon find nothing else to do but exploit this simple method to gain blue items to dismantle for valuable upgrade materials.
Internal timers aim to provide solutions
Zenimax is now announcing a somewhat technical solution to the problem. They intend to implement an internal timer that activates when a cave boss is killed, preventing the player from receiving loot from that boss again as long as it ticks.
At the same time, they want to address the issue of treasure chests in closed instances. These should now be lootable by all players, not just by the one who opens them.
When these changes will be implemented on the live servers is currently unknown. At the moment, many players are struggling with buggy quests that block progress in areas designed for level 30 and above.
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[intense_testimony_text]Mein-mmo says:
An elegant solution is not really the case, as they are taking a rather technical approach with “internal timers”. Surely, one would have preferred an organic solution that occurs more “within” the game world. But necessity dictated that a solution had to be found quickly. Hopefully, it will be implemented soon.[/intense_testimony_text]
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