Just spent my last hour of ESO out of 2,867 hours in July. The game's got real potential for any ES fan, casual pve'ers, and rp'ers to be your mmo home. Yet, for any hardcore player the game's content and direction isn't aimed at you, so you'll need long breaks. After years of being an ESO hardcore pvper I've finally called it a quits after seeing 90%+ of the NA PC pvp community leave before me. WTB Elder Scrolls 6.
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
What kind of character would work for main story? I figured, sorry for Dark Souls spiel, some kind of Hexes + weapons. Nightblade? Melee Sorc? How'd you even end in Coldharbor? Be as it may, my favorite has to be Dunmer 2H Sword DK. But I don't really think it fits main story. Maybe for Morrowind.
I think any character with decent aoe and survivability works well. 2H DK would be perfect, but basically anything except a stealthy single target focused NB would probably be OK.
What kind of character would work for main story? I figured, sorry for Dark Souls spiel, some kind of Hexes + weapons. Nightblade? Melee Sorc? How'd you even end in Coldharbor? Be as it may, my favorite has to be Dunmer 2H Sword DK. But I don't really think it fits main story. Maybe for Morrowind.
I think any character with decent aoe and survivability works well. 2H DK would be perfect, but basically anything except a stealthy single target focused NB would probably be OK.
What Yasha said, just about anything will work for overworld content. In instanced content (non-vet) you will be carried easily enough, in vet content you will be unable to complete objectives/survive, PARTICULARLY the newest DLC dungeons on vet which are always the hardest.
I should play this game again now that my video card has been upgraded (touch wood). I don't want it to read this shhh...shhh it might decide to act up.
I am however playing Everquest again on Project 1999 and as you all know you need to spend an inordinate amount of time to progress in Everquest so other games are off the table for now.
It's it a stunning game, the voice acting it amazing too.
I might be wrong, but feel they've added more, noticed NPCs seem to be having much more realistic interactions and dialog. Like Yesterday, heard a woman yell and saw this dog run off and she told another NPC that the dog bit her when she went to pet it and they had a little back and forth.
The game is quite fun, I'm still trying to get my cousin to purchase the latest expansion so we can play through it, the Warden looks really cool, especially considering I mained a Druid in WoW for many years up until I quit recently.
I had a couple concerns with the game though it seems to be more so the genre moving in a more casual direction.
The end game rotations are (were, haven't played since the latest expansion) super easy. You have maybe a buff or two, a DoT or two to maintain, and then it's just regular attacks. I do wish there was more to the rotations, but maybe that's just me reminiscing.
The other problem we ran into, is how awful the majority of the players were. The content itself was easier than finding good players, a lot of times we had to try and figure out how to run a dungeon just the two of us, because people wouldn't listen to boss mechanics, die and leave and nobody else would join. I was playing a dual dagger / bow Khajiit Sorc which was surprisingly really fun, but I had to switch it up to a templar with destruction/resto staff so I could heal parts with big incoming damage.
Especially that stupid boss that chains a player down and makes you kill an add, it seemed like a pretty basic concept after our second try, but a lot of people couldn't grasp the concept.
Anyway, had quite a bit of fun with the game, hoping to try the expansion soon. Heard they changed a lot of stuff (mostly regarding end game, specifically my build and a few others around) hopefully there's still a fun build or two around.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
What kind of character would work for main story? I figured, sorry for Dark Souls spiel, some kind of Hexes + weapons. Nightblade? Melee Sorc? How'd you even end in Coldharbor? Be as it may, my favorite has to be Dunmer 2H Sword DK. But I don't really think it fits main story. Maybe for Morrowind.
I think any character with decent aoe and survivability works well. 2H DK would be perfect, but basically anything except a stealthy single target focused NB would probably be OK.
What Yasha said, just about anything will work for overworld content. In instanced content (non-vet) you will be carried easily enough, in vet content you will be unable to complete objectives/survive, PARTICULARLY the newest DLC dungeons on vet which are always the hardest.
Single player games work in a similar manner too. I'm playing through Pillars of Eternity with a friend (we're playing separate games at the same time) and it works just like ESO. If I play the game on the easiest setting I can enjoy it. As I raise the difficulty my character and party build options narrow until there are only a few viable ways to play on the hardest modes.
The challenge levels are mostly illusion. Does a game get much more challenging if you play with the most powerful tools or does it just appear that way for the majority that don't have or use those tools?
A music analogy. Great guitarists and musicians can sound amazing on a $150 Yamaha guitar. A crappy guitarist can sound great through an expensive sound system with an engineer tweaking the board. Is he really great or did he just have a bunch of tools that allowed him to play at that level.
Agreed. That was exactly what I was getting at when I said min-maxers do this in every game. And that's every MMO that has end-game difficult content as well as single player RPGs in hard mode.
I'm not aware of any MMO where the most difficult trials don't exclude classes, specs and builds from their approved list. This may change slightly from one balancing iteration to the next but it exists in all of them.
Trials are time consuming challenges and people who are into clearing them and especially being the first, don't want to waste time having players in them with iffy specs. Word gets out what is and isn't allowed in those and this gives rise to the meta builds.
It's been happening for so long in so many games and it has persisted through so many balancing iterations by so many different developer teams that I honestly do not believe that it's a problem that can be solved. It's just the PVE version of the equally elusive PVP balance.
And just like the highest end PVP, Its also something the vast majority players really do not give much of a shit about. Game play at those "best of the best" levels synthesizes game play down to numbers and the player is just an operator of some impersonal sequence of keystrokes.
Leaving trials aside, ESO 4-man dungeons are all about sometimes tricky mechanics that, once learned, become very easy and almost trivial. They are NOT about running the optimal trials-derived meta spec except to the very bored elitist speed runner who wants to always run them in record time as if they were some painful chore they need to get through as quickly as humanly possible.
I've run all the veteran dungeons in ESO multiple times with a huge variety of different specs as DPS, healer and tank. The main reason those DLC ones - especially the newer ones - seem more challenging is because the developer team is always looking for new tricks and mechanics to throw at us - mechanics that often have zero to do with your build. What the elite DPS builds do in them is they allow players to kill things fast enough that they can cheese through avoiding a lot of the mechanics.
So when I hear someone talking about how ESO has meta builds that must be played or else be "carried" through vet dungeons, what I hear is "speed runner cheesing through content."
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
Especially that stupid boss that chains a player down and makes you kill an add, it seemed like a pretty basic concept after our second try, but a lot of people couldn't grasp the concept.
Yeah that mechanic in Fungal Grotto II is something a lot of brand new players struggle with and it's especially frustrating when the gods of the PUG put you there with players who are hard of listening.
The vast majority of dungeons in ESO that have those mechanics that seem tricky at first glance are actually really easy once you get the hang of them. That very same dungeon has another boss further on, The Sheppard, that has 3 adds with her. If you kill the adds she gets a humongous buff that makes the fight last literally 10 times longer. It's really easy since all you need to do is drag them away from her and then just burn her down. But I've been in many groups where no matter what words you use to explain the mechanic some brainless DPS will just kill them.
But hey, PUGs... you get what you get.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Edit: To use your example, in FFXI DRGs could still participate and contribute in dynamis/limbus/sky/sea etc. In fact they were PREFERRED in some instances.
In ESO every single Stamina DPS is running DW/Bow. If you're not? You'll be kicked from the group. It's THAT serious of a disparity.
Meta will be meta, but in ESO its a much bigger problem than in other games.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
(EDIT: and in case you were wondering... DW is already PVE meta, so bow... the only two abilities the meta uses are Endless Hail AOE and Poison Injection ranged execute DOT. So Brawler for the AOE + damage shield which would come in handy since you're going to be up close more and you'll already be using razor clatrops for ranged AOE. Add Reverse Slice for an execute with splash AOE and Wrecking Blow for ST spam with +20% damage empowerment instead of DW Rapid Strikes. ST DPS will be slightly lower but AOE will be stronger. All done.)
Have you ever even looked at the gear for those meta builds? Where does it come from? Yeah, that's right it's gear that drops in trials. That should be your first clue that people gearing up in vet dungeons are not running full meta builds.
People just want to run the 3 daily pledges for their keys and an RNG chance at the perfect shoulder piece, or they want to grind FG for the Viper daggers as quickly as they can... those runs can be elitist and exclusive.
But can you do vet dungeons less efficiently with a lesser build? All day, every day.
Post edited by Iselin on
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
People whine about all kinds of shit on the ESO forums all the time. I know because I'm there daily.
What I see is a lot of people whining about the wrong thing and a lot of crappy advice. There are a lot of noobs running around with basic L2P issues who get meta build advice as if that were the solution to their inability to resource manage or thinking that using light attacks from their bow should get them through all content.
The meta build advice they get from the jaded 660 CP folks is next to useless for their more basic problems. Metas are vet trial builds and yet you have tons of new players thinking that's the solution to all their level 20 normal dungeon problems.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Especially that stupid boss that chains a player down and makes you kill an add, it seemed like a pretty basic concept after our second try, but a lot of people couldn't grasp the concept.
Some of us are old and have a hard time learning new things, LOL
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
People whine about all kinds of shit on the ESO forums all the time. I know because I'm there daily.
What I see is a lot of people whining about the wrong thing and a lot of crappy advice. There are a lot of noobs running around with basic L2P issues who get meta build advice as if that were the solution to their inability to resource manage or thinking that using light attacks from their bow should get them through all content.
The meta build advice they get from the jaded 660 CP folks is next to useless for their more basic problems. Metas are vet trial builds and yet you have tons of new players thinking that's the solution to all their level 20 normal dungeon problems.
No @Kajidourden@Iselin is not lying. Same deal with the forum comments. It takes time to not only to "learn" but to level, develop skills, get gear. In that sense ESO is a long road.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
He is not lying: the most important aspect of the game in terms of "power" is gear and CP, after that I would be far more worried about ability than not running a metabuild. For example, 2H/dw would be fine in vet dungeons for dps, and I have often run non-meta tank builds and got through things fine.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
He is not lying: the most important aspect of the game in terms of "power" is gear and CP, after that I would be far more worried about ability than not running a metabuild. For example, 2H/dw would be fine in vet dungeons for dps, and I have often run non-meta tank builds and got through things fine.
So you can get carried by people who were twice as effective as you, is that supposed to be some sort of an achievement?
Again, this is not a difference of 5-10%, in ESO you're talking DOUBLE the efficiency, usually more.
Except in most games it's a 10-15% increase, not a 200fucking% increase in performance.
50k+ DPS vs 20 at best with a sub-optimal build. Sorry but that's not "min-max" that's stupid vs performing well.
There is an OUTRAGOEUS disparity between meta and non-meta builds in ESO, you cannot deny that unless you just have blinders on.
Eh... not as unusual as you might think. I remember such imbalance issues coming up even going back to Vanilla WoW days.
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
That's a lot of words to say you can't raid or do vet content unless you have a meta build......
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Dude... the metas are vet trials builds. You.... do ... not ... need... them for vet dungeons unless you want to cheese the mechanics in a speed run.
Right....so if everyone ran a 2H/DW build on stamina DPS you could still clear vet dungeons? Wrong.
Yup. I could make that work... could you?
At this point you're just lying to people. Let them find out for themselves I suppose. Just go look at the ESO forums and you'll see at least one or two threads a day about it from new players that find out they can't actually run what they want, don't have to take my word for it.
He is not lying: the most important aspect of the game in terms of "power" is gear and CP, after that I would be far more worried about ability than not running a metabuild. For example, 2H/dw would be fine in vet dungeons for dps, and I have often run non-meta tank builds and got through things fine.
So you can get carried by people who were twice as effective as you, is that supposed to be some sort of an achievement?
Again, this is not a difference of 5-10%, in ESO you're talking DOUBLE the efficiency, usually more.
By your reasoning no magicka warden should ever be allowed in a vet dungeon run since their max DPS parse on skeleton dummies is around 35K and magsorcs can do 70K. Poor them... autokick magwardens... you heard it here first!
We get that you're impressed and obsessed with vet trial ultimate specs. Luckily, most people are not.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I really enjoyed ESO till I hit the level-cap. The graphics are good, the main storyline was enjoyable, & then began those damn specialization points. Around 173 or something I just gave-up & now only play ESO about once a week for a couple of hours. Just too much same ol' same ol' grind grind grind with little apparent progress for me. Also, I never got over ESO's economic set-up with those guild markets. I also didn't like the fact that I didn't know what a quest was going to reward till the end, but I only played for a few months & only 1 or 2 of those months was subscribed the other couple of months were playing free.
All that being rambled LOL yes that is a nice screen-shot & ESO can have a very serene looking environment.
Comments
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
I am however playing Everquest again on Project 1999 and as you all know you need to spend an inordinate amount of time to progress in Everquest so other games are off the table for now.
cite
I might be wrong, but feel they've added more, noticed NPCs seem to be having much more realistic interactions and dialog. Like Yesterday, heard a woman yell and saw this dog run off and she told another NPC that the dog bit her when she went to pet it and they had a little back and forth.
I just found that really cool
I had a couple concerns with the game though it seems to be more so the genre moving in a more casual direction.
The end game rotations are (were, haven't played since the latest expansion) super easy. You have maybe a buff or two, a DoT or two to maintain, and then it's just regular attacks. I do wish there was more to the rotations, but maybe that's just me reminiscing.
The other problem we ran into, is how awful the majority of the players were. The content itself was easier than finding good players, a lot of times we had to try and figure out how to run a dungeon just the two of us, because people wouldn't listen to boss mechanics, die and leave and nobody else would join. I was playing a dual dagger / bow Khajiit Sorc which was surprisingly really fun, but I had to switch it up to a templar with destruction/resto staff so I could heal parts with big incoming damage.
Especially that stupid boss that chains a player down and makes you kill an add, it seemed like a pretty basic concept after our second try, but a lot of people couldn't grasp the concept.
Anyway, had quite a bit of fun with the game, hoping to try the expansion soon. Heard they changed a lot of stuff (mostly regarding end game, specifically my build and a few others around) hopefully there's still a fun build or two around.
I'm not aware of any MMO where the most difficult trials don't exclude classes, specs and builds from their approved list. This may change slightly from one balancing iteration to the next but it exists in all of them.
Trials are time consuming challenges and people who are into clearing them and especially being the first, don't want to waste time having players in them with iffy specs. Word gets out what is and isn't allowed in those and this gives rise to the meta builds.
It's been happening for so long in so many games and it has persisted through so many balancing iterations by so many different developer teams that I honestly do not believe that it's a problem that can be solved. It's just the PVE version of the equally elusive PVP balance.
And just like the highest end PVP, Its also something the vast majority players really do not give much of a shit about. Game play at those "best of the best" levels synthesizes game play down to numbers and the player is just an operator of some impersonal sequence of keystrokes.
Leaving trials aside, ESO 4-man dungeons are all about sometimes tricky mechanics that, once learned, become very easy and almost trivial. They are NOT about running the optimal trials-derived meta spec except to the very bored elitist speed runner who wants to always run them in record time as if they were some painful chore they need to get through as quickly as humanly possible.
I've run all the veteran dungeons in ESO multiple times with a huge variety of different specs as DPS, healer and tank. The main reason those DLC ones - especially the newer ones - seem more challenging is because the developer team is always looking for new tricks and mechanics to throw at us - mechanics that often have zero to do with your build. What the elite DPS builds do in them is they allow players to kill things fast enough that they can cheese through avoiding a lot of the mechanics.
So when I hear someone talking about how ESO has meta builds that must be played or else be "carried" through vet dungeons, what I hear is "speed runner cheesing through content."
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
My answer then, and my answer now is the same: So what?
That stuff only matters to people whom, like yourself (presumably), seem to obsess and build your entire game experience around such things.
I, and others like me, don't care about such things.
I play to find builds that fit the playstyle I personally enjoy playing, not to measure up to someone else's ideal of "how I should be playing".
As long as I'm able to complete content, perform my role in a group adequately, and enjoy myelf, life is good. If I hit a wall where my current build is no longer sufficient, then I'll tend to it and make the improvements necessary to continue playing as I enjoy.
In my nearly 15 years of MMO gaming, across all the MMOs I've played, I've *never* cared about what was "most optimal". Only what's "most fun for me", while being effective enough to complete the content. Sometimes the two overlapped. Sometimes they didn't. Same difference either way.
I know that's difficult for many min-maxers to understand. Again, I reference my friend from FFXI who nagged me and sent me links to "optimal guides" for years when we played it, because he could not understand how I was enjoying the game if I (in his words) "wasn't playing it right".
I got hassled constantly for playing Dragoon in FFXI, because it was widely considered a "weak job". Didn't care. I enjoyed it, so I played it. I got hassled incessantly when Ninja was considered the "must have job" for seemingly everything, but refused to play it myself. Why? Because Ninja wasn't fun to me, and I didn't want to spend my gaming time playing something I didn't enjoy. Despite all that, I always got into groups, completed content, and enjoyed myself, by my own terms.
So, I don't expect you (or other min-maxers) to understand that difference in mindset... but I do wish you people would at least come to terms with it, and stop trying to bash others over the head with it. And yes, your initial response to me is an example of that.
The vast majority of dungeons in ESO that have those mechanics that seem tricky at first glance are actually really easy once you get the hang of them. That very same dungeon has another boss further on, The Sheppard, that has 3 adds with her. If you kill the adds she gets a humongous buff that makes the fight last literally 10 times longer. It's really easy since all you need to do is drag them away from her and then just burn her down. But I've been in many groups where no matter what words you use to explain the mechanic some brainless DPS will just kill them.
But hey, PUGs... you get what you get.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Like seriously it is impossible to clear DPS checks with anything other than top-tier setups that are homogenized to death.
The excuse of "well you can do most content" is a weak cop-out. In most games you have a meta team comp, but even those simply make it easier, not impossible to clear raids/high-end content. Zenimax has decided to design AROUND that meta as the standard, and because the disparity is massive in ESO that means there is no options for endgame content.
The fact that you literally cannot clear content after a certain point without conforming to the meta is a huge black mark. You can downplay it all you want but it's a design failure.
Edit: To use your example, in FFXI DRGs could still participate and contribute in dynamis/limbus/sky/sea etc. In fact they were PREFERRED in some instances.
In ESO every single Stamina DPS is running DW/Bow. If you're not? You'll be kicked from the group. It's THAT serious of a disparity.
Meta will be meta, but in ESO its a much bigger problem than in other games.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
(EDIT: and in case you were wondering... DW is already PVE meta, so bow... the only two abilities the meta uses are Endless Hail AOE and Poison Injection ranged execute DOT. So Brawler for the AOE + damage shield which would come in handy since you're going to be up close more and you'll already be using razor clatrops for ranged AOE. Add Reverse Slice for an execute with splash AOE and Wrecking Blow for ST spam with +20% damage empowerment instead of DW Rapid Strikes. ST DPS will be slightly lower but AOE will be stronger. All done.)
Have you ever even looked at the gear for those meta builds? Where does it come from? Yeah, that's right it's gear that drops in trials. That should be your first clue that people gearing up in vet dungeons are not running full meta builds.
People just want to run the 3 daily pledges for their keys and an RNG chance at the perfect shoulder piece, or they want to grind FG for the Viper daggers as quickly as they can... those runs can be elitist and exclusive.
But can you do vet dungeons less efficiently with a lesser build? All day, every day.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
What I see is a lot of people whining about the wrong thing and a lot of crappy advice. There are a lot of noobs running around with basic L2P issues who get meta build advice as if that were the solution to their inability to resource manage or thinking that using light attacks from their bow should get them through all content.
The meta build advice they get from the jaded 660 CP folks is next to useless for their more basic problems. Metas are vet trial builds and yet you have tons of new players thinking that's the solution to all their level 20 normal dungeon problems.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You do realize the same could be said about you, right?
Again, this is not a difference of 5-10%, in ESO you're talking DOUBLE the efficiency, usually more.
We get that you're impressed and obsessed with vet trial ultimate specs. Luckily, most people are not.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
All that being rambled LOL yes that is a nice screen-shot & ESO can have a very serene looking environment.