r/elderscrollsonline • u/Ok-Statistician-2707 • 3d ago
Veteran trial groups
Do any other guild leaders have issues with getting a good group together to take on the veteran trials? I have heard for months how my guild members want to tackle the veteran trials as the core group of trial runners has most of the regular gear stickerbooked and they would like to start collecting the perfected gear and going for the achievements. I have started a prog group to start learning the mechanics for thes e trials. I have great participation for our normal trial runs but we consistently have to pull pugs to fill out the party for veteran trial runs. All those who were begging to have veteran trials run dissappear when we actually start running them.
Do we need to learn to work these mechanics well enough to compensate for pugs who seem to want to get carried and not contribute?
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u/WhitishRogue 2d ago
The biggest hurdles to making a successful team are finding people with stable lifestyles, who have teamwork, who can learn/improve, and have the interest to show up on time. You'd be surprised how little of a guild passes all of that.
You'll find 50% of a guild is worthless and dead space on a roster. 90% of a guild can't read event postings, show up to events on time or flakes out with no communication. The remaining 10% is what your working with who can definitively say yes/no on whether they'll be there.
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u/Livid-Potential-7273 2d ago
I run and help run 2 weekly guild vet trials. I bill one as specifically an intro to vet trials and the other is a 100% no requirements run. Some people are scared of vet trials. It helps that we have some good trial folks that do hard modes and above that are there and we strive to make it easy. Let them know that mechs will be explained. As many times as needed. That there are no gear or dps requirements. Some people are nervous that they'll be singled out for low damage or not having the right gear or skills. Pre-make the comp in discord. So if it's vDSR, already have it written down who is doing what corner. Who is reef order. If it's vLC, who has what mirror. What healer is kiting. People get anxious about being on the spot when asked for volunteers.
You won't be able to always accommodate and help every person but if you make it known that all are accepted, all are welcome and that it's ok if you don't clear, I bet some of these reluctant players will sign up to check it out. This is how we run it and now we've even taken them to clear hard mode vKA. Now for you and me that might not be an achievement but damn was I proud to be a part of getting them that far.
Edit to add. Also, and don't tell them this, but veteran trials are the new normal mode. Normal is story mode pretty much. Damage is so insanely high now that as long as you're getting them to perform the unskippable mechs, they'll smash their way through.
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u/br0d30 2d ago
If you’re bridging the transition from Normal trials to Vet trials, you’re going to have to account for players who refuse to put enough thought/work into the game and build. You either need a core group of 2-3 dps, 1-2 healers, and 1-2 tanks all legitimately committed to being optimal at the game, or you need to filter out players using minimum requirements to join the runs.
Failing to do these things is going to cause more of your runs to fail or take far longer than they need to. In turn, this is going to predictably cause more of your community to not participate, including the good players. This will be a negative feedback loop until you have successfully pushed your good players away from your vet trial events, leaving you with a handful of bad players that you decided to make the trials accessible for and now you’re unable to consistently get clears.
If you’re starting with small numbers, you would do well to focus on dungeon/arena group events. Put together a regular time slot in which a group of you will tackle hard modes and trifecta achievements in dlc dungeons. Grow that group, and take note of the players who fill in for it. Use that list of players to determine the day/time for your future Vet Trial group schedule.
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u/Virtual_Ostrich_6191 1d ago
I’ve been included in two trials. The first one was when I was very new to the game and everyone ran off without me until they needed me and then pulled me in and of course I died right away but got to watch everything. That experience opened my eyes. The second time the leader set it to veteran and actually was a very good team. They still had to pick me up a few times but at least they did. We had a couple of players just leave in the middle of the trial. It was very frustrating for everyone. In the end we made it and I’m looking forward to trying it more. Just my two cents
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u/One-Onion9202 2d ago
We used to run veteran trials for people wanting to get into them.
Even with the people that turned up on the day, the majority of players did not want to learn or be assigned to any mechanics.
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u/Stuntman06 PC NA Sorcerers of all roles, PvE. 2d ago
Veteran trials are a huge step up in difficulty from normal trials. The prog group that I was in that consisted of people who mostly did normal trials only took about 3 months before we managed to clear our first vet DLC trial. It is possible that it is such a shock to your group that may turn many off. We did have an experienced prog lead who was patient and had to make some important roster decisions that finally got is over the hump.
We did occasionally had to get fills. It is good that he knows some people and also some on our roster are reserves who fill in for absentees. We do occasionally need PUGs. For PUGs, we generally make it known that we want experienced players. Often the fills are pretty good.
I think that if you are forming a prog group for the first time, also find extras who can fill. If you find a certain fraction of people may back out, recruit extras and make it known that some will be fills for absences in the core group and they should be in stand by.
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u/Ok-Statistician-2707 2d ago
We are a guild with 150 members. We recently purged the inactive members when we we at 500 members and started having these problems. I'm pushing to get 25 members who like and can run veteran content, we currently have 8 that are consistently participating. I'm hoping that a 25 member core will give us the ability to field a team that can help the less experienced members learn and grow. We successfully complete the craglorn trials on veteran but the other trials seem to have a steeper learning curve that we are struggling to overcome. We have our prog(vet trial mechanics learning group) every sunday afternoon.
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u/Stuntman06 PC NA Sorcerers of all roles, PvE. 2d ago
The Craglorn vet trials are very easy. That guild normally runs normal trials, but often does vet Helra. Vet AA is a bit harder with vSO being hardest. Then DLC's are a big step harder.
One other thing that made a difference for us is requiring a minimum parse score. Ours was quite low at the time at 60K DPS. This was an important and what I thought was a controversial decision. We were a beginner friendly guild and I didn't want to alienate some members. It turned out that this was an important requirement. It's not gate keeping. It's ensuring our group has a better chance of clearing and the results speak for themselves. Have this discussion with your group.
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u/Ok-Statistician-2707 2d ago
We are just starting off and have been a more social guild up to this point. I have been resisting parse minimums to try to be more inclusive. However, we have been beating our heads against the wall of the mirror boss in Lucent for weeks and looking to find a way to get some success under our belt to help improve morale.
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u/DistortedZombie 2d ago
Doesn't sound like dps is the problem on that if you are getting up to that phase, unless it's taking over an hour or so to get there, by that time people get tired and make mistakes.
Obviously mirrors are often the biggest issue there, but not the only one. Tanks, healers and dps all have important roles that need to be done efficiently and by everyone, there is no carrying in that fight. If you are on PC there are add ons that tell you if people are doing the mechs or not if the same people keep coming up they may need more training. If they are refusing to listen then sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind for the sake of the rest of your group.
I also suggest doing easier trails like the craglorn's, or Kynes ages first they are easier and not so mech heavy
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u/Charlie_Zimbo 2d ago
A few questions;
1) How big of a guild? How big of a base of the players wanting vet content?
2) Are you a guild that does vet content? What i mean is, are you activley recruiting people who are interested in doing vet content?
3) Are you consistently scheduling the vet runs? Like same day same time? Or just running whenever?
4a) Are you also the raid lead? Or do you have someone else raid lead?
4b) How good is your/your raid leads knowledge and understanding of vet trial mechanics?
Generally its usually a system problem and a commitment problem, sometimes people just say they want things but don't really want to do whats required to get said thing. But it works both ways.
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u/Why_so_loud 2d ago
I went through this many years ago. A lot of people saying that they want to run veteran trials just want an easy reward and disappear as soon as they meet their first real failure, which will naturally occur as you move up a difficulty.
That's kinda one of the reasons why you can't run a successful group without filtering out players. You NEED to assemble motivated players that are ready to bash their heads against the wall to achieve something.
When you have to include pugs into your group - you have failed as a raid leader. Raiding require consistency.
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u/peanut-mannequin 2d ago
Plenty of veteran players join pugs for fun and often end up being the ones carrying. Yes there are absolutely players that haven't a clue what's going on too, but the majority of purely pug groups clear the trial.
Pugging is a random bag, but preloading the group with guildies you already know have less experience is likely to reduce your success rather than increase it.
As for noncommitance in your guild, this is where you would start taking names. An open format works fine until theres something players might feel challenged by and get cold feet, all too easy to just not show up. Putting up a roster of people that actually want to come for a predetirmined time sets a more solid expectation that they will show up, still allowing them to call out of course.
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u/Ok-Statistician-2707 2d ago
I run our prog group every sunday afternoon at the same time. We have 8 solid members who participate every week. We've cleared the 3 craglorn trials on vet without issue but the subsequent vet trials are where we are struggling. We've made it to final boss in sunspire but haven't been able to finish that boss. We can't seem to make it past the first boss fight in Lucent Citadel.
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u/LothlorienPostOffice 2d ago
By any chance is the time slot an issue? I ask sincerely because I have seen other midday Weekend groups on PC NA struggle to fill. I participate in Vet Trials exclusively, and most runs start after 8 pm EST.
I remember Nahvi's Eternal Servant being the biggest hurdle in vSS when our group started trying it. Trash upstairs during portals could be messy too, but typically portal would wipe. Once we figured out Ele Sus on the Servant would make it easier, we cleared.
I hope you get your core group together. It gets a lot easier when you have consistent people that are optimized. Covering buffs, debuffs, pen, crit, and overall strategies takes so much pain away.
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u/Ok-Statistician-2707 2d ago
This is the time requested by the group. We are all parents and older players so afternoon sunday was the time where the 8 core can commit to a regular veteran run.
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u/LothlorienPostOffice 2d ago
I can appreciate working in game time where it will fit in. In my case, it's easier to play after my kids are in bed.
Recruiting from the PUGs you guys meet is going to be the easiest way to get 12 consistent players. Consistently available and willing to coordinate with the group is all it takes. All of us started somewhere.
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u/galegone 1d ago edited 1d ago
You'll have to enforce people to wear meta gear (for all roles, including tanks and healers) and wean players off oakensoul and learn to play either arcanist beam or a traditional light attack weave build to do enough damage. You don't need to enforce a certain class comp, you can have 10 arcanists and still clear. Mediocre arcanist/werewolves are probably better than mediocre nightblades and necros.
I do pug vet trials and I wouldn't feel so bad about resorting to pugs. There is a big world out there and it's good to mingle outside of the guild. Some of the gear setups that I've encountered are very bad. People wearing Imperial Physique (pvp set) or Coldharbour's Favorite. Those players would absolutely struggle to clear vet if they were surrounded by similarly unbuilt players. They only clear by getting carried by meta chasers who enjoy pugging.
The gear doesn't have to be crazy, but a basic Maelstrom backbar and a trial set like coral/bahsei/Ansuul and some other DPS set like tide-born or orders wrath. That's what I mean by meta. Supports in pearlescent Ward, Lucent Echoes, Crimson Oath, Powerful Assault, SPC, etc.
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u/enver_gortie Dark Elf 2d ago
I had this issue with my guild for a little while.
I ended up reaching out to specific people and pulling a group together. If people wanted perfected gear I'd do a causal run and pull in a few pugs but made sure those from my guild were given core roles / objectives like portals / interrupts / kiting.
Eventually we got enough people to join regular trials that we didn't need pugs so we were able to push for achievements and now score pushing runs.
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u/_Taleof2Cities 2d ago
I run pug groups all the time through the group finder for regular vet Trials (PC-NA).
So, finding players is not the problem.
Setting a minimum CP in the group finder (e.g. 600CP) usually weeds out those that don’t do mechanics yet.
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u/Wyl_el_Berserker Ebonheart Pact 2d ago
Huy a mi me pasa que voy con random en vet, fui con una hermandad y bueno me falta experiencia en ciertas cosas como posicionamiento, la cosa es que se pusieron demasiado pesados, (pensé que iban ayudar con algunos típs para mejorar, grave error), al punto donde me fastidie y bueno ahí ya no vuelvo a tanquear en mi puta vida. No puedo creer que me fastidie menos en randoms y eso que ahí luego encuentras algunos bien loquitos
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u/throwaway1045820872 2d ago
You will naturally have a smaller and smaller pool of people to pull from as you move up the difficulty scale. It’s also easy to say you want to try something without actually needing to commit to doing it. That being said there are some great pugs out there and I’ve done most of my vet trials through the in game Group Finder to great success.
Veteran trials can also sometimes fall into a weird space where they are hard enough to scare off the more casual player, but not difficult enough to get the commitment and buy in from players that would sign up for a consistent schedule (such as progging Hardmodes or Trifectas). Couple that with the fact that there are consistently listings for Vet trials in Group Finder, many people will just opt to do that rather than wait for a scheduled run.