Did they ever address this on the closed beta? This is my #1 complaint with the game. I'm out exploring. I come across a solo dungeon and I go inside. Inside i'm greeted with about 30-40 players in a small area, more players than monsters. I run to the end of the dungeon without seeing a single monster, at the end there's a large group of 15-20 people, camping the end boss to "complete" the dungeon. As soon as it spawns, it dies instantly. Dungeon completed.

This is very very immersion breaking and totally kills, what should be, one of the best parts of the game.. dungeon crawling! I figured this would stop after I got higher level, but even at level 15 it was still happening. I feel they need to cap these at 2-3 players each instance, or even offer a solo version of them.

Yeah, I can honestly say that the shared dungeons are one of the few things I do not like about this game. They are largely pointless.

That being said, you can farm some decent loot easily

I hear ya. It would be nice to have, for the open world caves/dungeons etc that can be soloed, to have a choice of solo instance or public upon entering.

Then people can play the way they prefer.

I'll admit that although I normally solo, I did not mind fighting alongside others (not GROUPED) in a public dungeon... but like two others, maybe... when the entire dungeon is empty except for the main boss area where thirty people are camped, dancing and playing musical instruments waiting for him to spawn and insta-die, it's just not that fun.

I also think this is utterly rediculous! Questing areas, caves and dungeons should all be phased out! Atleast you should be able to chose wether or not you want to meet players there or limit the amount of players to very rarely encounter them!

Yeah it is outrageous having to deal with other players in a MMO.

They should instance EVERYTHING around you.

In fact, they should just turn ESO into a single player game.

Agreed.

This is just one of those things that can be judged on a weekend beta. When game is released and the player base is more spread out then everyone will be able to see how things pan out.

They also have group public dungeons and group instant dungeons, I'm not sure there is a need for solo instance caves at this point

Hmm a possible solution would be to take advantage of the mega server shards and spread them equally between them, so you don't overcrowed it, this won't have much impact at launch, since everyone is stuck in there, but it would help overall.

Downside is increased load times for those public dungeons, and of course, not much of a difference at launch.

Fortunately public dungeons scale in difficulty with the amount of players in it, not sure if it has a cap though, but what I do know it that sometimes, even the minions become impossible to kill depending on the amount of people in it.

It's also hard to increase difficulty linearly since 50 people can come in and only 10 are actually playing, the rest are afk, or maybe, as you said, all 40 are focused on the last bit, while the initial area becomes impossible to clear.

So basically the only true solution is to spread thin across the mega server shards, to always try and have an equal amount of players, only issue is a bit of increased loading time entering and leaving that mini dungeon/public dungeon.

Concur. Think dungeons should be instanced, but...

If you're grouped, then the whole group should be able to enter the dungeon, vice being forced into single-player instancing (as we saw in the Fighers Guild dungeon).

I agree he went a bit extreme with phasing, but I think we can all agree dungeons should be phased to some degree. 5 players MAX, I would prefer more like 2-3 or even solo though.

Having them phased or instanced could help with the ones where the end "boss" or whatever get's glitched/bugged and doesn't spawn. Resetting the instance could be used rather than the variety of ways people are trying to get around it currently (quiting/restarting, relogging, etc..).

in the dungeons i visited, there were some people, though i don't think more than 15 or 20 at a time, and yes- they farmed the boss and the other enemies around the area,

the boss and enemies, however- had a relatively swift respawn, and people left after about 5-10 minutes anyway, a few stayed behind -but that was like 2-4 people per instance

-at the lower levels, i certainly didn't mind some random people running through and smashing enemies in their way, since it kept me alive, and i got some of the loot-

during the whole gaming experience this weekend though, i had not a single thought about how much xp i got from the enemies, i just dinged every now and then.

A thousand times agreed. No more than a handful of players in a dungeon please. I want to play a combat MMO, not walk through a dungeon, shoot one arrow at the boss and claim my 'well earned' reward.

What I forgot to add is that after like 6 months or so, if the game is successful, it will be the reverse, people complaining that these mini dungeons are too remote and hard to solo alone....

They are not "solo" dungeons, no such thing in the game. There are called Public dungeons and yes as the name denotes they are open to the public.

Some of the instanced dungeons are effectively solo dungeons, such as both dungeons for both the Fighers Guild and the Mages Guild.

Wife and I were grouped, and we went into the dungeon only to see each other disappear, completely unable to assist each other. That is a solo dungeon.

That's right! MMOs are best when we're all packed in like a subway train, in NYC, during rush hour! That's the only correct way a MMO can be played!

Did you even play the beta? Because dungeons are not packed as you make it sound.

If a few players around you are a gamebreaking issue maybe MMOs are not for you?