Private Crawls v. Public-only Crawls

While I understand the reason for bringing public dungeons back, which can be a great social tool I also think it could be just as wise to keep the option for players to toggle a private mode on so that they can do these mini-crawls associated with their quests and exploration without interference from other players. One thing I noticed from beta was that public crawls were usually overcrowded with players and that NPCs were far too easy to kill. On top of this, there was a lack of room to use the space to test out my abilities, to see how far I've come skill-wise i.e., using synergies and such. Instead what I experienced was a zerg, tissue paper NPCs without enough time to properly execute conduit and synergy powers before the target died.

Is there a reason why you didn't included private instanced spaces when dealing with quests and just made them entirely public? Could this be an RP-option or toggle difficulty in the future for PvE content, especially while leveling? IF these quests were private it would make it much more enjoyable for a group of friends without having to worry about any other groups interloping in the space.

RP-Toggle Mode

In a nutshell, you add more feeder quests than can replace rungs in your quest chains, without changing the overarching goal and story of the zone; adding a new narrative element that is discovered by means other than visiting a quest giver with a <> over its head e.g., rumor from a tavern, double-agent. This mode would also turn of <> quest indicators, even while exploring, unless you speak to the person in the vicinity you'll never know if they have a quest for you or not. RP-TOggle mode would create more randomly generated happenings similar to dragons from skyrim or bounties on your head, that wouldn't be available to players who don't have this feature toggled: bandits appearing and attacking you while you afk, perhaps dropping a quest item that leads you to another area, as an example. And also, quests that are below your level, should you have ventured a different way in the zone, will now have a scaled element that is much more difficult, like making the instanced parts of the quest much more difficult.

I don't have a ton of time to talk about it anymore here as I've been yammering on about the concept and the reasons for it in much greater detail on the ESO sub-reddit. I'm just going to link some of the design concepts I worked through there and hope that you read them as 'supplemental' reading to this post. I spent a lot of work on it, however, maybe this concept isn't relevant and I've wasted my time. I was simply trying to make room for the RPG'er playstyle, without compromising the competitive climb for the MMO'er playstyle: here's the short-link -> redd(dot)it/1xsdmt, replacing the (dot) to go to the sub-reddit post I made on the subject.

I've beat this topic to death and its a bit soul-crushing. Perhaps this is a better audience for this sort of writing? I did my best to format it, so if you have time developers, go ahead and jump in. It's well over 1500 words.

This is where it goes to die as it didn't get much attention because the length of it, which is understandable. I talk about game design, game theory and immersion quite a bit and how to resolve and redress the problem of meaningless narrative for the RPG'er.

Just a huge fan, hope its of some service. I also included it on my survey. Again the link to the treatise and sub-sequent links to other writing on the topic can be found here: redd(dot)it/1xsdmt

@Antraeus

I would prefer to be able to choose a public or private option for solo or group so I can challenge myself, learn new tactics etc without some guy with a big sword thwacking the target I was stealthing. Maybe that will come later and meanwhile it is not a deal breaker for me.

I would say this classic line: "Let me mark it on yer map!" "Ya see, thats Ebonheart"

I wonder if it might be possible with the phasing technology to allow me to see only players who have an "RP toggle" on or vice versa?

They said, there'll be a survey when you start playing a character to find the people who are most fitted with your playstyle (e.g. RPers) and play with them. Pretty sure this feature can be implemented as a runtime one.

As long as I can change my preferences concerning playstyle and players later, that sounds like a great thing.

For RP to work, it has to be strictly enforced, otherwise the griefers will just have a field day. I am not an RP'er, but have played on RP realms in WoW jsut due to the fact those servers seem to have the least amount of dbags, however, I would be an offender as well on a properly enforced RP server.