Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Monster coins and core game mechanics
So I've been pondering this for a few days now and wanted to put it in front of the community to get some feedback/speculation on how Intrepid is going to handle threat when it comes to the monster coin events. On one hand you have the collision detection type tanking that has been speculated upon where your designated meat shield/s can just body block and/or utilize abilities to physically barricade the path to the squishies. Sounds like an immersive way to handle it where you've gotta be on your toes at all times.
Yet another option would be to limit player controlled monster abilities to cleaves/aoe damage to prevent a focused attack against a particularly soft opponent. Kinda breaks immersion in my opinion and people are going to lose interest if all they can really do is drain opposing player resources until they get killed with no chance of that glorious instagib.
A third option, that could possibly be PvP breaking if they don't include modifiers that only kick in when under the effect of a coin, is to make player-controlled monsters susceptible to threat. Possibly limiting the pcm' s target list to those with the highest level of aggro. All others can be hit with your aoe and cleave abilities but if you want to use a single target smack, they have to be at the top of that threat meter.
The final option that I've considered is quite possibly the most interesting. Similar to the threat list idea but instead we'll call it enrage. As players engage with a pcm they accumulate rage similar to corruption as it's been explained in relation to pk. As this gauge increases for each individual player, more and more abilities are usable against said aggressor. It could be set up in a weak to strong order to stretch the encounters out a bit. Engage mob=you can now be hit by cleaves/aoes. 1/2 full enrage bar=you can now be targeted individually and hit but it's a medium damage attack. It'll hurt but if you're on your toes it should never kill you (gotta leave room for that autoattack/afk dude to get toasted while he's watching Seinfeld reruns) Full enrage bar and you can be targeted by and splattered with a nuke level ability. Add cast timers or incoming major attack indicators to give the keyboard warrior who's paying close attention a chance to survive but make the hit, if it lands, biblical. Make classes that have aggro/threat reduction abilities able to use those cooldowns to reduce their enrage gauge. But, to avoid the rez run zerg, maybe make a maxed out enrage gauge persist until the monster has been slain? Though that portion of it could get hairy and frustrating with negative xp being a thing.
All are viable options imho. I have to believe that if this topic isn't addressed then every pcm is going to charge healers > glass cannons > support > tanks. But, if Intrepid figures out a way to make an entirely player controlled encounter feel like a scripted yet dynamic and fluid interaction and not just a zerg fest... I'll go out and buy a pair of panties just so I can throw em on stage at a meet and greet.
All that being said, I am thoroughly impressed with the passion these devs have and I love the involvement and controlled hype I've seen from this community and would welcome any thoughts on the topic. Can't wait for more information to stack up in the coming months.
Yet another option would be to limit player controlled monster abilities to cleaves/aoe damage to prevent a focused attack against a particularly soft opponent. Kinda breaks immersion in my opinion and people are going to lose interest if all they can really do is drain opposing player resources until they get killed with no chance of that glorious instagib.
A third option, that could possibly be PvP breaking if they don't include modifiers that only kick in when under the effect of a coin, is to make player-controlled monsters susceptible to threat. Possibly limiting the pcm' s target list to those with the highest level of aggro. All others can be hit with your aoe and cleave abilities but if you want to use a single target smack, they have to be at the top of that threat meter.
The final option that I've considered is quite possibly the most interesting. Similar to the threat list idea but instead we'll call it enrage. As players engage with a pcm they accumulate rage similar to corruption as it's been explained in relation to pk. As this gauge increases for each individual player, more and more abilities are usable against said aggressor. It could be set up in a weak to strong order to stretch the encounters out a bit. Engage mob=you can now be hit by cleaves/aoes. 1/2 full enrage bar=you can now be targeted individually and hit but it's a medium damage attack. It'll hurt but if you're on your toes it should never kill you (gotta leave room for that autoattack/afk dude to get toasted while he's watching Seinfeld reruns) Full enrage bar and you can be targeted by and splattered with a nuke level ability. Add cast timers or incoming major attack indicators to give the keyboard warrior who's paying close attention a chance to survive but make the hit, if it lands, biblical. Make classes that have aggro/threat reduction abilities able to use those cooldowns to reduce their enrage gauge. But, to avoid the rez run zerg, maybe make a maxed out enrage gauge persist until the monster has been slain? Though that portion of it could get hairy and frustrating with negative xp being a thing.
All are viable options imho. I have to believe that if this topic isn't addressed then every pcm is going to charge healers > glass cannons > support > tanks. But, if Intrepid figures out a way to make an entirely player controlled encounter feel like a scripted yet dynamic and fluid interaction and not just a zerg fest... I'll go out and buy a pair of panties just so I can throw em on stage at a meet and greet.
All that being said, I am thoroughly impressed with the passion these devs have and I love the involvement and controlled hype I've seen from this community and would welcome any thoughts on the topic. Can't wait for more information to stack up in the coming months.
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Comments
I guess the best thing to do is start from the EPIC end.
How would a boss with a AoE target cap or 128 be defeated by 128 players ?
That boss would have to be able to push out 128x the basic DPS of 128 players against 1 player if it chose to. Instantly vapourising them. That is unavoidable if we are truly talking about facing a real EPIC boss.
So players must be able to resurrect each other in combat. They may also be required to create a group shields(s) or maybe even groups CC. As single player shields heals and CC would simply be ineffective against something so godly.
You could of course use decoy tactics while you resurrect. The Boss cant hit everyone at once without sacirificing 127/128th of his power per player. So you need to refract its firepower across the group.
That's before we go into what 'type' of skills and firepower as at each bosses disposal. Obviously there will be a finite list to choose from for all bosses, so they have to be distributed across all the bosses.