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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.
Mentorship & Difficulty ~ Combined Solution
Background...
One of the things that concerns many people, is the dungeon difficulty being too easy for hardcore players and too hard for those that arent into the min/max arms race, and/or never git guud, or are simply new and inexperienced. So the options are to make separate content (doubling up or more, on effort and time to satisfy two or more markets) or content that still somehow caters to everyone (where you plan more carefully but do it once). This concept is aimed at the latter.
Clearly as we have a range of capability we need to define scope and create a variable difficulty dungeon by default. We also need to take into account that no one can git gud without training and that training can come through trial and error (self tuition) or a mentor. Either way, the trainee needs to actually play the content concerned to experience the challenges involved and progress their skills in the process. So we need the range to cover Mentor/trainee through to Leet experts
We also know that Steven wants class spread to be a requirement for dungeons. So to fully tackle this problem, we also need to take class identity into the solution. And if you extend that principle, then it should be experts of any class that actually mentor the trainees of the same class (a Maths teacher teaching English would be illogical after all). This by default means that you must at least double up on any class, that will be mentored in the dungeon. This will make the content easier as there is more people, but it also naturally gives the mentors time to train others as well as tackle the content, as they dont have to be 100% focused on the content like a hardcore player would be with half the group size.
This ethos I believe is fully compatible with the norms of guilds or other players, helping untrained people through dungeons, so that they too can improve their chances of completing the content; Eventually allowing them to train others and offer advice and best practice, when such is sought after. It also enables content that would otherwise be too hard for new and inexperienced players, to actually be achievable for those new and inexperienced players. Hard content.....is no longer such a problem.
Concept...
Scope - I have chose 1-2x difficulty as a base, so that content is sectioned into double the amount of players. You could use 2-4x difficulty jumps and 4x the players per section.
1-2 players (1 archetype/ 1 class) - designed for 1 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
2-4 players (2 archetype/2 class) - designed for 2 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
4-8 players (4 archetype/4 class) - designed for 4 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
8-16 players (8 archetype/8 class) - designed for 8 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
16-32 players (8 archetype/16 class) - designed for 16 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
NB. The hardcore content is not dumbed down. The number of players that tackle it are upto 2x greater than the target group size instead. As you have doubled the players, you have halved the difficulty (zerg effect). This allows trainees to find their feet and gives mentors time to train. There is nothing stopping the players using 4/5/6/7/8 players for 4-8 man, which allows tuning the difficulty to be done by the group size that wishes to do the content, rather than the game adjusting to suit the players.
Risk vs Reward - The content has been made easier so the reward should be less. But as the content has not actually changed, the total reward should be neither greater or less and instead distributed over more players. Ideally with evenly distributed archetype/player specific rewards or generic rewards.
Enhancement Options...
We have naturally created 5 levels of content defined by group size. We also know that there will be similar scaled gear quality (and rarity). I think everyone recognises that herding 32 cats is much harder than herding 2 cats. Steven has stated he wants a dungeon progression system too.
With all that in mind, I am wondering if it would be a good idea to also make 2-4 player content access dependant on gear obtained from 1-2 player content. Such that legendary/epic gear will be obtained from 16-32 player group content. In effect, you not only get mentored to progress through your class, but also the harder and harder group content. I think of this as 'naturally gated' progression rather than 'hardcore gated' for the sake of prejudice. Where the latter simply denies content to players, the prior encourages participation of new and inexperienced players. So I find it a much more palatable means of progression. That should enable people of all ability to progress.
This doesnt mean I expect dungeons to auto-drop gear, as that defeats the purpose of crafting. In fact I would argue only legendary crafters should be able to create the legendary gear and so forth. So I am more expecting dungeon component drops that are required for construction of such gear, by the equally skilled artisans who can gather/process/craft them. Especially if such artisan builds have to be tuned to the content they create, for the people they create them for (ie specialisation through progression enables higher tier construction but only for a specialist build/class of the artisans compatible type).
Conclusion...
Kind of ironic using the problem of zerging to solve the problem of dungeon scope difficulty.
One of the things that concerns many people, is the dungeon difficulty being too easy for hardcore players and too hard for those that arent into the min/max arms race, and/or never git guud, or are simply new and inexperienced. So the options are to make separate content (doubling up or more, on effort and time to satisfy two or more markets) or content that still somehow caters to everyone (where you plan more carefully but do it once). This concept is aimed at the latter.
Clearly as we have a range of capability we need to define scope and create a variable difficulty dungeon by default. We also need to take into account that no one can git gud without training and that training can come through trial and error (self tuition) or a mentor. Either way, the trainee needs to actually play the content concerned to experience the challenges involved and progress their skills in the process. So we need the range to cover Mentor/trainee through to Leet experts
We also know that Steven wants class spread to be a requirement for dungeons. So to fully tackle this problem, we also need to take class identity into the solution. And if you extend that principle, then it should be experts of any class that actually mentor the trainees of the same class (a Maths teacher teaching English would be illogical after all). This by default means that you must at least double up on any class, that will be mentored in the dungeon. This will make the content easier as there is more people, but it also naturally gives the mentors time to train others as well as tackle the content, as they dont have to be 100% focused on the content like a hardcore player would be with half the group size.
This ethos I believe is fully compatible with the norms of guilds or other players, helping untrained people through dungeons, so that they too can improve their chances of completing the content; Eventually allowing them to train others and offer advice and best practice, when such is sought after. It also enables content that would otherwise be too hard for new and inexperienced players, to actually be achievable for those new and inexperienced players. Hard content.....is no longer such a problem.
Concept...
Scope - I have chose 1-2x difficulty as a base, so that content is sectioned into double the amount of players. You could use 2-4x difficulty jumps and 4x the players per section.
1-2 players (1 archetype/ 1 class) - designed for 1 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
2-4 players (2 archetype/2 class) - designed for 2 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
4-8 players (4 archetype/4 class) - designed for 4 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
8-16 players (8 archetype/8 class) - designed for 8 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
16-32 players (8 archetype/16 class) - designed for 16 hardcore player or mentor/trainee of same class
NB. The hardcore content is not dumbed down. The number of players that tackle it are upto 2x greater than the target group size instead. As you have doubled the players, you have halved the difficulty (zerg effect). This allows trainees to find their feet and gives mentors time to train. There is nothing stopping the players using 4/5/6/7/8 players for 4-8 man, which allows tuning the difficulty to be done by the group size that wishes to do the content, rather than the game adjusting to suit the players.
Risk vs Reward - The content has been made easier so the reward should be less. But as the content has not actually changed, the total reward should be neither greater or less and instead distributed over more players. Ideally with evenly distributed archetype/player specific rewards or generic rewards.
Enhancement Options...
We have naturally created 5 levels of content defined by group size. We also know that there will be similar scaled gear quality (and rarity). I think everyone recognises that herding 32 cats is much harder than herding 2 cats. Steven has stated he wants a dungeon progression system too.
With all that in mind, I am wondering if it would be a good idea to also make 2-4 player content access dependant on gear obtained from 1-2 player content. Such that legendary/epic gear will be obtained from 16-32 player group content. In effect, you not only get mentored to progress through your class, but also the harder and harder group content. I think of this as 'naturally gated' progression rather than 'hardcore gated' for the sake of prejudice. Where the latter simply denies content to players, the prior encourages participation of new and inexperienced players. So I find it a much more palatable means of progression. That should enable people of all ability to progress.
This doesnt mean I expect dungeons to auto-drop gear, as that defeats the purpose of crafting. In fact I would argue only legendary crafters should be able to create the legendary gear and so forth. So I am more expecting dungeon component drops that are required for construction of such gear, by the equally skilled artisans who can gather/process/craft them. Especially if such artisan builds have to be tuned to the content they create, for the people they create them for (ie specialisation through progression enables higher tier construction but only for a specialist build/class of the artisans compatible type).
Conclusion...
Kind of ironic using the problem of zerging to solve the problem of dungeon scope difficulty.
0
Comments
Boy you should come to my highschool. My calc teacher also was my gym teacher and my Computer tech teacher. He also was the only teacher i thought deserved my respect out of the entire school so thats saying something... granted i set the bar a little high.
The whole mentor thing really comes down to community. You can't really force something like this on the playerbase but in my experience the mmo community are usually helpful in answering questions. Steven is trying to bring the large community part of an mmo back and partying up t hunt ad stuff are what he wants us to do not that you aren't allowed to run solo, itll just be difficult. Thus if youre inexperienced, there will likely be party members or other players willing to help. Yes there will also be scum trying to take advantage of you but you don't see much of them. Guilds will naturally help their weaker members get stronger. If a dungeon is too hard for someone they can 1. get better and come back later or 2. not attempt it at all. If you aren't part of the "arms race" community you don't have much reason to constantly visit a dungeon. Itll be a once in a while thing and thus if you want to attempt it, get better or rely on allies.