Endgame content, an idea to keep dungeons interesting.

ArchivedUser

When I was talking in Discord with @Stani about how we always ended up being disappointed with endgame content in basically every MMO of the last decade, we started to brainstorm about idea's to keep endgame content fresh and interesting.

I really do want to share our idea's as I do think they address some of the issues I faced in many mmo's.

To make this as accurate as possible, I wrote quite a bit. For people who'd like to read the short (tl;dr) version, I have asked @Stani to summarize all of this in the post below!

I would like to start with selecting the issues other MMO's have, since they always chose to do the endgame content in one of three ways. 

• Gear and/or weapon improvement through dungeons: You can only upgrade/enhance or get dropped better gear by doing certain dungeons over and over. This is always the same dungeon, and to keep people playing there's often a horribly low RNG chance of getting the drop you need.
• Guild Quests as content: Since the story stopped, you can now put all your energy in creating your own guild, or being part of a guild. Often there will be guild quests to keep you occupied, however these will always be the same and the stronger of a guild you want to join, the more time you spent on the same grindy guild quests every day.
• Large scale guild battles: Winning this will often have some very nice perks for the winning guilds. The issue is that only the strongest guilds can compete, creating an unfair and skewed balance where only very few can enjoy the fun battles where there are actual stakes. (another side effect is that this often tends to create a very toxic environment in the top level guilds)

These 3 systems are by far the most widely used systems to keep things "interesting" for players that have leveled up completely. However all three of these systems often only manage to retain interest for a very short time...

That got us thinking, how could we improve upon these systems in a way that would keep things interesting.. In a way that would really improve the gameplay for not just a small group, but for the majority of players!

Here are our two suggestions:

Semi-procedurally generated dungeons.

Dungeons should be interesting things that you want to explore, that challenge you and your party.. There are a few ways to keep dungeons clouded in mystery and appealing to everybody!

• Dungeons are procedurally generated based on factors within the dungeon (Ex. I kill a hydra first so the next puzzle will require jumping in it)
• A mix between procedurally generated area's and a few dozen scenario's. That way you can go into one dungeon and have a different experience with different secret pathways/bosses/puzzles for hundreds of times.
• Adding class specific secrets.  For example you'll need to have a mage with you who can sense the flow of Mana in a specific area to find a secret pathway. Or you have to have a Cleric with you to revive one of the NPC's who will then betray you and lead you in a different direction to a hidden boss.

Now imagine implementing one or multiple points, you will have interesting dungeons that challenge people!

Not to mention if you'd include our second suggestion: Having a 'scoreboard' of sorts for that specific dungeon.

While it would be hard to implement on procedurally generated dungeons, (as it would be unfair since there's no basic benchmark) this could be a great addition to the third option of adding class specific secrets, or simply adding this on the more basic dungeons that aren't procedurally generated.

This could not just help people become better in a party, and improve their teamplay, this would also recognize the people who worked well together to beat the dungeon in a faster way than other parties before them. People would enjoy finding new ways and party compositions to be even faster.  There could even be speed running guilds who's main focus would be to find ways to beat a dungeon faster and faster.

ArchivedUser

TL;DR
Endgame Dungeons could be improved through the addition of procedural generation, based on player decisions; changing puzzles; changing terrain; different secret routes. And/or adding secrets to dungeons that can only be accessed by certain classes/class combos through clever use of their abilities

 Dungeons could be given replayability by adding a Time Leaderboard/Scoreboard for dungeons, in order to add reasons to replay dungeons, which could even give rise to a "Speedrunning" community.

ArchivedUser

A lot of the stuff you are talking about would only work in dungeons that are instanced.

A lot of the dungeons for Ashes are open world, and they do change based on the configuration of the nodes that are around the dungeon.   

ArchivedUser

As Jahlon said, procedural generation kind of needs instanced dungeons but AoC does one better for you: loot tables based on the state of the world and past decisions of the server, as well as gated content behind specific node levels.

You want to experience all of the "end game content"? Ignoring how IS really hates the concept of "end game", well you need to keep re-shaping the world to unlock all of its bits and pieces. You can only face this world boss or enter this raid if you level some particular node to level 5, which means you need to siege down the adjacent node, tear it down and build up the right node to open up new content. You can picture it as a super elaborate and community based attunement.

Class specific utility skills are already confirmed to lead to secrets in the world although none will be exclusively the only way to achieve any particular thing. They are more like ways to solve optional bonus puzzles.

Ultimately though I would just remind you that "end game" isn't really a concept in AoC as it is in many other games. You will experience raids and world bosses and all that jazz before level cap. The whole leveling experience will be dynamic and the world will not have some linear progression where you go from this zone to that zone until you reach the final zone where you know where the raids are. Based on how nodes level, each node may contain challenging content for you at any level, dungeons/raids/world content may pop up in any node, and content will require you to discover it as a server.

If you want more about how the systems in place in AoC could keep your interest I will shamelessly plug my own post about the potential of rumors and gated world content:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/41011/lore-hunting-in-game

ArchivedUser

There is also the fact that AoC should have more than enough to do to not consider dungeons 'endgame'

ArchivedUser

Not sure why you need to improve on Ashes endgame content, as IS has shied away from using that word with Ashes.

Also, why can't we just have regular content that takes high levels to do, it doesn't need to be endgame.

ArchivedUser

I think what I.S. is striving for is to not need Endgame content, because the world will evolve based on ZOI's, lack of ZIO's and some other factors.  

Say you are a Py'rai elf in a elf controlled zone, but the metro zone get wiped out in a war.  However one of the near by l4 nodes, dwarven based, was ready to pop.   And it does.  Changing that entire ZOI from elf influenced to dwarf.

Now you'll have some crafters, content and quest lines available, that were not before.  The Nodes near that dwarf node will all change configurations as well, so now you need to go back an re-explore them.  The destroyed elf node has been pushed all the way back to L0, so now you have to re-explore that one as well.

Because the ZIO's have some influence on the type of wildlife and creatures and dungeons and possibly resources which may be around, there will be a lot that now needs to be re-explored just in your home ZOI.

But wait!  The dwarves were allied with the elves, and they had immediately launched a counter attack on the Zone that wiped out the elf city, and destroyed that Metro area.  And the human based ZIO there was replace by a Tulnar one!

So now that are has to be re-explored as well.

And to top that all off, from what I glean of discussions /if/ certain story line or I.S. events occur, that will also influence how the world evolves and the resources available... That mine the elves were using for iron, suddenly a new Mithril vein is found because of the dwarven influence from the metro node into the surrounding nodes 

At least this is how i'm interpreting things based on what I.S has mentioned.  Could be off base, but don't think it is.