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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.
Raid Preparation
Wandering Mist
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
For those who do progression raiding, a lot of time is spent outside of the raid, preparing gear and resources for the raid. Getting the best enchantments for your gear, farming ingredients for potions and food buffs, etc. This is all to be expected of someone who is pushing the hardest raiding content in a game.
The question is, how much time do you think players should need for raid prep? Ideally how long should it take to gather everything you need for a single raid?
I know it's impossible to design for a set amount of time and there are a lot of factors to consider, but it's still an interesting discussion to have.
The question is, how much time do you think players should need for raid prep? Ideally how long should it take to gather everything you need for a single raid?
I know it's impossible to design for a set amount of time and there are a lot of factors to consider, but it's still an interesting discussion to have.
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One day to gather mats and another day to craft everything and gather other consumables.
My dyslexia brings up a good point.. though.. I use to raid for years and always striving for server firsts. That said, it did get very repetitive taking a boss down after the first few successes. What I'd like to see is dynamic raid bosses, strategy, tactics, pulled from a deep list of things that 'could' happen but do not always happen. Would keep things more interesting... In my opinion.
It's hard to say because we don't know how raid pacing works. I really hope they follow through with the 'we don't want players to have to put raids on farm status' approach. It's just not clear how that'll work at this stage; i.e. how often players would want/need to do raids.
This is linked to raid prep and I'm glad you brought it up. In WoW at least raiding doesn't pay for shit. You can spend anywhere between 1000g and 5000g a week on consumables during progression, and yet the bosses only give you 150-200g per kill.
This means your raid prep either involves farming gold to buy your consumables, or farming the mats to make them yourself. Either way it takes a lot of time. This is why the top guilds offer raid boosts after progression is over in order to get enough gold to pay for the next raid's progress.
As an example...
Steven said that raids will be randomised to a specific degree.
"Raids will have elements that can be pre-planned:
Required composition of DPS, healers and support.
Key positioning.
Raids will also have dynamic elements that can change from session to session.
The types and numbers of bosses and mobs present in the raid and their skill repertoire.
Variables are manifested based on node progression:
The number of metropolis nodes developed.
The types of metropolis nodes developed."
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Raids
On the other sided it does make sense for some of the more difficult content to require best preparations. Would like to hear from Steven and the Developers how they intend to approach this problem.
Normally prepping is not fun you can do one raid or ten fun dungeouns. Plus if you are a multiclasser well you then you have to prep for 2 or 3 classes
I think it should be between 1 and 2 hours mainly cause the more time it takes to prep the less people you will have raiding. Time is a factor. But think if you have to do a few dungeouns to unlock raid that is ok but ouce it gets unlocked then 1 to 2 hours would be acceptable. Plus if prep time is low this encourages multiclassing even for people that do not play as much.
Casual Time players are going to balk even at the length of the raid plus the time for everyone to show up - even if they had prepped days before.
Casual Challenge players will balk at the hardcore challenge of a raid.
It’s the Hardcore Time/Hardcore Challenge players doing repeat raids.
But, those are supposed to be rare in Ashes.
People will have incentive to prep for days to get rid of the W tee Dragon causing the perpetual winter.
The raiding dynamics should be significantly different in Ashes than in previous MMORPGs, like EQ and WoW.
Obviously people will have differing opinions on this, but my opinion is that for every hour raiding, there should be an hour spent in preparation for that raiding. In other games, I would have said a half hour for every hour of raiding, but with gear degrading in Ashes, I think it is fair enough to expect players to put in more time to maintain a minimum standard of equipment, which I am hoping will take just as much effort to maintain as the traditional raiding expectations take.
Obviously that time doesn't need to be spent by the raider - they can farm coin and by the products of someone else's effort if they wish - however, the time taken to gather the materials and craft the items to provide the rider with the expected buffs and consumables, as well as the coin or materials needed for repairs should be about half an hour for every hour of raiding, and then another half an hour of raiding to collect materials or gear replacements for every hour of raiding.
As the degrading of gear is likely (I assume) to be tied to character deaths, as a raid becomes more successful and deaths are less common, the time required should naturally drift down closer to the half an hour per hour of raiding, as with the raid successes, there are less deaths, and thus (I assume), less need to replace gear.
As I said at the start though, this should apply fairly equally to grouping (content dependent) and PvP, and potentially even solo players if they wish to get the most out of soloing. If buffs and consumables persist through death, then this amount of time should apply to anyone that wants the best possible buffs.
There could be various raids with different requirements. Maybe the early raids are very accessible with less than an hour of prep, advanced raids that need hours of prep, and unique raids that need weeks of prep (e.g. due to a quest chain or acquiring specialised resistance gear).
Doesn't matter if PvP or raid if a potion or gear will give someone an edge their will always be someone that will go and get it even for the 0.1% edge in combat regardless of the cost.
I personally have never been one to pursue world first stuff. I prefer to enjoy the journey and there when I get there but some people will stay on for days at a time just to get anything for the slightest edge.
It is all perception on how much time/gold is to much.
It will be interesting to see just how the raid dynamic shapes up in AOC.
While this is all true, this isn't what I would consider raid preparation - this is raid access.
Access is what you have to do in order to be considered ready and able to attempt the content. This includes things like leveling up to an appropriate level, getting appropriate quality gear with any specific stats or effects that are considered required for the plan your guild has on the target content.
This could be considered the process of achieving raid readiness.
Preparation is what you have to do between raids in order to maintain that raid readiness. It is making sure your gear is repaired, making sure you have consumables that are expected of your class/role.
Let's the players play the game, a good balance should be struck.
Balance is the key to everything. That said, I have a feeling raid prep will be very different in Ashes compared to other mmorpgs. If Intrepid go with their intent of having raid events/bosses pop up "organically" instead of as a fixed released schedule, that will change things considerably.
In games like WoW, raiders know months in advance when the next raid is coming out, and plan accordingly. They also know that the raid will reset on a certain day and have raid nights set up throughout the week. However, if a raid boss can appear at any time, you will need to have raid consumables ready at all times.
Content will come and go in Ashes based on what state nodes are in. In terms of raid content, I personally expect that to be as simple as changing the content based on what node type the closest metropolis is (I know this isn't how many people think it will work, it is how *I* think it will end up working).
If this or something similar to it turns out to be true, I can see raid guilds on some servers basically manipulating which node will be a metropolis in any given area based purely on what content they want to take on.
I'm the type of person that likes specialization. Think about the anime: Goblin Slayer
If I'm a Fighter that specializes in Goblin slaying, I'm going to be crazily suited for just that: hunting and killing goblins. I'd be the best at it. Even seasoned adventurers might have a hard time with goblins without the goblin slayer making the preparations and calling the shots. Now, let's say a giant Troll shows up. Well, I might get my butt kicked by that troll.
Now, translate that to Ashes of Creation: Let's say the "hardest raiding content" is a Giant Black Dragon that is immune to acid, unholy or death magic, and non-magical weapons. Well, if my character is specialized in hunting and killing dragons, you'd expect all my armor, weapons, and skills to be suited for best killing dragons. But at the same time, if there's a bunch of undead minions at his disposal, I might do really well. But if he has a bunch of minions weak to acid and death magic, but immune to everything else - I'd get my butt kicked.
What's that mean overall related to this discussion? The whole character path from start to finish is the ultimate "raid prep" in the hardest content there is: but that character would never be the "top tier" so-to-speak against other raiding content/bosses.
There should already be specialization to some extent like if a tank wants to focus on evasion tanking or block tanking which may be good or bad depending on the encounter. But in general, you have to leave room for players to explore and walk back some decisions. If you could never re-spec or change secondary roles, you'd be forcing way too many re-rolls for anyone to enjoy the game properly.
Also, demanding hyper-specialization for content is how you get many people unable to experience content and things like class/spec stacking in raid groups happen. All things in moderation.
To clarify, no fast travel means you can't really teleport wherever and gather the resources you need for prep but it also means that you can't just carry with you infinite prepped items to the raid location (we still don't know details of storage but I think this is a safe assumption at this point). So raiders will need to buy "prepped" items closer to the raid location at some point (or add the travel time from and to the raid to the "prep" list).
Well, half of my point was that hyper-specialization is potentially a great thing - but it's not for everyone. It "can't" be for everyone.
Also, there's nothing that "forces" or "demands" raiders to be hyper-specialized. It's a personal choice based on play style. Of course, I understand the feeling like raiders "need" to optimize their characters in every way for competitive-style raiding. But, like you said: all things in moderation. We have no boss mechanics, no class skills, abilities, bag space, etc. really "released" yet.
And with Intrepid saying that each raid boss encounter will be different from the last time (at least for the single-boss encounters) - how will you even know how to maximize your character for that fight beyond just being the best you can be at what you chose? If anything, it just means that people can go even further with customization to their liking/play-style instead of specific-encounter or specific-raid stacking (assuming they know how to adapt as a player to different encounters.)
Of course, the more knowledge you have, the better you can prepare. But without seeing it or experiencing, it's all guesswork.
Who knows? Maybe you need a guy in the back of the room with a cauldron making potions for people non-stop during the encounter. Maybe there's a weird gas in the cave that causes you to choke if you swallow (i.e. a no-potion mechanic)? Maybe the weight of the gear you bring slows you down so much that you need to wheel a supply wagon with you to the raid... which leaves you open to other players/groups stealing the stuff from your wagon?
Every game has prep time for every type of content - if you're playing properly at least.