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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.
Locations of Raids and Fast Travel
Xenantaya
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Apologies if this has been discussed before (in which case I'd appreciate a link), but a question popped into my mind about raids and fast travel. I understand that raids will appear on the map based on the development and events on each server, and that the game will not have any fast travel with the exception of scientific metropolises.
Is there a possibility that, say, a major raid ends up spawning in the northeast corner of the map (because, for example, the raid is connected to the first Tier 5 military node that develops, and that happens to be in the extreme NE corner)? If that happens, will people based on nodes on the southwest corner of the map simply face a long and arduous journey each time they want to do that raid dungeon? Or will the mechanics for server prevent raids from spawning in inconvenient locations or will some limited form of fast travel be offered to reach such a raid dungeon?
Also, seems like major raiding guilds will have a strong incentive to locate near the middle of the map to try to minimize distances to raids, at least assuming there's no raid-specific fast travel.
Is there a possibility that, say, a major raid ends up spawning in the northeast corner of the map (because, for example, the raid is connected to the first Tier 5 military node that develops, and that happens to be in the extreme NE corner)? If that happens, will people based on nodes on the southwest corner of the map simply face a long and arduous journey each time they want to do that raid dungeon? Or will the mechanics for server prevent raids from spawning in inconvenient locations or will some limited form of fast travel be offered to reach such a raid dungeon?
Also, seems like major raiding guilds will have a strong incentive to locate near the middle of the map to try to minimize distances to raids, at least assuming there's no raid-specific fast travel.
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You might have a few wandering groups that never settle, but trying to go from one side of the map to another just to set up a raid seems like way more work then its going to be worth.
Majority of raids won't really be repeatable.
Also, a raid boss might last long enough for people to travel to.
I don't think that Winter Dragon will be defeated in one day... or even in one week.
"One of the design elements that we're implementing into our raids is that the raid will not be exactly the same every single time. You're going to have variables that can't necessarily be pre-planned out for. You can pre-plan out for a lot of the raid like how many DPS do you need and healers and support; where the key position and all that kind of stuff; but I think the compelling aspect of Ashes raiding will be the difficulty in achieving this content and having that content change from session to session as well. We want there to be variables that get manifested by you know what type of node got developed elsewhere. Is he going to have acolytes or cultists? What will the acolytes have skills [available] to them? What kit is the boss gonna have? What available skill repertoire will the boss be able to [wield]? ... A lot of those systems are influenced obviously by world development. So the raid kind of takes into account at what stage has the world developed: Are there two metropolises now available in the world? Okay well let's activate this skill in this skill. Now you have five metropolises, well now all these skills have been activated. Are there are they all economic nodes? Are they all military nodes? That we can change things based on that stuff. And it really is a threat assessment from the environment against the players."
--- Steven Sharif
May be I shouldn't, but I still expect better.
---Steven Sharif
Killing a raid boss can cause that boss to be removed to respawn in a different region at a later date.
That might be PAX info, though.
This thread is about travel to raids, and the post you responded to was asking about travel to raids, thus the only reasonable reply pertains to travel to raids.
There will be parts of the world that will house raid content for long stretches of time, if not indefinitely. How raid guilds will get there is indeed a valid question.
Edit; both my hope and my current assumption is that most established raid guilds will have a minimum speed mount as a requirement for joining, as there is scope for a whole lot of riding and it would be more efficient to do that as a group.
Or have none and do a day play journey if your are really wanting to do this dungeon on the others side of the map.
But as I said without any testing nothing is sure , we don't know where the gates of the four races will be . Would they be in each corner with the Tulnar in the centre ? Would they be line up in the north ?
The location of populations will determine location of dungeon ... To much unknown and to much variable but yes if you are parte of the 10% that choose to go at gate A and 50% are at gate C in the opposite corner of the map, you have to do long journey to do lvl 6-7 nodes dungeon or choose to go live there .
The game as been designed to attract peoples with peoples, if there aren't enough player on a server to sustain 5 metropolis, there won't be 5 metropolis ect ect.
So you'll will have to wait mid late 2020 to see how this world will react at the players, than if Steven don't like the way it's go they may adjust stuff and in the end it's your server populations and choose who tell if you will travel a lot or not ...
"It will be something that can not be repeatable in the exact same way from raid to raid..."
It's not just about randomness, it's about content dynamically changing as the world changes. Mobs and mob bosses will come and go as nodes rise and fall and as we defeat and deplete mobs in specific locations.
I will make dave get the drinks
There are some raids that are the result of triggered events. These raids will only be up for a limited time as they are the result of something that occurs in the world.
However, yes there are the more traditional system style dungeons and raids that are repeatable, but with that said, just because it is repeatable, it won't be exactly the same every time. You won't be getting the raids down to a "on-farm" status, as little changes in the world can mean little changes for the bosses.
For example, if you've been doing a particular raid and there are only 2 metropolis developed, and then when you go to do the raid a 3rd metro has developed, the bosses will have access to a new ability.
Also, if you have 5 metropolis in your world, and then one of the metros falls (say a military one) and it is replaced by an Economic one, the next time you run that raid, the bosses will have different abilities, as they draw their abilities not only by how many metros there are, but by which node types the metros are.
A few more questions about the traditional, repeatable raids, as Jahlon describes them (and I understand that the abilities of mobs and bosses in the same raid can vary each time depending on the server's development or other events) to the extent anyone has any info about them:
1. Has Intrepid confirmed that all such raids will be open world without any instancing, as Kinthallis says? Or will they be instanced, or a mix of open world and instanced?
2. Once a raid spawns at one location, can it then despawn from that location based on some condition (time, boss defeats, etc.) and then respawn at a different location, as Dygz says? That could be one way to mitigate travel time issues and keep raids fresh if raids cycle through certain areas.
3. Can the "same" raid (again, understanding that a raid may vary based on events/conditions) spawn in multiple places in the world, which could mitigate travel time issues?
There will be "world event" raids that will be one off things - or perhaps respawning for a limited time during the event.
What Dygz seems to be trying to say is that because a boss has a small aspect of randomization to it, that raids won't be repeatable. When we know that this level of randomization will be so small that it won't even cause the raid to want to change it's constituent role buildup (ie, we know we won't need more healers), these randomized changes can only be minor.
There is also change based on node state, and it may well be that a raid changes based on all metropolis nodes on the server, but it may also only change based on the type of the nearest metropolis. We don't really know yet. What we do know in this regard is that for the most part, such changes will be rare, and so you can expect months of the same content unaffected by no changes, as nodes won't have changed.
So yeah, Dygz is wrong. Again.
He is taking minor randomization to raid content and misconstruing that in to a weapon to try and put raid-centric players off the game by making them think there won't be content they can plan on working on.
It is completely and utterly misleading, and he knows it.
Am I the only one who imagines most escalating threads as a bar fight? Two people duking it out and suddenly a third comes from nowhere and smashes a stool on another ones head, and suddenly everythign catches fire, with people bashin on each other in blind rage, while some onlookers stand outside and watch it all go down? XD
I think of it more like pantomime at this point
You guys must be so disappointed when threads come along where Dygz and I agree...
Either way, I'm always happy to provide a reason to eat popcorn.
The context of that quote is talking about the tactics used to fight that boss, and the abilities that boss might have. not the ability to fight at all.
Wait what? Are you asking if there is fast travelling?
dont mind KinthallisThornblade they are a lost cause