Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Honestly I think both. They would be called different names (ex. field raid vs dungeon). But fundamentally I see them both having a place in an MMO.
On a a slightly more tangent note I do have some thoughts on "scaling" regarding dungeons (that I think this topic has an underlying premise in regards). This is a bit more fleshed out due to my guild and I, having a similar discussion recently.
In regards to dungeon scaling you can't discusses it without touching upon two fundamental aspects of MMOs. Power Creep and level (dungeon) design. Content (regarding raiding) normally can't keep up with the most elite dungeon groups (i.e power creep). So dungeon scaling is introduced to one, account for such inevitable power scaling, and two, create a sense of challenge for community. Now traditionally speaking we have 2 major paths that most developers take when designing dungeon scaling, add more mobs and/or higher levels to said mobs. While this does make the dungeons "harder", it's quite boring, in my opinion. I think a better approach of a dungeon is to instead design it around the hardest level possible (max scaling) and then block off paths/mechanics/bosses/ect... as you scale it down to the lowest denominator (whatever that dungeons base requirements are). This way it's more rewarding to get to the "max scaling" of a dungeon because that's when you truly face it's challenge.
Thanks for the question!
Hope you have a good one.
These type of dungeons also lead to great community bonding as those who are deeper in, can rescue those who need help up above and sometimes vice versa.
Some scaling one that will be influenced by the stats of the world ( like the higher lvl economic node determines how deep a mining dungeon will be) and you'll have to fine a way that suits you to make high players not past by the same way has low players.
And having some temporary that only spawn at lvl X of a node.
"I finaly reach level 40, and am now viable for groups to play a certain dungeon, togheter with my party, everyone leveled between 40-45 we progress, suddenly none of us can hit the mobs or clear basic thrash groups, we disband the group and go back to questing"
This is not really fun. It is important to make the dungeon in a way that there is a sense of accomplishent and purpose to play the dungeon once it becomes avaible. If you open up the dungeon at lvl 40, and you need lvl 48 to have a chance to actually killing a boss, nobody will use this dungeon except for thrash runs and this makes the dungeon a boring farming spot.
Instead, divide the dungeon in sections (Maybe look into Black Rock Depths from wow?)
First section is 40-45, then the dungeon splits up into more difficult section as tied togher with quests etc. Maybe you unlock teleports etc depending on how far you progressed in the quest chain etc
Splitting it into chunks is how it would work in the first place, certain areas would have more difficult mobs that others. They shouldn’t be door’d off everywhere though, that’d feel disjointed and awkward to maneuver through.
Your group of level ~45 characters would not end up strictly deadlocked once you travel into the area that has level 50 mobs, but it would get significantly harder, and eventually at a point your group will have to be the next coming of god, or you’ll need to leave and return when you’ve gotten stronger. I don’t really see a problem with having to return to a dungeon to clear the next boss.
Perhaps there will be teleporting to cleated sections, but so far I don’t believe we’ve gotten any info on that topic.
That one became harder and harder the further down your went.
It created quite a fun inviroment all from new players to veterans where you could walk up to a group fighting some surtain mobs and ask if you could join at any level, which created that "get to know new people and social mmorpg" that you are looking for.
A dungeon like that can become a vibrant world on its own.
For instanced dungeons the LAST thing i want is "hard mode, nightmare mode" etc.
With same mobs, same loot items, but just with new levels.
Thats just so lazy and repetativly boring that you want to claw your eyes out.
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Say you have five teams of eight. Each consisting of teammates of similar level. As you start the dungeon everyone is of sufficient power/level to take on the mobs. After a short bit they reach a transition point. Past this point enemies scale up(example:30 to 40). Team1 is 30ish so they stay behind and man the transition point. The rest battle on till they reach transition point 2. Team2 is 40ish so they man this point while the other three teams push through level 50 enemies to the boss/bosses. While they do battle with the high level part of the dungeon, the two lower level teams hold the line at their transition points(where spawns are increased to consistently flow in). If no one is at the transition point to hold off the enemies there then it give a buff to the creatures further in the dungeon. Making it significantly more difficult for those fighting the boss.
I think something like that would make it possible for lower level and max level teams to work together in a meaningful way. Sure team1 can’t fight the main boss but they can still contribute in a significant way. Plus if you are max level and have a great team or sets of teams you can try the boss fight at full buffed status and not leave anyone at transitions.
Future Crafting Plans: Herbalism > Alchemy & Scribe or Mining > Metalworking > Jewel cutting (Pending)
In my mind, "open world" means that you can simply wander into it at any level. So, a level 1 character could possibly wander into an open world area designed for level 40 characters.
Similarly, "dungeon" indicates an area enclosed with limited access points. A castle, or underground zone for example.
"Scaling" would seem to indicate that the enemies you face might change depending on the foe they are facing, however it seems that most people have taken the understanding that the enemies in the "dungeon" described here would not change based on the characters but rather the zone itself would contain a varying collection of mobs from low level to high level depending on where you encounter them.
From my experience with other MMO's in the past I have played in, zones that are designed for group content ( which is seems is the group understanding of what you are asking here ) are a lot of fun. These area's are truly open world in that you can wander into them at any level. You won't survive if you are too low level, but you can go in there. They do promote social interaction, provided the mobs don't alter their power based on the level of the pc's they are facing, in that people do tend to group up more readily when there is a common enemy they are trying to defeat. For an example, classic WOW. Social interaction was almost a mechanic of the open world in that game as everything was that much more difficult to defeat. Having an open world zone designed purely for groups of high level characters would be highly appealing to me. Working towards getting to a point where I could reasonably contribute to a group going in there would be a goal to leveling a character, somewhat similar to the experience of gearing up to enter a raid or end game instanced dungeon.
To make the zone ( read "Dungeon" ) truly open world would open up the question of "How much would a low level character gain by "helping" to kill a high level mob? And the idea of "boosting" then comes into the conversation. I'm not saying boosting is a bad thing, in fact the opposite. Some of my friends who play the games I play enjoy the idea of boosting others, even strangers. But there would probably have to be some ceiling on how much a character can gain by being "boosted".
This. It would mean interaction within the dungeon as well (assuming they are open dungeons). Lower levels in the easier section and as you get deeper in it gets harder and you start seeing higher level characters. It would make the dungeons more alive too.
I would perhaps like the scale to be a little bigger, say 30-50.
For dungeon distribution I like the shape of a trapezium. Allowing variety while making sure there is a healthy conflux of people at the high end.
Difficulty layers within the dungeons sounds attractive. There is something rewarding about coming back and being shown your progress.
Also, can you make an rogue-like infinite instanced level for masoquist that wants to try how deep they can get into the cave. Maybe an instanced cave deep down the dungeon.
To the simplest execution: tweak numbers, put the stage a number and let masoquism make replayability.
claim is there will be many systems allowing for vertical and horizontal character progressions, so why just level requirements?
Adopt a metroidvania style to deal with access to any zones/dungeons/deeper areas and such, checking more variables than just level and allowing more ways to gain entrance to avoid cutting off the content for some players. Entrance will be something to work for, areas will be revisited, etc.
So I guess my answer leans towards a narrow range of possibilities to enter a given section of a dungeon, a broader range when different sections/areas are considered. But it’s not strictly level scaling I’m talking about here.
There’s the difficulty of the dungeon also to consider. This could be dealt separately from variables allowing the entrance. Let the players discover if they are up to it, even they have managed to enter they may still be too weak to succeed.
Eventually a player will gain access and will be powerful enough to advance.
But then they may still be lacking companions for specific mechanics, and perhaps these companions could enter only through other routes based on their specific character progressions and will require help to allow your progression through the dungeon... (2+ characters mechanics are an hot topic even in an MMO as you know: some dungeons should be soloable in open world, some should require help to unlock entrance, some should require help to complete).
This.
Same.
The ubiquitous availability of low level monsters also meant that they could serve a second purpose as loot piñatas. Despite being low level monsters, they could still contain rare items, harvestable resources, or both. As a result, every single monster was still relevant in the end-game for what it dropped. It made the game feel populated with monsters that were actually important, rather than just a sea of trash mobs you would never look at a second time. Most importantly, it made farming and grinding actually fun because of the variety.
One more benefit of random instant respawning was that it made the maps feel more dynamic. Monsters were never in the same spot. Some maps, for example, were split up into multiple sections. If you spent time killing monsters repeatedly in one section, eventually monsters would pile up in the other sections, giving you a reason to go clear out those sections instead. You would constantly have to seek out the nooks and crannies of maps to clear out monsters that had clumped up, making the whole experience of farming much more active and exploratory. In some cases, this made it actually *good* to have more players farming the same dungeon because they would clear out hotspots you weren't getting to. It's a system that doesn't punish a server for being more populated.
It would be nice to AoC adopt a similar approach to open world farming of monsters.
But the deeper you go, the more difficult and rewarding the journey is but maybe not simply by virtue of level requirement but skill requirement. The further in, the more punishing the dungeon is making mistakes.
1. How the dungeons will be rewarded.
If dungeons reward will be a quest based - like you get exp and some items from quest to kill N mobs or boss in dungeon - we need to know how quest scaling will work. If quests assignment are level based - than whole dung scaling is attached to quest level, and you can put whatever level you want in the dungeon - people will just go through the quest targets avoiding everything above their level as apparently the won't have the quest. If most of dungeon reward items are being drop, then we go to point 2.
2. How loot tables will be scaled in relation to your level.
Like I am 40lvl player, and there is a 30-40lvl dungeon with scaling from entrance to final. Am I interested in doing any 30lvl content? - not if loot from it will be for lvl 30 with stats too low for my level. If I am 30lvl player - will I be interested to struggle for 40lvl content? - not if I won't be able to equip the gear from it.
3. Is dung exp reward considerable?
If there is some bonus exp in completing dung stages - there is a stimulation to go through whole scaled content. Otherwise there will be more efficient ways to spend the time outside of dungeon relative to your level.
4. Dung wipe out/time limit/checkpoint mechanics/lose exp rate
Time to try clear content of level higher than your should be major point in risk to reward ratio with scaled dungeon. If there is less reward in completing the whole dungeon than repeating easy content - people will just grind.
5. Dung timeouts
If there is n timeouts of dung per day/week/etc, people will try to go to the very end without looking if it scaled or not.
A lot of other gameplay points which are not uncovered by you involved in the question, so there can't be objective answer to this at the current amount of game info revealed.
IMHO
Dung should be with stable level range with increased hardness of bosses and minions along the way
Low level player to high lvl dung scenario:
TBH i don't apeal to scaleable dungeon in such a huge lvl range as lvl30-50, but that shouldn't mean it wouldn't be doable. If i invest 3000+ hours in a game and i'm a lvl 50 decide to hold my lvl30 friends hand in a dungeon, i would ofc want to feel like this experienced skilled adventurer that will guide my friend to the loot and experience the dungeon has to offer. I've played a fair decent amount of MMO's, and i see AoC have lots of class variation to offer in terms of playstyle and oppertunities to be taken in advantage of such situations.
What i think would be interesting to see is, instead of making the dungeon scalable to deal with this topic, i think it would be more interesting see classes taking advantages of their strenghts and knowledge, such as bards buffing the low lvl player, the paladin with protections etc. The game so far offers 64 playable classes along subclasses which has potential to hundreads of combinations along crafting.
If you intentionally bring a low lvl player to a high lvl dungeon or high level area in general, it should feel like a dangerous place to be. What i think would be fun to see is, what can a bard or other support classes offer to him with (buffs), could some alchemy potions futher buff him for x amount of time? Or since most gear in the game isn't soulbound, could this adventure get overgeared with homemade crafted gear? (which ofc would cost a fair decent amount to compensate such a huge lvl gap) BUT, if you there was like 5 tiers of rarity on gear, he should get the best of the best that can be crafted in order to compensate his low level.
You're bringing this poor guy into the danger zone. If you spent recources on crafting gear, potions and buffs, i think it would be fun and interesting see "how far can we go" before you can't overgear him to the extend were you're facing a dragon, demon lord, killer beasts or what might hide in there, were you as a lvl30 need to play extremely careful to succeed. You're going to a high lvl dungeon, be prepared to face the challenge or wait until you're ready for it, that should be the consequences.
High level player to low lvl dung
So in terms of the oppersite situation where if i was the high level player, it would be nice to see a useful reward in the end, like receiving useable materials for repairs, upgrades etc, which is a universal thing everyone could benefit with. I remember in Guildwars 2 doing dungeons, i recieved items items that was worth selling, but not really useable for my level due to i was top level, but the gear could be sold for a decent amount of gold due to its rarity or it could be salvage for usable crafting materials even tho i was 40'ish lvl above the requirement.
What if the bosses could drop items such as blueprints, recepies for food, alchemy, schematics, excotic and unique materials the opportunities could be endless but a fair reason to re-visit the dungoen to complete a sophisticated template/construction for x thing.
A fine example i could use is from World of Warcraft Classic. Even tho you're lvl 60 and are geared, you can go to the dungeon "Stockades" which is a lvl 22-30 dungeon and die if you pull like 10 mobs and have no idea what to do, which ofc is uncommon, but possible, and that goes for any lvl 30 zones, where you're basically double the lvl requiment. I do not know how gear and stats scales in AoC, but if it is exaggerated like a lvl 30 sword do ~45 dmg and a lvl 60 sword do ~1300dmg, then i can see the problem of a high level beeing incredible strong and faceroll lower level content. If a lvl 60 sword did like 200-400+ dmg (depends on further upgrades, enhancements, enchantments etc) then you should have a much easy time pulling more mobs, but also have the feeling not to be overconfident. That way you have an easier time and be able to help the low level player while recieving loot to sell, or cross fingers to get that low drop chance item that could sell for some extra coins or be useful.
What if each dungeon at some days when an event triggers or your node you're supporting gets contested? Like if you have a castle to reinforce and there is a dungeon nearby you need to go in and clear in order to boost the supply line? It need to be done ASAP to help your faction/guild/covenant, you could go in there and clear it and perhaps get some extra goodies for doing a related quest that got triggered in an event.
Everyone should benefit from it
Yup you pulled your low lvl friend into this, overgear him, buff him, help him in any way to get through the dungeon. The reward such as materials is something eveyone can benefit from and you could add some excotic loot to the loot table as well, so the moment of "if this drops this would huge!". As a high level player, the reason to go there is just to help your friend or have a special scenario quest that got triggered somehow and your presence there is needed.
One does not walk into Mordor... Or do you, if those two hobbits are smarter than an entire army?
The first mmo I played (Anarchy Online) had dungeons that had a max level (you'd get booted out exceeding it). These dungeons had unique items that could be looted from it, or unique materials needed for crafting certain items.
This gave reason for some player to create alt characters that never went to max level, but stayed at a certain level where they maximized their gear on that level for specific dungeons. Mostly to farm these areas for crafting materials or certain unique items that were very powerful during levelling.
Others would maximize their character at a certain level, and farm certain areas a while before levelling.
The best gear from these dungeons would last for quite a while past the max level cap of these dungeons (for example some weapons/gear from a dungeon with cap at level 60 could easily last to level 100, max level in the game was 220), or they'd have unique effects that no other weapons had.
This was a really fun dynamic to the game. It basically provided a type of endgame that wasn't at max level and made the game feel richer. There was more to the game that reaching max level befor endgame began.
I'm not sure how this could be done in Ashes of Creation.
First thing that comes to mind would be characters optimized for a certain level of node development.
Like, imagine a cave that maybe has some spiders/wolves in it, an occasional goblin scout, but deeper inside on the lower levels you find a goblin settlement with better trained goblins and more of them, maybe some beasts they breed up... and past those defenses you find their leader or religious idol, either a monsterous goblin king and his terrifying champion, maybe an orc or ogre.. or even a dragon!
Giving dungeons a deeper sense of depth and danger is fun, I think, and gives reason for people of all levels to want to visit if the very deepest reaches are bad ass enough.
I think that type of system would guarantee that you will always either hit a wall you cannot pass or have to complete boring fights to get to the lvl appropriate stuff. Neither of which is satisfying.
If I want to go through the effort of getting together a group then coordinating an effort with that group to get through content, I for sure want a payoff in the end for that effort. If I'm nearly always guaranteed to be either bored to stone walled why would I bother?
I suppose the idea is to have low and high lvl characters always in contact, but that can be better accomplished in common areas like nodes. If dungeons are kept lvl consistent it will be easier to find groups on the fly because the only people around will be those of appropriate lvl.