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
I was coming here to post something similar to this. Everquest was a great example of scaling. The big baddie should be big scary baddie not just some slightly harder same level mob. It puts the fear into groups to not venture too deep in case they aggro something they shouldn't and creates a reason to come back to the dungeon later on when you've become powerful enough to dethrone the "boss"
My main concern after watching the dungeon gameplay and seeing the amount of people they want on the server. How are these open dungeons going to handle many groups entering it at the same time? What's the respawn rate going to be like, are there going to be multiple paths so multiple groups can diverge out?
So it seems there will be varying levels of monsters in dungeons, and I like that. I can't imagine a dungeon where everything is about the same strength as everything else, seems very boring, uniform and unnatural.
On the question of more or less scaling, I'd like to see more. Deep dungeons with deep dangers.
So in my mind the pros are:
more player direct interaction, more of a living world as you see players.
Social dynamics appear of finding players as you enter and you encounter more as you go farther down, it also creates possible ways to find groups outside of these dungeons like meeting stones in Classic wow.
The cons:
When you put the human element in, where Higher level players are plowing through the dungeon it does take away from lower levels emersion and sorta trivializes it to some extent. It also creates griefing/trolling with boss encounters etc due to nature of behavior.
Middle of the road
It creates conflict, as Intrepid has stated they want to have conflict being a part of Ashes, having guilds controlling dungeons or boss rooms is a possibility, it creates moments of potential pvp where you weigh risk vs reward of killing those players to secure potential loot.
Overall
I think it's a fine line that intrepid needs to walk, but the dungeons being open and increasing in difficult hinges on multiple factors and systems outside of the dungeons themselves if they can fine-tune those systems correctly there should be little downside to having scaling dungeons. If done incorrectly it could be really troublesome for lowbies and more casual friendly players.
I can understand these concerns if you're imagining the dungeons will be anything like dungeons from WoW, but they're aiming more for old EverQuest/UO style open dungeons. There will be multiple groups in a dungeon and you may never even see each other, because these dungeons are huge .. and not instanced.
I'm pretty sure even if you are a casual solo, you will be able to find a quiet secluded part of the dungeon all to yourself... That was a really fun way for me to play one of my characters in everquest in hostile territory on a pvp server. Just always in their dungeon and I only got found rarely, a handful of PvP enouncters per week!
I would love to see a lot more of dungeons that do scale though, because it logically makes sense that the deeper into a dungeon or area you go the stronger and stronger the monsters are going to be. You're not going to have the King of a Kingdom at the front lines fighting with the majority of his kingdom.
TLDR: I want a mix of both, with majority on the deeper you go the harder the mobs (30-50 level range kind of thing). If i have to choose though for 100% i would want the scaling world dungeons over the minimum level range ones.
As a general principle, I support anything that fosters depth of play (albeit I admit it is quite linear here.)
Now, is there going to be "training to zone" potential as a result of this? I admit I'm not clear on how aggro tables are handled. That feature is probably not considered ideal in modern game design but it definitely is one of the most lasting memories of games like EQ and certainly magnified that sense of risk even limited level brands can present. Still, there's no denying it adds a bit of excitement.
I don't have a solid opinion on the idea of "skips" to quick-dive deeper. I'm imaging perhaps a key you acquire that unlocks a shortcut to get back more quickly and skip would may have become somewhat less relevant content. OR, the loot tables and gear scaling could be setup so that even lower level loot retains a meaning full value. Not enough that level 50s are inclined to hype-farm level 30 content but just enough so that it doesn't feel like a waste to have to fight your way through.
I am NOT a fan of scaling up players. If you step into a dungeon that is above your level, I fully expect those players to get demolished.
If players don't get scaled down and end up being able to solo clear dungeons, I feel that they will do so on a mass scale. They will do it as often as possible in order to farm materials. If most of the dungeons are open world, then expect them to be overrun by high level players farming mats, essentially forcing out lower level players from experiencing dungeons they are EXPECTED to go through. And if that's allowed, then... players can pretty much kiss dungeons goodbye until they hit level 50.
And that's not fun.
Should open world dungeons scale up in difficulty significantly as you go deeper (ex. level 30-50), or should the difficulty band of a given dungeon be more narrow from top to bottom (ex. level 45-50)?
Yes! I think it would be great if the open world dungeons scale up (significantly) in difficulty as you delve deeper, such as the lvl 30-50 as you suggest.
This will keep us coming back for more (to these dungeons) as we level to see how much further we can explore and discover.
Unlike in some games (cough wow) where a dungeon is a static level range, such as 13-25 (cough deadmines), once you go through it and complete it, you never go back (unless you are farming for a specific drop).
If we have a scaling up level range, we'll be back many times to see just how far 'down' we can go.
Edit: though I think there should be a good combination of targeted level dungeons as well.
An open world dungeon is usually detrimental to lower levels unless you create a collaboration between level groups.
Too broad a level range lower level players wouldn't be able to effectively regroup if sacked by higher level group.
Sure corruption would mitigate this somewhat, but there are a ton of different war types. Node, guild, religious, family ect.
Anyway having a mix of them can actually be the best option (big and small dungeons) ... or
What do you think of a system where you can influence the lvl of the entire dungeon. A new dungeon will be full populated by low level enemies outside of it and at the entrance ... each time you clear some of the dungeon it will increase in power .. so from a 30-50 to a 45-50. Is the dungeon going to attack the nodes? Can the node influence the lvl of the dungeons? If that is possible then the lvl can go up and down based on the success or failure of the 2 factions. If you clear the entire dungeon then it will reset to a lower level i suppose.
What d you think about that?
Or maybe having a big dungeon with some smaller one can also be an idea ... the bug one will usually be more populated and have a bigger variety of levels and zones, the smaller one have less enemies and then less distance between levels. Similar to how the nodes work and interact ... so when you clear a Dungeon you get the information and the connection to the next and probably stronger zone ...
i like more the idea of a big dungeon with different section and levels , one dungeon but worth 3 or more. So you can go deeper and deeper. Maybe unlocking the door or the passage to the next dungeon... so you need to find a key or some lever. Like the random dungeons in BloodBorn maybe xD
I like if the dungeon will influence the nodes around the area of influence, so it will prevent the city from doing something or will spawn more enemies ... maybe killing the caravans.
Anyway it depends by you and how you want to build and balance the world ... we cannot choose or pick any preference as players, the devs need to know the right way and follow the idea of the main designer .. do you have a game designer right?