How did gear/loot distribution work with EQ2's pace of boss release?
Each mob had it's own drop table. Most of the drops were completed items (99%+), and were only able to be obtained on that mob.
You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
This does go hand in hand with the fairly constant addition of new content.
If you are not adding content at a fairly good pace, you obviously want your players to have to run the same content for years on end. If you are going to give them something new, it's fine if they are essentially done with a piece of content in 3 months.
You couldn't really have a game where there is a need to farm the same encounters for years on end, but also add new encounters at an EQ2 speed. On the other hand, you couldn't have EQ2 speed of gear acquisition while having L2 pace of new content additions.
The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
Add-Ons are not allowed in Ashes. It's pretty much the same stance as FFXIV.
Add ons are not allowed. Add ons are very easy to detect and prevent.
You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
What about bosses though? Or were they just "very hard mobs" with their own very top lvl gear? And I'm assuming the difficult mobs had a long spawn cd, or were they so difficult that even groups of people could only kill them once in a while?
He only hires people who have worked on other MMORPGs and also enjoy playing MMORPGs, so... I dunno why he would be simply acting on the hearsay of rando players and ignoring the imput of his dev team.
I dont know why he isnt listening to his development team either - all I know is that he is not listening to them.
Maybe they are too scared to tell him that 90% of those on his team disagree with something he has already run his mouth on.
All I know is, I have yet to see an experienced MMO developer or CS worker that is against allowing players to use trackers.
You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
What about bosses though? Or were they just "very hard mobs" with their own very top lvl gear? And I'm assuming the difficult mobs had a long spawn cd, or were they so difficult that even groups of people could only kill them once in a while?
Yeah, by "very hard mobs" I essentially mean bosses.
If it wasnt a boss, it wasnt dropping anything you would want to equip.
This applies to all levels of the game, not just raiding. Those people running group content would get their gear primarily from group bosses (maybe a little crafted or quested gear). Those that were mostly solo got their loot mostly from crafters, quests or the broker, with the occasional piece from a solo boss.
However, the best geared group only character would find upgrades to their gear on the easiest raid encounters, and solo players would find upgrades at the start of group progression.
In terms of spawn timers, solo bosses would be an hour, group would be 1 to 4 hours, and raid would be 5 days+ (some raid bosses literally never spawned on some servers).
In terms of difficulty, solo bosses basically just required tou to know your class. Grouo bosses ranged from "I'll just solo it" up to "this is actually a group boss designed for raiders on their day off", and raid bosses were mostly only worth attempting by actual raid guilds that were clearing current content.
However, there were also instances. Solo and group instances could usually be done once a day, and most raid instances were once a week.
He only hires people who have worked on other MMORPGs and also enjoy playing MMORPGs, so... I dunno why he would be simply acting on the hearsay of rando players and ignoring the imput of his dev team.
I dont know why he isnt listening to his development team either - all I know is that he is not listening to them.
Maybe they are too scared to tell him that 90% of those on his team disagree with something he has already run his mouth on.
All I know is, I have yet to see an experienced MMO developer or CS worker that is against allowing players to use trackers.
Suddenly he thinks he is speaking for his development team and knows what they are thinking, tell me trackers are not toxic again lmao.
He only hires people who have worked on other MMORPGs and also enjoy playing MMORPGs, so... I dunno why he would be simply acting on the hearsay of rando players and ignoring the imput of his dev team.
I dont know why he isnt listening to his development team either - all I know is that he is not listening to them.
Maybe they are too scared to tell him that 90% of those on his team disagree with something he has already run his mouth on.
All I know is, I have yet to see an experienced MMO developer or CS worker that is against allowing players to use trackers.
Suddenly he thinks he is speaking for his development team and knows what they are thinking, tell me trackers are not toxic again lmao.
It's no secret that I am friends with a small number of developers at Intrepid.
The 90% was being generous. Those people at Intrepid that I know can not name any one person (other than Steven) that is actually against trackers.
You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
What about bosses though? Or were they just "very hard mobs" with their own very top lvl gear? And I'm assuming the difficult mobs had a long spawn cd, or were they so difficult that even groups of people could only kill them once in a while?
You've now reminded me of partially why FFXI does not have the same itemization concept as much.
Top level bosses drop certain gear items, but the alternate way of getting them is through an instance. Whenever you kill any mob that gives exp (up to 10 levels below you at most levels, a bit more as you go higher), you get a chance for a 'Seal' to drop. That seal cannot be traded to other players. Trade some number of these 'Seals' to an NPC for an Orb to enter an instanced battlefield. Win that battlefield and get SOMETHING, always something, but certain things had 10% odds of dropping on average.
A lot of it was gear for people playing around with specialized builds, stuff you might use or give to a friend who happened to care (or for running the same sort of level-capped content), and at the higher levels of them (takes more Seals to unlock), you get chances at good items for top level crafting to make the better gear in the game.
So TECHNICALLY you could get a group together and blitz through 30 of these in a day if you saved up enough seals... but normally for my group at least they're just 'alright time for a break from regular play let's go do something interesting like die to an enemy Beastman group', if we win we make some money, if we lose we got a fight. But we had control of the when and in some ways the 'how-many', just it was balanced against the 'how-often'.
The thing is, though, because it was 'slower', a lot of people never fought these at all, and to 'have them figured out' took... well, the above. This system is entirely separate from the 3-day respawns and 1-week respawns of High Notorious Monsters (basically Raid Level at the time), but you could, with enough high level Seals, fight an instanced equivalent with similar drops with 18 people.
So while they didn't release new versions of these often, you'd get them in bulk, and over the next few weeks people would trickle out information on each one, as different people used up their 'Seals' to try the fights.
tl;dr fighting enough normal enemies opened up Instanced enemies that you could put on your own schedule, but they have a time limit and you get nothing if you lose.
In terms of spawn timers, solo bosses would be an hour, group would be 1 to 4 hours, and raid would be 5 days+ (some raid bosses literally never spawned on some servers).
In terms of difficulty, solo bosses basically just required tou to know your class. Grouo bosses ranged from "I'll just solo it" up to "this is actually a group boss designed for raiders on their day off", and raid bosses were mostly only worth attempting by actual raid guilds that were clearing current content.
However, there were also instances. Solo and group instances could usually be done once a day, and most raid instances were once a week.
So yeah, L2 just had way fewer ways to get gear. You pretty much had 1 maybe 2 types of mobs per gear set, with those mobs dropping gear mats and full pieces (~1% chance for mats and 0.00x% for full ones) and probably around 5-10 open world bosses with drops across a particular gear tier, on a 24h cd. Epic bosses were mainly farmed for the jewelry cause it gave amazing stats, but outside of that most of them gave you lower tier gear that was somewhat easy to craft.
And every 6 months you'd get a few new world bosses and one epic boss And pretty much all of this content was contested, so your farm would be even slower. And usually you'd get a questline for gear recipes/mats, that usually took weeks to complete (and recipes were 60% chance, so the gear wasn't even assured).
This pace fit the gear progress though. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way it seemed good to slowly progress through gear tiers and each new upgrade felt substantial and rewarding. EQ2 seems to have operated on not only high boss pace, but gear too, if all the new harder bosses provided the new better gear to farm said bosses.
EQ2 seems to have operated on not only high boss pace, but gear too, if all the new harder bosses provided the new better gear to farm said bosses.
Yeah, each boss would have new - usually better - items.
However, it was fairly normal for each boss to only drop one or two items that any given class would want. In some cases, a boss may have no drops at all that you would want.
This did slow down gear progression to a reasonable pace. You could generally expect to get an upgrade to most items once every 6 months or so.
This did slow down gear progression to a reasonable pace. You could generally expect to get an upgrade to most items once every 6 months or so.
Ah, so there you go. L2's and EQ2's gear pacing were very similar. It's just that one was concentrated on pvp in its design, while the other was more about pve.
This did slow down gear progression to a reasonable pace. You could generally expect to get an upgrade to most items once every 6 months or so.
Ah, so there you go. L2's and EQ2's gear pacing were very similar. It's just that one was concentrated on pvp in its design, while the other was more about pve.
How many gear slots did L2 have?
With 21 slots, upgrading most slots every 6 months meant close to an item a week.
With 21 slots, upgrading most slots every 6 months meant close to an item a week.
9-10 +weapon, so I guess EQ2 was twice as fast
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2022
Which leads on to my comment earlier.. (nearly 10 years since I last played, so numbers may be out, but you get the idea)
L2 had a several bosses that could only be raided say once every month. There was certain jewelry that dropped from certain bosses that were incredibly powerful compared to regular gear..border line OP But if there was only a chance the item dropped from a once-a-month raid. So, some pvp clans kept for themselves but when they equipped all their clan then they did either private sales to friendly clans or put future drops on the open market.
So, for those that had generated sufficient wealth, they did not need to raid, just buy.. but to have that kind of wealth, was really limited to the 1% of players, possibly less.
So much discussion about the 1% raiders, not much about the 1% pvp`ers or the 1% wealth builders, 1% charismic players that run a server
For those clans that were not strong enough to pvp to gain the content, only route left was wealth
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
To me, raids are fun occasionally but bore the hell outa me if done frequently. It`s repetition.
To be honest, I would think this about L2 raids as well.
10-12 kills of a mob and that is enough, imo. If a game is asking you for $15 a month and is also asking you to kill the same encounters for years on end, I would be complaining.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
L2 raids - most raids bar a couple were fairly ordinary but the pvp to gain access was often epic and made the raid all the more sweeter or bitter. PvP highly tactful... But for 2004-2010 standard, that was pretty good for the day. Would not cut it now. 200-300 players vs 200-300 players to get access.
ESO - trails ok, but if no clan members, PUGs were often very toxic
BDO - just numbers game in the few I did
New World - expeditions - ok once or twice then ordinary.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2022
L2 main bosses that can remember (cut and paste from online site)
Baium’s raid hard raid but to kill a hardcore boss, players need to have the best game equipment and come together in an army of 100–200 players.
Antharas was necessary to gather all the alliance members (more than 200–300) to kill this raid boss,
Valakas, The Fire Dragon - One of the main difficulties of killing this raid boss (which is common for Lineage 2) was to win a massive battle between players to attack the dragon. All the strong clans and alliances wanted to get the raid boss epic jewelry. Such battles could last for several hours. Only after that, the winning side killed the dragon in about an hour, if their mages had enough power damage and mana pool. Many veterans of the game remember this beast. A maximum of 200 players can enter the lair at once, and had to be the right combo. And maybe only one ring dropped!
For each group that won the pvp to get to the boss, there was often a similar sized group that failed.
L2 main bosses that can remember (cut and paste from online site)
Baium’s raid hard raid but to kill a hardcore boss, players need to have the best game equipment and come together in an army of 100–200 players.
Antharas was necessary to gather all the alliance members (more than 200–300) to kill this raid boss,
Valakas, The Fire Dragon - One of the main difficulties of killing this raid boss (which is common for Lineage 2) was to win a massive battle between players to attack the dragon. All the strong clans and alliances wanted to get the raid boss epic jewelry. Such battles could last for several hours. Only after that, the winning side killed the dragon in about an hour, if their mages had enough power damage and mana pool. Many veterans of the game remember this beast. A maximum of 200 players can enter the lair at once, and had to be the right combo. And maybe only one ring dropped!
For each group that won the pvp to get to the boss, there was often a similar sized group that failed.
How does that compare to other MMO raids?
Sounds similar to Archeage raids, other than the cage aspect. Many players fighting each other, until either all but one group leave out of boredom/frustration, or until more people focus on killing the dragon than each other. With Archeage specifically though, if you manage to get to it with no opposition, less than 20 people could kill 2 out of the three boss encounters that were there while I played in less than 20 minutes.
In terms of the part where players miss out - that is also very similar to open world encounters in EQ2. If the encounter was open world (as opposed to instanced), it would be fairly normal to see four or five guilds attempting to kill it. Since you could only have one raid actually engage an encounter at a time in that game, and since there was no PvP, it was a straight up PvE competition. First guild to get the kill, well, gets the kill. All the rest that are assembled simply miss out.
However, the encounters them self were challenging to the point where some encounters remained undefeated for their content cycle (some were removed at the end of the cycle, meaning some remained undefeated), and literally none of these encounters were ever killed on a PvP enabled server, as a single character of any class would be able to prevent an entire guild from killing the encounter.
To me, the thing with both L2 and Archeage raids (Archeage by experience, L2 based on comments made on these forums) was more about having numbers than having skill or ability - and those numbers were more about dealing with the PvP than the actual mob.
At least to me, in my time in Archeage, the top end encounters (Red Dragon, Kraken and Leviathan while I played) were PvP events, not PvE.
Such encounters are something I expect to see in Ashes - but if that is all we get, then the game fails at being anything more than L4.
Ahh the good old dps meter topic...
(I am new so i may not understand thing properly concerning this game but i still have more than 20 years of MMO experience, yes i am an old fart sorry about that xd)
1/ a dps meter and a tracker is a tool to check your performance. It's not a bad thing in itself, the problem occurs when it's used the wrong way. (exemple: dynamite as a tool was invented to help in mining work, but later used as weapon )
2/ who use dps meter and tracker ? usually people who want to optimize their dps output so mostly hardcore and semi hardcore population of the game ... That means a rare minority of the player base.
So u may say it's elitist in some way. But so what? just check the guild recruitment section, there's elistism already with Hardcore guid et Casual guild so that wont change much. The problem occurs when u mixe those 2 types of player base with different view of game play in a dungeon.
But it seems like the PvE instance content will not be challenging at all, so i dont see a need for a dps meter or a tracker for that type of content. Even as an ACT and theory crafter addict i dont check my dps when i try to run a T0 dungeon in WoW as i tend to optimize my time as well.
The only challenging part should be Wolrd Boss, the challenge should the PvP part of controling the boss.
So a Zerg War, and the bigger zerg usually win (and yes tactic and strategy are involved... blabla... optimized raid that can crush zerg, let's skip that part)
If by chance the situation reach a somewhat equilibrium or a long fight at some point you may try to weaponize Green Taged Player to turn your oppoment Red and gain an adventage in the attrition war ... Beeing a "green" player running arround or mostly used as a collision block in a cluster et chain dying may be fun a few time knowing the mayhem you caused, but in the long run it will be boring to death.... Most pvp player wont agree to do such a boring thing, and pve player as well for obvious reason. ( Need confimation: are Wold Boss Zone a Battlerground ?)
So one of the option should a dedicated green PvE raid for the boss ... and the more efficient they are the more weaponized they became. Then a tracker may be useful for that group ...
-> Just focus on the tank and healer and job is done, so that whole mess of a boss fight may turn into protectiong those key green player, and then that damn tracker may still be usefull ...
So, do you need to carter for those players? They are the minory of minory .. but at the same time they may become a key strategic element for 1000 of players who fight for the world boss ...
Solution ? A very restrictive use of tracker, a hard ceiling that need lot of effort, but still doable for a dedicated guild that want to put the effort.
exemple: A guild only raid tracker unlocked at certain guild lvl or whatever requierment only usable by an select few officers, let them have it if they want to. If they cant use it elsewhere who cares ? If you are in a guild that tyranize you with such a tool just leave and join a guild who doesnt.
As for dps meter, just put a scarecrow dps meter in a training ground building, that will put the mayor in a tough spot trying to sell the idea ,can be even funnier in a democratic vote mayor system xd
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
To me, the thing with both L2 and Archeage raids (Archeage by experience, L2 based on comments made on these forums) was more about having numbers than having skill or ability - and those numbers were more about dealing with the PvP than the actual mob.
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Can`t say with any authority, as I was never a top player.. however, each of the different raid bosses required parties that had optimal different class combinations makeups.. So one particular raid I would get invited to quite a good many times another not so often with the class I played (DPS Hawkeye), more as a filler if the right class was not available.. then there were players brought in for the pvp side of things and did not participate in the raids. Each boss did have mechanics that were unique and only found at each boss. So a first time player did need coaching. But overall, probably not so difficult compared to what is on offer nowadays.
I have no problem with getting access to a raid being more challenging than the raid itself.
Would like to see epic pre-boss fight pvp of several hundred vs several hundred players in 1-2hrs of intense pvp to get access to a 30-60min raid.. hard work done to get the access.. a moderately challenging raid is the reward. That feeling has not been found in another mmo since, my end
Sounds similar to Archeage raids, other than the cage aspect. Many players fighting each other, until either all but one group leave out of boredom/frustration, or until more people focus on killing the dragon than each other. With Archeage specifically though, if you manage to get to it with no opposition, less than 20 people could kill 2 out of the three boss encounters that were there while I played in less than 20 minutes.
To me, the thing with both L2 and Archeage raids (Archeage by experience, L2 based on comments made on these forums) was more about having numbers than having skill or ability - and those numbers were more about dealing with the PvP than the actual mob.
At least to me, in my time in Archeage, the top end encounters (Red Dragon, Kraken and Leviathan while I played) were PvP events, not PvE.
Such encounters are something I expect to see in Ashes - but if that is all we get, then the game fails at being anything more than L4.
I do Hope they make the world Boss a true PvX, massive PvP to secure the boss and PvE to actually kill it.
But the PvE can probably be zerged unless they implement a Buff system on the boss depending on the number of player withing a certain range.
The death penalty also change the PvP settings a lot compare to L2 or Archage.
as for beeing just an L4 the main difference will be the economy, but it has a clear weakness : Hacking, glitch, duplication that will kill the game.
I have no problem with getting access to a raid being more challenging than the raid itself.
I have no inherent issue with it either.
My issue is if that is the only raiding on offer.
If it is the only raiding on offer, there isn't enough variety in said raids.
As I said, I fully expect to see exactly that type of encounter in Ashes. I have also said in the past that this is where I expect the best gear in the game to come from.
However, there still needs to be content that is more on the PvE side. I mean, how can Ashes claim to be a PvX game if it's PvE content is no better than what amounts to essentially a pure PvP game like L2 or Archeage?
If you do a game you want either PvE and PvP you need the PvE part be challenging.
Else any MMORPG is PvPvE (or PvX) and even LoL/Dota are (jungle)
If the raids are all quite easy because the PvP before it is challenging... It is not a challengin PvE at all. and it would be PvP game. (not PvPvE or PvX)
nothing against pvP game i also like them, just his is differnt kind of game.
as for beeing just an L4 the main difference will be the economy
L3 (Archeage) had a fairly robust economy.
I only have played Archage at launch for a few months and havent touch unchained, so the eco was Land and plantation, and the trade route for gold and token for vehicule. I dont know how far the eco has progress after that point.
But AoC will also have the whole matérial trade so the crafting wont be as smooth as L3 in that regard. (basically presure on the crafter side and the usual presure on the buyer side, i wont talk about the lvl 9 gear system for the crafter side )
So the dynamic will be more complicated, on top of that add the material market for repair.
If you do a game you want either PvE and PvP you need the PvE part be challenging.
Else any MMORPG is PvPvE (or PvX) and even LoL/Dota are (jungle)
If the raids are all quite easy because the PvP before it is challenging... It is not a challengin PvE at all. and it would be PvP game. (not PvPvE or PvX)
nothing against pvP game i also like them, just his is differnt kind of game.
I totally agree with this point, but at the same we have to check the reality of PvE game.
The starting point for a PvE game:
The PvE need to be engaging (PvE challenge) , but to keep the PvE player active you to need to add new content on a regular basis, and the new contend need to have higher reward than the old content ( the Tier upgrade system)
That's a heavy financial burden. So, can they handle it ?
with cosmetic cash shop and the subscrition it should be doable if the game is a succes at launch and the population stable. But if the game crash at lauch like new world, that may be a big problem and may probably kill the pve part.
The starting point for a PvE game:
The PvE need to be engaging (PvE challenge) , but to keep the PvE player active you to need to add new content on a regular basis, and the new contend need to have higher reward than the old content ( the Tier upgrade system)
PvE games : are not PvPvE / PvX games.
Maybe because i don't want play at "hardcore" level anymore, but i don't have the feeling a "PvX" game needs to have regular new PvE content.
Top End guilds won't be able to focus in PvE content, and more than that, they will have to defend themselves.
For me, the game have to get both side living together in synergy. PvE being a way to get stuff (THE way to get the biggest stuff) stuff usefull to... win castle siege or your node siege... or destroy rivals nodes.
PvE in highend is not only well trained players, with the stuff they loot doing hard strategies, it will also be crafting (at least for food/pots buffs to help on boss) and money (for many usefull reason)
And all those will be better to be farmed with their character being not only boss killers but also artisan... So need catle/nodes controll, but also the Freeholds. All those are deep in PvP part.
I consider that to really include "PvE" as definition you need challenging fight by themselves. But the PvP part will still be a thing for those big guilds.
On WoW/FFXIV i took as example for endgame content, people in top end are focusing their gametime mostly around raids (and get consumable for raids) until they does the kill, then come back to arena, M+, or simply play less. But on Ashes where PvP will be everywhere, they won't be able to do this whole focus at release, and after, they have more than spamming arenas.
Just a thing : you are one of the two top guild of the server, far over all others. A new boss is released... instead on going on the boss you will need 100 wipe to figure out strategy (on wow/FFXIV it is the least to expect for last boss... ) you could instead take benefit of all effort spent by your rival to focus on this new PvE content to try to strike down its node and so strike hard its whole economy. (They still can change their schedule to defend, but doesnt change they are less ready to defend due to energy/farm time spent to prepare PvE race)
The PvP is not a side content to fill the empty months, it will be a mandatory part of the game. and it changes a lot about time people CAN allow to high end bosses.
Maybe because i don't want play at "hardcore" level anymore, but i don't have the feeling a "PvX" game needs to have regular new PvE content.
Top End guilds won't be able to focus in PvE content, and more than that, they will have to defend themselves.
For me, the game have to get both side living together in synergy. PvE being a way to get stuff (THE way to get the biggest stuff) stuff usefull to... win castle siege or your node siege... or destroy rivals nodes.
PvE in highend is not only well trained players, with the stuff they loot doing hard strategies, it will also be crafting (at least for food/pots buffs to help on boss) and money (for many usefull reason)
And all those will be better to be farmed with their character being not only boss killers but also artisan... So need catle/nodes controll, but also the Freeholds. All those are deep in PvP part.
I consider that to really include "PvE" as definition you need challenging fight by themselves. But the PvP part will still be a thing for those big guilds.
On WoW/FFXIV i took as example for endgame content, people in top end are focusing their gametime mostly around raids (and get consumable for raids) until they does the kill, then come back to arena, M+, or simply play less. But on Ashes where PvP will be everywhere, they won't be able to do this whole focus at release, and after, they have more than spamming arenas.
Ya i totally understand your point, and i mostly agree, but not on the challenging part ( I tend to link challenging and hardcore in difficulty like a mythic raid in WoW. I may be wrong in assuming that though but will answer following that logic )
After a while, when the raid become somehow too easy and become a farm with the natural gear increase, those PvE player arent they just part of an other group : the crafter/gatherer group and the raids beeing just an other way to farm material ?
How many players will remain farming thoses from all the mass that came for the pve challenge content ?
Overcoming a challenge is a joyful thing, but after doing x Time, is that still a challenge ?
So I dont think challenge is an answer for a PvX game, unless you go the PvE route i explained before,
(with the challenge and novelty loop beeing changed with additionnal content )
So what about a fun boss mechanic with multi phase and a good story to create a fun loop that will keep you engage in that content with of course a never ending farming of material. A not too hard nor too easy boss that can allow whatever build to be good enough to clear with a casual player base with decent gear making tracker and dps meter irrevelant. ( ya return to the topic ).
Casual players beeing the bigger part of the player base, you then integrate them in the system:
they return from work, want to play without drama and have fun do a few dungeon, a few pvp trip and go to bed. That way they can still feel they contribute to the node when they sell those mats, and still feel they belong to that social construct of the Node.
Comments
Why would I want to always sit in town?
What do I need gear for, then? I want to raid.
Who cares about levels? I'm here for experiences, not for numbers.
Trackers exist to help me do what I enjoy. I'm here to play.
You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
This does go hand in hand with the fairly constant addition of new content.
If you are not adding content at a fairly good pace, you obviously want your players to have to run the same content for years on end. If you are going to give them something new, it's fine if they are essentially done with a piece of content in 3 months.
You couldn't really have a game where there is a need to farm the same encounters for years on end, but also add new encounters at an EQ2 speed. On the other hand, you couldn't have EQ2 speed of gear acquisition while having L2 pace of new content additions.
Add ons are not allowed. Add ons are very easy to detect and prevent.
Trackers like ACT are not add ons.
Maybe they are too scared to tell him that 90% of those on his team disagree with something he has already run his mouth on.
All I know is, I have yet to see an experienced MMO developer or CS worker that is against allowing players to use trackers.
Yeah, by "very hard mobs" I essentially mean bosses.
If it wasnt a boss, it wasnt dropping anything you would want to equip.
This applies to all levels of the game, not just raiding. Those people running group content would get their gear primarily from group bosses (maybe a little crafted or quested gear). Those that were mostly solo got their loot mostly from crafters, quests or the broker, with the occasional piece from a solo boss.
However, the best geared group only character would find upgrades to their gear on the easiest raid encounters, and solo players would find upgrades at the start of group progression.
In terms of spawn timers, solo bosses would be an hour, group would be 1 to 4 hours, and raid would be 5 days+ (some raid bosses literally never spawned on some servers).
In terms of difficulty, solo bosses basically just required tou to know your class. Grouo bosses ranged from "I'll just solo it" up to "this is actually a group boss designed for raiders on their day off", and raid bosses were mostly only worth attempting by actual raid guilds that were clearing current content.
However, there were also instances. Solo and group instances could usually be done once a day, and most raid instances were once a week.
Suddenly he thinks he is speaking for his development team and knows what they are thinking, tell me trackers are not toxic again lmao.
It's no secret that I am friends with a small number of developers at Intrepid.
The 90% was being generous. Those people at Intrepid that I know can not name any one person (other than Steven) that is actually against trackers.
You've now reminded me of partially why FFXI does not have the same itemization concept as much.
Top level bosses drop certain gear items, but the alternate way of getting them is through an instance. Whenever you kill any mob that gives exp (up to 10 levels below you at most levels, a bit more as you go higher), you get a chance for a 'Seal' to drop. That seal cannot be traded to other players. Trade some number of these 'Seals' to an NPC for an Orb to enter an instanced battlefield. Win that battlefield and get SOMETHING, always something, but certain things had 10% odds of dropping on average.
A lot of it was gear for people playing around with specialized builds, stuff you might use or give to a friend who happened to care (or for running the same sort of level-capped content), and at the higher levels of them (takes more Seals to unlock), you get chances at good items for top level crafting to make the better gear in the game.
So TECHNICALLY you could get a group together and blitz through 30 of these in a day if you saved up enough seals... but normally for my group at least they're just 'alright time for a break from regular play let's go do something interesting like die to an enemy Beastman group', if we win we make some money, if we lose we got a fight. But we had control of the when and in some ways the 'how-many', just it was balanced against the 'how-often'.
The thing is, though, because it was 'slower', a lot of people never fought these at all, and to 'have them figured out' took... well, the above. This system is entirely separate from the 3-day respawns and 1-week respawns of High Notorious Monsters (basically Raid Level at the time), but you could, with enough high level Seals, fight an instanced equivalent with similar drops with 18 people.
So while they didn't release new versions of these often, you'd get them in bulk, and over the next few weeks people would trickle out information on each one, as different people used up their 'Seals' to try the fights.
tl;dr fighting enough normal enemies opened up Instanced enemies that you could put on your own schedule, but they have a time limit and you get nothing if you lose.
And every 6 months you'd get a few new world bosses and one epic boss
This pace fit the gear progress though. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way it seemed good to slowly progress through gear tiers and each new upgrade felt substantial and rewarding. EQ2 seems to have operated on not only high boss pace, but gear too, if all the new harder bosses provided the new better gear to farm said bosses.
However, it was fairly normal for each boss to only drop one or two items that any given class would want. In some cases, a boss may have no drops at all that you would want.
This did slow down gear progression to a reasonable pace. You could generally expect to get an upgrade to most items once every 6 months or so.
With 21 slots, upgrading most slots every 6 months meant close to an item a week.
L2 had a several bosses that could only be raided say once every month. There was certain jewelry that dropped from certain bosses that were incredibly powerful compared to regular gear..border line OP But if there was only a chance the item dropped from a once-a-month raid. So, some pvp clans kept for themselves but when they equipped all their clan then they did either private sales to friendly clans or put future drops on the open market.
So, for those that had generated sufficient wealth, they did not need to raid, just buy.. but to have that kind of wealth, was really limited to the 1% of players, possibly less.
So much discussion about the 1% raiders, not much about the 1% pvp`ers or the 1% wealth builders, 1% charismic players that run a server
For those clans that were not strong enough to pvp to gain the content, only route left was wealth
We all seek different enjoyment from MMO`s.
To me, raids are fun occasionally but bore the hell outa me if done frequently. It`s repetition.
I would much rather make some money from AFK sales so that I can buy gear on open market rather than raid it.
Much rather experience from PvP than PvE.
No idea if that is achievable in this game
Mind you, probably getting a bit long in the tooth, and probably have to limit fights to other old grumpy men!
10-12 kills of a mob and that is enough, imo. If a game is asking you for $15 a month and is also asking you to kill the same encounters for years on end, I would be complaining.
ESO - trails ok, but if no clan members, PUGs were often very toxic
BDO - just numbers game in the few I did
New World - expeditions - ok once or twice then ordinary.
Baium’s raid hard raid but to kill a hardcore boss, players need to have the best game equipment and come together in an army of 100–200 players.
Antharas was necessary to gather all the alliance members (more than 200–300) to kill this raid boss,
Valakas, The Fire Dragon - One of the main difficulties of killing this raid boss (which is common for Lineage 2) was to win a massive battle between players to attack the dragon. All the strong clans and alliances wanted to get the raid boss epic jewelry. Such battles could last for several hours. Only after that, the winning side killed the dragon in about an hour, if their mages had enough power damage and mana pool. Many veterans of the game remember this beast. A maximum of 200 players can enter the lair at once, and had to be the right combo. And maybe only one ring dropped!
For each group that won the pvp to get to the boss, there was often a similar sized group that failed.
How does that compare to other MMO raids?
Sounds similar to Archeage raids, other than the cage aspect. Many players fighting each other, until either all but one group leave out of boredom/frustration, or until more people focus on killing the dragon than each other. With Archeage specifically though, if you manage to get to it with no opposition, less than 20 people could kill 2 out of the three boss encounters that were there while I played in less than 20 minutes.
In terms of the part where players miss out - that is also very similar to open world encounters in EQ2. If the encounter was open world (as opposed to instanced), it would be fairly normal to see four or five guilds attempting to kill it. Since you could only have one raid actually engage an encounter at a time in that game, and since there was no PvP, it was a straight up PvE competition. First guild to get the kill, well, gets the kill. All the rest that are assembled simply miss out.
However, the encounters them self were challenging to the point where some encounters remained undefeated for their content cycle (some were removed at the end of the cycle, meaning some remained undefeated), and literally none of these encounters were ever killed on a PvP enabled server, as a single character of any class would be able to prevent an entire guild from killing the encounter.
To me, the thing with both L2 and Archeage raids (Archeage by experience, L2 based on comments made on these forums) was more about having numbers than having skill or ability - and those numbers were more about dealing with the PvP than the actual mob.
At least to me, in my time in Archeage, the top end encounters (Red Dragon, Kraken and Leviathan while I played) were PvP events, not PvE.
Such encounters are something I expect to see in Ashes - but if that is all we get, then the game fails at being anything more than L4.
(I am new so i may not understand thing properly concerning this game but i still have more than 20 years of MMO experience, yes i am an old fart sorry about that xd)
1/ a dps meter and a tracker is a tool to check your performance. It's not a bad thing in itself, the problem occurs when it's used the wrong way. (exemple: dynamite as a tool was invented to help in mining work, but later used as weapon )
2/ who use dps meter and tracker ? usually people who want to optimize their dps output so mostly hardcore and semi hardcore population of the game ... That means a rare minority of the player base.
So u may say it's elitist in some way. But so what? just check the guild recruitment section, there's elistism already with Hardcore guid et Casual guild so that wont change much. The problem occurs when u mixe those 2 types of player base with different view of game play in a dungeon.
But it seems like the PvE instance content will not be challenging at all, so i dont see a need for a dps meter or a tracker for that type of content. Even as an ACT and theory crafter addict i dont check my dps when i try to run a T0 dungeon in WoW as i tend to optimize my time as well.
The only challenging part should be Wolrd Boss, the challenge should the PvP part of controling the boss.
So a Zerg War, and the bigger zerg usually win (and yes tactic and strategy are involved... blabla... optimized raid that can crush zerg, let's skip that part)
If by chance the situation reach a somewhat equilibrium or a long fight at some point you may try to weaponize Green Taged Player to turn your oppoment Red and gain an adventage in the attrition war ... Beeing a "green" player running arround or mostly used as a collision block in a cluster et chain dying may be fun a few time knowing the mayhem you caused, but in the long run it will be boring to death.... Most pvp player wont agree to do such a boring thing, and pve player as well for obvious reason. ( Need confimation: are Wold Boss Zone a Battlerground ?)
So one of the option should a dedicated green PvE raid for the boss ... and the more efficient they are the more weaponized they became. Then a tracker may be useful for that group ...
-> Just focus on the tank and healer and job is done, so that whole mess of a boss fight may turn into protectiong those key green player, and then that damn tracker may still be usefull ...
So, do you need to carter for those players? They are the minory of minory .. but at the same time they may become a key strategic element for 1000 of players who fight for the world boss ...
Solution ? A very restrictive use of tracker, a hard ceiling that need lot of effort, but still doable for a dedicated guild that want to put the effort.
exemple: A guild only raid tracker unlocked at certain guild lvl or whatever requierment only usable by an select few officers, let them have it if they want to. If they cant use it elsewhere who cares ? If you are in a guild that tyranize you with such a tool just leave and join a guild who doesnt.
As for dps meter, just put a scarecrow dps meter in a training ground building, that will put the mayor in a tough spot trying to sell the idea ,can be even funnier in a democratic vote mayor system xd
My issue is if that is the only raiding on offer.
If it is the only raiding on offer, there isn't enough variety in said raids.
As I said, I fully expect to see exactly that type of encounter in Ashes. I have also said in the past that this is where I expect the best gear in the game to come from.
However, there still needs to be content that is more on the PvE side. I mean, how can Ashes claim to be a PvX game if it's PvE content is no better than what amounts to essentially a pure PvP game like L2 or Archeage?
Else any MMORPG is PvPvE (or PvX) and even LoL/Dota are (jungle)
If the raids are all quite easy because the PvP before it is challenging... It is not a challengin PvE at all. and it would be PvP game. (not PvPvE or PvX)
nothing against pvP game i also like them, just his is differnt kind of game.
I only have played Archage at launch for a few months and havent touch unchained, so the eco was Land and plantation, and the trade route for gold and token for vehicule. I dont know how far the eco has progress after that point.
But AoC will also have the whole matérial trade so the crafting wont be as smooth as L3 in that regard. (basically presure on the crafter side and the usual presure on the buyer side, i wont talk about the lvl 9 gear system for the crafter side )
So the dynamic will be more complicated, on top of that add the material market for repair.
I totally agree with this point, but at the same we have to check the reality of PvE game.
The starting point for a PvE game:
The PvE need to be engaging (PvE challenge) , but to keep the PvE player active you to need to add new content on a regular basis, and the new contend need to have higher reward than the old content ( the Tier upgrade system)
That's a heavy financial burden. So, can they handle it ?
with cosmetic cash shop and the subscrition it should be doable if the game is a succes at launch and the population stable. But if the game crash at lauch like new world, that may be a big problem and may probably kill the pve part.
PvE games : are not PvPvE / PvX games.
Maybe because i don't want play at "hardcore" level anymore, but i don't have the feeling a "PvX" game needs to have regular new PvE content.
Top End guilds won't be able to focus in PvE content, and more than that, they will have to defend themselves.
For me, the game have to get both side living together in synergy. PvE being a way to get stuff (THE way to get the biggest stuff) stuff usefull to... win castle siege or your node siege... or destroy rivals nodes.
PvE in highend is not only well trained players, with the stuff they loot doing hard strategies, it will also be crafting (at least for food/pots buffs to help on boss) and money (for many usefull reason)
And all those will be better to be farmed with their character being not only boss killers but also artisan... So need catle/nodes controll, but also the Freeholds. All those are deep in PvP part.
I consider that to really include "PvE" as definition you need challenging fight by themselves. But the PvP part will still be a thing for those big guilds.
On WoW/FFXIV i took as example for endgame content, people in top end are focusing their gametime mostly around raids (and get consumable for raids) until they does the kill, then come back to arena, M+, or simply play less. But on Ashes where PvP will be everywhere, they won't be able to do this whole focus at release, and after, they have more than spamming arenas.
Just a thing : you are one of the two top guild of the server, far over all others. A new boss is released... instead on going on the boss you will need 100 wipe to figure out strategy (on wow/FFXIV it is the least to expect for last boss... ) you could instead take benefit of all effort spent by your rival to focus on this new PvE content to try to strike down its node and so strike hard its whole economy. (They still can change their schedule to defend, but doesnt change they are less ready to defend due to energy/farm time spent to prepare PvE race)
The PvP is not a side content to fill the empty months, it will be a mandatory part of the game. and it changes a lot about time people CAN allow to high end bosses.
Ya i totally understand your point, and i mostly agree, but not on the challenging part ( I tend to link challenging and hardcore in difficulty like a mythic raid in WoW. I may be wrong in assuming that though but will answer following that logic )
After a while, when the raid become somehow too easy and become a farm with the natural gear increase, those PvE player arent they just part of an other group : the crafter/gatherer group and the raids beeing just an other way to farm material ?
How many players will remain farming thoses from all the mass that came for the pve challenge content ?
Overcoming a challenge is a joyful thing, but after doing x Time, is that still a challenge ?
So I dont think challenge is an answer for a PvX game, unless you go the PvE route i explained before,
(with the challenge and novelty loop beeing changed with additionnal content )
So what about a fun boss mechanic with multi phase and a good story to create a fun loop that will keep you engage in that content with of course a never ending farming of material. A not too hard nor too easy boss that can allow whatever build to be good enough to clear with a casual player base with decent gear making tracker and dps meter irrevelant. ( ya return to the topic ).
Casual players beeing the bigger part of the player base, you then integrate them in the system:
they return from work, want to play without drama and have fun do a few dungeon, a few pvp trip and go to bed. That way they can still feel they contribute to the node when they sell those mats, and still feel they belong to that social construct of the Node.