Different types of Dungeons and Raids

I'm fairly convinced that Intrepid will see the need for at least some form of instancing in dungeon and raid content.

My assumption is that this will eventually take the form of a number of bosses in each dungeon/raid being instanced off (or phased off). This would leave in place the need to fight down to the bottom of the dungeon, against both mobs and other players, but it means when you get there you know you have content, that content is able to be properly tuned to a single group or raid, and is also able to be tuned to assume that other players will not also be fighting you.

In games with open PvP, world boss encounters are not PvE content - they are PvP rewards. The idea is to either completely clear out or outlast the opposition so that you are able to take on the encounter without contest from other players - and in almost all such games, the encounter itself is actually disappointingly easy. Archeage was the worst offender at this - the dragon and kraken in that game were quite hard to kill, if you had other players stopping you. Two full raids of 40 players each could spend hours on them.

Or, if you had no competition, 10 players could take them out in about 15 minutes, without a single death.

Now, this type of content is actually really important for a game like Ashes - but it needs to be considered PvP content, not PvE content. So far, this is the type of content we have heard Intrepid talk about - but they will likely have to add in content more tuned to PvE players at some point.

As to the third type you added - lore based raids and dungeons - that should be included in all content. I don't personally think it needs it's own content, as everything we do should be lore based.

Noaani wrote: »

I'm fairly convinced that Intrepid will see the need for at least some form of instancing in dungeon and raid content.

My assumption is that this will eventually take the form of a number of bosses in each dungeon/raid being instanced off (or phased off). This would leave in place the need to fight down to the bottom of the dungeon, against both mobs and other players, but it means when you get there you know you have content, that content is able to be properly tuned to a single group or raid, and is also able to be tuned to assume that other players will not also be fighting you.

Hmmm....but is this really better than what I suggested though? It could possibly create situations where players skip bosses to try to reach the end quickly. They will view contest PvP as a chore and not as a fun mechanic on the side, which will be super unhealthy for the game.

With my idea however, if you contest for resources, in resource dungeons/raids, the PvP wouldn't be seen as a chore. This is because you can experience the PvE content you want in the form of instanced dungeons/raids and then choose to either, buy the resources that you need to repair/enchant your gear, or contest resource dungeons for it. This makes it so that players who actually enjoy both PvP and PvE are provided an option to do so, while PvE only players can buy the resources required without participating.

Noaani wrote: »

In games with open PvP, world boss encounters are not PvE content - they are PvP rewards. The idea is to either completely clear out or outlast the opposition so that you are able to take on the encounter without contest from other players - and in almost all such games, the encounter itself is actually disappointingly easy. Archeage was the worst offender at this - the dragon and kraken in that game were quite hard to kill, if you had other players stopping you. Two full raids of 40 players each could spend hours on them.

Or, if you had no competition, 10 players could take them out in about 15 minutes, without a single death.

Now, this type of content is actually really important for a game like Ashes - but it needs to be considered PvP content, not PvE content. So far, this is the type of content we have heard Intrepid talk about - but they will likely have to add in content more tuned to PvE players at some point.

That does make me a little worried. I do hope that Intrepid don't just focus on the social aspect of an MMO. I think that sacrificing some social activity, in exchange for better designed and more challenging PvE content, is extremely worth it. So I do hope that if they read my idea, they at least give it some thought.

Noaani wrote: »

As to the third type you added - lore based raids and dungeons - that should be included in all content. I don't personally think it needs it's own content, as everything we do should be lore based.

Yea that's completely fine as well. My main point was regarding the first two types of dungeons.

So thankyou for the detailed reply @Noaani. But you still didn't tell me your opinion on my idea. Do you like it or nah?

Redacted

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Hmmm....but is this really better than what I suggested though? It could possibly create situations where players skip bosses to try to reach the end quickly. They will view contest PvP as a chore and not as a fun mechanic on the side, which will be super unhealthy for the game.

If a guild decides they want to skip a boss and the potential rewards it has, why would that be an issue?

The developers are not that interested in making purely PvE content, or purely PvP content, they want everything to contain an element of both.

Instanced dungeon and raid bosses skew very closely to purely PvE content - if it were not for the fact that getting to them involves potential PvP, then that is exactly what they would be.

A purely instanced dungeon will be a pure PvE setting, and is as against the design intention of the game as adding material rewards to a PvP arena would be.

Also, in your suggestion, players would be able to simply break down the gear they got from the instanced PvE content in order to get materials to repair their gear, completely negating the need for the open content.

Noaani wrote: »

Also, in your suggestion, players would be able to simply break down the gear they got from the instanced PvE content in order to get materials to repair their gear, completely negating the need for the open content.

Yea that would happen. This system I suggested only works if the materials required to repair/enchant gear is different from the material required to craft said gear.

Maybe instead of open world dungeons dropping repair/enchant materials, they could only drop enchant materials instead. You could also make it so that different gear require different enchant materials. Since enchanting gear comes with a risk of breaking them, this would provide a significant incentive to clear these open world dungeons/raids regularly.

So now what do you say @Noaani ?

CaptnChuck wrote: »

So now what do you say

I'm still not a fan of segregating PvE and PvP content to this level - it goes against the notion of a PvX game.

What I truly fear is to have the meta for guilds to be to snipe other guilds to wipe them before bosses and taking the boss loot for themselves.

One option is to have short respawn time and have "checkpoint" spots throughout the raid for wipe recovery.

Also if there will be an open world chore required to open a certain raid for limited amount of time then it will lead to other guilds trying to grief them. Which will ultimately lead only for the most massive guilds in the node to raid period, because if any smaller guild opens up a raid then the massive guild will just sweep in wipe them out and clear the raid for themselves, while having a dedicated 1 or more pure pvp guarding raidsto ensure the guild gets everything from there.

Overall I think we need more info on the practical side of raiding.

Edit:
Also this would lead to a thing where small guilds might resort to "sneaking" raids in offtimes in order to have any chance for loot.

Or even the most powerful guild might resort to have any smaller guild pay them royalties in order to not wipe them and protect them.

I really wonder if this guild to guild interaction is what they aim for with only open world raids

Noaani wrote: »

CaptnChuck wrote: »

So now what do you say

I'm still not a fan of segregating PvE and PvP content to this level - it goes against the notion of a PvX game.

Whats wrong with it? Crafting is segregated from PvP but to get materials to craft, you need to collect resources that can be contested by players. Similarly, PvE can be segregated from PvP as well, but in order to enchant/ further progress your high end gear, you need to participate in open world dungeons as well.

You don't have to make PvP a core part of every playstyle. As long as its a certain part of it, that will do.

All this comes from a PvPer btw.

@Tragnar

Yea, there are a lot of things that could go wrong with what we know of the PvE system. But to be fair, we don't know a lot yet.

Also, in your reply, you didn't mention your opinion on my suggestion. What do you think? Does it solve some potential issues that you see happening?

I don't think that it solves anything, but that it totally changes the vision for what raiding in Ashes should be.

Tragnar wrote: »

I don't think that it solves anything, but that it totally changes the vision for what raiding in Ashes should be.

I disagree. I do think that instanced dungeons solve a lot of problems that open world dungeons pose. However, they take a lot away from the social aspect of MMOs. That's why its important to find a balance.

I think FF14 and WoW do PvE content pretty well.

I did a poll a long back, about what players preferred, PvE or PvP. A significant portion of them preferred PvE, and didn't mind a little bit of PvP. This further goes to show why MMOs like WoW and FF14 are the top MMOs right now. Its because they excel at dungeon/raid content, thus appealing to the largest portion of the MMORPG playerbase.

So if Steven wants AoC to be a gold standard for MMOs, he needs a large playerbase. In order to do this, AoC HAS to appeal to the PvE community. As it stands right now though, it seems like PvE is not possible without dealing with constant PvP. And that scares a large portion of the community away.

I don't think that changing the vision of a game slightly, for the betterment of the game itself, is a bad idea. Besides, you still retain some of the social aspect of open world dungeons/raids, by having the resource based dungeons that I mentioned.

Let's also not forget that PvE content is a social activity in and of itself; as gathering an 8 man, 16 man, or 40 man group, requires you to socialize with others in your world.

I understand that yes, however this is not what AoC tries to be. The raids are supposed to opened up by certain world triggers until they are killed.

And the instanced content is purely reserved for story purposes tells me quite clear that any and all of competitive content is focused on players creating the raids in certain capacity.

I imagine that some raids are only to be opened up like war effort for opening the gates of AQ in classic wow. And every boss has only 1 life and once it dies the loot table for next boss is determined.

Also this reminds me kind of the story of Smaug in the hobbit. That is once an area is rich enough it can attract evil creatures such as Smaug to attack.

All of this leads me to believe that there will be no weekly lockouts for raids. Since the node development itself will open the raid.

Aardvark

Because we know that with almost all dungeons and raids being open world in open pvp that the pve part will be easy and the only challenge will be the 200 people trying gank you while you do it.

@Tragnar
@Aardvark

I do hope that they don't do that. Even as a PvP player, I would love to be able to do challenging PvE content on the side; PvE content that is difficult because of PvE mechanics and not because of PvP mechanics.

Aardvark

CaptnChuck wrote: »

@Tragnar
@Aardvark

I do hope that they don't do that. Even as a PvP player, I would love to be able to do challenging PvE content on the side; PvE content that is difficult because of PvE mechanics and not because of PvP mechanics.

I hope for that too...but with non instanced open world raids in open world pvp...well unless they change that the pve will not be challenging on its own

You know if the PvE open world raids are going to be as hard as an instanced raids would be then there will become a gigantic need for PvP mercenary guilds to guard those raids during raid time. And I imagine there will be of course appropriate payment for those guilds.

Tragnar wrote: »

You know if the PvE open world raids are going to be as hard as an instanced raids would be then there will become a gigantic need for PvP mercenary guilds to guard those raids during raid time. And I imagine there will be of course appropriate payment for those guilds.

This is true, but that *if* there is quite big.

I've seen games where the hardest encounters are open world - but they didn't have PvP at all. I've also seen games with open world bosses and PvP, but the bosses were not hard.

These two things don't go together very well, which is why I am fairly convinced that Ashes will have some instanced raid content.

It may not (probably will not) have it at launch, but it will likely be the first new content that is planned after players reach the level cap (meaning it will be implemented in to the game around 9 - 12 months after launch).

Tragnar wrote: »

You know if the PvE open world raids are going to be as hard as an instanced raids would be then there will become a gigantic need for PvP mercenary guilds to guard those raids during raid time. And I imagine there will be of course appropriate payment for those guilds.

Yea but I'm kind of against forcing PvP down the throats of players. There's already plenty of PvP systems in the game. So I don't think that there is a reason to make PvP a significant part of PvE as well. By making it so that you need to do open world dungeons to farm materials required to enchant your gear, you maintain a healthy amount of PvP, while providing PvE-focused players a means to enjoy the game.

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

You know if the PvE open world raids are going to be as hard as an instanced raids would be then there will become a gigantic need for PvP mercenary guilds to guard those raids during raid time. And I imagine there will be of course appropriate payment for those guilds.

Yea but I'm kind of against forcing PvP down the throats of players. There's already plenty of PvP systems in the game. So I don't think that there is a reason to make PvP a significant part of PvE as well. By making it so that you need to do open world dungeons to farm materials required to enchant your gear, you maintain a healthy amount of PvP, while providing PvE-focused players a means to enjoy the game.

I disagree, because the approach of Intrepid is the one that might actually work. This is because the raids themselves are going to be a big piles of wealth. Which in turn creates a big demand for pvp players. I am thinking this because the whole caravan system is going to work like that.

I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an actual aimed alliance between PvP and PvE guilds. So PvE guilds will be focused on millking the hardest iteration of raids possible to get the most loot from there and at the same the PvP guild is going to be focused on protecting the procuring the goods and eventually delivering those for payout.

Instanced content is assured fun, but I am willing to give the open world raiding a chance. Thing is that the game rules around that should promote healthy player interactions and it definitely should not have the best gameplay loop be some degenerate zerg/cheese.