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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
What we don't want is Intrepid making easier PvE cause of the PvP factor.
Im 100% with the dungeon keys thing. I loved it in other games.
N'zoth was actually unbeatable when he initially came out. So there's that. Tuning a boss' strength in various phases, at different raid performance levels, is obviously something that Intrepid will learn with practice. They will prob be testing this out during the beta phases.
We know that there is no way that AoC can attain the same level of difficulty as WoW or Wildstar. Open World content can never be as challenging as high level instanced content, especially not without dps meters. What I listed above are mere solutions to control difficulty, so that you can control the type of difficulty of that content, and the general difficulty of that content as well.
Its true, we don't know much about how raid/dungeon bosses are going to work. But we have an idea about the general framework. So using that, we can make some calculated guesses as to the problems that are going to exist and possible ways to solve said problems. We know that open world content is going to be far less difficult than instanced content. So what are the possible ways to bridge that gap? That's what this thread is about.
A similar thing happened with Multiboxing. We knew about multiboxing in various other games. So a lot of people were discussing about ways to combat multiboxing in AoC. Ultimately, Intrepid made the right decision when it came to multiboxing, and if this happens with PvE difficulty as well, then I have no issues whatsoever.
All I'm doing is discussing solutions for a problem we know has existed in other games with open world content.
Very few people are asking for instances farming content.
Some are, sure. But not most.
What most people want are instances for the sake of having an actual PvE experience in Ashes that isn't interrupted by PvP.
Now, if a group or raid have to run through the open world to get to a dungeon, then make their way through that dungeon to the bottom in order to get in to an instance that contains a single encounter, and then they have to fight all that way back, it really is stretching things to say they are avoiding PvP, or that they are farming content.
All it is doing is removing the ability for PvP to occur during that encounter - and attacking a group or raid that are engaged in content is cheap and cheesy.
I don't personally think it is in good taste for anyone to complain about a small number of encounters being outside of interference from PvP, considering getting to and from those encounters opens players up to PvP.
As to players taking on the content being at an advantage due to less risk - this is probably the weakest argument possible.
The content is available to all, so there is no advantage to anyone. Also, if the risk shifts from players killing you to mobs killing you, the risk is the same - and PvP content that is designed to be killed without PvP can be designed to be harder tha PvE content that is designed to be killed with PvP can.
But non-instanced content isn't challenging. It's pestered with pvp which is something different. Your post reads I don't enjoy challenging content, I enjoy challenging content.
Isn't that just a matter of opinion? I mean it looks like you are defining what challenging means, but that's really relative to each player. I can find non-instance bosses to be challenging.
Open pvp bosses aren’t challenging the pvp is what causes the challenge not the boss
Out of all the posts in this thread I'm a bit surprised you are replying to mine especially on such a grand scale.
Since you went to all this trouble I want to show you how you not only made my point but contradicted yourself.
Noaani:
1) What most people want are instances for the sake of having an actual PvE experience in Ashes that isn't interrupted by PvP.
2) As to players taking on the content being at an advantage due to less risk - this is probably the weakest argument possible.
3) The content is available to all, so there is no advantage to anyone. Also, if the risk shifts from players killing you to mobs killing you, the risk is the same.
Look at what you're saying - "The risk is the same if mobs can kill you and players can't" IF that was even remotely true on any level, guess what........ No one would be asking for instanced PVE. What is simply being asked for is a "safe" place from PvP or literately a safe PVE zone, boss mob or not. You understand that once the player element of death is removed it's already a 50% advantage (less risk) over everyone else in the game that is NOT in the PVE instance at that exact moment regardless if that group has to walk there or walk home exposed to PvP. Once the loot drops and gets equipped they will have no risk of loss because of PVP.
Any boss mob that can be designed to kill the players as "instanced content" could be created for the open world just the same.
In addition the risk of death to players is going to account for being looted. If you die to a Mob it's not going to loot you, and frankly at the moment it's not really clear exactly what happens in terms of item loss from mob death, however if there is none, or your "group" can just pick it up this would also count as an advantage to do instanced PVE since your body would not be looted in PVP death i.e. less "risk"
So while my point may be "weak" for you it's still the truth.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
@Tyrantor I CLEARLY defined the different types of risks in my post. READ IT. A super difficult boss can be as or even more challenging than random players.
What loss are you talking about? You don't lose gear when you PvP. You have a CHANCE to lose gear when you're CORRUPTED. I suggest you read the wiki properly, as your replies to my post clearly show that you still don't know much, and that you're just posting for the sake of posting.
NO ONE is asking for pure instanced content. Most people want some sort of hybrid content. Understand that first.
This statement itself shows that you have no idea what you're talking about. ITS NOT THE SAME THING. That's why a lot of people are asking about it. If you had any idea about how bosses worked in general, you wouldn't be saying senseless things like this.
You lose SOME gatherables on death. That's it. You're not gonna gain a ton of resources from killing players. Nobody who comes to raid is even gonna have that many gatherables. They're gonna have potions and stuff which are NOT lootable. So you're not even gonna get anything if you kill them, aside from a huge amount of corruption.
You're not going to instantly teleport to a hybrid dungeon. You have to WALK there. And during that time, you can be attacked. And that's COMPLETELY OK. What we don't want is to constantly deal with PvP, DURING THE ENCOUNTER. Not BEFORE/AFTER IT.
A scripted AI encounter that you can predict and research can never be as difficult as an unscripted and unpredictable fight with an actual person or group of people who thinks for themselves no matter how much you try and claim otherwise. There is ZERO actual risk in a raid instance. Dying in a video game isn't a risk. Paying repair bills aren't a risk. A boss doesn't remember you and actively hunt you and your guild down in game for months trying to make you all quit the game.
Except it isn't. We don't HAVE dps meters or addons. So its not going to be scripted. And so if designed well, it can easily be more challenging that encountering a bunch of random PvPers.
Also, PvPers have different levels of skill. Most are average, and very few excel. But a boss is a single AI unit. You can define it to be hard, normal, easy etc. So if you set a Boss to be hard, more often than not it will be harder to kill than random PvPers as PvPers can be skilled/unskilled, while the boss is at a fixed difficulty. So no, unpredictability doesn't always equal to being "more difficult".
Not if the instance wipes your group, reduces your gear durability, consumes your hard-earned key of entry, and exits you out of the instance. A random PvP encounter doesn't do that to you when you die.
You would lose the gear that the Mob would drop if your group was wiped prior to killing the mob correct? To expand on this if anyone in the dungeon has a "mule" with them, which may be a common thing if you've made it from the front of a dungeon to the "boss mob" as there would likely be plenty of loots. This means that if you die to PvP you would in fact suffer item loss (%), while it may not be the shiney new flaming sword of PVE from the boss mob it could be the 3 other magical items you won rolls on or w/e. Maybe you should read the wiki before you board warrior to board warrior again.
So you're suggesting that programmed AI only works a specific way if it's inside of a safe zone? Since I will admit freely i'm not a game programmer maybe you can share the inner workings of how this comes to be.
Again you should read the wiki before you tell the rest of us how pvp death/loot is going to work, actually I'll just quote it here so you don't have to go out of your way and can keep your rage in check on the next reply (maybe).
Wiki (Player Death):
Dropping a percentage of carried raw materials.[3]
This includes a percentage of items carried on the player's mule.[6]
This also includes a percentage of the certificates a player is carrying.[7]
Now look it's 100% possible that someone in the dungeon has zero loot on them, but everyone in your party? Do you honestly believe this or only because you think it helps make your case?
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Just goes to further prove my point; You, @Tyrantor, have clearly not read my post. If you read it, you would clearly see that only 1 of the solutions that I suggested has instancing. The first 2 have none, and the 4th one is partial instancing which existed in L2. And guess what? Steven is basing this game around L2 and Archeage. So expect partial instancing at the very least.
NO, YOU WON'T. Normal people don't lose gear when they die. That only applies to players that are highly corrupted.
You cannot lose "special" items, at least not as far as we know. Can we lose certificates? Yes. But these aren't boss certificates. These are mob certificates, that you gain from completing quests. We don't know if bosses drop certificates. So no, you can't loot special items. Only certificates, gatherables and some other % of items that we don't know of yet, maybe other crafting materials.
That is not what I'm saying. When a boss is instanced, you only have to account for a fixed group size attacking that boss.You can tune that boss however you want, fairly easily, because you can easily account for all the players in that group. But when the boss is open world, the no. of players that will be attacking the boss won't be fixed. There can be multiple groups. Some players will be PvPing and some will be fighting the boss. Some will be alternating between the two. So its very difficult to balance a boss around player contention, as there is no fixed variable that you can design difficulty around. So the boss ends up being easy more often than not. So its not the same thing. Anybody who has ever played an MMO in there life, knows this. You don't need to be a programmer. I explained this in further detail towards the end of my post. I suggest you read that.
My bad, I forgot certificates. But like I said before, these are mob certificates that will be dropped when doing quests to kill mobs. Nobody really cares about dropping a couple of mob certificates, as they're only worth gold. We don't know if dungeon/raid bosses drop certificates or not, and even if they did, I doubt you could get a highly valuable certificate like that by simply killing a player. That would be way too easy. As for the percentage of items carried on the player's mule, we don't know exactly what this includes. Steven said that mules carry gatherables. They may also carry certificates as well. But we don't know if they carry other items. The reason I say this is because Steven mentioned mules in the context of gatherables, in July's AMA. However, I know for a FACT that killing a player doesn't drop consumables as Steven mentioned this clearly in his interview with Asmongold when he was discussing corruption.
Also one more thing that you have to understand is, ALL of this can be done BEFORE AND AFTER the dungeon has been cleared. The group that clears or wipes on a dungeon, is still going to show up at the entrance of the dungeon. Nothing is stopping you from attacking them then. Why do you want to attack them right in the middle of PvE? I understand some contention can be fun during a boss fight, but a lot of it? That can get boring real quick, and thats coming from a PvP player.
Kinda funny to see you, @Bricktop , and @bigepeen , liking each others replies to make it look like you guys are right. Pathetic lmao. Even people who were against me in my previous post, saw the merit in most of these ideas, except for the third one. And most of them had constructive replies to give me. Seems like you 3 are the only spoiled ones out of the bunch.
I read your post, what you clearly don't understand however is I never once commented on anything else in your post and I also never addressed you specifically on a single point from your initial post. So you can keep talking about that all you want but you've for no apparent reason are dead set on attacking my comments related to instances - which in turn I have responded about and again at no point have I made a single point of reference to other material that may exist in your OP.
Also since you want me to read your OP so bad let me quote you "Shut Up" see now I"ve read it. If I want to discuss potential problems with your instance suggestion I can and you should just shut up and consider the counter arguments instead of just attacking anyone who responds in this thread you do not agree with.
Reading comprehension 101: I was suggesting that if you were killed by other players (Before the Mob died) that from that perspective of loot, you would not have received any, which while I can see why you would want to avoid this from happening - it further illustrates how Noaani was wrong in his assumption that mobs killing you equal things out, in this point you can die from two scenarios.
Ohh you've got some intel maybe the rest of us don't know about. What are special items? Can you clarify this? Are they classified as magical items? Are they consumables which you've suggested before because we all know consumables are usually labeled as "special" or are special items just imaginary place holder for you to use until you figure out how the games going to work?
You seem to skip the point I made entirely which was you can lose items, it appears that you're labeling everything as special. Is this true if not does it mean you can lose items or not? Lol.
Ahhh here go, so you do realize that the game is being designed to have 8 man parties and 40 man parties right? This seems fairly reasonable to deduce they will then be able to account for a specific group size (for dungeons) - this means that the dungeons will scale similar to "instanced PVE" you're so accustomed and demanding for.
However the way you write this paragraph makes it seem like you're referencing some world event boss mob that's just spawned in a random zone and has X number of people attacking it.
Ahh so it does appear you're talking about dungeon bosses afterall, which will not only be scaleed for specific group sizes that you're openly concerned about but (again I wrote this in your other post on the exact same topic that you choose to ignore) the game is going to scale the boss fights with party proficiency through the zone. You should be jumping for joy that you can do some super elite mob clearing and get the "toughest" boss possible, but instead you're here yelling at all of us that even post something you disagree with and it's just hypocritical after your OP about how everyone should just shut up and discuss ideas before release of course.
Excuse me? Is it funny or pathetic - I mean you lmao-ed after pathetic.
If you must know. I liked @Bricktop because his reply saved me from having to address more of your nonsense.
If you really want to talk about pathetic I don't even see a response from @bigepeen in this thread that I could have co-liked his post even, now you're suggesting people can't agree with each other within a thread they do not post in without some ulterior motive to undermine the OP again that I never once addressed in a reply before this.
Have fun with your thread i'm done here. You are simply beyond reasoning with.
p.s. I'm going to like on your above reply so you feel included and special and warm and fuzzy and "safe".
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
You said it in your post. I don't know about any special items. I was referring to the "magical items" that you were referring to.
I guess you have to learn to convey your point clearly. The way you said it, makes anyone who reads your reply, think that you think that killing anyone makes them lose gear. For the last time, no you don't lose gear. You lose gatherables and certificates. We know this for sure. We also know that we don't lose consumables or potions upon death. I'm not going to repeat myself again.
Man, am I responding to a kid? So what if they design the content for 8 man groups? You don't know HOW many 8 man groups are going to be there. If it was instanced, it would be a single group. But in an open world, you DON'T KNOW. How damaged do you have to be not understand such basic mechanics?
Also again, you seem to be constantly putting forth this "instancing theme" that you think that I'm after. This is primarily why I didn't respond to you in the first place. Cuz you're typing without reading my post. I'm NOT after instancing. I'm after challenge.
Also yes, based on what we know, every boss is going to be contested. 8, 16 and 40 man groups will be contesting each other. Every boss will be some sort of world event boss. That's precisely why I made this post in the first place. Some contention is ok, its when it gets overly contested that it becomes a problem (This does not apply to the highest level content though. That type of content should be highly contested).
Jesus, learn to type. I understand that you're not the organized type, but at least take the time to respond properly. I'm not going anywhere. From what little I understand of what you said, it seems that you think scaling open world content is EASY. I give up man, I can't go on. Get @Bricktop or @bigepeen to help you. Maybe they might be able to explain it to you properly.
And I addressed him back appropriately. I suggest you read my reply to him.
Glad to see you gone. I don't want to waste any more of my time trying to explain stuff to you as you're clearly not even near as knowledgeable as the others that have commented on my post. Get lost
Great idea, but it probably should be some sort of unique mechanic to a particular dungeon/raid. I don't think that it can be applied generally to other dungeons/raids as well as the other solutions.
What? It seems like you are taking things a bit personally here... The way I see it, the 'Like' button is a way to indicate that you simply like a post that you've read. If I didn't like a post, maybe I didn't agree with everything that post said, or maybe I didn't read the post. That's all it means. You should just chill out instead of getting so strung up about it, and you shouldn't expect others to 'Like' or not 'Like' yours or others' posts. That shit is insecure tbh. I've probably liked some of your posts in other threads btw.
I am saying the level of risk *can* be set the same, not that it is the same.
When an encounter is designed for a situation where other players will be present other than the primary guild taking it on, that has to be accounted for. Mechanics that can instantly wipe the raid have to be removed, as it is not reasonable to expect everyone to understand them, and it provides players with far too easy a griefing mechanic that prevents the encounter being killed.
If you then assume the encounter will be placed I an open PvP situation, even more aspects of the encounter get stripped away, as the designers now need to assume the primary guild will be taking the encounter on with at least a dozen or so rivals attempting to outright attack the raid, rather than the encounter.
Now, the key design aspect to any encounter is that it should be able to be killed. So, an encounter in an area where open PvP is a thing is designed to be killed by a raid that is also dealing with rival players. While this means the encounter itself is easier, killing it with the addition of PvP is the real challenge and is what the design intent is.
If the encounter were in an area where PvP was not a thing, the developers would not just wholesale switch the encounter. Such encounters designed to be taken on with PvP present are far too easy to kill when PvP is not present (look at literally anything at all in Archeage). Rather, what developers do when designing content that isn't going to have open PvP as a factor, is they make the encounter itself harder - so that the same overall level of challenge (or risk) is present.
This isn't about what can be created, this is about what can be created and expected to be killed.
Anyone that thinks an actual top end raid encounter (or even a WoW mythic raid encounter) would be able to be killed if open PvP were a thing around it is obviously someone that has never played an open PvP game, and probably also someone that has never taken on such a boss.
With most top end encounters, a player would be able to wipe the raid without even needing to attack it - all they would need to do is make use of the encounters mechanics that wipe the raid. Now, it is easy to then say that they could just develop the encounters without instant wiping mechanics like that - but then you are starting down the exact path I described above, and have already altered the encounter and thus proven that you can't simply take an instanced raid encounter and put it in an open PvP setting as you suggest could be done.
And that was with just one rival player, and that player not even attacking the raid.
A single well placed, well timed, high damage attack from a player would be able to kill a tank or a healer in any top end raid encounter. If you know when the encounters major attacks all happen, be they attacks on the tank, AoE's or other types of attacks. If the encounter has a large attack that he does on the tank every 35 seconds, all a rival needs to do is land a big attack on the tank at the same time.
I guess the suggestion to make here would be to tone the attacks like this down?
Now, maybe you want to say that the guild in question should wipe out any rivals before taking the encounter on, and this would be a valid point.
The problem there is, some top end raid encounters can take 20 minutes or more per kill attempt. If you kill rivals before pulling, they are almost guaranteed to be able to get back before you have killed the encounter (family summons makes this even easier).
So now you would be having to suggest that the encounters be made faster.
All up, encounters that are actual top end instanced fights are simply not suitable to be placed in open world PvP settings. This is why no game has ever done this. Games have placed top end fights in open world settings - just not PvP settings. Games have placed raid encounters in open world PvP settings - just not top end encoutners.
So, people want the occasional instance in Ashes with both group and raid content so that they can have an amount of these encounters that are designed to be the entire challenge themselves, rather than beign designed to be a challenge in conjunction with PvP.
Now again, if people were asking for entire dungeons of instanced content, I'd be against the idea. If people were asking for ports to instances in order to skip over the travel, I'd be against the idea.
Since all people want are occasional encounters where the challenge comes 100% from the encounter rather than 25% from the encounter and 75% from the PvP, and they want such content to be in locations where PvP is still a factor in both gettting to and from said content, and said content is open to anyone that wants to run it, I think it is a fair enough request.
Literally the only thing people against it would be losing is the ability to snip groups and raids that are taking on these encounters.
To me, this is the same level of argument as people wanting to get rid of the corruption system, and making up thinly vieled excuses that really come down to them just wanting to be murder-hobos.
As to your final point about item loss on death - item loss is the least of all death penalties if you are out taking on content rather than harvesting.
Sure, players will lose certificates, but these are essentially Ashes replacement for trash drops, vendor fodder and/or mobs dropping coin. They are not going to be all that significant.
Also, as an argument, this holds true outside of instances, not just in them. What this argument is, like it or not, is you saying you don't think Ashes should have any difficult PvE content. I mean, what is the difference if I am killed in PvE in an instance vs killed in PvE in the open world? The death penalty is the same.
So all of a sudden, should you wish to hold on to this as a point, your argument is now one of being opposed to all difficult PvE content (whether solo, group or raid) rather than one of being opposed to instanced PvE content.
As an argument, this last point you made completely destroys your argument in regards to simply putting the instanced encounter in the open world. If players did manage to get said encounter all to themselves (which is unlikely, though possible), you would still be against it because the encounter doesn't offer what you consider to be the same penalties from death.
I believe this is already the case with respawns. They mentioned multiple raid groups during a "dungeon" event, wether friendly or not. They need something to do.
AI Scripting is totally different than Macro Scripting. Y'all getting confused with your terms.
I love PvE! It's the core to MMORPGs. I'm a Carebear. I'll be the first to admit it. But, comp-stomping gets old, and is seldom a challenge. PvP livens things up, for better or worse. The Auction House is, even, PvP. If I don't want pvp, I go play some solo rpg game.
Why not come up with some ideas for content, and not mechanics? All this diatribe is disheartening.
The top end encounters in EQ2 for most expansions were all open world contested encounters.
They were a lot of fun, and there were a lot of good times had with them. I am absolutely of the opinion that open world content can be some of the most fun in an MMO.
There are two reasons I am still wanting instanced content - even while knoing that open world content can be great.
The first of these is because the very nature of open world content means that only one guild has actual content. If there are 5 raid guilds on a server, but only one spawn that night, four raid guilds of ~50 people each have no content. If this is the only type of content available, it leaves guilds in a position where they can (and will) take on content for no reason other than to deny other guilds that content.
This is not the basis for a game with a stable population.
The second reason is because the encounters described above from EQ2 are simply not possible to reasonably implement in a game with open PvP. Encoutners designed to be taken on while you have others trying to kill you are best described as being as complex as the base population of most raid zones, just with more HP. They are fun as PvP activities, but they are not fun as PvE content in and of themselves. If you manage to take these encounters on uncontested (either due to coming to an agreement with other guilds, or there being no other guilds present), the encounters are all - without exception - boringly easy.
You can design an encounter to be killed while others are actively attempting to stop you, or you can design an encounter to be killed while no one is actively attempting to stop you.
To me, there are four types of raid content I want to see in a game like Ashes.
The first is event based raid content. This is things like monster coin events and the like. It is a PvE situation where all players that want to participate should be able to. This is similar to the public quest type systems in other games, or the rift type things in ESO (or Rift).
These encounters fill the role of community engagement - they are the kind of thing that more casual players remember for years.
The second is generic open world content. These encounters would function similar to the red dragon or kraken in Archeage. They are more of a beacon to PvP'ers to come and fight them, rather than being actual PvE content themselves. These encounters are the kind of thing that make PvP players think they know a little but about PvE - when really, they are the most basic form of PvE encounter placed in a PvP environment so that players can fight over them.
These encounters give PvP focused guilds something to fight over other than nodes and castles, and can be the genesis for some of the most enjoyable PvP content.
The third content type is similar to the second type above, but without PvP or interference from people outside of the raid being possible. This kind of encounter can be made to the same degree of difficulty as the hardest instanced encounters in the game, but will only be available to be killed once per week per server.
These encounters give PvE focused guilds something they can compete against each other with, without having to simply PvP all the time.
The last encounter type is instanced. This gives all guilds some assurance that there will be at least some content they can kill and get rewards from at the low end, but can also be the hardest PvE content in the game if the developers wish that to be the case. Since guilds know the encounter will be there for them untl they kill it, the develoeprs can make these encounters so hard that guilds would be expected to wipe several hundred times to it before getting a kill.
To me, all four of these have their place and perform a function that is unique to that type of content. If you take any one of these four out, you are taking out the ability to provide content to fill that role.
Exactly. Hopefully they break the streak.
This is why we NEED to a) have enough dungeons in the world to lower the chance of PvP skirmishes to about a 10% chance when doing the dungeon and/or b) design dungeons in such a way that even if multiple groups are in the same dungeon, that they only have about a 10% chance of running into another group. Through one of these, or a combination of both, it IS possible to drop the chances of running into another group to any arbitrary percentage. This can be less than 10%, I'm just using that number as an example.
AoC already has a huge world, maybe because they are already planning for this, and coupled with the importance of distance in this game, it will be less exploitable to quickly gather everyone to one location even if you send out tons of scouts to figure out which guilds are doing which dungeons. By the time an entire guild gets the word out and arrives at the dungeon, the group will likely already be done with the dungeon. At the same time, the group doing the dungeon will feel very real risk and paranoia about wondering if a guild will make it in time to disrupt their dungeon raid. This ties in with AoC's vision of risk and reward.
Now, world bosses are limited to 12~15 in number, so you can't use a) in the first paragraph to lower the chances of a PvP encounter, but you can try to implement dungeons in such a way that it is limited. My intuition is that the world bosses will be extremely difficult to kill, so even if a guild doesn't have any competition, they will still probably wipe on the world boss. Then, guilds will start to figure out that only the top guilds will actually be able to take on world bosses, and the competition around them will naturally decline.
By using the above design methods, it is entirely possible to NOT need instanced PvE, because the chances of PvP occurring in dungeons can be lowered to any percentage that is desired. Then, Intrepid can design dungeon difficulty without accounting for PvP because it is not likely. This way, you can still have the pressure component of risk/reward present, still have emergent gameplay that can ONLY be provided by PvP, and design PvE to be difficult like instanced PvE content.
I read the first sentence, but then instead of explaining WHY it's simply not possible to implement, you go off on a tangent on what PvP and PvE encounters typically entail from your experience in previous games. If you state that something is not possible, then it might be helpful to expound on that so we can understand your thought process. Not trying trying to criticize, I think you have valid arguments, but that paragraph just read like a non-sequitur.
I am specifically talking about raid content - though my arguments hold true in group content, to a lesser degree. When developing content, the developers design it to be as difficult as they want the content to be.
This is one of the first things decided about the content - before the name, location or race of an encounter, they know how hard they want it to be. This is why most well designed games have a steady increase in difficulty - the encounters are built to a pre-defined difficulty standard - often with the means for delivering that difficulty also pre-defined.
Now, if you are in a PvP setting, a part of the difficulty of everything you do is the PvP that should be expected. As such, any and all content that is added to a game in a way where PvP is expected must take that PvP in to account in order for the content to fit in to it's desgn paramaters.
If you are putting an encounter in the game in a way where PvP is not possible, you can account for that not being a factor by making the encounter harder in other ways - ways that would make the encounter literally unkillable if there was a chance of PvP.
As such, if you were developing two encounters that were both supposed to be a 10 out of 10 challenge, but one was designed to be in an area with PvP and one was designed to be removed from PvP, the encounters would be - by necessity - vastly different. Taking on each encounter would also be a vastly different experience to the player, and the encounter types would generally appeal to a vastly different type of player.
If you need a singular example of this, you could go up three posts from the one you quoted where I talk about it a little more, including this.
You're talking about dungeons as the group content, and world bosses as the raid content, right? I don't think a 15 minute respawn is needed for dungeon group content. The dungeons need to be checked to see if the boss has respawned anyway, and with distance mattering in AoC, it really wouldn't have much of an effect on percentage of meeting another group at the same dungeon group content.
World boss raid content PvP encounter rates can be lowered by b) in my previous post. It's harder to implement than a) but it's still possible in theory to design dungeons in such a way that PvP encounters between groups are less likely. There can be gating systems, or labyrinth-like areas. I don't know exactly how it would work best, but I really don't think it's impossible to figure out.
Ok, yeah it makes sense. Any group that has another group roll up on it during a PvE boss fight would probably need to immediately disengage and deal with the PvP threat. There could be other ways to deal with it, for instance some classes might have hidden traps that they could deploy at a chokepoint to give the group doing the boss an advantage. There could be many other ways to deal with it, this is all emergent gameplay. It won't devolve into 100% PvP fighting as long as the chance for PvP encounters can be reduced by the mechanisms I mentioned before.
Which by the way also happens to be the entire point of my post. Glad you finally understood it. Can you please explain this to @Tyrantor now?
Dungeons can be for groups or raids, as can world bosses. There is no reason at all to limit world bosses to raid content, nor to limit dungeons to group content. In fact, I would be shocked if there were not group based world bosses in the game, and equally shocked if there weren't raid based dungeons in the game.
The problem with using dungeon design as a means to avoid PvP is that it doesn't work if there is a boss that is desired.
Assume every open dungeon has one boss at the end of it that is "the" boss. Better loot, harder to kill, etc. It doesn't matter what the design of the dungeon is, if that mob is up (and it's spawn window will be known) that is where everyone will be going.
While you may be able to lower to percentage chance of people happening upon another group by pure chance, when everyone is going after the same encounter you can't really do anything to stop it.
To be clear, I am only talking about the actual bosses that are the reason peopel do content - not the smaller boss encounters leading up to it. Even then, I am not talking about all of them - only a portion. A single dungeon in the game would be best served - imo - with one major open world boss (4 hour spawn for group content, 6 day spawn for raid content). Then there should be at least abother 3 bosses that are a single step down from that with the same spawn timer, and 20 or so that are a further step down, but that are on spawn timers that are half that time. All of these encounters would be designed as per open world encounter design dictates.
Then there should be three encounters that are instanced - one that is right at the top similar to that one major open world boss, and two that are a step below. Each of these should be in their own small instance with no other encounters, and these instances should be located far apart from each other so a group or raid wanting to take on all three would basically have to run the entire dungeon anyway. These instances should have that a lockout of 20 hours for group content and 6 days for raid content.
What this does is it means no matter what - a guild going in to open dungeons based around this idea will know for a fact that they have at least some content available to them.
The problem with this is that top end raid bosses don't allow you to pause. Stop focusing for a second or two and you die.
This is why the very top end of top end encounters simply are not appropriate for areas where PvP is possible - remembering of course that the top end encounters like this are where people will be heading, so it is not a case of randomly happening upon others.
Also, top end raid bosses take 20 minutes or more to kill, there is no realistic way the game would allow a raid full of players to set a trap that will keep another raid occupied for 20 minutes.
So, content that is designed in an area where PvP is likely need to be designed with this in mind.
Again, this is great, it is fun, it is content that Ashes needs - even if few MMO's these days have content like this.
What it is not though, is content for the general masses.
If the game wants the masses, it needs content for them - and in the specific case of content like this, "the general masses" means every player on the server wanting to run PvE content that is not in the singular best PvE guild on the server.
But isn't this what this game is kinda trying to be? Maybe push the mindset to the more Oldschool MMORPG and not trying to please what the current "MMORPG" generations "wants." No one is doing this because they are so afraid that their game will fail.
When a game is PvX the content should not be available to everyone at all times and acquiring best gear should not be available from traditional instanced content. When you put best gear in traditional instances it will ruin open world. It always has and always will. And if you don't put the best gear in traditional instances then no one will do the instanced content.
If key component for badass 1handed sword drops from 3 ow bosses. Clans have to compete for those bosses in order to obtain it. If it would be instanced all the big clans could get it. Them being contested brings in diplomacy between clans, forming alliances to dethrone the big hardcore clans.
Instances start killing open world PvP and player interactions and just makes you be able to focus on your own clan, own progression with disregarding the rest of the server. If bosses would be instances and would net you best gear why would you interact with other clans? Just like in WoW all you do is run instances and don't give a duck about other clans. Other than you compete who clears the boss in fastest time.
PvX is about politics, mercenaries, clans, alliances, trading, backstabbing, spies etc. With traditional instances you don't get any of this. Castle sieges etc. will feel like minigames outside your PvE farming content.
I guarantee this will not do anything. These will be contested as this is the end game content. What else would be people doing rather than getting the keys for the best gear? Lineage 2 had this and the boss with key was the most contested boss because of the drops. The keys will do nothing but act as a timesink and gate out people not because it's hard but because they didn't have enough time to sink that week.
Bosses should be in such a hard to reach location that you cannot get back there in small amount of time. The warning would act as trigger for clans to move towards the boss. You would see huge PvP battles who will earn the rights for the boss kill. After there is one clan/alliance standing after the 30min+ brawl and this clan would be able to access the boss room with limited amount of players.
I think there should be multiple of such bosses and also easier one with lower timers and then some with just regular open world mechanics. These bosses could spawn in the same spawn window of +-1hour in different regions so that clans should choose which one to contest particular night. Bigger alliances could divide their forces in the 2 different spots.
This way you would be able to get hard PvE content without loosing the PvP content. Without loosing the politics and importance of clans and alliances and player interactions.
You can actually use dungeon design to counteract this. Steven said that there are dynamically generated hidden doors that are placed randomly every time the dungeon is refreshed. These can only be opened by a specific class like rogue for instance. Since the location of this varies, maybe the entire dungeon generation can be randomized as well. If you design all rooms in the dungeon as modular, you simply connect the rooms randomly. People obviously want to find the boss room, but they will have no idea where it is.
This is just an example, I'm sure there are are many other ways to do it, or combinations of ways. See wArchAngel's posts in this thread for how other games did open world PvE: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/46453/open-world-raids#latest
I didn't say to stop healing the group and let everyone die. Healers should always focus on keeping their heals up, even if the group leader gets info that another group is approaching. There might be a few casualties when disengaging, but it's not like everyone instantly evaporates the second you stop DPSing the boss. This adds another skill that exists with open world emergent gameplay that wouldn't exist with PvE instancing, the art of disengaging quickly and efficiently. Then you can design the dungeon topology so that the defending group would have some sort of tactical advantage against the attackers even if they took some disengage casualties.
You and Tyrantor were arguing about a lot of things, such as if mob certificates drop on death.