How dificult will open-world mobs be?
cruXtis
Member
Will mobs in the open-world be solo-able or will they require more than one player to take them down?
I would also like to here everyone's opinion on whether or not open-world mobs should be solo-able or require a group. Thanks!
I would also like to here everyone's opinion on whether or not open-world mobs should be solo-able or require a group. Thanks!
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Comments
There will likely be tougher ones that require a group to take down, but I think players will eventually find a way to solo these as well.
Like most of the comments and discussions on these forums, this is only speculation at this point.
This. They're not going to want to make playing solo undoable, but they're also not going to want to let the best stuff be soloable.
Tera had the BAMs, where were soloable, but not easily for every class at every level. I liked this system too because the BAMs were like mini bosses that you could grind to level.
I have not seen any indication that AoC is doing anything special with world mobs. I would hope that at least open world dungeon mobs require a group. Maybe even a raid?
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
AION could be challenging for certain classes at the release of the game, but they scaled down the difficulty massively over the years.
I never soloed in Aion. I played a cleric, and had a templar, and sorc with me at almost all times. I remember our little leveling static being very effective. Especially after we had a spirit-master (the pet class, unsure of the name) join us near cap.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Yeah I soloed everything until lvl 50 or something like that as a Gladiator and then as a Chanter.
Glad could stun lock most enemies in a 1v1 but got reckt by more than 3 adds at once, while Chanter could just go on and on.
I'm hoping for solo content for those times you don't want to be sociable, AND benefits/perks to going at it in a team.
I usually roll two chars at the start: one healer and one a solo bash-em type, so I can play whatever suits me at that time. Some times you don't have time to play in a group, and need some solo content so you can stop at anytime.
This is one area MMOs can have a ton of flexibility with without breaking the concept of the game. Their are not much details on this, for AoC, but the elites could very well feel like elites, and drive a need to socialize and party. I can't think of too many games that got this wrong. WOW as a current example, elite are often a joke, sometimes you can kill them before you notice the gold dragon on their HP bar...
I wish you luck on running two characters. I plan on focusing on one char myself.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Except for Beastmasters!
Woot, BST are BEST!
Steven Sharif is my James Halliday (Anorak)
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
-HPL
From lv 30 to 40 solo xp should return small gains while mobs are kinda harder.
40+ should be small or full group only.
There should be solo and group monsters for all lvs, but for 40+ the solo mob xp return should be extremelly unsatisfying.
I am of the opinion that an open world mmorpg should focus on group adventure and hostile player encounters for ground control, not casual solo singplayer rpg style.
I dont like complicated AI at all when it comes to mobs.
I prefer the simple high HP/def mob that when I fight it I dont wanna aggro a second one.
I like the sinple hard hitting low HP mob with a stun attack.
I even like pulling many mobs together, high or low hp, when Im with my group.
But when I played BDO something bothered me about the 50 mobs, blending one inside other that proved 0 challenge when I was soloing them. I didnlt like bdo mobs.
Ashes has very few instances, so... there will be plenty of open-world mobs that require more than one player-character to defeat.
This means that open world mobs actually have a difficulty cap.
It's very difficult if not impossible to make them actually be harder as singles, without level based scaling of some form, especially since the game has level based exp-reward scaling.
It's sitting in a 'Hybrid' space between FFXI and BDO as a result and therefore a cap exists.
Cleric can solo the non-quest ones, the open world ones, even with the mob being 5+ levels over them. I haven't seriously failed to solo that type yet.
Cleric OP. :P
Indeed, I'm really interested to see what they do about this. In most games with no scaling this is solved by making the strong healer class pretty squishy, but I'm not interested in that, so unfortunately I have to wait and see if there will be some 'offset' to the whole 'everyone can wear every gear piece'.
I really hope it's not passives...
There's about 3 resources total on the current mobs, so I wouldn't call them walking resources.
You will have to form a good group with the right classes.
What you see now is low lv mobs. And it's Alpha.
Sort of, but that gets into 'what the player is trying to do'. It's always possible to find something that's too hard for you, but because of that, we can't be technically talking about that.
MMOs generally have two ways of building. Build so players will optimize their flow, finding the enemy they can kill the fastest in large numbers for the most exp, or build so that they optimize their performance, pushing for the enemy that gives the max exp that won't shred the Tank in 2-3 hits and is still killable (usually because mowing through lower leveled, less dangerous ones, causes them to run out of enemies in the area).
Games that build for (or end up being) Optimization: Flow usually have enemies with weak mechanics, no scaling, and they are pretty numerous. In some games, very numerous. This encourages players to find the area where they can find the most enemies, and power through them. Also encourages conflict. Sometimes it causes soloing if a person can find a spot for themselves.
Games that build for (or end up being) Optimization: Performance have enemies with strong mechanics that drastically alter your ability to defeat them sometimes, often have damage scaling, and the enemies are much less numerous normally. Players are encouraged to group up (because by the time you can get past the damage scaling to consistently win, the level scaling has made it not worth it). Encourages cooperation up to a point. Players who enjoy challenging themselves more than 'being efficient' are the ones who try to find a solo spot rather than a group (assuming they aren't just not in the mood for grouping up)
It's hard to get to a point between these. Mostly it's easier to choose one for the main leveling experience and then make bosses/dungeons for the other.
"No damage scaling + level scaling + meaningfully distinct classes" pushes the game toward Optimization: Flow even if the enemies have stronger mechanics. You might want to duo, but it would seldom be worth your time to gather a full group, for open world content, once you got good enough or found a 'favored enemy' that your class is good at defeating.
However since it is Alpha, we can't say what the mechanical difficulty of open world enemies will be. If they push it far enough 'back' to Optimization: Performance we might see something. The issue is that when 'kill the enemy fast enough for it to not use its strong mechanics' is possible because of no damage scaling, either your damage formulas based on level and stats borders on silly (so that a level 40 can't output the damage required to kill a level 50 enemy) or the enemy becomes an HP sponge (the level 40 can't output the damage because the level 50 enemy has lots more HP than the level 40 equivalent enemy), and in an Alpha game without finalized combat, this is probably all you will see from the average open world enemy.
- your level vs the mob level/tier (normal, champ, elite etc)
- your class and stat allocation
- your skill and competence
In a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say anywhere from 1 to 10.