Concerned that world bosses will become the same as the ones in Guild Wars 2

Was watching the latest dev update and the bit where they discuss world boss scaling got me thinking about why I quit doing them in Guild Wars 2.

They weren't fun because everyone just stood in the safest spot and stayed there the whole time.

The only real solution to this is minimize the "safe spots" so that there isn't much of that, but I think player collision will be huge in these events, but then the battlefields will have to be HUGE to house that many people, and allow them to move enough to dodge the attacks.

Just wanted to toss this out there and start the discussion!

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Dygz

Uh. What they said in the dev update is that the encounter difficulty would scale - could be boss, could be environment, would very likely be environment, but could also be both the boss and the environment.

I don't see how environment scaling in difficulty results in everyone standing in safe spots.
Environment scaling in difficulty seems likely to lead to the opposite of that.

Sathrago

I think you are taking mechanics from other games and assuming that intrepid will make the same mistakes. We just can't know yet as they have already said that even they don't know exactly what they will do to make zerging bosses harder.

Noaani

I'm fairly concerned they will end up being the same as GW2, Archeage, L2 or BDO.

None of these games have raid level PvE content of note.

Dreoh

If you actually paid attention, they said they would scale in mechanics, not statistics.

Meaning they'll get new abilities the more people there are, not more health/attack/defense/etc.

Noaani

Dreoh wrote: »

If you actually paid attention, they said they would scale in mechanics, not statistics.

Meaning they'll get new abilities the more people there are, not more health/attack/defense/etc.

That doesn't really mean a whole lot. They are not the first to attempt to do that.

Dreoh

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If you actually paid attention, they said they would scale in mechanics, not statistics.

Meaning they'll get new abilities the more people there are, not more health/attack/defense/etc.

That doesn't really mean a whole lot. They are not the first to attempt to do that.

It means a lot compared to what OP is specifically scared of.

Noaani

Dreoh wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If you actually paid attention, they said they would scale in mechanics, not statistics.

Meaning they'll get new abilities the more people there are, not more health/attack/defense/etc.

That doesn't really mean a whole lot. They are not the first to attempt to do that.

It means a lot compared to what OP is specifically scared of.

No it doesn't.

FuryBladeborne

The open world PvP and limited loot from bosses is going to make such encounters very different compared to games such as GW2 that gives full loot to all participants on completion.

Vhaeyne

This is like watching flys... mate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DHB0vrNAak&ab_channel=Geksagen

This is what a raid boss looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0G2auMMKlo&ab_channel=dudewhereismyspoon

I have every doubt in my mind that AOC will have anything like my friend Titan in it. While I am not convinced the raid bosses even need to be that hard or complex. Considering that it is not the main appeal of the game. I will take PvE difficulty where ever I can get it.

Sathrago

Vhaeyne wrote: »

This is like watching flys... mate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DHB0vrNAak&ab_channel=Geksagen

This is what a raid boss looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0G2auMMKlo&ab_channel=dudewhereismyspoon

I have every doubt in my mind that AOC will have anything like my friend Titan in it. While I am not convinced the raid bosses even need to be that hard or complex. Considering that it is not the main appeal of the game. I will take PvE difficulty where ever I can get it.

God what a fun fight though right? Part of me hopes they take this sort of boss fight and uses the dance mechanics that nearly one shot you if you fail. The other part worries about the scaling difficulty that builds up the more players that show up.

What about this? Let's say a boss is designed for 40 people, so the first 40 players that come within range gain a first come first serve buff. Any other player that arrives afterwards gains a debuff instead. This debuff will cause the boss to actually one shot you if you get hit by any of its damaging mechanics. The debuff goes away if one of the original 40 players dies, granting the nearest debuffed player the "first come first serve" buff.

With this system it rewards the first group to get to a boss but allows outside forces that are good at avoiding mechanics to come in and attempt to wrest control of the boss away. I'm not saying this is a perfect solution though. What else could be done to make it better?

Vhaeyne

Sathrago wrote: »

God what a fun fight though right? Part of me hopes they take this sort of boss fight and uses the dance mechanics that nearly one shot you if you fail. The other part worries about the scaling difficulty that builds up the more players that show up.

What about this? Let's say a boss is designed for 40 people, so the first 40 players that come within range gain a first come first serve buff. Any other player that arrives afterwards gains a debuff instead. This debuff will cause the boss to actually one shot you if you get hit by any of its damaging mechanics. The debuff goes away if one of the original 40 players dies, granting the nearest debuffed player the "first come first serve" buff.

With this system it rewards the first group to get to a boss but allows outside forces that are good at avoiding mechanics to come in and attempt to wrest control of the boss away. I'm not saying this is a perfect solution though. What else could be done to make it better?

That could work. Reminds me of the raid curse in l2. When you hit a raid boss that was way below your level. They have options. I just have not heard anything from intrepid about mechanically challenging fights being within the scope of the game.

Personally I really liked my idea of the open world bosses dropping items that can open a temporary instance for a challenging raid boss with a set player limit. Like once you open the portal, you have an hour to go in and attempt the boss, and only X players can enter the portal. The items could be traded sold on the market or attempted. Risk vs reward. This also means that the open world bosses are just as valuable.

It really comes down to. What does Intrepid want? I posted two ends of the spectrum above. Where does intrepid want AOC to be in that spectrum?

Leiloni

Noaani wrote: »

I'm fairly concerned they will end up being the same as GW2, Archeage, L2 or BDO.

None of these games have raid level PvE content of note.

Replace "concerned" with "certain" and I would fully agree with this. Everything they've said has alluded to that, just along with the fact that other games of this style - like the ones noted above - have had PvE like that.

And honestly nobody in this community thought the game would have raid level PvE content of note until Asmongold and the other major influencers did interviews over the summer, and because they typically only play games with that sort of PvE, everyone who came here after those interviews immediately made the assumption it would.

Leiloni

Vhaeyne wrote: »

This is like watching flys... mate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DHB0vrNAak&ab_channel=Geksagen

This is what a raid boss looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0G2auMMKlo&ab_channel=dudewhereismyspoon

I have every doubt in my mind that AOC will have anything like my friend Titan in it. While I am not convinced the raid bosses even need to be that hard or complex. Considering that it is not the main appeal of the game. I will take PvE difficulty where ever I can get it.

I don't think it'll be that bad where you're literally standing around wacking on a boss who does nothing. You may see fights like this with actual mechanics to deal with, albeit not terribly complicated ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUk6py9QOdU

Because you are going to have world boss fights that look like this, with one raid PvPing a rival raid while another raid or two is busy fighting the boss, so the boss can't be too difficult with so much going on around it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKKVNeCvgr8

Noaani

Leiloni wrote: »

And honestly nobody in this community thought the game would have raid level PvE content of note until Asmongold and the other major influencers did interviews over the summer, and because they typically only play games with that sort of PvE, everyone who came here after those interviews immediately made the assumption it would.

This is totally untrue.

As I have said in this thread, and in others, several years ago there was more talk about the PvE content in Ashes - specifically the raid content - than there was the PvP content.

Steven has said outright that he wants Ashes to have progress based PvE raid content in Ashes, and that he wants the top end of that content to be difficult enough that only a single digit percentage of players would be capable of killing it.

This was information that was given to us before we knew about Bounty Hunters, before we knew the game would have arenas, before we knew non-combatants have twice the death penalty of combatants.

You may not have known that at the time, but that doesn't mean others here didn't.

---

I have been saying since around June 2017 that Ashes needs to have three distinct types of raid content.

The first are the event encounters - things like monster coins fall in to this (but so can other events). These are open world encounters where almost all players are expected to work together to take on the big bad challenge. All those wanting to work together to take it on should be welcome to do so - these encounters would essentially be like the rift events in Rift.

The second type of encounter are the open world bosses. This is the kind of thing Steven and Jeff were talking about in the recent live stream. Their desire to increase the challenge based on number of players present will likely end out as being unnecessary, as the challenge from these encounters comes from the PvP that they bring, not from the encounter itself. This is as per games like Archeage and L2, and these encounters should be considered PvP content moreso than PvE (as the best PvP raid will win).

The third type of content is where the raid progression that Steven wants will take place, and has to be instanced in some manner.

Ashes as a game can not have everything that Steven has said he wants for it without the game having all three of these encounter types - and again, I have been saying this for over 3 years, as it was over three years ago that Steven informed us all of what he wanted for the top end scene in Ashes.

Leiloni

Noaani wrote: »

The third type of content is where the raid progression that Steven wants will take place, and has to be instanced in some manner.

Can you find me some examples where he talks about this? Because either I totally missed those interviews or I understood his words in an entirely different manner.

Noaani

Leiloni wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

The third type of content is where the raid progression that Steven wants will take place, and has to be instanced in some manner.

Can you find me some examples where he talks about this? Because either I totally missed those interviews or I understood his words in an entirely different manner.

I never said he has talked about it. If you would read what I said, I said that *I* have been saying for years that this is the type of content that Ashes needs to have in order to achieve what Steven said he wants.

It is not possible to have progression based raiding in an open world environment. Steven may not have been aware of this when he made the comment that he wants Ashes to have progression based raiding, and that he wants it so hard that only a single digit percentage of players are able to defeat the top end of it. His gaming experience has not involved any games at all with progression based raiding, so it is understandable he didn't have any idea what was involved.

His acceptance now of needing to fall back on the 80/20 split in relation to raiding - and not limiting that to only story content - is a strong suggestion that he now understands that you straight up can not have progression based raiding on an open world environment, and also that he still wants that progression based raiding.

Leiloni

Noaani wrote: »

It is not possible to have progression based raiding in an open world environment. Steven may not have been aware of this when he made the comment that he wants Ashes to have progression based raiding, and that he wants it so hard that only a single digit percentage of players are able to defeat the top end of it. His gaming experience has not involved any games at all with progression based raiding, so it is understandable he didn't have any idea what was involved.

Yes this is the part I'm talking about, is where he talks about progression based raiding. I've certainly heard of him talk about 40 man raids in a world boss sense, but I'm not sure there were interviews where I personally had the impression he wanted typical progression raiding with several bosses and continually introduced new content.

I've heard him talk about it in the sense of you'll have open world dungeon content for 8 man groups, maybe harder open world dungeons requiring 16 man groups or other PvE content for 16 people, and then 40 man "raids" for bosses. I've heard him use the term "progression" for that, but not the idea of progression that a WoW or FFXIV player might understand it.

Dreoh

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

If you actually paid attention, they said they would scale in mechanics, not statistics.

Meaning they'll get new abilities the more people there are, not more health/attack/defense/etc.

That doesn't really mean a whole lot. They are not the first to attempt to do that.

It means a lot compared to what OP is specifically scared of.

No it doesn't.

Yes lol, it does.

OP was specifically scared of just stat scaling and fights not changing

New Mechanics specifically address that, you're being disingenuous arguing otherwise.

akabear

Noaani wrote: »

I'm fairly concerned they will end up being the same as GW2, Archeage, L2 or BDO.
None of these games have raid level PvE content of note.

In your opinion, if the above don`t, what games do have raid level PvE content of note?

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I'm fairly concerned they will end up being the same as GW2, Archeage, L2 or BDO.
None of these games have raid level PvE content of note.

In your opinion, if the above don`t, what games do have raid level PvE content of note?

In no particular order - WoW, EQ, EQ2, AoC the 1st, Vanguard, I have heard arguments for FFXIV but have not played it to have my own opinion.

Rift, ESO and DDO come close, but fall a little short.

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