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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
I totally agree.
EQ2 didn't succeed in regards to contested content on PvP servers - though PvP was never a focus of that game, to be fair.
I've been saying for many years on these forums that actual PvE encounters, encounters that provide an actual challenge to players, that are able to be used as a step in a progression system, simply can not exist in an open world PvP setting.
The other thing I have been saying for just as long is that this isn't an issue.
A game like Ashes can - and should - have open world PvE content that are that basic tank and spank that encounters like EQ2's four Dominus encounters in RoK had, or like Archeages Red Dragon, or like almost anything in GW2, L2, BDO etc. Having these encounters is not a bad thing, even if they are simple. In a PvP setting, these encounters essentially fill the role of PvP objectives, and there is a lot of fun that can be had in relation to this type of content.
Then, as well as that, a game developer needs to implement an actual raid progression.
What you then have is open world content for players to fight over directly, and progression content for players to, well, progress through.
If you literally took EQ2's instanced raid content and dropped in in to Ashes without any additional changes, it would be out of place.
However, if you take that content and make two specific changes to it, you then have content that fits amazingly well in a game like this.
Those two changes are that you first of all require guilds be patrons of the nearest metropolis in order to gain access (or potentially a direct vassal).
The second chage you make is so that all drops from this content is in the form of raw materials that can be dropped when killed, except for one potential drop that is a 25% chance of dropping only from the final boss in each instance. This drop, rather than being a raw material, simply can not be placed in a player inventory, but rather needs to be transported in a caravan. Also, when a player loots this item, there is a serverwide message informing all other players of that fact.
There are a few other details that I would look at to make this work, but anyone looking at this and not seeing how that fits perfectly well in to Ashes probably hasn't been paying attention to what Ashes is.
With this, if there is a guild that I am particularly opposed to, I can attempt to encourage other guilds to put in the effort to take over that guilds patron status. If we are able to make it so that this guild is no longer patron of their node, they lose access to this content. It's just gone.
Second, if we can't do that, we can siege the node they are patron of. If we succeed, since there is no longer a metropolis in the area, no one has access to that content from this node cluster.
If we are unable to do that, we could simply work out when this guild is raiding the content in question, and plan out an ambush on any potential caravan that they would need to run if they manage to get that top tier drop. Since this is a caravan, we are able to attempt this ambush without fear of corruption.
To me, this is instanced raid content implemented in a way that works perfectly with a game like Ashes. This isn't the only way to do this, but it is the easiest and most obvious way that I can think of.
If that is what you are suggesting, great for mechanic, but I cant see why 1) extending raiding to require caravan extension 2) the necessity of using a caravan when the local town may be the place of choice to manage the drops in the first place.
Is there something missing from the interpretation?
Yeah, you haver the general direction of the idea.
To your two specific questions,
1, why extend raiding to this specific caravan - the answer is simple, to open the rewards from the raid up to PvP. If a raid is going to take place in the relative safety of an instance, it is perfectly within reason, in my mind, that there essentially be a forced exposure to PvP.
2, the caravan would need to take this item to a metropolis.
As an addition to the idea above, once the item gets to a metropolis, it can then be processed in to an item that can be carried in a players inventory as normal - and can be used to craft top end items using this item, regular raw materials and drops from single group content. I would avoid the need for other raid components so that a smaller guild that is competent in PvP but not big enough to raid are able to make use of this reward if they get their hands on it.
You're assuming that because you want it to be true. You're missing the third and perhaps more obvious choice - you know you have a target to take on because it's a fixed spawn in the open game world. What we know so far is they've confirmed two types of "raids". That is world bosses as well as open world raids - similar to open world dungeons except for more players. We saw one of these in the Alpha 1 preview livestream back in March. They haven't yet confirmed any to be fully instanced and in fact they've spoken little about what even will be instanced content. Considering the 80/20 comment, most of this we already know is open world content which fits what they said above. And they've already said most of the 20% will be story content - which makes sense - you don't want players merely trying to get the story to be risking a gank or fighting for an important story mob to spawn - but most of the rest of the game content, they do.
Steven has also spoken a bit about how these encounters spawn. Specifically we know that PvE content is a major reason for developing certain nodes to a certain point. Opening up and changing content in general, of various kinds, via the node system, is perhaps the key aspect of the game's design. This is an idea we've been hearing from day 1 (and yes, I've been around since day 1). So we know that open world dungeons and open world raids are going to exist in fixed locations as points of interest and then be populated based on the node system and what nodes nearby are developed to what stage. The types of mobs and difficulty will be influenced by the world around it. You can view the A1 preview video to get an idea of how that open world raid will look (very open, exploratory design, likely to find competing raids farming in there, rather hectic possibly if there's more than one raid team competing for the boss, or even PvPing for the boss, etc.).
Aside from knowing what open world dungeons/raids exist in an area, you'll also know what world and regional bosses exist as well. World bosses are the 40 man content and those are static. Regional I believe are 16?, not sure about that, but those, like the open world dungeons and raids, are influenced by the nearby nodes.
So yes you can plan for the existence of these bosses, but that's about it. And, the content we currently know about is all open world content. They've been rather clear on that and haven't mentioned instancing at all in regards to the above.
If you listen to the entire section of that interview it's quite clear what he's talking about. He mentions that there are various "tiers" of content available to the players - solo, 8 man, 16 man, and finally 40 man. As mentioned above, we already know the "raiding" content will be open world raids and world bosses. He's confirmed world bosses to be 40 man and the open world raid dungeon video looked more like a 16 man group, although for all we know there may be open world raid dungeons designed for 40 as well. This harder 40 man content was what he then went on to describe as the hardest content, likely only doable by a small number of players, and as something he wanted the rest of the player base to strive for and work toward. This difficult long term goal is the ultimate progression to strive for he said.
Not progression as in, progressing through 8 or 12 bosses of a raid, and then later a few months to a year later progressing through another 8 or 12 boss instanced raid. He's never said anything that would remotely sound like he's thinking that. You progress through the open world that they're creating, and progress through the node system that is so integral to it, and risk competing with other players for the hardest and best content because its all in the open world. Progress in levels, gear, and skill through solo, 8 and 16 man content to perhaps one day take on that 40 man content yourself.
This is also quite a stretch. As I said above, there's no reason to believe these are 8 boss instanced raiding encounters. From everything they've said, it's quite clear we have open world raid dungeons for 16 or potentially 40 man groups, and 40 man world bosses. These are your raid content. And the content is influenced by the node system, as is nearly everything else in this game.
As for the fight style described in that quote (which is literally the only thing being discussed in that quote), it's been seen in other games as well. TERA for one had fights like that and you really had to be on your toes every damn time you did a boss because you never knew how it would go. But merely because another game did fights a certain way that doesn't mean the devs are going to copy every single other aspect of the raids that game did. Stop looking for what you want to see, and look for the things that have actually been said (and haven't).
On the topic of boss fight styles in general he has said some more specific things on that if you're curious. From more recent interviews we've heard him speak about the idea of a boss whose fight tactics vary based on factors such as what nodes are developed, to what level, etc. and there would be a branching decision tree dictating how the boss would act in a fight based on all these external factors. So as the world changes, the boss itself changes. This is the variety he talked about.
Now, this was said in direct relation to instancing and raids.
Once again, I am unsure how a player can read/listen to that and still say there won't be instanced raids in Ashes.
For several years now I have been saying they will need to instance some raids. I have not been saying they have absolutely said they will instance some raids, but rather, if they want to have what it is they claim they want to have, then that will require some raids be instanced.
Now, people have been arguing that Intrepid never said there will be instanced raids (and until recently, they hadn't), but that was never my argument - at least until now. My argument was that they would eventually realise that they will need to instance some raid encounters, and it would seem Intrepid have reached that point.
The specific reason I even said they would need to instance some encounters is due to being able to control player count - and Steven specifically mentioned exactly that.
I've never said anything remotely like that would be, should be or could be in Ashes.
That is you taking Blizzards version of progression based raiding and assuming it is the only way for it to work.
Not only is the Blizzard way not the only way, it is easily the worst way.
You can have progression based raiding with three encounters, you do not need multiple instances of 8 or more.
Stop making wild assumptions about what I am talking about here - it makes you look a little foolish, and wastes both of our time. EQ2 had a very large number of singe boss instances, which is exactly what I have been saying instanced raid content in Ashes (content that we know we will get) should be.
If there is an open raid dungeon designed for 40 player raids, and that is able to hold maybe 4 or 5 raids at a time quite comfortably, and that dungeon has maybe 3 or 4 main bosses and 10 - 12 smaller bosses, that dungeon should also have 2 or 3 instances that each contain a single boss encounter (and maybe some base population, but that is irrelevant).
I have said exactly this many times before, including in threads you have been a part of over the last 6 months or so.
So again, stop making assumptions that I am talking about instances with 8 or so bosses, as that is not at all even close to what I am suggesting, and you bringing it up isn't helpful.
These are both assumptions. We have to look at what we know, which I already stated above. Realistically l nothing else matters if you just want to have a discussion about what we know is being offered in the game.
But let's just go with it for a moment if you want to make guesses. What makes you think the above would happen when they keep telling us the game has a PvX focus, that it's all about the open world, that it's all about risk vs reward, about players making the content and changing the world. Where does instancing a boss fight fit into that? It ignores all of the core ideas they have for this game.
They don't want to control player count manually. We know they plan to design boss fights to account for additional players and make it harder to ignore mechanics. That question has been asked and answered numerous times. But you're also ignoring the idea that all content is potentially contested. An open world raid is going to be a hot spot for such contests - either players will fight for stuff via PvP or they'll just try to passively out-PvE each other and then the 60/40 loot tagging rules come into effect regarding what group does the most DPS to a boss or mob. There's no need to instance such boss fights because they are intentionally not instanced, to play into other game mechanics.
They are assumptions, but that is because you quoted the part of my post where I was saying how *I* see it happening eventually, not how Intrepid have said it will happen. When I say "this is my assumption for how things will go", turning around and arguing that it is just an assumption is not the greatest of arguments.
It fits in to the part where Steven said that they will instance encounters if they see a need or desire for it.
At this point, you are not arguing against me, you are arguing against Steven.
Again, this quote is from Steven in relation to instancing raid content; You seem to either be totally ignoring this, or somehow reading this to mean there will still be no instanced raids.
I am not sure which, but neither of these two positions really square well with what has been said.
Basically, you are saying they will not instance content, and Intrepid are saying they will instance it when they see a need to do so. A few points here.
Reading this, I can only assume that you think there is only a place for one type of raid content in Ashes - which is just odd.
I mean, sure, WoW only had one type of raid content post vanilla (to my knowledge), but many other games have had both open world raiding and instanced raiding co-existing perfectly well.
That is what Ashes will have to do. That is what I have been saying for years Intrepid will need to do. That is what Steven recently said they will do.
Your arguments make some sence if I make the assumption that you are making the assumption that there will only be one type of raid content in Ashes, either instanced or open world. As soon as you realize there can be both (and indeed a third type that Ashes will likely need as well), your arguments fall completely flat.
To break the above down even further;
- Intrepid have specifically said they will control player numbers if they need to, so saying they don't want to at all is disingenuous.
-They can have boss fights with mechanics to account for additional players in the open world, while still having some instanced content. The fact that they want one does not mean they can not have both.
- Instanced content can be contested, you just can't contest it while the raid is taking on the content. There are other ways to contest content though. This is especially true if the entrance to that instanced encounter is in a dungeon - which is why that has always been my primary suggestion for this content.
- Open world raids will be hotspots for contest, and this is why open world raids will be some of the most enjoyable PvP content in Ashes. That doesn't mean there can't also be PvE raiding. These two things do not need to be mutually exclusive.
Fact is, Steven has said there will be instanced raids, and they have even set aside an allowance of 20% of all raid content to be instanced if they feel the need for it (I don't see the need for it to be that high, but I am not complaining).
I have been saying for years that they will eventually realize this, and they have now realized this.
Now it's your turn to realize this.
80% of dungeons will be open world. While I couldn't quickly find a quote for it, I am pretty sure raids have also been specified as 80% open world and 20% instanced.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Dungeons
However, we know from the loot distribution rules that at some point of increasing player count, some amount of players will not get loot. We also know that Steven intends for players to fight over resources that include such world bosses. It seems apparent that guilds trying to max the difficulty by bringing the max players will only increase loot to a certain point and beyond that will only continue to increase difficulty.
i.e. Assuming that loot scales to 40 players for a 40 man open world raid while additional challenges such as added AOE traps and AOE attacks are added on a scale of up to 120 (or more) players. If a guild brings 120 players, they have apparently greatly increased the challenges for no additional reward and 2/3 of the players are coming just for the gain of the first 1/3. If the additional AOE's are devastating enough, the additional players could easily make the raid challenge worse than if they weren't there.
The problem gets even worse if you count additional competing raid groups showing up to the fight if they trigger additional AOE challenges on top of the PvP element.
80% open world/20% instanced.
Have a little faith the Ashes devs can make open world bosses that are somewhat difficult and interesting since they don't subscribe to the "Reward every player as often as possible" philosophy that GW2 devs perpetuate.
While I do agree with the fact that Intrepid want Ashes to be more than what GW2 is,the open world encounters in that game are among the best in open world settings.
So, while it is likely safe to say ashes wont be the same casual focused game that GW2 is, that in itself doesn't necessarily mean this will apply to open world raids
As you know though,I do *have faith" in Intrepid, which is why I have been saying for a while that they will end up instancing a portion of raid encounters
I'm of the belief that "instanced raids" will be single boss encounters with room lockout mechanics that can be initially PvPed over much similarly to L2. We've had this conversation before that 20% instancing is fine with me it's when people argue for much more than that it kind of ruins the game in my eyes. I would be very surprised if there ended up being "instances" with 5-6 or more bosses inside that people can sit inside and beat their heads against all night free of peril from other players. That kind of instance just doesn't really make sense in the context of the game to me personally since it's basically free gear eventually. However, I could easily see a single boss instance that has a lengthy quest to summon that you need to defend the portal into the room and it has lockout mechanics. I could also see a boss like that being the "Only 1% of players will do this PvE content" stuff that the devs have said. I could obviously be wrong here about this all.
My reply to you wasn't in disagreement with what you were saying, just adding my perspective to it.
I wouldn't want multi-encounter instances at launch, and possibly not at all. I can see a specific eventuality where it would make sense to add them in the future, but I wouldn't be arguing for that unless that eventuality actually occurred, which is in no way a given.
I also agree that I would want some form if PvP involved in what ever the hardest encounter in the game is - though perhaps unlike you I do see space for an amount of instanced content that is not subject to PvP at all during the encounter (though obviously would be both before and after).
Interesting. This whole entire time I was under the assumption you were championing for multi boss instances to be added in for most of our past conversations. This has most likely been a cause of some misunderstanding between us. I've always been totally fine with single boss instances with lockout mechanics for the record.
Nope, I am after dungeons with single boss instances in them - but I would want multiple of these instances spread out across each dungeon. To me, the ideal ratio is 3 major "open world" bosses, 12 - 14 minor "open world" bosses and 3 instanced bosses (each in their own instance) as the population of note each open world dungeon - whether that dungeon is single group or multi group.
To me, this leaves enough content for people that want to run instances to be able to do so once a week (this is absolutely 100% key for guilds that are behind the curve - they need to be able to get *some* raid gear before competing with guilds that have been earning raid gear for months). There is still scope to contest this content, as I have outlined a few times on these forums (blocking access in the dungeon, altering node states to remove this content from the server, attacking the guild after completing the content in order to attempt to take the rewards).
However, while enabling guilds to have some content that they know they can get, it is leaving the bulk of the content in the open world. These open world encounters can occasionally have other mechanics on them to change things up on occasion (such as the encounter I described earlier in this thread where rival guilds can attack a secondary encounter in order to gain access to where the raid and primary encounter are).
I have detailed this in some threads the two of us have been involved in, but not directly in reply to you, I believe - and since I don't necessarily expect people to read long posts that aren't specific replies to them, I am not overly surprised if you haven't read what it is I personally specifically want to see from raid content in Ashes.
To me, the main thing you and I seem to want from raid content in Ashes is in relation to how it is contested. While I agree that all content (or the rewards from all content) need to be able to be contested at some point, I am of the opinion that this doesn't always need to take place while the raid is attempting to kill the encounter in question - even in open world encounters. To me, it is perfectly reasonable to have some encounters that are contested via PvE rather than PvP, or even via other means if the developer can come up with a way to do that. Most open world encounters should be contested via direct PvP (90%+), but not all need to be.
Watching the second video.. we now know where all the jumpjump animations for the mage are coming from.
@Noaani @Bricktop
Now kiss.