Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Dev Discussion #25 - Boss Difficulty
LieutenantToast
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.
Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!
Dev Discussion #25 - Boss Difficulty
Do you enjoy "gatekeeper" bosses - a boss that is very difficult right at the start of a dungeon, followed by a few easier bosses? Or do you prefer linear difficulty in boss difficulty?
Keep an eye out for all-new Dev Discussion topics in 2021!
UPDATE: Hiya friends! We finished putting together a recap of your top feedback for our team - check out what you shared with us below!
- While community members differed widely on whether they preferred linear boss difficulty progression or a more varied structure, many agreed that the final encounter should be the most difficult overall.
- Those who preferred a more varied difficulty shared that they appreciated the deviation from the norm, which kept them more engaged in encounters overall.
- Many seemed to agree that while an initial boss could serve as a good DPS check, they liked to see the complexity of boss mechanics increase as they progressed.
- A few shared ideas for how to make encounters even more engaging, such as through the use of dynamic boss spawns and skills.
12
Comments
This creates a "tier" that players have to reach to progress from the lesser dungeons to the greater ones.
Giving this flexibility to a player is more fun and rewarding as one learns how to fight the monster to get what they need and also ensures parties discuss strategies on how to fight the boss so they can get what they need. I feel more rewarded killing a monster and getting what I wanted, than having to kill it the same way over and over again until it drops. Make some spawn tables to be rare as well, I feel less tedious when fighting and getting what I want than the other two systems. This also adds a system, where the player can make the content easy or hard, depending on what they need.
It also adds more repeat content without becoming dull to the dungeon.
Open world raids can be interrupted or meddled by other players. This is the difficulty of open world raiding in addition to the wish of IS to add environmental mechanics and adjustments to the number of raiders.
I will list the requirements I believe need to be met by player characters:
- a healer with good MP management skills (and proper robe armor)
- a tank that can control the raid and its adds (and proper heavy armor)
- bards that can effectively complement the DPS of the group (is the group made of warriors or mages?)
- cool headed dps that trust the healer and tank, and don't run around needlessly and deal good dmg (using good weapons)
A team of players/friends/guild must make sure that the group has the gear they need to raid and fend off enemies. That is challenging.If these conditions are met, the group(s) should take down the raid fast, instead of:
Open world raiding should be a task for teamwork, not solo minded people.
PLZ not LFG or Group Finder system features no gear checks, no DPS checks.
Guild leaders should play with their members and get to know them and their strengths, not judge them in a second and discard them forever.
That being said, I'd really like to break free of such a system and perhaps inquire about "Special" bosses that have a random chance of appearing in the Dungeons with randomized abilities from a table for that Dungeon? Something to keep us on our toes and for the Dungeons to constantly feel "fresh".
I personally prefer non-linear dungeon designs with difficult bosses mixed in between.
BUT! The strongest boss in the dungeon should always be the final one, for that sweet hit of dopamine and feeling of accomplishment.
It doesn't have to be linear, either. I think of casual games or world-based games like Mario Galaxy. Difficulty could be more like 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, 6, such that you start easy and reach a mid-point apex at 5, then it drops back to 2 to repeat the cycle a tier harder than the first three. This also means players can get most of the higher-quality stuff, but not the top tier stuff, if they only manage to clear the first half before attrition and back-spawns and wipes catch up to them.
TBH I look back at vanilla WoW raids--because I quit hard after vanilla--and I hate them. Hate hate hate hate hate. Just garbage. Stand hear like this, do this, its just a giant 40-player square dance of death. It isn't inspiring, it doesn't feel coordinated, and it doesn't seem the least bit in-character. When you fight a dragon in a TTRPG, do you place the main tank up front while everyone perfectly arranges in areas that lets them avoid predictable attacks? No, hell no, curse the DM/GM who thinks that is acceptable. There's general rules like spreading out so you don't all get breath attacked, maybe stay near the radius of a bard or mesmer who can stave off charm or fear effects, but otherwise the players have to act and respond to what the boss is doing, rather than setting up in a rehearsed formation and making sure you don't over-damage and get the boss's attention.
I played Wildstar, and one of the raids was called Datascape. The first boss in that raid was called System Daemons, and was the perfect example of a gatekeeper boss. It was such a massive barrier, that most guilds that even got the required number of people to raid ended up falling apart because of how difficult the first boss was. While the more hardcore raiders might enjoy or tolerate gatekeeper bosses, it is less fun for the more casual crowd.
I feel that the above scenarios really only apply to traditional linear layouts in dungeons/raids though as well. If you have an outdoor raid for example, the layout could be non-linear so the order of bosses is not set. While you might technically have a "first" boss and it might be more difficult, if raids can just circumvent it until they're ready then the players will be able to make their own progression too. That can be appealing in other ways, but I don't know how challenging that would be to design.
That seemed interesting and something im sure a lot of people would enjoy and strive to compete to beat the hardest modes the quickest or whatever metric there might be to compete in that way.
Perhaps these dungeons arent designed to have competition in that way, then my answer would just be :shrug: which ever seems to make the most sense. Which i guess would be for the linear type progression of difficulty for the bosses.
I'm still curious about how all of that will interact with most dungeons being open world, and different groups of players competing over the same bosses, especially in more popular areas that are crowded all the time. It will be interesting to see how the earliest dungeons play out in the Alpha with a lot of uncooperative players packed into the same area.
Some dungeons that are just "Loot dungeons" are good additions to the dungeons that want to beat your ass.
Especially if you're geared enough to clear the dungeon efficiently it doesn't make sense to have the people who're clearing it slow down and speed up over and over until the end.
Either make the last boss harder than the rest or make all the bosses the same difficulty
While linear dungeons with difficulty going up per boss is pretty standard, why not make it interesting and unique compared to most dungeon settings players are used to?
Maybe there would be certain unique limited use drops in a non-linear dungeon setting from some bosses that may help with other bosses. This could create unique situations for a group of players that may be thinking "Hey, lets go to the far end of this dungeon passed a few of the other paths to other bosses because I heard this boss has a chance to drop something we can use once on this other boss to make it weak to a certain attack from us." and other random scenarios like that that could even potentially alter an entire encounter(whether or not the alterations could be major or minor) due to the players' choice.
A simple answer to the discussion: I would say it is entirely subjective for linear path dungeons. Maybe there will be a majority, but I would say mix it up. Make some dungeons linearly progressing to the "final boss difficulty", while some may have a really strong gatekeeper boss, then afterwards it maybe mellows out until towards the end again.
Otherwise, make it interesting. Give players a more variable experience based on their knowledge of the area, the dungeon, and available locations in the dungeon to go to that aren't necessarily linear but could all end with the same final encounter. (or maybe not
Let people choose the difficulty that they enjoy (or want to challenge themselves with), and give them consistent content at that level. And when they want something more difficult, they can move to the next level.
In short, linear dungeons are better. With differing difficulty between dungeons.
But about the gatekeeper boss, I'd like something similar outside of dungeons. Like a stronger version of the field mobs gatekeeping that area from access until defeated.
All in all, linear good for me.
What really sticks out to me is that linear is a lot simpler, for players and for developers. With the scaling difficulty it could be hard to balance a gatekeeper boss. If the gatekeeper boss is strong enough that only the top guilds can beat it consistently then it would not only lock out content from more casual players but also be hard to balance bosses after that.
The linear raids i feel works a lot better with the scaling difficulty system and would personally like to see that more but im also curious how gatekeepers would work and how you could make it interesting.
Feel free to experiment in the alphas and betas.
Id personally like to see more of a 80/20 or maybe ven 90/10, leaning towards linear. Saving gatekeepers for some special raids that only the best can clear
This would be an interesting instance shakeup
Kill the gatekeeper and then explore the cave of treasures (with a couple more weaker bosses)
The lazy days of sitting in the same spot with a group of 6 knowing how the boss will attack you and the route he will take when running around should be over! This random ability should be passed on to lesser mobs as well. Dungeons are supposed to be hard and you must bring your -A- game to them, unless that dungeon is specifically made to be easier.
Unpredictability is the hallmark of a good dungeon or any encounter worth it's weight.
Players who have proven their ability to actually play like a team deserve the best loot.
for instanced dungeons a linear progression should be enough.
the most important things for me are: the final boss must be challenging and strong... like, really ****ing strong (not just more hp and dmg); the bosses should have different and challenging mechanics; riddels to defeat a boss are also appreciated
sorry for my bad english
For the open world bosses, the design challenge is going to be making it accessible enough for smaller raid sizes, but hard enough that huge raids aren't just going to steamroller it.
However, to answer the question more correctly, I prefer the first boss to be the easier of the lot, as failing at the first hurdle without even a tiny taste of success is pretty demoralising.
Typically difficulties/obstacles ramp up as stories progress...and it could feel anti-climactic to have a very wimpy challenge at the end of the dungeon.
For me, it's fine if we stumble up on and kill the Dragon two thirds of the way through its lair - we shouldn't always expect to find the Dragon waiting around in its nest.
Best if the mobs move around their lairs so that it's not always the same exact chain of events. And best if each run through the same dungeon is not predictable.
This is very important, bosses should be VERY HARD by themselves, and if a PvP fight for the boss breaks out, both parties should be wiped the majority of times.
Says some1 that has never experienced open world PvP during raid.