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Instanced vs Open World dungeons

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Comments

  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    Which is fine, but... just because you are doing tedious activities does not mean you are farming.
    If you are barbequing that means you're cooking. Just because you are cooking, that does not mean you are barbecuing.
    Snow and ice are not the same thing - even though both are frozen water.
    Grinding and farming are both repeatable content to some degree - but they are not synonymous.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    Which is fine, but... just because you are doing tedious activities does not mean you are farming.
    If you are barbequing that means you're cooking. Just because you are cooking, that does not mean you are barbecuing.
    Snow and ice are not the same thing - even though both are frozen water.
    Grinding and farming are both repeatable content to some degree - but they are not synonymous.
    Yeah, but my whole point is that any farming can be made into grinding, yet Intrepid wants to try and prevent that (that is if I understood their goal correctly).

    So taking your first example it'd be like "farming = barbeque, while grinding = cooking". Any given activity can be fun (barbequing in this case), but all those activities fall under the umbrella of "cooking" where you can make them into a grind. Even the most fun mob/boss farm can be turned into a tedious grind through repetition (i.e. WoW).
  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    I dunno why you quoted me since I didn't say "accept it or gtfo".
    You said, "Maybe a 50/50 split is better."
    I did not respond with "accept 80/20 or gtfo".
    Pretty sure we had polite discourse after my response.

    Liniker responded: "tbh if anything I'd make it 90/10 - 10% of instanced just for very few specific main quest dungeons and that's it

    this is an open world pvx game and people can either accept that or find another mmo to play, there's amazing mmos out there with great instanced content, such as WoW and FF14."


    You replied: "If it ends up being 90/10 or 80/20...I still plan to play the game as much as I can."

    And... I'm pretty sure that agrees with my comment:
    "Well, people can also accept that Ashes is open world with 20% instanced dungeons/raids."
    1: Where do we disagree?
    2: And what is toxic or impolite about my quote?
    3: The conversation continued with: "Honestly, how different is 80% open world vs 70% open world?"
    4: This thread seems to be quite cordial so far... especially for the internet.

    Nobody said "gtfo" literally, it was intended as an exaggerated paraphrase. Regardless, your statement "Well, people can also accept..." came across as a bit condescending and not really empathizing with different views. That's why I quoted you.

    Anyway, I've already lost too many brain cells on this. I've got your point of 80% open world doesn't mean 80% will always be contended. It's a valid point. It doesn't really address the potential design differences in open world vs instanced, nor the ease of scheduling that comes with instances, though. The more I think about it, I'm sure the devs will do a great job with the prior (design) regardless of instanced vs non, so the scheduling is probably the bigger concern for me personally. It's not a big deal though...again, was just interested to hear peoples thoughts.
  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Otr wrote: »

    "Toxic" is something which "kills"
    Polemic would be a more traditional expression:
    The word derives from Ancient Greek πολεμικός (polemikos) 'warlike, hostile',[1][2] from πόλεμος (polemos) 'war'.[3]
    On other mmo forums, PvP players beg for PvP servers and observe how the PvE players react.
    Here they have a little bit of advantage :smile:

    Haha, true! I do love PvP though. I like all the things...
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    Scoots wrote: »
    Nobody said "gtfo" literally, it was intended as an exaggerated paraphrase. Regardless, your statement "Well, people can also accept..." came across as a bit condescending and not really empathizing with different views. That's why I quoted you.
    But, the quote below did not sound condescending and was empathetic with other views?? ??
    "tbh if anything I'd make it 90/10 - 10% of instanced just for very few specific main quest dungeons and that's it

    this is an open world pvx game and people can either accept that or find another mmo to play, there's amazing mmos out there with great instanced content, such as WoW and FF14."


    Scoots wrote: »
    Anyway, I've already lost too many brain cells on this. I've got your point of 80% open world doesn't mean 80% will always be contended. It's a valid point. It doesn't really address the potential design differences in open world vs instanced, nor the ease of scheduling that comes with instances, though. The more I think about it, I'm sure the devs will do a great job with the prior (design) regardless of instanced vs non, so the scheduling is probably the bigger concern for me personally. It's not a big deal though...again, was just interested to hear peoples thoughts.
    Ashes is a dynamic world, so instanced content does not guarantee ease of scheduling.
    Again, I think the design differences for mob and boss behaviors between open world and instance won't be signifcant because Ashes is a PvX game. I think they will design them the same. We might experience them somewhat differently.

    Seems to be a good topic so far.
    If you don't want to continue discussing it with us... you do you.
    Have Fun!
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited July 2022
    NiKr wrote: »
    Yeah, but my whole point is that any farming can be made into grinding, yet Intrepid wants to try and prevent that (that is if I understood their goal correctly).
    Um. No?
    Some of the 80% open world dungeons/raids won't be repeatable.
    Some of the 80% open world dungeons/raids will be repeatable but will not continue to have BiS gear because a Node or Node building will get destroyed. Especially, they will not continue to have the exact same mobs/bosses and specific gear. It's not going to be as easy to Farm in Ashes as it is in previous MMORPGs.

    Grinding is not the same thing as Farming. You may be trying to say that anything can be considered to be tedious?
    But, Grinding is repeating something for very little xp or other form of gain.
    Farming is repeatedly killing a boss and the associated mobs in order to get rare loot, typically BiS gear. Sure, it is possible for some people to consider that to be tedious - especially if what they really want to be doing is a PvP Siege.

    Steven specifically states that grind is repitition that gets you nowhere for a long period of time.
    Jeffrey gives the example of grind as "killing the same mobs for 16 hours to gain 1/4 of an experience bar."

    Grinding is primarily associated with an activity that provides little to no xp gain and also crappy rewards...especially crappy rewards for your level. It's about getting nowhere for a long period of time.
    Farming is repeatedly killing the same boss in order to gain rare/lucrative loot - especially specific pieces of BiS gear.

    If the location you wanted to Farm dynamically changes to a Grind due to the destruction of a City or city building (or a variety of other reasons), there will still be other, more stable places for you to Farm. You won't have to stay where you are and Grind. But, if you want to Grind there for some reason, you could.
    I dunno. Maybe you want to Mentor someone for reason. Or maybe you're a masochist.
    Maybe you're ready to bang on stuff that's not particularly challenging...you just want to kill some time.

    The devs want to be sure there's always stuff in the world that's fun and rewarding, but... just as resources can be depleted and move to a different location, the same is true of open world dungeons and raids. They won't always be populated with stuff you can Farm.


    NiKr wrote: »
    So taking your first example it'd be like "farming = barbeque, while grinding = cooking". Any given activity can be fun (barbequing in this case), but all those activities fall under the umbrella of "cooking" where you can make them into a grind. Even the most fun mob/boss farm can be turned into a tedious grind through repetition (i.e. WoW).
    Grinding and Farming both fall under the umbrella of activities that can be repeated. Both are capable of being perceived as tedious.
    You can be Grinding and not Farming. Farming is more specific than Grinding.
    Grinding typically provides too little rewards to be fun. Again, look at Steven and Jefferey's examples of Grinding.
    Farming should be providing decent enough gains to feel like the repetition is worthwhile.
    Grinding typically does not include rewards than can be constured as worthwhile - you do it because there is nothing better to do until you reach the next level (or, for some gamers, until you reach max level).

    Your use of Grinding and Farming feels like those places in the US where you order a Coke and they ask you, "What kind? Pepsi, orange, ginger ale?" Where any soda can be considered Coke.
  • ElderElder Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Are the terms farming and grinding not easily interchangeable in most situations? It's a bit of a strange discussion, but in my opinion, they appear to be for the most part synonymous.

    I do agree though that farming may imply a greater gain or profit than grinding depending on the context.
    Which is the greater folly, summoning the demon or expecting gratitude from it?
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    Steven specifically states that grind is repitition that gets you nowhere for a long period of time.
    Jeffrey gives the example of grind as "killing the same mobs for 16 hours to gain 1/4 of an experience bar."
    Yes, and I agree with these definitions. And my main issue with those statements in relation to Ashes is this: leveling will take up to 45 days of 4-6h of gameplay. Nodes will mostly limit the availability of best content for your level, so while leveling you'll most likely be killing mobs below your level in order to push as much XP as possible before the node levels up (by "you" I mean hardcore people who push lvls, not you in particular).

    To me that sounds like a grind, because it'll be impossible to constantly do the most XP-optimal content, due to how nodes will work.

    And then at top lvl, you'll be farming any and all mobs that give you any kind of good money/mats. And you'll be farming them a ton and as repeatedly as you can. And you'll be doing that with any mobs that gives you best currently available value for each kill. So again, that sounds like a grind to me.

    And if the value of said mobs is so damn low that one boss kill equals dozens of hours of mob grinding - I'd be very interested in seeing reaction to that kind of balance. I'm personally fine with it cause I played 12 years of such balance, but I'm not sure if other people with a lot of time on their hands (who are not particularly interested in fishing or other artisan stuff) would like this kind of pace.

    Also
    Dygz wrote: »
    Some of the 80% open world dungeons/raids won't be repeatable.
    I sure hope this is not the case or, if it is, that those "dungeons" are more of a small cave than a sprawling intricate system of rooms with mobs. Cause if a huge dungeon is meant to only be visited once - to me that sounds like a waste of world resources (mainly space). I can forgive that kind of thing with instanced story dungeons, cause Intrepid just want to show the story in an uninterrupted way, but, personally, if I find a huge dungeon in the world and have literally 0 reason to visit it more than once - I'll definitely give feedback on that being the wrong design direction.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Elder wrote: »
    Are the terms farming and grinding not easily interchangeable in most situations? It's a bit of a strange discussion, but in my opinion, they appear to be for the most part synonymous.

    I do agree though that farming may imply a greater gain or profit than grinding depending on the context.
    To me they are, to Dygz apparently not.

    I come from the lands where spending literal weeks killing the same mobs in the same room was "farming". You'd get maybe 1/10 of a % per several hours of fighting mobs and you miiiiight drop 1-2 gear mats during the same time. That's farm/grind in my eyes. Yes it's tedious, but those mats are so valuable that it's worth it. And that farming was also diluted with some fun pvp, so it wasn't as dull as it potentially could've been.

    I hope Intrepid manages to somehow keep that same fun in their game, but remove the requirement of the grind process. Though as I've stated multiple times here, I'm not sure if that is really possible, considering their current design plan.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Otr wrote: »
    Immersion will help. Seasons, tornadoes, volcanoes, exploring the ocean, NPC sieges, need to relocate to other nodes... If the game keeps the players busy, the repetition will be harder to notice.
    Yeah, and that's what Intrepid are trying to do. "Give players more content than they can consume". Except I personally won't believe that's possible until they prove it. Which is literally what I said at the start of this sub-discussion.

    I have some trust in their team because they've shown a ton of promising things already, but all of those things will only be as good as the core gameplay of the game is. And even if I personally can enjoy most/all things in whatever form they come, quiiite a lot of people are picky or have just been brainwashed by other games into thinking that one particular way of doing thing is the best one. And if Intrepid doesn't manage to appeal to at least some of those people (cause the game needs at least a base number of players to fill out the servers), I'm not sure how long it'll live. I definitely hope that it'll be a long life.
  • Mag7spyMag7spy Member, Alpha Two
    These numbers are rough as well, 20% could end up turning into 10%. It is still in development things can can change you can take fair guesses as 100% bible fact.

    Arguing the exact meaning to people on grinding and farming sounds like an infinite argument. Even more so if someone only sees it in the way AoC does things and not other games and will refuse to see it or accept anything else.
  • Mag7spyMag7spy Member, Alpha Two
    Grinding feels more like a eastern mmorpg term and farming is more western, you do different things in those types of mmorpgs and there is more bias related to each word. Even if ay the end of the day it is literarily the same thing you are grinding a mob or boss, you are farming a boss or mobs. Arguing your bias and preference of words is kind of pointless just accept what someone else is saying and you both mean the same thing.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    Elder wrote: »
    Are the terms farming and grinding not easily interchangeable in most situations? It's a bit of a strange discussion, but in my opinion, they appear to be for the most part synonymous.
    Not really. Grinding cannot really be a subset of Farming. If you wanted to try to use "a grind" to mean tedious...anything could be tedious, but it's stretching what Grind is intended to mean in an MMORPG.
    So, there is a way to have Farming as a subset of Grind.
    And Farming, again, is intended to be about specific boss with rare/lucrative loot. While Grinding is more generic and could be a bunch of things that are not particularly worth the effort - you just need to do it until you Level and better stuff for you to do opens up.
    By 2010 some people drifted the meaning of Grinding to entail the stuff you do while Leveling to Max Level because Endgame is the real game and Leveling is just a time-synch until you hit Endgame. I've never heard anyone refer to that as Farming.

    Elder wrote: »
    I do agree though that farming may imply a greater gain or profit than grinding depending on the context.
    Yes.
    Farming is for greater gain or profit... and typically with a specific boss and rare/lucrative drop as the goal.
    With Grinding, it's typically any mob that will provide some xp. And that xp is only going to be, like Jeffrey's example, 1/4 of a bubble in 16 hours and the loot is going to be trash loot.

    If you are repeatedly killing specific bosses and the mats are worth it, like BiS gear, it's Farming.
    If it's low level trash mobs and only going to reward trash loot, it's Grinding.
    Farming is worthwhile due to the rare/lucrative loot.
    Grinding is not particularly worthwhile - it's something you are stuck doing while waiting to do the stuff you actually want to be doing. And it's typically so excrutiatingly tedious that you feel it should not be part of the game. Like "hell Levels" in vanilla EQ and vanilla WoW. Or, Leveling period, for those who believe that "Endgame is the real game."



    https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/6uynex/farming_vs_grinding_how_do_you_define_the/
    Farming is killing mobs for a chance at drops whether they be rare or needed for making money. Grinding is for xp.

    Farming means you see steady growth and rewards right away. If I am farming for a few hours I can expect to see rewards over the coarse of a farm. You see progression towards your goal fairly quickly and regularly. It means that if your farming for 10 minutes and have to go all the sudden you don't feel your time is wasted.

    Grinding means that you don't really see much in the way of rewards on a regular basis. It takes a lot of work and you don't see growth over time but rather in spikes. Often you can spend a long time at a grind and have nothing to show for it.

    Grinds in games are bad compared to farms...

    Farming is usually enjoyable bit of time where i farm some ingredients, whether from nodes or from Mobs, while Grinding is a soul sucking boring repetitive Mess of Doing the same thing over and over and over, and generally when something is called grinding it usually takes much longer then farming.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    NiKr wrote: »
    Yeah, and that's what Intrepid are trying to do. "Give players more content than they can consume". Except I personally won't believe that's possible until they prove it. Which is literally what I said at the start of this sub-discussion.
    Yep. We are pretty much in agreement there, but that's true for a lot of things.
    Corruption
    Nodes
    Hybrid Combat
    Classes
    Augments
    etc...

  • LinikerLiniker Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    DaffyDux wrote: »

    Intrepid. Please, please, please.... don't listen to this guy. :D

    Why not? tbh I wasn't going to give feedback about it since I am ok with the 80/20 but since I see you guys giving feedback...

    I'd like to say that 90/10 would be my preference as well, the least instanced content the better imo :)
    img]
    Recrutamento aberto - Nosso Site: Clique aqui
  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    But, the quote below did not sound condescending and was empathetic with other views?? ??
    Dygz wrote: »
    If you don't want to continue discussing it with us... you do you.

    I'm chalking our conversation up to a case of miscommunication.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    <3

  • BrewskieBrewskie Member, Alpha Two
    Raid Tokens, Instance Tokens, Resource instance tokens, and so on all tagged to the player account, earned and not bought in gold selling hack sites, or sold on the market by farm bots.

    If you don't control farm accounts and bots, the game is doomed. Players need to earn their own loot, their own gold, their own tokens, not be able to buy them from gold hack sites.

    It's easy to never return to a game, if the only way to compete is to buy from a gold site.

    Address this now, or you will create an economy game of cheats, hacks and dupes and gold sellers. Games which i will refuse to police any more in the guise of being a community player.

    the only way i will police this game for you is if you hire me and pay me to do so, if not, the first-time bots show up and no action taken, I'm gone never to return.
    Brewskie Cat House Prowlers SpindoctorMD
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Brewskie wrote: »
    the only way i will police this game for you is if you hire me and pay me to do so, if not, the first-time bots show up and no action taken, I'm gone never to return.
    I think it's better for you to never even play. There's gonna be, like, so many bots. I'm one of them right now!
  • TatianaTatiana Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited August 2022
    I love the concept of open world dungeons, and I definitely want there to be a lot of them but I would still like them to release instanced dungeons periodically as well, both types have their merits. Instanced dungeons would provide content for people who play in smaller groups and provide a more curated experience. There will be a lot of people who will love the game but be turned off by constantly being outplayed by bigger groups they can't hope to compete with and that will lead to a very frustrating experience for a lot of players.

    I also don't think instanced dungeons goes against the goal of facilitating player to player interaction, since you'd still need a party of other players to tackle instanced dungeons. 80/20 may end up being a really good ratio depending on how many dungeons there are in total, but I could also see it leaving many players without much dungeon content that they can realistically participate in. This will also all depend on your server, since each servers node make up can be entirely different, affecting how much of what is actually unlocked in the first place.
  • I'm just responding to the point here about whether people who can't handle the randomness / risk of open world content but still want to progress will have an option if there is only a limited amount of instanced dungeons.

    Yes, this game isn't for everyone. But I think Steven's larger point there is not to exclude people who don't like hardcore PVP, but to say that he is NOT going to do what Blizzard did which is make ALL content accessible to EVERYONE. We must accept that certain experiences will only be available to people willing to deal with the tradeoffs they require. If a certain open world dungeon encounter requires more planning and protection than a casual dad like me can stomach, I'm OK missing out on that.

    The mitigation plan Steven has for this is that I will still have plenty of other things to do that will allow me to acquire gear on par with that from the dungeon - this is a sandbox MMO solution to the conundrum of wanting to invite many different types of gamers, but also not wanting to ruin the challenge and rewarding experiences for some just to try to appeal to everyone and give everyone participation trophies. I can work on a craft, or find another way to build up gold via the economy or other content that fits my playstyle and available game time.

    Frankly, I'd rather there is a game like this out there for the time period when I will have time to experience some of that more challenging and restricted content, and have something to work toward and look forward to, and look up to those who have achieved those rewards, than to be handed it on a platter, experience it, it mean nothing, and 2 years later the game is shut down.
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