Dungeon Boss Grinding - PvE talk

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

I mean, we've been over this - EQ2 boss encounters dont exactly have info on them posted online.

What I can do though, is give you a basic overview of a mob type - dragons.

Most EQ2 dragons have a basic melee attack, and one larger melee attack. They have a bite attack, two breath attacks, two tail swipes, and at least one AoE. Most of them also have a wing buffet attack.

That is 9 abilities that a dragon trash mob would have, just by virtue of being a dragon (wing buffet requires wings - which isnt a given, but whatever). They will often also have a handful of class abilities (often renamed) on top of this.

From there, if this dragon is a boss, there are still the mechanics and abilities that are unique to it. This generally involves multuple AoEs (often with status effects or DoTs), environmental considerations, adds, and what ever random things the developers want to throw in (one encounter would literally remove the tanks pants mid fight - just because).

When you pull up ACT after a boss fight on EQ2, it is fairly common to see 50 or more sources of damage on the raid(source of damage being a specific spell, ability or effect). Now, obviously this is only for actual top end content, not just all raid bosses - but top end content is what we are talking about here

When you consider that not all abilities a mob uses actually deal damage (pantsing the tank doesnt directly do damage), you can kind of see how I was low-balling it with what I was saying above.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

I mean, we've been over this - EQ2 boss encounters dont exactly have info on them posted online.

What I can do though, is give you a basic overview of a mob type - dragons.

Most EQ2 dragons have a basic melee attack, and one larger melee attack. They have a bite attack, two breath attacks, two tail swipes, and at least one AoE. Most of them also have a wing buffet attack.

That is 9 abilities that a dragon trash mob would have, just by virtue of being a dragon (wing buffet requires wings - which isnt a given, but whatever). They will often also have a handful of class abilities (often renamed) on top of this.

From there, if this dragon is a boss, there are still the mechanics and abilities that are unique to it. This generally involves multuple AoEs (often with status effects or DoTs), environmental considerations, adds, and what ever random things the developers want to throw in (one encounter would literally remove the tanks pants mid fight - just because).

When you pull up ACT after a boss fight on EQ2, it is fairly common to see 50 or more sources of damage on the raid(source of damage being a specific spell, ability or effect). Now, obviously this is only for actual top end content, not just all raid bosses - but top end content is what we are talking about here

When you consider that not all abilities a mob uses actually deal damage (pantsing the tank doesnt directly do damage), you can kind of see how I was low-balling it with what I was saying above.

ok so you are counting everything was checking because it seemed like you were saying the boss alone had that many abilities not counting add, mech, etc.

Azherae

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

I mean, we've been over this - EQ2 boss encounters dont exactly have info on them posted online.

What I can do though, is give you a basic overview of a mob type - dragons.

Most EQ2 dragons have a basic melee attack, and one larger melee attack. They have a bite attack, two breath attacks, two tail swipes, and at least one AoE. Most of them also have a wing buffet attack.

That is 9 abilities that a dragon trash mob would have, just by virtue of being a dragon (wing buffet requires wings - which isnt a given, but whatever). They will often also have a handful of class abilities (often renamed) on top of this.

From there, if this dragon is a boss, there are still the mechanics and abilities that are unique to it. This generally involves multuple AoEs (often with status effects or DoTs), environmental considerations, adds, and what ever random things the developers want to throw in (one encounter would literally remove the tanks pants mid fight - just because).

When you pull up ACT after a boss fight on EQ2, it is fairly common to see 50 or more sources of damage on the raid(source of damage being a specific spell, ability or effect). Now, obviously this is only for actual top end content, not just all raid bosses - but top end content is what we are talking about here

When you consider that not all abilities a mob uses actually deal damage (pantsing the tank doesnt directly do damage), you can kind of see how I was low-balling it with what I was saying above.

ok so you are counting everything was checking because it seemed like you were saying the boss alone had that many abilities not counting add, mech, etc.

Can we count spells and on-hit effects, when counting?

I count them because they affect the fight in the games I play. They're not ignorable, they're quite integral to the encounter.

If we count the spells and on-hit stuff, I can give multiple examples of 30 abilities. If not, then yeah, 10-20.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

I mean, we've been over this - EQ2 boss encounters dont exactly have info on them posted online.

What I can do though, is give you a basic overview of a mob type - dragons.

Most EQ2 dragons have a basic melee attack, and one larger melee attack. They have a bite attack, two breath attacks, two tail swipes, and at least one AoE. Most of them also have a wing buffet attack.

That is 9 abilities that a dragon trash mob would have, just by virtue of being a dragon (wing buffet requires wings - which isnt a given, but whatever). They will often also have a handful of class abilities (often renamed) on top of this.

From there, if this dragon is a boss, there are still the mechanics and abilities that are unique to it. This generally involves multuple AoEs (often with status effects or DoTs), environmental considerations, adds, and what ever random things the developers want to throw in (one encounter would literally remove the tanks pants mid fight - just because).

When you pull up ACT after a boss fight on EQ2, it is fairly common to see 50 or more sources of damage on the raid(source of damage being a specific spell, ability or effect). Now, obviously this is only for actual top end content, not just all raid bosses - but top end content is what we are talking about here

When you consider that not all abilities a mob uses actually deal damage (pantsing the tank doesnt directly do damage), you can kind of see how I was low-balling it with what I was saying above.

ok so you are counting everything was checking because it seemed like you were saying the boss alone had that many abilities not counting add, mech, etc.

I'm saying the boss and adds could often count well over 50. The boss alone in many fights (adds are not present in all fights) is often 30 or 40 (the number range in question).

I mean, there are some encounters in EQ2 when multiple bosses (one particular encounter had 7 actual bosses in it), and we would see over 100 sources of damage in that kind of encounter. However, since that was rare I wouldn't use is as an example of what is typical - but 30 - 40 abilities for a boss in a single boss encounter is typical.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

I mean, we've been over this - EQ2 boss encounters dont exactly have info on them posted online.

What I can do though, is give you a basic overview of a mob type - dragons.

Most EQ2 dragons have a basic melee attack, and one larger melee attack. They have a bite attack, two breath attacks, two tail swipes, and at least one AoE. Most of them also have a wing buffet attack.

That is 9 abilities that a dragon trash mob would have, just by virtue of being a dragon (wing buffet requires wings - which isnt a given, but whatever). They will often also have a handful of class abilities (often renamed) on top of this.

From there, if this dragon is a boss, there are still the mechanics and abilities that are unique to it. This generally involves multuple AoEs (often with status effects or DoTs), environmental considerations, adds, and what ever random things the developers want to throw in (one encounter would literally remove the tanks pants mid fight - just because).

When you pull up ACT after a boss fight on EQ2, it is fairly common to see 50 or more sources of damage on the raid(source of damage being a specific spell, ability or effect). Now, obviously this is only for actual top end content, not just all raid bosses - but top end content is what we are talking about here

When you consider that not all abilities a mob uses actually deal damage (pantsing the tank doesnt directly do damage), you can kind of see how I was low-balling it with what I was saying above.

ok so you are counting everything was checking because it seemed like you were saying the boss alone had that many abilities not counting add, mech, etc.

Can we count spells and on-hit effects, when counting?

I count them because they affect the fight in the games I play. They're not ignorable, they're quite integral to the encounter.

If we count the spells and on-hit stuff, I can give multiple examples of 30 abilities. If not, then yeah, 10-20.

To be perfectly fair, while the 3 - 4 times that I suggested applies to boss encounters, it was more the low end encounters that I was talking about.

The suggestion was that base population (aka, trash mobs) would have one ability. In EQ2 even mobs designed to be pulled solo by the dozen have 3 or 4 abilities each. The notion base population in a raid setting would have one ability is completely foreign to me, and makes absolutely no sense.

Vyril

NiKr wrote: »

We obviously haven't seen much of that kind of content (none tbh), but considering Steven's inspirations for Ashes, the chances of that content matching Noaani's (and people like him) standards are quite low.

This is what I'm hoping to see more details on, and what has sparked the conversation.

Mag7spy

Honestly i think how i would approach it so they can have higher end content is have it once the boss reaches a certain percentage the dungeon locks so no one can come in. So there is pvp at the start, and the group that wins gets to start phase 2 and any following phases additionally granted they dont die.

Ludullu

Mag7spy wrote: »

Honestly i think how i would approach it so they can have higher end content is have it once the boss reaches a certain percentage the dungeon locks so no one can come in. So there is pvp at the start, and the group that wins gets to start phase 2 and any following phases additionally granted they dont die.

That is literally "world instances" from L2, that I've made a whole thread about in the past Though L2's weren't linked to boss hp/stages and were just on a timer.

Vyril

We could use some innovation in the open world dungeon and bosses.

I'm looking forward to hear more details on their ideas. I personally hope they will have lots of dungeons, and lots of bosses where conflict can occur.

Mag7spy

NiKr wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Honestly i think how i would approach it so they can have higher end content is have it once the boss reaches a certain percentage the dungeon locks so no one can come in. So there is pvp at the start, and the group that wins gets to start phase 2 and any following phases additionally granted they dont die.

That is literally "world instances" from L2, that I've made a whole thread about in the past Though L2's weren't linked to boss hp/stages and were just on a timer.

Im aware of that commend this is just the best way I feel it could be done by linking to hp. Giving ample chance to steal it and having mechanics revolving around pvp and the boss. IE needing to hold certain points to Summon parts of some giant boss while dpsing. The winning group will be able to bring the people from their raid there (based on the number) with the others having to leave in some form. Also keeping the balance and difficulty than just being able to zerg the boss with numbers.

Short info on it, but it be easy to think about and understand how to detail it and have it working pretty well. Also, people that lose get sent back to town and wiping in the raid send you back to town as well.