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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
Instances are not necessarily meant to prevent others entering. Maybe that is how modern MMOs are now. But in the past, instances just ensured a certain density of players and probably reduced load related to rendering unnecessary open world assets.
move inside!
I mean, Mortal Online 2 is hardcore PvP. Ashes def just PvX.
Yes.
MMOs are a lot different to think about when full loot is the default.
If hardcore you mean a grinder and something time-consuming sure.
But PvP pressure wise, eh nothing really comes close to full loot.
Somewhat different. Sure. OK.
By hardcore, I mean highly competitive with other gamers and a focus on risk/reward - rather than casual and chill: Hardcore Challenge v Casual Challenge.
Hardcore Time v Casual Time is a different spectrum.
My playstyle is Casual Challenge/Hardcore Time.
We agree that full loot is more hardcore challenge than partial loot.
That doesn't negate anything I said.
nah - Instance was a way to ensure all players have access to content/loot.
WoW and it's carebears found Everquest to be extremely hard and punishing.
Shared Dungeons couldnt fit the entire server in, so the first 20-25 groups of 6 were able to secure a camp and lock it down. Some dungeons were small (Befallen) that only 10 groups can lock it down. Dungeons contained great gears, so it was a waiting game to enter a camp.
Higher end dungeon ended in dispute, pvp if on a pvp server or contesting the mob in a DPS race. Running trains to wipe a group out, to take control of the camp - at times, both parties fail and creates a massive train that would wipe out other multiple groups/players in the dungeon as everyone needed to run out of the zone or die from a giant train. (Mistimoore Castle anyone?)
So WoW created instance, everything for everyone, no contesting, no pvping, no player gating other players - you get a loot, you get a loot, you get a loot - everyone gets to see content!
Ashes going to it's root - only the best will raid, others will never get to see some content, it's either gonna get locked down and gated by neckbeard individuals or guilds. Poopsockers - it's an eq term and it will be a part of ashes terminology.
I hope leveling up will not consist only in doing quests but also free fight with NPCs to farm drops.
So I assume there will be dungeons intended for players who rolled a new character, either an alt or they joined the server (1 year after launch)
How will such dungeons function?
Will high level players come and interfere?
Private instances are boring but shared ones cannot function with very high level players.
Note: I have NO idea if this is what novercalis is talking about, but I have a similar data point.
There are only so many 'camps' in a dungeon. As games get bigger, the problem's been reduced, but definitely there could be a point where there wouldn't be enough mobs respawning fast enough to support more than 6 full parties playing well. You could cram more people in, but it would just be conflict.
The only solutions to THIS are to make the dungeon bigger or to cram it with more mobs. Because of the mechanics of mobs in some games, you make the experience worse if you do the second.
So, it's not a matter of 'the game doesn't allow this many players into the area', it's that the world design only supports 30-50 players in one area trying to fight the same mobs.
The quality of life issues for me were more seamless zoning, fewer invisible walls and way less time when we did have to load into zones. I continue to alternate playing both right up until 2010.
WoW has PvP servers and PvP-Optional servers - just like EQ.
But... just like EQ... PvP is mostly an afterthought for the development of these games.
PvE mechanics have primacy over PvP features first.
In Ashes, it will be that no one gets to see all content.
In a variety of ways besides just raids and dungeons. Because Ashes is a dynamic game, rather than a static game, where everyone can have the same experiences.
Ashes isn't going all the way back to EQ roots.
Ashes won't have corpse runs or full loot... etc.
Why not create a 2nd instance when the first is full?
On max level PvP dungeons I find acceptable to have only one space, in the open world.
But low level dungeons, if they will exist, could be instanced without being private.
Firstly, one has no real way to tell what 'full' is.
Secondly, we're talking about the games 'before' WoW that didn't instance things at all. They had 'zone lines' but not 'instances'. Since 'elites' also spawn in the open world, you wouldn't want people to have a way to manipulate 'having two spawns of them', for example.
Even if we assume just 20 rooms instead of 50 spots, that's ~1/5 of a full server all farming at the same time at max lvl around just 5 nodes. Then we add another 10-20 lower lvl dungeons with a few top lvl rooms at the very end of the dungeon and you have yourself enough space for probably another 2-3/5 of the server. And everyone else would probably be doing artisanal stuff or doing solo content in the overworld, or RP wherever.
And the new huge map seems to support this kind of size and we know for sure that Steven loved the dungeon that I posted and that alpha1 volcano dungeon looked somewhat big.
So I'd say that at this point it's all about having great combat and amazing mobs that would occupy the attention of a full party for enough time that they don't go to other rooms every minute.
I absolutely would not expect this to be a 'real' problem in any of the current generation of MMOs unless the mobs are super squishy 'PvE-lite' pinatas there to be something to conflict over.
I don't think instances are required at all, except for exactly the reason novercalis said.
Instances are so that 'everyone can get loot', in this era. Where in this case we are talking about 'material drops from elites', let's say, in Ashes.
They are there so that you can log in with the intention 'I'm gonna get the gang together and go fight exactly this and get this exact loot if it drops and no one can stop us and we won't have to have any other experiences'.
No worrying that 'the boss was just killed before you got there'. No worrying about 'meeting a higher level soloer farming the mobs just fast enough to mess up your perfect 'rotation'. No friction or frustrations.
Not Ashes.
Loot will be a by-product of that, sure.
You've been able to define what you consider hardcore and it's just vastly different then I call hardcore.
I wish we had corpse run and XP loss, not Xp debt. But yeah it's not going all the way back to EQ - but their open world dungeon is gonna function exactly how EQ dungeons are - Only a limited amount of camps - so not everyone will be able to get their camp/loot right away. You can contest the camp and fight over it, or wait for a spot to open.
no. Fuck off with the instance.
You want to go into the dungeon? Either bring ur group and OUT DPS my group or fight us for camp right.
"I wasn't going to respond to this thread again, but I never in my 20 years+ of MMO gaming heard "ganking" being used to describe anything but getting 100-0d before you can react by someone(s) out of stealth."
I would say that is diversity of the gamer experience.
Griefing to me is simply causing someone unwarranted grief or stress. I toss ninja looting in that category.
and I have never in my life heard of a "cucked" account.