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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Contested dungeons
Kilion
Member, Alpha Two
It has been well established that dungeon content will be something that can be contested by other groups in a way that it is not "first come first serve" for a whole dungeon and neither will it be infinite parallel instances only one group at a time will be in. However it seems - from what I know - that there is not much known beyond that.
So what I would like to do is gather ideas for what would be good ways to design contestable dungeons to have variety and avoid all dungeons having a "the strongest group will get the boss loot" design.
What we already know: Most dungeons and their bosses will be up for contest until the boss is dead. Dungeons will have "tiers" to them where parts of the dungeon will be designed for different levels.
And to make sure we are on the same page here - I am not trying to have no dungeons where multiple groups can be in the boss fight - I just hope to see different dungeon ideas alongside this one.
1) Availability
This first point is very straight forward: If there are enough (or too much) dungeons available even though the boss can be directly contested, it might not be anyone there who wants/needs to do so.
2) There is no "final boss"
While in quests there is merit to the idea of progressing through a dungeon to find a concluding element in form of a boss, I don't think it is necessary to put up such restrictions in every dungeon. Again, it's about variety when it comes to keeping a system interesting. So if we have a let's say ancient temple full of living statues, there might be multiple bosses in there, all holding valuable loot that is not inferior to that of other bosses. That leaves players with the option to 'simply' use the time one group is dealing with a boss in the eastern wing of the temple to go after the boss in the catacombs below.
3) Contest of access
In some cases it might make sense to not have a contest IN the dungeon but to gain access to it. Let's say this temple is still brimming with magical force but due to it's age the protective barrier is not functioning properly anymore. When the barrier deactivates/weakens, it is possible to pull some of the guardian creatures out of the barrier and kill them to obtain a crystal that allows the group to pass through the barrier even when its up - or to simply slip in. However the time window to slip in and the numbers of guardian creatures is limited.
This reduces the PvP in the dungeon but creates an interesting temporary battlefield in front of the dungeon, which could be an interesting story element for later.
4) Compete for more
The temple dungeon in our example is now controlled by a Lich (he will be only available when the adjacent Node grows to level 5+; but other parts are accessible beforehand). To strengthen himself he wants death to spread, so he deliberately opens up the proving grounds of the temple, here groups have to compete in some kind of challenge and depending on their performance, gain access to more difficult or simply different parts of the dungeon. To the players this may look like a reward, to the Lich it is a way to spread them out and ensure that adventurers are sent into the appropriate death machine. This is a bit similar to point 3 but I would use this to pit groups explicitly against each other which means greater PvP risk so more PvE benefits when you succeed.
5) Burn bridges
It would be fun to have some mechanics to make advancing through a dungeon more difficult for other groups that are further behind - for example by literally burning a bridge and forcing groups who came in later to take another, longer or more dangerous route. Of course this has to have its own price, consuming time and/or resources of the group passing the point they want to turn into an obstacle. It could also mean that they have to forego on a part of the loot or increasing the bosses difficulty (e.g. by creating a cave in they cut of one path for pursuers but a part of the final treasure chamber collapses and part of the bosses arena changes into dangerous/inaccessible terrain)
I really like the idea of not only trying to make it through the dungeon but also knowing that you have potential contestants sitting in your neck, which motivates players to really become very efficient at crawling through the dungeon and that's why I wanted to add some things to the ways these contests can be designed.
So what I would like to do is gather ideas for what would be good ways to design contestable dungeons to have variety and avoid all dungeons having a "the strongest group will get the boss loot" design.
What we already know: Most dungeons and their bosses will be up for contest until the boss is dead. Dungeons will have "tiers" to them where parts of the dungeon will be designed for different levels.
And to make sure we are on the same page here - I am not trying to have no dungeons where multiple groups can be in the boss fight - I just hope to see different dungeon ideas alongside this one.
1) Availability
This first point is very straight forward: If there are enough (or too much) dungeons available even though the boss can be directly contested, it might not be anyone there who wants/needs to do so.
2) There is no "final boss"
While in quests there is merit to the idea of progressing through a dungeon to find a concluding element in form of a boss, I don't think it is necessary to put up such restrictions in every dungeon. Again, it's about variety when it comes to keeping a system interesting. So if we have a let's say ancient temple full of living statues, there might be multiple bosses in there, all holding valuable loot that is not inferior to that of other bosses. That leaves players with the option to 'simply' use the time one group is dealing with a boss in the eastern wing of the temple to go after the boss in the catacombs below.
3) Contest of access
In some cases it might make sense to not have a contest IN the dungeon but to gain access to it. Let's say this temple is still brimming with magical force but due to it's age the protective barrier is not functioning properly anymore. When the barrier deactivates/weakens, it is possible to pull some of the guardian creatures out of the barrier and kill them to obtain a crystal that allows the group to pass through the barrier even when its up - or to simply slip in. However the time window to slip in and the numbers of guardian creatures is limited.
This reduces the PvP in the dungeon but creates an interesting temporary battlefield in front of the dungeon, which could be an interesting story element for later.
4) Compete for more
The temple dungeon in our example is now controlled by a Lich (he will be only available when the adjacent Node grows to level 5+; but other parts are accessible beforehand). To strengthen himself he wants death to spread, so he deliberately opens up the proving grounds of the temple, here groups have to compete in some kind of challenge and depending on their performance, gain access to more difficult or simply different parts of the dungeon. To the players this may look like a reward, to the Lich it is a way to spread them out and ensure that adventurers are sent into the appropriate death machine. This is a bit similar to point 3 but I would use this to pit groups explicitly against each other which means greater PvP risk so more PvE benefits when you succeed.
5) Burn bridges
It would be fun to have some mechanics to make advancing through a dungeon more difficult for other groups that are further behind - for example by literally burning a bridge and forcing groups who came in later to take another, longer or more dangerous route. Of course this has to have its own price, consuming time and/or resources of the group passing the point they want to turn into an obstacle. It could also mean that they have to forego on a part of the loot or increasing the bosses difficulty (e.g. by creating a cave in they cut of one path for pursuers but a part of the final treasure chamber collapses and part of the bosses arena changes into dangerous/inaccessible terrain)
I really like the idea of not only trying to make it through the dungeon but also knowing that you have potential contestants sitting in your neck, which motivates players to really become very efficient at crawling through the dungeon and that's why I wanted to add some things to the ways these contests can be designed.
The answer is probably >>> HERE <<<
3
Comments
You have rooms with mobs, you have rooms with bosses, you have the final room with the final boss that requires an item to enter (you get the item through a quest) and the boss respawns once a 1.5 weeks. That boss room is a semi-instance, so after his spawn and after people start entering that room - he'll wake up in a few minutes and the access to the room will get locked.
So if, by chance, Intrepid copy those mechanics one-to-one, it'd cover your first 3 points (though there is a "final boss", the only difference in loot was a single item and the higher chances to drop other stuff).
Points 4 and 5 could definitely be added w/o subtracting from the overall design direction.
Thanks for sharing the video, I like the idea of that.
I just hope they have more than on way in which a dungeons competition works. I'd love to see a variety there, some could easily miss point 2-5 altogether, they are not necessary to make a good dungeon. But to mix it up a bit I'd love to see these sprinkled in.
Can you think of anything else that might change the way(s) dungeons and their monsters could be contested?
The game could troll "the strongest group" and drop loot to mediocre players only.
I don't care.
But no matter what solution is chosen, I hope outside, at dungeon entrance, the best loot of that particular dungeon is 100% drop in a pvp fight.
Or at least valuable loot to have higher chance to drop than common tier.
Transporting the loot back to a storage should be riskier than driving a caravan.
Just so I understand correctly: "100% drop in a pvp fight" meaning A) all of it has a chance to drop when dying in PvP or B ) it will all drop with a chance of 100% when dying?
It means the dude probably won't be able to defeat any bosses and instead wants to rely on pvp.
In Lineage 2 we don't really desire bosses greatly through the many months of the levelling stage and the risk, organization and time involved in potentially succeeding is outweighed by the comfortable success of a well functioning grinding party that will still involve worthwhile drops towards your progression (as well as fairer and more assured loot distribution). Until at least the later stages of the game where those bosses drop sought after jewellery gear and can "complete" your character via resistances and further critical benefits (provided you're lucky enough to be in the pecking order for such hard to acquire loot).
From what I've seen, Steven gives me the impression that this game will be similar to Archeage's levelling system and cap but at least x5 increased and easy quests will not offer "easy xp", so what does this mean..."dungeon crawl" grinding, node events and hard worked story quests will be the most desired things for levelling progression? I can only imagine they'll be of similar value because if the game is most rewarding from holding a room/s and effective party making then the casual/quest like audience is in for a rude awakening.
Can't say a lot without at least seeing A2 but this game does worry me a lot for a varied audience.
I'll just finish with ( @Kilion , "Burning Bridges ), I'd love for there to be a kind of Labryinth/"Crystal Maze" of sorts that is on a timed start and 2 raids have to compete with one another through seperate journeys. It can be a test of everything, including if the 2 raids align in certain ways (through the miracle of RNjesus!) they both end up in a divided room where they can interact with each other and essentially PvP while additionally handling some epic creature.
At the end of the Labryinth whoever gets through 1st gets priority into the boss room, then through the winning raids mistakes fighting the boss, the boss blows open a pathway to enter, resulting in a bloodbath denial or the room remains hard locked and they get a very hard challenge to gain and alternative path through to deny them...but I would absolutely love to draw up a proper Labyrinth with challenges that cannot be cheated and be a true test of skill.
If somebody has a high tier, maybe a legendary material, might try to give it to a low level alt hoping that corruption helps. Or holding in inventory common stone and wood. Such tricks should not work because render pvp useless.
Also later using a caravan should be safer than using a mule.
So basically when a group leaves a dungeon you want to be able to fight that group and be 100% sure that you will get the loot of that dungeon if you manage to kill them, correct?
That sounds awesome, that's the stuff I'd love to see!
Yea....but this is still a very different era from the one you and I grew up in where entertainment was "simple" and mobile phones, moba's, sports games and shooters didn't over shadow the entertainment landscape.
What will Intreprid compromise to obtain a fairly sizeable audience. You could easily draft up a game that corrects the mistakes of the past for people around 35 years old and have a healthy playerbase down the line of a year or so later of 5-8 servers all with a 10,000 crammed server capacity but appealing to the easy fix crowd of today to bring those numbers closer to a 250,000+ concurrent playerbase.
I get the impression Steven wants to dominate, it's a healthy mentality....or is it? Will he be happy plotting and planning a game to obtain every single mmorpg lover that is stuck on older games or private servers or will he take a risk and make something that can somehow appeal to both "simple grind lovers + heavy contest points" and (more inline with the thread) "final boss and loot loving achievers WHICH must be accessible to a widely skilled audience". (I've gone off topic, keep the reply short if there needs to be!)
Correct, that's what I said
But is too extreme.
What I actually want is the PvE players who cannot defend themselves to ask for help from PvP friends rather than demanding game mechanics to protect them.
Okay, I think the idea in theory is sound but isn't really feasible. If there were a 100% drop chance for all dungeon loot before it is stored anywhere else, has been looted by someone or was transformed, this would just expose the PvE players exclusively to additional risk - "additional risk" because they already risked dying in the dungeon, now they are in a state where they have used cooldowns/potions etc and might be low on other combat related resources, which also puts them in at a disadvantage to negotiate protection from a PvP group's escort, who in turn takes considerable risk because they have to face an unknown amount of enemies who need just one kill for the escort to fail their mission and not be paid at all and receive a death penalty, too. I think there would be a huge risk to turn dungeons (and their loot) into a hot potato.
And while I say all that I still agree with the notion that there should be some certainty to at least getting some dungeon loot from killing a player who holds it. When a group who cleared a dungeon gets wiped out, they should be guaranteed to lose a portion of that loot, with the rest being up to luck. Of course we could spin it further and have artisans create one-time-use "safe" slots (like secret pouches) that will not be dropped on death, but whether that would motivate PvE players again seems questionable as it means they have to put even more resources into their dungeon crawl, while the "Robbers" waiting outside the dungeon still "only have to be there".
I don't think it would align with the overall premise of having meaningful competition to have dungeon crawlers lose more than 40% of their dungeon spoils with one kill. It would create high stakes, sure, but that doesn't seem all that meaningful to me. I think it is a reasonable design philosophy to have productive activities (acquiring resources and gear from the game ) pay off more in the long term than than redistributive activities (acquiring resources and gear from other players) or destructive activities (where more of the games assets become destroyed/unaccessable than are being created in the same moment).
What if each important dungeon would have a caravanserai nearby, with the option to store the loot there?
Doesn't make a difference. Players would still be able to swarm them right outside the dungeon where all the robbery would take place anyways because seeing someone leave the dungeon is the safest/only way to know that they have dungeon loot on them in the first place.
No, I mean what if you would get a way to store the loot there. I don't know how. Just assume it's possible.
Would you use a caravan or still want to carry the loot safely back to your personal storage in your pocket?
My problem is that not having a caravanserai nearby, players will feel entitled to demand protection when they hold a freshly aquired epic drop and the same mechanic would be useful also to transport the goods with a mule rather than using caravans.
I think player should need to carry the loot out of the dungeon and I think it is okay to have a guarantee that for example 20% of that loot (excluding gear) will be dropped when they die the first time as long as the loot hasn't left their inventory at some point. After that once it has exited the inventory once, it should be regarded as regular gatherables or components and drop at the same rates associated with every other gatherable or component of other sources.
This means there is no need to conviniently spawn caravanseraies near dungeons.
Seeing how goods will be lost to either players or disappearing if a caravan gets destroyed, it might make more sense to first safely store dungeon loot away for a bit to later to reduce attention and to pick it up again and transport it in person, especially when its very valuable loot.
Suffice to say, I neither advocate for 100% safety for dungeon loot but nor do I think 100% drop rate on death makes any sense.
To begin with, this was about contesting the content of a dungeon (which is the risks and the values of said dungeon) not just the rewards someone might have gotten from successfully getting through it.
If the inside of the dungeon is a pvp zone, then the stronger team will dominate the area. They should not worry what happens outside either.
If one in a while a weak team finds a window to reach safely the boss, might have luck and get out with the loot too.
I would not like the game offer special protection for a fresh loot because that protection would actually protect the ones who are strong and hold the farming spot.
But if inside the dungeon is somewhat safer, then I do not want those players to be further protected to transport the loot to a feehold which might do all the processing and crafting into an item which is no drop anymore.
I do not want the game to offer safety for important valuable resources and materials.
In general I am worried that caravans will be a failed mechanic and everybody will carry resources in their inventory and build freeholds one near the other to avoid caravans completely.
And in the end caravans will be just like quest events with no relevant loot.
A PvE game on land and PvP on the ocean.
And even if there was absolute safety - which there isn't - absolute insecurity and ridding turning the game into a gankfest of people who were stupid enough to go through a dungeon is a lot of things but not the solution.
The whole system Intrepid intents to build ensures partial losses can occur on various stages from resources to gear.
This is my favorite option as it allows skilled PvE-ers to do the job properly and enjoy the content.
But the other options are cool too.
Maybe some dungeons could have shortcuts in form of jumping puzzles.
I am still holding out more akin to EQ design
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sH3kOHtx1YE
Lower Guk for example - You had multiple rooms, each room usually had specific loot tables and all the frogloks were regular npc but some frogloks were "named"
Lord Frogluk, Assassin Frogluk, Magi Frogluk, etc. Their pretty much got the same stat blocks as the rest of the mobs, just ma hit extra, or have a little bit more dps or hit a little bit more harder - nothing wild.
Story wise - the Lord is the "final boss" but he isnt treated as anything special from the rest of the dungeon. Just the higher lvl mob, harder hitting but probably the same HP pool. Drops a very nice weapon that many melee classes seeks to camp him.
The rooms don't look nearly as populated as L2 but EQ difficulty design differs. I am surprised to see soo many mobs compacted in 1 area and looks like if you pull 1, everything gets pulled.
A group of 5 in EQ can maybe handle 3-4 mobs with the right CC and prioritizing the right mobs. Anything more and that's a wipe. Dungeons becomes semi safe when all rooms are camped, if not you get them to wander and almost every single fucking mob loves to run away and RUN FAST - which triggers other aggro and aggro range in EQ are LARGE. Shit begins to snowball and trains begin to happen - affecting almost everyone in the zone.
Contesting in EQ - was running mobs against another group if in a PvE server. Or outright kill them in PvP server. The other contesting is DPS Race. P99 rules may differ in terms of "camp protection" first come, first serve but live - I did not remember people obeying the play nice rule. If we wanted to take over - we will out dps the mob. The stronger group wins. Lots of bullying. I would like this version, as it promotes conflict and potential pvp for AoC.
I personally dont want to see 1 mob be treated differently as the "boss" of a dungeon. Everything in there should be of equal strength. You can treat the loot tables differently - sure but each room or named critters should be of importance.
* Mages may want to fight the Magi Orc for it's robe
* Tanks may want to fight the King Orc for its weapon
* Rogues and Rangers may want to camp the Assassin Orc
* Druids and Shaman may want to camp the Witchdoctor
* Clerics may want to camp the King Orc for its armor
* Wizard / Necro may want to camp Magi for it's staff
every room were importance to some class and needed to form a group. It was a weird way to go about things - cause many times, Warriors has no reasons to be in Magi room and Magi room needs a tank. But the same is true for King room - wizards/mages/necro has no need to ever step foot in King room.
but people did it - to help a guildie or cause the room you were looking for is full. so you would join another group solely for the XP and trash loot until a spot opens up.
A Necro looking for Magi but the room is full. The Necro whisper that group or their necro and asks "Hey buddy, LMK when you leave so i can take over please".
Therefor - If that Necro got his loot or play time is up - it was VERY COMMON and etiquette to always find a replacement before you leave.
Now that Necro in king's room would say his peace, and joins the magi group. Usually Magi necro will give a 15 min heads up to the King Necro, so they can find a replacement or at the least, he can warn the kings room he is leaving soon to magi room.
SOCIAL INTERACTION and teamwork - GASP. Please bring this back.
one of the many reason why I advocate 1 character per server
But quite often those rooms would be pulled into the corridors one mob at a time because the groups farming them were too weak. And then just running through the dungeon would be quite dangerous.
L2's leashes seem shorter than EQ's though and mobs across the entire dungeon are not as socially agroable, so if a mob from 2 rooms back hits you while you're running through another room (but don't agro its mobs) - other mobs won't just jump on you.
I'd prefer Ashes to exist in the middle ground between L2 and EQ. Fewer mobs per room, but they're more difficult and the dungeon is more dangerous overall.