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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Dev Discussion #48 - Training (PvP)
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 - Training (PvP)
Training is when players pull enemy NPCs onto other players in hopes that it will kill them. Some players see this as a valid and fun combat tactic to play around, and some do not. Would you like to see mechanics that support or discourage training in Ashes of Creation?
Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion
2
Comments
I don't like the fact that this is still a question that is open to players at this point, Alpha or not.
My specific feedback is that this is too complex a topic to say because I prefer not to view the mechanics in this way. Mechanics that allow or disallow 'training' have a much bigger impact on other aspects of gameplay which should be considered first, in my opinion.
Whether or not this is possible in a game should be emergent from the other requirements of gameplay, and not particularly up for discussion from this perspective.
tl;dr "Mu, the question is wrong."
Some training allowed, but not huge areas.
I think the general question of "How can we improve the old standard mmorpg Mob AI?" should be asked first. Then based on that concept this question becomes a sub-question of that.
Because making NPC's smarter while still being reasonably predictable shouldn't be out of the question imo.
However in most circumstances, it's just used to grief people that aren't paying attention, or don't know any better.
Seeing somebody out running around solo and aggroing gigachad elite accidentally while just running past that kills the player and then walks over and wipes your 50 man raid is... not a pleasant experience.
Those 50 people more than likely will come to the conclusion that player did it on purpose...
I definitely want to see it in game, but with some limitations on ways to use it to intentionally grief.
That being said ASHES IS A PVX GAME. If your 2 man group is getting chased by 10 people then all you have is LOS and leading them into somewhere where NPCs can distract or help assist with the conflict.
There’s many things that will need to be ironed out like threat, aggro range, and more, but in short perhaps in dungeons or specific ‘quest/safe areas’ this shouldn’t be allowed. Maybe reduce aoe dmg from NPCs you haven’t damaged recently? I’m not sure but it’s a complex issue
I tend to feel that game mechanics that do not offer choice are poorly received by most players. Being "forced" into a shitty situation due to no fault of their own is typically something an MMO player is not fond of.
AOC is going to be about choice, risk vs reward and your interactions with others. Training just is a natural part of all these things. You can choose to be a a shit bag in your interaction with others, but understand there will be a risk in doing so. The fact you can pull this off with 100% success doesn't flow with the risk factor this game seems to want to embrace.
I would love to see something like this but I think it depends on the general and specific use.
In fact if I had the opportunity to have, improve and strengthen NPCS to attack another player or to protect me when I am doing very dangerous missions (something like my bodyguards) I would find it SUPER INTERESTING.
But again I come back to my doubts raised , in what general and specific terms could that be used?
-In wars ?
-Raids ?
-Dugeons?
-Training with other players?
-When doing PvE ?
-When you are using caravans and can have the confidence of having reliable bodyguards?
-To guard my travels from one city to another ?
-To guard trade routes?
-To guard my freeholds ?
-etc
Having these doubts raised and seeing the potential that trained NPCS could have I would LOVE to have the opportunity to make the effort to gather and get materials or things to train my NPCS and to have the security that in certain occasions I will have a companion by my side that can protect me in some circumstances.
edit : Ok , I guess I got excited and didn't read it right , mb lol .
I think it's a valid option for PvP , many may say it's inciting grienfing , which is valid , but come on , if a person wants to griff then he will do it that's why corruption plays an important role within AoC.
I don't see a problem with "Training".
one of my concerns with the AI shown is that in all the demonstrations players can just run away from mobs easily, they don't slow you when hitting your back and have almost no CC's, every mob pack should have some CC to prevent players from just running through them or at least slow you when you get hit from the back, and this combined with a solid threat system would already prevent mob training,
The issue for me is not the mob training itself, is how stupid mob AI is, the majority of mob training should only be a thing in old games with bad AI and threat systems
now, there should for sure be situations where you could do some training, because it might be interesting if mobs can aggro on random people from time to time, but in most cases they should be enough of a challenge to kill the person training it unless it's a tank
I love PvP but this is griefing. Frankly I'm shocked and horrified you're even asking this question. I had assumed this would be listed as a bannable offense in the ToS so take this as my request to make it so.
The only acceptable circumstances involving NPCs is when the attackers accidentally pull NPCs friendly to the opposing side onto themselves. So for example in Aion a lot of people would fight outside forts the factions owned during times when they were not vulnerable to attack. There were a lot of powerful NPC guards at those forts. Often you might be at your fort (for a quest, PvP, whatever) and the enemy faction comes a little too close to try to attack you or bait you to run out and in the process pulls guards onto themselves. That's fine - it's only a problem for them, not you. But the moment someone intentionally pulls mobs onto another player that's griefing.
I would also highly suggest you adjust the mob aggro rules so that the person who pulls keeps aggro unless someone else tries to attack the mob. Therefore it would make intentional griefing near impossible as long as the defenders ignore the mobs.
Of course if we're in a party already engaging with mobs anyone can come up and attack us, but that's just a natural risk of OwPvP. As long as someone isn't pulling new mobs onto us and trying to get them to attack us, we're good.
I'm sure most MMO players are familiar with the differences in these various situations but important to note them.
Edit: In more details here's what I think needs to be done to mob aggro rules to avoid this being a problem. It's pretty easy to just make it so mobs only aggro the person who pulled them, and don't aggro anyone else unless someone directly attacks the mob. Then make mob leash after however far and be immune to attack and ignoring everyone the moment it hits leash point and until it resets back to spawn. Many other games have had these mechanics.
In addition, if necessary in open world dungeons, add barriers and doors so players can't leash mobs all the way to the boss and skip all mob packs. This would make it so they can't leash far enough before hitting said barrier/door and have to kill at least some mobs before progressing forward.
this sums it up pretty well for me.
and as others have said, how is this tactic getting around other systems in the game.
Can Bards sleep or Tanks tank out huge numbers of enemies, while the rest of the parties fight? That says certain things about how normal combat with those mobs will go. If your mobs are interesting and strong enough to be fun in normal circumstances, you won't have these sorts of things as serious options vs a train.
If you want to build a game around this sort of tactic, it's possible, (after all, minion waves are a thing), but then mobs become worthless on their own, and all of PvP becomes about who can more effectively manage to attack or defend these tactics.
I'm fine with MOBAs, but it's not exactly what I come to MMORPGs for. If I ever find myself thinking "I want to clear some minion waves", I'll go play BDO.
On one hand its very annoying a can be considered greifing; for example, steaingl reosurces and trying to ruin someone elses gameplay experience.
On the other hand, this needs to be suitable for the game mechanics, if we don't have the option for large AoE / Cleave attacks to hit EVERYONE around, then people will just break combat and have 1/2 people soak the big damage attacks then re-enter combat?
I don't see how we could possible get around it?
I think if it was chosen not to be included then it can't apply to bosses/champion mobs but in which case it should just apply for everything becuase people will be doing it regardless?
I figure if I'm a Rogue Class and I'm full sprint pulling a mob towards another player, or a group of players, I pop Vanish (or the equivalent) and drop aggro.. if those players either tag it the mob, or do something that causes an increase of aggro in an area of effect (such as how casting Heals generally would) then the mob would drop off of my Rogue and start to go after the person in sight line within a normal aggro radius that has done something to cause aggro to be gained.
This way the Training feels like there is more of a niche time it can be pulled off correctly. but if you can manage it then it more feels like using the natural tools at your disposal.
Also, I'm no game designer or do I know anything really about game balance... I do know a thing or two about what makes open world PvP fun to play. Side stepping slightly, if Training was not available within PvP, how would this affect group play in PvE, where, say... a DPS player pulls accidentally or even purposefully and pulls the mob into the group and does the same maneuver described above in the Rogue PvP scenario? If Training was not a thing, would the mob just automatically reset once you dropped all threat?
I feel like Training or "leashing" mobs could feel rewarding in group content in this PvE scenario, but could be frustrating if it is too easy to pull off in PvP without any level of timing required or skill involved in it. Also Looking at games like Classic World of Warcraft where players could leash a giant Elite monsters into main cities I'd say are tales of the world of MMO's as an experience goes has withstood the tests of time.
Supporting this type of play explicitly will cause balance issues elsewhere, when we haven't even finished defining what "elsewhere" is. I don't think training should be supported explicitly, as it's very likely to degrade the quality of existing PvE play.
You either think the game can be pleasant to experience with this kind of behavior offering no discouragement or you think it is negative towards your goals for player experience. You will get empty pro and anti sentiment with this question without any real focus.
Steven has frequently talked about mob training being possible. He seems to like it or not see problems with it. If Steven really wants to know if people are with his stance he should just ask himself. There is clearly something being unsaid with this question. What is Steven or his staff worried about? What do you really want addressed?
Also, trying to pull a long train should be very difficult and result in very high chances of death. Mobs should have slows/roots/stuns/other CC that start to trigger way more often if there's several mobs clumped up together. Additionally, aggroing more mobs within the same location should trigger their social AI which will increase the aggro on the original train puller, so it's not as easy to lose the train.
How often training can happen is a question for Intrepid. I view it as a form of low skill-high reward PvP, so I personally would balance it with that thought in mind.
For me, it's just important for it to be very consistent. When you see somebody running at you with a pack of mobs, you should know exactly how the interaction will go down, every time. There shouldn't be questions of "how many monsters will attack me" or "when/where/how will they leash". Whether it's easy to pull off, or impossible, make it a mechanic, not a loophole.
What you will get is the far left and far right of the spectrum and nothing of real value. I think the game should progress further on and this question should be an internal discussion with the team rather than the community, and if there is still some question than maybe bring this out to the community after there is enough supporting info for us to give you an actual worth feedback post.
Not a "yes i want this for X" and a " no i don't want this for x"
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If you want AI training, make it instanced in a "testing ground", much like BDO has, I'll even show you how to set up the Blueprints in UE5 to get players there either via BP or Level BP if you are not capable.
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That's different to me. You're describing a defensive situation. What he's asking about is specifically the enemy player(s) using mobs offensively to get the mobs to attack you so it's easier for the player to kill you. Very different circumstances in my opinion. If you are trying to run away from an attack and the enemy player follows you into a group of mobs, that's on them. That's not griefing.
You attack a mob, it attacks you, and doesn't just switch unless you get healed and the healer generates more aggro than your dmg. It's simple.
wtf is this mechanic where mobs switch randomly to surrounding players?. Let's look at it this way, rather than a dev looking at code or images. Put yourself in the shoes of a player:
You and your buds doing an open-world dungeon... you spent an hour or whatever, going through the dungeon clearing it out and you're a grp mob pull or two away from the boss.
a random group comes in, and pulls the mobs onto you while you're fighting something else...you guys wipe, and while you're frantically trying to get back into the dungeon. the other group come in and just take the boss. I guarantee. GUARANTEE. Some of those players especially early game. will never do a dungeon again.
Not saying i would, not saying ANYONE on this forum would cause we're probably all die hards for the game. Grinders and no lifers.
But an average player, 100% they gonna say "they can just do that??"...and boom gone.
This concept is so silly to me. Why would anyone ever include that. It's literally only used to grief.
Think more like players...and you'll be fine.
Side note:
I like the idea of guilds ruling and being powerful. But once you have archeage level grief mechanics, the guilds gonna have a lot of fun playing on the server by themselves sitting there doing nothing. (just like they still are to this day)
"oh people still play that?" you might be asking.... "it must be a pretty good game if people still play"
The housing zones are empty. the"massive" open-world pvp fights are literally 15 players vs 20. (for an entire server). So nha, clearly doesn't work when you can have guilds "bully" other players out of even being able to do basic stuff in game.
whatever this training crap is, that's all it is. grief/bully/troll mechanic. Archeage had the mob pulling down right, the grief mechanics were completely unrelated to this. What im saying: "training" is a grief machanic, and grief mechanics didn't do well for archeage.