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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.
Comments
I am perfectly fine with most dungeons being open world. Though, I do feel like a few instanced dungeons could be a great opportunity to do some truly epic dungeons and challenges. These could take longer to complete, but perhaps there is a way to save progress in the dungeons, so players could undertake a epic experience over the course of a few days when their friends can play.
The game is looking great! Thanks for your hard work.
Here are some of my thoughts and ideas for dungeons.
Instanced dungeons:
I'd love to see instanced dungeons that have multiple different boss spawns. Most instanced dungeons you go in and fight the same boss and once you've learned the boss' mechanics, its a simple rinse and repeat process. If the bosses that spawned would be different from instance to instance and the Mobs matched the Boss type (Big Orc boss spawns with underling orcs, goblins, riding beasts as mobs (all with their own abilities and types of attack)) how awesome would that be. The next time you enter that instanced dungeon it spawns an Evil mage with acolytes and deformed underlings... etc.
the dungeon layout would be the same but you have wonderous variety in encounters within the dungeon itself. It would keep players on their toes and provide for a far more variety of drops (or not) within the dungeon itself.
Time: 1.5 - 2.5 hours playtime or have several instance dungeons that have variable completion times
Open world dungeons
I always loved Darkness Falls in DAoC
Along the same premise, have a multi-layered dungeon that all nodes in the region have access to (Their own separate entrance). You have mobs and levels and as you go further down into the dungeon the mobs strength increases and at the bottom most level you have the ability to cross over to another factions side of the dungeon which allows you to attack enemies from different nodes as you work your way up "their side" of the dungeon. Once a node or storyline reaches a certain stage, it spawns an epic encounter (perhaps a Blood Magic abomination... see where I'm going with this) on the lowest level of the dungeon. Its now a race for all nodes of the region to get down to the lowest level Boss room and seal the opposing nodes (enemies) out of the Bosses lair. Once the enemies are sealed out you would have a certain amount of time to start the epic boss fight.
Things get really interesting if enemies are already passed the seal point and a node vs node battle takes place in epic boss room... and then the epic boss gets accidently pulled by a mage using blink. let the chaos begin.
Obviously the loot and node buffs (etc.) would need to be substantial in this type of dungeon fight, but well worth it. No logging out and logging in in the same spot though; after logout within the dungeon you would respawn at your entrance point or nearest town...
Allowance into the dungeon may be based on story line, node size and achievements etc. Only when that is achieved would your node have access to the dungeon.
Time: Dungeon (persistent) Epic Boss (Variable) Access (based on node achievement, or not)
Sky Tower/ Depths of Despair
For the truly skilled and God-mode players... and anyone else
A persistent dungeon instance (related to storyline or achievement... or not)
An infinite leveled dungeon instance. bosses and mobs start at 1-3 levels less than the group and increase by 1 level per level of the dungeon. See how far you get.
At level increments (every 3, 5, 7 levels...) get extra loot (rare to very rare, loot rarity increases with increments)
Party that gets the furthest in that week provides a node and personal buff for the entire next week, maybe some "renown" in their node or a meet and greet with the node mayor which may or may not spawn a quest chain...
Anything below 25 is generally not satisfying unless it's a single boss encounter that's mechanically intensive. I'd dislike seeing dungeons run on repeat where players are simply stampeding through and rushing mindlessly to the end.
I'm not sure how open world dungeons will be handled as I've never experienced something like that before, and to be honest I probably prefer instanced dungeons, but 45-80 mintues is perfect. Reading through some other comments, I'd agree that if it is indeed open world.. you may as well stay as long as it takes for you to complete your objective. I imagine respawn timers will have to be managed appropriately as I can see that being rather frustrating if you're there on a mission or task that needs to be completed and there are many players around. Open world dungeons would be a different experience with PvP and other groups so I'm not sure how I'd balance that timing appropriately.
A: For an instanced dungeon have ranges from 60- 120 minutes.
But I don't understand enough about how you will stop large multi-groups zerging through in 10-20 minutes, to just do the bosses quicker - if it is possible to do, then they will do it.
I think most people have more significant concerns about Dungeons that how long they take, so I hope there are more Dev questions on this topic. @BaSkA_9x2 list had some great points for example.
And everything in between. 45 mins, 60, 90. I realize this may not be fully possible because to some extent dungeons have to be balanced across nodes and across different areas of the map. So if I have to be pegged down to one time frame, an hour, unopposed.
2 hours max, most people work and do not live off Mummy & Daddy, (or worse the state) if I'm ready to play say at 8 pm, there is no way I'm going to take on anything that's going to require 3 hours of play, just none, I would bet that goes for a huge % of the player-base, not just the ones who reply on here, which to be clear people, its less than 0.5% of the player-base target.
People have jobs the when home other responsibilities, most cannot even sit a 3 hour stint without having to pause, if you have 8 in the group that's 8 pauses. 2 hours easily turn into 4 hours or more
First time runs can be longer for story sure, but in general most people dont want to spend more then 30min in a place especially if there are players who are not cooperating and cannot perform to the level of the dungeon.
When it comes to end game, I feel like more time is acceptable SO LONG as there is a increasing difficulty aspect. I would be fine spending 1-2 hours if the dungeon had a Mythic(wow term) level to it that was on par as a raid.
TLDR:
Story mode 30min
Hard Mode: 45min
Next difficulty: 1-2 hours
M+ maybe
If I look at the games I play objectively I find that many of them are fairly repetitive in the actions and game play. However, what keeps me coming back to them is the variation in each session being a unique experience unto itself.
Fore instance, if I play CIV 6 there are a lot of variables in the game setup. I can have barbarians, I can not, I can have secret societies, I can change the timeline, I can play different leaders, etc.
So if I was going to apply this logic to Ashes I would ask a couple of things.
1) No one style of content should be the king. I have long despised being put on rails and forced into activities that I do not enjoy. The perfect example of this manifests in two ways.
First, there is the grind aspect. I hated how often my friends and I had to repeat the same content over and over to acquire the piece of gear that we were after. I have no idea how many Scholomance runs people did without ever getting their set legs in WoW, but I know that I had a friend who did over 50 runs and never got them. This is easily countered with a token or crafting system. Instead of having the actual gear drop, have a portion of the items needed to acquire it drop, and once crafted allow the actual piece to be part of upgrading to the next tier of gear.
Second, there is the activity aspect. I absolutely hated that my best gear set in ESO came from a combination of PvP, daily quests, and raids. It was beyond frustrating to be forced to participate in multiple grinds which resulted in a non-=sustainable game / life balance. There is no reason why itemization cannot be similar across all activities to allow players to play the game how they want to play it. Gear acquired from any one activity should never be the ultimate goal, instead it should be able to be obtained from any sort of time sink the player decides to opt into.
2) Variance:. It would be nice to have different modes and means of running dungeons. This is not a new concept but will be hard to implement with the open world theme that Ashes likes to take over instancing. But it is nice to be able to run a "Heroic" or "Speed" version of a dungeon to experience it in different ways for different rewards.
It also would be amazing to have some randomization in them. And not just one or two things, not just a chance to spawn a random mob or something. Different bosses, different class skill interactions, different seasonal events, and things like that. To me the idea is this. Do remember when you were a kid and you went to the zoo for the first time, it really blew your mind and everything moved so fast that it was a blur of memories. But when you go back each summer it becomes different. One time you may focus on certain parts of the park, another time you may go on a special holiday where there is an event, another time you may go to see a special seasonal exhibit. Over time, in a truly live world, going to a dungeon at level X should be a different experience than going at level y.
3) Duration: Once again, the thing here is variance, give us reasons to come back and do it again. Not everyone has hours to spend putting a group together and then hours to spend doing the content. If nothing else, if there is going to be a requirement that takes a long time allow it to be done over multiple sessions. Allow players to save some sort of progress token, similar to a raid lockout, to allow them to go back and pick up where they left off. Again, much harder in an open world than something that is instanced. However, there are creative ways to achieve this. For instance, if you get to a certain checkpoint in a dungeon you could give the players a timed item that will allow them to one shot all of the enemies up to that point, however no loot would drop off of them. So you could say drop some sort of magical weapon or staff that does an AoE insta-kill on any mobs it touches. This would allow players to come back within that time frame and quickly get their group back to the checkpoint to continue progress in the delve.
Anyhow that is my thoughts. Be mindful of all players, allow for tools to let players play when and how they want to play, and provide variance to keep it from getting redundant and boring.
a) Wall breaking
Open walls between areas creating access to new paths
Limited to rush from tank classes
(dragon age inquisition)
b) Lock picking
Open doors, release traps to allow passing
Limited to rogue classes
c) Climbing
Climb up a wall to release a lever or like to drop a ladder or like
Requires class combo such as tank to lift and mage or rogue to be lifted
(a little similar to "tale of two brothers")
d) Traverse
Reveal/cast bridge to travers cavern
Limited to casting classes
e) Fire
Heavy damage area to traverse
Must have strong healer in class to pass over
Overall
Sub-zones of selected dungeons with various obstacles that require certain party makeup to enter / access
Encourages participation / inclusion of certain classes
Unique drops in such zones
Pre-planned parties with selected classes determine likely outcomes