I just don't like it in Ashes because even if you do it 'normally', the problem is at the core 'being able to pull the boss away or shift it in a way that disrupts other people's synergies, either by wasting their flows, causing the boss to react in unintended ways, or just repositioning it at the wrong times.
If the Synergies are not that meaningful, it should be fine to have 'unmarked players flag up', but since I kinda assume that by 'marked' you mean 'got aggro from the boss at some point', this seems a bit easy too.
This is where the Dv Gauge helps a bit more. One of the easiest and 'safest' low level 'Revenge Mechanics' you could give any boss at all is to make it CC resistant/immune to those who have a high value, or raise the chance of its CC working on them.
Similarly you can make it damage resistant a bit. So if you're attacking someone to steal their boss, you need to be strong enough and coordinated enough to fight a CC-enhanced version of the boss, without really changing the boss much at all.
This would usually very explicitly preserve the Synergies of the original group, while allowing them to not worry as much about certain other things, and they could just 'let the boss rampage around against the statused players'.
Result of change: Players are more likely to compete in performance against the boss itself when they happen to be in the same spot and both want to fight it. Then activate the Boss' standard proper anti-zerg mechanics (which would not be positional, I assume) forcing the two groups to adapt but without any innate 'I can just steal this from you by killing you when things start to go badly for your team'.
Still preserves the options for disruption and last-minute betrayals.
Alright, I posted an introduction because what I will say has a context, I did run thousands of open world dungeons
So, how to fix the problematic part without killing the thrill of the dungeon runner? That's the question!
The problem pretty much comes because bosses are very scripted in a way that predictability never gets hurt. People learn every little detail, prepare a strategy and then bring way more people than it is needed
The easiest way to break the dungeon runner's heart is by breaking the predictability, never do that. Make it predictable, just make the features predictable but very incisve about what the boss is doing against those people. Example:
boss was planned and scaled to fight against 8 people
120 people showed up
people will position their tanks in a spot, the dps, the healers, the supports casting buffs etc
if the boss can shoot a beam that melts the floor, open a hole on the floor and let people fall into the lava and die, then make the boss focus fire where there's a bunch of people clustered together and drop 50 people into the lava in one shot
if people aren't clustered together because they know the mechanic, then bring a wind storm and push everybody to one side of the room, then shoot the beam
There's a boss in Fractals who shoots a continuos beam of laser and he tears the floor off, people fall in acid and die
To minimize the overwhelming number of players on the grid, bosses should incorporate environmental features such as walls, floors, ceilings, and reinforcements. However, once the player count is within an acceptable range, the boss should not rely as heavily on these deadly features
When a boss in this "overkill defense mode", if he has to shut down the door behind the players just to reduce the number of players on grid, then he should do it. Example:
boss is planned for 40 people
there's 90 people in the room already, more than twice planned
there's 100 people in the area, not yet in the room
boss decides to shut the door
boss enters in "overkill defense mode"
door will remain locked until the boss eliminates enough players, leaving only 40 survivors, at which point it will unlock and allow passage
more people start pouring in, there's 60 people in the room already, shut the door again
repeat
This would force guilds to:
wait, because it is madeness going in with twice the amount of people
work together
kill each other and whoever lives will take the boss
a very sketchy contest
There is this, buffs work to a certain extend, but when people start bringing 2x 3x 4x more people and the boss doesn't do anything different, doesn't tackle the problem of excess of people, then there is no buff on the boss that could save him
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
I guess all I can really say is that in a design discussion that I'm in charge of I'd probably dismiss 'Flagged Characters pull Aggro' immediately as too simplistic. Though notably, it DID get incorporated into the design I have, it just, again, doesn't work in the Ashes one because... the Ashes one is simplistic.
Treat the event as you would a single boss with multiple stages.
Or, more specifically, treat the event as an event.
If the Synergies are not that meaningful, it should be fine to have 'unmarked players flag up', but since I kinda assume that by 'marked' you mean 'got aggro from the boss at some point', this seems a bit easy too.
I'd probably make "marked ones" the first group to engage the boss. I'm assuming that's exactly how the looting rights will get calculated, so it makes sense to me to apply the same system to my flag-agro suggestion.
Result of change: Players are more likely to compete in performance against the boss itself when they happen to be in the same spot and both want to fight it. Then activate the Boss' standard proper anti-zerg mechanics (which would not be positional, I assume) forcing the two groups to adapt but without any innate 'I can just steal this from you by killing you when things start to go badly for your team'.
Still preserves the options for disruption and last-minute betrayals.
Do you envision that status on the attackers going away in case the defending team wipes? Cause I see two potential outcomes from that kind of application. If the status goes away and the boss goes back to normal stats - attackers will just skillcheck the defending party until the boss wipes them. If the status doesn't go away and the attackers will have to overcome all of those boss buffs even after the defenders wipe - I imagine that there'd barely any pvp around bosses or the power difference between the two groups would be so huge that defenders wouldn't have a chance in the first place.
Last minute betrayals would also only work in a situation where both groups are really close in strength to each other and they both started hitting the boss at the same time and the game also provides exact respective dmg% values, so that either party would always know who has the first hit advantage and where their HP% removed value is.
But even then, the attackers would be at a disadvantage because they'd stop attacking the boss (at least some of them), start gaining the status and buff the boss against themselves, all the while the defenders can just keep hitting the boss knowing that they definitely have the loot if at least one of them survives until the end. At this point the defenders have no reason to fight back, which makes the attackers either go red or quit completely because they've lost the boss' loot. That's a lose-lose situation for the attackers, so there'd be no reason to even start the attack.
And again, this would only apply in a fairly limited amount of situations, while pretty much every other route is either "you gotta go PK/skillcheck" or "dodge anti-zerg mechanics in hopes that the first group just wipes before you".
In other words, I'm not sure if this particular mechanic would work with currently presented looting rights design. And any reaggroing based on the status would pretty much lead to the same disruption that my initial suggestion did.
I think the radical solution here would be to close the doors to the room right before the miniboss, but have a few minute window before the spawns and the scout mob that I mentioned would shout about an upcoming boss rather than about flagged people. This would allow the boss to have better mechanics and would redirect pvp to pre- and post- farm timings. I'd probably increase drop rates on the boss to entice people not only to go and attack someone else's room, but to also defend it more often because you've already invested time into "summoning" it and you'd be missing out on the juicier loot if you just left the room to the attackers.
The few minutes of waiting before the boss spawn would allow for a more fair fight too, because it'd give the defenders a reset after the previous wave of mobs. There'd obviously be cases of attackers simply waiting outside of a room and attacking as soon as the mobs are gone, but that kind of interaction is inevitable in an owpvp game, so that's just something that the defenders would have to deal with.
Who said the boss has to sit there in his tiny spot, fight just to be stomped?
Maybe the event could bring a non mandatory option, a lore character who hates that boss could appear when there are too many people in the room, this lore character could be like a demon and he could say:
"Welcome mortals, I am the harbinger of the dark lord, and I offer you a chance to prove your worthiness. For every mortal you slay, I will grant my blessings of immense power. Let the bloodshed begin!"
Then if you kill a player, could be even your own alt in a purple vs purple fight, this demon will grant big boosts on the guy, if you kill multiple players then you got bonus stacks
Let the players decide, they may choose not to fight at all and they will try their best against the boss with no big buffs from this demon, but if they go purple then they will reduce the amount of players in the room:
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
One big danger in hard dungeons against bosses is sabotage, we had a many very extreme ways of sabotaing others in EVE, things out of a movie. Example is a party comming in the site and ECM jam the healers and don't even touch the mobs, let the mobs kill them all. In an 100% loot drop game, can you imagine people losing their purples they took months to farm, sometimes years LOL
We don't know yet the CCs that will exist in AoC, if greens could be CCed then people would probably pull and knock on the floor the healers without killing them... just for letting the tanks die and the dps die. Then the attackers would even heal such healers and the attackers would never be corrupted... just keep knocking them on the floor and healing the healers. Nobody gets corrupted and their entire party dies. I believe this is the real reason why in AoC greens will not be CCed
In EVE, the healers are told to put their safety to green depending where you are flying, otherwise they will fall into baits like that and die, then everybody dies. There's very fancy ways of sabotaging others.
in AoC people will have to insta kill the healers from the other party and the assassins take the will corruption and possibly will wash the corruption by cleaning the boss. The band-aid wars will bring some crazy stories
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
If the Synergies are not that meaningful, it should be fine to have 'unmarked players flag up', but since I kinda assume that by 'marked' you mean 'got aggro from the boss at some point', this seems a bit easy too.
I'd probably make "marked ones" the first group to engage the boss. I'm assuming that's exactly how the looting rights will get calculated, so it makes sense to me to apply the same system to my flag-agro suggestion.
Result of change: Players are more likely to compete in performance against the boss itself when they happen to be in the same spot and both want to fight it. Then activate the Boss' standard proper anti-zerg mechanics (which would not be positional, I assume) forcing the two groups to adapt but without any innate 'I can just steal this from you by killing you when things start to go badly for your team'.
Still preserves the options for disruption and last-minute betrayals.
Do you envision that status on the attackers going away in case the defending team wipes? Cause I see two potential outcomes from that kind of application. If the status goes away and the boss goes back to normal stats - attackers will just skillcheck the defending party until the boss wipes them. If the status doesn't go away and the attackers will have to overcome all of those boss buffs even after the defenders wipe - I imagine that there'd barely any pvp around bosses or the power difference between the two groups would be so huge that defenders wouldn't have a chance in the first place.
Last minute betrayals would also only work in a situation where both groups are really close in strength to each other and they both started hitting the boss at the same time and the game also provides exact respective dmg% values, so that either party would always know who has the first hit advantage and where their HP% removed value is.
But even then, the attackers would be at a disadvantage because they'd stop attacking the boss (at least some of them), start gaining the status and buff the boss against themselves, all the while the defenders can just keep hitting the boss knowing that they definitely have the loot if at least one of them survives until the end. At this point the defenders have no reason to fight back, which makes the attackers either go red or quit completely because they've lost the boss' loot. That's a lose-lose situation for the attackers, so there'd be no reason to even start the attack.
And again, this would only apply in a fairly limited amount of situations, while pretty much every other route is either "you gotta go PK/skillcheck" or "dodge anti-zerg mechanics in hopes that the first group just wipes before you".
In other words, I'm not sure if this particular mechanic would work with currently presented looting rights design. And any reaggroing based on the status would pretty much lead to the same disruption that my initial suggestion did.
I think the radical solution here would be to close the doors to the room right before the miniboss, but have a few minute window before the spawns and the scout mob that I mentioned would shout about an upcoming boss rather than about flagged people. This would allow the boss to have better mechanics and would redirect pvp to pre- and post- farm timings. I'd probably increase drop rates on the boss to entice people not only to go and attack someone else's room, but to also defend it more often because you've already invested time into "summoning" it and you'd be missing out on the juicier loot if you just left the room to the attackers.
The few minutes of waiting before the boss spawn would allow for a more fair fight too, because it'd give the defenders a reset after the previous wave of mobs. There'd obviously be cases of attackers simply waiting outside of a room and attacking as soon as the mobs are gone, but that kind of interaction is inevitable in an owpvp game, so that's just something that the defenders would have to deal with.
That's your honor again.
This is a question of which tactics a group is 'supposed' to employ.
In hard PvE, slight disruptions lead to defeats. So the last minute betrayal is just 'one Rogue backstabbing the other group's healer at the critical moment'.
Rogues in general would be able to just do this anyway, them building up the status doesn't really disrupt a lot, they aren't likely to be CC dependent.
I'm not quite sure why you perceive it the other way, actually, other than your honorable nature. Also, it's Ashes, right? What guarantee does a player have that even if they were the last one standing after killing the boss, and the boss drops the loot (which would almost certainly be a material) that they wouldn't just get killed by the enemy group and have the chance of having said loot taken?
I'm honestly not following this one. The problem with the Corruption system relative to this flow as is, is that the attacking group does a skillcheck on whether they can cause the enemy to die and go entirely unpunished while still taking the boss. The one I'm discussing incentivizes the players to weigh the punishment against their strength. It's explicitly supposed to be a middle ground, and middle grounds usually have some 'abuseable ground' on either side, or at least, what feels like that, to anyone trying to solve a specific 'side's' problem.
Going back to our Beam Mage.
Current system: Beam Mage flags up, does things, boss maybe aggros on them, they reposition, but more likely someone else in their group flagged up to try to get the boss out of position. If Beam Mage fails their skillcheck they get some Corruption. Fairly irrelevant.
Other system: Beam Mage flags up, does things, boss aggros on them, they reposition. Beam Mage gets some Corruption and increases their risk of their group not being able to defeat the boss or being vulnerable to being killed by the boss more easily (but probably not a lot, Mages and Rogues would probably be best at this).
Anyways we're now on the verge of doing the exact thing I was saying I won't do. Basically if you think it doesn't work, then ok, it doesn't work. Probably just different goals anyway, but I would like to understand why you tend to go straight to 'then no one will do it' from a minor change. Just different worlds maybe?
There is a type of contest in EVE that lets a more organized party win a contest against a stronger party.
It is a hybrid count, through the dungeon every party will kill mobs, but this kill will only be added to your party if your party was the party who dealt more damage on the mob. The score is based on mob hp!
Yes, mob hp!
But the score will only sum the hp from the mobs your party dealt more damage on. So, if your party could secure the kills on 1000 goblins and the other party could secure the score on 100 orcs, that's your score, let's say:
goblin has 10 hp x 1000 = 10,000 score
orc has 50 hp x 100 = 5,000 score
To secure a kill your party needs to be the top damage dealer on that mob. In such score system it is also included objective structures and bosses too (officers, commanders, dreadnaughts). When you deal more damage on a mob, then you secure all hp from that mob to your party.
If my party deals 50.1%, the other party does 49.9% damage and the mob has 100,000 hp... this hp will fully go to my party's score... the other party gets nothing from this kill. This forces people planning their kills and watching what the other party is killing
In EVE, an organized team will work to secure kills and they do frequently win even against stronger parties. The party leader is calling the shots on comms and using the UI to assing targets, dozens of party members are applying CC, rotating, changing ammo type, attacing the targets being called
In AoC, if there's more than just the boss, but also boss phases, mini-bosses, elites, champions, boss, traps, additional objectives, there is a chance to compose a hybrid score by securing kills and objectives. Then the prizes could be granted in different ways
Let's say, a party stormed in the dungeon treasury and they secure a bigger score based on kills+hp in that room, then they could get extra gold when the boss is killed. Even if they only went to blitz the treasury and they didn't even kill the boss, maybe it was another bigger party who went for the boss only.
Having a hybrid system that slices the pie could reward players by the amount of work and based on what they did in the dungeon. Then even tough the boss is the big thing in there, there's a lot more things around the dungeon.
So, this could bring value to the dungeon as a whole, the party leader would have to evaluate what he can take from the dungeon at that day, based on his party and the other parties in the area
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
What if in AoC, nobody will PvP in dungeons?
Let's imagine that after launch, the players had put a great amount of thought in this and they judged that it is not worth PvPing in dungeons, purple or red both are not worth. Nobody pvps in dungeons.
What will happen then?
It will happen what already happens in the other games, parties will bring an excess of people, possibly multiple parties will bring people more people than they need, then they will nuke the boss
Then we are stuck back in that same problem: dps is imense bringing the thrill of speed and it is fun, but the content loses all it's value and people get burned
That's what happens in ow dungoens, in the GW2 PvE area it is just like that... you need 35 people to kill a world boss and 110 people show up. If you doubt me, start a free acount now and see the bosses getting melted without killing not even 1 player
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
It just seems like an expansion of what already exists. Mini attunements can be a real pain in the ass unless the mini attunements are guaranteed and if a mini attunement is guaranteed then what is the point in the addition of a mini attunement?
If corruption didn't have stat penalties then attackers would always win, attackers would arrive and nuke the tank and the healers during the fight everyday
The corruption system is supposed to be a spiritual thing, if this was the case then people who gank someone who is killing bosses (super mega corrupted mobs) should get twice the corruption?
Right?
Players are trying to defend Verra against corrupted forces, then a player goes there and sabotages the fight against corruption... so he is way into the dark side
Spiritual justifications:
-there was too many corruption going on in the enviroment, then the player ganked and he got extremely tainted because the air was filled with corruption
Makes sense, has lore vibes in this?
That's why I think that corruption should play a greater role in the game, instead of just being a punishment against a pvp hero who killed a farmer
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Probably just different goals anyway, but I would like to understand why you tend to go straight to 'then no one will do it' from a minor change. Just different worlds maybe?
Most likely just my crazy extrapolations that are based on a potentially faulty assumption about majority of players, with some general projection on top of that.
It's also my L2 assumptions superimposed onto AoC's lack of info. Just as you've said before, people like to fill in the gaps in info with their own assumptions and projections, and I'm the victim of the same crime. I subconsciously thought of L2's looting method of "stuff drops on the ground and you see who picks it up", so to me it was silly to even consider the attackers PKing the last standing dude for his loot because it'd always be way more beneficial to just wait for the defenders to kill the boss and then just PK the one who looted the things (in my experience that's usually the leader).
But Ashes will have the "personal bag of shit" method, so yeah, ultimately if one person from the defender's group remains to pick up their loot - they'll probably just get killed for it.
I think I also misrepresented what you wrote about the gauge status effects in my mind, or at least increased it way beyond what you intended, all while having a different (read lacking) understanding of hard pve. And the lack of that understanding will most likely influence any of my ideas up until I get to experience that hard pve in alpha 2 (if there will be any of course). I only have my general assumptions as to the influence of an attacking group on the defending one and I feel like those assumptions are just so incorrect that any route of action I'm imagining goes in a completely different way from what the reality would most likely be.
I think I'll just need to stop putting out ideas for now, at least until we get some concrete info about the core mechanics of the game.
When bosses are being killed in highly corrupted areas, the level of corruption is exceptionally high. So, if a player ganks in the boss room, they should receive a more significant corruption penalty. This is a direct result of the player's contribution to the spread of corruption within Verra.
Phrase of impact: "Those who choose to aid in the spread of corruption shall face the consequences, for the darkness of Verra consumes all."
A gank in a boss room or heavily corrupted area should be seen as aiding the army of the corrupted, those should get a juicy corruption score. Plus, bounty hunters will at least have a few interesting level 50 targets running in good gear.
ps: bounty hunters should be inquisitors, the term "bounty hunter" is in AoC it is just because it sounds cute
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Corruption is in the closet right now, it is just for punishing the pk. Corruption should be taken out of the closet and have bigger roles in the game
There should be quests in the temples where the player swears to fight a boss in 4-8 hours, anyone who ganks this player in any boss area should get 3 times more corruption , if the player fails the quest then he should get a tiny corruption score for being weak, he should be corrupted with the same as ganked someone of his level. If he doesn't kill a boss, he should at least land a hit on it and then he won't fail the quest
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Probably just different goals anyway, but I would like to understand why you tend to go straight to 'then no one will do it' from a minor change. Just different worlds maybe?
Most likely just my crazy extrapolations that are based on a potentially faulty assumption about majority of players, with some general projection on top of that.
It's also my L2 assumptions superimposed onto AoC's lack of info. Just as you've said before, people like to fill in the gaps in info with their own assumptions and projections, and I'm the victim of the same crime. I subconsciously thought of L2's looting method of "stuff drops on the ground and you see who picks it up", so to me it was silly to even consider the attackers PKing the last standing dude for his loot because it'd always be way more beneficial to just wait for the defenders to kill the boss and then just PK the one who looted the things (in my experience that's usually the leader).
But Ashes will have the "personal bag of shit" method, so yeah, ultimately if one person from the defender's group remains to pick up their loot - they'll probably just get killed for it.
I think I also misrepresented what you wrote about the gauge status effects in my mind, or at least increased it way beyond what you intended, all while having a different (read lacking) understanding of hard pve. And the lack of that understanding will most likely influence any of my ideas up until I get to experience that hard pve in alpha 2 (if there will be any of course). I only have my general assumptions as to the influence of an attacking group on the defending one and I feel like those assumptions are just so incorrect that any route of action I'm imagining goes in a completely different way from what the reality would most likely be.
I think I'll just need to stop putting out ideas for now, at least until we get some concrete info about the core mechanics of the game.
Well, if I get any say/influence on this, please don't stop putting out ideas.
Maybe I'm being fatalistic but Intrepid is not exactly swimming in feedback/concepts right now, and I know something that is happening within my team that might be happening in theirs and if it is, it's good.
We all have assumptions, but until we debate them, sometimes we don't even notice we have them. The same thing happens in design teams, except it's so much more dangerous there. Finding out everyone is on the same page for 5 months and then having to rework something month 6 because people literally just assumed their bases/priors were the same until a clash point? It's the worst feeling.
If I say more this post will turn into a bunch of long anecdotal rants or something, so I'll leave it at that. Learning L2 stuff from you, EQ stuff from Noaani, etc, is so much faster than trying to pick history out of the internet, and similiarly the ideas and approaches that different players bring...
Let's just say I choose to believe Intrepid when they say that they really want us to keep throwing out ideas and discussing them in detail. KP development benefitted massively from exactly this kind of thing back then. Every 'hey let's solve this balance problem this way', 'hey we should make this card better', 'hey we should ban this card' at least did something.
Let's just say I choose to believe Intrepid when they say that they really want us to keep throwing out ideas and discussing them in detail. KP development benefitted massively from exactly this kind of thing back then. Every 'hey let's solve this balance problem this way', 'hey we should make this card better', 'hey we should ban this card' at least did something.
Steven and Margaret mentioned that they're filming their internal discussions and overall development process and that they have videos of them looking through feedback and different ideas. I'm quite excited to see those videos, cause we've had a ton of super varied suggestions throughout this development and I'm really curious to see what, if anything, Intrepid got out of them.
And thanks for the reassurance. In the future I'll just try to think the ideas through more before posting them
What if in AoC, nobody will PvP in dungeons?
Let's imagine that after launch, the players had put a great amount of thought in this and they judged that it is not worth PvPing in dungeons, purple or red both are not worth. Nobody pvps in dungeons.
What will happen then?
It will happen what already happens in the other games, parties will bring an excess of people, possibly multiple parties will bring people more people than they need, then they will nuke the boss
Then we are stuck back in that same problem: dps is imense bringing the thrill of speed and it is fun, but the content loses all it's value and people get burned
That's what happens in ow dungoens, in the GW2 PvE area it is just like that... you need 35 people to kill a world boss and 110 people show up. If you doubt me, start a free acount now and see the bosses getting melted without killing not even 1 player
This wouldn't happen because Ashes doesn't have to follow the sorts of 'rules' that games like EVE and Elite put on themselves.
Ashes would have an entirely different set of chaotic problems.
I'm just saying that solving the 'DPS gets to melt the boss' is easy, it's just not easy to do it WHILE not also causing massive drama and making boss experiences stress/painful in an oWPvP game, particularly one with no mob tagging.
Designers are choosing to let those bosses fall like that.
For this, I mention another Besieged Boss.
He has an ability called Arcane Stomp which basically says 'I absorb all magic damage as healing now'. He is also fought in Besieged, obviously. It's a TP Gauge attack, so if you actually want to BEAT him, you need to get the 60 mages who rushed into the area to help with the battle to go fight something else.
Does this lead to 'frustrated screaming at random mages in zone chat'? Yes. Does it mean sometimes Gurfurlur lives when he would normally have been defeated by even the slightest bit of coordination? Yes.
But there's solutions. The 'action Economy' of bosses has to be absolutely terrible compared to players for this to be a real issue. If Intrepid has difficulty figuring out how to not make their bosses get deleted by hundreds of players at a time, I know where to find mechanics examples for them.
But I say that if that's happening, it's because they prefer for that to happen, over any of the fairly obvious mechanics they could use to prevent it, for whatever boss.
@NiKr tell me you noticed that a ganker asked for more corruption and more ways to gain corruption?
People could have a crusade quest, player commits to attack a boss, then he is the champion of the light for some hours, anyone who kills him in the boss room woud take a big corruption hit
This would not prevent sabotage and betrayals, but it would bring a big risk against people who are disrupting the fight against the forces of corruption
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
NiKr tell me you noticed that a ganker asked for more corruption and more ways to gain corruption?
Yes, Arya, I saw your shotgun shot of ideas that range from "eh that maybe could work with a few changes" to "that is the exact insane shit that I tried calling out before". You know my stance, I want to increase the amount of PKing, while decreasing the impact of corruption, WHILE keeping the life of greens at a normal lvl instead of hell.
Getting corruption for pve could be an interesting idea if Intrepid decided to link corruption to the mobs directly. I think I did post this idea somewhere on here, but I'd love if mob factions fought each other and there'd be a way to help one faction prevail and remove their "corruption", pretty much making them interactable NPCs. And then anyone who allied with the other faction could kill these NPCs and gain corruption through it.
But that's a whole different discussion for a whole different thread.
NiKr tell me you noticed that a ganker asked for more corruption and more ways to gain corruption?
Yes, Arya, I saw your shotgun shot of ideas that range from "eh that maybe could work with a few changes" to "that is the exact insane shit that I tried calling out before". You know my stance, I want to increase the amount of PKing, while decreasing the impact of corruption, WHILE keeping the life of greens at a normal lvl instead of hell.
Getting corruption for pve could be an interesting idea if Intrepid decided to link corruption to the mobs directly. I think I did post this idea somewhere on here, but I'd love if mob factions fought each other and there'd be a way to help one faction prevail and remove their "corruption", pretty much making them interactable NPCs. And then anyone who allied with the other faction could kill these NPCs and gain corruption through it.
But that's a whole different discussion for a whole different thread.
My idea brings corruption against defenders and attackers
If defenders fail and don't even reach the boss, they will be corrupted, otherwise they would never become corrupted anyway
Attackers who gank the tank and a couple healers just to force the defenders wipe, they will all set to wash that corruption just by finishing the boss and maybe chopping a couple trees... but if their targets have the "crusade against corruption blessing" then the attackers would sink in corruption
Attackers forcing defender's wipe is exactly the kind of PvE griefing that is a real problem
I am telling you, you won't be an antiganker hunting corrupted in AoC, forget this idea, there will be barely any corrupted players around and the ones who get corrupted will be all set to wash it off fast
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
tell me you noticed that a ganker asked for more corruption and more ways to gain corruption?
People could have a crusade quest, player commits to attack a boss, then he is the champion of the light for some hours, anyone who kills him in the boss room woud take a big corruption hit
This would not prevent sabotage and betrayals, but it would bring a big risk against people who are disrupting the fight against the forces of corruption
I suppose that's the other part I can share (like I said, I'm not actually particularly protective of it, and I actually developed the Dv Gauge as an alternative for Ashes if you considered Ashes to change certain goals).
Lore wise it's easy. Corruption is the metaphysical decay and disruption of society/cohesion and values. That's why it just 'randomly appears'. It's the 'underpinning of the Essence' that 'knows that the civilized world will fall into ruin (as it did in the past) if people just do things for Anarchy reasons.
That's why it would never be tied to just 'attacking' nor would it be tied to 'only on kill'. The Gauge is 'the protection that the Essence offers to the innocent by marking them against those who take this type of action'.
Right now the system incentivizes 'hitting people and then leaving them alone if they choose not to fight you'. My thought was for a system that adds to that and makes the players who do it responsible for disruption more harshly.
People who don't want to fight, who would rather let the enemy be corrupted, are already going to do that. The problem is the number of ways that the attacker groups have to work around this. But that is intentional in Ashes, it has to be. The issue is too easy to solve.
The game has a threat meter, and that means every action taken on an NPC is calculating some value specific to that NPC relative to the player taking the action. Adding/adapting those same values to be used when players attack Greens isn't some huge challenge.
I say this to remind that the whole 'you can get away with killing someone if you designate a person to do it or time it right' must be intentional currently, or it would be changed.
And therefore there really aren't any additions to Corruption itself as it is now, that will matter to gankers really. The main ways that Corruption matters are 'preventing solo players from being murderers' and 'making PK a skill/determination check'.
As we've discussed before, if Intrepid wanted PvP to be common and world-changing relative to their social or economic designs, we wouldn't have design bases like 'Guild Wars prevent loot drops'.
@Azherae you should describe a short real case scenario, at the momment it seems your idea is too complex
To me, there should be more opt-in for greater risks and rewards, which also makes less predictable how players will min-max risk vs reward when approaching others
I love having options on the table, AoC is too much of a themepark and less of a sandbox
If players opt-in for being the champion of light for 8 hours, if they gank anyone then they should get 5x more corruption breaking their vow of fighting against corruption. If someone ganks the champion of light, then give him 3x more corruption... but if the champion of light than he has to:
or kill the boss
or fight the boss and die trying
if the champion of the light doesn't meet any of those two then should get standard corruption for his weakness
It's a double edged sword and bring the possibility of corruption to both sides
Also, it's not full of complicated rules behind the system, you can see the outcomes on grid by looking what the characters are doing with themselves and to each other
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
@Azherae you should describe a short real case scenario, at the momment it seems your idea is too complex
To me, there should be more opt-in for greater risks and rewards, which also makes less predictable how players will min-max risk vs reward when approaching others
I love having options on the table, AoC is too much of a themepark and less of a sandbox
If players opt-in for being the champion of light for 8 hours, if they gank they should get 10x more corruption lol... for breaking their vow. If someone ganks the champion of light, then give him 5x more corruption... but if the champion of light than he has to:
or kill the boss
or fight the boss and die
if the champion of the light doesn't meet any of those two then should get standard corruption
It's a double edged sword and bring the possibility of corruption to both sides
Also, it's not full of complicated rules behind the system, you can see the outcomes on grid by looking what the characters are doing with themselves
I think you and I just have a fundamental design disagreement, illustrated here:
To me, there should be more opt-in for greater risks and rewards, which also makes less predictable how players will min-max risk vs reward when approaching others
To me this is just introducing balance difficulty for developers for no reason, adding systems that people then complain about.
I accept that you're one of those people who believes that complex systems are a problem, and that instead adding more systems with higher potentials for chaotic emergent gameplay is better. I just don't like that design style.
In my team, I'm the one whose job it is to take the 'freeform' stuff that our equivalent of you produces and either pare it down or work out the balance details/smooth out the pain points. By habit my responses to your ideas will always be to 'fix them' and your responses to mine will probably always be 'too complex, let options/unpredictability increase instead'.
Most of the time therefore we really don't benefit from giving each other 'feedback' along those lines. If I notice that your stuff seems too 'freeform' and will cause 'chaos', it's not useful to point it out. If you notice my stuff is too 'complex and might result in controlled behaviour', it's not useful to point it out.
It is very simple why I love simple systems, it is becaus I love tools and I see systems as tools, that is why I also love games with more sandboxy vibes. Such systems that are more of a tool than rules to follow, to me are gates I can cross and unfold different outcomes to be chased
There should be a reasonable amount of all pervading rules, but there should be tools to unleash other experiences
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
It is very simple why I love simple systems, it is becaus I love tools and I see systems as tools, that is why I also love games with more sandboxy vibes. Such systems that are more of a tool than rules to follow, to me are gates where I can cross and unfold different outcomes to be chased
And that's great, but I mean, you're on a forum for a game that is way stricter than I'd be in design.
In fact the entire reason Ashes is confusing is because it attempts to leverage simplicity but with very specific goals that seem to be removing pain points. So to both you and I, it looks like the game's design is incorrect.
For you, it's 'obvious' that it's simple and it's just adding bandaids of unnecessary complexity when it should be adding tools to keep with the simplicity and emergent gameplay theme.
For me it's 'obvious' that it is too simple and needs more complex and manipulative structures to keep with the goals of removing pain points.
Someday Intrepid will make it clear which of those things is their actual intention, or they will emerge like a Phoenix somehow managing a game with Simple Systems that still achieves the 'Pain Point Reduction' necessary for whatever their required playerbase numbers are.
But until then, even if we were somehow being helpful, we'd have to work together differently than we will 'by default' to be much help to them.
So I won't criticize your ideas for 'creating unpleasant chaos' (I'll leave that to NiKr), I'll focus on checking if you see and intend all the things it probably causes (so far, you always do), and it'd be helpful if you don't 'dismiss' mine for being complex because you believe in more freedom (maybe do the same and point out what you'd do to use such a system as a tool for your own gameplay to help me see what I missed).
From that perspective therefore I offer the 'simple example'.
Assume NiKr is on his freehold preparing to craft some armor and you come along and feel like fighting NiKr. You hit him with something and get 'a Dv Gauge number equal to what you'd get as Hate from a mob'. NiKr doesn't want to fight and tells you that he's busy crafting.
If you want to stop NiKr from crafting you keep hitting him. If you don't, you wait until he's done because the Gauge Buildup ramps up exponentially if you keep damaging this Green Crafter.
Someone else comes along and wants to fight. You're flagged but not Corrupted. You tell them 'hey help me kill this guy, I need him to stop crafting and maybe drop some materials, whichever of us doesn't go Red from killing him can loot him and my goal will be achieved and we can split it later' because you're both the type that are okay being Red for a while. In Ashes current Corruption this just works, OR you are both so scared of the massive Corruption penalty that you're not willing to risk it for this goal.
In 'Dv Gauge' world, the new person gets Dv Gauge too because they're still 'harming an innocent and disrupting society'. In fact if they do damage to NiKr while he's low, they get a high value of it, now you're both pretty high on this value. NiKr decides 'well I'm not fighting 2v1 while not even in my best gear, I'm not an idiot', and you both end it with lots of Gauge built up and one dead NiKr.
Some time later, the Gauge rolls over into true Corruption, but Corruption in general is easier to remove than in Ashes (probably).
There's some unmentioned other parts related to the Gauge offering NiKr some protection against your attacks as it rises in case he changes his mind, you being protected from gear drops (and any dampening) before the Gauge converts into true Corruption, and your ability to just 'pay off' the Corruption in town by offering some restitution to NiKr, bounty hunters, etc.
In fact, it's exactly the same sort of things you already often suggest.
I don't know if I can offer a 'simple' example because tying everything together to generate 'statistically standard' player behaviours is literally my 'job'.
For you, it's 'obvious' that it's simple and it's just adding bandaids of unnecessary complexity when it should be adding tools to keep with the simplicity and emergent gameplay theme.
Finally someone who gets me
And I do get that you are more like that kind of person who will tend to think all the rules and intrincacies through and through and x-ray the thing, debunk it and, remove or neutralize what looks bad
I don't dismiss complex ideas, I get intrigued by them because I try to see what the person is trying to achieve through them, but having a real case small scale scenario helps a lot
To me, when systems are too complex, people tend to just bear with them, learn one way of doing the thing and then repeating themselves for years. While I like people voluntarily unstrapping their safety belts. In real life I have done a few things which people kept telling me that I have a ton of courage, but I always answered them that I never had that courage but I chose to do the thing anyway, I did it without having the courage. That's the thing, putting yourself into that spot, going out there
I think newbie areas are fine, but there should be tools to unbuckle all the hand holding, when we have this on the table then all the rules become meaningless
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
@Azherae this gauge remembers me of the old GTA, or it was a GTA mod, there is something like this: you start commiting crimes, but there's no witness, so you don't get the stars yet... you will get flashy stars and only when a witness or police finds you, then you will get the full starts and police will chase. Also, the Scarface game has a progress bar that goes white and then red, if you fill the red bar then even the special units come for you.
This gauge idea is fine, but I would do it differently, a better word could be "temptation", so you are being tempted into going to the dark side, which is being corrupted.
In a heavy corruption area, maybe the enviroment itself should provide automatic temptation, if you commit anything "bad" then you bring yourself corruption instantly. If the temptation is very extreme, like in a boss room, and you succumb to the temptation by killing a player or helping the boss, then because the temptation is much greater then you embrace corruption in a much deeper level
While a player is running around beautiful green forests covered by flowers and butterflies, theres no temptation at all, it would have to be the player pesonally carrying out all bad deeds and bringing temptation and then succumbing to.
But around mobs, bosses and heavily corrupted areas, the temptation would be brought autmatically from these sources, if you succumb then your corruption would be scored based on the amount of temptation, plus the bad things you are doing.
See? I like it simple, I would let temptation be in the air, when the temptation is extremely high then if you succumb you would take a dive in corruption... from 0 to 100 in a few clicks, it is up to the player
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
If players face temptation from sources like mobs, bosses, or heavily corrupted areas, ganking after clearing all the mobs and defeating the boss will only result in regular low corruption.
During a difficult dungeon, temptation runs high, and if attackers gank defenders mid-fight against 40 elite mobs, the attackers will accrue a greater score in corruption. However, once all the elite mobs are dead, defenders are free to deal with any gank attempts, making the situation fair and simple.
It's this good my idea, I just took it out of thin air.
It is simple, organic, you can look around your surroundings and evaluate if you will opt to embrace corruption ad you will have a fair idea how deep you will dive beforehand
The higher the temptation, the deeper the fall into corruption
It's lovely and elegant, almost poetic
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
Comments
I just don't like it in Ashes because even if you do it 'normally', the problem is at the core 'being able to pull the boss away or shift it in a way that disrupts other people's synergies, either by wasting their flows, causing the boss to react in unintended ways, or just repositioning it at the wrong times.
If the Synergies are not that meaningful, it should be fine to have 'unmarked players flag up', but since I kinda assume that by 'marked' you mean 'got aggro from the boss at some point', this seems a bit easy too.
This is where the Dv Gauge helps a bit more. One of the easiest and 'safest' low level 'Revenge Mechanics' you could give any boss at all is to make it CC resistant/immune to those who have a high value, or raise the chance of its CC working on them.
Similarly you can make it damage resistant a bit. So if you're attacking someone to steal their boss, you need to be strong enough and coordinated enough to fight a CC-enhanced version of the boss, without really changing the boss much at all.
This would usually very explicitly preserve the Synergies of the original group, while allowing them to not worry as much about certain other things, and they could just 'let the boss rampage around against the statused players'.
Result of change: Players are more likely to compete in performance against the boss itself when they happen to be in the same spot and both want to fight it. Then activate the Boss' standard proper anti-zerg mechanics (which would not be positional, I assume) forcing the two groups to adapt but without any innate 'I can just steal this from you by killing you when things start to go badly for your team'.
Still preserves the options for disruption and last-minute betrayals.
So, how to fix the problematic part without killing the thrill of the dungeon runner? That's the question!
The problem pretty much comes because bosses are very scripted in a way that predictability never gets hurt. People learn every little detail, prepare a strategy and then bring way more people than it is needed
The easiest way to break the dungeon runner's heart is by breaking the predictability, never do that. Make it predictable, just make the features predictable but very incisve about what the boss is doing against those people. Example:
There's a boss in Fractals who shoots a continuos beam of laser and he tears the floor off, people fall in acid and die
To minimize the overwhelming number of players on the grid, bosses should incorporate environmental features such as walls, floors, ceilings, and reinforcements. However, once the player count is within an acceptable range, the boss should not rely as heavily on these deadly features
When a boss in this "overkill defense mode", if he has to shut down the door behind the players just to reduce the number of players on grid, then he should do it. Example:
This would force guilds to:
There is this, buffs work to a certain extend, but when people start bringing 2x 3x 4x more people and the boss doesn't do anything different, doesn't tackle the problem of excess of people, then there is no buff on the boss that could save him
Or, more specifically, treat the event as an event.
Do you envision that status on the attackers going away in case the defending team wipes? Cause I see two potential outcomes from that kind of application. If the status goes away and the boss goes back to normal stats - attackers will just skillcheck the defending party until the boss wipes them. If the status doesn't go away and the attackers will have to overcome all of those boss buffs even after the defenders wipe - I imagine that there'd barely any pvp around bosses or the power difference between the two groups would be so huge that defenders wouldn't have a chance in the first place.
Last minute betrayals would also only work in a situation where both groups are really close in strength to each other and they both started hitting the boss at the same time and the game also provides exact respective dmg% values, so that either party would always know who has the first hit advantage and where their HP% removed value is.
But even then, the attackers would be at a disadvantage because they'd stop attacking the boss (at least some of them), start gaining the status and buff the boss against themselves, all the while the defenders can just keep hitting the boss knowing that they definitely have the loot if at least one of them survives until the end. At this point the defenders have no reason to fight back, which makes the attackers either go red or quit completely because they've lost the boss' loot. That's a lose-lose situation for the attackers, so there'd be no reason to even start the attack.
And again, this would only apply in a fairly limited amount of situations, while pretty much every other route is either "you gotta go PK/skillcheck" or "dodge anti-zerg mechanics in hopes that the first group just wipes before you".
In other words, I'm not sure if this particular mechanic would work with currently presented looting rights design. And any reaggroing based on the status would pretty much lead to the same disruption that my initial suggestion did.
I think the radical solution here would be to close the doors to the room right before the miniboss, but have a few minute window before the spawns and the scout mob that I mentioned would shout about an upcoming boss rather than about flagged people. This would allow the boss to have better mechanics and would redirect pvp to pre- and post- farm timings. I'd probably increase drop rates on the boss to entice people not only to go and attack someone else's room, but to also defend it more often because you've already invested time into "summoning" it and you'd be missing out on the juicier loot if you just left the room to the attackers.
The few minutes of waiting before the boss spawn would allow for a more fair fight too, because it'd give the defenders a reset after the previous wave of mobs. There'd obviously be cases of attackers simply waiting outside of a room and attacking as soon as the mobs are gone, but that kind of interaction is inevitable in an owpvp game, so that's just something that the defenders would have to deal with.
Maybe the event could bring a non mandatory option, a lore character who hates that boss could appear when there are too many people in the room, this lore character could be like a demon and he could say:
"Welcome mortals, I am the harbinger of the dark lord, and I offer you a chance to prove your worthiness. For every mortal you slay, I will grant my blessings of immense power. Let the bloodshed begin!"
Then if you kill a player, could be even your own alt in a purple vs purple fight, this demon will grant big boosts on the guy, if you kill multiple players then you got bonus stacks
Let the players decide, they may choose not to fight at all and they will try their best against the boss with no big buffs from this demon, but if they go purple then they will reduce the amount of players in the room:
We don't know yet the CCs that will exist in AoC, if greens could be CCed then people would probably pull and knock on the floor the healers without killing them... just for letting the tanks die and the dps die. Then the attackers would even heal such healers and the attackers would never be corrupted... just keep knocking them on the floor and healing the healers. Nobody gets corrupted and their entire party dies. I believe this is the real reason why in AoC greens will not be CCed
In EVE, the healers are told to put their safety to green depending where you are flying, otherwise they will fall into baits like that and die, then everybody dies. There's very fancy ways of sabotaging others.
in AoC people will have to insta kill the healers from the other party and the assassins take the will corruption and possibly will wash the corruption by cleaning the boss. The band-aid wars will bring some crazy stories
That's your honor again.
This is a question of which tactics a group is 'supposed' to employ.
In hard PvE, slight disruptions lead to defeats. So the last minute betrayal is just 'one Rogue backstabbing the other group's healer at the critical moment'.
Rogues in general would be able to just do this anyway, them building up the status doesn't really disrupt a lot, they aren't likely to be CC dependent.
I'm not quite sure why you perceive it the other way, actually, other than your honorable nature. Also, it's Ashes, right? What guarantee does a player have that even if they were the last one standing after killing the boss, and the boss drops the loot (which would almost certainly be a material) that they wouldn't just get killed by the enemy group and have the chance of having said loot taken?
I'm honestly not following this one. The problem with the Corruption system relative to this flow as is, is that the attacking group does a skillcheck on whether they can cause the enemy to die and go entirely unpunished while still taking the boss. The one I'm discussing incentivizes the players to weigh the punishment against their strength. It's explicitly supposed to be a middle ground, and middle grounds usually have some 'abuseable ground' on either side, or at least, what feels like that, to anyone trying to solve a specific 'side's' problem.
Going back to our Beam Mage.
Current system: Beam Mage flags up, does things, boss maybe aggros on them, they reposition, but more likely someone else in their group flagged up to try to get the boss out of position. If Beam Mage fails their skillcheck they get some Corruption. Fairly irrelevant.
Other system: Beam Mage flags up, does things, boss aggros on them, they reposition. Beam Mage gets some Corruption and increases their risk of their group not being able to defeat the boss or being vulnerable to being killed by the boss more easily (but probably not a lot, Mages and Rogues would probably be best at this).
Anyways we're now on the verge of doing the exact thing I was saying I won't do. Basically if you think it doesn't work, then ok, it doesn't work. Probably just different goals anyway, but I would like to understand why you tend to go straight to 'then no one will do it' from a minor change. Just different worlds maybe?
It is a hybrid count, through the dungeon every party will kill mobs, but this kill will only be added to your party if your party was the party who dealt more damage on the mob. The score is based on mob hp!
Yes, mob hp!
But the score will only sum the hp from the mobs your party dealt more damage on. So, if your party could secure the kills on 1000 goblins and the other party could secure the score on 100 orcs, that's your score, let's say:
To secure a kill your party needs to be the top damage dealer on that mob. In such score system it is also included objective structures and bosses too (officers, commanders, dreadnaughts). When you deal more damage on a mob, then you secure all hp from that mob to your party.
If my party deals 50.1%, the other party does 49.9% damage and the mob has 100,000 hp... this hp will fully go to my party's score... the other party gets nothing from this kill. This forces people planning their kills and watching what the other party is killing
In EVE, an organized team will work to secure kills and they do frequently win even against stronger parties. The party leader is calling the shots on comms and using the UI to assing targets, dozens of party members are applying CC, rotating, changing ammo type, attacing the targets being called
In AoC, if there's more than just the boss, but also boss phases, mini-bosses, elites, champions, boss, traps, additional objectives, there is a chance to compose a hybrid score by securing kills and objectives. Then the prizes could be granted in different ways
Let's say, a party stormed in the dungeon treasury and they secure a bigger score based on kills+hp in that room, then they could get extra gold when the boss is killed. Even if they only went to blitz the treasury and they didn't even kill the boss, maybe it was another bigger party who went for the boss only.
Having a hybrid system that slices the pie could reward players by the amount of work and based on what they did in the dungeon. Then even tough the boss is the big thing in there, there's a lot more things around the dungeon.
So, this could bring value to the dungeon as a whole, the party leader would have to evaluate what he can take from the dungeon at that day, based on his party and the other parties in the area
Let's imagine that after launch, the players had put a great amount of thought in this and they judged that it is not worth PvPing in dungeons, purple or red both are not worth. Nobody pvps in dungeons.
What will happen then?
It will happen what already happens in the other games, parties will bring an excess of people, possibly multiple parties will bring people more people than they need, then they will nuke the boss
Then we are stuck back in that same problem: dps is imense bringing the thrill of speed and it is fun, but the content loses all it's value and people get burned
That's what happens in ow dungoens, in the GW2 PvE area it is just like that... you need 35 people to kill a world boss and 110 people show up. If you doubt me, start a free acount now and see the bosses getting melted without killing not even 1 player
The corruption system is supposed to be a spiritual thing, if this was the case then people who gank someone who is killing bosses (super mega corrupted mobs) should get twice the corruption?
Right?
Players are trying to defend Verra against corrupted forces, then a player goes there and sabotages the fight against corruption... so he is way into the dark side
Spiritual justifications:
-there was too many corruption going on in the enviroment, then the player ganked and he got extremely tainted because the air was filled with corruption
Makes sense, has lore vibes in this?
That's why I think that corruption should play a greater role in the game, instead of just being a punishment against a pvp hero who killed a farmer
It's also my L2 assumptions superimposed onto AoC's lack of info. Just as you've said before, people like to fill in the gaps in info with their own assumptions and projections, and I'm the victim of the same crime. I subconsciously thought of L2's looting method of "stuff drops on the ground and you see who picks it up", so to me it was silly to even consider the attackers PKing the last standing dude for his loot because it'd always be way more beneficial to just wait for the defenders to kill the boss and then just PK the one who looted the things (in my experience that's usually the leader).
But Ashes will have the "personal bag of shit" method, so yeah, ultimately if one person from the defender's group remains to pick up their loot - they'll probably just get killed for it.
I think I also misrepresented what you wrote about the gauge status effects in my mind, or at least increased it way beyond what you intended, all while having a different (read lacking) understanding of hard pve. And the lack of that understanding will most likely influence any of my ideas up until I get to experience that hard pve in alpha 2 (if there will be any of course). I only have my general assumptions as to the influence of an attacking group on the defending one and I feel like those assumptions are just so incorrect that any route of action I'm imagining goes in a completely different way from what the reality would most likely be.
I think I'll just need to stop putting out ideas for now, at least until we get some concrete info about the core mechanics of the game.
Phrase of impact: "Those who choose to aid in the spread of corruption shall face the consequences, for the darkness of Verra consumes all."
A gank in a boss room or heavily corrupted area should be seen as aiding the army of the corrupted, those should get a juicy corruption score. Plus, bounty hunters will at least have a few interesting level 50 targets running in good gear.
ps: bounty hunters should be inquisitors, the term "bounty hunter" is in AoC it is just because it sounds cute
There should be quests in the temples where the player swears to fight a boss in 4-8 hours, anyone who ganks this player in any boss area should get 3 times more corruption , if the player fails the quest then he should get a tiny corruption score for being weak, he should be corrupted with the same as ganked someone of his level. If he doesn't kill a boss, he should at least land a hit on it and then he won't fail the quest
Well, if I get any say/influence on this, please don't stop putting out ideas.
Maybe I'm being fatalistic but Intrepid is not exactly swimming in feedback/concepts right now, and I know something that is happening within my team that might be happening in theirs and if it is, it's good.
We all have assumptions, but until we debate them, sometimes we don't even notice we have them. The same thing happens in design teams, except it's so much more dangerous there. Finding out everyone is on the same page for 5 months and then having to rework something month 6 because people literally just assumed their bases/priors were the same until a clash point? It's the worst feeling.
If I say more this post will turn into a bunch of long anecdotal rants or something, so I'll leave it at that. Learning L2 stuff from you, EQ stuff from Noaani, etc, is so much faster than trying to pick history out of the internet, and similiarly the ideas and approaches that different players bring...
Let's just say I choose to believe Intrepid when they say that they really want us to keep throwing out ideas and discussing them in detail. KP development benefitted massively from exactly this kind of thing back then. Every 'hey let's solve this balance problem this way', 'hey we should make this card better', 'hey we should ban this card' at least did something.
And thanks for the reassurance. In the future I'll just try to think the ideas through more before posting them
This wouldn't happen because Ashes doesn't have to follow the sorts of 'rules' that games like EVE and Elite put on themselves.
Ashes would have an entirely different set of chaotic problems.
I'm just saying that solving the 'DPS gets to melt the boss' is easy, it's just not easy to do it WHILE not also causing massive drama and making boss experiences stress/painful in an oWPvP game, particularly one with no mob tagging.
Designers are choosing to let those bosses fall like that.
For this, I mention another Besieged Boss.
He has an ability called Arcane Stomp which basically says 'I absorb all magic damage as healing now'. He is also fought in Besieged, obviously. It's a TP Gauge attack, so if you actually want to BEAT him, you need to get the 60 mages who rushed into the area to help with the battle to go fight something else.
Does this lead to 'frustrated screaming at random mages in zone chat'? Yes. Does it mean sometimes Gurfurlur lives when he would normally have been defeated by even the slightest bit of coordination? Yes.
But there's solutions. The 'action Economy' of bosses has to be absolutely terrible compared to players for this to be a real issue. If Intrepid has difficulty figuring out how to not make their bosses get deleted by hundreds of players at a time, I know where to find mechanics examples for them.
But I say that if that's happening, it's because they prefer for that to happen, over any of the fairly obvious mechanics they could use to prevent it, for whatever boss.
People could have a crusade quest, player commits to attack a boss, then he is the champion of the light for some hours, anyone who kills him in the boss room woud take a big corruption hit
This would not prevent sabotage and betrayals, but it would bring a big risk against people who are disrupting the fight against the forces of corruption
Getting corruption for pve could be an interesting idea if Intrepid decided to link corruption to the mobs directly. I think I did post this idea somewhere on here, but I'd love if mob factions fought each other and there'd be a way to help one faction prevail and remove their "corruption", pretty much making them interactable NPCs. And then anyone who allied with the other faction could kill these NPCs and gain corruption through it.
But that's a whole different discussion for a whole different thread.
My idea brings corruption against defenders and attackers
If defenders fail and don't even reach the boss, they will be corrupted, otherwise they would never become corrupted anyway
Attackers who gank the tank and a couple healers just to force the defenders wipe, they will all set to wash that corruption just by finishing the boss and maybe chopping a couple trees... but if their targets have the "crusade against corruption blessing" then the attackers would sink in corruption
Attackers forcing defender's wipe is exactly the kind of PvE griefing that is a real problem
I am telling you, you won't be an antiganker hunting corrupted in AoC, forget this idea, there will be barely any corrupted players around and the ones who get corrupted will be all set to wash it off fast
I suppose that's the other part I can share (like I said, I'm not actually particularly protective of it, and I actually developed the Dv Gauge as an alternative for Ashes if you considered Ashes to change certain goals).
Lore wise it's easy. Corruption is the metaphysical decay and disruption of society/cohesion and values. That's why it just 'randomly appears'. It's the 'underpinning of the Essence' that 'knows that the civilized world will fall into ruin (as it did in the past) if people just do things for Anarchy reasons.
That's why it would never be tied to just 'attacking' nor would it be tied to 'only on kill'. The Gauge is 'the protection that the Essence offers to the innocent by marking them against those who take this type of action'.
Right now the system incentivizes 'hitting people and then leaving them alone if they choose not to fight you'. My thought was for a system that adds to that and makes the players who do it responsible for disruption more harshly.
People who don't want to fight, who would rather let the enemy be corrupted, are already going to do that. The problem is the number of ways that the attacker groups have to work around this. But that is intentional in Ashes, it has to be. The issue is too easy to solve.
The game has a threat meter, and that means every action taken on an NPC is calculating some value specific to that NPC relative to the player taking the action. Adding/adapting those same values to be used when players attack Greens isn't some huge challenge.
I say this to remind that the whole 'you can get away with killing someone if you designate a person to do it or time it right' must be intentional currently, or it would be changed.
And therefore there really aren't any additions to Corruption itself as it is now, that will matter to gankers really. The main ways that Corruption matters are 'preventing solo players from being murderers' and 'making PK a skill/determination check'.
As we've discussed before, if Intrepid wanted PvP to be common and world-changing relative to their social or economic designs, we wouldn't have design bases like 'Guild Wars prevent loot drops'.
To me, there should be more opt-in for greater risks and rewards, which also makes less predictable how players will min-max risk vs reward when approaching others
I love having options on the table, AoC is too much of a themepark and less of a sandbox
If players opt-in for being the champion of light for 8 hours, if they gank anyone then they should get 5x more corruption breaking their vow of fighting against corruption. If someone ganks the champion of light, then give him 3x more corruption... but if the champion of light than he has to:
- or kill the boss
- or fight the boss and die trying
if the champion of the light doesn't meet any of those two then should get standard corruption for his weaknessIt's a double edged sword and bring the possibility of corruption to both sides
Also, it's not full of complicated rules behind the system, you can see the outcomes on grid by looking what the characters are doing with themselves and to each other
My idea is so simple and on point that it can be explained by a meme
I think you and I just have a fundamental design disagreement, illustrated here:
To me, there should be more opt-in for greater risks and rewards, which also makes less predictable how players will min-max risk vs reward when approaching others
To me this is just introducing balance difficulty for developers for no reason, adding systems that people then complain about.
I accept that you're one of those people who believes that complex systems are a problem, and that instead adding more systems with higher potentials for chaotic emergent gameplay is better. I just don't like that design style.
In my team, I'm the one whose job it is to take the 'freeform' stuff that our equivalent of you produces and either pare it down or work out the balance details/smooth out the pain points. By habit my responses to your ideas will always be to 'fix them' and your responses to mine will probably always be 'too complex, let options/unpredictability increase instead'.
Most of the time therefore we really don't benefit from giving each other 'feedback' along those lines. If I notice that your stuff seems too 'freeform' and will cause 'chaos', it's not useful to point it out. If you notice my stuff is too 'complex and might result in controlled behaviour', it's not useful to point it out.
It is very simple why I love simple systems, it is becaus I love tools and I see systems as tools, that is why I also love games with more sandboxy vibes. Such systems that are more of a tool than rules to follow, to me are gates I can cross and unfold different outcomes to be chased
There should be a reasonable amount of all pervading rules, but there should be tools to unleash other experiences
And that's great, but I mean, you're on a forum for a game that is way stricter than I'd be in design.
In fact the entire reason Ashes is confusing is because it attempts to leverage simplicity but with very specific goals that seem to be removing pain points. So to both you and I, it looks like the game's design is incorrect.
For you, it's 'obvious' that it's simple and it's just adding bandaids of unnecessary complexity when it should be adding tools to keep with the simplicity and emergent gameplay theme.
For me it's 'obvious' that it is too simple and needs more complex and manipulative structures to keep with the goals of removing pain points.
Someday Intrepid will make it clear which of those things is their actual intention, or they will emerge like a Phoenix somehow managing a game with Simple Systems that still achieves the 'Pain Point Reduction' necessary for whatever their required playerbase numbers are.
But until then, even if we were somehow being helpful, we'd have to work together differently than we will 'by default' to be much help to them.
So I won't criticize your ideas for 'creating unpleasant chaos' (I'll leave that to NiKr), I'll focus on checking if you see and intend all the things it probably causes (so far, you always do), and it'd be helpful if you don't 'dismiss' mine for being complex because you believe in more freedom (maybe do the same and point out what you'd do to use such a system as a tool for your own gameplay to help me see what I missed).
From that perspective therefore I offer the 'simple example'.
Assume NiKr is on his freehold preparing to craft some armor and you come along and feel like fighting NiKr. You hit him with something and get 'a Dv Gauge number equal to what you'd get as Hate from a mob'. NiKr doesn't want to fight and tells you that he's busy crafting.
If you want to stop NiKr from crafting you keep hitting him. If you don't, you wait until he's done because the Gauge Buildup ramps up exponentially if you keep damaging this Green Crafter.
Someone else comes along and wants to fight. You're flagged but not Corrupted. You tell them 'hey help me kill this guy, I need him to stop crafting and maybe drop some materials, whichever of us doesn't go Red from killing him can loot him and my goal will be achieved and we can split it later' because you're both the type that are okay being Red for a while. In Ashes current Corruption this just works, OR you are both so scared of the massive Corruption penalty that you're not willing to risk it for this goal.
In 'Dv Gauge' world, the new person gets Dv Gauge too because they're still 'harming an innocent and disrupting society'. In fact if they do damage to NiKr while he's low, they get a high value of it, now you're both pretty high on this value. NiKr decides 'well I'm not fighting 2v1 while not even in my best gear, I'm not an idiot', and you both end it with lots of Gauge built up and one dead NiKr.
Some time later, the Gauge rolls over into true Corruption, but Corruption in general is easier to remove than in Ashes (probably).
There's some unmentioned other parts related to the Gauge offering NiKr some protection against your attacks as it rises in case he changes his mind, you being protected from gear drops (and any dampening) before the Gauge converts into true Corruption, and your ability to just 'pay off' the Corruption in town by offering some restitution to NiKr, bounty hunters, etc.
In fact, it's exactly the same sort of things you already often suggest.
I don't know if I can offer a 'simple' example because tying everything together to generate 'statistically standard' player behaviours is literally my 'job'.
And I do get that you are more like that kind of person who will tend to think all the rules and intrincacies through and through and x-ray the thing, debunk it and, remove or neutralize what looks bad
I don't dismiss complex ideas, I get intrigued by them because I try to see what the person is trying to achieve through them, but having a real case small scale scenario helps a lot
To me, when systems are too complex, people tend to just bear with them, learn one way of doing the thing and then repeating themselves for years. While I like people voluntarily unstrapping their safety belts. In real life I have done a few things which people kept telling me that I have a ton of courage, but I always answered them that I never had that courage but I chose to do the thing anyway, I did it without having the courage. That's the thing, putting yourself into that spot, going out there
I think newbie areas are fine, but there should be tools to unbuckle all the hand holding, when we have this on the table then all the rules become meaningless
This gauge idea is fine, but I would do it differently, a better word could be "temptation", so you are being tempted into going to the dark side, which is being corrupted.
In a heavy corruption area, maybe the enviroment itself should provide automatic temptation, if you commit anything "bad" then you bring yourself corruption instantly. If the temptation is very extreme, like in a boss room, and you succumb to the temptation by killing a player or helping the boss, then because the temptation is much greater then you embrace corruption in a much deeper level
While a player is running around beautiful green forests covered by flowers and butterflies, theres no temptation at all, it would have to be the player pesonally carrying out all bad deeds and bringing temptation and then succumbing to.
But around mobs, bosses and heavily corrupted areas, the temptation would be brought autmatically from these sources, if you succumb then your corruption would be scored based on the amount of temptation, plus the bad things you are doing.
See? I like it simple, I would let temptation be in the air, when the temptation is extremely high then if you succumb you would take a dive in corruption... from 0 to 100 in a few clicks, it is up to the player
During a difficult dungeon, temptation runs high, and if attackers gank defenders mid-fight against 40 elite mobs, the attackers will accrue a greater score in corruption. However, once all the elite mobs are dead, defenders are free to deal with any gank attempts, making the situation fair and simple.
It's this good my idea, I just took it out of thin air.
It is simple, organic, you can look around your surroundings and evaluate if you will opt to embrace corruption ad you will have a fair idea how deep you will dive beforehand
The higher the temptation, the deeper the fall into corruption
It's lovely and elegant, almost poetic