Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
I just want these mobs to not be useless to farm, so that weaker groups of people could grind them instead of trying to fight against well-coordinated groups that have precise respawn timers on all bosses in the surrounding area and can defend their farm in pvp (assumedly like your group).
I wrote about this before, but I also want better pve content across the board. I suggested the room progress mechanic and you even said that EQ had a similar feature as well. And I'm sure that Intrepid could come up with an even better system.
Why would I (or any other group) fight people in-between farms? If we're just boss hunting then the most optimal course of action is to run around each and every room where a boss should spawn any minute (again, if they'll be respawning super fast or if there's a shitton of them throughout the server's primetime). And there'd be literally 0 point in wasting time on pvp, while running between rooms, because that pvp would simply hold us back from being the first ones to see a newly respawned boss.
The second best course of actions is to literally sit in an empty room and wait for the boss to respawn. Though this one only applies if bosses have a very short +-period on their respawns. So a group of people would just know the earliest timing on a boss and would just sit on their ass and defend their room from any other group that might enter it.
And that second course if pretty much exactly what I'm suggesting, except I want that group to fight mobs instead of sitting on their ass. And I want those mobs to also be super difficult and fun to fight. And I want those mobs to have the same drops as the boss in that room, just at way lower rates. And I want those mobs to collectively have the same mechanics as that boss, so that people could "train" for the boss fight beforehand.
I literally want the same thing as you, but with even more good content. And if a well-coordinated group of top lvl pvxers have a planned route each evening, where they farm out a room until its boss respawns (because they knew the earliest timer) - they should be able to clear 5-6 such rooms throughout their gameplay on that day (3-4h worth of it). Those rooms could be located within one huge dungeon or spread out over several, that's beside the point imo.
It's just that outside of that top lvl content, any other way less-skilled group of people could still sit in the same rooms and fight those difficult mobs (which would be super difficult for that group of players) and they'd also have a tiny chance to progress, even if they can't secure a boss for themselves yet. And that very progression would then allow them to secure a boss later on.
This is pretty much how it worked in L2 (there were just less bosses than what I'd want for Ashes, and obviously mobs were dumb easy). Was this not the case in the AA Library?
This would be really great if it works out like this, but for this to be the case, the dungeons would have to be massive, i would love this to playout like dungeons being almost alive like a maze, being able to set traps and rogues open hidden doors, however in practice we really need to see alpha 2 to start testing, i know intrepid have stated that rogues will be able to open doors etc but my concerns are at any given time there could be up to 300-500 players in a dungeon, thats 60-90 different groups, for this to work intrepid realllllly need to nail dungeon content, so in my opinion it will either be extremley fun or extremley bad, we are yet to see but im confident lol, maybe thry can make the bosses spawn in different locations of the dungeon not just a random respawn or make it so you need to kill 5 bosses at the same time to spawn the last boss, i dont know how they will do it but well see!
Sadly AA Ayanad library had no PvP(on Trion NA/EU servers)(RU OFF had pvp tho) for it to be properly applied to the PvX context even tho they were far from being useless to farm, not a lot of bosses there(around ~9) but they had reasonably fast ~4 hour spawns, both monsters and bosses were even easier than L2 ones, so i don't think it can be considered "your ideal dungeon"...
L2-like open world dungeons sadly wasn't really a thing in AA(closest thing was possibly Arcadian Sea Sunken Ruins).
Aren't we all sinners?
You can do that much RP in an FPS or a Survival game or an Adventure game - you can RP that much in a Sports game if you want to. Probably even in a Fighter or Flight Sim.
You've made some assumptions in here, my dude.
I'm not talking about quests at all - honestly them existing or not in a dungeon like what I am talking about is a totally different discussion.
Also, I am talking about 5 bosses per hour, not 5 mobs, as I said above, the number of mobs (base population) is a function of how mobile the developers want players to be. That is in contrast to your grand total of zero bosses per hour in (most) static spot/location farming situations.
These mobs "could" be farmed, but if the zone is designed well, the best way to farm these mobs would still to be mobile.
You would PvP in these dungeons for two main reasons.
The first is rivalry. I don't think this needs more explination.
The second is that if these dungeons are the size they should be, it would take an hour or more to get back to where you are from the respawn point. Killing a group gives you a better, cleaner shot at what ever bosses are around you for the next hour or so. If you know a specific boss is about to spawn (within it's 15 - 10 minute window), sitting around waiting for it may be viable if that specific boss is the only one you are after for what ever reason.
On the other hand, if you are just generally killing/farming in general, remaining in one place is inefficient in comparison to just going after the boss in the next area over that has already respawned.
They should be able to clear out 5 or 6 of those rooms an hour.
That's ok though, there are literally 94 or 95 other rooms. By the time that group has cleared out their 5 or 6 in an hour, the first of those rooms has respawned.
Yeah, the NA/EU version of library didn't have PvP, but it really didn't matter.
One of the private servers I played on well after I left the Trion version of the game had PvP enabled in the library, and it was just as shit of a zone to be in.
The best description I have of the zone (PvP or no) is that it is basically just the 3D manifestation of the notion of "meh".
Other than it's rather unique outside view and it's "creative"(not really) layout, i have little to no praises for AA's Ayanad library(even with PvP, without PvP it's a complete joke), its system design flaws were too big to be ignored, like it lagging the hell up when holding not a very high number of players inside of it and such number not being even near enough to create spot/room scarcity for conflict, very little to none drop variation/uniqueness between the monsters(again no scarcity for conflict), worthless mini bosses(not even decently rewarding or challenging to compete for), completely static respawns timers, location and types of monsters of each room, It's main quest was not terrible, i guess.
"meh" almost looks like a compliment for it in my eyes tbh.
Aren't we all sinners?
As far as boss respawns go, there will be groups that want to hold their position, and there will be groups that want to roam around. This itself will create contested space, and will encourage PvP while waiting on the respawns. Hopefully the respawns will be such that the boss drops aren't too plentiful.
The performance of the zone seems (from my perspective) to be mostly a NA/EU and Korea problem.
My understanding is that the RU version didn't have the issue, I know the Chinese version didn't (don't know about the Japanese version), and the private servers I played on didn't seem to have it either.
I was a part of a 120-ish player fight in the zone - but it was still shit.
RU version actually also had the issue, it was just fixed really quick.
Aren't we all sinners?
Unless they make them corruption free zones i dont know how many people will pvp in dungeons because once you are corrupted you are just a target for the 50 other groups
true but there is a difference. in a fighter or a shooter, my character doesnt develop and progress. in a mmorpg, when i kill mobs, my character becomes stronger and i can directly control how that strength increases. i can also get gear and control how to further increase my character strength. and allt these is the very core of an rpg, not just "acting"
npc may or may not be included. but i wasnt talking just about dungeons. you said staying in one zone killing mobs is boring. i said whats the alternative? playing running simulator talking to npc? (doing quests for example). i never said this is the gameplay in a dungeon, although i can understand why you would assume that given its the threads topic.
Presumably the group trying to farm the bosses won't want to be killed, and are more likely to defend themselves than allow themselves to be killed and have to fight through the dungeon again.
Because when I'm trying to imagine the playstyle you describe it immediately clashes against my experience of open world dungeons from L2. And I think that this might be at the core of my misunderstanding.
L2's dungeons had 20-30 "rooms" that could support a group's farm. And on a properly populated server all of these rooms would be filled up all throughout the server's primetime. And on top of being filled, there'd usually be some of those rivals you mentioned who roamed the dungeon with the extrinsic purpose of finding pvp, in order to stop their enemy's farm.
In other words the dungeon would be full and living your location would usually be detrimental, because you'd lose your spot and would then have to fight back for it. And, as you mentioned, getting back to the same location deep within a dungeon would take quite some time (especially with rivals running around).
And this precise experience directly clashes against the idea that a group could be roaming a dungeon with the purpose of fighting specific mobs/bosses in it. Say there's a 100 rooms with a 100 bosses that all spawn throughout the primetime of a server. Let's say primetime is 4 hours and bosses are evenly spread out across that time. That's a boss every ~2.5 minutes.
If a boss takes 5-8 minutes to kill (w/o pvp), so that he's still difficult and fun to fight, and moving between rooms takes 30s-1m - that'd be roughly the 5-6 bosses an hour you mentioned. Though again, this is assuming no pvp around the boss (which is almost impossible with preset respawn timers).
But this then creates a somewhat big problem of the snowball effect. You might be able to kill the first boss, but that means that 4 others ones are already gone. Which means that parties from those bosses would've moved onto the later bosses, so pvp becomes even less avoidable. And that pvp becomes bigger and bigger with each boss, because people would know which boss respawns where/when and would go directly towards it.
And pretty much every other respawn method would just lead to aimless running, while every room's boss gets farmed before you can even get there (especially considering the size of the dungeon). The best course would probably be having each of your members stand right outside a room and wait for the respawn, so that your group could react to one asap.
But at that point you're not killing 5-6 an hour, because you just wouldn't be able to track every single room and be there before its boss gets killed by the nearest group of people.
I guess this kind of thing wouldn't be the case if the dungeon is purely raid-sized, but I somehow feel that Intrepid wouldn't create a 100-room dungeon that's only farmable by a full raid. We'll have to see though.
TL;DR How filled were the EQ2's dungeons?
That said, I wouldn't take dungeons directly from EQ2 and port them to Ashes. I would design them with longer passages and add in a few additional groups of base pop. This would extend the time between bosses, make it more likely that groups would happen upon each other while in transit between bosses.
I am very much thinking of this as a dungeon for actual PvX - what I would consider PvX. The PvP happening in a dungeon like this (and it will happen, just not against every group you come across) is as key as the PvE - but the PvE needs to be able to stand up as being top quality for group content in regards to MMO's as a whole. The PvE needs to be as good as what players would expect from an EQ open dungeon, but there needs to be provisions for PvP that EQ doesn't need to make - as I am sure you know, I consider PvE compatible in quality to Ashes contemporaries to be key to its success as a PvX game.
This is why just having a dungeon with spots to grind wouldn't work. That simply won't hold up as PvE content by itself. It would only appeal to the few people that just want a grind, and not really anyone else. Whereas the above should still appeal to those wanting a grind, but will also appeal to those wanting PvE (as long as they are willing to do some PvP for it), and also those wanting some group based PvP.
Edit to add; if Intrepid want to see payers fighting over specific camps, all they need to do is either concentrate bosses more in some areas, have a few bosses with notably better loot, or add in some quests. This kind of thing is probably best spread around different dungeons though, with some open world dungeons being better suited to camping a series of rooms while others are best being in full roaming mode. The spread of mini boss mobs is all it takes to change from one dungeon feel to the other.
And, characters can also get stronger in shooters by gathering gear. Same in Fighters.
Farming mobs is typically rare in RPGs.
Farming became a thing in MMORPGs because gamers kept racing through new content faster than the devs could implement new content.
Questing is a core of RPGs - not Farming.
I said staying in one spot killing mobs is boring.
not at all. this depends on how you design the game. there are games where you start farming dungeons at low levels, and you do these dungeons everyday as part of your progression until you hit max level.
no no and no. you have a very biased notion on what is an rpg or how an rpg should be or must be. what makes an rpg an rpg is the ability to control the progression of your character (stats, skills or both) or the ability to act and pretend you are your character and the effects it has in the game.
questing, farming, turn based combat, dice rolls, action combat, etc are just obstacles in progression or extra elements of what already is the core of an rpg, which is the 2 things that i mentioned above.
LMFAO
No. That is not what makes an RPG an RPG.
That's like saying what makes Ashes of Creation Ashes of Creation is: Engaging and Immersive Story.
LMFAO
That is coming from the biased perspective of a gamer who loves progression from combat.
It's defintitely not the perspective of an RPG designer.
I still don't think it would play out the way you want it to, but w/o testing we wouldn't know either way.
Ultimately we do want the same thing. Better pve which would in turn lead to better pvx, because pvp for that pve would become more valuable w/o devaluing the pve itself. I hope Intrepid can design their dungeons and mobs/bosses in the best way possible to achieve that goal.
In vanilla EQ2 they were very filled.
I am with you here. EQ and EQ2 models were to camp and farm in one or more places along all levels, not just max. It was a primary source of experience, coin, items and player interaction. Both EQ and EQ2 had large difficult dungeons for players under level 10 even.
The way I would expect it to play out is that people that have played any EQ, WoW or clone of those games would look at the content, see it as familiar and play it exactly the way I have described. While it is a little different to dungeons in those games (especially WoW), the idea is should be something they recognize immediately, and so get straight in to their existing gameplay habits.
People with more L2/Archage and their family of games would probably start off trying to farm a specific area, until they see how much more efficient it is to be on the move.
Camping in EQ2 dungeons only really existed for quest updates. As I said earlier to Depraved though, I am not talking about quests in this thread - they can exist or not exist, they are their own thing and add their own gameplay experience.
There were some mobs that were camped in EQ just for loot, but let's not talk about EQ camping (it makes L2 look Blizzard-ish).
Edit; just as an example though, in EQ2 - a game that was much better than EQ in this regard - there was one specific camp for literally a rock that spawned once per week, with a VERY large spawn window. Nothing else to do in the window, if you run off to kill some mobs and it spawns while you are away, someone else will grab it (happened twice to a friend of mine).
People camped it. I camped it. EQ2 camps were still more forgiving than EQ camps.
Instances create an environment easier to control and balance.
Sieges will / might be instanced too.
It takes away from the sandbox nature of the game.
But because are instances, does not mean they are safe space.
The way OP describe them, they are accessible to multiple teams. Like 3 teams of 8 players. Could be more,
So the 4th team might be alone in the instance until a 5th and a 6th enter.