PvX raid and boss discussion

Theres several discussions going around the forums now, each touching a part of this, but I felt this discussion warranted a more focused location instead of a bit here and a bit over there.

Namely, how do you think raids overall should work. There are a lot of points to consider.

1) Access requirements and contested access
2) Dungeon Progression and contested progression
3) Boss fights and contested boss fights and how loot is handled in each situation

Each of these areas has its own unique challenge, and different ways pvp can impact the group.
I can put my own views down (and will), to start the discussion, and then everyone can tell me how wrong I am.

For access requirements. We know that the world nodes impact what PvE is available where. For example a certain node type at a certain level with nearby notes at a certain progression will grant access to certain PvE. How should the game go beyond that to encourage competition for the dungeon? In past games I played, enemy guilds knew my teams raid night, and would just camp the entrance for fun. Is this the extent of access PvX? I personally feel there should be more than one entrance to a raid zone, where you can choose to contest someone either at the entrance closest to them, or meet them inside. It might even be cool to treat the PvE raid as a siege. Specifically what I mean is, the raid is available 24/7 (sort of), but your team signs up for it a day in advance to unlock it. (There could be some cost involved). This would unlock it at the time you sign up for… FOR EVERYONE!. People could look at the timers menu to see the raid will be open at 6pm on Wednesday and man, everyone better be ready for some pvp while I try to get my loot. Anyone can sign up, and anyone can see who signed up for when.

Which goes to my second point. Raids have a dungeon attached to them that we progress through to reach the end. If there were different entryways, different teams might start the progression at different points. Imagine clearing some trash room in a big underground cave on a bridge, and you can see far in the distance on a separate bridge or floor, another team progressing their dungeon trash. The paths meet somewhere ahead, but there is only one boss at the end. Do the teams help each other, or fight. (Goes into loot and other rewards discussion)

Boss fights. They need to be designed in a way that works for just one team fighting, or multiple teams attacking it, or pvp going on during the boss fight. In my eyes, the boss should have the most complex mechanics when it is single group, offering the highest pve style challenge, and I think the highest reward should go here.

Once more than one team is involved, I think the mechanics the boss throws at everyone should shift to account for needing to provide challenge to the increased playersize. How that shifts is Intrepids design choice and anyones guess really, but if you think about RPG bosses, you generally just need a few tanks, some healers/support, and then all of the rest are DPS. It would be so boring and uninteresting if the teams decided to work together, and the end result is just having more dps players available. I also am not a fan of simply just, only raising boss HP and stats, I would like to see mechanical shifts. Also more players naturally ends up in easier fights, I think the loot should be watered down, maybe the total overall loot is distributed to both teams based on damage/other metrics. This of course, encourages them to not work together (unless they cant clear the boss alone), but instead fight!

Finally, a contested boss. PvP happening while the boss fight is going on. I would like to see the boss give up any mechanics it was doing, and become its own third party to the pvp fight. It picks targets that are fighting to throw mechanics at. It spits fire or poison or lightning or who cares what at both teams healers. Meanwhile both teams tanks are trying hard to grab the boss to have some sort of control of it… and to point cleave damage at the other team. Loot at the end is distributed based on damage to the boss, unless your whole team is dead, then you get no loot.

What I don’t want to see, is a team do 90% of the damage, and then a bigger team comes in, wipes them, and collect 100% of the loot. In this example, I want to see the team that died get 0% of the loot (they died, is why), and the team that showed up when there was only 10% left, only get 10% of the reward. If they wanted more they shouldve started fighting sooner, or better yet, killed the other team before they reached the boss.

With a setup like this, the clear incentive for best loot is to have just one team be able to challenge the boss, which means they need to make a LOT of friends because they have to ensure they are the only ones fighting at the end of the dungeon. Friends have to try to hold multiple access points, and also the inside of the dungeon itself.

But this only works, with my earlier idea of raid time signups. (which makes it work like a big siege, or scheduled caravan kind of thing).

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Ludullu

I prefer the current design
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Raids#Looting
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Raids#Zergs

The "signup" is literally the same as just the boss having a preset respawn timer. I'd prefer a non-preset timer, but one within the primetime window, so that guilds have to choose between the pvp events that might be happening and bosses that might be respawning.

You suggestion against zergs will just promote zergs, but from the other end. You even point it out yourself

Taerrik wrote: »

With a setup like this, the clear incentive for best loot is to have just one team be able to challenge the boss, which means they need to make a LOT of friends because they have to ensure they are the only ones fighting at the end of the dungeon. Friends have to try to hold multiple access points, and also the inside of the dungeon itself.

So instead of trying to combat the zerg you're inviting it.

I agree that bosses have to be designed with pvx in mind, but the same should apply to class design as well. I disagree that boss rewards should be in any way different between the different situations around the boss, because that would usually just lead to abuses or harassments.

Dungeon progression and several access points stuff is something that I already expect to be in the design. If it's not, then I agree that there should be several access points and that player progress should be visible and paths intertwined.

Ruerik

Zerging a boss is something I want to prevent actually, which is why I suggest the loot diminishes the more teams attacking the boss. I'm assuming a raid team will have a set size.

As far as holding access points at spots inside the dungeon itself. You have to convince someone else, to give up any chance at getting loot, to stand there and do pvp. Guilds might be big enough to manage that at the start of the game, but not for long. After that you have to pay people, how many weeks can someone afford the mercendaries? 2? 3? It's not unlimited, it will create politics which I hope will be a part of the game.

I had thought when I thunk this up (yes I'm good with words.... thunk), of that as a plan to encourage competition.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

Zerging a boss is something I want to prevent actually, which is why I suggest the loot diminishes the more teams attacking the boss. I'm assuming a raid team will have a set size.

This should be prevented through game mechanics, not loot, because there'll be bosses outside of dungeons and I think those should also not be simply zergable.

Taerrik wrote: »

As far as holding access points at spots inside the dungeon itself. You have to convince someone else, to give up any chance at getting loot, to stand there and do pvp. Guilds might be big enough to manage that at the start of the game, but not for long. After that you have to pay people, how many weeks can someone afford the mercendaries? 2? 3? It's not unlimited, it will create politics which I hope will be a part of the game.

You gotta think about the snowball effect. If one guild manages to hold down the entire dungeon the first time, that means that they got all the loot they could and can now sell it for huge amounts because that's the only loot of that kind available.

Then they use that money (probably a fraction of it, or by just selling a part of the loot) to do it again. And again and again.

Huge zerg guilds can just do this endlessly w/o even losing money. Smaller guilds need less loot for themselves, so they can turn more of it into money to pay the defenders.

But the core issue I have with the "zerg around boss = less loot" is that people will maliciously exploit it to fuck over everyone. You just bring a ton of people to the boss itself and just stand there. The other side would either have to PK, potentially, hundreds of people or they'll just not get anything in terms of loot. So the zerg ultimately wins.

It's a "if I can't have it - no one can" kind of approach.

Ruerik

"Just stand there" Is a part of something I did consider, which is why I suggested for damage done (or some other metric) based loot percentage.

Gotta have some skin in the game to affect the outcome imo

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

"Just stand there" Is a part of something I did consider, which is why I suggested for damage done (or some other metric) based loot percentage.

Gotta have some skin in the game to affect the outcome imo

Then it's a slight shift of "just stand there". Bosses are usually the hardest at their lowest hp, right?

So the second guild (not even necessarily a zerg) stand near the boss room for the 90% of the farm. Send in a PKer alt or two to kill the healers and wipe the initial raid. Then they swoop in, do 10% of the job and get 10% of the loot. No risk, but still some reward.

Now I get that the same could be done in the current system and, in theory, the second guild will get all the loot (don't think this has been confirmed anywhere though). But this is exactly why I want great anti-zerg mechanics.

Ideally those mechanics would start from the outside moving in with growing intensity on the outskirts, so any newcomers get hit first (think fortnite's death circle), and if anyone dies to them they can only rez at a further away point than if you die to the boss (and those who die to the boss can be rezzed as well).

And if the newcomers move into the boss immediately, then the boss enters rage-type mode and it'll be then on the players of both sides to deal with him and/or each other. And this would apply to both dungeon and over world bosses.

Imo this would keep the risk equal for both sides, while the reward remains its high self. Obviously there's also the full instanced fights and semi-instanced ones (where the doors to the boss room lock after the farm starts), but that's a whole different discussion.

And the anti-zerg hazards would probably scale depending on the amount of people within range as well, so true zergs would burn up way faster than simply another raid-sized group.

Ruerik

Thats a pretty sweet idea to be honest. (As someone who plays apex legends everyweek, I think its a grand idea)

And your point about boss rage mode is also pretty good.

To be honest I am a fan of the 2nd guild still only getting 10% of the loot, which is also in line with the wiki where it talks about damage done system and boss tagging. First guild shouldnt get anything because they werent paying attention and let their healers die.

I am all for any anti zerg ideas. I just want to both encourage competition, and also talk about dungeon and boss design accounts for and shifts mechanics based on the situation, and this starts In my eyes, from before people ever walk into the zone at the entrance.

edit----
Forgot to discuss the PK alt part. Going with either my idea of access times to open the raid zone, or your idea of closing circle, no one can park a PK alt in the raid anyway, how do they plan to take both their main and PK alt to the boss room?

George_Black

There is no boss zerging in owpvp mmos, like there is in ESO and FF14.

People dont want to share the xp and the loot. There will be conflict, before, during and after the raid.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

To be honest I am a fan of the 2nd guild still only getting 10% of the loot, which is also in line with the wiki where it talks about damage done system and boss tagging. First guild shouldnt get anything because they werent paying attention and let their healers die.

We don't know what exactly happens when the boss dies, while the original's party corpses are on the ground. Would the attackers who finished off the boss completely get the rights or would they be blocked because there're still people "with rights" present near the boss.

L2 had a solution for this, but it relied on the loot dropping on the ground and I don't think Ashes is going for that.

Taerrik wrote: »

I am all for any anti zerg ideas. I just want to both encourage competition, and also talk about dungeon and boss design accounts for and shifts mechanics based on the situation, and this starts In my eyes, from before people ever walk into the zone at the entrance.

As I see it, this doesn't work. Or, it only works if the boss always respawns at the same exact time, with no variations.

Though even if it did respawn like that, this kind of system would only encourage pvp avoidance. There's no point in flagging up if you can just attack the boss and screw over the enemy out of a portion of the loot. Even if you ultimately die, you still fucked your opponents over.

Same applies to those who come to the boss even a few minutes later. They'll know that they can't get full reward now, so they'd try to either kill the og raid asap to maximize their own loot or they'd start dpsing the boss as much as possible to decrease their opponent's loot.

Both of those seem way more toxic to me than just "you gotta fight and you'll get the full loot if you win". They are also both "feelsbad mechanics". If there's any type of competition on the boss - both sides lose in a way, while the more toxic side will just lose with a smile on their face because they managed to fuck over the others a bit more.

Taerrik wrote: »

Forgot to discuss the PK alt part. Going with either my idea of access times to open the raid zone, or your idea of closing circle, no one can park a PK alt in the raid anyway, how do they plan to take both their main and PK alt to the boss room?

Maybe I misunderstood your idea? I thought you said that anyone registering would open up the boss to everyone. So anyone would be able to just wait for the registered group (or simply whoever came first) to fight the boss till it's at 90% hp and then go mess them up.

And I envision the closing circle as a temporary mechanic that depends on the presence of more than required people, so if it's a 40-man boss but there's 45 people in his area (the range would have to be tested and balanced) - there'd be a response, either by the environment hazards on the outer ranges of the area or by the boss itself with a slight change to his combat/skill usage pace. If there's 80 people around - either of those mechanics become way stronger, so the outer parts would effectively become that BR circle that would inevitably kill people in it (or at least burn out their mana super fast) and the boss would be very very angy. And if there's additional people both far from (but within range) and close to the boss - both mechanics are active, so that people can't cheese it as much.

And my suggestion is there exactly to prevent the PK alt approach, which is why I mentioned the "people who die from hazards respawn further away from the boss", cause if there's any afk-like characters just standing around - they'll get booted real far.

If your registration suggestion implies that only those who registered can come to the boss - I still don't quite see how that would influence the PK alt approach.

Also, I didn't touch on this point before, but what exactly do you mean by "boss is available 24/7" and "who signed up for when". Cause I assumed that it would just be a "registration triggers a respawn at that time", but now that I think about it, it comes off more like a "the boss can be fought 24 times a day, because 24 groups registered to 24 time slots". And at that point you're kinda talking about instanced bosses, rather than ow ones, cause ow bosses are only one per server and usually with several-hour (if not day/week) respawns.

Ludullu

George_Black wrote: »

There is no boss zerging in owpvp mmos, like there is in ESO and FF14.

I've been in zergs for bosses, usually because that zerg was there to stop a stronger smaller group. And if they succeeded - they'd go onto zerging the boss as well.

George_Black

NiKr wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

There is no boss zerging in owpvp mmos, like there is in ESO and FF14.

I've been in zergs for bosses, usually because that zerg was there to stop a stronger smaller group. And if they succeeded - they'd go onto zerging the boss as well.

It was not the norm, nor the desired scenario. It was a chaos.
The normal scenario was 1 guild successfuly raiding (if they are good) and fending off rivals.

In ff14 and eso the design is:
Accessible so that everyone receives full loot/xp/objective
There is no pvp thus no contest
The respawn is short the chat is nearly global, the teleports are nearby.
There is 0 chance to wipe. Just by being there you win.

In those games overland raiding is a zergfest without challenge or tactics. Nothing like L2 or what AoC aims to do.
There is no reason to change the design to "prevent zerging".
That's what I mean.

Ruerik

For the PK alts (specifically, bringing an alt to PK enemy healers fighting a boss, so they die, then you log back on your main to do the raid normally with your team)

My thought was, instead of a specific respawn timer for raids, there is a signup. As in go to some node NPC, register for sometime tomorrow, and the raid zone will be unlocked to everyone at that time. Hypothetically this can also cost resources to do.

Everyone can see it, and know your going in there, and they can go also without having to pay.

If you reach the boss room, that means you progged thru a ton of dungeon with trash mobs everywhere and also respawning trash mobs everywhere.

In my example, the enemy team would have taken a different path, otherwise they wouldve fought you along the way. If they reach the end, and see you fighting, they cant just go get on alts. Because then their alts would have to prog thru the dungeon also to reach the end. They would have to fight you on your main.

And, to be more clear, I want any pvp in the boss room to trigger the boss-pvp-mode mechanics. So they cant just only target you, and not have to deal with boss mechanics. Once they start fighting you or the boss, they are part of the encounter, boss mechanics and everything.

As to the point of DPSing as hard as they can just to screw someone over, my hope is that encounters are not so ridiculously simple that such a thing is possible, they should be having to deal with mechanics also.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

For the PK alts (specifically, bringing an alt to PK enemy healers fighting a boss, so they die, then you log back on your main to do the raid normally with your team)

My thought was, instead of a specific respawn timer for raids, there is a signup. As in go to some node NPC, register for sometime tomorrow, and the raid zone will be unlocked to everyone at that time. Hypothetically this can also cost resources to do.

Everyone can see it, and know your going in there, and they can go also without having to pay.

I feel like you're describing a simple respawn timer and I cannot for the life of me get how is your suggestion different from that

If it's a "boss on demand" kind of thing - I'm vehemently against it, because it'll just be overfarmed during off hours.

Taerrik wrote: »

If you reach the boss room, that means you progged thru a ton of dungeon with trash mobs everywhere and also respawning trash mobs everywhere.

In my example, the enemy team would have taken a different path, otherwise they wouldve fought you along the way. If they reach the end, and see you fighting, they cant just go get on alts. Because then their alts would have to prog thru the dungeon also to reach the end. They would have to fight you on your main.

This is only true for unprepared guilds. If the boss is worth fighting for, guilds will either have additional people who'll bring their alts, outside the raid group, or they'll simple have alts positioned as close to all the bosses, that they farm, as possible. Done this myself before.

Taerrik wrote: »

And, to be more clear, I want any pvp in the boss room to trigger the boss-pvp-mode mechanics. So they cant just only target you, and not have to deal with boss mechanics. Once they start fighting you or the boss, they are part of the encounter, boss mechanics and everything.

We agree on this.

Taerrik wrote: »

As to the point of DPSing as hard as they can just to screw someone over, my hope is that encounters are not so ridiculously simple that such a thing is possible, they should be having to deal with mechanics also.

Yeah, that goes w/o saying, but they'd still be dpsing as much as they could just to reduce the enemy's loot as much as possible, instead of just fighting for the boss.

Ruerik

NiKr wrote: »

I feel like you're describing a simple respawn timer and I cannot for the life of me get how is your suggestion different from that

If it's a "boss on demand" kind of thing - I'm vehemently against it, because it'll just be overfarmed during off hours.

It is a respawn timer, but with more flexibility. The raid has however-long natural lockout (week usually) from when it was last cleared.

If your raid team grinded the entry fee mats, and wants to raid on wednesday, instead of tuesday, at 6pm instead of 7pm so east coasters dont suffer, they pay the fee to unlock the raid at that time.

I like this kind of idea because I'm older now and cant always be available from other engagements to do something at the same exact time everyweek.

Of course, if an enemy guild pays the fee and wants it to happen on tuesday this week, then that is when it will happen since they paid for it first.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

Of course, if an enemy guild pays the fee and wants it to happen on tuesday this week, then that is when it will happen since they paid for it first.

It will always happen at respawn, on the dot. Any even semi-valuable boss will be killed on the dot. People will be there, potentially, an hour before the respawn, just to make sure no one else can get the boss before them.

This is why your suggestion sounds like instanced content. On-demand bosses don't work with open world design.

Ruerik

Hence, the raid dungeon zone is locked (no one can be parked inside, anyone left inside after the raid is removed ). Until someone pays the fee, and whoever pays the fee can set the time for the week, everyone else adjusts to that time.

A further expansion on that, is if the raid doesnt get cleared after being unlocked (say paying the fee gives the world 6 hours for the zone to be open), it locks again, and someone else has to pay, until it is cleared for the week.

I do admit my idea isnt the best, but I am hoping at least (by whatever mechanism necessary), we wont just be able to park our alts all over the world to avoid having to travel to do content, which I think is also why Intrepid are making the world so huge also, to a point.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

Hence, the raid dungeon zone is locked (no one can be parked inside, anyone left inside after the raid is removed ). Until someone pays the fee, and whoever pays the fee can set the time for the week, everyone else adjusts to that time.

This always ends up being 3am. In L2 guilds went out of their way to hold the boss farm in such a way that its respawn would most likely fall onto middle of the night. This suggestion just asks for that kind of stuff. The result will never be fun for the majority of people.

Taerrik wrote: »

I do admit my idea isnt the best, but I am hoping at least (by whatever mechanism necessary), we wont just be able to park our alts all over the world to avoid having to travel to do content, which I think is also why Intrepid are making the world so huge also, to a point.

You just position the alt in the closet possible location. I'd hope entire OPEN WORLD dungeons don't get locked purely because the boss is not around

So you just put the alt right outside the boss' area and then move it closer, most likely with the help of mains.

As for positioning them all over the world for content. Content will require gear/groups/leveling. If you have enough time to level up and gear up alts and then have friends who'd be ready to do the same or travel the entire map just to play with your alt - I think it's completely earned content.

The "crafted items can be picked up from any storage" detail kinda messes with the "you shouldn't be able to transfer value across the map" though. We'll see if that design sticks. I get the reasoning behind it, but I'm not sure if it'll work within the overall crafting system.

Ruerik

As far as setting the time to raid at 3am. Its a good point, and one I hadnt considered because I dont try to cheese my way past things.

It would be an easy fix though in my suggestion by doing the following.

Weekly reset happens at 11am tuesdays. (meaning anytime this week the boss is killed, it cannot be available again anytime before 11am tuesday)
Guild A pays fee for 3am on -pickanyday-, the raid will be open 3am for 6 hours on that day. Everyone sees this.
Guild B says, "naw eff that". pays the fee, for 6pm tuesday (human time), the raid will be open 6pm for 6 hours, and then again on guildAs time for 6 hours if it wasnt killed sooner.

My major point is, I am wanting to encourage competition. A way to let EVERYONE know I am going to go into the raid, tomorrow, at X time, bring your friends. Open world raids should be more like sieges or caravan encounters where we can plan to go contest the enemy. Unlike instanced raids where theres no challenge but the boss.

Guild A members can totally show up and challenge my teams clear on tuesday at 6pm if they want, and then go back on their day for their 3am clear, assuming niether of us clear because of the pvp. Nothing wrong with that.

After all, if sweatlords can get enough skilled players during the workday or overnight, what chance does anyone else have anyway at that point, might as well have something in place so they have to contest it during human hours still.

Other topic, In my eyes, alt parking is bad, and some system ought to be in place somehow to discourage it.
Whats the point of a pvx open world setting if you can skip all the risk and just kill the boss and collect the loot. And then just send it across the world to crafters for little to no risk beyond that. Defeats the point of a pvp game.

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

My major point is, I am wanting to encourage competition. A way to let EVERYONE know I am going to go into the raid, tomorrow, at X time, bring your friends. Open world raids should be more like sieges or caravan encounters where we can plan to go contest the enemy. Unlike instanced raids where theres no challenge but the boss.

A respawn point does precisely this. Everyone knows it, everyone readies themselves for it.

And prime-time limited respawns mean that guilds gotta choose what's more important to them. Risk/reward and all that.

Giving people control over these things never really works, because at least someone will always try to fuck everything up for everyone else.

Taerrik wrote: »

Other topic, In my eyes, alt parking is bad, and some system ought to be in place somehow to discourage it.

The only system that could prevent this for majority of players is forbidding anyone from having an alt character. But then people will complain that others with money can just buy another acc and win like that. In other words - there's no way to prevent this.

Smth like "if your character logged out outside of a node center, it'll be TPd back there" will just get abused and or complained about.

Taerrik wrote: »

Whats the point of a pvx open world setting if you can skip all the risk and just kill the boss and collect the loot. And then just send it across the world to crafters for little to no risk beyond that. Defeats the point of a pvp game.

Nah, you can only send already crafted items. This would still require you to find the mats and the crafting tools/locations right around the place where you farmed what you wanted, but it definitely is a weird decision in the context of everything else related to craftng.

Dygz

Taerrik wrote: »

For the PK alts (specifically, bringing an alt to PK enemy healers fighting a boss, so they die, then you log back on your main to do the raid normally with your team)

How do you get the PK alts to the exact same location as the PvP combat?
Especially in a dungeon or raid?
How are you assuming that the PK alt will not be killed before killing the enemy Healer?
How are you assuming that the Main will not be killed?

Taerrik wrote: »

If you reach the boss room, that means you progged thru a ton of dungeon with trash mobs everywhere and also respawning trash mobs everywhere.

Right. So...
How are you assuming that the PK alt will not be killed before killing the enemy Healer?
How are you assuming that the Main will not be killed?

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

How do you get the PK alts to the exact same location as the PvP combat?
Especially in a dungeon or raid?

We're discussing bosses. Especially the main boss of the dungeon. Those are always in the same place. I know you'll say that that Ashes is non-static, but I'd bet money that it won't be changing literally every day. But it only takes a few minutes to set up a PK alt in the same place where the boss was last time (or right outside his zone).

Dygz wrote: »

How are you assuming that the PK alt will not be killed before killing the enemy Healer?

The assumption is that they won't want to flag up, because that would mean that the enemy can immediately come kill them. They wouldn't flag up, in the context of the OP's suggestion, because competition is a lose-lose situation, while just dpsing the boss will always be more beneficial.

Dygz wrote: »

How are you assuming that the Main will not be killed?

If the victim flags up - yes, there's a chance that they manage to win and kill the attackers, all while fighting off the boss.

If anything, both OP and I agree that the game should provide tool to do exactly this. We were just discussing possible abuses of either of our suggestions.

Child Item