Some debatable amount of time before a random respawn window. (This window size could even be random.) On the subject, random locations are nice too, where feasible. Not knowing exactly where or when rares appear is key to making them actually feel rare.
Also, on the matter of rares, rare quests that begin upon slaying or otherwise subduing a rare encounter would be cool. Or even a "rare" quest giver could appear in relation to a spawned rare, but the location of this rare is massively random.
Q: How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
A: As a big hater of predictability and as a chaotic RNG enjoyer, i certainly want less predictable respawn rates, a base time is necessary, but with an extra layer of random time.
It's hard for me to give general numbers for common monsters respawn times without having their expected TTK, but considering the TTK seem in recent presentations i would expect the average monster respawn time to be around 1 min with a extra random 3~15 seconds.
For rare/elite monsters i would need to know if the intention of their implementation will be generalized or not, i would certainly prefer for them to be separate in atleast 3 tiers with TTKs reasonable to the following respawn timers:
T1: 30 min + extra random 3~6 min (expected to be fought in duos)
T2: 1h min + extra random 6~12 min (expected to be fought in quartets)
T3: 2h + extra random 12~24min (expected to be fought with 1 party)
For extra spice in the average and rare/elite monsters i would add an RNG possibility of double/triple spawns or chance to spawn an stats improved version of the same monster with drop chances/amounts increased proportionaly to its increase in power.
As for the average Bosses in the world, like @NiKr i would go with Lineage 2's large meaningful Respawn timers of around 12h to 24h with extra random -/+1~6h[depending on their quantity existent in the world(As a point of reference old L2 has around ~150 scattered in the open world with levels from 20 to 85)].
According to the wiki Ashes is going for different types(?)(tiers?) of bosses with separations like Hunting ground bosses, Dungeon Bosses, Raid Bosses and the obviously superior "Legendary world bosses" which i expect to have 1-2 weeks respawn times.
Q: Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
A: Certainly Lineage 2, what felt good about the respawn timers there was the sense of proportion between the respawn times, Difficulties, TTKs and rewards.
Personally I am not a fan of RNG spawn times at all. Especially if those bosses/mobs are tied to achievements in-game. Wether people on here like casuals or not, Intrepid will depend on those players just as much as the hardcore players. It wouldn't be a great experience for newer and casual players.
It's a poor experience in general with RNG spawn timers. Should me and my friends sit around a raid for X hours in hopes the boss spawn while I could've spent all that time playing? Maybe some players have all the time in the world for that. But majority of players do not.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
I've seen a lot problems around respawn rate where players/bots just farm high respawn area's to gold/resource/item farm. If those area's are going to exist with immersion, you essentially need loot/currency drop rates to be minimal or essentially non existent to prevent issues with the economy. They essentially also become experience farms for boosters so I hope they're non existent for integrity purposes.
The role of the respawn is also important because if certain mobs have hierarchal influence and AI synergy then they need to be relatively longer on respawns in easier content vs relatively quicker in challenging content. In terms of tiers, mobs such as elites, rare, champions and minions, they could all theoretically have their influence either through small groupings with champions and minions, or a much larger impact with area influence depending on design. With open world dungeons you need a relatively higher respawn rate to create friction between the different groups and some potential flanking and cheesing aside from dungeon traps etc. In terms of instanced, less risk from interference and more story driven so risk doesn't need as high as a respawn rate if any at all in terms of scenario driven.
I believe mob type should a major factor in it too for example how zombies if weaker but respawn faster. I'm still advocating packs of them digging up out of the ground to create dynamic spawning animations.
I know node level could also play a big role in this too considering how certain dungeons and poi's could directly affect the area and power of the mobs as well. Then we also got to consider the level of the zone (if that matters) or if power scaling is the end goal which creates a whole plethora of what if's.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
Haven't really found many games that did it well enough with what previously discussed to justify my perspectives standards.
This time, I'm not going to answer it until the clarification post arrives, but will do my best to answer it at that time.
Some information, however, small, on where the team 'wants' to go with it, would be good. If there's no Dev consensus and that's the purpose of the topic, then that's the only other scenario in which I probably won't have an answer since I don't know what the Econ team wants here and I consider this to be entirely derivative from that.
tl;dr if the Econ team hasn't decided this, there's no point in asking us. If it's them asking, they probably have more clarification. If they're not the ones deciding it, the approach is wrong.
I'd like to add that I believe there needs to be a system in place that a boss can Not respawn if players are inside the dungeon/raid, I really dislike games with boss spawn camping,
make it so players need to actually leave the dungeon - this will create social situations where people that want to do a boss need to communicate and ask others to step out because the boss didn't spawn, coordinate or create conflict with players potentially flagging up on a group that isn't allowing for those spawns, both ways is good, creates content
in my humble opinion
moobs in the open world should have a faster repop than those in the dungeons.
in the open world, a 30 min delay seems reasonable.
whereas in a dungeon, you don't want monsters to repop behind your back while you're moving forward, so a delay of several hours seems essential to me.
when it comes to rare bosses, it's all in the name: they have to be rare, once a week or once a month.
the most successful game for open-world events, for me, is guild wars 2.
I personaly think in regard to rare spawns everquest 1 did it right
- named mobs (rare spawns) didnt have a respawn timer per say usualy they had a place holder mob that when he respawn he had a chance to spawn as a named mob (rare) that drops the good loot. If you want less RNG the other option is the place holder always spawns as the named mob after X amount of respawns (say between 10-500) so you know you will eventualy trigger he spawn this number can be varied of course also you can make it each time he respawns his spawn rate goes up until he spawns.
The reason why i think this was the best way of doing it because it harder to game the system you activly need to be farming the spawn instead of running through in a loop waiting for timers
As for bosses
- They have to have a wide range of respawn timer if you dont wanna do the above method so guilds cant lock down spawn once they know the timer i feel it should be anywhere from 6-24 hour window can be varied slightly if they drop exceptional loot however.
- you could also use the placeholder system aswell for bosses however i feel in most cases you dont want a random pleb sitting in the boss room in most situation
Dungeons respawns
- Dungeons should get accelerated respawn times like twice as fast as overworld spawns for trash/rare spawns and bosses this is to add more danger to the dungeons by being easuier to be overwhelmed by respawns aswel l as rewards from increase XP from quicker respawns aswel las increase rare/boss spawns
obviously world bosses, raid bosses and dungeon bosses should have a long timer and trash mobs should have a low timer. From Elites to Mini-bosses, from harmless to full aggro, there's a lot of factors that should be used to determine the equation used to determine respawn rates. So it depends, but I'd like the timer to be longer than normal. if a party of players, higher than a dungeon is for, clear one of the grinding routes, I don't think the first pack should be back yet. How long does it take to clear that, I do not know. However, since the system is tracking players and player activities, maybe the respawn timers on mobs could factor in how many players are in the area. The more players, the faster the respawn and perhaps even overspawn if Zergs are detected. Or world buff the NPC's (Gods are powerful spiteful bitches) if too many players are in an area.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Not asked but equally important are where mobs re-spawn from.
Something I am not particularly fond of is seeing high-frequency mobs spawning from exactly the same specific location and then seeing players camped over that location until the next one spawns.
If a rabbit spawns from a rabbit hole, fine make a rabbit hole.. but a bit of variety for location would go a long way
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Should there be a UI tab that has a list of the major bosses and their current predicted next spawn time / countdown and/or some other methodology in game to find out?
Should there be a UI tab that has a list of the major bosses and their current predicted next spawn time / countdown and/or some other methodology in game to find out?
I prefer the chat channels and players announcing when bosses are up over a ui element. A ui element will see chaos in short time spans and dead zones at other times. If spotters are required there will be skirmishes around the boss spawns at all hours.
Optional for any respawns at all in a dungeon based on selection via a conversation with a NPC before entering/engaging the instance. I know that there are times, especially in a dungeon that is more difficult, that having to regather together after a party wipe is better when you do not have to worry about respawns. It can also be set that respawns do happen by default until you kill the boss that is just after the set of monsters in question, if you want to still savor some difficulty.
Raid:
Same as dungeon. I think it should be optional to the group before entering/engaging the instance via a NPC if there are even respawns at all. If there are respawns based on the selection, then a sub selection on if respawns stop at stages with each boss kill (if more than one in an instance).
Open world:
Random with baselines that are not random. For instance, a set timer for certain generic monsters and based on players killing a number of those monsters then maybe a random pull from a database to start a timer for just some random or elite monsters to spawn (and length of time to spawn as random as a dice roll). I think if this is set then..
When a bunch of players are either questing for, or just farming a bunch of the same monsters in an area, if elites are spawned because of this activity, it has the potential to avoid the irritation we may have felt in the past with mob-tagging. This irritation would be avoided because now we are having to work together to destroy a harder monster so that we can get back to trying to kill the normal monsters for the quest. The elite then becomes the blocker and even less the other player(s).
Games that did respawn well imo…
*maybe* Rift. Only because a bunch of player activity could cause an event that guided players to work together to return to normal state. However, I really feel ashes could out perform Rift.
I am inclined to agree with more chaotic/unpredictable respawn timers - especially in easier to kill mobs. I've never liked the "grind X in this area because they respawn quickly" functionality. Personally, I feel like it cheapens the overall game experience when it's just a matter of clearing mobs, waiting 5 minutes, and then clearing them again. Random/chaotic respawn timers would work to counter that. I would argue that no respawn timer should ever be static/predictable - regardless of the difficulty of mob.
An added bonus, that I believe was done well in EverQuest 2's early days, was an increased chance of elite versions spawning whenever mobs were killed over and over. With each kill/clear, the chance increased. This could also be switched up with events (ie, the rifts in Rift) that could spawn instead. This prevents the experience from becoming boring. Predictability = boredom. Incorporating a scaling mechanic with how many players are present would also be awesome. The more players present = more mobs spawn, the more elite mobs spawn, the more complex events spawn - that kind of thing.
Example:
Save farm from bandits. When you initially run onto the farm, there are a collection of normal bandits, grouped bandits, and maybe an elite bandit. Your group clears them. The randomness in respawning could trigger more elite bandits spawning, more bandit groups respawning than were originally there, or a bandit raid event could trigger. Some bandits could respawn after 2-3 minutes, while others could respawn after 30 seconds or a 1 minute (30 seconds could potentially be too fast if they take a while to kill). You're in a group, so more bandits than were originally there start spawning as well. If you're trying to complete the quest on your own, you could still run into elites, more groups, or the event triggering. This would encourage earlier grouping/socialization rather than it turning into the plague that is modern MMOs (being a single player game until certain, predefined points). That's just a rough example of how it all could work together.
I strongly disagree that most MMOs get respawn timers right. I personally feel most of them get them wrong.
TLDR: No mob respawn should be predictable - whether a world boss or a bunny. Additionally, WHAT respawns shouldn't be predictable either.
The possible exception would be dungeons/raids. However, I agree with the idea of letting the group decide. When starting the dungeon/raid, if the group wants to continue having that chaotic/unpredictable respawn rate, then they can choose that option. If the group would prefer a more predictable respawn rate, they could choose that option at the start of the raid. The choice would continue throughout the entire raid. With either option, once that wing's boss was killed, then no mobs would respawn. This would both mark progression as well as being a reward for clearing that particular boss/area.
I played Dofus a french MMORPG and the thing i feel like is really great are dungeon. You can spam it and farm some rare stuff, same for stuff u can only drop on certain mobs,
i think a lot of MMO player like to farm and would be great for players to have the right to farm dungeon or others creatur for some stuff the same way you can farm wood, fish etc...
The only thing i dont want is to be restricted if i want to farm 12h in a row something specific some days that should be possible.
But some Rare mobs could possibliy spawn at %rate and would give %rate some other stuff or u need it for quests etc.. ex. on a forest u could find an alpha wolf who can spawn everywhere on the forest, that's not a boss but more like a shiny pokemon
World boss need more days to respawn to let people be ready for the evenement.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
In open world
- general mobs: predictable
- tameable mobs: unpredictable. Spawn location should also change as result of player activity and natural migration
- rare mobs: somewhat predictable by the last group who killed. Predictability should decrease when kill rate is optimal.
In raids
- rare mobs: let them be predictable but the prediction to be possible only if doing some quests and observing some clues. The last team to kill the mob should have a little bit of advantage by getting two clues when the the death event happens (visual or audio clue) and the loot content. Competing teams doing quests to gather clues may or may not interfere with each other. Let it be possible but not mandatory.
- general mobs: not predictable
In dungeons
Make everything completely unpredictable. Full chaos to prevent efficient camping. If needed, make it even unfair against campers.
The aim of this balance is to make players who prefer predictability to compete in raids and to return into the open world (and to have things to do there too) and those who like randomness, to have a good reason to go into dungeons, instead of just roaming in the world.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
I can only say that strong guilds locking down game content feels bad.
If the population drops to a level where the strong guilds are a high percentage and can control player access to such places, the developer is afraid to change the rules because would drive them away while the others who already left will not return.
I would like if respawn timers scaled with the number of players in the area. On one extreme you have mobs that spawn so fast that if you're solo you can't ever catch a break, and on the other hand if there's a lot of Players in the area, you wipe an area clean and 20 people are fighting over a single monster, say for a quest.
I get the idea is to have soft friction, but I think including *some* amount of scaling respawn timer would give another lever to pull for balancing that friction.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
I do not support predictability it should feel special as well as no certain chance which mob variety type is spawned and or where within said spawn area. If its a rare mob or raid id like to think different behavior/ability mobs would spawn via chance to give more variety to gameplay and difficulty. Set timers are for farmers, this is supposed to be a living breathing world not lets camp this rare till it spawns for 3 hours or much longer so we can have it first. If its a rare it should also only spawn based off events to trigger it as well as in varying locations.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
I have never seen it done well still feels like a bad arcade game ti me the way it is handled. I dont like my emersion being broken by mark zuckerberg monsters magically spawning out of nowhere.
Nothings good about respawn times if your not a farmer. It breaks emersion just seeing spawns randomly and magically appear. Ideally the world would be large enough so when you kill a mob and go out of visual range it respawns. If people are within a certain visual area of the corpse it won’t respawn. Alternatively if timers are needed then make it so they dont just magically reappear/phase in. Give them a fair run in from a direction not occupied to replace said mob. It can be difficult to do in highly populated areas but things such as foliage could help mend this or roving mobs allowing more choice of non occupied respawn.
Ps the livestream back-when when you did that raid/dungeon those mobs kept spawning in behind you. Felt way too quick. However one can argue in a openworld pvp game this might be necessary to create gaps between groups.
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RuladianMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited October 2023
It varies on what purpose the mob is meant to fill.
For areas that have cannon fodder/gauntlet mobs I think having the spawn timer paused while the last player(s) to have killed them are within their spawn location (ex: You clear a room and you don't have to worry about getting attacked if you go AFK in that room because you had Taco Bell for lunch and are now paying for that poor decision.)
For trophy mobs I like the dynamic spawning ideas that have been described by others like @Gaul_
If the mob ends up having a static location. Then I think having ramped up version of the paused spawn timer would be a way to give other people a chance to go for the mob. Say the last player/group to takes down the trophy mob will prevent the mob from spawning while they are in sniping/kill stealing range. This will force them to go somewhere else and give others a chance at it.
For uncommon/rare resource mobs have them spawn naturally but maybe have a series of mundane quests that can be done to force a spawn or increase spawn rates for a period of time. (ex: You want dire wolf pelts to craft your guilds signature identifying item for an influx of new members. So you do a quest or series of to collect ingredients to make something to feed the local wolf population to corrupt/mutate them into becoming dire wolfs and then place the feed in key locations. This could also lead to other situations/events that if not enough dire wolfs are hunted after doing this that they can become a problem to the local node. Or the feed was placed somewhere to close to town/not an ideal location and now the town/city/metropolis no longer has a rat problem but a dire rat infestation that the residence have to deal with.)
I don't know about the spawn rules for "general" mobs. Should be decently consistent though, right? Unless you want to wreck mob-farming routes with random spawn times... Maybe there's some merit there, just to allow a few mobs to respawn quickly (but not enough to be worth constant farming) so an area isn't completely empty after a farming run.
For "rare" mobs or world bosses, it shouldn't be random at all. Sitting around waiting for hours because something COULD spawn any second is an awful experience.
That's not to say it can't be "unpredictable" for other reasons. If you don't know what the spawn criteria is or when those criteria will get met, that's not so bad. It should be possible for invested parties to accurately track those criteria if they put in the effort. Criteria like previous kill time, weather/season/time-of-day, related mob kills in the area, and events/quests. I'm not a big fan of that gameplay personally, but I know some people are, because it makes for a more immersive "hunt", if you will.
I'd prefer for most things to be easier to spawn/track/find though. I just wanna fight.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
This question has alot of "depth" and requires multiple answers:
General mob spawn
Spawnrates of "general" mobs should be dynamic depending of the amount of players currently in the "area". If you're in a cave alone, it gives the best RPG-feeling and the best "flow" that you can go through the cave, kill the mobs and progress through the cave without having to deal with respawns untill you have to leave the cave again - but if you have 10+ players grinding out the same area, the respawn rates needs to be alot faster as to commendate the amount of mob-kills and thus keeping the flow and rythm of gameplay at a pleasing rate.
Rare mob spawn
Spawnrates of rarespawns should depend of the difficulty-level of the mob and the rewards given by the mob. For a low-level-starting-area-rare dropping gear only slighty better than your starting gear could have a "faster" spawnrate of perhabs once every 30-70 minutes, but a mob giving a mount, a rare piece of equipment of something like that should perhabs have a totally randomized spawnrate and varying spawn locations.
Dungeon spawns
Now this really depends ALOT on how you're thinking a dungeon. If you're thinking the really old-school Everquest-like dungeon, where the players doesn't enter their own instance-based-space unaccesable to others, there need to be some sort of respawn timer on the mobs - but that's such a difficult thing to balance out. If it is the more modern "World of Warcraft" dungeon used by most modern MMO's, there shouldn't be respawns. It kills the RPG feel having to deal with the same pack of mobs over-and-over again.. kinda kills the progression and flow.
Raid setting spawns
Raid settings could be more versitile. Having rare raid bosses would be a fun thing - and though "unfair" for those who doesn't get it as much or perhabs even ever - well isn't the dice we roll when play RPGs? Patrols, gauntlets, and "trash" mobs.. there are alot of options here to delve into - or perhabs just go the Final Fantasy way and totally leave out any trash-mobs for raid-settings... I just wish for you really keep the RPG feel alive and try to think into a Pathfinder/DnD setting of what it would be like to enter a deep deep cave with a treasure-hoarding dragon waiting at the very end.. would you encounter other things on your way there? Possibly. Dynamic, versitile and RPG-minded mob-spawns are the way forward with raid-settings imo!
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
It doesn't feel like spawnrates are the most difficult thing in the world. I've never played an MMO where I felt like "gosh this is waaay to many mobs" or sitting for hours and hours on end without being able to find anything... It seems most games does this well to some degree - you shouldn't have respawns every 5 seconds nor should it be every 2 min...
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
How about "tells".. should there be different sounds and/or visuals for mob spawns to alert that they have spawned?
#1 randomness is king, shouldn't be able to predict spawns with any precision
#2 make player zone of influence, like 50m or something add to the respawn timer so camping is less attractive (same for resources)
#3 can you make spawning mobs less 'appearing out of thin air' and more thematic? Eg necromancer elite mob wanders along and resurrects, units peel off from a patrol route, spiders hatch from eggs, mobs exit building and walk to their spawn spot. Again, same for resource spawning, love to see an old rock monster wander along, and form a resource node when it lies down.
#4 if average up time of mobs drops below a threshold, can that trigger a change in the spawn table ? Ie player driven difficulty for high traffic areas.
Don't have much to say as far as the exact timing goes, but please for the love of God have them come from somewhere. Trap doors, bushes, caves, buildings, digging up from the ground, teleporting, etc. Anything is fine so long as they don't just pop into existence out of nowhere.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
I always thought about rare mobs dependent on common mobs, for example: Putting a limit on creatures in a given area and that they spawn at regular time intervals. Every 5 minutes a common creature is born and when the total number of them in that area is reached, a special one is born and the common ones stop being born until the special one is killed. This would give the area a feeling of sparseness and cultivation.
Comments
Also, on the matter of rares, rare quests that begin upon slaying or otherwise subduing a rare encounter would be cool. Or even a "rare" quest giver could appear in relation to a spawned rare, but the location of this rare is massively random.
A: As a big hater of predictability and as a chaotic RNG enjoyer, i certainly want less predictable respawn rates, a base time is necessary, but with an extra layer of random time.
It's hard for me to give general numbers for common monsters respawn times without having their expected TTK, but considering the TTK seem in recent presentations i would expect the average monster respawn time to be around 1 min with a extra random 3~15 seconds.
For rare/elite monsters i would need to know if the intention of their implementation will be generalized or not, i would certainly prefer for them to be separate in atleast 3 tiers with TTKs reasonable to the following respawn timers:
T1: 30 min + extra random 3~6 min (expected to be fought in duos)
T2: 1h min + extra random 6~12 min (expected to be fought in quartets)
T3: 2h + extra random 12~24min (expected to be fought with 1 party)
For extra spice in the average and rare/elite monsters i would add an RNG possibility of double/triple spawns or chance to spawn an stats improved version of the same monster with drop chances/amounts increased proportionaly to its increase in power.
As for the average Bosses in the world, like @NiKr i would go with Lineage 2's large meaningful Respawn timers of around 12h to 24h with extra random -/+1~6h[depending on their quantity existent in the world(As a point of reference old L2 has around ~150 scattered in the open world with levels from 20 to 85)].
According to the wiki Ashes is going for different types(?)(tiers?) of bosses with separations like Hunting ground bosses, Dungeon Bosses, Raid Bosses and the obviously superior "Legendary world bosses" which i expect to have 1-2 weeks respawn times.
Q: Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
A: Certainly Lineage 2, what felt good about the respawn timers there was the sense of proportion between the respawn times, Difficulties, TTKs and rewards.
Aren't we all sinners?
It's a poor experience in general with RNG spawn timers. Should me and my friends sit around a raid for X hours in hopes the boss spawn while I could've spent all that time playing? Maybe some players have all the time in the world for that. But majority of players do not.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
I've seen a lot problems around respawn rate where players/bots just farm high respawn area's to gold/resource/item farm. If those area's are going to exist with immersion, you essentially need loot/currency drop rates to be minimal or essentially non existent to prevent issues with the economy. They essentially also become experience farms for boosters so I hope they're non existent for integrity purposes.
The role of the respawn is also important because if certain mobs have hierarchal influence and AI synergy then they need to be relatively longer on respawns in easier content vs relatively quicker in challenging content. In terms of tiers, mobs such as elites, rare, champions and minions, they could all theoretically have their influence either through small groupings with champions and minions, or a much larger impact with area influence depending on design. With open world dungeons you need a relatively higher respawn rate to create friction between the different groups and some potential flanking and cheesing aside from dungeon traps etc. In terms of instanced, less risk from interference and more story driven so risk doesn't need as high as a respawn rate if any at all in terms of scenario driven.
I believe mob type should a major factor in it too for example how zombies if weaker but respawn faster. I'm still advocating packs of them digging up out of the ground to create dynamic spawning animations.
I know node level could also play a big role in this too considering how certain dungeons and poi's could directly affect the area and power of the mobs as well. Then we also got to consider the level of the zone (if that matters) or if power scaling is the end goal which creates a whole plethora of what if's.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
Haven't really found many games that did it well enough with what previously discussed to justify my perspectives standards.
This time, I'm not going to answer it until the clarification post arrives, but will do my best to answer it at that time.
Some information, however, small, on where the team 'wants' to go with it, would be good. If there's no Dev consensus and that's the purpose of the topic, then that's the only other scenario in which I probably won't have an answer since I don't know what the Econ team wants here and I consider this to be entirely derivative from that.
tl;dr if the Econ team hasn't decided this, there's no point in asking us. If it's them asking, they probably have more clarification. If they're not the ones deciding it, the approach is wrong.
Much love ❤️
make it so players need to actually leave the dungeon - this will create social situations where people that want to do a boss need to communicate and ask others to step out because the boss didn't spawn, coordinate or create conflict with players potentially flagging up on a group that isn't allowing for those spawns, both ways is good, creates content
moobs in the open world should have a faster repop than those in the dungeons.
in the open world, a 30 min delay seems reasonable.
whereas in a dungeon, you don't want monsters to repop behind your back while you're moving forward, so a delay of several hours seems essential to me.
when it comes to rare bosses, it's all in the name: they have to be rare, once a week or once a month.
the most successful game for open-world events, for me, is guild wars 2.
Baron of Shadows
Graveyard's Grin
I personaly think in regard to rare spawns everquest 1 did it right
- named mobs (rare spawns) didnt have a respawn timer per say usualy they had a place holder mob that when he respawn he had a chance to spawn as a named mob (rare) that drops the good loot. If you want less RNG the other option is the place holder always spawns as the named mob after X amount of respawns (say between 10-500) so you know you will eventualy trigger he spawn this number can be varied of course also you can make it each time he respawns his spawn rate goes up until he spawns.
The reason why i think this was the best way of doing it because it harder to game the system you activly need to be farming the spawn instead of running through in a loop waiting for timers
As for bosses
- They have to have a wide range of respawn timer if you dont wanna do the above method so guilds cant lock down spawn once they know the timer i feel it should be anywhere from 6-24 hour window can be varied slightly if they drop exceptional loot however.
- you could also use the placeholder system aswell for bosses however i feel in most cases you dont want a random pleb sitting in the boss room in most situation
Dungeons respawns
- Dungeons should get accelerated respawn times like twice as fast as overworld spawns for trash/rare spawns and bosses this is to add more danger to the dungeons by being easuier to be overwhelmed by respawns aswel l as rewards from increase XP from quicker respawns aswel las increase rare/boss spawns
Something I am not particularly fond of is seeing high-frequency mobs spawning from exactly the same specific location and then seeing players camped over that location until the next one spawns.
If a rabbit spawns from a rabbit hole, fine make a rabbit hole.. but a bit of variety for location would go a long way
I prefer the chat channels and players announcing when bosses are up over a ui element. A ui element will see chaos in short time spans and dead zones at other times. If spotters are required there will be skirmishes around the boss spawns at all hours.
Should be appropriate to the importance of a mob, a bandit should predictable.
The Negalith should roam the whole ocean.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
None.
Dungeon respawns —
Optional for any respawns at all in a dungeon based on selection via a conversation with a NPC before entering/engaging the instance. I know that there are times, especially in a dungeon that is more difficult, that having to regather together after a party wipe is better when you do not have to worry about respawns. It can also be set that respawns do happen by default until you kill the boss that is just after the set of monsters in question, if you want to still savor some difficulty.
Raid:
Same as dungeon. I think it should be optional to the group before entering/engaging the instance via a NPC if there are even respawns at all. If there are respawns based on the selection, then a sub selection on if respawns stop at stages with each boss kill (if more than one in an instance).
Open world:
Random with baselines that are not random. For instance, a set timer for certain generic monsters and based on players killing a number of those monsters then maybe a random pull from a database to start a timer for just some random or elite monsters to spawn (and length of time to spawn as random as a dice roll). I think if this is set then..
When a bunch of players are either questing for, or just farming a bunch of the same monsters in an area, if elites are spawned because of this activity, it has the potential to avoid the irritation we may have felt in the past with mob-tagging. This irritation would be avoided because now we are having to work together to destroy a harder monster so that we can get back to trying to kill the normal monsters for the quest. The elite then becomes the blocker and even less the other player(s).
Games that did respawn well imo…
*maybe* Rift. Only because a bunch of player activity could cause an event that guided players to work together to return to normal state. However, I really feel ashes could out perform Rift.
An added bonus, that I believe was done well in EverQuest 2's early days, was an increased chance of elite versions spawning whenever mobs were killed over and over. With each kill/clear, the chance increased. This could also be switched up with events (ie, the rifts in Rift) that could spawn instead. This prevents the experience from becoming boring. Predictability = boredom. Incorporating a scaling mechanic with how many players are present would also be awesome. The more players present = more mobs spawn, the more elite mobs spawn, the more complex events spawn - that kind of thing.
Example:
Save farm from bandits. When you initially run onto the farm, there are a collection of normal bandits, grouped bandits, and maybe an elite bandit. Your group clears them. The randomness in respawning could trigger more elite bandits spawning, more bandit groups respawning than were originally there, or a bandit raid event could trigger. Some bandits could respawn after 2-3 minutes, while others could respawn after 30 seconds or a 1 minute (30 seconds could potentially be too fast if they take a while to kill). You're in a group, so more bandits than were originally there start spawning as well. If you're trying to complete the quest on your own, you could still run into elites, more groups, or the event triggering. This would encourage earlier grouping/socialization rather than it turning into the plague that is modern MMOs (being a single player game until certain, predefined points). That's just a rough example of how it all could work together.
I strongly disagree that most MMOs get respawn timers right. I personally feel most of them get them wrong.
TLDR: No mob respawn should be predictable - whether a world boss or a bunny. Additionally, WHAT respawns shouldn't be predictable either.
The possible exception would be dungeons/raids. However, I agree with the idea of letting the group decide. When starting the dungeon/raid, if the group wants to continue having that chaotic/unpredictable respawn rate, then they can choose that option. If the group would prefer a more predictable respawn rate, they could choose that option at the start of the raid. The choice would continue throughout the entire raid. With either option, once that wing's boss was killed, then no mobs would respawn. This would both mark progression as well as being a reward for clearing that particular boss/area.
i think a lot of MMO player like to farm and would be great for players to have the right to farm dungeon or others creatur for some stuff the same way you can farm wood, fish etc...
The only thing i dont want is to be restricted if i want to farm 12h in a row something specific some days that should be possible.
But some Rare mobs could possibliy spawn at %rate and would give %rate some other stuff or u need it for quests etc.. ex. on a forest u could find an alpha wolf who can spawn everywhere on the forest, that's not a boss but more like a shiny pokemon
World boss need more days to respawn to let people be ready for the evenement.
- general mobs: predictable
- tameable mobs: unpredictable. Spawn location should also change as result of player activity and natural migration
- rare mobs: somewhat predictable by the last group who killed. Predictability should decrease when kill rate is optimal.
In raids
- rare mobs: let them be predictable but the prediction to be possible only if doing some quests and observing some clues. The last team to kill the mob should have a little bit of advantage by getting two clues when the the death event happens (visual or audio clue) and the loot content. Competing teams doing quests to gather clues may or may not interfere with each other. Let it be possible but not mandatory.
- general mobs: not predictable
In dungeons
Make everything completely unpredictable. Full chaos to prevent efficient camping. If needed, make it even unfair against campers.
The aim of this balance is to make players who prefer predictability to compete in raids and to return into the open world (and to have things to do there too) and those who like randomness, to have a good reason to go into dungeons, instead of just roaming in the world.
I can only say that strong guilds locking down game content feels bad.
If the population drops to a level where the strong guilds are a high percentage and can control player access to such places, the developer is afraid to change the rules because would drive them away while the others who already left will not return.
I get the idea is to have soft friction, but I think including *some* amount of scaling respawn timer would give another lever to pull for balancing that friction.
I do not support predictability it should feel special as well as no certain chance which mob variety type is spawned and or where within said spawn area. If its a rare mob or raid id like to think different behavior/ability mobs would spawn via chance to give more variety to gameplay and difficulty. Set timers are for farmers, this is supposed to be a living breathing world not lets camp this rare till it spawns for 3 hours or much longer so we can have it first. If its a rare it should also only spawn based off events to trigger it as well as in varying locations.
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
I have never seen it done well still feels like a bad arcade game ti me the way it is handled. I dont like my emersion being broken by mark zuckerberg monsters magically spawning out of nowhere.
Nothings good about respawn times if your not a farmer. It breaks emersion just seeing spawns randomly and magically appear. Ideally the world would be large enough so when you kill a mob and go out of visual range it respawns. If people are within a certain visual area of the corpse it won’t respawn. Alternatively if timers are needed then make it so they dont just magically reappear/phase in. Give them a fair run in from a direction not occupied to replace said mob. It can be difficult to do in highly populated areas but things such as foliage could help mend this or roving mobs allowing more choice of non occupied respawn.
Ps the livestream back-when when you did that raid/dungeon those mobs kept spawning in behind you. Felt way too quick. However one can argue in a openworld pvp game this might be necessary to create gaps between groups.
For areas that have cannon fodder/gauntlet mobs I think having the spawn timer paused while the last player(s) to have killed them are within their spawn location (ex: You clear a room and you don't have to worry about getting attacked if you go AFK in that room because you had Taco Bell for lunch and are now paying for that poor decision.)
For trophy mobs I like the dynamic spawning ideas that have been described by others like @Gaul_
If the mob ends up having a static location. Then I think having ramped up version of the paused spawn timer would be a way to give other people a chance to go for the mob. Say the last player/group to takes down the trophy mob will prevent the mob from spawning while they are in sniping/kill stealing range. This will force them to go somewhere else and give others a chance at it.
For uncommon/rare resource mobs have them spawn naturally but maybe have a series of mundane quests that can be done to force a spawn or increase spawn rates for a period of time. (ex: You want dire wolf pelts to craft your guilds signature identifying item for an influx of new members. So you do a quest or series of to collect ingredients to make something to feed the local wolf population to corrupt/mutate them into becoming dire wolfs and then place the feed in key locations. This could also lead to other situations/events that if not enough dire wolfs are hunted after doing this that they can become a problem to the local node. Or the feed was placed somewhere to close to town/not an ideal location and now the town/city/metropolis no longer has a rat problem but a dire rat infestation that the residence have to deal with.)
For "rare" mobs or world bosses, it shouldn't be random at all. Sitting around waiting for hours because something COULD spawn any second is an awful experience.
That's not to say it can't be "unpredictable" for other reasons. If you don't know what the spawn criteria is or when those criteria will get met, that's not so bad. It should be possible for invested parties to accurately track those criteria if they put in the effort. Criteria like previous kill time, weather/season/time-of-day, related mob kills in the area, and events/quests. I'm not a big fan of that gameplay personally, but I know some people are, because it makes for a more immersive "hunt", if you will.
I'd prefer for most things to be easier to spawn/track/find though. I just wanna fight.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
This question has alot of "depth" and requires multiple answers:
General mob spawn
Rare mob spawn
Dungeon spawns
Raid setting spawns
Which games do you feel have done this well, and what did you feel was good about respawn times for mobs?
It doesn't feel like spawnrates are the most difficult thing in the world. I've never played an MMO where I felt like "gosh this is waaay to many mobs" or sitting for hours and hours on end without being able to find anything... It seems most games does this well to some degree - you shouldn't have respawns every 5 seconds nor should it be every 2 min...
#2 make player zone of influence, like 50m or something add to the respawn timer so camping is less attractive (same for resources)
#3 can you make spawning mobs less 'appearing out of thin air' and more thematic? Eg necromancer elite mob wanders along and resurrects, units peel off from a patrol route, spiders hatch from eggs, mobs exit building and walk to their spawn spot. Again, same for resource spawning, love to see an old rock monster wander along, and form a resource node when it lies down.
#4 if average up time of mobs drops below a threshold, can that trigger a change in the spawn table ? Ie player driven difficulty for high traffic areas.
How predictable do you like the spawn rate for general and rare mobs in open-world, dungeons, and raid settings?
I always thought about rare mobs dependent on common mobs, for example: Putting a limit on creatures in a given area and that they spawn at regular time intervals. Every 5 minutes a common creature is born and when the total number of them in that area is reached, a special one is born and the common ones stop being born until the special one is killed. This would give the area a feeling of sparseness and cultivation.