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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
The original plan was for instancing to only be used for storytelling. Many of the quotes presented in this thread are from back then.
In about 2020 the comment of a 80/20 split was first made (this is actually a LOT of instancing, more than EQ2 had at launch and more than EQ has ever had imo - but like most things it depends on many factors that are unstated).
In 2021 Steven first mentioned the possibility of instances being used in order for designers to be able to achieve things such as a set party size ( ie, creating content for a single group or raid).
It isn't actually possible to go over all of the information on instancing in Ashes and leave with any realistic idea of what the intention is.
This is untrue.
Let's look at three general quotes that have been made - you will be able to find them if you try.
The first is that the game isn't about the developers presenting players with a story, but rather the players cresting their own story.
The second is instsncing only being used for storytelling or arenas.
The third is that 20% of the game will be instanced (this is a LOT of instancing).
These three quotes simply can not exist together.
If 20% of the game is instanced, and instances are just for story telling, that is a shitload of storytelling Intrepid plan on doing - more than any other MMORPG (significantly more than BG3, honestly - when you factor in the size of the world and the additional content via the node system). Thus thr game is telling us the story, rather than it being us creating our own and the first of the above quotes is untrue.
On the other hand, if we assume the first quote to be correct that the game is about players writing their own stories, and we assume that the game will be 20% instanced, that means the second quote can't be true as some of that instancing will need to be about things other than story content.
If we assume the game is about players making their own story, and that instanced content is only about story progression, then less than 5% of the content will be instanced, thus making the third quote untrue.
Again, these three quotes simply can not exist together.
Thus, the only conclusion we can come to is that the games design has changed in the many years between each of these quotes being made.
How big are the apartment stacks in each node? These are instanced.
How many arenas are there in the game? These are instanced.
How many solo dungeons are in the game? These would be instanced.
How many special rulesets are there for the open world dungeons? These are instanced.
How many plots are there in the lore? These can be instanced.
How many ultimate showdowns are there in the game? These can be instanced.
If there were only 100 'escapades' only 20 would be instanced at a 80/20% split.
You can say 80% to 20% is a huge difference compared to x,y and z but until we know actual figures, numbers and instigations it means very little in the game scheme.
Also, instanced apartments being counted in this manner mean the comment of instancing only being about storytelling and the arena is already untrue.
I'll be honest, I didn't read your post past this first line.
Considering this statement
Instanced content is meant to provide rails for an experience the designers want to achieve, such as a set party size, specific environment, or storyline, which can include class-based, culture-based, or node-based storylines.[1][6][7]
Even if every node and ever class have just a single instanced location related to their "story" - that's already 149 "instances". These could be small rooms where npcs could play out a scene or they could be tiny dungeon-like locations where you gotta fight a thing that relates to a story quest. Those are not that hard to make, but they'd still be considered "instances" because you'd be separated from all the other players.
And if those are all counted as separate instances, that already implies that we'd have ~800 "piece of content" that's in the open world. And this would range from solo mobs to legendary world bosses.
Add onto it any arena stuff, direct game story instances and any other small stuff that will be instanced - and you have yourself potentially way over a thousand pieces of non-instanced content.
All while instances are mostly story related, sum up to only ~20% of "stuff" in the game, both of which still allow players to create their own stories outside of those instances, because you still influence nodes/castles/events/etc.
Exactly my point. If players make their own stories then apartment instances are applicable. You can't have it both ways. Furthermore, there could be 85 Dungeons attached to a node each. That only requires 17 instances out of 85 and you're at 80/20% split. We know the end bosses for some encounters will be instanced thanks to the quotes. We also know story will be instanced somewhat. So your maths and arguments don't add up at all. The shortfalls in the loss of dungeons when a node delevels will be covered by the story instances which shouldn't be affected.
However, it we are to take what you say and expand it outside of the realm of instances - picture a single point of interest in the game and how many versions of it there will be based on the node state around it.
If we were to assume that each node type had a class instance for each class as you suggest, and each of them should be counted as an individual piece of content, then we have to count each potential state of each point of interest (realistically, each potential state of each potential encounter) as a piece of content.
What point?
I'm telling you that apartments don't actually count in this discussion because the 20/80 split was said in relation to PvE content (ie, encounters). You trying to say that they could count as story instances still doesn't mean they count in that 20/80 split - not unless there is PvE to be had in them.
Well, there are instances that count that are not PvE. Unfortunately, I can't leak the details. However, the devs definitely count more than PvE in the instance bracket. There was a quote that said 'Instances won't be anywhere else' except the instances have been added to 'other places'.
State changes ARE the player-created story. You'd level up a node or trigger an event or finish an event - all of those would depend on the players, so would be "player-driven story". And all of that would be outside instances.
Having instanced stories would be the exact thing that's not influenced by anything in the open world, because instances are separate from it. I don't think there'll be no relation between the two, but I doubt that the relation will create a whole new instance, so ultimately you'd count it as a single piece of instanced content.
Yeah, thats all fine.
That doesn't mean they are counted in that 20/80 split - because that was a conversation on content, not on mechanics.
If you say that 20% of your content is instanced, and then you release a game with a world where there is a giant empty instance that make up 20% of the size of your world, you are wrong in your statement that 20% of the content is instanced. If you had have said 20% of the game world by area will be instanced, you would be correct - but Intrepids comment was about content, not game world percent.
The comment from Steven just last month was that "roughly 20% of the content that players will experience will be instanced".
Yeah, you're soooo close with the term 'Content'. Yet, I can't risk the revelation. If you think of PvP and the change in the world, and, the fact players make the stories, what other major content do you think has been instanced and stands at 85 nodes and 5 castles.
Those straws are just outside your reach still.
Now, I have to assume you are talking about sieges here, if you aren't then perhaps use proper words.
In 2021, Inrepid said sieges may be instanced.
In 2022, Intrepid said sieges may have portions of them be instanced within the larger open world siege (A1 sieges were open world).
So, sieges are generaly open world, with a smaller portion (perhaps even as much as 20%, though I would wager less than that) being instanced.
If you have newer information than that, feel free to share.
Castle and node sieges may contain instanced locations where specific groups can participate in certain objective-based waypoints.[9]
and to correspond:
Districts are taken by defeating a "raid boss" guard NPC in that district.[1]
Also, there will be 22 arenas per server. The main arena and also the military node arenas. It is true not all military nodes will gain an arena but the possibility is there. These have been explicitly referred to as Instanced Content on several occasions.
Yeah, so...
The first quote is what I am talking about from 2022. A *portion* of the siege *may* be instanced.
The second quote you have there has absolutely nothing to do with instancing at all. Since the bulk of the siege is open world, the raid boss in the districts is almost definately in the open world part of the siege as well - there is absolutely no indication at all to suggest it isn't.
Yes, there are arenas that are instanced. However, keep in mind I have said probably 3 times in this thread in comments either in relation or directly replying to you that the comment on the 20/80 split was in regards to PvE content.
Please keep things in mind that have already been stated when trying to grasp at new straws.
Its not me who grasps at straws, its your infallible belief that you will get high end instanced content where you will parse the content and 'progress' except 'progression' comes with the open world dungeons and instances aren't meant to be farmed. This smacks of story instances because story instances aren't often repeated. The highest end of difficulty is the Legendary World Bosses and the process of change is PvP. That is the sum of the current content planned.
As a friendly reminder, I am not the one trying to count instanced apartments.
The comments about content not being repeatable was in relation to games where you can finish a dungeon and turn right around and do it again - Steven saying you can't farm them in this manner.
That's cool - I've never wanted that, suggested that or enjoyed doing that. I've said many times that any instances in any game should have lockout timers (a day for group content, a week for raid content). Nothing Steven has said makes me believe something like that won't be the case in Ashes.
As an aside, what Steven has said about instances is "Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot items." Which is what I have been saying they should be in Ashes since about 2018.
No one is disputing the instances will contain scripted and difficult boss fights. That's the whole point of having the instance in the first place. The debate is about the fact that it will not be the single digit content which I believed since 2018 and our last debate about the topic. It has come to my attention that the game is much more to my taste than first envisioned. Its much more like L2 than WoW for example. The PvE and PvP are merged together (Except Arena and possibly on a Ship). It is literally PvX by the very nature.
It is misleading to state to a PvE player 'Yes, you can stand in place and do rotations on these bosses' and then have the players minced by contesters of the bosses. It is only prudent to talk about PvX and 'content' in a PvX game. I don't believe PvE Instances with progression and tiers were part of kickstarter and I don't think its part of the plan at the moment. You might get progression between story plot points in dungeon/instance format though. Every boss we have seen from the devs so far smacks of PvX and contestation. Its natural to get rewards from story/quests. I believe that's why the instances drop non BiS gear.
I'm going to use the obvious example of nomenclature in the game Steven was playing at the time the question was asked (or was recently playing).
In Archeage, farming an instance would mean running it 10+ times in a row. You were "doing" an instance if you ran it once, "farming" it if you did it many times.
The game had one instance with about 7 or 8 bosses that you needed to complete 100 times for a specific quest. People would do that in a weekend - that was farming.
No where has he ever said an instance isn't able to be repeated on occasion, only that you won't be able to grind them. That to me suggests a timed lockout, not a one-time-use piece of content.
I get what you're saying and you might be correct, but that answer definitely sounds like "you clear it once for story and move on" rather than smth that you come back to from time to time.
If the idea of this game was to be even somewhat like WoW, I wouldn't be here. The specific words I have used to describe Ashes to people is that this game is "anti-WoW" by design.
However, in being the "anti-WoW", that doesn't mean the game simply doesn't have the things that WoW had. If you want to say that WoW had instanced raids and so the "anti-WoW" game can't, then I'd point out that WoW also had arenas and world PvP. This is how people that don't understand PvE talk about PvE.
Just letting you know.
Neither was a part of the world being absent of the corruption system - despite that part of the world that is now absent of the corruption system in itself being a kickstarter stretch goal.
I don't think instanced tiers are necessarily a part of the plan as yet, but they by necessity will becomes a part of the plan - either before or after launch.
Corruption System wasn't mentioned at Kickstarter either. Though I'm watching the video at the moment. Steven is more about social aspects, open dungeons and exploration than closed raids, hidden feats and anti-social toxic actions. Also, I came to the game because of SWG Devs and the fact I wanted to heal in a game. Too bad its been delayed for actual years but I digress. The main thrust is competition, conflict and contestation. I still don't feel that tiers and progression even fits in realm terms. There's only so many resources that can make BiS and unless you just want recipes the rewards would be the same as elsewhere. It would be a very skimpy process. WoW progression sucks. The vertical nature of WoW sucks. If there is pve creep there will be pvp creep too and i don't want to lose the PvX nature.
yeah sorry, was looking at multiple videos and missed your post.
They are not to be farmed repeatedly or for grinding.
Not "they are single use only".
These are distinctly different statements. Steven said one, you are essentially claiming he said the other.
Yeah, my point was that nothing in the kickstarter is worth bringing in to this conversation, as most things have changed since then.
Why would you want to repeat a Class, Racial or Story Instance? That's all the PvE instances are for.