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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.
Methods Of Handling Boss/Elite Loot Drops (Itemization)
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So, the initial question in the OP of this post from the Devs is a little hard for me to interact with, without checking on some stuff that people would expect or dislike.
If you have specific opinions about how these drops should work or develop specific opinions through reading or participating in this thread, please please make sure to go put them in that Dev Discussion thread, it's very important to Intrepid. If you don't have strong opinions yet and don't mind discussing/arguing it out with me, read on...
Simplicity vs Immersion
I don't think this has to be a fight between conflicting values/design goals, but it really depends on who you're talking to, right? All I know is when 'a thing is too simple for me to enjoy it', and obviously, for some people, there must be a 'too complex for them to enjoy it'. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to simplify stuff in design without losing the essence of it. So, while I'd want Part-Break/Abyssea Proc System levels of complexity personally, I know not everyone wants to have to coordinate all that, and definitely don't want to have to do it for mobs that they already outlevel or can lowman, i.e. 'anything below the higher echelon of bosses. The part of this I care about discussing is basically 'how okay are people with conditions that make you have to do something to get a specific drop from a mob, assuming that it has a different 'more generic' drop on the same 'loot roll' if you don't do the thing?'
Economy vs Streamlined Experience
This is separate, for me. And in this case, I definitely believe it's a fight. If you streamline drops/paths to good gear, even with varied builds, the economy suffers. So I personally never want two mobs to drop the same gear. I don't want them to drop similar gear. Technically I don't want them to even drop gear. I say let us craft everything and let the market decide. I've seen a lot of 'support' for this sentiment on forums but my question is something more specific today:
If mobs have a chance to not drop anything unique, but are still really rare to encounter in the world, is this a good or a bad thing?
My own answer to that is covered next.
Defending Ring vs Pixie Earring
FFXI reference. Certain mobs basically have two drops in the same slot. You can only get one or the other. One of them is known to be very great, and the other is basically 'standard gear for the level'. I vastly prefer this personally, and I think it can work better in Ashes than in most games that do it because other games need to do things like make the 'common' drop Bind on Pickup so it doesn't lose all market value. Ashes could let us 'deconstruct it to get the recipe for it' instead, have Artisans learn to make better ones, etc. But I don't know how this affects that dopamine hit that some people get. I would figure it works the same, but I don't actually know since I don't feel that as much as most. I do hate fighting a boss and getting nothing, though, even when the boss is fun, in economically competitive games. I'll spare you the biased essay on why I think that design type sucks, but I'm happy to read 'em.
Is it important for you to have mobs that can be defeated yet drop nothing, or drop nothing unique, on 90% of kills?
Basically, would you hate a system where most or all boss/elite mobs always drop either X or Y. Tumok drops either "Bespored Ash Wood" rarely or "Tumult Mushroom" in the same loot roll slot, but never both, and if so why?
Once again, if you have strong opinions on how exactly drops should work, Intrepid needs those, they made a thread. I'm reaching out to the 'I didn't think about that much' people, and I guess 'the people who like discussing stuff with me'.
Thanks as always.
If you have specific opinions about how these drops should work or develop specific opinions through reading or participating in this thread, please please make sure to go put them in that Dev Discussion thread, it's very important to Intrepid. If you don't have strong opinions yet and don't mind discussing/arguing it out with me, read on...
Simplicity vs Immersion
I don't think this has to be a fight between conflicting values/design goals, but it really depends on who you're talking to, right? All I know is when 'a thing is too simple for me to enjoy it', and obviously, for some people, there must be a 'too complex for them to enjoy it'. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to simplify stuff in design without losing the essence of it. So, while I'd want Part-Break/Abyssea Proc System levels of complexity personally, I know not everyone wants to have to coordinate all that, and definitely don't want to have to do it for mobs that they already outlevel or can lowman, i.e. 'anything below the higher echelon of bosses. The part of this I care about discussing is basically 'how okay are people with conditions that make you have to do something to get a specific drop from a mob, assuming that it has a different 'more generic' drop on the same 'loot roll' if you don't do the thing?'
Economy vs Streamlined Experience
This is separate, for me. And in this case, I definitely believe it's a fight. If you streamline drops/paths to good gear, even with varied builds, the economy suffers. So I personally never want two mobs to drop the same gear. I don't want them to drop similar gear. Technically I don't want them to even drop gear. I say let us craft everything and let the market decide. I've seen a lot of 'support' for this sentiment on forums but my question is something more specific today:
If mobs have a chance to not drop anything unique, but are still really rare to encounter in the world, is this a good or a bad thing?
My own answer to that is covered next.
Defending Ring vs Pixie Earring
FFXI reference. Certain mobs basically have two drops in the same slot. You can only get one or the other. One of them is known to be very great, and the other is basically 'standard gear for the level'. I vastly prefer this personally, and I think it can work better in Ashes than in most games that do it because other games need to do things like make the 'common' drop Bind on Pickup so it doesn't lose all market value. Ashes could let us 'deconstruct it to get the recipe for it' instead, have Artisans learn to make better ones, etc. But I don't know how this affects that dopamine hit that some people get. I would figure it works the same, but I don't actually know since I don't feel that as much as most. I do hate fighting a boss and getting nothing, though, even when the boss is fun, in economically competitive games. I'll spare you the biased essay on why I think that design type sucks, but I'm happy to read 'em.
Is it important for you to have mobs that can be defeated yet drop nothing, or drop nothing unique, on 90% of kills?
Basically, would you hate a system where most or all boss/elite mobs always drop either X or Y. Tumok drops either "Bespored Ash Wood" rarely or "Tumult Mushroom" in the same loot roll slot, but never both, and if so why?
Once again, if you have strong opinions on how exactly drops should work, Intrepid needs those, they made a thread. I'm reaching out to the 'I didn't think about that much' people, and I guess 'the people who like discussing stuff with me'.
Thanks as always.
♪ One Gummy Fish, two Gummy Fish, Red Gummy Fish, Blue Gummy Fish ♪
1
Comments
I would not mind if some trinkets would increase drop rate or tier and this to be calculated only based on who did the killing blow
I wouldn't mind to have such mobs because it would break the pattern other games have.
But the novelty might fade fast. So I would still prefer at least sometime something from them unless they have some role or offer some other kind of information if the player avoids killing them. Some could boost spawn parameters in the area...
Guards near nodes or some PoI could be hard to defeat but drop nothing. Their role would be to just fight.
We could extend this as a game mechanic, by having special NPCs which have special behavior when players are nearby and do "something". That could be trying to open an unusual passage, door, chest...
Or could be about groups of players fighting each-other. Such NPCs could maybe decide to help one side if some quests or reputation is met related to them or some support classes are present etc.
1- i think you are confusing simplicity of design with how challenging the task is. example: look at rubik cubes, they are very simple to use, in fact, you dont need anything more complicated than the same mechanics you would use to open a jar and you need less strength too! using a rubiks cube is probably easier than using your car's steering wheel, yet solving one is very challenging and complicated. you can get absorbed for hours (of course, the average person who doesnt know the methods and formulas, which had to be figured out by someone). thats immersion.
2- anyways, regarding mobs dropping gear, i think IS already said that mobs wont drop anything. they will, however, drop crafting materials. we also saw different levels of glints, so mbos could drop different levels of crafting materials (or different rarity). and i believe bosses drop gear that wont compete with crafted gear plus rare crafting materials that you can use to craft good gear.
i really prefer getting drops from mobs, maybe because im used to it and because i dislike crafting. if i was making the game for myself, id make it so that you could get everything by killing mobs even if thats not super "realistic" but hey this is a word where people summon meteors lol.
that doesnt necessarily ruin the economy. whats the difference between killing a wolf 100 times until you drop a wolf armor between killing 100 wolves to get wolf skin and crafting a wolf armor? you are still getting the same armor that you could sell to other people. of course some people might get lucky and get the armor after 50 wolves, but some others might be unlucky and get it after 150. but globally, there will be about 1 wolf armor per every 100 wolves killed, so you can still use the numbers to manipulate how fast or slow items get introduced to the game. aoc wants items to be introduced slowly to the game and they use freeholds for that, but you could as well just reduce the drop % of items or reduce the number of wolves in the world, or even the type of wolf that drops the armor.
3- i dont like the ff system of 2 items, but also, too many items in one mob is annoying because you will get the items that you dont want xD. there are many different builds in ashes. someone might want magic damage, and someone else might want magic pen, and someone else might want casting speed, plus each item can have multiple levels or rarity...so you definitely need more than 1 normal item and 1 rare item.
also consider that there will be less high level area / mobs than lower levels. unless they expand vertically (tower of carphin for example). have 80 t1 areas but only 4 t6 areas with less mobs, presumably. so probably each mob will have to drop more than 2 items to accommodate to different builds and stats.
Ideally I'd want all of those to stack too, so I dislike the "same loot roll" thing, if I understood that mechanic correctly.
If we're talking boss/elite mobs - I'd definitely prefer them to drop at least one unique thing on all farms of the mob. It can be a super basic thing that is not part of some epic craft, but it should still drop.
For me, seeing a mob and going "oh shit, I wanna fight that because I just want to fight it and not because I know he drops smth cool" is an alien concept and line of thinking.
I think I pretty much addressed this above.
I dislike loot roll limits and I want mobs to always at least drop smth (a singular piece of lowest tier glint counts as "smth" here). Elite mobs should always drop smth unique (I'd be fine if instead of unique it's a super high tier glint).
Do you also hate that you depend on crafters?
You get the resources and those will become eventually items.
yep, i do. i rather just kill mobs till my stuff drops. ive never been into gathering / crafting. however, i like that in aoc you can alter the secondary stats of whatever you craft by using different mats and you potentially have lots of build options, so maybe aoc will make me like crafting. i just find combat more fun than pressing "E" on some object / npc.
im also ok buying the item from another player. assuming we leave playing the market out, if i can just farm mobs and make about the same amount of money per hour, consistently, than doing anything artisan related (maybe except skinning if thats a thing, because i can fight the mob and get the loot, then skin it for more loot, basically a double whammy), ill be farming mobs.
at the end of the day its irrelevant to me how i get the item, i just want it. i could just farm something and buy the item i want and its more fun, but i can see why games nowadays have all these artisan systems, people like them.
I can't follow what point you're making here, sorry. Bear in mind here that I'm talking about complexity of like, having multiple things to do at once, and though I hate to bring it up, remember that I am like, an actual genius..., so there might be some things that others find challenging and complicated, that I don't...
So, with that in mind, could you make your point for me again?
if you are talking about doing multiple things at once, then i didnt get what you meant on your first post.
if you are talking about options, remember that you arent designing for yourself, you are doing it for others.
you have to think about the player experience.
about 5-6 options (meaningful) at a time is when we can start talking about the "genius" player experience (and when things start to get complicated).
the solution to your problem most likely can be found after learning more about the different experiences you can give to your players and what are the techniques used to create those experiences. playing a platform game with a timer its completely different feeling than playing the same game without a timer.
you might be using the wrong approach to this problem. in my eyes, you are thinking "how can i make mob drops more complex" when you should be thinking "what do i want my players to feel after killing a mob" (lets ignore before and during for now).
also remember that people have fun when they try to overcome a challenge that is a lil bit above what they can handle, regardless of complexity, although higher complexity usually means a harder challenge.
also additional note: having a high iq doesnt mean you can perform better than people with a normal iq. it just means you can learn something faster, or with less repetitions.
Ok, agreed, hence the discussion to begin with.
I've definitely learned over the years not to design for myself, no one wants to play that. Or rather, if I design in such a way, it must contain a method for people who don't enjoy it, to cut out or drop around half of the focus points.
You say 5-6 is where things start to get complicated, and I agree there too. So I don't think we actually disagree about anything. What I'm asking is 'is it too much just by going into it, is the game itself already enough or too much?'
This is the thing I usually can't judge because I'm like that. I miss things in design sometimes because I don't realize that other people can't do those things automatically, and sometimes 'having to focus on something like that takes the fun out of the game for them'.
It's similar to what Raven was asking you. If you hate crafting, do you also hate 'having to remember which crafters are able to use which materials'? Is your play experience less fun because you have to 'remember which materials are useful' before you leave to go fight something? Stuff like that, except in this case, I'm asking about 'having to remember to bring the correct gear to make sure you have the best chance of breaking Barioth's claws because the quest you are on doesn't have bonus rewards from extra difficulty so you have to get the claws manually'.
Right, but what's the reason for this?
There are multiple reasons this could be a person's reaction (or not be their reaction).
Obviously as you know I 'just fight things because I want to fight them'. But also, people play single player games and fight things just because they're fun to fight. If we somehow assume that Ashes can create mobs that are just fun to fight, then they could feel like the single-player game targets.
But of course, it's different when you're at least somewhat in a constant 'competition' with everyone else in the game for 'money or gear'. If you're fighting an Elite that drops nothing valuable just because the fight is fun to you, you're not making money or getting gear, and that could change your behaviour.
But this is Ashes. People might go out to PvP with the opponent dropping nothing valuable, so the 'value' of time is a bit different.
I believe you sorta answered this though. "It should at least drop some High Tier Glint". So I'm just checking if there's anything else to consider there, particularly since I dislike Glint for exactly that reason (i.e. it must be 'high enough tier' or something like that).
well i definetely hate going on a quest, then when im there im like shit i have to go back to my storage because i forgot something xD but thats independant from whether the quest itself is fun or not.
anyways, i think the answer to the question you asked in your last paragraph is found in the book the design of every day things by don norman (probably also on dont make me think by steve krug, although that one is more about web design, but the title is a dead giveaway). anyways, don talks about knowledge in the head vs knowledge in the world and he gives an example about using his friend's car and the ignition. there was something specific you had to do to get the car working, but that knowledge was nowhere to be found in the car. you either knew about it or you didnt, then how would you drive the car? so it was bad. i dont remember the exact example because its been a while, but you get the idea.
you probably and most definitely want knowledge in the world. having to remember which crafters are able to use which materials, maybe what items can be used in which recipe, different results, etc. thats too much burden to put on players memory. they would probably just go to a website with a guide, so why not put that knowledge somewhere easy to be found in the world (of verra).
It's a derail from this thread a bit, but I'll definitely ask you someday about how you feel regarding 'information about things you can get in Nodes' and how available it should be.
still. if you wanna add some mechanic or minigame to increase the loot chances, knowledge in the world is a good thing
Like I said, to me this is a totally alien concept. I just cannot understand how/why people find enjoyment in the process itself. And I don't remember playing a single single-player game where any given mob would not be linked to either preventing you from progressing the story or your char's progress.
And I forgot to mention this, but I'd see achievements as a reward as well, though obviously they're a one-time thing, unless it's smth like "kill this strong mob 1/3/5/10 times".
To me this is the same as "pve for fun". I never understood people who'd just go out and pointlessly attack people.
To me it's simply about the reward being equivalent to the difficulty of the encounter. Especially when it comes to pve, because that's something the devs control rather than the players.
If the elite/boss mob is a super rare spawn - he better give me a ton of money or a valuable piece of loot (or the achievement that would be a status symbol). If the spawn is not that rare, but the drops are - those drops better be valuable.
Alternatives to tangible rewards could be smth like "someone needs this mob for a quest and they need your help" (a social reward), "killing this mob will lead to an even bigger reward later on, because his death is a trigger" (delayed/built-up reward), "this mob's drop is utterly useless for you, but your enemies need it so you kill it to prevent their progression" (pvp-related reward), and other design like that which I'm blanking on right now.
I'd be fine if in any of those cases the mob didn't drop anything of worth for me (or anything at all, for that matter).
I read once a SF novel about aliens estimating if it is worth colonizing Earth. The alien who did the report said they can remove artificial things made by humans but natural things should stay. But markings on trees in the mountains would just make his people follow them and when they would arrive to those places would look arround confused and would have a negative impact on them.
So he recommended to avoid Earth.
Patmat driven brain activity is a hell of a drug, yes.
Relatively same thing if the boss drops completed gear items or crafting mats to either upgrade or craft something similar. Either way it floods the itemisation market. If things are not soul bound they just become another commodity to trade for/with. Ashes isn't really that far on the sandbox side of spectrum of design for a true player controlled market. it's why it's a sand park game making it another nuance in the spectrum.
But Ashes supposedly works on the principle I'm used to, where ideally you have a lot of situational 'horizontal progression' gear pieces for doing different types of content, so 'completing your character' is quite hard.
I therefore perceive the Feedback Thread question as being very different than it is in most MMORPGs. A huge number of bosses can drop 'something interesting' with relatively minimal 'forced rarity' at that point.
Is there even a need for any player to repeat an encounter for a Rare or Elite? Ashes seems like the type of game where you could be a person who literally never even sees 50% of them.
it's only hard to "complete" if you try and min/max your character for each secondary archetype combination and augmentation allowances which could just end up being completely pointless with meta's and tuning, balancing or nerfs as the doomers cry. Not to forget about secondary switching frequencies. Same shit just different. Not a bad thing though.
You're not wrong. Probably wont need to go to every boss as there will probably be multiple ways to get the similar things as some biomes and encounters loot pools could overlap. It's why the world is designed a certain ways for ingredient acquisition from my understanding. Lot's of variables to bypass it so if you want to just craft and do the minimal pvp or pve you can I suppose.
Hopefully there won't be too much overlap, cause then I don't want to play it either. This is a hard question to answer for me right now since I don't want to get into the Korean TL release just to really push and test my interest in their underdeveloped system, and even if I did, crafting is one of the main things I'm expecting them to overhaul in their second roadmapped update.
The crafting will provide lots of options for tuning/balancing I imagine. I see the classes and augments as just another way to do the same thing since the primary archetype abilities are the ones that get augmented. I don't usually waste too much time gearing alts chars or alt specs too much. I usually find something that suits my playstyle and tweak it. But, I do try different classes or builds from time to time.
Time will tell I suppose
My feedback is now given, and though I probably didn't end up tempering myself sufficiently, your contributions did help me focus it. Probably letting this thread fall off again, therefore.