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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.
Supporting PvE Raiders in Ashes
Stalwart
Member, Alpha Two
For starters, this isn't the main focus of AoC. This is a PvX game and I want the open world to stay relevant, becoming the main character. What I'm suggesting below is only something sprinkled in. Only a portion of the 20% instanced content. It will take development time, but is not the core of the game like some others.
I've seen quotes that suggest this may be on their mind. I've also seen some more recent counterarguments. This is just something I want to express that I'd like to see in the game. If this is old news, great. If not, please consider it.
Background:
I main ESO right now. The end-game raids in these games are a ton of fun to me. The harder difficulties, then achievement hunting, it feels very rewarding to complete them. 12 of my friends work together for months to optimize our group and perfect the mechanics. I hear WoW raids are legendary. Many others like Final Fantasy, etc.
The common thing here is an instanced PvE arena. For the instancing part, Steven has said himself that this instancing allows for more advanced mechanics. I believe that as well. The PvE part is more complicated though. I would like to see ideas to mix in PvP. I can think of some interesting ones but nothing concrete atm. The main concern I want to eliminate is mechanics being "dumbed down" because of the threat of PvP. I know in the raids we do, one goofball could run in the middle of everything and kill everyone. That's the nature of having those advanced mechanics.
Content Suggestion:
- Put the final boss at the end of an open-world dungeon in an instanced arena.
- Look at making 3+ of these boss arenas for release.
- Have the number available to the server based on node setup.
- Fight lengths will be long (10-15+ mins), have multiple stages/waves and possibly separate rooms to change up the arena.
- Content needs to take time to learn and complete. Nothing you can walk into and master in a couple of days.
- Look to current games that are focused on PvE Raiding.
- Only allow one party in the instance at a time. It's not required from a PvP aspect, see paragraph above, I do think it could help eliminate people zerging your fine-tuned mechanics.
- Consider allowing only one instance at a time. This has a lot of implications. Especially around watching the door for PvE and PvP. Just something to consider.
- Consider reduced death penalties in this "event". I'm not positive about this, but I tend to think tough content will require wiping and plenty of it.
- Include achievements like speed, no-death and other fun unique ones.
Reward Suggestion:
- Do not drop exclusive materials, but valuable ones.
- Small chance to drop a unique gear recipe (that can be sold).
- Small chance to drop a low-quality version of that gear.
- Very small chance to drop skins/cosmetic items.
- Miniscule chance to drop a flying mount.
- Performance metrics drive drop rates.
- Completing achievements awards small cosmetics or titles.
It is important to remember that your group will have to fight through an open-world dungeon to get there and to bring the loot home.
Thank you for reading.
I've seen quotes that suggest this may be on their mind. I've also seen some more recent counterarguments. This is just something I want to express that I'd like to see in the game. If this is old news, great. If not, please consider it.
Background:
I main ESO right now. The end-game raids in these games are a ton of fun to me. The harder difficulties, then achievement hunting, it feels very rewarding to complete them. 12 of my friends work together for months to optimize our group and perfect the mechanics. I hear WoW raids are legendary. Many others like Final Fantasy, etc.
The common thing here is an instanced PvE arena. For the instancing part, Steven has said himself that this instancing allows for more advanced mechanics. I believe that as well. The PvE part is more complicated though. I would like to see ideas to mix in PvP. I can think of some interesting ones but nothing concrete atm. The main concern I want to eliminate is mechanics being "dumbed down" because of the threat of PvP. I know in the raids we do, one goofball could run in the middle of everything and kill everyone. That's the nature of having those advanced mechanics.
Content Suggestion:
- Put the final boss at the end of an open-world dungeon in an instanced arena.
- Look at making 3+ of these boss arenas for release.
- Have the number available to the server based on node setup.
- Fight lengths will be long (10-15+ mins), have multiple stages/waves and possibly separate rooms to change up the arena.
- Content needs to take time to learn and complete. Nothing you can walk into and master in a couple of days.
- Look to current games that are focused on PvE Raiding.
- Only allow one party in the instance at a time. It's not required from a PvP aspect, see paragraph above, I do think it could help eliminate people zerging your fine-tuned mechanics.
- Consider allowing only one instance at a time. This has a lot of implications. Especially around watching the door for PvE and PvP. Just something to consider.
- Consider reduced death penalties in this "event". I'm not positive about this, but I tend to think tough content will require wiping and plenty of it.
- Include achievements like speed, no-death and other fun unique ones.
Reward Suggestion:
- Do not drop exclusive materials, but valuable ones.
- Small chance to drop a unique gear recipe (that can be sold).
- Small chance to drop a low-quality version of that gear.
- Very small chance to drop skins/cosmetic items.
- Miniscule chance to drop a flying mount.
- Performance metrics drive drop rates.
- Completing achievements awards small cosmetics or titles.
It is important to remember that your group will have to fight through an open-world dungeon to get there and to bring the loot home.
Thank you for reading.
4
Comments
So a PvP raid is incoming, you better reorganize or everyone is going to get wiped.
Perhaps only certain classes can provide you with that early warning. (ahem Rouge)
In other words, you want your PvE to be determined by PvP.
I mean, thatis the point I was making.
If you want a game where you can PvP, Ashes may have you sorted, as far as MMO's gl. If you want a game where you can PvE and PvE, all good. If you want to just be able to PvE by itself though, people like you will post comments like this above and tell you that you just arent allowed to do that in this game.
And then no doubt you'll wonder why people refer to this game as a PvP MMO, not a PvX MMO.
In other words if you want PvE (like 80%+ of the MMO population do) this isnt a game worth looking at.
If you want just PvP this mmo is not for u either.
Therefore PvX
In terms of MMO's, it kind of is.
If all you want is PvP, MMO's arent the genre for you.
An MMOFPS can be mostly PvP.
No surprise to have a mostly PvP MMO Survival Game.
mmofps can have rpg and survival too! MMOFPSRPG SURVIVAL
Genre mixing is getting absurd with actual identity these days. haha
What we're creating is a PvX game; and what that means is our target audience is the PvX player; and that is our golden cohort. And so to a degree if a player is solely interested in the most elaborate raid boss mechanics within a controlled and curated setting that is instanced gameplay, Ashes might not be the game for them and that's okay. However, with that being said, we do have a division of curated experiences that exist in an 80:20 ratio; and what that means is roughly 20% of the content that players will experience will be instanced, because where we want to have that granular control over the design and mechanics of a particular storyline or encounter we utilize the instance setting to provide that.[1] – Steven Sharif
They won't be best-in-slot type items. You will not accomplish that from in from instanced-based content. Those will be found within the open-world. It'll be a competitive area for you to achieve those things, because other forces will want to achieve them as well; and because it's open-world there will be a limited number of those who can successfully complete on: Whether it be some timer for a world boss, or some condition or other world state predicate. Those are things that people are going to have to contend with each other for.[6] – Steven Sharif
In situations where we want to contain a particular type of raid, we will utilize instancing; and that can protect certain engagements with certain bosses. But that's really more on the 20% of the scenarios will have instancing protection like that. Around 80% of the content is open-world, where competition is- healthy competition is an instigator for soft player friction; for potential cooperation; for the ability to yield alliances; and the political theater that comes with it. So that's an intended part of the PvX design of Ashes. It's a core philosophical point. And just to be clear, that is not for everyone. We are not trying to make a product that appeals to every MMO gamer. That's impossible; and so we've been very upfront and forthright with what we are trying to accomplish and what our core pillars of philosophical design are.[2] – Steven Sharif
There will be some open dungeons that have bosses at the end of the dungeons. There will be some open dungeons that just have a multitude of dungeon bosses, not necessarily world raids or something; and there will be lots of different rooms and they'll be progressive in the sense that in the earlier parts of the dungeon they'll be lower level and then at the later parts of the dungeons deeper down they'll be higher level and more difficult; and that creates again I think an ecosystem of where players across a multitude of levels have an opportunity to coexist within certain areas of the world; and that's good from a social dynamic. It's good from a recruitment dynamic. It's good from just a liveliness and relevance of particular areas. So that you don't end up with these locations that once you pass a certain level like it's empty.[13] – Steven Sharif
In a majority of cases, we do not want to prevent another group from engaging potentially in PvP. We disincentivize it by creating safeguards within the flagging system that make that decision very concerning for the people that might go corrupt; and if you're in the large enough group of numbers I doubt you're going to experience that unless there's some rivalry between guilds. In which case there's apparatuses like Guild Wars that are more opt-in. You can drop guild tag if you want. But anyways, the competitive nature of this environment is a PvX element.[2] – Steven Sharif
more than hybridisation. Genre's are just blending because what made them more iconic for identity can primarily be seen as common features now. 20 years ago, completely different story in terms of modern game design. Unless someone designs a game to be "true" to the original specifications for features.... it's just reality now.
This is basically the point I made.
If PvE is what you want - in basically any form - Ashes isnt the game for you, and Intrepid are fine with that.
There is a very clear path for Intrepid to take if they ever changed their mind, and like some others, I am happy to discuss that path. However, discussing the path and expecting Intrepid to take that path are two different things.
well, its a pvx game. besides, a lot of the PVP is already determined by pve. also, nothing guarantees that you can even do the boss after you are already inside. you are just fighting for the right to be inside.
additionally, after the boss wakes up, no one else can get in. This even makes it more challenging than your typical pve instance where you can wipe and try again 345745 times. there arent second chances here. you would have to win the PVP again.
There are two ways this could go. Either the developers tune the content for PvP players - as content in Archeage (including it's instanced content) was, or it is tuned as PvE content.
If it is tuned as PvE content, PvP players with a PvP spec and PvP gear will have literally no shot at it (in exactly the same way PvE players with PvE specs and PvE gear will have no shot against PvP players).
Thus, the only viable way to ever get a kill is to have some of your guild/alliance dealing with the PvP, while some deals with the PvE. If this is the case, you would deal with that PvP constantly, until the encounter is dead (you have people there to only do this).
On the other hand, if it is tuned for PvP players in PvP spec/gear, it will probably be killed first pull - and only PvP players will give a shit about the game.
plot twist: there isn't pvp or pve gear, just gear that is the same for both scenarios (what matters is your stats and there isn't a pve stat or a PVP stat/resilience or whatever)
There won't be PvP or PvE specific stats on gear, but if a given item is as useful in PvP as it is in PvE, then one aspect of the game will be lacking.
An example from another thread is that it is unlikely that mana regen will be needed in PvP. If it isn't needed in PvE, then either mana is pointless, or PvE is too short.
And at that point it'd just be about making good abilities overall and combining them in pve in a logical but complex way.
I've been skipping majority of discussions lately, but where was this? Cause, INTREPID YOU BETTER LISTEN, we definitely need mana management in pvp. From both sides of the fight too.
Nah, overall, Noaani is right, generally you will have different goals for the situations, so the only way a 'good PvP' item would be similar to a 'good PvE' item would be if the PvE was a very different type than what you find in most MMOs.
This is a thing that basically only TL and FFXI can do consistently because of their pacing. It wouldn't fit for Ashes unless it was trying to be more like those games, which seems unlikely given everything we know.
But hey, in two weeks we'll be able to say with at least a bit more certainty. Frame data and all.
In other thread you just said yourself that what combat tracker might tell you to be the best spec in one scenario (hitting some target for a minute in your example), might not be the best spec in other scenario (PVP). Which is true, and this applies to PVE and PVP specs as well, as Noaani said. Just switch the target in your example to some PVE encounter.
Before this I've thought that you should be able to re-spec only at NPC in node, but this issue that Noaani brought might have changed my mind. Could this issue be resolved by allowing players to re-spec upon entering the instanced PVE encounter? Also players would possibly need to carry other set of gear with them.
You can join me on the Copium train that someday someone will make it (or TL will get expanded properly somehow, as I've said, it's quite close).
Also there's no specific reason Ashes cannot do it, it's just that there's very little incentive to do it, especially now. I guess we can just hope that Steven is far more like you than has even been shown so far (or really likes the design ethos of MOBAs enough to know which parts to grab).
See, I consider this to be a good thing.
I don't want my PvP and PvE to feel the same. I don't want to spec and gear the same for both.
Each is it's own thing that is enjoyable for what it is, but each is only really enjoyable when it is at it's best (shit PvP is shit, shit PvE is shit).
I'd much rather a game wanting both PvP and PvE in their game develop each to be the best they individually can (not that this seems to be what Intrepid is doing), and give players freedom when creating character spec's and gear to have builds for each.
As to why I think mana regen would be more useful in PvE than PvP - in PvP you *can* just leave the engagement area to replenish mana. In PvE, you can't do this. I've yet to play a game where both of these things were not true - you have always been able to get away from the PvP engagement area, but are not always able to remove yourself from PvE combat without being killed.
This doesn't mean mana regen would be useless in PvP, just that it would be essential in top end PvE but would never be essential in PvP.
I assume you're talking about purely instanced pve here and open field pvp. Cause my experience is literally the opposite
Did instances in AA always cover the entire room in aoes/hazards throughout the entire fight? Cause obviously EQ2 must have, but AA seems like a way weaker pve game, so I'm curious if it did.
In top end PvE, you need to tailor your build to the content you are running. Most raid dungeons would see most players in the raid take along a different spec. Many of them would require multiple people respec mid dungeon for a specific fight. This is a massive part of how PvE content retains variety.
Based on that, I don't just want a PvE and a PvP spec and gear set, my expectation is that I will have a spec for if I am on the attacking side on a siege, a spec for if I am on the defending side, a spec for if I am attacking a caravan, a spec for if I am defending a caravan, a spec for if I am wanting open world PvP, a spec for if I am planning on being in the open world but want to avoid PvP, a spec for if I want to be a mureder hobo, a spec for if I want to be a bounty hunter, a spec for the open seas, a spec for guild and node wars (I would expect these to be similar enough to use the same spec).
Quite honestly, if each of these PvP scenarios are so similar that you would want to run the same spec for each of them, then what is the point in them existing? The entire point of each of these is to have different content experiences - and different content should suggest a different spec.
Thus, I fully expect to also have a range of different spec's for PvP, as I would expect for PvE.
This isn't making the game "less PvX". If anything, it is making PvP more like PvE, which one would argue makes the game even more PvX than if the games PvP didn't ask for multiple specs based on the situation. AA didn't have encounters that lasted long enough to find out.
And yes, in EQ2, even open world encounters would prevent you from leaving combat without being killed.
Once you are "in combat" with an open world raid encounter, the only way you get become "out of combat" (and thus gain out of combat mana/HP regen) is if you die, zone in to a different zone, or the encounter resets. Most open world raid encounters had AoE's that were zone wide, but only on the specific raid that was attacking them (could only be one raid at a time). Thus, if you attempted to run to the nearest zone, unless you had healers supporting you, you were probably going to die.
This meant that there was inpractice no viable method for dropping combat to regen faster.
On the other hand, in PvP, I've always seem this as being possible. Obviously Archeage is my main experience for large scale PvP, and in that game there was always a front line of the factions involved. The healers were obviously usually behind this front line, and if you moved yourself just past the healers, you were almost always able to find a way to get out of combat for a few seconds to regen mana faster.
While I don't know what the requirements to get out of combat in L2 were, every photo you've posted of PvP in that game suggests to me there would be a way to get out of combat fairly easily to regen some mana if you needed to do so. The only way I could see it not being possible is if you remained in combat if someone in your group or raid nearby remained in combat - but I have yet to play a game with a requirement that is like this, every game I have played had individual requirements (often as simple as not hitting or being hit for 15 seconds).
And this is the design/pacing difference in question, and why L2 'can only be merged' with FFXI and like... Neverwinter sort of.
You can regen your MP, positionally, quite easily in FFXI and TL. What you can't do is 'find the time to do that' because everyone's input is required often, this is even somewhat true of Mages.
And similarly, in FFXI PvP, it's easy to prevent you from doing this by having someone throw a bunch of long duration DoT on the people you don't want doing this, since even if they then use Stoneskin to allow themselves to rest for MP, you can see that they're doing that and react accordingly.
The different games all went in vastly different directions from their EQ1 baseline. Which is why we have to hope that Steven or the design team clear this up for us at some point.
To me, changing a gear piece or two is not a respec. And if you did mean the kind of changes I mentioned - I don't think we can do that on the go in Ashes.
So yeah, it's about L2's pace of things. Mana regen is abysmally slow even out of combat, so "exiting combat to regen a bit" usually means death of your party or completely meaningless amount of regen.
Like, breaks between pve pulls are usually a few minutes, if the pull depletes all your mana (usually the case on lower lvls during aoe mage farming).
So in my experience I cannot recall a single player who'd just go "ay dudes, I gotta regen my mana, so yall keep fighting at a number disadvantage while I sit on my ass for 5 minutes or so"
This is also the reason why I kept telling mag that I want pvp to completely use up your resources, in that resurrection thread. I'm used to pvps going not only till you run out of mana, but sometimes even beyond that, if the dps from either side dips below the rare party heal from the healers (a rare occurrence, but still).
And this is also why I want deep, extensive and complex mana gameplay between all archetypes. And I want the same in pve, which would bring both closer together class-balance-wise.