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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
NPC Combat Pockets - Do they have any place in Ashes of Creation's dynamic world?
Jettatura
Member, Alpha Two
I don't know if there is a better term for it. I heard it from a video essay about The Forever Winter, a game that takes place on a battlefield where you, as the protagonist of the story, aren't very significant to the battlefield. A combat pocket, in a game design aspect, is a localized area of engaged hostility. It's an emergent consequence of who, when, and where colliding in just the right way. Combat pockets of course will exist in the game in terms of PVP. Intrepid is building a whole system around player-driven war. Player vs NPC combat pockets, even moreso, should go without say. I may not have played many MMORPGs, but I have seen a number of attempts at NPC-run combat pockets. The majority of them are used more as set dressing than anything else. If it's possible to do well, I wonder if it has any place in Ashes of Creation, with its systems being far more robust than the likes of, say, SWTOR.
The first example of an NPC-run combat pocket that comes to mind is the Khazard-Gnome war in Runescape. The God-Wars dungeon is another prime example. In Runescape, these literally-never-ending wars take place in clearly-defined bounds, and you as a player can take part however you see fit.
Here in Khazard, two groups of NPCs create a combat pocket on the map, which add to the feeling that the world is lively, and things exist and move and transpire outside of your executive control. However, the sobered eye might grow disillusioned with its lack of nuance. This battlefield exists forever. You can join the fight, but your fight will end nothing but your attention span. It's is a shame, because while the battlefield is grand and spectacular, it means you're meant to pass it up and stop thinking about it, like a rest stop to a town that uses frivolous monuments to get you to stop by. It's meant to exist for literally every player to witness, and that makes this battlefield feel more like a zoo exhibit where you can step inside and go hunting.
Will intrepid be taking a crack at NPC-run combat pockets in Verra? How emergent, dynamic, or fluid would Intrepid aim to make them? How much could they even? It's possible to make a game with good NPC-run combat pockets, and it's possible to put NPC-run combat pockets in your game. Do you believe it has a place in this game, though?
I think it would be really neat if, say, the goblins fought the minotaurs at random in the Riverlands because their patrol paths overlapped or something, or if a wandering elite monster decided to rampage against a band of highwaymen. Not super often would it happen, but enough that you'd see one mob fight another mob every once in a while. It makes the world outside of the ordered sttlements feel 'messier,' which I really like. Not every cluster of enemies deserve to sit around until a player comes. I think some of them should be killed by other, stronger NPCs. Let the little goblin dude see some action before players pop out and knock the living daylights out of em!
The first example of an NPC-run combat pocket that comes to mind is the Khazard-Gnome war in Runescape. The God-Wars dungeon is another prime example. In Runescape, these literally-never-ending wars take place in clearly-defined bounds, and you as a player can take part however you see fit.
Here in Khazard, two groups of NPCs create a combat pocket on the map, which add to the feeling that the world is lively, and things exist and move and transpire outside of your executive control. However, the sobered eye might grow disillusioned with its lack of nuance. This battlefield exists forever. You can join the fight, but your fight will end nothing but your attention span. It's is a shame, because while the battlefield is grand and spectacular, it means you're meant to pass it up and stop thinking about it, like a rest stop to a town that uses frivolous monuments to get you to stop by. It's meant to exist for literally every player to witness, and that makes this battlefield feel more like a zoo exhibit where you can step inside and go hunting.
Will intrepid be taking a crack at NPC-run combat pockets in Verra? How emergent, dynamic, or fluid would Intrepid aim to make them? How much could they even? It's possible to make a game with good NPC-run combat pockets, and it's possible to put NPC-run combat pockets in your game. Do you believe it has a place in this game, though?
I think it would be really neat if, say, the goblins fought the minotaurs at random in the Riverlands because their patrol paths overlapped or something, or if a wandering elite monster decided to rampage against a band of highwaymen. Not super often would it happen, but enough that you'd see one mob fight another mob every once in a while. It makes the world outside of the ordered sttlements feel 'messier,' which I really like. Not every cluster of enemies deserve to sit around until a player comes. I think some of them should be killed by other, stronger NPCs. Let the little goblin dude see some action before players pop out and knock the living daylights out of em!
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Comments
For this exact example maybe Intrepid is doing it good enough - and this is - players side with either the goblins or the minutaurs, and when they have enough players they run attack on the other. (here there should be goblin army that marches on its own, that is not dependent on the players, and players can decide if they want to help the army vs the minutaurs, fight the other players or just let the 2 armies fight).
But i thing good idea would be for example - event where Goblin king is born, He merges all the small goblin tribes, and launch attack on cities. If player dont defend - even a metropolis can fall. Maybe some will try to help the goblins in attempt to destroy the metropolis first, and try to deal with the goblins after. Whoever slays the goblin king gets raid tier rewards. And if left on its own the map will change completely
And players can choose which side to support, which then involves them in those quest lines.
I think this would be real nice. Also, I feel like FF11 had something kinda similar.
I will say, my initial reaction is disinterest. I find that these often just end up being places where you get low-effort XP but the respawn rates are so low that there's no point in being there. Or you only pass through every few minutes on a rotation of the area.
But if it was done in a way where it actually mattered in some way that the NPCs are fighting, and you somehow have to be strategic about how you interact with them, I would like the concept.
Some mobs would be supporting players and each other with buffs and some would simply deal damage to the enemy (players from the other side included), and if the enemy dies - the mob's "corruption" value drops. Visibility of that value could depend on your relationships with their side of the conflict, so players who are deeper in might direct other players to protect/help certain mobs (obviously this could be feinted as well).
The overall amount of the mob's corruption could be balanced in testing or determined based on the situation Intrepid wanna create. The entire system could be implemented as part of a bigger storyline, or could be its own special storyline, or even just a religious quest from a tulnar node, where these mobs might be some distant relatives that the quest giver is trying to save (cause the corruption overtook them).
Variety is kinda endless here, as long as the mob AI allows this.
Maybe I misunderstand the premise/question?
But it doesn't sound like the OP thinks it's good if they're permanent, therefore they just... shouldn't be permanent but happen based on world data, which is what we have now.
If players all pile onto one side of a conflict and crush the enemy, therefore 'disabling' the event/battle/sortie for a while... no big deal, it's an MMO, it'll come back later, maybe different people will care then.
I can see how it makes a slight difference in MMOs with smaller worlds or larger number of players on servers, but it's probably still fine to do it this way in Ashes.
And the "evil gods" can take advantage of this and try to recruit those who were declared as "Heretics" to believe in them, and grant them some evil help?
For example, say a goblin camp has been farmed so much that they've stopped spawning. The nearest active camp then spawns a band of 50-100 units to travel to the destroyed camp and resettle it. What happens along the way depends entirely on what they run into. A caravan might become a raid target, a group of players might get ambushed, and a hostile patrol could trigger a battle.
This way, intervening in a battle or winning/losing a chance encounter could actually affect the world. Defeating one group might trigger larger patrols in the future, or maybe it'll cause future patrols to include minibosses or even a world boss if enough patrols get wiped out. Or it could just cause that faction to pack up and move to a different node, point being it's not just set dressing.
I'm not expecting anything like this, it seems like most of the dynamic elements are tied to PvP, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
I really like this idea. Some people dislike the idea of using enemy NPCs to inflict harm upon other players, but I think there's a compromise, and I think it involves this. In a word, it allows for a sort of cultivation of conflict. If the respawns of these NPC factions and their retaliatory patrols spawn logically, then they can be understood and manipulated by whoever understands them best. Of course adding a bit of RNG or unknowable factors in there can shake things up in a good way. This would either be an advertised dimension of gameplay for mayors, or more of an emergent metagame to be considered by mayors, vassals, and maybe guilds.