Open World Raid Boss Respawn Timers

Can there be "raid windows" instead of a pure random respawn for open world raid bosses? It makes it easier for PvE enjoyers to have a set block of time where they can plan to do some content in. Even if it is a "no spawn day" there still should be some type of sub-boss with similar mechanics as the raid boss for a smaller advance group of PvE enjoyers to participate in. Then if they stumble upon a raid boss they can alert their guild/alliance etc.

That seems like a more natural way than sending an "alt-scout" to the spawn location to keep eyes on an important objective. It also gives PvE enjoyers some decent content during breakout play.

I'm a PvP/PvX enjoyer who is worried about losing our PvE gamers because the game doesnt give them meaningful play loops. So this is one solution I brainstormed. Let's discuss.

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Faimith

As a PvE-focused player, I believe having a strict timer or block of time for world boss respawns would break immersion and detract from the adventurous feel of the game world. It would be much more engaging if players didn't always know the exact location of the open-world boss and had to actively hunt them down. This unpredictability adds to the sense of adventure and discovery, making each encounter with a world boss feel unique and exciting.

Moreover, this approach would help mitigate the risk of constantly running into groups of PvPers since not everyone would know the boss's exact location or availability at any given moment. This could foster a more dynamic and spontaneous world, where players must explore and communicate to find and engage with world bosses, rather than simply waiting for a timer to count down.

Maintaining this sense of mystery and exploration is crucial for preserving the immersive and adventurous spirit of the game.

KingDDD

That's what raid instances are for. Hopefully they'll be as challenging as the heroic/mythic fights in wow.

Chicago

It makes it more memorable if you don't know the spawn timer, also the loot I'm pretty sure will be recipes so you can probably buy the crafted drops so you don't miss out on that aspect

Noaani

Orgagriffith wrote: »

I'm a PvP/PvX enjoyer who is worried about losing our PvE gamers because the game doesnt give them meaningful play loops. So this is one solution I brainstormed. Let's discuss.

As a general point, PvE players will come up with things that PvE players prefer much better than non-PvE players will. Just keep that in mind.

The notion of "raid windows" sounds kind of horrible. Not as bad a specific set spawn times, but still pretty bad.

The ideal thing - as a PvE player - is for bosses to be at the end of some piece of group content, the bottom of a dungeon being the ideal. With this, you can't send a scout, because one character couldn't get there. You also shouldn't be able to just camp an alt within sight of the boss.

What this means is that going to see if the boss is up is in itself a piece of content. You have to basically just run the dungeon, which should be rewarding in it's own way, in order to see if the boss that would see you call in the rest of your guild is up.

Also, open world bosses are not the content that PvE players plan around - the nature of open world bosses makes that inherently impossible. If the idea is to attract PvE players that would be interested in these open world bosses, you give them content they can plan around (instanced content), and then you add these open world bosses in on top of that.

Veeshan

Cant have set respawn timers like 12 hour or what not since they be timed down to the minute and killed on spawn
Slightly better option would be respawns between x (16hr) time and x(32 hrs) time for example

And even better option imo is bosses respawn after X amount of mobs killed in in their area, this promotes people farming area to trigger bosses (named mobs and Group/raids bosses)

Could also make the respawns realy long but each mob kill near there spawn slightly reduces the respawn time.

Either way it better to have bosses spawn more often when camps are being farmed more often imo or triggered by player actions.

You could even make a boss tied to PvP to trigger spawn for example X amount PvP kills will spawn somewhere in a node area (Could make it trackable via bounty hunter too for more content for them)

Ludullu

The game is designed around prime-time, so I assume boss respawns will probably be within the server's prime-time hours.

But even then pvers won't really have their cute little content, cause pvpers will simply wipe them out and take the boss.

There's a chance that some of the instanced content won't be as singular as a lot of us think, but it would still not provide any good gear, so pvers would only do that content just to do it.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

The game is designed around prime-time, so I assume boss respawns will probably be within the server's prime-time hours.

I personally hope this isn't the case.

Prime time events for PvP based things is a great idea. You don't want to give people the option to siege a node at 2am, forcing players wanting to defend that node to stay up to rediculous times in order to maintain what they have in the game.

Same with node and guild wars.

However, things like caravans aren't intended to be prime time only, nor is corruption based PvP. It is only those major things that can cause real damage to your in game enjoyment.

If you miss killing a PvE boss, you don't lose anything. As such, there is no need for them to be prime time only.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

If you miss killing a PvE boss, you don't lose anything. As such, there is no need for them to be prime time only.

You lose your chance for its loot. Especially if bosses don't have an absolutely random respawn timer.

Also, just as sieges and wars are supposedly peak pvp content, I'd imagine that bosses are peak pve content (at least partially).

Bosses will 100% be camped and killed within the first minutes of their respawn, so if they can respawn earlier, than the chances are - their respawns will go out of the prime-time window sooner or later. Which will simply mean that fewer pvers will even have the chance to try at the boss, cause majority will be playing during prime.

I'm used to that setup, so if that's the case - I'm totally fine with it.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If you miss killing a PvE boss, you don't lose anything. As such, there is no need for them to be prime time only.

You lose your chance for its loot.

Yeah, but that isn't a loss.

In order to lose something, you have to first have it.

The most you lose is an opportunity - but every time you are not online in the game you are losing an opportunity, so you already signed up for that loss.

This is as opposed to a war or a siege. If one of these happen while you are offline, when you come back you will have less than you had when you last logged out. if you are offline and come back and someone else has killed a boss, you still have everything you had when you logged off.

This is the key difference between the two, and why it isn't necessary for bosses to be prime time content.

If there is an argument that bosses should be prime time only, then that same argument would apply to caravans, harvesting, any PvE content that is in any way contested, basically the whole game.

Myosotys

Respawn timers only give the opportunity to strong guilds to prepare themselves and dominate the servers.

Without respawn timers, it limits the number of players on a boss and let more chance to less powerful guilds.

Githal

Putting respawn timers on bosses will just make the game a zerg feast!
By being random you give a chance for some smaller party to steal the boss without the rest even knowing the boss respowned.

Nibbler

As long as the respawn isnt often at "nighttime" it should be fine.

Ripteye

Respawn timers should be extremely long these bosses shouldn't be farmable.

iccer

Hell no.

I just hate time gated content, it makes the game feel like a chore/job.

With that, you have to log in at certain times to do certain stuff, rather than logging in whenever, and just playing the game.
Lost Ark was awful with this, as basically everything was time-gated.

Sure some stuff like node/castle sieges have to happen at certain time, but other stuff should be more flexible.

Texas

Random timers and random locations. World bosses shouldn't be campable.

Orgagriffith

Thanks for all the great takes. Definitely lots of ideas I did not think of.

The "random timer" advocates missed the point of the window, however.

Let's say there is a dragon that spawns once a week. It has a block of time each day, that it may or may not spawn. The day it actually spawns is random, and the 6 days on which it doesnt spawn, is populated by drakes that it takes a "dungeon party" to clear with maybe some preview mechanics for the raid. its still a random day, but gives primetime group content everyday, including days it doesnt spawn.

My apologies for not being clear, i think people read "respawn timer" and assumed the status quo mechanic.

I think this is defintiely implementable considering "node events" and perhaps there already is similar PvE content.

Aszkalon

For some Reason i am strongly against firmly Set Respawn Timers.

Most likely because i am confident the 100% same People/Guilds will then with total Accuracy farm these World Bosses forever and ever and ever and ever again, with other People never getting a Chance.

A Reason why i could imagine Intrepid allowing or even DARING such a System, would be that People would band together on certain Points of Time, to fight each other - as in different Guilds - for the Boss.

Apok

I like what RO did, world bosses would drop a grave marker with its time of death. Usually the time of deaths in MMOs is what allows a guild to gatekeep others.

I feel like bosses should have a couple hours from when the window closes to when they could spawn. Also enughe room for them to actually have to be found

I also like the concept of bosses being spawned, but by only collecting items from other bosses like in FFXI

I would personally like to see a combination of these two game mechanics but instead of bosses being limited to certain areas that pop bigger bosses like they do with sky and sea in ffxi. Instead make it part of the game as a whole with time of death markers on anything that would be a boss and of course give the bosses a respawn timer, usually not in the line of 24 hours, so the time it spawns can vary so different people who are active at different times can all get a shot.

tautau

@Veeshan Had the best idea in the thread, that the spawn of bosses should have, as a part of their timing, a relationship to the amount of player activity in an area.

If no one hunts in a region, or mines, or farms etc. then the bosses in that area can be very slow in spawning. If a different area has a lot of player activity, that would speed up the spawn. This would be another example of the players impacting the world and what happens in it.

Kill a lot of goblins and the Goblin Godking starts wandering the goblin lands. Start a lot of active farming freeholds and the Dire Wolf pack spawns to feed on the sheep. Keep killing the undead in the graveyard and the LichKing shows up to settle the score.....

Dimitraeos

Id way rather they were completely random with no set times or windows because:

1.) Set times will guarantee spawn camping by massive guilds (If a guild wants to even TRY to camp something that has a large range of potential spawns/paths, they will have to dedicate a finite amount of manpower and time towards that, which means less time and manpower for other things hence acting as a natural balance to large, dominant guilds. If they want to gatekeep an entire continent's worth of bosses, go for it. That means less control over other areas and spreading out too thin and wasting tons of time scouting the world and camping instead of grinding for player power. Maybe they can, maybe they cant!)

2.) Random players stumbling upon a world boss that's up will be faced with a choice to either tell their friends, guild or announce it to the whole world [there will certainly be discords for this] and having to decide whether their small group can take it, or if they should call for help discreetly or more broadly (creates interesting social dynamics that create or ameliorate player tension over a scarce resource)

3.) In general it just adds to the open-endedness of traveling and exploring the world, who knows, maybe you'll find Tumok roaming around before others do and you'll be in a position to deal with Point #2!

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