Correct me if I am wrong but there is not only power gain from instanced PvE (which to my understanding is done for more carefully orchestrated story events) but also for PvP already in the form of Castle and Node Sieges. Pillaging a Node or becoming King of the Castle and its 3 Castle Nodes plus loot sounds like quite the power gain to me, just not exclusively in combat power, right?
So having such specific events occur in instances might be due to: Simply not being possible in an open world (in a technical or an organisational way) or in case of a node siege because that would just ruin the idea of node siege in general with infinite players being able to join randomly... and primarily on the attacking side skewing the balance heavily in one direction disincentivizing defenders to show up.
He's confirmed there will be power rewards in discord. Recently.
The quote was pointing out that most power comes from PvP systems, which is true. There’s nothing wrong with all content types providing rewards.
Keep the power in the open world where both pvp and pve occur simultaneously (PvX)
The vast majority of all types of power gain is in the open world. I'm still not understanding how you've come to the conclusion that 20% of all content being instanced would in any way tip the balance negatively when open world content is by and large the most important sort of power available in the game.
Some bits of gear and gold don't mean anything in the face of controlling a Castle or a Metro node
Avalanches start off as a single flake of snow. I don't want any power from PvE or PvP instancing. If I had my actual way, there would be no instancing at all.
Mostly because I prefer to preserve the integrity of the game instead of giving people an in to start demanding more instanced content.
The appeal of Ashes is that it's going to be seamless, open world with inherent risk. I am against anything that mars that integrity in the slightest. I prefer not to have instancing, but since it will be in the game, rewarding bragging rights and vanity seem like an apt reward; but keeping the power out of it.
Arena PvP will be instanced and has rewards planned already, namely Mayoral control in military nodes.
PvE instances as they've been described are just locked rooms at the end of an otherwise open dungeon, which are necessary to implement fine-tuned mechanics during a fight, and also aren't risk-free.
There aren't going to be queue-in dungeons or fast travel, so even reaching the point of being able to initialize an instanced fight is by definition a PvX experience. You quite literally cannot have both free-for-all PvP and a precision-demanding combat encounter unless TTK is adjusted so that an enemy player could be focused down from 100-0 instantly on sight to prevent them from sabotaging a clear. It's very easy to ruin a run on accident, even easier to do it on purpose.
Unfortunately, it does exist, I don't like that either. However, there's very little direct player power involved in those systems.
That's the thing, you can have a precision demanding PvE encounter, an open world dungeon can be designed well enough to where that encounter can be defended from PvP incursions enough for the encounter to be completed. I'm sure most players cannot complete the content, that's actually perfectly acceptable to me, then it should create a drive for mastery.
I think the problem here is that maybe the average raiders aren't actually capable of defending their kill and would require PvPers in their guild to aid them, (which is how you will secure open world encounters already). But more so at this point, it seems like instancing is just for the sake of being inconvenienced - like it always has been.
Instancing exists so that developers can craft highly demanding, high precision fights where the boss is meant to be the challenge. Those cannot exist alongside active ongoing PvP because then all that precision is worthless if one single person gets in to troll.
It just means there will be no actually high-end PvE encounters, because the devs would be stuck having to account for it being possible while other groups come in to sabotage the raid, and that’s just dull.
Your assumption that they can coexist in the same encounter is fundamentally flawed.
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
Nothing stops the devs from actually creating high end PvE content that also requires coordination on the PvP side to protect the PvE side of the raid from PvP incursions. At this point, you're highlighting the ineptitude and/or experience of the players who just cant get it done.
There are titles where this is the case, it's not an assumption. It's been done before.
Imo instanced content should give power gains depending on what you have at that time.
Its totally fine when you can obtain decent gear from instanced content, be it PvE or PvP, it just shouldnt be the best gear you can obtain and it should take some grinding to get it. Grinding that takes a considerable amount of time or luck.
I believe that this is actually needed especially as a "catchup mechanic" when newer players cant farm certain items to craft their gear or dont have access to worldbosses because of political/tyrannical structures on their server.
Sure, you can always argue that you just need to farm gold to buy the item from a crafter, but that is pretty dull for alot of people.
Correct me if I am wrong but there is not only power gain from instanced PvE (which to my understanding is done for more carefully orchestrated story events) but also for PvP already in the form of Castle and Node Sieges. Pillaging a Node or becoming King of the Castle and its 3 Castle Nodes plus loot sounds like quite the power gain to me, just not exclusively in combat power, right?
So having such specific events occur in instances might be due to: Simply not being possible in an open world (in a technical or an organisational way) or in case of a node siege because that would just ruin the idea of node siege in general with infinite players being able to join randomly... and primarily on the attacking side skewing the balance heavily in one direction disincentivizing defenders to show up.
He's confirmed there will be power rewards in discord. Recently.
The quote was pointing out that most power comes from PvP systems, which is true. There’s nothing wrong with all content types providing rewards.
Keep the power in the open world where both pvp and pve occur simultaneously (PvX)
The vast majority of all types of power gain is in the open world. I'm still not understanding how you've come to the conclusion that 20% of all content being instanced would in any way tip the balance negatively when open world content is by and large the most important sort of power available in the game.
Some bits of gear and gold don't mean anything in the face of controlling a Castle or a Metro node
Avalanches start off as a single flake of snow. I don't want any power from PvE or PvP instancing. If I had my actual way, there would be no instancing at all.
Mostly because I prefer to preserve the integrity of the game instead of giving people an in to start demanding more instanced content.
The appeal of Ashes is that it's going to be seamless, open world with inherent risk. I am against anything that mars that integrity in the slightest. I prefer not to have instancing, but since it will be in the game, rewarding bragging rights and vanity seem like an apt reward; but keeping the power out of it.
Arena PvP will be instanced and has rewards planned already, namely Mayoral control in military nodes.
PvE instances as they've been described are just locked rooms at the end of an otherwise open dungeon, which are necessary to implement fine-tuned mechanics during a fight, and also aren't risk-free.
There aren't going to be queue-in dungeons or fast travel, so even reaching the point of being able to initialize an instanced fight is by definition a PvX experience. You quite literally cannot have both free-for-all PvP and a precision-demanding combat encounter unless TTK is adjusted so that an enemy player could be focused down from 100-0 instantly on sight to prevent them from sabotaging a clear. It's very easy to ruin a run on accident, even easier to do it on purpose.
Unfortunately, it does exist, I don't like that either. However, there's very little direct player power involved in those systems.
That's the thing, you can have a precision demanding PvE encounter, an open world dungeon can be designed well enough to where that encounter can be defended from PvP incursions enough for the encounter to be completed. I'm sure most players cannot complete the content, that's actually perfectly acceptable to me, then it should create a drive for mastery.
I think the problem here is that maybe the average raiders aren't actually capable of defending their kill and would require PvPers in their guild to aid them, (which is how you will secure open world encounters already). But more so at this point, it seems like instancing is just for the sake of being inconvenienced - like it always has been.
Instancing exists so that developers can craft highly demanding, high precision fights where the boss is meant to be the challenge. Those cannot exist alongside active ongoing PvP because then all that precision is worthless if one single person gets in to troll.
It just means there will be no actually high-end PvE encounters, because the devs would be stuck having to account for it being possible while other groups come in to sabotage the raid, and that’s just dull.
Your assumption that they can coexist in the same encounter is fundamentally flawed.
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
Your replies make it abundantly clear that you lack experience in high-end raiding, as well as a general unpleasant demeanor resorting to personal insults toward players who do understand how such content functions.
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
This might be true in low level difficulty mechanics, but when you build an encounter that requires high precision, no room for error execution. (ie: the very pinnacle of end game MMO raids), a single outside player messing with a single person in the raid causes a wipe.
Also your replies are kind of passive aggressive towards players that do engage in that kind of content.
The short version of the story is:
1) Intrepid wants to design pinnacle end game content for raiders, those raids require instancing so they can make the boss an actual challenge.
2) Intrepid wants to give us low effort gear check bosses like we saw with the fire dragon, that is fine if the challenge comes from the threat of pvp during the fight.
3) We can actually have both at the same time, they arent mutually exclusive. So theres no need for personal insults here.
Once you start adding in places where the instanced crowd can hide, they will hide. However if the power isn't in the instancing, they will hide less.
My second point is going to be what will happen when you start handing out power in PvE instancing, then the PvP crowd will demand power in their instancing and visa versa. I am against power in all instancing.
Once you put those things in the game, players who only partake in that content will demand more of it, they will demand balance be based off of it, it'll start an entire messy domino effect that is completely unnecessary.
This guy is totaly transparent, he's practically telling us he consider PvE's to be filthy casuals that should be available for him to gank at all times or better yet be driven out of the game all together.
And Ironicaly they WILL be available to gank, the whole thread is based on his totaly erronious conflation of having locked-room chanlenges that act as gates for more crafted PvE experiences anywhere being instant degeneration of the game into a WoW themepark by some kind of slippery slope weak willed caving in on the part of Intrepid to 'the inctanced crowd'.
Correct me if I am wrong but there is not only power gain from instanced PvE (which to my understanding is done for more carefully orchestrated story events) but also for PvP already in the form of Castle and Node Sieges. Pillaging a Node or becoming King of the Castle and its 3 Castle Nodes plus loot sounds like quite the power gain to me, just not exclusively in combat power, right?
So having such specific events occur in instances might be due to: Simply not being possible in an open world (in a technical or an organisational way) or in case of a node siege because that would just ruin the idea of node siege in general with infinite players being able to join randomly... and primarily on the attacking side skewing the balance heavily in one direction disincentivizing defenders to show up.
He's confirmed there will be power rewards in discord. Recently.
The quote was pointing out that most power comes from PvP systems, which is true. There’s nothing wrong with all content types providing rewards.
Keep the power in the open world where both pvp and pve occur simultaneously (PvX)
The vast majority of all types of power gain is in the open world. I'm still not understanding how you've come to the conclusion that 20% of all content being instanced would in any way tip the balance negatively when open world content is by and large the most important sort of power available in the game.
Some bits of gear and gold don't mean anything in the face of controlling a Castle or a Metro node
Avalanches start off as a single flake of snow. I don't want any power from PvE or PvP instancing. If I had my actual way, there would be no instancing at all.
Mostly because I prefer to preserve the integrity of the game instead of giving people an in to start demanding more instanced content.
The appeal of Ashes is that it's going to be seamless, open world with inherent risk. I am against anything that mars that integrity in the slightest. I prefer not to have instancing, but since it will be in the game, rewarding bragging rights and vanity seem like an apt reward; but keeping the power out of it.
Arena PvP will be instanced and has rewards planned already, namely Mayoral control in military nodes.
PvE instances as they've been described are just locked rooms at the end of an otherwise open dungeon, which are necessary to implement fine-tuned mechanics during a fight, and also aren't risk-free.
There aren't going to be queue-in dungeons or fast travel, so even reaching the point of being able to initialize an instanced fight is by definition a PvX experience. You quite literally cannot have both free-for-all PvP and a precision-demanding combat encounter unless TTK is adjusted so that an enemy player could be focused down from 100-0 instantly on sight to prevent them from sabotaging a clear. It's very easy to ruin a run on accident, even easier to do it on purpose.
Unfortunately, it does exist, I don't like that either. However, there's very little direct player power involved in those systems.
That's the thing, you can have a precision demanding PvE encounter, an open world dungeon can be designed well enough to where that encounter can be defended from PvP incursions enough for the encounter to be completed. I'm sure most players cannot complete the content, that's actually perfectly acceptable to me, then it should create a drive for mastery.
I think the problem here is that maybe the average raiders aren't actually capable of defending their kill and would require PvPers in their guild to aid them, (which is how you will secure open world encounters already). But more so at this point, it seems like instancing is just for the sake of being inconvenienced - like it always has been.
Instancing exists so that developers can craft highly demanding, high precision fights where the boss is meant to be the challenge. Those cannot exist alongside active ongoing PvP because then all that precision is worthless if one single person gets in to troll.
It just means there will be no actually high-end PvE encounters, because the devs would be stuck having to account for it being possible while other groups come in to sabotage the raid, and that’s just dull.
Your assumption that they can coexist in the same encounter is fundamentally flawed.
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
Your replies make it abundantly clear that you lack experience in high-end raiding, as well as a general unpleasant demeanor resorting to personal insults toward players who do understand how such content functions.
I've done high-end raiding, that is how I know most people are terrible at it, but thats just a statistical fact right, most people are just average. I've also raided in the open world with PVP present and still completed it, that's how I know it exists. The fact that most people are just average players isn't really a problem, the most you could argue is that most people could quite if only the best players could complete the best content. The best players completing the content is going to happen anyway.
I did not insult you, you highlighted a proficiency level within a raid, which raid gets wiped by a single person. I stand by that, if your raid gets wiped by a single person then that's on you - not the encounter. If you felt slighted by that, that's also something for you to deal with.
You'll have to settle for my indifference towards you and your perception of me, who are you to me?
Correct me if I am wrong but there is not only power gain from instanced PvE (which to my understanding is done for more carefully orchestrated story events) but also for PvP already in the form of Castle and Node Sieges. Pillaging a Node or becoming King of the Castle and its 3 Castle Nodes plus loot sounds like quite the power gain to me, just not exclusively in combat power, right?
So having such specific events occur in instances might be due to: Simply not being possible in an open world (in a technical or an organisational way) or in case of a node siege because that would just ruin the idea of node siege in general with infinite players being able to join randomly... and primarily on the attacking side skewing the balance heavily in one direction disincentivizing defenders to show up.
He's confirmed there will be power rewards in discord. Recently.
The quote was pointing out that most power comes from PvP systems, which is true. There’s nothing wrong with all content types providing rewards.
Keep the power in the open world where both pvp and pve occur simultaneously (PvX)
The vast majority of all types of power gain is in the open world. I'm still not understanding how you've come to the conclusion that 20% of all content being instanced would in any way tip the balance negatively when open world content is by and large the most important sort of power available in the game.
Some bits of gear and gold don't mean anything in the face of controlling a Castle or a Metro node
Avalanches start off as a single flake of snow. I don't want any power from PvE or PvP instancing. If I had my actual way, there would be no instancing at all.
Mostly because I prefer to preserve the integrity of the game instead of giving people an in to start demanding more instanced content.
The appeal of Ashes is that it's going to be seamless, open world with inherent risk. I am against anything that mars that integrity in the slightest. I prefer not to have instancing, but since it will be in the game, rewarding bragging rights and vanity seem like an apt reward; but keeping the power out of it.
Arena PvP will be instanced and has rewards planned already, namely Mayoral control in military nodes.
PvE instances as they've been described are just locked rooms at the end of an otherwise open dungeon, which are necessary to implement fine-tuned mechanics during a fight, and also aren't risk-free.
There aren't going to be queue-in dungeons or fast travel, so even reaching the point of being able to initialize an instanced fight is by definition a PvX experience. You quite literally cannot have both free-for-all PvP and a precision-demanding combat encounter unless TTK is adjusted so that an enemy player could be focused down from 100-0 instantly on sight to prevent them from sabotaging a clear. It's very easy to ruin a run on accident, even easier to do it on purpose.
Unfortunately, it does exist, I don't like that either. However, there's very little direct player power involved in those systems.
That's the thing, you can have a precision demanding PvE encounter, an open world dungeon can be designed well enough to where that encounter can be defended from PvP incursions enough for the encounter to be completed. I'm sure most players cannot complete the content, that's actually perfectly acceptable to me, then it should create a drive for mastery.
I think the problem here is that maybe the average raiders aren't actually capable of defending their kill and would require PvPers in their guild to aid them, (which is how you will secure open world encounters already). But more so at this point, it seems like instancing is just for the sake of being inconvenienced - like it always has been.
Instancing exists so that developers can craft highly demanding, high precision fights where the boss is meant to be the challenge. Those cannot exist alongside active ongoing PvP because then all that precision is worthless if one single person gets in to troll.
It just means there will be no actually high-end PvE encounters, because the devs would be stuck having to account for it being possible while other groups come in to sabotage the raid, and that’s just dull.
Your assumption that they can coexist in the same encounter is fundamentally flawed.
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
Your replies make it abundantly clear that you lack experience in high-end raiding, as well as a general unpleasant demeanor resorting to personal insults toward players who do understand how such content functions.
I've done high-end raiding, that is how I know most people are terrible at it, but thats just a statistical fact right, most people are just average. I've also raided in the open world with PVP present and still completed it, that's how I know it exists. The fact that most people are just average players isn't really a problem, the most you could argue is that most people could quite if only the best players could complete the best content. The best players completing the content is going to happen anyway.
I did not insult you, you highlighted a proficiency level within a raid, which raid gets wiped by a single person. I stand by that, if your raid gets wiped by a single person then that's on you - not the encounter. If you felt slighted by that, that's also something for you to deal with.
You'll have to settle for my indifference towards you and your perception of me, who are you to me?
Raids can be wiped by one person within the same group. That an outside party could easily wipe a group on purpose is not opinion, but a very demonstrable fact. Yes, most players end up in the middle-ground, but wanting genuinely difficult, high-precision content is not 'hiding' as you've framed it.
Most of the way you speak is derogatory toward high-end content-driven players, and I do quite frankly doubt your self-advertised expertise in the matter if you really do not understand how easily one person can trash a raid at the highest level no matter how many people your group has. Best believe one Fighter with a gap-closer could take a proxy-bomb mechanic from the boss encounter and run it into your primary tank mid-fight.
What game exactly did you play that had high precision PvE encounters while also alowing to free-access PvP within the same arena? I'm genuinely curious what VODs of those encounters look like if you're so confident about them.
Once you start adding in places where the instanced crowd can hide, they will hide. However if the power isn't in the instancing, they will hide less.
My second point is going to be what will happen when you start handing out power in PvE instancing, then the PvP crowd will demand power in their instancing and visa versa. I am against power in all instancing.
Once you put those things in the game, players who only partake in that content will demand more of it, they will demand balance be based off of it, it'll start an entire messy domino effect that is completely unnecessary.
This guy is totaly transparent, he's practically telling us he consider PvE's to be filthy casuals that should be available for him to gank at all times or better yet be driven out of the game all together.
And Ironicaly they WILL be available to gank, the whole thread is based on his totaly erronious conflation of having locked-room chanlenges that act as gates for more crafted PvE experiences anywhere being instant degeneration of the game into a WoW themepark by some kind of slippery slope weak willed caving in on the part of Intrepid to 'the inctanced crowd'.
I'll highlight some of the points you haven't refuted (all of them):
This game in the absence of PvP, is PvE. Only in the presence of PvP does the game become PvX, as its designed.
I have to repeat myself saying that I am against any power, being present in any instanced content. That includes PvP content, some how now its "he wants to gank lowbies".
They won't be able to gank freely, its called corruption and with the penalties being as steep as they are, no one is going to volunteer their gear. Especially when you downgrade your gear you lose your killing power.
I'm beginning to think you rather enjoy twisting things into something its not.
Unfortunately, Steven has said that if players demand a certain type of content and it becomes popular, they will create more of that content. I am paraphrasing here, but that's the jist of it.
I simply do not wish for Intrepid to veer away that is the premise of Ashes.
Just here to agree, much less risk should give much less reward, regardless of the difficulty of the instance. Plenty of MMOs out there offer the instance raid progression experience, but I started following Ashes because of the Open World progression where you're always at risk of PvP, which are harder and harder to come by in this genre.
Why regardless of difficulty (risk) in that setting?
PvE does not exist at all in an open world if PvP also exists. In every case where PvE and PvP supposedly co-exist, PvP is the only thing that matters. Thus, it is simply not possible for the best PvE in Ashes to be open world - there can be no good PvE in the open world at all..
This was all you really needed Steven is clearly making a compromise here so he can have challenging PvE experience.
I believe the issue is people don't perceive the risk the same.
If the Risk is high and the content is difficult where majority cant complete it, this is good for the game.
I believe that these raid bosses should drop items and materials, and force the materials to be transported back to town and create the spy/tracking of guilds raid nights and gank caravans. It then allows for the risk for pvp to still have its place.
I will always champion high skill ceiling for PvE and PvP both should exist in Ashes as long as the pillars for both can have proper checks and balances and don't completely dimmish the other.
Or otherwise about no one will do them. It would be a Waste of time. ESPECIALLY in a PvX(P) World where Competition against other People/Nodes will probably play a huge Role in everyone's Gameplay.
Why wasting your own Time aside when You are the most superior Node anyway ? I wouldn't do that.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I believe the issue is people don't perceive the risk the same.
If the Risk is high and the content is difficult where majority cant complete it, this is good for the game.
I believe that these raid bosses should drop items and materials, and force the materials to be transported back to town and create the spy/tracking of guilds raid nights and gank caravans. It then allows for the risk for pvp to still have its place.
I will always champion high skill ceiling for PvE and PvP both should exist in Ashes as long as the pillars for both can have proper checks and balances and don't completely dimmish the other.
This is the current path Ashes design is taking, or at least intended to take.
You have to compete to actually access the dungeon/boss room first, clear an instanced PvE encounter inside with an inherent difficulty to the content itself, and then once the party leaves that room (whether because they cleared it or because they all wiped), then they're back out in the world and subject to PvP as usual, quite possibly with materials that can now be fought over.
And if the group wipes, well, personally I think it should automatically unlock access for the next group's attempt at it while the first group has to run back and get ready to fight over that loot they missed out on.
Agreed.
Instances will dilute the open world experience and all that's interlinked to it
Especially PvP instances.
Had this conversation many times with people, some already want the ability to queue for arenas/bgs before you know it, the game ends up an instance fest where the world is gutted.
Gets real out of hand quick, for some reason people say they like bleeding edge difficulty but when being presented with a reward track that’s absent of power then the content is no longer worth doing.
The reality is that it was about power the whole time.
Pretty sure we will get resources and materials from Instances, rather than Gear.
Even if Gear can be obtained there, there's no reason it has to be BiS Gear.
Also, power gains don't always have to be vertical; they could also be horizontal.
Seems like we should hope that horizontal power gains derived from Instances fit thematically.
Lastest update Steven hinted that instanced bosses will be a thing when they want to control how many people can take on said boss. With that said, we will see upgrades in instances.
Agreed.
Instances will dilute the open world experience and all that's interlinked to it
Especially PvP instances.
Had this conversation many times with people, some already want the ability to queue for arenas/bgs before you know it, the game ends up an instance fest where the world is gutted.
Gets real out of hand quick, for some reason people say they like bleeding edge difficulty but when being presented with a reward track that’s absent of power then the content is no longer worth doing.
The reality is that it was about power the whole time.
People wouldn't do high-end content that takes hours on hours of practice if there is no benefit to doing so, because that's a waste of their time and ultimately indicative of a lack of respect for the players' efforts.
You're on this dead-end doom train based entirely on a slippery slope fallacy, when only 20% of all content is instanced specifically so it can be properly designed. You've still yet to link a VOD of these open PvP, high-precision clears you've claimed you've participated in, or even give a name of one of the games, so as it stands, there's no evidence to suggest the two concepts can coexistent in a way that's done well.
Either the fight requires immense precision and thus one person stepping in to purposefully throw it off is all it takes to wipe, or the content is dumbed down and many fight mechanics simply could not exist so that PvP can take place in the area without automatically ruining a raid attempt.
Ex. Take one of ESO's trials (generally considered to be one of the easier MMOs at its high end), Maw of Lorkhaj, which has a group-splitting mechanic in one of the fights. This mechanic assigns everyone in the area one of two colors, and if you get in proximity of someone with the opposite color, you both instantly die. Easy to handle so long as you're rotating on the color changes and sticking with like-to-like.
However, this mechanic could not exist if another group was permitted to enter that instance, because one person with a gap closer could instantly obliterate multiple people via that mechanic.
Allowing other groups to interfere with what should be a finely-tuned, difficult encounter will only serve to ensure that content is dumbed down and denied what could be much more engaging, interesting mechanics.
4
PlasticLemonsMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Posting a comment to sign my approval of Solvryn's stance here. I'm just going to copy and paste the summation of my argument (which is only really focusing on one point) that I gathered from a long argument in Discord.
Copy+Paste:
Should difficult PvE encounters be required to be in instances?
No. The only thing instances achieve is isolating a player group from everyone else so they can focus on the content purely.
You can achieve that same isolation by making well designed open world dungeons.
There's nothing stopping an "open world boss" to be located at the end of a cave system that takes two hours to clear minibosses and varoius mobs to get to which then has a massive arena that allows for all the complexities of instanced content to be used. The journey to the boss achieves that isolation of players.
I'd much rather that exist since then it's effectively "instanced content" but it still allows a chance for a rival group can show up.
Concerned about zergs? Intrepid has stated that boss abilities will scale based on the number of players that show up for the fight. Assuming this works as described, then zergs will have a much more difficult time staying alive. Even if they do stay alive, we know that content only drops a certain amount of rewards regardless of how many players show up. Rewarding content will likely be on either lengthy respawn timers or require a certain unlocking condition to be met in order to spawn them. It would not be worth it for a group of say 300 to zerg a boss down knowing that it will only drop at the most 3 pieces of gear and enough materials to craft 5 other pieces of gear. It's a waste of time when that group could be split into 6 other smaller groups that focus on different areas of the world.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
They are avoiding instanced content as much as possible, hence why it's only 20% of content, but in some places you simply cannot balance an encounter without closing off the combat area. It's just not possible to do unless they dumb down the fights encounters and deny themselves the chance to use all sorts of mechanics, which is not what I want to see from them.
The challenge should come from the encounter once you've fought your way through mobs and other players to that final room in the dungeon. High-end content is there to test your teamwork and skill, not your patience for trolling from other players as the most noteworthy 'difficulty' facet.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
They are avoiding instanced content as much as possible, hence why it's only 20% of content, but in some places you simply cannot balance an encounter without closing off the combat area. It's just not possible to do unless they dumb down the fights encounters and deny themselves the chance to use all sorts of mechanics, which is not what I want to see from them.
The challenge should come from the encounter once you've fought your way through mobs and other players to that final room in the dungeon. High-end content is there to test your teamwork and skill, not your patience for trolling from other players as the most noteworthy 'difficulty' facet.
I’m on my phone, It’s a OW PvX game, there shouldn’t be even 20% of the content.
Much hasn’t changed with the raid only crowd in the last twenty + years I’ve been playing MMOs.
At this point I don’t think I owe it to you when you talk at people, not interested in dialogue because you haven’t played an open world dungeon before. Your lack of experience doesn’t constitute anything on my part.
The bulk of your argument is “it’s impossible for devs to make great PvE content in the presence of PvP”.
Still waiting on your demonstration, I have a feeling it'll never come.
EQ2.
Best gear is from instanced raids, and has been since day 1.
Instanced PvP was added in around 2009, and the rewards from it are mid, and always have been.
The fact that there are some games thst don't do this does not mean all games don't do this. In order to demonstrate that your assumption that it is an inevitability that it will happen is false, all I need to do is demonstrate one situation where it didn't happen - which I just did.
I wouldn't say it was demonstrably false if I didn't have a specific demonstration in mind - you should know this.
Another example would be Archeage, if you want it from a game that is more PvP focused.
Instanced content was originally for the story
Steven made the comment in 2018 that while he doesn't think they could, he would like to compete with WoW in terms of raiding.
Seems like Raiders have plenty of content in the market where they can safely raid to their hearts content. It's just not Ashes of Creation.
Without then, Ashes will fail.
Not may fail, not may be less successful than it could. Will fail.
With the game's basic design goal, for every PvP focused player, the game also needs one PvE focused player.
I have said many times over the years that the success of a game like Ashes is more reliant on it attracting PvE players than PvP, because PvP players coming along are a given, and as long as those PvP players keep winning more PvP than they are losing, they will stay.
However in order for those PvP players to win more than they lose, those losses need to fall to a different group, which has to be PvE players.
If the game doesn't attract those PvE players, PvP players will peel off from the bottom.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
They are avoiding instanced content as much as possible, hence why it's only 20% of content, but in some places you simply cannot balance an encounter without closing off the combat area. It's just not possible to do unless they dumb down the fights encounters and deny themselves the chance to use all sorts of mechanics, which is not what I want to see from them.
The challenge should come from the encounter once you've fought your way through mobs and other players to that final room in the dungeon. High-end content is there to test your teamwork and skill, not your patience for trolling from other players as the most noteworthy 'difficulty' facet.
I’m on my phone, It’s a OW PvX game, there shouldn’t be even 20% of the content.
Much hasn’t changed with the raid only crowd in the last twenty + years I’ve been playing MMOs.
At this point I don’t think I owe it to you when you talk at people, not interested in dialogue because you haven’t played an open world dungeon before. Your lack of experience doesn’t constitute anything on my part.
The bulk of your argument is “it’s impossible for devs to make great PvE content in the presence of PvP”.
You just haven’t seen it, that’s your problem.
No, I've said that it's not possible to design a high-precision raid if you have to account for other players actively attempting to sabotage it. I even gave you an example of how it happens in the face of punishing mechanics, more than one in fact but you haven't actually addressed any of it.
I've asked you to share these games that you claim have successfully blended extremely difficult boss encounters with an open PvP area, and you've declined to provide even one example. I'd be happy to engage in dialogue if you actually provided some evidence to back up your claim, as it goes against common sense and many people's direct experience with mixed PvX combat encounters.
Claiming that a open world boss can be just as demanding as an instanced one makes me wonder if you have ever experienced top pve content in AAA MMOs (wow, or better FF14, the ultimates are just better designed)
Its not even debatable, as far as encounter challenge goes when designing a boss, a pure pve instanced encounter can be tuned to be drastically more complex, and its meant for a different purpose and audience than the pvx game.
A pvx encounter requires all mechanics to be simple. Step out of the fire style mechanics (same thing showed in the update this week). Only when mechanics are so simplified can a team respond to both the boss and a pvp ambush.
We already saw instanced boss in the alpha1 dungeon, we know 20% of content will be instanced. That means the rest will be open world, contestable by pvp
If that destroys the game for some people, well, ashes isnt for everyone.
If the game doesn't attract those PvE players, PvP players will peel off from the bottom.
If the PvP-ers at the bottom can defeat PvE players, will those PvE players stay in the game?
I have the feeling somebody will leave anyway, is just that they leave from two bottoms.
Then after a while IS will have to create content for the top PvPers and top PvEers who still play the game.
No, I've said that it's not possible to design a high-precision raid if you have to account for other players actively attempting to sabotage it. I even gave you an example of how it happens in the face of punishing mechanics, more than one in fact but you haven't actually addressed any of it.
I've asked you to share these games that you claim have successfully blended extremely difficult boss encounters with an open PvP area, and you've declined to provide even one example. I'd be happy to engage in dialogue if you actually provided some evidence to back up your claim, as it goes against common sense and many people's direct experience with mixed PvX combat encounters.
Caeryl I agree with your pushback on this nonsense thread, but I think your actually missing a far more pertinent point by getting dragged down his PvP disruption rabbithole.
Even if their is no threat of PvP ATALL, an open world PvE challenge can never be designed under a player count ceiling because their is nothing to bar players from pouring unlimited 'zerg' at such a challenge.
This is why Intrepid is going to great lengths to make open world challenges scalable with player count but they acknowlege that has limits and that many PvE players will want to do fights OTHER then as part of a horde. THAT, far more then the threat of PvP disruption to the fight is the reason for instancing, it's a as player count cap. Which is not to say that Intrepid will need or want everyone 'in' fight to be friendly.
I could see a senario where a dungeon has multiple entrances across the world and you have to enter as an 8 man party then two parties get randomly paired and have to fight the boss in the locked room againt each other at the same time to see who gets the most damage on the boss which makes wiping the other group a valid strategy. Without instancing this just becomes a cake walk for 16 folks to work together or even 40 to just swarm the boss.
PvE players are ruthless optimizers and that can mean learning and obeying extremely disipline timing and coreography, but they are not fools that tie one hand behind their back. If more bodies is an effective way to beat the content they will do that, even if the extra men are for nothing more then replacing losses it profoundly changes the difficulty.
No, I've said that it's not possible to design a high-precision raid if you have to account for other players actively attempting to sabotage it. I even gave you an example of how it happens in the face of punishing mechanics, more than one in fact but you haven't actually addressed any of it.
I've asked you to share these games that you claim have successfully blended extremely difficult boss encounters with an open PvP area, and you've declined to provide even one example. I'd be happy to engage in dialogue if you actually provided some evidence to back up your claim, as it goes against common sense and many people's direct experience with mixed PvX combat encounters.
Caeryl I agree with your pushback on this nonsense thread, but I think your actually missing a far more pertinent point by getting dragged down his PvP disruption rabbithole.
Even if their is no threat of PvP ATALL, an open world PvE challenge can never be designed under a player count ceiling because their is nothing to bar players from pouring unlimited 'zerg' at such a challenge.
This is why Intrepid is going to great lengths to make open world challenges scalable with player count but they acknowlege that has limits and that many PvE players will want to do fights OTHER then as part of a horde. THAT, far more then the threat of PvP disruption to the fight is the reason for instancing, it's a as player count cap. Which is not to say that Intrepid will need or want everyone 'in' fight to be friendly.
I could see a senario where a dungeon has multiple entrances across the world and you have to enter as an 8 man party then two parties get randomly paired and have to fight the boss in the locked room againt each other at the same time to see who gets the most damage on the boss which makes wiping the other group a valid strategy. Without instancing this just becomes a cake walk for 16 folks to work together or even 40 to just swarm the boss.
PvE players are ruthless optimizers and that can mean learning and obeying extremely disipline timing and coreography, but they are not fools that tie one hand behind their back. If more bodies is an effective way to beat the content they will do that, even if the extra men are for nothing more then replacing losses it profoundly changes the difficulty.
These are all also true points, and it bundles into the overall point of not being able to have the top-end content without putting some kind of lock-down on it.
Now, the scenario you presented is a weird one, mostly because you'd have to actually time it with another group to be paired up at all, otherwise it's just a 8-man team cruising through a boss designed around an 8v8 PvP match.
Other the other hand, it would be interesting to see an encounter race where one group completing a mechanic or placing an item/add would trigger something for the other group to handle, and visa versa. Off the top of my head for theme: some big lich making us fight for his entertainment or what have you, then whoever successfully clears that encounter gets to go on to fight the lich itself for phase 2.
I don't mind easy to get stuff dropped in instances, but probably not the very best things, or near the very best things that allow you to farm the very best things. also, every time a player does an instance, that player isn't doing open world content, making the game feel less full.
However, Lineage 2 had some kind of instances which was fine.
There was some world bosses (Antharas, Valakas to named it) which were accessible through a portal. There was OW PvP to access to the portal and inside too. After 30 minutes inside the portal, the boss spawn and no one can enter anymore, leading to a PvE phase.
This is the kind of instance I find interesting and which can please to PvP and PvE players.
Additional infos: The loot from those bosses could be done from craft too. Exception for the boss jewel, but there was only one by attempt.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
They are avoiding instanced content as much as possible, hence why it's only 20% of content, but in some places you simply cannot balance an encounter without closing off the combat area. It's just not possible to do unless they dumb down the fights encounters and deny themselves the chance to use all sorts of mechanics, which is not what I want to see from them.
The challenge should come from the encounter once you've fought your way through mobs and other players to that final room in the dungeon. High-end content is there to test your teamwork and skill, not your patience for trolling from other players as the most noteworthy 'difficulty' facet.
It’s a OW PvX game, there shouldn’t be even 20% of the content.
But here we come to your personal opinion, that I simply do not agree with.
You do understand that instanced content WILL NOT take away anything from the open-world content? All of the important stuff you do will be in the open-world.
If a certain group wants to "isolate" themselves, what's the problem with that? You cannot expect people to be 24/7 in the open-world, ready to be ganked by someone, at any time. Sometimes players want a different type of challenge, that open-world cannot provide.
I mean, there are so many ways to incorporate this into the game.
Maybe to access the instance, you have to clear an entire area of the open-world dungeon, so you can get access to it.
Maybe the dungeon only opens at certain time, under certain conditions. We know the world is going to be dynamic, so maybe only after certain ow events are completed, will the instance spawn.
There are so many ways to do it, that incorporates the Open-world aspect into it.
I think you are thinking about this, as if you will just queue into group finder, and go clear a dungeon, when it's simply not going to be the case with this game.
We can quickly see by your replies, that it's not the actual power gains that's an issue for you, but instanced content in general.
And I'll repeat this again, the rewards have to be good, in this case some level of power gain (on top of cosmetics or anything else), in order to make it worthwhile for players to actually do this content.
So again, as others have asked you, do you actually have an example of the game that managed to make high-end PvE content that's in open-world, with the risk of OW PvP at any time?
Also, I'm just going to ask, have you played Archeage? Do you think dungeons, library, etc. took away something from the game?
Comments
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
Nothing stops the devs from actually creating high end PvE content that also requires coordination on the PvP side to protect the PvE side of the raid from PvP incursions. At this point, you're highlighting the ineptitude and/or experience of the players who just cant get it done.
There are titles where this is the case, it's not an assumption. It's been done before.
No.
Your replies make it abundantly clear that you lack experience in high-end raiding, as well as a general unpleasant demeanor resorting to personal insults toward players who do understand how such content functions.
This might be true in low level difficulty mechanics, but when you build an encounter that requires high precision, no room for error execution. (ie: the very pinnacle of end game MMO raids), a single outside player messing with a single person in the raid causes a wipe.
Also your replies are kind of passive aggressive towards players that do engage in that kind of content.
The short version of the story is:
1) Intrepid wants to design pinnacle end game content for raiders, those raids require instancing so they can make the boss an actual challenge.
2) Intrepid wants to give us low effort gear check bosses like we saw with the fire dragon, that is fine if the challenge comes from the threat of pvp during the fight.
3) We can actually have both at the same time, they arent mutually exclusive. So theres no need for personal insults here.
This guy is totaly transparent, he's practically telling us he consider PvE's to be filthy casuals that should be available for him to gank at all times or better yet be driven out of the game all together.
And Ironicaly they WILL be available to gank, the whole thread is based on his totaly erronious conflation of having locked-room chanlenges that act as gates for more crafted PvE experiences anywhere being instant degeneration of the game into a WoW themepark by some kind of slippery slope weak willed caving in on the part of Intrepid to 'the inctanced crowd'.
I've done high-end raiding, that is how I know most people are terrible at it, but thats just a statistical fact right, most people are just average. I've also raided in the open world with PVP present and still completed it, that's how I know it exists. The fact that most people are just average players isn't really a problem, the most you could argue is that most people could quite if only the best players could complete the best content. The best players completing the content is going to happen anyway.
I did not insult you, you highlighted a proficiency level within a raid, which raid gets wiped by a single person. I stand by that, if your raid gets wiped by a single person then that's on you - not the encounter. If you felt slighted by that, that's also something for you to deal with.
You'll have to settle for my indifference towards you and your perception of me, who are you to me?
Raids can be wiped by one person within the same group. That an outside party could easily wipe a group on purpose is not opinion, but a very demonstrable fact. Yes, most players end up in the middle-ground, but wanting genuinely difficult, high-precision content is not 'hiding' as you've framed it.
Most of the way you speak is derogatory toward high-end content-driven players, and I do quite frankly doubt your self-advertised expertise in the matter if you really do not understand how easily one person can trash a raid at the highest level no matter how many people your group has. Best believe one Fighter with a gap-closer could take a proxy-bomb mechanic from the boss encounter and run it into your primary tank mid-fight.
What game exactly did you play that had high precision PvE encounters while also alowing to free-access PvP within the same arena? I'm genuinely curious what VODs of those encounters look like if you're so confident about them.
I'll highlight some of the points you haven't refuted (all of them):
This game in the absence of PvP, is PvE. Only in the presence of PvP does the game become PvX, as its designed.
I have to repeat myself saying that I am against any power, being present in any instanced content. That includes PvP content, some how now its "he wants to gank lowbies".
They won't be able to gank freely, its called corruption and with the penalties being as steep as they are, no one is going to volunteer their gear. Especially when you downgrade your gear you lose your killing power.
I'm beginning to think you rather enjoy twisting things into something its not.
Unfortunately, Steven has said that if players demand a certain type of content and it becomes popular, they will create more of that content. I am paraphrasing here, but that's the jist of it.
I simply do not wish for Intrepid to veer away that is the premise of Ashes.
But go on, go ahead and keep twisting things.
Why regardless of difficulty (risk) in that setting?
Time is the ultimate risk.
Especially PvP instances.
This was all you really needed Steven is clearly making a compromise here so he can have challenging PvE experience.
If the Risk is high and the content is difficult where majority cant complete it, this is good for the game.
I believe that these raid bosses should drop items and materials, and force the materials to be transported back to town and create the spy/tracking of guilds raid nights and gank caravans. It then allows for the risk for pvp to still have its place.
I will always champion high skill ceiling for PvE and PvP both should exist in Ashes as long as the pillars for both can have proper checks and balances and don't completely dimmish the other.
They will.
Or otherwise about no one will do them. It would be a Waste of time. ESPECIALLY in a PvX(P) World where Competition against other People/Nodes will probably play a huge Role in everyone's Gameplay.
Why wasting your own Time aside when You are the most superior Node anyway ? I wouldn't do that.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
This is the current path Ashes design is taking, or at least intended to take.
You have to compete to actually access the dungeon/boss room first, clear an instanced PvE encounter inside with an inherent difficulty to the content itself, and then once the party leaves that room (whether because they cleared it or because they all wiped), then they're back out in the world and subject to PvP as usual, quite possibly with materials that can now be fought over.
And if the group wipes, well, personally I think it should automatically unlock access for the next group's attempt at it while the first group has to run back and get ready to fight over that loot they missed out on.
Had this conversation many times with people, some already want the ability to queue for arenas/bgs before you know it, the game ends up an instance fest where the world is gutted.
Gets real out of hand quick, for some reason people say they like bleeding edge difficulty but when being presented with a reward track that’s absent of power then the content is no longer worth doing.
The reality is that it was about power the whole time.
Lastest update Steven hinted that instanced bosses will be a thing when they want to control how many people can take on said boss. With that said, we will see upgrades in instances.
People wouldn't do high-end content that takes hours on hours of practice if there is no benefit to doing so, because that's a waste of their time and ultimately indicative of a lack of respect for the players' efforts.
You're on this dead-end doom train based entirely on a slippery slope fallacy, when only 20% of all content is instanced specifically so it can be properly designed. You've still yet to link a VOD of these open PvP, high-precision clears you've claimed you've participated in, or even give a name of one of the games, so as it stands, there's no evidence to suggest the two concepts can coexistent in a way that's done well.
Either the fight requires immense precision and thus one person stepping in to purposefully throw it off is all it takes to wipe, or the content is dumbed down and many fight mechanics simply could not exist so that PvP can take place in the area without automatically ruining a raid attempt.
Ex. Take one of ESO's trials (generally considered to be one of the easier MMOs at its high end), Maw of Lorkhaj, which has a group-splitting mechanic in one of the fights. This mechanic assigns everyone in the area one of two colors, and if you get in proximity of someone with the opposite color, you both instantly die. Easy to handle so long as you're rotating on the color changes and sticking with like-to-like.
However, this mechanic could not exist if another group was permitted to enter that instance, because one person with a gap closer could instantly obliterate multiple people via that mechanic.
Allowing other groups to interfere with what should be a finely-tuned, difficult encounter will only serve to ensure that content is dumbed down and denied what could be much more engaging, interesting mechanics.
Copy+Paste:
Should difficult PvE encounters be required to be in instances?
No. The only thing instances achieve is isolating a player group from everyone else so they can focus on the content purely.
You can achieve that same isolation by making well designed open world dungeons.
There's nothing stopping an "open world boss" to be located at the end of a cave system that takes two hours to clear minibosses and varoius mobs to get to which then has a massive arena that allows for all the complexities of instanced content to be used. The journey to the boss achieves that isolation of players.
I'd much rather that exist since then it's effectively "instanced content" but it still allows a chance for a rival group can show up.
Concerned about zergs? Intrepid has stated that boss abilities will scale based on the number of players that show up for the fight. Assuming this works as described, then zergs will have a much more difficult time staying alive. Even if they do stay alive, we know that content only drops a certain amount of rewards regardless of how many players show up. Rewarding content will likely be on either lengthy respawn timers or require a certain unlocking condition to be met in order to spawn them. It would not be worth it for a group of say 300 to zerg a boss down knowing that it will only drop at the most 3 pieces of gear and enough materials to craft 5 other pieces of gear. It's a waste of time when that group could be split into 6 other smaller groups that focus on different areas of the world.
It's important for AoC to avoid instanced content as much as possible since the basis of the game is player interaction.
They are avoiding instanced content as much as possible, hence why it's only 20% of content, but in some places you simply cannot balance an encounter without closing off the combat area. It's just not possible to do unless they dumb down the fights encounters and deny themselves the chance to use all sorts of mechanics, which is not what I want to see from them.
The challenge should come from the encounter once you've fought your way through mobs and other players to that final room in the dungeon. High-end content is there to test your teamwork and skill, not your patience for trolling from other players as the most noteworthy 'difficulty' facet.
I’m on my phone, It’s a OW PvX game, there shouldn’t be even 20% of the content.
Much hasn’t changed with the raid only crowd in the last twenty + years I’ve been playing MMOs.
At this point I don’t think I owe it to you when you talk at people, not interested in dialogue because you haven’t played an open world dungeon before. Your lack of experience doesn’t constitute anything on my part.
The bulk of your argument is “it’s impossible for devs to make great PvE content in the presence of PvP”.
You just haven’t seen it, that’s your problem.
Best gear is from instanced raids, and has been since day 1.
Instanced PvP was added in around 2009, and the rewards from it are mid, and always have been.
The fact that there are some games thst don't do this does not mean all games don't do this. In order to demonstrate that your assumption that it is an inevitability that it will happen is false, all I need to do is demonstrate one situation where it didn't happen - which I just did.
I wouldn't say it was demonstrably false if I didn't have a specific demonstration in mind - you should know this.
Another example would be Archeage, if you want it from a game that is more PvP focused. Steven made the comment in 2018 that while he doesn't think they could, he would like to compete with WoW in terms of raiding.
Without then, Ashes will fail.
Not may fail, not may be less successful than it could. Will fail.
With the game's basic design goal, for every PvP focused player, the game also needs one PvE focused player.
I have said many times over the years that the success of a game like Ashes is more reliant on it attracting PvE players than PvP, because PvP players coming along are a given, and as long as those PvP players keep winning more PvP than they are losing, they will stay.
However in order for those PvP players to win more than they lose, those losses need to fall to a different group, which has to be PvE players.
If the game doesn't attract those PvE players, PvP players will peel off from the bottom.
No, I've said that it's not possible to design a high-precision raid if you have to account for other players actively attempting to sabotage it. I even gave you an example of how it happens in the face of punishing mechanics, more than one in fact but you haven't actually addressed any of it.
I've asked you to share these games that you claim have successfully blended extremely difficult boss encounters with an open PvP area, and you've declined to provide even one example. I'd be happy to engage in dialogue if you actually provided some evidence to back up your claim, as it goes against common sense and many people's direct experience with mixed PvX combat encounters.
Its not even debatable, as far as encounter challenge goes when designing a boss, a pure pve instanced encounter can be tuned to be drastically more complex, and its meant for a different purpose and audience than the pvx game.
A pvx encounter requires all mechanics to be simple. Step out of the fire style mechanics (same thing showed in the update this week). Only when mechanics are so simplified can a team respond to both the boss and a pvp ambush.
We already saw instanced boss in the alpha1 dungeon, we know 20% of content will be instanced. That means the rest will be open world, contestable by pvp
If that destroys the game for some people, well, ashes isnt for everyone.
I wanted to post yesterday that this is true.
Now I see this statement:
If the PvP-ers at the bottom can defeat PvE players, will those PvE players stay in the game?
I have the feeling somebody will leave anyway, is just that they leave from two bottoms.
Then after a while IS will have to create content for the top PvPers and top PvEers who still play the game.
Caeryl I agree with your pushback on this nonsense thread, but I think your actually missing a far more pertinent point by getting dragged down his PvP disruption rabbithole.
Even if their is no threat of PvP ATALL, an open world PvE challenge can never be designed under a player count ceiling because their is nothing to bar players from pouring unlimited 'zerg' at such a challenge.
This is why Intrepid is going to great lengths to make open world challenges scalable with player count but they acknowlege that has limits and that many PvE players will want to do fights OTHER then as part of a horde. THAT, far more then the threat of PvP disruption to the fight is the reason for instancing, it's a as player count cap. Which is not to say that Intrepid will need or want everyone 'in' fight to be friendly.
I could see a senario where a dungeon has multiple entrances across the world and you have to enter as an 8 man party then two parties get randomly paired and have to fight the boss in the locked room againt each other at the same time to see who gets the most damage on the boss which makes wiping the other group a valid strategy. Without instancing this just becomes a cake walk for 16 folks to work together or even 40 to just swarm the boss.
PvE players are ruthless optimizers and that can mean learning and obeying extremely disipline timing and coreography, but they are not fools that tie one hand behind their back. If more bodies is an effective way to beat the content they will do that, even if the extra men are for nothing more then replacing losses it profoundly changes the difficulty.
These are all also true points, and it bundles into the overall point of not being able to have the top-end content without putting some kind of lock-down on it.
Now, the scenario you presented is a weird one, mostly because you'd have to actually time it with another group to be paired up at all, otherwise it's just a 8-man team cruising through a boss designed around an 8v8 PvP match.
Other the other hand, it would be interesting to see an encounter race where one group completing a mechanic or placing an item/add would trigger something for the other group to handle, and visa versa. Off the top of my head for theme: some big lich making us fight for his entertainment or what have you, then whoever successfully clears that encounter gets to go on to fight the lich itself for phase 2.
However, Lineage 2 had some kind of instances which was fine.
There was some world bosses (Antharas, Valakas to named it) which were accessible through a portal. There was OW PvP to access to the portal and inside too. After 30 minutes inside the portal, the boss spawn and no one can enter anymore, leading to a PvE phase.
This is the kind of instance I find interesting and which can please to PvP and PvE players.
Additional infos: The loot from those bosses could be done from craft too. Exception for the boss jewel, but there was only one by attempt.
But here we come to your personal opinion, that I simply do not agree with.
You do understand that instanced content WILL NOT take away anything from the open-world content? All of the important stuff you do will be in the open-world.
If a certain group wants to "isolate" themselves, what's the problem with that? You cannot expect people to be 24/7 in the open-world, ready to be ganked by someone, at any time. Sometimes players want a different type of challenge, that open-world cannot provide.
I mean, there are so many ways to incorporate this into the game.
Maybe to access the instance, you have to clear an entire area of the open-world dungeon, so you can get access to it.
Maybe the dungeon only opens at certain time, under certain conditions. We know the world is going to be dynamic, so maybe only after certain ow events are completed, will the instance spawn.
There are so many ways to do it, that incorporates the Open-world aspect into it.
I think you are thinking about this, as if you will just queue into group finder, and go clear a dungeon, when it's simply not going to be the case with this game.
We can quickly see by your replies, that it's not the actual power gains that's an issue for you, but instanced content in general.
And I'll repeat this again, the rewards have to be good, in this case some level of power gain (on top of cosmetics or anything else), in order to make it worthwhile for players to actually do this content.
So again, as others have asked you, do you actually have an example of the game that managed to make high-end PvE content that's in open-world, with the risk of OW PvP at any time?
Also, I'm just going to ask, have you played Archeage? Do you think dungeons, library, etc. took away something from the game?