Upon reading up on Asheron’s Call, PvP was disabled by default (per the wiki). Additionally it has instanced content in the form of dungeons accessible via portals (also per the wiki). Some of the reviews noted a lax of complexity within the game.
All in all, this has just told me there are some misunderstanding about what instancing is, and that OP has some heavily rose-tinted goggles on.
Edit: Read up on Darktide (a PvP server from the context clues) and the chat had to be turned off at some point because of toxicity lmfao
Edit 2: After reading boss pages and looking for videos regarding PvP in their top end encounters (Gauntlet it seems), absolutely nothing about the game’s boss mechanics come across as complex or precision based.
The risk is not the same because it cannot be the same until people are under the threat of being looted. It would have to be guaranteed that the material acquisition within the instanced space has a 100% drop rate.
If dying in these instances gave a chance for you to lose your loot, similar to the open world, would that make it more acceptable?
Plus, you could potentially be PvP'd and looted at the instance entrance. In fact, that could be quite lucrative for the more predatory PvPers.
If it’s still material gain it may drop.
There’s what they plan and then there’s the “feedback” that will come after.
“This dungeon was hard and then I walked outside only to die to Players and get looted”
That’ll only get answered a couple of ways.
But no matter how that gets answered, people are going to quit after being looted.
Why would anyone make themselves the Work of (hopefully) tough Instances - if there is not a single gain from it ?
An Ingredient. A Jewel. A whatever. Something People can use. Be it Artisan-Crafter Items or direct Drops. Our neighboring Nodes and Competition won't sleep. Will we be able to invest Hours for Hours into something that will not help us in any form of Power ?
Because then you have to put power in instanced PvP.
And the way to obtain power in the world is already PvE in the world, it’s only PvX because the addition of PvP.
That’s not mentioning how pissed raiders will be when they get killed out of the raid and looted.
But no matter how that gets answered, people are going to quit after being looted.
Some will, without a doubt.
The thing is, this is as much a valid point with PvP players as it is PvE. Not all PvP players like any kind of loot drop with PvP, yet many of these players will try Ashes out and decide it isn't for them. Does that mean Intrepid should drop PvP so as to not risk attracting some of these PvP players that don't like loot drop with PvP in among with those that do?
Because that is the argument you are putting forward here - your argument is literally that you think Intrepid shouldn't work to attract a large group of players, because in attracting that large group of players, there will be a small group that don't like some aspects of the game.
Why would anyone make themselves the Work of (hopefully) tough Instances - if there is not a single gain from it ?
An Ingredient. A Jewel. A whatever. Something People can use. Be it Artisan-Crafter Items or direct Drops. Our neighboring Nodes and Competition won't sleep. Will we be able to invest Hours for Hours into something that will not help us in any form of Power ?
Because then you have to put power in instanced PvP.
Node sieges are instanced PvP. What about this are you not understanding?
Why would anyone make themselves the Work of (hopefully) tough Instances - if there is not a single gain from it ?
An Ingredient. A Jewel. A whatever. Something People can use. Be it Artisan-Crafter Items or direct Drops. Our neighboring Nodes and Competition won't sleep. Will we be able to invest Hours for Hours into something that will not help us in any form of Power ?
Because then you have to put power in instanced PvP.
Node sieges are instanced PvP. What about this are you not understanding?
I’m well aware what the sieges are, considering I’ve been in them.
Why would anyone make themselves the Work of (hopefully) tough Instances - if there is not a single gain from it ?
An Ingredient. A Jewel. A whatever. Something People can use. Be it Artisan-Crafter Items or direct Drops. Our neighboring Nodes and Competition won't sleep. Will we be able to invest Hours for Hours into something that will not help us in any form of Power ?
Because then you have to put power in instanced PvP.
Node sieges are instanced PvP. What about this are you not understanding?
I’m well aware what the sieges are, considering I’ve been in them.
What part of that don’t you understand?
Why are you here complaining about the possibility of instanced PvP having power rewards when you actively take part (and presumably enjoyed) the instanced PvP that grants significant power?
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Instanced content can be used to unlock archetype skills and other character strengthening features, except for XP. Meaning they should be a one off, you are high enough to unlock that skill, you go with your groups help to complete a challenging raid at the end of the instanced dungeon and you are done.
You cannot hide inside instanced content and expect to Lv up.
Another reward could be certain parts needed for certain crafts. That means that players still need to face the challenges of the open world to complete 100% of the crafted items, and the economy is protected and totally unaffected.
Another idea is a mix with L2s Hero system. Here it is:
If Intrepid chooses to lift the strongest player from every class(64) to a higher status as part of a periodic competotion design, then these players, heroes champions, demigods whatever the title end up being, may be required to complete certain quests, going through challenging instanced content to unlock unique weapons, or small skill lines, or armor.
For a very small percentage of players, there is a whole new group/raid size gameplay available tied to those heroes and their supporters.
The simpliest solution is the cosmetic/title rewards that has been mentioned by many ppl, many times.
There is room for choreographed content in the form of instanced challenges, which gives the devs to create great looking areas and mechanisms (who may require appropriate non combat archetype skills, giving further depth to CERTAIN archetypes) but certain people seem hellbend on arguing about pedantic terms, numbers and "data".
And then there are those that refuse to understand that instanced character progress and item rewards hurt the open world design of player driven conflict and economy, because they are based to brainless faction wars (kill this guy because you are with faction red and he is with faction blue) and boring Vendor NPC daily content, with an AH as a garbage bin to throw your endless loot for peanuts in an effort to make some gold.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
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.
PvErs are going to quit the moment they're looted. They're won't stick around for being looted and asset loss every time a city flips.
Not if the PvE is actually good.
It seems somewhat obvious to me that you have this pre-concieved notion of what a PvE player is, and you are wrong. How you talk about PvE players comes across as you thinking of all PvE players as basically a charicature of a casual PvE dabbler - a weekend warrior.
Make the assumption that what you are considering "all PvE'ers" is actually kind of the lowest of the low in terms of PvE players, and then you may start to get an idea of how wrong your entire notion in this thread is.
what makes good pve? is it the difficulty or something else?
This is subjective in a manner of speaking, but also has some objective elements to it.
The subjective parts are in terms of what is asked of players, the specific mechanics of a fight being enjoyable.
The objective elements are things like encounter progression, quantity of encounters at any given point in that progression, and access to those encounters.
is it better to make pve for the 99% of players or for the top 1% pve players?
Both.
Top end PvE is asperational to players that know they will get there, but also to those that are probably never going to see it. It is important that it is there, it is important that it is talked about, but it is also important that the PvE content that is not top end is supplying those with asperations to take on that top end content with something to do rather than something to want to do.
is it better to make pve for the pvx players and forget about the pure pve players (or pure pvp players)
In a game like Ashes, both.
Ashes needs PvX players, but it will also attract people far more interested in PvP than PvE. The more people you have that are just interested in PvE, the more those that are just interested in PvP have a place. This is on top of the notion that the more PvE players the game has, the longer PvP and PvX players will stick around.
I've said it many times, Ashes will live or die by the PvE population it attracts, not the PvX or PvP population it attracts.
well, Mario 1 has pretty good pve and all you do is jump and move forward and it isn't particularly hard. one of the most sold games ever.
ashes will live or die by its pvx crowd, not pve folks.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[12]
It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[13]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[14][15][13][16]
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
58 million dollars in ‘85 says otherwise, good is perspective, it’s an all time top selling game.
If you want to be taken seriously in a discussion, don't make numbers up.
Super Mario sold over $70 million within the first three months of it's release, in Japan alone. Inflation adjusted, that would come to about $200 million now.
However, I have no idea why you are making up fake numbers for a game in a different genre, on a different platform, from a different millennium. I mean, it's not like you've made an argument with it, you just introduced it falsely stating it was good PvE, then you made up fake sales figures for it.
Honestly, what kind of reaction is it you expect someone to have to that?
After reading boss pages and looking for videos regarding PvP in their top end encounters (Gauntlet it seems), absolutely nothing about the game’s boss mechanics come across as complex or precision based.
Indeed.
Since this is a neccessity of all PvE encounters in a PvP environment, people that haven't played games that seperate the two simply don't understand that such encounters are the basic bitch version of PvE. To these people, it may well be the best they have ever seen.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[12]
It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[13]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[14][15][13][16]
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
You said power already exists in instanced PvP.
The only instanced “PvP” event so far were sieges. It was both PvP and PvE simultaneously, the dragons (PvE) dropped the power. Destroying assets is PvE.
Players had to work in tandem.
Node wars are also PvX, because PvP and PvE will occur simultaneously. (Destroying assets is literally Players destroying the environment) (and it’s a multi phase/tiered event)
—————-
Tucking an encounter away in an instance without any threat of players is just PvE.
Tucking players away in an instanced arena is just PvP.
I prefer not to have instances at all, but if they’re going to be there then the power needs to stay in the world.
Raiders get uppity about it, notice no arena or battleground enjoyers are up in arms and flailing about.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[12]
It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[13]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[14][15][13][16]
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
The only instanced “PvP” event so far were sieges. It was both PvP and PvE simultaneously, the dragons (PvE) dropped the power. Destroying assets is PvE.
Good lord. Well, if nothing else thank you for confirming you don't know the difference between a PvP objective and a PvE encounter. Certainly puts the whole thread into perspective.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
Steven mentioned the instances in the last stream as one of the answers to how he will combat zergs who might want to overpower the dragon by bringing a large number of players.
If you have such a zerg, chances are that there is no PvP near the dragon even if that is theoretically possible.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
We discussed in a thread about what happens/how to prevent the side owning the castle to place players on the attacking side.
The same can happen also if a boss is instanced and allows 2 teams to fight against a boss. They may actually cooperate instead of engaging into PvP.
The advantage I see with an interference free battle against a boss is that a team from a small guild might sneak to the boss room even when a larger guild tries to lock down the area and prevent others to kill the boss. A team may arrive early and while fighting, another one can arrive late and ruin the fight even though they might not be able to defeat it themselves. So being interference free, such possibility is prevented and the reward can be contested later through PvP, while trying to leave the dungeon... if the winners don't logout on the spot. And if the dungeon is designed to allow PvP afterward. Because dungeons can also be designed to have separate exit or multiple exit paths to increase the chance of escaping with the loot. People ask for such design changes even in full loot PvP games. There is nothing worse than a large guild being able to lock down the content. Better to die fighting an NPC because you don't have the skill than not even trying to reach it because you know a large number of players will prevent you going there. Imagine paying subscription to farm low quality stuff to make money to pay to those who locked down the dungeon.
Raiders get uppity about it, notice no arena or battleground enjoyers are up in arms and flailing about.
That is because you can have PvP in an open world setting without needing to curtail the quality of that PvP. You can not have PvE in an open world setting (PvP or not, honestly) at it's highest quality.
Put another way, a game with open world PvP and no instances is not saying they will only have second rate PvP. A game with open world PvE and no instances is specifically saying they will only have second rate PvE.
There are many other things in this game that PvP players have complained about. However, they complain about things that affect the quality of PvP, they don't (generally) complain about things that do not. Same with PvE players, they don't (generally) complain about things that have no impact on PvE, but will complain about things that do.
I don't know if this is something you simply don't understand (PvE and PvP are affected by the same things, but in different ways), or if you do know this and are just trying to make an argument regardless of how bad it is. Either way, you really aren't making any good arguments here.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[12]
It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[13]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[14][15][13][16]
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
The only instanced “PvP” event so far were sieges. It was both PvP and PvE simultaneously, the dragons (PvE) dropped the power. Destroying assets is PvE.
Good lord. Well, if nothing else thank you for confirming you don't know the difference between a PvP objective and a PvE encounter. Certainly puts the whole thread into perspective.
I’ve been raiding for years. I know what an encounter is.
Your behavior is the exact reason why I’m short with you, a lot but not all “1%” raiders are actually insufferable. Being given the chance, you’re just as annoying and selfish as they come.
Raiders are PvErs.
Most of the game is PvE. There can never be enough PvE for you.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
You won’t run the risk of something like Vanilla Molten Core in an open setting.
Even though they could literally build something similar to open world MC, you just might get gated from the content.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
It isn't a case of what Intrepid can and can not do, it is a case what is possible and what is not.
If I have 2 cups of water, and an enclosed vessal that holds one cup, there is no way I can get those two cups of water in that vessal. It is just not possible - physics does not work that way.
If we assume one cup of that water is PvP, and one cup of that water is PvE, the one cup vessal is the cap of player capability assuming highly skilled, highly coordernated players with the right mic of characters in some of the best gear in the game (not having any of these things just means you have a smaller vessal).
No matter what happens, those two cups of water are still not going to fit in to that one cup vessal. It just doesn't work that way.
Vanilla Molten Core
This made me laugh.
Vanilla molten core is about the difficulty and quality I expect Ashes raids to be.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
There are a LOT of games that have tried, and literally every single one has failed.
There is not a single example in all of MMORPG gaming of an actual difficult raid encounter that exists in a PvP enabled setting.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
It isn't a case of what Intrepid can and can not do, it is a case what is possible and what is not.
If I have 2 cups of water, and an enclosed vessal that holds one cup, there is no way I can get those two cups of water in that vessal. It is just not possible - physics does not work that way.
If we assume one cup of that water is PvP, and one cup of that water is PvE, the one cup vessal is the cap of player capability assuming highly skilled, highly coordernated players with the right mic of characters in some of the best gear in the game (not having any of these things just means you have a smaller vessal).
No matter what happens, those two cups of water are still not going to fit in to that one cup vessal. It just doesn't work that way.
Vanilla Molten Core
This made me laugh.
Vanilla molten core is about the difficulty and quality I expect Ashes raids to be.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
There are a LOT of games that have tried, and literally every single one has failed.
There is not a single example in all of MMORPG gaming of an actual difficult raid encounter that exists in a PvP enabled setting.
Not one example.
I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve never actually done MC.
Just like, I have a sneaking suspicion you just look at YouTube videos and write them off, mostly because through out the years that’s been part of your MO.
There’s no proof of success like there’s no proof of your EQ difficulty.
Power already exists in instanced PvP and as a direct result of instanced PvP. Clearly if that fundamental gameplay mechanic was a deal breaker for you, you’d already be long gone, so what’s the deal? What are you actually complaining about??
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
There may be instanced locations within otherwise open-world castle and node sieges, where specific groups can participate in small, short duration objective-based battles that will affect the overall outcome of the siege.[12]
It was previously stated that castle sieges may or may not be (entirely) instanced in the final game.[13]
Alpha-1 castle sieges occurred in an open-world zone that was accessible via a NPC teleporter.[14][15][13][16]
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
The only instanced “PvP” event so far were sieges. It was both PvP and PvE simultaneously, the dragons (PvE) dropped the power. Destroying assets is PvE.
Good lord. Well, if nothing else thank you for confirming you don't know the difference between a PvP objective and a PvE encounter. Certainly puts the whole thread into perspective.
I’ve been raiding for years. I know what an encounter is.
Your behavior is the exact reason why I’m short with you, a lot but not all “1%” raiders are actually insufferable. Being given the chance, you’re just as annoying and selfish as they come.
Raiders are PvErs.
Most of the game is PvE. There can never be enough PvE for you.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
You won’t run the risk of something like Vanilla Molten Core in an open setting.
Even though they could literally build something similar to open world MC, you just might get gated from the content.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
This alone is enough to demonstrate you don't understand the what the terms actually mean.
Node wars are also PvX, because PvP and PvE will occur simultaneously. (Destroying assets is literally Players destroying the environment)
You didn't list a single game that had high-precision PvE encounters in an open world, open PvP space. The one you mentioned:
- had PvP disabled by default,
- had a small player count per server compared to most modern MMOs
- had its primary high-end content (Gauntlet) instanced
The only bits of PvP combat I could find were two people just smacking each other over nothing or some random mob. The PvP server also had to get chat deleted because people were being that abusive in it. The vast majority of videos that exist are from emulated servers post it closing down in 2017, which are a whole lot of nothing when we're talking about what approach an active MMO with a healthy playerbase engaging in all tiers of content should take.
You haven't demonstrated anything to sway anyone into thinking we should toss out genuinely difficult PvE in favor of only watered down PvP slap fights over a relatively basic boss in the open world like the dragon showcase this past week.
All you've done is talk nonsense that goes against common sense, not refuted any of the points made, and resorted to immature petty insults. I'll consider you being annoyed as positive, as you certainly aren't someone whose ideas hold up to any scrutiny. You didn't even try to defend them in any meaningful way.
Edit: Honestly, this in pairing with *that rant about Ashes not being solo friendly due to group PvP is (unintentional) comedy of the highest caliber. No one is happy apparently.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
It isn't a case of what Intrepid can and can not do, it is a case what is possible and what is not.
If I have 2 cups of water, and an enclosed vessal that holds one cup, there is no way I can get those two cups of water in that vessal. It is just not possible - physics does not work that way.
If we assume one cup of that water is PvP, and one cup of that water is PvE, the one cup vessal is the cap of player capability assuming highly skilled, highly coordernated players with the right mic of characters in some of the best gear in the game (not having any of these things just means you have a smaller vessal).
No matter what happens, those two cups of water are still not going to fit in to that one cup vessal. It just doesn't work that way.
Vanilla Molten Core
This made me laugh.
Vanilla molten core is about the difficulty and quality I expect Ashes raids to be.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
There are a LOT of games that have tried, and literally every single one has failed.
There is not a single example in all of MMORPG gaming of an actual difficult raid encounter that exists in a PvP enabled setting.
Not one example.
I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve never actually done MC.
Just like, I have a sneaking suspicion you just look at YouTube videos and write them off, mostly because through out the years that’s been part of your MO.
There’s no proof of success like there’s no proof of your EQ difficulty.
Another day Noanni is full of shit.
You can think what ever you want.
Fact is, Molten Core (vanilla WoW in general) was designed to appeal to people that didn't know what an MMORPG even was. Blizzards target market for WoW was existing Blizzard game players - specifically Diablo and Warcraft players.
At the time, people did indeed consider MC to be difficult. But that is because it was the first real raid that most of the people that took it on had ever attempted.
In a recent Discord discussion, Steven confirmed that the plan for Ashes of Creation includes allowing rewards from 20% of instanced content. While this may seem like a balanced approach, it raises significant concerns about maintaining the integrity of the game’s open-world design.
The moment you introduce power gains from PvE instancing, it sets off a chain reaction that inevitably leads to similar PvP instancing with rewards. This progression is harmful to the game’s open-world experience and its foundational vision.
1) Detracting from the Open-World Experience:
The true strength of Ashes of Creation lies in its commitment to an immersive, open-world environment where players interact dynamically and meaningfully. Introducing instanced content with power gains pulls players away from this shared world, reducing the richness of player interactions and the world itself.
2) The Domino Effect:
Once PvE instancing with rewards is established, there will be pressure to provide comparable PvP instancing with rewards. This further fragments the player base, drawing them into isolated scenarios rather than encouraging them to participate in the larger, open-world environment.
3) Learning from Other Games:
Many MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Elder Scrolls Online, have become "faux open-world" games where instanced content dominates the endgame. These games often favor PvE over PvP, leading to a lopsided experience where PvP is diminished and the open world feels less relevant. Ashes of Creation has the opportunity to avoid this pitfall and offer a truly unique experience.
4)The Potential of Open-World PvE:
There’s a strong argument that the best PvE experiences can and should be open-world. Intrepid Studios has the opportunity to implement creative and innovative solutions, such as multi-tiered open-world dungeons and environments. These could offer high skill ceiling PvE mechanics while maintaining the ever-present risk of PvP. Such content would be reserved for the best players, challenging them to master both the environment and their fellow players in a truly dynamic setting.
Addressing Steven Sharif's Quote:
Steven Sharif stated, "There is more than enough space to fill with regards to reward tables and the open vs instanced content. While the instanced content may not include the added risk of player vs player, it also means that the control setting is higher and capable of involving more rigid gameplay mechanics that can be quite tough and high on the skill ceiling."
While it is true that instanced content allows for more controlled settings and challenging gameplay, this approach risks undermining the core vision of Ashes of Creation. Instead of focusing on instanced content, the game should emphasize creating complex and challenging scenarios within the open world itself. This would keep players engaged with the environment and each other, preserving the risk and dynamic interactions that define the game’s unique appeal.
Conclusion:
To preserve the integrity and appeal of Ashes of Creation, instanced content should be carefully balanced. Power gains should remain tied to the open world, ensuring that players stay engaged with the core vision of the game—an immersive, interconnected world where player interactions and exploration are key. By implementing creative, open-world PvE content with high skill ceilings and maintaining the risk of PvP, Intrepid Studios can deliver a truly unique and dynamic MMORPG experience.
This is one very long slippery slope fallacy with a lot of assertions and nothing connecting them.
Also player housing will have the same effect except on a much larger scale with no power involved.
Also, also, most games have 100% instanced dungeons and raids. Bitching about only getting 80% makes you sound entitled and ungrateful. Be happy with the win. Prioritize the game being great over getting the exact thing you want.
Comments
All in all, this has just told me there are some misunderstanding about what instancing is, and that OP has some heavily rose-tinted goggles on.
Edit: Read up on Darktide (a PvP server from the context clues) and the chat had to be turned off at some point because of toxicity lmfao
Edit 2: After reading boss pages and looking for videos regarding PvP in their top end encounters (Gauntlet it seems), absolutely nothing about the game’s boss mechanics come across as complex or precision based.
If it’s still material gain it may drop.
There’s what they plan and then there’s the “feedback” that will come after.
“This dungeon was hard and then I walked outside only to die to Players and get looted”
That’ll only get answered a couple of ways.
But no matter how that gets answered, people are going to quit after being looted.
Because then you have to put power in instanced PvP.
And the way to obtain power in the world is already PvE in the world, it’s only PvX because the addition of PvP.
That’s not mentioning how pissed raiders will be when they get killed out of the raid and looted.
Some will, without a doubt.
The thing is, this is as much a valid point with PvP players as it is PvE. Not all PvP players like any kind of loot drop with PvP, yet many of these players will try Ashes out and decide it isn't for them. Does that mean Intrepid should drop PvP so as to not risk attracting some of these PvP players that don't like loot drop with PvP in among with those that do?
Because that is the argument you are putting forward here - your argument is literally that you think Intrepid shouldn't work to attract a large group of players, because in attracting that large group of players, there will be a small group that don't like some aspects of the game.
Node sieges are instanced PvP. What about this are you not understanding?
I’m well aware what the sieges are, considering I’ve been in them.
What part of that don’t you understand?
Why are you here complaining about the possibility of instanced PvP having power rewards when you actively take part (and presumably enjoyed) the instanced PvP that grants significant power?
You cannot hide inside instanced content and expect to Lv up.
Another reward could be certain parts needed for certain crafts. That means that players still need to face the challenges of the open world to complete 100% of the crafted items, and the economy is protected and totally unaffected.
Another idea is a mix with L2s Hero system. Here it is:
If Intrepid chooses to lift the strongest player from every class(64) to a higher status as part of a periodic competotion design, then these players, heroes champions, demigods whatever the title end up being, may be required to complete certain quests, going through challenging instanced content to unlock unique weapons, or small skill lines, or armor.
For a very small percentage of players, there is a whole new group/raid size gameplay available tied to those heroes and their supporters.
The simpliest solution is the cosmetic/title rewards that has been mentioned by many ppl, many times.
There is room for choreographed content in the form of instanced challenges, which gives the devs to create great looking areas and mechanisms (who may require appropriate non combat archetype skills, giving further depth to CERTAIN archetypes) but certain people seem hellbend on arguing about pedantic terms, numbers and "data".
And then there are those that refuse to understand that instanced character progress and item rewards hurt the open world design of player driven conflict and economy, because they are based to brainless faction wars (kill this guy because you are with faction red and he is with faction blue) and boring Vendor NPC daily content, with an AH as a garbage bin to throw your endless loot for peanuts in an effort to make some gold.
Good job forum.
Im going to correct your ignorance on sieges only once. As of now, castle sieges are PvX, the player power comes from one of the three raid bosses (PvE). The political power of entire alliance comes from sieges, but that system isn’t even complete.
Read the wiki a little more carefully if you bothered at all.
And I’ve already voiced my preference for castles being open world way before you showed up on the forums.
well, Mario 1 has pretty good pve and all you do is jump and move forward and it isn't particularly hard. one of the most sold games ever.
ashes will live or die by its pvx crowd, not pve folks.
It was only ever a good game to people that had never played any games at home before.
If this proves to be true, the game will die.
58 million dollars in ‘85 says otherwise, good is perspective, it’s an all time top selling game.
Like most of the stuff you try to argue, it’s your prediction will fall flat on its face too.
Can you start by reading my posts accurately before you harp on someone not reading the wiki? You've misread posts multiple times now which make trying to discuss anything with you frustrating, to put it lightly. (Not helped by your lack of clarity, apparent misunderstanding of the systems as they're designed, along with not knowing what 'instanced' means in the context of Ashes of Creation.)
Castle seiges (which I've never even mentioned anywhere in this thread) are objective-based PvP events, which you ought to know considering you took part in one. The existence of an objective does not negate that it's a PvP event. The only time it's a PvX encounter is the first capture, an I have no doubt it's not going to be remotely considered 'top-end' bosses considering it's designed for the express purpose of being cleared out to promote player politicking.
Also, instanced content is planned there too already.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges
Dungeons being open but the final boss encounters being instanced to allow for more finely-tuned combat encounters falls entirely in line with how the PvP events are being handled. ' Fight all the way here but only one group/guild/whatever can take their shot at the boss.' Open world to a point, and then they can really crank up the difficulty where no zerging of a boss can happen.
The point of instancing pieces of content is so Intrepid can design around a set amount of participants. This is necessary in order to create high-end, highly demanding PvE encounters that only 1% of players will ever clear. They can't design a challenge without knowing how many people will be running around in the combat space. If the answer is "however many want to run in there" then the encounter has to be dumbed down to facilitate a clear in the face of PvP.
It's the same reason Node Seiges are set to be instanced (aka restricted participation), scheduled PvP events during which the node essentially is turned off until it's successfully defended, if it's successfully defended. Restricting non-registered players effectively means the seige happens in its own little world until the event concludes. If they don't have that common-sense restriction, then they'll find node sieges getting extremely chaotic under influence of people 'joining' just to troll objectives while there's nothing that can be done about them.
Super Mario sold over $70 million within the first three months of it's release, in Japan alone. Inflation adjusted, that would come to about $200 million now.
However, I have no idea why you are making up fake numbers for a game in a different genre, on a different platform, from a different millennium. I mean, it's not like you've made an argument with it, you just introduced it falsely stating it was good PvE, then you made up fake sales figures for it.
Honestly, what kind of reaction is it you expect someone to have to that?
Since this is a neccessity of all PvE encounters in a PvP environment, people that haven't played games that seperate the two simply don't understand that such encounters are the basic bitch version of PvE. To these people, it may well be the best they have ever seen.
You said power already exists in instanced PvP.
The only instanced “PvP” event so far were sieges. It was both PvP and PvE simultaneously, the dragons (PvE) dropped the power. Destroying assets is PvE.
Players had to work in tandem.
Node wars are also PvX, because PvP and PvE will occur simultaneously. (Destroying assets is literally Players destroying the environment) (and it’s a multi phase/tiered event)
—————-
Tucking an encounter away in an instance without any threat of players is just PvE.
Tucking players away in an instanced arena is just PvP.
I prefer not to have instances at all, but if they’re going to be there then the power needs to stay in the world.
Raiders get uppity about it, notice no arena or battleground enjoyers are up in arms and flailing about.
Also, I’m vague because NDA.
Good lord. Well, if nothing else thank you for confirming you don't know the difference between a PvP objective and a PvE encounter. Certainly puts the whole thread into perspective.
Steven mentioned the instances in the last stream as one of the answers to how he will combat zergs who might want to overpower the dragon by bringing a large number of players.
If you have such a zerg, chances are that there is no PvP near the dragon even if that is theoretically possible.
We discussed in a thread about what happens/how to prevent the side owning the castle to place players on the attacking side.
The same can happen also if a boss is instanced and allows 2 teams to fight against a boss. They may actually cooperate instead of engaging into PvP.
The advantage I see with an interference free battle against a boss is that a team from a small guild might sneak to the boss room even when a larger guild tries to lock down the area and prevent others to kill the boss. A team may arrive early and while fighting, another one can arrive late and ruin the fight even though they might not be able to defeat it themselves. So being interference free, such possibility is prevented and the reward can be contested later through PvP, while trying to leave the dungeon... if the winners don't logout on the spot. And if the dungeon is designed to allow PvP afterward. Because dungeons can also be designed to have separate exit or multiple exit paths to increase the chance of escaping with the loot. People ask for such design changes even in full loot PvP games. There is nothing worse than a large guild being able to lock down the content. Better to die fighting an NPC because you don't have the skill than not even trying to reach it because you know a large number of players will prevent you going there. Imagine paying subscription to farm low quality stuff to make money to pay to those who locked down the dungeon.
Put another way, a game with open world PvP and no instances is not saying they will only have second rate PvP. A game with open world PvE and no instances is specifically saying they will only have second rate PvE.
There are many other things in this game that PvP players have complained about. However, they complain about things that affect the quality of PvP, they don't (generally) complain about things that do not. Same with PvE players, they don't (generally) complain about things that have no impact on PvE, but will complain about things that do.
I don't know if this is something you simply don't understand (PvE and PvP are affected by the same things, but in different ways), or if you do know this and are just trying to make an argument regardless of how bad it is. Either way, you really aren't making any good arguments here.
I’ve been raiding for years. I know what an encounter is.
Your behavior is the exact reason why I’m short with you, a lot but not all “1%” raiders are actually insufferable. Being given the chance, you’re just as annoying and selfish as they come.
Raiders are PvErs.
Most of the game is PvE. There can never be enough PvE for you.
It’s gotta be, “they won’t be able to design a good encounter in the open world that takes precision!!”, you haven’t the faintest clue what Intrepid can cook up.
You won’t run the risk of something like Vanilla Molten Core in an open setting.
Even though they could literally build something similar to open world MC, you just might get gated from the content.
There’s a lot of raids in the MMORPG universe that are bloody difficult and can be open world.
If I have 2 cups of water, and an enclosed vessal that holds one cup, there is no way I can get those two cups of water in that vessal. It is just not possible - physics does not work that way.
If we assume one cup of that water is PvP, and one cup of that water is PvE, the one cup vessal is the cap of player capability assuming highly skilled, highly coordernated players with the right mic of characters in some of the best gear in the game (not having any of these things just means you have a smaller vessal).
No matter what happens, those two cups of water are still not going to fit in to that one cup vessal. It just doesn't work that way. This made me laugh.
Vanilla molten core is about the difficulty and quality I expect Ashes raids to be.
There are a LOT of games that have tried, and literally every single one has failed.
There is not a single example in all of MMORPG gaming of an actual difficult raid encounter that exists in a PvP enabled setting.
Not one example.
I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve never actually done MC.
Just like, I have a sneaking suspicion you just look at YouTube videos and write them off, mostly because through out the years that’s been part of your MO.
There’s no proof of success like there’s no proof of your EQ difficulty.
Another day Noanni is full of shit.
This alone is enough to demonstrate you don't understand the what the terms actually mean.
You didn't list a single game that had high-precision PvE encounters in an open world, open PvP space. The one you mentioned:
- had PvP disabled by default,
- had a small player count per server compared to most modern MMOs
- had its primary high-end content (Gauntlet) instanced
The only bits of PvP combat I could find were two people just smacking each other over nothing or some random mob. The PvP server also had to get chat deleted because people were being that abusive in it. The vast majority of videos that exist are from emulated servers post it closing down in 2017, which are a whole lot of nothing when we're talking about what approach an active MMO with a healthy playerbase engaging in all tiers of content should take.
You haven't demonstrated anything to sway anyone into thinking we should toss out genuinely difficult PvE in favor of only watered down PvP slap fights over a relatively basic boss in the open world like the dragon showcase this past week.
All you've done is talk nonsense that goes against common sense, not refuted any of the points made, and resorted to immature petty insults. I'll consider you being annoyed as positive, as you certainly aren't someone whose ideas hold up to any scrutiny. You didn't even try to defend them in any meaningful way.
Edit: Honestly, this in pairing with *that rant about Ashes not being solo friendly due to group PvP is (unintentional) comedy of the highest caliber. No one is happy apparently.
You can think what ever you want.
Fact is, Molten Core (vanilla WoW in general) was designed to appeal to people that didn't know what an MMORPG even was. Blizzards target market for WoW was existing Blizzard game players - specifically Diablo and Warcraft players.
At the time, people did indeed consider MC to be difficult. But that is because it was the first real raid that most of the people that took it on had ever attempted.
This is one very long slippery slope fallacy with a lot of assertions and nothing connecting them.
Also player housing will have the same effect except on a much larger scale with no power involved.
Also, also, most games have 100% instanced dungeons and raids. Bitching about only getting 80% makes you sound entitled and ungrateful. Be happy with the win. Prioritize the game being great over getting the exact thing you want.