World Bosses- raiding and economy

dygz wrote: »

Small % of the player base is not synonymous with hardcore.
Hardcore raid content is not synonymous with killing world bosses.

You first wrote, "some some bosses will not be killed more than a few times and will only be done so by the 'hardcore'". Now, you're saying "a lot of people" killing the bosses will be hardcore because their motivation will be to discover how to beat it. I'm pretty sure everyone who kills the bosses will want to discover how to beat them because how to beat them will change from session to session, according Steven and Jeffrey.

There will be hardcore raiders whose primary motivation to raid is raid progression, certainly. That does not mean they will be the only people defeating the bosses you reference.

You did not mention loot structure in your original post, but that's what the devs focused on in the link you shared. Steven and Jeffrey focus on the rewards attainable from world boss events and indicate that they won't just be attainable by "hardcore raiders".

I don't want to get lost in semantics here. My point is that people will be motivated to kill the boss for the sake of progression. Those players I called "hardcore" raiders because the reason they play the game is to simply progress through raid content. If the difficulty of a raid is hard, only a % of that % of the player base will be able to beat that raid content. I'm not saying anything about the exact # of players that will clear content, maybe you could re-state your original point? I think it may have gotten lost in the semantics, unless your point was to clarify the semantics which is a bit odd imo :P.

noaani wrote: »

Just as assuming world bosses will be raid content that only a small percentage of players will kill is an assumption you have made.

The reason I don't think world bosses will be content that only a small percentage of players will ever kill is because unless Ashes has a content locking system (which would be odd in the context of this game), the usual strat to kill a world boss is to just throw more people at it. I've yet to see a single non-locked world boss where this wasn't the best strategy, and as a strategy it flies directly in the face of content based on the idea that only a small percentage of people will kill it, especially in the context of a game that we know will have some instanced raid content - a content type that is locked in participation numbers by default.

So sure, it is an assumption, but at least it is an educated one.

Well it's not an assumption because that's literally the link I posted where Steven talks about world boss raid content that a single digit % of the playerbase will see. I hope the link takes it out of assumption territory haha :P but yes I absolutely agree and my immediate thoughts on world boss "raid" content was well won't people just throw more bodies at it? But surely somebody at Intrepid also had the same thought and they have some plan to address that? I mean to assume otherwise is to insult the design team imo haha. What is their plan to deal with it? No idea, if you want to speculate on possibilities I would love to hear it

. Maybe that's a good question to submit for the next Q&A!

Personally, as I mentioned above, I think we all have an inherent understanding of "world boss" content as open (like you mentioned) where you just walk up and engage a boss like the nightmare dragons in vanilla WoW. But I don't think that's how intrepid sees or designs these world encounters. I think it's honestly just a term they use to contrast it with "instanced" content. If you had a whole raid like karazhan but not instanced (so you could happen across other raid parties), I think that's more of their vision than the nightmare dragons.

neuroguy wrote: »

I don't want to get lost in semantics here. My point is that people will be motivated to kill the boss for the sake of progression. Those players I called "hardcore" raiders because the reason they play the game is to simply progress through raid content. If the difficulty of a raid is hard, only a % of that % of the player base will be able to beat that raid content. I'm not saying anything about the exact # of players that will clear content, maybe you could re-state your original point?

My main point is that the small percentage of players capable of killing a world boss is not necessarily limited to only "hardcore" raiders. Especially where "hardcore raider" is defined as players who play simply to progress through raid content.

Keep in mind that only a small percentage of the server population can own a Castle each month.
That does not mean it will always be the same players owning the Castle(s). And doesn't necessarily mean those who own a Castle are "hardcore" Castle siegers.

I am nitpicking, but it's not really semantics.
I think we agree on the basic concept you seem to want to focus on: the impact on economy from different types of playstyles contributing to defeating the world boss event.
I disagree with some of the details of your presentation.

neuroguy wrote: »

Well it's not an assumption because that's literally the link I posted where Steven talks about world boss raid content that a single digit % of the playerbase will see. I hope the link takes it out of assumption territory haha :P but yes I absolutely agree and my immediate thoughts on world boss "raid" content was well won't people just throw more bodies at it? But surely somebody at Intrepid also had the same thought and they have some plan to address that? I mean to assume otherwise is to insult the design team imo haha. What is their plan to deal with it? No idea, if you want to speculate on possibilities I would love to hear it . Maybe that's a good question to submit for the next Q&A!

Personally, as I mentioned above, I think we all have an inherent understanding of "world boss" content as open (like you mentioned) where you just walk up and engage a boss like the nightmare dragons in vanilla WoW. But I don't think that's how intrepid sees or designs these world encounters. I think it's honestly just a term they use to contrast it with "instanced" content. If you had a whole raid like karazhan but not instanced (so you could happen across other raid parties), I think that's more of their vision than the nightmare dragons.

I don't look at anything at all from WoW in terms of context for what may be in Ashes, because of all the MMO's Intrepid talk positively about, of all the MMO games the staff at Intrepid have worked on, WoW is not among any of it.

I have to assume that is on purpose. It's not like they aren't aware that WoW is there.

Based on that, I don't personally think *anything* from WoW is worth looking at in terms of what Intrepid may do with Ashes, and this is why I think the better context to look at to figure out what kind of thing they may do with world bosses (as opposed to raid bosses or contested raid content) is to look at rifts from Rift, and public quests from GW2, or even CR/GR from Archeage (with a little bit of Red Dragon thrown in) would be more acurate than anything from any stage of WoW.

The point of putting content out in the open world - as opposed to in a dungeon or instance - is so that anyone can take part in it. This is the reason I don't think Intrepid have any plan to address simply throwing more people at an open world boss encounter - simply because they want as many people as possible taking part in this content. If a world boss interrupts your game play in any fashion, you should have a hand in it's downfall if you chose to - the guild you are in or the gear you have should not determine if you are able to help kill a world boss (as opposed to a raid boss).

In the video linked above, they specifically say that the epic/legendary gear from world events will be finite, but say nothing at all about how many people will take part in killing the content, or at least that's all I heard (feel free to transcribe it if I missed it though). Saying gear is finite doesn't go any way at all to saying how many people participated in killing the encounter, it just says that not everyone will get epic/legendary gear from world bosses.

Wandering Mist

neuroguy wrote: »

@wanderingmist

I half agree. As I said in op, I think the difficulty decision is a fun one to make:

neuroguy wrote: »

This could also be a potential place to implement "hard modes" where guilds can start to attempt the world boss after some stage of progression is made, but if they continue with the peripheral quests/events, they may weaken the boss or gain assistance to make it easier forcing decisions of "hard mode now and risk dying/losing prep and ultimately the kill to another guild? or easier mode later and risk a braver guild to take the kill before we do?".

But I disagree with being immediately available. If the boss is killed immediately, for whatever reason, the event is essentially inconsequential. Give the economy some time to react at least, people in the world should care about this large scale event. In instanced raids, you have the gating of other bosses to kill, attunement etc. I think that serves an important purpose and think some form of gating should exist on these world bosses.

This is where the psychology comes into play and is vitally important. If you tell players "you cannot do this without first doing x/y/z because....reasons!" chances are they will call it bullshit. If however you say "there's the boss, feel free to try to kill it now" (even knowing they have no chance of killing it), the players will feel more in control of what is happening and be more willing to go through the hoops.

Just as an example, take a look at 2 different games - Dark Souls and Pokemon. In Pokemon there are a ton of artificial barriers that force a player to take a very linear path. "This pokemon is blocking the way and won't move until you have a specific item" which is stupid because you know you could defeat the pokemon easily if given the chance. This is honestly very frustrating, especially on repeat play-throughs.

On the other hand, in Dark Souls the paths are a lot more open, and the game encourages you down the "correct" path by varying the difficulty of each path. Path A might have lower level mobs that are easier to kill, whereas path B might have much higher level mobs that are almost impossible for you to kill. You aren't told which path to choose, but instead are given the choice. Newer players will probably take the easier path, whereas veteran players might want to take the harder path which would speed up their progression through the game.

Again this goes back to the issue of "player agency". Players respond much better if they are given a choice on how to proceed, rather than just being told "you can't do that yet". Why can't I do that yet? Because we said so! ......

And quite frankly, if all the players on a server band together they should be able to kill a world boss as soon as it appears.

Right. The dev quotes indicate that we will have to complete associated quests and progress through event related content before being able to defeat the world bosses... we will probably need to acquire appropriate gear...
So, we know that we won’t be able to defeat these bosses immediately.

noaani wrote: »

The point of putting content out in the open world - as opposed to in a dungeon or instance - is so that anyone can take part in it. This is the reason I don't think Intrepid have any plan to address simply throwing more people at an open world boss encounter - simply because they want as many people as possible taking part in this content. If a world boss interrupts your game play in any fashion, you should have a hand in it's downfall if you chose to - the guild you are in or the gear you have should not determine if you are able to help kill a world boss (as opposed to a raid boss).

In the video linked above, they specifically say that the epic/legendary gear from world events will be finite, but say nothing at all about how many people will take part in killing the content, or at least that's all I heard (feel free to transcribe it if I missed it though). Saying gear is finite doesn't go any way at all to saying how many people participated in killing the encounter, it just says that not everyone will get epic/legendary gear from world bosses.

I use WoW as a point of comparison because that's something I am familiar with and think most other people are too. I also don't have that much experience with other mmos so I can't really draw parallels lol. In this case, I was using the nightmare dragons as an example, it has nothing to do with WoW being an inspiration or having any bearings on the actual AoC content.

I don't think the reason you state is the only possible reason of having open world content (as opposed to instanced). It's a design decision that can have many reasons and also many consequences. I also don't think that just because a world boss "disrupts" your game play as you say, that you should have a hand in its downfall. Levels and gear are important gating mechanisms, and thus motivation, for lots of content, I don't think that a lvl 1 character for example should be able to have any bearings on a world boss or you risk zerg-like mechanisms being easier to utilize. You are right though, there is nothing to explicitly say IS intends to limit or prevent more bodies being thrown at world bosses, or none that I'm aware of at least. I personally would like that though because you can simply overwhelm and trivialize most mechanics by just having more and more people participate.

wanderingmist wrote: »

If you tell players "you cannot do this without first doing x/y/z because....reasons!" chances are they will call it bullshit. If however you say "there's the boss, feel free to try to kill it now" (even knowing they have no chance of killing it), the players will feel more in control of what is happening and be more willing to go through the hoops.

Yeah but nobody would advocate for that... It's like invisible walls: if you must restrict player movement, put something sensible or lore-related in the game, not invisible walls. They have sensible gating mechanics it sounds, from quests and stages/prior bosses that must first be defeated. Gating mechanics exist in games, and there are many good reasons for them. Like I said, many games have attunement, in-game mechanics, in-game requirements (e.g. reputation requirements) etc for a lot of content and yes if done to an extreme they impinge on player agency but they don't inherently do so. Player agency does not equate to a lack of structure. It makes sense to have to kill lieutenants and generals before the final boss. People could complain that it takes away their agency of in what order they kill things I guess but like you can then complain about anything I guess haha. Having gating mechanisms does not mean you are taking away player agency.

In an open world system like Ashes has, a Level 1 character impacted by the impediments caused by a Winter Dragon should have opportunities to participate in the defeat of the Winter Dragon - how effective a Level 1 character will be is a different matter.
Most likely, that Level 1 character won't remain Level 1 by the time they encounter that boss.
When I run my brand new, Level 1 Forsaken character over to the Tauren starting area straight out of character creation, it's no longer Level 1 by the time I arrive... just from exploration xp.

If the Winter Dragon is Level 50, I doubt the abilities of Level 1-5 characters will have much effect on it, but that doesn't mean the effect will be 0. Also, could be that low levs are able to lend some utility, like Cleansing or Detecting Tracks.

Steven and Jeffrey say it's not possible to zerg in Ashes.
Sounds like prerequisites, like quests and mini-bosses are going to gate access to the world bosses, so it's not really possible to zerg. Also, just because the world boss is not in an instance does not mean it's going to be in a location everyone can access. We may need to channel a relic to open a gate behind which the world boss awaits.

I don't agree that allowing all players to try to defeat content is like invisible walls.
When I explore in WoW or EQ or any MMORPG/CRPG, I travel as far as I can until I encounter red/skulled mobs that can one-shot me. There are no invisible walls preventing me from trying to kill those mobs, but I can be fairly sure I won't be able to kill those mobs and it's pretty obvious that I would not long survive a battle with them. It's sometimes a challenge just to outrun them.
But, there's nothing preventing me from attacking them if I want to.
In vanilla EQ, there were no invisible walls preventing me from traipsing down the Darkpaw Gnolls lair at low level. I would be highly unlikely to survive all the way to the boss.

So... yes, there will be some gates. It will also feel like we have player agency.
Anyone can make the attempt to defeat the world boss - not everyone will succeed.
Many people will not make it through the gates in time to challenge the world boss - for a variety of reasons.

I think, though, that we're all in agreement that not everyone will get epic/legendary resource drops from the world boss. That only a small percentage of the population will. That should have some effect on the economy since those resources will be relatively rare.
But, seems like neuroguy is more interested in discussing how raid prep affects the economy rather than how raid drops affect the economy.

neuroguy wrote: »

I also don't have that much experience with other mmos so I can't really draw parallels

I'll give you a quick outline of the type of content (being as unspecific as possible, to those that played Rift and GW2).

You're adventuring along, and all of a sudden you get given a new quest. The quest is to participate in an event that you just walked within range of. This event may have just started, or may have been going on for a while. There may be minutes worth of content in this event, hours, or even days.

As you get closer to the event (or perhaps as you start to participate), you are automatically placed in to the raid of other players that are also participating in the event - no invites, no accepting, you are just *in* the raid.

You and those around you progress the quest. It may take you off to other places, it may have started in several places at once and everyone is merged together or it may simply keep you all in that one spot. As you get to the end of the quest, the boss spawns - this boss may or may not have HP an damage dealing abilities that scale based on how many people are participating in the event.

If/when the boss is killed, loot from the event is generated and given to players based on total input to the whole event.

---

Now, looking at the above, I'm sure you can see how that would work with the example of a winter dragon, and how that is far more in line with what Ashes is trying to be than a single boss that is just placed in the world for players to kill.

However, the literal point to this type of content is that almost anyone can join. In many games, players are artificially scaled up to an appropriate level so they can participate in this kind of content (though I don't expect to see that in Ashes, which is why I didn't list level as one of the things that shouldn't hold a player back from being able to participate). Because there literally is no mechanic to stop more and more people entering the encounter, and because the openness of the content does not lend itself well to fail conditions, this kind of content is never actually *hard*, but rather time consuming (arduous, perhaps).

So, world bosses are a very specific, very important kind of content in Ashes. It is the kind of content people will tell stories about - about how the whole server came together to kill the 'big bad thing' that was threatening one metropolis or some such. However, it is not the content that only a small percent of players will be able to kill - that will be a different type of content - one that is no more or less important than world bosses.

noanni's example does not seem to be in line with how the devs have described world events.
I expect similar mechanics to be in place for defeating a world boss as winning a Castle Siege, Node Siege or Guild War. There will be objective-based mechanics - in addition to quests. It won't just be a boss out in the open that everyone will be able to zerg. Also won't be an instance.
"Hard" is subjective.
Steven does state that only a small percentage of the population will be able to defeat a world boss.
He doesn't refer to that small percentage as only hardcore raiders.

"Part of Gathering is being able to spoil the loot from a particular creature or boss. So, if you want to be able to get those mats from the boss, they're not going to drop just for anybody... they will only drop for a Master Gatherer who is capable of extracting those resources from the creature itself. So, the reason why we say there are a lot of inter-dependencies between the crafters of the world and the raiders of the world and/or the PvPers of the world is because we don't want to house the capability to attain these things all within the adventuring class. We want there to be an influence necessary from the crafters guild to either come and participate and spoil the boss or to gather the goods."
---Steven

dygz wrote: »

He doesn't refer to that small percentage as only hardcore raiders.

You often seem to totally forget that this quote exists...

There will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content... It doesn't mean that there won't be content available for the larger percentages as well... There should be a tiered level of content that players can constantly strive to accomplish. If there is no ladder of progression and everything is flat and all content can be experienced, then there is no drive to excel.

If not hardcore raiders, what group is it that you propose will be those killing that content that only a single digit percentage of players will kill? Who is it killing the content that is at the top end of that tiered content showing other players what they can strive to accomplish?

And remember, if players are supposed to strive towards something, that content needs to be available to them. This excludes the notion that only a small percentage of players will kill content because not everyone has access to it.

dygz wrote: »

noanni's example does not seem to be in line with how the devs have described world events.
I expect similar mechanics to be in place for defeating a world boss as winning a Castle Siege, Node Siege or Guild War. There will be objective-based mechanics - in addition to quests

A quest can be as simple as telling you what the objective-based mechanic is. No developer worth a damn will put a major event in the game that has an objective based mechanic in it without telling the player what that mechanic is. The appropriate place to tell the player this is in their quest log - and thus that objective based mechanic becomes a quest.

It is still an objective based mechanic, but it's also an entry in your quest log.

If you actually read what I said about events, it is actually essentially exactly the same as what you are saying. You are basically saying you disagree with me, and then essentially repeating what I just said as being your own thoughts.

dygz wrote: »

I don't agree that allowing all players to try to defeat content is like invisible walls.

You misunderstood, I was saying that the gating to the world boss won't be because "reasons" as was suggested by wanderingmist, as you mentioned there will be quests etc to gate access to the boss. We are pretty much in agreement I feel like.

One point I do want to touch on though is this fucking loot thing. I don't care about loot because it is one of the least interesting gating mechanisms an MMO has to offer imo, and let's be honest... it is often very explicitly a gating mechanism. Once you hit a level cap, having a way to make you feel more powerful is one of the main ways to continue a sense of character progression. However, unlike levels that come in predictable increments, loot is based on RNG (dropping and distribution RNG) and thus slows down your progression. But you don't really need better gear unless there is content that is tuned for better gear. Essentially, from a PvE perspective, there is very little reason to chase better gear if there is nothing too hard for you to accomplish with your current gear. So I only care about gear for the purpose of being capable of engaging with harder content, I don't care if it's legendary or common or w.e. All that being said, I think gear is a very logical and convenient gating mechanism still. I think it makes sense to feel more powerful after defeating a big bad boss which is how powerful you need to be to try to tackle the next big bad boss. If you didn't have people with different qualities of gear, you would be relying purely on the fight mechanics to establish how challenging a fight is and that becomes very stressful development-wise. Having "gear check" fights, or bosses that are similar or comparable to previous bosses but tuned for players with better gear is a necessary design/development convenience imo.

@noaani

What you describe sounds extremely unappealing to me, at least in theory. Not saying they are bad ideas, just don't sound appealing to me personally. I played GW2 for a bit and those event/quests were just too random and discontinuous for me to really care. I just didn't understand what I was taking part in or why and I felt a compulsion to participate to get the loot/xp. I like a more goal-directed style of game play where I decide on a goal and set out to achieve it and explore as I see fit (or just set off with the goal of exploring). To be constantly pulled into events I have no context for with automated "grouping" does not sound fun to me.

noaani wrote: »

However, the literal point to this type of content is that almost anyone can join. In many games, players are artificially scaled up to an appropriate level so they can participate in this kind of content (though I don't expect to see that in Ashes, which is why I didn't list level as one of the things that shouldn't hold a player back from being able to participate). Because there literally is no mechanic to stop more and more people entering the encounter, and because the openness of the content does not lend itself well to fail conditions, this kind of content is never actually *hard*, but rather time consuming (arduous, perhaps).

I think I just disagree with what you say the point of the world boss content is. Also, this content is meant to be fail-able and have real consequences (that's not opinion) and, I hope, meant to not be completed by everyone. Stories of servers coming together can still be made and told without every single player actually throwing an arrow at the dragon, hence my gates of ahn'qiraj comparison.

Wandering Mist

neuroguy wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

The point of putting content out in the open world - as opposed to in a dungeon or instance - is so that anyone can take part in it. This is the reason I don't think Intrepid have any plan to address simply throwing more people at an open world boss encounter - simply because they want as many people as possible taking part in this content. If a world boss interrupts your game play in any fashion, you should have a hand in it's downfall if you chose to - the guild you are in or the gear you have should not determine if you are able to help kill a world boss (as opposed to a raid boss).

In the video linked above, they specifically say that the epic/legendary gear from world events will be finite, but say nothing at all about how many people will take part in killing the content, or at least that's all I heard (feel free to transcribe it if I missed it though). Saying gear is finite doesn't go any way at all to saying how many people participated in killing the encounter, it just says that not everyone will get epic/legendary gear from world bosses.

I use WoW as a point of comparison because that's something I am familiar with and think most other people are too. I also don't have that much experience with other mmos so I can't really draw parallels lol. In this case, I was using the nightmare dragons as an example, it has nothing to do with WoW being an inspiration or having any bearings on the actual AoC content.

I don't think the reason you state is the only possible reason of having open world content (as opposed to instanced). It's a design decision that can have many reasons and also many consequences. I also don't think that just because a world boss "disrupts" your game play as you say, that you should have a hand in its downfall. Levels and gear are important gating mechanisms, and thus motivation, for lots of content, I don't think that a lvl 1 character for example should be able to have any bearings on a world boss or you risk zerg-like mechanisms being easier to utilize. You are right though, there is nothing to explicitly say IS intends to limit or prevent more bodies being thrown at world bosses, or none that I'm aware of at least. I personally would like that though because you can simply overwhelm and trivialize most mechanics by just having more and more people participate.

wanderingmist wrote: »

If you tell players "you cannot do this without first doing x/y/z because....reasons!" chances are they will call it bullshit. If however you say "there's the boss, feel free to try to kill it now" (even knowing they have no chance of killing it), the players will feel more in control of what is happening and be more willing to go through the hoops.

Yeah but nobody would advocate for that... It's like invisible walls: if you must restrict player movement, put something sensible or lore-related in the game, not invisible walls. They have sensible gating mechanics it sounds, from quests and stages/prior bosses that must first be defeated. Gating mechanics exist in games, and there are many good reasons for them. Like I said, many games have attunement, in-game mechanics, in-game requirements (e.g. reputation requirements) etc for a lot of content and yes if done to an extreme they impinge on player agency but they don't inherently do so. Player agency does not equate to a lack of structure. It makes sense to have to kill lieutenants and generals before the final boss. People could complain that it takes away their agency of in what order they kill things I guess but like you can then complain about anything I guess haha. Having gating mechanisms does not mean you are taking away player agency.

Lore reasons aside, why are gating mechanics a good thing? You say there are many good reasons for it but I can't think of any good reasons that relate to Ashes.

In fact, the only mmorpg that did gating well was WoW at the start of BFA which denied access to the raids for the first 3 weeks. This worked very well because it allowed players (particular progression raiders) time to enjoy the story and level up, get their footing in the expansion before going into the world first race. This wouldn't apply in Ashes because the world boss events will be at a time when players will likely already be level capped and be prepared for it.

neuroguy wrote: »

I think I just disagree with what you say the point of the world boss content is. Also, this content is meant to be fail-able and have real consequences (that's not opinion) and, I hope, meant to not be completed by everyone. Stories of servers coming together can still be made and told without every single player actually throwing an arrow at the dragon, hence my gates of ahn'qiraj comparison.

Disagreeing is good!

What I'd like to ask you next then is quite complex though.

Ok, so MMO's have open world content, they have dungeon content, they have phased content and they have instanced content. Within each of these there is scope for solo, group, raid or multi-raid scales of content.

Now, it is important to remember that MMO developers want to develop the game in a way that is resource friendly for both the client and server - it makes for a better experience for all. Because of this, they want to use the least resource dependent content type to achieve the goal of the specific piece of content they are creating. In terms of resource use, instancing is easiest, then dungeons, open world and lastly phasing.

Now, if you are going to put a boss encounter in the open world, you need a reason to put it there that can't be achieved if you simply put that same boss in an instance of a dungeon. So, why would the developers put a boss in the open world, using up the resources of the server but also of every client in the area, if not to add in content that is there for everyone (or almost everyone) to participate in if they wish?

There are other ways they can put in content for a elect few that is less disruptive to players and to system resources. Why not use them instead?

---

I totally agree with you that GW2 in general was boring. I played it for a while at lunch but it never took hold (though I understand it is a better game now). A big part of that was the PQ's and how disjointed they seemed with the rest of the game.

The rifts in Rift were not much better. They were great to start, but after even just a few weeks they became like a chore you had to do to keep your server/faction running. They absolutely were possible to fail, and failing them (or no one even attacking them) did have wider effects (the rift would gain more influence in the zone, taking over the local population). They didn't have fail mechanics in terms of requiring everyone to follow a script or something, but each wave did have a timer and failure was actually more common than success unless you were in an area with a mas of players.

While I didn't like the way that content in wither of those two games was implemented, I can see how it could be done in a way that is fun. The first step to that is that these events need to be a LOT more rare than they were in either of those two games. They should happen on a server somewhere each week or so, no literally every minute of every day happening somewhere on the server. Also, the narrative around them needs to be far more clear than in GW2 (though Rift didn't he the issue for me, though I paid attention to the lore in that game).

With that in mind, content that you may only see once every few months, content that you know is important (and are aware of why it is important rather than just knowing it), content that is different from what you usually do - to me that sounds like the potential for a good evenings/wekends gaming.

noaani wrote: »

You often seem to totally forget that this quote exists...

There will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content... It doesn't mean that there won't be content available for the larger percentages as well... There should be a tiered level of content that players can constantly strive to accomplish. If there is no ladder of progression and everything is flat and all content can be experienced, then there is no drive to excel.

If not hardcore raiders, what group is it that you propose will be those killing that content that only a single digit percentage of players will kill? Who is it killing the content that is at the top end of that tiered content showing other players what they can strive to accomplish?

I don't forget that the quote exists. Hardcore raider is not in that quote. Specifically "only hardcore raider" is not in that quote. Raider is not even included in that quote. Since it's open world, you could be fighting solo - not in a party or raid but fighting the Winter Dragon alongside a raid and still be a participant in that battle.
The quote I included about Gatherers spoiling the boss and devs wanting to ensure that the ability to attain these things is not housed solely in the adventuring class is another indication that it's not all about the raiders. That quote states that the devs want crafters to come and participate in the defeat of the world boss. And it's the participants that receive the rewards - not just raiders. And not just hardcore raiders.

noaani wrote: »

And remember, if players are supposed to strive towards something, that content needs to be available to them. This excludes the notion that only a small percentage of players will kill content because not everyone has access to it.

Available to all does not mean that all people will be capable of completion.
But, it's not really going to be available to all.

noaani wrote: »

A quest can be as simple as telling you what the objective-based mechanic is. No developer worth a damn will put a major event in the game that has an objective based mechanic in it without telling the player what that mechanic is. The appropriate place to tell the player this is in their quest log - and thus that objective based mechanic becomes a quest.

It is still an objective based mechanic, but it's also an entry in your quest log.

If you actually read what I said about events, it is actually essentially exactly the same as what you are saying. You are basically saying you disagree with me, and then essentially repeating what I just said as being your own thoughts.

I read what you wrote. I don't agree with the details of what you wrote.

You stated, "You're adventuring along and all of a sudden you get given a new quest."
I don't agree that's how these events will transpire. Rather, in the case of the Winter, there will be a perpetual winter and players who wish to put an end to that perpetual winter will be able to find paths to do so. Players will be able to acquire quests that lead to the defeat of the Winter Dragon.
We won't automatically be placed in raids, just as we won't automatically be placed in raids when we enter a Caravan PvP bubble. We won't automatically be placed into raids even when we choose to attack or defend a caravan.
"No invites, no accepting, you are just *in* the raid," does not sound like the game design philosophy of the Ashes game devs. That sounds like the fever dream of a "top end raider".

neuroguy wrote: »

I was saying that the gating to the world boss won't be because "reasons" as was suggested by wanderingmist, as you mentioned there will be quests etc to gate access to the boss. We are pretty much in agreement I feel like.

While wanderingmist did say “reasons”, they also gave examples of the types of gating he would like Ashes to include.
“Reasons” referred to a hypothetical where the obstacles to defeating the world boss feel artificial.
I think the three of us agree that the gating in Ashes, as described by the devs so far, doesn’t appear to be artificial.

neuroguy wrote: »

One point I do want to touch on though is this fucking loot thing. I don't care about loot because it is one of the least interesting gating mechanisms an MMO has to offer imo, and let's be honest... it is often very explicitly a gating mechanism. Once you hit a level cap, having a way to make you feel more powerful is one of the main ways to continue a sense of character progression.

I don’t consider loot to be a gating mechanism at all. We get loot after we’ve passed through the gate and overcome the challenges; not before.

I always care about gear that helps my character be more effective at the roles I want to pursue, regardless of level cap or whether the gear is dropped from a boss or crafted or bought.
If there are compelling stories for me to pursue after level cap, I will probably attempt to acquire the gear required to experience those stories. I don’t necessarily have a problem with those stories being gated in some fashion by gear progression after max level.
I especially don’t mind there being a necessity to acquire specific gear sets in order to successfully overcome those challenges. That gear could just be different - doesn’t have to be more powerful.
What I have a problem with is poor story design where the journey at max level feels hackneyed and artificial, boring and repetitive.
The way to overcome that is for the world bosses to have meaningful impact.
If I have to put an end to the perpetual winter caused by the Winter Dragon in order to complete construction on the Scholar’s Academy, I’ll acquire whatever gear I need. I expect some of the resources I will need for gear will be in the form of loot from some mob(s), sure.

neuroguy wrote: »

However, unlike levels that come in predictable increments, loot is based on RNG (dropping and distribution RNG) and thus slows down your progression. But you don't really need better gear unless there is content that is tuned for better gear.

I don’t agree that loot RNG slows progression. Mostly because I don’t have a concept of progression time goals in a manner that could be slowed by loot... or gear. Probably because I don’t care about gear progression...it’s just a by product of leveling and crafting... I reach a particular level, I can equip a new level of gear.

neuroguy wrote: »

Essentially, from a PvE perspective, there is very little reason to chase better gear if there is nothing too hard for you to accomplish with your current gear. So I only care about gear for the purpose of being capable of engaging with harder content, I don't care if it's legendary or common or w.e.

I don’t have to chase better gear to appreciate the value of having better gear. Whether I want to equip epic or legendary gear depends on the specific character I’m role playing and the specific pieces of gear. But, this discussion is about raids and economy. Selling loot that we acquire from world bosses is going to affect economy. That there is RNG associated with those drops doesn’t mean that loot won’t significantly affect the economy.
I don’t have to be chasing gear to be interested in acquiring epic and legendary loot from a world boss.
And I don’t have to be motivated to repeat battles in order to complete a set or obtain a specific item to have the desire to obtain some epic stuff when the RNG gods favor me with an epic or legendary gift.

neuroguy wrote: »

All that being said, I think gear is a very logical and convenient gating mechanism still. I think it makes sense to feel more powerful after defeating a big bad boss which is how powerful you need to be to try to tackle the next big bad boss. If you didn't have people with different qualities of gear, you would be relying purely on the fight mechanics to establish how challenging a fight is and that becomes very stressful development-wise.

Gear check is an OK gate.
Doesn’t really have to be “more” powerful. Doesn’t have to be a vertical increase. Could just be a horizontal change.
We’re talking about effects on the economy. If I’m focused on Shadow gear rather than Ice or Fire gear, I’m not going to care that the epic Fire gear isn’t more powerful than the epic Ice gear, I’m just going to be happy that I can sell the epic loot for an epic price.

wanderingmist wrote: »

Lore reasons aside, why are gating mechanics a good thing? You say there are many good reasons for it but I can't think of any good reasons that relate to Ashes.

Well to start off, there are gating mechanics in AoC confirmed already. In general though gating serves important meta purposes, gating mechanisms help pace players, avoid burn out, motivate engagement with in-game systems, having a robust economy, increase the subjective value of rewards and provide intrinsic motivation for players to overcome the challenges they pose.

Some classic gating mechanisms are character level, gear, reputation, attunement etc. What is actually gated can also differ. For example in AoC we don't have level gate location/zone as WoW does. In WoW, a part of my personal motivation to level up was to explore new biomes and see new monsters. In AoC, zones don't have levels but contain different level content depending on the node stage and how far into the wilderness you venture. So in principle, you have more control over what biomes you explore and interact with although some parts of the world are still gated by level/gear.

Most of the positives of gating are self explanatory I feel but just quickly raid attunements for example serve the lore purpose as you mentioned, they slow down guild progression through raid content so it feels like there is more of it, prevent guilds from being able to chain content together and burn out chasing first kills, and allow development time for content that will not be immediately experienced by players. For enhancing subjective value, the winterspring frostsaber from WoW is a really good example. The mount is a pretty cool model and a lot of people would choose to ride one if they could but it was locked behind a ridiculous rep grind (back in the day, don't know about now). This made seeing the mount, or owning it that much more rewarding because not everybody had access to it. For motivating engagement and the economy, in order to unlock crafting recipes (and augments), you often need to take part in reputation grinds. This makes some craftable items that are superior (even with similar materials going into making them), harder to create allowing their value to increase due to low supply while simultaneously retaining the value of lower quality higher supply items. Other than that, runescape has a great system of gating where you need to engage with multiple skills to level any individual one up effectively or to take part in quests.

Essentially, in the extreme, a lack of gating means all players can access all content whenever they want. Nobody will have any motivation to do anything. But of course, the best engagement and fun will be had with some intermediate level of gating and people get paid money to figure out what that is lol.

noaani wrote: »

Now, if you are going to put a boss encounter in the open world, you need a reason to put it there that can't be achieved if you simply put that same boss in an instance of a dungeon. So, why would the developers put a boss in the open world, using up the resources of the server but also of every client in the area, if not to add in content that is there for everyone (or almost everyone) to participate in if they wish?

I honestly know very little about server infrastructure but what you say is intuitively fair. It makes sense that open world content where many people can be in the same place would have heavier server load but instancing content would probably have a bigger memory load.

IS probably chose to have open world content for a variety of reasons but let me explain why I don't think one of them is for "everyone" to experience something, at least not together. Dungeons are also not instanced. AoC will have party sizes of 8 for dungeons, which means the dungeon content is tuned for 8 people to be able to beat. Let's assume most of the dungeons aren't like top tier raid content (meaning more than just a single digit % is meant to experience and beat them). So why would IS have dungeons in open world instead of instances? Clearly they are not intended for the whole server to participate in at once, and if anything, making it open world stops people from participating because of boss respawn timers and PvP. Well that's also the answer, the PvP, or organic conflict is what IS has explicitly stated as the reason for taking an open world direction. They want people to fight over bosses and the right to kill them. So going back to world boss content, given the stages and quests (and hopefully ahn'qiraj style large scale participation) required, many people can "participate" in the event, but not be the ones to actually kill the world boss.If anything, I expect there to be a race and competition between groups for the right to do so, and that's an implicit assumption in my op. All of this is also the reason I think there will be mechanics in play to restrict the number of players that can participate in the actual world boss kill. Plus, it has been mentioned that AoC will have PvE content designed for 8, 16 and 40 man groups (https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/aomez2/february_8_2019_questions_and_answers/).

If you still disagree (which I agree is fun :P) then you need to answer why dungeon content, tuned for 8 player parties, is open world in AoC for some reason other than the stated "meaningful conflict" ;D.

_____________________________

dygz wrote: »

I don’t consider to loot to be a gating mechanism at all. We get loot after we’ve passed through the gate and overcome the challenges; not before.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

dygz wrote: »

If there are compelling stories for me to pursue after level cap, I will probably attempt to acquire the gear required to experience those stories. I don’t necessarily have a problem with those stories being gated in some fashion by gear progression after max level.

So then we agree.

dygz wrote: »

I don’t agree that loot RNG slows progression. Mostly because I don’t have a concept of progression time goals in a manner that could be slowed by loot... or gear. Probably because I don’t care about gear progression...it’s just a by product of leveling and crafting... I reach a particular level, I can equip a new level of gear.

At level cap, for your character's power level progression, which is how I set that up, then yes RNG is slower than the previous way your character would increase in power (leveling).

dygz wrote: »

Selling loot that we acquire from world bosses is going to affect economy. That there is RNG associated with those drops doesn’t mean that loot won’t significantly affect the economy.

I agree, I just very intentionally chose to ignore loot and its role on the economy. I wanted to focus on the structure and design philosophy of the world boss event and how that alone has a large economic impact. Of course injecting rare materials into the market will change the economy, that's an uninteresting discussion in my eyes.

dygz wrote: »

Gear check is an OK gate.
Doesn’t really have to be “more” powerful. Doesn’t have to be a vertical increase. Could just be a horizontal change.

We’re talking about effects on the economy. If I’m focused on Shadow gear rather than Ice or Fire gear, I’m not going to care that the epic Fire gear isn’t more powerful than the epic Ice gear, I’m just going to be happy that I can sell the epic loot for an epic price.

Gear checks are by definition vertical progression because there is no resist gear in AoC. With carrying weight limits and no fast travel, I think this is a practical and good design choice.

neuroguy wrote: »

Essentially, in the extreme, a lack of gating means all players can access all content whenever they want. Nobody will have any motivation to do anything. But of course, the best engagement and fun will be had with some intermediate level of gating and people get paid money to figure out what that is lol.

Mmmm. This is why I like the Bartle Scale. I’d love to see what your scores are. This sounds like an Achiever perspective.
I’m an Explorer. I’m going to explore as long as there is cool new stuff for me to look at - gate or no gate.
Gates just mean it’s going to take longer for me to explore all the static content.
What is considered the best engagement and fun will depend on the play style.
I don’t need gates to be motivated to do stuff in an RPG.

neuroguy wrote: »

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

We know that eggs came before chickens.

neuroguy wrote: »

At level cap, for your character's power level progression, which is how I set that up, then yes RNG is slower than the previous way your character would increase in power (leveling).

You may have set that up, but I have not experienced that.
For me, leveling has taken longer than gear progression at max level.

neuroguy wrote: »

I just very intentionally chose to ignore loot and its role on the economy. I wanted to focus on the structure and design philosophy of the world boss event and how that alone has a large economic impact. Of course injecting rare materials into the market will change the economy, that's an uninteresting discussion in my eyes.

OK, but...
That makes the link you shared in your original post very odd because there's really nothing in the dev quote that has anything to do with how world boss event has a large economic impact, other than the mere mention of world bosses.

neuroguy wrote: »

Gear checks are by definition vertical progression because there is no resist gear in AoC. With carrying weight limits and no fast travel, I think this is a practical and good design choice.

This simply is not true.
1: I would love to see a dev quote that says no resist gear, but...
2: We know that weather can affect elemental damage output so, even without resistances, my Fire Wand from a Fire Dragon could have the exact same damage as my Ice Wand from a Winter Dragon when I use them in a rain forest although the Fire Wand is weaker than the Ice Wand when I’m in the Arctic and the Ice Wand is weaker than the Fire Wand when I’m in the desert.
Horizontal progression, rather than vertical progression.
3: Also, advanced weapons can have up to 5 weapon abilities. The abilities that come from a Fire Dragon Eye could have the same damage as a the abilities from a Winter Dragon Eye, but the Fireball has a stun while the Iceball has a snare.
It’s not inherently vertical progression.
4: Part of the RNG for Ashes loot is going to be related to the skill level of the Gatherers harvesting the resources and some will be related to the skill level of the Enchanters.
So, the reason that a specific Fire Dragon Eye is more powerful than a Winter Dragon Eye is more likely to be due to the Crafters rather than due to all Fire Dragon Eyes inherently being more powerful than Winter Dragon Eyes.
In Ashes, there will be a variety of reasons to seek a Fire Dragon Eye rather than a Winter Dragon Eye besides a desire for more vertical power.
And, in Ashes, some gear checks will be due to performance within a specific biome, rather than objective and universal vertical power.
That’s just tip of the iceberg...

Though, I am not expecting Ashes to have gear checks that literally bar content - instances will be rare.