PvE Difficulty

We know that AoC is going to have 80% open world PvE content and 20% instanced PvE content (mainly lore content).

This brings me to my question. How will they create challenging, Open world, PvE content?

We've seen Archeage try this before, but the content itself changed into PvP content due to the fact that the difficulty stemmed from the PvP aspect of it and not from the PvE content itself.

This is why I'm worried about PvE content in AoC, as I feel like Steven, in his pursuit for social interaction, won't be willing to sacrifice some of it in exchange for creating challenging PvE content.

One of my solutions was to create two different types of PvE content: Open world dungeons/raids for enchanting materials/augments/enchanting risk-reducing materials etc. (like enchanting in L2), and Instanced dungeons/raids for gear.

Another solution that I heard was to add a lot of depth to PvE content, by adding multiple rooms and levels and stuff, so that players don't constantly contest each other.

What do you think? Do you think that this is going to be a problem? If so, how do you propose to solve it?

(P.S. There's also the aspect of zerging down bosses but Steven has already stated that they're working on introducing mechanics to ensure that this won't happen. I don't know how successful these mechanics will be, but I really hope that they nail it, as if they don't, the game will fail.)

EDIT - To those of you saying that this game shouldn't appeal to everyone....Shut up. Steven clearly said that he wanted AoC to appeal to all types of players: PvP, PvE, crafting etc. He wants this to be a PvX game.

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Grievousness

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Grievousness wrote: »

So anyone has a better idea than instancing?

I mentioned one in my post. Make multiple rooms and levels for each dungeon/raid so that players aren't forced to constantly contest other groups.

So basically increasing the offer to make it less contested?
That may work for grinding spots but how exactly would you introduce that to a boss encounter?
Or what do you exactly mean?

CaptnChuck

Grievousness wrote: »

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Grievousness wrote: »

So anyone has a better idea than instancing?

I mentioned one in my post. Make multiple rooms and levels for each dungeon/raid so that players aren't forced to constantly contest other groups.

So basically increasing the offer to make it less contested?
That may work for grinding spots but how exactly would you introduce that to a boss encounter?
Or what do you exactly mean?

Basically make dungeons/raids into a maze of sorts with multiple entrances. Each entrance leads into its own mini dungeon/raid within the original dungeon. These entrances can lead to a set of 3 or so bosses, and can also intersect with another entrance's mini dungeon/raid to connect some bosses.

Grievousness

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Basically make dungeons/raids into a maze of sorts with multiple entrances. Each entrance leads into its own mini dungeon/raid within the original dungeon. These entrances can lead to a set of 3 or so bosses, and can also intersect with another entrance's mini dungeon/raid to connect some bosses.

Why would people not make parties just to farm the bosses in that case?
In BDO you also had multiple rare mobs in an area so you could just make farm routes for them instead of actually grinding all the mobs in the area.

CaptnChuck

Grievousness wrote: »

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Basically make dungeons/raids into a maze of sorts with multiple entrances. Each entrance leads into its own mini dungeon/raid within the original dungeon. These entrances can lead to a set of 3 or so bosses, and can also intersect with another entrance's mini dungeon/raid to connect some bosses.

Why would people not make parties just to farm the bosses in that case?
In BDO you also had multiple rare mobs in an area so you could just make farm routes for them instead of actually grinding all the mobs in the area.

You can't. There's simply too many paths and they are quite far apart. So if you split your group into multiple groups, then they won't be able to do anything if they encounter a larger group.

bloodprophet

Interesting conversation.
Personally I don't want any gear coming from a mini game of any kind. Open world or not at all.

Because another game had weak PvE means this one will as well is an odd statement.
What evidence do you have that Ashes will have weak PvE? they have a solid core of devs from some solid titles that do have this kind of content.

If that is the case half of the PvE content is not PvE but PvP making it laughable if you look for a challenging PvE experience.

This is the very definition of PvX. Trying to seprate the the two into PvE and PvP only is a mistake. It isn't one OR the other it is both at the same time.

And Chuck

No that's not exactly what it means. The crafting system isn't tied to PvP. So why should the entire PvE system be tied to PvP then? A PvX game is a game that caters to players of all playstyles.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans

Transporting larger amounts of resources for crafting requires caravans which is PvX. I'll bet even mobs in the world will attack caravans.

bloodprophet

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Warth wrote: »

PvX doesn't mean you can do it all separately.
PvX means that they are all intertwined.

No that's not exactly what it means. The crafting system isn't tied to PvP. So why should the entire PvE system be tied to PvP then? A PvX game is a game that caters to players of all playstyles.

Besides, I'm not asking for PvE content to be purely instanced. Only 50/50. The enchant/resource dungeons are open world while gear based dungeons are instanced.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Crafting

Heavy note on this part. Is the 5th line down.
Anything that you want to bring into existence in the world is going to be built by players: Whether that is Ships, Siege engines, Weapons, Armor, etc.[8] – Jeffrey Bard

Chaostastic

So from what I understand, you are afraid that fighting off contestants will be more difficult than the boss itself.
If 75% of difficulty came from PvP it would be a huge turnoff for PvE players, but players that mostly PvP would probably love it. Instanced raids would be the other end of the extreme 100% PvE and no PvP. It really just comes down to preference and it's not possible for a single raid to satisfy everyone.
I think the best option would be to diversify all the raids. Keep the 20% instanced but for the rest, have a diverse balance of PvP and PvE. The way you can regulate it is to change the difficulty of entry into a dungeon/raid. For example a dungeon door requires a key that takes a ton of time to grind for and is consumed on entry. This way you are less likely to run into a contesting group but not entirely PvP free. This could be about 90/10 in favor of PvE difficulty. Then another dungeon that's completely free entry which could be about 25/75 in favor of PvP difficulty

CaptnChuck

Chaostastic wrote: »

So from what I understand, you are afraid that fighting off contestants will be more difficult than the boss itself.
If 75% of difficulty came from PvP it would be a huge turnoff for PvE players, but players that mostly PvP would probably love it. Instanced raids would be the other end of the extreme 100% PvE and no PvP. It really just comes down to preference and it's not possible for a single raid to satisfy everyone.
I think the best option would be to diversify all the raids. Keep the 20% instanced but for the rest, have a diverse balance of PvP and PvE. The way you can regulate it is to change the difficulty of entry into a dungeon/raid. For example a dungeon door requires a key that takes a ton of time to grind for and is consumed on entry. This way you are less likely to run into a contesting group but not entirely PvP free. This could be about 90/10 in favor of PvE difficulty. Then another dungeon that's completely free entry which could be about 25/75 in favor of PvP difficulty

This is an interesting way to do it as well.

CaptnChuck

@bloodprophet

Crafting isn't dependent on PvP in the same way that PvE is. As it is now, PvE content relies on player contention in order for dungeons/raids to be challenging.

maouw

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Grievousness wrote: »

So anyone has a better idea than instancing?

I mentioned one in my post. Make multiple rooms and levels for each dungeon/raid so that players aren't forced to constantly contest other groups.

Please watch this from the timestamp (11:19)

https://youtu.be/H0LQSMT83L0?t=679

Steven specifically wants to encourage endgame raids and bosses to be heavily contested, because it encourages guilds to form alliances and make political moves against other groups to secure access to raids.

CaptnChuck

@maouw

I've seen this video more times than you have. So you don't have to link it to me.

If you listen carefully, at 11:35 , you can hear that Steven said "potentially". Which means that they're still working on what degree of player contention they want for end game content. He hasn't stated if he wants it to be a low, moderate or high level of contention.

So you're just incorrect when you say this:

maouw wrote: »

Steven specifically wants to encourage endgame raids and bosses to be heavily contested, because it encourages guilds to form alliances and make political moves against other groups to secure access to raids.

maouw

@CaptnChuck

My friend, he's clearly leaning in this direction, but because he used the word "potentially" - it therefore negates all intention?

I'm not gonna argue with you at this level, because, you know, it's that far above me.

CaptnChuck

maouw wrote: »

@CaptnChuck

My friend, he's clearly leaning in this direction, but because he used the word "potentially" - it therefore negates all intention?

I'm not gonna argue with you at this level, because, you know, it's that far above me.

It doesn't negate all intention. You said that he intends endgame content to be HEAVILY contested. That's just incorrect. You don't know how contested Steven wants open world content to be.

Above you? Its easy to escape being wrong in an argument by saying that you're "above all this". You ain't above shit. Grow up weeb.

bloodprophet

I think you misunderstood what is meant by "potentially". This part will be regulated by the community of players.
If you show up to kill the boss. "Potentially" another group might show and contest you for it or they might move on or they might watch you wipe and kill it before you get back.

I've seen this video more times than you have. So you don't have to link it to me.
Interesting comment to make.
Are you sure?

CaptnChuck

bloodprophet wrote: »

I think you misunderstood what is meant by "potentially". This part will be regulated by the community of players.
If you show up to kill the boss. "Potentially" another group might show and contest you for it or they might move on or they might watch you wipe and kill it before you get back.

I've seen this video more times than you have. So you don't have to link it to me.
Interesting comment to make.
Are you sure?

You don't know what it means for sure either. You can interpret it in both ways.

bloodprophet

What?
Define that please.

Abominatus

Chaostastic wrote: »

So from what I understand, you are afraid that fighting off contestants will be more difficult than the boss itself.
If 75% of difficulty came from PvP it would be a huge turnoff for PvE players, but players that mostly PvP would probably love it. Instanced raids would be the other end of the extreme 100% PvE and no PvP. It really just comes down to preference and it's not possible for a single raid to satisfy everyone.
I think the best option would be to diversify all the raids. Keep the 20% instanced but for the rest, have a diverse balance of PvP and PvE. The way you can regulate it is to change the difficulty of entry into a dungeon/raid. For example a dungeon door requires a key that takes a ton of time to grind for and is consumed on entry. This way you are less likely to run into a contesting group but not entirely PvP free. This could be about 90/10 in favor of PvE difficulty. Then another dungeon that's completely free entry which could be about 25/75 in favor of PvP difficulty

I don’t agree with that description of the problem. The issue for me is that if you tune encounters to be achievable when contested then they intrinsically will be trivial when uncontested. That results in what others have described as bosses that are basically just trash mobs with huge hit point reserves.

Really challenging PvE bosses often require even the best players in the world to make hundreds of attempts before they can beat it even without being contested. Putting content like that into a contested environment will make it literally impossible given that every wipe will force yet another round of pvp just to get the chance to make your next pull. And even the slightest interference during the attempt has a good chance of wiping you.

I think that there might be a bigger problem that whether or not there are instances. Doing some reading and watching makes me think that gear progression in AoC is intended to be very flat. That’s a valid choice, and it makes a lit of sense in the context of open world pvp, where you would prefer inter-player encounters to be meaningful and not just one guy roflstomping the other guy due to gearing. But it goes counter to traditional raiding progression where the objective is to engage progressively more difficult content in order to achieve the gear level needed to even have a chance at the hardest instances. That gear progression grind is intrinsically part of the challenge of raid pve.

It may well be that the systems choices that are being made for AoC mean that it’s simply a PvP mmo with some cosmetic PvE decoration, not a genuine PvX game at all. Which is fine, if that is actually the intent. But then it’s just a pity that it’s being marketed as “truly PvX”.

I hope I’m wrong. We will see.

CaptnChuck

bloodprophet wrote: »

What?
Define that please.

Contention depends on a lot of factors. The size of the dungeon/raid, the no. of rooms, the difficulty of the content in that dungeon/raid, and the no. of players online at that time.

You can control some of these factors to control just how contested you want a dungeon/room to be. So we don't know how contested a particular dungeon/raid is going to be. To say that its heavily contested right off the bat, without knowing what these parameters are, is just incorrect.

CaptnChuck

What happened @bloodprophet ? I defined it for you. So let me ask you, are you sure that I misunderstood it?

Abominatus

One option that was rather weakly explored in WoW is to make the raid instanced, but gate it behind a PvP setpiece. In other words, once per day or week or whatever period is appropriate, there’s a pvp battle in which everyone chooses a side (attacking or defending or whatever). Whichever side wins the battle gets exclusive access to the raid instance until the next battle. If they want to keep it, they have to win the battle again.

Doing this in a non-faction based system needs a bit more work: is it all members of guilds who participated? How many guild members have to participate to qualify? Etc. but it can probably be worked out.

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