Open world raids

There is not much information about this, but it seems that there is no limitation for the amount of raid groups inside open world raids.

Do you think it is plausible that people will just take every guild member that is online and divide them into 40m raid groups to cheese all bosses by the sheer number of people?

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Bricktop

Grievousness wrote: »

There is also no reason to engage with your points either since you just reiterate the same thing over and over again.

And I will sit here and repeat the same thing 100 more times if it's necessary whenever somebody suggests completely changing the design of the game. You saw what happened to New World right?

Grievousness wrote: »

Also can you watch your tone a little bit?

Could you explain to me what my forum tone sounded like to you?

Grievousness wrote: »

If you don't want a game with PvE that raises the question why you want to play a game that will include it.
In the same way there are PvE centric games out there, there are also more PvP centric games out there.

I do want to PvE, I'm quite happy with the PvE content that looks to be in the game already, but I will never know until I play it. You on the otherhand? Demand for instances, demand things be changed to suit your playstyle and way of getting gear so you can safely gear up in an instance every tuesday and thursday night with zero threat. PvErs haven't even played the game yet they conclusively know the PvE is junk? Have a little faith in the dev team. I'm trying my best to play a PvP centric game without seeing it get New Worlded or turn into another WoW clone by catering to WoW raiders for yet another flop.

Grievousness wrote: »

He mostly just claims that this game doesn't need any solid PvE which is not what the game is supposed to be

Come on man, you and I both know that isn't true. I have sat in this thread and other threads and said "Make all the PvE content you can, and make it challenging, but don't put it in an instance" over and over again. You should be aware of that if you are getting sick of me reiterating my points.

20% instancing seems extremely fair to me for an open world game. But it's not good enough for you is it? You want 40% instancing with plenty of raid content. And once you beat all that raid content you will want NEW raids and more instances, and on and on, and then all of a sudden we are playing world of warcraft. I'm beginning to think that you are just here to argue, you completely ignore everything people have to say about the Open world, about the nature of these types of games, and you just talk about how you need instances or else the game sucks.

The only reasonable conclusion for people who NEED instances is that they are scared to PvP, what other reasonable explanation is there if they are that adamant about it without even seeing how the games PvE content plays.

anotherone

Bricktop wrote: »

Grievousness wrote: »

There is also no reason to engage with your points either since you just reiterate the same thing over and over again.

And I will sit here and repeat the same thing 100 more times if it's necessary whenever somebody suggests completely changing the design of the game. You saw what happened to New World right?

Grievousness wrote: »

Also can you watch your tone a little bit?

Could you explain to me what my forum tone sounded like to you?

Grievousness wrote: »

If you don't want a game with PvE that raises the question why you want to play a game that will include it.
In the same way there are PvE centric games out there, there are also more PvP centric games out there.

I do want to PvE, I'm quite happy with the PvE content that looks to be in the game already, but I will never know until I play it. You on the otherhand? Demand for instances, demand things be changed to suit your playstyle and way of getting gear so you can safely gear up in an instance every tuesday and thursday night with zero threat. PvErs haven't even played the game yet they conclusively know the PvE is junk? Have a little faith in the dev team. I'm trying my best to play a PvP centric game without seeing it get New Worlded or turn into another WoW clone by catering to WoW raiders for yet another flop.

Grievousness wrote: »

He mostly just claims that this game doesn't need any solid PvE which is not what the game is supposed to be

Come on man, you and I both know that isn't true. I have sat in this thread and other threads and said "Make all the PvE content you can, and make it challenging, but don't put it in an instance" over and over again. You should be aware of that if you are getting sick of me reiterating my points.

20% instancing seems extremely fair to me for an open world game. But it's not good enough for you is it? You want 40% instancing with plenty of raid content. And once you beat all that raid content you will want NEW raids and more instances, and on and on, and then all of a sudden we are playing world of warcraft. I'm beginning to think that you are just here to argue, you completely ignore everything people have to say about the Open world, about the nature of these types of games, and you just talk about how you need instances or else the game sucks.

The only reasonable conclusion for people who NEED instances are that they are scared to PvP, what other reasonable explanation is there if they are that adamant about it without even seeing how the games PvE content plays.

What exactly happened to New World? For me the Devs saw what they did (Alpha state), and it wasnt fun for a big part of the crowd. And all you got was a open pvp game without any additional interesting content. I personally cant understand how is it fun to outnumber someone or fight with someone who is clearly undergeared or just not in a mood to compete against someone. If there is no regulation in pvp it will lead to frustation. Is it to regulated its no open pvp anymore. So whats the point to have not instanced raids where you cant enter if you not member of the party? What are your intensions to get in there?

I fully understand what you are looking for. Back in 2008 i played Age of Conan (AoC), on a PVP server mostly and a lot of my free time. I cant count how many times ppl are trying to prevent other ppl from progression especially when they know they are better geared. Same here for Black Desert Online, ArcheAge.

Dont know if the game will be that hardcore for a casual, or someone with realife besides but if thats the case the population wont be that high you maybe expecting. But thats just my opinion. I would see less open pvp but instead organized pvp that leads to pve. If you want that specific region to grind, harvest, raid or whatever you should have fight for it with your fraction/guild/allies like in GuildWars where guilds win the pvp arena Heroes' Ascent to open the gates for the pve crowd to enter the "raids" where you can acces it for amount of time for example.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars That was back in 2005 so it could be tweaked but instead of rumbling a horde in chaotic open pvp its much better and seperates the goups let them compete and work in the end together.

Noaani

Bricktop wrote: »

I'm very glad you enjoy instanced content, quite happy for you. Sadly, it goes directly against the design philosophy of this particular game ( And any other open world risk versus reward game). Luckily there are plenty of options available for instanced content on the MMO market that don't require completely changing the game around and dumbing it down.

I put money in to this game based on several comments made - including the fact that Intrepid intend to have PvE content that is difficult enough as a content piece that only a single digit percentage of the playerbase will be expected to kill it. This comment was made in response to a question specifically about PvE raid content - with no mention at all of PvP, and so PvP is not a factor in the answer.

There is no way a game can implement content that fits this description while still having open PvP around that content piece. This is simply not possible, as at that point the difficulty of the content is in the PvP, not the PvE, and so the description of that content would no longer apply if the difficulty of that content was in the PvP around it.

As such, the expectation of content to fit this description is that of either PvP being disabled in the area, or the area being instanced.

Now keep in mind, this game is having about 20% of it's content instanced, which is actually a fairly large amount in comparison to many other games - and so the idea that this game will have an amount of instanced raid content when these two statements are taken together is not at all that unreasonable.

While it may well be said that the instances the game will have will all be story related, it would be hard to argue that raid bosses don't have a story behind them. I mean, almost all stories in MMO's eventually end up with a raid boss - pick an expansion in WoW, follow the main story (not just a specific quest chain, but a narrative), and you will end up at a raid boss if you go far enough.

So, to take what Intrepid have said so far and assume there won't be an amount of instanced raid bosses seems premature at best.

Even with that, Intrepid have outright said that they will implement more instanced content if it is needed. I don't have the quote on hand, and can't be bothered looking for it - you could probably find it if you look for it though.

However, it is worth pointing out that adding instances are in no way "dumbing down" the game. If anything, leaving content open world is dumbing it down, as the content itself (aka, the game) is left in a much easier state. Adding instances allows the developers to make the content (aka, the game) much more detailed, complex and challenging. Yes, it takes out the PvP element of the specific encounters that are in that instance, but if this is only one encounter per instance, then it is hard to argue that it is meaningfully lowering the amount of PvP available.

What it is doing though, is increasing the ceiling of PvE content - for the sake of having occasional single encounter instances that arn't able to be interrupted due to PvP.

That PvP can move to other areas - even as simply as moving to the instance entrance. That PvE though, that can only exist at that level in a manner where PvP isn't possible.

This is the best argument that can be made in relation to instanced content "dumbing down" a game - you are replacing a small amount of potential PvP challenge, and replacing it with a much greater amount of PvE challenge, but all of this is only in one specific location.

Edit to add; if Intrepid came out right now and said that they have no plans at all for an amount of instanced raid content, and offered up refunds for people that put money in to the game based on statements from Intrepid suggesting that there would be, I would gladly take that refund and not look back - as would many others.

Noaani

Xenotor wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Xenotor wrote: »

The open world dungeon they showed, had a separate boss room.
I expect that to be the case for all open world bosses.

All they need to do is to add a buff on the boss depending on the number of players in the boss room.
Maybe add special powerful AoE Ability's if the number of players exceed a certain number.

If that is what they go with, I WILL see to it that I can get 100+ players in to any such room in a moment's notice. Alts are fantastic things, and family summons means it isn't even that much work to park alts in these rooms, ready to be logged in at a moments notice.

They just need to make it so you cant logout in the dungeon.
Or if you do logout for more then 5 min , you get auto teleported to the dungeon entrance.

It would be terrible game design if you could logout anywhere near the boss room.
As you stated that would open too many possibilitys for abuse or boss camping.

That would deal with that one potential way to exploit the situation, but still leaves the ability to just get to the area and family summons others in.

Keep in mind, in order for a raid to get to that location, they are clearing the way for others to also get there.

bigepeen

Grievousness wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

Really? You're posting on a web forum about a video game, and you're calling someone a nerd because they disagree with you? He brought up valid points. How can you even know if he is being "emotional" over a forum post. If anyone is being emotional, it's you with the ad hominem attacks lmao.

He mostly just claims that this game doesn't need any solid PvE which is not what the game is supposed to be:

There is going to be a lot of PvE content for all portions of the playerbase
[...] – Steven Sharif

Also instances are also intended to be in the game, claiming they are simply impossible without destroying the whole game concept is just extremely hyperbolic, but untrue:

Open world dungeons will be populated to facilitate multiple groups within the dungeon.[7]
80% of dungeons will be open world.[8][9]
Instanced dungeons will also be present and will cater for solo and group questlines.[7]
20% of dungeons will be instanced.[8][9]

source: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Dungeons

The rest is just a dismissive rambling over how he is a PvP guy who doesn't need PvE.

So can you show me where he is exactly "valid"?
I think his last posts are mostly toxic and dismissive of the problem simply because he doesn't care.

The problem is that some quotes from Steven are vague, and they can be interpreted in many ways. There will for sure be PvE content, but I don't know think they can realistically copy paste WoW style raids, FF14 style raids, ESO PvE encounters, etc.. to satisfy every type of PvE that people prefer. The 80/20 quote indicates that dungeons and raids will mostly be open world, and not instanced, apart from maybe the tutorial and story-related content. Bricktop is basically saying this, and I don't think it's inaccurate at all. My best guess is that any material or gear worth grinding are not in these instanced dungeons, but I guess I could be wrong.

bigepeen

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

Stop assuming that anything not exactly like WoW raiding is unfun, and try it out instead of just being so close-minded that you won't try out a game simply because it doesn't have instanced PvE. If you were in charge of developing MMORPGs, there would be zero innovation. No new ideas would be tried, because apparently beating WoW-style linear, static, co-op PvE raids is the holy grail of all the possibilities provided by the huge, dynamic open world of MMORPGs.

Noaani

bigepeen wrote: »

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

I agree that WoW raids are not the epitome of MMO content.

However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.

One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.

If a portion of the challenge is supposed to come from PvP, that means the content itself is easy should there be no PvP happening for what ever reason (and there are a number of reasons this could be the case). Any content that is designed to have a portion of it's challenge derrived from PvP is by definition not the epitome of PvE content.

Now, it is easy to say that Ashes is PvX, not PvE, and this is true. However, the fact that it is PvX does not mean that there can't be some PvE aspects and some PvP aspects - it means that there are both present.

What not having instanced content means then, is that Ashes - as a PvX game that is supposed to include both PvE and PvP content - will not contain anything analogous to the epitome of PvE content.

Bricktop

Noaani wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

I agree that WoW raids are not the epitome of MMO content.

However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.

One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.

If a portion of the challenge is supposed to come from PvP, that means the content itself is easy should there be no PvP happening for what ever reason (and there are a number of reasons this could be the case). Any content that is designed to have a portion of it's challenge derrived from PvP is by definition not the epitome of PvE content.

Now, it is easy to say that Ashes is PvX, not PvE, and this is true. However, the fact that it is PvX does not mean that there can't be some PvE aspects and some PvP aspects - it means that there are both present.

What not having instanced content means then, is that Ashes - as a PvX game that is supposed to include both PvE and PvP content - will not contain anything analogous to the epitome of PvE content.

But the game is planning on having instanced content already. 20% of it. Which as I personally have said sounds extremely fair to me. So what are you suggesting? More than 20%? I'm suggesting that would take away from the open world aspect of the game and we are right back to square one.

Noaani

Bricktop wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

I agree that WoW raids are not the epitome of MMO content.

However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.

One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.

If a portion of the challenge is supposed to come from PvP, that means the content itself is easy should there be no PvP happening for what ever reason (and there are a number of reasons this could be the case). Any content that is designed to have a portion of it's challenge derrived from PvP is by definition not the epitome of PvE content.

Now, it is easy to say that Ashes is PvX, not PvE, and this is true. However, the fact that it is PvX does not mean that there can't be some PvE aspects and some PvP aspects - it means that there are both present.

What not having instanced content means then, is that Ashes - as a PvX game that is supposed to include both PvE and PvP content - will not contain anything analogous to the epitome of PvE content.

But the game is planning on having instanced content already. 20% of it. Which as I personally have said sounds extremely fair to me. So what are you suggesting? More than 20%? I'm suggesting that would take away from the open world aspect of the game and we are right back to square one.

Yeah, 20% is fair - if it is used well.

If instanced content is used as leveling content as some suggest it may be, then that content will not be the epitome of PvE content - I would hope this is self evident.

If that 20% of instanced content is used well, then the game will have every opportunity to be one of the best MMO's ever made for a very wide section of the player base.

I'm actually not at all interested in asking for more than 20% of all content in Ashes to be instanced, I think that number is high enough. If it were any higher, then aspects of the game other than PvE content will start to suffer.

I am just suggesting/hoping that 20% is put to good use.

Bricktop

Noaani wrote: »

Bricktop wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

I agree that WoW raids are not the epitome of MMO content.

However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.

One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.

If a portion of the challenge is supposed to come from PvP, that means the content itself is easy should there be no PvP happening for what ever reason (and there are a number of reasons this could be the case). Any content that is designed to have a portion of it's challenge derrived from PvP is by definition not the epitome of PvE content.

Now, it is easy to say that Ashes is PvX, not PvE, and this is true. However, the fact that it is PvX does not mean that there can't be some PvE aspects and some PvP aspects - it means that there are both present.

What not having instanced content means then, is that Ashes - as a PvX game that is supposed to include both PvE and PvP content - will not contain anything analogous to the epitome of PvE content.

But the game is planning on having instanced content already. 20% of it. Which as I personally have said sounds extremely fair to me. So what are you suggesting? More than 20%? I'm suggesting that would take away from the open world aspect of the game and we are right back to square one.

Yeah, 20% is fair - if it is used well.

If instanced content is used as leveling content as some suggest it may be, then that content will not be the epitome of PvE content - I would hope this is self evident.

If that 20% of instanced content is used well, then the game will have every opportunity to be one of the best MMO's ever made for a very wide section of the player base.

I'm actually not at all interested in asking for more than 20% of all content in Ashes to be instanced, I think that number is high enough. If it were any higher, then aspects of the game other than PvE content will start to suffer.

I am just suggesting/hoping that 20% is put to good use.

I completely agree with you here, I hope the PvE content is challenging and unique to PvE centered players. I understand your points about complex instanced PvE mechanics, and I think they will nail that in that 20%. People are completely speculating about "Lore driven story instances" or whatever the term they have been throwing around is. All the big WoW raids were tied into the lore and story, it could mean anything.

I also completely have faith that this dev team can cook up some new and unique open world PvE and not the normal tank and spank stuff we have seen in previous games. I truly believe Ashes is gonna redefine the MMO genre like WoW did all those years ago.

I think they will have all kinds of PvE like they claim they will, 20% of the PvE will be instances, 80% open world I personally have always enjoyed having a nice spot to grind something out for a few hours (Recipe, mats, gold) and defend the spot from people who try to gank me, but I can understand not everyone feels this way.

bigepeen

Noaani wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

Here's a wild idea: maybe WoW raids are not the epitome of MMORPG gaming. Just open up your minds and stop trying to shoehorn your idea of "best" PvE into every game that comes out. The fact is that this game has a heavy focus on PvX and it's probably not going to be WoW 2.0 with exactly what you're used to seeing with instanced PvE raiding. It's a completely new game, and a new IP.

However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.

One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.

This is a huge assumption and is very subjective. I'll grant you that most people who like PvE, currently like PvE instances. This is definitely the trend in PvE-centered MMORPGs. However, we can't say that the epitome of PvE content is instances, it could very well be stuck at a local maxima and it's very possible that there's another format that more people would subjectively like better.

The main reason why PvE instanced content is so popular right now is that its development is easy due to its static nature. Developers can control the exact number of people in the raid, and tune the bosses to exactly account for this. Therefore, it's much easier to balance content for this format. But there could be other ways to implement challenging PvE content, maybe changing dungeon design, AI adjusting for how well the raid is doing at different stages, etc... This is harder to code and design for, but it's possible that this could not only be better tuned than static content, but it also could be less repetitive. I just really doubt that the best PvE design possible in a MMORPG is static, repetitive, instanced content. MMORPGs allow hundreds of players to play them, and yet the supposed epitome is 40 man raids playing what is essentially a co-op linear minigame.

Noaani

bigepeen wrote: »

I just really doubt that the best PvE design possible in a MMORPG is static, repetitive, instanced content.

Who said anything about statis or repetitive?

That is an assumtion you are making about instanced content - and one that is patently not true. If an AI can be made to adjust things based on how well the raid is doing in an open setting, it can be more easily made to do the same in an instance - becasue the AI doesn't need to compensate for and non raid members that may be present.

The reason instanced content will always be the pinnacle of PvE content is purely because of the controlled nature of instances. As soon as you remove the instanced component, you remove that control that developers have over the content and environment.

MMORPGs allow hundreds of players to play them, and yet the supposed epitome is 40 man raids playing what is essentially a co-op linear minigame.

I didn't say it was the epitome of MMO's, just of MMO PvE content.

There are other aspects to MMO's than just PvE content.

bigepeen

Noaani wrote: »

bigepeen wrote: »

I just really doubt that the best PvE design possible in a MMORPG is static, repetitive, instanced content.

Who said anything about statis or repetitive?

That is an assumtion you are making about instanced content - and one that is patently not true. If an AI can be made to adjust things based on how well the raid is doing in an open setting, it can be more easily made to do the same in an instance - becasue the AI doesn't need to compensate for and non raid members that may be present.

The reason instanced content will always be the pinnacle of PvE content is purely because of the controlled nature of instances. As soon as you remove the instanced component, you remove that control that developers have over the content and environment.

MMORPGs allow hundreds of players to play them, and yet the supposed epitome is 40 man raids playing what is essentially a co-op linear minigame.

I didn't say it was the epitome of MMO's, just of MMO PvE content.

There are other aspects to MMO's than just PvE content.

My bad, I was referring to MMO PvE content when I said that.

True, it is possible to implement those things into instanced PvE content. I'm not willing to assume that non-instanced PvE content can't be better, even though proper implementation of it will undoubtedly be more work and more difficult to get right.

wArchAngel

The pve crowd keeps refering to the "single digit % of population clearing it", while its fine to have those, most of the instanced pve-glorifiers dont have that particular situation in mind. What will most likely come with the "unclearable" content is the more dumbed down instanced content because "its not fair that we cannot experience the game" argument will float up more and more, and thats what most(not all, those "single digits" have their rights as well) of the people that glorify the instanced raids want, free, uncontested loot.

Now when that rumbling is over, lets see what we can take from Lineage2 for example, something that the devs(and Steven in particular) refer to quite often.
There are numerous bosses in L2 which has different "engage" mechanic, and most of them require a quest item to even start the engage.

1. The statue engage - There is a boss called Baium that sits on top of a hugeass tower, which in it self was an issue in earlier patches, because the means of fast travel to the top were very limited. The boss had an "entry zone" in front of his room in form of a crystal, and that crystal was inactive while the boss was dead. The boss had a respawn window of lets say 2 hours(fictional number for the purpose of the presentation), during those 2 hours he could "respawn" in any moment, which gave the tactical advantage to the group sitting on the crystal. When he respawned, everyone with the quest item ready could teleport in(consuming the quest item), and interact with his statue. Once someone talked with the statue, he awakeness, the crystal(entrance mechanism) closes, and the encounter begins. This way the only ones who can fight the boss are those who entered before he was awakened. If you have no rivals inside, you are free to engage, but if there were numerous contenders that entered with you, prepare to fight until someone is wiped, either with the help of the boss, or through your own strength.

2. The Dragons engage - 2 Dragons in earlier patches had the same mechanism of entry, with a crystal in a deep lair, and a quest item required(consumed on entry). What they had different is the "awakening" mechanism. They also had a "respawn window" of lets say 2 hours again, and they could spawn at any point. Once they have spawned, anyone can enter their lair through the entry crystal, however there was no strict mechanic to awaken them, they were on a timer. Once the first person entered through the crystal, a timer of 30 minutes started, and during that time anyone could keep entering, fights could start and finish, full squads could get wiped and reenter again before they awaken. But once they have awakened, the entrance is locked, and only the people inside(let it be only your squad, or a number of rival guilds) can engage it.

3. The registry engage - A boss named Frintezza had also had an "entry door" in form of a tombstone, also needed a quest item(consumed on entry), but this quest item was only required by the squad leader, and this is why. To enter Frintezzas domain you needed a strict number of people(36-45) in a squad, and the squad leader had to register his squad through the tombstone, and all the squad members must be in the proximity of the entry to qualify. This is where it lead to pvp and contest, as everyone who wished to enter had to have somewhat of a control over the tombstone while Frintezza is respawning, but even if you were losing the pvp's, you could still through different means outmaneuvre a way stronger opponent, and register your squad first, granting you an entry. Once inside, you cannot be interfered, its only your squad(36-45) against Frintezza.

Honorable mention - The Door Engage - one more boss that i would not include here is a boss behind a door, that opens only during ingame midnight(00:00), and stays open for 2 real time minutes, only during this timeframe you can enter the boss location.

All of this have the same theme in common, they require pve(quests) to be done to enter, they require pvp to earn the right to enter, and they might be tuned as high up as you want inside, since once the dominance inside was established, you will not be interefered, unless you wipe ofcourse. Forgot to mention that all of those also had a "sleep" mechanic, that put the bosses back to dormant stated - ready to be awakened again - if they werent touched(damaged) for 30 minutes.
You could not use summons in those zones(summoner classes could not summon party members inside, clan leaders could not open clan gates, etc.), and if you logged out for more than 10 minutes(disconnect safety), you would get kicked out to the nearest viladge.

Those are only some of the possible solutions, i dont say they are perfect, but they would suite the game way better than strict instanced content for multiple groups entering at the same time.
I honestly believe that if the game had those mechanics back in 2003, and the devs played and enjoyed those games, they will come up with something good, and not the casual "instanced content" that you see everywhere nowdays.

EDIT:
To avoid all the situation of the boss being "too strong, it will wipe everyone before the fight even starts" you can make the boss a semi-dummy for the first 10%, that will do some attacks, maybe some aoes, dots, but the real hard mechanics will start after that percentage, which will mean that someone is confident in his strenght, and commited to the boss.

Noaani

wArchAngel wrote: »

The pve crowd keeps refering to the "single digit % of population clearing it", while its fine to have those, most of the instanced pve-glorifiers dont have that particular situation in mind. What will most likely come with the "unclearable" content is the more dumbed down instanced content because "its not fair that we cannot experience the game" argument will float up more and more, and thats what most(not all, those "single digits" have their rights as well) of the people that glorify the instanced raids want, free, uncontested loot.

While this is a valid point - and absolutely is a complaint many people will make at some point - Intrepid have already addressed it by saying that such content exists to give people something to strive towards.

If you have cleared all the content, you have nothing left to work on (from a PvE perspective). As such, it should be very hard to clear all the content.

The only time I would personally say that people making such a complaint have a valid issue is if the content doesn't ramp up. If content goes from being mind-numbingly easy then up to impossible other than for the few percent, that means the bulk of people in the middle have no challenging PvE content to participate in.

If the content scales in difficulty at least somewhat, then I'm more than happy to shoot down such complaints myself.

It is also worth pointing out that all of the mechanisms you outlined are essentially ways to have functional instances in a game that doesn't really have an easily acceptable instancing mechanic.

The downside to all of them seems to be that should the raid wipe, the content is finished. This prevents the ability for the content to be actually properly difficult - as content that is properly difficult will always see wipes happen, and it is not uncommon for a top end guild to need several hundred pulls (and thus wipes) on an encounter to figure out what it is doing, work out a plan for how to deal with what it is doing, and then successfully execute that plan. If you are only realistically getting one pull a day, content will naturally be made easier to compensate for that. Of course, this can simply be countered by adding a respawn point in the psuedo-instance.

The other issue with this type of content - based on your description of it - is that kills of the content will be far more common. If the mobs respawn every 2 hours, we could expect to see them killed at least 8 times a day over weekends, and at least 4 times a day during the week. That is 32 kills a week that we can easily expect - from a possible theoretical maximum of 84 kills a week.

In most games, top end raid zones have a 1 week lockout (give or take a day). There are also usually only 3 or 4 guilds per server able to kill actual top end content. This means that using instances with lockouts, actual top end content is being killed 3 or 4 times per week per server - while using this system as described it would realistically be 32 kills a week. Again, this could easily be altered by making the timer 24 - 36 hours rather than 2, but even if it is a 24 hours timer the encounters would still be killed twice as often each week as they would be using instances with lockouts. Since guilds would be taking on the same encounters multiple times per week, they would also get tired of the same content much faster - and also out-gear it much faster.

Also, requiring quests to enter instances is fairly common - the original EQ had quest access required to enter overland areas, let alone instances - way back in the 90's. This is not really anything that is specific to the type of thing you are talking about in L2, but is something I am a fan of being used in a limited fashion.

wArchAngel

Noaani wrote: »

[
The downside to all of them seems to be that should the raid wipe, the content is finished. This prevents the ability for the content to be actually properly difficult - as content that is properly difficult will always see wipes happen, and it is not uncommon for a top end guild to need several hundred pulls (and thus wipes) on an encounter to figure out what it is doing, work out a plan for how to deal with what it is doing, and then successfully execute that plan. If you are only realistically getting one pull a day, content will naturally be made easier to compensate for that. Of course, this can simply be countered by adding a respawn point in the psuedo-instance.

As the boss is only "falling asleep" if left untouched for certain time(30 minutes in that particular example), you should have more than enough time to realize that its a wipe, drop a ress on someone, let everyone die to deagro, and then proceed to ress everyone else to stabilize. That was a commonly used thing...

Noaani wrote: »

The other issue with this type of content - based on your description of it - is that kills of the content will be far more common. If the mobs respawn every 2 hours, we could expect to see them killed at least 8 times a day over weekends, and at least 4 times a day during the week. That is 32 kills a week that we can easily expect - from a possible theoretical maximum of 84 kills a week.

In most games, top end raid zones have a 1 week lockout (give or take a day). There are also usually only 3 or 4 guilds per server able to kill actual top end content. This means that using instances with lockouts, actual top end content is being killed 3 or 4 times per week per server - while using this system as described it would realistically be 32 kills a week. Again, this could easily be altered by making the timer 24 - 36 hours rather than 2, but even if it is a 24 hours timer the encounters would still be killed twice as often each week as they would be using instances with lockouts. Since guilds would be taking on the same encounters multiple times per week, they would also get tired of the same content much faster - and also out-gear it much faster.

Thats a misunderstanding on your side, or just bad explanation on mine. They dont have a respawn time of 2 hours, they have a respawn window of 2 hours, for example Baium(the statue) had 5 days respawn time and 8 hours respawn window, so his respawning would start 5 days after the kill, and he could respawn anywhere in range of 8 hours. That was made to add dynamic to the waiting situation, and prevent static camping.

wArchAngel

Noaani wrote: »

It is also worth pointing out that all of the mechanisms you outlined are essentially ways to have functional instances in a game that doesn't really have an easily acceptable instancing mechanic.

Just wanted to point out that those mechanisms i refered to are not actual instances, you could very well see and target people and bosses inside the rooms, they were just locked out from outside interference. You could still track the progress of the bosses, and speculate if the squad inside will succeed or not, thus camping the entry to perhaps reenter as soon as they fail and leave the area.

Noaani

wArchAngel wrote: »

As the boss is only "falling asleep" if left untouched for certain time(30 minutes in that particular example), you should have more than enough time to realize that its a wipe, drop a ress on someone, let everyone die to deagro, and then proceed to ress everyone else to stabilize. That was a commonly used thing...

I've never been a fan of this, it always seems like a way to cheese an aspect of character death.

Not saying it isn't effective, but it is cheap.

A simple respawn location in the psuedo-instance would be significantly better.

Thats a misunderstanding on your side, or just bad explanation on mine. They dont have a respawn time of 2 hours, they have a respawn window of 2 hours, for example Baium(the statue) had 5 days respawn time and 8 hours respawn window, so his respawning would start 5 days after the kill, and he could respawn anywhere in range of 8 hours. That was made to add dynamic to the waiting situation, and prevent static camping.

Yeah, my bad.

This is essentially the same spawn timer as most contested raid encounters in games that have them (though the two hour window is significantly smaller than the 5 day respawn and 36 hour window I am used to). Contested raid content is a content type I personally enjoy more than instanced raids.

However, this brings up other issues.

Content like this is a perfectly valid thing to have in a game - but if the game is planning on having a high PvE population at all (even if that population has to do non-PvE tasks as well), then there needs to be content to support that.

This kind of content - where there is essentially one kill of an encounter per week per server (or close to it), means only one guild has content. This is where instanced content proves it's worth - every guild that wan'ts content will have it, but only those good enough will kill it.

Guilds need content to keep people together. While I am not saying that all guilds need appropriate content every night of the week, it shouldn't be too hard for people to understand that guilds do need some content to stay together (or to stay in a game).

To me, the minimum is 2 nights a week of content that the guild can plan around - and the occasional unplanned event on top of that.

This type of content - though enjoyable - fills the role of the occasional unplanned event, rather than filling the role of the 2 nights of planned content.

This isn't a reason to not have it. I would love it if Intrepid managed to get in contested raid encounters in to Ashes in a way where opposing guilds can't simply snipe the tank to stop the kill - and a psuedo-instance like this seems to me to be the perfect way to do it.

What I would really enjoy with this type of content is that same short duration access (specific mechanics are unimportant). Whoever gets in to the instance in the alloted time then fights off competitiors until only one guild remains - and they can then use family summons to pull in any of their guild that missed (there should be a mechanic to limit the total player count somewhere though).

Make it so that the entrance opens back up should the encounter reset, allowing other guilds to come in, and the only respawn point is outside of the psuedo-instance. The only other things from there is adding in a way for people outside of this psuedo-instance to be able to see what is happening inside, but in a way where they have no impact at all on it.

What you have then is a situation where guilds will wait by the entrance hoping the guild pulling the encounter wipe, allowing more to enter. If the guild that pulled the encounter attempts to cheese a raid wipe as per the above, they would have to do so in a way where the mob doesn't reset (and if they pull that off, they deserve some serious credit).

So, you have guilds waiting by the entrance (perhaps having multiple would be an idea), watching the fight, hoping the rival guild fails so they can have a shot. To me, killing a contested encounter in front of a rival guild is more satisfactory than just killing that rival guild in PvP, or in a siege (though perhaps not in a siege against a metropolis in Ashes - we shall see).

It is great content, but in order to be at it's best it needs to be devoid of PvP during the actual PvE aspect (though PvP leading up to that would just make it better).

The issue with it again is - it does not provide guilds with that two nights worth of content that in my experience is the minimum needed to keep guilds together in a game - but it is amazingly enjoyable additional content to that.

Kneczhevo

I see what Intrepid is trying to do, with open world content. But, I too, have some reservations.

PvP has a lot of options (caravans, sieges, etc.). But with open world bosses, this is going to force PvEers to be subject to something they don't want participate in (I get that right?). I get it, I'm with you. With instances, at least you can lock the doors to your party, and do as you please.
I also agree, if you have open world bosses, they will have to scale bosses to fight 4x300 man guilds, possibly. With instances, you can, at least, control the size of the content (players).

Noaani

Kneczhevo wrote: »

I see what Intrepid is trying to do, with open world content. But, I too, have some reservations.

As do I.

I am not at all saying Intrepid should not have open world content of several different types, just that they should also have instanced content.

To me, based on what I have seen in other games, open world bosses are all about PvP. It is not some side element to be considered, it is the bulk of what is going on. Take away the PvP element, and the bosses are very, very easy.

Again though, this is not a reason to exclude this kind of thing from the game. These bosses make for a fantastic PvP McGuffin, and are what produces some of the best PvP content in any game that has them.

What they are not, however, is good PvE content.

I want good PvE content - as do many others.

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