Should the final boss be instanced or open world?

Call it the hardest boss or final boss, does not matter. For major patches, we will probably have a main antagonist we have to fight.

Obviously, we want this epic questline ending boss to be hard, unforgiving, and nerd-gasm inducing when you kill it. The visuals should be epic. The fight should be difficult, but fun.

But the biggest question... should he be instanced or open world? What do you think? And why?

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Noaani

Open world.

Honestly didn't even have to think about that one.

Edit to add though; I am not a fan of the last boss of a content cycle being needed for a quest. If anything, the quest chain should end with granting access to that encounter (whether physical access or an item/ability that makes taking the encounter on viable, or some such).

The ability to take on content should always be viewed as a reward, rather than as a task.

Ravudha

Open world - instantiating and fragmenting the progression of story for select groups of people while excluding others on the same server is a paradigm we should be moving away from as technological advances allow us to.

If major patches apply story arcs that apply to an entire server, I'd like to see the progression of the player base through that story become as shared, integrated, and open to all as much as possible.

Of course designing the mechanics to back that up is another story, but I'm sure we can do more than shuffling 40 people at a time through the experience.

Jamation

Open world for sure. The more things that can be in the open world the better in my opinion. I understand the need/desire for instanced things at some point, but the more things you could accidentally stumble into or watch always makes it seem like the world is more alive.

Sure it could be difficult to work with/against others in trying to be first, but unless this is a world level boss (where I'd assume the difficulty would be so high the need for world cooperation would be required) as opposed to semi-regional based on metropolis location, I don't see it being as big a problem as most people will start to realize which groups hang around which regions of the map.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Open World, having to worry about people interfering makes it all that harder and more impressive if pulled off.

daveywavey

I can see arguments for both. While Open World seems to fit with the game's design, I'd be a little disappointed to go up against the final game boss and have 300 players steamroll it in a matter of seconds.

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

I can see arguments for both. While Open World seems to fit with the game's design, I'd be a little disappointed to go up against the final game boss and have 300 players steamroll it in a matter of seconds.

I'd be disapointed with that for any boss.

That is a situation where Intrepid have boxed themselves in, and now need to deal with what that means.

One of the things EQ2 had for it's open world content - that absolutely won't work in Ashes - is that only one raid could engage a mob at a time. As soon as one raid attacked it, they were locked to it, and it to them. Since there was no PvP, it meant all other raids getting formed up could do was watch, wait and hope that the raid taking the encounter on failed so that they could have a shot.

This did create it's own type of competition - both in terms of which raid could tag the mob fastest when another raid wiped, but also which raid could learn the encounter the fastest in order to get the kill.

The most important thing it did though, is preserve the integrety of the encounter - something Intrepid have given no signs of even understanding as yet.

That said, Ashes is a game that is mostly open world. It would be wrong for the end boss in a mostly open world game to be anything other than open world - Intrepid just need to figure out how that looks with the encounter still maintaining it's integrety.

daveywavey

Yeah, hopefully you guys can test some boss fights and give them some useful info to work with.

Governor1

It will be bad if there’s a main boss that spawns every 12 hours or so and you have 8 raiding guilds waiting in the same area...I know ashes promise they could support a lot of players in one area,but not everyone’s computer can handle it and maybe the game servers as well.I would rather have instanced “main raid” and some open world bosses for the laugh of world pvp while taking down some huge guys and having to worry about players and mechanics.Sounds fun,but I guarantee after the 5th massive brawl open world boss people would be mad and frustrated.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

daveywavey wrote: »

I can see arguments for both. While Open World seems to fit with the game's design, I'd be a little disappointed to go up against the final game boss and have 300 players steamroll it in a matter of seconds.

This is where scouts will be brought back to the game and play a huge role, preparation for such a attack, being able to pull of the mob and deal with the situation. Also something you could organise with your alliance for backup.

Tyranthraxus

I believe this was addressed as recently as one of the last 3 monthly update videos, in case you're looking to hear Steven talk about it, specifically. In short, though:

There will be big dungeon bosses, and also world bosses. One of the Creative Director's favorite things about Lineage 2 were the gigantic open-world bosses that it would take a lot of players to bring down. As previously stated, there will specifically be content intended for 40-ish players at once.

At the moment, they have 3 of the to-be World Bosses named, and there are specific mentions in this link to Legendary Bosses, as well; There will likely be open-world bosses for 8+ players, as well as 40+ players:

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/World_bosses

They've talked on scale-ability for difficulty, as one possible way of ensuring the World Bosses don't get steam-rolled.

Warth

I think it would be pretty awesome if the last story arc ends up in a massive, massive bossfight that takes most of the players on the server at this time. Through Raid-Size Sub Bosses spawning all around the world map, packs of Raiders monster pillaging cities, freeholds etc.

Like an event, that would actually be befitting for a final boss.

Afterwards he can respawn as a raid-tier boss either instanced or non-instanced, but the first kill should be a massive event with serverwide effort and consequences if failed to kill within a time frame.

Sathrago

My thoughts on this is that they could make it a formal "zerg encounter". Let me know if this fits a final boss, but I think it would be cool if the fight was set up as a type of siege battle with hundreds of players having to besiege a node metropolis sized boss in order to take it down over time. Create portions of its body to attack, turn ins that lower levels can bring resources to, like materials for catapult ammunition and repairs. Have it so that destroying weak points grants loot for the group that completes it, allowing for multiple groups to participate and fight over the rights to parts of the boss as you slowly siege the boss to death in various ways.

I think they did something similar to this in the Monster Hunter World game.

https://youtu.be/Rg6U0q-Zn5U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBMjIAMwjHE&ab_channel=IGNWalkthroughs

Anyway, this could be another boss in the game, but it seems fitting as a "final boss" encounter too. Let me know what ya think.

Vhaeyne

I would have to say that the concept of a epic questline leading up to a final boss is a flawed one in itself. Intrepid can tell me I am wrong about their vision of the game if I am, but in my opinion we are the the final boss.

The wars we have with each other to me should be the final boss. Any dragons or powerful monsters in the world are just resources to be fought over. The only story I care about is my node vs whom ever wants to take it. That is a living story that we can all participate in.

In this way, all bosses can and should be open world. Feel free to disagree, but I have stated many times that MMOs need to be moving away from set quests and storylines, and move deeper into systems that harvest natural player interaction and emergent stories. A little bit of background lore and setting is fine to give players a starting point, but we need not have the DEVS drip feed us story every six months like WOW and FFXIV.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I would have to say that the concept of a epic questline leading up to a final boss is a flawed one in itself. Intrepid can tell me I am wrong about their vision of the game if I am, but in my opinion we are the the final boss.

The wars we have with each other to me should be the final boss. Any dragons or powerful monsters in the world are just resources to be fought over. The only story I care about is my node vs whom ever wants to take it. That is a living story that we can all participate in.

In this way, all bosses can and should be open world. Feel free to disagree, but I have stated many times that MMOs need to be moving away from set quests and storylines, and move deeper into systems that harvest natural player interaction and emergent stories. A little bit of background lore and setting is fine to give players a starting point, but we need not have the DEVS drip feed us story every six months like WOW and FFXIV.

Geez I hope we don't have to do a long quest line just do kill a world boss, not like you're going to kill him by yourself so don't force me to do more quests than I need to please.

You're right though , that would suck if it was the case.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

The wars we have with each other to me should be the final boss.

While I agree with this as a general point - groups of rival players should be considered the most serious threat - that doesn't preclude the need (yes, need) for quest based content.

While some people are happy with the idea of harvesting, crafting and PvP'ing in order to progress so they can better harvest, craft and PvP, most players want more than this from an MMO.

There needs to be activities that people can actually *do* so that the harvesting, crafting and PvP'ing that players do have a meaning other than being self-perpetuating.

This was my biggest issue with Archeage.

Even before it became heavily pay to win, players were leaving the game due to there being nothing to actually do. In fact, my argument would be that it became overly pay to win in order to make a profit after the bulk of the playerbase left due to having nothing to do.

Basically, without something to do, most players will not have anything to do. The best thing to give players to do - arguably - is solid quest content.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

While I agree with this as a general point - groups of rival players should be considered the most serious threat - that doesn't preclude the need (yes, need) for quest based content.

While some people are happy with the idea of harvesting, crafting and PvP'ing in order to progress so they can better harvest, craft and PvP, most players want more than this from an MMO.

There needs to be activities that people can actually *do* so that the harvesting, crafting and PvP'ing that players do have a meaning other than being self-perpetuating.

This was my biggest issue with Archeage.

Even before it became heavily pay to win, players were leaving the game due to there being nothing to actually do. In fact, my argument would be that it became overly pay to win in order to make a profit after the bulk of the playerbase left due to having nothing to do.

Basically, without something to do, most players will not have anything to do. The best thing to give players to do - arguably - is solid quest content.

All I can really say is that I am willing to adjust my opinion based on what I see when I get in the game, and start experiencing it for myself. I would never recommend more story based content for EVE online, but I always welcome new story in FFXIV (because it means new raids). It depends on the game. Right, now I am thinking AOC is like 20% story, 80% open world. If that's wrong, I will still try AOC. I just want to see AOC lean as hard into emergent gameplay as possible. With or without story based content.

Marzzo

I can't understand how anyone wants an epic encounter in the open world. The lags, the tank and spank mechanics, just ugh.

Just the fact that a boss is balanced around the fact that troll guilds will come and try to stop you makes me cringe. It's a sad truth that open world bosses are just there to be cool. The only challange is using brain power to spawn camp it and hope some scrubs dont come and mess up the fight.

If nobody comes and messes up the fight the boss will just be a cakewalk since you cant make a boss with deep mechanics open world. Never seen it in any game.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Right, now I am thinking AOC is like 20% story, 80% open world.

Open world doesn't mean there is no story - it basically just means "not instanced".

Steven did say they would reserve instancing for when the story needed it, but that has since been changed to when the content or the story needs it (they will instance an encounter to limit numbers if that is what they need to do).

To me, that doesn't mean all story is in instances and all open world is devoid of story, it means that if they want to present a portion of a story to players in a way that requires their attention, they will instance that portion of the story.

Noaani

Marzzo wrote: »

I can't understand how anyone wants an epic encounter in the open world. The lags, the tank and spank mechanics, just ugh.

Just the fact that a boss is balanced around the fact that troll guilds will come and try to stop you makes me cringe. It's a sad truth that open world bosses are just there to be cool. The only challange is using brain power to spawn camp it and hope some scrubs dont come and mess up the fight.

If nobody comes and messes up the fight the boss will just be a cakewalk since you cant make a boss with deep mechanics open world. Never seen it in any game.

I totally agree, unlocked open world encounters have literally never been anything other than bland (locked open world encounters can be grat though).

Thing is, Ashes is all about the open world, so that is where the boss encounter of the game should be.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Right, now I am thinking AOC is like 20% story, 80% open world.

Open world doesn't mean there is no story - it basically just means "not instanced".

That is how I meant it.
EVE online style, you figure it out your own goals gameplay for 80% of your gameplay experience.
Standard MMO style, Spam quest chains for the remaining 20% of your gameplay experience.

Just an educated bet on how (40 days of 6-8hours to cap) in a dynamic world will work for story telling.
Always happy to be wrong when predicting how things will actually pan out.

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