High-end Raiders in Verra, World bosses vs Instanced bosses

After the thread about world bosses it got me thinking about high end raiding and where a hardcore PvE raider will fit in in AoC.

From my experience playing MMOs, world bosses have always been about numbers and not mechanics (mostly). The guild with the most players will win the pvp encounter and in the end will kill the boss. Not the guild with the best player, but the guild with most players. I remember back in world of warcraft classic vanilla, guilds or an alliance of guilds had 2-3 raiding groups of 40 players to get the kill. 1 grupp focused on the boss, the second focused on the pvp and the third backed up second and the first to either "tag" the boss or wipe out the competition. Yes this is an epic fight and a fun thing to do a few times but I'm not sure the standard PvE guild based on a friend group will ever be able to get the kill and obtain high end materials. It doesn't matter if that friend group is one of the best raiders, but since they probably won't have the numbers to overwhelm the competition it will never happen. AoC will be a very social game so alliances between guild will probably happen but I'm still sceptical how semi-hardcore to hardcore PvE players will feel at home in the world of Verra.

I would like to see world bosses with with basic to difficult mechanics with awesome loot/materials, and instanced bosses with difficult to very advanced mechanics with similar loot/materials.

What are your experience with world bosses and what would you like to see?

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daveywavey

Sounds like it was the most organised group that won, rather than simply having more numbers. What you've described sounds a lot of fun, and also gives both PvE'ers and PvP'ers a chance to shine!

CroakerRPG

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

rikardp98

daveywavey wrote: »

Sounds like it was the most organised group that won, rather than simply having more numbers. What you've described sounds a lot of fun, and also gives both PvE'ers and PvP'ers a chance to shine!

Yes it's a lot of fun but only the first few times, then it gets boring an repetitive. People will grief and make everyones life hell, and not only do you need 80+ players on your side but you need to dived that loot somehow, either the group that killed the boss gets everything and you shift the next time, or it gets ninja looted xD. It's mostly fun for PvPers and not people that wants to be the best PvE players in AoC.

For example, my current wow tbc guild has around 25-30 players, if i take that guild to ashes we will have a very very small chance of killing a world boss. Not because we are bad or not hardcore enough, we are a group of very good players knowing game mechanics and take the game quite seriously, but we will never have the numbers to take down a world boss regularly. So how should we itch that need for challenge and getting loot? Instanced bosses with advanced mechanics. I'm not saying through pvp out the window, I'm saying that have a open world dungeon with a final instanced boss room (not capped to one group).

Yes we will probably once in a while group up with other guilds to kill a world boss, but that won't be for the loot, it will be for fun and experience something cool.

I also want to say that I have mostly experienced world bosses in wow and black desert, and little in GW2, so maybe my experience with world bosses is completely different from others.

rikardp98

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

Because lager guilds, in my experience, is very impersonal and you never talk or get to know 90% of the guild. Small guilds, ~20-50 players, are much more like a family and personal.

CroakerRPG

rikardp98 wrote: »

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

Because lager guilds, in my experience, is very impersonal and you never talk or get to know 90% of the guild. Small guilds, ~20-50 players, are much more like a family and personal.

If this hypothetical group isn't bothering to make outside connections they're already treating the rest of the community as if they were part of a larger, faceless entity.

I think a lot of people are hyperbolizing how many players would be involved in boss fights in the overworld. The servers might be able to support 10k congruent players but the world itself is huge, alliances will have different regions they call home, and not everyone will be interested in the same bosses at the same time. These very large groups dominating the overworld that people are afraid of will have almost no organization to speak of; try getting eighty people into a discord call at once effectively communicating and following orders in battle, it's not going to be easy.

rikardp98

GetDatGreg wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

Because lager guilds, in my experience, is very impersonal and you never talk or get to know 90% of the guild. Small guilds, ~20-50 players, are much more like a family and personal.

If this hypothetical group isn't bothering to make outside connections they're already treating the rest of the community as if they were part of a larger, faceless entity.

I think a lot of people are hyperbolizing how many players would be involved in boss fights in the overworld. The servers might be able to support 10k congruent players but the world itself is huge, alliances will have different regions they call home, and not everyone will be interested in the same bosses at the same time. These very large groups dominating the overworld that people are afraid of will have almost no organization to speak of; try getting eighty people into a discord call at once effectively communicating and following orders in battle, it's not going to be easy.

It's not like we are excluding us from the rest of the community, for example in wow we have 2 sister guilds that we do alts raid with and more. But that's still only around 80-100 players. Meaning every single person in all three guilds would need to be only at the same time to have a chance, and that won't happen if it's a randomized spawn and spawn timer on world bosses.
It's true, maybe the world bosses won't be that contested because of the large map, BUT i know from own experience that large hardcore guilds will do everything in their power go get every single kill on a world boss, even if that boss spawns on the other side of the map.

rikardp98

GetDatGreg wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

Because lager guilds, in my experience, is very impersonal and you never talk or get to know 90% of the guild. Small guilds, ~20-50 players, are much more like a family and personal.

try getting eighty people into a discord call at once effectively communicating and following orders in battle, it's not going to be easy.

Yes it is very difficult. But still those groups are still killing bosses because coordination and communication and skills isn't a factor (to some degree). It's all about numbers and overwhelming the competition.

I know some large guilds that manager to keep 80+ players in check and communicate via sub leaders, and that's very impressive in it self.

Sathrago

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

This is actually why a ton of the larger guilds splinter and die. You get little friend groups that latch onto each other and all have different wants/needs, in most cases culminating in drama and destroying the guild.

This is not to say that it doesn't happen in smaller guilds too, it's just a direct result of having more people.

CROW3

Sathrago wrote: »

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Why can't the smaller friend group join a larger guild?

This is actually why a ton of the larger guilds splinter and die. You get little friend groups that latch onto each other and all have different wants/needs, in most cases culminating in drama and destroying the guild.

This is not to say that it doesn't happen in smaller guilds too, it's just a direct result of having more people.

Yes, and the players from those dead guilds go on to form other guilds that consolidate into big guilds again. Nightmare's Asylum wouldn't exist without the guilds that blew apart before them.

It's just one of those circle of life things. Hold on... I think there's a song I can queue up for you.

Dygz

I would hope that loot is being dropped in stages rather than all at once, so it shouldn't necessarily be just one guild getting all the loot anyways.
But, if that is the case... leave and return at a time when it's not so contested.

George_Black

From my experience, mmos are supposed to be massive multiplayer open world games, not optional, instanced co-op/versus stages, which is what instanced raiding is.

All your fabulous mechanics get boring right after the first completion. The same will not be said about open world raiding.

Talents

George_Black wrote: »

From my experience, mmos are supposed to be massive multiplayer open world games, not optional, instanced co-op/versus stages, which is what instanced raiding is.

All your fabulous mechanics get boring right after the first completion. The same will not be said about open world raiding.

100% agree.

MMOs should not be about instanced content, it should be about the open-world. Instanced PvE is ok the first time you do it, but then the next week it's exactly the same thing, and the same every time after that. Gets boring after the first time.

rikardp98

Yes MMOs shouldn't aim to be instanced, it should be an open world game with epic world boss encounters, and I'm looking forward to those in ashes very much. But I also know the negatives that comes with open world bosses. From my experience it's always a huge surge fest. And don't think for a second you will find a "uncontested world boss" when it drops the best materials in the game. If you think that then you don't know the lengths big hardcore guilds go to to get the best gear in the game and make other people lose. They will have teams ganking other players, drag other mobes to the boss, they will do everything to make you die and loose the boss kill. Yes it may be an epic battle and you may have fun, but fun won't get you the best kill time or the best gear. But maybe those hardcore players won't play ashes if there won't be a high end raiding scene.

Sometimes it's fun to gather some friends, run into a raid, put on some music and kill some bosses that drop some nice gear/materials. I can play the same raid for weeks, just to get better at that specific raid and get better gear. To me progression is the best feeling in a game, and from the MMOs i have played that progression have mostly been in PvE. But maybe that will change in ashes, but I will still look for high end PvE content in slem shape or form.

Taleof2Cities

rikardp98 wrote: »

Sometimes it's fun to gather some friends, run into a raid, put on some music and kill some bosses that drop some nice gear/materials.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first, @rikardp98?

Ashes will have instanced dungeons. That's confirmed in the Wiki.

It's about an 80%/20% split between open world dungeons and instanced dungeons (mainly catering to group questlines). We don't know what kind of loot will be in the instanced dungeons when the game launches ... stay tuned on that.

That said, end game instanced PvE raiding just isn't going to be a focus in Ashes. If that's the only reason why you'd play, you should mull over whether it's going to be the right game for you.

There will definitely be high end loot drops in other Ashes content types.

But, if you're not interested in risking PvP or doing open world activities (e.g. contributing to the node economy, crafting/gathering, dungeons, world bosses, sieges, caravans, housing), then it might not be a game you're compatible with.

George_Black

@rikardp98 I was playing L2.
Raid Bosses are guild content. I was in a guild. I raided. Simple as that.
People should not expect to get the best drops and XP if they are unorganized. And organization means contribution, which is the opposite of the Group Finder mentality which people are used to.

If people cant raid they should join a guild.

As for the mechanics of open world raid bosses, I would like to see nice designs.
However, this can be difficult to achieve, due to the PvP factor.
I still prefer this REALITY than playing yet another eso/ff14/wow/tera mmo.

Talents

I don't mind if Ashes has hard instanced dungeons that reward titles/achievements/cosmetics, but gear/materials should never be rewarded for completing instanced content. All gear/materials should come the open-world.

Sathrago

Talents wrote: »

I don't mind if Ashes has hard instanced dungeons that reward titles/achievements/cosmetics, but gear/materials should never be rewarded for completing instanced content. All gear/materials should come the open-world.

I can agree to this especially since it will reduce bots farming instances for gold. Yes I understand that this isn't the most impactful way to reduce it, but it helps.

George_Black

Talents wrote: »

I don't mind if Ashes has hard instanced dungeons that reward titles/achievements/cosmetics, but gear/materials should never be rewarded for completing instanced content. All gear/materials should come the open-world.

Yes.
Maybe some instanced gear should be good for Lv 20-30, but no safety for end game.
There should be alternative ways for progress. Only open world.

Noaani

I agree that rewards from all progression at the top end should still be subject open world PvP, however, if instances are going to contain hard encounters, they need to provide progression rewards (or, at least, the catalyst for such).

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

I agree that rewards from all progression at the top end should still be subject open world PvP, however, if instances are going to contain hard encounters, they need to provide progression rewards (or, at least, the catalyst for such).

have them grant keys or some other item that unlock chests, bosses, etc. in the open world that players can contest?

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