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What is your MMO PvE experience like?

AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
From another topic, I found myself wondering something.

I don't play a lot of MMOs, I have some I love, and others I swiftly ignore. But I keep coming across people for whom PvE seems to mean a relatively scripted encounter where you ONLY have to respond in unison at the right timing and maybe handle adds.

So I'm collecting data again. I may ask a lot of clarifying questions, so please bear with me, even if I come off as diminishing your experience, I only 'mean to' in the sense that I need a scale to work with.

I thought about it and realized that there's no good reason I'm aware of for an owPvP game to make scripted enemies. It doesn't teach you anything about the PvP aspect of the game, it doesn't carry over well to different groups, and it doesn't make the PvE itself more interesting (imo).

I therefore simply didn't expect to see that in Ashes at all (and so far from experiences with bosses in Ashes, I have not seen it, it works more like the games I am used to). I've never had any reason to expect this. If you do, what game caused it? Were most of the elite/top tier encounters like that? Is there anything about it that you explicitly like?
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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Comments

  • NiKrNiKr Member
    The only reason I'm fine with a more scripted pve, in the context of an owpvp game, is that I just want a backdrop to the pvp I'm waiting for while farming. If pve required constant highest concentration, any pvp attacker would just destroy me because even if I did notice him before time, the mob would keep hitting me while I'd try to pvp. L2's mobs hit you too, obviously, but their hits wouldn't just destroy you if you shifted your attention onto another player to pvp him for a few secs.

    I'm very curious who top lvl ow pve will look like in Ashes, considering they gotta account for potential pvp around said pve. Designing top lvl pve for all the pve lovers, while also managing to not overtune it, in such a way that any pvp involvement immediately kills the pvers (or potentially making the attacker Red), will probably be very difficult to do.
  • NorkoreNorkore Member
    edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    From another topic, I found myself wondering something.

    I don't play a lot of MMOs, I have some I love, and others I swiftly ignore. But I keep coming across people for whom PvE seems to mean a relatively scripted encounter where you ONLY have to respond in unison at the right timing and maybe handle adds.

    So I'm collecting data again. I may ask a lot of clarifying questions, so please bear with me, even if I come off as diminishing your experience, I only 'mean to' in the sense that I need a scale to work with.

    I thought about it and realized that there's no good reason I'm aware of for an owPvP game to make scripted enemies. It doesn't teach you anything about the PvP aspect of the game, it doesn't carry over well to different groups, and it doesn't make the PvE itself more interesting (imo).

    I therefore simply didn't expect to see that in Ashes at all (and so far from experiences with bosses in Ashes, I have not seen it, it works more like the games I am used to). I've never had any reason to expect this. If you do, what game caused it? Were most of the elite/top tier encounters like that? Is there anything about it that you explicitly like?

    I'm super bored of instanced content: my main issue with it is that it separates PvE and PvP to the point where it feels like completely different games, within a game. This game is PvX, so we will see a lot of open world content and conflict (if you join a guild that wants to participate in such activities that is).
    These people you meet (who think all PvE should be instanced) are used to the themepark MMO style, and they think those rules apply to this game, however this game is going to be a lot different.

    To answer your question: as far as I know most of these encounters are not instanced. The only reason I could see them adding instanced encounters is when a raid boss is very carefully constructed, and they imagine the boss in a way where they don't want additional risk from an outside source or something. Or another occasion could be story quests. When it comes to PvE (such as dungeons and raids), instanced content is going against their overall philosophy (and the game's PvX nature as a whole), which I will copy below (quotes are from the Ashes of creation Wiki):

    Q: How challenging will raid boss mechanics be given the given that players may need to simultaneously fight other players while also fighting the boss?

    A: It depends. The great thing about our encounter system is that it has a wide scalability from encounters that some might consider easy given their composition to encounters that some might consider impossible until they get their gear level to a certain stage. The level of interaction with other players is really predicated on the encounter itself. We may have some encounters that are in instances although the predominant portion of those will be in the open world, in which case they do have the potential being contested; and these encounters, especially the big ones that might land in contention, are giving some of the best-in-slot gear you can get in the game. So it's important that they are contested because it is a significant victory point; and one of our core pillars is risk versus reward: and the higher that risk the higher that reward should be. So those two things seem fitting and then in addition we do have the concept of winners and losers. Not everybody in Ashes of Creation is going to be a winner; and that sucks if you're not I guess, but there is opportunity for you to continue to excel and become one. But it gives much more meaning to an achievement when not everybody gets the achievement. That's our philosophy. – Steven Sharif


    Also I'd like to copy another quote from Steven regarding PvX:

    We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay. – Steven Sharif


    "We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody." and "Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay." These are the key sentences.
    I very much like and prefer Steven's stance on PvE (and PvP, and PvX overall) over what I previously experienced in most MMOs.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    NiKr wrote: »
    The only reason I'm fine with a more scripted pve, in the context of an owpvp game, is that I just want a backdrop to the pvp I'm waiting for while farming. If pve required constant highest concentration, any pvp attacker would just destroy me because even if I did notice him before time, the mob would keep hitting me while I'd try to pvp. L2's mobs hit you too, obviously, but their hits wouldn't just destroy you if you shifted your attention onto another player to pvp him for a few secs.

    I'm very curious who top lvl ow pve will look like in Ashes, considering they gotta account for potential pvp around said pve. Designing top lvl pve for all the pve lovers, while also managing to not overtune it, in such a way that any pvp involvement immediately kills the pvers (or potentially making the attacker Red), will probably be very difficult to do.

    This is not difficult.

    Intrepid already does it this way for larger bosses. If they implement something that I have already seen hints they originally intended, it becomes easier.

    So I'll posit a scenario to you.

    You and your group are fighting an ice dragon, it sends out waves of frost with its wings that hit and debuff everyone who is in the line, including anyone attempting to PvP you.

    Its other more powerful attacks are triggered only by a gauge that builds up when your group damages it, so if you switch to PvP, the boss' dangerous attacks slow down massively and your Tank just has to worry about the basics (being chomped at, being clawed).

    Would this be sufficient for you to generally assume that you would be able to enjoy the scenario, and if not, in which direction do you doubt their design (and my added implication)?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    Would this be sufficient for you to generally assume that you would be able to enjoy the scenario, and if not, in which direction do you doubt their design (and my added implication)?
    Would definitely be fine for me, but I'd like Noaani's input on this kind of design cause I feel like he's the biggest top lvl pve nerd around these parts. Cause to me that kind of mechanics feels a bit exploitable. What if your group sees that they might wipe in a few more boss hits, so they decide to stop attacking the boss and just take a few steps back. Now the healer only worries about the tank or maybe doesn't worry at all cause the tank saved up some "ultimate defense"-type skill that allows him to hold the boss for additional 20-30 secs while the group heals and buffs up. To me this feels like it'd make pve content waaay easier.

    Yes, I'd love this kind of design because it allows me to play the game just as I like to play it, and seemingly how Intrepid promises it will be played, but I'm not sure how many people would appreciate it as much as I do. And judging by how rare my likes are appreciated or supported (design-wise), I'd assume, not that many people would want to have this kind of exploitable design.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    Would this be sufficient for you to generally assume that you would be able to enjoy the scenario, and if not, in which direction do you doubt their design (and my added implication)?
    Would definitely be fine for me, but I'd like Noaani's input on this kind of design cause I feel like he's the biggest top lvl pve nerd around these parts. Cause to me that kind of mechanics feels a bit exploitable. What if your group sees that they might wipe in a few more boss hits, so they decide to stop attacking the boss and just take a few steps back. Now the healer only worries about the tank or maybe doesn't worry at all cause the tank saved up some "ultimate defense"-type skill that allows him to hold the boss for additional 20-30 secs while the group heals and buffs up. To me this feels like it'd make pve content waaay easier.

    Yes, I'd love this kind of design because it allows me to play the game just as I like to play it, and seemingly how Intrepid promises it will be played, but I'm not sure how many people would appreciate it as much as I do. And judging by how rare my likes are appreciated or supported (design-wise), I'd assume, not that many people would want to have this kind of exploitable design.

    Ah yes, that's my error. As noted, I am REALLY too used to this system, so I leave out parts.

    The Gauge also rises when the boss hits anyone else (usually the Tank, of course).

    Magic usage is not affected by this.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    The Gauge also rises when the boss hits anyone else (usually the Tank, of course).

    Magic usage is not affected by this.
    Depending on how difficult the dodge mechanics are for most bosses/mobs, this could still be an exploitable problem of "take a break and heal up, while running around a bit instead of hitting the mob". Though I'm sure all of that can be figured out in testing.

    This kind of mechanic does bring more fun into the pvp part of the pvx equation, where proper awareness and movement could allow the OG farmers to use the boss' attack against the newcomers. Would definitely love this if it's gonna be the case in Ashes.
  • Adding weird mechanics that can nerf the boss in any form do to pvp is not good design people will just exploit it. They key point imo will be how long does the encounter to take finish, how long until it respawns, how long does it take to get back to the boss based on the res point.

    1. Those three points are important as it gives people options make a deal with other guilds for them to run it after.
    2. Wipe the guild trying to gank you, their respawn point should be a decent distance away. allowing you to dps the boss.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    How are you bounding this thread? Are you asking about PvE experience, or PvE raid/group mechanics?

    There’s a LOT more to pve than scripted raids, so just want to understand before I lay out anything that’s well beyond the scope of what you’re looking for.
    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    PvE experience:
    Challenge
    Fear of death
    Fear of item loss (both whole items and other stuff)
    Grind to simulate training and dedication.
    Large map without mounts to simulate exploration.
    Open world raids, a difficult goal to achieve in every area.
    Chance to befriend other people, or rival them.
    Relaxing time and bonding with guild members.

    What it should not be?

    DPS races
    Repetitive, sterilized, instanced content without ANY stakes besides rng disappointment.
    Meta.
    Toxicity.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    CROW3 wrote: »
    How are you bounding this thread? Are you asking about PvE experience, or PvE raid/group mechanics?

    There’s a LOT more to pve than scripted raids, so just want to understand before I lay out anything that’s well beyond the scope of what you’re looking for.

    Nah, rock out.

    It's precisely because I end up feeling like certain discussions use some PvE assumptions that I would have thought were literally doomed to fail, so I want all the data. Break it up into multiple posts if you think it's too much.

    As an example, WoW PvE has always struck me as being almost entirely challenge-less if the enemy isn't some elite or raid boss. Tera PvE, I remember having to at least care, I had to move, I had to think, even if the regular mobs didn't really have abilities or much dynamic aspects. I stopped playing Tera only because the dynamism level wasn't my preference.

    So yeah if anything let's limit it to definitely 'Enemy'. If environment factors in so MUCH (not to the status of the enemy but to the point where the environment is the threat and the enemy would not be a threat without the environment space) then probably not as interested but data is data.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited June 2022
    Just limiting to combat...
    Probably what I like best about PvE is that if I want to avoid combat, mobs typcally have a tether I can outrun.
    Players are more relentless than mobs.
    Also, if I die while running from a mob, the tether means I probably won't be corpse camped by the mob.
    Basically, I have better control over a mob than I do over a player. Especially with reagrds to avoiding combat.

    Typically, mobs are scripted enough that it's fairly easy to devise tactics and strategies to win - eventually.
    Some of that is determining strengths/weaknesses rather than mob tactics.
    I tend to use pulling tactics so we combat in a location that will avoid adds.
    Also, easier to control that with mobs than it is with players.

    George Black mentions fear...
    If I'm playing an alt that is doing the carebear, no kills/no deaths challenge - I'm going always going to run from mobs to avoid death, but I don't quite experience that as fear.
    I typically experience fear when I'm surprised/shocked during combat - like the first time I was Blinded and my screen wwent black.
    Maybe some very mild fear if I'm hit with Fear and I try to avoid running into adds or over a cliff.
    With players, I don't experience fear - just annoyance... especially if I'm forced into combat when I'm not in the mood for combat.
    In my preferred form of PvP combat - objective-based combat, like capture the flag - my deaths are irrelevant. I'm focused on the winning the objectives. In NWO PvP, I would just let people kill me while I race to the next capture point. Capture points are worth more than deaths.

    In RPGs, there's other stuff I'd rather be doing besides combat.
    Other than, storyline quests typically involve combat. And PvE combat is typically the quickest way to level.
    And to get perks, like flying, in WoW.
    Typically, class milestones will involve some combat.
    But, I would prefer to Diplomacy my way past combat. And that is also typically easier to do with mobs than with players.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Dygz wrote: »
    Just limiting to combat...
    Probably what I like best about PvE is that if I want to avoid combat, mobs typcally have a tether I can outrun.
    Players are more relentless than mobs.
    Also, if I die while running from a mob, the tether means I probably won't be corpse camped by the mob.
    Basically, I have better control over a mob than I do over a player. Especially with reagrds to avoiding combat.

    Typically, mobs are scripted enough that it's fairly easy to devise tactics and strategies to win - eventually.
    Some of that is determining strengths/weaknesses rather than mob tactics.
    I tend to use pulling tactics so we combat in a location that will avoid adds.
    Also, easier to control that with mobs than it is with players.

    George Black mentions fear...
    If I'm playing an alt that is doing the carebear, no kills/no deaths challenge - I'm going always going to run from mobs to avoid death, but I don't quite experience that as fear.
    I typically experience fear when I'm surprised/shocked during combat - like the first time I was Blinded and my screen wwent black.
    Maybe some very mild fear if I'm hit with Fear and I try to avoid running into adds or over a cliff.
    With players, I don't experience fear - just annoyance... especially if I'm forced into combat when I'm not in the mood for combat.
    In my preferred form of PvP combat - objective-based combat, like capture the flag - my deaths are irrelevant. I'm focused on the winning the objectives. In NWO PvP, I would just let people kill me while I race to the next capture point. Capture points are worth more than deaths.

    In RPGs, there's other stuff I'd rather be doing besides combat.
    Other than, storyline quests typically involve combat. And PvE combat is typically the quickest way to level.
    And to get perks, like flying, in WoW.
    Typically, class milestones will involve some combat.
    But, I would prefer to Diplomacy my way past combat. And that is also typically easier to do with mobs than with players.

    Aside from required combat scenarios such as class unlocks/similar, is there any type of direct combat in groups or with mobs where you are inspired or interested in the combat aspect itself?

    Not necessarily referring to striking the enemy in any way. Many Clerics and Bards, support characters in general, there are games in which these players could play the entire game and encounter PvE challenges without ever drawing their weapon or even targeting an enemy.

    If you participate in this form of group Combat, is it enjoyable, and if you have done so, do you remember anything specific about how the game system handled the combat, or just your part thereof?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    PvE experience:
    Challenge
    Fear of death
    Fear of item loss (both whole items and other stuff)
    Grind to simulate training and dedication.
    Large map without mounts to simulate exploration.
    Open world raids, a difficult goal to achieve in every area.
    Chance to befriend other people, or rival them.
    Relaxing time and bonding with guild members.

    What it should not be?

    DPS races
    Repetitive, sterilized, instanced content without ANY stakes besides rng disappointment.
    Meta.
    Toxicity.

    Do you prefer the 'challenge' and 'fear of death' aspects to be present in at-level (or at-group-level) combat most of the time? Have you generally found that the games you play actually provided this challenge from just the PvE alone (open world non-Raid enemies in particular)?

    And secondly, if so, do you also prefer that there be a significant fear of death even during an Exp grind?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »

    Aside from required combat scenarios such as class unlocks/similar, is there any type of direct combat in groups or with mobs where you are inspired or interested in the combat aspect itself?

    Not necessarily referring to striking the enemy in any way. Many Clerics and Bards, support characters in general, there are games in which these players could play the entire game and encounter PvE challenges without ever drawing their weapon or even targeting an enemy.

    If you participate in this form of group Combat, is it enjoyable, and if you have done so, do you remember anything specific about how the game system handled the combat, or just your part thereof?
    Yeah, I mean...
    And this I think is typically only for PvE...
    Once I've committed to combat, I'm actively assessing mob strengths/weaknesses, tactics and strategies.
    Best when I'm able to synergize with the abilities/skills and tactics of other players I'm fighting alongside - if I am fighting alongside other players.
    I'm typically trying to devise a strategy using the abilities/skills each person in the group has chosen, rather than dictating what abilities/skills are META. And, since I'm a hardcore time player, I'm fine with wiping a bunch of times to figure out a way to win with people playing the build they've created rather than with a cookie-cutter, fotm build.
    Although, retreat, reasses and return at a later date also makes for a great story.

    As an RPG player, I'm thinking more about the character perspectives than I am about system mechanics.
    I'm attempting to live in a world, rather than play a game.
    But, again, I recognize that there are some mechanics we can take advantage of, like tethering. But, I'm kind of more focused on our performance (character acting/rp and combat) than the mob.
    The stories I tell would be more about how we defeated the challenge rather than on the mechanics of the mob.
    Especially since I'm unlikely to repeat that fight very often. Once I'm done with that story, I'm ready for a new chapter, rather than repeating an already completed chapter.

    In PvP, I'm mostly focused on defending objectives or sneaking in to pilfer/capture or sabotage an objective.
    I barely think about the combat at all.
  • edited June 2022
    I dislike scripted enemies and find them meaningless, they are simple boring, repetitive, predictable and almost never a true challenge unless overstat-ed in my mind, so i'm way more fond of RNG enemies, even if RNG monsters can feel more like players that can also be quite unpredictable and interesting, they don't teach anything about pvp aspect unless you literally make copypaste monsters of players classes with some different playstyles.

    Q: If you do, what game caused it?

    A: I kinda do expect atleast some non-scripted RNG Monsters/Elites/Raid Bosses in Ashes, because Lineage 2 had some non-scripted RNG Monsters/Elites/World Bosses.

    Q: Were most of the elite/top tier encounters like that?

    A: Not most, just some, mainly some Elites and World bosses but also very few monsters, even tho they had some scripted patterns they had unpreditable AI's with things like, Random target acquisition ignoring threat points(this would also make them attack random people that didn't even attacked them but were near enough even your enemies in pvp), They would do random sequences of skills, and also random repetitions of a single skill, they would do some weird random movimentation and change of place some times and random spawn of minions some times.

    There was a group of 8 monsters in Hellbound' that kinda simulated a party vs party pvp encounter in terms of their skillset and their tank healer bard dps composition, their AI was pure RNG.

    Q: Is there anything about it that you explicitly like?

    A: As you may already expect, the RNG keeping you on your toes due to the challenge of the unpredictability.
    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    I dislike scripted enemies and find them meaningless, they are simple boring, repetitive, predictable and almost never a true challenge unless overstat-ed in my mind, so i'm way more fond of RNG enemies, even if RNG monsters can feel more like players that can also be quite unpredictable and interesting, they don't teach anything about pvp aspect unless you literally make copypaste monsters of players classes with some different playstyles.
    I actually agree with you.

    Perhaps the biggest difference between EQ/EQ2 raids and WoW raids is that WoW raids are HEAVILY scripted, while EQ2 (specifically) offer a lot more RNG. This does mean that for some pulls, an encounter is literally impossible - but thems the breaks.

    That isn't to say that there weren't heavily scripted encounters in EQ2 as well, as there absolutely were - they were just rare, and were never really the top end encounters. This is a good thing though, as variety is key.

    In terms of randomization within an encounter, one of the easiest things EQ2 did was setting the start point of a mobs abilities to be a random time after the mob is engaged. This would do things like put a short range stun, a memory switch or temporary memory wipe, a massive single target attack, and spawning a group of adds that all can only target healers (and can only be damaged by healers) all within 3 seconds, and be followed up a maybe six seconds later with a very long range physical damage AoE with a fear component, and an ailment that can only be cleansed by those healers that are busy with those adds that only they can kill, all while your tank is still stunned.

    Encounters like this were often just a pure scramble. It wouldn't be uncommon to be in a situation where half the raid is dead, but the encounter is at or below 50%, and is currently stable (with nothing big expected soon), and so it is still worth getting everyone rezz'd and attempting to save the pull. Whereas in WoW, quite often if two or three players die (or even one player in some situations), the raid will just call a wipe and do it again - because they knew things would be exactly the same the next time.

    It also wasn't uncommon to have things like a mark on a player that causes 6 players within 10 meters of them to die instantly (easy, whoever gets the mark runs away from everyone else until it's gone), but just as the mark is about to go off, have a raid wide lasso pulling everyone in to the exact same spot - literally killing a quarter of the raid in an instant.

    EQ2 raiding wasn't about scripts, repetition or that kind of thing (generally - though there was some of that) - the kind of thing most people seem to associate with top end PvE content. It was about assessing what you have in front of you, and making it work. It was about adaptation, improvisation, changing the plan on the fly.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I dislike scripted enemies and find them meaningless, they are simple boring, repetitive, predictable and almost never a true challenge unless overstat-ed in my mind, so i'm way more fond of RNG enemies, even if RNG monsters can feel more like players that can also be quite unpredictable and interesting, they don't teach anything about pvp aspect unless you literally make copypaste monsters of players classes with some different playstyles.
    Would that 'copypaste monsters of player classes' aspect be a negative to you? For example, if it was used at all times, would it, in turn, be a problem?

    For clarity on why I ask, this is the design type I'm most familiar with. Every NPC enemy in Elite uses one of the same ships that players use, just with a different semirandom build (usually more specialized to make them more challenging).

    A relatively large subset of enemies in Neverwinter Online function in a way similar to this, and you can see it in their movement. Others are started from the base of it and modified, but you can still notice.

    Every Mob in FFXI, but particularly the stronger ones (in terms of how obvious it is), also has the same 'Jobs' and usually the associated Traits, as players. I have played games that don't use this approach, but in general those games have had less of a focus on their PvE, so it's a matter of 'they don't stand out relative to when this method is used'.
    There was a group of 8 monsters in Hellbound' that kinda simulated a party vs party pvp encounter in terms of their skillset and their tank healer bard dps composition, their AI was pure RNG.

    Would this be as interesting if the AI was not pure RNG in this case, just reactive or dynamic?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Azherae wrote: »
    Would that 'copypaste monsters of player classes' aspect be a negative to you?

    Not at all.
    Azherae wrote: »
    For example, if it was used at all times, would it, in turn, be a problem?

    It being used all times would become boring and repetitive quite quickly.
    Azherae wrote: »
    Would this be as interesting if the AI was not pure RNG in this case, just reactive or dynamic?

    What exactly do you mean by reactive and dynamic?
    I will assume you mean the ai reacting to the players actions, "if player do X the Monster will do Y".
    For me that is still a script than can be learned by the player.
    Is it a Better script than a straight up static one? Yes, it is more complex.
    Does it substitue RNG? No, Not at all.


    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • edited June 2022
    Noaani wrote: »
    Perhaps the biggest difference between EQ/EQ2 raids and WoW raids is that WoW raids are HEAVILY scripted, while EQ2 (specifically) offer a lot more RNG. This does mean that for some pulls, an encounter is literally impossible - but thems the breaks.

    That isn't to say that there weren't heavily scripted encounters in EQ2 as well, as there absolutely were - they were just rare, and were never really the top end encounters. This is a good thing though, as variety is key.

    In terms of randomization within an encounter, one of the easiest things EQ2 did was setting the start point of a mobs abilities to be a random time after the mob is engaged. This would do things like put a short range stun, a memory switch or temporary memory wipe, a massive single target attack, and spawning a group of adds that all can only target healers (and can only be damaged by healers) all within 3 seconds, and be followed up a maybe six seconds later with a very long range physical damage AoE with a fear component, and an ailment that can only be cleansed by those healers that are busy with those adds that only they can kill, all while your tank is still stunned.

    Encounters like this were often just a pure scramble. It wouldn't be uncommon to be in a situation where half the raid is dead, but the encounter is at or below 50%, and is currently stable (with nothing big expected soon), and so it is still worth getting everyone rezz'd and attempting to save the pull. Whereas in WoW, quite often if two or three players die (or even one player in some situations), the raid will just call a wipe and do it again - because they knew things would be exactly the same the next time.

    It also wasn't uncommon to have things like a mark on a player that causes 6 players within 10 meters of them to die instantly (easy, whoever gets the mark runs away from everyone else until it's gone), but just as the mark is about to go off, have a raid wide lasso pulling everyone in to the exact same spot - literally killing a quarter of the raid in an instant.

    EQ2 raiding wasn't about scripts, repetition or that kind of thing (generally - though there was some of that) - the kind of thing most people seem to associate with top end PvE content. It was about assessing what you have in front of you, and making it work. It was about adaptation, improvisation, changing the plan on the fly.

    Very interesting break down of an EQ2 RNG PvE encounter, while reading it kinda reminded me of some Lineage 2 World bosses encounters just a bit more scripted, the Top End World Bosses were extremely chaotic because of their insane RNG and vast arsenal of Huge AoE CCs and One Shoting skils.

    In a previous thread i saw you talking about how easy Red Dragon in Archeage was to kill without pvp even with very few people and very fast, Archeage's Red Dragon is basically Lineage 2's Valakas atleast only in terms of appearence. xD

    Because in terms of difficulty and complexity they are worlds apart, having played both games and having fought both of them i can easily say Valakas far outclasses Red Dragon in every single way as atop end PvE encounter and comparing them is probably the best way i can explain a L2 World boss to you.

    Comparatively Valakas Damage was WAY higher than Red Dragon's Damage considering people in top gear could tank red dragon with ease but even tanks in top gear could still get one shot by Valakas, Valakas was way tankier than Red Dragon considering people with top tier weapons(valakas usually needed atleast 90-180 well geared, organized and skilled people to kill it, Valakas AoEs were WAY bigger than red dragon's AoEs, his arena caused a terrible burn from time to time, as previously stated Valakas had a huge arsenal of massive CC AoEs, Valakas Minions were hella strong and would aoe blast people from very far(valakas fear would send you in their way if you didn't postition properl), Valakas Regeneration was crazy (constantly had to be damaged at all times and required the maintainance of debuffs to keep it in check), Valakas would constantly ignore Tankers provokes and was extremely hard to predict his chaotic RNG actions.
    Valakas fight complexity goes even further than that, but it would require lineage 2 knowledge of certain in-game system to properly explain it and make this comment way too long.
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    Aren't we all sinners?
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited June 2022
    valakas usually needed atleast 90-180 well geared, organized and skilled people to kill it
    This is still my biggest issue with all open world games to date.

    Imagine Valaka, exactly as it is, with the same stats, and with players having the same combat system to work with - but no PvP potential at all.

    Now imagine that they are limited to 40 players.

    All of a sudden, everyone has to literally be at the absolute peak. You can't just throw more people at the problem to solve it (your range literally doubled the number of people present).

    I mean, the encounter may well have been enjoyable, and may be a good encounter. The problem *I* have with it is in that just adding more people is a viable way to solve the encounter.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Noaani wrote: »
    Imagine Valaka, exactly as it is, with the same stats, and with players having the same combat system to work with - but no PvP potential at all.

    Now imagine that they are limited to 40 players.

    All of a sudden, everyone has to literally be at the absolute peak. You can't just throw more people at the problem to solve it (your range literally doubled the number of people present).
    You usually wouldn't have pvp during the fight itself iirc. The door to the boss would close so the pvp would be before the farm. As I said multiple times before, epic bosses (not all) in L2 had semi-instances. The fight itself would usually be just against the boss. The pvp would be before the boss and sometimes after. Or, if you failed your farm attempt, there'd be pvp while waiting for the door to reset and open up again.

    Valakas' hp pool was just so damn huge that you needed that many people to overpower him. And this is why I've always said that L2's pve isn't as complex/difficult as other games', because while, yes, you needed to properly control over 100 people and they all would have to be at peak character progress, mechanically it was nowhere near the stuff like ff14/wow raid/party bosses.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    PvE breaks down to a few things for me:
    - the main story (if there is one)
    - Exploration
    - Crafting / farming

    PvE combat serving the MSQ is going to be scripted and have discrete boss mechanics. Not to say that’s bad, it’s just how the genre has approached tiered group content. Those mechanics can be pretty cool the first few times, and awfully repetitive by the tenth hour. The raids I enjoyed most in WoW were Kara and Ulduar (I raided through BFA). Most of that comes down to the people I raised with, the amount of time it took, and our approach to the fights. The mechanics were neat / novel at the time so I enjoyed it.

    I don’t enjoy any of the group content in FFXIV - it just feels tedious with way too much ground indicator clutter.

    I did like FFXIV gathering, and the interrelation of the crafting recipes. I thought the crafting could be more interesting, similar to Vanguard.

    Exploration felt most enjoyable in MO2. The world was pretty, but also felt very dangerous - you could lose all your gear to wolves as easily as another player. So your awareness was always up. Exploration was tied directly into gathering and crafting. I have notebooks still filled with bow experimentations with the perfect blend of bone and hard woods. It was a rich crafting system I’m hoping Intrepid could pull elements from for Ashes.

    GW2 exploration was ok. The completionism trivialized any sense of novelty there, since it wasn’t exploring at that point.
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  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    CROW3 wrote: »
    PvE breaks down to a few things for me:
    - the main story (if there is one)
    - Exploration
    - Crafting / farming

    PvE combat serving the MSQ is going to be scripted and have discrete boss mechanics. Not to say that’s bad, it’s just how the genre has approached tiered group content. Those mechanics can be pretty cool the first few times, and awfully repetitive by the tenth hour. The raids I enjoyed most in WoW were Kara and Ulduar (I raided through BFA). Most of that comes down to the people I raised with, the amount of time it took, and our approach to the fights. The mechanics were neat / novel at the time so I enjoyed it.

    I don’t enjoy any of the group content in FFXIV - it just feels tedious with way too much ground indicator clutter.

    I did like FFXIV gathering, and the interrelation of the crafting recipes. I thought the crafting could be more interesting, similar to Vanguard.

    Exploration felt most enjoyable in MO2. The world was pretty, but also felt very dangerous - you could lose all your gear to wolves as easily as another player. So your awareness was always up. Exploration was tied directly into gathering and crafting. I have notebooks still filled with bow experimentations with the perfect blend of bone and hard woods. It was a rich crafting system I’m hoping Intrepid could pull elements from for Ashes.

    GW2 exploration was ok. The completionism trivialized any sense of novelty there, since it wasn’t exploring at that point.

    Have you been able to avoid grinding in games then?

    I notice you didn't really mention much of it. Was it that the games you played, the standard open-world enemy is insignificant? I know that there are games where you can level almost entirely by just questing and doing main story battles, I have been taught in the past that the reason for this, is that the Devs don't add significant challenge to most open world enemies in any way, so people avoid the grind as much as they can.

    As part of your exploration, do you engage in combat if you find a new interesting enemy or an Elite in a far off area, by yourself, or do you inform another group you know/your guild and then either wait for them to join them for any encounter, or leave it to them?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited June 2022
    Haha!
    Sorry... I know I'm not always great for your data collection, but...
    That is a fascinating question...

    I'm an explorer first so, typically, as soon as I level, I explore as far as possible to uncover the map...stealthing until skull-conned mobs see through my stealth.
    I will leave hostile mobs be until I acquire a quest that requires me to combat them.
    Basically, if you don't hurt me (or others), I'm going to try not to hurt you
    If I run across an Elite mob that spawns infrequently and I have friends who are farming that specific mob, I will alert them that the mob has spawned.

    But, I expect my communication about mobs will be very different in Ashes.
    In previous MMORPGs, there's not much reason to discuss the mobs you encounter because the world is static and we can Google what lives where.
    Verra is a dynamic world, so I will probably, as part of my exploration endeavors, be returning to previously visited areas and reporting which mobs have left and which have newly appeared.

    Due to the Events system, it's probably very important to mention bandit/poacher/pirate camps or the minions of a World boss... and to attempt to rid the region of those dangers - earlier, rather than later.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    Grinding is just grinding. There’s some tactical enjoyment to it from time to time (e.g. any Ubisoft enemy base taking game), but on the whole your base quests / enemy mobs are really about the enjoyment of combat. I’m playing through AC: Odyssey for the first time right now, and their combat system is super enjoyable action. However, all the grinding and base quest stuff needs to serve the greater MSQ (imo).

    When exploring, combat above and beyond the local fauna really depends on how far I am from a restart location, what I might lose, and whether it helps me achieve the goal for that exploration round.

    For instance, if I’m trying to summit a snowy peak and I know the lands get significantly more dangerous after dark, I’m going to be taking time of day and distance to a relatively defensible piece of land if I see a distraction worth going after.

    That said, there are certainly times where it’s like ‘I bet there’s something cool there!’ And just attack the elite.

    Open world devs tend to pride themselves in hiding little troves in deep caverns, underwater caves, or secret mountain valleys throughout the world then tagging them with analytics to see how many folks could actually find their work.

    I love those devs. 😉
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  • Noaani wrote: »
    valakas usually needed atleast 90-180 well geared, organized and skilled people to kill it
    This is still my biggest issue with all open world games to date.

    Imagine Valaka, exactly as it is, with the same stats, and with players having the same combat system to work with - but no PvP potential at all.

    Now imagine that they are limited to 40 players.

    All of a sudden, everyone has to literally be at the absolute peak. You can't just throw more people at the problem to solve it (your range literally doubled the number of people present).

    I mean, the encounter may well have been enjoyable, and may be a good encounter. The problem *I* have with it is in that just adding more people is a viable way to solve the encounter.

    You know why the range i provided was so big?
    Because people evolved in both gear, game knowledge, organization, skill and strategy against Valakas as time went by and he started getting less strong stat-wise in relation to players around Hellbound version with the release of a World boss even more difficult than he was.

    Having more people wouldn't necessarily trivialize the fight, the maximum number of people allowed inside Valakas Lair wasn't 40 but 200 people at a time, Even 200 would get wiped by Valakas due to his chaotic RNG nature a lot of times especially early on before people evolved in all aspects.

    People learned that it was better to pvp during his random respawn window in front of his semi-instanced entrance, to have the highest number of your people to enter his lair as soon as it allows entrance, sometimes it would open mid fight and people would take the conflic to inside Valakas Lair, and people of both side wwould end up with smaller numbers than the maximun 200 and had 30 min to finish their fight and reorganize to have a shot at valakas with their numbers that managed to get inside of it.




    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    @CROW3 @Dygz

    Data is thrown into the cruncher! Thank you. I have additional questions along the same line but it requires a short description which I will put in the Spoiler below. The question itself is about 'Novelty' vs 'Dynamism' and which part of the experience drives your exploration/movement.
    In Elite Dangerous there is a game mechanic called the Unidentified Signal Source. While you are flying around in Faster Than Light mode, you can scan 'signal indicators of other ships that have 'returned to normal space' within the last 40m or so' (this is an interpretation of a game mechanic, the Sources spawn randomly weighted by statuses in the Star System).

    If you see one that says, for example, "Weapons Threat 5", it implies that there was some combat or that a heavily armed ship/group is present. If you see "Encoded Emissions" it implies that a ship was destroyed or had a technical fault (usually both) and there is some information to gather from the debris. This too, depends on the status of the star System and RNG, but the Status has the stronger effect.

    If you were to see such a prompt, knowing that it is being controlled by a Micro-Lore system similar to what Ashes is proposing, would you end up having an interest in it to the point of investigation of it, even if you have seen this status before? Do you find that you need visuals to prevent you from making assumptions? I.e. if given the same 'prompt' are you the type that 'engages 10 times in case you just didn't hit the 1d10 on the interesting thing', or do you tend to 'assume lack of dynamism' after about 3-4x of the same result until someone tells you.

    And for Dygz specifically, if you did 'interact with the prompt' and find that the thing turned out to be a threat, will you 'allow an aggressive hostile enemy to attack you if it will buy time for someone who will deal with that threat to arrive', or is this of no interest to you, resulting in immediate disengage (escape tools).

    tl;dr does Dynamism pull you back to old haunts or does the wish for Novelty push you out to new vistas, on AVERAGE, which wins out? (or if you can give a ratio, please do).
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited June 2022
    CROW3 wrote: »
    Grinding is just grinding. There’s some tactical enjoyment to it from time to time (e.g. any Ubisoft enemy base taking game), but on the whole your base quests / enemy mobs are really about the enjoyment of combat.

    And separately, is it generally that in your experience, open world mobs (that reward reasonable exp) do not pose a significant risk of death to a group in the games you play?

    Obviously this is an odd question because you can always choose to 'go as far as your group can safely go', but there does come a point where the game does not 'allow' for this, based on respawn timers.

    i.e. if the area is populated enough for you to get aggro/links and the enemies respawn every 3 minutes, you are probably expected to kill a single enemy in 90 seconds if your group is taking on one at a time. Anything more than this and you may be overrun.

    So assuming that enemies respawn every 4m, and your group therefore chooses 'the enemy they can defeat in 2:15' (these numbers are related to Ashes cooldowns in my mind, in a long explanation which I'll skip) based solely on prior experiences, would you expect that enemy to pose a meaningful threat of at least one party member falling if one player loses connection or is suddenly called afk?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • My understanding is that Ashes is not a PvP game but a PvX game. There are significant tools being implemented to prevent random open world PvP encounters for people who aren't interested in PvP, which by itself pretty much makes it not a Open world PvP game by default.

    That being said, I don't care which direction the game go's. The quality of the development I'm seeing has convinced me that whatever it ends up as is going to be entertaining.

    My take and experience on instanced vs not instanced is pretty straight forward. All the most challenging encounters I can remember came from instanced battles. It is much easier to limit the number of people to something that can be easily scaled for difficulty. Fewer numbers mean every individual is more valuable in a fight. I don't want to be part of a 200 person pve battle where no one really knows what or how well anyone else is doing. I like the challenge of competing with other people to be as effective as possible.

    Open world PvE battle always devolve into hordes of people forming the largest possible group and roaming around the map facerolling everything. As soon as a bunch of people have top gear it becomes laughable and you have half the people there just farting around and getting carried by the others in a permanent cycle. ESO, when I played it, was a great example of that.
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