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What is your MMO PvE experience like?

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  • mcstackersonmcstackerson Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Azherae wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    Though, I don't think 10% is accurate, that's a bit too high, don't you think? Were you playing on a particularly nice server in general?
    If 10-20 seems high to you, then I'd throw that up to me playing on older updates of the game, so at least a good chunk of players were on the older side so they were a bit more reasonable than your average edgy/jackass kid.

    Anyways, since I'm in a predictive mood today and have NishUK's data 'front loaded'...

    To both @NishUK and @mcstackerson

    Yes there is confirmation bias, but when speaking of personal experience of toxicity, confirmation bias is part of the experience outright.

    Consider (NishUK brought this up as a counterpoint to George for no clear reason other than contrarianism) that there is no benefit whatsoever for the people involved in this conversation to 'claim more toxicity than exists'. George has asked for no change based on it. NiKr has offered no 'fix this so I don't have to deal with it', and I am likely to have equally toxic responses after a while (I like to think I'm more eloquent about it).

    So basically going 'no, I think your experiences aren't the norm, mine are', serves no purpose here. This is a roundabout way of asking to not derail this thread with it. If it's required for NiKr, George and I to just ignore this, I will request that NiKr do so, and expect George will just tell you the equivalent of 'fuck off' anyway.

    If going 'yes I'm sure you're right in everything you said and my experience is an outlier' is the way to end this tangent, you can have that too.

    @NiKr, you have my request.

    I pointed out an issue i had with there statement, said sounded like bias, and questioned if they really opened communication with everyone they fought. They said they did and i didn't say anything else. Never said what my experiences were or that they supercede theirs.

    I agree that perceptions are important, often times more important than reality(as it is their reality) but i don't think that means we should never challenge them. Helping people fight past their natural bias so they can see something that is closer to reality is how we help change those perceptions after all.

    As a person looking for data, i'd assume knowing both what they perceived and what really happened would be valuable.

    It absolutely would be, but your method of attempting to clarify it would not serve that purpose.

    To briefly examine why:

    "This sounds like bias, are you sure?"

    There are a few people in the world for whom this is a useful 'check on their perceptions', who will do that self examination ONLY when prompted by someone else. These people are not EDIT: often prolific posters on forums.

    You have no basis for it other than your own experience as a contrast, right? There is no objective data suggested or presented that would justify even your perception that it is bias.

    Your basis for challenging someone else's natural bias in this case is either 'your own bias' or 'your perception that other people who say these things don't account for their bias before saying them'.

    This is why your approach is not useful for data collection. So if you are trying to help me with data collection by challenging others' biases, please bring statistics to the table to show them that they may be an outlier. In that case, it would still be a derail.

    Nevertheless I thank you for the sentiment.

    I disagree as i don't think that simple question would correctly jog their memory. I wanted to mention the other 80% so they could think about all the other people they have fought and if they really did talk to them.

    I agree there are many people would not want to admit to making an error but that doesn't mean they didn't realize it and will be more conscious of it in the future. If they really did make a mistake then them understanding that is my goal. Having them admit it means nothing to me.

    Yes, i asked the question because of my own observations and understanding of bias. If you are saying i'm not allowed to perceive bias, can you explain why?
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Azherae wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    Though, I don't think 10% is accurate, that's a bit too high, don't you think? Were you playing on a particularly nice server in general?
    If 10-20 seems high to you, then I'd throw that up to me playing on older updates of the game, so at least a good chunk of players were on the older side so they were a bit more reasonable than your average edgy/jackass kid.

    Anyways, since I'm in a predictive mood today and have NishUK's data 'front loaded'...

    To both @NishUK and @mcstackerson

    Yes there is confirmation bias, but when speaking of personal experience of toxicity, confirmation bias is part of the experience outright.

    Consider (NishUK brought this up as a counterpoint to George for no clear reason other than contrarianism) that there is no benefit whatsoever for the people involved in this conversation to 'claim more toxicity than exists'. George has asked for no change based on it. NiKr has offered no 'fix this so I don't have to deal with it', and I am likely to have equally toxic responses after a while (I like to think I'm more eloquent about it).

    So basically going 'no, I think your experiences aren't the norm, mine are', serves no purpose here. This is a roundabout way of asking to not derail this thread with it. If it's required for NiKr, George and I to just ignore this, I will request that NiKr do so, and expect George will just tell you the equivalent of 'fuck off' anyway.

    If going 'yes I'm sure you're right in everything you said and my experience is an outlier' is the way to end this tangent, you can have that too.

    @NiKr, you have my request.

    I pointed out an issue i had with there statement, said sounded like bias, and questioned if they really opened communication with everyone they fought. They said they did and i didn't say anything else. Never said what my experiences were or that they supercede theirs.

    I agree that perceptions are important, often times more important than reality(as it is their reality) but i don't think that means we should never challenge them. Helping people fight past their natural bias so they can see something that is closer to reality is how we help change those perceptions after all.

    As a person looking for data, i'd assume knowing both what they perceived and what really happened would be valuable.

    It absolutely would be, but your method of attempting to clarify it would not serve that purpose.

    To briefly examine why:

    "This sounds like bias, are you sure?"

    There are a few people in the world for whom this is a useful 'check on their perceptions', who will do that self examination ONLY when prompted by someone else. These people are not EDIT: often prolific posters on forums.

    You have no basis for it other than your own experience as a contrast, right? There is no objective data suggested or presented that would justify even your perception that it is bias.

    Your basis for challenging someone else's natural bias in this case is either 'your own bias' or 'your perception that other people who say these things don't account for their bias before saying them'.

    This is why your approach is not useful for data collection. So if you are trying to help me with data collection by challenging others' biases, please bring statistics to the table to show them that they may be an outlier. In that case, it would still be a derail.

    Nevertheless I thank you for the sentiment.

    I disagree as i don't think that simple question would correctly jog their memory. I wanted to mention the other 80% so they could think about all the other people they have fought and if they really did talk to them.

    I agree there are many people would not want to admit to making an error but that doesn't mean they didn't realize it and will be more conscious of it in the future. If they really did make a mistake then them understanding that is my goal. Having them admit it means nothing to me.

    Yes, i asked the question because of my own observations and understanding of bias. If you are saying i'm not allowed to perceive bias, can you explain why?

    I understand your disagreement.

    I am not saying that you are not allowed to perceive bias. My previous post was targeted more at a subset of actions based on that perception that are helpful or not helpful to data collection.

    Please let me know what aspect of that post I need to clarify, or ignore this response as if I chose not to respond to you.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NishUKNishUK Member
    edited June 2022
    Dont quote my "toxicity" word (whoever started this) out of a whole post that clearly you did not understand, exlude my writting on instanced gaming in todays mmos, create a narrative in which I contradict myself all because you brought mobas to a discussion about mmos.

    "IF rIOt hAs tAUghT uS aNythIng..." rly kid? You get taught by riot?
    Shouldnt you be taught reading comprehension before you even start playing games made by some studios.

    Turn down the irony a notch, I can't take much more.

    ....shit sorry that's a bit too mature of a reply.

    Stop being toxic please, thanks.
  • NishUKNishUK Member
    edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    Consider (NishUK brought this up as a counterpoint to George for no clear reason other than contrarianism) that there is no benefit whatsoever for the people involved in this conversation to 'claim more toxicity than exists'. George has asked for no change based on it. NiKr has offered no 'fix this so I don't have to deal with it', and I am likely to have equally toxic responses after a while (I like to think I'm more eloquent about it).

    So basically going 'no, I think your experiences aren't the norm, mine are', serves no purpose here. This is a roundabout way of asking to not derail this thread with it. If it's required for NiKr, George and I to just ignore this, I will request that NiKr do so, and expect George will just tell you the equivalent of 'fuck off' anyway.

    George's intentions appeared to be a simple checklist with almost no relation to the thread which is asking for a personal experience of PvE. I always challenge the broad and varied "toxic" term as it ultimately leads to less honesty and more restrictions which I don't believe is healthy discourse regardless of naturally allowing a bit too much banter in places that get a bit too far out of the game element.
    I've always been open to people being themselves since I started playing online games since the early 2000's and I'm only biased towards people who demand more restrictions with very little solution context, the trend with these people when prodded a little seems to "I play games to relax" and nothing much more.

    Anyway, to the topic for some construction I guess (+ to maybe cleanse myself of the bad boy/"toxic" status)...

    - - - - - - -

    Legend of Mir II PvE >>> Diablo-esk, fun via killing a lot of trash mobs and getting rng loot + additional properties. An extremely relaxed trinity system with no taunt skill, Bosses were quite easy, juggling agro between everyone was quite fun, created the "wall strat" to block mobs from Ranged damage dealers. Imo this relatively easy PvE led to more focus on PvP and area control, good in my book.

    Lineage 2 >>> Frustratingly simple (managing hp/mana was a chore and that made it sometimes high difficulty to be optimal), gear dependant, it's borderline ok grouped when you're working together and bringing mobs to a choke point to get swept up, again like LoM, focus on area control for PvP.
    Bosses required many multiple players and you all do your jobs simply, it was....very easy, L2 just focused so much on the journey through PvP contention which it nailed pretty decently and is still fondely remembered for it so.

    Ultima Online >>> Low HP and stamina management put you in fear mode constantly, Magery and Necromancy from mobs always made things pretty interesting. Player skills had some interesting utility and defensive options.
    Probably my most fun PvE game due to magery from players and mobs....actually being magery and not just a nuke fest + animal taming was great.
    Bosses were from doing champion spawns, which required you to kill multiple pretty strong trash mobs and that really tested your limits with skills and gear options. To die on the game was brutal so to succeed felt epic but I don't think it's a great fit for your average player.

    Archeage >>> The general PvE is lacking a lot, they have dashes and cc's like players but mobs and themes look so uninspired + no good looking skills to think of. They getting kited and cc'd super easy, their first script impressions make you think it's something difficult and then it turns into a joke, it's not pretty...
    Archeage did have raid instances, usually 1 party sized though, they were alright and were VERY savage if you didn't know what you were doing, I enjoyed it somewhat (not my thing).
    Bosses are just a spam fest, barely any thinking required, only decent ones are at sea and you will struggle....from driving the ship, repairing ship and PvP, nothing to do with the actual PvE encounter.

    BDO >>> I loved it and I'm really dissapointed it got a bad rep but it was deserved.
    The first 3 months from launch were fantastic, no awakened classes, so there was no "omega AoE" skills from classes wiping mob group after mob group. I played a Warrior and defensively and offensively it hit the right balance. The most noteable thing about BDO tho was that there was zero class unity or trinity system, it was an all in and use your own capabilities to weave in/out, perform miracles and such....it was... refreshing, obviously the gameplay and graphics carried it super hard though, beautiful "dmc" game xD
    Bosses are all in, no strat, just perform by yourself to a top tier standard....quite interestingly though the warrior's shield bash, a hugely non meta ability, could taunt world bosses and I was proud of finding that out, really made things interesting sometimes ^^


    So that's my PvE experience...to the "sofisticated PvE'r" I guess only UO and maybe the trinity system of L2 counts a litte and then the low tier instance raiding of Archeage, anyway xD
    and no I can not comprehend the thrill of a WoW/EQ2/FF14 raid but I would like to get some solid perspective and some highlights on why they are fun for those involved.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Thank you for data.

    It seems that you have indeed been limited in this, and based on just the games you have listed, the PvE is an accessory to the PvP at best, and you value the freedom of not needing static tactics or roles so that everyone is playing at full capacity in the same overall way.

    I think that having some reference point for this that is closer to the other side would basically be a requirement in order to 'convince' in any way, because it sounds like you haven't even played any games where the developers put real effort into the AI or even potential.

    BDO in particular is super bad at this because even their new explicitly solo 'Rift Boss' enemies, they have a rating system for what they consider 'challenging' vs not, and the only 'good' boss that actually responds to your movement and positions, in the whole set, and actually uses its own movement properly, they felt necessary to re-class as 'very hard'.

    If your PvE experience has been this... let's say 'lacking', it makes sense that you don't consider PvE as a possible main draw for content, so let's not even consider 'Bosses' per se.

    What would it take for you to think of PvE as 'not a damage sponge script'? It sounds like you may just not like the style of GAME that leads to PvE being good, which may unfortunately have some implications about whether you will actually enjoy Ashes as it is currently being designed (going only by what we experienced in Alpha-1)

    We can try starting from the base of BDO since we both have some understanding there. What would it take for BDO to not feel like that? Since you played very early, I believe the only bosses I can be 'sure' that you experienced in any sort of 'group' are Dastard Bheg and Red Nose? Lmk if we can go 'up' to Nouver.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • VaknarVaknar Moderator, Member, Staff
    Woah! This thread is filled with such thought-provoking opinions that are all across the board! What an interesting read. Keep up the conversations, everyone!

    I can't wait to hear what more PvE experiences you all have to share c:
    community_management.gif
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    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?

    If it’s novel, definitely. If it’s the 43rd time, it would depend on what I’m focusing on at that time. Could be a fruitful distraction, could just be a distraction. I’d also want to scout the location before engaging. If I saw the message it’s likely other players saw it too.
    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.

    I’d rely on my experience to guide me. If the majority of those events prove to be fruitful, then I’d investigate. If most of those events tend to be repetitive (say like 90% of FF14’s events) then I’d leave it be.

    [/quote]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).[/quote]

    I don’t see these as mutually exclusive. So to err on the bright side, I’ll say it’s a well-rounded ‘yes.’
    Azherae wrote: »
    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?

    I think it would be clear from the first few groups whether the kill :: respawn ratio is doable for that group. Neverwinter has very quick respawn timers, but the mobs aren’t that challenging. BDO, FF14, and WoW fall into that bucket as well.

    In WoW the above concern in open world was when there used to be non-instances areas filled with elites. I can’t think of a pve game that a group was defeated regularly in open world content.

    That said, I would really like to see this. 😉

    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Azherae wrote: »
    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.
    With Ashes, I'm hoping it will be fairly common to only go as far as you can safely go, for the moment. Rather than the miasma of obligation to clear the entire dungeon in one game session lingering over every dungeon crawl.
    Hopefully, we can still aquire decent enough rewards even without killing the boss.

    I'd like to see entire teams of Mages and entire teams of Rogues.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Mage/X and X/Mage. Or...
    An 8-person group with a mix of Cleric/X and X/Cleric.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Rogue/X and X/Rogue.

    That latter group might all be able to Stealth back out, and sneak past those respawns. We might also be able to acquire Stealth from the Thieves" Guild, even if we don't have a Rogue Archetype equipped.

  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Dygz wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    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.
    With Ashes, I'm hoping it will be fairly common to only go as far as you can safely go, for the moment. Rather than the miasma of obligation to clear the entire dungeon in one game session lingering over every dungeon crawl.
    Hopefully, we can still aquire decent enough rewards even without killing the boss.
    In my experience of games with open world dungeons, this will very much be the case.

    You may go in to a dungeon with a specific goal in mind, but that goal doesnt always need to be killing the end boss - and indeed if the dungeon is designed well, different people may have different opinions of what the end boss even is.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    In the early days, we had a raid of rogues surround the horde base in STV. Hours of fun.
    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited June 2022
    CROW3 wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    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?

    If it’s novel, definitely. If it’s the 43rd time, it would depend on what I’m focusing on at that time. Could be a fruitful distraction, could just be a distraction. I’d also want to scout the location before engaging. If I saw the message it’s likely other players saw it too.
    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.

    I’d rely on my experience to guide me. If the majority of those events prove to be fruitful, then I’d investigate. If most of those events tend to be repetitive (say like 90% of FF14’s events) then I’d leave it be.
    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).

    I don’t see these as mutually exclusive. So to err on the bright side, I’ll say it’s a well-rounded ‘yes.’
    Azherae wrote: »
    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?

    I think it would be clear from the first few groups whether the kill :: respawn ratio is doable for that group. Neverwinter has very quick respawn timers, but the mobs aren’t that challenging. BDO, FF14, and WoW fall into that bucket as well.

    In WoW the above concern in open world was when there used to be non-instances areas filled with elites. I can’t think of a pve game that a group was defeated regularly in open world content.

    That said, I would really like to see this. 😉

    The definition of 'regularly' matters a lot, as players will obviously shy away from any situation in which they have the potential for this, so we can only discuss it from the perspective of if the designers intended for it to be possible.

    That said I had the (mis?)fortune of dying with my group in FFXI like... yesterday.

    And it was within our expectation. So, some information for you.

    There is a mage enemy called a Poroggo, basically a magic casting frog.

    We fought one, then moved to another with the same intention. Here's what we have to look out for:

    1. Large AoE attack spells, our Dark Knight is supposed to Stun these.
    2. Large CC AoE status spells, same deal.
    3. AoE damage and Silence 'TP ability'
    4. Single target 'Charm and transform into Frog' TP ability.
    5. Self-target 'increase enemy's own magic damage' ability (Tank is supposed to dispel this).

    Short version, Single target charm was used on the Tank, who is also the one who dispels effects, just as the Tank used an ability that results in magic being evaded. Now neither I nor the Dark Knight can put the Tank to sleep until the charm wears off. No big deal, in frog form she doesn't do much damage, but now we have no tank, and it falls to the Dark Knight.

    So it's a split second decision of 'should we let the Dark Knight continue to take hits from both the transformed Tank and the enemy', which may interrupt spellcasting, or 'should we waste some of our potential DPS to transfer the enemy to someone else' (since the Dark Knight has to hold back their power to let the enemy target someone else).

    We made the wrong call. In order to do this well, the Dark Knight must empower themselves with some abilities and magic, and at the moment she started to cast a longer one, the enemy went for large AoE fire spell. And I was in the middle of healing. So no defensive spell to reduce fire damage, and currently no 'HP Shield' on myself since if it starts to attack me I want it to do damage so it gets OFF me as soon as possible so that it doesn't Charm ME.

    So down I go.

    The worst part is, that if I'd survived the spell, it would only have had to use the Silence ability right after and everyone would still be low. Not unsurvivable, but the adaptation would need to happen instantly, and I'd have to Ult probably (CC Cleanse and full heal), if that was on cooldown, we'd be likely to die (the Dark Knight might survive with her Ult if the enemy didn't adapt).

    Players don't fight these enemies for XP, they have other more predictable and defensive options, and death is common ENOUGH that 'prioritizing avoiding death and EXP loss' when grinding for XP is more important for many people than being challenged (but if you can avoid dying, you could conceivably kill the less defensive enemies faster).

    This is also why I am wondering if Ashes will retain the current XP system which is the one I am used to. If I kill a level 11 Crab at level 6 I get 400+ exp instead of the 100 I get for a level 6 crab. Non-static exp values are a thing I generally 'assume games will have' but I realize that I have no basis for that either, I just happen to play only games where that's the case (other than BDO which I just play for contrast).

    I believe and obviously hope that Ashes is planning to kill us with some Poroggo or whatever, and so far that's the experience I had in Alpha-1. If I go for something 6+ levels over, even in group, if it's not defensive, and someone goes afk, someone can fall. If someone makes the wrong decision or misses a cue to do something, someone can fall. At best your exp is meaningfully slowed while you recover from whatever.

    This... doesn't seem to be the base experience (get it?) of others?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Noaani wrote: »
    In my experience of games with open world dungeons, this will very much be the case.

    You may go in to a dungeon with a specific goal in mind, but that goal doesnt always need to be killing the end boss - and indeed if the dungeon is designed well, different people may have different opinions of what the end boss even is.
    Yyyyep, I've spent waaaaay more time in random rooms of L2's dungeons, than I ever did around the boss. Now there's the fact that L2 had hardcore grinding as the main means of spending time in game, so I dunno if Ashes will have the same design, but I at least hope that it'll be as Dygz said, we can go into a dungeon w/o the plan being just "let's go kill the boss".
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    NiKr wrote: »
    Noaani wrote: »
    In my experience of games with open world dungeons, this will very much be the case.

    You may go in to a dungeon with a specific goal in mind, but that goal doesnt always need to be killing the end boss - and indeed if the dungeon is designed well, different people may have different opinions of what the end boss even is.
    Yyyyep, I've spent waaaaay more time in random rooms of L2's dungeons, than I ever did around the boss. Now there's the fact that L2 had hardcore grinding as the main means of spending time in game, so I dunno if Ashes will have the same design, but I at least hope that it'll be as Dygz said, we can go into a dungeon w/o the plan being just "let's go kill the boss".

    Hopefully not to derail too much but I have a related question based on something I thought about for PvX.

    In the situation I am used to, I would not expect PvP in dungeons or at 'farming spots' for standard mobs very often except in the case of serious overcrowding. Here's the reason.

    If my group kills enemy A with a good pull, it allows us to safely move to enemy B without worrying about A behind us, we might even fight B in the spot where A was. We defeat B as well and quickly run away from A's respawn because it will respawn SOON but not as quickly as we can engage enemy C.

    While we are fighting C, A will respawn. This puts a barrier between us and a secondary group AND offers them a target to kill. If we keep moving, then B and C will also create the same 'barrier/target'.

    This would reduce points of friction considerably. My question therefore is... does this actually happen in L2 as well? You've implied that the mobs can at least take long to kill even if they aren't dangerous. Which I would expect to trigger the same thing, and people would clash only when they are 'in a room that they consider safe' and 'someone else tries to use the same room'.

    I wouldn't expect that a roaming group who intends to delve far INTO a dungeon has a good reason to off the group in front of them other than 'wanting to get to the boss first', but my only equivalent experiences in BDO are 'figuring out a rotation that doesn't overlap with anyone in the same area'. The concept is the same overall but the feeling of doing it is definitely not.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Dygz wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    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.
    With Ashes, I'm hoping it will be fairly common to only go as far as you can safely go, for the moment. Rather than the miasma of obligation to clear the entire dungeon in one game session lingering over every dungeon crawl.
    Hopefully, we can still aquire decent enough rewards even without killing the boss.

    I'd like to see entire teams of Mages and entire teams of Rogues.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Mage/X and X/Mage. Or...
    An 8-person group with a mix of Cleric/X and X/Cleric.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Rogue/X and X/Rogue.

    That latter group might all be able to Stealth back out, and sneak past those respawns. We might also be able to acquire Stealth from the Thieves" Guild, even if we don't have a Rogue Archetype equipped.

    This interpretation is an unexpected but also totally valid one relative to what I was saying, so I'll ask about this too.

    Is that also not the norm? Are the enemies in a dungeon usually tuned to be 'if you can defeat these you are definitely also ready to take on the boss'? My experience is the opposite. People there 'to farm exp or sometimes items' absolutely do not want to go NEAR the boss or the Elites in the same area because they aren't strong enough for that.

    I'm used to a form of cooperation where people will literally go:

    "[TO Server Chat or to Friend with known strong guild]: Yo, $BOSS is up, there are three parties here, we'll keep the random enemies off you if you protect us from having to worry about it."

    I believe I've experienced in NeverWinter just the 'the Dungeon is a single adventure' but that's not really open world in the same way so I don't count that. Should I be counting it? And regardless of all that, would you PREFER that if you can clear the dungeon mobs you can probably take on the Boss?
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Azherae wrote: »
    Dygz wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    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.
    With Ashes, I'm hoping it will be fairly common to only go as far as you can safely go, for the moment. Rather than the miasma of obligation to clear the entire dungeon in one game session lingering over every dungeon crawl.
    Hopefully, we can still aquire decent enough rewards even without killing the boss.

    I'd like to see entire teams of Mages and entire teams of Rogues.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Mage/X and X/Mage. Or...
    An 8-person group with a mix of Cleric/X and X/Cleric.
    An 8-person group with a mix of Rogue/X and X/Rogue.

    That latter group might all be able to Stealth back out, and sneak past those respawns. We might also be able to acquire Stealth from the Thieves" Guild, even if we don't have a Rogue Archetype equipped.

    This interpretation is an unexpected but also totally valid one relative to what I was saying, so I'll ask about this too.

    Is that also not the norm? Are the enemies in a dungeon usually tuned to be 'if you can defeat these you are definitely also ready to take on the boss'? My experience is the opposite. People there 'to farm exp or sometimes items' absolutely do not want to go NEAR the boss or the Elites in the same area because they aren't strong enough for that.

    I'm used to a form of cooperation where people will literally go:

    "[TO Server Chat or to Friend with known strong guild]: Yo, $BOSS is up, there are three parties here, we'll keep the random enemies off you if you protect us from having to worry about it."

    I believe I've experienced in NeverWinter just the 'the Dungeon is a single adventure' but that's not really open world in the same way so I don't count that. Should I be counting it? And regardless of all that, would you PREFER that if you can clear the dungeon mobs you can probably take on the Boss?

    Again, my experience.

    With instanced dungeons, people usually only attempt them if they feel they can take on the boss.

    There is often little to no point in running an instanced dungeon without taking on the boss, as the loot is significantly worse, and the experience from instances is significantly lower than from open dungeons.
  • edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    This would reduce points of friction considerably. My question therefore is... does this actually happen in L2 as well? You've implied that the mobs can at least take long to kill even if they aren't dangerous. Which I would expect to trigger the same thing, and people would clash only when they are 'in a room that they consider safe' and 'someone else tries to use the same room'.

    I wouldn't expect that a roaming group who intends to delve far INTO a dungeon has a good reason to off the group in front of them other than 'wanting to get to the boss first', but my only equivalent experiences in BDO are 'figuring out a rotation that doesn't overlap with anyone in the same area'. The concept is the same overall but the feeling of doing it is definitely not.

    In Lineage 2 the situation you gave as example were the groups Monster Kill Time is slow and the respawn is fast enough for neither groups having to wait for respawns, friction would be quite unlikely unless both groups had some hatred for each other or were from enemy clans, this type of situation would most likely generate comradery for both groups to keep their room against a possible stronger group with a faster MTK wanting to take over the whole room.

    The main sources of conflict for dungeon rooms other than the dungeons being overcrowded is most likely going to be:
    Rooms with better monster density for better expgold per hour
    Rooms with specific monsters that might have very lucrative loot tables
    Rooms that literally have Clan enemies
    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • FerrymanFerryman Member
    edited June 2022
    My experience related to the open world dungeons comes mainly from Albion Online. At start the main reason why people run owDungeons were better XP and silver ratio when compared to other content in the game. Later it has been also about loot which can be dropped sometimes from mobs but mainly from chests which are protected by bosses. The chest are not always the same and can vary between common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary, depending of the dungeon in question as well.

    Albion has dungeons designed for solo, small groups and larger groups. Some dungeons and camps around them can offer content for all kind of players but it is getting progressively harder deeper you go. I personally like this design approach because it does not exclude players out but can still offer something for everyone.

    Open world dungeons can offer good and bad experiences also depending what you are looking for. In open world dungeons the experience is also about interaction with other players and groups. The fact that dungeons are more or less cleared just needs to be approved, however, if this happens too frequently it starts to frustrate players as well. Typically this is the case with nearest dungeons or the ones which offer best XP, currency and loot. If there is enough variations available it will ofc help with this issue.

    Open world will also add PvP possibility or at least threath of the PvP action. Because of the corruption system we could presume that most of the times groups just by passes each other but sometimes PvP encounters will happen for sure. The worst experiences can be when groups are just stomped by another one because larger numbers or surprise attacks in the middle of the boss fight, for example. Of course the experience can be different if you are on that ganking side. Anyhow, those fights which turn out to be more even are interesting because the outcome can go either way. The dungeon level design has also role here and if there are several hallways and choke points that will add more strategy to the encounter situations.
    Do you need a ride to the Underworld?
  • i do not know
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    This would reduce points of friction considerably. My question therefore is... does this actually happen in L2 as well? You've implied that the mobs can at least take long to kill even if they aren't dangerous. Which I would expect to trigger the same thing, and people would clash only when they are 'in a room that they consider safe' and 'someone else tries to use the same room'.
    Pretty much what James said. The friction would come from limited amount of rooms with the mobs that you need and/or some rooms being controlled by the warring guild's members. jpk642f9usgo.jpgvytl2mxnxxu7.jpg

    Here's 2 examples of maps. One is a huge dungeon with an Epic Boss at the end (Steven has mentioned it on streams before) and the other is an event-based Catacomb w/o a boss (iirc). Depending on how good your gear is, your whole party could be taking one small room and refreshing your buffs/mana in-between respawns, or you could do this type of shit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZfCHHtTKBE

    And if you were that kind of overboosted, it'd usually mean that your guild has some enemies and your ass might get got at any moment (though I dunno the situation with the person in this particular video).
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    And here's a vid with some low lvl pvp at the start and high lvl pvp in and around a dungeon. It's pretty much all against guild war enemies, but that's who your pvp would usually be against, so it's a good example of how farming would go. If you're on the side of enemies in the video - you're just farming and then see your enemies running towards you to stop your farm (I'd say this was more frequent than them just wanting to farm the same spot). Mobs would get involved because aoes would fly around so they'd have to be sleeped/rooted. This video is not from the same day so it shows some periods of time where dvp's group is fighting against stronger people. And later on in the vid they're fighting against weaker people, attack first and still manage to lose pretty much their whole party with dvp pretty much being the lone survivor mainly because his char is overboosted to all hell so it's difficult to kill him w/o full assists, which in turn would allow his party to kill everyone.

    But I'd say this is a good example of tight gear scaling with an OE system. People have t4-5 in the video and manage to kill each other pretty much equally. While some OE on a strong character (a ton of dvp's strength came from Epic Jewelry that gave a ton of great stats, so that's a huge factor too) allows you to have the upper hand. Also, this video obviously shows the successful attacks, so it's not like his OE gear literally always won.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2dEBjc2XAE
  • I like those maps' layouts and how you have two options for the route. You can also move circle and there seams to be a lot of choke points as well.
    Do you need a ride to the Underworld?
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    This would reduce points of friction considerably. My question therefore is... does this actually happen in L2 as well? You've implied that the mobs can at least take long to kill even if they aren't dangerous. Which I would expect to trigger the same thing, and people would clash only when they are 'in a room that they consider safe' and 'someone else tries to use the same room'.
    Pretty much what James said. The friction would come from limited amount of rooms with the mobs that you need and/or some rooms being controlled by the warring guild's members. jpk642f9usgo.jpgvytl2mxnxxu7.jpg

    Here's 2 examples of maps. One is a huge dungeon with an Epic Boss at the end (Steven has mentioned it on streams before) and the other is an event-based Catacomb w/o a boss (iirc). Depending on how good your gear is, your whole party could be taking one small room and refreshing your buffs/mana in-between respawns, or you could do this type of shit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZfCHHtTKBE

    And if you were that kind of overboosted, it'd usually mean that your guild has some enemies and your ass might get got at any moment (though I dunno the situation with the person in this particular video).

    Is this a matter of being overleveled or just overgeared?

    In the system I'm familiar with, that Ashes seems to use currently, IF this was 'overleveled', then the exp would drop to around 15xp per kill, THEN spread across the whole party. Whereas going to a strong zone and fighting one (or 3+ I guess if we're considering Lineage style) and barely surviving would grant anywhere from 300-400 xp per kill.

    The information I can find indicates that Lineage works the same, so I would assume overgeared, but I will await your clarification.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    Is this a matter of being overleveled or just overgeared?

    The information I can find indicates that Lineage works the same, so I would assume overgeared, but I will await your clarification.
    I thiiink their gear is shimmering, which is at least +6 iirc (haven't played on classic/super new servers, so not as well-versed on this feature). And their halberd is +10, so it's definitely the case of overgeared to all hell. Mobs are the same lvl as the farmer cause their names in the target window are white. Safe enchant lvl being +3. Though I'd assume they used some safe enchant scrolls that don't burn your item on failure.

    On top of that, the mobs are only x5 hp, so they're not as fat as some of the higher lvled ones can be (x8 is the biggest multiplier iirc) and this person's class is designed for aoe CCing, so most of the mobs are stunned, which greatly decreases their dmg output. And the farmer's buffs are all top lvl, so it's also a case of overbuffed too, which is a huuuge factor in L2.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    Is this a matter of being overleveled or just overgeared?

    The information I can find indicates that Lineage works the same, so I would assume overgeared, but I will await your clarification.
    I thiiink their gear is shimmering, which is at least +6 iirc (haven't played on classic/super new servers, so not as well-versed on this feature). And their halberd is +10, so it's definitely the case of overgeared to all hell. Mobs are the same lvl as the farmer cause their names in the target window are white. Safe enchant lvl being +3. Though I'd assume they used some safe enchant scrolls that don't burn your item on failure.

    On top of that, the mobs are only x5 hp, so they're not as fat as some of the higher lvled ones can be (x8 is the biggest multiplier iirc) and this person's class is designed for aoe CCing, so most of the mobs are stunned, which greatly decreases their dmg output. And the farmer's buffs are all top lvl, so it's also a case of overbuffed too, which is a huuuge factor in L2.

    It's noted, and I'm thankful, I really wouldn't have thought it was possible to do that level of increase in power from OE due to the further trivialization of PvE that would result from it. For my personal tastes, I'll hope that's not how it works in Ashes, but good to know overall.

    Would there be any incentive to taking on stronger enemies with the overgeared form instead, in terms of farm speed? BDO is the only game I have kept playing where the economy is based on 'Trash Loot' or 'standard Gold per hour' as the actual purpose of the farming time, and as you know, the most efficient farm in that game is 'kill whatever you can basically one-two shot as fast as possible because killing harder stuff is slower but rewards around the same $$'.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    Would there be any incentive to taking on stronger enemies with the overgeared form instead, in terms of farm speed? BDO is the only game I have kept playing where the economy is based on 'Trash Loot' or 'standard Gold per hour' as the actual purpose of the farming time, and as you know, the most efficient farm in that game is 'kill whatever you can basically one-two shot as fast as possible because killing harder stuff is slower but rewards around the same $$'.
    Yeah, usually you'd go to more difficult farming places if you had that kind of boost. Though that depends on the ease of farming and level of pvp danger. Higher lvled locations might've been taken by their guildmates or warring guilds. Or they just didn't feel like using the other characters/players too much (I'd assume those support characters are not all driven by different people, if any at all), so this kind of farm was more beneficial.

    Plus there's the option of preferred loot. They might've been going for some specific thing they wanted to drop and this was the best place to do it at that level.

    And as for high OE impacting things this much. This is the exact reason why I pushed so hard for OE being very rare and expensive and, ideally, with a chance of failure. But L2's official servers are the greatest examples of horrid p2w shop features, so that whole discussion, that we've had multiple times by now, doesn't really apply here. But overall, yes, I do hope OE won't influence things as much, even though this kind of boost was fairly rare on the older version of the game where you didn't have all the "+20% to chance of success" scrolls and "safe enchant scroll that doesn't destroy your weapon" was suuuper expensive so only the chosen few on the server would go this far, which is why I believe that proper acquisition balancing would work just fine.
  • edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    NiKr wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    This would reduce points of friction considerably. My question therefore is... does this actually happen in L2 as well? You've implied that the mobs can at least take long to kill even if they aren't dangerous. Which I would expect to trigger the same thing, and people would clash only when they are 'in a room that they consider safe' and 'someone else tries to use the same room'.
    Pretty much what James said. The friction would come from limited amount of rooms with the mobs that you need and/or some rooms being controlled by the warring guild's members. jpk642f9usgo.jpgvytl2mxnxxu7.jpg

    Here's 2 examples of maps. One is a huge dungeon with an Epic Boss at the end (Steven has mentioned it on streams before) and the other is an event-based Catacomb w/o a boss (iirc). Depending on how good your gear is, your whole party could be taking one small room and refreshing your buffs/mana in-between respawns, or you could do this type of shit
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZfCHHtTKBE

    And if you were that kind of overboosted, it'd usually mean that your guild has some enemies and your ass might get got at any moment (though I dunno the situation with the person in this particular video).

    Is this a matter of being overleveled or just overgeared?

    In the system I'm familiar with, that Ashes seems to use currently, IF this was 'overleveled', then the exp would drop to around 15xp per kill, THEN spread across the whole party. Whereas going to a strong zone and fighting one (or 3+ I guess if we're considering Lineage style) and barely surviving would grant anywhere from 300-400 xp per kill.

    The information I can find indicates that Lineage works the same, so I would assume overgeared, but I will await your clarification.

    In this video its definitely not a matter of overlevel due to the color of the monsters name which are mostly white and some yellow(they are most likely 1-5 level above the player) but a matter of both overgear(mainly the weapon) and overbuff(atleast 3 other classes are providing the best buffs avaliable for the grind, one of the buffers is atleast lv 76 due to the one of the buffs in the character's buff bar)(None of the buffers including the lvl 76 buffer aren't on his party, otherwise it would destroy the exp as he is lvl 64 and L2 has penalty for big level disparities of party members)

    There is also some other factors that makes this grind possible, the monsters he is fighting use close range stuns but his Armor Set provides stun resistance, the monsters he is fighting have a tendency to not spam long range attacks/skills, but to fight at close-range, he is positioning himself between a small 90° angle geodata slot to allow his spear swings to hit the most monsters possible and keeping them stunned frequently due to those monsters not being resistent to stuns.

    This is for sure a modern optimal farm strategy for his setup.

    For a clarification on overlevel, yes, overlevel advantage over monsters would dramatically nerf exp, and also drop rate, exp level diff table changed a bit along the game updates but i can give this one as an example:
    ry6w0wd1b5xh.png




    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Thank you both. If this is what I can expect from Ashes and not have to worry about it changing (I asked in Q&A for this month, hopefully it's cemented enough for an answer) I'll probably be happy from at least that perspective personally.

    Have you been able to enjoy games where this isn't the case? I would expect that any owPvP game where high level players rapidly mow down low level enemies for decent benefit is asking for big trouble...
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Azherae wrote: »
    Have you been able to enjoy games where this isn't the case? I would expect that any owPvP game where high level players rapidly mow down low level enemies for decent benefit is asking for big trouble...
    Even the super small slice of classic WoW that I tried (up to lvl 30), I highly disliked the fact that at lvl 28-30, mobs in the very first location still dropped shit for me. With my super bias towards L2, this feature was just baffling to me, cause why da hell would you let high lvl players benefit from low lvl locations/mobs.

    And this is definitely the biggest reason why I hope that artisanal professions can be balanced in such a way that low lvl players can stay low lvl and still be super useful because their artisanry works in those places where high lvl artisanry doesn't.

    My biggest example for that is the Spoiler class from L2. It was pretty much a specified class for gathering cause it let you get more resources from a dead mob. And there'd be a few low lvl locations that provided you with a ton of great resources at a low time/power investment. In L2 those places were usually filled by alts of high lvl dudes, but that's exactly because the system wasn't balanced too well around not having a constant inflow of newbies. Intrepid could account for that in their design.

    But the point is, low lvl players could earn some good money by farming those lucrative locations w/o really fearing that some high lvl dude would just come there and kill them w/o a problem. Now obviously, the fact that most of them were alts, usually it went like this: I'm farming a location and see another Spoiler running to it; I fight with him and win out just barely, because our power lvl is similar; he says "oh, f u, I'm gonna bring my main and kill you; he brings his main and it's a dude from a warring guild; I bring my own main and we fight. Usually it would go 2 ways from there: one side either completely overpowered the other with their main, or we'd fight for a pretty long while sometimes even asking our guildmates to help :D

    One of the problems I could see with this kind of setup is more pvp for the casuals who decided to stay at low lvls. Either from alt chars or just from guild-supported newbies in better gear. Though at that point I'd personally just look for a guild to get the same kind of support, but obviously that's cause I'm fine with fighting in that kind of situation, while someone like Dygz might be out of his "pvp allotted time" for that day and might just give some corruption to the attacker until they leave. But that would require at least a few kills, because the attacker themselves is at the same lvl and will be getting lower amounts of corruption than if it was a high lvl dude.

    But either way, all of that will be tested during the alpha2, so we'll see.
  • edited June 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    Thank you both. If this is what I can expect from Ashes and not have to worry about it changing (I asked in Q&A for this month, hopefully it's cemented enough for an answer) I'll probably be happy from at least that perspective personally.

    No problem, i bring L2 designs and examples not only because it is the game i'm most knowledgeable of, but because its expected to be one of the main sources of inspiration for Ashes therefore they are probably relevant when dicussing many topics.
    Azherae wrote: »
    Have you been able to enjoy games where this isn't the case? I would expect that any owPvP game where high level players rapidly mow down low level enemies for decent benefit is asking for big trouble...

    Not at all, never had and probably wouldn't, this looks like terrible game design.
    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • DolyemDolyem Member
    If we are talking about PvE experiences as far as server experiences? They were usually short lived because I got tired of fight NPC's and didn't want to rely only on instanced PvP as my only way to fight against other players. It also annoyed me when I couldn't smack someone around who was farming the same area as me.

    What PvE do I enjoy? Exploration, crafting, building, collecting(sometimes), and maybe a few raids? Raiding was always a bit of a hassle for me because of the amount of time it takes but I did enjoy hanging out with friends and figuring out big bosses, and it was the best loot so I needed that for PvP; not crazy about doing them for loot but I have to respect the grind and it balances things out.
    GJjUGHx.gif
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