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Instanced vs Open World dungeons

ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Was reading an interesting discussion on discord regarding instanced vs. open world dungeons/bosses. By the time I got around to throwing my 2 cents in, the discussion had moved on to something else, so I'm posting it here on the forums.

People were discussing the split of 20 percent instanced and 80 percent open world. Opinions on Pro's and Con's etc. (apologies if this has been discussed ad nauseam in other threads. My quick search wasn't super exhaustive.)

That said, when it comes to dungeons, the most important thing for me is boss/mob difficulty. I want interesting and complex mechanics. Mechanics that take weeks or even months to learn and overcome (even with yt walkthroughs). I want plenty of bosses so difficult they would be near impossible with even a hint of open world competition. I want bosses that require lots of focus and many wipes with subsequent strategy adjustment/discussion/coordination between those wipes. After all, it's those moments...when your group finally overcomes a difficult boss (and the pursuant sense of accomplishment and elation)...that have made some of the best gaming memories for me. It makes me wonder if a raid group can get that level of focus, get the required time and wipes on any given raid night, to satisfy that level of PvE difficulty on open world dungeons? That might be difficult to achieve. That might mean the devs choose to tone down boss mechanics.

I don't want the main difficulty for any given boss to be whether or not it's being contested by another group...and then the actual boss fight is mediocre at best from a mechanics standpoint. That or having to worry that your carefully planned and organized designated raid night goes to shit, because some other guild has gotten there first or is pestering you from the perimeter. At least not 80% of them.

Don't get me wrong, open world contests are fun in their own right for sure. I'm huge on PvP. If open world dungeons can be done without sacrificing PvE difficulty then great. If not, I just wonder if 80% open world dungeons is a bit too high. Maybe 50/50 is a better split?
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Comments

  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    In Ashes... your carefully planned raid night might go to shit for a variety of reasons.
    Sometimes that will be due to contesting the boss with a rival raid group.
    Just because 80% of the dungeons/raids are open world, that does not mean the boss will actually be contested 80% of the time you fight a raid boss.
  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    Dygz wrote: »
    In Ashes... your carefully planned raid night might go to shit for a variety of reasons.
    Sometimes that will be due to contesting the boss with a rival raid group.
    Just because 80% of the dungeons/raids are open world, that does not mean the boss will actually be contested 80% of the time you fight a raid boss.

    Sure, and I understand that. Contested raids also bring other opportunities for collaboration amongst guilds/groups. (ie: hey, watch our backs while we take the boss out and we'll watch yours tomorrow...) There's plenty of coolness with contested dungeons, and I'm excited about that aspect too. My main point though...is I also like sweaty hardcore PvE content. Where the devs don't have to worry about the "unknown" variable of PvP in their design choices. Where their sole focus is PvE mechanic design. Where the players, due to necessity, need to methodically progress through the dungeon without the threat of pvp.

    Anyway, just thinking out loud here on what balance I would personally prefer. Having not played 80/20, it seems a bit light on instanced raiding. This coming from someone who has to work during the day and partake in various other adulting duties. My limited playtime will often need to be scheduled throughout the week. It's by no means a deal breaker for me either way though...it'll be fun to see how the split ends up playing and I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever they put out.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    As my 2 cents - no, 80/20 (with most instances being story-based) is more than enough and well-balanced. The game will be about player on player interaction, so 80% of dungeons being open world is right in line with that goal.

    Now Steven has said that he wants super difficult bosses in Ashes, but it's yet to be proven how exactly he plans on designing such bosses in the context of open world.
  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    At 1:40:00 they enter a portal to a boss from with in a dungeon. they could easily make some of them bound to a specific raid group if they choose to. Not saying they and not saying they won't. Just saying it is possible.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trk0Tik18j8

    Some good dungeon content in the video as well if your interested.
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Scoots wrote: »
    Sure, and I understand that. Contested raids also bring other opportunities for collaboration amongst guilds/groups. (ie: hey, watch our backs while we take the boss out and we'll watch yours tomorrow...) There's plenty of coolness with contested dungeons, and I'm excited about that aspect too. My main point though...is I also like sweaty hardcore PvE content. Where the devs don't have to worry about the "unknown" variable of PvP in their design choices. Where their sole focus is PvE mechanic design. Where the players, due to necessity, need to methodically progress through the dungeon without the threat of pvp.
    I don't think you understood what I wrote since you still focused on running into other groups.
    Just because 80% of the dungeons are open world that does not mean you will be running into other groups 80% of the time you choose to go on an open world raid.
    Part of your planning can also include choosing times and locations to make running into other groups unlikely.

    I don't think you need to be concerned about how the devs design an instanced raid differently than an open world game.
    Ashes is a PvX game.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    Ashes is a PvX game.
    I think this mantra might work against you sooner rather than later. L2 was PvX too, but I don't remember a single farming session where I wouldn't see/fight a person in the same place. And that was on way smaller servers than what Ashes has planned.

    And allegedly Intrepid doesn't want grind in their game so farming stuff might be tied to particular world events or boss spawns or dungeon openings (due to node progress), which will push anyone who wants to get that farm towards the place of said farm. So there'll probably be way more friction in Ashes than there was in L2.

    And then we have a shitton of "prime-time events" in the game too, which will push people to play during those times even more, which in turn will decrease the amount of free space around any given piece of content.

    I might be wrong in my assumption, but so far all the design choices definitely tell me that there's a pretty high chance of high player friction on most, if not all, days.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    PvX was about the way the devs design the mob behavior; it's not related to the chance of running into another group.

    We'll see how strategic players can be about choosing times and locations to avoid running into other groups in open world raids. Sounds like it's not something you were attempting to do.
    If you're farming the raid boss... then, yeah, you are very likely to run into other farmers.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    edited July 2022
    Dygz wrote: »
    We'll see how strategic players can be about choosing times and locations to avoid running into other groups in open world raids. Sounds like it's not something you were attempting to do.
    Oh, I attempted it a lot, but in L2 even at 3 am in bumfucknowhere there was always some nerd just grinding. But Ashes will be way more concentrated on prime-time gaming so there's higher chances that most people will see each other in the open world.

    And you can give advise to "just pick another time to do what you want" because you're a time-hardcore person, but most people can't just pick their gametime willy-nilly. Especially if they're playing in a group/guild, where the shared gameplay window is even narrower.

    I'll be playing Ashes for a ton of hours every day so I can dodge people as much as I want, but I'm the exception and not the rule in that regard. You are too.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited July 2022
    Too bad. The focus here is more about mmos as a whole, instead of instanced co-op groupfinder stages, passed as raids in games like w0w, ff14, eso, tera, and all the rest.
    A raidbosses gets boring after the first encounter.
    Contest between players never does (as opposed to BGs and pve instanced raids.)
  • LinikerLiniker Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    tbh if anything I'd make it 90/10 - 10% of instanced just for very few specific main quest dungeons and that's it

    this is an open world pvx game and people can either accept that or find another mmo to play, there's amazing mmos out there with great instanced content, such as WoW and FF14
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  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Liniker wrote: »
    tbh if anything I'd make it 90/10 - 10% of instanced just for very few specific main quest dungeons and that's it

    this is an open world pvx game and people can either accept that or find another mmo to play, there's amazing mmos out there with great instanced content, such as WoW and FF14

    I mean...we're all on the same team here. We all want AoC to be awesome. No need for the "take it or leave it..you can go play something else" mentality. If it ends up being 90/10 or 80/20...I still plan to play the game as much as I can. But last time I checked Steven welcomes feedback and input from the community. It's cool for people to share their ideas and thoughts even though we know the team can't make the game perfect for everyone's situation or preference.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Well, people can also accept that Ashes is open world with 20% instanced dungeons/raids.
  • AsgerrAsgerr Member
    Honestly, how different is 80% open world vs 70% open world?

    Yes I know the answer is 10 points percentile, but you get my meaning. So long as the majority of content is open world, which is what we want for this game, does the fine tuning of percentages really matter as much? Are we being over protective of this theoretical 80-20 split?
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  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Asgerr wrote: »
    Honestly, how different is 80% open world vs 70% open world?
    Instanced content in Ashes won't be repeatable and won't reward you with BiS stuff. Let's say there's 100 dungeons overall. If 20 of them are just one-offs with cosmetic/mid gear rewards, that means that 80 will have farmable content with varying levels of gear, that includes BiS stuff. Obviously, not all of those dungeons will be top lvl, so let's say 8 of them are (10%). If they're properly spread out throughout the world, you have 8 distinct places you can farm when you reach top lvl of your character's progress.

    If the split is 7/3 - you'll only have 7 such places. To me that sounds great cause I'm used to having 3-4 places to grind, but considering that Ashes doesn't want to have gear grind, they'll need more variety of content, because all of this open world stuff will be fought over, and the less content there is the harder it'll be for people to farm anything.

    So in order to have enough content for people we need enough open world dungeons. I mean, we need that if we want to keep the game from becoming yet another instanced mmo. Now there a question of how Intrepid will make that open world content interesting and difficult w/o making it instanced, but that's a problem for a later time.
  • WarthWarth Member
    Asgerr wrote:
    Are we being over protective of this theoretical 80-20 split?
    People are, especially considering that Steven has said on multiple occasions, that the 80-20 rule is just a guideline. In some of the Interviews he even said, "80% or more will be open world", "instanced content is primarily used for story purposes", "instanced content isn't meant to be actively farmed".

    People just hear what they want to though.
  • ScootsScoots Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Dygz wrote: »
    Well, people can also accept that Ashes is open world with 20% instanced dungeons/raids.

    People can also carry on polite discourse that fosters and encourages the flow of ideas. This gatekeeping is pretty toxic to the community. Every time someone shuts the conversation down with "accept it or gtfo" keeps people from wanting to post. I'm not mad or anything, it's the internet after all...was just hoping we could keep AoC a step above.

    Anyway, I just wanted to throw a post up to see what peoples thoughts on the matter was. I think it'd be cool to have a little more instanced content, others don't. Noted.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    80% percent open world dungeon does not mean all 80% are farmable.
    Returning to an open world dungeon does not guarantee that the same content will still be there.
    Open world just means it's not a segregated instance.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    Scoots wrote: »
    People can also carry on polite discourse that fosters and encourages the flow of ideas. This gatekeeping is pretty toxic to the community. Every time someone shuts the conversation down with "accept it or gtfo" keeps people from wanting to post. I'm not mad or anything, it's the internet after all...was just hoping we could keep AoC a step above.

    Anyway, I just wanted to throw a post up to see what peoples thoughts on the matter was. I think it'd be cool to have a little more instanced content, others don't. Noted.
    I dunno why you quoted me since I didn't say "accept it or gtfo".
    You said, "Maybe a 50/50 split is better."
    I did not respond with "accept 80/20 or gtfo".
    Pretty sure we had polite discourse after my response.

    Liniker responded: "tbh if anything I'd make it 90/10 - 10% of instanced just for very few specific main quest dungeons and that's it

    this is an open world pvx game and people can either accept that or find another mmo to play, there's amazing mmos out there with great instanced content, such as WoW and FF14."


    You replied: "If it ends up being 90/10 or 80/20...I still plan to play the game as much as I can."

    And... I'm pretty sure that agrees with my comment:
    "Well, people can also accept that Ashes is open world with 20% instanced dungeons/raids."
    1: Where do we disagree?
    2: And what is toxic or impolite about my quote?
    3: The conversation continued with: "Honestly, how different is 80% open world vs 70% open world?"
    4: This thread seems to be quite cordial so far... especially for the internet.


  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    80% percent open world dungeon does not mean all 80% are farmable.
    Returning to an open world dungeon does not guarantee that the same content will still be there.
    Open world just means it's not a segregated instance.
    Well yeah, that's the thing they gotta prove to me, cause right now I don't see how an open world dungeon won't just be a grindable place.

    If only bosses drop anything valuable, then the game might die real quick, cause all the pvers will just leave after learning that they can only farm a few bosses a day IF they're lucky enough to be the first ones to farm said bosses that day. This is assuming that bosses don't have just a 1-2h respawn timer.

    But if mobs give some valuable mats - the dungeon will be grindable, even if mobs have a fairly long respawn. The dungeon itself might just be quest-based with simply a few npcs there that are tied to different quests, though I'd personally consider that a waste of physical space, if a whole damn dungeon just exists to house a few npcs.

    And so far I don't think we've heard any info on how exactly Intrepid's planning on preventing grindability of their open world content. If you have some info that I've missed, I'd be very grateful if you could link it.
  • Otr wrote: »
    Asgerr wrote: »
    Are we being over protective of this theoretical 80-20 split?
    I think it should be 90-10.
    Only 10% for story related instances, where you are safe from PvP.
    Else the initial vision of having a game which encourages player cooperation gets weaker.

    PvE instanced content favors group finding UI to be able to play with anyone (to save time), teleport to dungeon, cross server interaction... features which are common in other MMOs.

    Ashes of Creation promised risk vs reward. I would not compromise on this.

    Intrepid. Please, please, please.... don't listen to this guy. :D

  • NerrorNerror Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Instead of focusing on percentages first, I think it's better to focus on what type of content we want to see in instanced vs. open world. From what I gather from Steven, instanced dungeons won't be repeatable in the normal sense, and they won't be gear or XP grind runs. They'll be story quest dungeons primarily. I am ok with that.

    I love story quests, so in that sense I wouldn't mind seeing a 50/50 split between instanced and open world, because to me that means a ton of story quests.

    I would like to see many open world dungeons across the world. Some of them HUGE in size, with different branches, meaning you have to fight for a long time to get near the end. Some branches behind hidden doors. Preferably with different quick one-way exits spread throughout.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    DaffyDux wrote: »
    Intrepid. Please, please, please.... do listen to this guy.
    There. Fixed it for you :)
    Nerror wrote: »
    I love story quests, so in that sense I wouldn't mind seeing a 50/50 split between instanced and open world, because to me that means a ton of story quests.

    I would like to see many open world dungeons across the world. Some of them HUGE in size, with different branches, meaning you have to fight for a long time to get near the end. Some branches behind hidden doors. Preferably with different quick one-way exits spread throughout.
    These 2 are contradicting statements. You can't have many big owd if you have 50% of all dungeons being instanced. There's only so many dungeons Intrepid can make for the release of the game. You can always add a shitton of instances later on because they don't take up physical space in the game. But in order to add an owd you'll have to account for how nodes are situated and leveled and how deep the dungeons go (especially if they're "HUGE in size").

    Also, you can always reuse an instanced dungeon for more story. Especially considering the tech they've shown in yesterday's stream. They could easily make several versions of the same instanced dungeon that would show the passing of time throughout the story quest, w/o making several completely new dungeons.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    NiKr wrote: »
    Well yeah, that's the thing they gotta prove to me, cause right now I don't see how an open world dungeon won't just be a grindable place.

    And so far I don't think we've heard any info on how exactly Intrepid's planning on preventing grindability of their open world content. If you have some info that I've missed, I'd be very grateful if you could link it.

    Steven 😇: It’s important to note, that just because we are including a triggered event system that will spawn raid events, does not mean that we will not include traditional raiding systems as well. I gave the triggered event raid as an example of how we want to introduce a different element to the traditional system. Additionally it’s important to note that the traditional world bosses that exist for those traditional styles raids, will change based on node development.

    "We want things to be more fluid and one of the ways that we make them more fluid is through our triggered event system. That is one of the methods by which we make these more spontaneous. We make them more accessible to a wider audience. You can be just in the city and not normally be a part of a raid team, but now get to participate in this organic event that's kind of popped up around the city and if you are not participating then buildings are gonna get destroyed and NPCs are going to die... It's not just how fast can we do it, how will we get it done in its schedule, but oh my god this thing popped up if we don't kill it we're not going to access to our stables this week and we can't get our animal husbandry certificates... It's that risk versus reward that gives you a sense of adrenaline."
    ---Steven

    One of the design elements that we're implementing into our raids is that the raid will not be exactly the same every single time. You're going to have variables that can't necessarily be pre-planned out for. You can pre-plan out for a lot of the raid like how many DPS do you need and healers and support; where the key position and all that kind of stuff; but I think the compelling aspect of Ashes raiding will be the difficulty in achieving this content and having that content change from session to session as well. We want there to be variables that get manifested by you know what type of node got developed elsewhere. Is he going to have acolytes or cultists? What will the acolytes have skills [available] to them? What kit is the boss gonna have? What available skill repertoire will the boss be able to [wield]? ... A lot of those systems are influenced obviously by world development. So the raid kind of takes into account at what stage has the world developed: Are there two metropolises now available in the world? Okay well let's activate this skill in this skill. Now you have five metropolises, well now all these skills have been activated. Are there are they all economic nodes? Are they all military nodes? That we can change things based on that stuff. And it really is a threat assessment from the environment against the players.
    ---Steven

    Because Ashes is dynamic, rather than static, grinding and farming dungeons/raids are going to be different than in previous MMORPGs. Some dungeons/raids will pop in and out existence based on Node development and destruction.
    Even when it's possible to return to a dungeon/raid to grind, that is not necessarily the same thing as farming because the same stuff might not be there anymore.

    Even outside of dungeons/raids... different mobs appear and disappear based on the development and destruction of Nodes (and probably with the change of Seasons). So, while you can always grind mobs, you won't always be able to farm those mobs for long... especially for casual time players.

    Dygz wrote: »
    80% percent open world dungeon does not mean all 80% are farmable.
    Returning to an open world dungeon does not guarantee that the same content will still be there.
    Open world just means it's not a segregated instance.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    Even outside of dungeons/raids... different mobs appear and disappear based on the development and destruction of Nodes (and probably with the change of Seasons). So, while you can always grind mobs, you won't always be able to farm those mobs for long... especially for casual time players.
    I mean, none of those things remove the fact that big Nodes will probably stay the same for a while. Steven has said that the cost of siege scroll will be equivalent to the approximate value of the node being sieged. So sieging a metropolis will be insanely expensive. And due to that cost, a metro might stay up for a few weeks after its advancement. And that is if anyone even wants to siege it right away, which is also a huge "will they even" question.

    Even if we assume that each season change brings a huge node event and Intrepid puts seasons on a 1week timer, that's still ~6d of grinding whichever dungeons the node controls. And the events themselves might not change the dungeons either, so there's that too.

    And even if literally all metro-controlled dungeons get their mobs switched with each new season, that doesn't stop the grind for anyone who's trying to be at the top of the food chain. Anything they can farm will be valuable because everything in the game is valuable. "The dungeon changed and no longer drops you bow parts for your ranger party? Well it now drops staff parts which weren't accessible before so literally every mage will want to buy them, SO KEEP GRINDING!"

    So again, unless there's literal lockouts or limiters on how much one player can farm - I really don't see how Intrepid's gonna stop the game from having grinds. And if they do have those features, I'd be interested in seeing whether they want to appeal to time-hardcore players who want to do non-artisan stuff in the game all the time.

    Now I'm not saying Intrepid must do any of those things or that I'll think the game's shit if they don't have a grind. I'm just curious how exactly they'll design it. And to me, an event once a day/week is definitely not enough to dilute my grind so much that I stop seeing it as grind.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    Yeah. I didn't say there would be no open world dungeons/raids that are farmable.
    I said that 80% open world dungeons/raids does not mean all 80% are farmable.
    Also, grinding is not synonymous with farming.
    And, as you pointed out earlier, lots of people do not have the time to run dungeons/raids 6 days per week.
    Raid content changes session per session...according to Steven.

    Of course, we'll have to test it to see how closely implementation matches the design.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't say there would be no Nodes will be farmable.
    I said that 80% open world does not mean all 80% are farmable.
    Yeah, we'll have to see how they design those dungeons :)
    Dygz wrote: »
    Grinding is not synonymous with farming.
    Well, as I've somewhat stated in the grinding thread, to me "anything that can be farmed repeatedly can be grinded". If some of those owd don't have mobs at all, that to me would be a non-grindable dungeon. But I personally doubt they'll have such dungeons.

    They could of course have mobs with 0 loot, just as a way of making an "npc dungeon" more fun, but I somehow doubt this one too. Though I guess this would fit the "risk vs reward" scheme, so the possibility of Ashes having this kind of dungeons is definitely higher than it having empty dungeons.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    Um. Grinding can be lots of other stuff besides farming.
    Just because you can grind something does not mean you can farm it.
    While some people may consider farming to be a grind, others may consider farming to be tons of fun, rather than a grind.
    Grinding is not synonymous with farming.

    An area that was previously a dungeon/raid might be empty.
    If there's mobs you can grind the mobs and get loot. That does not necessarily mean you can farm for the stuff you wanted the last time you were there. But, there might not even be mobs there anymore, even though the area is still there and you can explore it.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    If there's mobs you can grind the mobs and get loot. That does not necessarily mean you can farm for the stuff you wanted the last time you were there. But, there might not even be mobs there anymore.
    But you can grind those mobs for money that you then use to buy what you want. And even if what you want is not sold at that moment, you can instead buy what you need so that you have more money later when you do get what you want.

    And just to clarify, imo grinding is not boring. So whether I'm just killing mobs for money or doing some artisan stuff for myself - the value of the action is the same to me. The grind in this case just indicates some action that I can do for a very long period of time repeatedly. Our definitions for grind are different, so I think this clarification is important.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2022
    Grinding is any (typically tedious) activity you do for little to no xp and crappy rewards.
    Farming is repeatedly defeating the same mob/boss in order to acquire very specific/decent loot.

    Originally, grinding is what you're doing when you're leveling and there are no quests available that will give you a bunch of xp. You have to grind until you hit the next level - where new quests become available.
    Around 10 years ago, when gamers decided that "Endgame is the real game", grind was any leveling stuff you have to do in order to reach max level.

    Farming is killing the same boss over and over again in order to obtain the boss drops.
    Either because you're trying to obtain specific BiS gear and/or you're planning to sell lucrative rare drops.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Dygz wrote: »
    Grinding is any (typically tedious) activity you do for little to no xp and crappy rewards.
    Farming is repeatedly defeating the same mob/boss in order to acquire very specific/decent loot.
    And to me any repetition is tedious, but any loot is decent which makes any farming grind, but still fun and valuable (to me) :)
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