Dungeon Boss Grinding - PvE talk

Bosses should spawn often 30m - 4hrs. Scaling depending on quality of the drops the bosses possess. And how deep in the dungeon they reside, biome, etc.

Main thing that needs to be balanced is drop rates, and recipe requirements.

Appropriate resource requirements for crafting and proper drop tables. Facilitates grinding bosses and the common interaction of other groups through out the day. Then you dont get piles of groups waiting, but more of a rotation throughout the world of the different dungeons for different componets.

There is just no reasonable way people could obtain sufficient components if respawns are on long extended timers.

You want many people having components they can buy/sell instead of them be clustered into large guilds that will horde or gouge prices.

The uber elite components would be low drop rates. Forcing contesting of the boss area but not guaranteeing success. Making even large guilds to have to stay spread out in the world to gather components.

Side note we need more details for their plans for dungeon content and PvE.

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Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If they want more PvE players, where is their content?

I know you hate WoW as an example and I'd assume you don't value FF14 as a great example either, but, from what I understand, both of those games have millions of players of which only a small fraction actually participates in top lvl content (namely the hardest raids in the game). Everyone else just does their own small stuff, be it some mobs farming or questing or artisan stuff or RPing.

I mean, a small fraction of people take on top end raids - but a lot of people take on mid and low tier raid content.

At one point in EQ2, almost 75% of all active accounts had at least attempted a raid bi-weekly or more frequently. While top end raiding can be considered to be somewhat elite, raiding in general in PvE MMO's is mainstream - arguably more mainstream than crafting in MMO's is (in some MMO's this isn't an argument).

I have perhaps not done as good a job as I could have at illustrating that top end raiding is a thing, but so is mid tier raiding, and also low end raiding. All three of these should have content available for the games maximum raid size.

While other sizes are fine, it should be the goal for developers to allow players to form a raiding unit and stick with that unit from entry level raiding up to end game raiding. If a game wishes to provide content for any given number of players (solo, small group, full group, 16 players, 24 players, 40 players) it should strive to offer content across the spectrum for that number of players.

It is essentially unacceptable for a guild to set themselves up for raiding with 16 players because that is the number of people needed for entry level content, only to find that they then need to find 8 more players to progress because content shifted to 24 players, and then needing to find another 16 players because there was a second jump to 40 players.

That is unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.

However, it is perfectly acceptable for a guild to start out raiding with 40 players, and 16 or 24 of those players decide to also run 16 or 24 player content on the side - just as it is acceptable for people that raid 40 player content to also run group content or solo content.

As such, content needs to be built around this. Either support a player count with full content, or don't support that player count.

Or - the other option obviously is that the developer could just add piecemeal content with no coherency to it that players only ever participate in at random, with significantly less organization put in. This is Archeages content, and I have to assume (based on everything I have heard) is also L2's content.

My example of 10-15 weekly bosses accounts for 5-6 full raids that fight for the right at the boss at the same time each day, especially if it's 14 bosses a week.

Yeah, I expect this kind of thing to be in the game, but it is PvP content.

If my guild is significantly better at PvE than your guild, but your guild is significantly better at PvP than my guild, who is going to get every kill?

A lot of people say things like "PvX means both at the same time, they shouldn't be segregated", which is absolute bullshit.

If you and I are going to get in to a fight over something, we are probably going to have said fight in a location where there are no mobs to get in the way. Us doing that is the same level of segregating PvP and PvE as instancing is. Comments like the above are an argument to have PvP by itself but not PvE by itself, and nothing more.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Only time i can agree with him is if you are like a PvE wow style player or such looking at AoC is going to be rough for Pve content. It isn't just the amount of bosses if you are wondering if they will be enough with the sheer amount of people are the server killing them. But also travel time around the word, and finding all the dungeons and bosses. It isn't going to be like those casual games for end game where you just run dungeons and are good (unless the dungeons in aoc take hours)

I can see why anyone would be curious on the PvE side though if that is their main draw to play the game and wanting enough content to keep them happy and challenged.

It is just one of those wait and see things though as you won't know until alpha 2 how the content density will be perhaps.

My arguments in the past with this have always been that players from games like that don't necessarily need to have WoW style content.

What they DO need, in order to even consider this game, is the knowledge that there will be some content they can run, and then also some content they can fight over.

Give players this, and you will be taking masses (well, tens of thousands) of players from games where all content access is guaranteed, and having them enjoying a game where some content access is guaranteed, and the rest requires you to fight for it.

If you just make people fight for all of it, you simply will not attract those players.

It really is that simple.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I mean, a small fraction of people take on top end raids - but a lot of people take on mid and low tier raid content.

I mean, L2 had this. You had raid content at lvl40, lvl50 and 52, lvl61 and several ones at top lvl (these ones grew with max lvl of the game).

I was just giving the example of endgame gameplay loops, because if people are playing the game for a long time, their low lvl encounters will be only a fraction of their overall gametime.

But yes, I agree that there should be raid content at several lvl steps (usually coinciding with gear tiers).

Noaani wrote: »

If my guild is significantly better at PvE than your guild, but your guild is significantly better at PvP than my guild, who is going to get every kill?

Yours. Because as I said, the pvp would only give you the right to attempt the boss first. If you fail, the other group gets to try. And this would be done until someone wins or leaves. Well, that is I'd want it to be that way to keep raiding leaning towards the pve side, while not completely removing pvp from it.

And if my pvp guild can't pve for shit, we ain't ever successfully farming that boss. Which would mean that we'd either team up with a guild who can farm it (might even be yours), and defend that ally against any other guild that might want to do attempts and could potentially be another successful raid team, or we'd just look for another 40 people who'd be better than us at pve and recruit them.

And I'd expect your guild to do the opposite of that. Which would mean that both of our guilds had to look outside of our preestablished groups to achieve a PvX victory. Which, in my eyes, would make both these guilds PvX ones, rather than purely one or the other. And in an ideal world I'd want to have a group of 40 people who can do both, at which point they'd be true PvXers.

Noaani wrote: »

If you and I are going to get in to a fight over something, we are probably going to have said fight in a location where there are no mobs to get in the way.

But my point is exactly opposite. I want the majority of owpvp happening around or for mobs. I don't want gatherers to get ganked (but they obviously will, which is why they need protectors) and imo the only meaningful owpvp is one that happens to determine who has the right to farm high value mobs/boss.

I'd assume that the same locations would also have high value gathering, so in a way it'd be a part of the meaningful owpvp, but it'd happen to prevent someone from gathering rather than purely for looting the gatherer (well, I want it to be that way, obviously it'll probably not be).

And I already gave potential designs of how you could have a strategic pvp fight around hardcore mobs w/o turning it into "defenders always lose because the mob will always only be attacking them".

I want Ashes to meet higher standards of what a pvx game can be. I completely agree that all the pvx game up till now have had trash pve, but that's exactly why Ashes could completely fill that niche of the mmo genre if they succeed at combining the two sides of the spectrum.

Now I don't quite believe that they'll succeed, purely because my own standards are way too damn high, but I'd like them to at least try. And so far Steven seems to want to try, judging by his promises. We just gotta see what exactly he has in mind.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I mean, a small fraction of people take on top end raids - but a lot of people take on mid and low tier raid content.

I mean, L2 had this. You had raid content at lvl40, lvl50 and 52, lvl61 and several ones at top lvl (these ones grew with max lvl of the game).

While this is an important thing (lower level raids), I am talking about difficulty tiers, not level.

Imagine Ashes level cap is 50.

The game should have raids for characters of level 30 and level 40, then at level 50 there should be easy entry level raids, slightly harder mid tier raids, and then top tier raids.

While it is less important for the lower level raids to support all versions of player count (I would support only 16 or 24 player raids for lower levels, to be honest), the raids at the level cap all need to provide content for all supported player counts.

As a general rule, I am only ever talking about level cap content. While other content is important, it is it's own thing and has it's own reason for existing, and those reasons are informed by the games level cap content (your leveling content should lead in to your end game content).

Yours. Because as I said, the pvp would only give you the right to attempt the boss first. If you fail, the other group gets to try. And this would be done until someone wins or leaves. Well, that is I'd want it to be that way to keep raiding leaning towards the pve side, while not completely removing pvp from it.

The only way this would work in practice is if a guild attempts an encounter and fails, they are unable to fight for a second shot at it that spawn cycle.

If a guild is able to come right back and try again, PvP guilds are the only ones that would have a shot.

The issue with this remains one of PvE content for players. If you are fighting other players for a single shot at a mob, that is PvP content.

But my point is exactly opposite. I want the majority of owpvp happening around or for mobs

Yeah, around for sure, but most people (including anyone you are fighting) is likely to want to make sure the fight is happening out of aggro range of mobs.

I'd wager that if you and I are fighting around a raid mob, you would make every effort to not aggro it. Probably even the same if you and I are fighting around group mobs, or densely populated solo mobs.

If you are out of aggro range of mobs, you have segregated PvP and PvE. That PvE might literally be inches off to the side, but due to how computer code works, it may as well be a million miles away.

The only way to do that with PvE content is instances, because players don't exactly respect aggro ranges.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

While it is less important for the lower level raids to support all versions of player count (I would support only 16 or 24 player raids for lower levels, to be honest), the raids at the level cap all need to provide content for all supported player counts.

I guess if Ashes has several different gear sets at top lvl that go from lowest to highest in power, then the low difficulty raids could give those low power sets w/o attracting the super hardcore players to always farm them. But I don't remember if we've gotten any info on how many levels of gear power we'll see at each tier.

Noaani wrote: »

The only way this would work in practice is if a guild attempts an encounter and fails, they are unable to fight for a second shot at it that spawn cycle.

If a guild is able to come right back and try again, PvP guilds are the only ones that would have a shot.

The issue with this remains one of PvE content for players. If you are fighting other players for a single shot at a mob, that is PvP content.

It's an open world boss which will exist in the world until it dies, so, as I see it, you should be able to attempt it until it dies.

And you can remove the pvp part after the first encounter by having a "full wipe" limitation on player respawn within the boss room. So players in the raid can only respawn once the whole raid is dead. And either have a separate respawn locations that they respawn to or just have the default location be some way outside of the dungeon. And as soon as the first raid wipes, the second can enter the room.

This way you'll have the raiding groups just switching places until someone manages to beat the boss. And any potential "we won't let you get close to the room" pvp part can be still shifted to the pvp part of the guild or mercs or allied guilds. And the enemy would have to PK the whole damn raid if they wanted to stop them. There's a "guild war" alternative to that PKing, but they could've declared a war onto your guild either way, so that part would be present no matter what type of boss it is.

Noaani wrote: »

Yeah, around for sure, but most people (including anyone you are fighting) is likely to want to make sure the fight is happening out of aggro range of mobs.

I'd wager that if you and I are fighting around a raid mob, you would make every effort to not aggro it. Probably even the same if you and I are fighting around group mobs, or densely populated solo mobs.

If you are out of aggro range of mobs, you have segregated PvP and PvE. That PvE might literally be inches off to the side, but due to how computer code works, it may as well be a million miles away.

The only way to do that with PvE content is instances, because players don't exactly respect aggro ranges.

This is why I suggested the reagro/dump agro/direct agro mechanics back when we talked about this kind of stuff last time. Again, I want true PvX, so imo there should be player tools that not only allow you to fight around mobs, but even use those mobs to your advantage, while your enemy has potential counters to your actions. So the whole encounter would turn into a much more strategic event that would require a ton of coordination and forethought.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

I guess if Ashes has several different gear sets at top lvl that go from lowest to highest in power, then the low difficulty raids could give those low power sets w/o attracting the super hardcore players to always farm them. But I don't remember if we've gotten any info on how many levels of gear power we'll see at each tier.

My assumption is that the game will launch with (or will have soon after launch) a system where players need to get that lower tier gear, and are able to upgrade it to a higher tier using drops from the next tier of raid content.

In fact, I would expect there to be several upgrade available to it - though I also don't expect that to be the only top end gear.

In fact - as a bit of a tangent - this is how I'd like to see this specific type of gear set work...

You start off creating the gear using raw materials that are fairly common. This gives you tier A gear.

From there, you can use drops obtained from solo boss mobs to transition that gear set to tier B.

Then you can use drops from easier group bosses to transition to tier C, harder group boss mobs to transition to tier D.

Then you get low tier raid drops and can transition to tier E, then mid range raid drops for tier F and top end raid drops for tier G.

However, for each tier, you can upgrade within in using multiple of the drops used to upgrade it. So, you could get you tier C set by transitioning your tier B set using easier group boss drops, and if you are not up to taking on the harder group bosses yet, you can keep farming those same bosses (there should be many that are appropriate) and instead upgrade your gear to tier C.1. Then get even more and upgrade to tier C.2, , then C.3 and C.4. They could even give the numbered upgrades options of effects on the gear, so that players can somewhat customize their gear past just the stats that the crafting system allows for.

If this is available at all tier, it means all players need to run all content in order to get to the top end gear using this system (which should NOT be the only means of gearing yourself), and when you get to the hardest content you are able to take on, you are able to farm it for eventual upgrades.

To me, if this content is somewhat segregated, it would naturally mean players of differing skill levels segregate themselves in to areas where they are mostly contesting content against others of the same skill level (almost like an organic arena ladder system).

It's an open world boss which will exist in the world until it dies, so, as I see it, you should be able to attempt it until it dies.

As content, this should exist, and will exist.

However, it is simply not the content type to provide a remedy to any of the issues I have bought up. That content type is the cause of the issues I am bringing up, and so a remedy to those issues would by necessity require a different content type.

Your suggestion from other threads about world instances could solve one of the issues I have bought up, but it does not solve the issue of players actually having content (not PvP - content. Players are not content.) to run.

It's an open world boss which will exist in the world until it dies, so, as I see it, you should be able to attempt it until it dies.

Yeah, but in a game where these tools exist, a part of being a good PvP'er will be to not get in to PvP in an area where a player could use mobs to kill you.

This is no different to how being a good PvP'er in a game where players can push you off a cliff is to not be in a position where players can push you off a cliff.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

My assumption is that the game will launch with (or will have soon after launch) a system where players need to get that lower tier gear, and are able to upgrade it to a higher tier using drops from the next tier of raid content.

That sounds somewhat similar to Blade&Soul's gearing system. Though iirc your suggestion from this post goes a bit deeper than B&S's did.

Noaani wrote: »

To me, if this content is somewhat segregated, it would naturally mean players of differing skill levels segregate themselves in to areas where they are mostly contesting content against others of the same skill level (almost like an organic arena ladder system).

Yeah, I hope it works out that way in the end, no matter what the gearing system itself is (though they're obviously connected).

Noaani wrote: »

As content, this should exist, and will exist.

However, it is simply not the content type to provide a remedy to any of the issues I have bought up. That content type is the cause of the issues I am bringing up, and so a remedy to those issues would by necessity require a different content type.

Your suggestion from other threads about world instances could solve one of the issues I have bought up, but it does not solve the issue of players actually having content (not PvP - content. Players are not content.) to run.

I feel like I'm either not explaining myself well enough or there's some misunderstanding on either mine or yours side.

I think the problem is with my words usage (which is ironic, considering the discussion we recently had). I shouldn't be using "open world" as much as I do when referencing bosses. I guess "semi-instanced" should work? Maybe world-instanced?

Either way, imo the raid bosses (mainly the 40-man ones) should be in the world instances that I described before.

There's only 1 boss for the whole world to farm
only one entrance to his room
that entrance opens up when the boss respawns and will close after a short period of time if any player enters the room (could be changed to "if a full raid is in the room")
Until the entrance closes, anyone can enter the room.
Once the door closes, you can exit through a teleporter/npc (sends you to a preset respawn point outside of the dungeon)
Before the fight starts there's some mechanic that lets you regen back up to full
If you die, you can either be resurrected or you must lie on the floor until the full raid wipes, at which point you all respawn in the same place where the teleporter sends you

The boss fight itself could be (and imo should be) as hard as you say EQ2's fights were, because in function the fight is happening in an instance, so everything can be controlled by the devs.

So, after that explanation, would you still consider that kind of encounter as not enough pve content (in the context of what I said before, that if you wipe - you just have to wait for the other raid to wipe until you retry)?

And if yes then why?

Noaani wrote: »

Yeah, but in a game where these tools exist, a part of being a good PvP'er will be to not get in to PvP in an area where a player could use mobs to kill you.

This is no different to how being a good PvP'er in a game where players can push you off a cliff is to not be in a position where players can push you off a cliff.

Again, this is where our views are just different. I expect the design of the game to allow me to counter those situations or make them work for my own benefit.

There's mobs around? Fucking use them to your advantage because you have the tools to do so.
Someone's pushing your character off a cliff? There's gotta be either a gliding mechanic or a sliding mechanic or a gripping mechanic or climbing mechanic or anything of the sort to prevent that kind of situation.

Yes, some will obviously try to avoid being in those situations in the first place, but I think that the game should allow you to get out of any situation that is possible within the game (well, to some extent that is). I understand that this might be an unrealistic request, but like I said - my standards for an amazing mmo are high. I can definitely play a good or a normal mmo, but if we're talking what I'd prefer - it's that.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

So, after that explanation, would you still consider that kind of encounter as not enough pve content (in the context of what I said before, that if you wipe - you just have to wait for the other raid to wipe until you retry)?

And if yes then why?

This encounter then becomes one piece of content that one guild can run successfully.

The PvP associated with this encounter does not count towards what a guild moving from WoW or FFXIV would consider when they are deciding if the game has enough content for them to make the jump.

The only thing that matters is how many raid encounters they are able to kill each week.

The assumption should be that each guild should have a dozen or so appropriately difficult encounters per week in order to entice them from a PvE centric game (this is less than those games provide, by a significant margin).

If we assume a server would want 4 guilds killing top end content, 12 further guilds killing mid tier content, and 24 more guilds killing lower tier content (again, all very low numbers - you could potentially add a zero on the end of the last number), that means we want to have 456 encounter kills per server, per week.

Your encounter above makes up one of those kills. It leaves 455 more raid encounters between low end, mid tier and top end to be found somewhere.

It is simply a matter of scale. If we are wanting players from PvE games to come to Ashes, they need that content. Not offering them that content is like trying to get you to play a game labeled as PvX but where you are only allowed to attack one player per week.

You simply wouldn't play that game, it straight up doesn't meet your requirements for what you want in a game.

Put another way, would you play a PvX game if you had to kill 10k mobs in order to have a shot at fighting a player? Would you even consider that a PvX game at that point?

if not, why would we expect that of PvE players?

Someone's pushing your character off a cliff? There's gotta be either a gliding mechanic or a sliding mechanic or a gripping mechanic or climbing mechanic or anything of the sort to prevent that kind of situation.

In most games, if you are in combat you are not able to fly or glide. Pushing people off cliffs was a valid thing to do in Archeage, and so people simply didn't get close to cliffs.

I see no reason at all why this wouldn't be the case if you were playing a game where mobs were able to be used in a similar manner.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Put another way, would you play a PvX game if you had to kill 10k mobs in order to have a shot at fighting a player? Would you even consider that a PvX game at that point?

if not, why would we expect that of PvE players?

I'm the wrong person to ask

L2 had arena fights that had big benefits if you were #1 in your class. Those arenas were influences by your gear and upgrade lvl of abilities. In order to get amazing gear and high upgrade lvl you had to griiiiiind. Thousands upon thousands of mobs.

A few thousands of those were "purely pve" because those mobs lived in fortresses that your guild had to siege and most of the time (well, on the servers that I played) my guild would be the only one sieging the same fortress at any given time(there were several and I'd usually look for those that were never sieged by other guilds). And this was the best way to upgrade your abilities so I'd be doing this for a few weeks usually (1-2 1-hour sieges every 4 hours). No players in sight.

And all the other mobs had some pvp with players, but I'd call that filler, just as you call literally any non-raid content filler. And so after dozens of thousands of mobs I'd be finally able to have a good chance at fighting in the arena, so I'd go pvp there and it would have the highest quality 1v1 pvp in the game.

And to me L2 is still a pvx game. It's just that, be it just you or your circle of people (or potentially all pvers), I don't differentiate content like that. Anything in the game is content for me. Farming easy mobs, farming hard mobs, farming bosses of any difficulties - all of that is just pve for me. And I'm used to the system where even the easy mobs are valuable to some extent, so it's not like I'm wasting time farming them. And if on top of that pve content I also have pvp encounters (also of any difficulty) - that makes it pvx content.

If literally all mob pvers have the same opinion as you - I'm 99% sure they'll dislike Ashes, because I'm almost as strongly sure that Ashes will not have that amount of that type of content. Hell, I doubt it'll have that even in 2-3 years after release, even if it's super successful. Now, I could be wrong of course, but I somehow doubt that.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

If literally all mob pvers have the same opinion as you - I'm 99% sure they'll dislike Ashes, because I'm almost as strongly sure that Ashes will not have that amount of that type of content. Hell, I doubt it'll have that even in 2-3 years after release, even if it's super successful. Now, I could be wrong of course, but I somehow doubt that.

I doubt it will have that content either.

Which means it should not consider itself a PvX game, as PvP is CLEARLY the favourite child. It isnt even a close run thing.

Calling a game like that PvX is only a single step short of calling a capture the flag FPS match PvX - because the flag is part of the environment and thus PvX. I mean, you will encounter both PvP and PvE in capture the flag, and it is unlikely you (or your team) will win without participating in both PvP and PvE - since that is all we have heard about Intrepids concept for PvX with Ashes, we have to say that the above FPS CTF match is PvX by Intrepids standards.

Abarat

Noaani wrote: »

I never said there wont be any PvE content.

I have said that what many people are calling PvE content (base population) is in fact just filler and not content at all.

Read the two sentences above again... slowly. I am sure you will understand my confusion.

Ludullu

Abarat wrote: »

Read the two sentences above again... slowly. I am sure you will understand my confusion.

It's just a difference of standards. Noaani has super high ones when it comes to the quantity of high quality content. Most people either don't care or at least just have much lower standards for the quantity. WoW and FF14 being the biggest examples of that.

This gives me hope that general masses of gamers might like the game still, but the main issue that Noaani seems to have with previous statements by Steven is that Intrepid's trying to attract top lvl pvers while it doesn't seem to provide the type and quantity of the content that would achieve that goal.

We obviously haven't seen much of that kind of content (none tbh), but considering Steven's inspirations for Ashes, the chances of that content matching Noaani's (and people like him) standards are quite low.

Mag7spy

Game is PvX and has content in relation to that (or that is their goal). They just need enough of it where it is spawning regularly around the world and not in a way a guild can train most the places with said mobs and get most the content for themselves between a few guilds.

Eventually you have to realize is it isn't a PvE game, there is going to be friction to be fighting over content that is just how it is going to go. Doesn't mean that will always be the case 24/7. I'm sure the point of them saying high end pve is because that will have that form of fun content, it doesn't mean you are guaranteed to do it without meeting the challenge be it PvE or PvP as it is done in a PvX setting.

Im fine with the argument not enough content and there for they need more bosses spread between the areas so people have more content and have some of the bosses spawning faster as well. You just add a feature where you get 1/4 the loot so you are pushed to fight over other bosses around the map.

Also i don't feel anything as unacceptable far to strong a word, PvE players will say it's unacceptable to not have pve servers with instanced bosses. Yet be playing a completely different designed game being PvX

Abarat

NiKr wrote: »

It's just a difference of standards. Noaani has super high ones when it comes to the quantity of high quality content. Most people either don't care or at least just have much lower standards for the quantity. WoW and FF14 being the biggest examples of that.

This gives me hope that general masses of gamers might like the game still, but the main issue that Noaani seems to have with previous statements by Steven is that Intrepid's trying to attract top lvl pvers while it doesn't seem to provide the type and quantity of the content that would achieve that goal.

We obviously haven't seen much of that kind of content (none tbh), but considering Steven's inspirations for Ashes, the chances of that content matching Noaani's (and people like him) standards are quite low.

That is actually more helpful in my understanding than ANYTHIN Noaani has said.

So, basically he wants to be locked in instanced raiding five nights a week? Is that it, or am i missing it still?

Ludullu

Abarat wrote: »

So, basically he wants to be locked in instanced raiding five nights a week? Is that it, or am i missing it still?

If I'm understanding him correctly - yeah, pretty much. I'm sure he'll do other content too, but instanced pve content would be the main attraction, and it can only be considered content if it's of top quality and in abundance.

Mag7spy

Abarat wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

It's just a difference of standards. Noaani has super high ones when it comes to the quantity of high quality content. Most people either don't care or at least just have much lower standards for the quantity. WoW and FF14 being the biggest examples of that.

This gives me hope that general masses of gamers might like the game still, but the main issue that Noaani seems to have with previous statements by Steven is that Intrepid's trying to attract top lvl pvers while it doesn't seem to provide the type and quantity of the content that would achieve that goal.

We obviously haven't seen much of that kind of content (none tbh), but considering Steven's inspirations for Ashes, the chances of that content matching Noaani's (and people like him) standards are quite low.

That is actually more helpful in my understanding than ANYTHIN Noaani has said.

So, basically he wants to be locked in instanced raiding five nights a week? Is that it, or am i missing it still?

I 100% wouldn't want instanced dungeon, im more a believer creating smart designs to get towards the end of the dungeon that takes time + not spawning right outside the instance after dying. So if you are trying to get into a spot for a dungeon you have to have a good group to make it to the boss, and if you beat the other team it takes them a good amount of time to get back and not a one or two min run.

wrms

I think Noaani is making some good points. If there are only something like 15 open world bosses per week (or whatever the number is), and no instanced raids, that's really not going to be able to sustain a server population of 8 - 10 thousand. At that point it would likely devolve to a handful of mega guilds competing for the bosses, and everyone else permanently shut out.

I do love the idea of there being certain open world bosses that have to be fought over, but if that's the only option for obtaining top end gear and materials, the majority of players are never going to have access to it. Maybe that's ok if top end is just slightly better than what more casual players can acquire through other means, but it would still be a shame if the majority of players just never got to experience fighting any interesting raid bosses.

Not saying there absolutely must be instanced raids either. More bosses on shorter timers could be an option too. Or perhaps some sort of lockout from certain bosses rooms after you had killed it, but a relatively quick respawn timer (4 hours? 8?), so that more guilds could get involved in fighting over the boss once the big guilds had achieved their kill for the week. That would keep the pvp competition for the mobs intact, but not limit it to just one guild per week. You could play with the respawn timer so that there would still be incentive to fight for the mob, and not just wait until every other guild was done for the week. And of course that would not have to apply to every world boss, some could still be the prestige, one kill per week bosses.

Ludullu

wrms wrote: »

I think Noaani is making some good points. If there are only something like 15 open world bosses per week (or whatever the number is), and no instanced raids, that's really not going to be able to sustain a server population of 8 - 10 thousand. At that point it would likely devolve to a handful of mega guilds competing for the bosses, and everyone else permanently shut out.

The 15 bosses in question were the peak pve content that only the top 1% would be able to even attempt. There'd be a ton of weaker bosses in the game.

wrms wrote: »

I do love the idea of there being certain open world bosses that have to be fought over, but if that's the only option for obtaining top end gear and materials, the majority of players are never going to have access to it. Maybe that's ok if top end is just slightly better than what more casual players can acquire through other means, but it would still be a shame if the majority of players just never got to experience fighting any interesting raid bosses.

High/top tier gear will most likely be quite rare. And that's kind of the point. Not everyone is a winner. Especially not the casual players who play 1h a day. There'll still be content for those players, but it won't be the peak difficulty content which provides you with that top tier gear.

There's still a chance that those casuals will have hardcore friends who might share some good gear with them or they might buy it from other players, though I dunno how many casuals would know how to make that much money.

wrms

I can understand that there is a top tier that not everyone will have access too, and that's fine, but the conversation still has me wondering about the accessibility of content for max level players. Eventually much of the player base is going to be max level, and with 8 - 10 thousand server populations it would take an awful lot of bosses to even allow most people the ability to pvp for a boss, let alone fight one.

Maybe there will be some raid content that is not the very top tier which will be instanced, so it won't be a problem, but if all or most of the raid content is open world, I just cant imagine that they can make enough of it to scale to their server sizes without something like the lockouts I suggested. Even 200 max level but second tier bosses would only average out to 1 boss per week per 40 person guild on a server with an 8000 active population. Obviously that's just some rough math, but the point is just to highlight the kind of number range we are talking about for there to be enough content for a server population to fight over. Maybe not every guild will be max level, but most guilds will also want to do a lot more than one boss per week.

Obviously it's all just speculation for now, but I still like my lockout idea. It allows for more than one guild to do a boss per week, while keeping pvp competition for bosses alive unlike instances, and you can balance the respawn timer to keep the boss somewhat exclusive still.

Noaani

Abarat wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I never said there wont be any PvE content.

I have said that what many people are calling PvE content (base population) is in fact just filler and not content at all.

Read the two sentences above again... slowly. I am sure you will understand my confusion.

Nope, I still dont get it.

Base population is filler, and not content. Boss mobs are PvE content if implemented in an appropriate manner.

I have said I expect Ashes to have those boss mobs, and as such there will be some (though not much) PvE content.

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