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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Ludullu

wrms wrote: »

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.

How many of those 8k people will be raiding at all? How many of the ones who will be raiding will be doing so daily? Of those who do so daily, how many can contest the farm through pvp?

I'd assume that the final number after all of those barriers is somewhat small (relatively speaking that is). There's also the question of the time of day when those raiders will be online too.

In other words, I do believe that the game won't need as many bosses as it might seem. Obviously Noaani disagrees with that, but we'll have to see what the masses say in the later days of alpha2 when Intrepid might populate some part of the alpha2 region in a way that the release might be populated.

wrms

Yea I dont have solid answers to those questions either, I just think that if raiding ends up being too exclusive, it will be bad for the game. I think there needs to be enough content that a few elite guilds can't monopolize it all. Whether that is because there is too much content for them to accomplish in a week, or because they get locked out of content for the week and leave the next respawn for other guilds to fight over, either is fine. I just think server populations are going to take a massive hit if only 500 people out of 8000+ get to do end game content.

Abarat

Noaani wrote: »

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.[/quote|

you are way more super important that i am. ignore me going forward

Noaani

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?

Not at all.

So, PvP players dont understand instances. They dont really understand PvE at all. The fact that many of you think base population is content is just proof if this.

The notion that someone asking for instances wants them so they can just be locked in them five nights a week is false and a poor take on several different levels. It is showing an ignorance of PvE content at its core.

If I said to you that you only want PvP in an MMO so you can gank unsuspecting low level players, I'm sure you would disagree. In fact, you would probably point to several mechanics in the game and say that these are the reasons why it is unlikely anyone would do that in Ashes.

Me saying that would be a bad take, it would show that I think very little of you, and that I think very little of Intrepid for allowing that in their game.

The thing is,many players that do not u understand PvP just default to this as being the reason others want PvP.

Likewise, saying someone wants instances in a game so they can just hide away in them is showing how little they know about instancing as a mechanic, how little they think of that player, and how little they think of Intrpid if they thought there was a chance Intrepid would add instances to a game in a manner where this was possible.

All it takes to stop players being able to just hide in an instance is two simple mechanics. The first is a lockout timer. All instances should have these anyway, and any game without them is simply showing disrespect those their players.

The second mechanic is any system that removes players from that instance when a specific condition is met. This could be a timer, or it could be players being killed a number of times.

These are two really basic mechanics that between them make hiding away in instances impossible, but dont actually affect the purpose instanced content offers.

Because I believe Intrepid are not complete shit developers, when I talk about instanced content, I assume they will have these basic mechanics in place. If you are not making that assumption when talking about instanced content (something we KNOW Ashes will have), then you are either showing your complete and total lack of understanding of instancedncntent and its mechanics, or are actively assuming the worst from Intrepid.

Going forward, if we are talking about instances at all on Ashes, just make the assumption that hiding in them isnt possible, just as people can make the assumption that tanking low level players isnt the reason people want PvP.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

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.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I would consider L2 to be a PvP-centric game... and PvX is irrelevant at that point.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

How many of those 8k people will be raiding at all?

If the content is actually good, history would suggest 6k.

I literally only see one viable way for Ashes to have a raiding scene, .and also maintain its identity based on what Steven has said about the game.

Large dungeons with many bosses (I have previously said a dozen, but in truth would want to see actual hundreds), that are all on random spawn timers, but with both a minimum and maximum number up at any given time (a dozen or so). These bosses need not be unique in any specific way, they can use generic mob models and animation. These bosses should be laid out in the raid dungeon starting from easy, entry level stuff, moving on to harder mobs.

The dungeon should be of a size where it takes a guild at least 2 hours to clear to the end - assuming no detours for boss kills or anything. This is assuming a guild that is well geared and well organized. A guild that isnt both of these things would probably not be able to make it out of the earlier difficulty tiers.

Then, each dungeon has three open world encounters. These can use mechanics such as world instances or cages to make them interesting. These would be the encounters we have talked about many times before.

Then within these dungeons there should also be three instances. These instances should have a timer on them (30 minutes or so), at which point you are kicked out, and should have a 160 hour lockout - meaning you go in once, then leave, then cant go back in for basically a week.

With this setup, you have a small amount of content a guild is guaranteed to have access to. They still have to fight down to those bosses, and fight back with the material drops that are subject to loss via PvP (and prevent family summons from working).

I know some will say that they want the ability to attack any player at any time, but if we are to assume Ashes is a PvX game and not a PvP game, and if these people are able to be objective, I am sure they are able to realize that this is the PvP variation of some PvE players saying they want to avoid PvP all together, and thus it should be obvious to come to the conclusion that neither should really be the case in a PvX game (as opposed to a PvP game or a PvE game).

The trick, to me, is to make sure that people taking on those instances aren't able to get to them and get back home without threat of PvP.

akabear

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

How many of those 8k people will be raiding at all?

If the content is actually good, history would suggest 6k. .

Prefer an MMO, not a Raiding Game.

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

How many of those 8k people will be raiding at all?

If the content is actually good, history would suggest 6k. .

Prefer an MMO, not a Raiding Game.

I mean, literally the same thing.

It isn't as if Ashes isn't going to have raiding content. If it is good, most players will participate in it. You saying you won't just seems to be out of spite - if raiding is where the good content is, why wouldn't you?

Ludullu

@Noaani when I said that I think you'd want to sit in a dungeon most of the time I meant that only instanced content will be of the best quality and you want that kind of content to fill up your gametime. And that doesn't mean "sit in the same one for hours", but instead "have several such instances that I can farm a few of them every day". Was that assumption wrong?

And as for the other response, I feel like you're just calling Elite mobs Bosses. I feel like we literally want the same exact thing, except you call the mobs I want Bosses.

If a "Boss" is no different from a mob (in both animation and model) then how is it not just a thick mob? To me, an open world dungeon means the hardest mobs in the game at the lvl of the dungeon. They have the most hp, the most attack and good variance of attacks. And that's in every single room with growing difficulty the lower you go into the dungeon. Unless I completely misunderstood your second response - you seem to want the same thing.

This is why I said that I have a high standard for what I'd want to see. I want plain dungeon mobs to be as difficult as overworld low difficulty boss. With that difficulty growing throughout the dungeon.

So I feel like this is an issue of phrasing, rather than purely a conceptual preferences.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

This is why I said that I have a high standard for what I'd want to see. I want plain dungeon mobs to be as difficult as overworld low difficulty boss. With that difficulty growing throughout the dungeon.

Yeah, this is what I am talking about as well, and then these bosses that I am also talking about are at least a full step above that.

With overland mobs, a group could pull perhaps 20 solo mobs and AoE them down fairly safely. Group mobs in overland situations you could perhaps do 8 or so.

In a dungeon, a fu raid would perhaps be able to pull 2. If you accidentally pull 3, you should be at a real risk of being killed. This is still that base population that I do not consider content.

The bosses I am talking about are a solid step above that. If you dont know what to expect, you will probably die. And yes, hundreds of possible spawns throughout a dungeon is reasonable for these mobs.

If we are talking real for a minute, all the bosses from L2 and Archeage (which seem very similar in terms of difficulty) would probably fit here if we are talking purely in terms of difficulty, though some of them would still be too easy for this.

As to the hardest mobs in the game - again, that is what the last three mobs are for.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

If we are talking real for a minute, all the bosses from L2 and Archeage (which seem very similar in terms of difficulty) would probably fit here if we are talking purely in terms of difficulty, though some of them would still be too easy for this.

Yep, I'd expect way more mechanical difficulty from proper dungeon mobs.

And you say again that this would just be filler and not real content. So was I right in assuming that you'd rather just farm hardcore top lvl instances as your main means of spending gametime? Cause you said that we don't get what instances are, but you reinforce the idea that only instances can provide real content and then say that you want real content in the game.

And to me that sounds like you want to mainly farm several instanced fights every day. I'm assuming that the 14-20h of EQ2 gameplay was spent in such instances, because in EQ2 that was considered real content. You could obviously spend time doing other stuff if you had enough free time to play the game, but the core guild gameplay revolved around raiding instances. Is that a correct assumption?

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Cause you said that we don't get what instances are, but you reinforce the idea that only instances can provide real content and then say that you want real content in the game.

No I didnt. My previous post didn't talk about anything to do with instances, or any mobs that would be in instances.

Imagine a zone with goblins, because why not.

Random_goblin_87 is the base population. It isnt content, it is filler, there are literally thousands of these in the dungeon, because the dungeon is large. This is the mob above that in a raid dungeon, your raid can safely pull 2, but not 3. Killing two of these will probably take your raid a few minutes.

In that same dungeon, in the same room, is a mob called 'Goblin Master Pyromancer'. This is a boss mob, it absolutely is content, there are hundreds of similar mobs to this in this dungeon, and is probably going to attack you with fire. If you aren't ready for that, you'll die. This will probably be a 10 - 15 minute fight for your raid.

Then, at the end of the dungeon, you'll find "*Harold, King of all things Goblin*". This guy has a unique model, an overly complex script, and is going to be a 30 minute or more fight. Again, it is content, and there are two other mobs of similar difficulty in the dungeon.

None of the above is in instances.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

No I didnt. My previous post didn't talk about anything to do with instances, or any mobs that would be in instances.

Imagine a zone with goblins, because why not.

Random_goblin_87 is the base population. It isnt content, it is filler, there are literally thousands of these in the dungeon, because the dungeon is large. This is the mob above that in a raid dungeon, your raid can safely pull 2, but not 3. Killing two of these will probably take your raid a few minutes.

In that same dungeon, in the same room, is a mob called 'Goblin Master Pyromancer'. This is a boss mob, it absolutely is content, there are hundreds of similar mobs to this in this dungeon, and is probably going to attack you with fire. If you aren't ready for that, you'll die. This will probably be a 10 - 15 minute fight for your raid.

Then, at the end of the dungeon, you'll find "*Harold, King of all things Goblin*". This guy has a unique model, an overly complex script, and is going to be a 30 minute or more fight. Again, it is content, and there are two other mobs of similar difficulty in the dungeon.

None of the above is in instances.

Ok, now I understand your position better. We just have different names for the mobs. To me that'd be mob, elite mob, boss. So when I say that dungeons should have top tier mobs, I mean that pretty much every room in the dungeon has an Elite (mb even two) who has plain mobs for adds, while those mobs themselves are difficult too (just as you described). And then there'd be several bosses in a few deep rooms of the dungeon. And THEN in the last room of the dungeon you'd have an epic boss who gives out legendary items, has a respawn timer of over a week and is the hardest content in the game.

Maybe not all dungeons have epic bosses, though I'd personally prefer each of them to have one.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

To me that'd be mob, elite mob, boss.

I've never seen a game where an elite mob would take experience, skilled and geared players 15 minutes to kill.

Nor have I seen a game where elite mobs have anything unique about them. They are always just a small step up from regular mobs in terms of basic stats, with perhaps 1 or 2 additional, generic abilities added. Abilities that are shared among other elite mobs, generally.

That Pyromancer above wouldn't be sharing abilities with other goblins, other than perhaps a basic attack. It would have it's own loadout of unique abilities - they just wouldn't have animations specific to them (not needing specific models or animations cuts 90% or so of the development work needed to add a mob like this).

Every game I have ever played would call an encounter that takes that experienced, geared raid 15 minutes to kill, and that has it's own set of abilities that aren't used anywhere else a boss, without a second thought.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

That Pyromancer above wouldn't be sharing abilities with other goblins, other than perhaps a basic attack. It would have it's own loadout of unique abilities - they just wouldn't have animations specific to them (not needing specific models or animations cuts 90% or so of the development work needed to add a mob like this).

Yep, it'd be the big boi of the group with his own abilities.

Noaani wrote: »

Every game I have ever played would call an encounter that takes that experienced, geared raid 15 minutes to kill, and that has it's own set of abilities that aren't used anywhere else a boss, without a second thought.

I'm not necessarily taking that naming scheme from any particular game, just saying what I'd call that kind of separation of mob power. On some L2 servers that I played there were x10 and x50 "elite" mobs that were literally the same as plain ones, but had increased stats (namely x10 and x50 increase). And open world bosses would have a unique name and unique abilities. But due to both of those being easy on their own, I'd want to see elite mobs that combine both of those features. They're named, they have huge stats and unique abilities.

Then there's a step above that with real bosses, good environmental hazards and some other mechanics. And the final increase in difficulty is a world instanced epic boss that's pretty much the pinnacle of pve content in the game. All kinds of mechanics, all kinds of abilities, all kinds of hazards.

Though again, that is just what I'd prefer to have in the game. The only game that I've played that had a system close to that might be Elden Ring? There's plain mobs that are somewhat difficult (some presenting that difficulty through numbers and some through movesets and stats). There's fat mobs with big damages. There's named bosses with several mechanics, that are also copied a few times across the game. And then there's the huge big name story-important dudes who have insane mechanics and super high difficulty.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

There's fat mobs with big damages.

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

Or Intrepid could just go with a mob, fat mob, boss with a few abilities, big fat boss with a bit more abilities and a hazard.

Either way, we're just discussing naming schemes at this point and general design variances rather than anything really concrete.

Mag7spy

In general, mmorpgs you have normal mobs and elite types. So, you can have a normal dungeon with stronger mobs in it, and then you have the dungeons that all are elites, so it be elite mobs, elite boss, elite everything and are meant for raid groups.

There can actually be more than 2 tiers as well depending on the game and the content, but if anything is elite or higher it isn't just trash mobs or anything but an elite version of everything in the dungeon including bosses that are far stronger than normal ones meant for less people.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Perhaps this is the disconnect here.

This is something I would consider to be one type of base population - the unnamed masses.

Take your Elden Ring comments, assume these high DPS mobs are simply one type of the base population (which should have high DPS, CC, high HP and also healer varieties - hence not wanting to pull more than two at a time), and then carry on from there.

At this point we'd just need to see how low and how high in difficulty design Intrepid want to go. Maybe base pop mobs have 1 ability. Thiccq mobs have 2-3. Named mobs have 2-3 abilities and a few special mechanics. Plain bosses have 5 abilities, several mechanics and an envi hazard (with a range of differences between all of those to create different difficulties within the Boss type creatures). And top lvl epic bosses have up to 10 abilities with rng uses, several stages with several mechanics each (plain bosses could have two or three stage too maybe) and a few envi hazards.

I mean, if you multiply those ability numbers by 3 or 4, you have about what I am thinking, for a PvX game

I am used to most raid based trash mobs having more than 10 abilities at their disposal (these are still mobs I dont consider content), so cutting that down to 3 or 4 to me seems like a fairly big compromise already.

As I've said in the past, the PvE experiences you and I have had are on somewhat different levels, due to the games we have played.

Do you have any boss examples, especially the part where you say they have 30-40 abilities for a boss, on top of other mechanics will help give a clearer idea of what you mean

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