Baseline boss difficulty vs reward

It's counter-intuitive, but makes perfect sense in context of AoC.

Most rewarding world bosses can be mechanically most simple, since large portion of the challenge will come from other players. Those bosses just need to feel epic with huge AOEs.

It also works the other way. Most complex bosses can be given the least reward. This will make them least contested - perfect for those who primarily seek a great PvE experience.

This provides a nice content gradient form primarily PvE to primarily PvP, while being PvX all the way through.

Makes sense thematically as well - if there is 200 players around a huge dragon in the field - it's just going to breath fire at 50 of them, not really do some intricate mechanic. While some dungeon dwelling mystery monster can be all kinds of unexpected and complex.

Food for thought.

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

Songcaller

Bis will be crafted. A lot of variation happens due to recrafts etc.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It wasn't needed for the next expansion. There should never be a situation where you need to clear contested content in order to run instanced content.

Every expansion should provide players that have never raided before with a clear path to get started, not require them to go back and run content that guilds need to contest in order for them to start raiding the new expansion.

Remember, the point of instances is to get more people running content, the point of contested content is to get fewer. Requiring contested in order to run instanced is counter productive.

Does this then mean that EQ2 had completely self-contained expansions, where none of the previous gear had any value, because the new expansion would give a much easier way to progress and get into the raiding scene? Cause your comment implies that to me.

The top tier of one cycle was usually about on par with the second or third tier of the next cycle.

Since gear is the key to content, you can't really have it so that top tier gear of one cycle sees you through until the top tier of the next cycle.

In terms of treadmill design, it is only treadmill if you consider the gear to be the point. If you consider the content/experience to be the point, it really isn't.

This is something that is much harder to donwith a PvP game, but the itemization Archrage had would have translated well enough to it, if Archeage wanted content driven itemization.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

In terms of treadmill design, it is only treadmill if you consider the gear to be the point. If you consider the content/experience to be the point, it really isn't.

Then another question. Is difficulty purely about boss hp values and your dps in relation to it?

Cause if the devs can max out the mechanics of the fight to a point where anything else will just kill even the savants that Azherae talks about - the only way to "add" difficulty would be to change hp/dps ratio.

But I personally don't find "this new boss now has more hp/def, so you gotta go get new gear" as all that exciting as a form of content progression.

And if it's not that kind difficulty increase, then do we really need to keep pushing the gear obsoletion at breakneck speeds?

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

In terms of treadmill design, it is only treadmill if you consider the gear to be the point. If you consider the content/experience to be the point, it really isn't.

Then another question. Is difficulty purely about boss hp values and your dps in relation to it?

That isn't directly a factor in difficulty at all, generally speaking.

It is just a factor for duration of encounter. The only way more HP in relation to DPS adds to the difficulty is in the encounter taking longer, thus meaning the gmeaid needs to maintain that somewhat chaotic state we have talked about in the past for longer, or need to maintain somewhat hyper concentration on specific things with other encounters. Basically, more HP on the encounter gives players more chances to mess up.

The way gear helps with this (since we have been talking about it) is that it allows for faster casting, or lowers damage of various abilities, or allows for some mechanics to be dealt with faster - these things all generally lower the chaos happening at any one given point in time. This is why it's quite possible to have "better" gear that simply won't help you with these encounters - if you need to be doing this fasted, for example, you want gear that makes you do this faster, not gear that makes you do things harder.

For the most part, difficulty was added via timing (putting abilities closer together, generally), or by simply adding more mechanics to deal with.

I do want to point out (mostly to others, you realize this) that I am talking about a specific game, at a specific point in time. Not all raid content is designed this way - some games do lean heavily on DPS via rage mechanics and such.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

For the most part, difficulty was added via timing (putting abilities closer together, generally), or by simply adding more mechanics to deal with.

Which makes me think that gear progression pace doesn't necessarily have to be super fast. PvE designers have a ton of ways of prolonging the encounter or increasing the ways that players could fail in.

And this would align with Steven's desire to have majority of gear be acquirable through ow means. If majority of the server can't just equip themselves in penultimate or BiS gear quickly, then the super hardcore content will only be cleared by either super high lvl players who don't even need that gear to clear that content or by those who've struggled their way to that gear (though they'd still need to have skills to clear).

But I think we won't agree on this point either way. We'll just have to see what Steven ends up putting as instanced rewards. Right now my assumption is "passable gear". Smth that'll let you farm some ow bosses, but you'll still have difficulties against people who've been farming those instead of instanced stuff (though most likely they've been doing both).

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

For the most part, difficulty was added via timing (putting abilities closer together, generally), or by simply adding more mechanics to deal with.

Which makes me think that gear progression pace doesn't necessarily have to be super fast. PvE designers have a ton of ways of prolonging the encounter or increasing the ways that players could fail in.

But do they spark joy?

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

But do they spark joy?

Only if I have the fewest gear items on me. No clutter!

Songcaller

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

But do they spark joy?

Only if I have the fewest gear items on me. No clutter!

So, you'll be the one following Steven in Sandals and Shorts.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

So, you'll be the one following Steven in Sandals and Shorts.

And a white tanktop. A proper mountainous dunir.

Songcaller

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

So, you'll be the one following Steven in Sandals and Shorts.

And a white tanktop. A proper mountainous dunir.

Good camouflage for those snowy peaks.

Taleof2Cities

Neurath wrote: »

Bis will be crafted. A lot of variation happens due to recrafts etc.

I was waiting for someone to say this.

Legendary gear will either be crafted or drop on legendary world bosses ... or at least that's the current plan according to Intrepid.

Which means there aren't plans for legendary gear to drop in instanced (exclusively PvE) dungeons.

The devs have made several quotes that the game will have instanced dungeons ... but the core values are PvX and it's just not a content emphasis.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

For the most part, difficulty was added via timing (putting abilities closer together, generally), or by simply adding more mechanics to deal with.

Which makes me think that gear progression pace doesn't necessarily have to be super fast.

It wasn't super fast, it was just consistent.

If we look at that ring we've been talking about that was relevant for 4 years (may be longer, we just got stuck on four years) as an example.

You've said that a 2 - 3% jump over the item it replaced is about what is expected for an item like this. So, in 4 years, that is a 2 - 3% increase (note that I am talking about the quality of BiS gear here, not one individual persons gear).

In EQ2, you would expect that every 3 months on average, meaning over four years you have ~16 increases of 2 - 3%.

As I said though, Archeage had about similar top end gear increases in power to EQ2, so it isn't as if it is impossible for a PvP game - its just unusual. I don't think I ever equipped a single item from an instanced dungeon in Archeage.

You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.

It would be good if developers could learn from previous developer mistakes though - there is a reason almost every MMO out there has moved more towards instanced content over time.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.

You see, this goes directly against you saying that one should value instanced content for its content rather than reward

This is why I even started this digging into your opinion on this stuff.

If the instanced content is the best pve in the game, then why wouldn't players want to enjoy that for what it is? FF14 was pointed out as an example of this, because Ultimates provide cosmetics, but they're still beloved for what they are - top lvl content.

I think it'll just be the same case as with the pvx. People will have to partake in all content to progress, not just one type of content. Though even then, I'm sure that instanced rewards will be bind on pick up, because otherwise it would just be a gear printer.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.

You see, this goes directly against you saying that one should value instanced content for its content rather than reward This is why I even started this digging into your opinion on this stuff.

If the instanced content is the best pve in the game, then why wouldn't players want to enjoy that for what it is? FF14 was pointed out as an example of this, because Ultimates provide cosmetics, but they're still beloved for what they are - top lvl content.

I think it'll just be the same case as with the pvx. People will have to partake in all content to progress, not just one type of content. Though even then, I'm sure that instanced rewards will be bind on pick up, because otherwise it would just be a gear printer.

No, that's you assuming something that doesn't seem to have actually been said.

And positioning perfectly, my thanks.

You can't put a value on the instanced content in this WAY unless the game gives you some other meaningful reward for doing it, but any reward that could be obtained from Instanced Content OTHER THAN GEAR would be terrible design.

The reason is that if Instanced Content worked to give you gear that then helped you unlock the next Instanced Content tier, then you'll get a subset of players whose only wish is to do that.

If you give those players 7 encounters, but they don't need SOMETHING gear wise to formulate a new strategy against the encounters (and relearn some skills), they just burn through it all and ask for more because as soon as they have enough skill for Encounter 2 they probably can get through Encounter 7.

Ashes has some pretty easy 'TCG-style' solutions to this, but Noaani's comments are entirely right from the other perspective, you're just 'mismatched' again.

Mag7spy

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.

You see, this goes directly against you saying that one should value instanced content for its content rather than reward This is why I even started this digging into your opinion on this stuff.

If the instanced content is the best pve in the game, then why wouldn't players want to enjoy that for what it is? FF14 was pointed out as an example of this, because Ultimates provide cosmetics, but they're still beloved for what they are - top lvl content.

I think it'll just be the same case as with the pvx. People will have to partake in all content to progress, not just one type of content. Though even then, I'm sure that instanced rewards will be bind on pick up, because otherwise it would just be a gear printer.

Well technically he is saying devs won't make good instanced content since players won't feel it is worth running.

Only for whatever reason EQ2 has all their content worth running end game wise even though I'm pretty sure he said players didn't get better gear from it.

But also if you go back in the past messages, he also suggested less care on detail, animations, etc and make it more rough and pump out more content. But than technically that is devs kind of not caring as much as well....

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.

You see, this goes directly against you saying that one should value instanced content for its content rather than reward This is why I even started this digging into your opinion on this stuff.

The reason you value the content with instanced content (any content) is because there is always supposed to be something new to do, and it should be quality.

If instanced content is supposed to be essentially third tier stuff, that prevents Intrepid from being able to add any new tiers of instanced content unless they are also adding an entire new tier or two of contested encounters.

That isn't going to happen - we both know that.

This means that instanced content would be exactly the same as it is in Archeage - you do it to see it, perhaps do it again, realize its fairly low quality and don't do it again.

I mean, it should stand to reason that in order for content to be appreciated, it needs to be both plentiful and good.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

The reason you value the content with instanced content (any content) is because there is always supposed to be something new to do, and it should be quality.

If instanced content is supposed to be essentially third tier stuff, that prevents Intrepid from being able to add any new tiers of instanced content unless they are also adding an entire new tier or two of contested encounters.

But this is exactly what I'm trying to get at. You said that you wouldn't play a game that doesn't provide a good reward for its instanced content ("good" here mainly meaning "stuff that lets you clear next content"). But you also say that reward doesn't matter as much, as long as the content is good.

So which is it? I asked this before and you implied that even if Intrepid had the best pve in instances, if those encounters didn't give good rewards - you wouldn't care about them.

I'm just trying to understand. Does the gear matter, the content or it's simply both and no other way around it?

If it's both then that would be the end of the story here, because Steven doesn't want best rewards in instanced content. If it's the content, then Intrepid could still design instanced stuff to be fun and great and people would enjoy it. If it's gear, then we're back to the first sentence of this paragraph.

Also, here's another angle at this. What if instanced content grew and changed with your raid's "gear score"? So it'd be smth that you can do throughout your entire leveling process and the dungeon would check what kind of gear the members had and would adjust to it through mechanics/timers/hp values. And at certain steps of progress the composition of the instance itself would change.

In other words, the instance would reflect your progression w/o having any direct influence on it. Would that be interesting to you or would you still require gear as reward to enjoy it? Again, in the context that the content itself is always top notch.

Azherae wrote: »

No, that's you assuming something that doesn't seem to have actually been said.

Are you talking about this or smth else?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Instancing
Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot items.[6]

Cause I don't think I understand this post outside of that contenxt.

Ruerik

Noaani and I agree on many topics in these forums, so Im a bit interested to hear this response of what a good reward is.

Personally I am happy with the hardest instance content giving cosmetics. In PvE focused games I feel that way, and in ashes where PvP is such a huge part of the game I feel even stronger about it.

I want to face my enemies on equal gear footing. BiS vs BiS. If I am clearing the top instanced content and they arent, I shouldnt have a gear advantage. But, I do expect to look cool af while Im killing them with my hard won cosmetics.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

The reason you value the content with instanced content (any content) is because there is always supposed to be something new to do, and it should be quality.

If instanced content is supposed to be essentially third tier stuff, that prevents Intrepid from being able to add any new tiers of instanced content unless they are also adding an entire new tier or two of contested encounters.

But this is exactly what I'm trying to get at. You said that you wouldn't play a game that doesn't provide a good reward for its instanced content ("good" here mainly meaning "stuff that lets you clear next content"). But you also say that reward doesn't matter as much, as long as the content is good.

So which is it? I asked this before and you implied that even if Intrepid had the best pve in instances, if those encounters didn't give good rewards - you wouldn't care about them.

I'm just trying to understand. Does the gear matter, the content or it's simply both and no other way around it?

If it's both then that would be the end of the story here, because Steven doesn't want best rewards in instanced content. If it's the content, then Intrepid could still design instanced stuff to be fun and great and people would enjoy it. If it's gear, then we're back to the first sentence of this paragraph.

Also, here's another angle at this. What if instanced content grew and changed with your raid's "gear score"? So it'd be smth that you can do throughout your entire leveling process and the dungeon would check what kind of gear the members had and would adjust to it through mechanics/timers/hp values. And at certain steps of progress the composition of the instance itself would change.

In other words, the instance would reflect your progression w/o having any direct influence on it. Would that be interesting to you or would you still require gear as reward to enjoy it? Again, in the context that the content itself is always top notch.

Azherae wrote: »

No, that's you assuming something that doesn't seem to have actually been said.

Are you talking about this or smth else?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Instancing
Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot items.[6]

Cause I don't think I understand this post outside of that contenxt.

The mismatch here is in what you consider to be 'content', I'm reasonably certain of that.

If you give me a boss and I can figure out how to beat it quickly in one go, and I do so and win, across most games, I do not feel like I experienced 'content'. My only option is to make the fight 'unnecessarily' harder on myself. I'm not going to assume Noaani is NECESSARILY the same, but if the encounter does not require me to think and adapt repeatedly, then it is harder to count it as 'content'.

This means that the better one gets at synergizing, and on-the-fly strategizing, the harder it is to create 'content'.

When the boss poses a challenge that requires thinking and adaptation and preparation, those things are 'the content' and the boss is normally the 'test' for whether or not you did the 'content' part correctly.

The new gear's job is to make you 'think about how to adapt the new gear into the build'. The 'next boss' requires it, for some reason, while usually being 'sort of unfairly strong against a reasonable base kit that lacks the integration of the new gear'.

it's a way for the Devs to go 'ok, here's a thing you need to equip in place of one of your strengths, just to get through here, which creates a weakness that you should then adapt around'. That part is the content.

The gear never has to be BiS for ... anything really. But it is always progression, because gear that does SOMETHING particularly well is always progression in some situation. It's really hard to make gear that isn't 'sorta BiS for some situational build for some niche person/class'. And so, every time anything is added like this, it's an 'upgrade' for SOMEONE.

Azherae

Hm, nah, I discussed all that without giving a proper example so I'll just do that. So a mini story. This isn't a real historical example:

Shield Tanks beat most big bosses by blocking with big shields. Evasion Tanks do it by using an ability on a long timer to absorb the unlucky hits that their Evasion stat doesn't work on, and both rely on healers to keep them topped up.

You use the standard style to beat Encounter 1 of the Progression and it drops two really weird looking things. A Small Shield with 'Resist Drain' and an Earring that raises Evasion by 10% when Blinded. Why would anyone need these? The BiS large shield is great and while that Evasion earring would be great, being blinded sucks for Evasion tanking 90% of the time... what's going on here?

Next boss is a Vampire with Triple Attacks that drain your health into itself, massive movement speed, good evasion but lower Magic Defense, and AoE blind.

So if you use your Big Shield, you don't die, but it never dies either. If you don't get more Evasion on your Evasion Tank, they get deleted randomly or they can't hold hate. If you try to use Mages to blast it down, it rips through them and heals itself for more than they even managed to do to it.

New requirement: "Use these gear pieces to Tank Differently. You lose [Special Effect of BiS shield] and [Standard approach of Melee DPS]"

Content: "Strategizing how to deal with the losses."

Child Item