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.

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Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

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.

But this is kind of the core of my question. If variable gear can be considered "BiS" for encounters and the "content" is the puzzle of how you use that gear in that encounter - then do you really need gear as the reward for said encounter?

Wouldn't it be fine to separate the two completely? The content itself is designed very well and it's then on the players to try and figure out their approach, with whichever build they can get in through the ow means.

And then taking into account your later comment, wouldn't it be fine for instanced content to drop certain types of mats that crafters can use to modify the gear, that you'd have to get through ow means, so that it helps in the exact way you described?

The reward itself is somewhat meaningless outside it (well, outside of maybe a few super specific circumstances), but it would be very meaningful for people who'd want to keep progressing their instanced content.

The question applies to @Noaani as well. Would you be ok with that instead of my previous suggestion?

p.s. going to bed now, so will answer later.

Noaani

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 didn't say instanced content needs to have the best rewards.

When I look at a new game, I'm mostly looking at the drops from different content. This tells me what content types the developers value. If the instanced content they have at launch has rewards that are significantly lower down than other reward types (say, for example, quest rewards), then this tells me that the developers have no intention of making instanced content a valued part of the games content.

Based on that, why would I play?

Put another way, it isn't because of the rewards, it is because of what the rewards mean.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

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.

But this is kind of the core of my question. If variable gear can be considered "BiS" for encounters and the "content" is the puzzle of how you use that gear in that encounter - then do you really need gear as the reward for said encounter?

Wouldn't it be fine to separate the two completely? The content itself is designed very well and it's then on the players to try and figure out their approach, with whichever build they can get in through the ow means.

And then taking into account your later comment, wouldn't it be fine for instanced content to drop certain types of mats that crafters can use to modify the gear, that you'd have to get through ow means, so that it helps in the exact way you described?

The reward itself is somewhat meaningless outside it (well, outside of maybe a few super specific circumstances), but it would be very meaningful for people who'd want to keep progressing their instanced content.

The question applies to @Noaani as well. Would you be ok with that instead of my previous suggestion?

p.s. going to bed now, so will answer later.

Yes, for me, this would be fine, this is what I'm used to on my end.

The only reason I find it doesn't work well or becomes difficult is that 'BiS' is almost defined by how 'generally effective it is against the game's core mechanics'.

What you described is what I expect and hope for, relative to Ashes. I wouldn't want Instanced Content to drop ANY gear, just materials to Enhance/Enchant gear you already have, if possible.

If the Enhancement is good enough for the instanced content progression without you also having the BiS gear piece, or the Enhancement is sorta like "Here is the generally best shield in the game, I have two of them, one that I Enhanced for my current Content Progression and my Generalist one, but I can't seem to beat the content with the Generalist one', then I'm good.

This is the point I was somewhat trying to make in my first post in this thread, too.

Azherae

And offhandedly, a similar point about Economy relative to this.

One of the weirdest things that comes up in games with 'Full Raid Progressions' but also 'Full Economy' is that players can effectively 'buy their way through' any gear-power-based stuff.

If gear power is enough to meaningfully help in OWPvP, it's not much different. Basically if your horizontal progression itemization isn't either on point or a strong Gear Sink 'incentive' in some way, you'll end up moreso shuffling money around than anything else.

This is fine, but games with minimal Bind on Pickup and 'Free Trade' of gear, feel to me as if they're not suited for the 'unlock next Tier' content progression type to begin with, so I never expected that approach from Ashes.

It's because of that fact, that I 'assumed we were gonna get FF style boss content' instead of what I have now learned is the possibly the 'standard' type.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Put another way, it isn't because of the rewards, it is because of what the rewards mean.

So ultimately it all comes back to "Intrepid, do better"

Depraved

Noaani wrote: »

morphwastaken wrote: »

Showing players that something they did even 4 years ago still has a meaning to this day - very much shows respect for players time, what are you on about?

See, no.

You run content because you enjoy it, not for the rewards.

The meaning content has is that enjoyment, not the ring you get from it.

Thus, respecting players time is about making it so players don't need to go back to the same old content after 4 years.

L2 developers treat PvE content as a means to an end. It is something players will suffer through in order to get gear to be better at PvP. That is why they don't care if you still want something from a four year old encounter.

Good developers treat content as the goal, and gear as the means.

Now, one could argue that this is a PvE mindset - I'm nit really even going to argue against that. All I will say to it is that if a games only end goal is to be better at PvP, you have a PvP game.

i enjoy killing queen ant. i dont do it for the ring. i do it because its fun. so why i cant run old content because its fun?

Noaani

Depraved wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

morphwastaken wrote: »

Showing players that something they did even 4 years ago still has a meaning to this day - very much shows respect for players time, what are you on about?

See, no.

You run content because you enjoy it, not for the rewards.

The meaning content has is that enjoyment, not the ring you get from it.

Thus, respecting players time is about making it so players don't need to go back to the same old content after 4 years.

L2 developers treat PvE content as a means to an end. It is something players will suffer through in order to get gear to be better at PvP. That is why they don't care if you still want something from a four year old encounter.

Good developers treat content as the goal, and gear as the means.

Now, one could argue that this is a PvE mindset - I'm nit really even going to argue against that. All I will say to it is that if a games only end goal is to be better at PvP, you have a PvP game.

i enjoy killing queen ant. i dont do it for the ring. i do it because its fun. so why i cant run old content because its fun?

You can run it for fun.

However, it has been said many times by many people here that they run it for the loot.

That is the part that is bad.

Songcaller

Noaani wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

morphwastaken wrote: »

Showing players that something they did even 4 years ago still has a meaning to this day - very much shows respect for players time, what are you on about?

See, no.

You run content because you enjoy it, not for the rewards.

The meaning content has is that enjoyment, not the ring you get from it.

Thus, respecting players time is about making it so players don't need to go back to the same old content after 4 years.

L2 developers treat PvE content as a means to an end. It is something players will suffer through in order to get gear to be better at PvP. That is why they don't care if you still want something from a four year old encounter.

Good developers treat content as the goal, and gear as the means.

Now, one could argue that this is a PvE mindset - I'm nit really even going to argue against that. All I will say to it is that if a games only end goal is to be better at PvP, you have a PvP game.

i enjoy killing queen ant. i dont do it for the ring. i do it because its fun. so why i cant run old content because its fun?

You can run it for fun.

However, it has been said many times by many people here that they run it for the loot.

That is the part that is bad.

If old loot is added to make new loot then the old dungeons should always be relevant in Ashes of Creation.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

If old loot is added to make new loot then the old dungeons should always be relevant in Ashes of Creation.

Btw, this happened in L2 as well. In waaay later updates there's a way to upgrade the old epic jewelry by combing several copies into an updated version. So, in way, that old content had been valuable for over a decade at that point

Noaani

Neurath wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

morphwastaken wrote: »

Showing players that something they did even 4 years ago still has a meaning to this day - very much shows respect for players time, what are you on about?

See, no.

You run content because you enjoy it, not for the rewards.

The meaning content has is that enjoyment, not the ring you get from it.

Thus, respecting players time is about making it so players don't need to go back to the same old content after 4 years.

L2 developers treat PvE content as a means to an end. It is something players will suffer through in order to get gear to be better at PvP. That is why they don't care if you still want something from a four year old encounter.

Good developers treat content as the goal, and gear as the means.

Now, one could argue that this is a PvE mindset - I'm nit really even going to argue against that. All I will say to it is that if a games only end goal is to be better at PvP, you have a PvP game.

i enjoy killing queen ant. i dont do it for the ring. i do it because its fun. so why i cant run old content because its fun?

You can run it for fun.

However, it has been said many times by many people here that they run it for the loot.

That is the part that is bad.

If old loot is added to make new loot then the old dungeons should always be relevant in Ashes of Creation.

This is something I am actually a fan of, but it should be done in a way where players that don't have the first item can skip that aspect of it in some manner.

An example of that would be a quest that can be run to get a stat-less version of the older raid dropped item, with either item then being able to be upgraded via the same process to be made in to that upgraded version.

Absolutely a fan of it with this provision in place.

Child Item