I'm not talking about a single room, I'm talking about what would equal to someone talking about an instanced dungeon. Else I'd say instanced boss.
Everyone else talking about instanced encounters and you replying talking about instanced dungeons is literally the definition of a strawman argument.
I'm looking at it from the perspective what pve players would want and what instanced content means. When someone says there is no Pve content, saying you can do a pve doesn't is not equaling tons of pve content to them.
But hey if you are making the statement pve players don't want instanced dungeons and want a limited amount of single cage boss room maybe you aren't as far gone as i thought with some your points for AoC.
So at this point I'm saying in this discussion the argument is PvE players want instanced bosses and not dungeons? So right away a rule set would be drops once per day from them.
And this is exactly where we gotta give feedback to Intrepid that we (well, those of us who don't) don't want dailies like that.
My expectation with a game like Ashes that intends to have a weekly server downtime is that the lockout for raid tier instances would basically be "you can do it once per downtime".
As to your comment on gear - any person with half an eye on basic game design would be aware that one of the most important aspects of how good an item can be is how rare it is. Instancing content inherently makes the rewards less rare - leaving only the content difficulty to be the deciding factor in how good the rewards are.
Open world content though, the drops from that will always be rare. As such, even if the encounters are a little easier, the rewards should be better.
Now, there is a crossover point where instanced content could get so hard that rarity becomes a factor again, and at that point these items become even more rare than open world drops, but that is an argument to be had 3 years in to the life of an MMORPG that has both a solid open world and instanced raid scene. It isn't worth discussing in any depth other than that it exists until that point.
It is the notion that PvX needs to be PvP and PvE together at all times that needs to die. Even more true considering the hypocrisy of the game happily catering to just PvP by itself many times.
Going green caters to pve exclusive playstyles.
I think boss zone barriers can prevent kiting and zergs from entering the encounter.
Instanced pvp content helps reduce presence of pvpers in the open world, technically effectively to pve only players.
Not much hypocrisy and pve catering should be pursued more.
The actual point of instanced content is to allow more players access to that content.
If a game has an open world boss spawn once a week, 40 players get to kill it. If that boss is instanced, as many players as are in capable guilds get to kill it.
If the only top end encounters players have access to needs to be fought over, the actual content is that fight, the encounters are the rewards from that fight.
There is indeed hypocrisy in saying PvX means PvP and PvE together always, and then adding PvP only arenas and sieges.
"Going green" does not remove PvP as being potential.
i dont disagree here, but what if the devs dont want everyone killing that boss all the time?
That's fine, put *that boss* in the open world.
Then create instanced bosses that specifically exist to give people content to play. There is no reason at all you can't have both - even EQ and EQ2 had both despite their lack of PvP.
When you break it all down, the only reason to not have instanced encounters is if the developer doesn't want players having reasonable access to encounters. Literally everything is in their control (kind of the point of instances). They can dictate how common the drops are, they can dictate how often a player can take on the encounter, they can dictate how many people can be present, they can dictate how much interaction players need with the open world in order to realize the rewards of the instance, they can even control if there are any special mechanics involved in realizing those rewards - an often stated suggestion of mine has been to require players to carry the mobs corpse (or part thereof) via the caravan system back to a metropolis node for processing. Throw up a serverwide announcement, and watch people come along trying to stop them getting it back.
To me, that is far more engaging PvX than having to kill players in order to be able to kill an HP stick which is what most bosses in PvP/PvX games amount to.
regarding arenas, they are different. we can agree that equalized arenas would be the same as instanced pve dungeons. you can get rewards by avoiding the open world. if you have regular non equalized arenas, you still need to be out in the world and pvp / pve to get the gear to do arenas. the equivalent for instanced dungeons would be removing dungeons / raid progression and making the players pvp/pve out in the open to get the gear to do the instances.
This would only be the case if the developer created instanced raid content in a manner where the encounters dropped finished items.
If a game like Ashes did as a game like Ashes should do, and instead dropped components, then people running instanced raid content still need to be out in the open world with PvP and PvE in order to get gear upgrades, just as people running arenas need to be.
This is another of those things that can be how the developer wants it to me. If they wanted to make it so you start a raid progression path and have no need to then look anywhere else for gear, they absolutely can do that.
Or the developer could do it the way Archeage did - mobs drop components that are used along with other refined materials to upgrade items to the next tier. If I have a brestplate that took me 10 iron to make, I could upgrade it with 10 steel (made with 10 iron each) and three fairly common components from different open world bosses.
Then I could upgrade that item with 10 feysteel (each made from 10 steel), and use a few more common components from above, but also a component from a group based open dungeon boss.
Then I could upgrade that item using 10 darksteel (each made from 10 feysteel), using three items from that group based open dungeon, as well as one from a group based instanced dungeon.
Following this method, the basic item cost 10 iron, but the item that uses the instance dropped component uses 10,000 iron. Clearly in a situation like this, players wishing to have gear using those instance dropped components would need to expend some effort in the open world.
It is literally 100% up to developers as to whether they want players interacting with the world or not. Having instanced encounters does not alter that it is up to them.
for this example lets say ashes has a limit of 100 players (server capacity, costs, customer support costs, management, gm, etc, etc), 10 of them are top pve raiders and the other 90 are the pvx crowd the game caters to. lets remember that you cant make a game for every single gamer in the world (or any product really, for every customer), if you dont add this top pve option, the 10 top pve players will not play the game, now the game has only 90 players. but guess what? 10 spots just open. if you make the best pvx game you can make, the 10 spots that just open will be filled by another 10 pvx player, replacing the 10 top pvers that just left. in the end, it doesnt matter if "noaani" doesnt play the game, because "bobthecasualpvertoppvper" will take his spot. make a full chocolate cake. dont add vanilla.
A few point with this.
Sure, 10% clearing it is feasable.
However, you are forgetting the friends, family and other community members that come along with top end guilds. If I bring a guild of 50 players to Ashes, I am adding at least 200 accounts to the server we are on - probably closer to 250.
This would then mean that in your 100 player limit with 10% being that top end PvE crowd, you now lose at least 25 players for not having this PvE as opposed to the 10 you were thinking.
However, you only took in to account the players that were killing the content, not the players that came to the game for the content but are not able to kill the top end of it.
While this is different for every game, I can state quite happily that general raid progression sees dozens of guilds killing lower tiers, and only 2 or 3 killing the top tier. Thus, if 10% of the population are killing the top end, 50%+ are killing the low end. While not all of these would be joining the game specifically for this content, some would. For those that aren't joining the game for this content but are participating in it regardless, the game is better off for them for having this content than it would have been.
The next question I have for you is in regards to the people that you think would fill in what you think to be 10 spots, but would actually be 25 or more. Why were they not already playing the game? Your scenario had a cap of 100 players, but the game won't have that cap - there will not be a point in Ashes where someone trying to open a new account is refused because the game is at the limit.
You say they would come because the game has better PvX due to not having instanced content - but that isn't something that is necessarily the case. Instanced content can absolutely make a games PvX better, just as instanced arenas can make a games PvX better.
Edit to add; I absolutely agree with your point that it doesn't matter to Intrepid if *I* play Ashes. It doesn't matter to them if you play, or if NiKr plays, or if Dygz plays.
What matters to them is numbers. More people playing means more money for post launch development, more people for cooperative play, and more people for adversarial play. Basically, more is better.
If there is a big chunk of players that would play the game based on Intrepid improving one type of content they already plan on having in some manner, and if improving that content didn't have any detrimental effect on any other content, there is no real reason to not improve that content.
The kind of player that would look at a game and decide to not play it because it has some content that they themselves don't want to play is not the kind of player that an MMORPG with asperations of a long life should be trying to cater to. A game with such asperations should be catering to people that look at a game to see if it has what they want from a game, and then looks at any other content as something for other people, and perhaps something they may dabble in later.
if you have 50 players each buying 4 accounts, thats 200, sure. guess what? in my example, you have 10 players with 4 accoutns each, thats 40/100 characters. those 40 accounts leave and you get 10 pvx players with 4 accounts each. having more than 1 account isnt exclusive of pve players. pvpers do this a lot too, and if they didnt, even better. i rather have 40 human players than 10 human players with 40 accounts each. servers will have a cap of 10,000, i just used 100 to make the example easier.
also, you are still not getting it. its thre that it doesnt matter if you or me or nikr specifically play the game, but we are different crowds. ashes is more oriened to players like me or nikr than players like you or dygz or azherae.
im gonna explain it in cake terms
you are a small, new bakery, you only make chocolate cakes. you cant afford to make 2 types of cakes.
your marketing research indicates that there are 100 people who like chocolate cake, 100 who like vanilla and 100 who like both. your chocolate cake is bought by 200 people (those who like chocolate cakes and those who like chocolate and vanilla).
one day you decide to add some vanilla to your chocolate cake, maybe 10%-20% of the cake is vanilla now. you think people who like vanilla cake are going to buy your cake so you will be selling to all 300 customers, but what happens is that people who like chocolate cakes will stop buying your cake, because they are paying for a full chocolate cake and there is vanilla on it ruining the flavor, so you lose 100 customers. on top of that, people who like vanilla cakes wont buy the cake, because there is too little vanilla and too much (forced) chocolate (i can imagine dygz here xDDD). so you are left with only 100 customers who like both vanilla and chocolate. instead of gaining more customers, you lost some.
also, lets not forget the cake making costs. maybe you cant make 300 cakes a week for all 300 customers. maybe you can only make 200 hundreds, so now you have 100 extra cakes that arent selling. you decide to only make 100 cakes a week, instead of 100, but that increases the price of making each cake, therefore, the price of selling that cake also increases, then some of those 100 customers will go buy a cheaper cake. they dont wanna pay more for the same.
you could also lower the production costs of the cake by lowering the quality of the ingredients, or replacing your baker for someone less experienced and cheaper to keep the price the same for the customer, but now, the quality of the cake is reduced and people might not want the cake anymore because its worse.
or
you could just keep making chocolate cakes. make the best chocolate cake and when you grow, you can hire another baker and start making vanilla cakes. so now you have a very good and affordable chocolate cake + a very good and affordable vanilla cake and you get your 300 customers.
Now, there is a crossover point where instanced content could get so hard that rarity becomes a factor again, and at that point these items become even more rare than open world drops, but that is an argument to be had 3 years in to the life of an MMORPG that has both a solid open world and instanced raid scene. It isn't worth discussing in any depth other than that it exists until that point.
I forget if I've asked you this before. If you're clearing a hard instance, do you expect the loot to 100% drop or do you expect it to have a non-100% chance? Or is smth in-between, along the lines of "this instance has 10 potential drops, but it only drops 3 per clear (with randomized chances of each)"?
Now, there is a crossover point where instanced content could get so hard that rarity becomes a factor again, and at that point these items become even more rare than open world drops, but that is an argument to be had 3 years in to the life of an MMORPG that has both a solid open world and instanced raid scene. It isn't worth discussing in any depth other than that it exists until that point.
I forget if I've asked you this before. If you're clearing a hard instance, do you expect the loot to 100% drop or do you expect it to have a non-100% chance? Or is smth in-between, along the lines of "this instance has 10 potential drops, but it only drops 3 per clear (with randomized chances of each)"?
My expectations for a game like Ashes are a bit different to my expectation for a game like EQ2.
in EQ2, most raid bosses had one of two loot table systems. The first is that they had a list of items, and 2 or 3 would drop per kill.
The second is that they would have two loot tables, and some would drop from the first, with a chance of a drop from the second (in some cases, that chance was 100%).
With this second version, sometimes that loot table would be exclusive to that mob (having a head slot item specific to each class, guaranteed for one to drop), or more generic droos either specific to the raid zone, or for the content cycle (these generic drops were usually able to be sold).
The second table for these encounters would usually be something more specific, and more desired. If the encounter in question had a week long lockout timer or respawn timer (instanced or open world), there would be a guaranteed drop from both loot tables. If it had a shorter timer, the better drops wouldn't be guaranteed (often as low as 10% chance), but the more generic loot still was.
In regards to Ashes, my expectation is that when we kill a boss, it *will* drop some specific components. I then expect a chance at other components and/or finished items, but these wouldn't be guaranteed.
if you have 50 players each buying 4 accounts, thats 200, sure.
In some cases, this is how it is.
However, for me, it would be me and my partner having an account, my two brothers having accounts, 4 of their 6 children (the ones that are old enough) having accounts, and a few spare accounts for friends of theirs.
Then there is two people I've gamed with for almost two decades that come along with me where ever I go to be support (assisting in learning the combat system and being crafters, mostly).
So, from one person, we have 9 other players coming along, and another 2 or 3 accounts on hand.
I am a slight outlier in terms of numbers here, I feel it worth pointing out
pvpers do this a lot too
By this point, you are talking about completely the wrong thing. However, I have no doubt PvX players have similar situations to what I was actually talking about as per the above.
The thing is, the part you haven't explained, why is it one or the other? This part doesn't make sense.
you are a small, new bakery, you only make chocolate cakes. you cant afford to make 2 types of cakes.
The whole cake analogy doesn't work.
First, Ashes is the bakery, nit the cake. People should be able to come to Ashes and have a more PvP focused experience center, or a more PvE focused experience. As long as people aren't trying to only have one, then things are just fine.
The cake analogy also relies on the notion that more cakes can't be made, which in itself relies on everyone capable of making cakes at this bakery doing so as efficiently as possible.
In regards to MMORPG's, the most efficient use of developer time (using player engagement in the content as the only metric) is repeatable instances.
The least efficient is non-repeatable instances.
As long as Steven is making such inefficient use of his staff, you do not get to say that they don't have time to make both cakes.
But hey if you are making the statement pve players don't want instanced dungeons and want a limited amount of single cage boss room maybe you aren't as far gone as i thought with some your points for AoC.
I'm making the statement that people here are not talking about instanced dungeons, but rather instanced encounters.
I am also making the statement that you replying to people talking about instanced encounters and speaking in regards to instanced dungeons is a strawman argument by definition. The merits of instanced encounters is placed in front of you, and instead of debating it you are debating the merits of instanced dungeons - literally a different debate, thus literally a strawman.
if you have 50 players each buying 4 accounts, thats 200, sure.
In some cases, this is how it is.
However, for me, it would be me and my partner having an account, my two brothers having accounts, 4 of their 6 children (the ones that are old enough) having accounts, and a few spare accounts for friends of theirs.
Then there is two people I've gamed with for almost two decades that come along with me where ever I go to be support (assisting in learning the combat system and being crafters, mostly).
So, from one person, we have 9 other players coming along, and another 2 or 3 accounts on hand.
I am a slight outlier in terms of numbers here, I feel it worth pointing out
pvpers do this a lot too
By this point, you are talking about completely the wrong thing. However, I have no doubt PvX players have similar situations to what I was actually talking about as per the above.
The thing is, the part you haven't explained, why is it one or the other? This part doesn't make sense.
you are a small, new bakery, you only make chocolate cakes. you cant afford to make 2 types of cakes.
The whole cake analogy doesn't work.
First, Ashes is the bakery, nit the cake. People should be able to come to Ashes and have a more PvP focused experience center, or a more PvE focused experience. As long as people aren't trying to only have one, then things are just fine.
The cake analogy also relies on the notion that more cakes can't be made, which in itself relies on everyone capable of making cakes at this bakery doing so as efficiently as possible.
In regards to MMORPG's, the most efficient use of developer time (using player engagement in the content as the only metric) is repeatable instances.
The least efficient is non-repeatable instances.
As long as Steven is making such inefficient use of his staff, you do not get to say that they don't have time to make both cakes.
intrepid is the bakery. even if you could make an unlimited amount of cakes, people who dont like chocolate cake and like vanilla, arent going to buy your 80% chocolate + 20% vanilla cake. on top of that, people who like chocolate arent gonna eat the cake now, because its not 100% chocolate.
another one, imagine targetted ads. if your customers are senior citizens, you arent going to do things to make 20 years old buy your product...you target senior citizens. if ashes caters to pvpers, why would you add things that cater only to pvers, and not just pvers, the top 10% pvers...
i never said they dont have time to make both cakes, what i said was that it would be better if they made another cake (a pveonly mmorpg, or any other game really).
also, i dont understand your question
The thing is, the part you haven't explained, why is it one or the other? This part doesn't make sense.
do you mean why pvers or pvpers? none are more important than the other. for example, if we were going to have this discussion in WoW forums, lost ark or even throne and liberty, id say yeah add more instances go for it. but ashes is about being out in the open, so players who like being out in the open are more important than players who like instances, therefore, the things you add to the game should cater to players who like being out in the open, even if instances and instance progression is good gameplay (but that would fit a game like WoW better). its just market segmentation.
im algo kind of against equalized pvp arenas and regular arenas where you can just be there 24/7 for ashes. im ok with arenas with a limited amount of matches per day / week. dont get me wrong, i like arenas, but ashes is about being out in the open world. ironically, or maybe paradoxically? i dont like pve instances that have a daily or weekly limit, i prefer instances that i can do as many times as i want, but for ashes, id prefer if they had a limit on how many you could do per week / day. i also like getting completed items from doing an instance over and over, but i agree with you that it would be better to just have materials dropped from instances bosses
As long as Steven is making such inefficient use of his staff, you do not get to say that they don't have time to make both cakes.
Open world dungeons are as repeatable as instanced ones, except they're about the pvx experience rather than a pure pve one.
So, if anything, this bakery is selling cakes with chocolate and vanilla by default. With pure flavor limited amount cupcakes on the side. The bakery knows that their TA is limited and hopes that the cupcakes provide enough of a cushion to not go into the red.
And curse you all for talking about cakes and shit while I'm trying to eat less sugar
also, you are still not getting it. its thre that it doesnt matter if you or me or nikr specifically play the game, but we are different crowds. ashes is more oriened to players like me or nikr than players like you or dygz or azherae.
My man, what are you even talking about? Are you sure you want to be making claims like that? NiKr clearly cares about good PvE in Ashes more than we do.
Bow before the Emperor and your lives shall be spared. Refuse to bow and your lives shall be speared.
As long as Steven is making such inefficient use of his staff, you do not get to say that they don't have time to make both cakes.
Open world dungeons are as repeatable as instanced ones, except they're about the pvx experience rather than a pure pve one.
They are on paper, though open dungeons tend to get reused less often when people have options.
An instance with 8 bosses (not that I am suggesting this for Ashes - just talking efficiency of development time) is a near guaranteed 8 bosses in a given amount of time - an open dungeon with 20 bosses could well still mean no bosses in that same amount of time.
Thus, given the option, players tend more towards instanced content than open world, which is why instanced dungeons have the best return on investment in terms of content for an MMORPG.
intrepid is the bakery. even if you could make an unlimited amount of cakes, people who dont like chocolate cake and like vanilla, arent going to buy your 80% chocolate + 20% vanilla cake.
See, this is the analogy falling flat.
When you play an MMORPG, you do not particpate in all the content the game has to offer. Most players don't particpate in even 50% of what an MMORPG has to offer.
Thus, if an MMORPG is 80% what you want, you have MORE than enough. You shouldn't care what that other 20% is at all, because you won't ever get to it.
This is why the only way this analogy works is if Ashes is the bakery, not Intrepid. You aren't expected to experience all of Ashes, so rather than Ashes being the cake, it is the bakery and each individual content piece is a cake.
IMO though, it is just an analogy that doesn't work.
do you mean why pvers or pvpers? none are more important than the other
Not quite what I mean.
One of the many precarious points of balance your argument here relies on is that if those wanting top end PvE in Ashes didn't play, that would then open up space for people that want a more PvP focused form of PvX (to be clear, we are both talking about PvX, I am talking about it a little more towards the PvE side, you are talking about it a little more towards the PvP side - lets not go thinking only one of us is talking about PvX).
The problem I have with this is that your argument requires these people want to play Ashes, but not play it specifically and only because there is some content they do not wish to particiapte in. If this were not the case, then those players would be playing the game anyway, and the loss of more PvE focused people would just be a loss - there wouldn't be those people to fill in those slots.
This simply does not make any sense. There is no reason for those people to not already be playing
im algo kind of against equalized pvp arenas and regular arenas where you can just be there 24/7 for ashes.
They are on paper, though open dungeons tend to get reused less often when people have options.
This comes down to the loot tables of non-boss mobs and to the amount of instances available to any given person on a daily basis.
If non-boss mobs give even a fraction of a boss' value - killing them in ow dungeons is viable when you don't have access to a boss. And if, say, you're a mage and want to craft a new staff you may have 8 open world dungeons that have a few mobs and a few bosses that drop mats for it and you have 2 instances that do so as well (but are on a weekly reset timer) - you'll clear those 2 instances asap and will either have nothing to do or will simply go and fight over mobs/bosses in the ow dungeons.
So even if the instanced dungeons are repeatable, unless only the boss drops matter and instances are dailies - ow stuff is still more beneficial to put more devtime into, because it's gonna be the main source of content for the majority of people when it comes to their day-to-day gameplay. And those are the "face" of Steven's PvX design, so they better be presentable and nice.
They are on paper, though open dungeons tend to get reused less often when people have options.
This comes down to the loot tables of non-boss mobs and to the amount of instances available to any given person on a daily basis.
If non-boss mobs give even a fraction of a boss' value - killing them in ow dungeons is viable when you don't have access to a boss. And if, say, you're a mage and want to craft a new staff you may have 8 open world dungeons that have a few mobs and a few bosses that drop mats for it and you have 2 instances that do so as well (but are on a weekly reset timer) - you'll clear those 2 instances asap and will either have nothing to do or will simply go and fight over mobs/bosses in the ow dungeons.
So even if the instanced dungeons are repeatable, unless only the boss drops matter and instances are dailies - ow stuff is still more beneficial to put more devtime into, because it's gonna be the main source of content for the majority of people when it comes to their day-to-day gameplay. And those are the "face" of Steven's PvX design, so they better be presentable and nice.
At this point I've lost track of the 'common definition' of PvX player, but basically, for my group, 'all of this'.
We don't want 'Base Toublek pumped up into forced spec changes and derivative puzzle solving, in an instance'. We don't want 'Halfassed Chernobog/King Excavator'.
The only connection I see between drops and 'PvX player content goals' is that if you make good drops off boring open World mobs, you water down everything about the game to BDO tier. The solution to this is to make the mobs less boring, nothing else.
"Supporting PvX raiders in Ashes" is obviously priority, so the topic doesn't even have to be our usual rotunda about who is what. Assume we get PvX support, and want to give the PvEMainly players something. Do we even know what they (within the concept of Ashes) want? There's 'those that can't possibly get what they want', and maybe that's 'literally all of them'.
Just put decent-not-great Enchanting/Enhancing materials in the 'Instances' to smooth out the Econ curve and call it a day. As players move more out of the 'average/casual' space, they need these less, and get pushed into the Open World, possibly with the skill/invested mindset to stay. Laning Phase, but without even a Lane opponent.
We definitely don't want whatever the hell THIS is (Talus, guild boss version)
That's a guild boss? A dude that barely does any dmg, has like 3 attacks, easy shields and also a, I fucking hope not free, respawn 5 meters away from it? HUH?
The only connection I see between drops and 'PvX player content goals' is that if you make good drops off boring open World mobs, you water down everything about the game to BDO tier. The solution to this is to make the mobs less boring, nothing else.
Yep, which is why I always keep saying that I want hardcore pve across the board, and why I suggested that "growing difficulty dungeon room" mechanic a year or so ago.
I do doubt that I'd fall into the "common" definition of a pvxer though. Or maybe it's the opposite and I'm THE ONLY pvxer around, who wants the best of both worlds instead of saying that pve is shite and that pvp even existing prevents the game from being a pvx game.
They are on paper, though open dungeons tend to get reused less often when people have options.
This comes down to the loot tables of non-boss mobs and to the amount of instances available to any given person on a daily basis.
To a degree it does, but only to a degree.
Keep in mind though, difficulty and rarity dictate the quality of loot to a very large degree. Developers absolutely have scope to alter this to a degree, but only to a degree. If a game has both open world and instanced content, and assuming the developer is both competent and wants something close to balance, that scope isn't all that big.
A MUCH bigger factor than loot in regards to this is the competitiveness of a given server. If you are on a competitive server, there is significantly less reason to go for open world content as you are likely to spend even more time for even less reward. On the other hand, if you are on a less competitive server, you could go after open world content under the assumption that you are likely to see less competition, thus are morelikely to get better rewards for your time.
Keep in mind, I am talking about real world player use, not hypothetical "they could use it this much". Talk to any experienced MMO developer that has been a content developer/designer and they will tell you the same thing.
If non-boss mobs give even a fraction of a boss' value - killing them in ow dungeons is viable when you don't have access to a boss.
I've yet to play a game where killing non-boss mobs is worth the time for a group of competent players.
There has been something more valuable to do in every game I have ever played. Presumably, this is by design as most game developers would probably be somewhat upset with themselves if players thought that sitting there killing trash mobs was a worthwhile way to play the game.
This is why I don't consider non-boss mobs to be content at all - they are filler in between content.
My understanding is that what you are saying was the case in L2 - but if so that would be something of an outlier. I wouldn't ever wish such gaming on anyone.
Edit to add; if I played a game where getting a group together and going after trash mobs was considered a viable use of our time, I would nope right out of that game immediately. I actually do demand a better gameplay experience than that, and if I am paying a subscription for the game, that is a perfectly reasonable demand.
A MUCH bigger factor than loot in regards to this is the competitiveness of a given server. If you are on a competitive server, there is significantly less reason to go for open world content as you are likely to spend even more time for even less reward. On the other hand, if you are on a less competitive server, you could go after open world content under the assumption that you are likely to see less competition, thus are morelikely to get better rewards for your time.
This is where Intrepid's world manager could come into play. They have the tools to control drop rates across the board and match them to server statuses, so instanced/ow content is equal in item acquisition pace - as long as that's what Intrepid want of course.
There has been something more valuable to do in every game I have ever played. Presumably, this is by design as most game developers would probably be somewhat upset with themselves if players thought that sitting there killing trash mobs was a worthwhile way to play the game.
I'm talking about the overall value of mobs. Say your high skill team can get money through some other means, with which you'd be able to purchase the mats from the non-boss mobs that you want (again, this is in the context of both your instances and the ow bosses being on cd).
But other groups of players who're interested in farming mobs and fighting people could then trade you those mats, were they to drop any (this would be me and any other pvx grind enjoyer).
Pretty much an "everyone wins" situation. I get to grind mobs, while fighting others who want to grind those mobs; you get to do whatever other content you see more valuable; we both benefit in the way we want, with you buying the item you need from me.
And again, any of the drop rates in this situation can be varied/controlled by the devs.
A MUCH bigger factor than loot in regards to this is the competitiveness of a given server. If you are on a competitive server, there is significantly less reason to go for open world content as you are likely to spend even more time for even less reward. On the other hand, if you are on a less competitive server, you could go after open world content under the assumption that you are likely to see less competition, thus are morelikely to get better rewards for your time.
This is where Intrepid's world manager could come into play. They have the tools to control drop rates across the board and match them to server statuses, so instanced/ow content is equal in item acquisition pace - as long as that's what Intrepid want of course.
They could do that if they wanted to.
However, this doesn't alter the point I was making in relation to repeatable instanced content being the highest return, non-repeatable instanced being the lowest return, and thus there is no viable argument against instanced content in regards to Intrepids resources.
There has been something more valuable to do in every game I have ever played. Presumably, this is by design as most game developers would probably be somewhat upset with themselves if players thought that sitting there killing trash mobs was a worthwhile way to play the game.
I'm talking about the overall value of mobs. Say your high skill team can get money through some other means, with which you'd be able to purchase the mats from the non-boss mobs that you want (again, this is in the context of both your instances and the ow bosses being on cd).
But other groups of players who're interested in farming mobs and fighting people could then trade you those mats, were they to drop any (this would be me and any other pvx grind enjoyer).
Pretty much an "everyone wins" situation. I get to grind mobs, while fighting others who want to grind those mobs; you get to do whatever other content you see more valuable; we both benefit in the way we want, with you buying the item you need from me.
And again, any of the drop rates in this situation can be varied/controlled by the devs.
To be clear, your point was that players that didn't have access to a boss to take on could farm non-boss mobs.
My point is that players should never find themselves in that situation.
My point is that players should never find themselves in that situation.
Yes, we've discussed this before. You want EQ2 amounts of bosses in the game, while I simply do not see that happening in Ashes. Like, nowhere near that. Especially considering the 80/20 split, cause even if we somehow do get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bosses (which is still nowhere near enough for a full server) - they will all be killed at all times, so, unless we have endless daily instances, no one will have that kind of content fulfillment.
If anything, I think your evaluation of instances just doesn't match Steven's. Instanced stuff will mostly be story-based, and for Steven it's important to tell his cool story, so it won't be wasted dev time even if those instances are one-offs (which I expect AT LEAST a half of them to be).
that was an exhausting reading, feels like we are stuck in hell with the same people repeating the same old arguments over and over until someone goes nuts lol
anyways, I've had similar discussions with members of community, I think the most important part that is missing, is understanding that there is not a dictionary definition of PvX and it does not mean 50/50 perfect balance of PvE and PvP, yes, there are repeatable pvp arenas and no repeatable pve arenas, why? pvp arenas are easy to develop, they are popular, common and inside the original scope, that's about it,
now, if in the Future, they want to add PvE seasons, with the introduction of PvE repeatable arenas or an instanced tower with bosses or something that does not reward you with gear/mats same as PvP arenas, sure go for it, I just don't want it to be added before launch as that would be scope creep, and I absolutely do not want long term progression tied to instanced content, both pvp/pve
that was an exhausting reading, feels like we are stuck in hell with the same people repeating the same old arguments over and over until someone goes nuts lol
My point is that players should never find themselves in that situation.
Yes, we've discussed this before. You want EQ2 amounts of bosses in the game, while I simply do not see that happening in Ashes. Like, nowhere near that. Especially considering the 80/20 split, cause even if we somehow do get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bosses (which is still nowhere near enough for a full server) - they will all be killed at all times, so, unless we have endless daily instances, no one will have that kind of content fulfillment.
I think perhaps there is some disconnect here.
As we have talked about at some point in the past, there are two tiers of bosses. There is the big bad guy at the end of a dungeon, but then there is also a plethora of bosses throughout that dungeon.
When talking about loot earlier, spawn times, all that kind of thing, I am talking about the big bad guy. When talking about bosses in general just now, I am talking about both groups - there should always be a boss on the horizon.
In terms of development time, it can take weeks (or months) to develop the big bad guy at the end. This is because it usually has a unique model with many animations (which just the animations can take weeks), and also often has completely new mechanics associated with it.
Those smaller bosses though, they don't need unique models, and shouldn't be using new mechanics. Take a base population mob, give it a new name, double it's HP, increase it's damage output by 10 - 20%, and give it one additional ability - job done. They take about 20 minutes to throw together.
As such, there is no excuse to not have many of them - a dungeon should have at least one of these mobs capable of spawning in every single room - if the dungeon has a broom closet, it should also have "Hal, Master of Brooms" as a potential spawn.
While these encounters are not offering up unique mechanics or such, the fact that there are so many of them means that there is always variation. There is always interest. You aren't just fighting the same trash over and over again.
If anything, I think your evaluation of instances just doesn't match Steven's. Instanced stuff will mostly be story-based, and for Steven it's important to tell his cool story, so it won't be wasted dev time even if those instances are one-offs (which I expect AT LEAST a half of them to be).
Cool, his game, he can do that.
What that means though, is that people defending his game design do not get to use development time as a reason to not do something.
My reason for pointing it out wasn't to change Stevens mind on the game (I never have that as a goal, Intrepid shouldn't be listening to any of us). My reason was to point out that the argument used was flawed.
Bring it back a step further in the discussion, my point is about players having access to content. I'm a fan of that being the case, and I have pointed out that the only reason for Ashes to not have ample content for players to easily access is if Steven does not want that to be the case.
Now, you may well want to argue that the game design Steven has doesn't cater for that or what ever, but what that means is that the game design for Ashes doesn't inherently allow for players to have access to content.
Put that statement front and center on all marketing material, see how well the game does. On the other hand, if it isn't something you want to market the game as, why make the game that way?
I think the most important part that is missing, is understanding that there is not a dictionary definition of PvX and it does not mean 50/50 perfect balance of PvE and PvP
The other thing to keep in mind is that PvX doesn't mean PvP and PvE need to happen at the same time. They both need to happen, it just isn't required that they happen at the same time.
A game where you run around the open world harvesting materials, killing mobs and engaging in PvP in order to get gear to run an arena is PvX.
A game where you run around the open world harvesting materials, killing mobs and engaging in PvP in order to get gear to run an instanced dungeon is PvX.
why? pvp arenas are easy to develop, they are popular, common and inside the original scope, that's about it,
...
open world content is the way to go,
There is something of a contradiction here.
You say they should have PvP arenas but not PvE ones (instanced PvE encounters) because PvP arenas are easier to implement.
Cool, I agree with that point - they are.
Then you go on to say that open world is the way to go - despite the fact that it is exponentially harder to develop open world content for a given number of players than it is to develop instanced content for that same number of players.
If your argument is to make it easier for Intrepid, cool, you want to argue for instanced content.
If your argument is not that, then don't use that argument for why PvP arenas should be in the game first.
Basically, either use your argument everywhere, or nowhere.
It is important to remember that your group will have to fight through an open-world dungeon to get there and to bring the loot home.
Thank you for reading.
I just thought of something ... ...
When we got through the Dungeon ... ... ... probably invested several Hours of Effort and Gameplay into it,
got to the Boss of the Dungeon by the Skin of our Teeth (lol) and then manage to finally kill the Boss and probably sack all possible Treasure Chests, Loot-Bags, whatever may be behind the Boss or so, or maybe loot it from the Boss itself,
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... will we have something like a Heartstone-Feature ?
Will we be able to return Home with all of our Loot in our bags, like in World of WoW-Token-Craft ?
Or : will we need to turn back the "normal", manual Way ? No matter how many People who could want to rob us, could wait on our way back home ?
I see both positive and negative Points if we don't have a Heartstone/Teleport-back-to-Home Possibility.
The sheer Thrill could make the Game multiple times more exciting though somewhat more stressful at the same time.
Sure, a Heartstone would bring us way more to the easy Side. Returning to our Place at the Inn inside a Node, or at our Freehold would be nice. Save Time as well.
But imagine we must try to get back no matter how many Robbers, Highwaymen and other Bandits in Form of actual fellow Players await ?
Of Course it would suck big Donkeyballs if certain Dungeons would then always be camped by Dozens of People who wait for returning single Groups to gank.
But this could be countered by the murder-hobo'ed Players not being able to drop the Loot specifically dropped by the Bosses.
Or maybe People simply need to bring a small Army of Allies every single time. 😁 . 😅
As such, there is no excuse to not have many of them - a dungeon should have at least one of these mobs capable of spawning in every single room - if the dungeon has a broom closet, it should also have "Hal, Master of Brooms" as a potential spawn.
I'm talking about the same boys. The disconnect might be coming from our different perceptions on their respawn timers. Cause I'm used to 24+-3h (iirc).
What do you expect the timer to be? Would it be simply "they all respawn at the start of the server's prime time?" Or smth way way shorter? I think we've talked about this before, but I forget your preferred number for this.
I'm saying that if even every damn room in the dungeon has that kind of boss boy, with their kill time probably being a few minutes - they'll be dead by the end of the first hour of primetime, and then players only have plain mobs to farm, if they want the drops from that dungeon.
And this applies to all dungeons on the server, as long as the server is full. 5 metros, with, say, 10 huge dungeons each (maybe 50? rooms). 2500 such bosses for, say, 1k people (top lvl competitive players looking for gear). ~120 groups, so ~20 bosses per group.
If respawn is at primetime - every room gets cleared within 3h tops. And that's if there is in fact so many dungeons with so many rooms with each one having a "~5m farm" boss, and with only 1k people even attempting to farm them. Reality will most likely have fewer rooms for more people.
Any other type of respawn usually leads to stronger groups shifting timers to their benefit and farming stuff off prime time, so majority of players have even less boss content.
And this comes back to your point of "the game doesn't give content to people" and that is EXACTLY what Steven has been saying for years. Not everyone gets a reward, because it has to be earned. This is why the game is PvX. People gotta fight people to fight mobs. THAT is the content, which then leads to a reward.
Your usual counter argument to this is that this is just a pvp game and those usually have shitty pve, so it's better to just call them pvp games. Which is why I keep saying that we gotta require good pve from Intrepid to justify the PvX nomenclature.
We agree on the "needs better pve" part, so main point of this post is "what respawn timer did you have in mind"?
We agree on the "needs better pve" part, so main point of this post is "what respawn timer did you have in mind"?
No respawn timer.
Taking a page from the EQ playbook (EQ, EQ2, Rift Age of Conan and a number of other games all did this) you put your open world bosses as potential spawns.
So, say you have a blacksmith workshop in your dungeon. You may have 8 spawns of mobs called "blacksmith assistant". One of these mobs (indistungishable to players) has a respawn table that includes the rooms boss as somewhere between a 10% and a 25% chance.
This means the spawn rate is based on the amount of use the dungeon gets. More people running through it means more bosses will spawn. It's an elegant, functional, self contained system.
And this comes back to your point of "the game doesn't give content to people" and that is EXACTLY what Steven has been saying for years.
There is a difference between "doesn't give content to people" and "doesn't allow players to have access to content".
A game handing out content would be DDO - there being no overland to speak of, and instanced content being seconds away at all times.
That isn't what I (or anyone else I can think of) wants for Ashes.
However, we want access to content. If we need to make our way for 15 minutes overland to get to a dungeon, then fight our way for an hour down in that dungeon all the while facing potential PvP, thats fine - if we know there is some real content (my definition of content) for us to take on at the end of it. Having content we need to fight others for is also great, but there needs to be content that we know we can participate in.
I would like to add that a 75 minute adventure in a world with open PvP in order to get to content is not what any reasonable person could consider "giving people content". That is content that the players in question have earned uninterrupted access to just by getting there.
So, say you have a blacksmith workshop in your dungeon. You may have 8 spawns of mobs called "blacksmith assistant". One of these mobs (indistungishable to players) has a respawn table that includes the rooms boss as somewhere between a 10% and a 25% chance.
This means the spawn rate is based on the amount of use the dungeon gets. More people running through it means more bosses will spawn. It's an elegant, functional, self contained system.
Kinda sounds like my idea for "growing difficulty dungeon rooms"
Then a question related to that, what's the difference between having well-designed hardcore plain mobs and these mini bosses you want? Cause to me this seems exactly the same.
And I'd imagine these mini bosses would also have fairly low drop rates, as to not destroy the economy by overfarming them, so it would literally be the same as what I want, except in the name.
However, we want access to content. If we need to make our way for 15 minutes overland to get to a dungeon, then fight our way for an hour down in that dungeon all the while facing potential PvP, thats fine - if we know there is some real content (my definition of content) for us to take on at the end of it. Having content we need to fight others for is also great, but there needs to be content that we know we can participate in.
I would like to add that a 75 minute adventure in a world with open PvP in order to get to content is not what any reasonable person could consider "giving people content". That is content that the players in question have earned uninterrupted access to just by getting there.
So yeah, again, my main point is "all pve should be of high quality, so that the PvX name fits the gameplay". My room suggestion plays into that, and I feel like Steven's supposedly planned "dungeons know how fast you clear stuff" is somewhat similar to that in nature.
You might be clearing some rooms on your way to your preferred loot (cause I'd hope a huge dungeon has a range of loot tables) and when you get to your spot - you'll get some form of heightened reward, if your performance so far has been stellar. This obviously depends on the other player presence in the dungeon, and all that, but I hope you get my point.
In other words, how exactly is what you're asking any different to what I'm asking? And just to remind, my room suggestion includes a potential lock out of your room, so that your final bossy mob can have an even better designed combat than the general population, all while no one else can access your room.
So, say you have a blacksmith workshop in your dungeon. You may have 8 spawns of mobs called "blacksmith assistant". One of these mobs (indistungishable to players) has a respawn table that includes the rooms boss as somewhere between a 10% and a 25% chance.
This means the spawn rate is based on the amount of use the dungeon gets. More people running through it means more bosses will spawn. It's an elegant, functional, self contained system.
Kinda sounds like my idea for "growing difficulty dungeon rooms"
Then a question related to that, what's the difference between having well-designed hardcore plain mobs and these mini bosses you want? Cause to me this seems exactly the same.
And I'd imagine these mini bosses would also have fairly low drop rates, as to not destroy the economy by overfarming them, so it would literally be the same as what I want, except in the name.
NMs (Named Mobs? Notorious Monsters?) are a content question, but not a Raid question for most people that I know of.
They're fun, they have good drops, they can be really hard, they easily promote conflict even in FFXI where you can't literally kill other people.
The system described is the 'Lottery Pop' (at least that's the term I'm used to). This is why it has no respawn timer.
Ashes already has these, afaik. You might need to use a word for 'Raid/Alliance tier content for the level or area' (FFXI terminology doesn't do well here, they just call them 'HNMs' and no one even agrees on what the H stands for).
EDIT: Oh, as for the difference you requested, I'll throw in my data too.
Basically nothing. Their special attacks do more things, they have more health so that you have to think more about if you can afford to just offload damage to remove their threat quickly, etc. They're effectively required because normal mobs 'must be easier' (complexity wise) if you want players to grow, or to retain those that don't play at a high level.
But then, players like you need something to do, and players who are at that level need a goal to improve their skill toward.
And of course, we all need 'something to fight over'. Bonus if it can spawn in different rooms that aren't super close to each other and none of the parties are entirely sure which one.
Then a question related to that, what's the difference between having well-designed hardcore plain mobs and these mini bosses you want? Cause to me this seems exactly the same.
There are a number of reasons - but the biggest is psychology.
Players generally prefer having variety in difficulty - easy mobs then hard mobs. Bosses like this are a means of communicating which is which.
Players generally prefer the idea of going after a mob with a name, rather than killing generic encounters. It just feels better.
Players generally prefer to have a short term goal, one that they can understand, these mobs absolutely fill that role.
And I'd imagine these mini bosses would also have fairly low drop rates, as to not destroy the economy by overfarming them, so it would literally be the same as what I want, except in the name.
100% drop rate - but of a material of which you need several of in order to make an item (either three or five).
If people want to put the time in to farm them so much that they tank the price on the open market, have at it. That is kind of the point of a game with a complex economy.
So yeah, again, my main point is "all pve should be of high quality, so that the PvX name fits the gameplay". My room suggestion plays into that, and I feel like Steven's supposedly planned "dungeons know how fast you clear stuff" is somewhat similar to that in nature.
Stevens plan here will either not make it to live, or will be so easy to abuse that it will ruin the game.
I have always essentially discounted it as ever becoming a reality, and I continue to do so.
As to the difference with what you are talking about (iirc, just base population, low drop rate mobs), the difference is as per the above.
As for the lockout thing, all that does is prevent interruption to content you have secured access to. It isn't a substitute to instances in regards to access to content - it literally doesn't perform that function.
As we have talked about in the past, this kind of thing is fine for that purpose - for that function. However, it simply does not fulfil the function of allowing access to content for players.
In that above example, if me and my guild take that 75 minute trek to the botton of that dungeon, access to that content should not be conditional on anything other than us getting there. We shouldn't miss out because someone killed the mob yesterday, and if we kill it today that shouldn't stop someone else having access to it (if they earn it) tomorrow.
You might need to use a word for 'Raid/Alliance tier content for the level or area' (FFXI terminology doesn't do well here, they just call them 'HNMs' and no one even agrees on what the H stands for).
This is then another question, that I believe I've discussed with Noaani in the past as well. Should raid-sized groups have as much content as single groups do?
And would that even be feasible from the gameplay side of things. I'd hope that raid-sized bosses do in fact have respawn timers and are in fact way more limited in numbers than these Named dudes.
And if that's the case, then raid activities are a separate discussion and the minibosses we're talking about would mainly be a group (2 at most) thing. And I think having smth like "clearing 3 Named dudes spawns a 2-party boss in a certain room" would provide that "smth" you mention here.
And of course, we all need 'something to fight over'. Bonus if it can spawn in different rooms that aren't super close to each other and none of the parties are entirely sure which one.
Basically nothing. Their special attacks do more things, they have more health so that you have to think more about if you can afford to just offload damage to remove their threat quickly, etc. They're effectively required because normal mobs 'must be easier' (complexity wise) if you want players to grow, or to retain those that don't play at a high level.
To me this is mainly an overworld thing and potentially an "early rooms in the dungeon" thing.
Players progress through lvls, which in themselves represent the increase in difficulty, which in turn justify the longer leveling process, exactly because players gotta learn how to fight well. And those who haven't learned, by the time they're max lvl, can fight overland mobs/NMs (who are easier) and/or fight slightly below their lvl, which would fill up dungeons of Stage5 nodes or early rooms of Metro ones.
This is why I said that it'd only be 1k people who're fighting over Metro dungeons, cause I'd imagine that this would be the rough amount of skill-enough players, even if majority of the server is at max lvl. Most likely that's on the lower side of estimation, but I was giving the example at least a bit of a chance.
In other words, my point is that dungeons should be the peak difficulty content in the game for your current lvl. So you either can clear them (or clear a part of them) or you gotta do a stage below your progress or overworld stuff.
And imo this would also somewhat prevent the weaker people from leaving the game, because these dungeons would most likely have a much higher probability of pvp, and this pvp would be against higher powered enemies, so if players learn from the start that equal-lvl content is not always the best choice of action - they'd be more willing to fight against weaker mobs in the endgame (these mobs are still difficult enough, but just easier because they're a step below the weak player's progress).
And if AoC's crafting system proves to be what it promised to be - fighting weaker stuff is still viable, because its mats can still be used/sold/recrafted.
In other words, "for everyone according to their ability" or whatever that red bearded man said in the past.
Comments
I'm looking at it from the perspective what pve players would want and what instanced content means. When someone says there is no Pve content, saying you can do a pve doesn't is not equaling tons of pve content to them.
But hey if you are making the statement pve players don't want instanced dungeons and want a limited amount of single cage boss room maybe you aren't as far gone as i thought with some your points for AoC.
As to your comment on gear - any person with half an eye on basic game design would be aware that one of the most important aspects of how good an item can be is how rare it is. Instancing content inherently makes the rewards less rare - leaving only the content difficulty to be the deciding factor in how good the rewards are.
Open world content though, the drops from that will always be rare. As such, even if the encounters are a little easier, the rewards should be better.
Now, there is a crossover point where instanced content could get so hard that rarity becomes a factor again, and at that point these items become even more rare than open world drops, but that is an argument to be had 3 years in to the life of an MMORPG that has both a solid open world and instanced raid scene. It isn't worth discussing in any depth other than that it exists until that point.
if you have 50 players each buying 4 accounts, thats 200, sure. guess what? in my example, you have 10 players with 4 accoutns each, thats 40/100 characters. those 40 accounts leave and you get 10 pvx players with 4 accounts each. having more than 1 account isnt exclusive of pve players. pvpers do this a lot too, and if they didnt, even better. i rather have 40 human players than 10 human players with 40 accounts each. servers will have a cap of 10,000, i just used 100 to make the example easier.
also, you are still not getting it. its thre that it doesnt matter if you or me or nikr specifically play the game, but we are different crowds. ashes is more oriened to players like me or nikr than players like you or dygz or azherae.
im gonna explain it in cake terms
you are a small, new bakery, you only make chocolate cakes. you cant afford to make 2 types of cakes.
your marketing research indicates that there are 100 people who like chocolate cake, 100 who like vanilla and 100 who like both. your chocolate cake is bought by 200 people (those who like chocolate cakes and those who like chocolate and vanilla).
one day you decide to add some vanilla to your chocolate cake, maybe 10%-20% of the cake is vanilla now. you think people who like vanilla cake are going to buy your cake so you will be selling to all 300 customers, but what happens is that people who like chocolate cakes will stop buying your cake, because they are paying for a full chocolate cake and there is vanilla on it ruining the flavor, so you lose 100 customers. on top of that, people who like vanilla cakes wont buy the cake, because there is too little vanilla and too much (forced) chocolate (i can imagine dygz here xDDD). so you are left with only 100 customers who like both vanilla and chocolate. instead of gaining more customers, you lost some.
also, lets not forget the cake making costs. maybe you cant make 300 cakes a week for all 300 customers. maybe you can only make 200 hundreds, so now you have 100 extra cakes that arent selling. you decide to only make 100 cakes a week, instead of 100, but that increases the price of making each cake, therefore, the price of selling that cake also increases, then some of those 100 customers will go buy a cheaper cake. they dont wanna pay more for the same.
you could also lower the production costs of the cake by lowering the quality of the ingredients, or replacing your baker for someone less experienced and cheaper to keep the price the same for the customer, but now, the quality of the cake is reduced and people might not want the cake anymore because its worse.
or
you could just keep making chocolate cakes. make the best chocolate cake and when you grow, you can hire another baker and start making vanilla cakes. so now you have a very good and affordable chocolate cake + a very good and affordable vanilla cake and you get your 300 customers.
in EQ2, most raid bosses had one of two loot table systems. The first is that they had a list of items, and 2 or 3 would drop per kill.
The second is that they would have two loot tables, and some would drop from the first, with a chance of a drop from the second (in some cases, that chance was 100%).
With this second version, sometimes that loot table would be exclusive to that mob (having a head slot item specific to each class, guaranteed for one to drop), or more generic droos either specific to the raid zone, or for the content cycle (these generic drops were usually able to be sold).
The second table for these encounters would usually be something more specific, and more desired. If the encounter in question had a week long lockout timer or respawn timer (instanced or open world), there would be a guaranteed drop from both loot tables. If it had a shorter timer, the better drops wouldn't be guaranteed (often as low as 10% chance), but the more generic loot still was.
In regards to Ashes, my expectation is that when we kill a boss, it *will* drop some specific components. I then expect a chance at other components and/or finished items, but these wouldn't be guaranteed.
In some cases, this is how it is.
However, for me, it would be me and my partner having an account, my two brothers having accounts, 4 of their 6 children (the ones that are old enough) having accounts, and a few spare accounts for friends of theirs.
Then there is two people I've gamed with for almost two decades that come along with me where ever I go to be support (assisting in learning the combat system and being crafters, mostly).
So, from one person, we have 9 other players coming along, and another 2 or 3 accounts on hand.
I am a slight outlier in terms of numbers here, I feel it worth pointing out
By this point, you are talking about completely the wrong thing. However, I have no doubt PvX players have similar situations to what I was actually talking about as per the above.
The thing is, the part you haven't explained, why is it one or the other? This part doesn't make sense. The whole cake analogy doesn't work.
First, Ashes is the bakery, nit the cake. People should be able to come to Ashes and have a more PvP focused experience center, or a more PvE focused experience. As long as people aren't trying to only have one, then things are just fine.
The cake analogy also relies on the notion that more cakes can't be made, which in itself relies on everyone capable of making cakes at this bakery doing so as efficiently as possible.
In regards to MMORPG's, the most efficient use of developer time (using player engagement in the content as the only metric) is repeatable instances.
The least efficient is non-repeatable instances.
As long as Steven is making such inefficient use of his staff, you do not get to say that they don't have time to make both cakes.
I am also making the statement that you replying to people talking about instanced encounters and speaking in regards to instanced dungeons is a strawman argument by definition. The merits of instanced encounters is placed in front of you, and instead of debating it you are debating the merits of instanced dungeons - literally a different debate, thus literally a strawman.
intrepid is the bakery. even if you could make an unlimited amount of cakes, people who dont like chocolate cake and like vanilla, arent going to buy your 80% chocolate + 20% vanilla cake. on top of that, people who like chocolate arent gonna eat the cake now, because its not 100% chocolate.
another one, imagine targetted ads. if your customers are senior citizens, you arent going to do things to make 20 years old buy your product...you target senior citizens. if ashes caters to pvpers, why would you add things that cater only to pvers, and not just pvers, the top 10% pvers...
i never said they dont have time to make both cakes, what i said was that it would be better if they made another cake (a pveonly mmorpg, or any other game really).
also, i dont understand your question
do you mean why pvers or pvpers? none are more important than the other. for example, if we were going to have this discussion in WoW forums, lost ark or even throne and liberty, id say yeah add more instances go for it. but ashes is about being out in the open, so players who like being out in the open are more important than players who like instances, therefore, the things you add to the game should cater to players who like being out in the open, even if instances and instance progression is good gameplay (but that would fit a game like WoW better). its just market segmentation.
im algo kind of against equalized pvp arenas and regular arenas where you can just be there 24/7 for ashes. im ok with arenas with a limited amount of matches per day / week. dont get me wrong, i like arenas, but ashes is about being out in the open world. ironically, or maybe paradoxically? i dont like pve instances that have a daily or weekly limit, i prefer instances that i can do as many times as i want, but for ashes, id prefer if they had a limit on how many you could do per week / day. i also like getting completed items from doing an instance over and over, but i agree with you that it would be better to just have materials dropped from instances bosses
So, if anything, this bakery is selling cakes with chocolate and vanilla by default. With pure flavor limited amount cupcakes on the side. The bakery knows that their TA is limited and hopes that the cupcakes provide enough of a cushion to not go into the red.
And curse you all for talking about cakes and shit while I'm trying to eat less sugar
My man, what are you even talking about? Are you sure you want to be making claims like that? NiKr clearly cares about good PvE in Ashes more than we do.
An instance with 8 bosses (not that I am suggesting this for Ashes - just talking efficiency of development time) is a near guaranteed 8 bosses in a given amount of time - an open dungeon with 20 bosses could well still mean no bosses in that same amount of time.
Thus, given the option, players tend more towards instanced content than open world, which is why instanced dungeons have the best return on investment in terms of content for an MMORPG.
When you play an MMORPG, you do not particpate in all the content the game has to offer. Most players don't particpate in even 50% of what an MMORPG has to offer.
Thus, if an MMORPG is 80% what you want, you have MORE than enough. You shouldn't care what that other 20% is at all, because you won't ever get to it.
This is why the only way this analogy works is if Ashes is the bakery, not Intrepid. You aren't expected to experience all of Ashes, so rather than Ashes being the cake, it is the bakery and each individual content piece is a cake.
IMO though, it is just an analogy that doesn't work. Not quite what I mean.
One of the many precarious points of balance your argument here relies on is that if those wanting top end PvE in Ashes didn't play, that would then open up space for people that want a more PvP focused form of PvX (to be clear, we are both talking about PvX, I am talking about it a little more towards the PvE side, you are talking about it a little more towards the PvP side - lets not go thinking only one of us is talking about PvX).
The problem I have with this is that your argument requires these people want to play Ashes, but not play it specifically and only because there is some content they do not wish to particiapte in. If this were not the case, then those players would be playing the game anyway, and the loss of more PvE focused people would just be a loss - there wouldn't be those people to fill in those slots.
This simply does not make any sense. There is no reason for those people to not already be playing
I'm against this for both PvP and PvE instances.
If non-boss mobs give even a fraction of a boss' value - killing them in ow dungeons is viable when you don't have access to a boss. And if, say, you're a mage and want to craft a new staff you may have 8 open world dungeons that have a few mobs and a few bosses that drop mats for it and you have 2 instances that do so as well (but are on a weekly reset timer) - you'll clear those 2 instances asap and will either have nothing to do or will simply go and fight over mobs/bosses in the ow dungeons.
So even if the instanced dungeons are repeatable, unless only the boss drops matter and instances are dailies - ow stuff is still more beneficial to put more devtime into, because it's gonna be the main source of content for the majority of people when it comes to their day-to-day gameplay. And those are the "face" of Steven's PvX design, so they better be presentable and nice.
At this point I've lost track of the 'common definition' of PvX player, but basically, for my group, 'all of this'.
We don't want 'Base Toublek pumped up into forced spec changes and derivative puzzle solving, in an instance'. We don't want 'Halfassed Chernobog/King Excavator'.
We definitely don't want whatever the hell THIS is (Talus, guild boss version)
The only connection I see between drops and 'PvX player content goals' is that if you make good drops off boring open World mobs, you water down everything about the game to BDO tier. The solution to this is to make the mobs less boring, nothing else.
"Supporting PvX raiders in Ashes" is obviously priority, so the topic doesn't even have to be our usual rotunda about who is what. Assume we get PvX support, and want to give the PvEMainly players something. Do we even know what they (within the concept of Ashes) want? There's 'those that can't possibly get what they want', and maybe that's 'literally all of them'.
Just put decent-not-great Enchanting/Enhancing materials in the 'Instances' to smooth out the Econ curve and call it a day. As players move more out of the 'average/casual' space, they need these less, and get pushed into the Open World, possibly with the skill/invested mindset to stay. Laning Phase, but without even a Lane opponent.
Yep, which is why I always keep saying that I want hardcore pve across the board, and why I suggested that "growing difficulty dungeon room" mechanic a year or so ago.
I do doubt that I'd fall into the "common" definition of a pvxer though. Or maybe it's the opposite and I'm THE ONLY pvxer around, who wants the best of both worlds instead of saying that pve is shite and that pvp even existing prevents the game from being a pvx game.
Keep in mind though, difficulty and rarity dictate the quality of loot to a very large degree. Developers absolutely have scope to alter this to a degree, but only to a degree. If a game has both open world and instanced content, and assuming the developer is both competent and wants something close to balance, that scope isn't all that big.
A MUCH bigger factor than loot in regards to this is the competitiveness of a given server. If you are on a competitive server, there is significantly less reason to go for open world content as you are likely to spend even more time for even less reward. On the other hand, if you are on a less competitive server, you could go after open world content under the assumption that you are likely to see less competition, thus are morelikely to get better rewards for your time.
Keep in mind, I am talking about real world player use, not hypothetical "they could use it this much". Talk to any experienced MMO developer that has been a content developer/designer and they will tell you the same thing. I've yet to play a game where killing non-boss mobs is worth the time for a group of competent players.
There has been something more valuable to do in every game I have ever played. Presumably, this is by design as most game developers would probably be somewhat upset with themselves if players thought that sitting there killing trash mobs was a worthwhile way to play the game.
This is why I don't consider non-boss mobs to be content at all - they are filler in between content.
My understanding is that what you are saying was the case in L2 - but if so that would be something of an outlier. I wouldn't ever wish such gaming on anyone.
Edit to add; if I played a game where getting a group together and going after trash mobs was considered a viable use of our time, I would nope right out of that game immediately. I actually do demand a better gameplay experience than that, and if I am paying a subscription for the game, that is a perfectly reasonable demand.
I'm talking about the overall value of mobs. Say your high skill team can get money through some other means, with which you'd be able to purchase the mats from the non-boss mobs that you want (again, this is in the context of both your instances and the ow bosses being on cd).
But other groups of players who're interested in farming mobs and fighting people could then trade you those mats, were they to drop any (this would be me and any other pvx grind enjoyer).
Pretty much an "everyone wins" situation. I get to grind mobs, while fighting others who want to grind those mobs; you get to do whatever other content you see more valuable; we both benefit in the way we want, with you buying the item you need from me.
And again, any of the drop rates in this situation can be varied/controlled by the devs.
However, this doesn't alter the point I was making in relation to repeatable instanced content being the highest return, non-repeatable instanced being the lowest return, and thus there is no viable argument against instanced content in regards to Intrepids resources.
To be clear, your point was that players that didn't have access to a boss to take on could farm non-boss mobs.
My point is that players should never find themselves in that situation.
If anything, I think your evaluation of instances just doesn't match Steven's. Instanced stuff will mostly be story-based, and for Steven it's important to tell his cool story, so it won't be wasted dev time even if those instances are one-offs (which I expect AT LEAST a half of them to be).
anyways, I've had similar discussions with members of community, I think the most important part that is missing, is understanding that there is not a dictionary definition of PvX and it does not mean 50/50 perfect balance of PvE and PvP, yes, there are repeatable pvp arenas and no repeatable pve arenas, why? pvp arenas are easy to develop, they are popular, common and inside the original scope, that's about it,
now, if in the Future, they want to add PvE seasons, with the introduction of PvE repeatable arenas or an instanced tower with bosses or something that does not reward you with gear/mats same as PvP arenas, sure go for it, I just don't want it to be added before launch as that would be scope creep, and I absolutely do not want long term progression tied to instanced content, both pvp/pve
open world content is the way to go,
As we have talked about at some point in the past, there are two tiers of bosses. There is the big bad guy at the end of a dungeon, but then there is also a plethora of bosses throughout that dungeon.
When talking about loot earlier, spawn times, all that kind of thing, I am talking about the big bad guy. When talking about bosses in general just now, I am talking about both groups - there should always be a boss on the horizon.
In terms of development time, it can take weeks (or months) to develop the big bad guy at the end. This is because it usually has a unique model with many animations (which just the animations can take weeks), and also often has completely new mechanics associated with it.
Those smaller bosses though, they don't need unique models, and shouldn't be using new mechanics. Take a base population mob, give it a new name, double it's HP, increase it's damage output by 10 - 20%, and give it one additional ability - job done. They take about 20 minutes to throw together.
As such, there is no excuse to not have many of them - a dungeon should have at least one of these mobs capable of spawning in every single room - if the dungeon has a broom closet, it should also have "Hal, Master of Brooms" as a potential spawn.
While these encounters are not offering up unique mechanics or such, the fact that there are so many of them means that there is always variation. There is always interest. You aren't just fighting the same trash over and over again. Cool, his game, he can do that.
What that means though, is that people defending his game design do not get to use development time as a reason to not do something.
My reason for pointing it out wasn't to change Stevens mind on the game (I never have that as a goal, Intrepid shouldn't be listening to any of us). My reason was to point out that the argument used was flawed.
Bring it back a step further in the discussion, my point is about players having access to content. I'm a fan of that being the case, and I have pointed out that the only reason for Ashes to not have ample content for players to easily access is if Steven does not want that to be the case.
Now, you may well want to argue that the game design Steven has doesn't cater for that or what ever, but what that means is that the game design for Ashes doesn't inherently allow for players to have access to content.
Put that statement front and center on all marketing material, see how well the game does. On the other hand, if it isn't something you want to market the game as, why make the game that way?
A game where you run around the open world harvesting materials, killing mobs and engaging in PvP in order to get gear to run an arena is PvX.
A game where you run around the open world harvesting materials, killing mobs and engaging in PvP in order to get gear to run an instanced dungeon is PvX.
There is something of a contradiction here.
You say they should have PvP arenas but not PvE ones (instanced PvE encounters) because PvP arenas are easier to implement.
Cool, I agree with that point - they are.
Then you go on to say that open world is the way to go - despite the fact that it is exponentially harder to develop open world content for a given number of players than it is to develop instanced content for that same number of players.
If your argument is to make it easier for Intrepid, cool, you want to argue for instanced content.
If your argument is not that, then don't use that argument for why PvP arenas should be in the game first.
Basically, either use your argument everywhere, or nowhere.
I just thought of something ... ...
When we got through the Dungeon ... ... ... probably invested several Hours of Effort and Gameplay into it,
got to the Boss of the Dungeon by the Skin of our Teeth (lol) and then manage to finally kill the Boss and probably sack all possible Treasure Chests, Loot-Bags, whatever may be behind the Boss or so, or maybe loot it from the Boss itself,
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... will we have something like a Heartstone-Feature ?
Will we be able to return Home with all of our Loot in our bags, like in World of WoW-Token-Craft ?
Or : will we need to turn back the "normal", manual Way ? No matter how many People who could want to rob us, could wait on our way back home ?
I see both positive and negative Points if we don't have a Heartstone/Teleport-back-to-Home Possibility.
The sheer Thrill could make the Game multiple times more exciting though somewhat more stressful at the same time.
Sure, a Heartstone would bring us way more to the easy Side. Returning to our Place at the Inn inside a Node, or at our Freehold would be nice. Save Time as well.
But imagine we must try to get back no matter how many Robbers, Highwaymen and other Bandits in Form of actual fellow Players await ?
Of Course it would suck big Donkeyballs if certain Dungeons would then always be camped by Dozens of People who wait for returning single Groups to gank.
But this could be countered by the murder-hobo'ed Players not being able to drop the Loot specifically dropped by the Bosses.
Or maybe People simply need to bring a small Army of Allies every single time. 😁 . 😅
What do you expect the timer to be? Would it be simply "they all respawn at the start of the server's prime time?" Or smth way way shorter? I think we've talked about this before, but I forget your preferred number for this.
I'm saying that if even every damn room in the dungeon has that kind of boss boy, with their kill time probably being a few minutes - they'll be dead by the end of the first hour of primetime, and then players only have plain mobs to farm, if they want the drops from that dungeon.
And this applies to all dungeons on the server, as long as the server is full. 5 metros, with, say, 10 huge dungeons each (maybe 50? rooms). 2500 such bosses for, say, 1k people (top lvl competitive players looking for gear). ~120 groups, so ~20 bosses per group.
If respawn is at primetime - every room gets cleared within 3h tops. And that's if there is in fact so many dungeons with so many rooms with each one having a "~5m farm" boss, and with only 1k people even attempting to farm them. Reality will most likely have fewer rooms for more people.
Any other type of respawn usually leads to stronger groups shifting timers to their benefit and farming stuff off prime time, so majority of players have even less boss content.
And this comes back to your point of "the game doesn't give content to people" and that is EXACTLY what Steven has been saying for years. Not everyone gets a reward, because it has to be earned. This is why the game is PvX. People gotta fight people to fight mobs. THAT is the content, which then leads to a reward.
Your usual counter argument to this is that this is just a pvp game and those usually have shitty pve, so it's better to just call them pvp games. Which is why I keep saying that we gotta require good pve from Intrepid to justify the PvX nomenclature.
We agree on the "needs better pve" part, so main point of this post is "what respawn timer did you have in mind"?
Taking a page from the EQ playbook (EQ, EQ2, Rift Age of Conan and a number of other games all did this) you put your open world bosses as potential spawns.
So, say you have a blacksmith workshop in your dungeon. You may have 8 spawns of mobs called "blacksmith assistant". One of these mobs (indistungishable to players) has a respawn table that includes the rooms boss as somewhere between a 10% and a 25% chance.
This means the spawn rate is based on the amount of use the dungeon gets. More people running through it means more bosses will spawn. It's an elegant, functional, self contained system.
There is a difference between "doesn't give content to people" and "doesn't allow players to have access to content".
A game handing out content would be DDO - there being no overland to speak of, and instanced content being seconds away at all times.
That isn't what I (or anyone else I can think of) wants for Ashes.
However, we want access to content. If we need to make our way for 15 minutes overland to get to a dungeon, then fight our way for an hour down in that dungeon all the while facing potential PvP, thats fine - if we know there is some real content (my definition of content) for us to take on at the end of it. Having content we need to fight others for is also great, but there needs to be content that we know we can participate in.
I would like to add that a 75 minute adventure in a world with open PvP in order to get to content is not what any reasonable person could consider "giving people content". That is content that the players in question have earned uninterrupted access to just by getting there.
Then a question related to that, what's the difference between having well-designed hardcore plain mobs and these mini bosses you want? Cause to me this seems exactly the same.
And I'd imagine these mini bosses would also have fairly low drop rates, as to not destroy the economy by overfarming them, so it would literally be the same as what I want, except in the name.
So yeah, again, my main point is "all pve should be of high quality, so that the PvX name fits the gameplay". My room suggestion plays into that, and I feel like Steven's supposedly planned "dungeons know how fast you clear stuff" is somewhat similar to that in nature.
You might be clearing some rooms on your way to your preferred loot (cause I'd hope a huge dungeon has a range of loot tables) and when you get to your spot - you'll get some form of heightened reward, if your performance so far has been stellar. This obviously depends on the other player presence in the dungeon, and all that, but I hope you get my point.
In other words, how exactly is what you're asking any different to what I'm asking? And just to remind, my room suggestion includes a potential lock out of your room, so that your final bossy mob can have an even better designed combat than the general population, all while no one else can access your room.
NMs (Named Mobs? Notorious Monsters?) are a content question, but not a Raid question for most people that I know of.
They're fun, they have good drops, they can be really hard, they easily promote conflict even in FFXI where you can't literally kill other people.
The system described is the 'Lottery Pop' (at least that's the term I'm used to). This is why it has no respawn timer.
Ashes already has these, afaik. You might need to use a word for 'Raid/Alliance tier content for the level or area' (FFXI terminology doesn't do well here, they just call them 'HNMs' and no one even agrees on what the H stands for).
EDIT: Oh, as for the difference you requested, I'll throw in my data too.
Basically nothing. Their special attacks do more things, they have more health so that you have to think more about if you can afford to just offload damage to remove their threat quickly, etc. They're effectively required because normal mobs 'must be easier' (complexity wise) if you want players to grow, or to retain those that don't play at a high level.
But then, players like you need something to do, and players who are at that level need a goal to improve their skill toward.
And of course, we all need 'something to fight over'. Bonus if it can spawn in different rooms that aren't super close to each other and none of the parties are entirely sure which one.
Players generally prefer having variety in difficulty - easy mobs then hard mobs. Bosses like this are a means of communicating which is which.
Players generally prefer the idea of going after a mob with a name, rather than killing generic encounters. It just feels better.
Players generally prefer to have a short term goal, one that they can understand, these mobs absolutely fill that role.
100% drop rate - but of a material of which you need several of in order to make an item (either three or five).
If people want to put the time in to farm them so much that they tank the price on the open market, have at it. That is kind of the point of a game with a complex economy. Stevens plan here will either not make it to live, or will be so easy to abuse that it will ruin the game.
I have always essentially discounted it as ever becoming a reality, and I continue to do so.
As to the difference with what you are talking about (iirc, just base population, low drop rate mobs), the difference is as per the above.
As for the lockout thing, all that does is prevent interruption to content you have secured access to. It isn't a substitute to instances in regards to access to content - it literally doesn't perform that function.
As we have talked about in the past, this kind of thing is fine for that purpose - for that function. However, it simply does not fulfil the function of allowing access to content for players.
In that above example, if me and my guild take that 75 minute trek to the botton of that dungeon, access to that content should not be conditional on anything other than us getting there. We shouldn't miss out because someone killed the mob yesterday, and if we kill it today that shouldn't stop someone else having access to it (if they earn it) tomorrow.
This is the function instances provide.
And would that even be feasible from the gameplay side of things. I'd hope that raid-sized bosses do in fact have respawn timers and are in fact way more limited in numbers than these Named dudes.
And if that's the case, then raid activities are a separate discussion and the minibosses we're talking about would mainly be a group (2 at most) thing. And I think having smth like "clearing 3 Named dudes spawns a 2-party boss in a certain room" would provide that "smth" you mention here. To me this is mainly an overworld thing and potentially an "early rooms in the dungeon" thing.
Players progress through lvls, which in themselves represent the increase in difficulty, which in turn justify the longer leveling process, exactly because players gotta learn how to fight well. And those who haven't learned, by the time they're max lvl, can fight overland mobs/NMs (who are easier) and/or fight slightly below their lvl, which would fill up dungeons of Stage5 nodes or early rooms of Metro ones.
This is why I said that it'd only be 1k people who're fighting over Metro dungeons, cause I'd imagine that this would be the rough amount of skill-enough players, even if majority of the server is at max lvl. Most likely that's on the lower side of estimation, but I was giving the example at least a bit of a chance.
In other words, my point is that dungeons should be the peak difficulty content in the game for your current lvl. So you either can clear them (or clear a part of them) or you gotta do a stage below your progress or overworld stuff.
And imo this would also somewhat prevent the weaker people from leaving the game, because these dungeons would most likely have a much higher probability of pvp, and this pvp would be against higher powered enemies, so if players learn from the start that equal-lvl content is not always the best choice of action - they'd be more willing to fight against weaker mobs in the endgame (these mobs are still difficult enough, but just easier because they're a step below the weak player's progress).
And if AoC's crafting system proves to be what it promised to be - fighting weaker stuff is still viable, because its mats can still be used/sold/recrafted.
In other words, "for everyone according to their ability" or whatever that red bearded man said in the past.