How tethered should world bosses be?

In the early days of my L2 server, some of the world bosses were untethered to specific areas. I have vivid memories of the chaos they caused, like the time a small group led a world boss into town from a remote location. The boss wreaked havoc on the AFK stores while active players banded together to defeat it over the stores enjoying the fight in town and the spoils from the dead player stores..

Another memorable event was when a small group of players guided a world boss across the map into the open training arena. Since there were no death penalties in the arena, this group managed to defeat the boss themselves, despite their small numbers.

Or an event where there was no going out of town as the bosses took over the entrances.

These experiences sparked my imagination about the possibilities in the game world.

What if larger bosses had slight tethers, while smaller ones had none or very limited ones?
What if bosses could be trained on each other as well as players?

Perhaps there could be certain penalties or risks for players attempting such feats, but also increased bonuses for those who succeeded.

It's just a random thought!

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Comments

Nerror

Leash the bosses!

The wandering ones should be able to be kited around as long as they are on their path anyway, but as soon as they stray too far, they should go back.

Getting some world boss pulled into a node is fun for some people 3 years later looking back at it. Not so much for others.

patrick68794

Depraved wrote: »

patrick68794 wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

never liked this tbh. i hope it cant happen, specially considering you can drop stuff when you are green.
imagine you are in town setting up your shop or whatever and go afk 2 mins to get some water then you come back and you are dead because some idiot lured a boss to that area and you lost half of your stuff.

That can be managed multiple ways to not screw players over pretty easily though. No death penalties for players (at least ones that were out of combat when they entered) inside settlement limits, don't have the AI attack non-hostile players inside settlement limits, or plenty of other ways to design a system like this in a way that feels dynamic and alive but doesn't really punish players just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time

then whats the point of pulling the boss to the city? people usually do that shit to get others killed.

the only other cons i see for it is faster respawns if u die to the boss and lots of people hitting it. but you can also get that from killing the boss at its respawn. if you are competing for the boss and you want to kill it before the war kills it, then pulling it to town is a bad idea. probably only solo players who wanna attempt to get some loot would do that.

To try and get other people to help or to make the world seem less like a static theme park just waiting for the players to go do something? And even if the idea would be to damage another guild's town or node (which would be valid in a game like AoC) then negative consequences for players that don't want to participate or are AFK could be minimized while still allowing the world state to be affected in unique ways.

The OP clearly doesn't want this mechanic just to try and troll others, they want it to make the game world feel more like a real, believable place. Having a boss just stand around in a small "arena" waiting for a group of players, and then having them not ever leave that area (some exceptions could apply obviously) is just archaic, boring design.

akabear

@patrick68794
I think you got my intent.
It was never about creating chaos, but rather allowing possibilities to exploring the potential outcomes and perhaps some hidden results that can only be found by trial and error.

Imagine the coordinated effort entailed by a large group holding down a boss while another equally large group pulls a distant mini-boss into proximity, causing both bosses to engage each other. This could lead to an increase or change in the magnitude of rewards. Players might need to be flagged to pull out of a tethered range, adding a strategic element. Furthermore, players would have to defend their path from the boss's origin to their desired location, turning the whole exercise into a logistical, team-oriented, and potentially political event.

Perhaps for those successful, then stories being told of guilds uniting to pull two of the largest bosses across the land to fight each other collectively, sharing the spoils. Being able to pull off what others couldn`t or didn`t know could.

All about creating a sandbox of possibilities rather than the more rigid, predictable outcomes of a theme park set situations.

Players who dare to risk all become the most rewarded.

patrick68794

akabear wrote: »

@patrick68794
I think you got my intent.
It was never about creating chaos, but rather allowing possibilities to exploring the potential outcomes and perhaps some hidden results that can only be found by trial and error.

Imagine the coordinated effort entailed by a large group holding down a boss while another equally large group pulls a distant mini-boss into proximity, causing both bosses to engage each other. This could lead to an increase or change in the magnitude of rewards. Players might need to be flagged to pull out of a tethered range, adding a strategic element. Furthermore, players would have to defend their path from the boss's origin to their desired location, turning the whole exercise into a logistical, team-oriented, and potentially political event.

Perhaps for those successful, then stories being told of guilds uniting to pull two of the largest bosses across the land to fight each other collectively, sharing the spoils. Being able to pull off what others couldn`t or didn`t know could.

All about creating a sandbox of possibilities rather than the more rigid, predictable outcomes of a theme park set situations.

Players who dare to risk all become the most rewarded.

This is something I've been wanting back in MMOs for a very long time. I enjoy games like FFXIV and ESO but basically every single piece of content in those games outside of PvP is just so heavily scripted and sterilized that there's essentially nothing more to do than memorize some patterns. It's especially jarring in ESO since it's superficially presented like the single player TES games that do have a pretty open sandbox to try creative things (they did at least add the stealing/pickpocketing gameplay though, which was a nice departure from generic theme park MMO design). It effectively feels like you're just existing in the world created by the devs where you have no real influence, not in a world created for the players.

Apok

As much as I hated being chased across the map in FFXI, I sure do miss it

RocketFarmer

Would allowing a group to lure a world boss into a node/town not devalue the monster coin?

I think they are letting you do this as part of the monster coin economy. Now it would be interesting to have the group spend the monster coin to untether the monster and allow them to lure it rather than just having the monster show up. But then I think part of the purchase is the control of the monster to attack certain buildings and whatnot.

Or can there be multiple ways to spend the coin? The primary way and the alternate old school way?

RocketFarmer

Azherae wrote: »

I think the Ancients/Others type bosses should have no tethers if they are not spawned 'only in Corrupted areas'. If they 'only spawn when the area is corrupt' I think they should tether to wherever the Corruption ends.

What if luring these bosses from corrupted areas spreads the corruption? And players involved get the risks/rewards from it? Could a group lure the corruption away from a node given enough time/resources? Could this not be tied into the event system, creating new story arcs?

Think a good game allows for out of the box thinking with consequences rather than strict rules enforcement. So rather than “no, you can’t” it’s “yes, you can, but…”.

akabear

What if keeping certain selected raid bosses alive in your home territory (defending) had some benefit for the home team, and nil reward to kill by home team and only drops to non-territory raiders ?

wakkytabbaky

imo a mix of no tether and boundary zones need to be in play. like make it so world bosses can be ran all over the joint but if they are led within a certain distance of a settlement they will get disinterested.

can appease every one who want bosses attacking settlements by making that a event where its coded / scripted to attack but cant be led there by players. allowing no tether without some restraint can just lead to cheesy strats or exploits, nothing to stop 200 low lvls that dont care about xp debt that much just wailing on a boss non stop if its stuck in town / nearby a respawn zone killing everything

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