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Average mob TTK
NiKr
Member
For anyone who doesn't check for Steven "leaks" on discord, this one's an old one, cause I haven't checked in a while myself, but I don't think anyone on the forums mentioned this so far, so here it is
We've mostly seen "party mobs" in locations meant for "4+ sized parties", but even those mobs seemed to have died way quicker than in ~6s. And considering that they were mostly dying to aoe attacks, they seem to be even weaker than solos (unless all aoes are the same in power as solo target abilities).
We've had some discussions about how quick mobs seem to be falling in showcases before, but I don't remember if we've discussed soloable mobs (mostly cause the game is party-leaning, but still).
What yall's opinion on the current direction of pve speed and what would be your preferred speed (both party and solo)?
I personally want smth a bit slower, cause I want base mob population to still be somewhat dangerous. This would tie into the "world is dangerous and there are penalties for dying" design and would mean that people gotta pay attention to the game, rather than watching a show on the second screen while grinding easy mobs.
And that should apply to both solo and party pve, with the party side being prolonged by mob buffs and different player-ability-like effects that make mobs "play in groups" too. We saw a mob use a shield in the latest showcase, but unless I missed another interesting skill - that seems to be the only "harder" part of pve combat. Would definitely like to see more of that kind of stuff.
We've mostly seen "party mobs" in locations meant for "4+ sized parties", but even those mobs seemed to have died way quicker than in ~6s. And considering that they were mostly dying to aoe attacks, they seem to be even weaker than solos (unless all aoes are the same in power as solo target abilities).
We've had some discussions about how quick mobs seem to be falling in showcases before, but I don't remember if we've discussed soloable mobs (mostly cause the game is party-leaning, but still).
What yall's opinion on the current direction of pve speed and what would be your preferred speed (both party and solo)?
I personally want smth a bit slower, cause I want base mob population to still be somewhat dangerous. This would tie into the "world is dangerous and there are penalties for dying" design and would mean that people gotta pay attention to the game, rather than watching a show on the second screen while grinding easy mobs.
And that should apply to both solo and party pve, with the party side being prolonged by mob buffs and different player-ability-like effects that make mobs "play in groups" too. We saw a mob use a shield in the latest showcase, but unless I missed another interesting skill - that seems to be the only "harder" part of pve combat. Would definitely like to see more of that kind of stuff.
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Comments
6 seconds does seem a little fast, but there are other factors too. Like, how quickly can the avg. mob kill you back, and mob density and such.
I honestly think this is one of those things that is hard to really get an opinion on until we are in the game and experience all those factors.
I would be fine if the game was tuned towards slightly longer TTK, and where if you go out solo, you don't AOE grind ever, because you'll die. Let the AOE grind be for groups only.
I 100% think, and expect, the difficulty for each single avg. mob of similar level should be hard enough that you can't just watch a movie on the side while spamming 4 abilities over and over. You should have to pay attention to mob special skills and such.
6 seconds seems very low and the number gives me arcade/ARPG vibes. The weight of mob interaction will probably be greatly lessoned, cheapening the immersion and feel of the world. A slower more thoughtful and methodic interaction with the world is my preference and a higher TTK lends itself to that goal. An average 6s kill would suggest that mobs are more of an afterthought, or of lower value, to the PvP systems in the game. Perhaps this is a sign of their combat design limitations and a lower TTK is a way to compensate.
Keep numbers in check. Damage and life should be controlled so that balance is practical and we don't have to devolve in to 6 second TTKs. Keep the power creep out now.
Edit: Furthermore, I think classic WoW (despite its shortcomings) had great feel and the numbers weren't insane. Another thing to note is that this would be the AVERAGE. Now imagine if you had good gear. It would be certainly shorter than 6s (unless he is referring to 6s average at max gear).
So we not only have 'solo mobs' as a meaningful concept, but their TTK is...
I finally have it.
My gratitude to the Sandal Lord.
For me, it's not the 'fact', but the 'quote'.
The quote itself is super important.
This isn't something that has emerged from somewhere, or even something that has a definition that is 'in flux' that has happened to land on this value.
This is not even 'a general intent'.
This is an instruction.
Then the quote helps MUCH more by giving us a ton more information to go from.
"Three abilities and a couple weapon attacks."
There's so much data packed into that, even though it isn't, itself, 'directly part of the instruction'. I love it.
https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/1226222083596615781
I fully understand that is just an example to illustrate the point, but I certainly want it to take 1+ hours of non-stop grinding to remove corruption the first time you do it, and potentially many, many hours if you gank a low level.
It ties into XP per mob in general, which is easily tweakable based on the avg. TTK.
The thread about item drop rarity fluctuation also made me thing to that.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, L2 being an inspiration for AoC.
During my short time playing L2, it was way more efficient to kill many mobs a few levels lower than your character than to fight those of equal level. Adenas didn't scale enough considering how tough and risky it was (RNG can be a nasty opponent). I did it anyway. Good XPs, but not enough adenas for upgrades.
Should I take two mobs at a time then? Or should I go for higher level mobs maybe? It might kill the efficiency, but at least I'll get to use more of the tools in my skill set. Maybe I should tackle lower level group content instead?
But yeah, ultimately it'll come down to money (glint). If the main moneymaking method in Ashes is "caravaning glint", then there's definitely a chance that fighting a ton of weaker mobs would simply provide more glint to caravan.
Giving mobs a low TTK makes it really hard to also make them challenging. You'd have to make them BOTH hit very hard and implement some very aggressive interrupts/stuns in order to stop players from AoE cleaving them in "3 skills".
I'd much rather see something like a 10-12s TTK for your average normal mob encounter.
(Of course, there could be smaller mobs which even solo players are meant to fight multiple of, I'm only talking about the baseline here for your average, normal mob.)
Here is an old picture I made on the topic of AoE action combat skills, but I feel like the categories still work here.
I can't see casual solo PvE being anything other than A or B if the average TTK remains as low as 6s.
As for corruption:
The 15/100 example seemed very quick to me, too.. but this seems way off to the other extreme.
I'd go something like 15-20 mins for initial corruption, climbing to an hour or so max (bearing in mind all the other penalties).
.... they should totally bin stat dampening though IMO.
And it would go somewhat exponentially upwards from there.
But again, that's a whole different discussion for later
Well, happy to sign up for that!
But for the sake of this thread, think DPS.
Thank you. If for dps, I believe it's fine. If it was tuned to 10-15 secs I wouldn't envy the solo tank or healer farming. Slow methodical combat is fine if it's for enemies of higher quality but I feel like it'd get tiring if ur taking 20-30secs to kill a single baby mushroom xD
I expect there to be a variety of types of solo mobs with varying rewards depending on their strength, some weak ones that attack in groups of ~4 that are better to be farmed in aoes(3-4sec ttk) and some strong ones that are more isolated, expected to be farmed solo 1 by 1(10-12sec TTK).
So i expect those Steven is refering to, to be the middle ground between those 2 types, average strength mobs that you can 1 v 2 that takes something like 6-8sec to be killed.
.
Aren't we all sinners?
Agreed. I absolutely cannot stand this type of gameplay.
As someone said earlier, WoW Classic had pretty perfect pacing with average mobs.
thats my tank
I mean, I don't want to be one-shotting mobs, but I also don't want it to take me 20mins to move from one set of trees to the next.
My question is, if we test it, what feedback to give? I personally wouldn't consider 'TTK is too short' to be enough, particularly if the team has already concluded it feels better from internal data.
And more importantly, if we don't like it, which part of the connected system are people going to want Intrepid to overhaul? I hope somehow, there will be some agreement on it.
But it's a game style thing moreso, for me. I'm interested to see how Intrepid shakes off the constraints/shackles of this design type (if they intend to do so at all).
Why do i just have a funny Picture inside my Head of a "Beastmaster" or other kind of Pet-User or Summoner to have trained, K-9 -like Dogs they send into the Wilderness and Bushes with the Command to catch, bite, rip and tear - and so on,
and THEN we hear the panicking Screams of the Playerkillers once the Jaws of the Bounty-Hunters' Pets close in on their soft, soft Flesh ... ... ...
( Don't worry. It is all just a Pixelworld and no real Criminals will be harmed for hilarious Footage. )
Having to be careful with pulls by only getting 1 or 2 mobs on you at a time is a very different gameplay loop compared to being able to mow through 5 at the same time.
I think this is the single topic Intrepid should balance their normal mobs around, as it is by far the most common encounter type in the game.
Bringing group gameplay into this discussion would only complicate it further, so I'll leave that out. Although if normal mobs are too easy to kill as a solo, then anyone can imagine how absolutely trivial they would be if you have a group with you.
"How many normal mobs can a solo player pull and kill together?"
If the answer to this question is not something you are satisfied with, I think that alone is good feedback to tell them. Saying that you feel like as a solo players you can kill too many/too few mobs should suffice, but if you want to be more specific directing your feedback towards one (or more) of the variables in the function of encounter difficulty is even better:
- HP - The biggest contributor to TTK.
- Damage output - If they kill you first, you can't kill them.
- Skillset - Stuns, interrupts and other disabling mechanics are the 2nd biggest contributors to TTK.
- AI behavior - If they are clever with skill usages and interrupt you at the right time, that could further increase their TTK.
There are obviously other variables as well, these are just the most common ones I could think of.In my opinion, even if Intrepid manages to somehow pull off challenging solo, normal mob gameplay with a 6s average TTK (by giving mobs very high damage output and a strong skillset), I'm still afraid that a 6s encounter just won't be strategic and meaningful enough.
This is not something we can tell until we test the game, but I feel like Intrepid is making it way too hard for themselves by constricting the encounters' length. You can only do so much in that time to not make normal mobs feel like lifeless punching bags.