Open World Raid Boss Respawn Timers

Can there be "raid windows" instead of a pure random respawn for open world raid bosses? It makes it easier for PvE enjoyers to have a set block of time where they can plan to do some content in. Even if it is a "no spawn day" there still should be some type of sub-boss with similar mechanics as the raid boss for a smaller advance group of PvE enjoyers to participate in. Then if they stumble upon a raid boss they can alert their guild/alliance etc.

That seems like a more natural way than sending an "alt-scout" to the spawn location to keep eyes on an important objective. It also gives PvE enjoyers some decent content during breakout play.

I'm a PvP/PvX enjoyer who is worried about losing our PvE gamers because the game doesnt give them meaningful play loops. So this is one solution I brainstormed. Let's discuss.

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Azherae

Texas wrote: »

I believe the solution to preventing zergs and making group PvE areas more peaceful is to change the flagging for corruption. Everyone who contributes to the death of a green should go corrupt.

I really don't feel that this would contribute too much to a healthy game with regards to specifically OW Raid-tier Bosses.

As part of a more 'detailed' shift in the game's design overall, it could work, but Ashes has never seemingly been built or intended to be played in the style that would result, I believe the L2 supporter-side that much, for certain.

The inability to CC greens + good boss design should probably mitigate most of the 'disruption for fun' part of 'Raid' PvE.

I also asked awhile back about whether or not things like 'Mana Drain' count in 'things you can't do to Greens' and the answer was yes, at the time. This also implies to me (but only implies) that you can't use things like 'buff removal' on nonCombatants either.

I believe that disrupting a Tank or Cleric in Ashes without committing to a fight will probably be hard enough that Intrepid wouldn't need to change to a system where contributors get Corruption, even if I'd like to see some variations on that myself.

With proper respawn timers, random disruptors will be just that... random. With good design, 'random disruptor' isn't enough to steal OW bosses due to the lack of fast travel.

Zergs are something Ashes either has to 'deal with another way' or 'leave as they are because the enduring playerbase likes them', and I don't think that changing the corruption system will disincentivize zerging unless you also add a PK count to anyone mildly involved (nor would most definitions of 'involved' be difficult for most groups to get around).

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

nor would most definitions of 'involved' be difficult for most groups to get around

This. As I keep repeating over and over and over. "Everyone involved gets corruption" will never work and can never work. Simply because it's resolved by the god damn easiest solution of "I leave the party and PK".

And this doubly doesn't work in the current context, because if the victims came to a boss - they can't just run away from it to avoid being PKed.

And as I also keep repeating, PKing is not difficult. It requires 0 skill. In absolute majority of cases it barely even requires gear. As long as you can outdo the healing from consumables - you can PK your target sooner or later. And in a boss contesting situation, the chances are, you won't even get corruption, because the boss will finish off your victim for you.

Also, depending on guild war design, I don't expect to even see PKers around any boss farm that requires more than 3-4 people. If the wars are designed poorly - sure, there'll be PKers 100%, but I'll try my best to give feedback for all the points that would lead us away from such a situation.

Texas

Azherae wrote: »

Texas wrote: »

I believe the solution to preventing zergs and making group PvE areas more peaceful is to change the flagging for corruption. Everyone who contributes to the death of a green should go corrupt.

I really don't feel that this would contribute too much to a healthy game with regards to specifically OW Raid-tier Bosses.

As part of a more 'detailed' shift in the game's design overall, it could work, but Ashes has never seemingly been built or intended to be played in the style that would result, I believe the L2 supporter-side that much, for certain.

The inability to CC greens + good boss design should probably mitigate most of the 'disruption for fun' part of 'Raid' PvE.

I also asked awhile back about whether or not things like 'Mana Drain' count in 'things you can't do to Greens' and the answer was yes, at the time. This also implies to me (but only implies) that you can't use things like 'buff removal' on nonCombatants either.

I believe that disrupting a Tank or Cleric in Ashes without committing to a fight will probably be hard enough that Intrepid wouldn't need to change to a system where contributors get Corruption, even if I'd like to see some variations on that myself.

With proper respawn timers, random disruptors will be just that... random. With good design, 'random disruptor' isn't enough to steal OW bosses due to the lack of fast travel.

Zergs are something Ashes either has to 'deal with another way' or 'leave as they are because the enduring playerbase likes them', and I don't think that changing the corruption system will disincentivize zerging unless you also add a PK count to anyone mildly involved (nor would most definitions of 'involved' be difficult for most groups to get around).

The idea is simply to punish group gankers more. I think the one-kill one-flag system won't do much to discourage group ganking or zerging, and it will be basically impossible to get flagged as a healer or support as it is right now.

Yes, it would add a PK count.

Ludullu

Texas wrote: »

and it will be basically impossible to get flagged as a healer or support as it is right now.

Do you mean getting corruption? Cause supports would get flagged as soon as they provide any positive effect to their flagged/corrupted party member (well, as long as they have the option ticked on).

Texas

Yes. Flagged means flagged red or get corruption in that post.

A valid anti-zerg strategy in my system would be to just run in as a tanky green and flag as many players as possible. Then, everyone else can attack the reds without becoming combatants and if the zerg keeps zerging the corruption just propagates from there.

Ludullu

Texas wrote: »

Yes. Flagged means flagged red or get corruption in that post.

A valid anti-zerg strategy in my system would be to just run in as a tank green and flag as many players as possible. Then, everyone else can attack the reds without being the combatant and if the zerg keeps zerging the corruption just propagates from there.

Ah, ok, you're talking about a non-owpvp system and instead a purely PKer system, where even attacks would immediately put the entire damn corruption penalty on you. Ok

Texas

No. Corruption still happens when a green dies, but everyone who did damage to him would turn red, plus those who healed or buffed attackers during the combat.

You'd have to sacrifice a green to get the process started.

Veeshan

Noaani wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

How often are 2 groups just happen to run across a boss at the same time doesnt realy happen unless everyone knows X boss is spawning at X time

Like it or not, every mob needs to have a spawn window of some description.

.

They realy dont, its only realy the newer games where they used pretty much one type of spawn method for mobs/bosses older games had a bit more variety with spawn methods.
- Old games used placeholder system basicly where a Named mob spawns a normal mob would spawn (would have slightly different lower and upper case in their name i think this was a tech limitation) where mob x would spawn there and everytime he respawn he had a % chance to respawn as the named/boss mob, this became a dynamic spawn time so you never know if he would spawn or not could be back to back or could be 12 hours between spawns and even 4hour who knows
- Another method is the counter option, name/boss mob spawns when X amount of mobs have been killed tied to the boss spawn (doesnt even need to be close by if you wanted so killing mobs in X area might start the counter to spawn the boss in y area)
- Bosses can also be trigger via action aka player doing something or world event happen in certain ways and so on

The worst type of spawn you can go with in an MMO for bosses is a Spawns 12 hours after it been killed and so on, a slightly better option ios spawns randomly between 6 and 24 hours from when it was killed and imo any of the suggestion above is even better than that personally. Triggering boss spawns based on players activities imo are the best be it killing mobs in x area (promotes people playing in an area instead of running through checking on bosses up then running to next area doing circles looking for bosss spawns) , gaining node XP, or even when x amount of items have been crafted from a node spawns x mobs somewhere in the node influence.

Noaani

Veeshan wrote: »

They realy dont, its only realy the newer games where they used pretty much one type of spawn method for mobs/bosses older games had a bit more variety with spawn methods.
- Old games used placeholder system basicly where a Named mob spawns a normal mob would spawn (would have slightly different lower and upper case in their name i think this was a tech limitation)

As a respawn method, this is often used for named mobs - but not bosses. EQ2 is a game that does this more than any other I have seen, and it is always for named mobs rather than bosses.

The other two options you have also have a window associated with them if it is an actual boss, otherwise the most productive thing any player can do in the game is to further that counter along.

What is usually done when there is an actual boss that is spawned via these methods (or a ring event as a spawning method, assuming you know EQ vernacular), is that the spawn is essentially turned off for a set period of time after each kill.

An argument could be made that the window in these situations is a window where the mob can't spawn rather than when it will spawn, but that is a semantic argument that doesn't really alter the general point htat I was making.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Assuming Rift did try all of those things and still failed, would it have been due to bad AI/player tracking or just absolute inability to ever address anything that players do?

From my perspective, it seemed to just be the fact that some things are not possible.

There is just no way to scale a mob based on player interaction with that mob without leaving it open to trolls.

While it is indeed true that everything can be tracked, that doesn't mean mobs can compensate for it, and it doesn't mean players won't just change what they are doing.

I'm going to once again bring it back to the simplest point I can for this discussion. In order for an encounter to not be considered dead easy, it needs to have a fail mechanic that can wipe the attempt. Thus, any open world mob needs to either not have this system in place and thus be easy, or needs to have a system in place where one player can simply opt to end the attempt of everyone present.

I can't really explain it any simpler than that. it is either an easy encounter, or you are giving players the ability to end the attempt.

if you give players from multiple guilds the ability to end an attempt, I see no reason why you wouldn't simply end the attempt if you weren't winning.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

if you give players from multiple guilds the ability to end an attempt, I see no reason why you wouldn't simply end the attempt if you weren't winning.

Track the group who did the first hit on the boss (with a timer on it, of course), then apply the wipe mechanic to those who're not included in that group, if this group2 have been around the boss (and especially interacting and/or flagging around it) for a while. Or at least the first ones who get hit with the wipe is group2 and only after that group1 gets hit (depending on how the particular wipe mechanic gets triggered).

Give players a few tools that interact with this mechanic, where maybe you can sacrifice your group's aggro listing to change the "first hit" value to your group. This would make group2 do dmg to the boss first (helping group1), which can not only help them overtake looting rights, but also avoid a group2 wipe mechanic (which imo should be triggered more easily/often).

All of that while the hazards are boosted around group2 (because they are the ones that triggered the anti-zerg mechanics), so it'd be harder for group2 to gain the required aggro listing.

Then the aggro listing itself should have several interactions and mechanics related to it, so losing it might aggro the boss onto the "newcomers".

And again, all of that is just the most surface lvl stuff that I came up with on the spot. But imo all of that would be way more interesting than just aggro control or simple PKing.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

if you give players from multiple guilds the ability to end an attempt, I see no reason why you wouldn't simply end the attempt if you weren't winning.

Track the group who did the first hit on the boss (with a timer on it, of course), then apply the wipe mechanic to those who're not included in that group

Cool so I use ungrouped guild members (or even non-members - paying for things like this isn't unreasonable) to kill off your attempts at mobs that I got first hit on.

If the fail condition doesn't cause everyone to wipe, then you simply use sacrificial groups to eat up those fail conditions.

It being a full wipe of everyone present is a requirement.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Cool so I use ungrouped guild members (or even non-members - paying for things like this isn't unreasonable) to kill off your attempts at mobs that I got first hit on.

If the fail condition doesn't cause everyone to wipe, then you simply use sacrificial groups to eat up those fail conditions.

It being a full wipe of everyone present is a requirement.

Like I said, what I suggested is the most surface lvl stuff, all of which can be tested and adjusted.

I'm just sad that everyone is completely content with going for the usual crap, w/o asking for something more.

Obviously there'll always be some way to game the system, just as bosses can be cheesed somehow or how devs can sometimes miss a particular build/interaction that lets players make a boss way easier for themselves. But I'd still prefer if devs at least tried implementing something deeper than what most games have.

And even if bosses still end up being in semi-/instanced locations - the mobs could still use those new mechanics to make the pvx more interesting.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

But I'd still prefer if devs at least tried implementing something deeper than what most games have.

That's the thing to keep in mind here, what we are talking about isn't a new problem - it is a problem that has been around for at least 25 years. It is something that people with Masters (and a few PhD's) have spent years trying to solve. It isn't something you or I are going to solve here.

However, if you look at the problem of encounters being shallow, of players wanting better, deeper encounters, - if that is the problem you are wanting solved - that problem has been solved for over 20 years.

Open world encounters in a PvP enabled setting need to be HP sacks. If you want deeper, you remove that PvP option. You remove the ability for anyone outside of the group or raid to influence either side of the encounter. If you want to keep that outside influence in tack, you revert back to sacks of HP for encounters.

But then, we have discussed this at length in the past.

iccer

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Dimitraeos wrote: »

Again, if people see pvp as "interrupting content", then why can it not be mirrored by the other side? If anyone can just come and attack you while you're doing whatever - why can't someone else use a mob to retaliate against that person?

Because you are looking at it from PvP-ers perspective.

Most PvE players have no wish to do so. They don't want to interrupt and mess with other people's content (you could say they don't want to PvP), they just want to complete their own.

I know the conversation has moved on since then, but I just wanted to reply to that bit.

Ludullu

iccer wrote: »

Because you are looking at it from PvP-ers perspective.

Most PvE players have no wish to do so. They don't want to interrupt and mess with other people's content (you could say they don't want to PvP), they just want to complete their own.

The "someone" I mentioned can be the person who got attacked by another player in the first place.

Several people in these kinds of conversations brought up the issue of "pve has no impact on pvp". And I suggest that it should.

Obviously majority of pvers wouldn't want to use mobs to explicitly attack others, but they should be able to use those mobs to their own advantage when a pvper attacks them. The pve should be able to come in-between the pvping players and have a direct impact on it.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Several people in these kinds of conversations brought up the issue of "pve has no impact on pvp". And I suggest that it should.

The problem with this is that if I am attacking you and don't want you to be able to use PvE to your advantage, I simply attack you while you are not near any PvE mobs.

It isn't as if the world will be so packed full of mobs as to make this difficult.

That is why PvP can be a factor in PvP, but not the other way around. Players have complete agency over where PvP happens, but developers dictate where PvE happens.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

It isn't as if the world will be so packed full of mobs as to make this difficult.

That is why PvP can be a factor in PvP, but not the other way around. Players have complete agency over where PvP happens, but developers dictate where PvE happens.

Well, that's simply a difference in expectations. I do expect mobs to be very populous. Even attacking someone in a node center would still be close to guards, which are npcs.

Noaani

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It isn't as if the world will be so packed full of mobs as to make this difficult.

That is why PvP can be a factor in PvP, but not the other way around. Players have complete agency over where PvP happens, but developers dictate where PvE happens.

Well, that's simply a difference in expectations. I do expect mobs to be very populous. Even attacking someone in a node center would still be close to guards, which are npcs.

What we will find is that mobs in areas with mobs are reasonably well packed, but there will be space - a lot of space - between mob areas.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

What we will find is that mobs in areas with mobs are reasonably well packed, but there will be space - a lot of space - between mob areas.

We'll have to see. I like worlds filled with mobs, so I personally hope that's the case in Ashes.

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