Exp grind

My thoughts are that a Raid group should be formed to do world boss, or some hard dungeon or some other similar content.
Doing quests, farming mobs, gathering and stuff like this should be for party groups (8 players max).

As such, I think while you are in Raid groups - all players in the raid group should be UNABLE to earn any experience from mobs, and killing mobs for quests should not count toward the quest completion while in raid group (except some raid specific quests).

A lot of games have this implemented. WOW is included in this count. And i think AOC should implement this also.

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Ludullu

Azherae

This is one of those things, I think, where the design goals come first, then 'majority feedback', then econ stuff.

That said, I just don't like 'Raid Exp' either, but it doesn't exactly make much difference if the game intends to share the exp for a given kill based on contribution to that kill.

Not being in the Raid Frame doesn't make a lot of difference at that point other than for... heals and buffs and those depend on implementation anyway.

That said, if this is implemented in WoW, then I'd expect/want it as the default design direction for Ashes, transitive property and whatnot.

(speaking for only myself here, not group)

Songcaller

Yes, I agree. The usual method of grinding in games without the limitation is to form raid at max size and have 1 solid Group farming raid mobs. Max level is achieved in 24 hours on these games with such a method.

doken

Agree on this. For all those things you mentioned, a healthy mix between solo and group gameplay is what feels the best to me.

With more people the gameplay and social interaction starts being very different, mobs die extremely fast to the point you don't learn your class well, etc. This kind of sizes should be reserved for large scale PvP, world bosses, etc.

I don't know if I would go so far as totally disabling exp gain but I would make sure it's definitely to the best way to level.

Ludullu

What if raids just made the World Manager change mob spawn rates on the spot?

So instead of "raids don't get xp" it was a "raid simply can't get enough mobs to earn that much xp from a location".

This would make the raids just split up into separate groups and at that point it's no different from just several groups trying to farm a location and this would also be the solution to your suggestion too, so nothing would be different in this regard.

nanfoodle

Emerging game play. Every new MMO has people that learn ways to make the game fun in ways the development teams does not expect. Best thing to do is to lean into emerging game play. Expand on it and make what player take as fun have more depth. That's my two cents to IS.

Songcaller

Ludullu wrote: »

What if raids just made the World Manager change mob spawn rates on the spot?

So instead of "raids don't get xp" it was a "raid simply can't get enough mobs to earn that much xp from a location".

This would make the raids just split up into separate groups and at that point it's no different from just several groups trying to farm a location and this would also be the solution to your suggestion too, so nothing would be different in this regard.

The designs do not allow such dev intervention. It would mean the combined Dungeons would be empty most of the time and those who are spread out could be wiped out by whoever has come to contest the area. Furthermore, I do not want or ask for an easy experience - the raid mobs should be numerous, difficult and another risk factor in a pvx engagement. Not cheesable by a 40 man raid split into groups of 8 in different tactical areas. If the raid content is doable by an 8 man it is not an actual raid.

Ludullu

Songcaller wrote: »

The designs do not allow such dev intervention. It would mean the combined Dungeons would be empty most of the time and those who are spread out could be wiped out by whoever has come to contest the area. Furthermore, I do not want or ask for an easy experience - the raid mobs should be numerous, difficult and another risk factor in a pvx engagement. Not cheesable by a 40 man raid split into groups of 8 in different tactical areas. If the raid content is doable by an 8 man it is not an actual raid.

I was more addressing OP's concern that raids would be farming normal mobs and somehow getting enough xp from that to benefit.

Also, judging by this, my suggestion is already kinda planned.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/World_manager#Population_based_scaling
Dynamic world populations and reward tables allow the spawn tables and loot tables of mobs to dynamically adapt to changes in player activity and world state.[8][9]
Dynamic World populations and reward tables is those monster settings within the playable space changing based off of those world state predicates, so keeping in mind that that system being up and running is a very important part to feeling like the world is different.[9] – Steven Sharif

I might just be thinking of a shorter reaction timeframe than what Steven was talking about here.

I do agree with the OP (and you) that raids should come together for their own type of content. But I can also see how raids could just sweep through locations back and forth and clear it out while gaining normal party xp for it, even though they're x5 parties instead of one.

The World Manager will already be tracking player xp acquisition, so I think the thing I suggested could be applied if the WM sees the raid gaining repetitive xp (say, 3 respawn cycles?) within a certain location. Slowing down respawn would directly affect the raid itself, but not really affect anyone else, because everyone else would've already been either gone from the location cause a raid has taken it over or they'd be pvping for the location against the raid, so the pve side wouldn't matter to them at that particular moment.

Githal

Ludullu wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

The designs do not allow such dev intervention. It would mean the combined Dungeons would be empty most of the time and those who are spread out could be wiped out by whoever has come to contest the area. Furthermore, I do not want or ask for an easy experience - the raid mobs should be numerous, difficult and another risk factor in a pvx engagement. Not cheesable by a 40 man raid split into groups of 8 in different tactical areas. If the raid content is doable by an 8 man it is not an actual raid.

I was more addressing OP's concern that raids would be farming normal mobs and somehow getting enough xp from that to benefit.

Also, judging by this, my suggestion is already kinda planned.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/World_manager#Population_based_scaling
Dynamic world populations and reward tables allow the spawn tables and loot tables of mobs to dynamically adapt to changes in player activity and world state.[8][9]
Dynamic World populations and reward tables is those monster settings within the playable space changing based off of those world state predicates, so keeping in mind that that system being up and running is a very important part to feeling like the world is different.[9] – Steven Sharif

I might just be thinking of a shorter reaction timeframe than what Steven was talking about here.

I do agree with the OP (and you) that raids should come together for their own type of content. But I can also see how raids could just sweep through locations back and forth and clear it out while gaining normal party xp for it, even though they're x5 parties instead of one.

The World Manager will already be tracking player xp acquisition, so I think the thing I suggested could be applied if the WM sees the raid gaining repetitive xp (say, 3 respawn cycles?) within a certain location. Slowing down respawn would directly affect the raid itself, but not really affect anyone else, because everyone else would've already been either gone from the location cause a raid has taken it over or they'd be pvping for the location against the raid, so the pve side wouldn't matter to them at that particular moment.

Well i can see some pros in your suggestion, but it has a lot flaws also.
If raid group can deplete spawn locations, The raid will move to another location after. This may lead to no available spawn locations for normal groups to farm.

Other flaw is that with such numbers the devs cant make any hard content. If they make it too hard, it wont be balanced for party groups and ect.

A solution that would not involve complete exp removal for raid groups may be:
To cap the exp you can get from a single mob per level. So For example if you are lvl 10, and killing other lvl 10 mob gives 100 exp, Killing lvl 11 mob gives 120 exp, the cap would be for example killing lvl 15 mob for 300 exp. And if you kill lvl 16 mob its still 300 exp. But when you lvl up to 11 lvl, then lvl 16 mobs will give 400 exp.

This will allow party groups to farm the optimal lvl difference mobs. and raid groups will be unincentivized to be made for farming since they wont be able to go for too high lvl mobs in order to get great gear together with fast leveling at the same time.

Ludullu

Githal wrote: »

Well i can see some pros in your suggestion, but it has a lot flaws also.
If raid group can deplete spawn locations, The raid will move to another location after. This may lead to no available spawn locations for normal groups to farm.

How I see it working is just an adaptive system that changes according to the current situation. If a raid just runs through a dungeon on their way to the boss - nothing happens to the mob spawns in the dungeon.

If the raid is just farming mobs in said dungeon - the spawns will slow down. Once the raid leaves that dungeon - the spawns will speed back up again.

And if that raid is willing to spend their time going in and out of a dungeon just to kill some plain mobs - there's gotta be some deeper issue with reward structure balancing.

Githal wrote: »

Other flaw is that with such numbers the devs cant make any hard content. If they make it too hard, it wont be balanced for party groups and ect.

The harder content is the stuff with waaay longer respawns (I'd prefer 24+-1h), because that's what raids should be farming, instead of plain mobs.

Githal

From the look of it in the current alpha testing, you could see many streamers form raid groups to farm high level mobs. Leveling fast + better loot drops. This is big advantage.
And while yes they will split the loot to more players, but they will also be killing mobs a lot faster, so more loot.
And if as a party group you are getting some lower level gear, that you will change to better once you get some more levels. The raid group will be farming the higher level gears from the same low level.

Ludullu

Githal wrote: »

From the look of it in the current alpha testing, you could see many streamers form raid groups to farm high level mobs. Leveling fast + better loot drops. This is big advantage.
And while yes they will split the loot to more players, but they will also be killing mobs a lot faster, so more loot.
And if as a party group you are getting some lower level gear, that you will change to better once you get some more levels. The raid group will be farming the higher level gears from the same low level.

As I pointed out in my own suggestion, you simply cannot stop this. Even if your suggestion was implemented, those groups would simply split their raid into separate parties and still farm in the exact same way.

Nothing would change.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

From the look of it in the current alpha testing, you could see many streamers form raid groups to farm high level mobs. Leveling fast + better loot drops. This is big advantage.
And while yes they will split the loot to more players, but they will also be killing mobs a lot faster, so more loot.
And if as a party group you are getting some lower level gear, that you will change to better once you get some more levels. The raid group will be farming the higher level gears from the same low level.

As I pointed out in my own suggestion, you simply cannot stop this. Even if your suggestion was implemented, those groups would simply split their raid into separate parties and still farm in the exact same way.

Nothing would change.

This is just a result of old school MMORPG design being put up against new school MMORPG player mentality.

Nothing that can be done about it other than not using old school MMORPG design, or pretending it isn't an issue.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

This is just a result of old school MMORPG design being put up against new school MMORPG player mentality.

Nothing that can be done about it other than not using old school MMORPG design, or pretending it isn't an issue.

Old vs new in which way? The xp sharing way? Or something else? The "limited content" way?

TopWombat

Agreed. I think also that experience and rewards for world events should be reduced or eliminated if you are in a raid. It's pretty boring just going round in a big raid farming events that are easy because you have so many players.

CROW3

100% @Githal

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

This is just a result of old school MMORPG design being put up against new school MMORPG player mentality.

Nothing that can be done about it other than not using old school MMORPG design, or pretending it isn't an issue.

Old vs new in which way? The xp sharing way? Or something else? The "limited content" way?

The whole thing.

Old school MMORPG players would happily form groups to farm content, but not on the scale they do now.

in the early 2000's, a guild of players would be maybe a few hundred people, but would often only be a few dozen online at a time - but they would often split in to groups running content in different areas. Now, a guild is often a few thousand people, with a few hundred people online at once, and they are far more happy to all run the same thing at the same time.

It was extremely unusual in any of the games I played in the 2000s and 2010s for players to form up in a mass group like this for basic content, but it is kind of common now. As far as I can see, this started with people doing this around streamers, but now happens without them being present at all.

So, the old school way of developing an MMO was for this kind of content to be based around individual players, or perhaps small groups, but with an eye to full groups being present. The new school mentality of players is to throw a hundred players at it.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

So, the old school way of developing an MMO was for this kind of content to be based around individual players, or perhaps small groups, but with an eye to full groups being present. The new school mentality of players is to throw a hundred players at it.

I mean, L2 is an oldschool game and it was all about parties right from the start and its first years of updates only made that design point stronger. Later on they went backwards and decreased amount of classes and party members.

And due to pvxness of the world (and same grindability of normal mobs as in Ashes), there'd be huge groups of people running around fighting each other for spots, which would usually start from 2 full parties of 9 people fighting each other at those spots.

So far Ashes is a near 1-to-1 copy of that gameplay imo. Maybe with slightly better overall organization of guilds, cause organizing people over discord is way easier than doing it over TS or Vent.

Like, hell, I remember in 2005 where half of my local pc cafe (around 20 machines) would all roll around together on an L2 server. And we'd all come together at the same times of day, cause pretty much all of us were just school kids of different ages. Fun times.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

So, the old school way of developing an MMO was for this kind of content to be based around individual players, or perhaps small groups, but with an eye to full groups being present. The new school mentality of players is to throw a hundred players at it.

I mean, L2 is an oldschool game and it was all about parties right from the start and its first years of updates only made that design point stronger. Later on they went backwards and decreased amount of classes and party members.

So was EQ, and EQ2 also started out this way.

The thing is, there is a difference between a party/group and a raid.

L2 started off with 2 parties of 9 - Ashes will start out with 4 raids of 40.

That is the difference in mindset - there is no difference (no major difference) in content to accomodate this. The content in alpha kind of breaks with a single group - let alone getting 160 people together.

Githal

Ludullu wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

From the look of it in the current alpha testing, you could see many streamers form raid groups to farm high level mobs. Leveling fast + better loot drops. This is big advantage.
And while yes they will split the loot to more players, but they will also be killing mobs a lot faster, so more loot.
And if as a party group you are getting some lower level gear, that you will change to better once you get some more levels. The raid group will be farming the higher level gears from the same low level.

As I pointed out in my own suggestion, you simply cannot stop this. Even if your suggestion was implemented, those groups would simply split their raid into separate parties and still farm in the exact same way.

Nothing would change.

This wont be as simple as you describe it.
1. People in 5 different party groups x8 players wont be able to help each other as a raid group.
2. The kill matters for the exp. this means that from those 5 groups you may get 1 of the groups not getting any exp. And if they become lower levels due to this, then they will never catch up since they will do less dmg and even lower chance to kill something. This also means some of the groups will have worse gear. This will be enough reason for them to split and farm their own location and splitting the raid group.
3. if a raid group come to contest the spot (even tho they wont get exp as raid group, they can still pvp) they will have advantage. Which would be true for 5 small groups farming in different spots also, but then only 1 of those groups may face the raid group, while the other 4 get ahead with exp and gear.
4. Completing quests will take 5 times more time
5. You dont see where your team mates are in the map if you get separated, which also makes coordination much harder
6. If my other anti zerg suggestion is implemented where everyone outside your party/raid group is threated as enemy- then they wont be able to farm at 1 place at all as 5 groups x8

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