A dungeon idea

Post by Azherae on 2023-04-20 20:51:09

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I mean, that predictability would provide a player funnel to pit them against each other on that desirable content, which imo is kind of the point of a pvx dungeon. This is also why I added the "mobs get stronger after a respawn and you also get a boss later on", so that people could in fact just sit in one place and farm rather than wasting 1h running around semi-empty hallways filled with useless trash mobs.

But what exactly are you pitting them against each other doing?

To be clear, when these sorts of things get discussed, I find that they really do move more towards PvE gaming primarily, where there's some specific lockout or 'guarantee' to a group or subset of players based on some prior action.

So what is it you mean here? Two sets of players attempt to follow the 'best' route to spawn a boss they want to fight, the boss spawns. What then? Or were they supposed to fight it out before the boss spawned? I'm asking because every 'protection' added makes the game more toward the FFXI/EQ side than the L2 side, doesn't it? Not much downside to me, obviously, but I don't 'get it'.

If people are 'racing', it's a PvE contest. If they are 'trying to kill a different group that spawned the boss', it's not really 'good content' for most people at all on either side. If they're trying to get a drop first for some reason instead of just 'number crunching to figure out how to optimally PvE in harmony', then the game's design doesn't really lend itself to hard mobs or Synergies (to me).

So... what exactly is the 'contest' you're seeing? Is it just the 'Mostly PvE' ones?

Post by Ludullu on 2023-04-20 21:32:42

So... what exactly is the 'contest' you're seeing? Is it just the 'Mostly PvE' ones?
This is mainly yet again my assumptions about how loot will work, considering the "not everyone wins" and the current loot rights designs. And in the context of even smaller dungeons than what I was imagining, what I'm seeing might be an even bigger pvp contest than what we had in L2.

Say there's 5 mob spawns in a dungeon. Each spawn can be taken up by a group of players. Let's say that the whole dungeon drops a single set of items (that would be shit imo, but that's beside the point for now).

Now, my assumption for drop chances is that they'll be low. But that obviously leads to grind-like gameplay, which is why I added the "mobs get harder and a mini-boss" in my suggestion, because those would drive up the drop chances and make the whole process less grindy (even if I think that grind would support pvx better).

If we assume that there's either no other location that gives the same loot as this 5-spawn dungeon or at least very few other places with it - we'll have way more than 5 groups of players aiming to get that loot. This is the funnel I was talking about and the pitting of players against each other.

Now the placement of pvp in that pve could be shifted along the gameplay loop in whichever way Intrepid wants it. We could have longer pve (due to difficulty or hp/def stats), so there'd be a higher chance that another group will attack the currently farming one. Or we can have shorter pve with long respawn cd, so it'd be more of a fight for the location itself rather than a fight for loot. We could lock the rooms during pve, so the pvp would always be for the location, and the pve itself could be designed way more intricately. Or we could only lock the mini-boss up, so pvp would just happen any time before it.

I'm personally used to fully open rooms, semi-short respawn cd and low-mid hp stats (depending on the group composition), with only Epic bosses getting locked up. But obviously that kind of approach only really works when the pve itself is super simple. If Intrepid is really going for a more complex design - they'll probably go with some way to help the defenders (or at least that would be logical imo).

But all in all, the contest is for the limited loot. If the whole cycle of one room gives you on average 1/3-1/2 of a gear craft in mats (I'd probably keep it even lower) - sharing a room with some other group would be silly, even outside of the potential anti-zerg mechanics. Although I might think it's silly because my brain is basing my judgement on the grindy nature of L2, where there was no fucking point in sharing the very little stuff you did get during farming. If drop rates are way higher or simply linked to quests - pvp will be non-existent.

So again, all my assumptions are based on the context of a working pvx game, where people fought for farming spots both in-between respawns and during pve itself. There's a deeper reasoning balance of "how long it took to come back to the same room under the same buffs", which considered the existence of TPs, the mana regen values, the depth of the room within the dungeon and a few crucial ability CDs. But we've got pretty much 0 info on any of that, so I think that's a conversation for a different time.

Post by Azherae on 2023-04-20 21:46:49

So... what exactly is the 'contest' you're seeing? Is it just the 'Mostly PvE' ones?
This is mainly yet again my assumptions about how loot will work, considering the "not everyone wins" and the current loot rights designs. And in the context of even smaller dungeons than what I was imagining, what I'm seeing might be an even bigger pvp contest than what we had in L2.

Say there's 5 mob spawns in a dungeon. Each spawn can be taken up by a group of players. Let's say that the whole dungeon drops a single set of items (that would be shit imo, but that's beside the point for now).

Now, my assumption for drop chances is that they'll be low. But that obviously leads to grind-like gameplay, which is why I added the "mobs get harder and a mini-boss" in my suggestion, because those would drive up the drop chances and make the whole process less grindy (even if I think that grind would support pvx better).

If we assume that there's either no other location that gives the same loot as this 5-spawn dungeon or at least very few other places with it - we'll have way more than 5 groups of players aiming to get that loot. This is the funnel I was talking about and the pitting of players against each other.

Now the placement of pvp in that pve could be shifted along the gameplay loop in whichever way Intrepid wants it. We could have longer pve (due to difficulty or hp/def stats), so there'd be a higher chance that another group will attack the currently farming one. Or we can have shorter pve with long respawn cd, so it'd be more of a fight for the location itself rather than a fight for loot. We could lock the rooms during pve, so the pvp would always be for the location, and the pve itself could be designed way more intricately. Or we could only lock the mini-boss up, so pvp would just happen any time before it.

I'm personally used to fully open rooms, semi-short respawn cd and low-mid hp stats (depending on the group composition), with only Epic bosses getting locked up. But obviously that kind of approach only really works when the pve itself is super simple. If Intrepid is really going for a more complex design - they'll probably go with some way to help the defenders (or at least that would be logical imo).

But all in all, the contest is for the limited loot. If the whole cycle of one room gives you on average 1/3-1/2 of a gear craft in mats (I'd probably keep it even lower) - sharing a room with some other group would be silly, even outside of the potential anti-zerg mechanics. Although I might think it's silly because my brain is basing my judgement on the grindy nature of L2, where there was no fucking point in sharing the very little stuff you did get during farming. If drop rates are way higher or simply linked to quests - pvp will be non-existent.

So again, all my assumptions are based on the context of a working pvx game, where people fought for farming spots both in-between respawns and during pve itself. There's a deeper reasoning balance of "how long it took to come back to the same room under the same buffs", which considered the existence of TPs, the mana regen values, the depth of the room within the dungeon and a few crucial ability CDs. But we've got pretty much 0 info on any of that, so I think that's a conversation for a different time.

Grati for the full elaboration. I actually do understand your perspective more specifically now, I just had too narrow a perspective on it due to my own past experiences. I was thinking moreso in terms of 'the boss mob that spawns' since it would have the higher chance to drop stuff, and the general 'benefit of disrupting an attempt at farming that boss'.

I guess they could change the way XP is awarded from the style used in Alpha-1, but obviously I'm biased and really hope they don't.

Post by Ludullu on 2023-04-20 22:20:08

Grati for the full elaboration. I actually do understand your perspective more specifically now, I just had too narrow a perspective on it due to my own past experiences. I was thinking moreso in terms of 'the boss mob that spawns' since it would have the higher chance to drop stuff, and the general 'benefit of disrupting an attempt at farming that boss'.
Yeah, the boss would definitely have a higher chance, but chances are just that - chances. You could still drop quite a few valuable things even before the boss. If it was me making it, I'd probably have it at 50/50 (mobs/boss) overall drop rates. But as I said, I'd just go for open rooms so a 50/50 distribution would, theoretically, keep the dangers of pvp equal across the entire cycle. If the mini-boss gets locked out, pvp during the fight is impossible so pve is harder which would make it reasonable to increase drop rates for the boss.

One of my biggest goals is to remove the "trash" characteristic of mobs. Either remove unneeded mobs completely or make all of them useful in some way. Imo the pvx funnel works if mobs drop the same stuff as bosses, so farming all mobs is still valuable which means that fighting for all mobs is valid.

Separating loot tables or sources of value would probably lead to increase in pvp for each room, because there'd be several different groups fighting for different reasons, instead of all those groups being spread out across more land. And while I would appreciate that, I'm not sure about others, especially if some of that value comes from artisanry which would probably have more anti-pvp people than plain pve gameplay.

Post by Depraved on 2023-04-22 14:41:27

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Post by Ludullu on 2023-04-22 15:18:34

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If they go with what was described during their d&d gameplay, then kinda no. There's gonna be just a few tiny rooms on the second floor and maaaybe a few spaces on the 3rd. This will be nowhere close to Cruma's size or farm party amount.

Post by Depraved on 2023-04-22 15:56:41

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