Supporting PvE Raiders in Ashes

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If that is basically what you want, they've got videos already, they're just old and we're 'hoping nothing changed too much'. Copium!

Yeah, guess we'll have to see.

I just feel like referencing those vids would lead back to the thing you mentioned at the start. People will be saying "well, things change so it's gonna be how I want it". Which is why a new dev stream going over that stuff would be great.

But I doubt that'll happen before A2, so we're shit outta luck.

I suppose it couldn't hurt, but in the end, they don't plan to make 'hyper complex PvE', because that isn't very compatible with PvX. What they can do, what they've built towards doing as far as I've seen, is to make 'complex PvX'.

This is a thing that can be done, if that's the audience you're going for. And for now, Ashes would be among the only games with any intention to do this (since, if you were putting in the effort to make complex PvX, you'd have the tools to pivot to making decently complex PvE and pleasing a larger slice of the market share).

Even TL is on the fence, it has a lot of bosses that could be 'shifted to be complex PvX', but are just dungeon bosses, and yet their 'raids' tend to be either 'Woo PvE zerg' or 'Ok let's PvP around this pinata for 20m'. Even the dungeon bosses, they're clearly being conservative in just how hard those are, because it's not time for 'difficult' yet. They're appealing to 'just slightly better than the average'. (See below)



But when you say 'tools', the problem is that even if you wanted to limit yourself to 'complex PvX', there still isn't really much of a way to discuss 'tools', any more than you can do it for Elden Ring, Monster Hunter, etc. Those PvE experiences aren't based on 'design tools', the whole point is that they're so unique that your entire goal structure can change from target to target, and then it comes down to 'what aspects of your regular gameplay the devs wish to maintain within the fight'. Most people won't understand the design space if someone attempts to explain the 'tools and approaches' used to make and tune even the simpler boss in the video.

Any such stream would just come off as rambling, potentially empty promises, to many people, and for others, those videos exist already. What needs to be shown has already been shown (relative to Steven's PvX commitment). There's no real need to even discuss 'PvE raiding' in the simple sense. There is only 'PvX raiding' and the stuff they can do to make that 'not stupid'.

PvX gamers are few, as I perceive it, and hard to please. Average PvE gamers and average PvP gamers are much easier to appease through explanations and simple stopgaps like 'close the Boss door' and 'flag everyone for PvP'.

So I take back the first thing I said: If Intrepid went into detail about their PvX encounter design philosophy, it'd probably do more harm than good.

Azherae wrote: »

PvX gamers are few, as I perceive it, and hard to please. Average PvE gamers and average PvP gamers are much easier to appease through explanations and simple stopgaps like 'close the Boss door' and 'flag everyone for PvP'.

So I take back the first thing I said: If Intrepid went into detail about their PvX encounter design philosophy, it'd probably do more harm than good.

Yeah, I guess you're right. My idealistic PvX boss design would most likely not appeal to either side of the pvx player scale.

If that TL boss is an "instanced" one then daaamn I sure hope AoC's instanced stuff is harder. Hell, I hope ow stuff is harder That party barely even lost hp throughout the fight, and that's a lvl 50 fucking boss!

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

PvX gamers are few, as I perceive it, and hard to please. Average PvE gamers and average PvP gamers are much easier to appease through explanations and simple stopgaps like 'close the Boss door' and 'flag everyone for PvP'.

So I take back the first thing I said: If Intrepid went into detail about their PvX encounter design philosophy, it'd probably do more harm than good.

Yeah, I guess you're right. My idealistic PvX boss design would most likely not appeal to either side of the pvx player scale.

If that TL boss is an "instanced" one then daaamn I sure hope AoC's instanced stuff is harder. Hell, I hope ow stuff is harder That party barely even lost hp throughout the fight, and that's a lvl 50 fucking boss!

That's only because they did it very correctly, though. That boss has (from just watching the video, I haven't fought it) at least 4 'mechanics' and hits the tank for around 1k HP (1/8thish) per swing, right?

But it has no sub-mechanics, and no forced tradeoffs. It isn't meant to be hard. If it was meant to be hard it would have those things. It's meant to be what the average player wants. 4 repeated mechanics and a chance to flex their DPS while feeling like they are skilled for managing to not mess up the mechanics for 5 minutes. (and they are, it's just not 'only 8% can clear it' skilled, nor is it 'the top PvX players can outmaneuver you and cause your interference to fail' skilled).

My point was about tools though. That fight is full of 'design tools', basically 'slots where they can tweak the difficulty up or down while doing PvX things and still letting players play their class'. The issue is, if Intrepid were to show off that sort of thing, I don't think it would be much benefit, and it would still sound mainly like 'well that's how bosses are going to be' instead of an example.

Better to throw us into Alpha-2 with 30-40 of 'fleshed out versions of that' and have people settle into their comfort zones, whether that be New World or WildStar.

Azherae wrote: »

It's meant to be what the average player wants.

I'm once again cursed with the desire for way above average difficulty, while having way below average skill for clearing it

Azherae wrote: »

Better to throw us into Alpha-2 with 30-40 of 'fleshed out versions of that' and have people settle into their comfort zones, whether that be New World or WildStar.

Yeah, I just hope we have those 30-40. Obviously we'll have them sooner or later in A2, but, just as it was with A1, all the big streamers will stream the release of A2 and then leave back to their usual content. So if start of A2 doesn't have some good content to show the game will be, once again, called doa/scam/shit/etc.

Obviously it won't mean much as long as the main release is good, but it's just gonna be a pain to live through for several years until said release

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

It's meant to be what the average player wants.

I'm once again cursed with the desire for way above average difficulty, while having way below average skill for clearing it

Azherae wrote: »

Better to throw us into Alpha-2 with 30-40 of 'fleshed out versions of that' and have people settle into their comfort zones, whether that be New World or WildStar.

Yeah, I just hope we have those 30-40. Obviously we'll have them sooner or later in A2, but, just as it was with A1, all the big streamers will stream the release of A2 and then leave back to their usual content. So if start of A2 doesn't have some good content to show the game will be, once again, called doa/scam/shit/etc.

Obviously it won't mean much as long as the main release is good, but it's just gonna be a pain to live through for several years until said release

Well, I might make the fourth TheoryRaid thread, due to this, at least, rather than derailing this one more.

I have a new idea of how to use it for data collection, but that's not really as helpful with the current state of the forum sub-demographic. Either way, no point in just thinking about it and not typing, and there's the tiny chance that it'll help you or Intrepid.

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Iirc WoW classic had open world dungeons that had instance entrances deep within them. Obviously pvp rules are different there, but that's not the point here.

L2 also had huge dungeons with an instanced (or caged) room at the end. Sometimes that room would just be a singular 4-wall room and sometimes it would be a a fairly long dungeon on its own.

In other words, this part of what Noaani said is definitely normal design (I'm sure EQ2 had this too). Hell, A1 had this in the volcano. You had to TP to the dragon at the end, so functionally that TP could be turned off after a time and you'd have yourself an instanced at the end of a huge dungeon.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

Like I said, both existed in WoW and in L2, and I'm sure in EQ2 as well.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

I mean, my preferred method of pvx is the "cage" at the end of a huge dungeon. It's still effectively an instance, it's just that there's some pvp before the encounter. Noaani wants that to just be a part of the overall pve encounters and not necessarily the main one.

And as he keeps telling you, he wants ow stuff to give best things, so ow bosses would still be valued higher and fought over more. And if the instances, that even Noaani wants, are located deep in dungeons - there's gonna be preventive pvp there, where enemies will try and hold off the farmers from doing the instance for as long as possible.

This is where the guild/node wars would come in, but we've got fuckall info on that so it's hard to speculate on that front. I'd personally prefer if both of those could be forced onto people, but for a pretty big cost (exponentially so if a big guilds decs a smaller one). So that people could plan out their resources and timings and delay their opponents' farm for as long as possible.

And Noaani suggested in the past that the boss loot from instanced could require a caravan to transfer it back, so there'd still be pvp in that form as well (and again, this could just be one of the options).

I obviously don't agree on everything with Noaani, but I feel like we are both willing to give up some part of our arguments to achieve a middle ground. And while I agree with you that WoW players will definitely try and fuck the game over, I also feel like having a middle ground before majority of WoWers even come here would go a long way to prevent most of them from asking for more pve.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

And this is exactly where we gotta give feedback to Intrepid that we (well, those of us who don't) don't want dailies like that.

Right now, to me, Steven's description of AoC's instances says that they'll be on-and-done stuff. And even if a few of those are repeatable - I don't expect them to be daily, cause there's been no indication that he wants that kind of content in the game.

I still would support super hardcore instanced pve that you can attempt as many times as you want, but only clear once a week (and it then changes smth so that the next week requires a new raid setup). So those who do want to grind that kind of content - can. I'd expect this content to not give best gear, but that's where my discussions with Noaani on instanced rewards and gear progression come in, and that's a whoooooole different topic.

This kinda related to what Depraved said above. Instanced content is either self-sufficient and provides players with "equalized" gear to clear said content, or it's based on the ow gear acquisition methods and requires you to participate in the other parts of the game if you wanna progress in your preferred content. I support the latter. Both pve and pvp instanced content should rely on your getting gear from the open world things (obviously buying included).

And imo this way we can have instanced content that might cut off a fraction of players from the open world encounters, but the game's overall gameplay flow won't suffer from it because there's gonna be a ton of people who gotta go farm ow things to provide gear for those instanced dudes. And every player will just be able to choose which side they prefer.