47 replies to this topic

[Hep]

Let me preemptively put the flames out now: we have no clue how Anet's going to handle end game dungeoning, but I'm confident they'll figure out a good plan. I beginning this thread not to say it's mistake, but rather, to brainstorm possible solutions. So, that being said...

Within the Twitch TV chat with Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum, they described how the end game PvE zone, Orr, will work. Basically, you "advance" on Orr, attacking its edges via dynamic events, then take ground as you move inward. Once you've taken these event "webs" (event chains that have a web of beginnings and endings), to the crescendo, you can venture into the dungeon(s). Also, you can technically skip the event webs, but there are benefits that they offer (or rather, they remove hindrances), in order to proceed. Things like, there are capture points that will hinder your healing until it's capped.

With that stuff in mind, how will Anet balance that fact that it will be flat-out easier to proceed with a large population? This sounds like it will take an orchestrated effort over a lot of people, well beyond your group or even a bunch of groups. It sounds like there will need to be a constant flow of people hammering on the front lines from all directions in order to proceed. Will this be an issue with smaller servers?

Edit: Please read this part before continuing!

Just to be clear, this isn't about finishing a particular event. Scaling handles a single event just fine. It's that, in order to progress, it's assumed there are a lot of events that must be at a success state before moving on, ie, event webs. This is different from event chains in that chains have a single "tug of war" point. The battlefront is at that single point. With event webs, there are a bunch of battlefronts, and when you leave to attack one point, that point you just left is open to being taken back by NPCs, necessitating that point being capped again.

Edited by Hep, 13 July 2012 - 03:18 PM.

[Radiea]

I think aside from just plain upping mob count, they should also implement varying complexity of enemies and strategies according to player population in/near the zone. Maybe there's only 4 whateverthings that attack if an outpost only has 5 people, but if we get more than 20 people, siege engines get added to the mix; and if we get more than 50 people defending an outpost, we get some powerful bosslike spellcaster that can launch devastating AoEs. Just upping the mob numbers stops working after a while because players aren't stupid.

[Hep]

Well, I do think that would work, but... I'd prefer other methods. Reason being, I would hate to miss out on PvE events (or even characteristics of the events), because my server couldn't muster up the numbers to get superboss X to spawn. One mechanic I did think of, is allowing points to stay captured for a longer period of time, so you can conceivably concentrate your numbers in one area at time, methodically advancing in each area without fear of one of your past cap points being retaken.

[dawnmist]

One possible solution for if your server is too small and can't get there...try guesting on another server. Not the best solution...but a possibility.

Better yet - offer people from other servers to guest on yours - so that they can do the epic stuff that's all currently done on their server, and you can get it unlocked for your server at the same time. Everybody wins then .

I'd assume something like that could be co-ordinated through the forums.

[Hep]

Ooo, good call. Guesting totally slipped my mind.

[Leeto]

Well events do scale so imo even on low population servers there will be enough players to meet the minimum requirement for succeeding and having fun in these events. +they may try to just solve small server problem with merging them.

[Haterx732]

I really hope A.Net doesn't think "guesting" will solve everyone's problems...

[Underdog]

for scaleing there will probably also be NPC's that fight if the player count isn't there, to help a little

[dawnmist]

Leeto, on 13 July 2012 - 06:51 AM, said:

+they may try to just solve small server problem with merging them.

Which unlike most MMOs, shouldn't be a major problem.

Character names are globally unique instead of just current-world unique. Economy is global, so no economic issues caused by large/small worlds or the transfer of people between them.

They'll have the ability to swap worlds available from day 1 (whereas every game I've been involved in has had to try to bolt it in later...and usually not done a very good job of it).

With all of that prepared, I don't think combining servers will be a terribly problematic issue for GW2 (unlike what I've seen elsewhere).

[Eremite]

Between scaling and guesting, I think events will be fine and fun regardless of your server population.

[Biz]

Despite superficial appearances to the contrary Zerging doesn't make events easier - having just a couple of competent players doing an event is easier for everyone involved then a flashmob of idiots who have no idea what they are doing - upscale the event and promptly fail at it dragging the event to many times its original duration.

[Taran]

Eremite, on 13 July 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

Between scaling and guesting, I think events will be fine and fun regardless of your server population.

I would have to agree.  Scaling would take care of difficulty and guesting would take care of the absence of needed people for "endgame" PvE content.

[Tarranoth]

I'm actually wondering where some of the dungeons will be. They don't necessarily have to be in a lvl 80 zone, considering catacombs was in a lvl 15 zone.

[AndrewSX]

As someone already said: Guesting.

/thread.

[Hep]

Biz, on 13 July 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Despite superficial appearances to the contrary Zerging doesn't make events easier - having just a couple of competent players doing an event is easier for everyone involved then a flashmob of idiots who have no idea what they are doing - upscale the event and promptly fail at it dragging the event to many times its original duration.

Oh, the issue I raise isn't so much getting the events done, it's maintaining them. My theory is (without other mechanics to help), a small server will be constantly having to recap past points, because they won't have the manpower to have people sticking around each particular front to make sure the event doesn't recycle and get capped again.

For example, they state you can take the beachhead, or you can come in from the south. My fear is the mob of people will take the beachhead, move over to the south and take those, and because the server population doesn't constantly have people venturing into Orr, no one will be there to prevent the beachhead from being taken back by NPCs before you can move to the next tier.

I realize that there's ways around that particular example, but you get my drift in that those multiple fronts not only need to be advanced, but maintained as well. Furthermore, there won't be a scattering of other players constantly attacking Orr on small servers like on large servers.

The only thing that comes to mind at this point, is having the recycle time for events slower on smaller servers. In my beachhead/from the south example, the beachhead cap point stays capped for a much longer time on a smaller server, so you don't have to rely on a normal flow of player coming in and maintaining it.

Edited by Hep, 13 July 2012 - 12:49 PM.

[anzenketh]

I understand the OP concern due to I actually have the opposite concern. In Guild Wars 1 the world was always in favor after a while. I am afraid the same thing will happen to Guild Wars 2 with Orr. I want to attack the beachhead sometime if I am a bit slow on leveling I am afraid that I will not be able too. Hopefully I don't have to wake up early in the morning just to do so.

But I am not too worried however Guesting and scaling should remedy my issue. The OP issue however scaling also would fix.

[fr0st2k]

Unless there is actual reason for high level players to be in lower level zones participating in quests (aside from simply, "wanting to experience it"), guesting is not going to do anything. And if you think otherwise, you haven't played enough games.

I started a new char on Beta Weekend 2, and low level charr areas were already ghosttowns.  That of course isn't the same as having the majority of players being max level with nothing to do (most people were simply leveling in higher level area).

Though they need to implement a solid reason to go back to other areas.  For instance, rare boss events that spawn in every area with the chance to drop rare gear.

The problem with dynamic events is that they aren't challenging to discover or continue.  They just happen, you beat it, and move on.

Dynamic events need longer chains, things that require running around the whole zone killing different mobs for hours to complete, while successfully following specific paths of the chain.

For instance...

Centaurs attack town - objective defend
success - you push them back - objective defeat stragglers
success - Form raiding party - objective rez fallen, collect siege mats
success - Caravan of siege units - objective defend it en route to centuar base
{
[success - simply attack it, and win, fight boss]
[fail - attack base without siege weapons - objective, find secret path in back and meet with NPC leader
success - Enter normally inaccessible area of Centaur base. - objective find kings throne room
success - Discover secret ritual centaurs are performing - objective - disrupt it
{{
[success - Congrats! Quest over!]
[fail - (90% server-side chance of ritual simply faililng) Otherwise: Summons giant zone-wide destruction with giant monster]
}}
}

This is how i imagined dynamic quests, and taking part in something like this would be FUN, enticing players to go experience it because the story would unfold as youre playing.  You'd have to do the event multiple times in the hopes that the randomness would kick in an you'd get to fight the super boss.

The way they are implemented right now is nothing like this.  They are pretty dull, completely random, constricted to a small area, and failing a quest does nothing but set you back a few minutes by giving you another fetch quest.

Edited by fr0st2k, 13 July 2012 - 01:37 PM.

[Eqo]

I understand you're concerned more with maintaining control of the cap points, but scaling should still come into play there. If the population is less, there should be less monsters respawning to take back control of the points. So it won't scale only the initial capturing. It will also scale how difficult it will be to maintain. That's how ANet designed the event scaling to work.

From the beta weekends we've already seen events where not only do we have to take something, but we have to hold it as well. I don't think you need to worry about never being able to do Orr just because there are fewer people in that area at the same time you are.

[anzenketh]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Unless there is actual reason for high level players to be in lower level zones participating in quests (aside from simply, "wanting to experience it"), guesting is not going to do anything. And if you think otherwise, you haven't played enough games.

I started a new char on Beta Weekend 2, and low level charr areas were already ghosttowns.  That of course isn't the same as having the majority of players being max level with nothing to do (most people were simply leveling in higher level area).

Though they need to implement a solid reason to go back to other areas.  For instance, rare boss events that spawn in every area with the chance to drop rare gear.

The problem with dynamic events is that they aren't challenging to discover or continue.  They just happen, you beat it, and move on.

Dynamic events need longer chains, things that require running around the whole zone killing different mobs for hours to complete, while successfully following specific paths of the chain.

For instance...

Centaurs attack town - objective defend
success - you push them back - objective defeat stragglers
success - Form raiding party - objective rez fallen, collect siege mats
success - Caravan of siege units - objective defend it en route to centuar base
{
[success - simply attack it, and win, fight boss]
[fail - attack base without siege weapons - objective, find secret path in back and meet with NPC leader
success - Enter normally inaccessible area of Centaur base. - objective find kings throne room
success - Discover secret ritual centaurs are performing - objective - disrupt it
{{
[success - Congrats! Quest over!]
[fail - (90% server-side chance of ritual simply faililng) Otherwise: Summons giant zone-wide destruction with giant monster]
}}
}

This is how i imagined dynamic quests, and taking part in something like this would be run...since the story would unfold as youre playing.  You'd have to do the event multiple times in the hopes that the randomness would kick in an you'd get to fight the super boss.

The way they are implemented right now is nothing like this.  They are pretty dull, completely random, constricted to a small area, and failing a quest does nothing but set you back a few minutes by giving you another fetch quest.

Um we are not talking about Lower level areas. We are talking about the Level 80 area.

Please watch the video in the following post and come back with your opinions I would love to hear them. All of your concerns were addressed in that video. Thank you.

http://www.guildwars...ve-on-twitchtv/

Edited by anzenketh, 13 July 2012 - 01:47 PM.

[Ixelbyte]

Hep, on 13 July 2012 - 12:48 PM, said:

Oh, the issue I raise isn't so much getting the events done, it's maintaining them. My theory is (without other mechanics to help), a small server will be constantly having to recap past points, because they won't have the manpower to have people sticking around each particular front to make sure the event doesn't recycle and get capped again.

For example, they state you can take the beachhead, or you can come in from the south. My fear is the mob of people will take the beachhead, move over to the south and take those, and because the server population doesn't constantly have people venturing into Orr, no one will be there to prevent the beachhead from being taken back by NPCs before you can move to the next tier.

I realize that there's ways around that particular example, but you get my drift in that those multiple fronts not only need to be advanced, but maintained as well. Furthermore, there won't be a scattering of other players constantly attacking Orr on small servers like on large servers.

The only thing that comes to mind at this point, is having the recycle time for events slower on smaller servers. In my beachhead/from the south example, the beachhead cap point stays capped for a much longer time on a smaller server, so you don't have to rely on a normal flow of player coming in and maintaining it.

I don't think that will be an issue because events are connected. Like, you cap the beachhead, and then you move further into Orr. I imagine the NPCs won't then take back the beachhead right away, instead they'll be focused on where you are next in the chain, and if you fail THEN they'll move back to the beachhead.

Think of it like some FPSs where you cap objectives. Some games have it so there's a tug of war going on, there's two main objectives you're fighting for and the ones behind them aren't unlocked till you cap that one, so even if you go for it it doesn't matter. I imagine it'll be something like that but with Players vs NPCs. Just speculation though lol

[Krazzar]

Not only should there be fewer opponents spawning with fewer players, but there will be fewer activities for those players to participate in, so there will be a relatively equal or even high concentration of players. A big part of scaling is adding more activities to events to split up players instead of just adding more opponents and giving them more health. Because of that the player concentration per task should be relatively equal, although with more players you have the added difficulty of communication and players shifting from one task to another, or the collapse of one task leading to failure. What we have seen in the BWEs hasn't really used scaling that creates new activities in most events, mostly because the big zergs took place in starter zones, but as the level requirement goes up I suspect the number of events that scale using activities will increase as well.

[Sevens]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Unless there is actual reason for high level players to be in lower level zones participating in quests (aside from simply, "wanting to experience it"), guesting is not going to do anything. And if you think otherwise, you haven't played enough games.

I started a new char on Beta Weekend 2, and low level charr areas were already ghosttowns.  That of course isn't the same as having the majority of players being max level with nothing to do (most people were simply leveling in higher level area).

Though they need to implement a solid reason to go back to other areas.  For instance, rare boss events that spawn in every area with the chance to drop rare gear.

The problem with dynamic events is that they aren't challenging to discover or continue.  They just happen, you beat it, and move on.

Dynamic events need longer chains, things that require running around the whole zone killing different mobs for hours to complete, while successfully following specific paths of the chain.

For instance...

Centaurs attack town - objective defend
success - you push them back - objective defeat stragglers
success - Form raiding party - objective rez fallen, collect siege mats
success - Caravan of siege units - objective defend it en route to centuar base
{
[success - simply attack it, and win, fight boss]
[fail - attack base without siege weapons - objective, find secret path in back and meet with NPC leader
success - Enter normally inaccessible area of Centaur base. - objective find kings throne room
success - Discover secret ritual centaurs are performing - objective - disrupt it
{{
[success - Congrats! Quest over!]
[fail - (90% server-side chance of ritual simply faililng) Otherwise: Summons giant zone-wide destruction with giant monster]
}}
}

This is how i imagined dynamic quests, and taking part in something like this would be FUN, enticing players to go experience it because the story would unfold as youre playing.  You'd have to do the event multiple times in the hopes that the randomness would kick in an you'd get to fight the super boss.

The way they are implemented right now is nothing like this.  They are pretty dull, completely random, constricted to a small area, and failing a quest does nothing but set you back a few minutes by giving you another fetch quest.

These DEs youve done are the starting area only....they are meant to introduce you into the system, they have stated many times as you progress that DEs will become much more complex, they are actually Webs (having many branching points) and not just chains (having one ultimate fail / success state)

[Improvavel]

It doesn't matter.

Not only we have guesting, maps have a cap, so big servers will just spill to overflow.

[fr0st2k]

Sevens, on 13 July 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

These DEs youve done are the starting area only....they are meant to introduce you into the system, they have stated many times as you progress that DEs will become much more complex, they are actually Webs (having many branching points) and not just chains (having one ultimate fail / success state)

I would have thought theyd try and blow people away in the lower levels

[Hep]

Ixelbyte, on 13 July 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

I don't think that will be an issue because events are connected. Like, you cap the beachhead, and then you move further into Orr. I imagine the NPCs won't then take back the beachhead right away, instead they'll be focused on where you are next in the chain, and if you fail THEN they'll move back to the beachhead.

You sure about that? I was under the impression the whole point of event webs were there were multiple start and end points. They make it sound like there were multiple start points to the venture into Orr, but they were connected to converge on the final dungeon.

Edited by Hep, 13 July 2012 - 02:23 PM.

[anzenketh]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 02:20 PM, said:

I would have thought theyd try and blow people away in the lower levels

That is a topic for another thread. Use the search feature see if you can find a thread that tickles your fancy on that topic. If not create one we can discuss it there.

[Hep]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 02:20 PM, said:

I would have thought theyd try and blow people away in the lower levels

I believe their line of thinking was they didn't want to make things too complicated from the get-go, so you could easily understand getting event B is just a matter of finishing event A. Then at later levels, they can toss in later events, and meta-events.

[Tallenn]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they are going to use scaling there, just like everywhere else.

[Sevens]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 02:20 PM, said:

I would have thought theyd try and blow people away in the lower levels

Dont know about you but I was blown away, they just dont want to over whelm new players with complexity

[nosscire]

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 02:20 PM, said:

I would have thought theyd try and blow people away in the lower levels

ANet already received allot of complaints about the system being too difficult to understand. Even with the fairly simple system they have at lower levels, people are confused. Don't understand differences between hearts and events, or how events move forward and backwards.
Thats probably why they figured that if people are already having problems, lets keep it as simple as possible.