OaDs and more

User avatar
Kruell
Posts: 254
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 10:35 pm

OaDs and more

Postby Kruell » Sun Aug 05, 2018 10:08 pm

So nobody likes the way OaDs in the game work (except for the people who do). Here is some nostalgia for those who want real random spawn bosses. About 2 years ago the "bosses" didn't spawn at set times or even once per day. It was a truly random system based on the builder's idea of how often the monster spawned vs how powerful the item drops could be. Mendil the Elder spawned roughly hourly but The Essence of the Deep spawned between 10 and 16 hours from time of last kill. The Ringleader I believe was on an 8 to 10 hour timer from last kill. These variables meant that people would run for a boss and have no idea if he was going to be there or not. This lead to a lot of people complaining if the area was more complicated than a single, easily farmable, key. Also people got pissed if they only had a 2 or 3 hour window of game play and no spawns happened during that time.

I get why the random spawn system was replaced with timed key/OaD spawns. It promotes stability and allows players to plan ahead and not devote their life to trying to keep checking on the boss they want. This isn't a negative, it is something that is required for stable game play. Imagine how pissed people would be if parties formed up and fought for the keys, only for the winning team/guild to get into the spawn spot and find out it wasn't there and they would have to check back regularly over the next 8 hours and hope they catch the spawn. That is why the current OaD system isn't going anywhere.

Now let's talk about alternatives. I'm all for random spawn bosses. I think it would be great if they were spread out and could spawn between 18 and 168 hours after they are killed. This kind of randomness could allow multiple "bosses" to inhabit the same area with overlap being a very rare thing. When I designed Alderra (someone else finished it when I left) I had something like this in mind but the code base wasn't there for what I had in mind. It would be easy to build bosses who drop worthy items that spawn within shockingly wide time frames so players would have to keep checking the spots to see if anything pops up. This would incentivize people to get out of towns and actually roam around the world at all times hunting for random spawns. These monsters would be outside the normal "OaD" system with the strength of their drops being based on how infrequently they appear. Just imagine the fun of fighting a "weekly" monster. With the new global chat going in even players who are on at down times have a chance of putting together a group to take out one of these random bosses.

Also a consideration is building OaDs where the keys expire fairly quickly but respawn within a reasonable time. Basically this means you would have something like 15 minutes to use the key after it dropped or you could wait another hour for the key monster to spawn to try again. This could work but there is also the drawback of once the OaD is completed, the key monsters still respawn so people will probably run it occasionally only to find no boss at the end of the dungeon. Mix this with random spawn though might be fun if it was coded to where each respawn is a different boss monster. The dungeon could be run up to 4 times per day with a different ending monster/drop each time. But still you would have people running through only to find nothing at the end as it was between spawn times.

What other ideas do people have to add to the option list? What ideas would YOU like to see in game? Let's be nice to NH and not turn this into a "this sucks" thread.
If you look like prey you will be eaten

anthriel
Posts: 223
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:04 am

Re: OaDs and more

Postby anthriel » Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:04 pm

No one is saying “this sucks” per se... most are saying it within a constructive context to push for needed change. And sometimes the rhetoric needs to be somewhat forceful/blunt rather than fluffy because the sad reality about advocacy is that many ppl are uninterested, deluded, change-resistant, unimaginative or too worried about what changing the status quo may mean to their self-interest.

In any case I’m happy with NH’s suggestion to keep some OADs but add many more random spawn bosses. I only wish such a thing was implemented sooner and with higher priority than some of the other things being added (eg more oads etc) because this would make a much bigger difference in gameplay. Anyhoo in my mind these random spawn bosses would ideally be:
1. World walkers - in the sense that they could appear in any wilderness room (encourages exploring etc).... in fact I’d even suggest coding them to appear much more often in remote areas (eg some random dead end in Karnath mines rather than on the main road everyone has to use south of canopia)
2. Variable - in the sense that some might be something killed by a solo player, some might be something harder requiring a group
3. Plentiful - can’t really see the problem with having lots of these happening throughout the day. More stuff to do the better. Adding like only one or 2 of these a day is a wasted opportunity. Obviously the more difficult ones with rarer drops would be spawn less frequently.
4. Killable in that session (ie don’t fly away like the dragons requiring long term planning/coordination to kill)
5. No notifications - stops guild domination and allows opportunistic small groups to get a foot in
6. Drop interesting variable loot - oads are boring in that you always get same loot. These should give interest that today u may get an armor, tomorrow a sword, the day after a ring or crafting ember etc etc. the items should be good enough that ppl who don’t live in oad or event timezones can adequately progress towards top tier loot by hunting and killing these random spawn bosses.
7. Spawn more frequently at hours where there are no OADs or events being done (to balance out the game for people who live in crap timezones who almost never get to event or OAD)
8. Anything else you could think of to balance out superguild dominance so that it isn’t just about getting the biggest guild numbers possible so you can completely cover the map for as long as possible etc.

Basically the aim in implementing this is to give players more to do, add some variability to the daily player experience, reward opportunitic players for not idling, somewhat break stranglehold of supeguild dominance, increase viability to progress outside of superguilds, reward players who play in crap OAD/event timezones etc etc.

Terron
Posts: 802
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 11:36 pm

Re: OaDs and more

Postby Terron » Mon Aug 06, 2018 12:44 am

nothing wrong with set bosses at all. just we have 8 bosses and 7 are set. mini boss spawns are infrequent and game is stagnant as hell except 4 7 pm really sometimes get some european life at noon/2 pm.

some oads are way way harder and drop shitty blue items others are piss easy and drop purples. and i mean this literally because they are dead before i finish pissing and walk back.

more oads, more oads, more oads. who cares if they just drop renamed items

we need enough oads that every hour slot has 4+. they cant be hogged if there was this many and people would stop trying to bully them
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box"

this game is like sim ant
zerg the red ants with more black ants

User avatar
daedroth
Posts: 1178
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:53 am

Re: OaDs and more

Postby daedroth » Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:31 am

Kruell wrote:...
Also a consideration is building OaDs where the keys expire fairly quickly but respawn within a reasonable time. Basically this means you would have something like 15 minutes to use the key after it dropped or you could wait another hour for the key monster to spawn to try again. This could work but there is also the drawback of once the OaD is completed, the key monsters still respawn so people will probably run it occasionally only to find no boss at the end of the dungeon. Mix this with random spawn though might be fun if it was coded to where each respawn is a different boss monster. The dungeon could be run up to 4 times per day with a different ending monster/drop each time. But still you would have people running through only to find nothing at the end as it was between spawn times.
...

Isn't there a way to make it so that the key droppers only spawn shortly before the boss monster will spawn?
Disclaimer: Any ideas I come up with may not even meet my approval. I am just posting an idea based on the topic I have just read.
I love sheep.

User avatar
NiteHawk
Site Admin
Posts: 3120
Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:33 am

Re: OaDs and more

Postby NiteHawk » Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:26 am

Kruell wrote:So nobody likes the way OaDs in the game work (except for the people who do). Here is some nostalgia for those who want real random spawn bosses. About 2 years ago the "bosses" didn't spawn at set times or even once per day. It was a truly random system based on the builder's idea of how often the monster spawned vs how powerful the item drops could be. Mendil the Elder spawned roughly hourly but The Essence of the Deep spawned between 10 and 16 hours from time of last kill. The Ringleader I believe was on an 8 to 10 hour timer from last kill. These variables meant that people would run for a boss and have no idea if he was going to be there or not. This lead to a lot of people complaining if the area was more complicated than a single, easily farmable, key. Also people got pissed if they only had a 2 or 3 hour window of game play and no spawns happened during that time.

I get why the random spawn system was replaced with timed key/OaD spawns. It promotes stability and allows players to plan ahead and not devote their life to trying to keep checking on the boss they want. This isn't a negative, it is something that is required for stable game play. Imagine how pissed people would be if parties formed up and fought for the keys, only for the winning team/guild to get into the spawn spot and find out it wasn't there and they would have to check back regularly over the next 8 hours and hope they catch the spawn. That is why the current OaD system isn't going anywhere.



I do think more people don't mind the current system but wish there was more to it/more oads. However, they do have some warrants on some of the stuff they bring up, such as 'boredum' after some time, but people did not like the 'when the boss mob dies, it will respawn in 3-6 hours' deal. There was a few problems with it but a few people were annoyed that they couldn't log on at set times and run stuff, because of IRL/etc. It also brought in indicators because forming up/etc was a hassle and having to do so every time was draining 15-30 minutes of their time. Alternative you could say now when it can be run with some sort of lorey thing but ultimately either system doesn't solve 'the bigger guild wins' issue.

Alot of people really were unhappy with variable timers for everything. That's why I said on the post, I think its a GOOD idea to add some more variable timers, but not EVERYTHING. We already had it, alone, it isn't good.

Kruell wrote:Now let's talk about alternatives. I'm all for random spawn bosses. I think it would be great if they were spread out and could spawn between 18 and 168 hours after they are killed. This kind of randomness could allow multiple "bosses" to inhabit the same area with overlap being a very rare thing. When I designed Alderra (someone else finished it when I left) I had something like this in mind but the code base wasn't there for what I had in mind. It would be easy to build bosses who drop worthy items that spawn within shockingly wide time frames so players would have to keep checking the spots to see if anything pops up. This would incentivize people to get out of towns and actually roam around the world at all times hunting for random spawns. These monsters would be outside the normal "OaD" system with the strength of their drops being based on how infrequently they appear. Just imagine the fun of fighting a "weekly" monster. With the new global chat going in even players who are on at down times have a chance of putting together a group to take out one of these random bosses.

I think some sneaky bosses that don't OAD indicate/etc might be a thing. First come first serves thing.

Kruell wrote:Also a consideration is building OaDs where the keys expire fairly quickly but respawn within a reasonable time. Basically this means you would have something like 15 minutes to use the key after it dropped or you could wait another hour for the key monster to spawn to try again. This could work but there is also the drawback of once the OaD is completed, the key monsters still respawn so people will probably run it occasionally only to find no boss at the end of the dungeon. Mix this with random spawn though might be fun if it was coded to where each respawn is a different boss monster. The dungeon could be run up to 4 times per day with a different ending monster/drop each time. But still you would have people running through only to find nothing at the end as it was between spawn times.

What other ideas do people have to add to the option list? What ideas would YOU like to see in game? Let's be nice to NH and not turn this into a "this sucks" thread.


There are two problems with this. First a respawn quick time promotes bigger guilds curb stomping you with numbers inside the guild. We don't want guild fights when a guild is literally almost done the OAD/midway in. This is extremely annoying and for players it would kill motivation. I'm pretty sure Tormented died because of stuff like this. OAD indicators can prevent the second part though but overall I don't think this is a good idea.

---------

ant wrote:1. World walkers - in the sense that they could appear in any wilderness room (encourages exploring etc).... in fact I’d even suggest coding them to appear much more often in remote areas (eg some random dead end in Karnath mines rather than on the main road everyone has to use south of canopia)
2. Variable - in the sense that some might be something killed by a solo player, some might be something harder requiring a group
3. Plentiful - can’t really see the problem with having lots of these happening throughout the day. More stuff to do the better. Adding like only one or 2 of these a day is a wasted opportunity. Obviously the more difficult ones with rarer drops would be spawn less frequently.
4. Killable in that session (ie don’t fly away like the dragons requiring long term planning/coordination to kill)
5. No notifications - stops guild domination and allows opportunistic small groups to get a foot in
6. Drop interesting variable loot - oads are boring in that you always get same loot. These should give interest that today u may get an armor, tomorrow a sword, the day after a ring or crafting ember etc etc. the items should be good enough that ppl who don’t live in oad or event timezones can adequately progress towards top tier loot by hunting and killing these random spawn bosses.
7. Spawn more frequently at hours where there are no OADs or events being done (to balance out the game for people who live in crap timezones who almost never get to event or OAD)
8. Anything else you could think of to balance out superguild dominance so that it isn’t just about getting the biggest guild numbers possible so you can completely cover the map for as long as possible etc.


World walkers are great, Variable adding more is good too. Boss mobs that spawn and can be killed during that day are possible too, without any notifications.

For variable loot, I fully agree with that, but some loot should be either very very low chances to drop in that regard to compete. There still has to be some variance to someone who forms up a 3-5 man party and runs an OAD that lasts an hour vs just plowing a random mob that has spawned. I'm not saying they can't drop stuff, but no one would run OADs if random bosses were able to do everything at the same level. I'm not saying you said that, but just pointing it out.

----------

I was discussing some things with Ackermann a bit ago on ways to remove guild domination in terms of doing 'stuff' and maybe even promoting doing more stuff, there was two things that came up on the subject that could be tested.

unknown.png
unknown.png (29.2 KiB) Viewed 7140 times


First up would be a method like this. There is no KEY, but once everyone /enters, each party starts in a separate room area. Each party would have to do certain things/etc to reach the 'start of the oad' (For example, find the lock number via killing 3 mobs) and the first party to the door gets to run the OAD, rest get booted out. This probably means however that the OAD would have to be time based for start. It still also doesn't mean that a bigger guild won't have a higher chance because they would have more parties, however it does promote a skilled party in getting in first alot more, and it wouldn't be to do with 'who can kill faster with more numbers'. Little more fair in this regard. Obviously not all would be like this, but it's an IDEA to start/throw up.

-------

Second up is instead of the current OAD system, instead you'd have instances like many games do. This means party A and party B can run the same instance without clashing each other right to the end, at any time they want (for the most case, maybe some can still be time locked but aka it would be 'all night' or 'all morning' etc.)

This obviously means you'd need more variable gear/interesting gear thats unique to each OAD (and items with more variable drop strengths like hums are), but it would be a thing. You could probably lock it still to ONE RUN PER ACCOUNT PER DAY though. Obviously we're going the one account method soon and enforcing that so it'll be a bit easier. If you want you can lock items to bind on equip or whatnot too, which would mean the person running it would have to probably be the person who 'needs' it. Though it would probably hurt trading, though not sure if that's a problem or not.

So the idea would be instances, ran when you want. Obviously you'd have to then add more PVP solutions to counter act the loss of PVP in OADs, but I think this can be done fairly easily (Control Crystal expanding, city owning, global embers, etc).

Also thanks for posting this :>

User avatar
Kruell
Posts: 254
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 10:35 pm

Re: OaDs and more

Postby Kruell » Mon Aug 06, 2018 1:59 pm

I've never been a fan of quick spawn keys that expire very fast. Nothing wrong with fast expiring keys but they should be for "bonus content" and not for a revolving doorway into the area. Some groups move at lightning speed and others stop along the way for communication and instruction. I put that idea out there for input since players can come up with ideas that staff don't see. Sometimes things designers think are bad, the players can come up with ways for it to be good.

NiteHawk wrote:I was discussing some things with Ackermann a bit ago on ways to remove guild domination in terms of doing 'stuff' and maybe even promoting doing more stuff, there was two things that came up on the subject that could be tested.

unknown.png
unknown.png (29.2 KiB) Viewed 21 times



First up would be a method like this. There is no KEY, but once everyone /enters, each party starts in a separate room area. Each party would have to do certain things/etc to reach the 'start of the oad' (For example, find the lock number via killing 3 mobs) and the first party to the door gets to run the OAD, rest get booted out. This probably means however that the OAD would have to be time based for start. It still also doesn't mean that a bigger guild won't have a higher chance because they would have more parties, however it does promote a skilled party in getting in first alot more, and it wouldn't be to do with 'who can kill faster with more numbers'. Little more fair in this regard. Obviously not all would be like this, but it's an IDEA to start/throw up.


The Ithion Temple that never got opened in RoK used a similar system but it was based on the Autoquests (it's what we had). When the AQ system broke down I had to abandon the temple because the "pathways" quit working. Every 15 minutes the entrance room changed leading to a different pathway and even a different boss for the first part. Each time the AQ changed (15 minutes or monster died) the pathway changed. Since some of the paths were tied to the boss along that path it meant that fast groups could prevent people from going through in their footsteps. The Ithion Temple had 5 starting pathways that rotated and 3 spots where the pathway branched based on the AQ that was up. I think I worked up a possible 60 combinations for the structure of the OaD. Since no party could do the whole thing in 15 minutes, every time someone entered the temple it was going to be a different (within the combinations) possible map and monster combo.

Having something like this in Ember could work out as different guilds/parties could be fighting their way through the same OaD and only random chance would allow them to even run into each other. Couple that with a few "choose your path" keys and even the end boss would need to be agreed upon by the party that got there first.

The possibilities for options in this game is only limited by the creativity of the builders. I hate the refinery for many reasons as a game designer but enjoy it as a player. I enjoy certain other OaDs as a game designer but hate them as a player. There is a balance that needs to be reached between complexity, diversity, and reward whenever an area is designed. Unless the current OaD rewards were tweaked down, something of the complexity of the Ithion Temple would have to drop multiples of the top tier items to make it worth running.

----

I'm not a fan of the "instance" system becoming common. I could understand one or two going into game as they would be analogous to the "daily" quests. I think if everyone were guaranteed to have a shot at OaD instances then the draw of those OaDs will lessen. Consider WoW which uses the instance system, the majority of players only bother with it for the raids "top tier" or to hunt down set pieces. Most of the instances in that game are rarely ran with their random party system taking sometimes more than an hour to find 5 people wanting to do it with millions of players. Established players would probably shun instances and focus instead on other aspects of the game. As an addition it might be a good idea but it isn't something I would like to see become common.

I've seen players in Ember form up OaD groups just to fight another guild. They know they probably won't get the drop but they don't care. It is guaranteed pvp action. The same thing can be seen at the Dragon and Thanatos. I've seen solo players disrupt groups of 6+ just for the fun of the free-for-all (and a chance to steal the drop). I'm not a big fan of pvp but it is not something I think needs to be lessened.

----

My idea of the random spawn bosses were that they would drop items that were one or two steps down from top gear at best. Only "weekly" or greater monsters would have a chance to drop top tier items. I can remember having actual arguments with other builders about the power of drops in areas because one area which was much harder had the same power item as one that was run hourly by nearly everyone. Balance and rarity are something that has to be kept in mind whenever random spawn monsters come up.

Also, we should probably get more item drops for mid levels. I realized yesterday that cleric's best armor until lvl 20 could be gotten at lvl 7. I think the best heavy armor below lvl 15 (20 if it hums) can be gotten at lvl 1 (mini-boss drop). Once armor is expanded after the update someone really needs to go back and look at filling in the holes. That's a post update discussion though and only mentioned here as an example of imbalance.
If you look like prey you will be eaten

Terron
Posts: 802
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 11:36 pm

Re: OaDs and more

Postby Terron » Mon Aug 06, 2018 8:56 pm

are posts on this thread supposed to be in essay format?

seriously tho, id like to thank development for their hard work making the oads. I know different players like different types of oads and bicker about them. but the truth is they are honestly fine aside from minor balancing imo. the game is new and there isnt enough oads currently to even cover all level 20 and 25er items green through purple.

given some time, i think the staff team will create more oads and balance this out completely. it would help if we weren't asshats all the time.

we need random oads
set oads
secret oads that come and go without warning
world oads with pvp
world oads that if we dont joint our efforts were wasting our time. i.e they have 10m hps? and expire in 2 weeks - 1 month. so if we fail as a server we all fail.

i think 3-4 at each hour would be grande myself. and i say this because it would honestly be the only way a third or even fourth guild could come out strong.

other suggestions: there is multiple blue rank level 20 light armors ingame and 0 blue medium armors for level 20. i would like to suggest changing protector of the vale's blue drop to a medium armor while leaving its sanctuary(purple) drop still as light. i think this would help with some of the inadequacies we have in jr koth where pretty much only monks have top end gear to play with. possible rename all current protection of the vale's to mantle of the deep instead? then change the bosses drop to medium.
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box"

this game is like sim ant
zerg the red ants with more black ants

User avatar
daedroth
Posts: 1178
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:53 am

Re: OaDs and more

Postby daedroth » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:26 am

Slight necromancy here!

Kruella:
"Also, we should probably get more item drops for mid levels. I realized yesterday that cleric's best armor until lvl 20 could be gotten at lvl 7. I think the best heavy armor below lvl 15 (20 if it hums) can be gotten at lvl 1 (mini-boss drop). Once armor is expanded after the update someone really needs to go back and look at filling in the holes. That's a post update discussion though and only mentioned here as an example of imbalance."

Terro:
"other suggestions: there is multiple blue rank level 20 light armors ingame and 0 blue medium armors for level 20. i would like to suggest changing protector of the vale's blue drop to a medium armor while leaving its sanctuary(purple) drop still as light. i think this would help with some of the inadequacies we have in jr koth where pretty much only monks have top end gear to play with. possible rename all current protection of the vale's to mantle of the deep instead? then change the bosses drop to medium."

I had made a thread AGES ago to try and keep track of OAD drops etc. I made it more as a suggestion to the builders to use something like it to keep track of the things that dropped so they could see where there were deficiencies. Shame that doesn't seem to have happened :)

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1542&hilit=what+drops+armour#p12490
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1540&hilit=what+drops+armour#p12472

It could just be accessible to builders. Although players could also make one, meh.
Disclaimer: Any ideas I come up with may not even meet my approval. I am just posting an idea based on the topic I have just read.
I love sheep.

Terron
Posts: 802
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 11:36 pm

Re: OaDs and more

Postby Terron » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:45 am

alot of the first oads/mini's seemed to just have ninja shit thrown on them. but more than half the players used ninja alot so. you could say the same for how we ended up with a dozen daggers of nearly identical stats. and a roadside bandit can drop a dagger better than the monarch ant...would be nice to find level 15 and 20 items of various colors sprinkled on minibosses throughout the realm
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box"

this game is like sim ant
zerg the red ants with more black ants

User avatar
daedroth
Posts: 1178
Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:53 am

Re: OaDs and more

Postby daedroth » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:57 am

Terron wrote:alot of the first oads/mini's seemed to just have ninja shit thrown on them. but more than half the players used ninja alot so. you could say the same for how we ended up with a dozen daggers of nearly identical stats. and a roadside bandit can drop a dagger better than the monarch ant...would be nice to find level 15 and 20 items of various colors sprinkled on minibosses throughout the realm

See! This is why the list would be handy!
Yeh I think the bandit blade and monarch ant stinger ad's should be swapped (although now ive got two perfect bandits blades, that'd be inconvenient. SO NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN!). You can even buy the bandit blade in the sewer shop, poor monarch ant loses some luvvin coz o' this.

I still envision vendors having a random chance of selling better than normal gear. Random roll after X amount of time passes, or just fixed at reset (random roll to determine where/what/when/amount)...

Even have a "buy back". This will keep track of things sold and store them either for a while or until reset (soul bound stuff stays soul bound to avoid cheesing).
So people could buy what others vendor (could even increase cost (even to sell - but off course make it for less than it would cost to make ie enchant is 25 gold per level of enchant, bless is 50 gold, hum is ? Still find it silly you deck a piece of gear and it sells for the same price as undecked) based on hum/decking).
Disclaimer: Any ideas I come up with may not even meet my approval. I am just posting an idea based on the topic I have just read.
I love sheep.


Return to “Archive Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests

cron