Goblin Squad Member
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After playing three evenings thus far in the Alpha, I enjoy the escalations scattered across the realm. I found the hex-based quest concept to be a good one (especially after someone told me to click the arrow in the upper right corner of the screen). I would prefer to see more than two at a time (maybe different ones based on the escalation percentage). However, it feels like there should be some level of reward for completion of an escalation quest.
Some are vastly harder than others. We found some areas obviously meant for higher-than-level-3/4 - the Razmiran Archpriest was nigh invincible to reach due to the Razmiran Adepts even with kite-pulling.
For those who haven't seen them: the whole hex participates in the completion of the quest, but unless you 'zone' in and out of the hex, you can only contribute a small amount (say 5 out of a thirty kill X). After finishing a few minor quests in the hex, Archanjel, Bannis and I killed the Fallen Paladin - a single target for a specific quest (probably meant to be a boss). It wasn't clear if that did anything to the escalation and felt pretty anticlimactic after at least a five minute slugfest. Someone mentioned that each completed quest would give a ~2% drop to the hex's escalation percentage.
I propose that some minor positive impact or feedback loop reward be developed to occur as quests are completed. It could be as simple as:
1. a local banner message to the hex "The Fallen Paladin has been slain, the [faction group] is in disarray!"
2. part of an achievement/requirement for a rareish skill related to the main class type involved in the escalation
3. a temporary buff versus the escalation (e.g. Bandit's Scourge - that gives +5% damage to all skills targeting bandits for thirty minutes)
4. even a temporary debuff of increased agro range for a period of time (e.g. "There they are! They killed Lord Kobuki! Get them!").
5. characters remaining online who contributed to a particular quest when it is completed receives a message / crafting material / mail (good for the kill x and take x supplies type quests).
Nearly any effect would be a positive one and incentivize people to work on them. Randomness and variety to them would be even better.
Thoughts?
PS: Having characters with more than one name makes you unable to be invited to a group which drove my healer nuts (since both Archanjel and I both had two names).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I mentioned the 2% drop, it happened roughly that % on three quests we didn't in about 3-4 hour time span.
I feel like escalations might be too quick to gain power, and then sometimes they just drop to 0? Also, there definitely needs to be more players helping out, killing them off, because a 3-6 man group is a drop in the bucket. Sometimes we played for 5 hours straight, and the dent we managed to put in it went poof!
We need more visual cues that these quests are going on, perhaps being approached by NPCs in the area. Just a lot going on sometimes, and noting explaining what is happening. This is Alpha, so I have excused every gripe I have at that.
Another thing, it would be awesome if instead of spawning in place, that they spawned and then moved into place. It would make it seem not only more realistic, but add a bit of flow and more tactics to tackling the escalations. I would love to see some kind of roaming mobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the thought of the randomness of the result of the boss kill. You thought you would get some sort of reward, but all you really did was piss of Lord Kobuki's followers! Now they get a buff and you are in trouble! (Maybe a speed buff, a root attack, a rage attack, an extra Soldier or two in 50% of the remaining camps....)
The roaming mobs might be some newly arriving recruits, some guys that were "napping in the bushes or behind that hill over there" and come around the corner to set up camp (or even tearing down a camp).
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For those who haven't seen them: the whole hex participates in the completion of the quest, but unless you 'zone' in and out of the hex, you can only contribute a small amount (say 5 out of a thirty kill X).
After a few internal debates, we're going to be moving away from this "personal contribution" aspect of the escalation events. It wasn't fully implemented, but enough of it was there for us to decide we could better achieve our design goals in other ways. Every player will be able to contribute to each event right up to the end. I've started putting the necessary adjustments into the spreadsheets and hope to have that working in the next big build.
After finishing a few minor quests in the hex, Archanjel, Bannis and I killed the Fallen Paladin - a single target for a specific quest (probably meant to be a boss). It wasn't clear if that did anything to the escalation and felt pretty anticlimactic after at least a five minute slugfest. Someone mentioned that each completed quest would give a ~2% drop to the hex's escalation percentage.
The reward systems for the Boss events haven't been fully implemented, in part because some of their planned rewards are dependent on the settlement system. For now, killing the Win Boss (who appears if escalation strength drops to about 50) will kill off the escalation. For some escalations, failing to kill the Fail Boss (who appears at near maximum strength) before the timer runs out also kills off the escalation (because the escalation has achieved its ends and moved on), which will ultimately cause players to miss out on big rewards.
I propose that some minor positive impact or feedback loop reward be developed to occur as quests are completed. It could be as simple as:
1. a local banner message to the hex "The Fallen Paladin has been slain, the [faction group] is in disarray!"
2. part of an achievement/requirement for a rareish skill related to the main class type involved in the escalation
3. a temporary buff versus the escalation (e.g. Bandit's Scourge - that gives +5% damage to all skills targeting bandits for thirty minutes)
4. even a temporary debuff of increased agro range for a period of time (e.g. "There they are! They killed Lord Kobuki! Get them!").
5. characters remaining online who contributed to a particular quest when it is completed receives a message / crafting material...
Some great ideas here, and we definitely plan on providing better feedback and clearer rewards as development continues.
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I feel like escalations might be too quick to gain power, and then sometimes they just drop to 0?
We'd originally only planned on having the alpha servers up for a few hours at a time, so we set the escalations to grow quickly enough that players would see some change during that short time period. They'll need to be rebalanced to handle these longer uptimes.
As for the sudden drops, those are likely due to one of two things.
Neighboring escalations, particularly when they've reached max strength, can smack an infected hex down a lot each turn. Likewise, neighboring friendly hexes can raise the strength dramatically. If you see a dramatic strength change on the hour, then it was probably the result of neighboring hexes attacking and reinforcing all at once.
The other possibility is that you were there during one of my less-than-subtle resets this weekend. Because the servers were up so long, I had to occasionally beat the escalations back with some cheat codes to keep the starter hexes from being overwhelmed. Otherwise, folks trying it out for the first time at PaizoCon would have been in for quite the surprise on leaving the settlement.
Also, there definitely needs to be more players helping out, killing them off, because a 3-6 man group is a drop in the bucket. Sometimes we played for 5 hours straight, and the dent we managed to put in it went poof!
The "poof" part of that is no good, and we'll work on fixing that, but requiring lots of players to help out is our long-term goal. Beating back an escalation should require multiple squads attacking multiple hexes for an extended period of time, with coordinated attacks dramatically increasing your effectiveness.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So there is this pretty old board game called Wizard's Quest.
Hearing how these escalations worked here in PFO, reminded me of it.
I played the game a bit in high school in the 90s with my friend and his brother. We loved the old school board games of the late 70s and 80s.
The game is basically a territorial control game and has orcs that spawn in empty regions on the board. They can multiply and spread if left unchecked.
One particular game we had become so entrenched fighting each other that we ignored the growing threat of orcs. They overwhelmed us and soon we found that we had no choice but to stop fighting each other and address the current threat. By that time it was too late and his brother had capitalized on our massive distraction and won the game.
It is my hope that the escalation format could allow for something like the above to take place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought Guild Wars 2 did a pretty good job with wide-scale broadcasts. Some of them spread a bit too far and repeated a little too often (Beasts of the Sun, I'm looking at you!), but they were a good way to find out about an on-going player effort and get involved.
I always felt Rift does a good job with their zone events as well.
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One particular game we had become so entrenched fighting each other that we ignored the growing threat of orcs. They overwhelmed us and soon we found that we had no choice but to stop fighting each other and address the current threat. By that time it was too late and his brother had capitalized on our massive distraction and won the game.
It is my hope that the escalation format could allow for something like the above to take place.
Exactly what we're shooting for. Escalations that are left alone will be much harder to deal with, and settlements that completely ignore a nearby escalation to focus on PvP will soon regret it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, there definitely needs to be more players helping out, killing them off, because a 3-6 man group is a drop in the bucket. Sometimes we played for 5 hours straight, and the dent we managed to put in it went poof!The "poof" part of that is no good, and we'll work on fixing that, but requiring lots of players to help out is our long-term goal. Beating back an escalation should require multiple squads attacking multiple hexes for an extended period of time, with coordinated attacks dramatically increasing your effectiveness.
Oh no, I realize that it requires a lot of people. I wasn't suggesting that you change this in any way. What I was suggesting is that we need more people in Alpha, because I feel that 20-30 people working together can kill down one Hex of an escalation. I don't know what your guys sweet spot is right now, and I don't know how many people you intend to have actually fighting an escalation.
I would like to see the rewards system implemented, and a clear cut way of determining how much of an impact I am having on the escalation. I think after so many hours of playing we only dropped it 6% or so, and we constantly had to check it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, there definitely needs to be more players helping out, killing them off, because a 3-6 man group is a drop in the bucket. Sometimes we played for 5 hours straight, and the dent we managed to put in it went poof!The "poof" part of that is no good, and we'll work on fixing that, but requiring lots of players to help out is our long-term goal. Beating back an escalation should require multiple squads attacking multiple hexes for an extended period of time, with coordinated attacks dramatically increasing your effectiveness.Oh no, I realize that it requires a lot of people. I wasn't suggesting that you change this in any way. What I was suggesting is that we need more people in Alpha, because I feel that 20-30 people working together can kill down one Hex of an escalation. I don't know what your guys sweet spot is right now, and I don't know how many people you intend to have actually fighting an escalation.
I would like to see the rewards system implemented, and a clear cut way of determining how much of an impact I am having on the escalation. I think after so many hours of playing we only dropped it 6% or so, and we constantly had to check it.
I'm curious as to what type of reward system you're thinking of. Based on the prior dev response I would think your POI or settlement not getting sacked would be a reward in of itself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some of the artifacts gathered through the successful completion of escalation cycles also grant bonuses to one or more development indexes, and as the power of the artifact increases, so does its bonus. Questing for more powerful and more numerous settlement artifacts will be an important and valuable role for companies focused on PvE play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some of the artifacts gathered through the successful completion of escalation cycles also grant bonuses to one or more development indexes, and as the power of the artifact increases, so does its bonus. Questing for more powerful and more numerous settlement artifacts will be an important and valuable role for companies focused on PvE play.
I knew about that, but wasn't really thinking about that as an award system for participation in an escalation. But I can see it being seen that way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quietus, he just explained up above that there is going to be an awards system for clearing an escalation, and on top of that I was thinking about the Company reward, and the Artifacts.
There is a lot of neat stuff you can get after clearing one out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quietus, he just explained up above that there is going to be an awards system for clearing an escalation, and on top of that I was thinking about the Company reward, and the Artifacts.
There is a lot of neat stuff you can get after clearing one out.
I interpreted what you were talking about was like a contribution loot bag and the like. Things we've seen in Rift and Final Fantasy 14, as examples. I was wondering if that was the type of award system you were referring too. I see I misread what you wrote before.
I'm not opposed to their being some benefit of clearing out an escalation. I actually like the artifact mechanic being discussed. I actually think you should be able to capture them from settlements as well. AFAIK GW hasn't decided on that one yet. :)
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I think something along the lines of a "Company Artifacts" would be a great way to encourage players to work together as a company to fight off PvE threats. The Company would then be able to "Slot" these Artifacts, Trophies, Rewards etc to gain some CC wide bonus to some Faction, Skill, or Ability.
Think a Crafting Artifact you can slot that lowers the CC's Crafting time by 1-5%