Goblin Squad Member
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First, I think it's great that Bob talked to me about ideas, concerns, and questions I had about escalations for practically the whole time he was able to be on Sunday, which might have been his day off anyway. (Unless he just relogged to a character I don't know? :o)). We had a good talk and even came up with an idea to make escalation fighting go more smoothly for PvEers. It left me in a much better spot to understand the big picture of what escalations are this week and what to look for.
Later that day, The Empyrean Order had some new friends over for punch, and by punch I mean longbows. We fully cleared an escalation out of a hex adjacent to Brighthaven.
We used two separate groups totalling 6-11 characters during the scrubbing- two or three healers, two melee heavy tanks, and practically all the rest longbows. It took a touch over two hours to take the Ripping Chains escalation from 32% to eliminating the map tab.
There were two quests active during the time, killing zealots and stealing banners. We completed both quests twice, and in all cases ran into he x-1/x display error but DID get a text message conveying our success. Five to ten minutes later the display would reset. I was busy with constant hordes of elite goblins all up in my grill trying to kabob them on a spear so I didn't notice if the count stayed accurate during the display error. Also at the elimination of the escalation from the hex we didn't get any text notification or special fireworks, the strength just read 0.0% for a couple minutes and the tab quietly slinked out of the room.
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I was thinking that you wouldn't even need to display quest timers for players if a bit more time was added instead of failing at 0:00 as long as someone had been advancing it. And lack of ticking timers feels more RPG too.
Except in cases where you WANT to add race-against-the-clock dramatic tension to the quest. In our big groups the fighting wasn't so difficult or anything so in the "Stop them before they report back to the main force" quest it would add a layer of challenge (split up further for coverage or keep bigger groups for winning combat?) to have a somewhat short timer that gets extended a few minutes for every three advances or something. Not only do you have to win the fights, but you REALLY have to go find them in time before they can report back. In that limited context seeing a timer tick down makes the quest more engaging (as long as the time isn't so short we don't think why bother).
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2 Questions
1.) What is supposed to happen when two different escalations converge on the same hex?
2.) There are skeletons in the north. Could players, given cooperation and time, cultivate that escalation straight down the side of the map to the south, then scrub all the hexes in between (eliminate the escalation), resulting in two independent pockets of skeleton escalation that we can prune as needed but keep around to farm Divine points?
+1 Good work, Proxima!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Proxima, on the Alpha Forums I updated them on this particular Escalation.
1 - Basically, they converge, and each Escalation pushes on the other, I believe most of this is in the background, and it could actually change while you are in the middle of killing it.
2 - I know that you can prune them, because the smaller ones can reach up to 10 hexes, while the worst are 30 hexes, I don't know if they require the Monster Hex to be active to still grow...I do know you can push them in the direction you want, and then eliminate all of them in between.
2 - I know that you can prune them, because the smaller ones can reach up to 10 hexes, while the worst are 30 hexes, I don't know if they require the Monster Hex to be active to still grow...I do know you can push them in the direction you want, and then eliminate all of them in between.
That raises a good question. If I go in with a party and clear out the Monster Hex on an escalation that is getting out of hand, will that halt the escalation? Slow it down? Affect it in any way whatsoever?
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's no one way to battle Escalations, but the general take is that completing events lowers their strength, as does killing monsters/soldiers. For some events, failing to complete them in time will raise the strength (e.g. recruiting events).
You don't have to clear out the surrounding hexes before killing the source hex, but they are reinforcing each other every hour, so it may be worth whittling them down before tackling the source. Once the source is dead, the surrounding hexes still need to be cleared out, but without the source, they're much easier to take out. Often, they'll just get taken over by other surrounding Escalations.
That sounds like clearing the escalation in the Monster Hex will stop any escalations in the surrounding hexes from growing further. The remenants of the escalation will remain until cleared, but won't be reinforced by the source.
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Later that day, The Empyrean Order had some new friends over for punch, and by punch I mean longbows. We fully cleared an escalation out of a hex adjacent to Brighthaven.
Nice work on the escalation. You actually cleared it out a bit more quickly than I would have expected, but it sounds like the goblins kept you pretty busy for those two hours.
Also at the elimination of the escalation from the hex we didn't get any text notification or special fireworks, the strength just read 0.0% for a couple minutes and the tab quietly slinked out of the room.
Infected (wild) hexes definitely shut down too quietly at the moment. Source (monster) hexes spawn a boss event, and then send out a chat announcement when the boss is defeated, but ultimately both need much better notifications for such a big moment. For that matter, better notifications overall has been coming up more and more in our polish discussions.
I was thinking that you wouldn't even need to display quest timers for players if a bit more time was added instead of failing at 0:00 as long as someone had been advancing it. And lack of ticking timers feels more RPG too.
Except in cases where you WANT to add race-against-the-clock dramatic tension to the quest. In our big groups the fighting wasn't so difficult or anything so in the "Stop them before they report back to the main force" quest it would add a layer of challenge (split up further for coverage or keep bigger groups for winning combat?) to have a somewhat short timer that gets extended a few minutes for every three advances or something. Not only do you have to win the fights, but you REALLY have to go find them in time before they can report back. In that limited context seeing a timer tick down makes the quest more engaging (as long as the time isn't so short we don't think why bother).
There are lots of options here, like only showing timers when they drop low enough to worry about. That said, the timer (once it's actually in) also lets you know how feasible it is to head back to town, gather up an appropriate party, and return. We may just want to work with the visuals to get across the right amount of pressure at the right part of the countdown (low-key yellow when you have plenty of time, flashing red as the timer runs out).
Also, if we do allow players to extend the timer as they tackle the event, that's something we'd want to be able to tune per event, so some events could be very forgiving, some forgiving if you're being very efficient, and others not at all.
1.) What is supposed to happen when two different escalations converge on the same hex?
Basically, every hour, each escalation will send a percentage of the strength from the neighboring hexes at that hex. Stronger escalations will displace weaker escalations. In the end, they're weakening each other, and players can take advantage of that.
2.) There are skeletons in the north. Could players, given cooperation and time, cultivate that escalation straight down the side of the map to the south, then scrub all the hexes in between (eliminate the escalation), resulting in two independent pockets of skeleton escalation that we can prune as needed but keep around to farm Divine points?
Sort of. You could certainly direct an escalation in a particular direction as described. However, orphaned hexes only gain strength if they run events that boost strength on failure, which would severely limit the amount you could farm it. Plus, that hex would be prone to getting either crushed by another escalation, or absorbed into any new skeletal escalations running nearby.
That sounds like clearing the escalation in the Monster Hex will stop any escalations in the surrounding hexes from growing further. The remenants of the escalation will remain until cleared, but won't be reinforced by the source.
Essentially, yes. I'd have to check the exact implementation details with programming, but once the source hex is dead, the remaining hexes have few, if any, sources to add to their strength. I believe they stop spreading or reinforcing each other, and they may even stop running events. It's still best to clean them up, because other instances of the same escalation are capable of absorbing them, but they generally have nowhere to go but down.