Dungeon Sweep-up,
This week we are tackling some of the outstanding things from the dungeon update that didn't make it in for the version 1 release, as well as some issues that you helped us discover in the testing.
Bossing in a shared (non-instanced) world,
Despite in many ways the dungeon looking like a traditional MMO dungeon, the fact that it is not instanced actually makes it closer to an open world boss or open world dungeon in terms of the design it requires. The core aspect of this is that both the gameplay and the rewards should not be negatively impacted by having other players join.
Something that was on our radar before we launched the update was that there were two further things that would bring the system closer to this ideal:
Enemy Scaling - the enemy should be able to get stronger as more players join the encounter to prevent it from being trivialized. It’s also important that the way in which the enemy scales does not negatively impact the EXP gained or the contribution which goes towards rewards (both of which are calculated based on damage done)
Non-weighted contribution loot - Within the contribution loot system there are two main ways of giving rewards, either a fixed amount of loot is given for a contribution threshold being reached (non-weighted), or loot is given based on the volume of contribution (weighted). We opted to ship with the latter due to the lack of enemy scaling system at the time of release but our goal was to move over to the former once we were able to add enemy scaling. Ultimately both are useful and have varying limitations - non-weighted essentially requires scaling, otherwise the enemy can be killed so quickly in large groups that no player is able to meet the minimum threshold for loot, whereas weighted introduces more competition between players preventing some players from being able to get meaningful amounts of loot. You can see both of these systems at play in other games with open, mass player, boss encounters such as Meta Event Bosses in GW2 (non-weighted) or Mass worlds for bosses like Hueycotl or Zalcano in OSRS (weighted)
With this week’s update we are adding both of these which should hopefully bring the design of the dungeon more inline with our original goals and will function in the following way:
The Sentinel Boss (and likely all bosses going forward) will scale a new damage reduction stat which reduces damage taken,
This Damage reduction happens after EXP and loot contribution values are calculated meaning that while your effective damage to the boss health is lowered the rewards are not,
Loot for the boss will now be based on non-weighted thresholds. By reaching certain discrete levels of contribution during the fight players will receive a given loot roll, once the top threshold is met that player will not receive additional loot. Our goal will be to balance these loot thresholds to a point where there is enough motivation to do your best, while also not fretting about the presence of other players. Other Issues being fixed,
We’re also fixed some other things that were causing problems such as:
The Boss (and all enemies for that matter) will now correctly not regenerate hp while in combat,
Players can no longer rush through the various rooms of the dungeon. Now all enemies need to be cleared before you can go to the next room,
Made some improvements to the camera collisions with walls in the dungeon,
Fixed some visual issues in the dungeon causing some visual effects to receive too much bloom post processing and some instances of z-fighting with the floor,
Conclusions and Next Steps,
We hope that these changes bring the dungeon to a much better place. We will be keeping an eye on how this impacts things and will be listening to your feedback on whether this takes the dungeon systems to a stable place. Going forward we plan to focus on balancing the content (difficulty and rewards) as well as introducing new dungeons and bosses in the near future.
The next aspect of the game which is going to be getting some love is Hunting, then some big improvements to Sailing and Hauling. I’ll be looking forward to sharing more on that next week!
-- Patch Notes --
Added,
Improved VFX for all player combat actions,
Tier 7-10 food,
Various stats to weapon tooltips,
Changed,
Players and enemies no longer passively regenerate health while in combat,
Feral Sentinel now gains increased defenses when fighting more players,
Feral Sentinel will now drop loot using a new (non-weighted) contribution system,
Dungeon portals to the next room are now locked unless all enemies in the current room are defeated,
Terraforming dig-sites are now walkable in order to prevent griefing,
Lowered intensity of the vignette when taking damage,
Dungeon enemies regenerate health while out of combat again,
Fixed,
Feral Sentinel being able to move while performing Ground Smash,
Enemies spawning too close together inside dungeons,
Camera being rotated in a random direction after entering dungeon portals,
Siege engines being invisible when 'Hide unused deployable's setting was enabled,
Tier 8-10 fertilizer recipes using the wrong inputs,
Tier 8 diamond ring recipe using the wrong input,
Quantity slider not going beyond 1 when crafting cargo,
Crafting animations sometimes freezing,
Visuals inside dungeons being too strong in certain lighting conditions,
Floor z-fighting in some parts of the dungeon,
Potential fix for UI not showing when interacting with a project site,
Potential fix for UI not showing when trading another player,
Potential fix deployable inventory UI not showing when opening the player inventory