State of the Game: Savage+ Dungeons and End Game Leves

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You want to basically add a "challenge mode" / "boss rush" mode to content that is still otherwise has an option to unsync. With no budget. QA goes into balancing everything. So you're only saving SE the development costs of designing a new dungeon or primal in favor of adding a "double the HP of everything" option that adds nothing and has no reward.

Like the kind of thing I'd like to see is put a fixed handicap option list, and if 95% of the players who have played it (not runs, players) can clear it with that handicap, that handicap becomes the default, and thus any potential reward requires being able to clear with that handicap, solo. For party, the handicap has to be work like HoH/PotD does, where the players have to play a specific party configuration for it to count (like, ... all bards)

... What? I literally said in my initial post they could add titles, mounts, minion and a leadership board. Even simply achievements go a long way to make the content worth doing. How does this cost any additional resources? Like Tsumdere said, you'd be reusing everything. Take The Vault, add some of the aforementioned stipulations, increase mob HP and/or frequency of their mechanics and you're golden. WoW has been doing this for years in the form of Mythic+, I can't imagine SE being incapable.

RAM and disk space? Come on. We're talking minuscule amounts. If they can add a new cash shop mount, they can handle a title and mounts. Hell, they add titles to trivial things like 20,000 FATEs. Stop doing that and make titles more meaningful. Bam.

[Tsumdere]

You have no idea how much it would cost them, titles take up RAM in the game client. Mounts take up disk space, because you can't just make a boss a mount by rescaling it. It needs to have all the mount animations for swimming and flying too. Why do you think we haven't seen all the 2.0 mounts fly yet?

I do know how much it would cost. Titles cost next to nothing as they are just text and state switches. Two or three more titles are not going to take up more than a sub-inkling of space.

As for mounts, all of the mounts swimming animation is the same as the flying animation, and for half the mounts the flying animation is them floating in the air. It doesn't take a animating genius to see that it's not more than a few days work to make a hover animation. The only reason we haven't seen the 2.0 horses fly is because it's not their prerogative right now. Or that they are too lazy to make some particles and put the Sleipnir animations on them flying.
Besides, I personally was thinking about having an Lost City of Amdapor Savage. Tons of people want a giant morpho to ride, what a better candidate for a reward. It already has a flying animation so it would be a literal scale up and reuse the mount code on it.

[ForctyusGold]

it will be great to bring back battle leves, but i dont think its a good way how you describe them, it can be somehow different from previous but dont know, for this waves could be better something like a arena, for solo or 4-players

[KisaiTenshi]

I do know how much it would cost. Titles cost next to nothing as they are just text and state switches. Two or three more titles are not going to take up more than a sub-inkling of space.

Right, are you a SE developer? Yoshi-P had made claims before that seem like no-brainer changes, yet people on the forums still insist on being armchair developers about how easy something should be to add to the game. Adding a title adds maybe 1-4KB of memory, but adds another entry into an array or hash lookup every time a title has to be looked up. Remember every discussion ever about why we don't have more inventory space?

The matter of fact thing is, we do not know how much QA cost goes into this, and using Blizzard as a comparison is not even reasonable as they do all their rebalancing as the players break things. They don't test anything anywhere near as much as SE does, and instead allow their player base to provide feedback via PTR, which only touches a fraction of a fraction of the player base. For all we know Mythic+ changes far more than what it shows at the surface. It's would not be a simple switch to implement by any means otherwise it would be the exact same experience, even if the handicap for the player is from disabling the job crystal or actions or some other thing. Just compare a the regular and hard versions of a dungeon, or the hard and extreme/savage versions of a primal/raid. It's not simply making it trivially harder like WoW's Mythic+ does.


This is asking for QA time to be spent on returning old content to be fun again instead of creating new content, and at some point I do expect them to be forced to retune old content, because some of the old content is quite embarrassingly easy and deprives players of actually having any challenge and gives the impression it's always been that way.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Right, are you a SE developer? Yoshi-P had made claims before that seem like no-brainer changes, yet people on the forums still insist on being armchair developers about how easy something should be to add to the game.

The matter of fact thing is, we do not know how much QA cost goes into this, and using Blizzard as a comparison is not even reasonable as they do all their rebalancing as the players break things. They don't test anything anywhere near as much as SE does, and instead allow their player base to provide feedback via PTR, which only touches a fraction of a fraction of the player base. For all we know Mythic+ changes far more than what it shows at the surface. It's would not be a simple switch to implement by any means otherwise it would be the exact same experience, even if the handicap for the player is from disabling the job crystal or actions or some other thing. Just compare a the regular and hard versions of a dungeon, or the hard and extreme/savage versions of a primal/raid. It's not simply making it trivially harder like WoW's Mythic+ does

You chastise him for making assumptions, yet in the same post you make several that you have NO WAY of knowing unless you work at SE/Blizz.

Always the hypocrite.

[Tracewood]

Snipped

Love these ideas. I bought up a similar idea for the Savage dungeons years ago, and basically used Destiny's nightfalls as a template of sorts. I mean, having a weekly savage dungeon with raid loot rules and drops ilvl gear the same as the current raid patch? I'd be so down for a Copperbell Mines Savage. I think the dev team worries it'd make tomestone gear more irrelevant, but honestly it'd be no different than 24 man raids as they could gear alts with it. Tomes will still play a big part in gearing, but I think the casual crowd can get behind this. Low man content seems to be the most favored.

As for leves, I think if they made it as challenging as you say, have them cost 10 leves and the reward is a raid tier accessories. The downside, is that if you get a lot of speculators, could bog down for some players and unintentionally cause wipes. Especially if there are more than dozens of groups in the same spot.

[Mahrze]

Seems like a stretch to give certain content "additional value". Achievements are already incentive enough in some cases (see tank mounts) and that still doesn't have people actively playing those roles. Giving it the same "make-up" as potd/hoh would still only show a small demographic pursuing said rewards.

Certain dungeons have their shelf life, which is the duration of the patch in which they release. That is intentional and because we complained about being sent back to those dungeons for previous relics, they will find it a bit silly that we're asking to go back "with a bonus".

They've already added orchestion rolls to certain dungeons with low rates (lost city hm), others have mounts (ala mhigo). They can only do so much to keep something alive, even more so when ilvl is everything and each gear gets replaced every 6 months.

[Alestorm]

Basically WoW's Mythic+ system, which was actually a brilliant idea, lots of fun and kept Legion dungeons relevant the entire expansion, so I'm all for it.

My only issue with following the mythic+ concept is in WoW the raiders instantly high jacked the whole thing. Only people in mythic raiding warforged gear were ever allowed in any parties I could find. Rather than be a new end game option for non-raiders (as it was intended) it became a way for raiders to gear their alts for raiding.

I would be all for harder dungeons though. Also if we were to get end game leves have also rare crafting mats (things usually from treasure maps) as possible rewards.

[Tsumdere]

-snip-

Oh come off it. Of course I don't work for SE, but neither do you. But I do know about game development (soz, I'm a 3D modelling and rigging girl - which is why I know the mount stuff would be intern level work ) to know that what is being asked is 100% within the realm of possibility for a AAA company. I am sick and tired of people making excuses for why we cannot have incredibly easy to implement content (because it is ALL reused assets. not a single thing would be new besides where the code is). If their netcode and infrastructure sucks so bad as to not be able to add more titles, maybe they should take a step back and fix it? If they don't have the man power to do something as easy as this, then maybe they should reallocate (do we REALLY need more perform stuff?) or get a larger budget? It is frankly starting to border on unacceptable.

And yes. I would rather they revisit old content and make QoL changes than make new "content" that dies with a day or is widely disliked. Perform? Eureka? Astrologos? Lords of Verminion? Squadron? The only new content that was worth anyone's time and garnered positive reviews was Ultimate and they've already said no more of that.

Anyways... I think it would be a good way to bridge the difficulty gap between normal mode stuff and extremes. Not every challenge mode has to be ballbreakingly difficult, and the system doesn't have to include every dungeon in the game. Just take three dungeons at first and release them with a few challenges each.

[KaldeaSahaline]

My only issue with following the mythic+ concept is in WoW the raiders instantly high jacked the whole thing. Only people in mythic raiding warforged gear were ever allowed in any parties I could find. Rather than be a new end game option for non-raiders (as it was intended) it became a way for raiders to gear their alts for raiding.

I would be all for harder dungeons though. Also if we were to get end game leves have also rare crafting mats (things usually from treasure maps) as possible rewards.

It was never designed strictly for non-raiders. That's a ridiculous statement to make and patently false.

I only ever had heroic gear (filthy casul these days), but I regularly got invited (and denied) in +20 and higher keys, let alone lower ones (and I play a ret). That's not even counting the obvious fix. Start your own party. Mine always filled near instantly unless it was a really dodgy key.

Savage Dungeons while a great idea and one I'd personally love to see; I just fail to see how they can be engaging given the constraints of the combat system and rigid job design.