Roaming World Bosses

ad4mss

Hi,

I was very impressed once ZOS released Elsweyr chapter. Both new zones are my most favourite especially, Northern Elsweyr because of it's overall look.
One of the best things which came into the Tamriel were Dragons and the totally new in terms of the game mechanics flying "feature" which let these Dragons to roam around the both new zones.

Perhaps this kind of discussion already happened but maybe there is some new overview on such "feature" and news which I could miss by many reasons.
So how about ZOS could deliver more roaming world bosses into ESO with the upcoming DLC's and Chapters?
Roaming Bosses seems to be more "real" as we can then see that they are more than static creatures which spawns in the same place every single time.

In my personal opinion "moving"/"thinking" bosses in MMORPG games are highly demanded as we players love more and more challenging stuff.
Actually in the players driven world where actualy NPC's are also doing their job and play their "roles" it would be good to have the same in terms of mobs or at least Bosses.
I know that there are some behaviors already implemented int mobs all around Tamriel but to me after I dived into Elsweyr Chapter and saw this flying Dragons above my head, I miss so much such roaming feature to many other World Bosses if not all actually.

whitecrow

I've always wanted roaming creatures of all types. It makes the world feel very "programmed" the way they are now.

ad4mss

whitecrow wrote: »

I've always wanted roaming creatures of all types. It makes the world feel very "programmed" the way they are now.

I hope that house guests which ZOS has already bring into the game will move them to bring more and more roaming "things".

phaneub17_ESO

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

RedMuse

Getting one-shotted randomly by a boss while questing overland because I didn't see it approaching, or spend 2 hours trying to find a specific boss for a quest when I for once actually need the bugger, is not my idea fun. Rather it's the opposite of fun. So I'm going with no.

Sergykid

events like in GW2 would be awesome, settlements getting attacked, things moving around, feels more lively.

MasterSpatula

Zos is already bad enough about making everything take way longer than it has any business taking without suggestions from us.

Thechuckage

Oh wont someone think of the childrenNewbies running around....

Everything dangerous is either locked into an instance, or very VERY clearly marked as dangerous. I think people can manage to avoid em.

Even with dragons, its not a free roaming thing. Not to mention the icon moves with the dragon

bmnoble

So long as they do the same thing they do with Dragons showing where they are on the map, don't want to go hunting the area's a boss could be because someone else has already killed it and I missed where ever else its suddenly spawned, when I actually want to kill it myself.

phantasmalD

Imperial City has roming bosses. It kinda works there but not something I'd like to see everywhere.

spartaxoxo

phantasmalD wrote: »

Imperial City has roming bosses. It kinda works there but not something I'd like to see everywhere.

Honestly they're kinda of a pain. Annoying to find when you want them. And annoying to avoid when you don't. I like being able to just do the activity I want to do. Player freedom is great in this game

Seraphayel

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

ad4mss

Sergykid wrote: »

events like in GW2 would be awesome, settlements getting attacked, things moving around, feels more lively.

This is what I was impressed as well playing GW2. It made me feel that world around me live with its own life.
Such kind of events could happen to ESO actually with the upcoming Chapters/DLC's.

Thechuckage wrote: »

Oh wont someone think of the childrenNewbies running around....

Everything dangerous is either locked into an instance, or very VERY clearly marked as dangerous. I think people can manage to avoid em.

Even with dragons, its not a free roaming thing. Not to mention the icon moves with the dragon

Exactly, if ZOS would bring more roaming things to the game it would be done same way as Dragons were, so roaming with specific paths and marked on the map.

Iluvrien

Seraphayel wrote: »

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phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

How likely are those newbies to stick around if their questing efforts keep getting interrupted?

Slow mounts and armour repair costs probably figure into this too.

ad4mss

Iluvrien wrote: »

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Seraphayel wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

How likely are those newbies to stick around if their questing efforts keep getting interrupted?

Slow mounts and armour repair costs probably figure into this too.

I though that best kind of games have to be little bit challenging but through last years I have learnt that players just demand the fastest and the easiest way to grind and getting "top" gear in 24h since they created account.

ESO is already very newbies friendly and I don't see that roaming bosses would be so big problem to them.

ad4mss

Seraphayel wrote: »

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phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

This is what I have noticed, even when dying doesn't bring you any penalties (which in my opinion is really bad move) players still see that as a problem cuz they will have to run again to the location..

More and more players just demand from game to give them opportunity to speed run to max lvl and other things just to have it done..

Olauron

Any forced content is trash content. Stationary world bosses are endurable enough due to them being avoidable. Roaming world bosses would simply disrupt players doing something else. It is always bad idea to prevent players from doing what they like and want by throwing into their faces content they don't like or don't want.

Iluvrien

ad4mss wrote: »

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Iluvrien wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

How likely are those newbies to stick around if their questing efforts keep getting interrupted?

Slow mounts and armour repair costs probably figure into this too.

I though that best kind of games have to be little bit challenging but through last years I have learnt that players just demand the fastest and the easiest way to grind and getting "top" gear in 24h since they created account.

ESO is already very newbies friendly and I don't see that roaming bosses would be so big problem to them.

So you think people want to speed through... but being prevented from doing so by roaming bosses would be fine.

Those two things sound mutually exclusive to me.

Seraphayel

Iluvrien wrote: »

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Seraphayel wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

How likely are those newbies to stick around if their questing efforts keep getting interrupted?

Slow mounts and armour repair costs probably figure into this too.

How often do you think they get killed by roaming world bosses? Once or twice maybe. The next time you automatically play more careful to avoid situations like theses. World of Warcraft‘s first expansion had an infamous boss who roamed a zone, the Fel Reaver. You noticed him by his sound and it send shivers down your spine. Everybody died to this mob at least once and then you just played a bit more carefully.

ESO’s overland content (that is meant to be soloed) is absolutely baby-level. I think in an MMORPG a little bit of danger in the world is always good. And I really think ESO should stop catering to the newbies - there’s more than enough stuff for newbies, they don’t have to be the main focus each and every time a new Chapter gets released. If you can’t deal with rare deaths here and there, a roleplaying game might not be for you.

Iluvrien

Seraphayel wrote: »

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Iluvrien wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

How likely are those newbies to stick around if their questing efforts keep getting interrupted?

Slow mounts and armour repair costs probably figure into this too.

How often do you think they get killed by roaming world bosses? Once or twice maybe. The next time you automatically play more careful to avoid situations like theses. World of Warcraft‘s first expansion had an infamous boss who roamed a zone, the Fel Reaver. You noticed him by his sound and it send shivers down your spine. Everybody died to this mob at least once and then you just played a bit more carefully.

ESO’s overland content (that is meant to be soloed) is absolutely baby-level. I think in an MMORPG a little bit of danger in the world is always good. And I really think ESO should stop catering to the newbies - there’s more than enough stuff for newbies, they don’t have to be the main focus each and every time a new Chapter gets released. If you can’t deal with rare deaths here and there, a roleplaying game might not be for you.

How often they could be killed by roaming bosses is entirely down to implementation. ZOS has evidenced the capacity to both implement very well... and also very badly. Since the discussion is about amending the levelling zones to include this, I am always going to err on the side of caution.

I agree that the difficulty of overland content is not structure the way I would like it to be, i.e. to provide a range of challenges, but I just don't think roaming world bosses are the way to do it. I am against this idea, rather than changes to overland as a whole. My own ideas on the subject are far more disruptive to existing structures, and thus far less likely to ever see the light of day.

ThorianB

When i think of world bosses, i don't think of what ZOS calls a world boss. That is a zone boss maybe. A world boss to me:

• Spawns at random times
• Spawns in random places
• Takes a random route
• Has a lot of HP( 100 mil at least in ESO)
• Does a lot of damage.
• Requires dozens of players several minutes to take down at minimum.
• Will likely kill you at least once regardless of how good you are.
  

I would love to see randomness to the perfectly scripted order of Tamriel. I would love to see random events of all types. Some examples of random events to make the world more interesting:

1. Real world bosses like i mentioned above
2. Raids on coastal areas by sea pirates in which all players and NPCs are fair game. All pirates would have a few hundred thousand HP with leaders having in the low millions.
3. Small roaming criminal gangs inland raiding settlements.
4. Oblivion portals dropping daedra randomly in every zone. The difficulty and the amount of daedra would vary.
5. Alliance PVE raids in which NPC soldiers of one alliance will invade and raid a zone of another alliance.
6. Alliance PVP raids in which players can invade and raid a zone of another alliance. You would be locked to that character's racial alliance if you are the attacker. All players in that zone at that time are fair game.( 5 minute zone warning before the raid starts). Attackers get points for all players and neutral NPCs they kill in that zone( guards become killable).
7. Random frequent minor zone events like: All NPCs in Glennumbra give double XP today, All undead kills in all zones give 50% more XP today, All resource nodes in Craglorn have their respawn time reduced by 50% for the next 12 hours, all world bosses have double HP today and do double damage but all drops are tripled, For the next 24 hours all neutral NPCs are richer and have better loot, All fish in Shadowfen are very hungry today so bite time is reduced to half.

Some random events to spice up life in ESO where you never know what is happening until you login would be great and a lot more enticing to get me to login and do something more than a daily login reward would.

ad4mss

So you think people want to speed through... but being prevented from doing so by roaming bosses would be fine.

Those two things sound mutually exclusive to me.

I don't say that for me and other players only thing counts is to speed run through the game to achieve max lvl and other "max" things.

I'm completely oposite to this as all work done by developers seems to be pointless to such players as they don't care about touching every single piece of the game but only move from location to another one for grind purpose.

Roaming Bosses could interrupt whatever players do and this could be more fun and put little bit more challenge into the game as finally there would be something that really can become a kind of enemy as ESO doesn't cover open world PvP.

Living world in MMORPG game especially such big one as ESO is, should be the core, currently I feel that we have access to zones where we can avoid actually everything which can cause troubles.

It would be nice if some more complex mechanics would be covered not only within Trials or Dungeons.

Arahallris

Definitely agree, the world needs more danger in it. It would be awesome if players would be placed on a hit list after after completing certain objectives. The adds hunting would play like players would and their attacks would have a punch behind them. #Nomoreslowenemies

spartaxoxo

Seraphayel wrote: »

. And I really think ESO should stop catering to the newbies

Every game I played that stopped caring about adding new stuff for casual and new players in their expansions because "they had enough" saw their populations plummet shortly after. New expansions attract new and returning players alike, games should work on retaining them.

ESO does a fairly good job of having content for everyone. The storylines and overland are for everyone. And then trials have a good balance of having brutal difficulty challenges for hardcore players and the normal ones are tuned well for average players. They have even mixed in some more challenging content for more veteran players in the world events and bosses, though I personally think it's a waste since those players tend to abandon that content fairly quickly.

This game really empowers us to play our way, with content for all different types of players. And I think that's a strength of the game that should never be abandoned.

Seraphayel

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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Seraphayel wrote: »

. And I really think ESO should stop catering to the newbies

Every game I played that stopped caring about adding new stuff for casual and new players in their expansions because "they had enough" saw their populations plummet shortly after. New expansions attract new and returning players alike, games should work on retaining them.

ESO does a fairly good job of having content for everyone. The storylines and overland are for everyone. And then trials have a good balance of having brutal difficulty challenges for hardcore players and the normal ones are tuned well for average players. They have even mixed in some more challenging content for more veteran players in the world events and bosses, though I personally think it's a waste since those players tend to abandon that content fairly quickly.

This game really empowers us to play our way, with content for all different types of players. And I think that's a strength of the game that should never be abandoned.

Every Chapter caters first and foremost to casuals / newbies. New tutorial, super easy overland zone. Then we have a trial for the hardcore PvE players and nothing for PvP players. On top of that this years Chapter gets Companions, which is a dedicated casual / newbie feature as those players need them the most.

Newbies and casuals have what, 25 zones now for their pleasure. There’s one zone that’s newbie unfriendly and that’s Craglorn. Is it too much to ask that once not casuals and newbies are the focus for a PvE zone?

And who said they should stop catering to newbies all together - they shouldn’t just forget that other parts of the playerbase exist.

finehair

That would add some spice to zones.
Before one tamriel, when there were leveled zones and mobs it was dangerous to run around, slaying mammoths and eating sabrecats for breakfast wasn't a thing for a new player back then.
I remember going to riften directly without doing much of the starter zone quests and not leveling enough. After I got murdered by sabrecats at the entrance to the zone, I somehow managed to run past them in ghost form. Then got killed by bunch of skeletons over and over again.
As I wasn't meant to be in that zone at that level, that's what happens.

Now you can press randomize on character screen and just go on a giant killing spree in riften with the iron greatsword you're given at the start.

Gotta add some danger to the world.

Iccotak

Seraphayel wrote: »

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phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

Basically Overland should only cater to the [snip] and be as easy as a starter zone.

Because the risk of failure isn’t fun...apparently

We can say it’s accessible to everyone, but at what cost?

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

Iccotak

finehair wrote: »

That would add some spice to zones.
Before one tamriel, when there were leveled zones and mobs it was dangerous to run around, slaying mammoths and eating sabrecats for breakfast wasn't a thing for a new player back then.
I remember going to riften directly without doing much of the starter zone quests and not leveling enough. After I got murdered by sabrecats at the entrance to the zone, I somehow managed to run past them in ghost form. Then got killed by bunch of skeletons over and over again.
As I wasn't meant to be in that zone at that level, that's what happens.

Now you can press randomize on character screen and just go on a giant killing spree in riften with the iron greatsword you're given at the start.

Gotta add some danger to the world.

Remember when Giants in TESV were actually hard & dangerous?

Olauron

Iccotak wrote: »

show previous quotes

finehair wrote: »

That would add some spice to zones.
Before one tamriel, when there were leveled zones and mobs it was dangerous to run around, slaying mammoths and eating sabrecats for breakfast wasn't a thing for a new player back then.
I remember going to riften directly without doing much of the starter zone quests and not leveling enough. After I got murdered by sabrecats at the entrance to the zone, I somehow managed to run past them in ghost form. Then got killed by bunch of skeletons over and over again.
As I wasn't meant to be in that zone at that level, that's what happens.

Now you can press randomize on character screen and just go on a giant killing spree in riften with the iron greatsword you're given at the start.

Gotta add some danger to the world.

Remember when Giants in TESV were actually hard & dangerous?

1. Giants in TESV are killed at any level using stagger with zero danger.
2. Giants in TESV are stationary the same way as world bosses are stationary in ESO. You fight giants only if and when you want (want to kill or want to do specific quest).

Iluvrien

finehair wrote: »

That would add some spice to zones.
Before one tamriel, when there were leveled zones and mobs it was dangerous to run around, slaying mammoths and eating sabrecats for breakfast wasn't a thing for a new player back then.
I remember going to riften directly without doing much of the starter zone quests and not leveling enough. After I got murdered by sabrecats at the entrance to the zone, I somehow managed to run past them in ghost form. Then got killed by bunch of skeletons over and over again.
As I wasn't meant to be in that zone at that level, that's what happens.

Now you can press randomize on character screen and just go on a giant killing spree in riften with the iron greatsword you're given at the start.

Gotta add some danger to the world.

But as you point out, the danger was there and then ZOS removed it.

All of the following is my opinion (based on playing continuously since the join date in my profile), I assert none of it as being objectively true...

That said, I see the the problem as being twofold:

1. ESO was a theme park rather than and open world that assigned challenge on the zone level rather than feature level.
2. One Tamriel homogenized the whole of overland with level scaling.

ESO as a theme park...
This was an initial design problem. The decision to say that zones had a specific level range (e.g. Stonefalls for levels 5-15) caused several issues. If people wanted more of a challenge, they could go to higher level zones, but would quickly outlevel any on-level zone content and jumping ahead would break the linear flow of the narrative. It also caused issues for grouping with friends to take on quests.

One Tamriel...
Imposing a single level of challenge to the whole of overland was... less than optimal. This was the chance ZOS had to fix the problems caused by the initial design of ESO as a theme park. We got Tamriel-wide free movement (good) and cross alliance/level grouping (also good). What we also got as an enforced, uniform level of challenge for the whole of overland with very little variation (atrocious).

We went from zone level challenge setting, to play-style (PvE-casual, PvE-endgame, PvP etc.) level challenge setting. I don't think this was a positive. At all. In any way.

My solution: Set challenge by feature, not by zone or play-style.

For example, we could use the taxonomy that UESP present to us for Stonefalls and remember to modify for narrative.

• Cities - Low to medium
• Settlements - Medium
• Farms and Plantations - Medium
• Caves, Ruins and Mines - Medium to High
• Battlefields, Cemeteries and Crypts - Medium to High
• Dungeons (Delves, Public Delves) - Low to High
• Group Bosses - High
• Dolmens - High

If we say that Low is 0-25 Medium is 25-50, and High is anything that is CP 1+ (there could be more sub-divisions here) then a single zone could contain content to challenge anyone. This results in a greater sense of danger earlier in the game, the desire to return to early zones to beat content you couldn't before (meaning a mix of player levels in zones), and it means that later overland zones would not be locked to a specific, homogenous challenge level, and could contain a few features that are Very Hard Indeed.

This idea retains One Tamriel's freedom of movement as there may not be enough on-level content in a single zone for someone to level up... meaning they would be encouraged to travel across Tamriel experiencing later (and earlier) zones in increasing depth as they levelled. It also removes the problem of all overland everywhere being too easy, while providing enough early-level content that even total newcomers to MMOs should be happy.

Of course, ZOS will never ever do it.

Seraphayel

Iccotak wrote: »

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Seraphayel wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Newbs would get destroyed while they explored the overland. Dragons are pretty much safe from harm because they don't attack while flying around from one point to another, and when they do land it has a pretty low aggro radius in comparison to their size.

Ok, then newbies die - what's the problem? Has dying in an MMORPG become such a problem? It's still a game and death in ESO means basically nothing.

Basically Overland should only cater to the [snip] and be as easy as a starter zone.

Because the risk of failure isn’t fun...apparently

We can say it’s accessible to everyone, but at what cost?

I do not agree that overland should be as easy as possible so that everyone, even the most unskilled player can faceroll it. Challenge is part of a roleplaying game. Not every zone has to be casual friendly. Heck, make 1/3 of the zone harder, with harder enemies etc. - casuals don’t have to go there alone, it’s easy as that.

The risk of failure isn’t fun, but the lack of risk isn’t either.