This topic is inspired by TerminalEssence (@BurningFighter) , we were having a discussion over on the topic of World Bosses and the current issues that plague this content in Tree of Savior and this idea sort of surfaced. :3
On the current World Bosses content
For those of us who participate in World Bossing or wanting to join in the fray of fighting and defeating World Bosses, we know that the content currently suffers from the following:
- RNG on rewards.
With the new changes implemented by IMC sometime back, WB cubes canât be rerolled. Players who invest into their builds and gear tend to feel short changed when they keep failing to get what they want from the cube.
- High ceiling on gear requirements, elite dominated
Players who want to step into the content quickly find themselves unable to compete unless they have similar or near gear requirements to the WB hunter elites. The gap is made wider as the difference in dps is mainly dictated by how lucky and how deep the playerâs wallet is (Based on a combination of anvil luck and/or number of diamond anvils, together with the number of blessed shards one can attain).
This quickly make players who canât attain such levels of gear hard to participate on World Bossing as only the top 5 dps teams get rewarded for it. This also creates another problem which is
- Monopolising of the World Boss content.
With only top dps being able to acquire WB rewards, items trickled down to the player community are exclusively controlled by the top teams.
- Lacking in Lore and story
Mainly on the PVE side, World Bosses are lacking in lore. Marnox is a demon lord, and he is âair droppedâ just like any other normal monster on a map. He also behaves just like any other normal monster, staying on his map doing nothing (arenât the demonâs aim to corrupt and destroy all?) until the revelators engage him.
Perhaps we mistook the demon lords as being evil. They are just harmless entities/passerbys who are forced to engage in self-defence as we attack them with the aim to rob them of their precious belongings. Goddess are evil instigators⌠lol
Rethinking on the World Boss system
One of the main gripes which I have is the notion on the current concept of âWorld Bossâ. It doesnât encompass the âworldâ (engage the majority of player community) when it only allows a select few to participate and be rewarded. IMC has been actively changing and modifying the world boss content such as tweaking their hp/atk/def and also negating some skill effects of classes such as Malleus Maleficarum for being too effective against bosses, in bid that such fights will feel more âepicâ and satisfying. But I feel that more can be done to improve on this side so that it can be a good end game for all players rather than just a small portion of the community.
In short, a good world bossing system/content will have to solve the following issues:
- Encourage new players/parties to try out the world boss, meaning setting a good low entry point without feeling gimped out
- Ensure that top guns can still get top rewards as compared to players who are new to the WBing content
- To minimise RNG and reward players for their effort
- Minimising monopoly of WB items by a select few
- Make world bosses feel like they align within the ToS storyline and not just throw them in some random map without doing anything.
Other things which need to take into consideration are:
- Technical limitations of ToS, how to give a good playing experience for players when fighting world bosses.
- Make world bossing donât feel like a daily. Eg. The feel of the need to get online after a set number of hours after the last boss died so as to âmaximise the chances of getting lootâ and ânot to lose outâ.
Suggestion: Improving/Changing the concept on World Bossing
Likewise to the previous TBL-PVE suggestion, a âWorld Bossâ doesnât need to be a single monster with high hp/def/atk thrown onto a map and be done with it. We can make it an event integral with the playing experience of ToS, and supply it with a fitting premise which justifies the reason why Revelators (players) engage such high ranking bosses.
The Great Demon Invasion
This event will last over a 4 day period every week, and is divided into 2 phases. The pre-engagement and engagement phases. As the invasion event (WB-event) is âworld basedâ, the more players participate in and contribute the more and better rewards the players will get at the end of the event. Iâll talk more about the WB-event reward format after highlighting what each phase is and what players are required to do.
Pre-engagement Phase
Pre-engagement phase is the phase where the server will keep announcing âThere are signs where demons are planning to invadeâ and âRevelators please contribute to our war efforts curb the invasionâ. The phase lasts 2 days and requires players to contribute resources in order to get war effort points and better reward standings over the event.
During this phase, a NPC will issue 3 resources needed to be contributed. Resources needed are randomised during each weekâs event in order to keep the event new and fresh without having the players to keep staying in the same maps. Materials gained during this phase will be removed at the end of the event so players will have to regather gain when the event restarts itself the following week.
Example of 1 of the resources needed:
War Effort request: Anti-flammatory potion
Takes 2x WE plant sap (an event only, specialty drop from plant monsters 20 levels around the player, level 270 and above, around 20-30% chance?) and an NPC purchasable recipe to make. A player will get 5WE points for every 10 potions turned in to the NPC.
Each resource has a server soft cap limit of 5000 (soft limit can be changed for balancing). For each submission below the soft cap is 5WE (War-effort) points for every 10 resources. When the soft cap is reached the rewards is lowered to 2WE points for every 10 resources. Players can still continue to farm for resources to contribute even after the soft cap is reached to get WE points.
Hitting the soft cap of a resource during the 1st event will also unlock another boss monster to fight in the 2nd phase of the event. As the event starts with 2 demon bosses, with all 3 soft caps reached up to 5 demon bosses can be fought during the second phase of the event.
Engagement Phase
This is the second part of the phase (2 days) where players are given choices on what to engage. The choices are aligned to how a traditional defense war is like, with mini-events, missions and world boss fights.
- Espionage/Scouting mini events
Akin to how the 2016/2017 halloween avoid monsters and 2017 xmas platforming event. Whenever a player clears a mini-event, they will be awarded 15 WE points. There will be a diminishing return after the player clears the 10th mini-event, with the 11th event onwards only awarding 3WE points per clear.
With every 200 mini-events cleared by the server the entire player community will receive a boost which lowers the damage received from the World boss by 5%, this is stackable to a max of 10 stacks (maximum 50% reduced damage). Server total clears will be tallied after the event for a WE bonus multiplier.
- Raid the demonâs camp dungeon
This is a raid dungeon, similarly to how the 330 raid dungeon works. The dungeon will yield exp but no silvers. For each raid dungeon clear, the player will be awarded 30 WE points. Similarly there is a diminishing return after the 10th dungeon clear for the player, dropping to 5WE points per clear from the 11th run onwards.
Similarly to the espionage/Scouting mini events, for every 100 camp dungeon clears by the server, the entire player community will receive a bonus damage to the event world boss by 2%, stackable to a max to 10 stacks (+20% bonus damage to all attacks). Server total clears will be tallied after the event for a WE bonus multiplier.
- Fighting World Bosses
This is where the meat of the event is, fighting and repelling the World bosses themselves. Each World Boss has a 12 hour respawn timer in this period of 2 days, so for each boss the players can engage it to a maximum of 3 times. These world bosses will hit very hard and the top 5 dps teams that defeat it will be awarded with WE points based on rank.
Rank 1: 300 WE points per player in the team
Rank 2: 200 WE points per player in the team
Rank 3-5: 100 WE points per player in the team
Hence it boils down to how the player community in the server work together to gain enough buffs to repel the bosses. Every time a boss is repelled, it will become stronger when it respawns again during the event, with higher defense and attack. Gaining the buffs from the 2 partner events will help a lot in fighting them.
For each World Boss repelled, their drops and loots will gradually become available (in tiers) for redemption from the WE trade NPC until the start of the next event. Example tiers are as follows:
- Repel Marnox 1x during event : Marnoxâs gear and accessory rcp are available for redemption
- Repel Marnox 2x during event : Marnox Card becomes available on top of gear+accessory
- Repel Marnox 3x during event : Marnox Legendary card becomes available too.
World Boss Reward Redemption system
After each event, there will be a bonus modifier on the War-effort (WE) points earned based on how well the player community do for the event, up to a bonus of +20% WE points.
WE points are used to redeem rewards from the event NPC. An example is as follows:
- Legendary World Boss Card - 12000 WE points
- World Boss Card - 8000 WE points
- Accessory Recipe - 6000 WE points
- Lesser Accessory Recipe - 2000 WE points
- Ominous Spirit Crystal - 1200 WE points
- Ominous Spirit Mineral - 400 WE points
- Ominous Spirit Fragment - 50 WE points
Note that the WE points are for illustration purposes only, will need more balancing depending on how rare IMC wants it to be. WE points are also account based, so it doesnât matter which character you use to do the event.
Unspent WE points will be carried over to the next event, so players can save up the points to get the equipment and cards they want.
Pros and Cons of changing World Bossing into a weekly 4 day event.
Pros
- + Well geared and highly invested players still get their spotlight and rewards without losing their position
If the player can get rank 1 for most world bosses now can still do the same in the new event. With 5 bosses over 3 respawns they can get a max of 4500 WE points (if they manage to get rank 1 for all 15 fights) just from the boss fight alone, before bonus modifiers.
- + Allows players who arenât familiar with World Bossing to have an entry point to this content.
Some players might not be cut out for the cut-throat meta of World Bossing, where having top notch gear and money matters. With this they still can participate. They can try out to fight the World Boss, and it doesnât gimp them as much as they still have other avenues to gain points should they fail to get within the top 5 rankings.
Just doing the espionage events and raid dungeon will yield 450 WE points.
- + RNG is eliminated
Rewards are chosen directly from trading using accumulated WE points. 100% effort based and not luck.
- + Minimise monopolisation of World Boss loots and builds community spirit
It switches from individual effort to community effort as everyone is to work together to maximise the gains they can get. With everyone having access to the rewards it minimises monopolisation.
- + Rewards players for their effort
The weekly event doesnât feel like a âmust do dailyâ (~ahem Saalus) as players can freely schedule their time based on their irl commitments. If a player has the time to play over a certain weekend, he/she can devote more time to do the mini-events/dungeon to gain bonus points. During times where they arenât able to play much they can just do a couple of mini-events, gain some points and stop. WE points accumulate so players wouldnât see their past effort being lost.
- + Feels more like a âWorldâ boss fight/event
With the concept of Revelators repelling Demon Lords and thwarting their invasion plans aligns more with the lore and storyline of the game. It feels like it is part of the game rather than just an afterthought/bandaid addition.
Cons
- - Complicated and Pricey
This requires a substantial investment from the game company. Much is needed to revamp the existing World Bossing system. However, if it is pulled off well, it can become one of the signature end game content and component for Tree of Savior.
Please feel free to give your thoughts and suggestions to this.
