if you scale it then you basically say ‘‘just bring as many as you want’’ and if you for example only scale health (which somebody else suggested) then there is NO, downside to bringing more players, if you scale dmg too then it will just end in a way as vastar said, where everybody will just die
titans should feel good, requiring skill and tactics, if you scale it for people then its harder to balance out for a good fight, its the reason why every mmorpg uses set dungeon groups for example, because then they can balance the content around a certain amount of players, if you assume that it scales both up and down that would mean the titan gets easier cause there is one player and harder when there are more, again in theory it might be good but wouldnt it be better if it doesnt give a damn? it should scale down just cause there is 1 player it should always be static in terms of balance (in my opinion)
scaling it most likely wont make it difficult to beat, quite the oppposite, it will end in a weird point where the fight is the most effective (like 17 people or something), also if you scale and allow more people then what is to stop people from going 10 tanks, 20 healers and 30 dps? it would make it waaaay easier cause they can constantly switch aggro and heal massive amounts, however if you force it to be 4 or 5 players then it gets way more tough when one mistake will make you die, again depends on how you scale it.
instancing would not be ideal i think it should be a physical limitation in the world (again, titan bubble idea) making sure there are only a certain amount of people fighting the titan.
Think about this for a second, what is more interesting, 5 players having to work together to defeat it? or 200 people just running at the titan, not caring if they die cause they just respawn and run back at it?
and then another thing, if it scales and there is no limitation, what is to stop a group of 50 trolls to run close enough for the titan to count them in completely destroying the fight for the people fighting? how would it work? should it be the scaled to the amount of people pulling it, meaning if 1 person pulls it and 40 runs at it after then its scaled for 1? should it be dynamic so if 40 run at it then it will be scaled for 40, if that is the case then will it downscale when people die? these things are what needs to be considered.
Scaling might be possible, however i always found it to be a very unelegant solution to remove the need for balance cause the devs can just blame the amount of players.
dynamic scaling was exactly what I meant with the rage level. If this level depends on the number of opponents and his health. (as well as other factors, but I couldn’t name one atm) Then he would attack a larger group of people with faster hits and stronger whatevers. Maybe even switch to his second form way earlier. (Second form as if you’d beaten him to half of his life, SAO style^^) And as soon as some people die the level would go down.
In my opinion it is much more realistic. Imagine if you’d have to fight against ants. As soon as there is a whole colony attacking you, you’d attack stronger or run away much faster and as soon as there is only one or two ants left you’d regain your composure. Of course only until your health drops to a critical point where this remaining 2 ants again are a threat.
It might be harder to balance the scaling but for me it’s still the better solution. Although I don’t think it’s the best solution.
I hope you know now what I mean and if some of your concerns still apply please tell me
btw nice to see you still around here^^
And how would this rage lvl prevent the problem I explained?
The rnd players would still mostly be dds, would still mess up the guilds tactics or troll (as @Zouls explained) and because of the dynamic rescaling of the titans it would still be impossible for the healer to budget with their resources.
Another possible solution could be, instead of upscaling the titan, to downscale additional players. Assuming a “raidgrp” contains about 10 people (this is just a random number, please don’t start with the titan.grpsize discussion all over again ) those 10 players fight with normal stats. The first 5 players that additionally join the fight get a x% debuff on HP/DMG/(loot?). The next 5 joining players get an even bigger debuff etc.
This would prevent downzerging, the core group could still focus on their tactic without constantly adjusting to the number of participating players and everyone could still participate the fight (if they like to fight with little damage and survivability)
It would prevent the problem because the initial group could stay back and wait until the trolls got killed by the titan. Easy as that. And why should the guild healers even bother to heal others in the first place? I wouldn’t want to share my titan rewards. Do you? Just sit back and watch them getting killed.
You might say now: But what if they retreat as well. Well then you can attack again. Maybe bait the titan to the trolls.
There are numerous ways to deal with trolls. And for me, all of them are more fun than just debuffing other players that come to late to the party.
For me scaling players is a much harder intervention from the gameside than scaling the titan and (yea I know it’s a game and stuff) less realistic.
Let me just poke your bubble in this argument, you used ‘‘ant’s’’ for an argument, which is a very curious argument, however while you see it as logical it is based on the assumption that the titan is not fighting as hard as it can which seems illogical dont you think? thats my point, why should it hit less hard just because only 1 person is attacking it?
so its not like ‘‘if there are more ants you take it more seriously’’ but the entire logic in that would be ‘‘if you get attacked by 40 ants you would get superpowers, you would shoot laser from your eyes, get 10x strength and moves 200 times as fast’’ thats the logic, i understand your opinion though, but neither option is in any way realistic xD
I can also try to turn it around, why should it always be ‘‘equally difficult’’ for 1 person and 5? because i know you want to be able to solo it, so from my point of view its not about being equally difficult for bigger groups, but instead having the titan fights be equally easy even when you solo it. why would you ever go together with anybody else for fighting it? i personally see that as the backbone of your view. somebody else said ‘‘what if it scales from 5 people and up’’ even if i still think scaling is not ideal, would you still be up for that? because your argument was that ‘‘it should be equally difficult no matter how many people are in a group’’
Its honestly such a tricky view saying it should be ‘‘equally difficult’’ no matter the group size, because that mean every groupsize should be able to win, but every groupsize might have different versions of ‘‘hard’’ what might be a problem for 5 people might be easy for 50 and the other way around.
i understand your view, i just dont agree with it, but that is most likely because i have never seen scaling done right, no matter what way i have seen scaling, running 100 people would still make it impossible to lose.
I see what you want to say. Why should a being which is solely created to protect something have the intelligence to differentiate threats and act accordingly. It would just bash everything until it stops moving. Right?
Now is the question. How intelligent is the titan. And unfortunately I’d lean towards the side I described above. (which would be your side I assume)
But maybe the higher tier titans or the harder classes of titans. (ancients in another thread if I remember correctly) could have behavior as I explained. Just a thought.
And yea realistic is relativ^^
About the solo aspect. I knew I forgot something^^ I would say there should be something like its as hard for one player to defeat a titan as it is for the recommended minimum party size. For example 5 people. So the titan should scale up from there but not down to make it easier for people to solo a titan. Better?^^
Apologies, i realized how rude i sounded even not doing it intentional. but its subjective, i would prefer if they were not scaling, because if they make sure only 5 players or 4 or 2 or whatever can fight it, then they can handcraft the players for that amount.
its like procedually generated worlds vs worlds that are handcrafter by devs, while the procedually generated world will add replayability, a handcreated world will be more interesting because everything placed is there for a reason. i just hope no matter what that we wont see 100 man zerg rushing a titan.
) those 10 players fight with normal stats. The first 5 players that additionally join the fight get a x% debuff on HP/DMG/(loot?). The next 5 joining players get an even bigger debuff etc.