Instancing/non-Instancing Ideas

[Kael Valeran]

"You are wandering through the countryside and you see a dragon flying overhead. You and a group try to stave off the dragon. If you are successful the nearby town gives you a treasure. But if you don't drive off the dragon, the bridge will be destroyed. This will lead to a team of carpenters gathering at the bridge to try to fix it and then you will have to protect them from bandits." as mentioned, would of course occur in a non-instanced area, where you can even see people from the outposts.

then, you travel to a particular area, such as a dangerous forest, but there will not be individual exits like gw1, it will be natural, like a boundary thing. It feels like normal, but u'll see people except your party disappear as you cross, called soft instancing. We obviously don't want to see a dangerous forest overcrowded by farmers.

Meanwhile in this forest, a soft instanced area, there exist a cave/dungeon, which should be fully instanced, 1 entrance, just like in GW 1.

I am sorry if i got the ideas wrong, this is just my idea of how things should be. i'm pretty noob when it comes to terms so pardon me. :sealed:

[Balan Makki]

I like the soft instancing idea. Would be great if Zoning were like this. I have posted/suggested something similar, that treats you and your friends like a FaceBook setup: You only see and play with players you have an association with via guild alliance, friends list etc. . and you could even strip back your presence to soloing by unchecking, "View All".

[BrotherGrimm]

I don't know how crazy I am about fully non-instanced areas. I've demoed WoW and didn't really like the tons of others in explorable zones. Everyone competing for the same bosses drops, etc.. I know lots of people claim that it's more "immersive" but I find it the opposite. There really shouldn't be a dozen groups camping around Rotwing....or 5 jack-arse dancing morons trying to cyber hump my toon while I'm travelling across the Crystal Desert.

My thoughts on this are:


Outposts/Cities - like the current GW ones
Settled / Rural - non-instanced open areas, allow lots of players simultaniously in these ares....not sure if these are really that different from the Outposts/Cities listed above (other than they MAY have hostiles present).
Explorable / Unknown - soft-instanced...allow a limited (small number) of groups or players in them. This may or may not be semi-controllable by the players themselves.
Dungeon / Mission areas - Fully instanced per GWs present mission areas (like the EotN quests possibly). Certainly some areas MAY require multiple parties or groups to complete or even enter.

I seriously don't care one way or another if entrances/exits require portals or have zoning across a wide area. I'm really looking for a good game, not a simulation.

[sorudo]

my idea was more that, the world it self is one big instance, but the towns/outposts are instances on there self.
that way, the GW1 travel system still exist, but you don't have the drag of having to load each instance with the higher risk of a DC.(sometimes, the loading screen needs more connection then the actual game)

[kookkamajunga]

Everyone competing for the same bosses drops, etc..

Didn't Anet say that bosses would be instanced to avoid loot camping?

[Kael Valeran]

i don't mind if weak bosses without elites/drops are in non-instanced areas but people overfarming a certain boss in gang bang style is not my cup of tea, (unless its a giant dragon, then we can hunt him down, just like monster hunter, attack the legs, head belly etc but separate areas of fight.)

[Jair of the Forest]

Elite Missions/Challenge Missions/Normal Missions/PvP = instanced. Rest = not.

[Undead Priest]

I like the soft instancing idea. Would be great if Zoning were like this. I have posted/suggested something similar, that treats you and your friends like a FaceBook setup: You only see and play with players you have an association with via guild alliance, friends list etc. . and you could even strip back your presence to soloing by unchecking, "View All".

I really like this concept of having selectable levels of instancing.

I would imagine it similar to the little checkboxes for chat in GW (Although you could only select one at a time)
where you enter an instance and only those people of the proper classification who have choosen the same instance level could enter that instance.

For Example, some options might be

All - Everyone playing GW with "All" selected can enter the instance with you.

Alliance - Everyone in your Alliance with "Alliance" selected Can Enter the Instance with you

Guild - Everyone in your Guild with "Guild" selected can Enter the Instance with you

Team/Solo - Only party members will enter the instance with you.

The way I envision it, you would enter a selected instance based on the selection of your party leader. (Meaning if they have selected Guild, you will be ported to an instance where only their guild members who have selected the Guild option can join, (and people with whom those guild members have partied with).

[Kael Valeran]

i have another idea that can be used with such a system. this solves party organisation as well.

for example if an instance only allows guildies, lets say you entered a dungeon with 7 people and 1 hero, whilst a friend has yet to come, when he comes on, the game can allow him to replace that hero's position.

Leavers can also be replaced by guildies and the like. This should be limited to guild to prevent abuse however. There should be other ways to prevent abuse, but i'm lazy to think of them. =)

[Undead Priest]

i have another idea that can be used with such a system. this solves party organisation as well.

for example if an instance only allows guildies, lets say you entered a dungeon with 7 people and 1 hero, whilst a friend has yet to come, when he comes on, the game can allow him to replace that hero's position.

Leavers can also be replaced by guildies and the like. This should be limited to guild to prevent abuse however. There should be other ways to prevent abuse, but i'm lazy to think of them. =)

you described a Guild instance, but I think you mean a Team/Solo (GW1 instance) style dungeon, because there would be no need for any special hero replacement system in an instance that already allows any guild member to join that particular instance at any time, they would merely enter and meet up with the rest of the group when they were ready.

Now to the concept itself...
While i like the idea (especially in a GW1 world),
a Hero (or Henchmen) replacement system assumes that GW2 will actually have Heroes & Henchmen which judging by previous comments from Anet, will likely not be the case, as they seem to be moving towards a single companion (like a pet) that will not be a member of the party, but an extension of the player.

So perhaps an alternative that would make more sense in a GW2 system would be to adjust the difficulty dynamically based on the number/level of the people in the instance, so that if the instance had a party of 8 but now only 6 people remain the difficulty automatically adjusts so that instead of spawning 12 enemies at level 24, it would spawn 9 enemies at level 24, or 12 enemies at level 18 or 10 enemies at level 21 etc...