Transcript (by Youtube)


20s hello everyone and welcome to another
24s live stream from the Glorious world of
26s Vera and we have an exciting showcase to
29s give you all today we're going to be
31s talking about our event system and I am
35s actually joined by three of our
37s absolutely wonderful developers with
40s whom you've spoken with in the past on
43s some other live streams we have one of
45s our glorious Engineers Clayton Clayton
47s absolutely wonderful glorious what an
50s introduction I'm doing great I know
51s really somebody really so many words to
54s show off all of our hard work so
57s very excited to see it with you and
59s excited to chat with the community about
61s it I know you guys have been doing a lot
62s of hard work on this we also have two of
65s our wonderful designers uh Scott how you
68s doing buddy excellent I'm very excited
70s to be here
71s yay and Amy Amy how are you doing hi I'm
75s good last time I was here we took down
76s two rocks so I'm I'm ready today I'm
79s playing cleric again so um yeah I got
81s your back
83s thank you I okay so you heard it here
85s first folks if I die
89s it's of course not my fault it would be
92s the clerical no
93s um but okay so where where are we we are
96s in a familiar biome uh many of you guys
99s should be expecting where we are we are
101s in the wonderful riverlands yep we are a
104s little bit
105s east of the last live stream location
108s which was Winstead node
110s um yeah I see Carfin in the distance
112s Carfin is even further east from
113s Winstead so we're kind of sandwiched
115s between Winstead and Carfin right now
118s um no big curse happening right now so
120s it's a nice day out okay so it's a nice
122s day out there's not like any type of
124s blood curse or Undead roaming the area
126s no not at the moment no
127s okay very cool and what are we doing
130s here in the riverlands talk to me a
133s little bit about what has brought us out
135s here and I'm gonna jump off my my
136s glorious Steed here while we talk about
138s that absolutely so uh we're actually
141s just out here to uh kill some mobs grind
143s some experience get some get some
145s resources maybe out of the land here and
148s uh eventually
149s um the world should react to that and we
152s could potentially create an event here
155s I see a a web weaver so okay so our
158s objective right now is
161s um we're going to be showing off
162s obviously the event system and part of
164s that event system is that it can take a
168s whole host of different predicates to
169s kind of kick off different types of
171s events Clayton talk to me a little bit
173s about what that oh he's on me he's on
175s yeah as soon as I'm not dying but yeah
179s so uh the event system uh it can query
183s uh a lot of different aspects of the
186s dynamic World state right now it's
188s actually just tracking player activity
190s in the world uh and uh you know for this
193s event in particular and uh it's looking
196s for us to kill some stuff so we're out
197s here killing some stuff and eventually
199s the event should trigger once uh it's
202s detected enough player activity
204s very cool and and these and these this
207s type of predicate that is the
209s essentially the activity map for killing
212s yeah the activity Maps that's not the
214s only way that these events can get
215s kicked off there's a whole host of
217s different ways that they can also yeah
218s for sure yeah so we we have a really
221s really awesome system that the designers
223s have access to uh that lets them uh hook
226s into really any Dynamic World State and
229s use that to inform the instantiation or
232s even just like the progression of uh any
235s event
238s very cool yeah these spiders are gross
241s Scott what are what are some uh plans
244s that you have for uh different
246s predicates for uh instantiating some of
249s these events yeah so obviously we just
251s got this kind of generic sort of kill
254s one here uh that we can use for all
256s sorts of different things for tracking
257s player activity
258s um no Big Bear time uh we also are
261s looking at the amount of resources that
263s players can Harvest as a predicate we
265s have
266s uh story arcs that are going on so
268s active stores could cause different
270s events to start yeah um trade Caravans
273s happening relationships between
274s different nodes and also just the state
276s of the nodes themselves oh even let him
280s beat me up here because it's kind of
282s cool he's charging you yeah
286s he will throw you around those Bears can
289s can really catch you off guard if you
291s let them
292s okay
294s so I see that a nearby event has started
297s the predicate has been met
300s yep oh and I see now on the mini map we
302s have a little bit of a location for it
304s yeah so just the south of us here um
307s we were just kind of uh the event has
310s kind of kicked off because of the just
312s us killing stuffer in the area here
314s yeah and we might see some visual
316s indicators over the hill here in a
319s second
320s and so when when one of these events
322s kick off it's not just obviously
324s notifying players based off of their
326s proximity with uh the mini-map and with
328s the you know UI toast that pops up but
330s also as you said Clayton we have a
332s visual indicator in world that's also
334s rooting the the event as well yeah for
336s sure uh you know Scott can could
338s probably touch on you know uh the
340s diegetic nature of all of our narrative
342s content and the uh the goals there but
347s uh oh wait hold on before we get too
349s close I'm seeing that there's some gray
351s Shore archers and a Grace or Grace or
354s swordsman
356s okay all right oh should I join this
359s event as a Defender team definitely yes
361s that'll allow if some other players do
365s come around while we're playing that'll
367s allow them to uh
369s join the event raid group with us so
372s we've effectively taken the party that
374s we had pre-formed and and merged that
376s into a new raid group
381s okay I slept a couple of these
383s um of the highway captains there's some
386s of them on the settlers right now okay
390s and the settlers are an objective type
392s that exists within this particular
394s archery exactly what I mean yeah oh my
398s God there's a lot no they're sniping
400s from up on top of the rocks
402s thanks Amy oh I see
405s I'm sorry I'm gonna go put the one spots
407s down oh god oh no no no no okay the
410s event difficulty didn't change though
425s we're distracting the the bandits from
428s the settlers right now so that's good
429s none of them have died it's Caravan
431s Integrity is good
433s um
435s um okay I see the Caravan Integrity on
438s the uh on the event note uh notification
441s window it looks like they're mostly just
443s going for the settlers right now
445s oh no those poor settlers we've we've
448s kept them up
449s nope I just saw one die oh God two of
452s them two of them went out at once
457s I shouldn't have mentioned it they would
459s have been fine
460s so our objective here is to protect
463s these settlers while we eliminate 20 of
465s these Highwaymen
467s okay okay
469s but there's probably another wave coming
472s yes there's still some Shore there's
475s still some gray short people around I
477s see is some of them coming from uh
478s Northeast there's an arsonist coming oh
480s there we go there we go
482s oh and some from uh downhill Northwest
484s too Scott why are they coming from the
487s north
488s so we're actually pretty near one of our
490s pois which is actually under Bandit
493s control uh the apathy named Highwayman
496s Hills is just over the corner just
498s around the corner here
500s um so they'll be attacking NPCs kind of
502s in this area until such a time as uh
505s players deal with it via story arc
512s guys alive right
514s okay all right we did it
516s all right okay do you survive okay so it
520s says prepare for the final assault so
522s this is this is stage based off of our
524s kind of
525s our progress our activity our our
527s success what is this yeah so we just we
530s defeated the requisite number of of
532s bandages which is going to progress the
536s stage here and and during this stage
538s here we can reset some of the traps that
540s the bandits used to initially destroy
543s the Convoy and we can use those against
544s the bandits in the next phase which is
546s actually more difficult so
549s yeah we'll definitely need them uh
552s whenever they they the bandits do come
554s with reinforcements they're probably
556s going to be bringing their best so
558s especially because we have more players
560s now so the difficulty of the event will
562s be more when there are more players and
564s of course like all things in ashes the
566s more difficult to challenge the better
567s the rewards and also uh you know our
571s clerics can have some time to heal up
573s the the settlers and uh you know
576s hopefully set us up for Success whenever
578s the next round does come in
581s and how do we how do we leverage the
583s reward system how are people you know
586s getting calculated what rewards they
587s should get uh so for events like this we
590s have kind of a number of metrics that we
593s can use I think we're going to be doing
595s a lot of testing to figure out what the
596s best metrics are because there are some
598s ups and downs using like pure the amount
600s of damage you've done you know in the in
601s the raid and stuff like that um and
603s we're also look like more relaxed things
605s like how much time you spent you know
607s participating in the event whether
608s that's doing damage or healing allies
610s and things like that as a as a
612s percentage of the total time of the
613s event
614s um they all have their drawbacks and
615s benefits some are
617s uh you know we got to be careful about
618s yeah
620s um but yeah we'll just count up the
621s contribution however we end up balancing
623s that and uh then we have different tiers
625s of rewards that are given to each
628s individual player based off of their uh
630s contribution score in the event as it
632s works right now it is just simply a
634s matter of how much time you've
635s participated in the event as a
637s percentage of the total time of the
638s event
639s very nice and and so as that kind of as
643s that winds down people will be you know
645s granted a gold silver bronze tier kind
647s of reward status and that will be the
650s entitlement for the types of rewards
651s they get from these events exactly and
653s really that that's just going to
654s determine the reward table that they're
656s going to get and then each player is
657s going to roll their own reward table uh
660s independently
661s very nice I hope I'm gonna get rewarded
663s for all the healing I'm doing yeah yeah
665s uh Amy you deserve it
668s raid leader yep uh our timer is up and
672s Corvin the crusher appears to be on the
675s way
676s oh God he's coming all right we're gonna
678s heal almost immediately
683s oh my God there's a lot I'm gonna I'm
685s gonna try to sleep some of them
688s oh never mind there's multiple balls of
690s lightning
692s see if I can line this up right
695s he's gonna try and use the wraps as best
698s I can
703s man this is really great I am on fire
706s wait we have them in a choke point right
707s now we definitely want to keep them away
709s oh there's birds we want to keep them
710s away from the Caravan and in this choke
712s point
713s I got him to trigger the Trevor here I'm
715s hitting them with a lot of aoes right
716s now
719s and the only objective here as you can
720s see from the cracker is to kill Corbin
722s uh so until Corbin goes down yep uh I'm
726s trying to prioritize their healing and
729s DPS
730s so that we can have a better chance here
731s I think with with the uh
734s The Raid group of eight we seem to be
736s set up for Success here
738s uh Corbin the crusher Amy uh Scott would
742s either of you want to touch on uh the uh
744s event difficulty tier and what we intend
747s to do with that as more players join the
749s event
751s as soon as people join in I I yep
755s it's more difficult
760s I don't know if you thought but we had a
762s toast saying that the event has
765s progressed from its original state as a
768s group event to a rage level event that
771s was a veteran better level and of course
774s that comes with more challenges more
776s optional objectives but also uh
780s more rewards so it's never it's never
783s going to be like a bother to have other
786s people join you it's uh it's all part of
789s uh part of being in a like multiplayer
792s environment is you know the more friends
794s growing up with you the bit
798s yeah you know I think it's uh cool that
801s you touched on the rewards because yeah
802s the designers have have the ability you
807s know just from a technical perspective
808s to use the difficulty tier however they
810s like in the event they can modify any
812s aspect of the event's difficulty or even
814s you know the the reward that you're
816s you're getting they can query that in
818s the reward table data
820s we're doing pretty good here this
821s Caravan hasn't really been taking much
823s damage at all yeah people hold them off
824s pretty well yeah the tank was able to
826s intercept him at that choke point so
829s yeah seems to be working too this Elite
832s healer is rough
834s yeah that should be very hard to kill
836s some of the gray Shore Swordsmen and The
839s Archers are still alive
842s we can change that we have the
844s technology
845s ah there we go
849s we win
851s congratulations is there reward well you
854s know there's also a grateful settler
856s here presenting us the the reward uh
859s maybe he has something to say let me
861s talk to him
862s greetings grateful settler
866s praise aryak
868s they might have killed us without your
870s intervention please help yourself I will
872s help myself thank you what type of
875s supplies are we talking about oh you're
876s one of those Heroes
878s unbelievable this is difficult difficult
882s uh task you know you just head over to
886s Highwaymen Hills and join the Bandit
887s Stephen unbelievable clay unbelievable I
891s am a hero in this I'm a mayor of a local
893s network oh my God
895s a shame it came to violence we are
897s hopeful we could leave that behind on
899s Sanctus okay yeah I want you know I'm
901s hopeful of that too but you know
902s sometimes we can't just get what we hope
904s for so Whoa We got some wool
908s yep
910s we got some more okay I got some wool
913s you're also granted uh on the events
915s completion you're granted like a little
917s stipend of golden experience just right
918s away uh but items that can be looted off
920s your body they have to come from like
922s reward chest so every event will have
924s its own little reward cache at the end
925s of it you'll grab your materials and
927s items from and I
928s know
930s that's my reward why'd you get Tim
933s Amber uh well that it rolled I got that
935s uh reward from my reward table maybe I I
938s participated better than you so I got a
940s better resource
941s how dare you
942s I was out there doing a lot of work
945s uh and uh Scott uh this this NPC he's
948s also configured to actually uh interface
950s with some of the story art content too
951s right if the story arcs were online it's
953s true yeah I think they it is online
955s actually it's just not active check it
957s out check it again Stephen
959s oh okay where am I going uh talk to the
961s guy again I think you might have missed
962s a dialogue opener okay here we go okay
964s okay the tough one who are these people
966s why were they who are these people let's
968s see they're desperate folks who prowl
971s the hills captain
973s udoxia in lionhold is looking into the
976s matter I should seek her out and find if
978s there is a better way I could help
980s around here you know what I will do oh
982s okay here we go
986s oh I see a lot of different placeholder
991s rewards A Bridge Too Far yeah they're
994s rewards for the for a lot of the quests
996s are still not uh fully Done Yet uh-huh
1000s the events do hook into all of our story
1002s our content so if there are store Works
1004s online we can like since our quests are
1007s non-linear events can help you kind of
1009s into those quests
1011s um if they're online this event can
1012s happen whether or not the stroke is
1013s online but if it is you can pick up the
1016s like uh leave into that Quest from him
1020s um if you're not you know if you haven't
1021s been to line hold in a while since the
1022s story arc has started
1023s very cool and so obviously
1026s um you know people saw a little bit
1028s during this event that the Adaptive
1031s Difficulty was predicated on the number
1033s of participants that opt in to uh to
1038s partake in this event right
1041s correct yes so as more players join
1043s um the the event does get more difficult
1046s with who we went from the regular mobs
1048s to the elite mobs
1049s um in corvins entourage some of them can
1052s be
1053s you know more more enemies to fight some
1057s can have completely different stages or
1058s mechanics
1059s um depending on which what the event
1061s actually is and and what your objectives
1063s are for that event
1064s and these these events are based off of
1068s different predicates within the world
1069s state so for example this particular
1071s event was a caravan that was moving
1073s throughout the world and as you as we
1074s said in the beginning it was based off
1076s of the activity heat map of players
1078s within this area but this type of event
1080s this Caravan event that was transiting
1082s Goods uh popped up because nearby nodes
1085s may have either been advancing the
1088s relationship between each other or there
1090s might have been a trade Caravan that got
1091s kicked off in the past and we're
1093s representing kind of that
1095s um that theming within the World by
1097s these event types correct yes so events
1100s are predicated by things that players
1102s are doing whether that is no development
1104s uh you know trade agreements between
1105s nodes
1106s um
1107s all of it like relationships between
1109s nodes I mean um so it could be more than
1111s just that could be War States or
1113s anything like that as well so so cool I
1116s noticed that even though we succeeded in
1118s the event we're still in our event raid
1119s group Scott what's the thought behind
1121s that are we supposed to go and adventure
1122s with our new group right now
1125s if we so desire yeah the event ending
1128s doesn't dissolve the open party for the
1130s event
1131s um the open parties have some sort of
1133s default
1134s uh like party configurations that can't
1136s be changed so they'll be stuck with a
1137s group Loot and stuff like that
1139s um but we do try to encourage people to
1141s continue to stick together and play
1142s together
1143s um the game the game is hard so uh
1146s it's good to play with friends yeah I
1149s just left the raid I don't want to play
1150s with you
1151s he's going to join the bandits I called
1154s it yes I'm looking for The Highwayman
1156s Hill band yeah
1158s very cool okay and then obviously we saw
1161s during the event um there are obviously
1163s multiple stages that exist each of those
1164s stages having Unique Mechanics
1166s associated with them
1168s um there are a lot of different types of
1169s events I me that you and the narrative
1172s team and Scott that you guys are working
1173s on creating each of those events types
1176s will have different similar stages like
1178s we saw there was a trap stage here that
1180s we can set up is it intended that these
1182s stages are going to provide players with
1183s kind of downtime to recuperate and also
1186s perhaps set up and strategize how they
1189s want to address the upcoming challenge
1191s well I I don't really know about you but
1194s I'm I'm my heart's beating right now I
1196s feel like we've been challenged and uh
1199s of course there's going to be moments
1200s where um there are like less less uh
1206s thing challenges which rely Less on your
1209s class kit than usual but I think that in
1211s general if you want to like really get
1213s down and understand the story and the
1215s appreciate the world and then probably
1218s uh you're gonna want to focus more in
1221s the story arcs where you can take things
1223s at your own pace
1225s we have we have some events that do
1227s other things like there could be some
1229s that are just puzzles
1230s we have an event in here that is
1233s actually just like you can attend a
1234s funeral for just an NPC that can pop up
1238s and there isn't actually any combat to
1240s do in that one rewards are adequately
1243s scaled but there are events in here that
1245s are just kind of for flavor and for
1246s fleshing out the world a little bit too
1247s that you can participate and learn more
1248s about yeah I think there are going to be
1250s some moments where where um you might be
1252s like frustrated that an event is like
1254s obscuring something that you want to get
1256s to like a
1257s NPC that you need to talk to for your
1260s quest or something so then then
1262s Gathering people to help you is going to
1264s be really useful
1266s awesome very cool and that that event
1268s there at the last stage had
1270s um kind of like a little mini boss dude
1273s um is that kind of a component of all
1275s events that you guys are intending to
1277s incorporate or just kind of some events
1278s will have those mini bosses some will
1280s have them uh there's gonna be a whole
1283s lot of these and they're going to be at
1285s different tiers of of Challenge and uh
1288s you know kind of I guess uh
1291s like power level tiers
1294s um you know they're not all going to be
1296s you know defeating the you know
1299s end-all Dragon being at the end some are
1302s just you know about helping people
1303s there's somewhere about
1305s um
1306s uh just building up the world of Vera
1308s which is a very difficult and
1309s challenging place as people are trying
1310s to resettle it there's
1312s um there's all kinds of tiers for
1314s different levels of heroism
1315s um
1316s and helping the small time people to
1318s Downing giant foes and these are
1321s obviously a bit different than what
1323s people have seen previously with Carfin
1325s where we showed off kind of the story
1326s arc system that fundamentally changes a
1329s particular location or area for an
1332s extended period of time that exists
1333s within stages that are might be
1335s multi-days in length these are more
1338s bite-sized kind of digestible end-to-end
1341s 20-minute gameplay right right
1343s definitely a shorter than a story arc
1345s which yeah as you mentioned before is
1347s meant to be taken kind of at a slower
1348s Pace
1349s um can your individual path through the
1352s story arc is a little bit more measured
1354s like you're less reliant on uh
1357s like the pace of the actual story arc
1358s it's more about your own personal Paces
1360s through the quests and then as the story
1362s arc advances
1363s over time like over the course of days
1366s then you you know can dive back into it
1368s and get more involved in it again
1370s very cool and then if there are people
1373s who you know might be
1377s um problematic to a particular event
1379s like this gendrach guy oh okay
1384s I think it's triggering like this
1385s gingrac guy we could like you know
1388s attack them or something right oh sure
1390s we could yes
1391s you were aligned with the bandits Maybe
1395s and there are some events that do have
1397s you pick sides in PvP yeah uh you know
1400s whenever Stephen joined this event uh he
1402s had one option to just merge us into the
1403s event rate group this was a PVE event uh
1406s but there are going to be events with uh
1409s sanctioned PVP where there are multiple
1412s team options to join
1414s got it got it got it got it okay very
1417s cool well
1419s I'll let jindrak live this time guys
1421s that was a super exciting uh event
1424s showcase I know that the community love
1426s to kind of see this stuff obviously
1427s events are an integral component of
1429s making the world feel uh kind of dynamic
1431s and representative of what is happening
1433s around the area it gives people insight
1435s into particular locations and the type
1439s of activities that might be occurring
1440s but it also gives really interesting
1442s ways for us as players to interact with
1444s that environment and affect change as
1446s well and be rewarded for that uh
1448s activity I think it's super cool you
1450s guys done a great job with standing up
1452s the event system and populating the
1454s world of really compelling activities so
1456s thank you for showing us a little bit of
1458s the work you guys have been doing
1460s towards Alpha 2. I know that the
1462s community loves it and we'll be back on
1464s stream to talk a little bit more about
1466s this
1467s all right thanks guys for having me
1468s Stephen bye thanks Steven absolutely bye
1470s everybody
1473s foreign