Syrif said:Ok so don't bar it then. If people want to duo something then go for it. If they want to 6-man it go for it. If they want to 18-woman it go for it. If a small, family-type guild wants to engage it with a few allies go for it. If a large, social guild wants to zerg it go for it. Again, locking the number of people who can engage a target or having set-numbers reminds me of WoW. This is one area where Pantheon can be different from that.
Anyhow, thanks for your input.
I'm curious here. You keep comparing it to WoW, and you keep saying that capping the numbers reminds you of WoW; but you aren't saying WHY it's bad when you are clearly indicating you think it's bad. So, why is it bad? Why is the idea of capping numbers for encounters or raids a bad thing? I'm genuinely curious.
OCastitatisLilium said:Syrif said:Ok so don't bar it then. If people want to duo something then go for it. If they want to 6-man it go for it. If they want to 18-woman it go for it. If a small, family-type guild wants to engage it with a few allies go for it. If a large, social guild wants to zerg it go for it. Again, locking the number of people who can engage a target or having set-numbers reminds me of WoW. This is one area where Pantheon can be different from that.
Anyhow, thanks for your input.
I'm curious here. You keep comparing it to WoW, and you keep saying that capping the numbers reminds you of WoW; but you aren't saying WHY it's bad when you are clearly indicating you think it's bad. So, why is it bad? Why is the idea of capping numbers for encounters or raids a bad thing? I'm genuinely curious.
Because bars prevent half of what I mentioned from even being possible. A group of casuals won't be barred from doing their thing and neither should a large, social guild from zerging. And neither should a small, elitist guild be barred from pursuing very difficult and time-consuming challenges if they so wish. Mind you, I lean more casual... but don't bar others ya know. I've stated my opinion - that's all I've got, thank you for your input.
Liav said:If it's not EQ, it's literally WoW.
Welcome to every debate thread on the Pantheon forums.
Nah, that's what P1999 is for. Been there, done that... 20 years ago. No thanks.
OCastitatisLilium said:Syrif said:Ok so don't bar it then. If people want to duo something then go for it. If they want to 6-man it go for it. If they want to 18-woman it go for it. If a small, family-type guild wants to engage it with a few allies go for it. If a large, social guild wants to zerg it go for it. Again, locking the number of people who can engage a target or having set-numbers reminds me of WoW. This is one area where Pantheon can be different from that.
Anyhow, thanks for your input.
I'm curious here. You keep comparing it to WoW, and you keep saying that capping the numbers reminds you of WoW; but you aren't saying WHY it's bad when you are clearly indicating you think it's bad. So, why is it bad? Why is the idea of capping numbers for encounters or raids a bad thing? I'm genuinely curious.
blocking the raids only makes one sense and is to keep the raids challenging
the raids would be designed for a specific number of people with a certain level and a power determined by the challenge
if you design the raids like this the challenge is diluted when one of these 3 things changes if people go up more level the challenge fades
if people get better equipment = more power = less challenge
to more spell points with improved spell = more power = the challenge goes away
If any other mechanic is introduced into the game that gives players more power (new recipes, new professions), the challenge vanishes
I want to say that if you base the raid challenge on the mechanics that only people can enter the challenge sooner rather than later they will go to the toilet
good but where are the bad things you will wonder and of course those things are relative your judgaras if it seems toxic or not but I will list a few
it will push you to get as fast as possible to the maximum level
when your guild goes raid if you are more than the limit there will be people who will stay at the door waiting
it is possible that you have to decide who does not play that day in your guild
if the challenge exceeds your guild, measures may be taken, the dps (speculation in classes) may not arrive, the rogues and wizards are the best dps or rangers summoners and monks are left out of the raid
people die for lack of heal ok druids and shaman do rerol we will go full cleric
in the raid it is not undead ok paladins wait outside or I am not confused if it is undedad DL and war go out alone paladins
or that class is not optimal for raid because it is playing better play one of these
oky I enter the hoop I do not want to stay out I will play an optimal class for raid aunke not be my favorite (in the next patch they make a balancing correction and a nerf enters that class and falls from the goal of raid grats)
it is also putting invisible walls in an open world
all these things happen with a blockade of people for raid unless the raid is not challenging and you can go with a less optimal composition but we return to the only sense the blockade is to keep the raid challenging
However, if you don't have a lock, you wouldn't have any of those
people crying in the forums for balance nerfs and buffs (this is done by people for no reason but with reasons to multiply)
gear scores, bis lists
If I think they are few, I could still get some more reasons
Two dynamics in a "raid" social, and mechanics. In this thread I see these two lines being crossed, the social are making suggestions against the mechanical and those in favor of the mechanical do not want to see it sullied to cater to the social. Mechanical :design the raid correctly with good mechanics so it is engaging for everyone to play, everyone. The encounter is more important than the people. Social: Who cares how they get it done, let anyone get it done the way they want to get it done. The people are more important than the encounter.
I will make the following statements about raids:
Filthy Casuals owe their ability to attempt or conquer end game raids to the hard core because it is the hard core that develop the strats and solve the puzzles and pass them down.
Hard cores owe their ability to maintain morale in failure and achieve succes due to the social nature of leadership provided and social oversight in organization and interaction. Otherwise we would all be Bots, not Boxers (I love the breed!- woof) Botters are evil, boxers are people.
We know what the community stance is, but what is the practical Dev stance? is it to create an encounter and - satisfied- leave it? due to the sandbox nature who cares how it is solved. Rubic's cube is not solved the same way, every time with the same number of turns in the same orientation or starting with the same color , neither is every game of tetris solved the same way. Sid Meyer is not there constantly looking at the player solving/playing the game seeing how he can improve or tweek it. No, he developed the AI's in CiV and ...one and done. (ok the Ghandi glitch was funny)
I think the nature of this question has more to do with social dynamics of the individuals responding and what they are more comfortable with, personally. OR- what they wish to experience :)
Trust me, there are like minded people in pantheon, you'll find them, lots of them and they'll be on at the same times you are! and they will be family style/small guild doing big things/hard core BIS max DPS/friendly casual/alliance.
...and like the alien in Fantastic Planet. Joppa will be watching it all, wondering what he can do next or wondering if he should let kilsin run free for a bit.
As far as MSRP? I'll start with what VR says. if some dont show, I will be forced to do it with less, and if we win! I will feel accomplishment against odds and have bragging rights completing a raid intended for 42. with 30 people an wonder why we cant to it again with 42?
Mod Edit: Removed Political remark, please keep politics and religion out of our game forums :)
Liav said:EppE said:No limit. Don't scale the amount of loot that drops based on the amount of people in the encounter. If 150 want to zerg a mob to split 3 pieces of loot, let them. If 25 people want to take on the same mob, let them. That was one of the great things about EQ, no one was ever turned away from a raid. You never split your raiding party.
Sounds like a super engaging, challenging game. Perfectly in line with the tenets.
I can't wait to tell my kids how hardcore I used to be playing Pantheon at launch, standing in a corner doing next to nothing while an endless torrent of bodies slams into a pinata to dispense an item I have a 0.1% chance of getting.
SO HARDCORE. Filthy casual kids these days and their raids designed to actually require them to push buttons.
Then raid with a smaller group. Most "zerg" guilds in EQ weren't very succesful. This is about raid size, not the amount of buttons you push in a fight. A fairly easy counter to raid size, which EQ did, was high damage AE abilities. If you view engaging as what % chance you have at loot I can't help you with that.
It seems there is always going to be argument over raids and the like.
'Normal' 'average' players know they will never be uber-skilled or have enough time to be ultra-experienced, but would like to do raids as they are typically the most challenging, rewarding and fun content. Who wouldn't want to?
The problem is, if you balance raids so that they challenge the uber-skilled, ultra-experienced, you get a raid that most players can't even try, never mind succeed at. You get 'the best' content in the game with only 0.01% of players seeing it. What a waste.
If you then throw in competitive players that form guilds who not only smash through raids, but love to deny others in order to remain 'dominant', then even 'average' players who manage to overcome the odds and eventually be capable of raids won't be able to experience them.
The answer? Diversify.
Have one raid trigger that gives you the hard-capped N-player raid. Have one trigger that gives you the scaling, zerg allowed raid. The hardcore pro players get the challenge they want. The rest get to at least see the content at the end of the interesting questlines, lore and stories.
Now, those competitive uber-guild raiders will throw a fit if the rewards are equal in value/power, so *shrug* give the zergable raid a different loot table - the average guys won't really care, they just want to see/try the content and they know they got an easier encounter. Maybe they can build up to the 'real' raid.
I don't doubt that those competitive types will *still* be upset and claim that the other type of raid 'detracts' from their achievements somehow - it is the nature of the competitive type... Well... Learn how to cope, guys. It's everyone's game (and it is just a game).
People need to stop looking on raids like they should prove you're a superior human being, or something. A raid is just particularly well-designed piece of multi-group content that everyone will want to experience.
TL;DR: Have multiple versions of raids. The A+++ super-players can do the most restrictive and difficult and get the 'best' gear and go nuts feeling superior over those they beat to it. The rest can just enjoy all the content the game has to offer, which is all most people want.
I disagree , having multiple types of the "same" raid encounter cheapens the experience.
I am in the mindset of if you are unable to complete the content , then tough not all content is ment for everyone to see . This is what adds to the mystery , ego and recognition of server guilds. The YAH! We finally cleared Naggy! Not the , today we are doing the easy mode for lewts guys.
That is the definition of progression , when speaking about raiding. Anything less is counter productive and diminishes the value of those specific encounters or there rewards.
I do think there needs to be multiple entry points to raiding in the form of multiple "entry" level raid zones and a progression into harder encounters.
So vanilla let's say has 3 "entry" level raid zones , those zones need to start out with basic strats and progress in difficulty , then perhaps 2 "mid tier" raid encounters and finally 1 uber zone + contested.
Each building on each other in terms of mechanics and raw progression checks ie Dps check , heal checks , mitigation checks or flat out mechanics.
This maintains the ability for casual or new players to experience the raid encounters or get into raiding without having the experience cheapend , because you killed the watered down version of Vox.
This is not to mention there not being a need to juggle multiple loot tables , balancing issues or even design issues that come from having multiple types of the same encounter.
The encounter is simply created and balanced at the level intended and you either can complete it or not.
Instead this maintains the OOoo factor , sense of mystery and the progression factor missing in the raiding community.
To date Avatar Of War still is one of my favorite designed eq1 encounters it was not killed until a expansion AFTER it was released.
I am not a fan of huge raids. A lot of people here seem to be into that kind of thing but I consider anything larger than 24 players to be overkill. Most players won't be experiencing content that requires more than 2 groups let alone content that requires 70+ players. Obviously if the game allows zerging guilds are going to zerg down bosses but from what I've read from VR they aren't going to be allowing that tactic so that means bosses will be tuned for a certain number of players. If VR makes most or all of the raids tuned for vast armies of players I certainly won't bother with it. The biggest problem with huge raids is the sheer amount of time required to get one rolling...even getting 40 players moving takes a very long time. The most organized raid guild I was ever in still took a solid 20 minutes to get started on raid nights and that was a 25 man raid guild in WoW. Most guilds I was in took a lot longer to get rolling especially back in Vanilla WoW or Velious era EQ with the larger raid teams. It could take over an hour to get started! Oh and progression content was slowed down a lot too for those 40+ player raids due to wipe recovery for all those players. Just keep in mind the more players required for the raids the less players will be doing the content (ironic no?).
EppE said:Then raid with a smaller group. Most "zerg" guilds in EQ weren't very succesful. This is about raid size, not the amount of buttons you push in a fight. A fairly easy counter to raid size, which EQ did, was high damage AE abilities. If you view engaging as what % chance you have at loot I can't help you with that.
A raid designed for 40 is just as easily trivialized/made into a loot pinata by bringing 46 or 50 players so long as they aren't drooling on the keyboard. If challenge is optional and there is no true sense of progression/accomplishment/prestige to be had then this game will be a joke and player retention will suffer.
I think a standard raid designed for roughly 40/50 players would feel about right. Its not too large to feel unmanageable, and its not too small to feel trivial. I dont think there should be a cap though. If you need to muster up 100 people to go slay something designed for 40, then by all means, go for it, but that probably doesnt speak too highly to the quality of your players.
I like the idea that there could be smaller 12 man raids, or even bigger truly epic raids, but 40 man for the majority of the raids sounds good to me.
Iksar said:A raid designed for 40 is just as easily trivialized/made into a loot pinata by bringing 46 or 50 players so long as they aren't drooling on the keyboard. If challenge is optional and there is no true sense of progression/accomplishment/prestige to be had then this game will be a joke and player retention will suffer.
a raid designed for 40 becomes trivial with 46 or 50 if the challenge and the mechanics of the boss consists of you have to kill the boss in 5 min but go into enrage and kill everyone in one blow
if that match is set at 30 dps you get to kill the boss in 4 min and 50 sec and you take 36 or 40 dps with which you kill the boss in 3 min or 4
but if the mechanics of the raids and the challenge is not based on making X dps in time and carrying 6 or 10 more people does not assure you of the victory I will not say that it will be something easier but it does not trivialize the event
What makes me funny is that the greatest sense of progress /accomplishment / prestige I experienced in a game was in EQ as I would say that most of those who are here
and it catches my attention that in order to preserve that sense of progress / accomplishment / prestige we want to get rid of the mechanics that produced them and put others that we already verify that these sensations do not produce
Iksar said:A raid designed for 40 is just as easily trivialized/made into a loot pinata by bringing 46 or 50 players so long as they aren't drooling on the keyboard. If challenge is optional and there is no true sense of progression/accomplishment/prestige to be had then this game will be a joke and player retention will suffer.
If you design an encounter to be beat exactly with 40 people, yes it can be trivial. If you design an encounter to be beat with 10 people, and we bring 20, it can be trivial. Two things here. First it comes down to how strict and scripted the encounters are. The more scripted the more bringing more people can help exploit it. All that being said EQ is proof that just bringing more people doesn't gurantee a victory.
Trakanon for example. I beat it with a raid for 40ish people. I saw other guilds try with 80 people and fail. Same with Gorenaire. When I first started playing EQ I was in a small guild and during Kunark we did a lot with a very small amount of people. Lets not pretend like throwing more people at a mob gurantees victory because it doesn't, we have historical proof it doesn't.
I just wanted to say again that I think what's more important than the number of people is what those people are doing. A lot of us have called out that larger sizes can be fun but that we still want our individual contribution to the encounter to actually be meaningful. No one wants to be "just another DPS".
So with that in mind I think it's more about the challenges that the game can give us. What's an appropriate challenge for 36 people? For 72? For 108?
Here's how I would set it up, loosely:
"Area Boss" Raids - 12/18/24 people
These are single large monsters or very tough groups of monsters/NPCs that are relatively common throughout the game. Most zones would have at least one, and some zones might have two or three that are accessed in different ways (ie, some are on a normal respawn, some are triggered, etc). The point of these encounters is to provide a challenge to multiple groups that can be either pre-made (guilds) or simply be formed from people already in the area who band together to take down a larger target. Depending on how the encounter is built, there may be some special things that the raid needs to do to win, but they'll all happen in the same encounter area.
"World Boss" Raids - 30/36/42/48 people
These are extremely large monsters (ex: dragons) or very large groups of monsters/NPCs (ex: Orc armies) that pop up around the world in various zones as special events. They are less frequently available than "area boss" raids but make up for it by being larger in scope and scale. When one of these events is in progress it may impact a large portion of an overland zone, with players forced to either attempt to deal with the encounter or give it a wide berth. Defeating these encounters requires a coordinated effort by a large number of adventurers. Depending on the encounter, there may be multiple objectives that the adventurers need to fulfill in order to win.
"World Event" Multi-raids - entire zone populations
In past discussions I've sometimes called these "Super Raids". These are special story-like events that impact an entire zone at once, altering respawn tables and introducing several raid targets spread throughout the area. An example of such an event might be a cabal of necromancers raising an undead horde, literally taking over an entire zone in the process, To stop the event, players must work together across the zone to achieve multiple objectives, take down multiple raid targets, and somehow put an end to whoever or whatever is behind the event happening. These events are very infrequent, with weeks between one event and the next, occurring unpredictably in different parts of the game world. As an example, perhaps one week there is a world event in the Silent Plains, and then 23 real-world days later, one happens in the Tenebrous Tundra. The idea is that these events should be very rare, very meaningful, and ideally, something that players don't expect to happen. There should be enough of them that it's unlikely to see a repeat of one happening for several months at the least.
Raid Zones - 24 people and up
A raid zone is a special dungeon consisting entirely of raid encounters. There can be smaller encounters and larger encounters, and these encounters can be spread out or placed in a sequence where players have to fight through to the end. Examples of raid zones include the Temple of Veeshan (EverQuest), the Plane of Hate (EverQuest), and the Ancient Port Warehouse (Vanguard). Raid zones should be laid out to support anywhere from 3-5 raids active at the same time, likely progressing down different paths or working towards different goals. There should be several such zones in the world, with the goal being to provide challenging raid content for mid-sized and larger raids that is always generally available (individual respawn timers notwithstanding).
So again, my point here is that size is best determined by the scope and scale of the encounter. If you're building a raid target that shows up every couple of days in a single room in a dungeon, does it really make sense to try and cram 36 people into that room? If your raid is a large and angry dragon that carves a path of destruction through an area of a zone until someone stops it, does it really make sense to size that encounter for 18 people, or should more be needed? To put it another way, the goal for designing larger raids should be to give us challenges where people's individual contributions to winning are still very meaningful.
EppE said:Trakanon for example. I beat it with a raid for 40ish people. I saw other guilds try with 80 people and fail. Same with Gorenaire. When I first started playing EQ I was in a small guild and during Kunark we did a lot with a very small amount of people. Lets not pretend like throwing more people at a mob gurantees victory because it doesn't, we have historical proof it doesn't.
Back when VOIP was rarely used or heard of, many raids were multiple guilds loosely communicating, raiding was still a brand new thing and strategies weren't posted widely all over the internet, and most people were still tying up their home phone lines while playing on 56k connections?
Yeah, throwing more random people at a mob doesn't 100% guarantee victory but in the modern age of gaming I'd bet it comes pretty damn close.
"Raid bosses"
A boss to me is the final/biggest encounter one plans to RAID that particular time and place.
Raids (zones, regions, subzones (if you will), sequence of raid encounters and raidmobs can be scripted to have many groups of players. If one player group consists of 6 players, I would not find it strange to see a script for a raid MOB to require 5-6 groups of players. Should all raidmobs aim for that amount of players' envolvement? No.
A raid BOSS however, should have a locked raidsize. And the script should be to the point that you're actually feeling required and your input does make a difference. Meaning, if you die, your group risks dieing or at the very least risks suffering greatly. In the case your group goes down, the raid should not be able to recover. So no beserkstyle raidbashing please.
I find a raidforce greater than 30 people already quite intens and to really connect with one another in that raidforce and really feel in sync with one another is stretching it. My mmo life as a druid and bard as learned me that I just can not handle/cover more than that. The argument going: well you don't have to, we'll just add another bard/druid to act in your stead while you're occuppied...actually emphasises my argument to say that one looses their connection and importance/meaningfull impact as a raiding player within that raidforce. You've effectively become, just one blimp in the blob of raidingplayers that bash against 1 RaidBoss. I am not saying, you can only have one of each class in a raid obviously. There is an easy balance between 1 class per raidforce and feeling important if you're 1 of 5 of the same class in a raidforce.
Lastly, I tend to raid at max quality resolution. Where I enjoy watching my character cast their spells, but also witness the players aside me in that raidforce moving to the waves of the script and watching their spells cast/hit. Now with huge numbers of raiding players combined into one place for 1 boss, it just becomes a disco, where you just scroll out (aka zone out?), look at your hotbar and the hp bar of your group and are no longer really taking in the entire RAIDSPECTACLE. Because, dang it, it should be just that. A spectacle to watch and be a part of. (I'm not saying, everyone needs to raid at max quality. I'm saying too many players will pull down the overall raid experience visually and possibly even personally.) Aside of how many raiding players is too much, it should be...how many raiders can be at one place without bringing down/damaging the entirety of the whole raid experience. To put too much emphasis on how big can a raid get, is to orient yourself too heavily towards the theoretical aspect of raiding.
Just voicing opinions ofc.
Barin999 said:"..actually emphasises my argument to say that one looses their connection and importance/meaningfull impact as a raiding player within that raidforce. You've effectively become, just one blimp in the blob of raidingplayers that bash against 1 RaidBoss. I am not saying, you can only have one of each class in a raid obviously. There is an easy balance between 1 class per raidforce and feeling important if you're 1 of 5 of the same class in a raidforce.
I understand what you're saying, but I got the exact opositie reaction out of being in a large scale raid force. Being a "number" in something that massive made the encounter feel epic. Doing 10 man raids never felt epic. We weren't conquering some great monster, just "two normal groups" worth on content. I will agree that you can better balance and tune a boss encounter with a set max amount of people and you can create difficult challenges, but it looses the epicness of the fight to me.
Taking down a dungeon with 10-20 people doesn't feel epic, it just feels like a couple groups doing a dungeon together. Taking a boss down with 40-60 people, sometimes 75, that feels like an epic battle that it takes a community to over come, not just a hand full of people.
Raid encounters absolutely should be locked or they'll just become a zerg fest with zero strategy. I've never seen scaling successfully implemented either. That being said, I think 36 (6x6) should be the highest raid encounter size. It's low enough to maintain acceptable latency and FPS by most. The loot doesn't need to be handed out like candy on halloween either, just because there's a smaller raid size doesn't mean everyone will gear up fast, that's a ridiculous argument. How many items drop per boss, size of the loot tables, item drop rates, and the raid encounter respawn rate are all factors in regards to how fast everyone will gear out.
Honestly with encounter locking and more people being able to do the raids I don't like the idea of raid locking. It was stupid in WoW and is stupid in other games aswell. Hell..even WoW decided in the end to go with scaling with a minium. 12 to 24 raids don't feel epic or fun really. I loved the idea of getting 3 - 4 smaller guilds together to defeat a dragon with no idea how many people it would take to beat. That immersion was amazing. No idea how many people it takes to defeat this epic monster and gathering allied guilds and your friends to partake in this insane fight. I loved that aspect way more than locking raids.
With that being said I think scaling is the way to go. It allows the most play styles around. Of course for raid enocunters I would have a minimum number of people needed...and then the scaling begins there. Loot tables can also change in quantity based off of how many players. The mob can scale in dmg, hp, buffs added to it, adds, different abilites, etc. Make it feel more organic and immersive than locked and stale. If you want to get really immersive you can have a several different paths that boss can take based off of the composition of the raid brought. Raid locking is the lazy way to go imo.
To be honest, i'm kind of in a dilemma on this.
I liked the 72 people raids from EQ1, where you could form 2 or more raids to defeat an open world boss. But since the content eventually become tailored around this, this became a problem when the subscriptions started to dwindle and newer guilds had issues gearing up their peeps or getting peeps to start with.
EQ2 followed this up nicely with 2 - 4 group raids, which in first were guild raids, and later simply pick up raids as they became easier to do.
Large raids bring the difficulty in managing many people, where small raids bring difficulty into each error weighting many more times towards failure. So i geuss in a way, i want them of all sizes and let the public decide what they want to do and is within their ability.
In that later sence, i think a 2 group raid should have the same loot as a 8 group raid, just the amount of drops should be different, and maybe rarity too. So that in a way it doesn't matter if you're doing it with 72 people or with 12, you will get an equal chance.