After participating in the Raid Loot thread, I started thinking.
First, this is in no way saying I want one method over another, I am just curious as what people think regarding certain things.
What are raids, and why do we have/need them? Let me see if I can explain my thoughts here. In EQ1, and if I am wrong here maybe Brad can correct me, raids, as they have become, were not really a part of the plan. You had essentially 2 dragons initially, Naggy and Vox. It was obvious they had to make dragons, the mythical beast of lore. stronger than any mob in game.
In the early days there was no "raids", it was trully just 8 groups of 6 players, with no way to communicate other than /zone shout from the raid leader. It seemed that this play style was not trully planned as part of the game.
Now, I ask, Why do people raid?
Do you really enjoy running around with 50-60 other players killing stuff?
Is there something special in raids that is exciting that can't be had with a challenging group adventure?
Would you be just as happy if you could get the great gear without the need for such large raids, but rather, a well skilled, geared and cooperative group?
I had never been big into raiding, had done a few here and there, but aside from the lure of acquiring some awesome gear, and seeing a new zone, there was nothing else I enjoyed about raids. I hated the wasted time gathering, buffing, listening to instructions, the collasal mash of PCs on the screen where often you couldn't even see the MOB you were attacking.
Curious what all your opinions are. But please, please do not let this become an us vs them. I am just looking for perspective from those that enjoy and those that did not enjoy large raids.
Raids, in my opinion, represent the epitomy of social interaction and community between players. Raids are not so much about the game as they are the people. The social skills and nets you need to make to run a 6 man group are not even close to being able to manage the personality conflicts and interaction that is required to make a raid efficient night after night.
It's a bit like military interactions, you have leadership structures, to make sure things go smoothly, someone always reports to someone else.
I absolutely love raids, and I hope that they are uncapped on the amount of players you can bring, because the limitation should be your social net, and organizational skills, not a set limitation made by the game. If you think it's easy to just zerg everything with 100 players when loot is very scarce and only 1-3 people get pieces they need a night, you are kidding yourself. The amount of loot drama that you have to navigate through and keep the peace on, is incredible with that many players. That being said, if that's what people want to do they should have every right to do it.
Raiding is not for everyone, if you find yourself to be reclusive to social interaction, you may find it overwhelming and it may take away from the fun.
Fulton said:After participating in the Raid Loot thread, I started thinking.
First, this is in no way saying I want one method over another, I am just curious as what people think regarding certain things.
What are raids, and why do we have/need them? Let me see if I can explain my thoughts here. In EQ1, and if I am wrong here maybe Brad can correct me, raids, as they have become, were not really a part of the plan. You had essentially 2 dragons initially, Naggy and Vox. It was obvious they had to make dragons, the mythical beast of lore. stronger than any mob in game.
In the early days there was no "raids", it was trully just 8 groups of 6 players, with no way to communicate other than /zone shout from the raid leader. It seemed that this play style was not trully planned as part of the game.
Now, I ask, Why do people raid?
Do you really enjoy running around with 50-60 other players killing stuff?
Is there something special in raids that is exciting that can't be had with a challenging group adventure?
Would you be just as happy if you could get the great gear without the need for such large raids, but rather, a well skilled, geared and cooperative group?
I had never been big into raiding, had done a few here and there, but aside from the lure of acquiring some awesome gear, and seeing a new zone, there was nothing else I enjoyed about raids. I hated the wasted time gathering, buffing, listening to instructions, the collasal mash of PCs on the screen where often you couldn't even see the MOB you were attacking.
Curious what all your opinions are. But please, please do not let this become an us vs them. I am just looking for perspective from those that enjoy and those that did not enjoy large raids.
I almost started this exact thread yesterday, but decided to just make a post in the other thread. I'm in the same boat as well. I think there is room for a discussion based on if there should be raiding, or find a way to go another route. My fear is that if they try and go a new route that there are unknown pit falls that are yet to be discovered.
Raids were and are a simple way to represent the highest risk in order to justify a greater reward. It's really that simple. That's why they exist. Sure, there's a story like the dragons of NToV, the giants of Kael, the gods in the planes of power, etc. That same story can be told without the need to bring 6-12 groups banded together. It just happened that way because it followed a D&D idea of insanely challenging encounters that properly DM'd meant hirelings, mercenaries, and a lot more than a standard full group of characters could bring to bear. In a level capped game, the only way to add power is to add bodies.
That doesn't have to be the way it is done, and WoW heroics & challenges and AO mission sliders/pocket bosses/alien invasions are examples of how it can work. Heck, Diablo 3's greater rift system is another mechanic. Achievements can be tied to NPCs who trade epic gear or give out epic recipes, etc.
Raids are just one mechanic to crank up the risk to justify cranking up the reward, and as already mentioned, part of the risk/investment is community relations and personnel management in the meta. It's the ultimate expression of community, the raid encounter herding of cats. Not necessarily a measure of skill, but of patience and cooperation. I would personally be fine and dandy without raids being the expression of the toughest challenge, but there has to be some kind of noteworthy achievements that are extraordinarily difficult. A certain percentage of the playerbase simply has to have them.
Rallyd said:Raids, in my opinion, represent the epitomy of social interaction and community between players. Raids are not so much about the game as they are the people. The social skills and nets you need to make to run a 6 man group are not even close to being able to manage the personality conflicts and interaction that is required to make a raid efficient night after night.
It's a bit like military interactions, you have leadership structures, to make sure things go smoothly, someone always reports to someone else.
So what I'm reading here, and what I've always felt, is that the "challenge" of a massive raid is managing drama, man-babies, idiots, etc and not so much the actual fights...
I've always felt like 10 man raids gave a more epic feeling of being part of an elite unit. Your individual contribution is more important and losing 1-2 players means a wipe. As opposed to 40man+ where losing a few people is a non-issue and you have access to so much more emergency skills. (Yes, I did bring WoW in the discussion).
First and foremost, I hope raids will be capped for balancing purposes. After EQ1, Vanguard raids being capped had me a bit nervous, but it turned out great because you couldn't just overwhelm content. Execution became key to success. Challenge, that's why I am here supporting this game. While I do believe group content can be challenging, it is less rewarding to me because its much easier to put together 6-8 talented players who can execute a plan smoothly than it is to put together 24-30 and do the same. While my guildmates and I often times wanted to string one another up for making an error that wiped our raid (many of us earned the moniker "cocoon boy" for you Vanguard players), it made the celebration after a well executed raid all the more sweet.
I really want to comment on everyone's post but there are already so many. Therefore, I will just have to do a write up of my most memorable raids and why.
1. Lord Nagafen-EQ: This is my most memorable raid encounter because it was my first, that being said it had a lot of things that were very well done. The 52 max level was very good because this allowed people who were leveling slowly or just behind the curve in general a chance to experience what a real raid was like. It had fun mechanics and you needed resist gear but it wasnt too hard. Finally it dropped an insane piece of gear which sold for 50k for years because it had such a high haste%.
2. Aerin'Dar, Rydda'Dar, HoH Trials-EQ: These are memorable raids for me because of Logistics. Rarely was there a guild that needed to kill these so they ended up getting pugged. Being LFG and making friends through grouping is a fun time, but nothing compares to setting up a raid for 6 hours with 72 people in it. I led many succesful raids on these and made countless friends and people who i could play with in the future thanks to setting up these raids.
3. The Lich King-WoW: Even though wow lacks in the large scale raids that EQ brought to the table they make up for it with crazy mechanics. The Lich King I think is an excellent example of what hard mechanics can be. I am not going to explain all the mechanics you can watch a youtube video for that, but it is definatley and epic raid.
4. Cazic Thule-EQ: This one is memorable for me because it was so depressing. The amount of deaths and CRs in this awful zone haunt my dreams 16 years later. Cazic himself was not even difficult but his trash was the worst thing I ever experienced in a game.
So those fights taken into consideration here is what I would like to see in Pantheon to have epic memorable raids.
Raid Size- Between 6 and 8 groups depending on the number of players in a group. It should be capped to avoid zerging and let us do the mechanics and strategy that are being prepared by the dev team, but still big enough to feel like I am part of an army and not just a large group.
Raid Trash- Trash is important to any raid. Every good boss needs to have his underlings and even mini bosses. If the first 2 hours of my raid are spent clearing trash I will not complain.... well maybe I will, but I will still feel better about getting to the boss. Also with no trash what is the point of pullers? Respawns? Yes please.
Wiping- Obviously to feel accomplished on a boss you need to fail it some... or a lot. This is a hard one because essentially it seperates the hardcores from the casuals. But bosses need to be hard or there is no joy in the kill. So I say make them as hard as you can and let us throw ourselves against them for years to come.
Contested Vs. Instanced- Another hard one. Contested allows for their to be visual competition instead of just checking pantheonprogress.com, but contested also will cause people who can not raid so hard to fall significantly behind. This wont neccesarily be a bad thing if you can manage a thing with the gear like eq where even if you are expansions behind you can still have fun raiding because you didnt outgear/outlevel it with the new expansion. Would WoW raids be better if every time a new raid came out it didnt make the previous one obsolete? Personally I think so. Also on the contested path you can always raid if a mob is up. You never have to worry about lockouts, and being bored. If someone is throwing together a raid you can try and join. Personally this is the only one that matters to me. If I am stuck jumping around town because I am locked out to all my raids for the week, I will just not be playing long.
Sorry for text wall. Hope you liked my 2cp.
Raiding makes sense from a lore pov in my opinion because I don't think 6 people should be able to kill the hardest monsters in the game. You should need a tiny army to kill massive enemies or to raid an army's base. You meet people that you'll probably work with for at least at few months and build relationships with these people, hell I have even met a couple of people irl from one of my raiding guilds and am still in contact with a few of them years later. Working towards a common goal with 20+ people adds a new level of epicness in my opinion. It's not easy to coordinate that many people and that alone adds difficulty. Also if there is a known "bad guy" in the game and he is one of the end game encounters, just that alone adds an aspect to the "journey" of the game. You want to kill this guy and just to say that you did it. Also I think if people raid only for gear they're missing the point. If it's such a problem for people (raid loot thread) just have them drop nothing and just add titles or something.
First Id like to start off saying Im not comfortable with the term "Raid". I prefer the phrase "End Game Activities". The reason is that while I have nothing against raiding for the most part, I dont like limiting the definition of End Game content to only raids.
On the subject of Raiding or large group content, I in fact dont enjoy running around with 50-60 people. The feeling at this point moves from epic to annoying and zergy. Not to mention you feel lost in the machine and can barely feel the effects of your efforts in battle. Im more comfortable with a group of 20ish people for a "raid". Large enough to feel epic and to be a social management project, but small enough not to feel zergy and unfulfilling.
As for the End Game Activities I mentioned earlier. Its like Ive said in several threads. With the amount of horizontal gear progression or side-grades I anticipate from this game. I think a multi-faceted approach to end game is best. Various high end and best in slot gear comes from various activities for various gear slots from multiple locations and is not uniform for each class.Or as Noobie described in the other raid thread: nonlinear gear progression. Which leads to the concept of everyone is helping everyone in group content even if there is nothing specific in it for you. Because it is group based and you will work together with your guildies to ensure each guild mate is advancing their gear progression. So you get best in slot weapon from X raid, and best in slot chest armor from dungeon Y, But for another class it might be the exact opposite, and yet for a 3rd class it might be best in slot weapon from A raid, and best in slot chest armor from dungeon B. And thats just from one set of side-grade gear for say Fire environment. That still leaves Ice, Poison, Earth, etc. Not too mention the different colored mana per spec per class. And these activities could range from small group (6), to medium group (12), to large group content(24). And it also gives you real progress you can work towards even on days when you cant get enough people together to do "raid" content.
Contested Vs. Non-contested: Why not both? As part of a multi-faceted approach. I enjoy both, and its kind of boring if every single activity uses the exact same mechanic. Item spawned, quest spawned, trigger spawned content too.
The last thing I wanted to touch on was large group content or raiding and how relevant it is. Im all for it being in the game. But if its not something very many people want to do with me....... Isnt it a waste of developer resources? All Im saying is before we get something like 4 raids at launch (pulled those numbers from my butt) that you can barely find the people to do them with, lets make damn sure there are enough people that want to do them with us. I think its a valid question, especially when Ive seen other ideas shot down because of budget concerns.
P.S.
I like lockouts especially for open world content. Keeps people from perma-camping and makes them move around to other activities. Of course for this to be viable there does need to be other content in place.
Also I want encounter size caps so people can't just zerg their way to a win, and non-interference from outsiders from the group. This means that whichever group has clain cant get combat or support from outsiders. If you claim it, you sure as hell better be able to kill it. If not, then you die and another group gets a grab at monster. Too bad, shouldnt have tried to bite off more than you could chew ^.~
I personally would love to see raids in. I just don't see them as only "end game content" as Amsai. I enjoyed very much the raids formed in early adventuring levels in EQ2. There were contested raid mobs in almost all tiers, then some important quests had raid mobs in them also - anybody remembers Torig x4 in Cauldron Hollow for Ghoulbane heritage before LU13 hit? I do. Man that was so intense I still remember it to this day. And that was a raid for mid 30's.
Then for endgame raids, I think that's what draws me to them: the feeling of accomplishment after you beat a mob your raid force struggled against. I don't know if groups would be willing to wipe 20 evenings on a difficult (heroic) mob till you have the strategy executed. But then I raid with people I know and enjoy pickup groups for the heroic content. While EQ2 pickup groups don't vaporize after some wipes, they just don't have this mentality a raid force has (of course not and you just can't expect this). And I doubt that (pickup) groups in Pantheon will have this mentality either. But if heroic content in Pantheon is so that it can't be beat with pickups, then it would be a pity for me personally.
Now for 40 or 50 man raids I don't know. I just don't think that it allows for a lot of raidforces in a niche game. Probably because I am used to 24man raids from EQ2, that would be enough for me. More people would impersonalize the force for me, I guess.
I don't think raids need to be capped. As I spoke of in another thread, and Rallyd mentioned here, raid sizes (and guilds) work themselves out. Sure, for a time a mega guild or alliance of guilds may take down raid bosses, but that never lasts. If you reduce the risk involved in a boss fight, you also reduce your chance of a reward. When smaller guilds start downing contested raid mobs, the people in the zerg guild (who never actually receive raid loot) will quickly become disenchanted and end up starting their own guild or joining a smaller one.
EQ had it right. They created encounters, giving the bosses their abilities, hp, adds and so forth, and they just let it go. Some raid mobs could be killed with 2 groups, others took 6 groups. I personally think some mobs should be so hard they won't even be killed until a later expansion or until multiple guilds work together.
I'm tired of the sanitized approach to game design. What made EQ so amazing was that interesting ideas/items/abilities were put into the game, and unintended (emergent) gameplay resulted. It would be a shame if VR took the modern approach of trying to control and micromanage everything, including exactly how many players and which classes were necessary for every encounter in the game.
Raiding doesn't have to be end game only content as said above. It's also the epitome of cooperative play, in my opinion. I enjoy well crafted raids that are not just zergfests or nothing more than dps checks. Figuring out the strategy that works for your particular raid makeup is a challenge I enjoy. Getting a larger group of people working in synergy to take down a particularly hard mob can be an adrenaline rush when you finally find the winning strategy.
Now I'm going to say something that seems to contradict what I said about zergfests, but it's a different situation than a raid to me. I don't know if any of you played Rift, but one of the things I enjoyed were some of the zone events. It would start with a few people doing the objectives and it would build into several raids full of people gathering to take on a boss mob that spawned after objectives were completed. So you'd have a huge amount of people all gathered in one area taking down a mob with a very large hp pool. It felt alive to me. Seeing so many avatars made the world feel larger to me somehow.
Chat can be a very busy channel with a lot of voices, but when you see avatars to go with those voices it makes for a more dynamic world I suppose. So I'm definitely for large group and/or raid content.
Dullahan said:I don't think raids need to be capped. As I spoke of in another thread, and Rallyd mentioned here, raid sizes (and guilds) work themselves out. Sure, for a time a mega guild or alliance of guilds may take down raid bosses, but that never lasts. If you reduce the risk involved in a boss fight, you also reduce your chance of a reward. When smaller guilds start downing contested raid mobs, the people in the zerg guild (who never actually receive raid loot) will quickly become disenchanted and end up starting their own guild or joining a smaller one.
EQ had it right. They created encounters, giving the bosses their abilities, hp, adds and so forth, and they just let it go. Some raid mobs could be killed with 2 groups, others took 6 groups. I personally think some mobs should be so hard they won't even be killed until a later expansion or until multiple guilds work together.
I'm tired of the sanitized approach to game design. What made EQ so amazing was that interesting ideas/items/abilities were put into the game, and unintended (emergent) gameplay resulted. It would be a shame if VR took the modern approach of trying to control and micromanage everything, including exactly how many players and which classes were necessary for every encounter in the game.
I agree completely and is the reason I pledged. When I read the spirit of EQ1 and Vangaurd are the premise behind the creation of Pantheon: RoF it ended my search for MMORPG's. I am an EveQuest veteran from launch until buff caps, item caps, raid caps, etc ruined the experiance.
Im sorry if I mislead some of you with my reference to Raids being endgame. That wasnt really my point, its just natural for me to see them that way. And no one really responded to my question if raids should even be a thing? That being said, I do find it unrealistic and worrying if the devs truly wish to create low level raids. Doesnt seem like a wise investment of resources or budget. I could be wrong, but I cant see it being viable unless there is a loooong (1 year or more) leveling process. If it takes 3-6 months or even less to level to cap I see 99% of people bypassing it. I guess they could make them part of some of those trials to be able to continue leveling, Id be on board with that. But again you dont want to drive people away from the game. Also what about the whole keeping older content relevant concept? How would a low level raid apply to my character 3 years down the road? Can I "level-sync" to help low level buddies? Will I be able to use some low level items that are still valuable at endgame? I just hope the devs very carefully consider this course before they do this. I hope Im wrong but until I learn more it seems like resources and money Id rather see being spent on increasing the depth and width of endgame content.
@Dullahan
I defintely see your point Dullahan, but Im worried that people of today wont see it that way. I have seen it happen before on my old sever in FFXI. This one mega-Linkshell (or guild) had a core group of about 15 people. Other people joined them for the honor of taking down Hyper Notorious Monsters (a few of them at raid caliber)in the open world, and the promise of loot. Well this guild survived or 4 years, even with a bad reputation for botting, steal-claming, MPvP (monster player killing), and inner circle loot distribution (only the core group got any loot). And people would quit, but more would join. What can I say? You cant cure stupid. Now I understand part of the problem was SE's inability or lack of interest in throwing down some ban-hammers. However, some of it was people being naive or just willing to put up with anything to get a chance at loot (however remote), or even just wanting to be part of a infamous guild.
Also you specifically addressed the part about no caps. What about the part of no outside interference? While I do think the group cap is debateable, I dont think non-interference is. Its bad ballance to allow people outside the group (however large that is) to interfere. I want people to try and engauge a challenge and If they fail they fail. I think there is an important lesson to be learned about not taking on more than you can handle or learning the mechanics of a fight in blood and experience loss, etc. If you go in with 20 people on a raid boss, you either win or die, or even if you go in with 60 people... you win or you die. None of this calling for help garbage. Once you engage the enemy you have to beat it with the exact group you started with. Just because its open world doesnt mean that easy mode should be allowed. I want strategy and complexity, not just throwing bodies at the boss til it dies.
Public Events:
Im ok with public events being zergy, because thats the nature of the beast. They are usually only for xp or faction so its not a big deal to me if strategy breaks down into a zerg. It can be fun occaisionally, but I wouldnt want it in a Raid. And a little off topic but I hope if/when they implement PvP servers some mechanic can be used to stop rampant PvP zergs.
The reasons raids are great in my opinion has very little to do with the loot, nor the challenge of the encounter as both of these can be found in high-end dungeons if done right. The reason for raids is the ability to get 30-50 people working together for a greater good. Tackling stuff that a single group wouldn't be able to. Some of my best memories are from riding with others and the social aspect of having 30-60 different people in on strategy, each having to play their part, is what makes raiding hard.
Ask any raid leader what is harder, getting 50 people to show up for raid each night, or learning the strategy for a raid, I bet you most would say attendance!
killabits said:I agree completely and is the reason I pledged. When I read the spirit of EQ1 and Vangaurd are the premise behind the creation of Pantheon: RoF it ended my search for MMORPG's. I am an EveQuest veteran from launch until buff caps, item caps, raid caps, etc ruined the experiance.
Same here, although the buff caps and stat caps on items I was not to upset about, as capping that meant they can make bosses harder without having to make bosses have a bizzilian HP (aka WoW style raids). What really got me was capping it at 56 people. Raid leaders were having to sit people out, and eventually if you sat long enough you went to another guild, or left the game.
Amsai said:...
Also you specifically addressed the part about no caps. What about the part of no outside interference? While I do think the group cap is debateable, I dont think non-interference is. Its bad ballance to allow people outside the group (however large that is) to interfere. I want people to try and engauge a challenge and If they fail they fail. I think there is an important lesson to be learned about not taking on more than you can handle or learning the mechanics of a fight in blood and experience loss, etc. If you go in with 20 people on a raid boss, you either win or die, or even if you go in with 60 people... you win or you die. None of this calling for help garbage. Once you engage the enemy you have to beat it with the exact group you started with. Just because its open world doesnt mean that easy mode should be allowed. I want strategy and complexity, not just throwing bodies at the boss til it dies.
I think Pantheon should put aside artificial restrictions in general until such a time as they are absolutely necessary. I simply can't see any time where you should be able to attack a mob/npc, and it not do damage (while others are doing damage). Did you attack it or not? Same thing with healing someone engaged in combat. There should be nothing preventing you from healing them just because you are not in their group or raid.
It may seem like a tiny thing to you, but its that type of mechanic that keeps me from playing MMOs these days. I don't want to see that sort of interference - not for the sake of balance, challenge or anything else. The game should work within the confines of a virtual world.
Ill say this much Dullahan, I have to admire your faith in humanity (Im all out after reading the MMORPG forums for a few years). If the devs move in that direction I truly hope it works as it should and people migrate towards good reputation, sound reasoning, and fair play.
As for Raiding being about loot? Im just playing devils advocate. I could care less if it yields loot or if its only for bragging rights. What I do care about is that the 15 or so vocal minority of people on the forums that talk about raiding? I see the same people (me included) talking about raiding with any importance. (And I know Im exagerating here) But 15 people barely makes 1 raid group. Just who is it that the devs are making these raids for I ask? And with that line of thinking do we really have the budget and resources to make content that nobody does? Understand, Im not stating this as fact, Im asking the question.
Amsai said:Ill say this much Dullahan, I have to admire your faith in humanity (Im all out after reading the MMORPG forums for a few years). If the devs move in that direction I truly hope it works as it should and people migrate towards good reputation, sound reasoning, and fair play.
As for Raiding being about loot? Im just playing devils advocate. I could care less if it yields loot or if its only for bragging rights. What I do care about is that the 15 or so vocal minority of people on the forums that talk about raiding? I see the same people (me included) talking about raiding with any importance. (And I know Im exagerating here) But 15 people barely makes 1 raid group. Just who is it that the devs are making these raids for I ask? And with that line of thinking do we really have the budget and resources to make content that nobody does? Understand, Im not stating this as fact, Im asking the question.
Lol. I think its more faith in the need to work together. With a localized, non-instanced, non-cross server playerbase, people will have a reputation. Permitted Pantheon stays true to a heavily group based design, people will find they need other people to progress in the game.
Maybe VR will have to step in and code some things to shape the game, but I don't think that is a good place to start when trying to create an MMO like EQ/VG.
My thoughts on raids. I'm not big on raiding, I'm more a pre-max level enjoyment type. But I think the game HAS to have max-level raids. There has to be something more to work towards - or you end up with utter crap like Guild Wars 2. No I don't care about 'fractals' or whatever lame stuff they have in at max levels. It sucks. And as far as raids - I don't like participation caps. I don't like them because it divides the population of guilds. If you are a guild, you should do things together, not "oh, we already have a 10-man squad, sorry! You'll need to start a second one." You can replace that 10 with a 25, 40 or whatever. No one should be left behind because of a lame cap.
As for lower level raids, I love that VR is going to add some pre-max level content in like this. I wouldn't consider it a 'waste of time and resources' like some are saying, unless those people plan on blitzing past all the content they can to get to that max level and start their uber elite 10-man group that no one else will be allowed in! So fun! And so not impressive. Lower level raids don't need to be anything complex....they could be just like Vox and Naggy were, two rare uber mobs deep in a dungeon that took a raid of people to take down. There's nothing hard about that, just make a mob spawn in an already existing place.
And this is using the word 'raid' as a noun, in EQ times it was used as a verb as well..it didn't have to be A RAID, it was, "hey, we're going to raid somewhere tonight as a guild, let's find a under populated dungeon and take it over!" As an example we did this in Clan Runnyeye once. Hell we even did it with the now defunct Pantheon Rising guild in p1999, when we 'raided' Najena, groups were formed based on level and assigned to camps they were able to handle, and we got numerous drops for the entire guild. It was a fun guild event. I bring these examples up because no special mob needs to be created to have a 'raid'. And when they do create one, they don't need to create an entire new area for it (we already know it won't be instanced (thank God)).
Raiding is extremely important just as having some solo content is also very important...
Grouping should be the bulk of the content created because this is what people will do the most...
Sometimes though you just want to try and solo some stuff and mess around or camp an item or farm some cash by yourself. (not all classes created equal on this)
A reason for guilds to get together a couple times a week is very important for the social aspects of the game and its community.
Raiding should represent the highest difficulty of content and the reward should reflect this.
If roughly 60% of the game was full group content and 20% was for smaller groups/possible solo, leaving 20% for raid content I would be happy.
Without raiding I would lose interest in Pantheon once I hit max level because I look forward to the socialization and challenge of coordinating a whole guild versus just a group.
Planes of Power my favorite expansion ever was largely based around raiding and the storyline couldn't be accessed without a lot of focused guild effort... this built comraderie amongst guild members that I have yet to experience anywhere else.
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
I like the idea of raids, I think they engourage movement to an achievement. I like enying people their awesome things they got from a raid. I like that raids tend to re-teach or enforce Good grouping tactics like paying attentnion.
I dont know if anyone remembered the Muglwump in the Warrens, It was a mini- dragon around level 15. iirc. a hard, single or group and a half encounter, it was a good taste of raid dynamics.
@AgentGenX
There are so many ways I could pick your post apart, but Im trying to be civil here. And you dont need to be vague, it was me that said those things and I stand beside my opinion. However, for someone "not big on raiding", you sure do seem like youll defend it to the death? Besides If you read my posts, you would know Im mostly playing devils advocate. The only thing I have any strong opinion on is encounter caps and non-interfenece. And Im sorry if that rubs people the wrong way, but surely you can see the value in not cheapening the content, in the pursuit of being "all inclusive" or "immersive". Because correct me If Im wrong, but isnt it the pro-raid crowd thats always pointing out how raiding isnt for everyone? Not hard core enough, if you dont have the time then too bad, etc? And the pursuit of immersion should never be at the expense of lazy design. This is all very common sense stuff to me.
@Everyone
Pantheon is not EQ or VG or AC or XI or Ultima, or any of the other oldschool games. Its supposed to draw on them for reference not be carbon copies of any of them. Its its own MMO. And any time anyone has any ideas or suggestions that are outside someones special game they get very upset and act like its destroying the space-time continuum. Im an old XI vet but Ive been here since the Kickstarter because I believe in this game just like you. But Im not so arrogant as to think only the way XI did it was valid or truly oldschool. Thats silly, and we should all be working together to make this game awesome, and sometimes that means being open to new ideas that are still in step with the Pantheon vision. Being a fan is one thing but being a zealot is another. I didnt tolerate it in XI (the game I played for years), and I will speak out against it here. I dont subscribe to the "X game did it perfectly or Y devs can do no wrong" mentality. There is always room for improvement.
Id also like to take time to thank and applaud everyone that is trying to work together to make this the best MMO ever. Id even like to thank the people that I dont see eye to eye on, but that are at least civil and open to discussion (not necessarily just this thread).(Dullahan comes to mind, and I respect him for it).
@Angrykiz and Manouk
Solid responses guys. And Kiz said the magic word: comraderie! ^.~