I was just posting on a different thread and it got me thinking back to VG raids.
A lot of yous know how great raiding in VG was and some of yous don't. I've never heard anybody that raided in VG say anything short of how good it was. Not saying there aren't people out there who didn't like raiding in VG but the amount of ppl who will back VG's raiding as some of the best raiding in MMOs is astounding.
Anyways, I got to thinking WHY was raiding so good in VG and I came up with at least part of the answer, at least for me. And I bring this up because it gets me to thinking what Brad and Co. are cooking up for Pantheon's classes. It's been a LONG while since an MMO has had some REALLY great unique and individual classes. If you were to ask me, it hasn't been since VG that an MMO has had truly great classes.
Again, anyways, lol. Other than a lot of the bosses being very memorable, VG's raiding was great because raiding was VERY dynamic due to the uniqueness of every class. There were so many little nuances between the classes that each class brought a couple of different duties and responsibilities to perform while engaging the raid. Of course you have your traditional responsibilities such as tanks tanking and off tanking. Main tank healers solely focused on the tank with off tank healers assigned to their tanks. Secondary group healers performing their healing duties. Dps giving the tanks a cushion before they engage. Tanks using their different taunts as well as their intercepts if a mob wandered.
Then there were the unique abilities only found in VG. Blood mages creating a pact with specific players to either buffer the damage with them and the bonded or to buffer the damage with the entire group with the bonded. Having a bard in each group playing completely different songs according to the makeup of the group. Main tank group bards could play a defense song and resource regen while adding significant damage, melee group bard could provide a significant increase to melee damage with procs and resource regen etc, and the caster group bard could provide different abilities to help casters produce more damage. Necros could do a handful of things such as produce meat to give a big boost in HP and I think it was an orb for casters intelligence. They could also turn regular mobs into undead which was extremely useful for classes with special abilities geared solely towards the undead. Even some of the clickies were great like the fish earing to pop a fish to make meat out of. That poor fish was so abused.
And the list goes on and on. What are some of your memories of the little differnet nuances each class provided in VG raids? I plalyed a few different classes but only raided with the bard so I don't know all of the different classes unique abiltities that helped during raids. Since I led a successful group in raiding I know what I've posted and possibly have forgotten some others but there was a lot going on while raiding in VG which I LOVED. I've raided in many games and a lot of the other MMOs just weren't as dynamic as VG was simply due to all of these little things each class did and I'm hoping Pantheon's classes are JUST as unique and just as fun.
Cheers!
So many memories man!
I still remember strats that I called word for word and it brings back so many happy memories of helping people get cool gear and overcoming huge challenges! I think another aspect of VG raiding was the people leading the raid knowing each classes' and how to build the groups and raid to gain the most out of them, then on top of that, knowing individual strengths and weaknesses and working around them to achieve a successful kill with some pretty interesting mechanics that we were up against!
I can tell you it was pretty tough for guild and raid leaders/officers to learn all fight strats plus all 16 classes and knowing better than some general players of those classes what their classes were capable of but it was so worth it!
Some of my most memorable targets would be AKANDE THE BUTCH (hardest version ever released is when Reverence got many guild members past that stage of the Griffon quest), Kotasoth, Imperial War Golem (IWG), Sparkles, Shiver (Loved playing my Psi for this fight), Shylosia, Shendu (because it was a progression mob and we got it down to 18% on our last attempt and days later SOE posted an announcement saying the devs were not supporting the game anymore and half our guild left the game, we never fully recovered from that :() and many others, but those stand out the most for me.
I absolutely loved VG raiding, best raiding experience for me above and beyond all other games that I have played, including EQ, and I have raided at the highest level in many of them. ;)
Sorc chaos volley, Loved the the Librarian and General Vicus on my Druid 141k STARFALL..!! I liked all the Raids in VG nothing better Shylo was a bear Exhaulted 99 pure dps check, Zaygius only time I ever tried to heal besides Kota. Dresla all her adds we actually killed her 1 way at first then they fixed something and we still downed her. Magicborne abom was fun. Still remember pulling all most all of the undead area and aoeing them down to get the group raid mobs to spawn. Lol we would lag the chunk to where half of us died cause we couldn't get a spell off. Fengrot was always a fun fight. Guar the Destroyer I think, the other one in Kojan. Can't remember the one close to apw but little NW he was broke for a while would spawn a nasty rogue that could almost 1 shot anyone. Dk on general Vicus was always good for the throw behind. DK shadow step. # different shammies tuurgin, phoenix, and wolf. Cleric had 3 also a caster a melee dps and a heavy healer. Just had to get me started I will stop here for now.
One of my most memorable nights with raiding in VG was the first night we dropped Shiver. Such a great night! The raid force I led consisted of no more than half its members being hard-core/elite players, possibly even a third. The rest were raiding a good amount of nights a week so I wouldn't consider them casual, they just weren't the type of player to really hunker down and squeeze out every milligram of potential from their class. I remember after killing Shiver for the first time I sat back and I remember just sitting their smiling. What made it better was that it wasn't even a perfect execution. I remember something happened where either the main tank couldn't get unfrozen or something happened on the last pyreling but we had to adapt and handle it a different way. I think we actually wound up off-tanking it while we killed the other add or something but once we finished the fight it was just one of those moments, not even just for myself, but the entire guild was buzzing. There were bosses before Shiver that required complex strats to defeat but there was something about Shiver that just made me appreciate everything I had been doing the past week or so to win that fight.
Loved raiding in VG, hell loved everything about VG other than the server population and its lack of support. Ahhh what could have been. Guiled/Grouped/Raided with ~TASC~ if any of ya remember us.
Garmr said:Loved raiding in VG, hell loved everything about VG other than the server population and its lack of support. Ahhh what could have been. Guiled/Grouped/Raided with ~TASC~ if any of ya remember us.
I was actually in TASC for a while man, I helped Keiliana (sp?) and the other leader (I forget his name) to raid in APW, since my schedule changed with work and I was no longer able to raid with Fury or Damage my guilds before TASC.
TASC were a really good family friends guild, it was nice to step down a few notches from raiding and relax and have fun with them on alts :)
Yeah, Keilana was her name, Soulstealer was the co-leader. Was in TASC a long time, great folks with the perfect balance of casual gaming and endgame raiding on a non poopsocking pace. After the sad demise of VG we moved to Rift and had a ton of success. Of course all things come to an end and Rift grew stale, **** happens and TASC went poof. I dont think Keilana is still gaming much but I'd love to see a revival of the Terminus Adventure & Supply Company.
Garmr said:Yeah, Keilana was her name, Soulstealer was the co-leader. Was in TASC a long time, great folks with the perfect balance of casual gaming and endgame raiding on a non poopsocking pace. After the sad demise of VG we moved to Rift and had a ton of success. Of course all things come to an end and Rift grew stale, **** happens and TASC went poof. I dont think Keilana is still gaming much but I'd love to see a revival of the Terminus Adventure & Supply Company.
Soulstealer, that's it! :)
I am sad to hear she doesn't play anymore and that they disbanded after Rift, I hope they do reform in Pantheon, it would be awesome to see and great for the community :)
Ya APW was awesome . I rember feeling like them man going into APW for the first time with Blades of Wrath. I had my full suit of heroic crafted armour was ready to rock on my cleric . Man those where some long intense nights. Was raiding 7 nights a week had to be the first to get the kill . I also rember testing Gaur and a few other overlands out for the devs. Was raiding with my rogue at that time untill they decided to pull the nerf bat out them. Ya i agree with Chaam KOTA ROCKED !!! OH and of subject ......but is there anyone from CORE snooping around the forums here ?
Sorry about the double post there but after reading this i had to add this link. Feel free to check out the pic of me and my wife in VG. Got some nice pics of Conclio Erus and One Shot Guilds. Enjoy !!! http://i1364.photobucket.com/albums/r738/Beau_Guillory/ScreenShot_00023_zpsaxnzsef6.jpg
Theun said:Sorry about the double post there but after reading this i had to add this link. Feel free to check out the pic of me and my wife in VG. Got some nice pics of Conclio Erus and One Shot Guilds. Enjoy !!! http://i1364.photobucket.com/albums/r738/Beau_Guillory/ScreenShot_00023_zpsaxnzsef6.jpg
Those where around that time NoobieDoo. Me and my wife where some of the founding members of One Shot. The other Guild you see in the pics Concilo Erus was formed by everyone that was left after One Shot. I looked everywhere but i couldnt find any of my old pics from Forgotten Horde..... man those where the good old days. What was your bards name Noobie ? I was playing mainly my rogue Frok at this time. I would only dust Theun off for raids if we happened to need another healer.
I never got too far into VG due to ongoing technical issues with the game so I never made it to raids but I think what you mentioned about classes is also true about EQ. The diversity of classes and roles has been lost in most MMOs. The freedom to come up with your own strats based on your what class makeup you had not strictly based on what mechanics the boss has.
Wow raids started off OK but eventually got so gimmicky that it just wasn't that fun to me anymore. Making too many gimmicks to worry about and single points of failure was sorta lame. Back in the EQ days the strats for bosses was rarely the same from guild to guild because you could get creative with what the different classes could do and you could recover a raid that was going horribly wrong with some luck and good play because there weren't those stupid single points of failure where the raid wipes because one person lagged out and didn't jump on a platform or click a lever at exactly the right time.
I also think it was a mistake for MMOs to move away from crowd control and monster pulling (monk FD FTW). Those two things made gameplay so dynamic compared to gameplay now where mobs are all in neat little chained groups and they leash and there is little danger. Trains were a bad side-effect and at the time could be a PITA but without them in game I have come to miss that dynamic. It really added a sense of danger and unpredictability to the game and for those who used that mechanic to grief people it really created and destroyed reputations to the point of having a major impact on the community. Something also frequently missing in modern MMOs. Were you the type of person who trained people and got them killed or were you the type to help random strangers rez or recover their corpses? It mattered and frequently determined what type of group or guild you could get into.
EQBallzz said:I also think it was a mistake for MMOs to move away from crowd control and monster pulling (monk FD FTW). Those two things made gameplay so dynamic compared to gameplay now where mobs are all in neat little chained groups and they leash and there is little danger. Trains were a bad side-effect and at the time could be a PITA but without them in game I have come to miss that dynamic. It really added a sense of danger and unpredictability to the game and for those who used that mechanic to grief people it really created and destroyed reputations to the point of having a major impact on the community. Something also frequently missing in modern MMOs. Were you the type of person who trained people and got them killed or were you the type to help random strangers rez or recover their corpses? It mattered and frequently determined what type of group or guild you could get into.
