I just think it would be really neat to be able to make an exp/loot camp out of a small raid area, like the juggs/reets in sebilis, if it were possible to have a group of 12-18, that could evenly distribute the exp and not nerf it drastically like raids did.
I don't want the exp to be competitive with a standard group killing mobs they are supposed to be killing, but when it came to Plane of Hate or Plane of Fear in everquest, we tended to have an experience group that had the required DPS in it to steal the kill credit, and feed exp to the lower level players. I would just like to see that expanded upon and be able to distribute that exp to the entire raid, without making it irrelevant like the raid option did. Then we could also form smaller 10-20 man mini raids that were focused on clearing areas while still benefitting from the exp, especially when AA's are present.
Rallyd said:I just think it would be really neat to be able to make an exp/loot camp out of a small raid area, like the juggs/reets in sebilis, if it were possible to have a group of 12-18, that could evenly distribute the exp and not nerf it drastically like raids did.
I don't want the exp to be competitive with a standard group killing mobs they are supposed to be killing, but when it came to Plane of Hate or Plane of Fear in everquest, we tended to have an experience group that had the required DPS in it to steal the kill credit, and feed exp to the lower level players. I would just like to see that expanded upon and be able to distribute that exp to the entire raid, without making it irrelevant like the raid option did. Then we could also form smaller 10-20 man mini raids that were focused on clearing areas while still benefitting from the exp, especially when AA's are present.
This sounds very similar to what I brought up in another thread. 2-4 group exp type areas...not targeting raid boss. I completely agree. I really enjoy that type of play.
I would really like to see 8 player groups and 48 player raids. There are pros and cons to bigger group/raid sizes, but seeing that Pantheon is supposed to be an intensely social and group-centric game, I think having those larger numbers would reinforce several of the major game tenets. We all know that certain roles will be more coveted than others, and with a larger group size, there is a lot more flexibility when it comes to group/raid compositions.
From what I have seen in this thread, it was mentioned that we would mess around with both sizes (six & eight) in testing ... is that still the case? I'm really hoping that 8 player groups are still on the table but it's worth noting that all of the streams only show 6 players in the group. I know raiding won't come until way later but once the group size is established, I think we'll have some valuable insight on the potential scaling for raid size.
I know not too long ago it was planned that we would see multiple specs for each class ... if that is still the case, having a larger group/raid size is even more important. The bigger the raid size, the more dynamic and mechanical each encounter can be. Trying to coordinate 48 players is obviously much more challenging than 24 because theoretically there should be a lot more going on with each encounter ... more adds, more encounter twists, second/third objectives, etc. Bigger is better when it comes to social and challenge aspects ... would really love to see this happen! Just a personal preference but I would much rather see 6 groups of 8 than 8 groups of 6.
*Edit -- For the record, I would also like to see encounter locking. If a raid pulls a mob, it would be locked to that raid, meaning nobody outside of the raid could interact with either the NPC or the raid fighting it in any way. If an encounter is considered x4 group, and a raid brings 6 groups ... it would grey out. No loot would drop because it was killed by a raid force larger than it was designed for. As far as loot distribution goes, I know a lot of people have suggested that leaner guilds are better ... I disagree. There is no reason that raids couldn't intentionally be scaled for 48 players and then drop an appropriate amount of loot. If 24 man content was going to drop 2-3 pieces, then 48 man content should drop 4-6. Players would still be getting geared at the same rate. Larger group/raid size gives the dev team way more flexibility when it comes to designing their encounters.
I would like to see a bad ass dragon that requires 4 full groups on it at all times, that also has a couple really tough adds that would each require a full group to tackle. When you limit the raid size to 24, the "boss" mobs have to be tuned down considerably to allow these secondary/tertiary objectives to be feasible. An encounter seems much less "epic" to me if it takes 2 groups to kill the main boss and the other 2 groups to handle secondary objectives. The main boss should be the focal point and require the majority of the raid's focus. If you go with 24 man content, let's say you have 3 groups stay on the boss and 1 group doing secondary objective. That's fine, but now we have a limit of 1 group as far as these non-boss mechanics go ... we have seen this stuff for years! I want a NEW challenge where there is so much going on that the battle field feels like chaos. The more mechanics we have to deal with, the better ... and the larger the group/raid size is ... the more flexible/creative the dev team can be with implementing them.
Previous discussion here topic/2714/raid-size with about 8 pages. In that post poeple have posted previous discussions links on this topic ...
Dreconic posted:
There is a topic here - where group size (and raid size) are discussed. The two are so closely tied together you really can't have one without the other (love and marriage, love and marriage, THUMP). I would like it tuned to the number of groups and not necessarily a set # of people. I would like to see a system kind of like WoW's where you have smaller raids (2-3 groups so 12-16 on low end and 18-24 on high end) that give lesser loot (can look at my expansion tier list here) where it would be a T1 Raid. However unlike wow it would not lock a full raid of 6-8 groups (36-48 on low end and 48-64 on high end) and they would be doing mainly T2 and T3 raids.
One of my big faults with wow was that 10 people working together (while this is great) is no were as complex as getting 20+ people working together and thus the rewards should be greater (and mobs harder) to kill. I understand they have that tier system now where 10 to what 25? people can join a raid and it will scale the mob to the raids abilities but still whether you have 10 people or 24 people the loot is the same quality..
Retsof said:Previous discussion here topic/2714/raid-size with about 8 pages. In that post poeple have posted previous discussions on this topic ...
Well my post isn't exclusive to raid size. I would like to see group sizes at 8. Per the FAQ and VR responses on this thread, 8 player groups are supposedly still on the table and should be something we get to test. Seeing that all of the streams show group sizes of 6 ... I am just wondering if that information is still accurate. I understand there is a lot of "place holder" information on the site right now ... look at paladins ... VR knew they were changing them to paladin from crusader for months before announcing it. I am just wondering if that's also the case with group sizes. Until 8 is officially ruled out I would like to advocate for it as much as possible.
*Edit -- And I do have a post on the last page of that thread as well. The topics are definitely related but seeing as that one is specific to raids I didn't want to repost there. I searched for "group size" and this was the first one that came up.
oneADseven said:Retsof said:Previous discussion here topic/2714/raid-size with about 8 pages. In that post poeple have posted previous discussions on this topic ...
Well my post isn't exclusive to raid size. I would like to see group sizes at 8. Per the FAQ and VR responses on this thread, 8 player groups are supposedly still on the table and should be something we get to test. Seeing that all of the streams show group sizes of 6 ... I am just wondering if that information is still accurate. I understand there is a lot of "place holder" information on the site right now ... look at paladins ... VR knew they were changing them to paladin from crusader for months before announcing it. I am just wondering if that's also the case with group sizes. Until 8 is officially ruled out I would like to advocate for it as much as possible.
I understand. I am just putting it out there for newer folks who might have missed the discussions.
Much appreciated! Every hot topic worthy of discussion has multiple threads going on ... I would like to see "authority threads" on the new forum and have them stickied. Rather than having 6 topics going on talking about group size, there would be 1. I don't want to derail this thread any more because I have a very genuine interest as it pertains to group/raid size, but I can definitely think of at least 10-15 topics that would be worthy of an "authoritative sticky" on the new forum.
Larirawiel said:I prefer a raid size of 40 - 50 people. Less people does not feel epic to me and more people would be require much more guild management and bureaucracy.
I agree with this fully. FFXIV was actually a decent game but their 8 player raids absolutely killed it for me. I would love to see Pantheon be so challenging that it's GROUP content is on par with the RAID content of FFXIV. I wouldn't want the mechanics of regular group content to be quite as intense/punishing as they are in FFXIV raids but it's definitely a nice place to look in regards to what kind of challenge we could expect from 8 player group content. As far as raids go, just as Larirawiel pointed out, fielding a larger group requires much better management and bureaucracy. We have that which reinforces the notion of Pantheon being intensely social and group-centric ... and in my opinion, all of these tenets ( https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_tenets/ this page alone is the main reason I pledged) that seem to suggest that having a larger group/raid size would be better:
oneADseven said:Much appreciated! Every hot topic worthy of discussion has multiple threads going on ... I would like to see "authority threads" on the new forum and have them stickied. Rather than having 6 topics going on talking about group size, there would be 1. One issue we have run into on this forum is that threads get locked when a couple people start breaking the rules. Rather than suspending the individual(s) responsible for the disruption and letting the conversation resume it's course, the entire thread gets locked and everybody who played by the rules misses out on further discussion. I don't understand that at all. I don't want to derail this thread any more because I have a very genuine interest as it pertains to group/raid size, but I can definitely think of at least 10-15 topics that would be worthy of an "authoritative sticky" on the new forum.
+1 I agree wholeheartedly.
As for this topic,
My stance leans towards 6 man groups. I do agree that 8 man groups increase the possibility of creating more dynamic content; however, it also increases the difficulty of starting a new group. If content is designed for a 6 man group, then a group of 4 can struggle through it. A group of 4 cannot struggle through 8 man content. In ideal situations, yes, 8-man sounds inticing - but it will increase the low population threshold, which every mmo has to deal with.
what i miss most from EQ times is large raids. it seems modern MMOs only have it in PvP and i don't play PvP. i'd like to mange 40+ people again and i think there should be no size restriction to raids, or at least not significantly (like max 72 people for a mob that can be done with 36). if you need too many people for a mob you're extremely inefficient anyways. but at least you can get the satisfaction of having been there for the kill once.
I'm used to 4-5 person groups, and have always liked groups of that size, but a lot of the games I've played haven't had dedicated CC classes, which might create the need for groups to be a little bigger.
I'm curious about the current thinking on group makeup and how it would impact group size. For instance, how many dps slots would the average group need? Would one CC slot suffice, or would two be beneficial? Would some groups want or need an offtank? I could see questions like these having an impact on the final group size limit.
Kalgore said:I still say 4 groups of 6 is a great size. Small enough to easily fill the raid but not that mess of uncapped raids which sucked the fun out of it half the time.
I like it how EQ had it with 72 players you didnt need all of them to complete any content but if raids like NToV with around 72 players it took between 3-4 hours to complete it, but obviously you could do it with like 50 it would just take you like a little over 5 hours or so, now i could see the cap being smaller than 72 but i hope the numver is near so gear progression isn't greatly earned at an alarming rate and can becomed maxxed geared within like 3 months but it could take you 6-9 months depending on drops and what classes could use certain items you are looking for.
i think the big difference is: if you have a size restricted raid, to keep it challenging, that means you have to take quality people only. which leads to the dreaded "game starts at maximum level" issue. the great thing in EQ was, that you could let lower levels tag along and contribute their share. i play lotro these days, and there you can't do any raiding before maximum level. raids are (or rather, the raid is) restricted to 12 persons and you do it only with 12 maximum level well equiped characters. i liked the EQ system alot more. managing lots of people and keeping some efficiency are challenges by themselves. it also leaves room for common drops that still usually someone wants.
I feel like the larger the group and raid size gets the more challenging it will be to balance content to be hard for most groups/raids but still doable by any group containing the quaternity. It leads to a more win via class combination type of setting in my opinion.
I prefer 6 / 24-30 myself.
48 is a great number. It has many divisors! ie Many different options and many group make ups. If groups are max 8, even better. 8x6 or 6x8? How about 12 groups of 4??
I think 30 is too little. 36 will work too but imo 48 has the best possibilities. Most guilds will be able to field raids that size. 56 or more (like eq) is too many for most guilds.
NoobieDoo said:I've stated before I wish for 6 man groups and 4-5 group raids. I thought VG was perfectly fine with their 24 man raids.
People are saying that we should have uncapped raids and the devs can just design the bosses so that if players try to bring too many people and zerg the boss then it will create elements to thwart this. ie. if a raid brings too many people then the boss produces extra adds or does extra aoes or whatever else it can do to defend itself from a zerg.
First I don't understand why people are so adamant about having uncapped raids. Why does uncapped raids ensure more fun than capped raids?? Pretty much every MMO since EQ has used capped raids and for good measure. And I don't feel like I was missing out on anything because the raid size was fixed.
If you are asking the devs to create a boss who is meant to have 30 people fight it and if the raid brings 40 people it starts to produce extra adds and extra aoes then why not just cap the raid at 30 people?? This way they can create the bosses intended strategy without putting in any other nonsense. You are asking the devs to create each and every boss to have two strategies; the first is the actual strategy for the boss and the second is the extra strategy required if a raid brings too many people. This doesn't seem efficient to me.
I agree with you 100% zerging a target like you coud in EQ is a terrible way of killing something, for one you trivialize the content through zerging. Dying as little meaning if you lose half your raid force but are stilll above the raid count attended for.
But if you are capped you learn the fight and that in itself is fun. You have to avoid dying becuase your damage and whatever your responsible for actually matters to the raid. Like i said i liked the 72 hroup but Durp has made a very good point and i have to agree that 48 is a much better number becuase you have basically 4 of every class in there which is a good number to have