+100 @Reafwalk thank you
Edit: my post rolled over to the next page.. Please people take a moment to go back a page and read his post.
Nanoushka said: My own experiences match exactly Reafwalk's description so I never really get the heated discussions on this topic. I believe rightaway some people may have different (and apparently horrible) experiences but it baffles me each time as I've never seen it to the extent where it might get that frustrating and a turn off to play. Some competition can be very fun the way I've experienced it and I'm actually looking forward to open raid content.
I would say it comes down to population and/or popularity. If you actually have over a thousand people concurrently, daily per server, in your game, competition drives some pretty egregious behavior, compared to outside that environment. Put another way, VG didn't have the population EQ1 had, or even has. I mean, right now there are over 700 people per day, every day playing concurrently on Phinny TLP in EQ1. By the time APW came out in VG, I seriously doubt it was half that. But the devs can certainly confirm/deny.
Many people look forward to contested open world raid content. In every populous and popular similar MMO, to date, without instancing (or the equivalent of instancing), very few see it.
>Many people look forward to contested open world raid content<
Quite true. And many hate it and prefer not competing with fellow players for content. We have some of each type here, which gives VR the choice of going one way, going the other way or having some things for each type of player. My money is on them having some of each type but with a lot more being competitive.
vjek said:Nanoushka said: My own experiences match exactly Reafwalk's description so I never really get the heated discussions on this topic. I believe rightaway some people may have different (and apparently horrible) experiences but it baffles me each time as I've never seen it to the extent where it might get that frustrating and a turn off to play. Some competition can be very fun the way I've experienced it and I'm actually looking forward to open raid content.I would say it comes down to population and/or popularity. If you actually have over a thousand people concurrently, daily per server, in your game, competition drives some pretty egregious behavior, compared to outside that environment. Put another way, VG didn't have the population EQ1 had, or even has. I mean, right now there are over 700 people per day, every day playing concurrently on Phinny TLP in EQ1. By the time APW came out in VG, I seriously doubt it was half that. But the devs can certainly confirm/deny.
Many people look forward to contested open world raid content. In every populous and popular similar MMO, to date, without instancing (or the equivalent of instancing), very few see it.
I understand your point but I feel part of this problem often is that people level very quickly in games these days and that raiding is pretty much the only (worthwhile) endgame there is. When I played EQ the first three years or so people were spread out levelwise quite naturally with how slow it was for most. Raiding wasn't the only way to obtain decent and useful gear. From what I've read it seems they want to bring back some of these things that made sure at that time that people are spread out more and offer a solution for when the competition does get too intense. Even tho people are much more experienced these days, I'd assume (maybe wrongly) a new game will slow them down somewhat. From what I've read about Phinigel TLP, I think it does suffer from people knowing everything there is to know, inside out. I'm not sure if these things can be compared like that, or necessarily predict what it'll be like. But I may be too optimistic :).
See, I had a very different experience to Reafwalk. In original EQ and again on P1999, the 2-3 "uber" guilds kept those timers on lock from release all through Kunark and Velious. They don't get tired of it or move on in a system similar to what Pantheon is proposing, of very limited no drop items/soulbound. Those guilds always had members getting ults up to max level or otherwise trying to gear alts or make money. The Runed Bolster Belt, Tobrin's Mystical Eyepatch, Cloak of Flames, Staff of Forbidden Rites, 100% weight reduction bags, etc were always worth excellent money or were otherwise amazing twink items. In an economy where items hold real value and aren't replaced every few levels like an item treadmill, and where they can also be traded, lends itself to NOT having these guilds move on. Mostly because in such a system there aren't really raid tiers to move on to with "better" gear, just different raids with different gear that might have a BiS or two for random classes. That said, I love the EQ item system.
Even if the hardcore eventually moved on, how long do you think that would be? Being optimistic, I'd say over a year or not until an expansion or later. Going off EQs spawn rate for raids of roughly 3.5 days per spawn, that is about 104 spawns a year. If you have three hardcore guilds competeing for those spawns, and they are all roughly equal, that's about 34 or 35 kills per guild which is maybe enough for each member participating to get an item or so (with some decent rolls).
vjek said:Many people look forward to contested open world raid content. In every populous and popular similar MMO, to date, without instancing (or the equivalent of instancing), very few see it.
Many people they may be, but I imagine that those many fill the niche of a niche. Maybe 5-10% of this already niche target audience. That kind of raid competition - wiping one another, fighting and arguing amongst guilds, lording over others and everything else associated with the old raiding scene it is not appealing to most in this day and age. It's like turning a PvE game into PvP when you get to the highest level of content.
And what reason could there be for that? A feeling of superiority? A mentality of being the "best" and trying to keep raids locked down so you both get the best items and fight to keep them from others as long as possible? That's toxic, it is in no way conducive to building strong community and teamwork. It's a very "Me!" centric system. Maybe they can do that for PvP servers but I'd prefer to never have to deal with that kind of thing ever again.
Kilsin said:Again, we won't reveal our methods, it is best to wait until you can test them first hand yourself.
Shards alone are not the answer but in unison with other systems like lockout timers etc. they can work every well and promote good interactions between guilds. I am not claiming we have all the answers but at least wait until you see what we have implemented and test them with us to help with feedback, people are in the habit of writing things off before ever trying them and it needs to stop ;)
Kilsin,
I know you're going to want to fry me but is this a confirmation of lock out timers? That's the main thing I want to know atm lol. Would help me break some RL friends away from the "I can't bat phone raids anymore" mindset.
Iksar said: ... And what reason could there be for that? A feeling of superiority? A mentality of being the "best" and trying to keep raids locked down so you both get the best items and fight to keep them from others as long as possible? That's toxic, it is in no way conducive to building strong community and teamwork. It's a very "Me!" centric system. Maybe they can do that for PvP servers but I'd prefer to never have to deal with that kind of thing ever again.
I don't disagree, Iksar, but with the current public design goals, this IS the way Pantheon will be. Training encouraged and being designed into the game (no leashes, or very very long ones). No locked Encounters (DPS race all targets, no first tagging). Open world raid targets(with all the inevitable exploits that go along with that). Open world sharding (EQ1 picks). No private instances for raid targets. Shared competitive loot. No personal loot. No procedural loot.
These are the "big deal" feature points for any new game. It determines the target demographic. Visionary Realms has made it abundantly clear who they are trying to attract with this feature set: Players who will enjoy that feature set.
Personally, I 100% agree it creates a toxic environment by design. That is, eyes wide open, the design they are implementing. /shrug
Now, if they change those public design goals, ok, great, time to re-evaluate.
vjek said:These are the "big deal" feature points for any new game. It determines the target demographic. Visionary Realms has made it abundantly clear who they are trying to attract with this feature set: Players who will enjoy that feature set.
Personally, I 100% agree it creates a toxic environment by design. That is, eyes wide open, the design they are implementing. /shrug
Now, if they change those public design goals, ok, great, time to re-evaluate.
Actually, from what Kilsin has hinted at in this thread, they are working on that not being the case. Obviously we will have to wait and see but the FAQ has a few references to shards but I am sure there is more in the works since they won't commit to saying they are looking at using shards alone (thankfully). From the FAQ:
We also understand that while gamers’ tastes don’t fundamentally change over time, their situations, lives, and responsibilities do. Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay. Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game.
Overcrowding and too much competition are indeed problems that have plagued both MMOs with and without instancing. If there are not enough players around, it can be hard to group and socialize. But if there are too many people around, the world feels crowded and people have to wait for encounters or spawns, or even compete for them. Our answer to this issue is twofold: first, primarily during the later phases of beta, we will determine how many people online at one time in our game world feels right -- neither under-crowded nor overcrowded. Second, if and when a server’s/shard’s population grows too large, we will launch a new shard with incentives for players to spread out. And with our harnessing of cloud hosted servers/shards, this is actually something we can do dynamically, easily, and quickly.
And from the Tenets:
I say wait to go in and test what they have designed. Go ahead and train people. Go ahead and KS constantly, go ahead and do all the negative things that people worry so much about and see how the community reacts to it.
This post is showing on my screen with a black background, I have no idea what happened.
Rominian said:This post is showing on my screen with a black background, I have no idea what happened.
Lol same here. And your profile pic is crazy large. You're special :P
Edit: oh apparently now I have joined you in the forum void lol. Save us, Kilsin! hahah
As has been mentioned previously, and is currently demonstrated in EQ1 and similar PvE games, the community is powerless to stop players who will do anything and everything the game permits.
If it can be done, it will be done, 24x7, for the personal gain of anyone who has the desire. No-one cares about their reputation when there are other games to play. The only reason people cared about their reputation in EQ1 was that there was, at best, 2 other games to play at the time that were even slightly similar/popular. And if I have enough money, I can just change my name and/or transfer to another server, citing any number of valid yet deceptive reasons.
As far as "cooperative play" and "having a ton of content" and similar ideals? I'm sure EQ1 felt the same way. It's not the destination, it's the journey! No-one will ever do ALL the quests! People will take years to make it to max level! No one would ever think of using THIS mechanic in a bad, negative, or evil way! etc. etc.
Until there is confirmation on many other things, no one knows how it will be. If they introduce real sharding, where bosses spawn in multiple different shards, as well as lock out timers, then that gives the population much more room to wiggle. You can only kill them once with lock outs. Therefore, training, KS'ing, mem blur tactics, all would be meaningless. You could simply jump to another shard and kill the same boss. This allows for more planned raiding rather than spur of the moment. It keeps guilds from having the forced need to immediately rush to any newly spawned target.
Let's say my guild wants to raid from 8-12 est, I log on at 6 and go scouting. I can find 1-3 raid mobs up before the raid starts. Then we just pick where to start and go from there. You may not get the 1 you want every day and you would need to track the lock out timers but it controls alot of the biggest issues. No one guild could lock every thing down.
On the even worse side however, if they put in sharding with bosses spawning in each, with no lock outs ... well then you just gave my guild 5 times the bosses to kill. Not a wise move.
So it all depends on how they decide to handle things, we simply don't have enough information to make an type of accurate depictions currently
Enitzu said:Kilsin said:Again, we won't reveal our methods, it is best to wait until you can test them first hand yourself.
Shards alone are not the answer but in unison with other systems like lockout timers etc. they can work every well and promote good interactions between guilds. I am not claiming we have all the answers but at least wait until you see what we have implemented and test them with us to help with feedback, people are in the habit of writing things off before ever trying them and it needs to stop ;)Kilsin,
I know you're going to want to fry me but is this a confirmation of lock out timers? That's the main thing I want to know atm lol. Would help me break some RL friends away from the "I can't bat phone raids anymore" mindset.
No, it isn't man, just a possibility of a road we may go down if we think it will work in Pantheon :)
It appears that the thread has broken, so I will close it down and see what we can do to fix it, if we can fix it I will open it back up again, if not, it will remain closed, please do not start a new topic on this subject as it has already been answered in this thread and in other areas.
Our Webmaster was able to fix the issue so the thread has been re-opened, please remain on topic and be respectful of others while abiding by the forum guidelines.
I'm Fine with Open Content Raiding, for as long there sometihng in place to prevent bat phoning, bat phoning in my personal opinion is a cheap way of doing raid content, or make it to bat phoning simply isn't worth doing, i don't know how to get this done exactly but anytihng to stop a top teir guild from keeping the smaller more friend oritentated guild from progressing guess becuase they want to bully raid targets that no loner help them, but helps them stay on top by making them not being able to progress. Plus, if anything the skill of the guild should be the winning factor of killing a hardmode target not simply who just gets there first, i would like to know that getting there is merely like .1% of the difficulty, i want it to be like yes we have killed him but we've always lost guildmates in the fight and have maybe a 25% chance of actually downing him, not just be like were here now you are going down and giving me some loot you hoarding monster now kneel!
jpedrote said:Suggestion for the devs related to the difficulty in encounters (raids and dungeons).
This game will have loads of encounter, some will be hard, and some won’t. VR can’t design content only for the Hardcore 1%, making it so hard only a few handful of players get to beat it. They will design most content for the majority of the player base and some content for the top end.
I’m not saying they should make the difficulty faceroll level, so easy any noob can beat it, make it rather a nice challenge that will give the top end hardcore guilds a hard time and the good guilds a really hard time.
And now on to the suggestion part. VR could make some bosses have an hardmode toggle, (killing an add or not killing it, destroying something in the environment, etcetera) that triggers a near impossible to beat fight, that only a small percent of the player base can kill, and rewards some gear exclusive to that hardmode. This way VR doesn’t need to create specific content for the 1%, instead they create content that’s hard for everyone and in some encounters give the option to make it even harder for that extra challenge.
Just a few notes:
- To me, most of the non-hardmode fights should still be really hard.
- Few of the encounters should have the hardmode option.
- The hardmode gear shouldn’t be OP.
This is manly a suggestion for allowing VR to implement really difficult encounters without needing to create a specific zone for the hardcore of the hardcore. I’m still expecting different zones with inherent different difficulty levels.
I hate the idea of having some explicit toggle. This isn't WOW. We shouldn't have to be told that an encounter is "elite", let alone actually control the difficulty. This game will have instancing for certain sensitive quests and individually targeted plot mechanics, it will not have instances for encounters. Encounters will be what they are, and when guilds progress and gear up and start owning, it's on the devs to have more content, or to have the game scale horizontally. This is a virual world. There will and should be no concept of things like you propose. This is a game that will have integrity to the world. What you're proposing takes away from that, it's false.
Krixus said:I hate the idea of having some explicit toggle. This isn't WOW. We shouldn't have to be told that an encounter is "elite", let alone actually control the difficulty. This game will have instancing for certain sensitive quests and individually targeted plot mechanics, it will not have instances for encounters. Encounters will be what they are, and when guilds progress and gear up and start owning, it's on the devs to have more content, or to have the game scale horizontally. This is a virual world. There will and should be no concept of things like you propose. This is a game that will have integrity to the world. What you're proposing takes away from that, it's false.
I never once mentioned instancing.... go ahead and read again.
also i didn't propose an "explicit toggle" i very clearly stated "killing an add or not killing it, destroying something in the environment, etcetera" is what tiggers the extra difficulty in the encounter.
(Posted on another thread but looking to continue conversation here.)
I would love to see VR place a bigger emphasis on raiding in Pantheon. If only 10-15% of the player base participated in raiding in games of the past, to me, that sounds like an opportunity. I'm not saying that VR should change their vision -- I'm perfectly fine with the majority of the game being focused on grouping endeavors. Rather than settling on the idea that maybe only 10-15% of players plan on raiding in Pantheon, why couldn't we try to bump that number up? When I read "The Pantheon Difference" I see it as VR's way of evolving the MMO genre. Raiding has always been an important fixture in the grand scheme of MMO gameplay and I think there is a world of opportunity when it comes to how it could be pulled off in Pantheon.
This is only my opinion, of course, but with there already being a huge emphasis on intensely social gameplay, I think raiding could be another area where Pantheon can blow away the competition. Imagine if VR were able to get 25% of the community interested in raiding, wouldn't that be considered a huge success? For me, it starts with accessibility. One major issue that prevented players from raiding in games of the past was the time commitment. There is no getting around that, really, but there are still ways to make the tried and true systems from EQ and Vanguard more accessible to the community at large.
I would like to share a few ideas:
Hyper / Ghost Concept
When it comes to competitive raiding, contested content has generally dropped the best loot in the game. It's the apex of risk vs reward because these epic bosses have traditionally offered the most challenging gameplay possible and have long respawn timers. The major issue with this, of course, is that it's hard to justify spending a ton of time designing an encounter that only a small fraction of the population will ever get to experience.
I imagine if this content were more accessible, it would be easier to justify the time spent designing it. Accessibility is a slippery slope, though, as long respawns have been enforced as a way to preserve the value/exclusivity of the loot that these epic encounters drop. Let's assume that raid content is designed with a tiered approach, though. When an epic boss spawns, they are considered the "Hyper Version" (or "HV" for future reference) -- their difficulty is scaled to the max, they drop the best loot, and they have a longer respawn after being killed ... somewhere between 3-5 days. This accomodates the guilds involved in the competitive raiding scene, but what about the rest of the population?
Say hello to the "Ghost Version" (or "GV" for future reference) -- this is something that was done in Vanguard. After an HV raid boss dies, two very important triggers take place. The first is the HV respawn trigger whereas the countdown begins for the 3-5 day respawn window. The second is the GV trigger whereas the raid boss would respawn as a toned down version of the same boss, but with a much shorter respawn timer, perhaps somewhere between 2-4 hours. This is all for the sake of accessibility. There was a lot of time spent designing the encounter so it makes sense to make it as accessible as possible to the community at large.
There are some pretty important distinctions between HV and GV, as I'll outline below:
Hyper Version
Extremely challenging encounter that requires a full, well balanced raid. Each member of the raid should have significant power progression on their character in the form of resists, spell mastery, gear, acclimation, etc. Conquering these beasts should require a great deal of coordination and precision.
Drops -- Can drop 3-5 items, all of them exclusive to the HV loot table.
Respawn -- 3-5 days.
Lockout -- No lockout as the mob already has a long respawn window.
Ghost Version
Same encounter, but toned down a bit. It should still be pretty challenging and have the same resist/spell mastery/gear/acclimation requirements as the HV version, but to a lesser degree. The point of having the GV is to make the encounter as a whole more accessible to the population. It's respawn is much faster, but this version has a lockout to prevent over-farming. It drops great loot and can provide invaluable experience to those who fight it so that when the HV spawns, they have a better understanding of how the base mechanics work and can try to compete for the HV kill.
Drops -- Can drop 3-5 items, with a chance of one item maximum coming from the HV loot table.
Respawn -- 2-4 hours.
Lockout -- 3-5 days, same as the respawn of the HV.
Again, the purpose behind the idea of using the hyper/ghost concept is to maximize efficiency as it pertains to how many people get to enjoy any/all raid content that is developed. Competitive raiding guilds get to enjoy the thrills associated with contested content (HV) -- and everybody else gets to enjoy the time/effort that went into designing the encounter/mechanics with the more accessible ghost version. No time is wasted on designing an encounter that is limited to a small fraction of the community.
Server Impact
What if killing raid bosses had an impact on the world our characters live in? Rather than being limited to shuffling more loot into the world, why couldn't downing a pesky dragon have a noticeable impact on the immediate area nearby? Loot acquisition will always be important as it plays a vital role in power progression for our characters, but wouldn't it be cool if the impact of downing these beasts could actually make a difference in how various NPC's interact with you / each other in the world?
Opportunistic Tradesmen
When an HV raid boss is killed, opportunistic tradesmen seek to grow their fortunes by setting up shop in an area that was otherwise too dangerous while the raid boss was roaming around. These merchants could sell unique crafting components or other desirable goodies that are only accessible while the HV bosses are dead. Other merchants such as repair vendors, ammo vendors, or food/drink vendors could also sell their wares in convenient locations now that the territory is less hostile.
Kings Reach Extended
What if, every time a raid boss is killed in a certain area, there is a sense of "server progression" that takes place in the background? Perhaps there are Kings or Tribal Leaders that are looking to expand their territory and with every HV boss that is vanquished, they get one step closer. Maybe this could turn into a new tavern, inne, or outpost. Perhaps a shortcut is eventually opened up (a bridge built, tunnel excavated, etc) or elements of the faction system are adjusted. After expanding their territory, Tribe X now views kobolds as a pest to their operations, and killing them now grants faction with that tribe whereas before, they didn't.
Perhaps these contested raid bosses drop some sort of building material (rare ore, metal, wood) that is highly sought after by local authorities who are trying to build a teleportation spire in the area. Let's say it requires 100 of these items to build the spire -- the guild who turns in the most can have a monument built in their name, or perhaps they could name the spire itself?
Intensely Social
After a guild kills an obnoxious hill giant known for pillaging fields and slaughtering cattle, word starts to spread of their good deed. Local citizens in a nearby town are more amicable and promote the reputation of the guild who came to save the day. Perhaps the taverns/innes offer a temporary discount to any/all patrons in the area, but their text dialogue now includes a shout out for the guild who killed the hill giant. "Thanks to Guild X, we were able to enjoy a full harvest this month. Please enjoy a 10% discount on our wares."
Likewise, perhaps the king in the area is willing to temporarily reduce certain fees. Whether it's sales tax, property tax, broker fees, passage fees, etc ... perhaps there can be a mildly noticeable decrease to various fees in an area after certain contested raid bosses are killed. The king could put up message boards to announce such an event "Due to Guild X vanquishing Big Bad Red Dragon, we've had many more visitors and our mercantile district is thriving. We are temporarily reducing taxes/fees until further notice."
Coliseum
Doubling down on accessibility, what if, after any guilds kills a certain HV encounter, gnome scientists are able to extract samples and reproduce mechanical versions of the same encounter and allow challengers to do battle with them in their arena, for sport? They wouldn't drop the same loot of course ... but perhaps challengers would be willing to pay a fee to test these hyper versions in a neutral, more accessible location? Killing them could perhaps reward some sort of faction or token that could be exchanged with coliseum vendors to provide some sort of reward. This could be scaled to whatever feels appropriate ... but the point is to make the encounter accessible. Allow guilds to challenge themselves by doing battle with these mechanical constructs. Perhaps there could a leaderboard system of sorts that track various efficiency metrics such as time, death tally, DPS measurables by archetype, etc?
These are just a few ideas on how raiding can evolve in Pantheon. We can take the tried and true methods of the past, but reshape them in a way that make them more accessible and desirable. I firmly believe that there is a prime opportunity to capture the "raid audience" from the MMO genre and lure them to Pantheon. Most of the issues that have plagued the MMO genre over the years really come down to the following variables: "Hardcore vs Casual" / "Forced vs Optional" / "Fun vs Tedious" -- I think an ideal raiding system would include gameplay aspects that could include both hardcore and casual, be truly optional, and reinforce the idea of having fun with friends.
If you have an idea that you would like to share regarding how raiding can evolve to the next level, please feel free to share. If you would like to critique any of the ideas I have shared, that's fine too. Please just keep in mind that this is just a fun idea I am tossing around ... I have zero expectation of anything being adopted by VR. This is for the sake of discussion only ... I am genuinely interested in learning how many people there are out there who might consider getting into raiding if it were more fun and accessible. Pantheon is going to be an intensely social game and for me, coordinating large scale raiding endeavors exemplifies the grandest of stages in teamwork, communication, and sharing the thrill of victory with your comrades.
I don't see how making an easy/hard mode does anything to open up raiding, while still wanting to keep the best stuff and the honest real raid locked up to the hardest of the hardcore. I get that some people get their kicks denying others content, but I don't think that should be encouraged or designed for. It has nothing to do with skill. It's very much like this:
"Here, chew on this piece of wood for a while. We are going to sit at the table and eat prime rib until all of our stomachs are full or new lands are discovered with more appetizing food. When we are done, maybe you can sit at this table and get some ribs...if you can still chew."
Iksar said:I don't see how making an easy/hard mode does anything to open up raiding, while still wanting to keep the best stuff and the honest real raid locked up to the hardest of the hardcore. I get that some people get their kicks denying others content, but I don't think that should be encouraged or designed for. It has nothing to do with skill. It's very much like this:
"Here, chew on this piece of wood for a while. We are going to sit at the table and eat prime rib until all of our stomachs are full or new lands are discovered with more appetizing food. When we are done, maybe you can sit at this table and get some ribs...if you can still chew."
What part of my idea locks up the real honest raid to the hardest of the hardcore? In what way does it deny others from content? The entire post was predicated on making content more accessible. It's an open world game ... killing something shouldn't be labeled as "people getting their kicks denying others content." Also, please see the Coliseum idea. Solid paragraph that touches on the HV encounters being accessible to everybody. I have no idea how your analogy is relevant to anything I posted but I find it pretty hilarious that you thought of something like that. If you can think of any ideas on how to improve raiding in any way, I would love to hear them. Thank you for your feedback.
oneADseven said:What part of my idea locks up the real honest raid to the hardest of the hardcore? In what way does it deny others from content? The entire post was predicated on making content more accessible. It's an open world game ... killing something shouldn't be labeled as "people getting their kicks denying others content." Also, please see the Coliseum idea. Solid paragraph that touches on the HV encounters being accessible to everybody. I have no idea how your analogy is relevant to anything I posted but I find it pretty hilarious that you thought of something like that. If you can think of any ideas on how to improve raiding in any way, I would love to hear them. Thank you for your feedback.
You are still trying to bar the biggest incentive to raid and tie that up only for the hardest of the hardcore, the loot. I'd bet 90% or more of the people who raid aren't there just for the thrill of it or the experience. The analogy is a reference to that, get the other raiders to do the easier common raid for lesser rewards while the hardest of the hardcore dominate the valuable real raid target respawn timers. Once an expansion comes out or all their members are reasonably geared up, they move on and let someone else move in to take the turf. But you better believe those people who have been stuck raiding the lesser version are going to be sick and tired of the fight by then.
One way to improve raiding is getting rid of the elitist mentality. Let the challenge be the barrier between those who are skilled and those who are not, who can earn the loot and who can't. Not some timer. If you actually want accessability for raids, then make them accessable for anyone who wants to throw themselves against the rocks.
As a reply to the original topic I don’t like the idea of changing an encounters difficulty base on the group or raids skill level. It all goes back to sharing experiences with others that do it before and after you. If I brought a room full of old EQ players together and we all started talking about breaking in Fear in vanilla days we could all relate our experiences even though we most likely never raided with each other. What I felt and experiences is the same as what they did. Now say we go back to vanilla EQ and we instance PoF and we let people pick from a list of difficulties that match each guilds skill level. Pulling all those players in today to talk about it would not feel the same. You could never know what the other guy experiences because it may not have been the same.
It’s the same reason people in Dark Souls really resist adding difficulty sliders to the game. If you beat a boss or a zone you can assume your friend who also beat it shard the same experiences, has roughly the same skill and it allows you to share something you did independently.
Like most have said (and what I think will end up being the case) the answer is to make content for each difficulty. The level 50 pirate fortress raid can be a Tier 1 zone which is the most basic raiding can be. The forest giant lair a Tier 1.5, the Wizard King a Tier 2, the Robot Overlord a Tier 2.5 …..
This way that hardcore guild might not find it worth it to even waist time with your Pirate fortress and jump to the Wizard king. The family guild that raids once a month can go to the easy Pirates and have easy raids. They can get a taste for raiding without interfering with the more pro raiders. Now in a year when the hard core raiders are all in Tier 5 the slow family guild moves into the wizard kings raid. When pro raiders at Tier 10 the family guilds in tier 4 and so on. You never have to artificially change any difficulties.
I think raiding should be 25% instancing, specifically the first initial raids so that any guild of any type of player has something to raid to progress. It would also allow them to practice and learn in peace. I think 50% of the raid mobs should be non-instanced but in shards like APW in Vanguard. This would be the majority of raid content and designed raid zones. Much more competitive, but shards should make at least attempting raid encounters a likely event. And, I think the top 25% of raid content, the hardest stuff, should be open world, no shards, just one version of the mob that the best of the best type guilds have to really compete for with a long and random repop timer. That gives them their competition, limits the loot inflation, and provides a carrot for those trying to get BiS on their toons.
To me that makes sense and stretches out the level of difficulty as you attempt more competitive and open raid content. Casual guilds always have something to raid, while the more hardcore can compete against difficult raid encounters in shards where they are likley to always get some targets. And the true hardcore can do their best to kill each other as they compete for the open world raid encounters which could be tuned to be incredibly challenging. Everyone wins. I know others have posted similar thoughts.
Regardless, I'm excited to see what the Devs come up with. I'm finding myself having more and more confidence in them.