oneADseven said:
In my examples, the only way making it "more accessible" was ever touched on was regarding the hyper/ghost concept where each unique encounter would be available to more players. I never mentioned the encounters taking less time or anything to do with getting a raid sized group together more quickly or have it at a place that is more convenient to gather. Not looking to streamline anything. Again, for the sake of clarity, the idea is to be as efficient as possible with all content that is created. I don't think it should be a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul (Peter being extremely challenging content while Paul is just plain ol' challenging.) There should be a diverse, variegated assortment of raid content for guilds to play through and having multiple difficulty settings is just a way to make the most out of every unique encounter that is designed. In the future, let's say a new raid boss is implemented in a patch. Should it be a matter of choosing whether or not that mob is extremely difficult or very difficult, thus limiting the amount of players that can experience it? Why not provide both options for maximum effect and allow more people to enjoy the content that the development team worked so hard to create?
Which then goes right back to my original premise, which was that there are few people who raid not because the mobs arent up, but because they dont want to. Their reasons are many, but the fact that no raids are available at a given moment is about last on the list.
torveld said:I am someone who enjoys raiding quite a bit in most games. The fun of raiding to me is teaming with friends and guildmates to beat a tough encounter together and reap whatever rewards from that. What is less fun to me is to compete for the opportunitty to kill such creatures. The challenge should be in the difficulty of the encounter, not competing against other players for the chance to complete that encounter in my opinion, at least on pve servers. I thought vanguard's lockouts were pretty good, I am against different tiers of difficulty of the same encounter though.
As a side note to what oneADseven was saying about favorite raids, yeah I agree APW was one of my favorite. I thought that plane of sky on EQOA or even Solusek were a bit more fun overall than isle of dread. I got bad memories of terror and megaladon though.
Understand your point completely but if there is only one universal difficulty setting for each encounter, and assuming that raid content does indeed only make up 5% of the game and also has multiple tiers (hard/medium/easy) that sounds like an extremely limited supply of high end raid content. That is a concern for me. I understand that the majority of the game will be made up of group content and I'm perfectly fine with that. I just want to make sure that raid content isn't treated like the red headed step child. It's a core aspect of the MMO genre and I haven't heard a single thing from VR on how they plan on evolving the raid scene. In fact, I've heard the opposite ... it's been repeated, as many have said, that raiding will not be a major focus of the game. So be it ... but please let's make every effort possible to make that very limited supply of content as accessible as possible. If I'm sitting around bored after 2 months because of a lack of raid content, and a new raid mob/zone is introduced, I would be pretty bummed if it's an "entry level raid mob/zone." I don't want the raid scene to be a matter of "Too much hard content, not enough easy! Too much easy content, not enough hard!" Why not balance things from the beginning so that all unique encounters can be thoroughly enjoyed by multiple playstyles? That's the idea behind the hyper/ghost concept ... squeeze every ounce of use we can from the apparently limited supply of raid juice.
I'm going to love Pantheon either way. I enjoyed the stream very, very much. It's exactly the kind of game that I am looking for. It reminds me a lot of Vanguard. Vanguard had some issues, though, particularly with raiding at the beginning of the game. There just wasn't enough content. If Pantheon is going to be exponentially bigger than Vanguard and that 5% is enough to keep us fairly busy, that would be fine. If it's a single zone that we blow through in one night ... that would be disappointing. For everybody out there who views "grouping" as your primary style of gameplay, it's pretty obvious you have nothing to worry about. I plan on doing a ton of group content myself and having a ton of fun doing it. But I also have the desire to raid ... it's my favorite aspect of MMO gaming. It's obvious that raiding is on the back-burner as far as VR is concerned and this post is my attempt to shed some light on the fact that the raid scene is a wonderful opportunity sitting on their door step. It doesen't need to be a primary focus to be awesome. I just want to make sure it receives proper attention in the grand scheme of things. I think there is enough interest in raiding to warrant at least one full time developer that works exclusively on raid content.
Feyshtey said:oneADseven said:
In my examples, the only way making it "more accessible" was ever touched on was regarding the hyper/ghost concept where each unique encounter would be available to more players. I never mentioned the encounters taking less time or anything to do with getting a raid sized group together more quickly or have it at a place that is more convenient to gather. Not looking to streamline anything. Again, for the sake of clarity, the idea is to be as efficient as possible with all content that is created. I don't think it should be a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul (Peter being extremely challenging content while Paul is just plain ol' challenging.) There should be a diverse, variegated assortment of raid content for guilds to play through and having multiple difficulty settings is just a way to make the most out of every unique encounter that is designed. In the future, let's say a new raid boss is implemented in a patch. Should it be a matter of choosing whether or not that mob is extremely difficult or very difficult, thus limiting the amount of players that can experience it? Why not provide both options for maximum effect and allow more people to enjoy the content that the development team worked so hard to create?
Which then goes right back to my original premise, which was that there are few people who raid not because the mobs arent up, but because they dont want to. Their reasons are many, but the fact that no raids are available at a given moment is about last on the list.
Then you are getting off topic because that's never been an issue that I was trying to touch on. I'm not trying to conform the entire population into raiding. I'm talking about making the existing content as accessible as possible to all people who have an interest. This in turn could have a side effect of making raiding more desirable as a whole. Of course raiding is going to turn a ton of people off when it's purely contested ... a few guilds will lock down all of the content and make it impossible to compete with them. If raiding were more accessible, across the board, and more "user friendly" for entry level folks ... you never know, more people might get into it. It's impossible to tell when everything is contested and gets dropped within an hour or two of spawning. Also, please consider all of the other concepts that I mentioned. If your argument is that people who like raiding like it, and those who don't like it never will, I disagree. I think there should be a legitimate effort to try and attract more people into the raiding atmosphere. I'm not saying it's going to be an amazing success ... but let's not be a buzzkill and shoot the messenger. Raiding is a ton of fun and I don't see any reason why VR shouldn't be using it as a way to attract more folks to the game. Raiding will exist in Pantheon ... we know that. Can we spice things up a little bit and talk about what's going to make it fun and exciting? Can it not be a factor in "The Pantheon Difference?"
Sunmistress said:oneADseven said:Sunmistress said:Did you consider perhaps the reason folks don't raid is because they do not care to?
EZmode will devalue other content imho.
Not once did I ever mention anything being "EZmode" -- in fact, I specifically said the ghost version "should still be pretty challenging."
I don't think you are really addressing the fact that raiding is available/accessible in other games and there is a reason the majority of a player base does not participate.
I addressed your specific comment on how you said "EZmode will devalue other content imho" -- there was no basis for that remark. Fact of the matter is this ... when Blizzard implemented the "LFR" mechanism, 75% of their player population had cleared some raid content. When you make a legitimate effort to making raiding more accessible to the population at large, it's quite possible that more and more people might show some interest and take a crack at it. I would never in a million years recommend anything like LFR in Pantheon. I don't want to see the process streamlined. I just want to see it talked about in a positive light. When you go to a baseball game, you don't go there for the hot dogs ... but they damn sure tell you how awesome they are don't they?
I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why people don't raid. Would you like to elaborate on some of them? Of all the reasons that people don't like raiding, how many of them are due to game mechanics? If someone is dead set on not raiding, more power to them! They can do as they please with their time and I hope they enjoy it to the fullest. But what about folks who have a negative perception on raiding because of all the crap that's been associated with it over the last 15+ years? Raiding has had some major issues over the years and Vanguard alleviated some of them with their ghost sytem. I think they should follow up on that and continue to improve the aspect of raiding gameplay as much as possible. I hated ketchup when I was a kid ... I like it now. Our tastes can change from time to time. I never enjoyed crafting or lore either ... then I started doing some research on the lore in this game and I found out it's absolutely something I will enjoy. I don't know enough about crafting yet to make a final determination, but based on what I have heard so far, it sounds like something that I will want to try.
I would love to see some data on how it's been determined that only 10% of the population cares about raiding. I think there are far more people interested in it than that. There is no way to truly know how many people care about raiding in Pantheon unless you ask them. If it were up to me, I would send an e-mail to every registered person on this forum (they had to spend at least $5 so their vote should count for something) that contains a link to a poll where they can choose their interest level in raiding on a scale of 1-10. I could be totally wrong on all of this, of course, and that's fine. I'm not claiming to be an expert. I do think, however, that there is a golden opportunity when it comes to raiding in Pantheon and that every effort possible should be used to capitalize on it. When I read the tenets, features, and Pantheon Difference pages on this website ... there is a huge emphasis on cooperative gameplay. If there is going to be a red headed step child, it should be solo gameplay, not raiding.
Again, I am not trying to conform everybody into wanting to raid. I totally understand and appreciate that there are plenty of folks out there who just can't get into this sort of thing. But what about the folks who are on the fence? What about a solid win-back strategy for the people that didn't enjoy raiding in games of the past due to X, Y, or Z ... but maybe Pantheon will have something that might respark their interest? What about someone new to the genre that knows nothing about raiding? Even if raiding is going to comprise of 5% of the game, that should still be a significant chunk of gameplay. We haven't really heard a peep about raiding yet as it's something that likely won't be tested until the later stages of alpha/beta. As someone who will be deeply vested into that aspect of the game, I enjoy stirring up conversations that are related to it. If you don't like raiding, more power to you. It will only be a small part of the game as has been repeated many times now ... so move along please, nothing to see here. I would like to bounce ideas off of other folks who actually have an interest in it ... would love to hear some positive input on the topic rather than buzzkill blah bleh blah.
oneADseven said:I addressed your specific comment on how you said "EZmode will devalue other content imho" -- there was no basis for that remark. Fact of the matter is this ... when Blizzard implemented the "LFR" mechanism, 75% of their player population had cleared some raid content. When you make a legitimate effort to making raiding more accessible to the population at large, it's quite possible that more and more people might show some interest and take a crack at it.
It's not that they'd be more interested. They'd just be taking the quickest path to better loot.
Making things more accessible is not the solution.
Most players play the game to proggress, since only a small portion of the best loot will come from raiding the majority of the population will not take part, because the time/effort vs rewards is to small.
I raid for the challange and group play, but majority of players raids for the lootzzz and epics, making raids more accessible will not change the fact players will take the most effective path to progress their characters, and raiding will not be one of them. So let raiding be what it is a fun challange that requires a lot of dedication and guild effort to complete. And make raiding really, really hard, since it doesn't have all the best gear.
jpedrote said:Making things more accessible is not the solution.
Most players play the game to proggress, since only a small portion of the best loot will come from raiding the majority of the population will not take part, because the time/effort vs rewards is to small.
I disagree. Raiders and other progression-based folk play to progress. That is less than half the population. The rest play to just enjoy the game.
Give them some entry level raid material and maybe they will try their hand at raiding and join the other half.
jpedrote said:Making things more accessible is not the solution.
Most players play the game to proggress, since only a small portion of the best loot will come from raiding the majority of the population will not take part, because the time/effort vs rewards is to small.
I raid for the challange and group play, but majority of players raids for the lootzzz and epics, making raids more accessible will not change the fact players will take the most effective path to progress their characters, and raiding will not be one of them. So let raiding be what it is a fun challange that requires a lot of dedication and guild effort to complete. And make raiding really, really hard, since it doesn't have all the best gear.
You also have to think about the raiders who have jobs and family to take care of and want to raid as well, not everyone just sits on a target for hours on end waiting for him to spawn so you have to have something in place that makes this possible for them to enjoy that kind of content as well, reason why i brought up fast respawn/lockout timers to prevent top teir hardcore raiders from always keeping targets down, but the diffculty and everything can be there becuase that totally makes sense i wouldn't want to have a easy raid anyway. But if you have them on 3-5 day respawns than the people who have no job, or anything to worry about but sit on a raid location for hours and poop sock it and than notifies their guild and get there and kill it makes it a little unenjoyable for the people who work and such and never have a chance to experience the raid encounters might find something else to do that will allow them to raid when they can.
Alright you asked me for specific examples of reasons, I'll give the reasons I got/get from my group of friends that are planning on joining Pantheon with me.
"I don't have the time"
"I don't feel like doing batphones anymore"
"I doubt I will care that much about a new game"
"I hate dealing with those people"
"Why?"
Me I plan on raiding, because I have nothing better to do and I usually play these games more than I should hours/day wise, but I don't think hardselling it is going to make more people eager.
Also as far as accessible, I think There will naturally be tiers of difficulty much like there was in EQ, going any further than that is just handing out free raid gear.
I guess on the plus side that would create content for the elite players to 1 group for their alts/boxes/whatever. As far as what WOW did with LFR, how many of that # has cleared a Mythic+ dungeon, people enjoy the path of least effort/resistance.
Riahuf22 said:You also have to think about the raiders who have jobs and family to take care of and want to raid as well, not everyone just sits on a target for hours on end waiting for him to spawn so you have to have something in place that makes this possible for them to enjoy that kind of content as well, reason why i brought up fast respawn/lockout timers to prevent top teir hardcore raiders from always keeping targets down, but the diffculty and everything can be there becuase that totally makes sense i wouldn't want to have a easy raid anyway. But if you have them on 3-5 day respawns than the people who have no job, or anything to worry about but sit on a raid location for hours and poop sock it and than notifies their guild and get there and kill it makes it a little unenjoyable for the people who work and such and never have a chance to experience the raid encounters might find something else to do that will allow them to raid when they can.
I was mainly talking about player motivation to participate in raids, not so much about difficulty or respawm timers (wich i agree with you on both things, raids should be 1 difficulty and respawn in general shouldn't be absurdly long)
But it's a fact that the majority of the players in proggression based game, take the path of least resistance, and will do the content that gives them the best proggression the fastest way possible.
jpedrote said:Riahuf22 said:You also have to think about the raiders who have jobs and family to take care of and want to raid as well, not everyone just sits on a target for hours on end waiting for him to spawn so you have to have something in place that makes this possible for them to enjoy that kind of content as well, reason why i brought up fast respawn/lockout timers to prevent top teir hardcore raiders from always keeping targets down, but the diffculty and everything can be there becuase that totally makes sense i wouldn't want to have a easy raid anyway. But if you have them on 3-5 day respawns than the people who have no job, or anything to worry about but sit on a raid location for hours and poop sock it and than notifies their guild and get there and kill it makes it a little unenjoyable for the people who work and such and never have a chance to experience the raid encounters might find something else to do that will allow them to raid when they can.
I was mainly talking about player motivation to participate in raids, not so much about difficulty or respawm timers (wich i agree with you on both things, raids should be 1 difficulty and respawn in general shouldn't be absurdly long)
But it's a fact that the majority of the players in proggression based game, take the path of least resistance, and will do the content that gives them the best proggression the fastest way possible.
I understand this, can like you said or someone did that grp content will drop likely most of the BiS gear, but id say you mgiht have to have some of these BiS gear to even think to attempt the raid without getting stomped on at least the tanks and healers anyway, (since they are the most gear dependent characters), especially the tanks for sure, and i was thinking that the raid encounter could also drop like "broken gear" and you had to do group content in certain areas to "repair" the item and bring it back to it glory days i guess you could say. this would for one bring raiding have a little bit of meaning and would also make grouping still the main centric portion of the game that the devs are trying to influence.
Beefcake said:I disagree. Raiders and other progression-based folk play to progress. That is less than half the population. The rest play to just enjoy the game.
Give them some entry level raid material and maybe they will try their hand at raiding and join the other half.
A large part of players plays to enjoy the game yes, but lets not forget that they still need gear to proggress, if they have the option to do a dungeon (wich is a lot easier to set up, only requires 5 other players) or a raid (wich requires 40-60 other players) guess what they'll choose to do if the rewards are good in both of them. The dungeon ofc, it takes considerably less time to set up, and the difficulty is not has high (less players to coordinate). That's why I'm saying raid participation will not increase by making raiding more accessible if the rewards for time put in are not there.
About the entry level raids, I actully posted that suggestion on this thread https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/6058/will-raiding-be-progression-for-the-late-levels/view/page/2
I think entry level raids are awesome for the community :)
Riahuf22 said:I understand this, can like you said or someone did that grp content will drop likely most of the BiS gear, but id say you mgiht have to have some of these BiS gear to even think to attempt the raid without getting stomped on at least the tanks and healers anyway, (since they are the most gear dependent characters), especially the tanks for sure, and i was thinking that the raid encounter could also drop like "broken gear" and you had to do group content in certain areas to "repair" the item and bring it back to it glory days i guess you could say. this would for one bring raiding have a little bit of meaning and would also make grouping still the main centric portion of the game that the devs are trying to influence.
yes something like that would be cool, or having blacksmiths in various different dungeons that repair certain pieces of armor, or upgrade raid items further.
I think VR as a solid idea, their are spreading the best items trough all the different content, crafting, dungeons, raids, epics quests, that way players that are able to complete them all will be really powerfull, but if a player can't do all those things (mainly raiding/epic quest) he will still have almost all of the best gear in the game.
jpedrote said:Beefcake said:I disagree. Raiders and other progression-based folk play to progress. That is less than half the population. The rest play to just enjoy the game.
Give them some entry level raid material and maybe they will try their hand at raiding and join the other half.
A large part of players plays to enjoy the game yes, but lets not forget that they still need gear to proggress, if they have the option to do a dungeon (wich is a lot easier to set up, only requires 5 other players) or a raid (wich requires 40-60 other players) guess what they'll choose to do if the rewards are good in both of them. The dungeon ofc, it takes considerably less time to set up, and the difficulty is not has high (less players to coordinate). That's why I'm saying raid participation will not increase by making raiding more accessible if the rewards for time put in are not there.
About the entry level raids, I actully posted that suggestion on this thread https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/6058/will-raiding-be-progression-for-the-late-levels/view/page/2
I think entry level raids are awesome for the community :)
As a whole, you are probably right. People will usually choose the groups. The key is to get them OCCASIONALLY raiding. Without some entry level raids, they won't ever get the chance to try raiding.
I agree 100% Zain. End-game should be a combination of many different aspects of gameplay. I acknowledge that grouping endeavors will make up the majority of end-game content ... just really interested to see if there is any plan/desire to evolve the raiding scene at all. Haven't really heard much of anything about raiding other than saying it will be limited as it's not a primary focus for the game.
A couple of points here...
I'm not sure exactly where the "10% raid, 90% group" content figures came from, but 10% is honestly a huge amount of raiding, if you step back and think about it. I like to raid, and I'd be happy with 10%. Besides, I was always of the mentality that I would even do pickup groups outside my own guild, just to meet new people. Oh, and how the hell else would you show off your raid gear? Your guildies are no longer impressed! LOL
If raiding were to be subjugated somehow to less than that, however...I'd worry about the future of guilds. In my experience (just mine maybe), raiding is what holds guilds together. Without raids, a guild is really no bigger than the 5 other people you group with every night. Even a raid just once a month can give people a better sense of community and belonging. I remember EQ before raids became serious. The turnover in my guilds was incredible. Yes, there is still turnover with raiding, but things like DKP, while seen by many as just a means of assigning loot, give an incentive to staying together (like kids in a failed marriage LOL).
I LOVE the idea of raid bosses spawning and being taken out having an effect on the surrounding zones and economy. Kind of gives you the vibe of "yeah, something needs to be done about....". For instance, if the dragon has returned to the mountain...there would be fiery attacks on the local hamlets periodically. Talk about immersion. If you happened to be there when one happened, you'd definitely feel like you were just involved in something big, without even participating in an actual raid.
I'm a bard at heart, so grouping (even with strangers!) will always be near and dear to me, but GIVE ME RAIDS, OR GIVE ME DEATH! (well, raids give me lots of death too, but I digress....)
oneADseven said:I agree 100% Zain. End-game should be a combination of many different aspects of gameplay. I acknowledge that grouping endeavors will make up the majority of end-game content ... just really interested to see if there is any plan/desire to evolve the raiding scene at all. Haven't really heard much of anything about raiding other than saying it will be limited as it's not a primary focus for the game.
I'm going to be super open here.
I have no immediate heartburn with your desire to see raiding evolve. I also want to see things evolve. I don't even have much negative to say about your ideas, though not all of them may work for this crowd, or this game, they are all well thought out. The problem is, the idea that if we just put it out there, they'll do it and more % will raid. That's a half-truth probably as I see it. Many more would consider it, if the mob was organic. A rare spawn named that takes more than a group (or supremely challenges a single group!) will cause us to mob up together. The time committment isn't it in and of itself for many - it's the idea that if something pops up or I say I'm hard-stopping at 11pm because real life, I'm screwing 20-50 of my friends out of the only way to progress in the end game (I'm speaking of traditional, end game progression raiding here, which is why I'm against it. I realize that's not *necessarily* what you want, but I think if we're being honest, you want progression raiding, but you want others to experience raiding as well even if not at the top level)
I view combat climate/effects as innovations to 'stay out of the poop' and 'bags o' resist gear.' I view pushing raiding away from being the only progression and fun in the end game as an evolution in and of itself. I love raiding. I spent the last decade and a half raiding. I will be doing it, to be sure, but I'm tired of eeking out multi-group play, organization, and the inevitable issues with personalities, timelines, real life, etc. and knowing that if I don't succeed tonight, and push that extra 12 minutes of raid time to down that next mob for even a chance at the 2 good items (it) drops for maybe 2 of 20-50 players --- if that doesn't happen? We didn't progress. It was our only choice. I'll be a vocal proponent of raid evolution as you suggest, but I will also champion group play as the primary way to succeed.
That being said, where my ideas merge with yours is thus: Raiding should be organic to play. I think someone, maybe in this thread, said it better than I can, but raiding for epic quests, raiding for continent-wide public events, raiding to join up with another group and take down the Orc Warlord in his throne room after clearing opposite sides of a dungeon and waving hello, or even the occasional multi-group dungeon when it makes sense for that to happen is the best possible solution. They (VR) want social game play, and they know we've gotten older and have lives and people counting on us to be our best during the day. I'm not pushing those extra minutes anymore. I'm hard stopping at a certain point. Many -hardcore- folks will keep going as they have the time, or inclination to push themselves. BUT, if it, as you said, confronts us, and we look over and see another group there that we have camped near all night killing different stuff, but together we have spawned something we cannot beat unless we join up and beat it down, now that's social. Guild events like traditional raiding still have a place for sure though. I don't want them to go away at all.
jpedrote said:@oneADseven
I asked something similar to Kilsin (don't remember the post), his reponse about the same encounter having varying difficulties was a no, there will be one difficulty and that's it, but they'll create content for all types of players.
edit: found the post, https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5495/optional-hardmode-encounters first comment by Kilsin.
Thank you! :)
As jp kindly pointed out, we have a very similar thread on this already and I would appreciate it if everyone could please use existing threads to continue the conversation as consolidated information is much easier for me to collect. I wouldn't want n idea or great feedback to be missed cause it was spread out so thin across so many posts which is why I am so strict on closing these similar/duplicate threads.
So for that reason, I will need to close this one too, it is not personal it is actually making sure your idea gets looked at, so please understand why it is so important to continue active threads and not create new ones on these development forums.