shasta said:Castwell said:shasta said:I love to solo most of the time but when that gets boring it’s nice to be able to group up for exp and or items. When it comes to raids, I hope they don’t put a limit on the members that can Be on the raid. I don’t really care if it’s zerged or not because that requires a mass of people to possibley come together, listen and do their job, and defeat the raid mob. That also doesn’t leave anyone out of the raid and experience because there is some magical barrier that prevents more than X amount of people to enter an area. I think that is silly. In a truely open world, it shouldn’t matter if you have 25 people or 100 people going against a particular mob.
Raids almost have to be capped on size for tuning reasons. Plus, zerging isn't a strategy, and doesn't do anything bu dillute the reason to raid.
If you can't find a raiding guild that can do the content within a set size, then I guess you don't get the same gear/reward as those that put in the time and effort. After all, the rule is "Risk vs Reward" and saying 100 people vs 25 people should be same is silly.
As a side note, I raided in EQ when raids required 100+ folks and if I never have to endure that kind of cluster f* again, I'm good!
so you are saying 100+ was a cluster? Meaning hard? zerging doesn’t dilute when that many people are possibly required to defeat the encounter. It requires mature people can actually listen and follow directions. And like I said in an open world, there should be no imaginary player limit. This isn’t WoW.
Agreed, no artificial caps on raid sizes! While zerging/zombieing may occur, there is a definate downside in bringing so many people, namely loot distrubution. I'm of the mindset that I like to be as efficient as possible. I enjoy tackling content with less people then content is desinged for, so if an event was designed for 24 people, I'd like to see if I could complete with say 20 people, or even less. If another guild wants to show up with 50 bodies and steam roll it, thats on them. I'm sure there are others who share this mindset.
Such a loaded question! I'd say to definitely have more 6 man grouping dungeons/challenges (not just simple farming camps though, real flagging areas with phases like the trials at PoJ etc that will ultimately lead up to something big). If there is a healthy amount of this, it will keep the community more active/engaged, as opposed to being top heavy and having nothing to do until raid night if design went in that direction.
With that said, there is so much more you can do with 24+ raids (a lot of math and bellcurves work out much nicely with a high sample size raid force, which is why we see a lot of epic 1% wipes etc). There also is absolutely no comparison in the feeling of achievement and victory that a massive raid brings. Like Brad commonly points out, we are just wired (as a tribal species) to thrive and find more reward from working with groups of people to accompish a common goal; it just always feels better than doing it alone, and the bigger the better in my experience. I'd like to see a max raid of 40 or so (70+ is too much to actively procure and 24 feels too little).
My personal take on the best Pantheon system:
-more 6 man content than anything
-followed by 18-24 man content (nice number for those who need to PUG while still keeping the epicness of numbers and giving a break from the 6 man grind we are used to and could be another flagging/stepping stone on the way to 42)
-a few 42 man raids next for the primary source of action for guilds on raid nights
-last I would love to see just one sleeper-esque script that requires a 70+ force (and for any of you that read the lore, unless Khavas or another high mortal is fighting with us, it would feel like a huge departure from lore if we were able to defeat TelNarssis or another dragon/demigod with a force less than 70)
I've always enjoyed trying to find strategies with my husband to duo content that isn't meant to be duo. It may not be the most efficient or profitable way to move forward in the game but it's always been very enjoyable for us. We have been looking for opportunities to do this since 1999, I hope Pantheon will offer us even greater challenges.
Can I have my cake and eat it, too?
I really like group play, so I want a lot of 3-6 person dungeons. BUT, I also really like raids, so I want a bunch of multi-group content as well! So I think there actually needs to be a balance between these two kinds of content. And then finally, I think there does need to be some soloable content - not very much, but enought that people can have something to do on those days when their friends simply aren't online.
group > solo > raid
Group, my foundest memories are of fun groups and friends online, and I've felt like 5 people is the right number, but duo and trio can be a lot of fun to if you can make it work.
Solo, I think a person should be able to solo to maybe 3/4th of the max level. Not easily, but possible if they are careful. A single person should not be able to solo a dungeon unless its truely a single person dungeon.
Raid, I would love to raid again, especially in a big 50+ person raid, but i don't think i have the time anymore and i know i don't have a schedule to do it consistantly. If raids fit into the same time frame of a 2 hour game play session that pantheon once said it was looking to achieve then i'd be thrilled, even if it meant 2 hours to organize, travel to, and kill a single boss.
3-6 person group content.
I'm all for more group content, and the idea of content which is balanced so it doesn't require a full/optimal group of 6 characters is great. Having sufficient content to support multiple "paths" to max level spread out around the game world is important.
I'd also like to see a bit of "small raid" content as a bridge between group content and raid content - tuned for 2-3 groups max, not requiring an army. For me, that's the sweet spot for enjoyable raiding.
I prefer a good mixture of all the three.
Sometimes I don’t have the time to group with others, so I prefer solo content.
Sometimes I have more time and I like to have the epic feeling of defeating a raid boss.
And in between dungeons for smaller groups are a lot of fun too.
I like to solo when there's nobody on or everyones in groups. So there should be enough soloable content to fill in when things are slow. But as far as group to raid content goes, I think the balance between the two should be determined by the number of high-risk group content there is. And the amount of high-risk group content should determine the rate at which players progress to raid readiness. And that rate of readiness should determine how much raid content there is or (if there isn't much) the difficulty of raid content.
My preference is more high-risk group content for day to day, and a modest amount of extremely difficult raid content for evening and weekends. So probably 15% solo, 70% grouping and 15% raiding.
I really want a group focused MMO, I am sick of the end game being mostly raids. I want some brutally challenging, fine tuned group content and multi-group content. Raiding should be big enough and have a fair share of great items, but no more than 30-40% of BiS (best in slot/best in situation) items should come from it for any given class.
For me it looks like this:
Group (5-6 person): 70%
Groups (2 full groups, 12 man): 10%
Raids: 15%
Solo: 5%
More group content! Because raids are like giant parties where you barely know 90% of the people there and sometimes you end up being a wallflower and that's just depressing. It's very easy to get frustrated on raids if it doesn't go the way you want it, + lower chance at loot etc etc.
I think raids should be special and rare, rather than the 24/7 thing a subset of the gamer community has turned it into.
Iksar said:
I want some brutally challenging, fine tuned group content and multi-group content.
I would sugest adding stuff like Breakdown in Communication (allakhazam), though solo completable the hard\long way
Early on I would choose 3-6 to help grouping/socializing/guild building/class learningand role learning
Why?- doing the 3 to 6 early on helps build the foundation for what you need once you start raiding. Early in a new Niche MMO I would assume finding 24+ to raid with will take more time sink and effort then 3-6 as you level.
Xan
My biggest concern is that the solo content would be a tedious quest. Even though Everquest was my favorite game, I hate questing. Run here, run there, run back there. That's so boring.
Any content where I group up with other players who have their own unique skills and abilities is what I want. Any 3-6 person dungeon or 24+ person raid is what I want!
3-6 man dungeons.
Anti Reasons:
Solo content - I feel that solo content dungeons goes against the founding roots of why Patheon is being built. Because the world will not be instanced, I could see small groups pushing through the solo content dungeons with ease, thus causing grief with the solo player. Solo content should be more overland instead of dungeons.
Raids - I would say that it partly depends on anticipated server populations. Let's say that any given night you could have 10 high end guilds running raids, (using U.S. timezones as part of the example) you could have EST and CST conflicting, etc. Perhaps fewer raid content at first and then ramping up as server populations mature and stabilize. In Vanguard I thought that the idea of the Ancient Port Warehouse was pretty good: multiple instances and blackout periods. Perhaps having a few of these types as a base for raid content.
Overall, I feel that 3-6 man dungeons should be the "bones" of Patheon. These 3-6 man dungeons would act as training grounds, helping members to learn, introducing new members socially and other groups and/or guilds rubbing shoulders and a little friction in the dungeon environment. Perhaps, generally, 3 man groups go to the right of the dungeon enterence and >3 go to the left, just an example.
In the past this is how a raiding day would go:
Hour 1: Solo a few overland mobs and test out my new UI if need be or gathering and crafting until others logged on.
Hour 2: A few guldies are on, so we decide to hit some group content near the raid zone area for an hour or so.
Hour 3: Raid for 2 to 3 hours.
Non raiding days:
Hour 1: Solo a few overland mobs and test out my new UI if need be or gathering and crafting.
Hour 2: Group and do a dungeon crawl for 2 to 3 hours.
Rest of the time would be organizing for the next day's raid.
Not everybody raids and soloing dungeons could cause more grief than they are worth, but 3-6 man dungeons are some of the best times that I have had. You have a group of people that are committed and ready to just crawl deeper and deeper into a dungeon for a few hours. You get into a thythm and just have a blast getting to the final stage of the dungeon!
I realize that any statement from the above can have checks and balances, i.e. no exp for 2 or more peeps beating on a mob in a dungeon, etc. But it seems that these MMO's get out of wack the most when soloers complain that they do not have enough content and development resources get diverted or pvpers feel that a certain class is overpowered, again resources get diverted or the perception is that the necro should be able to solo, but as the player levels up they become interested in grouping and raiding and now they want their necro to be usable in all situations, so now you have balancing issues and diverted resources. Again this is an example.
3-6 person. There are always ways to solo, as has been pointed out. Small group content is where meaningful social interaction can happen, much more so than large group raids that tend to require more structure and less 'chit-chat' to succeed. I'd like there to be so many small groups happening that I can go wandering anywhere and encounter groups that aren't full and would like another member. That to me would be the best possible game environment.
Solo for the times when you dont have that much time would be great. Small and large group content definatly should be the bulk of the game. Raiing is a headache above a normal 2 group in my opinion. Though i do like the "EQII" raids that consisted of some X2 (12) and x4 (24) mobs.
Solo is viable at each level but no where near as effecient as grouping.
a dash of raiding with a mix of difficulty or having some tough dungeons for high end grouping.
I notice a lot of people saying that large raid environments don't really allow players to socialize due to the focus on strategy/performance during raids. While this is true, one thing to be considered is that many guilds are formed around the idea of being able to raid together. While there might not be a lot of chit chat going on during the raids, the players still have large goals that can pull them together. While not raiding, they have a nice community of players to draw from when it comes to doing some of the group content. In my opinion, having a decent amount of raid options available actually helps keep these communities of players together. If one of your "regular" group mates isn't available, you have plenty of other friends that can fill in. I have never been a fan of small talk while playing an MMO ... I care far more about building meaningful relationships with people, and those take time. Guilds are the best platform to make that happen and without raids, it's very difficult for guilds to unite together for a greater cause than your standard every day group sessions.