Yes, but as was mentioned before we should not aim for a "One raid to rule them all" style content distribution, content should be distributed over a number of raid style events with varying degrees of challenge and time investment required.
FFXI has it done well during the Chains Of Promatia exapnsion pack, all of the content below were available simultaneously and all provided different rewards for different things. Been a good decade since I play it so my memory is a big hazzy but this is the basics of it.
1) Dynamis - 8-64 man raid every 3 days. Most fun raid I have ever had raiding, if a dynamis type raid in Pantheon I am sure it will be popular. Challenging zone with good rewards.
2) Einherjar8-24 man every week. Challenging with hardcore slant
3) Salvage 8-24 man every week. Challenging with casual slant
4) Limbus 8-24 man every week. Casual with bosses that put up a reasonable fight without being too demanding.
5) Nyzule Isle 4 man? This had a system where you got x tokens every day and store them up to a max and use them when you wanted. Casual with bosses that put up a reasonable fight without being too demanding.
6) Besieged 1-300 man? - Very casual. Capital city beseiged by monsters, have to defend the city, straight up good times blowing stuff up with hundreds of people, madness everywhere, a wizards dream.. or nightmare depending. This happened randomly based on open world factors and server resets.
I love to raid, but I don't have the time for it that I once did. If Pantheon implements raiding I hope they do so cautiously. Sometimes companies feel they need to introduce new raid content every time they update. It would be nice to keep the raid content spread out enough so that you couldn't raid everything at once as a guild. Like level 40-50 is a raid structure, then 50-60 is another raid structure. Just so that there doesn't end up being a hundred targets up at once and feeling like you have to raid them all. Instances preferred. I'm more hardcore when it comes to gameplay but I also know I don't have the time to devote like I used to. So an instanced raid environment suits me best.
If they could implement raiding where it only took 1 night a week to stay on top of the gear and raid scene that would be ideal. I just don't have 3 nights a week in me anymore. I have kids and a family
Raid-sized events (i.e. one or two big fights to help others with epic quests, or a random world boss, events that take 4 hours or less) - Yes please
Raid progression (i.e. 4-6 hours of clearing trash mobs to fight a boss only to die repeatedly until its time to start clearing trash mobs again... 7+ hours) - No thanks
edit- This:
Moloka said:If they could implement raiding where it only took 1 night a week to stay on top of the gear and raid scene that would be ideal. I just don't have 3 nights a week in me anymore. I have kids and a family
I think raiding is an important part to an MMO. It gives players something more to strive to, makes you feel like the game isn’t finished. Most players won’t raid 100% of the content, maybe due to competition or just a lack of skill.
What’s important is to have enough raiding content out there that all players can access SOME of it. EQ was bad in this regard, making all players complete for all world targets created a barrier of entry for people wanting to try out raiding and slowly improve their gear. There was little opportunity to practice encounters as even if you got there before the top guilds you’d have 1 chance to try it before you lost the target. I hope that Pantheon implements some methods for players to experience raiding content without fear of being leapfrogged. Don’t misunderstand me, I think a large proportion of the top raid content should be contestable to keep the thrill of winning the engagement for the high end raiders, but entry level content should be open to all.
I enjoy raiding, not sure it is my thing though. Mostly I like progressing my character(s) so if that means I hit a sheer cliff unless I raid I will end up raiding. I'd much prefer more single/double group content where emphasis on individual skill can be made much higher so I am personally more challenged instead of the challenge being more about coordinating large numbers of players and hoping the 30+ other people are paying attention and performing within the margin of error all through the fight.
Yes, but more as something scheduled in advance and not so much via random 24/7 server spawns. Being more responsible and a lot older now, I just cannot react in a 24/7 way to get my raid fix. In general, I really enjoy working in a concerted way with 4-6 full groups of people if not more to achieve challenging objectives.
It seems in a vague way that full group sizes and full raid sizes in various MMO's are like proxy indicators of how solo friendly a game was designed to be. Four man groups and 10 man (a very sincere /golf clap /sneer) raids being indicators of a solo to end game type game. As such, I personally wasn't a huge fan of the raid size mention in the recent stream of 12/24 sizes (raids should be a minimum of 4 full groups in size IMHO).
Yes : When my guild was finally able to do some raid content.
No : Of course it kinda sucked when we were not able to do any raid content. Still, gave a goal
to strive for while we were leveling up/gearing up/making friends + alliances with similar guilds.
I agree with many others about how much available time. Don't need another "job" and the
bs stress that comes along with "raid content" ie: named drops a singular key for one person. Or
the Plane of Power type of "raid content" that required 70 people.
Being part of a high end guild Nexxus of Faith (NoF) in EQ1 there was all sorts of raids. Could always get a group of 6-24 for certain areas and weekly or so we'd go on masive 70+ member raids to kill God's and the like. You never forget the first time you kill the biggest baddest God/Dragon in and area. It usually involved getting wiped many times and having the monks dragging you're corpse back to a safe area. Then when it was your turn to get God loot was pretty special.
Having lots of different level difficulty mobs to kill is essential. The high end players in big high end guilds need to be challanged with mobs that will wipe them no matter how good they are if they make mistakes. You also need lower level mobs for smaller guilds to raid on.
Thats my thoughts anyway.
Geea.
YES! Raiding is the real hook for me, and the reason I put all the time in to max level my characters!!! because it's a community event! man I remember my first raid to PoF on Bertox server, what a nightmare, but what fun.
EQ's raids were simply the best, I remember those big 60 70 man raids, lots of the bigger guilds on Emarr when I changed to that server even set up community raids for everyone. Those were the days man.
Drauk4131 said:EQ's raids were simply the best, I remember those big 60 70 man raids, lots of the bigger guilds on Emarr when I changed to that server even set up community raids for everyone. Those were the days man.
I had so much fun raiding in Everquest back in the day. Getting 90-100 people to stay focused and on point and everyone doing a job for 15 minutes straight without fault and without voice chat was just an amazing task in and of itself. Let alone raiding something like the Avatar of War. I had so much fun raiding in Everquest through the years, AoW, Aten Ha Ra, Emperor Ssraezha, Rallos Zek, Qwarm, Noqufiel, Tunat Muram, Vishimitar, All the way to The Serpent Spine expansion. Those memories will never be replaced though. Nothing can capture that for me again unfortunately. I still go back and watch the video our guild leader made through the years and it almost brings back tears. So many memories and friendships made over the years. Sitting in a guild group grinding for hours and hours without a care in the world. Good times.
If I could duplicate it I surely would, but nothing has even come close and I've tried many times.