I hope the design/mechanics are punishing to guilds who simply throw large numbers at an encounter and eventually smother the mob with their corpses.
Regardless of the encounter size, raid success should favour guilds who are strategic. If the encounter requires 75 people, that should mean there's a lot of jobs to do, not simply 75 people wailing on a big dragon. A truly epic fight would be taking down that 75 man dragon with 50 skilled and geared people. The 75 man raid would need to have more complexity : people defending bridges, defending switches, handling waves of adds or whatever while the main part of the raid wears down the boss.
As an aside, what implications are there for the in-game raid tool UI if Pantheon is expected to support very large raid sizes?
I would have to say a good number would be between 30 and 36 despite my experience with it. I have done a few raids in WoW at 25-man, even then I felt useless in all of them. I did most of these for just the experience of doing raids and possibly on even a higher amount of people. Thankfully for me, my guild leader was a sweetheart and tried to give me as much info as she could, on top of my husband who did raids in both WoW and EQ. I didn't go for gear or items even, I just went to go and see what it was like. Let me tell you, if I had of gotten a piece of gear, I would have declined just based on the fact that I felt like I had done absolutely nothing. I didn't feel like my damaged mattered, no matter what character I was on, I didn't feel my healing mattered on either of my healers, it didn't matter. when the raids are way too big, it can leave a person feeling as though there time there didn't matter and that the raid could have carried on without them.
No one likes to feel like they just went along for the ride, especially when it comes to raids and things that people make to be bigger events than they really are. Even if not everyone is going to get gear, you still don't want people to feel like they were a waste of a slot and despite my guild leader telling me I did fantastic for my first few raids, I still felt as though I took up a slot that I didn't need to. You want people to feel that they matter in these raids, especially if they aren't going to get anything. You want people to keep raiding and enjoying them, but I don't think people will if they get into a massively huge group and feel like a drop in the bucket. Even with my experience, I would say that we could have just a few more people, but nothing else really. Once it starts to get to be too many people, you will have people that will have the expereince of raiding ruined for them just by the sheer number.
It's amazing that people think 100+ zerglings arm flailing at a loot pinata is not somehow the epitome of casual raiding. Unless you're a CH rot Cleric or a MT, you could literally go afk and have the same effect in a raid that large.
Whilst I agree that a big zerg is less tactical and what you could call less challenging, they can be fun!
I really hope that VR make some carefully designed 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 -man raids BUT I also hope they allow some sandboxey weirdness too.
As in many other aspects, I think there's nothing to be lost by having multiple ways of doing stuff. Yes, content takes time to design and I'm not suggesting several tailored versions of each encounter, but once designed in a 'ideal' way, why not open it up to 'allow' other approaches, but tailor the rewards.
Eg. A guild brings 100 people to a carefully designed 12-man raid: Let them do it, but scale up the boss and scale down the loot (and XP). Sometimes the fun is in the madness and, as long as it doesn't effect you when you do it 'properly', who cares?
I think this depends on two things,
1. Expected PC demands related to average pc Specs, such as how many players in a given location will begin to hinder the players experience, with lag spikes, stuttering, and freeze ups.
2. Desired challenge level, when a certain number of players begins to weaken the overall experience from an overwhelming force, cap the number or begin to scale the boss up to compensate.
Other than that, I don't care if there’s 2000 players slaying the dragon in its nest or defending a town from an invading horde.
disposalist said:Eg. A guild brings 100 people to a carefully designed 12-man raid: Let them do it, but scale up the boss and scale down the loot (and XP). Sometimes the fun is in the madness and, as long as it doesn't effect you when you do it 'properly', who cares?
It is practically impossible for scaling to be perfect. The devs would have to hand craft the difficulty of an NPC to an extreme amount of granularity. Any automated system to scale NPCs would fall flat on its face. Not only that, but they are depriving the world of a contested resource.
Pantheon isn't an instanced game. Everything people do affects other players, and allowing them to zerg down content even for reduced rewards will have a negative effect on the rest of the server.
Locked raid sizes, please.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Raid Bosses, how big (raid size) is too big, is there such a thing as too big for raid bosses? Please explain your answer. #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
While I thoroughly enjoyed the 72 person raids in EQ1, I soon realized that to fill a raid that sized required a guild size many times larger as you cannot be sure everyone you need is online at any given time. That just lead to guilds being too large, too unwieldy. And while you might be aware of the others in your guild, you really only had a few that you knew really really well. Cliques formed quite quickly. I'd rather not see a return to that size of a raid because of the size guild you need.
For Pantheon, I'd rather see 42 as the set raid size. It gives enough room to have solid represention from all the archetypes and, subsequently, enough room for multiples of each class from within that archetype. The resulting guild size does not become too unwieldy as a consequence.
If you want absurd 'raid'sizes, just look to EVE Online. A single fleet can have 256 pilots and in many battles you had mulitple full fleets..on both sides. While those things truly felt epic in nature, have you see how large some of those alliance end up? Multiple tens of thousands and individual corporations in those alliance can easily number a thousand or more.
EDIT: And did I hear correctly in the last dev video posted that they are thinking the largest raid size would be 40? Really? Not 42 which gives you 7 full groups but 40?
That's a tough question. I really do like ALL size raid bosses. I do feel like the smaller the raid the more important it is for each player to make no mistakes (which is a good thing in my opinion) but the bigger the raid the more amazing it can feel. I like being part of something BIG even if I get no loot. I do wonder though if there is some other way for players to be rewarded if they were part of one of those huge epic battles. Maybe something visual? Maybe your chest slot item is able to have a patch that symbolizes that encounter (kinda like subtitles on a name but a patch on your armor instead).
Anyway, I really do like all size encounters.
Liav said:disposalist said:Eg. A guild brings 100 people to a carefully designed 12-man raid: Let them do it, but scale up the boss and scale down the loot (and XP). Sometimes the fun is in the madness and, as long as it doesn't effect you when you do it 'properly', who cares?
It is practically impossible for scaling to be perfect. The devs would have to hand craft the difficulty of an NPC to an extreme amount of granularity. Any automated system to scale NPCs would fall flat on its face. Not only that, but they are depriving the world of a contested resource.
Pantheon isn't an instanced game. Everything people do affects other players, and allowing them to zerg down content even for reduced rewards will have a negative effect on the rest of the server.
Locked raid sizes, please.
"will have a negative effect on the rest of the server". Why?
Liav said:Locked raid sizes, please.
To heck with locks! No thanks! I believe Pantheon is being designed to be sandbox, NOT themepark like WoW. Players will get creative to do what they want regardless of size. No locked raids and no themepark! -That's all.
I believe every raid should be determined uniquely. Here is an example of some scales
Dungeon minis - 6 man
Dungeon boss - 12 man
Fortress raids - 18 man
zone/area boss - 24 man
deity minis - 42 man
deity/dragons - 100+ man (now this would be an epic fight, monster summonings, giant spells, underling assistance, AI strat changes mid fight, the stars are the limit with these fight. give us sleeper 2.0)
I think having epic bosses that require HUGE coordination, of sometimes multiple guilds, to take down would be amazing!
The key to making huge-raid fights though is make sure there are enough components to justify the numbers of each classes. dont want 12 tanks beating on the same boss mob.. Also, maybe force tanks/dps/healers to swap targets/rolls/etc during certain physical/magical/speed/damage intense phases.
Also, make sure to give a little randomness to the bosses too so, while a strat is helpful for knowing about them, it will still take try and try and try again until people get familiar enough with the mechanics to instinctively know what to do.
Syrif said:Liav said:Locked raid sizes, please.
To heck with locks! No thanks! I believe Pantheon is being designed to be sandbox, NOT themepark like WoW. Players will get creative to do what they want regardless of size. No locked raids and no themepark! -That's all.
If you think Pantheon is a sandbox, I have some terrible news for you. Very tragic. The same goes for EQ.
Throwing out buzzwords like "themepark" and "WoW" is not an argument. These concepts have nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Stay on topic, please! That's all.
I compare a raid experience to a sporting event or a music concert. Likeminded people coming together to experience a common interest. Does it matter that there are 20k people at the sporting event or concert? Does it diminish your experience? Are you so crucial to the event? No. But you enjoy it just the same. I would argue that you enjoy the event even more, the more people are at the event. If only 10 people were at your sporting event or concert you would think that event was lame.
Going to a raid where there are 100+ other people and you are part of that event is what will be epic, and you will remember those take downs that you know that you would not have been able to do on your own or a smaller group. Pantheon is trying to encourage social community interaction and experiences. Remember the taking down of the sleeper in EQ?
People paused playing on other servers just to read chat updates on the status of the fight. Sleeper down to 75%, 50%, 25% … 5%. Sleeper has been killed! It was an incredible achievement by the everquest player community and everyone that was there even only in chat on another server remembers that feeling twenty years later!
Eh, I am a fan of smaller raids...or I guess smaller encounters that fit two to three groups over the masses of players. The more players added the more things just become a big blob where individual impact is reduced and familiarity with your peers falls. You aren't usually talking to or making new friends when raiding in large numbers despite challenging content being a great means to form bonds among players.
Maybe there could be a different name for two to three group content though, and raids could be reserved for the massive. That said I think taking raids further would be interesting, something that generally requires multiple raid guilds to work together to beat, whether it's an assault on a castle with targets that need to die within minutes of one another or one massive entity where each raid force has to tackle a different part of the creature.
Syrif said:To heck with locks! No thanks! I believe Pantheon is being designed to be sandbox, NOT themepark like WoW. Players will get creative to do what they want regardless of size. No locked raids and no themepark! -That's all.
That has never been true.
You create a sandbox and then you put a 'themepark' in that sandbox. That way your foundation is there both for 1. more sandboxy play to evolve before and after launch and 2. you can put other themeparks into your sandbox without bringing down a house of cards.
...
Bottom line though: A pure sandbox isn't really a game. Pantheon is definitely influenced by our desire to head in the sandbox direction, but a pure sandbox is not what we're looking for. Rather, while you shouldn't feel you're on rails, going through quest hubs, forced to follow 1-2 paths, etc, there's still Pantheon the game that sits within the sandbox foundation. Then, by making sure we have such a foundation, we can not just vertically add content (expansions, new regions to explore, new classes and races, etc.) but also horizontally begin to offer advancement paths beyond your typical adventure focus.
Liav said:Syrif said:Liav said:Locked raid sizes, please.
To heck with locks! No thanks! I believe Pantheon is being designed to be sandbox, NOT themepark like WoW. Players will get creative to do what they want regardless of size. No locked raids and no themepark! -That's all.
If you think Pantheon is a sandbox, I have some terrible news for you. Very tragic. The same goes for EQ.
Throwing out buzzwords like "themepark" and "WoW" is not an argument. These concepts have nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Stay on topic, please! That's all.
On topic. That's all.
bountycode said:I compare a raid experience to a sporting event or a music concert. Likeminded people coming together to experience a common interest. Does it matter that there are 20k people at the sporting event or concert? Does it diminish your experience? Are you so crucial to the event? No. But you enjoy it just the same.
I don't really think this is a fair comparison. The example you gave basically comes down to purchasing a ticket and watching a performance. You pay to be a faceless spectator among thousands of others and everybody shows up to have their eyes glued on superstars. The thrill of raiding, for me, comes down to strategy, execution, and my personal involvement in a team-focused endeavor. Every person in the raid has a responsibility and their ability to manage that responsibility is integral to having a sense of interdependence and meaningful teamwork.
bountycode said:I would argue that you enjoy the event even more, the more people are at the event. If only 10 people were at your sporting event or concert you would think that event was lame.
If I managed to get a superstar to perform privately for my 10 closest friends, that would be the exact opposite of lame. It would be prestigious.
bountycode said:
Going to a raid where there are 100+ other people and you are part of that event is what will be epic, and you will remember those take downs that you know that you would not have been able to do on your own or a smaller group. Pantheon is trying to encourage social community interaction and experiences. Remember the taking down of the sleeper in EQ?
I am a big fan of large-scale encounters. I would love to see content that is designed for 100+ players. Overcoming that sort of obstacle would feel truly epic. That said, I am extremely happy about the decision to offer structured raid content in Pantheon. Whether it's 1 group or 10, the most important thing to me is interdependence and challenge.
Iksar said:(@Syrif)
Bottom line though: A pure sandbox isn't really a game. Pantheon is definitely influenced by our desire to head in the sandbox direction, but a pure sandbox is not what we're looking for. Rather, while you shouldn't feel you're on rails, going through quest hubs, forced to follow 1-2 paths, etc, there's still Pantheon the game that sits within the sandbox foundation.
I agree with you, but I never said 'pure' sandbox LOL. There are plenty of ways for Pantheon to sit within the sandbox foundation and avoid rails, such as not having locks on raid sizes like in WoW imo. I'll leave it at that.
(ADD: Pardon the sarcasm, but could you really see me building my own capital city in Terminus and crafting my own mega dragon that can braze cities... My goodness! Of course I am not implying a pure sandbox lol. )
bountycode said:I compare a raid experience to a sporting event or a music concert. Likeminded people coming together to experience a common interest. Does it matter that there are 20k people at the sporting event or concert? Does it diminish your experience? Are you so crucial to the event? No. But you enjoy it just the same. I would argue that you enjoy the event even more, the more people are at the event. If only 10 people were at your sporting event or concert you would think that event was lame.
Going to a raid where there are 100+ other people and you are part of that event is what will be epic, and you will remember those take downs that you know that you would not have been able to do on your own or a smaller group. Pantheon is trying to encourage social community interaction and experiences. Remember the taking down of the sleeper in EQ?
People paused playing on other servers just to read chat updates on the status of the fight. Sleeper down to 75%, 50%, 25% … 5%. Sleeper has been killed! It was an incredible achievement by the everquest player community and everyone that was there even only in chat on another server remembers that feeling twenty years later!
You mention some great points. Anyway, when I think of locked raid sizes I think of WoW. This is one area where I think Pantheon will be better off being different from WoW.
WarKnight said: A bunch of 20-30 raid size content. A moderate amount of 50 ppl raid content. Very rare 75+ raid content. Include all options! One doesn't have to be more or less difficult than the other. Will be an opportunity to strategize differently etc.
If done right, I think this is the best approach rather than a static size for all raids. A raid encounter to take down an orc chief probably doesn't need as many as a raid encounter to take down a dragon king.
However, a static raid size would make balancing easier I think, then just dynamically scale up the content to mitigate zerging.
I just hate to see 18-24 ish man raids turn into single group encounters after the first expansion which would happen if you are not careful.
Syrif said:There are plenty of ways for Pantheon to sit within the sandbox foundation and avoid rails, such as not having locks on raid sizes like in WoW imo. I'll leave it at that.
You cannot preserve any realistic notion of challenge or difficulty if the game allows for zerging of content intended/designed to be accomplished by a set number of players. There is no scaling system possible that can make it work either.
The rails of which they speak are more directed to them not ushering players through specific zones/areas and quests at certain levels, no guided paths to play through the game like most modern MMOs. Not a lack of rules/mechanics/design.
No limit. Don't scale the amount of loot that drops based on the amount of people in the encounter. If 150 want to zerg a mob to split 3 pieces of loot, let them. If 25 people want to take on the same mob, let them. That was one of the great things about EQ, no one was ever turned away from a raid. You never split your raiding party.
EppE said:No limit. Don't scale the amount of loot that drops based on the amount of people in the encounter. If 150 want to zerg a mob to split 3 pieces of loot, let them. If 25 people want to take on the same mob, let them. That was one of the great things about EQ, no one was ever turned away from a raid. You never split your raiding party.
Sounds like a super engaging, challenging game. Perfectly in line with the tenets.
I can't wait to tell my kids how hardcore I used to be playing Pantheon at launch, standing in a corner doing next to nothing while an endless torrent of bodies slams into a pinata to dispense an item I have a 0.1% chance of getting.
SO HARDCORE. Filthy casual kids these days and their raids designed to actually require them to push buttons.
Iksar said:Syrif said:There are plenty of ways for Pantheon to sit within the sandbox foundation and avoid rails, such as not having locks on raid sizes like in WoW imo. I'll leave it at that.
You cannot preserve any realistic notion of challenge or difficulty if the game allows for zerging of content intended/designed to be accomplished by a set number of players. There is no scaling system possible that can make it work either.
The rails of which they speak are more directed to them not ushering players through specific zones/areas and quests at certain levels, no guided paths to play through the game like most modern MMOs. Not a lack of rules/mechanics/design.
Ok so don't bar it then. If people want to duo something then go for it. If they want to 6-man it go for it. If they want to 18-woman it go for it. If a small, family-type guild wants to engage it with a few allies go for it. If a large, social guild wants to zerg it go for it. Again, locking the number of people who can engage a target or having set-numbers reminds me of WoW. This is one area where Pantheon can be different from that.
Anyhow, thanks for your input.