Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Raid Size

    • 28 posts
    May 20, 2017 6:31 AM PDT

    Well, I was kindly asked by Kilsin to not start a new thread for this topic so I will post it here .. even though I think it's a something completely different :)

     

    but at least it has to do with raid sizes: 

    I started playing MMOs in EQ1, back, when raids were not limited to a certain amount of people. I am not asking VR to go that way, I just want to point out something I am struggling with ever since:

    Limiting raid sizes to a certain amount of people causes some problems.
    One being, that if you had too much players some of them had to sit and wait for someone to leave the raid. Which led to even more problems, like getting the people to the raid ... or lost time because the people had to come to the raidzone first (nobody wants to sit in front of a dungeon and wait 2 hours or even longer)


    So here is my question ... or call it suggestion:
    Limit the raidsize to X groups but design the raid-UI window for X+Y groups.
    Also: allow X+Y groups in the dungeon (which should be the case anyway because they are not instanced) but only the first X groups in the raid can attack a mob.


    The benefit would be that everyone gets involed in the raid (at least to a certain degree). They can watch the raid, adventure in the dungeon (they shouldn't walk in front of the puller of course, but they will learn that soon enough) and passively participate. No more sitting in front of the dungeon. They could also read and write in the raidchannel as they are in the raid. Guilds could then decide if they want to encourage their "sitters" to do that.


    This post was edited by HaskarMadnome at May 20, 2017 6:31 AM PDT
    • 8 posts
    May 20, 2017 7:10 AM PDT

    HaskarMadnome said:

    Well, I was kindly asked by Kilsin to not start a new thread for this topic so I will post it here .. even though I think it's a something completely different :)

     

    but at least it has to do with raid sizes: 

    I started playing MMOs in EQ1, back, when raids were not limited to a certain amount of people. I am not asking VR to go that way, I just want to point out something I am struggling with ever since:

    Limiting raid sizes to a certain amount of people causes some problems.
    One being, that if you had too much players some of them had to sit and wait for someone to leave the raid. Which led to even more problems, like getting the people to the raid ... or lost time because the people had to come to the raidzone first (nobody wants to sit in front of a dungeon and wait 2 hours or even longer)


    So here is my question ... or call it suggestion:
    Limit the raidsize to X groups but design the raid-UI window for X+Y groups.
    Also: allow X+Y groups in the dungeon (which should be the case anyway because they are not instanced) but only the first X groups in the raid can attack a mob.


    The benefit would be that everyone gets involed in the raid (at least to a certain degree). They can watch the raid, adventure in the dungeon (they shouldn't walk in front of the puller of course, but they will learn that soon enough) and passively participate. No more sitting in front of the dungeon. They could also read and write in the raidchannel as they are in the raid. Guilds could then decide if they want to encourage their "sitters" to do that.

     

    It seems like this might encourage people to sit in on cutting edge content with no risk.  I can just see some endgame guilds: selling "seats" to  XXX boss raid, so that smaller guilds can come away with cookie cutter strategies that the bigger guilds came up with, instead of trying to figure out their own way to do things.  When I played EQ on raid nights if we were short of clerics on X content, but had other healer classes....guess who became the primary healers,  ditch the Cleric CH line, the one cleric there spot healed and druids did their version of the CH with shaman and the cleric spot healing.

    Also since there will be no instances, and we have no information on how raid fights will go, it is possible the boss could scale in difficultie depending on the amount of people near it, involved in the raid encounter.  With there being no instances, if a boss is being fought and an extra group or two passess by, they might increase the difficulty of the boss and cause the raid to wipe.  Not sure if that would be possible, but I have seen similar things, thought they were in instances that gave you a set amount of raid room: 10 man raids or 20 man raids: loot was the same, but the difficulty was ramped up from the 10 man raid to the 20 man.  Granted the difficulty could not suddely get harder, but there was a huge change between going into the raid with two 10 man groups... and doing one 20 man raid.

    Regardless it will be interesting to test out.

    • 2130 posts
    May 20, 2017 7:27 AM PDT

    The biggest issue with scaling difficulty is that it has practical limitations. Anything more complex than tank and spank falls apart at a certain point. You can't possibly get several hundred people to respond appropriately to event mechanics without dumbing it down to the point that it's practically tank and spank.

    I genuinely hope we stick to static maximum raid sizes and encounter locking, as with Vanguard.

    • 248 posts
    May 20, 2017 8:02 AM PDT

    Wani said:

    Also since there will be no instances, and we have no information on how raid fights will go, it is possible the boss could scale in difficultie depending on the amount of people near it, involved in the raid encounter.  With there being no instances, if a boss is being fought and an extra group or two passess by, they might increase the difficulty of the boss and cause the raid to wipe.  Not sure if that would be possible, but I have seen similar things, thought they were in instances that gave you a set amount of raid room: 10 man raids or 20 man raids: loot was the same, but the difficulty was ramped up from the 10 man raid to the 20 man.  Granted the difficulty could not suddely get harder, but there was a huge change between going into the raid with two 10 man groups... and doing one 20 man raid.

    Regardless it will be interesting to test out.



    I remember VR saying that mobs might not stick around if you try to kill them with a ton of people, they might just go "Nope!" and run away. Or call for help!

    -sorte.

    • 28 posts
    May 20, 2017 9:11 AM PDT

    Wani said:

    It seems like this might encourage people to sit in on cutting edge content with no risk.  I can just see some endgame guilds: selling "seats" to  XXX boss raid, so that smaller guilds can come away with cookie cutter strategies that the bigger guilds came up with, instead of trying to figure out their own way to do things.  

    this can also be done with 2 groups following the raid without being invited to the raid. 

    Selling seats has always been a thing it won't be easier with my solution but it won't make it harder either. 

    I want to keep those who cannot actively participate at least "involved" in the raid. 

     

    The "nope"  thing could actually be a problem :)

    • 279 posts
    May 20, 2017 9:49 AM PDT

    Anywhere from 2 groups to 6 groups, I think there should be an upper limit just to prevent lolloadboxeszerg, but their shouldnt be a lower limit.

     

    If XYZ guild figures out how to do a raid fight with 2 or 3 groups, but it taks ABC guild 4 or 5 O well. I also think imposing a strict "All raid content is designed for THIS amount of people, no less, no more" is abit silly.

     

    Lets mix it up abit.

    • 119 posts
    May 20, 2017 11:02 AM PDT

    in an open world it's not easy to restrict raid size anyways.

    • 279 posts
    May 20, 2017 11:26 AM PDT

    letsdance said:

    in an open world it's not easy to restrict raid size anyways.

    Random Targetted Banishment to players > Raid size number that are on the hate list, Could also be instant death touch

    The mob knows who attacked them in what order or atleast did in EQ, and it wouldnt be a great Feat of programming to repeat that.

     

    Or if the hatelist exceeds X amount of players Y amount of rapetrain adds spawn because the mob "called for help", the adds of course could be kited in theory, but maybe have some anti kiting mechanics. Or just have them be unpleasant enough that the "screw it kite them, we burn boss, collect loot" strat will not work reliably.

     


    This post was edited by Sunmistress at May 20, 2017 11:29 AM PDT
    • 119 posts
    May 20, 2017 11:55 AM PDT

    i'd rather call that scaling by raid size than restricting raid size. and i can't imagine they're going to add such features to every raid mob, that just wouldn't make sense. it would also cause additional troubles if multiple raids try to get the same mob and all get on the aggro list...


    This post was edited by letsdance at May 20, 2017 11:56 AM PDT
    • 200 posts
    May 20, 2017 12:39 PM PDT

    Sunmistress said:

    Random Targetted Banishment to players > Raid size number that are on the hate list, Could also be instant death touch

    The mob knows who attacked them in what order or atleast did in EQ, and it wouldnt be a great Feat of programming to repeat that.

     

    Or if the hatelist exceeds X amount of players Y amount of rapetrain adds spawn because the mob "called for help", the adds of course could be kited in theory, but maybe have some anti kiting mechanics. Or just have them be unpleasant enough that the "screw it kite them, we burn boss, collect loot" strat will not work reliably.

     

    Sounds very artifically to me. If i was a boss mob i would use such insta death or banish or "call help"-abilities on cooldown. Regardless of whether there are many enemies on my hate list or not. 

     

    Greetings

    • 279 posts
    May 20, 2017 1:36 PM PDT

    Larirawiel said:

    Sunmistress said:

    Random Targetted Banishment to players > Raid size number that are on the hate list, Could also be instant death touch

    The mob knows who attacked them in what order or atleast did in EQ, and it wouldnt be a great Feat of programming to repeat that.

     

    Or if the hatelist exceeds X amount of players Y amount of rapetrain adds spawn because the mob "called for help", the adds of course could be kited in theory, but maybe have some anti kiting mechanics. Or just have them be unpleasant enough that the "screw it kite them, we burn boss, collect loot" strat will not work reliably.

     

    Sounds very artifically to me. If i was a boss mob i would use such insta death or banish or "call help"-abilities on cooldown. Regardless of whether there are many enemies on my hate list or not. 

     

    Greetings

    It absolutely is artificial

     

    At some point there are going to be artificial limiters, or people are just going to zerg if possible.

     

    How difficult they create the raids will dictate raid size in the end. They could use less overtly artifical mechanics, but still make zeroing difficult.

    Events like the Performer, Vule, The Sisters, The Mad Choir in EQ are all examples of events that more people = more difficult.

    If mechanics are difficult and incredibly low threshold for failure is set, people are naturally going to gravitate towards a less is more playstyle, because getting 70 people to follow emotes is far more difficult then 30.

    Now how mechanic ddriven you would like to see raid content dictates raid size.

    The problem I see, is alot of the folks pining for EQ style raids are not going to be as huge of fans of that style of raiding, based on some of the general comments I've seen on these boards.

    • 119 posts
    May 20, 2017 1:53 PM PDT

    Sunmistress said:or people are just going to zerg if possible.

    yes why not? give them the chance to drop that mob so they can say they have done it. even if it makes no sense from an efficiency point of view. besides that, zerging isn't that easy either.

    • 279 posts
    May 20, 2017 2:24 PM PDT

    Zerging is absolutely easier then doing it legit. 

    I mean I guess you have a point tho if guild #1 wants to do it with 70 people that's not the end of the world.

    The only problem that could be is if zerging facilitates content lock down. That would be my only real problem with it.

    I'd be pretty effing pissed I was guild #2 on server and guild #1 just zergs with a bunch of boxed toons, or similar types of shenanigans that we saw rampant in EQ in the early days.

    • 119 posts
    May 20, 2017 3:09 PM PDT

    what is legit? if you can't beat the mob with 30 you take 35. is that legit? if you can't do it with 35 you take 40... and so on. who defines what's the legit size? of course if you're the uberguild you can do it with half the people. but zerging takes alot longer to setup for example, because you need alot more people. you also have alot more people who can screw up and potentially wipe the raid. and your people (not just the characters) will be less experienced as well. the guild who does it with half as many should be alot faster and usually win such races.

    • 279 posts
    May 20, 2017 4:39 PM PDT

    letsdance said:

    what is legit? if you can't beat the mob with 30 you take 35. is that legit? if you can't do it with 35 you take 40... and so on. who defines what's the legit size? of course if you're the uberguild you can do it with half the people. but zerging takes alot longer to setup for example, because you need alot more people. you also have alot more people who can screw up and potentially wipe the raid. and your people (not just the characters) will be less experienced as well. the guild who does it with half as many should be alot faster and usually win such races.

    Zerging doesn't require people it requires accounts. I can't tell you how many times back in Velious I got a batphones and fired up a couple clerics accounts because they couldn't make a 2am call in. If you want to block other guilds from progress (which we did), that's the type of stuff you do, if it's possible. It's also not playing fair (which I am ok with, but then dps races need to be a thing which they said they do not want)

    The simplicity of that type of raiding made it reasonably easy to do. If they make raids actually engaging and mechanics driven in this game, that type of stuff won't happen.

    The raids will also naturally have a player cap without completely artificial things like DTs. If the mechanics are there that demand attention. 

    I think our difference in this thread might be stemming from differences in what we consider zerging I suppose. I've attempted to illuminate what I meant earlier.

    I could care less if a guild does a raid with 42 and mine does it with 18. 

    Though generally I'd rather not see 100 man raid crews as a regular thing. If they can do it legit (read: not boxing) though more power to them.

    • 28 posts
    May 21, 2017 12:03 AM PDT

    Why not zerg a mob?

    There are 2 ways to win a fight: get better or get more. 

    Why do you ask for artificial barriers to prevent people from zerging? It does not mean tht you have to zerg. Mobs could be designed to be killed by 24 people. If you bring 48, do it. It won't be a challenge for you and you will probably not like it but it is your own fault that you brought 48 people.

    I personally would like to have all of my friends in the same raid than pick 24 and let the others wait.

    • 160 posts
    December 11, 2017 5:52 PM PST
    • 39 posts
    December 11, 2017 8:39 PM PST

    I still like the idea of just designing quests. Not "dungeons" or "raids" or any other particylar "category" of event.

    Is this quest designed to be doable by 4? Cool. This other one may need 12. Equally cool. This third one? That can be a 2 man job. This one? Yeah you're gonna want at least 20 people. Setting artificial caps does as much to stifle dev creativity as it does to impose artificial limitations. I REALLY think that's a point that needs to be considered/addressed.

    By setting a firm limit of how many people are limited to a "raid" you restrict not only the players, but the devs as well. Just give me quests, and let players figure out how they want to handle them. If you have to limit a few fine, but theres no reason you cant make that decision on a quest by quest basis.


    This post was edited by DakmorKavu at December 11, 2017 8:43 PM PST
    • 1019 posts
    December 12, 2017 11:27 AM PST

    HaskarMadnome said:

     

    So here is my question ... or call it suggestion:
    Limit the raidsize to X groups but design the raid-UI window for X+Y groups.
    Also: allow X+Y groups in the dungeon (which should be the case anyway because they are not instanced) but only the first X groups in the raid can attack a mob.

     

    Since there is no instancing you'll potentially have 10, 20, 30 gorups in a dungeon, however, for raids, make it so mobs are locked to only being able to be attacked by 4 groups at most, at anyone time.  If it's an X4 Raid mob.  So the Raid Window UI can accomidate X number groups. Maybe 5, 6 or 7.  You're guild can potentially invite everyone along for the raid....You're only limited by how much your computer can handle...hehe

    So your raid window (UI Window) and entire guild are raiding, but the mobs lock to the first 4 groups that attack it.  So say a member from Group 1, 3, 6 & 7 are the first to get hits on that mob.  Groups 2, 4 and 5 just chill for a minute before moving on.  Or even design dungeons that groups 2, 4 & 5 are engaged in something and are only trying to survive until one of the other groups get to come help them....etc etc etc through the dungeon.

    Then the Named Bosser fight, same strategy.  Raids can wait and plan the attack but again, the first 4 gruops to attack it are the ones engaged in it, however, zone wide events like poison fog would still affect the out of combat groups, so they need to stay ready.  They could even be attacked by adds...who knows...just throwing stuff out there.

    • 145 posts
    May 13, 2019 7:59 AM PDT

    I ressurected this because It's a topic that is important to me. One of the main things I enjoyed about EQ more than I have anything that has been produced since is the raid size. In EQ you continually needed a lot of players to be able to raid. My guild was used to working with less people we never really filled to capacity often. But we still had 40-50 members raiding with us almost at all times. For me it made for better raid encounters. You had more people to play more roles and introduce more chaos into the encounter. Lot of offtanking, lot of off healing, and damage delegation. It required a raid to be very sufficient, very efficient, and very attentitive. And getting all those parts moving in the same direction together was always so much fun.

    I played some Warhammer, Vanguard, Rift, EQ2, and many other dabbles between and they all had smaller raid forces. I think the max I played outside of EQ was Vanguard. I'm not saying 50-60 people is a zerg fest either. Yeah you can have that with certian raids, but all in all I would like each raid encounter layed out to be really tough unless you have a large amount of all kinds of classes. Echanters in EQ were essentially buff bots for most encounters. Then the Rathe Council came around and if you didn't have a good group with a fair amount of them you weren't getting passed it. Lof of Tacvi raid targets were similar for different classes. I remember the balance mob needing a good amount of DPS surge. And Tuna himself having burn phases and other phases as well.

    So many things can be done that are miniscule that can change everything. Turn an easy raid mob into a nightmare. Make it harder so not everyone attempting it can just run through. When I think to one of the failed raid places of EQ I think about the Luclin expansion and Vex Thael. All it really offered was some mobs that had a ton of hps and you had to keep focused long enough to zerg it. Had some really cool loot, but essentially it was a zombie fest as far as raiding. Even the boss Aten Ha Ra was really easy with minimal people. I think we did her with 18 people one night and the fight took us 2 hours + but it was an experiment we wanted to try. 

    I just hope that they do have some raid content in game because it keeps people going. And I hope they do the encounters right.

    • 1033 posts
    May 14, 2019 8:13 AM PDT

    Not a fan of such large raids. I managed them in EQ, but I found smaller raid sizes to be much more enjoyable in other games. I think 12 is the best size for a raid and LoTRO showed that you can have small raids with extremely complex systems in play (they even showed this with 6 mans). The more people you had only increases the difficulty of managing and organizing it. Even then, it really is just a process of establishing a control/reporting hierarchy. After that, it is no different than a group or small raid as each group/individual is assigned a given task/function during the event.

    During EQ, it was a daunting task because of the limitations of the interface and there being no voice. You didn't have a bunch of organizational tools telling you what was going on in each group, etc.. You had to rely on the group leaders to properly relay information as needed. These days, large raids won't be a management difficulty and so a lot of the point of them being more difficult will be less of an issue.

    As for zerg limiting, I think there should be designs into the encounters that scale, increase difficulty, create havoc, etc... if people try to zerg the encounter. I don't think there should be separate rewards for such scaling. If a raid is designed for 12 people, it drops only a certain amount of loot (which the developers have established as proper for the games size, design and progression), then there should not be "more" loot if more players zerg, nor should there be better loot because they fought a more difficult encounter. The raid is set for a certain amount, players should be rewarded for approaching the encounter at design, nothing more.

    Loot drops in a contested raid game are extremely important. The rate they enter the world is key. Scaling should make no difference as the encounter is designed for a specific number, it should be rewarding for that regardless. As I said, increasing the raid size in such an encounter should result in increased difficulty for the only purpose of not allowing the raid to overpower it by zerging. Past that, no extra loot, no special rewards, no real point in zerging. It is designed for 12, fight it with 12 as to fight it with more won’t make it any easier.

    Lastly, to preserve the loot drop rate, encounters should be held to a static refresh time. For instance, in EQ, it was 7 days when the mob was killed. This meant that that raid mob dropped a limited number of items (designed for a specific size of raid) and only was available every 7 days +/- a random hour counter.

    For those worried about "poop socking", there are designs that can be applied to such, as to what? Well... the list is long and that would be an entirely different discussion.

    That said, I think Pantheon is best served by having "limited" raiding and focusing specifically on making "group" content as detailed, difficult and challenging as possible. As I said, LoTRO had some extremely interesting group encounters in the game. There is no reason why they can not have limited raid content and still have the most challenging group content in MMOs. Again, LoTRO not only made 6 man group content feel like a raid in difficulty and direction, but they also achieved such in 3 mans. Raid size really is mostly a difficulty in managing people , and as I said today's software tools eliminate that as a major issue, regardless if VR puts them "in game" or not.

     

    Edit:

    As a note, it is EXTREMELY important for VR to establish the actual raid size and direction for a game. They can start "lower" and then over time if they like, increase it as it is always much easier to expand a guilds numbers to raid, but... VR should be VERY careful about implementing a larger raid size, then deciding to pull back and do lesser raid sizes after release. WoW did this and it created MASSIVE strife in the game.

    Establish a raid size, stick to it and guilds will often form around those numbers. People wanting 100's of members in a guild will quickly find this is not advantageous to smaller guilds who will be more closely aligned to the raiding/grouping numbers.

     


    This post was edited by Tanix at May 14, 2019 8:19 AM PDT
    • 696 posts
    May 14, 2019 8:41 AM PDT

    I always liked raids. Been a big fan of them since I was little. I always loved having a gathering of 40-72 people(WoW or EQ) where you had a bunch of guild members, and sometimes even alliance guilds, like in EQ, where we would undertake the process of defeating the literal gods of EQ. It was massive fun. So for me I like upwards of 40 people. 40 is usually doable for MMOs and felt grand enough in an all out battle with some raid boss.

    I usually want large numbers for raids, not because of difficulty, but because the process of getting the people and having a bunch of guild members all getting together with the task of taking down something that seems impossible is just fun.

     

    With that being said, I think they can have a range of raid mobs that need between 12-42+ people. I say this because of encounter locking. I am only okay with encounter locking for raid targets because I suspect a 7 day lockout timer. Which is fine and all, but I never want to be blocked by a guild, rather I would like to be blocked by tough enocunters. So with encounter locking raid targets they can keep an open world design and can have a variety of different sized raids for the smaller guilds and something for bigger guilds.

    • 233 posts
    May 16, 2019 12:46 AM PDT

    For me personally the smaller the raid size the better, 15-25 is perfect, 40 is too many, cant see **** thats happening.

    It also means people can underperform and its fine cause ther are so many other people.

    • 160 posts
    May 16, 2019 8:41 AM PDT

    Grimseethe said:

    For me personally the smaller the raid size the better, 15-25 is perfect, 40 is too many, cant see **** thats happening.

    It also means people can underperform and its fine cause ther are so many other people.

     

    Ability to underperform sometimes, to some reasonable extent, is ok, and perhaps even needed. If you force everyone to be at 100% of their game all the time, it becomes another job.

    I want to be able to relax once in ten raids. But underperforming too much is bad - once people who do perform see that others can underperform all the time, or most of the time, and get away with it, everyone will drop their efforts to the minimal level.

    Thus, the allowed raid size should be maybe 10-20% above what is normally needed for the encounter.

     

    Of course, "what is normally needed" depends on levels, items, AAs and such. The fact that a guild which is already two tiers above what the encounter is intended for - that comes to it 5 levels higher, and already equipped with higher level items, can do it with 18 people - doesn't mean that the guild at the intended level, and equipped with gear from the tier before the encounter, can do it with the same number of people. Much less so, if 10% of the people are new, and with gear another tier or two lower.

     

    Start with assumption that the intended levels and gears are:

    - 70% of the people should have the gear one tier below the encounter

    - 20% should have the gear two tiers below

    - 10% should have gear from the same tier.

    Same with levels, AAs and whatnot.

    Based on that, decide on the needed raid size. Test that it can actually be done - theorycrafting by itself isn't enough.

     

    Then set the limit, if there is to be any, to 20% above that.

     

    And I'm not sure if there should really be any limit. Every guild needs more people than the raid limit, since someone will be offline at any time. So what then do you do, as the raid leader, when more people show up than the raid limit allows?

    Tell them to sit at the entrance for hours on end? Give them dkp for not attending?

    Do a semi-solution - park the mains at the entrance, exp on alts, get half dkp as long as you're available to hop on your main and join the raid on short notice? It still locks the main.

     

    There are no good solutions that will cover every aspect of this.

     

     

    • 1033 posts
    May 16, 2019 9:38 AM PDT

    Aethor said:

    Grimseethe said:

    For me personally the smaller the raid size the better, 15-25 is perfect, 40 is too many, cant see **** thats happening.

    It also means people can underperform and its fine cause ther are so many other people.

     

    Ability to underperform sometimes, to some reasonable extent, is ok, and perhaps even needed. If you force everyone to be at 100% of their game all the time, it becomes another job.

    I want to be able to relax once in ten raids. But underperforming too much is bad - once people who do perform see that others can underperform all the time, or most of the time, and get away with it, everyone will drop their efforts to the minimal level.

    Thus, the allowed raid size should be maybe 10-20% above what is normally needed for the encounter.

    Which brings us to the issue of, do we want a game... or do we want entertainment? There is a lot of entertainment out there, 100's of MMOs that are designed to entertain people, but are very lacking in the game department.

    Personally, I want to get on and play a game, not sit and relax without being challenged. If I wanted to relax without any effort, I would read a book or watch a movie. /shrug


    This post was edited by Tanix at May 16, 2019 9:38 AM PDT