Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

End Game Discussion (Raiding and Alternatives)

    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 6:57 PM PDT

    It's not as simple as just giving people instructions.  Also factor that all X of those players will have a job to do, and as you add more moving pieces and parts, there are more opportunities for things to go wrong.  That by definition leads to a higher "difficulty ceiling" than what could ever be accomplished with a single group.  Math is a huge part of raiding and it becomes much more complex as you continue to add variables.  Complexity (that needs to be solved and navigated), difficulty, they are the same thing to me.  Again, you can design a solo encounter as the "hardest" creature in the game if you want to, but that doesen't change the fact that should that same tuning/designing be scaled to a larger size, it's more difficult to conquer.

    • 2752 posts
    July 19, 2017 7:00 PM PDT

    Dreconic said:

    Not entirely true, with 72 people (Assuming 12 6 man groups) you should only be giving instructions to at most 12 people - Group Leaders, more likely 4 to 6 people. Tank Officer, Healer Officer, Pulling Officer, DPS Officer (maybe have melee and caster separate) and CC Officer (if/when needed). Those 4-6 people would then tell their people what they need to do to fill their role. I have been in very few raids where one person is telling all 72 people what to do.

    I also think that the main difference of 24 vs 72 man raids isn't that 72 is harder persay than 24 man raids, as that really comes down to the mobs HP, mechanics, raids HP, heals, DPS etc, but having 72 people that have to do the right thing is much harder than getting 24 people. But, the reverse could also be said that in 72 people one person messing up, say 1 healer out of 12 is easier to overcome than 1 healer out of 5.

    Your statement makes me worried that PRF is leaning more towards the smaller raid size which sticking with "old school" mechanics and culture would upset more people then make happy IMO.

     

    The difficulty thing isn't wrong though. Having more players is making an encounter more externally challenging, only in the sense that you need more people to perform at a high level and make few mistakes but it is not more challenging on a personal level in any way. Yes it is much easier to find 5 other players than yourself that perform at an elite level, but that doesn't mean the group fights are any easier for YOU. Raiding: yes it is harder to beat the boss but the boss himself isn't harder. 

    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 7:09 PM PDT

    Iksar said:

    Kilsin said:

    Anyone who says anything over 6 man group is harder, AKANDE THE BUTCHER wants a chat with you! :D

    The only argument to be had for larger groups that exceed 6 man content is the coordination required for everyone to do their jobs but that alone doesn't make it harder, it just means everyone, no matter how big or small the group/raid is, needs to pay attention and do their job to achieve the goal.

    The more people, the more human variables that could go wrong if someone stuffs up, disconnects or goes afk but that doesn't mean the mob or the content is any harder. I personally like a variety of challenging group and raid content and with groups looking like they will be set to 6 in Pantheon, I like the number 24 for structured raid content with options to expand too much larger or "all-in/uncapped" raids in some instances where the community can come together in huge numbers to overcome a mob for a more social involvement (plus fat shiny loot) but that is just personal opinion from my years leading a guild and raids in VG. :)

     

    Amen! My feelings exactly. 

     

    I desire content that is challening for me personally and the challenge not be worrying about 20+ others doing their jobs correctly.

    I absolutely want that too, but I also absolutely want content that is designed to challenge me and 50+ others doing their jobs correctly. That's "intensely social" on a platter for me.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 19, 2017 7:18 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 7:18 PM PDT

    Iksar said:

    Dreconic said:

    Not entirely true, with 72 people (Assuming 12 6 man groups) you should only be giving instructions to at most 12 people - Group Leaders, more likely 4 to 6 people. Tank Officer, Healer Officer, Pulling Officer, DPS Officer (maybe have melee and caster separate) and CC Officer (if/when needed). Those 4-6 people would then tell their people what they need to do to fill their role. I have been in very few raids where one person is telling all 72 people what to do.

    I also think that the main difference of 24 vs 72 man raids isn't that 72 is harder persay than 24 man raids, as that really comes down to the mobs HP, mechanics, raids HP, heals, DPS etc, but having 72 people that have to do the right thing is much harder than getting 24 people. But, the reverse could also be said that in 72 people one person messing up, say 1 healer out of 12 is easier to overcome than 1 healer out of 5.

    Your statement makes me worried that PRF is leaning more towards the smaller raid size which sticking with "old school" mechanics and culture would upset more people then make happy IMO.

     

    The difficulty thing isn't wrong though. Having more players is making an encounter more externally challenging, only in the sense that you need more people to perform at a high level and make few mistakes but it is not more challenging on a personal level in any way. Yes it is much easier to find 5 other players than yourself that perform at an elite level, but that doesn't mean the group fights are any easier for YOU. Raiding: yes it is harder to beat the boss but the boss himself isn't harder. 

    Regardless of "how" it is harder to beat the boss, it is harder.  That's pretty much the main point here.  At the end of the day a creative team can assign varying levels of difficulty to all sizes of content and pick and choose what = what.  There is no denying that at all.  But having to count and rely on a large amount of your brothers and sisters in arms during the most epic battles of the game is pretty much the epitome of awesome sauce that I could hope for in an MMO.  Let's say you have 6 groups of friends that can all beat the hardest "group dungeons" in the game ... how do you elevate the potential sense of victory, accomplishment, and challenge in the game for them?  Out of those guys, how many of them are the same class?  When I think of "hardest content in the game" being group stuff, I absolutely imagine there being a few "meta group" variables for whatever it is.  By designing raids as the hardest content in the game, it's infinitely easier to ensure that all classes have a viable role at the highest level.  The more moving pieces and parts, the more potential for mistakes, and the more kinds of mechanics that can be solved/accounted for.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 19, 2017 7:21 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 7:38 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    The thing is, everyone is responsible for themselves, you can only control your own actions in-game, the mob/content doesn't change, we design the difficulty, so maybe from a raid leader perspective, it may appear harder because you have to also worry about coordinating more humans but that absolutely has no effect on the actual difficulty of the mob or content, so the group/raid size makes no difference whatsoever.

    Scenario; you're a group/raid leader:

    If the group size is 6, you give 5 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 24, you give 23 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 72, you give 71 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    All that changes is the amount of information that you need to convey to others, it doesn't impact the difficulty of the mob or the content in the slightest it just makes your job of managing humans harder the more humans there are ;)

    Using that logic, adding players of any amount wouldn't increase the difficulty of the mob, and that's not really what I have been saying.  I understand that the difficulty of the mob itself doesen't magically get harder as you add more people to fight it ... it requires programing and designing to make that happen.  And failure doesen't just come down to the raid leader ... if content is truly the hardest content in the game, then everybody needs to perform at an incredible level with very little margin for error.  The more people that are required to do that, the harder the content is.  The notion of "everyone is responsible for themselves" is not entirely true because in raiding, it's pretty common that players are responsible for far more than the actions of their own characters.  If one person fails, it impacts the night of let's say 50 other people.  That kind of pressure also adds a sense of difficulty to the encounter.

    When you play under the assumption that your potential mistakes can impact the time and success of 50+ friends, wouldn't that be a wee bit harder on your conscious?  Isn't it harder to buff 72 players compared to 6?  How about being responsible for healing 24 melees instead of 2-3, having to make sure your own character has all 50 available buffs instead of just 12, or having to mezz 10+ mobs instead of 2 because the encounter is properly tweaked to compensate for a raid of your size?  I could go on for days on how having more people in the group/raid presents a naturally higher scale of difficulty than what can be accomplished with smaller numbers.  I understand that we cannot control the difficulty of the mob itself, I am only sharing my thoughts on how the "peak" for "most difficult content in the game" could be achieved in raids in ways that group content could never compare to.  Sorry for the confusion, and I hope that makes more sense.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 19, 2017 9:35 PM PDT
    • 9115 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:21 PM PDT

    Dreconic said:

    Kilsin said:

    The thing is, everyone is responsible for themselves, you can only control your own actions in-game, the mob/content doesn't change, we design the difficulty, so maybe from a raid leader perspective, it may appear harder because you have to also worry about coordinating more humans but that absolutely has no effect on the actual difficulty of the mob or content, so the group/raid size makes no difference whatsoever.

    Scenario; you're a group/raid leader:

    If the group size is 6, you give 5 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 24, you give 23 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 72, you give 71 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    All that changes is the amount of information that you need to convey to others, it doesn't impact the difficulty of the mob or the content in the slightest it just makes your job of managing humans harder the more humans there are ;)

    Not entirely true, with 72 people (Assuming 12 6 man groups) you should only be giving instructions to at most 12 people - Group Leaders, more likely 4 to 6 people. Tank Officer, Healer Officer, Pulling Officer, DPS Officer (maybe have melee and caster separate) and CC Officer (if/when needed). Those 4-6 people would then tell their people what they need to do to fill their role. I have been in very few raids where one person is telling all 72 people what to do.

    I also think that the main difference of 24 vs 72 man raids isn't that 72 is harder persay than 24 man raids, as that really comes down to the mobs HP, mechanics, raids HP, heals, DPS etc, but having 72 people that have to do the right thing is much harder than getting 24 people. But, the reverse could also be said that in 72 people one person messing up, say 1 healer out of 12 is easier to overcome than 1 healer out of 5.

    Your statement makes me worried that PRF is leaning more towards the smaller raid size which sticking with "old school" mechanics and culture would upset more people then make happy IMO.

     

     

    It was a general example to get my point across man, how you or others manage larger numbers is your own, there is not a single method to raiding with 72 players but my point is it doesn't change the difficulty of the mob/content which is the argument here ;)

    My statement like usual is my own opinion unless otherwise stated as official, you know me well enough by now Drec, I always preface something with "The team..." "We..." "Our vision..." etc. when I am speaking officially, so nothing I say should worry you unless I make an announcement directly releasing that information on behalf of the company.

    This is just me talking expressing my own opinion as an experienced guild and raid leader.

    • 9115 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:26 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    It's not as simple as just giving people instructions.  Also factor that all X of those players will have a job to do, and as you add more moving pieces and parts, there are more opportunities for things to go wrong.  That by definition leads to a higher "difficulty ceiling" than what could ever be accomplished with a single group.  Math is a huge part of raiding and it becomes much more complex as you continue to add variables.  Complexity (that needs to be solved and navigated), difficulty, they are the same thing to me.  Again, you can design a solo encounter as the "hardest" creature in the game if you want to, but that doesen't change the fact that should that same tuning/designing be scaled to a larger size, it's more difficult to conquer.

    It is that simple though, all that changes is the number of players, the content doesn't change, the difficulty doesn't change, just the amount of people engaging the mob. That micromanagement is up to you and everyone else to figure out but it has absolutely no impact on the mob or the content, the difficulty stays the same whether there are 6 or 600 people. ;)

    • 9115 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:36 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    Kilsin said:

    The thing is, everyone is responsible for themselves, you can only control your own actions in-game, the mob/content doesn't change, we design the difficulty, so maybe from a raid leader perspective, it may appear harder because you have to also worry about coordinating more humans but that absolutely has no effect on the actual difficulty of the mob or content, so the group/raid size makes no difference whatsoever.

    Scenario; you're a group/raid leader:

    If the group size is 6, you give 5 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 24, you give 23 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 72, you give 71 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    All that changes is the amount of information that you need to convey to others, it doesn't impact the difficulty of the mob or the content in the slightest it just makes your job of managing humans harder the more humans there are ;)

    Using that logic, adding players of any amount wouldn't increase the difficulty of the mob, and that's not really what I have been saying.  I understand that the difficulty of the mob itself doesen't magically get harder as you add more people to fight it ... it requires programing and designing to make that happen.  And failure doesen't just come down to the raid leader ... if content is truly the hardest content in the game, then everybody needs to perform at an incredible level with very little margin for error.  The more people that are required to do that, the harder the content is.  The notion of "everyone is responsible for themselves" is not entirely true because in raiding, it's pretty common that players are responsible for far more than the actions of their own characters.  If one person fails, it impacts the night of let's say 50 other people.  That kind of pressure also adds a sense of difficulty to the encounter.

    When you play under the assumption that your potential mistakes can impact the time and success of 50+ friends, wouldn't that be a wee bit harder on your conscious?  Isn't it harder to buff 72 players compared to 6?  How about being responsible for healing 24 melees instead of 2-3, having to make sure your own character has all 50 available buffs instead of just 12, or having to mezz 10+ mobs instead of 2 because the encounter is properly tweaked to compensate for a raid of your size?  I could go on for days on how having more people in the group/raid presents a naturally higher scale of difficulty than what can be accomplished with smaller numbers.  I understand that we cannot control the difficulty of the mob itself, I am only sharing my thoughts on how the "peak" for "most difficult content in the game" could be achieved in raids in ways that group content could never compare to.  Sorry for the confusion, and I hope that makes more sense.

    No, I wouldn't say harder at all, I would say more time consuming and a bit more to manage in terms of logistics and organisation but anyone skilled in that area will have no problems setting up a routine.

    Using my guild as an example in VG, we used to have groups of people log in an hour to two before raiding (which was 24 man - 4 groups of 6), some of them didn't even raid but liked helping us by contributing crafting to stock up on pots and diplomacy to push up buffs (we even had random community members noticing us pushing buffs and helped, VG was such an awesome community!), by the time raiding was supposed to start everyone was already fully geared, buffed and had their pots ready to go, we would decide on the spot which mob to hit first depending on the turnout and what we needed (plus what other guilds were doing) and off we went.

    We used the exact same method for 6 man content and the times rarely varied, it is all about organisation, coordination, management and planning. It has no impact on the difficulty of the mob or the content at all. It is just more people to manage and if everyone does their job and follows instructions then 24, 48 or 72 people can do everything just as efficiently as a 6 man group all the larger numbers do is weed out and exaggerate the stragglers, afkers and slackers and that is a guild/raid management issue, it has nothing to do with the design or content of the game. ;)

    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:39 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    oneADseven said:

    It's not as simple as just giving people instructions.  Also factor that all X of those players will have a job to do, and as you add more moving pieces and parts, there are more opportunities for things to go wrong.  That by definition leads to a higher "difficulty ceiling" than what could ever be accomplished with a single group.  Math is a huge part of raiding and it becomes much more complex as you continue to add variables.  Complexity (that needs to be solved and navigated), difficulty, they are the same thing to me.  Again, you can design a solo encounter as the "hardest" creature in the game if you want to, but that doesen't change the fact that should that same tuning/designing be scaled to a larger size, it's more difficult to conquer.

    It is that simple though, all that changes is the number of players, the content doesn't change, the difficulty doesn't change, just the amount of people engaging the mob. That micromanagement is up to you and everyone else to figure out but it has absolutely no impact on the mob or the content, the difficulty stays the same whether there are 6 or 600 people. ;)

    I'm sorry, but it does have an impact.  There are mechanics that are possible to implement in raids that are not possible to implement in groups.  That sounds like an impact to me.  At the absolute highest end of the spectrum, it's possible to create raid content that is more difficult than what group content could ever amount to.  That doesen't mean you have to do it, but it is possible.  If you have a boss that requires 600 people to beat, I'm sorry, but that's extremely more "difficult" to kill than something that requires 6 people.  I don't really understand your point at all.  A big part of Pantheon is having that social dynamic where finding and relying on your comrades is going to bring back the glorious days of yesteryear.  It's more difficult to find a group to help you with a quest or XP than it is to do stuff solo ... that's a big reason why so many people are gung-ho about this game.  I'm not saying that slapping a "4 group sticker" on a boss magically makes it more difficult.  It's the designing and programing that goes on behind the scenes that accomplishes that.  It's the micromanagement of the dev team and how they utilize all of the features, mechanics, and systems that the game offers that ultimately decides the difficulty level of the content ... but again, bigger is harder.  I've been playing MMO's way too long for anybody to ever convince me of otherwise.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 19, 2017 11:39 PM PDT
    • 2130 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:47 PM PDT

    I'm with oneADseven here, honestly.

    The logistics of controlling more people is challenging. Whether or not that challenge comes from game mechanics is semantics.

    I'm absolutely of the belief that EQ's "limitless" raiding only worked because most of the content could be rez zerged and/or auto attacked to death with a handful of Clerics performing the trivial task of pressing one button at a time. This was revolutionary in 1999, not so much now.

    In Vanguard, encounters like Summoners were fairly simple to follow on an individual basis, but as a raid force someone would always screw it up. The same goes for raiding in most games. Once you crack the encounter you're just going through the motions, until someone drools on their keyboard and causes a wipe.

    It's a bit off topic but in general I don't consider PvE content to be truly difficult anyway. It's either scripted and predictable, or random and reactable. I guess that's why I play PvP.


    This post was edited by Liav at July 19, 2017 10:51 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    July 19, 2017 10:54 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    oneADseven said:

    Kilsin said:

    The thing is, everyone is responsible for themselves, you can only control your own actions in-game, the mob/content doesn't change, we design the difficulty, so maybe from a raid leader perspective, it may appear harder because you have to also worry about coordinating more humans but that absolutely has no effect on the actual difficulty of the mob or content, so the group/raid size makes no difference whatsoever.

    Scenario; you're a group/raid leader:

    If the group size is 6, you give 5 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 24, you give 23 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 72, you give 71 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    All that changes is the amount of information that you need to convey to others, it doesn't impact the difficulty of the mob or the content in the slightest it just makes your job of managing humans harder the more humans there are ;)

    Using that logic, adding players of any amount wouldn't increase the difficulty of the mob, and that's not really what I have been saying.  I understand that the difficulty of the mob itself doesen't magically get harder as you add more people to fight it ... it requires programing and designing to make that happen.  And failure doesen't just come down to the raid leader ... if content is truly the hardest content in the game, then everybody needs to perform at an incredible level with very little margin for error.  The more people that are required to do that, the harder the content is.  The notion of "everyone is responsible for themselves" is not entirely true because in raiding, it's pretty common that players are responsible for far more than the actions of their own characters.  If one person fails, it impacts the night of let's say 50 other people.  That kind of pressure also adds a sense of difficulty to the encounter.

    When you play under the assumption that your potential mistakes can impact the time and success of 50+ friends, wouldn't that be a wee bit harder on your conscious?  Isn't it harder to buff 72 players compared to 6?  How about being responsible for healing 24 melees instead of 2-3, having to make sure your own character has all 50 available buffs instead of just 12, or having to mezz 10+ mobs instead of 2 because the encounter is properly tweaked to compensate for a raid of your size?  I could go on for days on how having more people in the group/raid presents a naturally higher scale of difficulty than what can be accomplished with smaller numbers.  I understand that we cannot control the difficulty of the mob itself, I am only sharing my thoughts on how the "peak" for "most difficult content in the game" could be achieved in raids in ways that group content could never compare to.  Sorry for the confusion, and I hope that makes more sense.

    No, I wouldn't say harder at all, I would say more time consuming and a bit more to manage in terms of logistics and organisation but anyone skilled in that area will have no problems setting up a routine.

    Using my guild as an example in VG, we used to have groups of people log in an hour to two before raiding (which was 24 man - 4 groups of 6), some of them didn't even raid but liked helping us by contributing crafting to stock up on pots and diplomacy to push up buffs (we even had random community members noticing us pushing buffs and helped, VG was such an awesome community!), by the time raiding was supposed to start everyone was already fully geared, buffed and had their pots ready to go, we would decide on the spot which mob to hit first depending on the turnout and what we needed (plus what other guilds were doing) and off we went.

    We used the exact same method for 6 man content and the times rarely varied, it is all about organisation, coordination, management and planning. It has no impact on the difficulty of the mob or the content at all. It is just more people to manage and if everyone does their job and follows instructions then 24, 48 or 72 people can do everything just as efficiently as a 6 man group all the larger numbers do is weed out and exaggerate the stragglers, afkers and slackers and that is a guild/raid management issue, it has nothing to do with the design or content of the game. ;)

    It's more difficult to set up a routine of trying to heal a large group of players than a small group, especially when they have to spread out and handle different tasks.  It's more difficult to keep track of the health of 20 mobs instead of 4.  It's more difficult to cure a debuff every 6 seconds than it is every 20 seconds.  Isn't the organization, coordination, management and planning required for group content also a factor in how it's difficulty is gauged?  I always thought these were the main factors ... unless gear and spell quality is what beats bosses we aren't on the same page at all.  We aren't talking about abstract details here ... these are some of the most important aspects of what makes an encounter challenging in the first place.  Guild/raid "management issues" sound like a form of difficulty to me, and they are directly associated with the amount of players that need to be managed.  So yes ... in that sense, more players equals higher difficulty.

    Challenge is challenge and we all miss that very much.  Again, this circles back to "a challenge reborn" and "bring your friends."  These are your new catch phrases for a game that prides itself on the oldschool difficulty that so many of us miss.  They will appeal to a ton of people because so many of us can appreciate the added layer of coordination and management that goes into playing through group content compared to solo content.  Raiding is a step above grouping, in that same sense.  Like I said ... make a video where 2-3 groups die against a king dragon, and then come back with 50 friends for revenge.  People will love it and will be naturally drawn to the glory and challenge associated with the epic scale of difficulty that can be had in such a scenario.  Just my opinion as a gamer, and as someone who really enjoyed the actual video that was released.  And while I understand that Pantheon is primarily a group focused game, many players will naturally look at grouping as a stepping stone to raiding.  It's possible to switch things up and for that to not be the case ... I'm not sure if that's the plan for Pantheon or not but to hear from a dev that size "makes no difference whatsoever" ... meh.  I just don't think it flows well with the new catch phrases, let alone some of the core principles and tenets of the game.

     


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 20, 2017 12:11 AM PDT
    • 511 posts
    July 20, 2017 12:09 AM PDT

    I think the main thing here is people have different definitions of what makes any giving raid, group or solo encounter hard. I do a lot of cooking (and love it) some of the most difficult things to cook have very few steps, some of the easiest have many steps that have to be done in order. Kilsin is saying that the number of steps in a recipe (or in this case the number of people in an encounter) does not make that encounter any more or less difficult.

    Now I think we can all agree that managing 6 people vs managing 72 is more difficult and 187 is trying to say that this makes raid encounters more difficult as there are more moving parts. neither one is wrong using their own definitions of what makes an encounter "hard".

    I for one like that fewer people can do 72 man top tier end game content (As it is that much "harder" to get 72 people) but I have had many group encounters in games that were much harder skill level to overcome than many 72 man content.

    also @Kilson as always I know your opinions are your own but being the mouth of VR your words will always sway us followers to think/feel that your thoughts, opinions and actions are what is making its way into PRF. I never said that PRF was going to be only 24 man raids only that it seems that is the way it is going and that it would be sad for me and those like me that like 72 man raids.


    • 3237 posts
    July 20, 2017 12:30 AM PDT

    I definitely consider Kilsin to be the voice of VR, so when I see "I personally like a variety of challenging group and raid content and with groups looking like they will be set to 6 in Pantheon, I like the number 24 for structured raid content" it insinuates that groups are already likely to be set to 6 in Pantheon.  I was told that we would test 8 man groups, and it's even mentioned in the FAQ as a possibility ... I would feel disappointed if we didn't at least get the option to try it out and provide feedback before something like this is set in stone.  Also, by leading with the notion that something is likely to be set at a given number, and then following up with what number you like for structured raid content, I think many folks will draw the conclusion that the latter appears to be a part of the plan for ahead.  Someone had to make the decision that groups are likely to be set at 6 and it obviously wasn't based on the feedback of any regular players ... so when a dev says they like something, (who also happened to say they like 6 man groups vs 8 in the past) I definitely get the impression that it's a highly probable outcome.  #sadpandaemoji

    And while I do agree that everybody has their own definition of what makes something hard or not, that still doesen't change the notion that size "makes no difference whatsoever."  If that were the case, why are so many people excited about the idea of the challenges with grouping?  It's because of the added layer of fun/strategy that is associated with the cooperative gameplay element that is only found in playing with more players.  So if size makes no difference whatsoever, why is all of this mentioned on the tenets and FAQ pages?

    • A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge.
    • A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned.
    • Players who desire cooperative play, working together as a team, and the shared experiences that result from playing with other real people to overcome challenges will enjoy Pantheon.

    Size does make a difference on how challenging something can be.  If it doesen't for someone else, I applaud them for being naturally gifted with superior micromanagement and multitasking skills, but it's always been a challenge for me, and one that I have a very deep appreciation for.  Pantheon is the only game I care about right now and any time I hear or see anything that might deviate from the all-important emphasis on the inherent challenges that can only be found in cooperative gameplay (more players) ... it really lights a fire under me.  I am not trying to attack Kilsin for his thoughts/opinions and have a great deal of respect for him as the CM for VR, despite what some people may think.  I know that his vision has a lot of influence behind the scenes and I'm just trying to understand how this particular aspect of how he feels aligns with the vision I have been so excited about.  It's probably way too late for me to be thinking about any of this logically right now so I'm just going to crash and revisit the topic tomorrow.  I apologize if I came off harshly, and I meant no disrespect.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 20, 2017 1:10 AM PDT
    • 9115 posts
    July 20, 2017 4:34 AM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    Kilsin said:

    oneADseven said:

    Kilsin said:

    The thing is, everyone is responsible for themselves, you can only control your own actions in-game, the mob/content doesn't change, we design the difficulty, so maybe from a raid leader perspective, it may appear harder because you have to also worry about coordinating more humans but that absolutely has no effect on the actual difficulty of the mob or content, so the group/raid size makes no difference whatsoever.

    Scenario; you're a group/raid leader:

    If the group size is 6, you give 5 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 24, you give 23 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    If the group size is 72, you give 71 people instructions/strats (if they need it)

    All that changes is the amount of information that you need to convey to others, it doesn't impact the difficulty of the mob or the content in the slightest it just makes your job of managing humans harder the more humans there are ;)

    Using that logic, adding players of any amount wouldn't increase the difficulty of the mob, and that's not really what I have been saying.  I understand that the difficulty of the mob itself doesen't magically get harder as you add more people to fight it ... it requires programing and designing to make that happen.  And failure doesen't just come down to the raid leader ... if content is truly the hardest content in the game, then everybody needs to perform at an incredible level with very little margin for error.  The more people that are required to do that, the harder the content is.  The notion of "everyone is responsible for themselves" is not entirely true because in raiding, it's pretty common that players are responsible for far more than the actions of their own characters.  If one person fails, it impacts the night of let's say 50 other people.  That kind of pressure also adds a sense of difficulty to the encounter.

    When you play under the assumption that your potential mistakes can impact the time and success of 50+ friends, wouldn't that be a wee bit harder on your conscious?  Isn't it harder to buff 72 players compared to 6?  How about being responsible for healing 24 melees instead of 2-3, having to make sure your own character has all 50 available buffs instead of just 12, or having to mezz 10+ mobs instead of 2 because the encounter is properly tweaked to compensate for a raid of your size?  I could go on for days on how having more people in the group/raid presents a naturally higher scale of difficulty than what can be accomplished with smaller numbers.  I understand that we cannot control the difficulty of the mob itself, I am only sharing my thoughts on how the "peak" for "most difficult content in the game" could be achieved in raids in ways that group content could never compare to.  Sorry for the confusion, and I hope that makes more sense.

    No, I wouldn't say harder at all, I would say more time consuming and a bit more to manage in terms of logistics and organisation but anyone skilled in that area will have no problems setting up a routine.

    Using my guild as an example in VG, we used to have groups of people log in an hour to two before raiding (which was 24 man - 4 groups of 6), some of them didn't even raid but liked helping us by contributing crafting to stock up on pots and diplomacy to push up buffs (we even had random community members noticing us pushing buffs and helped, VG was such an awesome community!), by the time raiding was supposed to start everyone was already fully geared, buffed and had their pots ready to go, we would decide on the spot which mob to hit first depending on the turnout and what we needed (plus what other guilds were doing) and off we went.

    We used the exact same method for 6 man content and the times rarely varied, it is all about organisation, coordination, management and planning. It has no impact on the difficulty of the mob or the content at all. It is just more people to manage and if everyone does their job and follows instructions then 24, 48 or 72 people can do everything just as efficiently as a 6 man group all the larger numbers do is weed out and exaggerate the stragglers, afkers and slackers and that is a guild/raid management issue, it has nothing to do with the design or content of the game. ;)

    It's more difficult to set up a routine of trying to heal a large group of players than a small group, especially when they have to spread out and handle different tasks.  It's more difficult to keep track of the health of 20 mobs instead of 4.  It's more difficult to cure a debuff every 6 seconds than it is every 20 seconds.  Isn't the organization, coordination, management and planning required for group content also a factor in how it's difficulty is gauged?  I always thought these were the main factors ... unless gear and spell quality is what beats bosses we aren't on the same page at all.  We aren't talking about abstract details here ... these are some of the most important aspects of what makes an encounter challenging in the first place.  Guild/raid "management issues" sound like a form of difficulty to me, and they are directly associated with the amount of players that need to be managed.  So yes ... in that sense, more players equals higher difficulty.

    Challenge is challenge and we all miss that very much.  Again, this circles back to "a challenge reborn" and "bring your friends."  These are your new catch phrases for a game that prides itself on the oldschool difficulty that so many of us miss.  They will appeal to a ton of people because so many of us can appreciate the added layer of coordination and management that goes into playing through group content compared to solo content.  Raiding is a step above grouping, in that same sense.  Like I said ... make a video where 2-3 groups die against a king dragon, and then come back with 50 friends for revenge.  People will love it and will be naturally drawn to the glory and challenge associated with the epic scale of difficulty that can be had in such a scenario.  Just my opinion as a gamer, and as someone who really enjoyed the actual video that was released.  And while I understand that Pantheon is primarily a group focused game, many players will naturally look at grouping as a stepping stone to raiding.  It's possible to switch things up and for that to not be the case ... I'm not sure if that's the plan for Pantheon or not but to hear from a dev that size "makes no difference whatsoever" ... meh.  I just don't think it flows well with the new catch phrases, let alone some of the core principles and tenets of the game.

     

    Healing was easy to though, we used heal rotations, you could time it by text macros, healing chat channels, healing voice channels etc. making 10+ healers act as one, it is just human management, not game management which is my simplified point.

    As for "Bring Friends", it is paying homage to the good old days where you couldn't solo everything, it doesn't specify how many friends you need, just that you can't do everything yourself.

    I understand raiding perfectly, it just seems we have different views on what is challenging and in my opinion, with good guild leadership, raid leadership plus attentive and skilled guild members it doesn't matter how many there are, the effective management of them can nullify most of the human logistics and micromanagement challenges if done properly and out of respect for the OP I will leave it there as this thread isn't specifically about raiding and everyone's personal opinions/experiences but it is interesting to hear how you and others manage raiding, I look forward to seeing it in-game some day. :)

    As a friendly reminder from our FAQ:

    • 9.1 Will you be able to raid in Pantheon?

      Yes, there will be Raid content in Pantheon. That said, the majority of content is being designed for grouping, with the remainder for soloing or raiding.

    • 9.2 What do you envision the ‘End Game’ scene to be like? Classic style, with inherently difficult raids? Or more contemporary with many different levels of difficulty? Do you guys plan on raiding at all?

      We're trying to avoid the term 'End Game' because it has evolved into something far different than what it literally means. In some games, the perception that the true game, the ‘fun’ game, doesn’t begin until the 'end game' came to exist. The reason why isn't super important and varies depending on the game but with Pantheon you won’t be compelled to rush to the final levels.

      First, even if you could rush to maximum level, you would be incredibly ill-equipped to handle high-end combat. Because you found some way to rush (perhaps a bug, etc.) your character won't have what it needs to do well at the higher levels. Second, most content in Pantheon will be designed around grouping, with smaller amounts designed for soloing and raiding. Pantheon is not primarily a raiding game, though we know many in our community enjoy raiding. Same with soloing -- it is not Pantheon's focus, but some people like to solo occasionally. Also, there is no reason why we couldn't have, say, level 20 or level 30 raids. In other words, there is nothing magical or special at the final levels that somehow allows you to experience an aspect of Pantheon that was previously hidden. That is not the case. We want the game to be fun and adventurous, finding skills and items throughout your entire experience from low to max level. Lastly, we will be launching expansions frequently enough to keep ahead of most players and raising the level cap as necessary.

    • 267 posts
    July 20, 2017 4:39 AM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    oneADseven said:

    It's not as simple as just giving people instructions.  Also factor that all X of those players will have a job to do, and as you add more moving pieces and parts, there are more opportunities for things to go wrong.  That by definition leads to a higher "difficulty ceiling" than what could ever be accomplished with a single group.  Math is a huge part of raiding and it becomes much more complex as you continue to add variables.  Complexity (that needs to be solved and navigated), difficulty, they are the same thing to me.  Again, you can design a solo encounter as the "hardest" creature in the game if you want to, but that doesen't change the fact that should that same tuning/designing be scaled to a larger size, it's more difficult to conquer.

    It is that simple though, all that changes is the number of players, the content doesn't change, the difficulty doesn't change, just the amount of people engaging the mob. That micromanagement is up to you and everyone else to figure out but it has absolutely no impact on the mob or the content, the difficulty stays the same whether there are 6 or 600 people. ;)

    Actually I'd say the difficulty primarily depends upon the mechinics in place in the encounter. In a generic tank and spank raid for example, you are indeed correct that the difficulty doesn't really go up as having 6 or 600 doesn't matter in simple terms its just a matter of which goes faster, your DPS or your clerics mana. However thats a rather simple mechanic and really doesn't dive into the potential difficulty of how different mechanics effect different raid force sizes. For example, In EQ, there was a GOD era raid where every time a player died, it spawned another mob you had to deal with. It made just clearing to the encounters a massive effort as one bad mistake by 1 player could quickly cause the situation to go out of control and snow ball. That was definately a raid where every additional player only added to the overall difficulty and some guilds even went to the mindset of "Were only going to use groups X,Y and Z to clear because having the full raid force there just increases the likelyhood that things would go wrong."

    Now beyond mechanics, I will also say the scaling done to match an events difficulty to 24 players vs 54 (or more) players inherently makes the 54 player raid "Feel" like they accomplished something greater. I liken this effect to being like charity efforts. Often small groups seem to raise larger amounts of charity per person than larger groups, yet telling a group of 100 that they collectively raised $2,000 feels like a lot less of an accomplishment than telling a group of 1000 that they raised $10,000 when in fact the smaller group gave on average twice what the larger group did. So I guess at the end of the day figuring out how to balance that "I accomplished something greater" feelings with the difficulty is something that needs to be managed like everything else.

    That said, my personal preference is to see raids done in numerous sizes. Personal preference would be to see some 24 man raids, 48 man raids and 96 man raids. The idea should be to only have one 96 man raids compared to the dozens of other raids. Ideally you want guidls to craft and target their raid forces around that 24 or 48 number since nearly all the raid content is in that range, but then it makes diplomacy and coordination between guilds/raid forces and encourages them to team up and go after the 96 man raid. Smaller guilds might even focus their raid force around the 24 man targets and then team up with other smaller guilds to hit 48 man targets. I simply love the concept of guild interaction rather than 1 guild being able to operate by itself and do all the content. While, yes, guilds could form 96 man raid teams and even potentially break them into 2 or more raids to go after smaller size raids, I feel that typically guilds tend to form in the size that a majority of their raid content exists in and will then make other arrangements when something bigger comes along. 


    This post was edited by Keldaria at July 20, 2017 4:43 AM PDT
    • 9115 posts
    July 20, 2017 4:43 AM PDT

    Dreconic said:

    I think the main thing here is people have different definitions of what makes any giving raid, group or solo encounter hard. I do a lot of cooking (and love it) some of the most difficult things to cook have very few steps, some of the easiest have many steps that have to be done in order. Kilsin is saying that the number of steps in a recipe (or in this case the number of people in an encounter) does not make that encounter any more or less difficult.

    Now I think we can all agree that managing 6 people vs managing 72 is more difficult and 187 is trying to say that this makes raid encounters more difficult as there are more moving parts. neither one is wrong using their own definitions of what makes an encounter "hard".

    I for one like that fewer people can do 72 man top tier end game content (As it is that much "harder" to get 72 people) but I have had many group encounters in games that were much harder skill level to overcome than many 72 man content.

    also @Kilson as always I know your opinions are your own but being the mouth of VR your words will always sway us followers to think/feel that your thoughts, opinions and actions are what is making its way into PRF. I never said that PRF was going to be only 24 man raids only that it seems that is the way it is going and that it would be sad for me and those like me that like 72 man raids.

     

    I like cooking too man and my bro was a head chef for 20 years, so to explain my way of thinking better to you, think of it as the more people you are feeding (players), the more cooks you need (raid leaders).

    Raiding:

    6 man group = 1 leader

    48 man raid = 8 leaders (1 for each 6 man group)

    Cooking:

    Dinner for 1-4 = 1 cook

    Dinner for 48+ = enough cooks to cover each section properly and efficiently to fulfil service

    So the bigger the raid encounter the smarter the guild/raid leaders need to be to delegate and manage, I honestly don't see that as a challenge or increased difficulty, I actually enjoy that kind of responsibility but I may just be weird lol

    Anyway, I will leave you guys to it, I love raiding and can't help myself when I see discussions like this about it, it is the community member in me coming through :D

    • 175 posts
    July 20, 2017 7:44 AM PDT

    I'd love to see raiding be more about the lore/content and less about the numbers. Pretty much for all content. Then it's a matter of what you can handle, not what the devs decicded you needed.

    As for difficulty changing with numbers... content in general gets easier with more numbers. That level 1 rat may pose a problem to the level 1 newb, but throw 10 newbs at it and it's lunch time. You can add mechanics to deal with added numbers (kind of like Keldaria mentioned), but without them saying a 72 man raid is more difficult than a 36 man raid is entirely content based.

    • 281 posts
    July 20, 2017 7:57 AM PDT

    A lot of depends on whether the raid is instanced.  If it is instanced, one can put player caps and tune difficulty for numbers.

     

    However, open world raids can't really have "caps" and the more people show up, the easier it is.  You can tune it to be a challenge for 24 people, but if 58 show, none of that matters.  Of course, if half of those are one guild and the other half is another guild then both guilds are racing for the loot and that adds more challenge for the players (the mob's difficulty hasn't changed.)

    Since, content in Pantheon is not going to be instanced with minor expceptions for story, etc.  The second option is what we'll likely have and I hope that there are various Raid Mobs that have varying levels of difficulty, including at least one that is designed to never be beat.  (Of course some server will eventually gather enough people and with enough rez rotations that after 6 days straight of non-stop DPS from 500 players at any given time, it will come down and make history and a new Top Dog Raid Mob will be needed.)

    • 626 posts
    July 20, 2017 8:10 AM PDT

    Just a quick note as well, most of the conversation I see here is from Guild Leaders or at least the ones who coodinate the Raids. For me as part of the raid or an avgerage Raider I found it all depends on the Raid leaders.... 

     

    So with that being said, as a normal player in the group and not leader it was easy for me to learn when I needed to do and do that. 6 or 24 or 40 man Raids where all the same. However for the Leaders it was def. more work that went into organizing the larger raids just based off what was needed. Knowing all the Classes, abilities, and what they had to work with and what not was something a great leader would study and prep for days and weeks in advance. With a good leader we all knew what to do and when, and then it just came down to doing it. 

    • 3237 posts
    July 20, 2017 8:19 AM PDT

    DragonFist said:

    A lot of depends on whether the raid is instanced.  If it is instanced, one can put player caps and tune difficulty for numbers.

     

    However, open world raids can't really have "caps" and the more people show up, the easier it is.  You can tune it to be a challenge for 24 people, but if 58 show, none of that matters.  Of course, if half of those are one guild and the other half is another guild then both guilds are racing for the loot and that adds more challenge for the players (the mob's difficulty hasn't changed.)

    Since, content in Pantheon is not going to be instanced with minor expceptions for story, etc.  The second option is what we'll likely have and I hope that there are various Raid Mobs that have varying levels of difficulty, including at least one that is designed to never be beat.  (Of course some server will eventually gather enough people and with enough rez rotations that after 6 days straight of non-stop DPS from 500 players at any given time, it will come down and make history and a new Top Dog Raid Mob will be needed.)

    You can definitely have caps in an open world game.  See Vanguard and plenty of other MMO's.  Kilsin even mentioned how he likes the idea of 24 for structured raid content.  All you do is structure an encounter so that it can't be engaged by more than X amount of players.  If that happens, DPS racing goes out the window completely as it's impossible for two guilds to ever fight over the same mob at the same time.  Instead, it's all about who gets there first, and whether or not they kill it on that first pull.  If not, guilds will rotate attempts on the mob until it's dead.  Played plenty of MMO's like this and I much prefer how it was done in EQOA (DPS race)  --  but totally understand how encounter locking and ghost mechanics are healthier for the game.

    • 3237 posts
    July 20, 2017 8:33 AM PDT

    I much prefer the idea of guilds being able to tackle bosses on their own rather than having to unite with other guilds on the server to kill something.  I don't mind exceptions to this, but using FFXIV as an example, killing stuff like Behemoth or any of their other open world mega bosses was an absolute joke.  So was the loot ... but at least it matched the difficulty of the encounter.  It seemed like a tacky "server event" kind of thing rather than a mob that actually requires 96 people to build strategy together.  The mob would spawn, everybody in the zone would attack it, certain people got loot and most didn't.  It sucked really really bad and I personally found it to be a pathetic attempt of building an encounter compared to the Behemoth from FFXI.

    I would prefer to see 48-72 as the standard structured number (please remember this is an intensely social game, and I found the structured number of 24 in EQ2 as a mechanic that deemphasized socialization) and with raids of different sizes sprinkled in.  If a smaller guild can't field 48 players, then they can work out an alliance with another smaller guild to be able to tackle it.  If they have 96 man content in this game, I'll have 96 raiders in my guild ready to take it down.  It's not that I don't like working with outside guilds ... it's never an issue with that, but when it comes to loot distribution in top end guilds, you usually operate off of DKP or loot council.  Compensating for unknown variables for any solicited help complicates that tremendously.  I would go on recruiting sprees before ever trying to work out a cooperative raid with another guild ... but that's just my personal preference.

    I guess it depends on how loot is done as well ... if a set amount of loot drops and then it's up to the raid to distribute, yeah, I would prefer to work with my own guild.  If everybody in the raid has a "random chance" of getting something then it doesen't really matter ... but again that's how FFXIV did it with their open world mega bosses and it felt extremely lackluster.  I understand everybody has their own definition of intensely social as well and mine resembles more of an EQOA approach where raids were uncapped.  That doesen't mean you just recruit 500 players ... you still want to kill it with the minimum amount of players needed to ensure more efficient character progression for your members, and a better sense of victory.  I'm sticking with the bigger is better and harder mantra.  I know that raiding isn't a major focus for Pantheon right now but hopefully there will be enough people in the community to speak up on their desire to see a bigger emphasis on raiding for the future.  I'd like to know what VR is thinking as far as their target audience goes.  I've seen so many numbers tossed around as a matter of fact.  Is it 10% of people that enjoy raiding?  20%?  My guess is 50%+ but who knows ... maybe ask people and find out.  Surveys are really awesome with compiling that kind of information.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 20, 2017 9:09 AM PDT
    • 281 posts
    July 20, 2017 9:24 AM PDT

    Fair enough.  I hadn't had those kind of experiences.  My raid experiences are mostly from EQ1 and it went from anyone can attack it to instanced.  But I see how that kind of lock down could work.

    I still like the idea of some "unkillable" raids.  I remember the Sleeper in EQ1.  It was a dragon that was sleeping and supposedly was undefeatable and he was given some rediculous HP and AOE attacks that pretty much one-shotted even the highest HP tanks, nevermind dps and healers.  But it was history in the making when one server worked it out and took literally days to do it, but killed it.  I have fond memories of such challenges.  Hell, I wasn't even involved in the taking down of the Sleeper.  Don't even think it was my server, but it was being talked about everywhere.  People that had characters on that server logged into alts on other servers to spread the news.

    Not saying that should be the norm.  But having mobs that take gradiently more people to defeat, throw in some actually challenging mechanics, with strategy and one an have the stuff which is farmed and the stuff of legends as well.

     


    This post was edited by DragonFist at July 20, 2017 9:28 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    July 20, 2017 9:37 AM PDT

    Archaen said:

    I'd love to see raiding be more about the lore/content and less about the numbers. Pretty much for all content. Then it's a matter of what you can handle, not what the devs decicded you needed.

    As for difficulty changing with numbers... content in general gets easier with more numbers. That level 1 rat may pose a problem to the level 1 newb, but throw 10 newbs at it and it's lunch time. You can add mechanics to deal with added numbers (kind of like Keldaria mentioned), but without them saying a 72 man raid is more difficult than a 36 man raid is entirely content based.

    Yeah, I acknowledged how a solo rat could technically be the hardest encounter in the game if that's how the content was designed.  72 man raids could be the easiest content in the game if that's how those encounters are designed.  There has never been a single group encounter in any game I have played, that when defeated, you heard a feral warcry of victory from your comrades.  I've heard it plenty of times from raids and that's because they have always been consistently harder.  People can argue that coordination and management isn't a part of how you gauge difficulty but I disagree.  It's part of the allure that has people drawn to wanting to group as opposed to solo ... it's inherently more difficult.  Also ... there are going to be 14 classes, and it appears that we might see dual specialization for all of them.  That said, with a structured number of 24, it would be impossible to bring at least one of each class/spec combination to your raids.  That goes against being social in my opinion.

    I would imagine that all specs should all be viable for raiding ... but raid leaders will have to pick and choose what class/spec aren't able to raid due to a hard raid size restriction.  When you factor in that certain class/specs will probably be added more than once to a raid (3-4 bards/enchanters/clerics/wizards, etc), that extrapolates the issue even further.  I saw it in EQ2.  My guild never had a paladin in nearly 4-5 years of playing that game.  We had a monk but he sat outside the raid entrance as a back-up far more often than he actually raided with us.  24 is not the answer at all unless you want to alienate a portion of the playerbase from ever being able to raid.  48+ is the way to go.  It allows guilds to bring at least one of each class/spec, and still have enough room to bring 2-3 of multiple classes as needed.

    EQ2 had 24 classes and 24 max raid size.  I can think of 0 guilds that ever brought one of each class to their raids.  And it was pretty consistent across the board, at the highest end, that certain classes got the short end of the stick due to the cap.  It is what it is ... none of this will truly matter until we can provide feedback down the road on what's already implemented ... but again, assuming each class gets multiple specs ... it would be impossible to bring one of each to a 24 man raid.  So I can socialize and make friends with the soul monks and invite them to my guild ... but when it comes time to raid, sorry.  An artificial cap will prevent them, or whatever other class, from having a consistent raid spot.  This is bad on so many levels.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 20, 2017 9:38 AM PDT
    • 626 posts
    July 20, 2017 9:42 AM PDT

    DragonFist said:

    Fair enough.  I hadn't had those kind of experiences.  My raid experiences are mostly from EQ1 and it went from anyone can attack it to instanced.  But I see how that kind of lock down could work.

    I still like the idea of some "unkillable" raids.  I remember the Sleeper in EQ1.  It was a dragon that was sleeping and supposedly was undefeatable and he was given some rediculous HP and AOE attacks that pretty much one-shotted even the highest HP tanks, nevermind dps and healers.  But it was history in the making when one server worked it out and took literally days to do it, but killed it.  I have fond memories of such challenges.  Hell, I wasn't even involved in the taking down of the Sleeper.  Don't even think it was my server, but it was being talked about everywhere.  People that had characters on that server logged into alts on other servers to spread the news.

    Not saying that should be the norm.  But having mobs that take gradiently more people to defeat, throw in some actually challenging mechanics, with strategy and one an have the stuff which is farmed and the stuff of legends as well.

     


    Yes I kinda hope that Pantheon has a God of Gods so to speak. A boss mob that when attacked will call upon other gods to come to his/her aide as well, and not only would you have to fight an insane God Boss, but all the other bosses as well. Meaning you could have to pull together 4-5 24 groups to fight a boss each, and then have a 72 man team just on the main boss... would it be something done often.. oh no. It would be something that would take years to complete if ever based on server population you may never have enough on with the gear and level to even attempt. This would be a quote unkillable God, but yet if the stars aglined it could be done... 

    • 12 posts
    July 20, 2017 9:46 AM PDT

    I'm hoping that however raids are handled, they take into account the working requirements of the modern era. When I played EQ1, I had time to raid 6+ hours a day and not have an issue. Nowadays I can only play 2-3 hours a night normally. So if there isn't a way to keep progression of some sort, it could be rough. There is also the issue of raid sizes. In classic EQ1 zergs, it wasn't unheard of to have over 100 people fighting a boss. But trying to get that many people in a raid that is challenging nowadays might be a bit harder.