Gnog said:Liav, the idea to have raid targets spawn during a server's prime time is one that I can get behind. I'm not sure whether that was sarcasm, though. The idea of spawns during prime time is in the same vein as the idea I was trying to put forward about entire raid zones that open at a predictable time, which would give competitive raiding without instances and without 4am batphones. You didn't seem to like that idea though :)
Onead, Is there a way to have competitive raiding, like you describe, where you only have a *chance* to get the kill, without batphones usually dictating who wins the race?
I liked my variation on your idea with unpredictable portals leading to the raid mob, but I am biased.
I would be genuinely shocked if you weren't practically guaranteed the kill if you are a member of a specific guild. I think I actually overestimated the number of guilds that will be able to participate in open world races.
This game, if it turns out to be successful, will probably have 10 servers minimum, maybe upwards of 15 or 20. You really think there are enough people to facilitate competitive racing on even 10 servers, let alone 20? Most top guilds on each server will probably be able to sleep on open world mobs for several hours before they even have to think about competition.
Regardless, I could very well be wrong. If I am, I don't want late night batphones, period. In that case, I want Vanguard's raid model copied verbatim into Pantheon. Or I want instances.
Gnog said:Liav, the idea to have raid targets spawn during a server's prime time is one that I can get behind. I'm not sure whether that was sarcasm, though. The idea of spawns during prime time is in the same vein as the idea I was trying to put forward about entire raid zones that open at a predictable time, which would give competitive raiding without instances and without 4am batphones. You didn't seem to like that idea though :)
Onead, Is there a way to have competitive raiding, like you describe, where you only have a *chance* to get the kill, without batphones usually dictating who wins the race?
It wasn't sarcasm, my biggest worry about your suggestion was the lack of repeatability of content. I may have misunderstood your suggestion, but it sounded like it would be multiple special events of sorts where you may not have the opportunity to kill the same mob again for a very long time.
Gnog said:The question is what you want the competition to be based on. Is it guild coordination, class mastery, and encounter knowledge, or is it the willingness to permacamp spawns and log in at crazy hours of the day. If you want the latter, there's no point debating you. But when the bulk of the player base hits max level and finds out that raiding is locked down by no-lifers, you must realize what will happen...
Exactly.
Arcsbane said:We would drive through the content too fast and sit there twiddling our thumbs waiting for an expansion. And if they made some ultra-super-duper difficult raids, then they've effectively locked out most of their playerbase by design and I can't see that as a good solution as it just caters to those hardcores anyway.
This is pure contradiction. So having difficult raiding or "ultra-super-duper difficult raids" that everyone can at least attempt even though the vast majority fail/just aren't skilled enough for is poor design for locking out most of the playerbase but having contested raids that are even more limited in access by locking out far more of the player base & 100% caters to the absolute most hardcore is somehow good design?
I must be losing my mind.
Gnog said:Liav, the idea to have raid targets spawn during a server's prime time is one that I can get behind. I'm not sure whether that was sarcasm, though. The idea of spawns during prime time is in the same vein as the idea I was trying to put forward about entire raid zones that open at a predictable time, which would give competitive raiding without instances and without 4am batphones. You didn't seem to like that idea though :)
Onead, Is there a way to have competitive raiding, like you describe, where you only have a *chance* to get the kill, without batphones usually dictating who wins the race?
I'm gonna think about this and I'll get back to you on it. This is some pretty solid progress!
Iksar said:This is pure contradiction. So having difficult raiding or "ultra-super-duper difficult raids" that everyone can at least attempt even though the vast majority fail/just aren't skilled enough for is poor design for locking out most of the playerbase but having contested raids that are even more limited in access by locking out far more of the player base & 100% caters to the absolute most hardcore is somehow good design?
I must be losing my mind.
Admittedly, I worded it poorly, but it was given in the context of a ghost/hyper system. Given that players can test and learn an engagement through a ghost encounter, assuming the hyper is killed and down, then the most hardcore don't have an edge anymore. You can contest them for that spawn on equal footing. This is further reinforced with Liav's server daytime spawns idea. Those spawns are no longer the hegemony of the hardcores. Whereas an exceedingly difficult fight (which can be increased damage, hp, or both. Mechanics, once learned, are easy.) caters only to the hardcore.
Liav said:It wasn't sarcasm, my biggest worry about your suggestion was the lack of repeatability of content. I may have misunderstood your suggestion, but it sounded like it would be multiple special events of sorts where you may not have the opportunity to kill the same mob again for a very long time.
I had something a little different in mind. The idea would be to have the same content (a raid zone or zones, kinda on the scale of VT or bigger) be accessible only at certain times of the week. So maybe once every 5 days the zone opens, triggered by something in Terminus. It would be the same content each time the zone opens, and the zone would open at a predictable enough time that you wouldn't have to batphone. But guilds would have to compete for spawns within the zone. So you still get the same experience and benefits of non-instanced competitive raiding, but without the 4am batphones.
I don't mind the suggestion, honestly. It would be cool if a system like that could coexist with an open world lockout for some encounters, then have a major raid zone such as VP unlock as you describe here.
I like it. This is a major improvement over oldschool EQ raiding, and no one can complain about instances at the same time.
Nephele said:If you try to cram 10 raiding guilds into a single raid zone, nothing you do is going to prevent people from getting shut out and getting super frustrated by it.
I could design a raid zone with enough content in it for 10 raiding guilds at once. But VR has made it clear that there will be more than enough content, and it will be spread out around the world. So technically the last two pages of this thread, are completely meaningless. VR has already made it clear where they stand on content and overpopulation issues. They intend to avoid it by adding in more than enough content, and speading out item distribution.
Those two things eliminate the rest of this conversation as semantic non-issues.
Here is an idea. It's not completely original as it draws upon elements from Sky (FFXI) and Living Tombs (EQ2). You create a really large open world raid zone with 8 contested mini bosses. Every time you kill one of the mini-bosses, you get a piece or two of raid quality gear and a key. At the center of this zone there is a way to force pop the major boss by using all 8 keys. In EQ2, each mini-boss had their own unique key so you had to acquire all of them in order to gain access to God King Anuk's Chamber. Unfortunately, with that system, guilds could still block others from progression by perma camping any specific mob as it would prevent others from ever being able to obtain the full set of keys. Rather than assigning a unique key to each boss, make it so that every time you kill any boss, you automatically loot one of the keys that you don't already have.
This prevents total monopoly because a raid can still gain access to the force pop mechanism by farming any combination of the mini bosses. The zone would be so large that it would be impossible to lock down all 8 mobs. You space them out enough to where it actually takes time to go from one mini boss to the next. Once you have all 8 keys, you can force pop the major boss and he is locked to the raid that spawned it for maybe an hour or two before also becoming contested. If he isn't engaged by at least X amount of players for a period of 30+ minutes, he instantly becomes contested to prevent guilds from blocking others from spawning him. He would also drop the best loot in zone. I'm sure this can be fleshed out a bit more but it would deliver the contested aspect that I enjoy while also giving everybody else a chance to fight the main boss and acquire the best loot without worrying about being blocked by another guild.
oneADseven said:Here is an idea. It's not completely original as it draws upon elements from Sky (FFXI) and Living Tombs (EQ2). You create a really large open world raid zone with 8 contested mini bosses. Every time you kill one of the mini-bosses, you get a piece or two of raid quality gear and a key. At the center of this zone there is a way to force pop the major boss by using all 8 keys. In EQ2, each mini-boss had their own unique key so you had to acquire all of them in order to gain access to God King Anuk's Chamber. Unfortunately, with that system, guilds could still block others from progression by perma camping any specific mob as it would prevent others from ever being able to obtain the full set of keys. Rather than assigning a unique key to each boss, make it so that every time you kill any boss, you automatically loot one of the keys that you don't already have. This prevents total monopoly because a raid can still gain access to the force pop mechanism by farming any combination of the mini bosses. The zone would be so large that it would be impossible to lock down all 8 mobs. You space them out enough to where it actually takes time to go from one mini boss to the next. Once you have all 8 keys, you can force pop the major boss and he is locked to the raid that spawned it. He would also drop the best loot in zone. I'm sure this can be fleshed out a bit more but it would deliver the contested aspect that I enjoy while also giving everybody else a chance to fight the main boss and acquire the best loot without worrying about being blocked by another guild.
Instead of keys, you could force guilds to work together and support each other in order to spawn the competitive target. And even work in the rest of the server. You can make a raid into a broadcast event that players can participate in. And without enough support, the mob won't spawn, or it too powerful to defeat.
Then everyone is forced to be on the same page, and there would be no more motivation to dominate content. The goal would be to cooperate for the small chance at the best loot, with as much community support as possible.
ZennExile said:Instead of keys, you could force guilds to work together and support each other in order to spawn the competitive target. And even work in the rest of the server. You can make a raid into a broadcast event that players can participate in. And without enough support, the mob won't spawn, or it too powerful to defeat.
Then everyone is forced to be on the same page, and there would be no more motivation to dominate content. The goal would be to cooperate for the small chance at the best loot, with as much community support as possible.
So who gets the rewards if the multi-guild raid is successful?
- If only the guild that does the most damage total gets the reward then that negates any incentive to participate for every guild that knows they won't be among the heavy hitters. Even if you make is so the top X number of guilds in damage get rewards you still negate the incentive for all others.
- If it's the first guild to trigger the progression to the spawn, then no other guilds have incentive to participate.
- If you divide the spoils among all guilds participating then chances are notable that some guilds will get nothing, and others will get 1 item. Incentive to participate here is very low.
- If all guilds that participated get something then that encourages exploitation by dividing traditionally large uber guilds into smaller guilds (which are realistically still one big guild), which nets more rewards generated on the shard. Even if there isnt exploitation it still increases the quantity of rewards total, which in turn reduces value and exclusivity of those rewards.
Each of these has the potential to overlap with others with modifications to the loot distribution.
And to address an imagined philosophy you seem to think I hold; I've said dozens of times on these forums that I am highly unlikely to raid. I don't personally like to do it because it's often a lot of time spent doing nothing for a relatively short time of action, followed by a lot of bickering over loot and/or long painful recoveries, and which I rarely ever actually got rewards during in the days I participated regularly. HOWEVER, I fully support the idea that there be raiding in the game for those that enjoy it, and I fully appreciate that those large scale cooperative events should produce the best potential rewards. I actually believe that seeing people with the Uber Sword of Badass that I'll never obtain makes the gameworld feel bigger than me, more believable, more compelling, and more memorable, and I applaud those that reach the peaks of success that I myself will not achieve. I just don't see a point in coding in bulletin boards soley for the purpose of stroking epeens in everyone's face.
Edit:
I will say that I like the idea of story progression within a zone. I would have no heartache at all with the zone changing with populations, etc., as the story progresses, and participation by multiple guilds being necessary for that progression. I do not think that the "reward" for that progression should be a mob with traditional raid loot. It could instead be that the progression includes new group oriented mobs/loot throughout the zone that are consumed by anyone that chooses to, which are potentially "better" than the loots of the previous stage of the progression. This is interesting, and potentially compelling (depending on how it's implimented).
I honestly didn't have the time to read all the nice ideas you have. One thing I see as a good solution is a system which allows you to collect a currency with different activities and turn it in for gear. The more player are needed, the more currency you get. Raid dungeons can drop it (among other things like direct gear drop). Groups can find it in smaller dungeons which are too easy and not enough reward for a huge raid. Other players can find them in chests, hidden in areas "no man has gona befor". Or through rewards for finding a treasure by solving a puzzle. For crafting quests or in a small amount together with a mentor system. I'm fan of getting rewarded with good gear for playing solo or in groups as well. Of course not as fast as a raid group can. Slowly but surely though.
I tell you, I loved and hated old EQ raiding. The problem with classic was there wasn't enough raid targets. Then Kunark came out and there was enough raid targets, but a lot of it was keyed, which is fun and all, I enjoyed getting the keys, but guilds would perma camp some pieces to prevent other guilds from getting theirs, which was so obnocious. Now, velious came out, and the loot difference between velious and kunark was huge, there was still wanted loot in kunark, but velious had a lot of good stuff that near made kunark obsolete, even with no increase in level. So, naturally, everyone wanted to raid velious and ignore kunark, which gave some of the non competing guilds a chance to get kunark loot. Then, naturally it happened again when luclin came out, still no level increase but the gear was 10x better than velious' gear.
Now, open world kills are awesome, but there needs to be enough targets or targets that a raid could force to pop, in order to not need instanced raiding, otherwise there will be overloads of people trying to catch the same target, which i enjoy rushing to a target, and competing for it, but then it turns into a numbers game, who did more dmg, which i never played a good dps, but it's hard to find like 40 dps to fill the raids so we could even come close to competing with anyone else.
I know you guys don't want instances, that's not what I'm asking for, what I am asking for is a way to let the minor guilds compete without actually competing, such as locking a forced popped target or something. The little guys want loot too. I don't plan on being a little guy in this game, but i know people who are, and I've been the little guy before. Now EQ finally got it right with PoP, making multiple raid targets across multiple zones... I can't even count how many there were lol. But that expansion was awesome for raids.
Wow... Necro'd a huge thread here. Not sure if I want to go back and read all of it just to catch up with what was said last year. But I had some thoughts.
The main reason guilds would try to Block others from doing content was because of 2 reasons:
This means that if a guild wanted to make sure to get Boss2 every week, they just needed to stop other guilds from getting geared up on Boss1.
There seems to me to be a clear solution to both situations.
Just some thoughts.
Raids are great. i plan to do them all. i didn't read 16 pages of stuff but i am sure Brad/VR will come up with something, be it as simple as lock outs, or something new.
I think it would be neat for Raids to get harder and harder the more they are farmed. The mob would recognize the guild and being an intelligent "boss", the boss would "learn" that guilds particular weakness and exploit it. i.e. 'harder to kill that boss'
/shrug dunno if that's even possible, which is why Brad hasn't hired me as Lead Game Designer...
Flapp said:Raids are great. i plan to do them all. i didn't read 16 pages of stuff but i am sure Brad/VR will come up with something, be it as simple as lock outs, or something new.
I think it would be neat for Raids to get harder and harder the more they are farmed. The mob would recognize the guild and being an intelligent "boss", the boss would "learn" that guilds particular weakness and exploit it. i.e. 'harder to kill that boss'
/shrug dunno if that's even possible, which is why Brad hasn't hired me as Lead Game Designer...
I could actually see a raid designed to have its tactics changed over time. It could be something as basic as once a month VR will look at the most common strategy of defeating the raid and put in a hard counter to that method, forcing the guilds to change tactics. I could also see floating defensive stats that change over time, either in response to what has done the most damage to it or other environmental effects.
In a competitive world boss environment I also think it would be interesting to have the tactics and difficulty be effected by the time of day, time of year and current weather. Some raid bosses may be much easier during the day than at night or if there is a snow storm the ice giant king gains extra strength and nullifies its fire vulnerability. Depending on when the boss spawns guilds may be forced to wait for a more favorable condition before engaging the mob. The loot tables could also be tied to the conditions at time of death, making certain combinations more desirable at the cost of higher difficulty.
[Blockquote]Trask said: I could actually see a raid designed to have it's tactics changed over time. It could be something as basic as once a month VR will look at the most common strategy of defeating the raid and put in a hard counter to that method, forcing the guilds to change tactics.
While this may seem like a great idea, in reality this would never really be a great practice on VR's part. For various reasons.
I'm sure VR will still keep tabs on how guilds are handling various encounters and will use that knowledge for future raid encounters so that new content is fresh and not just a re-hash of the same strategy for the next fight.
FierinaFuryfist said:Are we looking at it backwards?
Biggest baddest enemies in the game had the best stuff. Was Nagafen meant to be fought at launch with just one group? Remember a lot of what went down in EQ was not originally planned by the developers but from player ingenuity. I just can't see the absolute best stuff not dropping from the absolute baddest enemies, epic quests excepted. I mean according to the movie, Smeagol got the ring in the first place because he was stronger than the other guy. So if a bad monster has an item of immense power, wouldn't other meaner monsters try and take it from him?
I will add that I'd like to see more than one epic quest line for each class. Weapon is obvious, but what about a shield for a Paladin, or a head dress for a shaman, Helm for a warrior, tome for a wizard, etc...
I thought Nagafen at launch wasn't expected to be killable at all. The idea of 60 person raids didn't exist at launch.
group difficulty vs raid difficulty is a dev decision. I was involved in one of those fear recoveries. I also remember multiple times doing CR in Sebilis. The hardest group bosses (in non Zerg instances) were usually just skipped by players in favor of raid loot. So making hard group content isn't unheard of, but loot has to be commensurate with the difficulty and devs rarely put "raid" quality loot on group content.
PS: sorry for necro
This post was edited by Silvermink at February 11, 2021 5:51 PM PST
((and devs rarely put "raid" quality loot on group content.))
But Pantheon is intended to be a group-focused game. With some raids and some ability to solo. Not a raid-focused game. Unless this has changed.
Raids are often easier than group dungeons. Depending, of course, on how they are designed. They certainly are usually more forgiving on players. A difficult dungeon may produce a wipe if one player does a poor job or is too poorly geared. Even a difficult raid is sometimes doable with a few players outrifght afk.
Raids are more likely to have "dance mechanics". You don't win because of how well geared you are or how well you play your class. You win because you go from pixel to pixel at the right time as the mechanics dictate and are prepared for different enemies at preset times. Knowledge of the fight is king - ability of the character or the player is closer to serf.
This said, wouldn't it make more sense for group drops from difficult fights to be *better* than raid drops from maybe not-so-difficult fights. That is not at all the common pattern in MMOs today but one of the things most of us want *is* something different from most MMOs today and this would reinforce the group nature of the game.