For me, you can easily have 6-man (groupable) content that provides BiS or near-BiS gear. The question is not... how difficult, but how rare. If a group can go into the 'dungeon of evil" and find the 'evil coruptor', they can slay it and get the amazing item. However, if the 'evil coruptor' is amazingly rare, then what? What will happen is a group will camp it. Like the Black Flowing Silk Sash in Lower Guk. However, you will never see a raid go in there. Why? It would be an amazing waste of everyones time for a raid of 67 people to sit around and wait for 350 place holders to spawn, just so that one player could possibly get the sash. Net effect - > Group content yields great reward.
By the way, in my experience raiding is super easy. I show up. Do what the raid leader tells me. I get gear. Or I die. But either way, not so hard. I mostly just cast the same spell (or two) over-and-over-and-over. Raiding is for the social experience and the epic-ness. Both of which I love. But difficulty for a raid follower: Laughable. This does not apply to raid leaders, which I do know have a challenging role. However, raid followers make up much more of the population than raid leaders.
I think a big key here is for Pantheon to have a very large variety of gear, much of it situational. There should be no BiS. There should not even be situational BiS. The variety will hopefully be so great, that people will choose to use certain powerful pieces over other ones mostly due to their play style. (this is of course over a long time) I would hope that over a characters life, a hard core raider might gain a couple dozen awesome breastplates that each have different uses. While a casual might get just two or three. Bragging rights won't come from having the single best item. It will come from having the best variety of items. Or perhaps from having a complete set, which should be quite rare. This will keep the game multi-dimensional, fresh, and will help keep the economy healthy.
My description did not have an instance requirement in it, but I'll bite. The answer is simple: you introduce 4-7 nightmare versions of existing zones, populate them with large number of monsters and let people choose where they want to go based on group comp and what loot table was the most tantalizing for them. Unless you with a straight face wish to argue that 7 zones worth of monsters, compromising only one aspect of endgame (overworld bosses are elsewhere, grinding for AA points is best done in other dungeons, quests go elsewhere, etc.) will be perma camped around the clock then I see no issue.
edit: Agree entirely with the post above this one. Who brings a full raid to minor overworld bosses that maybe drop one or two good items? Hilarious waste of time. Additionally agree with the comments about ease of play for the average raid person.
People keep talking about the "logistical impossibilities!!" of raiding with specific numbers of huge numbers of people, and then decry content getting zerged, but I think there are two sides to that coin. Zerging stuff only works if you can feed that many people at once, and I much prefer the benefits of being able to trim the fat and thus reward a leaner, more skilled group if it is so desired.
Enitzu said:
Well the dragon dropping a chestplate makes a whole lot more sense to me than a fish does. The dragon could have eaten someone else and we find the chestplate that wouldn't digest in his system. The chestplate however is 4-5 times larger than said fish.
Also are you saying that raiding isn't harder than grouping? As someone who came from FFXI, what content was more difficult, Dynamis or HNMs? Keep in mind I didn't play XI for very long military commitments. So anything after chains of promethia I have no clue about. But I do know that I could easily solo most Dynamis, some duo.
About the dragon. Im not over zealous about immrsion (not my thing). Im saying I see no reason why a retired Knight of legend couldnt enjoy fishing and give you his fabled breast plate because you impressed him with your elite fishing skills. Or maybe only high fishing skill can activate a quest that lets you fish up a water dragon that swallowed a breastplate. See what Im saying? Its not a matter of what you feel is important enough to drop BiS gear. Its a matter of anything is possible. So its difficult to say what does and doesnt make sense to me. Now if you are assigning value based on difficulty. Thats still your opinion and its not wrong its just that it is an opinion.
Im saying that I see no reason other than the larger ring of social obligations that group content cant be more challenging than multi group content. You say you played CoP. Did you defeat all the missions pre-nerf? I played FFXI through to WotG and was heavily involved in endgame. CoP missions had some of the hardest content in the game. There were a few exceptions but not many, and it was all group content. Although HNMs, Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar, Sky, Sea, and Salvage could be fun and challenging. No multi-group content in that game or any game since has come close to CoP missions...... well MMO wise. (I also play a lot of games in a log of different genres, though I admit I havent played them all). Though I still do favor Sky and Sea slightly more for the comraderie and larger group aspect.
Also I agree with Moszis and Gnog. If anything should provide THE very BiS items it should come from long multi-discipline content from varied activities including raiding. And I would actually like to see more of this style for endgame. Everything else should be equal in challenge and reward for endgame. Challenge presents itself in different ways so Id let the Devs decide how many fish I need to fish up or how many dragons I need to slay before I can get the Chestplate of Lewtasticness.
So think about it this way: if you have to beat a story mode boss to have the ability to enter a zone, but anybody who beats the boss can enter the zone, is it an instance? No, it's just gated, there is a minimum comptency check on your ability to enter the zone, but theoretically everyone who ever played on that server could be in there in the same time. The "nightmare" monicker merely describes the asthetic. Think the "Upside Down" from Stranger Things.
Jimmay, what you are asking for is essentially 7 dungeons that are basically copy/pastes of existing zones. Yea it would give more content and more farming places so it wouldn't be bad but it really doesn't change anything. Even if it's designed for 6 people what is stopping anyone from bringing 12? As this open world zone could not be scaled to any size
Edit - by scaled I meant mobs scale per group/raid size. Essentially the mobs would be the same no matter who you brought. Making it easier the more you bring. Not really any risk to reward in that.
Nothing? I don't see what the problem is. Do you think literally everyone is going to just become a huge ball and zerg everything? This didn't happen in the zoned version of dynamis and I see no reason why it would happen when you have the option for even more people. People participate in endgame because they expect loot. If you bring 600 people and only recieve about the same number of items as a group that brought the minimum number to kill the same amount of monsters you're splitting the pot an order of magnitude more ways. It's just basic human dynamics.
The typical reaction in FFXI was to bring as few people as possible to make larger splits, not bring dozens of people.
edit: incidentally I agree with Amsai's discussion of CoP storyline fights. To this day the best expansion storyline and fight setup I've seen over dozens of different expansions.
Jimmayus said:So think about it this way: if you have to beat a story mode boss to have the ability to enter a zone, but anybody who beats the boss can enter the zone, is it an instance? No, it's just gated, there is a minimum comptency check on your ability to enter the zone, but theoretically everyone who ever played on that server could be in there in the same time. The "nightmare" monicker merely describes the asthetic. Think the "Upside Down" from Stranger Things.
Well, high and even some mid level gated zones existed even back in EQ. They need not be harder clones of existing.
Yeah Iksar it worked like that in FFXI too, I was just using the "nightmare" thing because that was quite literally what dynamises where. No reason at all they couldn't be brand new zones, although I wouldn't care either way since using existing assets would be considerably cheaper if they need to produce other content.
Amsai said:
Also I agree with Moszis and Gnog. If anything should provide THE very BiS items it should come from long multi-discipline content from varied activities including raiding. And I would actually like to see more of this style for endgame. Everything else should be equal in challenge and reward for endgame. Challenge presents itself in different ways so Id let the Devs decide how many fish I need to fish up or how many dragons I need to slay before I can get the Chestplate of Lewtasticness.
This is what I'm hoping for in Pantheon.
On another note, with environments, atmospheres and best weapon types for specific situations I somehow doubt that the old days of having the BiS item may well become BiS items depending on where and what you are doing from moment to moment.
@OakKnower
Yes I completely agree with that in general. There might be a best fire sword or a best ice sword or a best light sword, etc. But there probably wont be just a best overall sword.
@Jimmayus
Thanks for the support man. A Dynamis type system could work really well. One thing I will say though is that for the specific type of content involved, I dont want the intended challenge to be undermined. If the challenge is supposed to be kill this dragon with 15 people, not sure how I feel about 25 showing up. Just like if the challenge is fish up 100 catfish, I wouldnt want someone to just go buy 100 catfish. Im not advocating necessarily hard caps or instances either, but still. Though I have no problem with someone low-manning content meant for more. Then your just being a badass. But its a difficult challenge for the Devs to have intended challenge and an open world. Though they have talked about a few ideas, particularly in the AMA.
Yeah I agree man. I figure as long as there are a large variety of encounters the assume player amounts 3 (for like world spawns that are not quite bosses) - raid cap then people will find equilibriums suitable for their own group. Somehow I doubt mass numbers of people will be happy splitting loot 60 ways.
Kind of surprised at the overfocus on "recycled zones", that is an irrelevant part of structuring that form of content.
Sorry the elipses in your post Megaera kind of made it hard to follow, but it seems pretty clear you're looking for scaling rewards based on the type of encounter, which seems pretty par for the course. Nothing disagreeable. I do disagree that 16 revelant encounters, all bosses is enough to keep a server full of guilds happy at once, that seems pretty optimistic. I prefer systems in which the number of bosses is incidental at best to describing endgame.
I think everyone can agree that a large number of encounters is important. The point of the OP, as I understand it, was to request ideas that go beyond the traditional (for EQ and WoW) format. I do not feel like the proposition of simply having more raid bosses is the right direction. I would prefer to see companion endgame zones in which the zone itself is the challenge, where the group of players is limited only by their knowledge of the obscure farming methods and how much their group is capable of taking on.
I mean think about it, if you created 5 "planes" to borrow your term (and no, they don't have to be nightmare versions of existing areas, that's not important) that were literally entire zones teeming with monsters all of which could drop gear then competition is an irrelevant concept. Suddenly named monsters being camped is inconvenient but you can just as easily get the same number of chances at the loot table by being efficient and carving a path to mini-events in the zone. For FFXI vets: would 5 areas the size of Jugner or Rolanberry Fields filled with more monsters that were generally more difficult really be hard camped by one or even 5 guilds? The idea is preposterous. Combine that with other group content, quests outside the zones leading to other fights and more traditional raid zones and suddenly you have multiple systems working together.
I just really loathe the concept that the "solution" is to have even more raid bosses, it's such an uncreative way of approaching competition.
Save Development money and eliminate end game content.
You hit top level, then bang you go to character create screen and make your progeney , who inherits the riches of your previous character, :)
Your top level character retires to your ingame home/workshop and crafts things and is allowed to mentor newbies up to a certain level.
:)
The title said alternatives in it. I was just sparking debate.
I think the end game in many MMO's are just Beating Bowser in different ways to gain Items to beat Bowser easier in many different ways.
By the way the game is over after you beat Bowser. There is no end game in your example.
* Edit because I sounded too Bitchy
Back in the original EQ days the number of times I visted the planes I can count on one hand. The number of times I visited Vox and Nagafen I can also count on one hand. So I am, by no means, someone who spends a significant amount of time in raiding content. So, I can't say as I have a grasp on why people view a MMORPG through the experience of raid content. I simply don't put that much time into the game.
So why is this topic interesting to someone like me?
It is because I pay the same subscription as those that play the game for raiding content. The money that will go to maintenance and development of the game - same as everybody else. So it is with an eager eye that I read what people feel should be raiding content. The discussion seems to have wanted to discuss alternatives and I can only surmise because they don't want the same old thing. I am starting to read into the discussion more of "the same old thing as opposed to alternatives as presented." I can see the benefit of devil's advocate. But I certainly can't see the benefit of Pantheon being developed as the same old thing. However, I could be completely wrong about this and thus why I am interested in this discussion.
The longevity of the game requires the longevity of the subscriber base. It may take me a couple years to experience the content that will be experienced by those in the first couple of months of release. And if that is the case then that is a good thing. It means the game is still around and I am still engaged in the content offered by the game. And those that have leveled well beyond me are also subscribing to the game (although it may be possible that there is a regular turnover of subscribers I am assuming this to not be the case). So it will be interesting for me to see if when I arrive at that state if the content will be "the same old thing" or if it will be something different. The interest will be in the evolution of the end game content since I will already have been able to experience the evolution of content up until that point. Has there also been an evolution in end game content or not?
@muscoby I think your concerns are the greatest of them all, truth be told. If I understand correctly, you're hoping that the devs will not kowtow to people advocating for the now-traditional raiding paradigm, instead taking a more wholistic approach to endgame. I too hope for the same. One of the reasons people like I view FFXI so favorably is that by today's standards the game had almost too much content. There were over 20 different systems people participated in at their pleasure, from small 3-man force pop monsters to 36+ man battles. The no-lifers could not hope to achieve pure bis without participating in a wide variety of content, and even the little guy had tons of viable things to do because all of them in some way or another were relevant to obtaining bis stuff.
To answer you question, it seems to me that, if anything, the mmo genre has devolved. The over-focus on raiding as the only pathway to all of the best gear has led developers to naturally take less and less development time to work on things outside of raiding. Look at FFXIV for example: their raiding is the only way to obtain the best gear, and as a result they literally make reskinned dungeons to appease people.
I believe the path to a better game revolves around accepting that raiding is not the end-all-be-all, at least in the sense that wow-style dungeons where bosses are the only thing that matters are not the end-all-be-all. I believe to 'evolve' the genre you must be willing to explore systems of design that encourage players to participate in simulatenously relevant forms of content, or else people will (like in so many mmos of the last 15 years) treat so much of the game as superfluous junk.
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 can see the best stuff not falling from the baddest ememies. Using your example was Bilbo stronger than Gollum/Smeagal, nope, yet he got the ring.