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.
I agree completely man. I remember when my guild took down Avatar of Fear in EQOA. For future attempts, the room was always crowded with level 1 alts (people from other servers that wanted to observe our strat) -- it was insane trying to kill that with the extra lag. Of course there were haters that would literally stand on top of your backline and spam animations/spells to try and lag them out. It was all good and fun though ... miss that stuff for sure. Instances suck. Encounter locking serves a major purpose as it allows the dev team to tune an encounter for a specific number of people and intensify how challenging it is. I just don't like the idea of the number 24 because it will ostracize a portion of the player base from being considered viable for raiding, and it would be based on nothing more than the class they play.
There can always be exceptions, but mark my words, if a 24 man cap is implemented, there will be various "meta raid compositions" that will form where you will want 2-3 of one class, and 0 of another. It's happened in every game I have ever played with a hard cap. I don't know what classes or specs will get shafted, but it will happen ... and I feel bad for whoever plays them as their main and has a desire to raid in a top-end guild. A cap of 36 would at least make it possible to include one of each class, but I feel like it wouldn't be quite enough. 48 is the sweet spot. =D
oneADseven said: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.
I agree completely man. I remember when my guild took down Avatar of Fear in EQOA. For future attempts, the room was always crowded with level 1 alts (people from other servers that wanted to observe our strat) -- it was insane trying to kill that with the extra lag. Of course there were haters that would literally stand on top of your backline and spam animations/spells to try and lag them out. It was all good and fun though ... miss that stuff for sure. Instances suck. Encounter locking serves a major purpose as it allows the dev team to tune an encounter for a specific number of people and intensify how challenging it is. I just don't like the idea of the number 24 because it will ostracize a portion of the player base from being considered viable for raiding, and it would be based on nothing more than the class they play.
There can always be exceptions, but mark my words, if a 24 man cap is implemented, there will be various "meta raid compositions" that will form where you will want 2-3 of one class, and 0 of another. It's happened in every game I have ever played with a hard cap. I don't know what classes or specs will get shafted, but it will happen ... and I feel bad for whoever plays them as their main and has a desire to raid in a top-end guild. A cap of 36 would at least make it possible to include one of each class, but I feel like it wouldn't be quite enough. 48 is the sweet spot. =D
Yeah, that happened with instanced stuff too. I think variety works here. some 12-man raids that aren't terribly difficult, some 24-man raids, etc., etc. up to, say, 72-man raids other than the "unkillable" ones mentioned earlier.
I am 100% down to see a mix of content, but I just really hope that a number much larger than 24 is used for structured raids. Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy 24 man raids but I think 48 is a much better number in regards to allowing an intensely social gaming community to thrive. Having the option to do 24 man content is great, even if you can't bring one of each class/spec combo ... but I would prefer to see those kind of limitations used as the exception rather than the rule. If 48 is used as the structured number, and the content is designed in such a way that all specs are able to provide solutions for mechanics/challenges, everybody will have an opportunity to play together regardless of what class they play. It's super important and I dread the idea of having to have certain people sit out from a raid because of what they play ... I had to do it for years in EQ2 and it really affected my relationship with some of the people who were asked to sit. We were still great friends but we could never truly appreciate our friendship by playing together ... it's a precarious situation to be in and I hope it's accounted for in the grand plan for raiding.
oneADseven said: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....
...An artificial cap will prevent them, or whatever other class, from having a consistent raid spot. This is bad on so many levels.
I think you misunderstood my rat example... I was actually agreeing with you. If one person struggles to kill a mob, it's that much easier with 2 or 3... so with raid level content... if 24 players can kill a raid boss, it would be that much easier with 48. My point was, in general, more players makes the same content easier to defeat. It's why you typically see hard caps on group/raid sizes, so the devs can design content around a specific expectation. I disagree with this and would rather there be no cap for any content. I'd rather see other methods to deter "zerging" content.
zazabar said: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.
Yes this is another concern of mine, I don't often have endless hours to play anymore and can't commit to "hardcore" raid guilds scheduling or raiding more than a couple nights a week for a few hours. I do love to raid but the pool of competent players/raiders when approaching huge groups 40+ is very slim, the added social challenge that more people bring to raids.
I've actually had tons of fun with the 8-man savage raids in FFXIV as they are generally very tightly tuned and everyone has to perform very well, and I have had just as much uproar of joy from friends I play with in discord when we finally manage to down a new boss. I think these victories feel especially good because with such a small number banding together I genuinely know each person (especially since I know more than half in real life). I do like large raids too though but again the pool of capable players that have a similar play schedule and also don't make raiding a second job seems to be very low.
Raids are often quite rigid because as mechanics become more complex to execute, the amount of variability in the encounter also decreases. When you're expecting anywhere from 24 to 72 people to all move in unison to carry out their expected roles, having the bosses be very unpredictable is like throwing curve balls at people and easily tip a raid into being "unfair." But with smaller groups there is much more room for less rotation based and more randomness from bosses to keep players on their toes and force them to constantly adapt.
Either way I will try to raid and I do hope they are quite difficult, but accessable to those with tighter schedules. I'd also like to see a raid zone in which 48 players or so have to split up to, say, assault a keep. All groups together to start having to fight a small army of very strong defenders flooding from the entrance before each group splits, having a specific goal they need to accomplish in such a way that each needs to finish to allow the next further into the keep before all finally coming together in the end to take on a group of raid bosses together like a high council/tribunal or something. That would feel far more epic to me than the same number of players vs 1 big bad boss...but it would likely only be possible in an instance.
I think it's okay to have a cap for max group size, but for raids it would be a dream game if there was no cap for anything. I understand it's harder to design content when people can just zerg everything but there are definitely ways for it to be accomplished. EQOA/FFXI were my favorite two games, by far. There were no caps in EQOA, whereas FFXI did have them, and that's why I would give the edge to EQOA. There were plenty of features/mechanics that I loved in FFXI but there is just something incredibly special in being able to amass a really large raid size and venture through the world together. Nothing else really comes close to it. And raids in EQOA weren't a pushover ... there were plenty of mobs that couldn't be zerged. That kind of raiding is a blast.
Kilsin said: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 leader48 man raid = 8 leaders (1 for each 6 man group)
Cooking:
Dinner for 1-4 = 1 cookDinner 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
I think we are on the same page but just have a different view on how we get there. I also enjoy the extra responsibility from having to manage/delegate more players in a raid. If you think about what you're saying though ... the bigger the raid encounter, the smarter certain folks need to be ... that for me is a layer of challenge. If a test was formatted in a way where smarter people would excel, due to the responsibilities of having to execute proper formulas and whatnot, a lot of people would consider that as a level of difficulty. I am the kind of person that thrives on both competition and challenge, and my favorite type of situation for either of these is large scale raiding. The extra responsibility, management, planning, coordination ... that's what makes large scale raiding special, and that's why I care about it so much. Whether you call it responsibility, planning, organization, logistics, management, coordination, strategizing, it all ends up being the same thing to me ... a higher level of challenge, and one that I crave. I hope you get to join in on the fun with some of the larger scale raids during testing. 24 man is great, but it gets better. =D
oneADseven said: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.
Just a note, when I pitched my thoughts on the 24, 48 and having a single 96 man raid to encourage multiple guild cooperation/diplomacy option my stance was done knowing that some guilds would indeed prefer to build a 96 man raiding force and do it alone. However to your point I guess I always imagined the 96 man event to be essentially 2 or 3 events that had to be done all at once and coordinated between the groups. By all means keep the raid forces seperate and give them seperate loot to solve the loot distribution issue but have one 48 man raid force engage the big guy or main event, but link that event with smaller events like two 24 man events. Have it so that as each of the smaller forces reach a certain point that it enables the larger raid forces to continue. The main 48 person event wouldn't be able to complete without the other 2 events being done and would get locked at specific phases or hp. If the big event fails the 2 smaller events could still complete and get a small portion of loot but obviously the big event couldn't be completed again until those portions of the event respawn (I'd say the smaller events would go on shorter respawn timers). If the main event was completed successfully then additional loot chest would spawn with an extra piece of high quality raid loot for the 2 smaller raid forces. The goal would be to encourage / insentivise all the seperate raid forces to coordinate and work together but not punish the smaller raid forces if the larger event is encountering issues. That way, if the large force wipes, Ya, sure that 24 man raid force could finish their event and collect a couple pieces of loot, but if they could also camp/wipe and let their event reset for a chance to try again on coordinating to get the big event down so they can get some additional loot. How they ultimately link these events to the overall encounter is obviously up to the devs to determine.
It just seems like if you break it up this way it'll encourage raid community interaction and coordination. Two 48 man raid forces could then team up, and take turns doing the big event or breaking into two 24 man raid forces and doing the smaller events, OR one of the 48 man raid forces could grab two smaller guilds and totally monopolize the large portion of the fight =P.
Iksar said:zazabar said: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.
Yes this is another concern of mine, I don't often have endless hours to play anymore and can't commit to "hardcore" raid guilds scheduling or raiding more than a couple nights a week for a few hours. I do love to raid but the pool of competent players/raiders when approaching huge groups 40+ is very slim, the added social challenge that more people bring to raids.
I've actually had tons of fun with the 8-man savage raids in FFXIV as they are generally very tightly tuned and everyone has to perform very well, and I have had just as much uproar of joy from friends I play with in discord when we finally manage to down a new boss. I think these victories feel especially good because with such a small number banding together I genuinely know each person (especially since I know more than half in real life). I do like large raids too though but again the pool of capable players that have a similar play schedule and also don't make raiding a second job seems to be very low.
Raids are often quite rigid because as mechanics become more complex to execute, the amount of variability in the encounter also decreases. When you're expecting anywhere from 24 to 72 people to all move in unison to carry out their expected roles, having the bosses be very unpredictable is like throwing curve balls at people and easily tip a raid into being "unfair." But with smaller groups there is much more room for less rotation based and more randomness from bosses to keep players on their toes and force them to constantly adapt.
Either way I will try to raid and I do hope they are quite difficult, but accessable to those with tighter schedules. I'd also like to see a raid zone in which 48 players or so have to split up to, say, assault a keep. All groups together to start having to fight a small army of very strong defenders flooding from the entrance before each group splits, having a specific goal they need to accomplish in such a way that each needs to finish to allow the next further into the keep before all finally coming together in the end to take on a group of raid bosses together like a high council/tribunal or something. That would feel far more epic to me than the same number of players vs 1 big bad boss...but it would likely only be possible in an instance.
I like your idea at the end and I'm sure it could be accomplished without instancing. As far as the rest, I can definitely appreciate that you might not be able to commit to hardcore raiding schedules and whatnot, but some people can. I would love to play professional Baseball, but it isn't going to happen. At the same time, I'm very happy for those who have that opportunity and will cheer for my favorite players. I understand it's not the exact same thing ... I'm just making the point that there are plenty of people out there who absolutely can commit to tough, rigid requirements and that's what we want, more than anything else in the game. The best thing VR can do is to create a variety of raid sizes and difficulties so that everybody has something they will enjoy. They have already confirmed that they will be doing as much, so I think we're all going to be pretty happy.
The biggest concern for most players is that we already know that raiding isn't a major focus ... so in regards to whatever raiding there ends up being, what will be the main kind? Small, 12 man raids? Medium 24 man raids? Large 48 player raids? Extra large 72 player raids? The legendary uncapped raids? If someone can't commit to a guild that kills 48 man content, and 48 is the "standard" for structured content, I can see how it would be unsettling for them. Likewise, if someone prefers 48 man content, and they hear that 12 man or 24 is going to be the standard, they won't be happy. It's hard to please everybody but the best way to get it done is have a variety of encounters for each different size. There will be something there for everybody ... and while it's true that the high end raiders will be able to benefit from being able to do all of it, it's also true that "grouping" will be the primary focus of the game, so for those who like the small, tight-knit raiding like you saw in FFXIV ... hell, that could be accomplished in single groups if we used 8 players! Imagine a grouping experience that is on par with the 8 man raiding in FFXIV. It could happen!
oneADseven said:it's also true that "grouping" will be the primary focus of the game, so for those who like the small, tight-knit raiding like you saw in FFXIV ... hell, that could be accomplished in single groups if we used 8 players! Imagine a grouping experience that is on par with the 8 man raiding in FFXIV. It could happen!
That sure would be something special. In all honesty I like the proposed 6 man groups but mostly for for the leveling process and ease of finding/throwing together groups even during off-peak hours or in the future for new players who are far behind the average player level for the server. I would very much like to see groups be expanded from 6 to 8 upon reaching level 50 (with a toggle so you could still form a 6 man with players under 50). Even if you could only do so in designated max level dungeons.
Kilsin said: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 leader48 man raid = 8 leaders (1 for each 6 man group)
Cooking:
Dinner for 1-4 = 1 cookDinner 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
Have they ever considered formation synergies?
The other day while I was playing Gw2, the vigil commander said "alright now you lot,get in line"
and suddenly all NPC ran to a point to get into a line formation
So I was wondering; what if players could save a strategic point on the battlefield to return to,so the commander can call them back into formation when he/she thinks its best?
Thinking about possible ways / tools for leaders that helps them delegate and manage their *larger armies*
Ofcourse the effectiveness of the formation synergie would be connected to how many are able to return to the formation once called
(so if half of the people that are supposed to form the formation have fallen,the synergie the formation provides would be less effective)
You'd have all kinds of formations with their own strenghts and weaknesses
And what about the idea for strangers to *fall in lin*e when things get really tough?
Maybe by falling in line,strangers get the chance to show what they are worth,show support to a group even if you are not part of it,yet.Or just want to help out as an outsider.
Good friendships being forged in battle.
Ofcourse to fall in line you would have to figure out where most help is needed,so if these battles are long term goals you could perhaps visit a war table to see what the current situation is.For example for zone events that last a month
Iksar said:oneADseven said:it's also true that "grouping" will be the primary focus of the game, so for those who like the small, tight-knit raiding like you saw in FFXIV ... hell, that could be accomplished in single groups if we used 8 players! Imagine a grouping experience that is on par with the 8 man raiding in FFXIV. It could happen!
That sure would be something special. In all honesty I like the proposed 6 man groups but mostly for for the leveling process and ease of finding/throwing together groups even during off-peak hours or in the future for new players who are far behind the average player level for the server. I would very much like to see groups be expanded from 6 to 8 upon reaching level 50 (with a toggle so you could still form a 6 man with players under 50). Even if you could only do so in designated max level dungeons.
I would enjoy something like this very much as well. 6 player groups are fine as the norm but it would be awesome to see exceptions to that where certain group content is specifically designed and balanced to accomodate an 8 player group. This would be a fun and flavorful feature for max level grouping, and could help with making more compositions viable on the most challenging content.
Lucid said: I'm thankful that instances will not be a thing since this will theoretically increase difficulty of high level content. Presumably, having to race to a mob at any given time will often result in sub-optimal compositions that may have to make creative adjustments and what have you. There's nothing worse than lining up for the same formulaic encounters week after week that you're only doing because 72 people want an item from the boss and it only drops 4 at a time. At least the randomness that racing will provide can spice things up in interesting ways.
Very true! I think this is one of the reasons why I always loved contested content so much more. There were times where we had to wing it with less than the recommended raid size or roll with sub-optimal compositions and those are some of my favorite memories. I appreciate being able to plan and all that as well but it's best to have a mix. At the end of the day, no kind of raiding compares to open-world.
I wonder if raid size will be more based on how well the Unity Engine can be optimized for an MMO.
Vanguard had a real clunky, unoptimized engine that never performed well with a lot of characters on the screen at once. This was one of the games biggest downfalls.
Even though I build a new computer every few years I know a lot of my friends are still gaming on older rigs and if they are having problems on big raids I doubt they would buy a new machine just to play one game.
Personally I think 72 person raids are my favorite looking back on all the years of raiding I've done. I hope they can reach this epic scale.
As far as racing to raid mobs for the kill... Some of the raids should be races, some should be quick respawns with lockouts, and some should be spawned with rare items or quest items imo. This way you always have some raid mob your guild can tackle and prevents 1 guild from locking down the whole server.
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
For sure Kiz! Unfortunately for me, EQOA was the only game I have ever played that had uncapped raids, let alone anything higher than 24. All the other games I played were stuck at 24 or less (EQ2, Vanguard, FFXI, WoW (atleast when I played), FFXIV) and never brought back that epic scale feeling I enjoyed from EQOA. When I raided in EQ2, we capped our guild size at 30 because it never made sense to have more than that in a game where your raids were capped at 24. Capping raid size does will absolutely thwart the potential for guilds to continue expanding and sharing their experience with more friends. I can't count how many good people I had to turn away from joining my guild because of the artificial restrictions imposed upon us with the (small) max raid size. It's 2017 ... if we could raid with uncapped numbers in the 1990's and early 2000's we should be able to do it now, even if it does require people to play on low settings. I'm here for the friends and community I want to build with my guild ... awesome graphics are an afterthought in the grand scheme of things.
No argument there. Look at how FFXI got that done. Pantheon can do it with Progeny. My point is though ... the more people a guild can provide a home to, the more people that can help each other when they relevel and keep those other level ranges populated. The max-raid size will have a direct impact on how large some guilds decide to grow. In most games, I had to limit our guild size to a much lower number than I ever wanted to in order to compensate for the imposed restrictions.
Angrykiz said:I wonder if raid size will be more based on how well the Unity Engine can be optimized for an MMO.
Reminds me of TERA. They used UE3 and didn't optimize it enough for what they were doing, so when Wormhole events started way back in the day, the game would slow to a crawl with everoyne in a zone. And it wasn't even GPU problems. It was CPU bottleneck.
Indeed in non instanced zones, it is possible to zerg content sized for groups with a raid, it is the reason why raid content is considered being more difficult in MMO's which are built upon this model. But it is perfectly possible to create single group content that is more challenging than raid content, there are many examples in MMO's that have instanced dungeons. If I well remember old EQ times, some players were seeking challenges by killing raid bosses with a single group, I remember having participated to a 6 players hunt on Nagafen, before it was limited to lvl 50 players.
In non-instanced zones a solution could be to cap the number of groups that can engage a mob, it could be indicated by an icon near the mob's name, or as an information dealt by the 'consider' skill. let's imagine the mob is engaged by more groups than it is sized for, we can imagine it shifts in non-aggroable mode during 1 minute and is fully healed. Another option could be to let the fight continue and make the mob drop no loot.
About loot, the best pieces could be more equally distributed between one group content, 3 or 4 groups raid content, uncapped world bosses, craft, etc ... in order to reward players that are skilled in whole aspects of grouping. And yeah ... as many pleople here I guess, I saw in the past players with full raid stuff that were total disasters in group play ...
Khendall said:Indeed in non instanced zones, it is possible to zerg content sized for groups with a raid, it is the reason why raid content is considered being more difficult in MMO's which are built upon this model. But it is perfectly possible to create single group content that is more challenging than raid content, there are many examples in MMO's that have instanced dungeons. If I well remember old EQ times, some players were seeking challenges by killing raid bosses with a single group, I remember having participated to a 6 players hunt on Nagafen, before it was limited to lvl 50 players.
In non-instanced zones a solution could be to cap the number of groups that can engage a mob, it could be indicated by an icon near the mob's name, or as an information dealt by the 'consider' skill. let's imagine the mob is engaged by more groups than it is sized for, we can imagine it shifts in non-aggroable mode during 1 minute and is fully healed. Another option could be to let the fight continue and make the mob drop no loot.
About loot, the best pieces could be more equally distributed between one group content, 3 or 4 groups raid content, uncapped world bosses, craft, etc ... in order to reward players that are skilled in whole aspects of grouping. And yeah ... as many pleople here I guess, I saw in the past players with full raid stuff that were total disasters in group play ...
There are a number of ways to make those ideas exploitable. One raid force, fully within the cap limit gets it to 25% and a rival guild shows up and engages it as well, causing it to go over cap and they have to start over. The rivals can just keep doing this until the first guild gives up and then maybe it turns around.
Something would need to be put in place to prevent griefing of this nature. Perhaps, over said cap, new players that attempt to join in have no effect, do no damage and take no agro or contribute to figuring out what group gets the loot rights. It could, maybe, be a soft-cap so that over the cap the above things are effected less and less by each new player added with a steap level of diminishing returns. Anyhow, just some off the cuff ideas on how to address the potential griefing issues with such a system.
Personally I quite like the idea of dynamic scalable content at a raid level, which a few other MMOs have tried but not (in my opinion) implemented very well. I suspect it's too late in the piece for PRF to do if they've not already headed down this track, though, as it could be quite complex to achieve. By dynamic scalable content, I mean encounters that vary their behaviour based on a set of criteria of those engaging - be it numbers, or level, or more complex than that potentially.
The variation can serve a number of purposes, including making more content more accessible (e.g. you can do a version of Event X with 24 people, if you can't get the full 48 to do the whole thing), without removing the challenge (it is harder with the full 48), plus variation in encounters helps some people keep interested with and engaged in the world, as compared to having a very scheduled and fixed set of behaviours. I've played some MMOs where you can literally multibox with scheduled macros in a raid and not really have to pay any attention once you know the encounter's behaviour, and while that can make it 'easier' for guilds once something is on farm status, people become disinterested.
As people have discussed, lots of factors play in to the complexity/difficulty of an encounter, and some of those factors depend on how other mechanics are implemented. A range of levels of difficulty and complexity are key, in my opinion, to engaging the full community. I'm sure there are lots of people who are ex-EQ and other early MMOs who love the playstyle, but aren't so keen (nor have time to - we're not as young and carefree as we used to be!) on camping 7-day rare spawns anymore, for example ;)
As to group content, pre-Luclin EQ zones that were the home to raid targets (like the various Planes), and the early versions of the Griffon Quest in Vanguard, are some examples that to me stand out as challenging but engaging and fun group content.
At the end of the day, there are lots of potential ways to approach it, but challenging encounters at both group and guild level are fairly important to a reasonable portion of the community, and will need to be well-implemented for long-term endgame success. That shouldn't detract from the enjoyability and community-orientation that may apply in other parts of the game - sometimes you want something that is lower-challenge but to enjoy with friends.
Why not just spawn a "group buddy" in a local Inn. Just some named NPC that is ready to die for your loot. And these group buddies have a commander "Captain Leader Bro", and Captain Leader Bro is spreading notice across the land, that it has finally come time to Raid the snowbunny citadel. Their rein of terror will come to end, or everyone will respawn trying!
And depending on how many full groups show up, the encounter could scale to match, and guild groups in the same raid could naturally grouped together physically by the group buddies, and ranked by participation, and "IF" the raid is successful Captain Leader Bro passes out commendations to those organizations which achieved notable glory.
So basically every group in a particular raid would be supporting a group buddy, that is more there for like moral support and organizing the crowd, than to do anything in combat.
Then you can use Captain Leader Bro to hand out awards for guild participating, group participation, and casks of mead for the whole raid. Because that is what a quality Captain Leader Bro would do.
Why put the added responsibility on guilds to meet a minimum total when the game world itself has the capacity to perform those roles? And why pass up an Oppertunity to headline Gary Busey in the Captain Leader Bro role?
I don't think that the model put in place in Everquest up to maybe Luclin should be changed too much. I think that the raids were a major driving force on every server and in every expansion. And the systems and mechanics they had in place worked. I know not everyone enjoys raiding, but those like that that played Everquest still enjoyed the parts of Everquest that they did play. The system put in place by EQ worked well. It provided goals and direction for guilds, giving them cohesion. Competition for targets made guilds work as a team in ways no other MMO I have played ever did. And allowed for varying tactics while still pushing a challenge.I remember the intricate CH chains the clerics had to maintain. The tank dictating the facing of the mob. The force controlling location with push. I remember the intricate CH chains the clerics had to maintain. The tank dictating the facing of the mob. The force controlling location with push. A most memorable one for me was a raid that required four seperate enchanter teams stun locking massive numbers of adds out of the mob's room while the primary raid force fought the boss. These required large raid forces, precision, and social interaction on a scale I haven't seen since. And those raids and that teamwork led to many of the memories and just plain old adrenaline-driven need-for-more that made old-style MMO gaming so fundamentally "sticky". It was like a seperate game almost, completely different from what I experienced in a six man group or even smaller raid.
I also think that a somewhat hands-off approach by the developers helped. So some guilds zerged, so what? The freedom to do so was there and not artificially enforced by game mechanics. Some guilds had a reputation for having little skill, only requiring numbers. These were things that developed the story created by the players, it didn't break the game. Players created the North Temple rotations, not game lockouts. The guilds had to work with one another to achieve this.
And some really close to BiS gear came from non-raid stuff, too. It's been a long time, but I remember the sewers in CT had some awesome (at the time) Flowing Thought boots that not only were droppable, but could be obtained with a single group. And kinda/sorta on that topic, I think that some droppable top- or high-tier items is important. Things like the Lodi Shell Shield, Cloak of Flames, maybe Manastones. They were incredible things that non-raiders or upcoming raiders could drool over and work toward getting for themselves.
I know I ramble and I only read the first 5 pages, so maybe this has been said already. But, I am just afraid that changing too much of what worked in old-school MMO gaming will take away something of what made it so great. And I truly believe that raiding is something that was intrinsically a part of that old-style gaming culture and a major part of what made it so incredible. By artificially limiting raid size or drastically changing what worked so well, I am worried the experience will lose something.
I also would like it to be known that I respect the varying opinions voiced here and meant no disrespect to anyone with this. This is simply the opinion of someone who misses that era of gaming and who would love to see a modernized version of it return.
Oh look, it's this thread again.
The number of people willing to tolerate cancerous, poopsocking gameplay with 4am batphones is at an all time low. We just recently ended the era of batphone-style raid content on the Phinigel server and there is nowhere near the required population to sustain a brand new game.
Of all the people on the server, less than 200 actually have the ability or desire to do it. Unrestricted, contested open world content is a relic of the past. It's time to let it go. Encounter locking, lockout timers, and rapid respawns are the way of the future. It's either that, or instancing. Pick one.
"Dynamic" open world conten that scales to accomodate infinite players only serves to reward slackers. You can not make challenging content that serves 200+ simultaneous consumers, and that's not even considering the performance ramifications of that number of players participating in a single event in a relatively small area.
Vanguard's raiding model is the way of the future for a game like Pantheon. Either that, or instances. I personally like instanced raid content, but I know how most people feel about that despite the fact that 95% of the posters here likely do not have the means or desire to participate in actual open world racing in 2017.