Keno Monster said:philo said:No one has commented on the point I mentioned above. Why aren't most encounters just designed in a way so that bringing extra players doesn't decrease the difficulty? Seems like an easy solution to keeping the game an open world instead of adding artificial restrictions in game.
Yes that does limit some design options but better to design in a way that doesnt have to be artificially restricted later.
Do you have more examples of implementations of this dynamic? If, for example, a boss could spawn more enemy NPCs or even gate or despawn if too many people showed up, that could lead to massive griefing. This is a MDD type of game so far which is why I don't think the answer of encounter locking is going to work, unless, a Raidan said, we see a lot more triggered spawns.
Being very general because it can be handled an infinite number of ways: any mechanic where adding more people doesn't increase the chance of success...or decrease the difficulty lvl...or just doesn't help.
Ddo did this in a number of encounters (even though the raids were instances and capped at 12).
These might be difficult to understand if you didn't play those encounters but I know other games have encounters that act similarly where once you have the required number of people, adding more doesn't really help.
I want to preface this by saying these encounters that I'm going to use as an example weren't great imho, this can be implemented better. But they are examples if someone doesn't understand what I mean:
For example, the titan fight. While more people were useful on the way to the boss (titan). You really only needed 2 people for the boss encounter itself. 1 person to knock down the pillars to topple the boss and one person to fire the laser to bring down the bosses shields while it was toppled. Once the shields were down the boss had so few points it literally died in under 10 seconds when 12 people attacked it. The hard part was bringing down the shields and that required good timing and communication between 2 people. The other 10 people didn't really make it any easier.
Another example from Ddo, my memory is foggy because it has been almost 10 years:
One where you had to kill 4 mobs (soloable mobs) in 4 corners of a maze within 10 seconds of each other. When they died their ghost form started walking to the center of the maze towards a crystal that only became targetable once all 4 mobs were in ghost form. Destroy the crystal in the center of the maze before the ghost got there to win. If the ghosts reached the crystal they respawned in their corner. It could easily be done with 4 people...5 to make it even easier and have one person waiting at the crystal. Adding the extra 7-8 people didn't make it any easier (12 person cap).
These type of encounters were usually combined in conjunction with other encounters where more people were needed (these are instances with 12 person cap) but:
Open world encounters can be designed where you need 12 or 24 people working together simultaneously and adding more people really doesn't make it any easier.
Imo this is a better way to handle it than artificially restricting the numbers through actual lockouts or through the boss despawning etc. Just design the encounters so players can bring as many as they want, but the extra people don't help once you have what is required.
The immediate issue that I see with both examples is that the content was incredibly easy to begin with. You mentioned that these encounters weren't great and that's probably because they weren't challenging. That's pretty much the opposite of what kind of baseline we should be looking at with encounter design and mechanics. As a starting point we should consider "really challenging raid tier single group content." These encounters should push every player in a full group to their limits. Any way you slice that ... having more players is going to make it easier. If we can get to the point where we have a highly reproducible system that can create a wide range of encounter designs that are barely possible with 6, and not a single bit easier with 12, then we have something interesting to discuss. (Encounter locking satisfies this condition.)
Another way to look at this topic is "How do we design encounters so that adding more players makes the encounter itself more challenging?" This is generally referred to as scaling.
There are a variety of ways to do this but every single one of them is going to create a pain point. For example ... you could make it so that every time a player dies, the raid boss heals for 10% of it's max health. Throwing bodies at this encounter isn't going to work, especially if it has devastating attacks, because it's going to keep healing itself as players die. The issue with this is that the mechanic can then be turned into a griefing tool. Imagine the guild who has an extremely coordinated raid that gets this boss down to 20% ... and then a random group joins in, and they all die. Now the boss is back to 80% and the original raid is almost empty on resources. You know what that original raid is going to want? Instancing or locked encounters. They would have been victorious if it wasn't for other players ruining their attempt and triggering the "boss gets more difficult as more players engage it" mechanic.
That same logic applies to some of the other mechanics that have been brought up for Pantheon in the past. If a boss is willing to flee because too many players engage it ... that's a recipe for disaster. If a boss is willing to summon powerful adds because too many players engage it ... same deal. If anybody thinks open world content denial was bad in Everquest, just imagine how much worse it would be if players could purposely trigger a berserk mode without having any intention of positively contributing toward the fight. We would see toxic standoffs where rivals challenge each other to see who is willing to keep dying just to prevent the other team from having a fair attempt at the boss. Trying to balance and tune encounters around this philosophy sounds like an impossible task.
At the end of the day, the focus of the game is PVE. It's not pseudo-PVP. If players enjoy fun/healthy competition they can have that in an open world game that features encounter locking. Some form of encounter locking is necessary if we want to see challenging content without allowing players to sabotage each other. Can you beat the encounter, as it's designed, for your specific group/raid size, from 100-0? That's legitimate PVE. If multiple teams are going after the same encounter ... that's legitimate PVE competition ... at least if you want it to be fun, healthy and challenging. IMO, anyway.
((At the end of the day, the focus of the game is PVE. It's not pseudo-PVP. If players enjoy fun/healthy competition they can have that in an open world game that features encounter locking.))
I entirely agree.
((Some form of encounter locking is necessary if we want to see challenging content without allowing players to sabotage each other))
This is not at all true as worded. What you mean is "Some form of encounter locking or instancing or comparable exclusionary mechanic". The fact that you *prefer* encounter locking to instancing, even if you are correct, does not make encounter locking *necessary* since instancing can accomplish the same results with a different combination of plusses and minuses. All you can fairly say is that some device is necessary and in your opinion encounter locking is better than any alternative you know of.
The examples I listed above were simply for understanding. That type of encounter design can absolutely be designed at all challenge levels.
I'm a bit surprised that more people haven't brought up this type of design.
Bringing increased numbers of players to a raid doesn't have to trivialize content if implemented properly.
There is another example I was thinking of that included puzzles that had to be solved to progress that also didn't help to have more people but I think the above examples suffice. The possibilities are limitless. This type of design does seem to force/help the devs be more creative in their implementation. We know VR has commented about wanting to go away from simple tank and spank dps type encounters anyway.
Zergs = bad, available content = good, massive raids sizes = bad, smaller overall guilds = good
I have done content with all sizes of raids, and the best times I have had are with smaller raid sizes. It forces more skill per person, generally gears people faster, and no one really gets lost in the sea of bodies. Being able to run Karazhan successfully (in era) with different comps, or doing a 13-man Sleeper's Tomb clear in the middle of the night - I will always remember that stuff and who I did them with!
dorotea said:((Some form of encounter locking is necessary if we want to see challenging content without allowing players to sabotage each other))
This is not at all true as worded. What you mean is "Some form of encounter locking or instancing or comparable exclusionary mechanic". The fact that you *prefer* encounter locking to instancing, even if you are correct, does not make encounter locking *necessary* since instancing can accomplish the same results with a different combination of plusses and minuses. All you can fairly say is that some device is necessary and in your opinion encounter locking is better than any alternative you know of.
Your stance has gone from mega liberal to mega literal. On page 1, you were able to interpret the meaning and perspective of someone saying "Encounter locking is the same thing as instancing" and come to the conclusion that it was "entirely accurate." On page 4 you're telling me that my phrase is "not at all true as worded." I added the IMO disclaimer at the end of my paragraph. "Some form of encounter locking is necessary" really isn't all that different than "some device is necessary" -- I think you're being pedantic. You're also ignoring all previous context in this thread where I went out of my way to explain why I think instancing isn't considered a viable alternative to encounter locking. "Shared space and shared resources." Instancing can't offer those things and as such, cannot be considered a reasonable solution to any problem where those things are important ... in my opinion, of course.
philo said:The examples I listed above were simply for understanding. That type of encounter design can absolutely be designed at all challenge levels.
I'm a bit surprised that more people haven't brought up this type of design.
Bringing increased numbers of players to a raid doesn't have to trivialize content if implemented properly.
There is another example I was thinking of that included puzzles that had to be solved to progress that also didn't help to have more people but I think the above examples suffice. The possibilities are limitless. This type of design does seem to force/help the devs be more creative in their implementation. We know VR has commented about wanting to go away from simple tank and spank dps type encounters anyway.
Every example you provided includes some sort of puzzle, maze, or operational pillar/laser. These sound more like interactive mini-games, specifically designed for instancing, than good old fashioned open world PVE combat. You're implying that there are "limitless possibilities" if "content is implemented properly." The only thing you helped me understand is that you would rather force the development team to get more creative (limited/gimmicky, IMO) with their encounter design rather than forcing players to get more creative in how they overcome basic challenge oriented rules.
I don't want every encounter in the game to require X amount of players to pick up the flowers, light the fuse, empower the robot, save the princess, destroy the crystal, mop the deck, calibrate the gear, hatch the egg, fire the cannon, detonate the bomb, or solve the rubix cube.
((Every example you provided includes some sort of puzzle, maze, or operational pillar/laser. These sound more like interactive mini-games, specfically designed for instancing, than good old fashioned open world PVE combat. You're implying that there are "limitless possibilities" if "content is implemented properly." The only thing you helped me understand is that you would rather force the development team to get more creative (limited/gimmicky, IMO) with their encounter design rather than forcing players to get more creative in how they overcome basic challenge oriented rules.))
Words fail to express the enthusiasm with which I agree - and I like to think that words don't fail me that often after 30 years making a living by using them.
One of the many reasons I support Pantheon is the hope that we will get a MMO where finishing a dungeon or raid successfully will depend on knowing one's class. being able to work with teammates, having adaquate gear, playing one's role well and the like. Not memorizing a set script and running from pixel to pixel to pixel at the right time and in the right way with the ability to actually fight the enemy being secondary or even tertiary to group or raid success.
FFXIV is a wonderful game in many respects - if I want my dungeons to be full of scripts and pixel hopping I will reinstall it. All Gods of Terminus forbid ((shudders visibly))
Don't get hung up on the examples (like stated, the examples I used weren't great encounters imo). It was trying to convey understanding of a design choice that apparently I didn't convey very well.
You can make raids that require teamwork and communication and timing between a set number of people where if you have extra people it doesn't make it any easier and actually just makes it more difficult to coordinate more people.
Another, half, example I'll use that most people here will know: The emporer SSra fight in EQ was close to this type of design.
Except for the main boss himself was still basically a dps race. Let's leave him out. I'm referring to the emperors guards in his room.
That part of the raid required 2 mobs to be mezzed constantly and 2 other mobs to be slowed and off tanked (again it's been 15+ years but that's pretty close to how it went).
Once you had 2 mezrs, 2 slower/healers and 2 off tanks all doing their job, adding more people to that part of the encounter didn't make it any easier.
I'm trying to present an understanding of a design concept. Don't get hung up on the specific examples. I can take solace in knowing that if the devs are reading this I'm sure they will understand these concepts.
I am still waiting for more information on raid content for Pantheon before anything.
However, I will say this:
In today's gaming, why does it have to be a 12/24/40 man raid. Why cannot we have content that scales based on how many ppl we bring.
If anyone here has played Path of Exile, I will cite that as an example of what I am talking about. Where each person increases the difficuty.
so for Pantheon, lets say 12 is the smallest. You design raids around 12 man. But if 40 is the cap you want to see, then have it so that every person above 12 increases the difficulty. Mobs have more health, more defense, more damage, etc, etc. I know this is a rough idea, but I think it's something that would provide a "middle" ground to content. So in the end, a 12 man raid would be just as hard as a 40 man raid, and everywhere in between. Doesn't matter how many you bring/show up.
Outside of my thoughts there, I will wait till Raid information is out before I really start getting worked up over it.
philo said:That part of the raid required 2 mobs to be mezzed constantly and 2 other mobs to be slowed and off tanked (again it's been 15+ years but that's pretty close to how it went).
Once you had 2 mezrs, 2 slower/healers and 2 off tanks all doing their job, adding more people to that part of the encounter didn't make it any easier.
You don't need 2 mezzers, healers, or off tanks doing their job when you have 20 extra people that can pick up the slack if something goes wrong. I understand the concept you are presenting but it doesn't really add up. To me, it sounds like this most recent example you provided would be more challenging if the raid were to be limited to X amount of players. This ensures that people in various roles are required to do their job. Every time you add a new player you have to account for more healing, more CC, more available health pools, more resources, more buffs/debuffs, or more damage. Again, using this most recent example ... if your mezzers die, that should cause the mezzed mobs to run rampant. If you have 2 additional mezzers on standby then they would be able to lock down those mobs and prevent them from running around and beating on people. If your 2 healers/slowers die, that means the mobs would no longer be debuffed with a slow, and the off-tanks would no longer be receiving their heals. Add 2 shamans/warriors/enchanters to the picture and explain how that doesn't make the encounter easier? Mistakes aren't punished if a failed responsibility can be picked up by the abominable zerg monster.
Keiiek said:They'll do it like they did in Vanguard. Raid bosses in dungeons will have lockout timers of 3-7 days. They'll always be up. Maybe not in the same places, but they'll always be up. Overland raid bosses will spawn randomly or be triggered someway, but will not always be up. They will also have lockout timers and be locked to the group that tags it 1st, but they will be the contested targets. In the 7 years i played Vanguard, I've never heard of guilds arguing over raid mobs with this system.
Vanguard did not start that way. It was changed to give casual gamers uber loot by making it so they didn't have to compete for it in what used to be a persistent sandbox world. It was the dumbing down of Vanguard by SoE and Smedley (who is now irrelevant in the game world, thankfully) after Brad & Co. handed it off.
And yes many players and guilds did complain that SoE was dumbing down the game, making it easier, giving rewards to lower skilled players for no other reason than to please millennials and inch towards FTP grind-based design.
@187 Again you are nit picking the example instead of understanding the concept as a whole.
Some of your responses are completely off base. Like you mention the early examples seemed easy but challenge lvl has nothing to do with anything. If you understood the design concept being presented you would understand that difficulty is all in how the encounter is tuned and not the concept design being discussed. BTW, no guild on any server killed the titan until the next expansion. There are a lot of other factors in that ssra fight that you aren't taking into account because you are nit picking the example and you aren't familiar with the encounter. But the encounter doesn't matter. It's the overall concept that matters. It's like the examples you gave above where the boss could heal if someone dies or it could spawn more friends/ or despawn altogether. Those type of designs would not fit into this type of implementation.
I'm sure the devs know what I'm talking about and that's all that really matters.
Maybe it's because I'm assuming we are talking about a basic competence and gear lvl of players that is adaquate for the encounter in order to have a baseline for discussion? And you are thinking a bunch of low lvls or under geared players are going to come in and beat an encounter who shouldn't be there in the first place?
zewtastic said:Vanguard did not start that way. It was changed to give casual gamers uber loot by making it so they didn't have to compete for it in what used to be a persistent sandbox world. It was the dumbing down of Vanguard by SoE and Smedley (who is now irrelevant in the game world, thankfully) after Brad & Co. handed it off.
And yes many players and guilds did complain that SoE was dumbing down the game, making it easier, giving rewards to lower skilled players for no other reason than to please millennials and inch towards FTP grind-based design.
Yeah, I read about that. I never played Vanguard at release, so I never got to experience its glory. My experience with it was after it started to decline, but... I did see the amazing design in some systems (diplomacy/crafting) and there was some very interesting aspects to class design. That said, I could see the game was turned to crap when they went FTP and I see a lot of people tend to reference Vanguard using its FTP designs as positive features (which makes me cringe).
zewtastic said:giving rewards to lower skilled players for no other reason than to please millennials
In which way are "millenials" (according to what I can find, people born between 1982 and 1996) more likely to enjoy it when a game rewards "lower skilled players"? Please elaborate, I'm interested in knowing if there's any logic whatsoever behind this statement.
Paloo said: All I ask is that a 12, 24 or 30 man raid mean just that. Please do not have scaling raids. I do not care for raids that difficulty changes according to number of players you bring. In EQ my guild was very small, for it to be a top tier raiding guild. But it gave us great pride that we finished raids just outside the top across all servers eith half the numbers. Yes it meant we would lose out on some bosses if the bigger guild which had the server firsts even raced for world firsts came at same time.
Agreed. Scaling I hate with a passion. As you pointed out, people think it is a good thing to stifle zergs (if they want to stop this, they can put "cap" requirements on, but please don't use scaling), but it also kills the ability of smaller guilds to show they can do more with less. There were nunerous times our small "casual" (EQ time casual, not todays definition of) guild took on raid content that other raiders would laugh and tell us it was impossible. I remeber us doing Terror in PoF with a very small number of rag tag geared people and one of the guilds waiting to prep for the improved CT, laughed at us, telling us we wouldn't have a chance. We killed him in good time without issue, and made them eat their words.
the small and skilled vs the large and bold. deserved vs entitled. david vs goliath. i do miss the old days where you needed specific gear to do specific bosses. honestly it is more rewarding to work towards something than to be given something. kind of like how when a body builder works out for months to achieve his goals vs someone that just gets plastic surgery.
I don't mind zerging as long as there is encounter locking. Many people don't want to be content blocked by other players. Someone mentioned that once encounter locking was put in casuals started to get geared and the gear became meaningless. No not really. It just means the bosses in Vanguard were easy and the only thing stopping casual players from getting the gear was because of the no life zerg guilds. That was it. No prestige or tough bosses...Says a lot if the bosses were downed by casual players once they got a shot at the bosses without guilds content blocking.
Anyways, If zerging happens then they should be able to allow a raid invite system that is dynamic and expands indefinetly, or until the zone can't hold anymore. However, the bosses loot table stays the same in the number of drops that occur. All those who participate in said zerg will be locked out of encounter for 3-7 days, just like everyone else.
Only problem I see with zerging is that box armies will take advantage of this...and make the content easy. If there is a 24 man raid...and they all have a box character...then they can just distribute the drops based on their mains. Then once there mains are somewhat raid geared then they can begin to reduce their box army and do a number of split raidings with half mains and half boxes..etc...takes the skill away from the game regardless if you zerg.
Watemper said:Only problem I see with zerging is that box armies will take advantage of this...and make the content easy. If there is a 24 man raid...and they all have a box character...then they can just distribute the drops based on their mains. Then once there mains are somewhat raid geared then they can begin to reduce their box army and do a number of split raidings with half mains and half boxes..etc...takes the skill away from the game regardless if you zerg.
And as I mentioned earlier, a 24 character raid limit will MASSIVELY shrink the available content in the world. Imagine sharing open world content with 4 72 toon raiding guilds vs 12 24 toon raiding guilds. Such a tiny limit on how many people can be allowed to experience a given piece of content has the potential to lock way more people out of that content than any massive uber raiding guild.
((And as I mentioned earlier, a 24 character raid limit will MASSIVELY shrink the available content in the world. Imagine sharing open world content with 4 72 toon raiding guilds vs 12 24 toon raiding guilds. Such a tiny limit on how many people can be allowed to experience a given piece of content has the potential to lock way more people out of that content than any massive uber raiding guild.))
In this you are not incorrect. But one trade-off is that in a smaller raid each character is more important and plays more of a role. In a zerg raid one can both feel and be unimportant and know that one's individual skill contributes oh so little to the result. Another trade-off is that to avoid the world being flooded with top level gear if raids are zerg size either only one or two people will get anything good or the boss may spawn once every three years at which time 72 people may get something good.
To me a "raid" is anything that takes two full groups or more and once you get over three or four groups at the most you start trivializing it all.
Keno Monster said:And as I mentioned earlier, a 24 character raid limit will MASSIVELY shrink the available content in the world. Imagine sharing open world content with 4 72 toon raiding guilds vs 12 24 toon raiding guilds. Such a tiny limit on how many people can be allowed to experience a given piece of content has the potential to lock way more people out of that content than any massive uber raiding guild.
This problem is solved by using the ghost mechanic from Vanguard. If VR decides that they want to make Encounter X accessible to 24 man raids ... all they have to do is adjust the respawn timer on it and apply a lockout to those who get kill credit. If they want an encounter to be purely contested then they avoid the use of the ghost mechanic. It would allow VR to offer a mixed bag approach where some content is purely contested while other content is only semi-contested (based on the respawn timer ... I think Vanguard was 2-4 hours.) VR would hold all of the keys and tune the "accessibility factor" for each individual encounter as they see fit. This allows for more content without the use of instancing ... and most important of all, it ensures that content will be challenging and zerg-proof. Risk vs Reward is paramount. Accomplishments would be more based around skill and strategy than overwhelming numbers. A mixed bag approach would absolutely be ideal, IMO, as it allows VR to offer the exact ratio of accessible/contested content that they desire. Two painpoints are solved with a single feature ... it would prevent content from being trivialized and prevent content denial.
I think this same system could be improved upon with the hyper/ghost mechanic that I mentioned in this thread:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8793/lockout-timers-on-endgame-raid-content/view/page/6 ; -- this would allow more guilds an opportunity to learn the major encounters and then use that experience to better position themselves to have a chance for the contested version whenever it's up. The quality of competition would improve and players wouldn't be completely reliant on batphoning and poopsocking just to have a chance to experience competitive raiding.
oneADseven said:Keno Monster said:And as I mentioned earlier, a 24 character raid limit will MASSIVELY shrink the available content in the world. Imagine sharing open world content with 4 72 toon raiding guilds vs 12 24 toon raiding guilds. Such a tiny limit on how many people can be allowed to experience a given piece of content has the potential to lock way more people out of that content than any massive uber raiding guild.
This problem is solved by using the ghost mechanic from Vanguard. If VR decides that they want to make Encounter X accessible to 24 man raids ... all they have to do is adjust the respawn timer on it and apply a lockout to those who get kill credit. If they want an encounter to be purely contested then they avoid the use of the ghost mechanic. It would allow VR to offer a mixed bag approach where some content is purely contested while other content is only semi-contested (based on the respawn timer ... I think Vanguard was 2-4 hours.) VR would hold all of the keys and tune the "accessibility factor" for each individual encounter as they see fit. This allows for more content without the use of instancing ... and most important of all, it ensures that content will be challenging and zerg-proof. Risk vs Reward is paramount. Accomplishments would be more based around skill and strategy than overwhelming numbers. A mixed bag approach would absolutely be ideal, IMO, as it allows VR to offer the exact ratio of accessible/contested content that they desire. Two several painpoints are solved with a single feature ... it would prevent content from being trivialized and prevent content denial.
I hope they do it "right", whatever that ends up being. I maintain that 24 is way too small as it will effectively dictate how big guilds will be. I also think that it will water down content regardless of how many people are actually doing it. More guilds doing the same content = less meaning, even if it's the same number or even fewer people actually involved. That social dynamic will be impacted negatively. It could also lead directly to there being an A team and a B team, separating people from their own guild mates. We're going to see multiple raid forces within a single guild on different lockout timers. Maybe that's fine, I dunno, I don't like it. I guess there are some necessary evils here I just need to accept.
oneADseven said:Keno Monster said:And as I mentioned earlier, a 24 character raid limit will MASSIVELY shrink the available content in the world. Imagine sharing open world content with 4 72 toon raiding guilds vs 12 24 toon raiding guilds. Such a tiny limit on how many people can be allowed to experience a given piece of content has the potential to lock way more people out of that content than any massive uber raiding guild.
This problem is solved by using the ghost mechanic from Vanguard. If VR decides that they want to make Encounter X accessible to 24 man raids ... all they have to do is adjust the respawn timer on it and apply a lockout to those who get kill credit.
Actually the ghost mechanics doesn't solve the problem because while a single guild might have a lot of difficulty putting together multiple, viable, 72 person raids, a single guild could easily field 3-4 24 man raids and cover just that much more content. As people have been concerned quite a but about guilds monopolizing content, 24 man raid content (or god forbid this notion of 1 group raid content) will see a single guild being capable of simultaneously cover 4+ raid targets.
If your raid size is too low, a single guild can grow large enough to cover 4+ simultaneous targets. Set your raid size higher reduces that chance and gives mulitple guilds better chances to each have a shot at 1 of those targets simultaneously. I know I would prefer the latter.
Vandraad said:Actually the ghost mechanics doesn't solve the problem because while a single guild might have a lot of difficulty putting together multiple, viable, 72 person raids, a single guild could easily field 3-4 24 man raids and cover just that much more content. As people have been concerned quite a but about guilds monopolizing content, 24 man raid content (or god forbid this notion of 1 group raid content) will see a single guild being capable of simultaneously cover 4+ raid targets.
If your raid size is too low, a single guild can grow large enough to cover 4+ simultaneous targets. Set your raid size higher reduces that chance and gives mulitple guilds better chances to each have a shot at 1 of those targets simultaneously. I know I would prefer the latter.
I don't really follow what you mean. The ghost mechanic allows VR to solve the issue of content monopoly wherever they don't want it to exist. That is a fact. It doesn't really matter how many people are in a guild or how many raid teams they can muster. VR could change the respawn for certain ghost content to 5 minutes. This means that they can implement content that is meant to test the skill of the players, rather than their availability to mobilize at any given minute of the day or night. Here are some examples of 3 separate encounters:
Green Dragon -- Purely contested. Respawns every 3-5 days.
Red Dragon -- Semi contested. Respawns every 4-6 hours. 5 day lockout.
Blue Dragon -- Accessible. Respawns every 5 minutes. 5 day lockout.
VR would have the final say on how accessible or contested any individual piece of content is. If they want the "update" for the cleric epic to be purely contested, they can do that. If they want it to be semi-contested or accessible, they can do that too.
Personally, I would prefer to see the hyper/ghost version as it would basically merge the Green Dragon with the Red or Blue Dragon. This would allow more guilds to have a place in the competitive landscape without the requirement of needing to design completely separate encounters. I'm not going to explain all of the details of how that would work but feel free to check out my post on that previous thread I linked. At the end of the day, zerging and content denial would be relics of an ancient past. I know there are people out there who will freak out about the idea of having certain content being accessible, just like there are a ton of people who would appreciate it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what people want. VR would hold the keys and they could determine, with absolute authority, how they want their content to be enjoyed. The only people who would get upset are those who expect one extreme or the other. A healthy middle ground is possible and it would be up to VR to determine what that would look like. It's a win/win situation for all parties involved as long as players accept that VR is in full control of how accessible any given piece of content is.
oneADseven said:I don't really follow what you mean. The ghost mechanic allows VR to solve the issue of content monopoly wherever they don't want it to exist. That is a fact. It doesn't really matter how many people are in a guild or how many raids teams they can muster. VR could change the respawn for certain ghost content to 5 minutes. This means that they can implement content that is meant to test the skill of the players, rather than their availability to mobilize at any given minute of the day or night. Here are some examples:
Green Dragon -- Purely contested. Respawns every 3-5 days.
Red Dragon -- Semi contested. Respawns every 4-6 hours. 5 day lockout.
Blue Dragon -- Accessible. Respawns every 5 minutes. 5 day lockout.
On the day that all 3 of those targets are up at the same time, if the content is designed against a 24 person raid, a single guild forms 3 raids and hits all 3 targets. Once all 3 mobs are dead, the Blue Dragon raid now hops over to where the Red Dragon spawns while the Green Dragon raids heads to the Blue Dragon spawn. The original Green Dragon raid is done with the Blue Dragon they go hit the Red Dragon. The only real target anybody else has a chance of getting under this scenario is the Blue Dragon.
Unless you're suggesting that the lockouts apply to the entire guild even if some of the guild were not on that raid? That's the only way these lockouts you suggest would work.