Vandraad said:If I understand you correctly, Dreconic, the progression is never giving you a full set of the best top level gear because each tier has only a few pieces within it. There still may be dozens of opens for, say, your bracer slot in Tier3 but Tier3 won't ever give you a full set of armor. You still could, at each expansion replace everything but it is done piecemeal. Bummer for those that like armor sets, and maybe there is a place for those somewhere, but I like your concept.
One problem facing developers when introducing a new expansion is what do you balance that next expansion of content against?
the progression gives you a complete set of t1 and t2 raid pieces, but the "newest" tier would never give you a complete set. Only 2-3 pieces, This is more to make people choose what they want for gear rather than go with set pieces. I never liked Set pieces with 3, 5, 7 set bonuses because then if I get a helm that is really nice and better then the helm i have i can't wear it until i get 2-4 other pieces as it breaks the set pieces.
Sevens said: I agree with you on the Teired Items.They just seem to much like a gear check / score
Classis EQ didnt have teirs, dont know about VG if it did or not
Yeah I agree too. EQ classic felt like each item was unique to itself.. you decided what was best for you. They defo need to have tiers in there or atleast some form of it.. else there'd be pretty much no point pursuing new "level/expansion" content. But they should defo keep the stat increments horizontal, purely because it'll start to get out of hand... but I'm 99% sure they know this already anyway.
Classic EQ had tiers they were just not very well defined tiers. Kunark started out the tier system and then Velious and Luclin grew on it.
The idea of a tier system isn't to do a "You must have XP amount of HP before you can do this raid" but so that you have reason to do next tier up and people have progression through the expansions. I hate when a group says your GS is too low. I also hate when dungeons or raids are gear score locked.
Dreconic is correct in his assessment. Tiers have existed historically in EQ since the day it came out, it just hasn't been explicitly defined as such. On an absolute simplistic level, a tier can just be defined as "gear that is better or worse than another piece of gear". Raids in EQ, even in classic, weren't gated by gear score, but MR (Magic Resist) was generally used as a solid standard that players had to meet to participate.
It is what it is and it will always exist so long as stats on gear exists.
Dreconic said:Liav said:It is what it is and it will always exist so long as stats on gear exists.
Somethings we just can't get away from as much as we might want to.
That's tough honestly. It seems like it's a pretty basic part of human psychology to desire "better" possessions. In a fantasy game I think gear is one of the most logical vertical rogression routes.
I like gear progression.
Liav said:Dreconic said:Somethings we just can't get away from as much as we might want to.
That's tough honestly. It seems like it's a pretty basic part of human psychology to desire "better" possessions. In a fantasy game I think gear is one of the most logical vertical rogression routes.
I like gear progression.
Dreconic said:
As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.
I agree to an extent, but at the same time I think that also diminishes the competitive aspect of progression raiding.
When I can invite people to a raid indiscriminately and just zerg all of the content regardless of their gear quality, it no longer becomes fun for me. I also feel like personal responsibility in competitive raiding should be required, and having people of vastly varying quality kind of undermines that.
Liav said:Dreconic said:
As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.I agree to an extent, but at the same time I think that also diminishes the competitive aspect of progression raiding.
When I can invite people to a raid indiscriminately and just zerg all of the content regardless of their gear quality, it no longer becomes fun for me. I also feel like personal responsibility in competitive raiding should be required, and having people of vastly varying quality kind of undermines that.
That would be where creative raids could come in, Such as to access the zone boss you would need 4-5 teams (of say 8-10) to accomplish tasks within the zone within a time constraint, things that could not be accomplished by a single raid group within the time frame required. With a boss mob that would require 40-50 people, ala the early Naggy/Vox raids in EQ.
it's really only a zerg if the mass of players are competently above the level range of the mobs you're fighting, and can mow them down with some ease.
Ok I agree with the Teir 1-4 system mentioned above but I also things that with random creatures in zones that are higher level than the content forces us to go back to those zones if just for a mob. So like say Rathe Mountains we all levels out of that zone and moved on but what kept us coming back was the influx of platinum from hill giants. Add in a rare spawn like mortificator that could be upgraded to the expansion. So instead of redoing the whole zone make the Staff he drops more in line with the expansion, if you have to rename mortificator to tainted mortificator or something like that and the staff to tainted. I don't know but I hate ghost towns like that old zones get and by in fluxing new gear on new mobs might be easier than revamping the zone. Like the hill giant and gryphon that spawn in west commonlands, high level mobs in starter zones. Add a HG camp or a Gryphon nest in the zone to have us go back for a certain drop, cash or exp but leave it a starter zone so when we are encumbered we can give FS weapons to noobs or they can run a lowbie train to us instead of Sgt.Slate because were closer. We kill their train and heal/buff them and send them on their way. You guys are really smart and think this stuff out better than most communites so again I have faith this game will be my game for years when we get it.
Fulton said:That would be where creative raids could come in, Such as to access the zone boss you would need 4-5 teams (of say 8-10) to accomplish tasks within the zone within a time constraint, things that could not be accomplished by a single raid group within the time frame required. With a boss mob that would require 40-50 people, ala the early Naggy/Vox raids in EQ.
it's really only a zerg if the mass of players are competently above the level range of the mobs you're fighting, and can mow them down with some ease.
Agree and disagree.
Content that can be cleared by masses of people without strict gear checks can be considered non-competitive zerg gameplay. I'm not saying that's inherently bad, but bringing alone newbs with bad gear and managing to kill things isn't competitive. If there are non-competitive targets for these raid configurations then that's perfectly acceptable. As long as the rewards are worse than the competitive raids, that is.
Dreconic said: As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.
Yes but the counter argument to that is that.. if the raid sizes are smaller generally raiding guilds are also smaller.. when you have smaller guilds you have more of them. So you can just find a new guild that isn't as picky. Large raids just get extremely out of hand with freeloading/having to wait for afkers, it also takes longer to set up... and wait for afkers and people to arrive etc etc. plus your role in the team is diminished.. (not really valued on the raid) and thus the commradeship isn't there.. you're just a number/raid slot not a valued team member. +officers have more work todo and problems to solve (maintaining the raid).. people end up left behind.. if people dont wait.. it causes drama etc etc.
I also like to see content added for early/mid levels with each expansion. maybe its not to the extent of making whole new zones, but take Kurns Tower in EQ Maybe after a few expansions the Burynai dug thier way into an ancient ruin and caused darkness attribute monsters that lived there to start invading thier tunnels. these monsters would be a few levels above the burynai, and it would be a new experience. also maybe the end of the new area is a level 20 raid boss, letting us have raids at lower levels is nice sometimes too.
Nimryl said:Dreconic said: As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.Yes but the counter argument to that is that.. if the raid sizes are smaller generally raiding guilds are also smaller.. when you have smaller guilds you have more of them. So you can just find a new guild that isn't as picky. Large raids just get extremely out of hand with freeloading/having to wait for afkers, it also takes longer to set up... and wait for afkers and people to arrive etc etc. plus your role in the team is diminished.. (not really valued on the raid) and thus the commradeship isn't there.. you're just a number/raid slot not a valued team member. +officers have more work todo and problems to solve (maintaining the raid).. people end up left behind.. if people dont wait.. it causes drama etc etc.
Sounds like you had bad raid experiences. Most of the raiding guilds I have been in have not been this way. Everyone has a role and does their job. Most of my Experience in raiding is from EQ and VG so my examples pull from that. I will say when I was raiding in WoW this is exactly how I felt. In smaller raids you know people are willing to just leave because there are 50 other guilds recruiting. In EQ when we had 50-70 people raids we had maybe 5 high-level guilds another 5 decently core guilds (3 raid nights) and a bunch of 1-2 raid night guilds. Those top 10 guilds though were very active in talking with each other. If you left a guild because you were not doing your job, AFK a lot or not getting along with your raid team you had a hard time finding another guild.
So in EQ the top 10 raiding guilds had 500-700 people in them, vs in wow you would need 50-70 guilds (for ten man content) and no way you could keep up with it all. Bigger raid forces promote more social connection IMO then small raid forces do. In a small raid you stay tight with your 9 other people and if someone leaves that new 1 person is the outcast. In 70 people if you lose 2 or 3, one you can still raid that night, and 2 you n feel less like you are on the outs of the "in" crowd.
Dreconic said:Nimryl said:Dreconic said: As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.Yes but the counter argument to that is that.. if the raid sizes are smaller generally raiding guilds are also smaller.. when you have smaller guilds you have more of them. So you can just find a new guild that isn't as picky. Large raids just get extremely out of hand with freeloading/having to wait for afkers, it also takes longer to set up... and wait for afkers and people to arrive etc etc. plus your role in the team is diminished.. (not really valued on the raid) and thus the commradeship isn't there.. you're just a number/raid slot not a valued team member. +officers have more work todo and problems to solve (maintaining the raid).. people end up left behind.. if people dont wait.. it causes drama etc etc.
Sounds like you had bad raid experiences. Most of the raiding guilds I have been in have not been this way. Everyone has a role and does their job. Most of my Experience in raiding is from EQ and VG so my examples pull from that. I will say when I was raiding in WoW this is exactly how I felt. In smaller raids you know people are willing to just leave because there are 50 other guilds recruiting. In EQ when we had 50-70 people raids we had maybe 5 high-level guilds another 5 decently core guilds (3 raid nights) and a bunch of 1-2 raid night guilds. Those top 10 guilds though were very active in talking with each other. If you left a guild because you were not doing your job, AFK a lot or not getting along with your raid team you had a hard time finding another guild.
So in EQ the top 10 raiding guilds had 500-700 people in them, vs in wow you would need 50-70 guilds (for ten man content) and no way you could keep up with it all. Bigger raid forces promote more social connection IMO then small raid forces do. In a small raid you stay tight with your 9 other people and if someone leaves that new 1 person is the outcast. In 70 people if you lose 2 or 3, one you can still raid that night, and 2 you n feel less like you are on the outs of the "in" crowd.
All I'm saying is that these are some of the problems with big raids and that's why I'm in favor of smaller raids because from my perspective it's a better experience. But I did generally have a OK experience raiding in big raids.. just smaller ones are better. Plus leaving a guild can be a good thing if you're having problems.. you can find another that suits you more.. otherwise you have little to no choice and that's a bad thing in my opinion. Also top guilds talking to one another like that should really judge people for themselves, who knows what lies are spoken of and truths misled. Big raids more social? I disagree there.. tight knit is far better socially... and new people are never outcast if I'm around. I make them welcome. :) - But I do agree that you can go ahead and raid if you're missing a few people in a bigger raid..
Anyway, you're entitled to your opinion. As I am. Glass half-full, glass half-empty arguments never really get anywhere. :)
Dreconic said:Nimryl said:Dreconic said: As do I. I like knowing my gear is progressing and that I am able to do my job better. The problem that is inherent with this though is groups/guilds saying you have to have X in stat 1 before you can raid with us. In EQ this wasn't an issue when you had 50-70 raiders. When you only get 10 raiders (i.e. wow) you can afford to be picky. Just another reason why I am in favor of bigger raids then smaller raids.Yes but the counter argument to that is that.. if the raid sizes are smaller generally raiding guilds are also smaller.. when you have smaller guilds you have more of them. So you can just find a new guild that isn't as picky. Large raids just get extremely out of hand with freeloading/having to wait for afkers, it also takes longer to set up... and wait for afkers and people to arrive etc etc. plus your role in the team is diminished.. (not really valued on the raid) and thus the commradeship isn't there.. you're just a number/raid slot not a valued team member. +officers have more work todo and problems to solve (maintaining the raid).. people end up left behind.. if people dont wait.. it causes drama etc etc.
Sounds like you had bad raid experiences. Most of the raiding guilds I have been in have not been this way. Everyone has a role and does their job. Most of my Experience in raiding is from EQ and VG so my examples pull from that. I will say when I was raiding in WoW this is exactly how I felt. In smaller raids you know people are willing to just leave because there are 50 other guilds recruiting. In EQ when we had 50-70 people raids we had maybe 5 high-level guilds another 5 decently core guilds (3 raid nights) and a bunch of 1-2 raid night guilds. Those top 10 guilds though were very active in talking with each other. If you left a guild because you were not doing your job, AFK a lot or not getting along with your raid team you had a hard time finding another guild.
So in EQ the top 10 raiding guilds had 500-700 people in them, vs in wow you would need 50-70 guilds (for ten man content) and no way you could keep up with it all. Bigger raid forces promote more social connection IMO then small raid forces do. In a small raid you stay tight with your 9 other people and if someone leaves that new 1 person is the outcast. In 70 people if you lose 2 or 3, one you can still raid that night, and 2 you n feel less like you are on the outs of the "in" crowd.
I agree with this. I was in a core guild that did 3 - 4 raids a week and we had a really excellent atmosphere in the guild. Of course when you have an organisation where there are 50 - 70 members not everyone is going to like everyone else but we managed to get along together just fine. Promoting communication between guilds is essential to happy relationships on a server. So if there was some way to promote that it would be great.
Actually thinking about it how about a server wide chat channel just for guild leaders? That would make communication between guilds so much easier and would allow guild leaders to get to know one another so that loads of drama didn't spring up and would help if you had a bad guild member you could warn other guilds.
Raiders are the minority not the majority. I believe that building the game and expansions around them is the wrong approach to a long living game.
Raiders are usually the people rushing to the end as fast as possible just so they can brag about downing a target first. They are usually the ones to complain when they have consumed all the highest level content in a matter of weeks or months. They are usually the ones stating they are bored and there isn't anything to do and demand more content. The usually aren't interested in the adventure to be had getting to max level. They are usually just running from carrot to carrot in a tiered gear system.
While I have raided and led raids in many games and understand the excitement of taking down the bigger targets I don't believe we should be designing our game around the minority. Obviously this is a personal opinion, though I as I have stated in the past, a slower progressing game should definitely be about the adventure from the first level to the last. No one should be in the mindset that they have to be max level before the game starts.
Niien said:Raiders are the minority not the majority. I believe that building the game and expansions around them is the wrong approach to a long living game.
Raiders are usually the people rushing to the end as fast as possible just so they can brag about downing a target first. They are usually the ones to complain when they have consumed all the highest level content in a matter of weeks or months. They are usually the ones stating they are bored and there isn't anything to do and demand more content. The usually aren't interested in the adventure to be had getting to max level. They are usually just running from carrot to carrot in a tiered gear system.
While I have raided and led raids in many games and understand the excitement of taking down the bigger targets I don't believe we should be designing our game around the minority. Obviously this is a personal opinion, though I as I have stated in the past, a slower progressing game should definitely be about the adventure from the first level to the last. No one should be in the mindset that they have to be max level before the game starts.
True but good guild discussion between themselves benefits everyone not just raiders. Having guild leaders know each other is always going to be helpful because then they can work together to solve any disputes that might pop up. I've played games were I have no idea who the officers of certain guilds are and that has made it hard to contact them. Having a global chat channel for guild leaders would really help that situation and disputes do happen outside of raiding.
For example what if one guild group accused another guild group of kill stealing? If the two guild leaders knew each other that could solved pretty quickly.
Nimryl said:Yes but the counter argument to that is that.. if the raid sizes are smaller generally raiding guilds are also smaller.. when you have smaller guilds you have more of them. So you can just find a new guild that isn't as picky. Large raids just get extremely out of hand with freeloading/having to wait for afkers, it also takes longer to set up... and wait for afkers and people to arrive etc etc. plus your role in the team is diminished.. (not really valued on the raid) and thus the commradeship isn't there.. you're just a number/raid slot not a valued team member. +officers have more work todo and problems to solve (maintaining the raid).. people end up left behind.. if people dont wait.. it causes drama etc etc.
One downside of a smaller raid size is that it limits the complexity and variability of a raid encounter. If content is capped at, say, 24 players (4 groups of 6), how many variations within that raid size can you have to deal with an unknown encounter? You wouldn't see encounters with many adds, or waves of attackers because you don't have the manpower to deal with it. You say your individual role, your influence on the outcome, is diminished in larger raids. What the larger raid sizes gives you is a buffer between "we've lost a few people but are still doing OK" and "we've lost a few and now the raid is going to wipe". In a raid of 24, depending upon your class, you aren't 1/24 of the raids power. If you brough 4 clerics, and 1 cleric dies, you've lost 25% of your healing strength. If the encounte requires the healing power of 4 priests, and you lose 1, your raid wipes...unless you bring more priests but with just 24 that means cutting down your DPS. Who do you tell in your guild they cannot go? Larger raids does mean the individual might have a lessened role if nobody dies, but when people die those additional people step up, fill the gap and become a more important part. Not only that but with larger raids you can, depending upon the target, change your tactic. Switch from heavy healing/lower DPS thus longer fight to lower healing/higher DPS thus shorter but more risky fight. You have more options.
TL;DR. Small raid sizes limits your options and limits the content variability we can face. Larger raids expands your options and expands the content we can face.
I don't think 24 constitutes a "small raid", but that aside, I also don't think it limits your options.
Having raided in numerous games with a 20-24 man cap, I can say that I have seen a ton of very innovative raid encounters that utilize this force effectively. While you are correct in your assessment that people dying becomes a lot more threatening when you have a smaller raid, that only serves to increase the difficulty of the content when I would take as a positive thing.
I don't think a raid should be reasonably able to lose any more than, say, 15-20% of their force and still be able to recover. Deaths in raid encounters should be extremely punishing, but also completely preventable. My ideal raid encounter would work like that. You either play well, or you die and your allies suffer the consequences.
Examples of really well designed raids:
Varking (Vanguard)
Sparkles (Vanguard, despite some shitty things with this encounter it overall was super challenging and used your raid force very well)
Pirate Kings (EverQuest 2)
Roehn Theer (EverQuest 2)
The entirety of APW is some of my favorite raid content in any game ever (Vanguard)
Liav said:I don't think 24 constitutes a "small raid", but that aside, I also don't think it limits your options.
Having raided in numerous games with a 20-24 man cap, I can say that I have seen a ton of very innovative raid encounters that utilize this force effectively. While you are correct in your assessment that people dying becomes a lot more threatening when you have a smaller raid, that only serves to increase the difficulty of the content when I would take as a positive thing.
I don't think a raid should be reasonably able to lose any more than, say, 15-20% of their force and still be able to recover. Deaths in raid encounters should be extremely punishing, but also completely preventable. My ideal raid encounter would work like that. You either play well, or you die and your allies suffer the consequences.
The entirety of APW is some of my favorite raid content in any game ever (Vanguard)
Even with my bias I can accept smaller raid sizes provided all classes can be represented. With 72 even the list raid-desirable classes could be assured of spots. Pantheon takes a more archetype approach, so we must assume the archetypes will all perform their job equally so that all classes can be represented.
It really is sad that APW, which was well made I do agree, was saddled with the failings within Vanguard.
Raidan said: More importantly than adding entirely new zones each expansion is to keep old zones relevant. Like Gawd said, expand the existing zones, or make zones like Guktop/Gukbottom versus creating entirely new contents/worlds/planets each time. Everquest became too large. Half the zones are completely empty and players are spread across the world and only congregate in the zones that have the highest exp modifiers. I'd rather the game be built where players have a reason to stay together, and even if low/high levels aren't grouping together, you still see the players and creates a feeling that the world feels more alive. Build the game with the mystery built in - locked doors, cellars, hidden passages etc. that can't be opened till future expansions.
Basically, if I understand you correctly, is that if a sentient race of NPCs inhabit a dungeon (Goblins in SolA and RunnyEye, Gnolls in BlackBurrow, Frogloks in UpperGuk/LowerGuk, etc) they would, over time, naturally expand their home and the new areas become inhabited with higher levels or they dig through to a previously unknown hive/home of a wholly subterranean race of much higher level creatures. I'd be in full support of it.
Vandraad said: One downside of a smaller raid size is that it limits the complexity and variability of a raid encounter. If content is capped at, say, 24 players (4 groups of 6), how many variations within that raid size can you have to deal with an unknown encounter? You wouldn't see encounters with many adds, or waves of attackers because you don't have the manpower to deal with it.
Vandraad said: You say your individual role, your influence on the outcome, is diminished in larger raids. What the larger raid sizes gives you is a buffer between "we've lost a few people but are still doing OK" and "we've lost a few and now the raid is going to wipe". In a raid of 24, depending upon your class, you aren't 1/24 of the raids power.
Vandraad said: Small raid sizes limits your options and limits the content variability we can face. Larger raids expands your options and expands the content we can face.