Linkamus said: Liav, that is assuming comparable gear doesn't drop from New content. And 2, you are assuming the fabled quests I suggested wouldn't require killing new raid targets as well.
If killing new content is required then it seems pointless to arbitrarily make us go back to older content to kill trivial things for components. Just my 2c.
AstralEcho said:Definitely agreed, although I'm personally fond of horizontal progression over vertical after a certain point in endgame overall. That said, what works for both - whether a truly flat, horizontal progression system or a non-linear raid system akin to EQ1 - is the lack of piling on levels with every expansion. EQ1 and FFXI, both fairly similar to each other, had numerous expansions where the focus was on broadening the available content and providing more activities at a previously-established level cap, which resulted in the sort of progression you saw in both games.
Comparatively, titles like WoW and FFXIV that bump the cap with every expansion are inevitably also bumping the item levels, and that is why you see tiers that are only relevant for the duration of their patch cycle and why the first quests in a new expansion give gear equivalent to what people bled over for months in the prior one.
Wolfsong said:...
If it is going to, let's say, for example, if someone has a relevant quest flagged, they can go to the fight and participate - even as an outsider. They wouldn't receive full raid rewards, but as long as they are participating, deal a certain minimum % of damage to the boss, and are there and alive when it's defeated, they will still receive the quest item they need, as well as a nice xp reward. It's a win-win. The person with the quest is able to obtain their item for their quest, and doesn't have to worry about finding a group to do it with. The raid group gets a bit of outside help, but doesn't have to sacrifice any of their potential raid drops to the person who isn't in their raid party. Or, perhaps alternatively, the raiding group can invite the person with the quest, so they get the best of both worlds.
...
That may work for dps, but I can't see this being very feasable as a healer. Can't meet the damage check so you don't get your piece, If it’s a heal check that can be just as impossible because you can't see who needs healing, you'd have to click manually through the raid and hope you find someone and have the time to heal them before their own healers do. You'd be at a massive disadvantage.
Not to mention the raid would have no incentive to keep you healed (as any role), if they even notice you need it, as you're not in their raid and their job is to keep their raid alive (and that should be difficult enough).
Another problem, if there was a certain mechanic that an outsider may screw up and cause what was a successful raid to fail (say some sort of bomb type of thing gets attached) the outsider doesn’t notice, doesn’t see their raid chat/voip, blows up and wipes half of their raid.
I like the idea I just can't see how it would realistically work. Once engaged I don't think anyone outside of the active raid group should be able to affect the raid target(s).
Rachael
Rachael said:Wolfsong said:...
If it is going to, let's say, for example, if someone has a relevant quest flagged, they can go to the fight and participate - even as an outsider. They wouldn't receive full raid rewards, but as long as they are participating, deal a certain minimum % of damage to the boss, and are there and alive when it's defeated, they will still receive the quest item they need, as well as a nice xp reward. It's a win-win. The person with the quest is able to obtain their item for their quest, and doesn't have to worry about finding a group to do it with. The raid group gets a bit of outside help, but doesn't have to sacrifice any of their potential raid drops to the person who isn't in their raid party. Or, perhaps alternatively, the raiding group can invite the person with the quest, so they get the best of both worlds.
...That may work for dps, but I can't see this being very feasable as a healer. Can't meet the damage check so you don't get your piece, If it’s a heal check that can be just as impossible because you can't see who needs healing, you'd have to click manually through the raid and hope you find someone and have the time to heal them before their own healers do. You'd be at a massive disadvantage.
Not to mention the raid would have no incentive to keep you healed (as any role), if they even notice you need it, as you're not in their raid and their job is to keep their raid alive (and that should be difficult enough). Another problem, if there was a certain mechanic that an outsider may screw up and cause what was a successful raid to fail (say some sort of bomb type of thing gets attached) the outsider doesn’t notice, doesn’t see their raid chat/voip, blows up and wipes half of their raid.
I like the idea I just can't see how it would realistically work. Once engaged I don't think anyone outside of the active raid group should be able to affect the raid target(s).
Rachael
I agree. The idea is nice but I don't see it working out in practice. People are quite wary about bringing outside people along on their raids either because they don't want to share their tactics with other guilds that they are competing with or because they are worried that the extra person is going to wipe the raid from not knowing what to do. As Rachael says I imagine most raids are conducted using some form of VoIP. They'd have to give the extra person access to that so they know what is going in and most guilds do not like giving outsiders access to guild only chat because things are discussed that are not meant for people outside of the guild.
I just think there would be too many problems associated with that system.
To put the idea that items are still valid years later in perspective, if you played EQ ask yourself when this became no longer worth the time...This is the type of loot distribution system I think people want. Something that is still worth doing. A quest series with raiding elements that was worth the time and hard work. A quest with a reward that was valid the following one or two expansions.
Rachael said:That may work for dps, but I can't see this being very feasable as a healer. Can't meet the damage check so you don't get your piece, If it’s a heal check that can be just as impossible because you can't see who needs healing, you'd have to click manually through the raid and hope you find someone and have the time to heal them before their own healers do. You'd be at a massive disadvantage.
Not to mention the raid would have no incentive to keep you healed (as any role), if they even notice you need it, as you're not in their raid and their job is to keep their raid alive (and that should be difficult enough).
Another problem, if there was a certain mechanic that an outsider may screw up and cause what was a successful raid to fail (say some sort of bomb type of thing gets attached) the outsider doesn’t notice, doesn’t see their raid chat/voip, blows up and wipes half of their raid.
I like the idea I just can't see how it would realistically work. Once engaged I don't think anyone outside of the active raid group should be able to affect the raid target(s).
Rachael
Cromulent said:I agree. The idea is nice but I don't see it working out in practice. People are quite wary about bringing outside people along on their raids either because they don't want to share their tactics with other guilds that they are competing with or because they are worried that the extra person is going to wipe the raid from not knowing what to do. As Rachael says I imagine most raids are conducted using some form of VoIP. They'd have to give the extra person access to that so they know what is going in and most guilds do not like giving outsiders access to guild only chat because things are discussed that are not meant for people outside of the guild.
I just think there would be too many problems associated with that system.
Wolfsong said:
The person there for the quest wouldn't be required to be in the raid. They could be there solo. I go over that in my original post, but maybe didn't convey it well (was typing on the fly there :p).
To illustrate... let's say a raid boss, I'll call them Cantankerous Carl (borrowing FFXI's love of alliterative names for rare spawns), a giant crab, has spawned.
Carl, as a raid boss, rewards a lot of xp, and has a chance of dropping certain items which are powerful in their own right, and/or are perhaps useful for creating or obtaining another powerful item, etc. etc.
Carl also drops a "Cantankerous Claw", a 100% drop, required in a larger quest line of some sort - maybe the claw is used to draw out another enemy for ambush or something... - insert your own hypothetical ideas here-.
A scout notices Carl is up, and sends out the word to their raid group, who's hanging around waiting for something to go beat up on.
At the same time, Silhouette, a Rogue, is on a quest to defeat Carl, to get the claw. She shows up, and notices a raid group forming.
"Perfect timing!" she thinks. "So long as this raid group is able to take this dude down, I can also pitch in and do my part to help defeat it. I don't get the raid rewards, but I at least get some nice xp, and the quest item I need."
The arriving raid members notice Sil, and that she's not part of their raid group. They conclude she must be there for the claw. "Perfect!", they collectively think (this particular raid group is the Borg). "They can help us take down Carl, which benefits us, and it won't affect the raid rewards."
They acknowledge each other, that they're there for the same target, etc. etc, and wait for the fight to begin.
Note, Sil is only allowed to attack Carl because she's on that particular phase of that particular quest. So, it's not like just anyone can come around and start beating up on the boss (else it'd be too easy to abuse that by having a bunch of out-of-party folks coming around to help take down those bosses more easily - so it'd be a kind of claim system in that way).
Anyway, back to the fight. The Raid group's arrived and organized. Sil's prepared for a battle, and they go to it. Some time later, Carl's downed... the Raid group gets their rewards. Sil gets her claw, and a nice chunk of xp as well.
As a bonus... Perhaps, having been brought together for a common task, even if not for common reasons, some of the Raid members and Sil start talking. They /friend each other, and the Raid leader, impressed by how well Sil handled herself and seemed to know her class really well, invites Sil to come with them on future raids. Sil loves the idea, getting a good vibe from these Borg folk, and agrees. And from a chance meeting, community building has happened. Kinda like that "Butterfly Effect" video for Eve Online, but without the PvP and spaceships.
Again... all off the top of my head and certainly not perfect... though I will admit I do like the community building potential of it :p.
If a person has to be there physically as a character they will need to be apart of the raid and that includes requiring access to VoIP or they could miss instructions that would lead to the raid wiping.
I understand your point and agree it is a nice idea but what would you think if someone outside your raid who wasn't able to hear any of the instructions from the raid leader accidently pulled a load of adds because they strayed into a zone spot for instance? Or what if the raid mechanic required you to stop attacking at a certain point and the extra person didn't know that and caused the mob to despawn again because they were not part of the raid and didn't hear the raid leaders instructions.
There were lots of raids in EQ that would result in a lot of problems for the raid if people didn't do what they were told when they were told. You can't just have someone tagging along unable to hear instructions from the raid leader. It just wouldn't work. I think you are assuming that all raid mobs are simple. Send tank in, get aggro, DPS attacks until dead. Unfortunately this is not the case and some of the later raid content had some quite complex scripts associated with it that you absolutely needed to hear what the raid leader was saying at all times and from what people have been talking about I think Pantheon raids are going to be even more complex.
So yeah I like the idea I just don't think it would work out in practice.
Edit: Oh and if the mob has AEs going off you'll probably die because no one on the raid will bother to heal you as they will be concentrating on the actual members of the raid in order to prevent a wipe.
Cromulent said:
If a person has to be there physically as a character they will need to be apart of the raid and that includes requiring access to VoIP or they could miss instructions that would lead to the raid wiping.
I understand your point and agree it is a nice idea but what would you think if someone outside your raid who wasn't able to hear any of the instructions from the raid leader accidently pulled a load of adds because they strayed into a zone spot for instance? Or what if the raid mechanic required you to stop attacking at a certain point and the extra person didn't know that and caused the mob to despawn again because they were not part of the raid and didn't hear the raid leaders instructions.
There were lots of raids in EQ that would result in a lot of problems for the raid if people didn't do what they were told when they were told. You can't just have someone tagging along unable to hear instructions from the raid leader. It just wouldn't work. I think you are assuming that all raid mobs are simple. Send tank in, get aggro, DPS attacks until dead. Unfortunately this is not the case and some of the later raid content had some quite complex scripts associated with it that you absolutely needed to hear what the raid leader was saying at all times and from what people have been talking about I think Pantheon raids are going to be even more complex.
So yeah I like the idea I just don't think it would work out in practice.
Edit: Oh and if the mob has AEs going off you'll probably die because no one on the raid will bother to heal you as they will be concentrating on the actual members of the raid in order to prevent a wipe.
Wolfsong said:Cromulent said:If a person has to be there physically as a character they will need to be apart of the raid and that includes requiring access to VoIP or they could miss instructions that would lead to the raid wiping.
I understand your point and agree it is a nice idea but what would you think if someone outside your raid who wasn't able to hear any of the instructions from the raid leader accidently pulled a load of adds because they strayed into a zone spot for instance? Or what if the raid mechanic required you to stop attacking at a certain point and the extra person didn't know that and caused the mob to despawn again because they were not part of the raid and didn't hear the raid leaders instructions.
There were lots of raids in EQ that would result in a lot of problems for the raid if people didn't do what they were told when they were told. You can't just have someone tagging along unable to hear instructions from the raid leader. It just wouldn't work. I think you are assuming that all raid mobs are simple. Send tank in, get aggro, DPS attacks until dead. Unfortunately this is not the case and some of the later raid content had some quite complex scripts associated with it that you absolutely needed to hear what the raid leader was saying at all times and from what people have been talking about I think Pantheon raids are going to be even more complex.
So yeah I like the idea I just don't think it would work out in practice.
Edit: Oh and if the mob has AEs going off you'll probably die because no one on the raid will bother to heal you as they will be concentrating on the actual members of the raid in order to prevent a wipe.
Okay, well... again, I'm not putting this forth as an actual suggestion. It's an on-the-fly idea that I thought up to illustrate one of countless ways raid content can be kept relevant beyond just raiding. I've conceded it's certainly not perfect.
You're dissecting and picking it apart as though it were an actual suggestion for a real game system. It's not. It's just me having a go at creatively presenting a larger concept. I like letting my imagination go sometimes.
Do you agree with the overall idea of "keeping raid-type content relevant beyond just for raiding"? If so, then we're in agreement overall.
Now, that said, there are systems in other MMOs that are pretty similar to the overall idea of what I suggested - involve far less organization between far more people - and work out fine. And many of those fights play out like raid-level encounters, with AOEs and mechanics to watch for and deal with. Some of them even involve adds, and yet remain reasonable to participate in solo. So the idea isn't as unfeasible as you might think. Very similar systems already exist. Beyond that, were a developer to adopt a system anything like my hypothetical one, they would certainly consider all the concerns you raised, and more, and find ways to alter the encounters, or the system, to make it work.
Please don't think I'm nitpicking your idea apart. This forum is meant for friendly discussion of ideas and just because I disagree it doesn't mean I'm not being friendly :).
I haven't played any of the games you are talking about where it was possible for a single character to tag along on a raid without any form of communication with the main raid and it still working out fine so I can't comment on that. The only thing I'm going off is the fact that a lot of people when discussing raiding on the forum invariably use either EQ or Vanguard as examples. So I get the impression that Pantheon is more likely to follow that way of raiding than perhaps other ways. But hey! We aren't even in testing yet and no one knows so I might be completely wrong on that.
But based on my experiece of raiding I'd be surprised if a mechanic would work where you have outsiders tagging along on a raid.
As for "keeping raid-type content relevant beyond just for raiding" I most certainly do agree. How we do that though is the question.
Vixx said: I maybe miss remembering but I don't really remember raids being very scripted pre Gates and OOW I know the heavy scripting in the post LDON content is one of the biggest reason me and my wife left EQ after years 70 levels and 1500+ AAs it just took the fun out of it and made it more like a job and really hurt are guild we had some great healers good at healing and pulling off some great saves that just couldn't do the scripted play be it server Lag or real life disability
And just to reiterate, I really enjoy thinking up these scenarios and working through how they might work in a given situation. So, don't take anything I'm saying as suggestion or argument for any particular system for Pantheon.
Jamie said:To put the idea that items are still valid years later in perspective, if you played EQ ask yourself when this became no longer worth the time...This is the type of loot distribution system I think people want. Something that is still worth doing. A quest series with raiding elements that was worth the time and hard work. A quest with a reward that was valid the following one or two expansions.
Not knowledgable about WQ, but based on what Jamie said: This!
Keep older stuff relevant. This can be accomplished through a combination of things. Everything from going more side-grades then up-grades to just having a really shallow "item level" curve.
Linkamus said: Liav, yes it is impossible to avoid it completely. But there are creative things the devs can do to mitigate it. One idea I mentioned earlier in the thread was to turn old raid gear into quest items for better gear. Another idea is to introduce quests that transform old raid gear into more powerful versions of themselves. Eq kind of did this with fabled gear, but I think it could work better without having to actually alter the old content.
How far back to you want front line guilds to farm old content? Making old raid gear be components for newer gear only serves to further cause blockages of that tier content. What you want in the game is the population to be spread out across all the levels so competition is present, but not oppressive. Nothing is worse than a guild just getting the point of trying what was once considered top raid content only to get steamrolled by guilds any number of expansions ahead of them because you designed the game to have old raid gear be quest items for new raid gear.
Top guilds probably wouldn't bother. What I'm invisioning is those quests would result in gear that is just 1 step below what the top guilds are getting from the content they are killing is dropping. So for the elite guilds it would be more beneficial to just farm new items. But for more casual players, are moderate raiding guilds, doing these "fabled quests" would be worth the time.
deltaloko said:The way I always described EQ1 raiding was that if EQ1 vanilla had a raiding difficulty of 1-5, then kunark had a raiding difficulty of 4-8, velious would have 6-10, luclin 9-12
Huge fan of that system.
It allowed multiple guilds to advance on the same difficulty tier. Something that is VERY important in an open world game! Don't forget that. We will hopefully NOT see any major instancing. Difficulty 9 in luclin dropped SLIGHLY better gear then difficulty 9 in velious, but only so slighly that getting either raid mob was ok. Sure if you could choose, you would take luclin, but you rarly could choose. Sometimes the drops in past xpacs where on par, or even better (depending on special needs like procs ect.).
Cutting edge guilds always had a new goal and harder content. But new content never totally replaced old content. It added to it. Huge difference! If your guild struggeled to beat a difficulty it simply had more chances at it in the next xpac. Including more of the easier choices to gear up for their roadblock.
Bottom line:
Love the system since a new xpac felt like something new was added, without making everything else obsolete right away. You outgrew your equipment on your pace without it being useless on day x due to xpac release.
Also keep in mind, this idea isn't just to keep old content alive, but to not delegitimize players' accomplishments from the past. So if you are full max raid gear from the original game, when the first expansion comes out, it will be easier for you to upgrade your slots. Again, just an idea. I think there's lots of things that could be done to mitigate the negative effects of mudflation.
Linkamus said:Also keep in mind, this idea isn't just to keep old content alive, but to not delegitimize players' accomplishments from the past. So if you are full max raid gear from the original game, when the first expansion comes out, it will be easier for you to upgrade your slots. Again, just an idea. I think there's lots of things that could be done to mitigate the negative effects of mudflation.
Thank you Linkamus, that's a very succent statement of why you want to have non-Linear raiding and to be honest I just don't see a way to do it that I would feel there was challenge or progression after a certain point. Doing the same encounters for months or years at some point gets boring.
I remember this same argument from when EQ2 launched back in 2004 from EQ1 players. Hell a good deal of them wanted to just transfer their capped characters directly in the game. Because they couldn't let go of the past. The argument is for devaluing the future or the past. Serious question and removing gear as a item of discussion for a minute. After see everything a zone has to offer and you can do the encounters while watching tv your going to tell me you will go back every chance you get for the life of the game to see this zone(s)? There's no risk or reward in that scenerio. Personally I don't want to be stuck at 50, same gear, doing the same content for years in a level based game with challenge, risk vs reward, and gear being meaniful as some of the reasons to play.
My two cents.
I guess I just don't really see "mudflation" as a bad thing, necessarily. What's the point of progression if you never become objectively more powerful than before?
leafnin honestly said it best - you're just asking for people to get burned out on the content by forcing them to run old content. People crave novelty and the psychological damages the above suggestions can cause are pretty devastating.
Liav said:I guess I just don't really see "mudflation" as a bad thing, necessarily. What's the point of progression if you never become objectively more powerful than before?
leafnin honestly said it best - you're just asking for people to get burned out on the content by forcing them to run old content. People crave novelty and the psychological damages the above suggestions can cause are pretty devastating.
The relic system could present some interesting opportunities for keeping old content relevant depending on how complex they want to make that system.
Putting rare colored mana sources in difficult to access areas of the original dungeons could keep players interested in those areas.
There are some downsides and problems with this too though: tedium of recharging on trivial content, competition over the most accessible areas, skill/spell inflation to accomodate all the mana varieties.
Perhaps it could be used as one of several factors that keep older content relevant to more advanced players though.
You're completely misinterpreting what I mean by "devastating psychological consequences". People getting burned out from running the same raids over and over again for months or years, AND THEN QUITTING is pretty devastating. It's horrible game design, plain and simple.
You're also conflating two different kinds of obsolescence. There's gear obsolescence, then there's "area" obsolescence. Pantheon isn't really the kind of game that supports "area" obsolescence, although it could easily turn into one given that it follows EQ's development path, which I hope it does not.
Gear obsolescence is basically mandatory and inevitable, at least mostly, barring some novelty items (like the Amulet of Necropotence, Illusion: Skeleton from PoFear in EQ). That doesn't necessarily mean that the content has to become completely irrelevant. Forcing players to run it to remain competitive years later is just not good though, not at all.