Mixed. Whatever feels more organic and makes the most sense.
Raid in a cave system? It's probably going to be a bit more linear with the deepest point being the end boss.
Raid in a citadel? Chances are there is a central lobby zone with halls going in more than one direction. Bosses are going to be a bit more spread out.
Kind of both. I wouldnt want there to be an exact order. But maybe there are several Bosses in a dungeon and each requires a different series of tasks and mini bosses being defeated each time before you can spawn/access them. But there wouldnt be a specific order for any of the main Bosses.
I think raid content makes more sense to be linear for most of it. If it were open world and everyone just ran right to a specific mob and killed it the raid would be over quickly. Plane of Fear did do the open concept pretty well though, but when Fear came out clearly the zone was a necessity to not wiping.
That said, I'm not against open world raid mobs. I think some wandering high level mobs are cool. I just think the majority of it should be that you work your way through a dungeon.
I understand the examples aren't the point of the question but...What made Lguk a requisite for solb? Lguk wasn't a raid zone. It has been a long time, am I forgetting something?
I like "sequential encounters" if they are encouters or keys that people can gain access to in a group scenario. I hated having to re-run raids repeatedly that gave poor rewards in order to flag people so they can access later content. It is ok for a few people to voluntarily give their time to help someone out. If a raid full of people are giving their time that seems excessive.
@Bigdogchris
I might be wrong but I think you have misunderstood? I dont think the OP is suggesting all raids be overworld or out in the open. Pretty sure all they mean is while in a dungeon do you sequentially kill bosses in a linear order or can you work your way to particular bosses at will. In which case you would still would have to work your way to them through the dungeon, and no one said it had to be easy or straight forward in process.
The method I decribed in my previous post was actually in FFXI and you couldnt realistically raid the whole zone in a night, but you could attempt to go after a particualr Boss (Except the king of the gods Kirin, he could only be done after all others). It usually took several hours over 3-4 days if things went well to raid the zone (much longer if competition was firece). You had to do quests to even get access, and once there even the trash would wipe alliances if people werent careful or organized. The mini bosses werent slackers either. If set up in a similar way, no one would be running straight to a Raid mob and killing it, yet at the same time the entire zone would be open world and you could go most anywhere. I dont think the exact same set up would work in Pantheon, but Im pretty sure something similar could be done and thus achieve a mix of sequential tasks and non-sequential Raid Bosses to give more free reign without letting groups just go directly to a particular Raid Boss.
Both. There should be raid mobs wandering the open world.
There should also be scripted zones. I like ones with multiple wings, within each wing there is a general order, but you can switch between wings if you are having progression issues.
But, most of my raiding has been persistant instances where we could go hack a few nights in a row. Not sure how it will go with large open content raids.
I could be wrong, but I believe they indicated that raid forces could be as large as 70 or so. So I am guessing the leap frogging won't be too bad, since most nights you will probably only have a couple full raids going on at a time.
I just don't want anything that feels like I'm on tracks. If it's set up so it makes sense that you'd have no choice but to do things in one order, then so be it. Otherwise, I like being able to head in a few different directions. There are plenty of ways to make sure that content won't be skipped without forcing things to be killed in a particular order.
EDIT: Typo...Ugh, quoted before I noticed it. So embarrassing!
Shucklighter said:I just don't want anything that feels like I'm on tracks. If it's set up so it makes sense that you'd have no sense but to do things in one order, then so be it. Otherwise, I like being able to head in a few different directions. There are plenty of ways to make sure that content won't be skipped without forcing things to be killed in a particular order.
Exactly. The devs can put many different types of tasks, quests, mini bosses, puzzles, etc. in place to prevent abuse of a more open ended dungeon. But I will agree if it makes sense for it to be done in a more linear order thats fine. I just dont think that should happen to often, because if it does then that just means the devs are purposefully making it that way. You design around the lore and concept not around the mechanics. You defientely need to keep the mechanics in mind. But I wouldnt want them to start off with the idea that X dungeon will be linear and we will build the lore and concept around it. Should be the other way around so at to allow the freedom for it to be more open more often than not.
Imo, most raid content should be instanced, co-op (world boss) or token raid and NOT competitive so that other guilds cannot grief, trigger mobs to spoil hours of setup, steal the raid mob etc. Not everyone wants to deal with the @#$%storm that was the raid scene in EQ1 or like it was/is on P99. The forum lawyering and griefing is insane amongst the competition raid scene, and I am sure takes more of the dev's time than they would like dealing with the garbage and fallout
Having said that, I feel like a good amount of content should be variance raid mobs that guilds would compete for, with multiple spawn locations and time of spawn variance, and guilds would track, foot race and engage in full force etc, and if they wipe, next guild etc or something along those lines.
I believe P99 still works a bit on that basis currently (I left the server awhile back, just not into that type of end-game at all anymore - the older raid scene... what a mess!!)
Tracker gets mob on radar but has to actually pull the mob and get yellow text from the raid mob, and pull to group by running, no teleporting etc. If they wipe, the next guild waiting gets to go at it, making it a real gamble to actually pull the mob without your guild being ready. Stalling = more toxicity, raid disputes etc... not pretty, headaches for GM's. If not enough of your guild is ready when tracker pulls, you wipe and lose the loot to the next guild. If you don't pull fast enough, the other guilds tracker gets pull and yellow text to confirm and it is now their mob. This stuff doesn't float my boat much at all, but I can see the fun in it for other people... quite the adrenaline rush. In the long run though, the guilds with the most people with free time for whatever reason ended up owning the servers, and locking down content. I would prefer to never ever have to see locked down content from a bully guild in Pantheon, nor consider ever having to "buy" a portion of my quest for epic cause some bully guild has the mob locked down, but at the same time I do want to see the competition players get their fun too.
One idea to curb the toxicity of competition raiding is to lessen the loot importance factor, and not make the drops on the rare dragons etc quite so "key" to quests, epics and game changing magic items. What I mean by this is have the regular loot table drops be the same for all raid mobs, competition or non comp, but have the competition ones drop specific content oriented cosmetic items, sword or bow or staff skins, the ability to alter the color or texture of a magic item from one thing to another, but nothing "game changing" should be rewarded or the toxicity will be there in full force
The non-competitive raid mobs could also drop their own cosmetic loots over and above the standard loot tables too of course.
TLDR?
Pander to both a bit without pandering to both systems completely in a way that ruins the content. No locking down quest items etc, but decent cosmetic rewards and maybe some other kind of perks for getting the "tougher, rare, race oriented competitive" content, things you can only get through the competition raid mobs
I think private instancing is what led to dungeons being on tracks, and that's one of the reasons I prefer not to have instances. I also think it's important to have dungeons and raid zones be open and shared. When you have linear raids that aren't instanced, whoever starts it is probably going to end up clearing it all most of the time. I'd rather have it so a few guilds could possibly be in a zone, working together, sharing, or competing. Diplomacy is a huge part of the community in the game I'm hoping this will be. I'm not hoping for a utopia here. I think you need conflict between players to make it feel like a real world. You need dirtbags. You need to give them rope to hang themselves with. Let them create issues and ruin their reputations so you can find ways to work around them. You need some villains or it definitely won't be as much fun.
Anyway, back on target here...I do recall that most of the early WoW dungeons and raids were reasonably open. You could definitely kill bosses in different orders and/or skip things if that's what you wanted to do. So, it's definitely possible to have instances that don't feel like you're on a ride, but I'd still rather not have them.
Amsai said:
I dont think the OP is suggesting all raids be overworld or out in the open. Pretty sure all they mean is while in a dungeon do you sequentially kill bosses in a linear order or can you work your way to particular bosses at will. In which case you would still would have to work your way to them through the dungeon, and no one said it had to be easy or straight forward in process.
Quoted again for clarity because there still seems to be a misunderstanding. Amsai is correct. The thread is not about open world vs dungeon raids.
Portalgun said:Imo, most raid content should be instanced, co-op (world boss) or token raid and NOT competitive so that other guilds cannot grief, trigger mobs to spoil hours of setup, steal the raid mob etc. Not everyone wants to deal with the @#$%storm that was the raid scene in EQ1 or like it was/is on P99.
You're going to be very disappointed with Pantheon then. Instanced will not be the standard but more the exception with Brad stating it would only be used if it made absolute sense for that particular situation. Pantheon is a social game meaning players will need to deal with other players. If you want to be guaranteed content? Get to it first with enough people to handle it. And before you get started, you let a GM know so in case someone else shows up to specifically grief your guild you have some backup.
Vandraad said:Portalgun said:Imo, most raid content should be instanced, co-op (world boss) or token raid and NOT competitive so that other guilds cannot grief, trigger mobs to spoil hours of setup, steal the raid mob etc. Not everyone wants to deal with the @#$%storm that was the raid scene in EQ1 or like it was/is on P99.
You're going to be very disappointed with Pantheon then. Instanced will not be the standard but more the exception with Brad stating it would only be used if it made absolute sense for that particular situation. Pantheon is a social game meaning players will need to deal with other players. If you want to be guaranteed content? Get to it first with enough people to handle it. And before you get started, you let a GM know so in case someone else shows up to specifically grief your guild you have some backup.
Nah, I'm going to love Pantheon regardless of how it ends up because the core tenets are something I agree with. I am suspecting that awhile after release, we might see a bit more instancing than we thought we would though but I could easily be wrong. From my point of view, all instancing = low fun factor. All competitive also = low fun factor. I'd like to see a mix personally and if its light on the instanced, I'm happy with that.
I also don't see it straying all that far from SOE's model of "get together in groups early levels, make friends, split off into guilds, compete for content at end game". All I meant was not everyone can or wants to compete for content the same way, and if they way they want to experience content is not in the game at release, so be it. Pantheon has clearly stated that it will not cater to the masses as much as it will cater to a niche market and I love that about the game, but that should not stop anyone from throwing their 2 cents into the pool here on the forums
And yes, I agree, always cover your butt... video, screenshots, whatever it takes. There are going to be some new players in Pantheon that are not ready for the degree of 18 year forum lawyering experience and meta content exploitation that some players will be capable of.
I have preached the blessings of open world, fully contested raid mobs, because I like the competition and challenge it may provide. However, I have been thinking about this a lot and I might be changing my mind. Note: I am still solidly on board with non-instanced group content. No instances there.
Most of my "semi-hard core" raiding experience is from EQ2 and SWTOR. In EQ1, I was a more casual player and never got into raiding. I left EQ as soon as EQ2 came out. So, I do not have the EQ content to draw from.
Raiding avatars in the open world was fun and competing with other guilds for pulls was more fun.
However, as I consider my raiding time, I really enjoyed some instances. The guilds that I was in raided 3 or 4 nights a week. We would log in at our scheduled time, search for open world mobs, then headed to our regularly scheduled programming. We would start at a boss, pound our heads into a wall for a few hours and then miraculously finish the fight. After a few more named, we would call it a night knowing the persistent instance would be there tomorrow and we can keep trying to learn the strats until we got it down.
I loved Veeshan's Peak, Ward of Elements, and the Velious raids. Those were all persistent instances.
I think you can make more interesting strats in an instance than you can in open world and you can keep at it until you figure it out.
So, my question: How is that done in the open world?
If you are in a dungeon and competing against others, do you just get one shot at the mob before another group takes it?
If there are several mobs in the area, do you leapfrog? If you clear all the trash, how do you prevent someone from then taking the named? I am talking socially here, not systemically.
How do you work on perfecting a strat if the other teams gets the kill after you fail?
What do you do on a scheduled raid night if no mobs are available?
In EQ2, you are limited to 24 people in a raid. In SWTOR, 16 (with a few exceptions). As I understand EQ1 and Pantheon raiding, you could have up to 70 or so people. How big does your guild have to be to have 70 raiders all logged in, prepared, and in the right spot at the right time? Or do you often Ally with other guilds?
@Beefcake, one strategy I've seen for open world contested raiding is lockout timers. The bosses have a short respawn timer (1 hour for example), but the players that kill the boss cannot attack it again for a week.
I'm having a hard time remembering the raiding in vanguard, because i only participated in it briefly. But it was noninstanced, and I believe it had mechanics that allowed guilds to pickup where they left off. I don't remember exactly how it was done though, perhaps someone here still remembers?
I dont know i have seen everything so to me its always better to let the free market work as far as raids go. Open world it all just put in some check points as far as keys flags ect. Griefing is going to happen one way or another not much can be done about that kind of activity other than report it.
Back in EQ days 1999 up until early 2001 most guilds at least on my server ( Vazzelle ) would work pretty well together. We had PR people keeping the peace so to speak. It also helped several people with specific quests because we would allow some friends of the guild to join us on raids. Granted this was not open to all but a select few people who knew their class and needed a kill for a quest or something we would let them tag along.
To me Guild>ALL but my temperment has changed over the years as so has my playstyle. I would rather work with people than train them.
Yet again i still have not even apped to a guild as yet so im a bit out of touch i guess.