Heerobya's Random Thoughts

My random thoughts about MMORPGs. A bit of critique, suggestion, debate, and insanity. Enjoy.

Author: heerobya

i agree that we need more casual end game content, im sorry if im not leet enough to sit there for 6 h a night 7 days a week to get the only good armor in a game. but the other problem with raid is you HAVE to have X stats and X build to get invited(in wow at least) or you cant do the job as well and the guy who have 3% better stats. so offering a casual/hardcore level setting is a great idea,

Scalability would solve it, if you have 10 teammates  with x stats and class the difficulty is changed to represent your team .

Well yeah scalability would be ideal, but technologically it's not practical. What you'd end up with are vanilla encounters.

The current dungeons/raids are designed very well, they are just too demanding for the vast majority of MMO gamers once you reach the Raid level.

I don't know. I would think that the implementation of the different versions of the same dungeons would only provide additional content for the hardcore PvErs and not really give anything to the casual player. Think about it... If the "raid" requires 10-20 people to get together for about an hour or so... how is that different from current raids like Kara? The actual difficulty doesn't change the time commitment of getting people together.

Are you saying there should be more than just 1 or 2 raid dungeons for the people who can only do something like Kara? If so then that is different, just ask for more raiding dungeons.

I really don't think most people's arguments against raiding are "I have the time, but not the gear" Illidin on SUPER EASY mode, should still be a 20 man raid geared for players in greys or some crap. But it is still going to take them just as long to defeat it as 20 players in full epics doing it on normal.

Maybe if the encounters scaled to numbers I could agree. But having 5 people to Kara? The drops would be on par with the heroic dungeons... why bother?

Why bother is because you get a chance to see the content.

To know that you are experiencing all that you possibly could.

To some people, like myself, seeing all the content available is important.

I've always felt that the doom of MMO's is the raiding end-game. A game can sustain it'self on the small % of it's playerbase which craves the raid experience, but that % will always be smaller then the number of players a developer wants activly playing their game. 

Players crave lots of differant things, and depending on many factors a raid experience can be memmorable, but repeating it, grinding it, trying to outfit an entire raid force by doing it over and over.. that's the death of raids for me and many like myself. We're ok with the coordination and stratigic efforts involved, but this effort of time/coordination/attendence repeated weekly for who knows how long to get gear to get to the next cycle of raiding kills the joy. 

I want to see smaller raid dungeons becoming the norm, 12 players when the typical group size is 6. When you have such a large force to organize things become analytical and less personal. We need dps, heals, etc in group 1 or 2.. and how many classes in MMO's lament that they aren't needed in raids? no, keep it small, personal, don't force a massive effort that needs to be repeated over and over onto the players who love your game for the constant scenery and growth.

sat for example you are doing kara, scaled to five man. in wow this would never work but go along with me here. each boss or encounter drops 1 token per person, now you enter with 10 man, 20, man 30 man, all in same instance(if your guild is large you can bring your whole crew. there meant to be fun) they drop 2,4,6 etc.. per encounter and you buy peices from an outside source so in 1 5 man raid you could earn enough for 1-2 peices but if you do 20+ you can buy whole suit

sorry for double post, this way you can have casual and hardcore getting same gear from same instance hardcore just runs with more ppl, increasing the difficulty and number of token substantially. and they also get the gear much faster and move onto the next one sooner.

the difficulty shouldn't be the instance itself it should be an adventure through a long dungeon story. each dungeon in out land (wow example again) has an intertwining story(again bare with me, not really there in game lol) you need to uncover the story and collect tokens and trinkets from each boss to gain access to higher and higher arcs of the story.

so the end game can suit casual, hardcore and actually give and ending story to the game....umm so called "end game" lol

It's always been my opinion that developers catering to hardcore PvE end-gamers is what negatively affects the enjoyment of an MMO more than anything else.

People will argue that grinding is an MMO's worst aspect, but I think that the distinction between "grind" and "lcontent" is a very narrow one based on the player's individual perception.

For example, I don't find end-game raiding to be fun, I look at it and all I see is people "grinding" the same annoyingly "gimmicky" dungeon bosses over and over again in order to get a new sword.

Conversely, I love being able to "grind" honour/reputation/ingredients in order to get gear on the installment plan, since I'm a casual 10-15 hour a week gamer.

WoW caters for this somewhat with the introduction of heroic dungeons/badges and easily grindable PvP gear; but still ignores the carebear demographic. (Those of us who love crafting + non-combat activities).

love your ideas man. I love the line "I just want to have fun w/ my guild mates and see new and interesting things." I feel the same why, for me the loot is nice, but I want to be able to experience the end game, see what it looks like and just have fun. Thats what the game is supposed to be about right? I agree save the elite gear for the elite players, but let everyone get the experience of the complete game.

Definetly some good ideas here.

To me, the point is to get more people into the "end-game" content.

But you absolutely can't do it so it has a negative effect on the current "hardcore" end-game Raiding crowd.

If you all of a sudden dropped the player # from 25 to 10, 10 to 5 then the current crop of raiders who have put in the time and effort would feel real cheated.

So you have to find a way to open up the raiding end-game to the majority of your player base, but without impacting the current raiding crowd in a negative way.

That's the hard part, how do you do this?

My suggestion is to keep the current raid scheme as is, but call it "Heroic" mode. Don't change a thing, add more raids at this level of difficulty / group size, but don't neuter the current raid game...

But instead ADD an easier difficulty (maybe even with flexible group size) for the more casual majority who want to give raiding a try and see the content, but obviously make the rewards not near as lucrative as the current end-game Raiding PvE gear.

PvP in WoW, well, that's another story.

This may be pushing it, but I'd strongly recommend a solo mode for all dungeon/raid encounters. I'm aware this somewhat negates the point and you would have to make the rewards far inferior (if any) in terms of either quality or quantity to a 'normal' raid, but I feel certain this would suit a significant percentage of players.

Although I appreciate the social aspects of the game, my social interaction often extends no further than at the least trading, teaming up for short quests and at the most, supporting my side in WSG. Certainly more solo options wouldn't dent players who enjoy social interaction. In fact less pressure to group, etc may foster better social relations.

Just image... All those abnoxious little brats with too much time on their hands and all the best kit - I'd relish the option to raid and quest a lot more if I wasn't forced to rely on pig-ignorant retards to actually tackle the mobs!

But you have to be careful...

The point of raiding is that it's a social experience, team up with a bunch of your friends/mates and tackle some content you couldn't do on your own.

So I don't think you want to change that, just make different difficulty modes for this Massively Multiplay Pve fun. Not everyone can commit to 25 person raids 4-5 nights a week for 4-5 hours a day...

But a LOT more people could commit to 25 person raids once or twice a week for 4-5 hours.

From the business standpoint, get more people into raiding, more people into the content, and once they complete the "Standard" or "Easy" mode raids, they'll (hopefully) be ready and itching to tackle the really challenging stuff. Which means more subscribers playing more and subscribing longer.

Just so you have some insight of where I'm coming from...

I played WoW for 2 years and did quite a bit of raiding (pretty much cleared everything, except Naxx). I stopped shortly after getting to 70 because I was getting more and more upset about the time needed to be competitive in game, the rep grinds, etc.

My playstyle is that of an achiever and I did spend time out of the game reading forums, understanding mechanics, etc. I used an excel sheet to "optimize" my gear configurations, talents, etc.

Here are my comments on raiding:

1 - Only a very small percentage of guilds/players REALLY raid hardcore. These are the guys that create the guides/strategies. 99%, the rest of the guilds/players are just guinee pigs that read a strat and then try to make it work as intended.

2 - The concept that raiders are skilled players and deserve rewards is totaly flawed, the only guaranteed attribute is that he has free time to devote to raiding. I've been in several raiding guilds and all of them had all types of players. Granted, the best one I was in had an overall better skill level, but still...

I would prefer something like:

1 - Random instances - No more follow the recipie, click this button, run behind that column crap. You would form a group, then go to a billboard and select a mission to try. This means you would select a mission suited for your group combination. You would have to think on the spot, adjust, etc. I'd probably do these for 5 or 10man.

2 - 3 Dificulty levels: Easy - So you can start getting some gear and learn how things work, etc. For the new people, etc; Hard - Harder instance, more thinking/adjustments needed on the spot, better teamwork, etc (better rewards); Insane - Limited ressurects, specific options, etc, the best rewards.

3 - Clever loot. Example: Loot from Insane has 100 bonus points and special look (skin or color, etc); Hard loot has 90 bonus points; Easy loot has 70 bonus points. I would also have loot influence the game less, but that's me. I would try to shift frocus from stats, to look, so more like you look better, rather than "you will win even if you have no clue how to play because your gear is better"

My best raid fun ever in WoW were late night blitzes of ZG or AQ20 with some of the best raiders in the server (after the "official" guild raids were over), where we would clean in usually half the time most guilds would (great gear, great skill and motivated people made for really cool and fast runs). I also have a special spot for my first MC runs in blues, even though it does become quite boring after a while.

But in the end 5mans are the real thing for me. This is where you can see who knows how to play and who doesnt. In a raid, it's easy to be "lost in the crowd", in a 5man people will know what you've done... or not done ;)

To add another dimension; the Elitist aspect of the hardcore players.

Back when I was doinng hardcore WoW raiding; S3 arena gear was announced. Quite a few of my guild-mates went MENTAL, because and I quote "now every nubtard can get uber gear".

It didn't affect us in the slightest; we still had all our shiny T6 level PvE epics, but the sentiment amongst my guildies was insanely hostile to the idea that "casuals" could get gear that was anywhere close to approaching our level.

To comment on what Aryas mentioned above; being able to choose whether to solo or group for a scaling instance (depending on preference) would only serve to allow me to experience content without relying on the connections/hubris of other players.

If someone chooses to do instances with 25 others and get great gear; why should they care if someone else chooses to solo that instance and get great gear too? .. a token system could be implemented to ensure that both get an item after a pre-set number of kills. (I really hate random loot drops too).

If a system such as this was implemented, we'd see a LOT of very happy casual gamers and a lot of very angry hardcore raiders who feel that casuals should remain the second-class citizens that modern MMO always seem to want to label us.

There are more casual than hardcore players; so why are MMO companies always pandering to the hardcore minority? .. I pay the same subscription fee!

Some very good points -

But if everything can be done solo for the same gear, why would you group? IMO solo raids/instances that reward the same as group ones is out of the question. It's counter to the very core of MMO

But smaller groups, even dynamically adjusted content to accomidate group size/party dynamics- that's good thinking.

However it's a fine line to walk. Do 9 players who complete Raid A deserve the same loot as the group that ran with 10? 11?

Besides, this kind of stuff requires a complete re-write of the basic principles of the "end-game."

The "standard" or "easy" mode raids are much more viable, because it's been done before to some extent with the Standard and Heroic difficulty mode for 5-person dungeons in WoW.

Just use the same idea, but apply it to raids. Just like in the WoW 5-person Heroics, the gear is better, but the encounter is far more challenging.

I honestly believe it'd be very well received by the community, it wouldn't effect the crowd that has already stepped up to the plate and completed the current Raids, it'd get more people into the end-game, and it'd help "balance" the PvE vs. PvP better.

They have Season 1 Arena gear for Honor points now, easily farmed solo with just some dedication, why not open "easy mode" raids for Tier 4 raids to even the score?

"However it's a fine line to walk. Do 9 players who complete Raid A deserve the same loot as the group that ran with 10? 11?"

My opinion: Absolutely. Smaller group sizes necessitate highly skilled players, as I realised once WoW brought in Heroic dungeons with TBC (and raid attunements that necessitated their completion).

Quite simply; we had people in my guild who could not do them; despite being veteran Naxx-level raiders pre-TBC. They just weren't skilled enough. I had to run Heroic Shattered Halls about 30 times then sub in people at the very end so they could complete their attunement quest. Now they're attuned and happily farming Black Temple but they're still terrible players.

This is one of the most well-kept secrets of the raiding world; the more people in a group, the easier it can accommodate poorly skilled players.

Soloing/Duoing/small groups are the true test of a players skill, so why should they be rewarded less than larger groups?

I appologize, I meant to say "Do 10 or 11 people deserve the same reward that 8 or 9 do?"

I agree completely that the smaller the group, the more each person has to bring to the table, and thus the more "challenging" a role each person has to play.

The challenge in large-group raiding is that you have coordinate, communicate, and lead a large group of people.

What sucks is, and this happened in my last guild, we had 10-15 really, really good people, and the rest of the raid filled out with slackers that were "along for the ride."

We absolutely demolished Kara, then began recruiting for 25-person raids and we started running multiple Kara groups. 

We did ok, but our Kara progress went backwards and our 25-person raid progress was slow. 

If we could have kept the original 10-15 of us and just kept running that over and over we would have cleared Black Temple in a week!

Exagerating, of course, but you get the point.

25-people isn't even that many. Switching from 40 to 25 was a HUGE step forward... but I wouldn't mind them going even further. 

Pushing it down to 15, even 10 max would be perfect in my book. 

I mean, in my experience, every guild I've been in has had a "core" group of 10-15 people who are friends/really work well together and the rest of the guild is made up of people that are in the guild JUST so we can do the larger raid size content.

As a Tank I had to run every single dungeon and then heroic version of the dungeon more times then I even want to TRY and guess at. I'm exalted with most of the dungeon factions and of course Revered with all of them.

And you know what? It made me one hell of a great player.

And I never made a major slip up during a 25 person raid, it was always the slackers who wouldn't ever join a 5-person heroic group, farm for potion mats, etc. 

If I could have cut out the less-then-up-to-spec people and continued raiding with our "core" I would have kept playing. But after Kara the only thing we had was 25-person raids.

From what my friends who raid tell me, as the raid size goes up:

Miss your blogs man this one is much better then I expected. I'm no big fan of raids you see. But the way you presented it sounds like a great addition to those type of games

Good ideas.

I do respect the rigid coordination raiders go through. But would be nice for us casual types to at least take a tour through the dungeon and see what its like.

I'd like it because I'm more of a casual type