Raiding
Staff Writers Dan Fortier and Derek Czerkaski square off on one of the hottest topics in MMORPGs... raiding.
Editorial By Derek Czerkaski on January 27, 2007
Saturday Debate: Raiding
Staff Writers Dan Fortier and Derek Czerkaski square off on one of the hottest topics in MMORPGs... raiding.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily those of MMORPG.com, its staff or management.
Raiding; the gathering of guilds and their members en masse to fight grueling, hard-fought battles against epic monsters for 1337 lewt. That's one way to look at it. I hear "raiding" and I think of a monotonous, macro-mashing time-sink. Nothing like spamming 4-5 skills over and over, for 2-8 hours at a time, because that's what real strategy is about. While raiding can be fun initially, once a god/boss/HNM/insert-end-game-title-here has been beaten enough times to where the strategy has become standardized, all the fun is gone.
When will developers realize that not everyone has 6 hours at a time to dedicate to a game? Why should I be denied lore because of my play-style? Heck, I'm not the type to give a damn about the 1337 lewt, but I miss out on potential quests and storyline details because of my distaste for raiding. There's absolutely no fun to be had in "vanilla exp-ing", which is my definition of raiding. I say this because there really is no risk. Use the pre-set, tried-and-true method for clearing a dungeon, or fail it. There's not even any versatility presented in it. Spam DPS -> DoT -> Regular Melee -> DoT -> DPS. Perhaps if bosses were controlled by GM's, and didn't have set, static behavior patterns, it would be more interesting. Or maybe if dungeon layouts were varied EVERY time, I'd be more enthused, but running through the same damn place, 20-60 times to get my "epic set", which will just be replaced in a patch 3 weeks later, is just ridiculous.
Well it's easy to make broad statements about how raiding is boring and overused, but the simple fact is that raiding exists in games BECAUSE people do enjoy it. Call them the silent majority if you like but since DKP actually meant killing dragons in EverQuest, most of the really successful MMOs have has raiding in some form or another. I personally don't look forward to farming instances for days for drops, but a large segment of gamers apparently have no problem with it judging by the massive number of players still doing it in World of Warcraft.
While it might not seem odd that these type of repetitive ventures are popular, try looking at it from a couple of other perspectives. First, the people that I know who are into raiding the most do it to hang out with their friends in a 'challenging' co-operative environment. Secondly, I'm sure the achiever type has no problem doing whatever it takes to stay on top. In fact, the harder and more ridiculous the challenge of getting the items, the more fun they have getting them.
Where some people would say raiding unites the community, I believe raiding has a detrimental effect on the in-game world. I've seen it first hand in games such as FFXI, EQ, and WoW. There will always be that one guild that just dominates a server, and if you want to run through the endgame, you're going to be puckering up to kiss some elite guild's ass. Why? Because they're the only ones who can kill that boss, clear that dungeon, get that item, etc etc.
What's even more disappointing are the secondary effects this has on a game. In many cases, people are forced to choose between their in-game friends, or personal advancement. It's a sad thing to see social guilds/linkshells dissolve because people are in such a rush to acquire in-game items, or complete difficult raid-only quests. I for one have ALWAYS hated the end-game, as it's filled with drama and underhanded tactics, and nothing is worse than being forced to group with some pretentious asshats that you can't stand for the purpose of advancing. Not only that, but the raiding system is extremely competitive in most games. While it may be a bit of an overstatement, I believe the grind at the end-game is so monotonous and intense, many players start using alternative methods to gain an "edge" on their opposition. Bots, modded UI's, pos-warp programs, and even purchasing in-game currency from 3rd party sites, just to stay ahead of the game. Perhaps if such a large portion of the game's content wasn't so absurdly difficult to complete, players would not be as inclined to use questionable methods to help accelerate the process.
The problems you describe are always going to be present in a game based on high end items, no matter how you get them. Having to raid to be worthwhile in PvP is more of a consequence of poor game design rather than a testament to the absurdity of raiding.
There are more positive examples of raiding that can't be dismissed as well. EVE has giant complexes that are in open PvP areas, require powerful ships to attack and drop powerful modules, but since they are not insanely overpowered compared to the other high quality versions, they become more for entertainment instead of necessity. Just because no one has designed dynamic and accessible raid content, it doesn't make the current system any less worthwhile.
Raiding is a double-edged sword. It presents the opportunity to bring the community together, and drive it apart. Raiding forces players to interact with each other, whether for better or for worse. It promotes competition amongst the playerbase, yet this same loot-based competition encourages less desirable business practices and play-styles amongst its playerbase. Perhaps the problem isn't necessarily that raiding is the source of all evil, but merely the method in which raiding is executed.
I think that if developers want to make raiding more appealing to their players, they need to find ways to incorporate it as more of a bonus feature to unite all guilds, rather than a requirement for the end-game. Make it less loot based, and more challenge/fun-based. Allow players to raid at earlier levels, but don't penalize them if they choose not to participate in the system. Spruce up the challenge level; play against your players and really make them utilize all their skills and their wits to succeed. Lastly, stop making so much of your content raid-required to complete. All this does is prevent players who might have been interested in your game's lore to become discouraged and disinterested in it, as there's no sense in following something they will never complete.
It doesn't seem to me as though anyone understands this. But I think that to truly reach the next-generation of games, developers are going to have to allow simple MMORPG mechanics to evolve first. What better place to start than by creating truly unique game play experiences for everyone, by giving them truly unique races?.
A number of years ago a change started to take place in gaming in general. There had always been a small number of titles enjoyable to everyone but there were a greater share of games that were most accessible to the "hardcore" gamers. Then there was the shift. Instead of challenging the gamers more and more games came out that were geared more towards the average gamer rather than the "hardcore". It was a matter purely of economics. I think Blizzard realized this as they were preparing for their expansion. Sure there are the "hardcore" raiding guilds. But they are the vast minority.
On my last server in wow (a heavily populated one at that) there were a handful of people decked out in teir 2's. The rest of the people were in varying amounts of tier1, dungeon gear, and pvp gears. On both horde and alliance side the "uber" guilds were selling services to get through MC, ZG, and AQ20. And only the gullible few took up those offers not realizing that that sword or staff or bit of armor was not a guaranteed drop. Spend 1000 gp to go through a midrange raid to walk out with nothing.
Sure there is a place for raiding, however it is not what the majority of the gamers want to do. They want to see progression for themselves as they are paying their monthly fees and raids that are formulaic in everything but reward does not exactly equate to money well spent.
I personally hate raiding. I HATE it. Do I want it out of games? No. I'm not the only person playing. The game has to be fun and fair for everyone. I'm not a princess and I don't expect people that DO enjoy raiding to give it up for me or anyone else, even though I hate it. Did I mention that I loathe raiding?
A lot of other people enjoy it. What I'd like to see is an alternative. I think Vanguard went in the right direction with the pause areas, where you can do part of the dungeon, log at a safe spot and come back the next day and continue where you left off rather than have to start all over at the beginning.
People that invest so much time to raiding to get all that epic gear deserve to have it, but there hasn't been an alternative that gets the same type of reward for those that can't invest that much time, and still be fair to those raiders. Those that despise raiding, or simply can't raid because they have families and kids in soccer practice and such are therefore, unable to compete when the game has PVP.
I don't want raiding to go away, I want to see alternatives.
End game raiding to compete is the main reason i quit almost every game i have played.
I have a familly and dont have 12 hours to devote to a game everyday hoping for the 1 in 1,845,926,834,823 chance to drop.
Hours and hours spent leveling a toon to 50 or 60 in some games to find out it was all for not because now i need to buy the next x-pac to get the next set of rare ybah drop and that means more money spent and more time nneded to do it all over again
Daoc was a good game hit 50 go rvr take keeps fun and fresh idea. then it was SI wasnt bad x=pac nothing there wasnt attainiable with a little bit of time.
then the RA system from pvp came in. Part time player 3 hours a night couldnt keep up with the people who played 10 hours a day go to Emain get to mile gate get farmed. IM rr 10 and your rr 3 , haaahahah thxs for the RP's sucka..
Then came TOA and that made 80% of the population quit the game...
Then they made catacombs totally solo player freindly with new Overpowerd ill spam my magical claw on you for the win!!!!
Vampirr skilless class for the mentally challenged. As Geiko would say Even a caveman could do it.
Then came Labrinth of the Minutaur. New rare armor drops/items new class....
In the end being the part time player with around 20 hours a week to devote to a game its not worth playing any game that has any type of super raiding that only the ones with nothing better to do everyday like the 7 million teenagers that play WOW or the person with no job that lives in there parents basement and hasnt seen the light of day in 10 years.... Game favors only those and those alone.... Part time player has no chance to compete and in the end they all eventually quit.
Make a game with no pvp Personal rewards or gaer that attaniable by all weither its 20 hours a week i play or 60 hours a week ....
When that game comes it would be a great day.
If raiding was challenging then i would be okay with it but its far from challenging, but sometimes it is fun to do, just not willing to do the same thing over and over again.The same thing my personal experiance with people/friends that really like raiding are those that don't neccesary like mmorpg but they are more into or used to be more into FPS online games, 3 of my best friends hardcore CS players really love WOW and its raiding, the people i know that really like mmorpg really don't like raiding.
Please read that this is my personal opinion and experiance and i'm talking about people i know, so i'm not saying that everyone that likes fps online games is automaticly a raider or doesn't really care for real mmorpg.
Thats probably because its their first mmorpg. I dont care much for the CS community seems to be populated by the same 1337 cretins that populate wow. Just my observation.
Raiding was fun the first time with a group of people you like being around. Then it just goes down hill rapidly. How developers get around this i dont know. Quests get boring. Raiding is just a massive time sink. The only mmorpg to be different is EVE, but thats far from perfect.
The problem with raiding is that you can't have raiding AND have viable alternatives to raiding. Because if there are viable alternatives then not enough people will be willing to do raids and then there won't be any raiding.
Some people say they wouldn't mind if a game has raiding as long as there are alternatives. Yeah, well, it doesn't work that way. I mean it sounds nice, but you can't have it both ways. If people don't have to raid for the best stuff then they won't. Because, NEWSFLASH: very few people actually enjoy raiding.
Even the people who adamantly defend raiding...I don't beleive they really enjoy it. For them it's not about having fun in the content it's about having a game design that shuts other people out of progression so that the raiders can have the edge. So they can have the shiniest swords and strut around in the fanciest armor. Provide a real alternative to raiding and the whole motivation for doing raids collapses.
Game developers, for whatever reason, keep putting in raiding end-games. Maybe just because it's easy content to design as some people say. Anyway, they keep doing it. They make vague promises that raiding won't be required ect., ect. Which, while technically true, are certainly misleading when you reach high levels and find that there is no other way to progress.
What works in their favor is that people who don't want to raid keep falling for this. The devs know that if they can sucker non-raiders into their game they can get their money up untill those people find out the awfull truth...and that's all that matters. More and more I think that developers are looking at mmorpgs as a kind of disposable money-pump. They probably figure that most people won't play longer than about one year anyway.
So the devs make their promises. Suck people in and get their money. People get disgusted and leave. A new game comes out with the same promises....and people fall for it all over again.
Heres the way I see things its not raiding thats bad, but the .06% drop chance that has us raiding the same boss about 300 times. I mean raiding might be kinda fun if it was a trial sort of thing, you get to a level and now must gather forces to slay the dragon, but really why have us slay the same boss again and again and again.
I really think that is one of the primary reasons D&D online fell flat on its face, around lv 3 you have to start repeating quests to level up. I mean really who wants to save the same lady from the same kobolds half a dozen times.
Most people's experience with raiding doesn't extend farther than that of WoW, EQ, or EQ2. But I can tell you from experience that not all raiding is loot driven or imperitive to complete. I liked DAoC's style of raiding the most. There were Dragons, Epic Monsters, and of course Trials of Atlantis. The system was not loot oriented, but ability oriented, except for the Dragon and Epic Monsters, which was more fun oriented. ToA raids allowed those that raided to gain special abilities that could help them in PvE or in PvP.
I think where most of the complaints about raiding is coming from is competition. When those that want to compete, can't compete, they get upset at those that can and the medium that allows them to outshine them. In this case, raiding is that medium. I don't think raiding should be loot oriented, but more challenge and fun oriented. I prefer not to do a raid more than a few times. And for the author that was complaining about raiding, most of WoW's playerbase has never beaten a raid boss. The raids are challenging and those that pioneer the raids have the most challenge figuring out how to beat them. To say that raiding is not challenging is to say that you can make it through a raid without dying. We all know that is not true, so your point on raiding not being challenging is invalid.
Raiding is a playstyle that some people like and some don't. I believe every playstyle should be rewarded based on the amount of effort it takes to accomplish that playstyle. After all, we play games for both fun and challenge; the reward should be no greater than the challenge it took to complete it. So if you really don't care about raiding, you shouldn't care about the rewards raiding brings you. After all, MMORPG's are mostly about community. We all choose our guilds usually by who is like minded. If you are guilded with like minded people, and those people hate raiding, then you should have no problem having the best gear not-raiding can get you. Getting that gear should be bragging rights enough if your fellow guildies can't get any better gear than that too.
I agree that having pause areas would be a good idea. But lets be fair here. I am married and have a child in school myself, but I can still raid if I wanted to. I think it is more that people don't want to and use the parent card as an excuse. So I am playing the "If I can do it, so can you" card to prove that parents can raid if the CHOOSE to. However, I could agree that a lot of parents prioritize spending their evenings with their children then with a bunch of people online.
Again, this is personal choice. I play around 20 hours a week myself, but I can still find time to raid if I want to. Does that mean I can raid everyday like the hardcore? No, but I don't really care either. If I raid, I do so for the challenge of beating that mob. If I get a piece of gear out of it, wonderful, but it won't break my heart if I don't. I think it is a maturity issue. If you feel that you need to "pwn" everyone to have fun, then I feel sorry for you. I am perfectly happy raiding occasionally, whether I get loot or not, and competing against others and getting pwned in the process. So ToA and RA's in DAoC didn't make me quit, because I loved grouping with others to overcome challenges. Hell, RvR was a zerg fest anyways and the realm with the biggest zerg won. It didn't matter a whole lot what RA's or ToA abilities and artifacts you had. Of course, those that preferred small group and solo RvRing were screwed, but to each their own. To me, Catacombs killed the game. After Catacombs, no one wanted to group anymore. After that I played off and on and also bought the DR expansion pack. But after seeing LoTM, I said screw this game and quit for good. Like you, I've had enough of the overpowering classes being introduced in each expansion.
Is WoW the only MMORPG you've only played? As I have said before, DAoC was not like WoW and they had raiding. Raiding wasn't necessary and you could get the best gear from crafters, but guess what? People still did raids. So you are wrong; with alternatives, those who like to raid, still will raid, just not habitually. I personally like small raids. I don't like doing them more than a few times, but I do like to do them. They are challenging having to learn how to beat the boss. It's not something I would do with just anyone either. I would only raid with my guild or alliance.
I play DDO right now, along with WoW and it is not as you say it is. You do not have to repeat quests at level 3. I've had a level 5 Sorc at the start of the game and even then I didn't have to repeat content. Now, with a lot more content, I am level 3 playing with a once a week PnP style group and we don't have to repeat content. Sometimes we choose to, so we can have the challenge of beating it on elite, but we are never forced to.
As for your other point, I agree. Raiding is fun once or twice, but repeating the same raid is not. Hell, I personally don't have to have the best loot in the game, so I won't repeat raid in the first place.
I disagree, I think you can have raid content as well as other ways of getting gear. People will still do the raid content if its fun and challenging. But thats what they will do it for is the fun and the challenge ... not farm it constantly.
I remember early in SWG the guild i was apart of on certain days would "raid". We ran through Lord Nyax's hideout (i think that was his name) on correllia. We ran through the Nightsister camp on dathomir (i believe). We did a bunch of the "dungeons" not because we were looking for uber loot, but because it was fun and a good challenge for our guild.
That being said, will some people NOT raid if they don't get uber gear? most definately and thats fine there are other games out there that they can play as well. Thing is as you can tell by most of the post on this very thread, the reason why people HATE raiding is because they are FORCED into it. You may actually get more people into raiding if the raid is more casual and fun and not the only way to progress your character.
maybe also if you complete the raid and kill the final boss of the instance a screen pops up that allows you to choose your reward. this way EVERYONE gets something out of the raid and not just a few. I have always thought it was a silly mechanic that 40 people have to kill a boss and 4 items drop.
I'm going into Diatribe Mode at this point, so I won't be offended if you skip the rest of this post.
The even bigger aspect that people don't get is that raiding will never work to an adequate degree, and that is because of the loot-based MMO model currently being used. EQ did more harm to this genre than anyone will ever realize; allow me to elucidate. By following a model that emphasized loot over all else, game designers (and the players who allowed it to happen) trivialized community, reinforced min/maxing, dramatically increased acquisition-induced drama both in and outside the group setting, dramatically increased the temptation for gold and account buying, introduced the necessity for players to commit large blocks of time, and introduced websites like Thottbot, which take away any real thought or input on the part of the player in any given quest.
People on these fora are always tossing out what they believe to be the key criterion for reaching the next "generation" of MMORPGs. Well, here's another stab at it: MMOs won't radically evolve until we return to a model that emphasizes playing the game for the sake of the gameplay itself. Until MMO designers start creating truly engaging MMOs, the main attraction of which is merely the enjoyment of the gameplay (as is the attraction for almost any game outside this genre) regardless of outside rewards and motivations, we're going to be mired in the same stagnant gameplay we've been seeing since the late 90s. Unfortunately, though there are a few brave souls who are working towards this very goal in 2-3 upcoming games, advancement of gameplay has taken a backseat to all else, and I fear that we will have to flounder through another 3-4 "generations" before we see what MMOs can really do for mass entertainment.
WoW is a drop in the bucket compared to what this genre will one day achieve.
what I hate the most is going through the 4 bosses on farm every week in order to get 1 try a night on the new boss. (and being required to do this even if possible to skip for the gear...)
So... Ideas:
1. Move towards more the system WoW has been going towards... make each loot drop be a rare component for 2-3 different gear pieces for 2-3 different classes. This has gone a long way towards (for example) guilds running MC months after they need to because 3 people are missing 1 piece of gear off the last boss.
2. Multi-Wing dungeons. What I mean by this is you could have 3-4 options for different dungeon encounters... and each boss along the progression of that wing drops the loot you could get in the other 2-3 wings. This would go a long way towards the problem of seeing the same scenery every week... you could rotate wings to keep a slight variety, and have 4 times the number of encounters to learn and enjoy.
3. Dynamic Dungeons/Dynamic Mobs/Dynamic bosses. One dungeon wing, you never know what it's going to look like/act like week to week. Change is good! (multi-wing + dynamic = endless fun!)
4. Dynamic Difficulty level. Mentioned in the OP debate was people leaving good groups of friends to join the elite guild and get gear... well this has happened to me (yes I know I was greedy... I regret it now.) What about scaling difficulty (or time requirement) based on the number of players that enter? Or change the amount of loot that drops. Have you ever waited an hour for a 40 man raid to form just to discover you can only get 25 people and it falls apart? This might fix that.
5. Everyone wins! Okay.. basically the current form of raiding seems to be "go into dungeon A,B,or C and have a chance to get the gear you want" It sucks! even if gear is flexible for 2-3 different classes... you could still wait months (bad luck, less dkp, any reason) to get that super-goose-electrolytic-blastermaster that you want. Instead have boss encounters, time spent, difficulty level (for dynamic dungeons), and whatever else go towards giving raid members a DKP-like currency. (you could still have random loot/money/crafting mats drop). This would have multiple benefits: Mostly free guilds from tracking DKP, make PUG's easier to organize... and let EVERYONE who puts the time/effort into the raid get something out of it! I would know that even though this boss is hard and we're working on it... in 4 more hours I'll have built up the "raid currency" to get a piece of gear or fancy sword I wanted.
erm well, I could go on for months with ideas... that's enough for now.
Sometimes I wish the whole raid issue would just go away. You can't even find a casual game that doesn't force you to raid end game. Even City of Heroes (which I consider to be one of the most casual friendly MMOs on the market) forces you to raid Hamidon in order to upgrade your powers beyond what casual play can do. Ultimately, I'm sick and tired of the developing companies completely ignoring a significant portion of their market just so they can add some false sense of longevity to their games. Why do casuals have this stigma of being flighty and moving from game to game? Its because these developers refuse to actually cater to us, so why the hell should we stick around or show loyalty to any company that screws over our play style.
I've had it with thier business models. I'm sick and tired of developers with chips on their shoulders who are unbelievably adversarial with casuals and our desires. I've given up on the whole genre and will not likely return in the near future. I'll consider subscribing to a MMO, if and only if it doesn't include any form of raiding period. Until they create a MMO that caters to the casual play style from beginning to end, they won't get another dime from me.
Your problem could be solved just by adding equivalent small group/solo content (that understandably takes proportionally longer) but that involves the same level of rewards.
Or just by improving the raiding model.
I'm not sure abolishing raiding completely will ever happen, so I hope for the sake of your MMO career there can be another way to fix the issue for you.
FFXI had this event called the "Twinkling Treant" event. It was a server-wide effort, and it took several hundred people to succeed. It was great fun, but I'm not sure it counts as a raid.
/duel Dan Fortier.
The overwhelming majority NEVER raid in the endgame. Raiding exist BECAUSE devs want to keep some players hooked and they appeal to the worst players, social gankers. Bearing FoH or LoS or AL? You're kidding me? This is a TINY MINORITY, and a social gankers minority on top of that! Yes, I am a tiny little boy who cry at about been stealed my grouping-toys...however everything rational in me tell me that I am right and that it is unfair!
Casuals they love invites, offers, and options. These guilds are doing the OPPOSITE of what the casuals want. You have to follow rules A, B and C which are all turning you into a cold jerk! They are removing options, they insist that someone must have A, B or C to even group them/join them. These guilds hate to do PUGs, casuals love to do PUGs...and I am honestly happy to provide them a PUG if I can. These guilds, they would DESTROY loot rather than sell it to casuals, they have done it on many occasions and I was a witness and I find these guys deserving of nothing but raw hatred.
Raiding in it actual form is appealing mostly to the social gankers... Good raiding could be built, but it would first have to not be enforced on anyone. Best groupers deserve to be groupers! Not social gankers! Long ago, PvP-makers learn to not listen to gankers who request open FFA with full looting; they seem to be unable to make the same for PvE. Both results in the same situation, the powerfull abuse the needy. A powerfull player should lead by example no matter how silly this sound, not be rude with new players...and uber guilds are rude to everyone who doesn't raid with THEM; and they are usually rudes among themselves as well! These guilds even have rules that you have to DITCH your group regardless of anything else, come on, how more of a jerk can these be?
LOL.
This player is right. Raiding can't be enforced. Raiding DOESN'T deserve any grouping tools. Best groupers have to be groupers.
I raid for the challenge. Even with strategy guides for beating a boss, it can still take several attempts to get it down. And maybe the strat you found won't work with your raid setup. And next attempt, your setup is different, and you have to rethink everything again. On a lot of bosses we threw the accepted methods out the window and came up with our own methods, which actually worked. I raid for the thrill of having a bunch of people all working together to kill something very few have done before. Loot is purely secondary to me and a lot of my fellow raiders. Am I and my friends a one in a million setup? I seriously doubt it.
Rules? Don't be a jerk, and if you want to raid be at the instance at start time. What other rules do you need? If you're running with a bunch of autocratic jerks, then maybe there's other rules. But if you are, then raiding isn't fun, so don't do it. If it's not fun you're not doing it right.
I resent the social ganker comment. You do not know me, and you do not know my friends who raid with me. You don't like raiding, don't. But nobody can ever force you to raid. I'm not clear on why you feel forced I guess.
I agree with you - didn't sound at all like a diatribe to me :). And I'm curious which are the games that you regard are finally thinking outside the mmo formula box.
I must say I love MMOs. I have played most of them since UO, EQ, DAoc, till present day MMOs. I Hate PvE raids. At first, it was cool and exciting to kill a dragon, be the first in game to see a certain locaiton in a game, or get that uber loot. But, for some reason game designers think that we players want to raid for 6-12 hours at a time, they think we want to have to kill a boss 50+ times to get the item we are looking for, and they think we enjoy how mmos are implementing end game content.
My hatred of time consuming raiding has pushed me towards pvp games. I would rather fight a dynamic war against other intelligent players than some over scripted googleplex hitpoint having immune to everything dragon. I still enjoy MMOs, I just prefer games where the end game content is PVP related.
I will not play the eq, eq2, wow, or vanguard style raid games anymore. I like the games with mass pvp, realmwars, real human opponents, and objectives that players can work as a team towards while opposing other players trying to achieve those same goals. I have played many pvp oriented games such as UO, daoc, planetside, eve, ect... and I am still searching for a game that gets the open pvp style of game right. I am looking for a polished game, with true player competition. A game that provides a battliefeild for players to script thier own wars as opposed to a scripted war for players to take place in. A pvp game where there is definate and clearcut goals, rewards, and winners (for the time being). I can't think of one pvp mmo where you can win a war. (maybe because there are no winners in war? but thats a differnt discussion.) I dream of the day a company like Id software decides to do an open PvP sci-fi mmo with a persisant world(s) and fair, competative, well designed combat. A game hasnt pulled if off yet, but someday... and I'll be eager to play it.
Just say no to PvE raiding.
quote from article:
"Well it's easy to make broad statements about how raiding is boring and overused, but the simple fact is that raiding exists in games BECAUSE people do enjoy it. Call them the silent majority if you like but since DKP actually meant killing dragons in EverQuest, most of the really successful MMOs have has raiding in some form or another. I personally don't look forward to farming instances for days for drops, but a large segment of gamers apparently have no problem with it judging by the massive number of players still doing it in World of Warcraft."
I wish people would research this before they post this like its the law. If you woulda researched hard numbers then you would came across the Blizzard presentation whereas they claim less than 5% of their populace raids. I personally dont know any raiders out of like 10 WoW players
I feel ya brother. but I am here to deliver the gospel. WAR so promises not to have any raiding accoridng to the article here on this site
edit- and yeah I feel ya on CoX too. Was loving it til I hit 50 then discovered was huge difference between played using Hami-Os and those without. the icing on the cake is Issue 9 will be adding auction houses andf making the game more loot driven
hehe you never stop whineing about this do yah lol. Seems like you had alot of bad experiences. Personally with out raid content or something more than standard group. You run out of content really fast. Grouping is fine and all, and yes i hate pug. normally cause you never know what moron you'll get stuck with. If there was a way to check the players iq before inviting them, then pug would be great. I much rather stick to people I know that can play, or invite people to join me when i know i wont be needing them.
There has yet to be a game that is forced raiding, true you will not have the best gear in the game by solo/ grouping, but you will still be good enough for that type of content. that and following set rules for raiding dont turn you into a jerk they are there for a reason. Plus requiring a certain class to have skills need to be effective are also there for a reason. That and 99% of the time raiding guilds have a schedule and they know when a raid will be called if the player joins a group before a raid they know how long they have to play in your group.
Also alot of raids are going away from the 8 hours to complete, most of the ones now days unless your learning it for the first time can be done pretty fast. Eq1 our average per target is 30 to 45 mins, raid zones a little over an hour, wow normally not more than 2 hours per zone.
that and if you think its a tiny minority that want to raid i think you off many would love to raid only a few can acctually make it. I constantly see people that just are clueless how to gear up and build a character useful for raiding. Also no reason to jump to an uber guild it doesnt take long to take a family guild and start them on the path of raiding and going thru targets as long as you get a decent raid leader.
But when it comes to you Anofalye groupers will be sub par players in the end thats just the way mmo's go. If you want to just be a grouper then deal with the fact youwill not be the best on the server. Really if your a grouper that shouldn't matter go enjoy the mindless grind the groupers do. I rather be raiding then grinding forever in a group. Which only about 1% of groups even really talk its more canned phrase to let everyone know when a heal is coming or a mob is incoming. Or at the end of the mission asking hey want to go again. probally why i avoid grouping as much as possible
Actually, it is forced raiding. When the end game is only about raiding and its the only avenue of improving your chracter, then you either have to do it or re-roll or quit. Being forced to do it sucks the big one, having to re-roll just delays the inevitable and it forces you to rehash old content. I just happen to be one of the ones who quits rather than financially support a MMO that could give a rat's ass about my play style. I keep discussing the issue on various boards in the hopes that a developer might have a brain fart and actually program entertaining content that isn't based on 4 - 8 hour stints of raiding ad nauseum.
By the way, all of the raiding games out there DO NOT offer raiding on a 30 minute to 1 hour schedule. The shortest I've seen is around 2 hours for a Hamidon raid in City of Heroes. The rest of the MMO's, even with recent expansions all clock in around 4 to 6 hours or even longer. Keep in mind, its not just the ridiculous time requirements that make some of us upset. Its their insane repetitiveness that is also a fun killer. The fact that 25 to 40 or even more go into an instance and when they leave, only 5 to 10 people get any meaningful loot per visit. What the hell is up with that? Every one who goes in should get at least one piece of loot and even that is pathetic payment for your time investment.
Game longevity is not my concern. I am a consumer and its my expectation to be entertained. It is not my expectation nor my desire to be some guinea pig in some freakish social experiment. These developers need to start earning their salaries by putting out entertaining content. Its their job after all. I don't give a damn if raids are the easiest and the most lazy way to stretch out an obvious lack of imagination. I'm not interested in making their jobs easier, but I am interested in them producing a product that I can actually enjoy.
They need to get off their collective asses and stop taking our patronage for granted. If they don't start making improvements in the genre, its going to die out in its infancy and return to its niche market beginnings.
No thanks.
I don't have to play and pay for a sucky game that enforced raiding. You want to accept to be subpar and lame-o-trash, YOUR choice. I don't. I also have the freedom to debate openly and to help fellow groupers understand that they don't have to cope with the like of you, you are not worthy of their presence at any rate.
You are so elitist in your arguments, so looking from high on others, just reading you make me angry! Raiding is enforced the day it grant 1 hp more than grouping, and this is not acceptable. If you accept it, then good for you, but then you will be out of good groupers and good PUGers in your MMOs. You will be left alone with your tiny little circle of friends because you are AFRAID of taking risks. Maybe it is YOU that should consider playing single player RPGs as you don't like to mix with the community afterall! See, taking a guy that is clueless and making him succeed, that is something you will never know, because you are the guy who is clueless and taken in charge by your guild.
Best groupers have to be groupers. Period. Otherwise, you deserve no groupers in your game. As to "running out of content"; this is not my problem and I have shown far more tenacity in face of lack of content than any raiding guild did. So your point is null.
I am happy about 1 thing however, with little luck I will NEVER meet you again in a MMO, nor your kind. And I will be all the better. I don,t mind grouping clueless noob003 that will train me 935785 times, there is HOPE to improve him. You, raiders-enforcers...are hopeless, there is nothing to do with you...in fact...maybe there could be some PvP options!
The rules I was speaking off are about the obligation that guild members abandon their groups, whatever they do, in order to show at raiding. If you don't know this, then you don't know much about uber guilds in general. Many of them do that.
Giving better rewards is enforcing, and denying it make you a social ganker! Otherwise, productivity wouldn't be enforced on every company out there, they have the choice to be unproductive, to lose money and eventually fire 90% of their staff, it is a choice they have...yeah right!
Anyway raiding i have to agree when you have cleared the dungeon or boss is boring thats problem with raiding the fun is only untill you have managed to do all the bosses or dungeons.
If i wanted to socialise with the guild i prefer to do it outside raiding.
raiding, as it stands now is way over the top. What is the point ?. spend hours upon hours just for a chance at an uber piece of gear, and for what? So you can advance to the next grindfest. I've lv'd my char. now whats left for me? pvp has no meaning, My faction doesn't hold or keep anything, doesnt deny the other team anything. pvp has turned into a raiding type grindfest for uber gear. The next raid is all about adding more uber gear to my collection. Rather like the cartoon where the mule is chasing the carrot on a string tied to a stick in front of it. Put the uber item in the instance, nope didn't drop, (more cart pulling) run it again, (pull that cart, or in this case pay that $$$) GOT IT! ohhh that carrot was good, where's the next one. So i guess this makes raiding as it wow stands as who can get the most carrots while pulling the cart the longest. Simply a hook to keep you playing, a time sink.
Can there be much of a debate between Jews and Nazis?
Granted it is nothing as bad as this, and we are only in a HOBBY, so we all have blessed lives to start with. But my example between Nazis (raiders) and Jews been victimized stand. Debate is impossible when 1 side is cornered.
Best groupers have to be groupers. This can't be debated. Debating this is like debating slavery with slavers.
I was talking about they only expressed theyr opionion on raiding instead of arguing against eachother wich would mean a real debate.
maybe a poor choosing of word i dont know but i still understood both opionions about endgame and raiding..
As for "Raiding" as it is implemented now, no thanks. If raid gear only worked in raid areas, that'd be okay. Otherwise, raids support gold farmers - if I can't do it, I bet I can buy it!
For me raiding sucks, but think you must have some form of raiding in an MMO. WOW raiding system was a nightmare as needing 40ppl to do a raid is a joke beyond belief in my eyes. This make the game very Guild orientated and for me thats wrong. Also making a dungeon thats takes hours and hours to complete is wrong. Making dungeons or mobs that only spawn every few days is also a joke. Basically thats why WOW sucked and also had no end game.
Raiding should be able to be done in 1grp or a max of 2grps. Dungeons shouldn't take longer than 3 hours to complete. Mobs should drop lots of 1337 lewt so not having to go back and do it 25000 times to get the 1 drop.
I'm a DAOC man and always will be until something better comes along. DAOC has had it's problems, but since the Classic servers have been out you can kit your char out within a week without playing 24/7.
For me this is what a game needs to be like. A perfect end game PvP and quick easy raiding for 1337 loot.
If you want the big Dungeon then loot should not be better , just maybe better looking.
i still beleive a casual player should not be as powerful as a full time gamer and this should be done through the end game PvP (like DAOC) and not through raiding ridiculous 12hour raids that only few ppl have the time to do.
The biggest problem have been mentioned with the business side of things playing a major part in game design and i'm afraid this will never change.
DOAC ftw
Amen Derek.. Amen..
You aren't alone man.. me and my group of players have had the same feeling forever..
Though I think the main problem is the sheer SIZE of these things...
Take WoW for example (because it's just so good as a standard considering how many people have played it)
Everyone knew that you could get a group of 15 people together to do the 15 man raids... that was "do-able" .. it was gonna be tough to get organised enough not to wipe but at least you could get the people together..
Anything past that?? No chance... that's when the Uber Guild problems kick in... the kissing some kids ass who happens to be guild master and thinks he's some sort of leader and takes it way too seriously.. .. the leaving your real friends to try to join said Uber Guild because you want to .. essentially... play the game! .. etc.. etc.. etc..
So.. I think.. if you limit the max size of Raid content to 15 people ... you make it so a group of 15 players who otherwise play solo the entire time.. can ocassionaly get together a couple of groups worth of people and play the game they pay for every month..
So by making it accessable to the entire player base, you alleviate many of the problems you mentioned before.. because really it all stems from needing so many people to play the game's content!
You can make Raids epic and memorable in many ways other than making it take 40 people to do..
I mean .. even WoW learned that eventually when they reduced the number of people it took to do many of the Raids.. unfortunately they still have a ways to go on that front.. but they're learning
raiding should give raid class rewards, not player class rewards.
theres nothing wrong with raiding with your guild for an artifact that gives everyone in your guild (whether they show up or not) some sort of power that everyone can use.
there is something wrong with raiding with your guild to get a sword for ME.
the reward should match the activity.
raiding and grouping doesnt need to compete.
I have to agree, there is nothing worse then going through a raid for your 6th time, having your item drop only to suddently reilize there are about 5 other people who want the item as well. With the current raiding systems it often comes down to 1 or 2 people walking away happy and everyone else getting the shaft.
Why worry about the loot? If it is a good raid set up the challenge of pulling off the raid should be good enough. If it is one of the basic kill mob get loot type raids I can understand. There are some real fun raids out there where you are constantly busy needing to do different roles to make it thru the raid, or puzzles to the raid that have to be solved.
Also for those that want no raiding. Ok so that mean you can grind thru the game get max lvl and all the gear then what? Also if it is all grouping it is really hard to make a real challenge that only takes 6 or so players. Unless you then make it in to forced groups of tank healer support/debuffer and dps. Which that whole plan is way to over used.
Only type of games that i see that this type of play would work well would be like WWII online, or other non level or gear centric games which developers are afraid to make for some reason. even tho they would be super easy to build.
Also to the whole why should i care about the longevite of a game... If the game has a burn out of a couple months to grind to max lvl get the loots and then thats it. people quit game loses money and they game dies. To many games die the company can't turn there profit and the market ends. Yes your basically chasing a carrot on a stick but if there is no reason to keep people playing or interested in the game why make or play the game.
Basically you don't want to raid for the best gear, and yet you don't want the best gear to be hard to get. You want everyone to be able to experience everything just cause they own the game. Your basically looking at games with 2 months tops life span. Because all off the players that you complain out gear/ lvl you will grind thru the game hit the end and all leave before you get there and the game will end due to lack of players. On average with a full time job at about 4 hours a day to play i have ground thru the groupable part of the game in 2 or 3 months and left the game due to the end game content was lacking or boring. I have done this on 12 mmo's and have only stuck with 1 of them. until i find something that is fun again.
Typical reply from a hardcore. Always thinking that if loot isn't gotten from a raid, then there is no challenge. Therefore, we casuals want free loot since we hate raids. I can't believe how narrow minded and how unimaginative you people are. How the heck do you people think players got loot before raids? It wasn't considered trivial back then, so why the hell should it be considered that now? As far as I'm concerned, you can make single group and solo content challenging enough to justify getting the best loot in the game. You want to raid, then you have equal chance at that loot, but you also get the challenge of gathering 24 to 39 other people. But hey, you guys say you like that kind of crap, so why the constant whines about casuals getting access to gear without raiding? You do your thing, we do ours, we all get the loot we want and everyone should be happy. The real problem is that raiders are greedy powermongers and they can't stand the thought of players getting access to loot without playing the game their way. They don't believe in sharing content and if game mechanics allow it, they even try to block content from others, like they did in EverQuest.
I have no desire to spare your feelings, because when all is said and done, you could give a rat's ass about our desires and that is apparent from past games and its obvious from the posts you make. Its not that the coding mechanics can't work together in a game that would cater to both play styles, its the incompatibility of hardcore vs. casual thought processes. Hardcores expect a game to make them elite by shutting out any other play style that is not their own. You people suck and I'll be dancing a jig when they finally come out with a game that doesn't cater to your every whim.
Blizzard realized 40-man raids were a miserable failure, that's why they only made 25-man raids in the Expansion.
In another two years the WoW designers will realize even these are a waste of developer resources which only to appeal to a tiny fraction of their playerbase.
Raids will go the way of the dinosaur just like other lame hardcore mechanics like harsh death penalities and all the other useless timesinks that hardcores like to claim make games 'challenging'.
I don't know how the 25 man raids will fair compared to the 40 ones. I do know that guilds will be more selective in the end in regards with the player skills and they will probably be more strict with invites. And selective can go to directions the close minded "casuals" cannot comprehend. Why people confuse the achiever mentality and the need for better tools to tackle with harder encounters with the lootwhore mentality? I've encountered myself this kind of perverted hardcore attitude in past years but some raiders have matured past that. Others didn't. How's fair to stereotype everyone?
One thing is certain, it's not easy to create a successful raiding guild. And by successful I mean a guild that has achieved some form of overlapping between the individual goals and the common goals. If it was half as easy to form such guilds, everyone would be in one. It doesn't have to be the "best guild on the server" either, casual raiding is not something unheard of.
The problem with raids is that they need people that are enjoying themselves and feel good about each other. You can't have that by inviting every "uber" player on the server. The best way is to start small and then add people that are mature, goal driven and respectful towards each other. Earlier posters pointed out their own experiences about perverted guilds with the sole purpose of looting. With such a goal, neither a group of 5 or a group of 40 would have fun in the end. How much do you like when somebody drops a group when he's done with his quests or when the x item didn't drop from him and doesn't need anything else from the instant?
And in the end, when you perhaps spent over a year looking for good people to play with, you achieve a higher guild status by forming a sense of community instead of a sum of individuals. The successes in the raid instances come as a natural extension of the guild's will to work together towards a common goal. Why do people feel that they have the right to shun all this effort, to render it meaningless or worse, to look down on people that participate on those activities?
Raiding in it's true form, the goal achieving, does take more effort than grouping. The only drawback is that occasionally, despite your best effort to surround yourself with the best people, you end up with some bad apples as well. But if you put all the effort to make the "perfect" guild, there is no way you're going to keep those bad apples.
Bottom line, raid is fun when done with the right people and for the right reasons. The goal is the progression, loot is a side effect.
Edit: typos
Unfortunately, raids are detrimental to the community aspect of guilds. Raid guilds can only afford to have people in the guild that can commit the time, energy, and resources needed to be able to participate in the raids. Only a small percentage of players can be raid type players. So, lots of drama insues when raid guilds fall apart due to the inevitable cycle of player turnover in games.
What if there was no need to push out old people that you enjoyed playing a game with just because of scheduling conflicts? What if you could have fun in a game without the game feeling like a job? What if guilds could be groups of people that could enjoy hanging out with each other online instead of some pseudo-business atmosphere that had rigorous rules and guidelines because the raid environment pushed on us by the devs causes this problem?
Raids, raid loot, and the time wasted in these endeavors needs to be re-thought or abolished. This needs to happen for the sake of online mmo community.
P.S. I don’t thing that having raid content in a game is evil. I think that the implementation of loot, rare drops, and massive time required, causes a negative atmosphere.
I have raided 5 times a week and I have mixed feelings about it. It was fun because we had TS. In the weekends some where drunk and that had its hillarious moments
But in the end I have done MC for almost a year and my druid still needs the boots. Problem is that players need to raid the first few times and get totaly nothing because you have to earn "DKP".
I like the move Blizzard made with the 25-man instances (and smaller). While people would argue they did it because the server could not handle it is just untrue. Just look at the huge ammount of people I saw running in the first area in TBC and the server could handle it. Also the hardware thats for sale now is far more faster then 3 years ago.
Blizzard made the first step in making epic 5-man instances. The next step would be to make the mobs inside a bit smarter and unpredictable. But the problem is that companies want certainty, and the raiding model works (for now) so why change it? If WoW is really that bad and raiding that dull, then why does the playerbase only increase in WoW?
Wow is popular and has made lots of money. All Blizzard games have. Blizzard are masters at simplifying a game and a UI so that anyone can play it.
Blizzard did not invent the rts or the mmo. They just dumbed them down (made them intuative) so that anyone could play them (mass market appeal).
It is not the raid content that atracts people to WoW. Blizzard as a company and game designer are very skilled at making a game intuative and easy to use (point and click). That is thier success. The raid modle trancends Blizzard games. That is the problem us players are voicing. End game PvE content as most games implement them now is a negative to the game and mmos in general.
So the fact that popular games have end game raid content is irrelevant. Our argument is that does PvE raid content make a game better? I think not.
Wouldnt a better solution be no level or soft caps? Another good solution would be an almost infinate crafting system. Another good solution would be a PvP oriented end game. Another solution would be a classless system where you could explore many skill trees. There are many better solutions for end game content. But if they made the game truely open ended.. how would they get you to buy expansions?
To be honnest, doing Scholomance for the 100x time for one item is also stupid and dull. It's all grinding, just like raiding. Thinking of it, MMO's are all about grinding. Grinding for gear, grinding for crafting, grinding for reputation, ginrding for quests, grinding for PVP.
I really think it doesn't matter how large a party needs to be to do a dungeon, people will still complain. Some are already complaining about the 5-man instances blizzard made, too difficult. Raiding is here to stay, there is always a target too large to kill alone. Grinding is also here to stay, no boat or house is build with one chopped down tree.
Just curious though, when is raiding called raiding? Doing some instance 100 times for one drop is called grinding and NOT raiding.
There are the elitists out there of course. Funnily enough, I've met such people outside what you'd consider "the best guilds in the server". They seem to think they were too good for them. It's a fine line between being proud for your achievements (no matter how shallow considering this is just an online game) and being arrogant and stiff-necked.
PS1: I thought I knew everything there was to being a good raid priest. Boy was I for a surprise when I entered the behemoth instance that Naxxramas was and needed to re-evaluation my own skills as well as the guild needed to evaluate their skills as a whole.
PS2: My guild stopped raiding 1 week before Christmas while the rest of the server stopped 1-2 months earlier. Everyone knew that the gear would be obsolete with the coming of the expansion. Noone cared. We wanted fun and we wanted progress. And it was all that mattered.
I have the feeling that the biggest handicap of a casual player is that he can not plan in the depth of time (RL interferes way too much
I don't mind an occasional raid. Once or twice a week, take down some Boss_Mob_01 and maybe get some nice goodie. To me, it's seeing a rarely seen (cept in screenshots) area that I find more fun than the actual acquiring of Da Lewts.
However, too many games seem to have devs that feel raiding is The Fun Thing To Do at the level cap. EQ1 was raid heavy, if you didn't or couldn't raid you were S.O.L. sorry to say. WoW pre-BC was essentially PvP or Raid with no other options available. That is what bothers me the most the fact that the devs are basically forcing me to raid to progress at all. I don't mind doing a scholomance or such many times as it's a smaller instance, can get a group and get going much quicker than a raid. Plus in the single group dungeons people are far less anal about loots.
Which brings up another point, too much raid content really begins separating the community. The raiders begin to think themselves "better" than Those Other People. Guilds which were helpful and friendly begin getting greedy when they see the first shiny bauble drop, as some people feel they "earned" more right to it than that other guy. Heck you get someone that raids too much and they actually forget how to play in a single group (like that tier 2 warrrior that wouldn't stop pulling everything in strath that one time). You don't have several healers to back you up here Mr Uber Dude.
Finally some of Mr Fortier's comments seem to be either (1) clueless or (2) elitist to me. I can't see how he thinks raiding will be a social outlet, as most of the time when you're raiding the leader wants chatter kept to minimum. Hard to socialize when you're not allowed to talk to anyone. Plus I fail to see how raiding and pvp are requirements for each other. I've known people in full raid gear that couldn't pvp for diddly and on the other hand people in more common gear that really pvp well. As I've always said, Sklll > Gear.
Back in my SWG days shortly after launch when it was still a mmoRPG and not a mmoFPS, great hunting parties were formed (guild or no guild) and we would tromp off into the wilderness in search of big game and massive exp. On one hand being a medic was great, I ran around and healed everyone with my then-original super buffs, was extremely vital to the group and monetarily well-rewarded, and I even took a few pot shots now and then at a very pissed off Krayt Dragon. Sure there were 30+ other people shooting, a hilarious Teras Kai martial artist trying to run up and kick the dragon then run away so he wouldn't get hit, and the invaluable bots and creatures tanking for us on the front line, but it WAS fun. You had the newbies panicking and running around trying not to get hit, afraid they would lose their then-rare "jedi robe" if they got killed, and then there were the hardcore gamers like myself who were calmer, thinking, and actually making progress. Laser blasts coming from every direction made it sound like you were in a Star Destroyer space battle, general chaos, and again... one very pissed off beast having done nothing more than killed a few of the group members when they attacked it first all by their lonely, supremely out-matched selves. Great fun!
The incredible charge I felt seeing a huge beast fall knowing I was a true part of the victory made me feel like I did when I first beat Koopa in the original Super Mario Brothers. That electric excitement and sense of true accomplishment rarely felt in real life. And then there were the rewards that poured in of exp that I couldn't hope to gain by myself in a month of grinding on lower beasts, and the jubliation of returning to a bar and collectively bragging about what bad-asses we all were and how that particular animal was unique within the game for one reason or another... fish stories exist even in cyberspace, too!
But soon I found myself logging on exclusively for those raiding parties. Looking for them, organizing them, watching most fall apart and everyone wondering what went wrong and the inevitable backlash of backbiting and finger-pointing. Being a medic usually saved me from said blame, but eventually I tired of the endless bickering, politicking, and lack of loyalty. I would say at the very most 10% of these raids were successful back then, but I have no idea what they would be now. My reason for being in SWG went from feeling like a part of the true Star Wars experience to making expensive, time-consuming medicines or raiding. That was the beginning of the end.
Take it or leave it, I believe raiding will always be a part of MMORPG's. Like everything else in life, there are always pros AND cons.
The hardcore raiders are too busy maintaing their websites where people have to fill out applications and actually setting up 20-40 main raids (well, no more 40s now, i guess!) where they spend two hours in prep, yelling at all the inexperienced players on Vent for failing to do things exactly as they are told, followed by 8-12 hours of running through the same dungeon over and over again hoping that staff that drops is specced for your druid and not the mage next to you, while trying to accumulate DKPs to even have a shot of earning it.....
So we won't see too many hardcore raiders defending themselves here, man! They've got an important job to do, you know.....?
MMORPGS with hardcore raiding: The spiritual successors to Space Invaders!
Hell, what were all those great arcade games back in the eighties but eternal grind fests? I think I finally understand, now.....Scholo and other sites should have virtual quarter slots at their entrances; Blizzard might make even more money that way...