Players input is often detrimental to the health of a game.

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Strawberry, Jan 29, 2020.

  1. Bobokin Augur

    Let's stop right there. That premise is invalid, therefore your hypothesis is invalid.

    I am not the OP here, and I could care less about being the biggest baddest character on a server. I only care if the game is fun for the majority of people who play the game. The game experience is what matters. If you read through my posts in this topic, I said having raids that require a large amount of players (50+) are still needed in the game. I was attacked for that. I stated that smaller raids with good but not as great drops should be in the game as well, and now you attack this. Everquest needs both to have a satisfying game experience for the most number of players. You can disagree, but to make a blanket statement about wanting something for nothing is disingenuous.

    Players that put in a few hours on a 24 character raid put in as much time as those who put in a few hours for a 54 character raid. That is not something for nothing. It is the same time and similar effort, but the difference is the former is accessible to small casual guilds. That being the difference, one could conclude that the problem you have is not the amount of time and effort but the exclusivity of item drops that large raid guild wish to maintain and control. That may be understandable on some levels, but to state that some small raids will give casual and small guild players something the do not deserve does not make logical sense.
    Kaenneth likes this.
  2. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Worst...logic...ever. It is literally a self-defeating statement.

    Hey, someone that puts in "a few hours on a solo character" puts in just "as much time as those who put in a few hours on a 54 character raid", according to that logic. No. They don't.
  3. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Raids can be tuned around needed a specific class or even someone for every class while group content can't be tuned that way as you never know what could be in the group.
    Kaenneth likes this.
  4. Bamboompow Augur

    That sums it up. The majority of the players tend to just want to best the game environment and couldn't care less about competition with other players outside of PvP. The elite cadre at the top, however, need to dominate more than just the game content. There always has to be some facet to distinguish themselves, create false dichotomies etc. That giant foam "#1" finger always has to be able to be waved. Nothing wrong with it. Whatever floats your boat, even if its the same hierarchy every year, like some MMO version of a day in the life of Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day".

    It is sometimes a thorn in the side of those who purchase and play this game that if you want to truly immerse yourself in this game you have to put up with social structures/rule sets outside of the game design. The gatekeepers of this game at the higher level unfortunately are human beings. Want to do all the good stuff? Grats. You now have to put up with other people's nonsense, rules, differences of opinion, poor management/leadership styles, politics and so forth. Basically what you do at work, only in a game. Yeehaw. Good thing there are other games out there where the challenge is actually the game and not navigation through other people's BS. The top players support the BS because it enables them to have their fun. It is a respectable achievement to not only best the game mechanics, but also surmount all the bovine excrement that only human beings can leverage up the challenge quotient with. Its debatable if the dev team really has to create content to support those player made social structures or not, though. They know the digital phallus waving is important for some, but it should not be a subject that a development meeting should be organized around for brainstorming sessions.

    The rub still is when the dev team doesn't always accommodate them, they get pissy and demand to have the underpinnings of their organizations not be undermined by too much casual content . Thus the devs have to cave a bit. So if the trend holds true, the expac difficulty pendulum will swing towards more challenging content in 2020's release. The better plan would be to have an expac that provides both accessibility as well as exclusivity, but that requires a proactive approach similar to making all the game accessible with the exception of two well placed dragons waaaay back in the day . As opposed to reactive response to the gripes of the player base. Hmm that might be what this thread is about.
    Vumad and Bobokin like this.
  5. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    No, like Beimeith stated, DZs did not exist until GoD. Plane of Time wasn't even Instanced until June of 2005 (which is after DoN released). Similarly, LDoN raids did not become expeditions (DZs) until June of 2006 (which was after PoR released).
  6. Bamboompow Augur

    When was the guild raid management tool introduced?
  7. Cadira Augur

    [IMG]
  8. Xondor Lorekeeper


    Strong disagree. With a larger raid force mobs are obviously tuned to be harder which means any single characters chance of survival vs said mob is less, making your chance of death and failure higher if you screw up. Damage output would have to be reduced for a smaller raid due to lower healing potential which means it will allow sloppier play since the survivability of an individual player would be slightly higher.
  9. Xondor Lorekeeper


    What you are advocating for is what kills MMOs. If every player can have everything then there is nothing to strive for. That is why I still come back to EQ after 20 years. Know why WoW lost so many players? (imho) because instead of seeing some uber geared person running around and hoping to someday get that gear they started LFR and gave EVERYONE raid gear even if the stats were slightly reduced. There was no carrot on a stick anymore. It was boring.

    I don't understand how you could see someone who worked for their raid gear and then come to the forums and cry because you don't want to work for it too. How entitled can you be...
  10. Bobokin Augur

    If 18 characters get wiped or 54 characters get wiped, don't they both get wiped? Of course they are tuned differently; who is saying they are not? A named boss mob taking on 52 players will have to be more difficult than a named boss mob taking on 18 players - the difference is that there are only 18 players fighting it.

    As far as sloppier play goes, do we really need all raid mobs to only be defeated by a semi-professional group of players? Should so much content be blocked from players that don't view the game as a part time job? Some players will never have the uber equipment, and some will never have all of the macros set up just so.

    Let's be real here, we all know that many top end players run bot teams and boxes to get there. None of those players play the game as intended, so this whole discussion about earning what one gets is moot, and aggrandizing raid purity is a lesson in hyperbole.
  11. That0neguy Augur

    Pretty sure the "adventure's" were very very similar to DZ's and had limits on the number of people that could be added to them. So kind of a non point in this discussion.
  12. Bobokin Augur

    Playing the entitlement card, are we?

    No one is advocated for having all the highest tier gear drop in all types of raids. They are advocating that there actually be many types of raids. They are asking for balance.

    I wonder, why do top end raiders feel they are entitled to a large portion of the game that casual players will neither see nor experience? Why are they entitled to use up so much of the development resources for their own gain? Why are they entitled to have the rest of the game tuned to their armor and equipment levels?

    Before replying that these players pay for the game with their accounts, keep in mind that is a circular argument. Everquest has lost far more players because of the way the game is now tuned to the top end than there are top end players. Instead of having a balance of content, there is only content for the top tier players that feel entitled to have it that way.
  13. Cloud the Third Augur

    I believe Time was the first DZ but wasn't a DZ like it was today. Pretty sure it was restricted to only 1 DZ at a time so 2 guilds could not be raiding it at the same time. It was a DZ sorta just a static single DZ.

    But yea like all other raids at that time it had to be shared between guilds and at least on our server we took turns on it with other guilds.
  14. enclee Augur

    Casual player here in respect to seasonal playtime. It'd be great to have that type of content available but I really don't want to see a player cap on the event just a player event tuned to that size. If you're just going to make a 24 person event that is capped at 24, it's not going to work. It doesn't give the casual guilds class flexibility or the ability to carry members through. It'll just end up being an event the higher end guilds knock out for alts.

    I think using the 3 T1 events as a template for something even more tuned down would put some fresh expansion content within reach. It would give some excitement down in the casual guilds and keep the recruitment channels fresh.

    Also, as a casual player I've been very on and off with the game, and not a reliable source of revenue. As opposed to the top end players that SoE and DBG can count on year in and year out to be there and give really great feedback. For the developers, it's easier and more justifiable to build the game to those kinds of players. It just makes sense to make a game for people, who like your game. WoW already took the casual MMO market, and actively develops a game for people who do not like MMOs.
    Sancus likes this.
  15. Tucoh Augur

    I don't care about raid content but don't try and deflect from Xondor's very valid point here:
    [IMG]

    However, what WoW suffers from isn't just that casuals can see all the raid content, it's that WoW and a lot of other MMOs streamlined the idea of a social community away from the game, so instead of fostering a social group to go take on content you just enter their looking for group/raid system, pair up with a bunch of semi-anonymous people and go faceroll easy content.

    I don't want to derail the thread further but the removal of community integration in an MMO is the biggest trap for MMO devs that are constantly asked for features to streamline the gameplay. EQ has fought this off with both intent and budgeting decisions, and should continue to do so. My opinion is that making easy raids does NOT require this to happen, but it's still a risk.
    enclee likes this.
  16. Bobokin Augur

    No, they don't, but that is faulty logic. You may want to be careful about proclaiming posts the "worst logic ever".

    A guild that has 100 players takes a similar time and effort to set up a 24 player raid as a guild that has 250 players setting up a 54 player raid. Not the same, but similar.

    A raid with 24 players taking hours to raid a zone scaled and tuned for 24 players takes a similar time and effort as a raid with 54 players taking hours to raid a zone scaled and tuned for 54 players. Not the same, but similar.

    What is not similar is one group of players doing 54 player raids and the other doing no raids at all. I believe that is more to the point the OP is making.
  17. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Who's acting entitled!? Eesh. In all games, some content doesn't get played by the bottom of the barrel players. Maybe you should learn to play better? Sounds harsh, but it's reality in every single video game ever made.

    If you can't get Tour the Mansion, should you get unlimited balls if you can't play pinball worth a damn?
  18. Bobokin Augur

    First off, a point is either valid or not. There is no very valid. There is more or less relevant to the point though, and that argument, although valid, is not as relevant to the point because it assumes an outcome that is not necessarily so.

    What the OP is talking about is access to some raid content with smaller raids rather than the easy easy accumulation of raid gear through easy raids. Smaller raids should have a lower number of drops or a lower quality of drops. I believe most players would agree.

    How is that straw man relevant to this topic? Are you equating a 24 person raid with facerolling easy content?

    I agree, and having raids for smaller guilds would enhance community with those players. Wouldn't you agree? One must be careful to not address only the community of one group of players over all others.
    Knighted likes this.
  19. Bobokin Augur

    That is an ad hominem fallacy argument. It is contrary to rational arguments presented here.
  20. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Whatever you say dude. Oh, and you can do Restless Assault and Griklor right now with a pretty small raid force. So stop complaining and get to raiding.