T3 ToL Raids make them hard

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by uberkingkong, Feb 14, 2022.

  1. uberkingkong Augur

    Please make T3 ToL Raids hard.

    By hard I mean 6 guilds don't beat all of the T3 CoV raids when they become available on day 1.

    By hard I mean 12 guilds don't beat all of the T2 ToL raids when they become available on day 1.

    Please make the T3, the hardest tier, actually, HARD. EQ used to be about hard raids as in they would take a few weeks to beat at the very minimum.

    The final tier raids all of them beaten when they first become available means they are too easy. No one wants overly hard raid where only handful beats before the next expansion either. Need to find the middle ground and right now the final tier raids are just too easy. So please, make them hard so they aren't beaten on day 1. If a guild beats all of your hardest tier raids on day 1, that means its too easy.
    Andarriel likes this.
  2. Tevik Augur

    Or it means they actually got to work on them and test out what they need to do during Beta. It's not like the old days anymore where you get one single guild seeing one event per tier or anything like that. There isn't going to be some middle ground you're asking for where it's "just right," because the only way you're slowing down those top guilds is if it's impossible for the rest.
    Swiss, Ozon, Coagagin and 3 others like this.
  3. Vekaras Ranger of the Too Long Name

    While I in part agree there should be a challenge... I also think these posts come across as a bit of elitism:

    "I want to be able to prove I'm better than everyone else"

    And having early access to raids AND the base strategy laid out in advance is probably a contributing factor
    Swiss, OldTimer, minimind and 4 others like this.
  4. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Most of the guilds that cleared a tier on opening day, had already prepared a strat and practiced on the beta server.
    If you want to experience the intended difficulty, then join a guild that doesn't receives "spoilers" from beta-testing.

    Note: I appreciate that guilds spend their time testing the raids for the rest of us. Thank you! :)
    But how fast they beat the tier on opening day shouldn't be given much weight, when judging the difficulty.
    Ozon likes this.
  5. Elemental Augur

    Take it from someone who leads raids on the lowest populated server, these raids are hard
    Kajira, OldTimer, Vumad and 2 others like this.
  6. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    They are less forgiving on emote-fails thats for sure. A single emote-fail can wipe the entire raid...:eek:
    OldTimer likes this.
  7. Slasher Augur

    If we weren't given the entire mechanics of every raid in beta and went into them blind most guilds wouldn't beat them on day 1.
    OldTimer and Fenthen like this.
  8. Svann2 The Magnificent

    OTOH if we didnt test them in beta it might take 3-4 patches before they even worked.
    Elyssanda, Ozon, Szilent and 2 others like this.
  9. Sancus Augur

    ToV, CoV, and ToL T3 raids are objectively easy relative to EQ's hardest raids historically. Take Close the Gate for example. On that raid I:
    • Stand in one spot DPSing on wave 1
    • Stand in one spot DPSing on wave 2, respond to emotes if needed
    • Stand in one spot DPSing on wave 3, respond to emotes if needed; balance of probabilities is I won't have to respond to any emotes
    To be clear - I like Close the Gate and it has a number of mechanics that specific people need to respond to (including banes and tank positioning). In terms of demands on a raid force, though, they're very limited if a few critical emotes/roles are succeeded. You can have every single person fail those individual emotes (that require invis and such) on the last boss die and still easily win. The same can be said for Vulak or AoW; the requirements as an individual member of the raid without an important role are limited.

    Contrast that to something like Mearatas (death adds + DPS requirement + lots of mechanics the whole raid has to move for/follow) or Drusella's Vault (DPS requirement + reasons to spread out + multitude of moving auras to avoid). Neither of those raids have some individual emote that leads to raid failure, as has become popular in ToL. Those kinds of emotes involve only a few people out of 54 and are binary in nature (easy if you don't fail, catastrophic if you do). Those are not challenging to top guilds, at best they just introduce some degree of RNG.

    Beta testing is a factor - certainly fewer guilds would clear these tiers on day 1 without it. Beta testing is not a new phenomenon, though, and it shouldn't obviate the responsibility to design raids (or, at least, a final raid) that challenge(s) well prepared raid forces.
    Orienn, Astral64 and Elyssanda like this.
  10. Maedhros High King

    I think something that could help is to have some level of randomness on the events.
    On amalgam arbiter, the minor golems can spawn in any order. The effects on these golems were fairly trvial though.
    If a given event had waves of adds at whatever intervals that could spawn greatly different styles of adds it would require a lot more attention be paid.

    Examples of generic add waves that require vastly different strats:
    1. A lot of lower level mezzable adds spawn and rush the raid that will absolutely truck you if they aren't crowd controlled quickly.
    2. Two or three big adds spawn that interact with one another, sort of like the blobs on Aten Ha Ra. They should hit hard enough to be a challenge, maybe they need to be balanced to avoid a penalty like Vim and Vigor in TBM, or the dude, chick and the bird in TBL.
    3. A swarm of diverse mobs that need to be baned, like mephits in mearatas, but probably without the death adds unless its an end tier raid. If they cause death adds, they probably need to be adjusted to slightly less proportional damage output than mephits in mearatas unless it was a final event again.
    4. A wave of diverse adds that have different spell and weapon type vulnerabilities that force you to use your brains. Bonus if using the wrong type of damage on a mob reflects the damage back at you.

    I mean if you think about it, the templates exists for unique adds that require unique handling in many raids in eq history. Lets put them back in play.

    Obviously if you just plow through and spawn a bunch of sets of diverse adds its going to be harder to manage than just a crap ton of all the same style adds.
    Predicability is probably the factor that causes these raids to be the most trivial.
    Fenthen likes this.
  11. Fenthen aka Rath

    Should have to do Doomshade + Zelnithak + Swarm Commander all at the same time. Get called for a Doomshade emote? Run over to Zel or netherbians until the next emote!

    Let's make it actually difficult!
  12. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    While beta testing has been a factor for a long time I feel that it has become easier to do in recent expansions without needing developer assistance to get the raids. In recent expansions the all the raids seem to be accessible from the start and players can clear lockouts so they can get in repeated runs without having to wait on lockouts. Seems that overall there are more chances for guilds to run the events on beta to not only report issues but learn them as well.
  13. Maedhros High King

    This is bar none the best change that has occured to the raid game in the last 20 years.
    Now we just need to figure out how to make raids hard despite the higher level of beta participation.
  14. RangerGuy Augur

    I disagree.

    The essence of the race was a long endurance run going into some or most things blind. Now its a 50 yard dash with everything known months prior. Folks literally end up hating raids months before they even go live. IMO this current model stinks and was one of the worst things for the game. The amount of folks it hurts far exceeds the fun 3-5 guilds gain from jumping up in rankings because they are good sprinters.

    Lock all raids on beta behind flagging. Limit dev raid tuning to 1 event per guild. Open up T1 raids with launch. And bring back raid progression via flags.
    Fenthen likes this.
  15. Verily Tjark Augur

    I like creativity in raid design over soul crushing difficulty. Every once in a while you get the perfect storm, and you get something like Meratas.

    It's easy to make the mistake of looking at raids solely from our own perspective, but Devs have to toe the line and try to make raids that include more people than they exclude. They hit the mark more often than not, so kudos to the raid designers.
    Rolaque likes this.
  16. Marton Augur

    Would people riot if devs brought back flagging? (Beta and live.)
  17. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    We are into the 2nd raid week of T2 and there are still only 18 guilds who have beaten Aten out of the 36 who beat T1 and 1 guild who has only beaten 1 T1 raid. Aten is the hardest T2 raid, it has a lot going on and a horrid DPS check.

    Its not about how many beat it on the first day, it is about how long after that other guilds can beat it. EQ is fortunate to have a number of guilds capable of beatting complex raids after practice, be that on live or on beta.
  18. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Flagging kills guilds.
  19. The real Sandaormo Augur

    Just have to check https://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/ to see that T2 was harder than T1. I would assume T3 is going to continue along this path without doing anything. T3 has a few more mechanics to figure out. The top tier guilds will always bum rush these events but smaller guilds or pick-up raids will have a bigger learning curve on T3. imo
  20. RangerGuy Augur

    And learning every single detail in October doesn't? There is zero mystery or learning on the fly anymore. Its just a flat out sprint for minutes or hours. AKA dumb to a lot more folks then the top 4 guilds who actually like a sprint and knowing absolutely everything months before live.
    Fenthen likes this.