Two Tiers of Group mission difficulty system

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Corwyhn Lionheart, May 1, 2019.

  1. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    In future expansions I would love to see a two tier system for group missions. The first tier would be for group level gear and be at whatever the Devs think is a reasonable difficulty for group players.

    The second tier of missions would be more difficulty, higher aoes, more spawn adds whatever but those missions would be for raiders to evolve specific raid items. In addition to regular raid drops have special drops that will end up better then regular raid drops but have to be evolved in much harder versions of group missions.

    The specific way the hard missions evolve the raid gear could be drops that add to it or number of missions.

    Group players don't get excluded or forced to do overly hard content to gear up and raiders get harder content and a reason to do it. Seems like a win/win to me.

    Something to think about.
    Tutunka likes this.
  2. Khat_Nip Meow

    If it went that course then you'd be fine with the hard missions being the requisite progression for requesting/participating in that expansion's raids?
  3. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    There is not enough group content as it is, so why would you want to create more things for devs to split their time on?
  4. Tucoh Augur

    Wouldnt mind this at all. It might actually make it easier to balance because devs wouldn't need to strike a balance between casuals and hardcore people.

    Only modification id want is to not make the rewards dependent on having raid gear. Something like the muhbis that dropped in TBL thst are better than the regular group gear but inferior to raid gear would be better.
    Yendar likes this.
  5. Wulerdar Gnome Slayer

  6. Tucoh Augur

  7. Buri Augur

    I'd be fine with that. It could even be a 3-tier system like Star Trek online has for everything, allowing the lowest tier to be solo'd.
  8. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    It would be the same content with just changes in how hard mobs hit etc.
  9. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Not making it depended on raid gear just creates the same old problem. The best group gear should be set to allow the majority of group players to get it. Maybe you collect drops that will improve the raid gear so you can accumulate the drops before you get it. But the idea is to create harder missions but not have group gear or progression restricted by it.
  10. Tutunka Journeyman

    I wish they would have kept the hardcore versions of missions in game. I really enjoyed them. Tho they really should have better rewards then the none hard core versions.
    Yendar likes this.
  11. RandyLahey Elder

    I can't find it, but I seem to recall a previous thread from quite a while ago where this was brought up, but the Devs seemed to elude to that this was only a part of LDoN coding and it was too much work to include it in other expansions. Or something to that effect. Don't quote me..just going by what I remember :p Though I do agree with the idea
  12. svann Augur

    Seems like that shouldnt be too hard. They already have code to scale missions based on level. They could just scale it to level -3 and it would be cake. You would be happy with the group group mission giving lesser gear than the harder mission?
  13. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    After the debacle that was the RoS era revamps on Heroic Adventures, I don't know how it can be trusted that difficulty settings for missions would be as "easy" as it's being made out here. Just saying!
    Brohg and Yinla like this.
  14. Nifty Slacker Augur

    I think this is a great idea, because it's essentially adding another layer of distinct content. Waring already said however, that the dev team would have to split their time in order to do this, which is probably accurate.
  15. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I'd rather not see a different level or gear from missions, but if they only gave coins with the harder version dropping more coins I could go for it.

    As long as it doesn't take away from having other things in the expansion.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  16. svann Augur

    Was there a debacle? I dont even remember what that was now. I do remember some complaints that were half valid, but that goes with eq at any time. Was this a serious debacle or just something some didnt like so much?
  17. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    I've never understood why group content is at all tuned with raid gear in mind.

    People who raid current content are going to blow through current content regardless. All it accomplishes is locking people who don't raid current content out of group content.
    Barton and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  18. Tucoh Augur

    I don't know what you mean by "group players", but if you mean, "max level players who also don't raid" I don't really agree with this. There's a wide disparity of capability in that group, and requiring developers to make all the gear achievable without a raid achievable by most of that group is a balancing burden.

    I think both of our goals could be achieved pretty easily though. If you do an instance "hard mode" you get a drop (guaranteed or chance to drop) similar to the Element of Kunark that can either improve the top group gear or improve the raid gear. A modest gain of 5%-10% HME/AC/heroic stats is all that'd be needed.

    I can't speak to the desire of raiders to want to have to farm hard mode dungeons all week in order to "max out" the raid gear they just got, but from a group player's perspective having something to work on throughout the year is very attractive.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  19. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    Group gear in current content should allow you to enter the current content's raid but not complete it without using the current content's raid to gear up for it.

    You still need to learn the raid's mechanics and execute them in order to succeed. You still need to use the raid to gear up and be able to beat the raid. It doesn't make any sense to make it more challenging than that if you want people to buy your newest content.

    If I see new content, especially without a level cap increase, and I know I'll not be able to progress through it during the expansion because if I don't raid I need gear from the next expansion or two expansions ahead to be able to handle it, why would I even consider buying it?
  20. Tucoh Augur

    I don't think created an automated system would be the right choice. I think each encounter would need to have an optional method of killing that would make it more difficult and if that was taken it would result in a different drop. A good example would be: Don't kill the Soulfeasters (chokidai summoning sarnaks) in End of Empire before killing Hegron.

    Some missions wouldn't have an easy way to do this, but could be modified to add them. Ex:
    • In Contract of War you could have an NPC at the zone in that you could trigger hard mode with, it'd spawn a couple tough NPCs at each named mob and increase the mephit rate to 10 seconds instead of 45 or whatever.
    • In Tyrant of Fire, triggering hard mode would spawn a new named mob in each pack that made them immune to CC (or cleansed it) and buffed/healed them in some way, or something
    • In Strange Magic, triggering hard mode would make the mobs immune to root and reduce the timer on the AE effect
    It's true that this would require designer effort, however there would be a reduced balancing burden on the designers because they won't have to try as hard to strike a balance between challenging vs doable. If the easy-mode is too easy, that's OK. If the hard mode is too hard, that's OK too.
    IblisTheMage likes this.