Raid Suggestion: Rush the Citadel

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Ashian, Nov 28, 2019.

  1. Ashian Augur

    As folks beta test current raids and offer up suggestions, I thought I’d throw out an idea for a new ‘type’ of raid that would mix things up a bit. Nearly every raid these days is a “mega boss” encounter that hits like a truck, spawns adds, and forces you to dance. I would love to see a bit more variety introduced.

    My raid idea takes places in the Citadel of Anguish (OoW expansion) and is similar to one of the HoT group missions. The raid starts at the zone entrance and the zone is fully populated with bad guys of varying difficulty. Once the raid launches, you need to start clearing the mobs as fast as you can. As time progresses, a high damage aura begins to creep from behind, preventing backwards movement and forcing the raid to keep moving.

    The mobs along the first section of the zone drop a total of 18 tokens of “Jelvan Protection.” Jelvan’s room has its own aura that death-touches anyone without the Jelvan Protection token. Up to 18 characters with tokens can enter Jelvan’s room and beat a mini boss that is tuned for 18 players while the rest of the raid continues to clear. The mini boss drops 18 “Aura Blockers.” These Aura Blockers negate the effect of the aura that is slowly creeping from behind and enables the 18 characters that stayed behind to do Jelvan to catch up with the rest of the raid.

    The remaining 36 characters are expected to continue to push ahead through Section #2, which drops an additional 18 tokens of “Ture Protection.” Like Jelvan before, these 18 tokens protect against a death touch in the Ture area. There is another mini boss waiting in the Ture area, tuned to 18 players, that also drops 18 Aura Blockers.

    Finally, section #3 drops 18 tokens of Hanvar Protection for ... you get the point!

    Why is this raid different?
    - The raid rewards high dps — a full raid of 54 characters can plow through the raid at epic pace — but doesn’t penalize average/low dps in any way except taking significantly longer to complete.
    - Three different mini bosses with unique abilities allows the raid leader to separate people based on their capabilities. 10 of your players are terrible at duck emotes? No problem — they are assigned to Hanvar Section (or whatever).
    - Similar to Gorowyn, it is an easier raid in that doesn’t have a Mega Boss that just wrecks everyone, making it farmable by both top- and mid-tier guilds.

    Appreciate any feedback. Just trying to generate some ideas!
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    I think it's great to share ideas. A few comments:

    1. Nearly every raid rewards high dps. The problem, as you noted, is that nearly every raid heavily rewards high dps. This is a cornerstone of EQ. It's PvE, after all. What you suggest is a way for low and mid-tier raids to still achieve, it just takes more time. While this is a great notion, it's been tried before and the mid/high-tier guilds don't have a challenge.
    2. Multiple raids have adopted this formula to some extent in TBL alone. The Rise of Smoke, Prince Ralaifin, The Conflagration Generals, Esianti.
    3. This is a good notion. But not a novel one. 'Accessible' raids have been implemented in EQ for over a decade.

    I would like to see a raid offered for 72 people, but that's never going to happen. :)
  3. Ashian Augur

    1) I guess a little bit of a philosophical difference then. Why does every raid need to be a challenge to mid-/high-tier guilds? From what I’ve seen, none of the raids in TBL outside of Mearatas offered a challenge to the high end guilds. They were all beat nearly immediately. I would personally like to see raid tiers offer a much more significant gap in difficulty, or at least a clearly defined progression. The best examples being RoS: Gorowyn / End of Empires were great for Tier 1, Talendor should never have been Tier 3.
    2) I agree that multiple raids have adopted the concept of “splitting up” the raid. However, the key to my structure is that it could actually be done by 36 or even 18 players, as not all three mini bosses need to be engaged simultaneously (make things such as that an achievement). The difference is it would take substantially longer. Just like doing Lilth raid in House of Thule.
    3) Agree.

    Thank you for the feedback.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  4. Fian Augur

    Maybe I am not understanding correctly, but this raid does sound like a dps check. If you don't kill fast enough, the aura catches your raid and they die.

    Personally, I would not like the idea of handing out 36 tokens for people to click on. A simpler version might be one token per group, and when a person clicks it, their entire group is protected. Of course, with my approach, you won't be able to switch people around after the token is clicked, but I think that is a manageable restriction.
  5. Ashian Augur

    I didn’t envision the trash clear to be a massive DPS check — the aura can move slowly. That can also be managed by tuning mob difficulty.

    In terms of the tokens, I wasn’t thinking they would need to be clicked. More that they are temporary items that protect while while it is in your inventory. I agree that clicking is a pain. Could have the leader set them to “free to grab” and everyone going to a particular area could just snag one.
  6. AnzoRagespirit Augur

    Would never happen because you don't have two bosses you have to balance within 3% to kill while adds are rushing you that use banes from certain classes but not others with the same spells, and theirs no timer that insta fails the raid when you take longer than 25 mins.

    Oh and to do said raid you would have to complete of series of quests that have 100% absolutely nothing to do with said raid other wise your blocked behind "solo" quests that require a full group to go through..

    Remember this is EQ if it's new, it won't happen, especially if a player recommends it.
  7. Qbert Gallifreyan