I wanna preface this with, I think these mechanics are useful and serve an important purpose. I know this isn't a huge deal when it comes to the grand scheme of Everquest and maybe even TLPs as a whole. This Mechanic is obnoxious and annoying when out of era. When content is phased out of being the main content of raid, say during PoP and Velious still retains MoTM, all it does is keeps players from wanting to do these older raids for any reason knowing the fights are just inflated in difficulty when unnecessary. One solution would be to just remove MotM completely when LdoN comes out. While this might be a little too forward it would just be nice since by this time even more casual guilds are finished up with PoP and the 10% reduction isn’t a massive debuff after you’re decked out in a lot of the gear at this level. I’m not a huge fan of this though I think it is better than the current way MotM is handled. I think better solutions would either be only the current and previous expansion have MotM or every expansion has the same % of MotM as the current expansion, slowly phasing out MotM completely at GoD.
I would love for them to do a non-MoTM server with instances. Yes, I know that means folks would be killing these mobs small groups. Yes, I know it would flood the server with loot. Neither of those two things would negatively impact the overall health of the server, as we have seen on Mischief.
I think MOTM is completely stupid because it is an artificial increase in difficulty. Meaning, the counter to it is just to throw more (or 'enough') bodies at it. But I also think the raid member limit is WAY too high. MOTM would make more sense if the member limit wasn't ridiculously high. It's always healthiest for an MMO to have options. It would be cool if every time you open a DZ you have to choose between MOTM or not: MOTM giving more loot, non-MOTM giving less. That way people could raid with the raid size that they want.
Motm is good. I don't want some lvl 65 mage with bazaar gear to be able to solo Nagafen. I like feeling a sense of accomplishment taking down old raid content. Removing motm would make that stuff SO trivial it would stop being fun
You just listed the primary raid strategy for all early era Everquest raids so MOTM wasn't and isn't the cause of anything new. I think your real complaint is the lack of quality raid design in early EQ. It's a good thing your complaint naturally disappears as early as GOD. Again, good thing this is changes as you play the game past POP.
Uhhh. You do realize that MoTM drops off Naggy in GoD and a 65 mage with bazaar gear can solo him then. If you think a server like that would be to trivial you are welcome to keep playing on the current servers. It obviously wouldn’t be targeted at you. At this point niche servers are 100-% they way to keep TLPs fresh.
So you think MOTM doesn't increase the minimum amount of players required to beat content? MOTM eventually going away doesn't make it more okay for it to be there today. And I think the GoD raid cap should either be in from the start, or it should be even lower than that. Whether it's still too high at GoD is something I'll have to witness and decide for myself.
More bodies was the point, it wasnt adding mechanics or difficulty, its was slowing down deeeeep splits since there was more than 1 version of each mob every week (AoC).
Got a dev quote on that? Also people are still splitting sooo we can agree that MOTM isn't even fulfulling its supposed intended purpose, yes?
MOTM brought older player amounts back closer to original release to counter act huge player power increases. Raid targets without MOTM just flopped over in seconds. It was laughably dumb. So, did MOTM increase player requirements? Depends on perspective. Compared to the super-powered state of classes and no MOTM? Yes. Compared to original design? No.
Yes, because for some godforsaken reason, someone thought it would be a good idea for early EQ raids to field up to SEVENTY TWO players. It's almost like MOTM wouldn't have even been necessary if a non-stupid high cap had been put on raid member numbers!
You're lacking any context and development in game to make such statements. One example: Innate melee damage AAs. We are way more powerful than our 2000 counterparts. Another example: DoT revamps.
So you think with all the changes like melee damage and dot devamps, that 72 members is a low enough number to balance raid targets and make them difficult along with MOTM?
Turns out I was right and wrong, the point WAS to require more bodies, but it was pre-AoC and was to induce more "competition" between guilds. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/raid-changes-coming-in-july.223880/ emphasis mine.
How are splits an evidence of anything? If you have 200 members in your guild you're going to be splitting. I'm pretty sure catering the raid to whatever the largest guild size is would be pretty dumb. It's categorically true that they require more people in most cases.
I think you the answer you're looking for is already evidenced by the evolution of raids going from 72 to 54. EQ Devs knew 72 was too many people and eventually made it into 54 as they gained experience on how to develop actual raids rather than just tank and spank let's stare mindlessly at my screen events. However, MOTM wasn't designed to mitigate the large number of people allowed in original open-world 72 man raids. It was designed to mitigate the massive power influxes the players received over the years when live gameplay bled into TLP. While it's a rudimentary fix to a problem, it served it's purpose by bringing old raids more in line with it's original "difficulty" which was having enough people to properly tank and spank it. As for your concern that 72 man raids are too large a force, yes, you're right. That's why down the road it's non existent. All raids are tuned and designed around 54 players. They still are designed like that on live. I highly doubt devs will go back and redesign the old raid window to limit it at 54 or modify instances of open-world raids to 54. It's just not worth their time and effort. In order to really make the older targets somewhat difficult, they would need to add mechanics, not reduce the players allowed. Then you're ultimately changing the nostaglia aspect of the game. Old raids would just be new raids with original models. TLPmillers, for the most part, probably would not enjoy that. Many like the simplicity of older stuff which is why they keep doing it over every year. They don't want emotes, mechanics, adds, etc. Adding BPM (buttons per minute) would be a detriment to their enjoyment.
Completely disagree. If we can decrease difficulty by having a high raid member cap and just throwing bodies, then we can increase difficulty by lowering the amount of bodies that can be thrown. You personally may not have nostalgia for killing raid targets with minimal numbers, but many of us do. Why is your nostalgia more important than someone else's? Why not evolve with the rest of the MMOs out there and have the option of either raiding with a smaller group against a weaker version and getting less loot or raiding with a larger force against a stronger version and getting more loot? Mischief's bonus loot and success/popularity is the perfect sign that having a lot of extra loot in the economy whether it is via splitting or whatever is not at all a bad thing. Free trade has a lot to do with it too, it's adding a ton more stuff to the economy as well. So any attempt to reduce the amount of dragons killed every week is pretty detrimental to the game and community, I can't fathom why any player or developer would support that.
