Call of the Forsaken - Raid difficulty

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by bosspgp, Aug 10, 2013.

  1. Coruth Augur

    My ideal set up would be like this

    T1 Easy T1 Easy T1 Medium T1 Non-Progression Hard Lootkeeper

    T2 Easy T2 Medium T2 Medium Gatekeeper T2 Non-Progression Hard Lootkeeper

    T3 Medium T3 Medium T3 Medium Gatekeeper T3 Non-Progression Hard Lootkeeper

    T4 Medium T4 Medium T4 Hard Endboss T4 Non-Progression Hard Lootkeeper

    The real key is that the Non-Progression Lootkeepers would have some semi unique loots like Vulak.
    As well as instead of the randoms rares (burden of truthes to clickies) that drop randomly everywhere I'd make them only come from the Lootkeeper Mobs. Then those items only show on currency if u beat the Conquest again.

    Gatekeeper Mobs would be assuming 3 tiered release. And would be temporarily the endboss of a release, if theres only 2, then T3 wouldn't have a gatekeeper mob.

    The problem is really they design the raids to fit a storyline, and difficulty chips fall where they end up. Which leads to misplaced raids in various tiers and places. (Feerot and Upper House for example should have been swapped)
  2. Uxtalzon Augur

    ROFL! I love browsing D3's general forum. It's so full of lulz. And they said they won't be making any updates until... NEXT YEAR! LMAO! The hate for Jay Wilson (the face/voice of what D3 should've been before Beta release) is astounding.

    I just hope there's something else other than the monotonous 54-player raid that's been the same for expansion after expansion. I guess they can't think outside the box.
  3. Loratex The Ridiculous Necro

    I like the "hard mode raids" they were changed slightly values numbers of adds ect. I like harder raids with puzzles and triggers ect. None of this straightdpsbore crap that they have pretty much made every event. This HoF content was just a joke grouping and raiding. Can only hope raids will be better this time(like I do every expansion)
  4. BoomWalker Augur

    It would be different to have 54 player raids and other raids as well...18...24...30...36...even 72!!!!

    Maybe smaller raids that lead up to bigger raids. Sadly, it would seem too late for just a such change...

    Next expansion/game update possibly...but it would mess up the "lore" and "story"...so next year.

    Perhaps have some smallish raids to lead up to the bigger/normal raids. Something between missions and 54-player raids.

    Flagging through the small raids to lead to bigger raids. More treadmill raids? Maybe.

    Could give drops that each group leader can possess in a larger raid (54-player) that flags that group...leading to needing only 9 items. Or it could be a mix of items from a few smaller raids...3 smaller 18-player raids each drop 3 (or 6?) items. One raid drops some orb thing...3 or 6 of them...another drops a shard thing...and another drops a starfish (yea! Starfish are cool!) and a group leader has to have one of those items which "flags" the group for the larger 54-player raid.

    This would require 9 groups...not necessarily full groups. Perhaps this system would be used for the higher end raids. Or just require any group in the raid to have one of the things...so later a single group could do a 54-player raid with just 6 players.

    Or just flag all members of each smaller raid for lower tier raids like normal.

    But smaller raids could lead to bigger raids...progression of sorts....

    And of course...smaller raid targets could be just more content for players to do and have little to do with the storyline.
  5. Tenken Augur

    I do agree but not every guild will beable to do as well as other and also referring to having all guilds have a chance to reach those high end guilds. but having different 3 different tiers of 1 raid allows any even those who have trouble to progress an slowly getting the event down to a science...

    Raid 1 - tier 1 - farmable day one for every guild unless you just do nothing inside [course its a raid still need to know what you are doing, but it be easy]

    Raid 1 - tier 2 - farmable day one for med to top guilds but is tough added more adds, 2 different AE's, 2 AT needs to be followed, etc

    Raid 1 - Tier 3 - unfarmable day 1[so i say] Top guilds 2 more AE's added, 5 more AT needs followed, etc [hidden from beta - only out when live released[wont happen cause probably be to many bugs]]

    by doing this give a chance for most guilds to learn the event an slowly work there way up to the higher tier an slowly adjust to the changes to the event an slowly know what they need to do in other expansion when release with raid setup now...

    but i was referring to the elite abilities per difficulty, they got more and different combo's etc.
  6. Xirtket Augur

    I just hope that there's not so much trash/adds

    I love raiding, but I HATE raiding trash, and a raid of adds?? come on that's just ridiculous.
  7. Bladeth New Member

    EZ Moders ruin games.
  8. Battleaxe Augur

    No thanks.

    1. Why exactly would SOE waste money on content a tiny minority of a tiny minority would beat?

    2. After a looooong day I'm going to pull nails from oak boards with my eyelids because its hard? No thanks.

    The are enough games that have lost 80% of their subscribers from their high water mark by shipping content that's an ordeal.
  9. wingz-83 Augur

    The same reason that they add raid mechanics to group content that non-raiders can't beat it. I don't know anyone that hasn't raided that has beaten some of these missions. They also keep making 54 man raids year after year after year instead of some smaller raids to appeal to a larger audience of smaller guilds.
  10. Axxius Augur

    Missions with raid mechanics is a different kettle of fish. I don't think they really intend to make those missions hard on non-raiders. The way these missions are created doesn't leave them much choice. They take a raid event and try to scale it down to the group level. But you can't just throw away the whole design, and raids are designed around all these mechanics.

    Smaller raids? Did you miss ToV? That's 12 smaller raids right there. There are also 2 named mobs in CRB designed for a 2-group mini-raid. And a couple of missions in VoA. They did try 36-player raids in SoD (Hard Tower) - that was really bad for most guilds, forcing extra people out of the game. No thanks. There is nothing wrong with the ToV approach, it works for all guilds.
  11. Imrahil Augur

    Well, how long did it take the top guilds to beat Xorbb 1? The event isn't as complex or hard as some in the past have been (even in the recent past, Triunity pre-nerf without a break was FAR harder than Xorbb1), it had (and still has) other issues though.
    All is relative in the end ;)
  12. Zunnoab Augur

    It's all relative yeah but when looking at the raid game as a whole the event is definitely not "medium." What the top guilds can do isn't a good indicator of anything tuning wise, sadly, which is kind of neat what they can accomplish.

    SOE already admitted it saw a population drop with Underfoot, and I really wonder just how dramatic it was. The raid game wouldn't exist in any new fashion if they catered to the super minority that can deal with super hard stuff. I found it interesting some in this topic only brought up the later tiers of Underfoot. It wasn't just T7+ in Underfoot that was too much. It was the entire expansion. A very large number of guilds, even those that made it through SoD, got stuck even on Fippy before his retunes. You can look at the progress charts and say "well look lots actually did it" but that only looks good until you see how many other guilds were alive at the time, and how many of those outright vanished since then. This was harder to argue back then, but looking back at the facts of what happened I wish I was wrong back then. So-called "EZ Mode" isn't easy to the majority of players, and even then not every raid force is willing or even able to min/max and be extremely picky about how excellent each and every applicant is. It's not even like even close to a majority of well regarded classic games are that difficult either.

    You would get your supposed good design for a few expansions and then have nothing more to deal with if they stuck with that kind of exclusive design. The fact is the minority that want stuff so incredibly difficult aren't numerous enough to support the game, and even if they were in my opinion it would be incredibly bad to focus development tuning to aim it at a small minority that plays better, as if that's some kind of badge that makes ignoring the rest of the player base (for which it is most definitely not "EZ Mode") the right thing to do. It wouldn't be right to throw out an entire huge section of the raid player base, some that have been playing for a decade or more, either.

    It's amazing how efficient and powerful the top guilds or even the higher end guilds are compared to the majority of other guilds, so I have nothing against such forces. The developers have said they are trying to accommodate that power of guild by adding harder achievements, while acknowledging not everyone cares about them. I feel bad for the people that want that challenge, but it just isn't the right way to go about designing things unless they created hard mode versions of each raid, as some games do. They said that's non-trivial and would take too much development time for tuning, unfortunately. In my opinion all the lowered raid cap version does is increase the percentage of the raid that has to be support to win. Council of the Nine in particular, for my guild back then, required just as much healing as other 54 person raids. We had to just sit several groups of other people and deal with a longer fight. Thankfully the developers have no plans for lower capped raids at this time.

    A good example of the achievement thing is the Shard's Landing raid. That's a decently difficult fight for a raid force that isn't super powerful, and it's really not worth continuing on at all if a wrong accusation is made because the AE from the boss is terrible enough to be a huge threat as is, when at that tier. Still, there are achievements for winning that event after powering up that AE a number of times. There's an achievement for fighting multiple dragons at once in ToV, etc. Even back in Underfoot there were some virtually impossible achievements for the time the expansion was current (not killing any of the four side guys on the First Creation, letting each Sister power up).

    One thing I found interesting is I was talking to someone I know in one of the top 5-7 or so guilds, and the topic of hard mode raids came up. He said even his guild would do the easier ones anyway to gear up faster to race to the end. That really speaks volumes on the subject of the desirability of super difficult raids.

    The likes of Zeixshi-Kar (harder to keep tanks up on him than most T2 bosses), Zalikor, the Chapterhouse raid, and the first Xorbb event (if done exactly as intended) are still quite difficult for a great number of raid forces. I've even had someone tell me that the Kael raid was the second most difficult for their guild in T1 RoF, while it was the easiest by far for my guild for some time (which really shows just how different various raid rosters can be). I'd hardly call RoF "EZ Mode" for most of the game.

    I don't know many that really enjoy the Zalikor event but it's actually one of my favorites when we have the right kind of force on to do it. There is one thing in particular as a raid leader I admire about that event. It was clearly designed with not-so-perfect raid forces in mind. The eastern egg platform for the three flight stages was clearly designed to be much easier than the others. It gives newer applicants or those people that just never catch on to not falling into the lava or being able to get out before dying something to do to contribute to the raid. I can stick one or two players that can handle the event better there and stick everyone else that always dies there and count on the group surviving, and it's not like those people are worthless to the raid. Those drakes, even if light blue, still need to die to prevent Zalikor from eating them to heal. It just gives me as a raid leader somewhere to productively put those undergeared or recently dead people where they can still contribute to the event. I love that.

    I want to point out that my opinions of group or raid stuff isn't the same either. I'll say things like "the boss probably should not summon if the boss needs to be moved frequently," but that's only in the context of the group game. Obviously a whole raid of people can deal with that better. I really can't think of better examples of how different the dynamic is going from group to raid than with the Evantil and Grelleth raids. Even in raid gear, the mission versions of those events were actually harder than the raids before they retuned them, I think, simply due to the stress placed on a smaller number of players (silence and multiple things to tank on Grelleth, and again silence with the traps in Evantil).

    Hopefully they will please as many people as possible, but my only point is this subject is a heck of a lot more complicated than "EZ Moders ruin games." It's incredibly hard to find the right tuning I'm sure, and I don't envy the devs on this front.
  13. Battleaxe Augur

    At the Guild Summit SOE was told about some of the difficulties raids with different max number of characters created. At that time they stated that they would come up with a number and stick with it (54 was strongly hinted).

    Nothing has changed that would make raids of different sizes less difficult to deal with.
  14. Siddar Augur

    You want raids tuned for level 110+ you say.

    You want a raid tuned for 5000 hp tanks? That means 60-70 hitters 140k AE and also 150% more dps then is available today so triple the amount of HP current mobs have?

    Then you want some type of super rewards for beating these raids?

    I doubt you will get what you desire here. Maybe your guild can go and beat v=Vulak without killing drakes adds so you can see what level 110+ AE looks like.
  15. Astehroth Elder

    When people say they want hard raids , what they mean is raids they can learn and beat but which will be too much for vast majority of other guilds. Which is kind of selfish. Why not hard raids that nobody can beat like Gruncuck the Beast (Cooling Chambers) pre nerf.
  16. Darkenr Elder

    What's wrong with catering to all sides like the Coruth talks about? The system Coruth is talking about would be a great system, because it creates raids for all tiers of people. Some easier, some medium level, and some really hard. Seems the best of all worlds right there.. The only thing that would be even better is also creating 1 raid per tier that are 27man raids and make the easy, medium, and hard versions of those just tied to the raid tier so the 27 man in tier 1 is easy, 27man in tier 2 and 3 is medium, and 27man in tier 4 is hard (all it takes is 2 parties of the 27 and you still allow the full 54 so you're not hurting the guilds that can and do actually put together 54 people) to cater to smaller guilds. I don't know why there needs to be any discussion beyond that because it pleases all categories, and gives options.
  17. Battleaxe Augur

    I answered the "Why 54 player raids?" part earlier.

    Since you didn't argue the replies to your "raid mechanics" thoughts, let me add to the response. There have been small guild members that argued SOE should make 18-30 person versions of 54 player raids which have better than group content drops. There have also been non-raiders that argued group geared player doing group content face what are for them raid challenges - they should be rewarded better.

    So, here ya go - group content with raid mechanics. Better yet - examined and adjusted group content with raid mechanics. Still better
    https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/roadblocks-to-class-specific-weapon.201793/
    with full spoilers.

    While a fixed group with never varying makeup might have difficulty (raid guilds alter their raid force depending on events sometimes too), groups who are in a family/non-raid guild should have a pool of manpower to take on content. That's what doing raids or raid-like group content entails.

    I don't know if this is just an experiment or if SOE is going to do this regularly. I suspect its going to be a regular thing. Sooooo - y'all who complain there should be small force raids or insist non-raiders are able to take on raider challenges/raiding is easy, here ya go. Six person "raids" and the chances are if they continue they'll also continue to be examined, re-tuned and spoilerized for your smaller guild convenience.
  18. Leerah Augur

    You are literate and thoughtful. You sound like a wonderful raid leader. Your people are lucky to have you.
  19. BoomWalker Augur

    Rather than 18-30 person versions of 54 player raids...how about smaller raids in general?

    It would be a lot more work for gear upgrades. Given the problems the devs have with making gear upgrades smooth from the group to raid gear...smaller raids would just make it that much more complicated.

    If the folks that don't like 54 player raids and those that want group content to be easier want it to happen...then they will have to be willing to accept a different gear upgrade path. Smaller...larger...different.

    It would probably be work to get them tuned right for the first several but over time they might be easier.

    However, smaller raids...would that make it better or worse overall? Since some group missions are not possible for those that simply refuse to adjust the group makeup...will more/smaller raids mean these groups will want to do these smaller raids and simply complain that they are too hard? And will it water down the overall game or just the raid game? As in...will the smaller and family guilds start raiding and having problems beating them and just want the smaller raids made easier like the group game is complaining about?

    All for smaller raids...not smaller versions of existing or 54 player raids...but it just seems to be a never ending slippery slope of wanting challenging content only to have it be too hard and wanting it made easier.
  20. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    As long as all raids with less than 54 players is not needed for progression.
  21. Abazzagorath Augur

    If there is a need to reduce raid size, then all they need to do is balance the raids for less people, without changing the raid size limit.