I wonder how much influence Machin Shin will have in this upcoming expansions raid difficulty. Allow me to explain. Elidroth has stated on numerous occasions that he likes testing raids with MS because they form fast, are readily available, and provide objective feedback. What if after testing an event or 2, MS barely beats the event, but tells the Devs the boss should hit harder, more adds, etc etc...basically making the event a gatekeeper raid, very difficult but beatable. Obviously, people will jump on the boards and say 'omgs we couldnt beat this event on the 1st try, eq sucks', but MS will say 'yeah, we tested it, made it hard, and we stand by it. Spend some nights on it, learn it, then earn your win on it' It will be interesting to see how it plays out. P
Actually, to extend the expansion life time....having smaller raids part of progression flagging could be an option. Of course there will be those that complain it is a roadblock to the end content and how they have to run more smaller raids, etc. If it was part of progression it would have to make sense and not just be a roadblock of needing to run it multiple times for everyone to get flagged. So it isn't likely to happen.... But making everyone complete all missions to be flagged into raids is too hard too apparently...
I have no objections to making everyone need all missions to be flagged for raids, as long as groupers are treated the same and they have to complete missions to unlock zones. I'd love to see zones locked behind progression again, always gave me a sense of achievement when I got to the next zones. Having raids with less than 54 players causes bench issues, people don't like spending time on the bench as numbers increase on the bench people start logging off. Upper House was fine it was a 54 man raid which could be split if you had 2 balanced raid forces, if not you still did it with 54. Forcing guilds to bench more players isn't good for the raid game. If you want to extend the life of the expansion there is better ways to do it, like adding flags, or limiting flags and keys per raids like we have had in the past, but then that needs to be mirrored in the group game.
There is the rub...some guilds seem to have issues getting 54 toons. Agree that smaller raids as part of end game progression will cause issues.... So does that mean...group level "end game" where there is appropriate gear and rewards for completing the group content....and is required to get into small raids and 54 toon raids? Then maybe a small raid force "end game" where there is appropriate gear and rewards...but is NOT required to get into 54 toon raids. And end with 54 toon raids for the typical "end game" EQ has had as a norm? It just increases the work...but would it be that mythical balance of group/small guild/"raider" guild content that is talked about? There has to be something that can be considered and implemented to address the issue with the group game being too hard for group folks without nerfing the raid game for the "raider elite"...shrug. Watering down the 54 toon raids won't keep the "hardcore" raiders so would smaller raid sizes and thus (in theory) easier raids help those smaller guilds and raid forces?
They need to do a few raids with lower numbers which aren't needed for progression like NTOV was, just without Vulak at the end. Or put some raid type mobs (2 group and upward) in open zones, just don't put them in the hunter achievement. Something like Octa in Fort Mech where it doesn't agro players running through the zone and needs X amount of damage before it becomes active, and flagged as a raid mob so players don't make the mistake of thinking it is a group named.. That said Heart of Fear raids aren't that hard, our first win on HoF1 was with 41 players (no boxes) and our last win on HoF 2 was with 47, other wins have been anything from 41 to 54 in raid with some on the bench. But that is with raid geared toons and I don't expect mid tier guilds to be able to do it with those numbers.
1. The group game is not too hard for group folks. It tuned to group players in group gear. 2. It's their endgame, therefore some of it is challenging for them. It's not the raider endgame. It doesn't have raider gear in it. It does have augs and often has must complete events to get flagged to raid in it. Most raiders wouldn't be unhappy to have both those things in raids instead or in raider only group content. 3. In the same way group content is tuned to group players in group gear, raids are tuned for raiders, not ubermench. While every guild has players in it that drowned everyone else out in their effort to get devs to overtune content they also have players the speak up or PM that events are overtuned, or there's a possinle exploit/something works that probably shouldn't, etc. If every time a dev works with Guild X that guild's advice results in highly overtuned content that must be retuned then that guild will not remain a "favorite" for long. As Elidroth posted not too long ago - highly exclusive content doesn't make much economic sense. I'm sure MS is properly thoughtful in its feedback.
Ok...nice try there...but let's not go there okay? Maybe, the people involved are honest, fair, and considerate. It was a poor attempt at making Machin Shin the bad guy...try again please.
I realize this is going to cause some cognitive dissonance, but most high end guilds like MS and RoI suggest raids be easier, not harder.
Making just a few, or heck even 1, super hard event like OMM for high-end guilds would fix a lot of problems with this community. Make other raids vary from easy to medium to almost hard diff. and give the others who would like something really challenging their own event. So simple, and yep as somebody said..no beta for this event, nobody will mind if it needs to be patched over time. Won't happen thou, but in a perfect world it would.
Then i do not understand their motivation of playing this game, as they basically only play it for very few weeks/year. Sometimes maybe even only days.
At Fan Faire this year, the devs repeatedly said the problem was scaling the events to make harder events, and this took too much developer time. As I was thinking about that, I would like to offer my suggestion as a way to easily (at least it seems easy) increase the difficulty of raids. Already you have events like Grelleth, where there are two keywords to a boss mob, so make it 3 keywords. Saying the first keyword starts the normal mode of the event. Saying the second spawns more mobs, and saying the third keyword spawns yet more mobs. These mobs are only active if the keywords are spoken before the main start keyword. This would then be used to add additional mobs to the event, that MUST die before the named (again, like the Cheslith task with the additional add mobs to kill, requiring the optional deaths before beating the task) to increase the potential loot available. The mobs could further be tuned to have AoEs that maybe increase the dmg taken from the boss mobs AoEs, etc, use the agro dumping mechanisms in HoF to make it so they can't just kite the boss while the adds die, etc. Additional thoughts - on death the extra mobs could give a buff to the boss that makes them harder still, so you would have to beat the boss to low health, then kill the adds, then finish the boss off... Yes, it would take some additional time, but no where near as complex as creating and tuning another version of the event - it's an artificial way of reducing the number of people on the main event, by requiring them to deal with more adds. If you figure a mob requires a group to keep under control, that means the other 48 people are beating the boss. If a mob requires 18 people, then there are only 36 available to deal with the boss. Additionally, the extra mobs could/would be fined tuned separate from the raid, so even if they were too harsh initially, everyone can still see the base content, and progress past - while having a challenge out there for guilds that have beaten the expansion on week 1, and now are looking for a reason to continue. In this way, it wouldn't greatly impact raids at release. For loot, even if only 1 additional piece of gear dropped for each step of keyword (so 1 or 2 added pieces), adding +1 heroic, or 20-30 hp/m/e to items each step up, that might be enough of an incentive for people to do the additional content, especially after they've beaten the normal mode of the mob. Finally - make the upgraded items non-purchase items, so that people have to do the raid to get the items. Some might say this is bad because rare drops will remain rare - I think it would be OK in the long run, because the items are not mission critical items, just something that gives a special item with a little bragging rights. For an item with 3500 hp/m, even 3560 doesn't seem overbalancing, but if someone is in a guild that farms all the hardmode raids, would add up over several pieces of gear to make a nice bump.
It takes more than one clear to gear up a guild. and more CD inc, many of them also play heavily in the group game, moreso than "groupers" do.
Multiple guilds beta test raids and provide feedback. The one(s) the designer chooses to test with have more attention for their feedback, but the devs listen to others as well.
Most? Dunno about RoI and MS, but we suggest tuning changes that seem to make sense, whether it's easier or harder. For example, in HoF we suggested raid 2 to be made easier but raid 3 harder. Because the initial version of raid 3 was the easiest of all raids, and raid 2 was near impossible without good luck. The final raid needs be the hardest IMO. The devs agreed and tuned it up. I think it ended up where it was intended to. 26 guilds beat it already. Why would anyone suggest it to be made easier?
That's the problem a bit these days..satisfied with repeating stuff, and having not many challenges. How the heck would hardcore raiders find much fun in the "grouping" game if you get just a few zones that usually follow the same rules each now. Unless you play alts i guess, but that's not like really playing a game. Just cos you might be used to it, doesn't mean there are still some people who see there could be better things.
I personally like how PoP was done, needed to do progression to get to the higher tier zones and raids. Till you finally hit the promised land of PoTime. I know a lot liked that theme also and to many raiders that I talk to still say PoP was their favorite expansion.
Sadly there will never be a PoP or anything close to it. The Gold Star generation who think they are entitled to everything and the old people/parents who now think they are owed everything because their guild was once top 10 years ago have ruined EQ. Even the officers of RoI when testing want to keep things easy for the C.W.L.U.. This game is no longer the hard gamer's game, it's been Casual'd down by people who like to look out Windows watching people Lick icecream cones and the Unions they created to play in.
