Consider Reducing Design Raid Size

^For bleeding edge raiding players absolutely.

Conceding that a chunk of any new expac is going to be old zone geometry reused, I'm highly in favour of significant revamps to such reused content when it is being repurposed (i.e., Taeloesia gets overun by the might of an orc federation. The hills and such are in the same spot, but zone objects and NPC and how it all interacts is revised massively.).

There are a lot of players playing behind the curve though, including less-serious guilds. If a scalable raid system could be put in place that gave bleeding-edge options when it was current, but extended the useful life of the zones into a few expacs for the behind the curve... then you are effectively increasing the amount of content in the upper end game. The traditional method results in old raid zones that aren't used for much as time goes on, in many cases much faster than similar level "group" zones.

In theory that should allow for more fresh bleeding edge stuff in a given new expac, since the zones would be useful longer. Maybe the "group" versions of the zones don't even unlock until the next expac.

As well, any 5 year old+ raid redone in such a system to scale up to modern difficulty and loot would probably be a welcome addition for many players, some of whom may never have done it in the past and most of whom likely haven't done it recently. The more they are inventing from scratch the less total zones we get, so it's a trade off.

They talked about this several years ago, and people went bat stuff crazy at the idea. So they scrapped it.

Depends on guild, one of the problems is that the current raid designs with insta-gib if you don't follow the exact emotes problem and run around like a moron. It's supposed to be a raid, not a foot race or follow the leader or twister.

The other issue is that some people blitz through content, while others are more sluggish. Personally, even when I was high end I hated the rapid release cycle there was no break in raiding six nights a week when content was released every six months. Yea, no.

Don't mess with raid sizes. It screws up guilds.
We had 70 person raids so guilds built up a raid force for that size raid. Then they reduced the size so we had people sitting on the bench. They end up moving guilds or quitting the game.

Need something for raiders with everything to chase (and to reward them for grinding out an expansion for 6+ months after they’ve beaten it). Consider adding a piece of loot that would be valuable for at a couple expansions that costs 2500 coins. With 9 yielding 10 coins each, would take guilds about 28 cycles to get everyone the item, assuming full clears and perfect attendance. I think that would at least reward people who show up each and every raid long after the guild is geared! Loot could be the equivalent of Crestra’s Earring, Jeweled Skull of Null, or an Artisan’s Prize.

Meanwhile I have been chewing on ideas for how they can make the game more challenging in the next expansion.

Age of Unity is a prime example for what needs to happen in most of the medium and lower tier guilds. Swallow your pride and merge. The leaders of your guilds need to be able to read the writing on the wall and stop holding your members hostage to a sorry old guild that is too proud to adapt and overcome.

For most guilds, you need 70 to 100 active players with various attendance percentages to be able to field a full raid on a given night.

Create recruitment incentives. Whether you give bonus dkp for recruiters or slide them a krono or whatever it takes to keep the recruits coming in.
Make sure to announce and remind often what your guild is actively recruiting on both the Daybreak forums and in guild chat. If I sent a tell to a random player in every lower end guild and asked what classes their guild is recruiting, I bet I would get "I don't know" 99% of the time as the response.
Encouraging people to build pickup groups to run ROS missions or exp groups. One of the classic hallmarks of a failing guild is that noone is running pickup groups to talent scout on the server.

Be patient with prospective recruits. Many talented people are wallowing in burnt out guilds that they have been in for years. It is going to take time and effort to get them to move on. Invite them to groups, invite them as a guest to raids without pressuring them into joining too hard.
Find out what motivates potential recruits and mold your tactics to capitalize on their motivations.
There is an art to recruiting that frankly most people don't understand.

Ultimately nothing hurts a raiding guild like overwhelming failure.
If you beat content and provide a fun environment, its easy to recruit.

I am definitely opposed to tailoring raids to fit 42 people.
Rise to meet the challenges.

I really wish some entity on FV would run a open force raid on weekend afternoons. It would be great for the better geared casuals who want to experiment. I wonder if this is a thing on test like it is on Xegony with Machin, etc?

Do not think it will happen, being FV.

Why, its the items for sale server, and why let yourself get competition with open raids.

I do not like FV for items being sellable in general.

Heck, why not take a chapter out of the TLP handbook on this: IE, have a open force raid on FV where they auction loots for krono\plat on the spot. Just like on Agnarr there is a guild that does weekly VT runs based on the same premise.

Symphony of Arms raids... Thursdays and Saturdays? Or something like that. If people want to try their hand at raiding on FV, that's a good place to start.

There are raid entities on FV for sure. They all fill the mid PM TZ in USA though.

TZ issues might be more favorable for some if something of an "open force" raid that was mentioned before happened in the afternoon. I always noticed FV ties "name that TLP server" for the highest population. Maybe that explains the time zone deal too.

I bet there was around 700-800 people on Sunday afternoon. Genchat was full and you have subchannel at 250ish. When you add in FTP accounts in newplayer channel.....easily over 7 to 8 hundred.

For those servers who have "open force" raids, I would be curious to hear how or if other raiding guilds feel it changes their participation levels?

Yeah, the lack of non-standard time raid guilds/teams on live servers, along with the segmentation of their potential recruits, is unfortunate. FV does have a high population, so if someone wanted to take a shot at Sunday afternoon or whatever, that'd be cool.

That said, there are definitely opportunities for people who want to experiment with raiding on FV. FV is actually most lacking an additional mid/high end team with Prosperitas not really doing much. There isn't really any interim between KoI/SoA and VH right now.

I think if you did "open force" raid on Sat\Sun afternoon you would just bid on items like they do in the Agnarr VT open raid event instance. Bids would come in, most of the time, under the "going rate" price of the item.

I do see a problem with this idea because who would get the plat\kronos? I guess, following along with the Agnarr example, it would go to the "organizing core" from the guild(s) that sponsor, or something like that.

OR, you could come up with a deal where you could hold a lottery for the proceeds based on some kind of gambling concept You would just need a trusted 3rd party service (Bleve's EQ Gaming Enterprises, INC) heh. Does the EULA even allow player run gambling type deals?

Can you tell I played Eve online for 12 years? Eve has all sorts of things like this and actual reputable 3rd party services for things like this as well.

My suggestion about providing difficulty options would not change how top tier raid guilds raid. If anything it would benefit them by providing possible applicants who have maybe been able to beat all or some of the raids on easy and medium difficulty. These applicants would have better gear than your standard group gear applicant and they would already have some knowledge about the events. They would still need to learn what ever mechanics are new in the hard mode encounters but it should be significantly easier to bring them up to speed than someone with lesser gear and no knowledge of the events.

Top tier guilds would still be doing the 54 man version and have the best gear based on best available loot dropping in the most difficult version. If the guild has not enough to field two full raid forces they could work out a rotating system to where players alternate between hard and medium versions so there are never any sit outs. Depending on the guild they might opt to have new applicants be in the B team doing the mid tier raids and depending on their performance, attendance and any other factors they decide this could potentially promote them to the A team in the future. Depending on how the top guilds handle things it could turn out to be very beneficial to the overall health and longevity of their guild.

For the mid tier guilds that struggle with numbers to beat the hard encounter they would still be able to take on the medium difficulty raids and progress through the expansion being able to enjoy the content. This would keep these guilds engaged in content and provide them with a sense of accomplishment along the way instead of frustration.

For the smaller family style guilds they might be able to attempt the easier versions which again bring more content to players who otherwise would never actually experience the content. This might even open up more possibilities for PUG style raid events during off peak hours or on servers where public raids might not be available or available when its ideal for some people.

At the end of the day a system like this only provides more potential benefits than negatives with the obvious downfall of not enough developer time which I have already mentioned unless during the development process they start with the easy mode, add onto it to make the medium mode and add onto that to make the hard mode coming to the same results as we already have. This idea takes nothing away from current raiders but opens up more content to the player base that otherwise might never get to experience the content. Everyone from the average joe to the most hardcore player pays for raid development this just provides a more realistic opportunity for all paying customers to experience the content while still keeping within the spirit of the game by giving the best rewards based on difficulty and time invested instead of based on what area code you live in or do you have real life responsibilities that don't allow for you to be a hardcore raider every week.

Or maybe have them send tells with the item they want and the item it would replace. Award it to the most needy. Nothing is perfect but not everything has to be driven by greed.

That would work too. Just the raid coin and the progression are rewards in and of themselves.

This is good. I like this.

I was doing that on friday, it worked this week. But yeah, a call out of who messed up would be nice.

I think it was back during the badger badger badger raid they first added names to the call out messages?

You can't scale loot properly. Nobody wants the crap gear, they want the good gear. They scaled gear by adding diamonds to make a lesser tier of raid gear.

They've tried to do scaling in the past (in some mission content at least), I won't disagree with your point. I prefer the idea of harder difficulties getting progressively more drops of the same loot table.

But then again I am of the belief that some top gear in any era should be questable, and that at least some top gear should have a rare % of dropping in group content. As in raiding is the efficient way to get there --and harder raiding would be even more so.