Future content should be scaled down.

Group missions is an interesting idea, like Talendor, but it doesn't really solve the desire for a raid force of 4 groups that aren't top tier (as many folks have said that they do current raid content with 1/2 of the 54 or less). As mentioned, there are similar games that have raids for max number, and for a lower number. They're not designed for 50% of the players, but they do have scaling of mechanics and health of enemies that work effectively well.. However, this is EQ, and we will likely never see it. Mentioned in an earlier post is how 4-8 bads can hide out in the 54 man raid, but would be an instant liability with a smaller force, potentially making the 24-player content harder if the bads were in that particular raid.

It could change how Tier1 and Tier2 raid loot are displaced. If the 24 person had the T1 loot that rots or are given to box alts how recent/all expansions are, and save T2 for the 54s. T1 and T2 would need more of a difference though as in the current state, there's no significant difference in the tiered raid loot. There could be a lot of people eating cake in that scenario, and probably more people experiencing end game content overall opening it up to groups that don't have the numbers yet still want to be part of what the development team spends 80%+ of their resources on. It might not be easy to do, though spreadsheets dictate parts of this game and could be implemented in some creative fashion.

You are going to keep suggesting that players raiding with their friends is a pity invite? There is a big difference between keeping the status quo and raiding with established raid forces and making a massive cut to raid numbers and forcing raids to make hard cuts.

I'm saying given the opportunity, if you could 1 to 1 swap the player's character with a better class, they would. You can keep the player behind the character.

With current raid size there really is no need to make that choice at all to have someone switch to a different class. That would be a different story if raid sizes got cut by over 50%.

I don't think a hard limit such as 24 would be a good idea just because so many guilds have spent years building up 54 person teams. Even in this last few months where attendance was spotty our numbers would vary between 30 and 45 people.

They could design around 24 people and then scale up as the numbers increase. However, having a raid scale up would hurt some of the classes that have been left behind such as monks. The raid will scale equivalently for a monk and a necro, and well, that's certainly not going to encourage anyone to bring a monk. So hard capping at 24 is a bad idea because it will force guilds to cut players. Designing for 24 and scaling up is also bad because you would still want to cut underperforming classes.

I think the devs went with the best choice and that is scaling player power with the banner. They could extend that instead of restricting it to 6 months after raid starts, just allow it from the beginning and gradually scale player power as the numbers in the instance decrease.

Keep raids at 54. As someone stated earlier raid forces are a team concept regardless if it’s private or public force and many players have raided together for decades now. What we need is more difficult raids and more content. NoS was a snooze fest.

All I know is I get tired of raids potentially getting called if there isn’t eight clerics. One force can do it with 3 or 4, why can’t others?