The Darkened Sea will have seven raids upon release, two of which are "One Off" raids. The "One Off" raids are a new theme that goes back to the roots of Everquest in a sense. They lock out upon request. So like the first open raids that many have claimed to miss, these two bonus raids will have forces only getting one shot at them per lockout. I'm curious what others will think of the idea, so please post your thoughts here.
The success of this idea depends on its implementation. Raids that you can only try 1 time per week should have a reasonably low chance of failure and a reasonable high amount of fun. Of the 2 'one-off' raids in TDS, only one (the second) fits that description. The first one is harder than most of the 'main progression' raids and is not remotely fun at all. There are still 5 days before anybody sees that raid on Live, which is more time than the whole Tower of Rot beta, so maybe they will tune it down at the last moment. Otherwise it'll be a big stinking turd in the raiding guilds' backyard, taunting them long after they finish the main progression.
The second one is built around creating as much drama as possible, too. If you fail an emote twice, you are banned from the expedition until the event is over. Best of luck to my mid-tier brethren.
Frankly I am so not looking forward to the one-off's. It frankly hurts any mid tier guild or any guild without a required attendance (aka anyone who has large fluctuations on when people log on).
Also, these raids were advertised as "bonus raids" which may be the case because they are there purely for loot and not part of progression ....... but I think they should have beefed up the number of real raids rather than working on "bonus" anything.
Non-top-tier guilds will hate these 2 raids. Unless they are tuned to the Velishan level and you roflstomp them on the first try, it will be just an annoyance and a source of drama. You try this raid 1 time, wipe, and then your next try is next week with half of the raid being different people. Next week you try it 1 more time, wipe, and wait next week to try it again with yet another random combination of players. Etc, etc.
Also, this is the first time that beta-testing a raid will give you a sizeable advantage vs. teams that did not. In the run of a beta you may get to attempt any raid a couple of times. That, at BEST gave you a one-night leg up on any other team, and in most situations the benefit is negligible. If your team could beat it one try on Beta, you gained nothing vs. what happens on Live. Well, a couple attempts on Beta is now a month's worth of tries on Live..... so any of you that didn't beta these raids, best of luck (with the second one, unless they change the first one it will be a write off for a while anyways).
The emote one, if you fail those emotes due to something other than huge server lag, you don't deserve to be in the instance. It is ridiculously easy. Not only do you get a huge emote with a ton of time to follow it, not only are they really basic (stay away from left side, from right side, from back, get far away, get close), but your entire screen turns blue and you get a debuff in your buff window that goes away the moment you are safe.
Except that AoW stayed up for 1 hr and you could do several attempts at him before he despawned. This thing is over in 1 attempt, win or lose.
How can 2 of 7 total raids be considered BONUS content??? This is plain horrible marketing to even call it bonus anything. Visible drops have become less the last few expansions unless these are more along the lines of the Argath raid for loot drops.....and I doubt that.
The two one-off raids were easy on initial implementation. One of them is going live extremely and grossly overtuned. The other is still pretty easy, but yeah.
I believe that Captain Tita's Ghost and Praetor Vitio are the One Off raids. They are Tier 1? The other raids are: Defense of the City · Principal Quaston Numicia · Principal Vicarum Nomia · Principal Indagatrix Lucia · Calix Quirinus Anyone willing to say which are Tier 1 and which are Tier 2? You need to defeat (85% rule) T1 to do T2? Thanks in advance. EDIT: Oh, I think someone said the 5 regular raids start in Arx Mentis. Where does each of the One Off raids start?
T1: Defense of the City, Captain Tita's Ghost (one-off). 4 wins to flag for T2. T2: Principal Quaston Numicia, Principal Vicarum Nomia, Principal Indagatrix Lucia, Praetor Vitio (one-off). 12 wins to flag for T3. T3: Calix Quirinus Beating any regular raid (i.e. not one-off) awards a key to everybody in the raid. The key is a collectable item, you click it - it increases the counter in progression flagging achievement. T1 and T2 keys are not the same.
