TBM Scaling Raids - Am I missing something?

"Level Scaling Raids – Instanced versions of Plane of Hate and Plane of Fear that scale for level 75-105 raids."

Now as I understand it these raids will scale to the highest level person on the raid. So if you have thirty people from say level 75 to 81 the raid will scale to level 81.

I am assuming the raids will have difficulty levels similar to current expansion raids in the past just scaled to the highest level person in the raid. I am also assuming they are designed around 54 person raids since nothing is mentioned.

Now correct me if I am wrong but most raid guilds doing current content have the majority of their members at max level at the time the content comes out or quickly leveled to max level if there was a level increase. I am guessing difficulty levels take this into account. I also assume most raid guilds are usually fielding at least 40 members on these raids when they are current content.

So now we have scaling raids. Unless I am missing something these seem to be completely useless and I cannot see a reason for them. My hope is I am missing something huge here either unrevealed or something. I am also hoping they took up zero dev time because two hours on them based on what I know and assume (and I could be REALLY wrong here) they won't get used much.

I run a large casual guild on xegony. As large as it is if I group toons in 5 level increments I only have 15-20 active toons in level ranges of 75-80 80-85 90-95 etc that could be fielded for a raid. There are no other large casual guilds to ally with and field a force. It makes zero sense to have a level spread larger then this since the raids scale tot he highest level.

I don't even like the odds of being able to get an open raid going. I mean ideally you would really want everyone the same level because of the scaling. Getting 54 level 75's on an open raid who have some idea of raiding? Unless you are a raid guild that requires everyone have level 75 toons for raiding content it won't be happening. One of the reasons raid guilds can field strong forces is they they are all at or near max level with the toons they raid with. This is where the most concentrated groupings of levels occur.

So what am I missing how will scaling raids be of any use?

Well honestly, they haven't given us much in the way of details about this feature. However, this seems to me like an offshoot of the HA mechanic which would mean it wasn't written from scratch (so didn't cost as many manhours). This seems like a Hack My Life style repurposing. What you're not getting is the pseudo-political marketing spin that this allows for. You now have content for 75-105 and not just max level. Sure, you might need more content at max level but being able to repurpose some of that new content so it has some utility for people below max level allows you to sell the expansion as a 75-105 expansion instead of "don't bother unless you're 105". I don't think they're saying that raid forces of level 75s are widespread. But just like with the so-called "dumbing down" of MMOs over the last 10 years, offering something for a wider band of players is what's best for business (even if they never use it). That's really the only reason I can see since, as you state, there aren't very many 54-man raid forces under level 90 (I hesitate to say 'no raid forces' because I'm sure some will attempt to form some if the loot is good enough).

Scaling raids were explained in the announcement stream, they just wanted to see if their HA code could handle multiple groups. It can, so they're there. It won't be useful to anyone, is just neat.

There are no servers with thirty people from say level 75 to 81 even if you pretend all of them would want to group together for raid. I'm guessing trash mobs will be dropping loot too like back in the day so you can go there with 1-2 groups. Depending on zone experience 105s can also invite Timmy the Returnee who just ponied up cash for Heroic toon at 85 if he has trouble getting into a filthy boxer designed HAs.

It's been said that Inny and Draco are full blown raids.

The golems are "mini" raids. I would think these raids would be set with about 30'ish folks in mind and will prolly drop gear about the same level as Arx @105.

The question to me is really itemisation - Are they going to spend a large amount of time to create 75,80,85,90,95,100,105 - i.e 7 different versions of the same item? for each item? Seems nuts to me. But then I cannot see how they can scale the focus/item clicks if they don't do that.

Yeah I heard the stream but I am sure there are many things the could do just to see if it would work that might actually be useful. Hopefully some of the raids are mini raids otherwise any time spend on this was a waste of time. Though I guess if they are planning on using it on the new progression server then from Daybreak's perspective it may be a "cha-ching"

The scaling raids are a fantastic idea, although as you noted mostly useless at the moment.

I think they're fantastic because it works and there is no reason it can't be used to encompass more raids in the future (pogrowth, posky and pomischief next please!) So, supposing EQ is still chugging along after a few more expansions, and there is a whole suite of scaling raids available, this vastly reduces the barrier of entry for new players.

The scaling raids can be established as a constant, a well known set of raids that new players can participate in from Level 75 (or Heroic Character) until they do reach max level and can start participating in current raids. The raid equivalent of Heroic Adventures (Heroic Raids?)

These HAs/HRs set the scene for fixed walk-throughs and guides for new players, a core set of stuff that people can just get straight into. This would help Daybreak tremendously to start marketing and acquiring new players en masse. Download the game for free, try it for free, purchase a Heroic Character for $20 if you like it, and start raiding and grouping straight away.

It's pie in the sky, and maybe Daybreak isn't considering that at all, but it's a nice thought

** I presume CotF becomes free to play once the new expansion comes out, which opens HAs to players without them having to purchase an expansion pack to get into them. Hopefully, Daybreak considers including the scaling raids the same way.

I see a number of potential issues/exploits with those scaling raids. The devs said in the live stream that they applied the HA scaling code to the raids. One of the features of HA scaling is it being dynamic. Whenever a higher level player enters - the mobs scale up. If the high level player leaves - the mobs scale down (is that right? I've never tried this part).

This gives the players the power to manipulate the difficulty. In the HA's it doesn't really matter. Not so in raids. Raid events are way too different and non-uniform to tune them properly against such manipulation.

Just one simple idea: start the instance with a raid of lv 85 Heroic chars twinked to all hell with the best gear possible to equip at lv 85. Roflstomp the lv 85 version of the event almost to the end with those totally OP chars. When it's practically won, enter your lv 105's and quickly finish it. Get lv 105 loots. Profit.

Those scalable raids better be protected against things like that. And it was just an idea off the top of my head. I'm sure the smart folks out there will come up with every possible way to exploit the scaling mechanic.

I'm sure that can be dealt with via lockouts, same as a HA where you can't add new people after a certain point, except in this case it would need to prevent people from zoning in too. Ideally the event unlocks after the event is complete for loot purposes.

This is something that will become alot more useful in future expansions (assuming loot gets updated) than it will be right now... If they do 2 - 4 raids like this in each expansion then a couple of years down the road we will have a whole bunch of stuff that can be farmed on off nights that is still level appropriate and a challenge.

What I think is promising about the scaling raid/HA abilities and upgradeable gear is future revamps of older raid zones. I would have loved the ability to raid Anguish (or insert your favorite old raid zone here) scaled to 105 and be able to upgrade my current gear than Arx again for the 35th time and not have any gear advancement opportunities. If they can make Fear and Hate scalable, then potentially they would be able to do that with all the instanced raid zones. That would in turn give raid leaders multiple options for targets, and a bored raid force something new to focus on, while also replaying encounters old raiders had fond memories of or weren't around to experience the first time thru. Add in chase loots for each of the raid zones and the ability to upgrade current gear through currency and you now have 100's of raid to keep raiders busy. No one has said that this was the intention of the devs with the scaling raids, but if it is I would be a very happy customer.

Would be cool if they altered the mechanism to allow "hard mode" raids. Basically, set the raid difficulty based off the highest level, but set the rewards based off the difference between the average level and the highest level.

So, for example, 105 is max in raid, average level is 101, you get 4000 hp gear, 105 is max in raid, average level is 98, you get 4200 hp gear. As example with numbers for demonstration. Re-institute the 15 level cap in spread in an instance for these raids.

Encourage guilds to delevel to try stuff for upgrades, giving them lots to do when they have to relevel up, going along with actually capping the number of corpses expedient works with to like 4 or 5. Would kind of force you to keep playing all year long every week if you *really* wanted to max out what is possible. Would need to modify required levels on gear though. Like, 105 required becomes 90 required 105 recommended (keep 15 level spread from gear you could be wearing the same as raid instance), and you're gear takes a hit with the recommended.

Crazy idea, but would be "interesting" anyway. Maybe create an NPC that lets you voluntarily lose a level (with no way to gain the exp back except gameplay). Only the truly hardcore would bother, so maybe make the gear increase over base 105 new raid gear substantial and then put in a pre-nerf PoW difficulty event that is non-progression and essentially tank/spank that forces you to get some of that gear. Make the rewards for beating that some permanent aa stat increase or something like the heroic aa stuff we have for cotf partisan stuff.

itemized trash is basically the only reason for scaling raids, darkwater and essence of the citadel only on raid events but enigmatic remnants, modest wraps of ildaera, elegant wraps of oseka, dread touched,
glowing obsidian rune, humming finsternacht rune, whirring clockwork rune, glowing prismatic rune, tangible dream fragment, alaran periapt and terrormote on trash

the scaling raids themselves are absurdly difficult to organize because of scarcity of players while getting the loot from older content is so trivial, have a level 105 even group geared tank handling the boss if you can gather 30ish players of appropriate level for the content to handle the rest of the event while the scaling raids wouldn't let you trivialize damage output from the boss

if coeval essences drop in tbm raids same as sof squire loot drops in cotf scaling ha's it's a complete waste of time, raidloot.com and type in a level if you're unfamiliar with loot available at a given level, cotf having inferior loot to several previous expansions is a complete joke. gearing up in house of thule to beat cotf content to get loot with half the hp of the gear you are wearing

Also here is another monkey wrench in there scaling raids... with the new changes the lower level pullers are useless to pull mobs with higher level players ..... before the changes they just put in the level difference was still somewhat workable...

Lower level anything will be useless, not like you're going to be tanking/healing/cc/dpsing worth a crap at 80s with 105 players/mobs there. If you're mixing player levels, lowbies will be getting carried for exp/loot, or won't be there at all if those suck for them. They shoulda just bumped the heroic toons to 100.

Name a recent change that was POSITIVE. Players have a tendency to back farm the old content because it is easier and requires less time. Start scaling raids, and poof there goes that option.

This is a good point they probably didn't consider. Currently, you can do an open raid with a combination of max level players and lower levels, hit up an older raid, & help people behind the curve get some upgrades. With a scaled raid, the old raid would be the same difficulty as a high-end raid, and you'd need a full force of similar levels to complete it. While scaling raids sounds like a nice idea, it's actually going to make it harder for people to catch up, not easier.

Its also gonna be pretty nice for TLP servers etc when they get there...

it only works for voluntary progression guilds if they choose to add in tbm raids at some point after reaching tss

Of if the add raid instancing to the new progression server they could also add in lower level versions of the raids.