Why not make a Challenge/Raiding Server?

There are players who want the low level, slow leveling experience, and there is a TLE server for them.

There are players who want the PvP experience, and there is a PvP server for them.

There are those who like to raid, and complain the content is not challenging enough.

There are casual players who like to craft and decorate as well as adventure, who would like to do some Heroic content, but find it too challenging.

Thus far the last two groups have to share live servers, where it seems no one is happy (judging from the comments I have seen here in forums).

So why not make a Challenge server for raiders and those who want a tough fight? Do it like you do on Test server, give everyone a bauble to go to high level immediately. Put extra challenging content on it. And of course, make it for paid members only.

And make the content on live servers easier for the casual players.

Interesting idea. Not sure how feasible it would be but we can discuss it. That is not a promise it will happen Loving the ideas though, keep em coming

Can we put in a request for a Black Burrow raid zone!!!

Not every player is uber but they still want to have fun. They may never be Raid material but they still spend money and that makes them good for this game.

I believe if hardcore was separated from casual there would be more players in game and I will go so far to say that I believe that most would not leave.

Developers need to be able to keep Raiders raiding and the rest of the player base playing.

Casual players want to get their game on, and they only have the time slot life dictates.

Some Casuals do want to Raid, more Casuals want to Group/Adventure, and some Casuals want to Solo/Adventure.

I would like to see the grind level decreased for them so they will stay in game. It has become too steep.

Example: Overseer ~ Most casual working players may only play Overseer once on a work night.
They are not getting very far.
On a Casual server this could be tweaked.

If they separate Servers by Hardcore, Casual, ect. ect. with no character transfers off maybe this would allow you to tweak for the specific player base and keep them all in the game.

I like the Test Server idea for Casuals and returning players. There could be a few incentives here.
It would be easier for those who want to test drive toons and delete if they change their minds. Once they have decided they could then focus on fine-tuning and that alone takes a long time. Also it would allow them to bypass the grind of transmutting, adorning and tinkering.

Maybe they could look at Vet Bonus and rethink how that could be awarded to players so they could raise other toons with a bonus. Many players like toons but... there's no time.

The Test server exists already, if people want to try out a toon at high level there they can. I made a necro there, which I had never played before, and found I liked it. Every one who makes a toon on Test gets a 120 bauble for adventure and tradeskill, provided they have purchased the latest xpac. If not, they get a bauble appropriate to the highest xpac they have.

Test server has a constant 100% xp server bonus. So it takes very little time to get from 120 to 125, and then you have a vet bonus for the next toon, and then more vet bonus when that one is 125, and so on.

Test server is definitely for casual players to test out the game and help the company by testing live events and updates before they are put on live servers. There are no raiders there, unless they are taking a break from raiding and playing casual

On a Challenge/Raiding server they would need to offer the bauble to go to high level, since hardcore players are not going to want to do the grind to get to max level to raid current content. I see no reason to offer that on live servers for casual players, since it is available already on Test server.

I get what your saying. I understand how the Test Server works, I'm over there. That's what gave me the idea.
My reasoning for the paying casual and or returning customer was the exact one you listed for the Raiders.
Until reality sets in on the mountain of grind that they still have to climb their going to have a lot of fun test driving.

On Kael Drakkel I'm liking the Leaderboard idea, so I'm running with it.

A Raiding Leaderboard.
Prizes for the top Guilds.
It would be nice to see a picture of the Toons from the top Guilds.
Player donations for permanent landmarkers for the winners in game.

And just for fun, can we bet on them?

Only if they merge all the lives servers into one then they can make a new "event" raid server.

Oh man, I would so pay for this...

I was thinking about this idea earlier this week and chatted with a friend about it. It would be interesting if it changed from a level progression to a gear progression. Meaning that if you don't take the time to get the previous content gear, you would. have a bad (potentially impossible) time with the next tier of content.

This would require players to repeat play earlier content in order to progress.

I can also see some problems with this, the biggest being RNG. Imagine not getting the pieces you need to progress just because of sheer bad luck.

The other is potential boredom. If you've raided, you know it is going to be a lot of the same thing repeatedly just to get what you want.

And finally there is the idea of what to do with all of the other non-raid gear out there. None of it would be useful at all.

Raeven, I forgot to come back in here and apologize to you because I wasn't really trying to send this thread a different direction. It's a great idea. But I figured Raiders would not want to move so they won't even consider the idea. They have a whole lot of time invested where they are.

I truly believe the Devs could create a Raiding server though.

When I play on Kael Drakkel what I find myself pondering is,
I could see this tweaked for different playstyles. The gearing and crafting is fascinating there.

Anyway, I hope the Devs don't stop being creative when it comes to Servers.
I want to see all players in-game no matter what their flavor is.

You may be correct about raiders not wanting to move to a specialty server. I am surprised there has been so little positve reaction from raiders to this thread.

The lure of a new TLE is that everything is starting from zero, which means in the beginning everyone is equal. I thought raiders would feel that same lure for a new raiding server, feel the excitement of being the first to conquer the more difficult content. I may be wrong about that.

Another option would be to offer low cost transfers to the new server, so raiders could have their favorite, already geared toons there. I recall a server transfer to. I think, one of the free trade servers having been offered in the marketplace for 500 DBC.

Yet another option would be the opposite of what I originally suggested. Instead of a Challenge server, make an Easy Mode server for casuals like me that would love to be able to run a heroic instance with a couple friends and our mercs. Leave the hard content on the live servers.

For me, however, an Easy Mode server would need to be permanent. I would not be interested in investing time there just to have the server shut down in a year. I loved playing on Fallen Gate, but I have not devoted time to subsequent TLEs because I am not interested in doing the same content over and over again.

I'm always up for a challenge, but I'm not sure a "challenge server" is the right path. The way I see it, Live is the challenge server (especially in RoR!). An easy mode server sounds much better to me, and probably easier to make. I imagine "easy mode" would look like the Kael Drakkel server, but balanced in such a way that 1-2 people could run heroics and 6 or so could run raids. I've been known to "time travel" back to past expansions and found they're either impossible to solo or trivial to solo, with no in-between. I would probably keep my main toons on Live, but I'd be interested in a "story mode" server that lets you experience all the quests and world-changing events.

Yea my original post was not a call for a start from Zero but to pick up where we are in live. I have no desire to start over.

However, I know a ton of raiders that have moved from server to server to be on an active raid guild team when something doesn't work out where they are. I don't know if most would move or not, and I am not implying they would. But I have even seen entire guilds move servers for different reasons. In most cases it has been beneficial for that team and the reason they made the decision.

Yes, I did not mean starting characters from zero. I mentioned previously that they should do it like Test server and give a free bauble to get to high level to start doing current content.

The thrill of a new start for raiders that I was trying to communicate would be the new, blank server. Being the first to make discos there, first to beat raid bosses, etc. Unless server transfers were allowed, everyone would be starting with the same gear, and the race would be on for all the "firsts".

Edit: Re-reading your post, perhaps you mean you would be willing to transfer a toon but not start a new one, not even at high level. I also suggested the possibility of offering low cost transfers to the new server for raiders who wanted to keep, rather than re-create, their favorite toons.

I know what you mean about running old content. I have enjoyed running old raid zones just because I have never been in them before, but other than possibly getting some appearance gear, there is not other reason to do it.

Two of my guildies and I have been doing VoV H1 dungeons with 3 mercs. It is challenging, which is fine, except that we don't get anything from it except for the experience of doing it and maybe an achievement. If any Master spells dropped, it would have a purpose, since those are the same level of spells we are using, but we have not yet seen a Master drop. And if running H1s with 3 toons and 3 mercs is challenging, then H2s, H3s, and raids are probably impossible.

This is the previous xpac, and we can't even do anything in it that gets us anything to improve, so we certainly can't get anything to improve in the current xpac. As you can see from my stats in my sig box, my toon is not poorly equipped. She is as well equipped as is reasonably possible without running RoR heroics.

Hence my frustration, It seems you need the gear that drops in the more challenging dungeons to be able to run the more challenging dungeons to get the gear that you need to run those challenging dungeons. And by the time you are able to run the challenging dungeons, you don't need the gear that drops there.

The player base is already spread too thin. Server merges would make more sense. Then players of like minds can form their own communities within the larger server.

Server mergers does not facilitate casual players being able to run dungeons higher than solos with one or two friends and/or their mercs, which is why I suggested a challenge server and making live content easier for casual players. I have offered an alternate suggestion in the thread Intermediate dungeons, maybe? in this forum.