Raiding is one of the things I like most about EQ over all other games. I'm not sure why, I just do!
What do you like most/least about... EQ's Raid System?
Like least:
That to be successful certain classes are required, namely warriors and clerics (both of which are in very short supply).
That group content gear drops are superior to some of the raid content gear folks were doing only a few months ago. Itemization is in disarray regarding the differences between raid gear and group gear. But I don't have a good solution so I probably shouldn't bring it up.
Like most:
Complex events that require people to pay attention and play their best. (this is a very generic answer but it pretty much nails down why I liked both raiding and leading raids for years and years.)
Least
Best
I'm in the camp that thinks raids are killing the game. To be blunt they are the reason so many leave. I don't like anything about them. They cause nothing but grief to the casual player. I've got nothing good to say about them as I don't believe there is anything good about the greed and downright pettiness of those in raiding guilds.
Least;
1 expansion old gear is upgraded by group mobs that take 30 seconds to kill.
Most;
The skill it takes to defeat a mob.
The patience to learn an event.
The working together to win.
And much more!
I am currently a little frustrated with raids even though I love doing them. I will try to explain why: I have progressed steadily over time with my guild and a number of friends until we reached DoDH. At that point, SoF came out and groupable gear for many classes became better than what was obtainable on raids. Consequently, interest in putting so much effort in to get gear became very small for some players. The result was smaller numbers appearing for the raids, making us utterly unable to follow the raid progression any further... We wipe due to small numbers on events that would drop gear that would probably rot, and that is a sad state of affairs. I'm willing to try such events for fun, but many others of course aren't. I don't have any easy solution for this. Maybe some interesting but not unbalacing rewards could be added to older raids that make them worthwhile for more people again.
Cheers,Vamirez
Good:
- I like the challenge of the events offered, and I like that most are instanced creating less competition for open mobs around Norrath.
- A good selection of activities to do with lots of options to try.
Bad:
- The raid controls range from bad to awful. There should be a way to invite a person without them having to be flagged as a group leader.
- It would be nice if they would fix the issue of someone LD'ing and coming back in, being in group but somehow not in raid. Maybe fix the issues with people not seeing their group or appearing in odd groups.
- Should trash clearing really take most of the night? I understand challenge, but the challenge should be in beating the events, not fighting off carpral tunnel syndrome long enough to actually see the events. I've been told this is to help build RLAA, but they could adjust the ratios so that actual event success gives a decent chunk of RLAA instead of like regular experience.
I'll try and stick to the 1 thing I like most and the 1 thing I like least. Otherwise, I'd have 10 things in the "least" column and 2 in the "most".
Like Most:
Like Least:
Like the most
Unlocking zones, working through progressions. Learning the different content. Lots of deaths, little chance of loot. Fun with friends while you are there working together towards your goal.
Like the least
Older raids are no longer worth doing for many people.
Used to have zones and content to unlock.
Used to be places to get upgrades to gear and spells. Current groupable gear has better stats and focus effects. It is superior in many ways to the older raid content. The spells have been out-dated with newer spells.
Focus effects are no longer benificial due to level increases. Why do a raid on target that can drop items with level 65-70-75 level focus's when you are at 85 and the return is not beneficial. Thus fewer people showing up to raid, as there is no benefit or even chance of benefitting from the time put in. The Fun factor is still there, but to many this is not enough to justify the time.
Oh wait!! Just won a new type 8 raid aug looks nice, decent stats . . . oh yea no longer wearing A SINGLE piece of raid gear, guess it will go in the bank with the rest.
Like: shared exp. no more "exp group"; that sucked so much.
Dislikes: rudimentary raid managment tool. need a simple scripting language or allow us to reload old raid window dumps to create groups.
ELISLRAC wrote:
Generalize much?
Posts like the one above are a big part of what's wrong with EQ.
Sibaelius wrote:
Like least:That to be successful certain classes are required, namely warriors and clerics (both of which are in very short supply).That group content gear drops are superior to some of the raid content gear folks were doing only a few months ago. Itemization is in disarray regarding the differences between raid gear and group gear. But I don't have a good solution so I probably shouldn't bring it up. Like most:Complex events that require people to pay attention and play their best. (this is a very generic answer but it pretty much nails down why I liked both raiding and leading raids for years and years.)
That would be one of my likes too. I love raid events where everyone has a job that keep them busy and that make them vital to the success over the encounter. I don't like leading raids though *grin*
Likes (overall):
Dislikes (raid window):
Dislikes (raid leader abilities):
Dislikes (guild banner system):
Dislikes (general):
~~ LOL after reading this one would think I hate raiding. It's my 3rd favorite thing to do in game even though I'll raid about 12 hours a week, sometimes more.
Alot of raids would of been more desirable to still do over the years if Focus's degraded every 10 levels or atleast every 7 levels like most of the PoP focus. When OOW came out, it was actually better to have a focus from PoP than GoD which made not much sense due to difficulty. If the range was 10 levels it would cause alot less headaches via new expansion. The itemization is always completely backwards slot to slot never is one focus in the same spot. Fix that then you can fix the raids.
Focus's have been completely renamed to diff things each expansion anyways. You can still do the traditional change of every 5 levels but make the degrade every 10 levels.
Tune "instance" raids into raids like LDON's setting system with more tiers with choosing difficulty settings. Risk vs Reward. A guild that has a bad night with only having 30 on instead of 48+ they shouldnt be completely punished by reverting back to a night of demi or FC or AG etc.
Item % drop rate should be raid dependant on the classes at the raid. No reason for a Zerker only item to drop if there is no zerker at the raid for example.
Bring out purity augs that are raid drops that are removable to other gear. Let them be 50+ purity so its something you can actually KEEP in the long term.
Get rid of emotion events stupid thing ever in eq. We arent playing doosey doe your partner. Whats been the facination since TSS with spawnings of 100's of adds during a event? I understand the concept if someone dies but I rather have a few strong adds otherwise. Take the Stich event in AG. Cool overal cept about the million little spiders. Should of been some other trash named instead that spawns.
I can go on and on down the whole road of events. If you wanna fix raids then FIX resists get rid of the "chance" whats the point of sitting at almost 700 FR if a aura thats -450 still hits you 5 out of 6 times? There doesnt seem to even be a "partial resist" anymore either.
Allow runes to absorb dot damage this has been one of my biggest pieves about the spell shielding/rune lines buffs since it absolutely does nothing to a dot!
Tons of basic raid things need to be fixed here.
As a raid leader there are a bunch of things i dislike about the raid but it's mostly in the Expedition window, the task window or the raid window.
Reasons I like raiding? Well, there are quite a bit of them.
Challenge, challenge, challenge. Everyone has to do their best on most events, and there's usually a job for every person in the raid, not just specific classes.
The numbers of people involved. It is a rare opportunity to work with 50+ other people to accomplish a goal.
OMG raid tool, task, and exped need to be linked or need to have an easier way to tell who dropped one and not the other. That probably wastes more raid leader time per day than giving event rundowns and arranging groups for each event.
Excessive trash clears. Some trash is fine, especially if they drop things you need such as augs or spells, but trash clears like MMM (shudder) should be outlawed. For guilds newly in that zone, it can take hours; for guilds who have farmed it, it is still a very long trash clear.
Some raids need to be better tuned before release.
Good
Challenging, Competitive, Good rewards with SoD ones, Takes a lot of time to figure it out
Bad
Some drops like OG raid loot compared to korafax group loot makes OG loot seem like waste DKP, needs to be a lil bit TOUGHER not hard to figure out but TOUGHER when my guild finds out how to do things, we dominate because its easy, it needs to be TOUGHER should be we know the strat but its a 50 50 win situation, they need to go through more tanks, rather than 1 tank able to survive entire fight. Should go through like 4 tanks.
Dislike -
Lack of raids designed and developed for guilds with small numbers (12 to 24 people) who want to raid for some fun and variety. Our guild has now come up to the point where with the numbers we put out wer cannot cope with most of the modern raids due to numbers and the mechanics.
We do not want to join up with another guild we want to stay as we are and it would be nice to see some appropriately tuned raids we can attempt.
Fezzic wrote:
Dislike -Lack of raids designed and developed for guilds with small numbers (12 to 24 people) who want to raid for some fun and variety. Our guild has now come up to the point where with the numbers we put out wer cannot cope with most of the modern raids due to numbers and the mechanics.We do not want to join up with another guild we want to stay as we are and it would be nice to see some appropriately tuned raids we can attempt.
bra, you cant raid end game with 12 -24 people, it would be too easy. Go raid CoA or PoR, if you can only manage 12 - 24 people your not a raiding guild. Your a casual guild that SOMETIMES raids.
If you want to raid end game, bra, join a end game raiding guild or recruit people to raid end game.
Please note that Fezzic didnt ask for end game raiding with 3 groups. Instead he asked for more raids that are designed for smaller numbers. I'd like that, too
Most:
Challenging scripts that require a learning curve for everyone until finally after many losses everything fits into places and 54 people have combined their effort to that one large victory - priceless. I have been doing this since Kunark era and while easy loot now and then is nice, nothing compares to the sweetness of a victory that you had to work really hard for.
Least:
Too easy raids with no real challenge that can be beaten the first or second day after first attemtpting them.
Close second:
Trash clears. Neither MMM nor Discord Tower trash is fun, it's an annoyance and fun spoiler. the challenge should be in the raid event, not in the trash.
Dislike
1. Losing an event because you didn't have enough people (usually 54).
2. Losing an event because you didn't have the envisioned class mix (this encounter must have 8 Warriors to be beaten!)
3. Raids where if you lose it takes an hour or more to start over again. Breakneck comes to mind.
Other than that I don't particularly have any dislikes on raids (or maybe you can say I like the rest of raiding that doesn't involve what I mentioned above). I have a large tolerance for most things people consider as 'bad' or 'timesink' but I cannot stand the things where you can't even try due to logistical issues.
what I miss:
- alliance raid support by alliance channel, alliance guild bank, alliance banner
- a "predefined" raid dice, example: system sets up dice value for raid e.g. 999, raiders could roll by hitting a dice symbol (the value is defined by the raid options window), so no more nightmares with random 9 9999 or 9 99 .....
- need more mid level content like in DoN with smaller raids (24, 36, 48 )
- mercs for old raid content
- the timesink forgetting ready for the first raids for casual guilds or alliances
what I like:
- the diversity of classes
- the scripts (let's say some of them )
- the boss mobs
- opening of old raid content for unflagged mates
Like: The challenge and the need to pay attention and be on your toes to figure out how to defeat the encounter. The old Velious raids that depended on whether the clerics ran out of mana and people didn't fall asleep during it, are thankfully a thing of the past. I remember the main tanks falling asleep at the keyboard during the AoW fight
Dislike: The heavy dependence on certain classes. Cancelled raids due to a shortage of clerics or tanks is truly a sad thing. Also zone lag, particularly when a series of emotes or text is blurted out by npc's, like during a deadly AE, causing such a jolt that a group is dead before the lag catches up.
BiguglyNPC says, "Ahhh another victim, excellent!"
Repeat this time 6 or 10 when a particularly violent AE hits and the lag created by the deaths and the text kills off people who didn't die from the actual AE.
Unique scripts and encounter mechanics
Separation between focus/playstyle (unlike other games *cough*Naxx*cough*. Plus, this separation actually fits EQ's heritage)
Wide use of instancing. I'm sure folks will disagree with me on this, but I for one loved spawn racing (wru FFA?). It ensured that the tightest guild/raid group got the mob by streamlining their procedures so they could engage the mob in question (rather than try to claim it with two people in zone). Nowadays, raid forces I've seen are slow, lazy, and take too long to "get it in gear". There's no real sense of urgency because the content is there to be consumed (barring lockouts).
Trash. A transparent means for unimaginative encounter designers to slow down raid forces because they can't actually come up with anything new or different. "Kill these 6,000 mobs only vaguely related to the primary target because I can't think of any reasonable way to integrate them into the primary encounter." It's old, it's tired, and it's about as cutting edge as a butter churn.
Items. Seriously, the last two expansions, items haven't even been done properly prior to the gold date. So there's a need for a "revamp" months after release to actually dot the i's and cross the t's (or to even compose the freakin' sentence to begin with). I don't like spending points on items that "will be good eventually".
The increased rate at which content reaches obsolescence. Honestly, who green-lighted this? Instead of a raid game that progresses in difficulty and intricacy, you're literally forcing people to outright skip 80% of the raid content in the game (some of which is awesome for learning encounter mechanics). Whereas previously, increased levels and AA offered those not on the bleeding edge to take on content that was tough but manageable and still offered upgrades, now it's almost pointless to do any raid prior to SoF. If powersources (the good ones) could be bought with chronobines, you wouldn't even see people bother with TBS.
Outdated tools. Whether it's the raid window or the expedition window or anything else, the system needs to be updated or streamlined for ease of use. No built-in tools to assist with things like loot distribution (for the minor stuff primarily but also an option that could work in conjunction with existing loot systems).
Raid design. Good going designing raids for 54 when outside of the bleeding edge, most guilds can't field that many reliably. This wouldn't be an issue if not for the 'gear reset' strategy that seems the order of the day. By the time a "mid-tier" guild gets to that content, it's not going to be worth doing. It's like Charlie Brown & Lucy.
Honestly, while I don't expect innovation anymore, I would think duplication would be on the table. For a game that pretty much invented the 'multi-group raid as progression vehicle', EQ's sure gettin' its butt handed to it by other games.
Like most: Little Clearing, lots of fun. Challenge is good.
Like Least: LOOT STRUCTURE, Loot > Should be INDIVIDUAL drops per character, equal risk EQUAL Reward, when that raid mob goes down, let everyone loot. Everyone should be assigned their OWN loot and if they dont want it be able to Transfer it off to the guilds dkp system or however they want to run it... Im not greedy, but I dont play THAT much, and to be honest im sick of the GREEDY GUILDS that chew up the Casual player and hence you get 1 raid loot every time ITS GOING TO ROT ONLY, even then DKP! WTH,
INDIVIDUAL LOOT IN RAIDS! COME ON, GET WIT THE TIMES!
Challenge, sense of accomplishment after a win and learning new events.
Poor rewards- group gear from new expansion as good/better than end game raid gear from the last expansion. Lack of need to complete previous expansion. Entry raids of a new expansion should be harder than the last raids of the previous expansion.
Boring mechanics- excessive trash clear, random slow scripts, raids requiring only a relative few people doing anything.
Lockout timers- is there a purpose other than slowing guilds down for these?
-BladeSinger- wrote:
Like most: Little Clearing, lots of fun. Challenge is good.Like Least: LOOT STRUCTURE, Loot > Should be INDIVIDUAL drops per character, equal risk EQUAL Reward, when that raid mob goes down, let everyone loot. Everyone should be assigned their OWN loot and if they dont want it be able to Transfer it off to the guilds dkp system or however they want to run it... Im not greedy, but I dont play THAT much, and to be honest im sick of the GREEDY GUILDS that chew up the Casual player and hence you get 1 raid loot every time ITS GOING TO ROT ONLY, even then DKP! WTH, INDIVIDUAL LOOT IN RAIDS! COME ON, GET WIT THE TIMES!
Please no. Most raid mobs drop 2-3 items any given class can use. With 12-15 raid encounters per a given expansion this would give less than 100 total raids needed to gear an entire guild (assuming the guild is gearing 100+ toons). Assuming it took 4 tries per encounter to get it right that would still be less than 200 raids before the guild could gain nothing from raiding. That would take all of maybe 2 months? What would we do for the other 10 months til the next expansion came out?
I didnt mean that you should get loot every time, but randomise it so that you have a CHANCE to get raid loot from the raid chest, or trashy loot if you dont get it... make is so that there is a x % chance for raid loot per person.... increase the chance for that person to get a raid item, to trade or keep or auction etc per raid, so if you do 1 raid in coa, you get a 5% chance to get a raid item from end mob, second time 10% chance or something, then once you get a raid item, it could reset, something like that, just so its not all about the control freaks, dont like 10 y/o kids tellin me what isnt mine even when i do the hard yards....
Dislike:
- Raid tool is buggier now than it's ever been, thanks to the changes to the group window to accomodate mercs.
- Expedition and Task windows still do not sort alphabeticaly, nor do they tell you who is offline.
- Expedition and Tasks that lock. Really bad design. If someone beats Superguy Steve, and wants to get someone in to loot rotting rogue dagger or something, let them.
- Trash. Speaking as the leader and raid leader of a guild, it is far too excessive still. Having beta tested raid contents, I know why too. The devs never test raid trash, nor time spent killing it. They simply /cazic touch it all when testing, or summon you past it. It's no wonder trash has gotten out of control.
- Balance fights. Everyone despises them. They are not fun, not remotely.
- Itemization. We're almost 4 months past SoD release, and itemization is STILL not done. What IS done of it is a trainwreck of a massively overly convoluted and complex system.
- Timesinks. Far FAR too many of them. We were promised during beta that SoD would have 1/3 to 1/2 of the timesinks that SoF had. Pure lies. SoD makes SoF look like a walk in the park, timesink wise.
- Less and less raid content each expansion. Resulting in more and more timesinks. We're supposed to do nothing but grind for the next 9 months apparently.
- Testing and tuning...are a disaster. Someone failed utterly in SoD beta, and I don't think it was the beta guilds.
- Banners are still disabled in seemingly completey random zones, while working in zones you wouldn't expect them to. How about consistency? Make them work everywhere.
- Beta guilds get far too much of an edge on everyone else at expansion release. I say this as the leader of a guild that beta tested SoF, keep in mind.
Likes:
- The gap has been erased. No longer will 8 or so guilds be head and shoulders above everyone else in gear saturation at the next expansion release. It will be 40ish guilds. Bring on the first true race in many years. I can't wait.
likes:brutally difficult compared to other gamesscope - due to EQ raids being larger than most other games, player wise (54 as opposed to 30ish)
dislikes:mechanics which require a lot of annoying repetitive actions (chain curing, chain ducking, chain running away from the raid)adds that spawn in large numbers that are difficult enough that knights can't tank them efficiently and also have anti-summon mechanics (i wish more event adds were built to cater to knight's unique abilities, instead of just relegating us to being tug boats)event mechanics that fundamentally require more than 6 people so you can't go back and 1 group it years later (for example, event 1 in deathknell or the sisters event in DK)
dislike - Lack of GIMP status not in raid tools.
The ability for spells to actually land more often now. There is still a problem with this on some raids scripts but its better than it was a few years ago.
Dislikes:
Elevators
Excessive trash clears
Poor script mechanics that could be improved (Breakneck in MMM)
Long-standing issues with some raids that have had tons of feedback over long periods of time and the issues continue to plague the game to this day. (if my 1st three dislikes didn't give you a clue which zone I am talking about, then you haven't been there yet). Fix them already!
Overuse of text simon says scripts. Its ok if this is used sparingly, but when reduced and done something like the scripts in Steamfactory where everyone sees a huge red or blue text across their screen is preferred. I try to have as few windows open as I can and its manageable. However, some classes (mostly priest classes) have so many windows open they spend more time reading than enjoying all the action because most their screen is taken up by text windows.
Spell turn in runes. Look at SoF turn-ins and you can see clerics have 32 runes followed closely by chanters, wizards, druids and shammies. The sheer amount of turn-ins for an average raid of 54 people is so out of whack with the amount of drops means many classes never see many rank 3 spells. The system needs to be revamped to something more similar to SoD where beating Raid Mob A allows classes to buy spell. Beating Mob A and B allows purchase of spells y and z. I think you get the idea, but this is still a problem today for those guilds doing SoF and TSS. If left alone (like the calls for change to MMM raid zone) it will continue to be an issue unless someone actually changes it.
Weapon drop rates. While better than previous expansions I can't tell you how many times we have raided a zone from previous expansions for the sole purpose of trying to get melee some upgrades. Often times we go through an entire zone (solteris) and not a single one drops in ANY of the events. If spell runes are considered upgrades for casters and some drop every event, why can't there be code to ensure at least some kind of weapon drops each time as well?
The expidition and/or task window for the raid leader when someone either logs or goes LD is archaic and needs to be improved. The time wasted for the other 50 people while they try and figure out who is or is not logged in anymore does nothing but cause frustration for all invloved.
The overuse of auras or AE's that make entire classes completely useless. Whether it a Silence or Mana Drain (for example) the result is the same. They are so negated on the script that they contibute almost nothing to the success of the event.
Resists. Nice to know all that work and time went in to raising my resists only to find out that it wouldn't matter if I dropped 300 on each resist. Still going to get waxed anyway.
Zonewide AE's or aura's. Throughout the history of battles from as far back as the written word, people have used terrain to give them some kind of advantage. (i.e. not getting hit by the enemys incoming attack) This is mostly absent from EQ now whereas in past expansions (doing Grieg for instance) people could stand behind a pillar to negate some effects. Allowing people to use terrain a little more often in some scripts gives people a chance to beat events in different ways. (especially helpful for guilds that lack numbers of certain classes). Instead, today we mostly see zonewide AE's.
Cures. Cures in general take way too long to cast and the amount cured is in no way tuned to many scripts. This causes guilds to get bottlenecked in content until they can either a) recruit more priest classes or b) box some alts in the raid. Boxed toons on raids is bad. The ratio of needed curers to all the other classes on some scripts is out of whack. (this also ties in to resists mentioned above) This also has a negative impact on whether people even bother going back once its beaten. (The Council Divided in FoS raid is the latest example) And since certain slot upgrades for some classes only drop in that raid, people never get the upgrades envisoned by the developer doing the itemization. This particular raid is not the only one that fits into this category but the impact is the same. Some raids are such a pita and poorly tuned that guilds decide to never go back. The ironly is that a lot of time and effort was put into the design and implemention of the zone but noone goes there unless they need to for progression.
Balance fights. (yawn)
Lack of augs that drop in raids. Powersources could drop too but its not being done. All those trash clears seem like the most sensible mobs to put them on (if ever implemented). If not trash mobs, then incorporate some minis on the way to the boss that will drop them.
least: 2hd raid weapons are rare, it can be hard for a zerker to get a weapon with so many wars and knights in the way, YES even thro knights get their own 2hd weap the still take weapons from zerkers
Group keying , eg TSS etc , vs Raid keying , DON probbaly the best example. As the playing population ages the time required to do endless factioning / keying events drops. TBS wasn't to bad.
Cookie cutter events or events, like sisters in DpOB or Event 3 in Solt, where 3/4 of the raid sits around playing silly buggers for an hour.
End raids that are so much easier than the flagging raids, most of TSS for eg is way easier than Udengar or the wimp King.
4 metric tons of zone trash substituting for good design.
Repeating the same lame events over and over and over, ad infinitum, Demi or Anguish or Solt , to get to the next phase.
Non scripted loot. I really don't want 400 plus drops with plus to fire or cold items I'd prefer the focii / effect to set on loot to be class appropriate.
Raids that require thinking and team work, Sendaii or Vish or some of the Anguish raids.
Raids that involve everyone.
Difficulty of some encounters. Really feels good winning a hard fight.
I haven't raided in quite some time (PoP era and Progression Sever), however, what I really liked about EQ raiding when compared to other games was how grand it was. I know the word "grand" is very vague, so I'll elaborate with examples...
I remember my first NToV raid. It was probably close to 100 players. Having that many people all working together for a common goal just seemed amazing to me. I know that zerging mobs used to be a chief complaint of most hard-core raiders, myself included. I always prided myself on being able to do the hardest mobs with the least amount of people. However, something about the Velious and Luclin raids where a 70+ person raid was the norm was just awe inspiring. Also, the lack of control. I still miss the old days when if numerous raids were in the same zone one raid would use /shout and the other would use /ooc.
Maybe I'm just a big nostalgic softy, but something about the increased organization of the raid system and limits on players really rubbed me the wrong way. WoW did this with their raids too and I wasn't a huge fan with that system.
As far as them MOBs themselves, I really enjoyed the unique encounters they came out with in velious and more so in luclin. Going into a fight not knowing what was going to happen, failing, and then having to formulate a strategy based on the intel you gained the first time was a lot of fun. That's pretty much all I can think of.
Like least:That to be successful certain classes are required, namely warriors and clerics (both of which are in very short supply).That group content gear drops are superior to some of the raid content gear folks were doing only a few months ago. Itemization is in disarray regarding the differences between raid gear and group gear. But I don't have a good solution so I probably shouldn't bring it up.
Certain classes would be required no matter the mmorpg, EQ always was that way and set the standard. Vox/Naggy raid, need healers, buffers even for junk buffs. Not like level 50 you take 50 monks in there, you wouldn't win.
As expansions came out, it still stayed the same with needing the right amount of classes present, ie: meat tank, clerics, dps, etc... but then discrimination on how many AAs and where they were spent were more key.
As for group content gear drops being superior you must have been on sleeper or combine like I was, which I had mixed feelings about on it. The one guild I was in was forbidding going after things as FJ, but since it was in the game, and we all pay to play it, some of us went out and did it anyway. The guild in question at the time some have nots (ie: no friends in other guilds) would say we "circumvented" dkp by getting better gear, but my retort would be to them, they would spend less dkp on items since I, or others wouldn't need said gear.
The last paragraph had nothing to do with the topic as your last topic, that really is about flawed thinking or trying to appease the casual gamer (if not on progression).
The raid system from start until I think maybe velious or luclin not a raid system. Groups went to say hate, and there was always an xp group while the rest of the "raid" didn't get xp, was no raid window to see the other groups, etc. It became more efficent after that.
Only thing I can think of I disliked about the raid system is sometimes it was buggy taking invites.
I loved the fact you could open a window see who was in raid, what groups and who were in them, allow you to create the proper target hotkeys if need be (being a necro seeing who was in raid to rotate my target hotkeys for twitches), since popping up guild window didn't mean other healers online were at the raid.
Dislike of the "system", how some raids could have I think 72 or 74 people max (I forget, like Emp Ssra was a high number), then became 50 something in GoD or PoP I also forget which, but when it was lowered thats when Sibaelius your first point where yes certain classes and # of those classes needed to be there even more so. That still I think has nothing to do with the "raid" system. I think this was about how raid invites, looting rights, #'s max in raid, gimping in people, etc. Also being invited at times and finding out you were bugged and had to relog. Or if in group and got invite couldnt get in, which only was addressed this past summer, where the group leader accepted invite and the whole group went in.
This point isnt a "raid" system but I think is kind of what you were thinking I think. I think Zatozia meant the interface and how the "raid" ie: invites, loot rights, groupings, etc went.
Regardless, its not the raid system and no matter the MMORPG, you need certain classes and an X number of the same in some cases (heal rotation), off tanks, patch heals, etc. Take 50 warriors at the appropriate level for say the cursed cycle in Ssra Temple, you lose. Who is going to heal you even if you had whatever the max HOT pots that the alchemists could make at the time? Also then theres the DT snake during that battle. If I recall right, at that proper time in progression (or when all other servers years ago were at that expansion), all the casters outside of clerics behind the walls were at max cast distance. Would have to drag the tanks who took a DT or whatever to clerics for a rez. ROI rocked out ssra and then VT. The guild I was in, we did suceed in taking emp and a few weeks later VT after the horrid shard gathering, but we had 5 extra levels and better AAs. That "raid" system was a blessing!
I think you had it confused. If you dont want class balance, I suggest an NES emulator and play Ultima III: Exodus. A 6 group of rangers (you control since it was single player) owned. Or one of those "free" Korean online rpgs like R.O.S.E Online, or even Star Wars Galaxies, since a certain company ruined that a few times since its inception.
Since I cant edit my posts due to count being too low, I see from someone above my post, 100ish for a NToV raid, technically you could, and a limitation of the raid system. Back when Velious came out though, I doubt people's comps could handle 100+ in zone, and im sure a lot were still on dialup at the time. Crap, during this combine progression when I zoned into one of the popular PoP zones for shakerpaging, even on a rather high end comp I lagged out watching the amount of mobs hehe. and I wasnt part of the fun, was trying to kite cawkhoppers
Like: Stategy and team work
Dislike: Loot reward systems. I think raids should earn points and those points are used to buy upgrades form vendors. This would make it even for all raiders. Example: 1 Point per Raid attended, Wrists cost 2 points, Gloves/Boots/Helms cost 4 points, Arms/Legs cost 6 points, BP costs 10 points. 36 raids for a zone would get you a full set of visible gear. AVe guild raids 4 times per week meaning you could be geared in visible gear in 9 weeks. Then throw in the other gear.
Moneg wrote:
Back when Velious came out though, I doubt people's comps could handle 100+ in zone, and im sure a lot were still on dialup at the time.
False. If I can figure out which hard drive it's on, I've got screenshots of over 120 people in ToV raiding. 40 people in Halls of Testing (farming armor), 40 in West Wing (ditto) and 40ish in north wing. And that's not counting the 30-odd people zoning into ToV to buff and prep for Sontalak (hug the wall and you could run by without aggroing him). I don't typically care much about what other people are running (heck, there are people still on dialup NOW fgs) since that's often a personal decision. If you're running bandwidth intensive applications (like MMOs) and choose to stick with low bandwidth connections (if alternatives are available to you), that's your business. Most of my guild at the time was on broadband (cable, ISDN, or DSL with T1's at work) as it was an unspoken requirement (i.e. if you're going LD all the time, you're useless outside of simple xp groups). But at that time, it wasn't unusual to have 5+ guilds at the same (or similar) progression point, all competing for the same resources so multiple guilds in the same zone going for the same mobs was not unusual as well.
Likes
The variety of targets available to guilds a tier below the cutting edge (well, at one time, at least)
The time investment and effort required for steady progression
Feeder guilds producing people who at least have a clue about what's expected on a basic level (it's all tied together with the raid system IMO)
The development of "cheap" raid tactics brought on by necessity and adapted from other, unrelated games (zerg, bind rushing, use of geometry (i.e. hiding the clerics), etc). That shows the system isn't (or, at least, wasn't) 'gimme gimme' easy.
Fun loots (bridles) that were nice to have but not must haves
Gear requirements for progression (think: Velious, Luclin (bane weapons), and PoP eras)
Gravel Rain, Mass Insanity, and Feeblemind (RIP Gary Gygax) - so awesome
Class reliance and tradeoffs - the least soloable classes in the game often being the most important raid classes
The days of FFA raiding (and the servers that supported it instead of lame FCFS)
Unique zone mechanics (Aten Ha Ra and her relationship to her minibosses and how they affected her capability)
Dislikes
Instancing. Hate it for raid content.
Spell drops from raid mobs (mainly Luclin era. Beastlord spells were a pox on that expansion)
Scripts that remain broken into perpetuity
Raid content fixes being prioritized by how destructive the bug is not by how important the encounter is to player progression (Klandicar comes to mind. When he was first given Keeper's AE (Silver Breath), the moment he fired it, Western Wastes would crash. If that weren't the case, it probably wouldn't have ever been fixed)
"Fixes" to "problems" being done in quick & dirty fashion instead of well thought out and considerate of the unique encounter and situation (I recall no longer being able to bind wherever I wanted in Kael, as a giant ally, due to the way people were killing Tormax)
Tallon Zek (GDI, no matter what character I played, I was always a primary Barb target )
"None of the credit, all of the blame" (wanna guess what class my main is?)
The destruction of the tiers due to the quality of group gear.
I like, speacilly in sod (where i've raided themost) the stuff that opens up for Everyone when completing a raid
(ex the spells and augs Zeb sells in the void after doing certian tier raids)
I love raiding. The idea of a large group of people working together to beat something I find fun and challenging.
TECCA1rz2tbs3owns wrote:
/agree with the above.
Raiding is the only reason I still play EQ.
Please DISABLE pvp on zek inside raid instance, Blue servers have a HUGE advantage because alot of their classes can use aoe abilities
Theres NO need for pvp to be enabled on pvp servers inside an instance. If you are inside the instance you are with your guild, and why would you need to kill your own guild members on a raid??????
I'll tell you what I miss most:
1. PoM all the way inside NTOV. Jesus, EQ used to be EPIC. Sigh.
2. Kael
3. Chardok
4. Sebilis
5. Fantasy settings, with seriously over the top, soap drama back story that held your attention. You did a lot better with the kithicor line this time and the EQ lore that people actually give a crap about. That's a good step in the right direction.
6. But, what isn't there is the art direction. EQ Art is all fill, no completion. There are good bits, but there's nothing that FEELS finished. Maybe it's design. But, MMM feels far less intricate than it should be. It should have been like Sebilis. Winding, and convoluted and out of your mind insane through MANY different mob types and area types. Every expansion needs a chardok or a Seb. If it can have A Seb, Chardok, and an NTOV or Kael, rock on.
7. Raid zones that aren't carbon copies of the exp zone. Hire more ***@#$@ing people smed.
There have been some good bits in the last couple years. Here's the highlights and the almosts.
The good bits:
1. Solteris. Brilliant. Loved it except for event 3 and the amount of trash. I know some didn't. It wasn't the best ever. But, it felt like a serious expansion.
2. Frostcrypt 2 - outstanding. It was fun, and just hard enough to keep you busy 3-4 weeks and still keep you engaged.
3. Crystalos - dragons just work. Especially if you bring back one that has the power that kerafyrm has in our minds. Setting is pretty much crap. NTOV entrance is STILL vastly cooler than anything you've done in years.
Almost:
1. MMM. Not bad, but a huge missed opportunity. Breakneck was a testicle stomper. Once you got it down, it was fine. But, if you were in a lull, you would NOT beat it no matter what strategy you used. Period. The rest was quite good, but breakneck was unforgivable and forever tainted my experience there. If you'd added more intricate touches, more hidden paths or made it more SSRAish, I'd have called this an epic zone. Even just a bit of variation. I mean FFS make a mad scientists lab or something instead of him walking around in his tin can.
2. AG North. I liked it because it wasn't insanely hard for once except lethar 2 which wasn't really that bad unless you were in a lull. But, it didn't resonate. There was no character in the expansion anyone resonated with.
Dreadful:
1. The TSS flagging system. Just delete our accounts next time.
2. The SoF flagging system for MMM. I'd say crystalos too up until you made MM drop 12 pieces. After we were done of course.
3. The WORST armor in the history of the game in SOF. We have half our guild that won't even bother bidding on it because they cannot afford the hundreds of thousands it takes to make a set. What the @#$@ were you thinking about here? I can honestly say this is the worst in-game item mistake in the history of EQ.
I really like the coming together as a team to beat up whatever huge monster there is out there pummeling Norrath.
I like the strategies you need to form after getting your butt handed to you.
The game overall is harder than other games and has alot more content, but weve been pushed past it.
I like the sets of armor like Kael that were not so complex. I really thought the Tss gear idea was cool (sorry to the poster earlier who dislikes it) , easy to understand and not too many choices that are overwhelming.
As much as I do not want there to be, there are alot more dislikes post unlocking all of the zones. Its more of a Wish List of things for you guys to do in the upcoming expansions.
I wish that you guys would make encounters that were a little more unique and didnt feel like the same old thing , and by that I want to be clear. Its all about the feeling of walking into somewhere new, somewhere mysterious or riddling, somewhere strange just different than what weve seen. It would be cool to be exploring and find a hidden cave with smoke coming out of it when the terrible dragon is up in there. Just unique things like that make the game fun. We havent seen an underwater zone for a while. I miss going into iceclad wondering if there were secret zones under the ice! I recall clicking on something out there that said I couldnt get any closer I thought there was a hidden zone or something there!
I miss alot of the non warrior specific gear. Im glad youve been making warr only weapons but what about the other classes? lol Like the guy said earlier its hard for people to get things tuned just for their class ( I know you said Zerkers specifically) but it feels cool to have that one, (graphically noticable weapon) from the new expansion for your class.
I wish that you would make encounters for smaller raids, bigger raids and just a little more variety overall in that area since the requirement drops happened. Some guilds are not ready for the current content that is out and the gear from groups is better than the old gear they worked so hard to get. Can there not be new, easier raids for smaller numbers with, of course, appropriate loot to the challenge? I really think honestly there should always be one mob per expansion that blows all others away (not for progression) but for those guilds that really want the challenge. One thats like 20 or 30 levels higher than the cap and just so insane you cant wait to get high enough/strong enough to beat them, it makes the game feel bigger than you and makes you want to try harder, that is what this game has that others dont.
I think (this is only an observation) that the cleric mercs stopped alot of people from playing clerics that were playing the class out of necessity for buffs, groups and rezes. I dont regret quitting my cleric but I can see how it could make the class go close to extinct.
I wish you would use the old zones as a set up ... the old rumors of secret zones, if you dont know Im thinking of the door behind Guardian of the seal in The Hole, that should go somewhere! Under the ice in Everfrost where the Lich now resides. I was expecting the barren coast to be off of that river in Toxx that never went anywhere and looked like a zone in etc.! When I was new I tried to go through that zone I guess it was in the wall all along though. doh.
I do like to raid for the strategy , for the big group feeling but in the end its not as much fun when your raiding for loot that will never upgrade you and that has been going on for a long time, I think alot just got burnt out on it when it went to the extreme.
There should be some raid leader reward system for those people that lead raids and really dont get much out of it but the satisfaction they led a raid to victory. Some of these core people are what holds your game together, they need a boyscout vest or something with badges lol , maybe they could get trophies on the wall in the guild hall for wins with their characters name on it (just a suggestion but that would be cool!) or on a board out at the guild lobby like a news stand so and so has led such and such guild to a victory in defeating the dreaded 8eyed shrubbery! P.S. I am not a raid leader but I really think those folks deserve a round of applause from you folks at sony!
Bladefox wrote:
Nice!
Mostly Liked
Very well organized raid system that allows you to organize groups and so forth where the Raid Leader can set who can loot or swap people from one group to another to further organize things.
Least Liked
The Chain of Command structior is the one bad problem when it comes to leading the raid because all their is is just the Raid Leader and Group Leaders, we need Lieutenant Raid Leaders that can actually have access to most of the raid options and ends up getting the actual Raid Leadership in the event should the origional Raid Leader go LD and actually dose not come back, it be much more easier then having to reorganize a raid.
