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Debate: do we need ''true' raid content? (10-men to 25-men episodes)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User

Debate
Do we need ''true' raid content?
(10-men to 25-men episodes)


I do.

What makes a MMO different from other multiplayer games, and not just a collection of permanent maps, is the "massive" aspect of the thing.

Raids are the #1 reason for a social structure in MMOs
In MMOs, you have to join player associations (guilds/clans/fleets) not just because you like it, but because short of that, you'll never get to see, let alone defeat, the most interesting parts of the game. Big bosses, hard dungeons, stories unfolded, and so on. (The fact that 5 lone players get to see the Borg Queen is a paradox to the very concept of Massive multi-player gaming applied to the ST universe.)

But what's more to that is the social and human bonds that are created during all those hours together, laughing, playing, joking, ranting, explaining, listening, helping, flaming, teasing, loving, hating, admiring, despising, achieving, idling.

You can do all of that by yourself and with a couple of friends. Sure. But in a MMO, it gets to another degree. It's a real experience that leaves you naked sometimes. You really learn. You really live, through those months or years of sharing a common passion with others that you get to know.

Social structures are essential to a comprehensive MMO experience
Oh yes, these many ties and human feelings will get in the way of your playing. Some want to leave for other games, but sometimes can't because they have friends and actually enjoy playing with them more than the game itself. Some left, and are called back. This is the success of some powerful games, that used to be hardcore only (L2, EVE, FFXI...) but eventually could apply to many casual MMOs, WoW being the perfect example of "social bonding" inside a guild. Whether or not your like that game it's a fact, it gave casual players a real MMO experience.

It's something you can't find in gaming anywhere else than in MMOs. It's like being part of a 20 or 30 or 50 people project in real life (association, club, or even work). It's really something that gives you purpose (as a hobby here, but to our mind it's always that same feeling of personal achievement). It opens your eyes to the world: virtual or real, the world is people and their interactions. You learn that in MMOs. It's good for children and teens for that matter, if they're coached not to fall for excess (by parents, experienced players, friends...).

STO itself is not shallow, but the players interaction may stay that way
I'm afraid STO is going to be empty of feelings and life at high-end levels of content. I'm afraid it'll still be what it is all the way through, a solo experience happening in the midst of thousands of other solo experiences that sometimes collide, but often don't permanently join, short of incentives by the game to do so. Like I said, I feel like the "massive" part of MMO has been stripped off in STO. It's epic, oh yes it is, to me at least. I feel like Picard or Sisko, and I love it.

But if I'm going to stay and make a home in this game I need, I want, 'real' raid content. 10, 20, 30 players together in front of NPCs. Interesting content that demands skill (a little bit) and thinking. That cannot be beaten without many tries, or good preparation, something true to the hardships of a ST crew. I want to live something. Short of that it cannot and will not happen, the social structure of the game will stay coincidental, collateral, ultimately shallow. And I'll just roleplay alone in my geek's head.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The real question is:
    Why WOUDLN'T one want raid content.

    But by raid content it would have to be (as mentioned) fresh and inventive, not just some copy-pasted starbase 24 fleet engagement...

    The raids would have to be epic in length and scale too...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i'll bite...

    the main reason why i personally dislike raid content in MMO's is simply because it creates elitism.

    the "first to beat" the newest raid, the members who get the best gear, the players who have the time to be able to commit to several multi-hour instances a week... after a while these people start to think they're "better" than other players, and not just better at the game, but on a social strata above all other comers.

    elitism brings the mentality of enforced cookie cutter builds.. one small group finds that set up X works well in situation Y and that gets about, soon if you're attempting situation Y and you're not set up in a perfect replica of set up X, then you're sub par and thus not worth the effort.

    the social interaction you mention creates "cliques" and small hardcore groups who have a different level of commitment to the game and a different mentality towards it than others, including a lot of the more casual crowd who are the bread and butter of a MMO's finances. (a player that only uses system resources by logging in a couple of hours a week pays the same as the player who uses a lot more of the system resources because they only log OFF a couple hours a week...) and it can develop into a "us and them" situation.

    by keeping raid and endgame content casual friendly it may alienate those players who are more harcore, who will game and game and game endlessly, but its easier for a casual gamer to become involved once they reach cap. grabbing a PuG for a 5 man raid will be easier than putting together a specialised team of 25. from a financial (and thus life-increasing) point of view keeping endgame open and accessable for the casual gamer even at the expense of the hardcore gamer makes more sense..

    (please note, i'm using terms such as "casual gamer" and "hardcore gamer" as dynamic extremes fitting to the stereotype, most players will fall somewhere towards the middle of a line between these two extremes)

    I do think there can be a compromise between the two mindsets, and i'm sure which ever MMO manages to hit that balance will have a massively rewarding endgame that everyone can enjoy.


    if it was up to me personally, i'd have the ability to form "combat fleets" in game, up to three teams that can be joined as one larger group with combined chat and allowed in instances at the same time, with the instances scaling to meet the size of the group, so it'd be challenging as a 5man, hard as a 10man and almost impossible as a 15man, it'd be a good way to give everyone what they want.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Open world PvP > Raid content


    Any day of the week and twice on sundays!!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    You can break it down simply to this point : would you like to group with more than 5 of your friends/guildmates or not?

    To me, having massive fleets are pointless if you can't ever group with more than 5 at a time. And what encounter can you make (besides pvp) that would require more than 5 people and not call a raid?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Adalwulff wrote: »
    Open world PvP > Raid content


    Any day of the week and twice on sundays!!


    THIS /\ /\ /\ /\
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Quick answer,

    No.

    Long answer,

    Raid content in most other MMO's are the reason that I stopped playing. In my experience, any time I've grouped with other people in a raid setting, there is drama. 10 player groups want to expand to 25 player groups, trying to get 10 players online at a time isn't too bad, trying to make the move from 10 to 25 is hard. I've led guilds in World of Warcraft and encountered this problem.

    I'm happy with a 5 player group. Trying to find 4 other people that think like you, have similar schedules as you, similar interests, and similar dispositions is far, far, far easier than 9 other people, and exponentially easier than 24 other people.

    If Cryptic announces endgame raiding is going to be 25 players, I'll cancel my subscription immediately and go find something else to play. Admittedly, you can make an encounter more challenging and complex with 25 players, even more so with 40 players, and beyond, but you sacrifice too much to do so. Social groups in reality are rarely larger than 5-10 people anyways.

    Why would you want to spend 20 hours a week with 24 people you don't like?

    For teh epic lootz? Yeah right. 10 player conflicts are fine for me. I wont mind doing the work trying to find 9 other people that I don't mind so much. I, for one, won't deal with another game that requires me to spend time with 24 people I don't like.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Do I want raid content? YES

    Do I have faith in the devs to provide challenging content. No.

    After seeing the PvE currently, and the balancing patches, they have a long way to go to understand how to build and tune something as complex as 10/25 raid content.

    The base game doesnt even have threat modifiers for the would be tanks, cruisers lol. Threat on a "tank" is foundation level stuff, that isnt even built in the base game. Think about it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    @Adalwulff: Well Open world PvP would mean some kind of redesign of the game.
    However it's not mutually exclusive with PvE raids. I don't even see those competing at all.

    @Shingi: I hear you perfectly. I personally hate those forms of elitism. I do think like you on this: "there can be a compromise between the two mindsets, and i'm sure which ever MMO manages to hit that balance will have a massively rewarding endgame that everyone can enjoy."

    Your proposition is a good idea, scaling 5-men for 10 to 15. That could do the trick for a while. However later on it seems to me that good raiding needs good design.

    Here are examples of mechanics I'd love to see implemented. I'm basing the numbers on a hypothetical 20-men raid.
    - half of them need to fight a major enemy fleet of 40 ships somewhere on the map. friendly npcs help.
    - meanwhile squads of 2-3 ships are off to activate specific devices on the map. these ships get an item useful later. they can fight their way or stealth through it.
    - bam, scenario moves on, 2 attacks from each side of the map
    - players need to organize, hold position for n minutes.
    - but a friendly npc was a spy and deactivates one of the players fleet. the other must come to rescue, and spoil some of the "special items" obtained before.
    - whatever items left help them defeat big boss who just appeared.
    - add ground somewhere (boarding the flagship to disable his uberzweaponz, get the "items" on foot and beam them back to ship, etc)
    - add many cut-off scenes and story-telling stuff
    - make it feel epic and actually a big issue on the scenario of the universe

    You have just totally entertained 20 players for an evening. Actually a bit more than that if it needs two or three tries to win it. I agree, it shouldn't be too difficult, nor a hardship as raids can be in some MMO. it should be entertaining yet challenging.

    What's wrong with having that?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Jensiem wrote:
    Quick answer,

    No.

    Long answer,

    Raid content in most other MMO's are the reason that I stopped playing. In my experience, any time I've grouped with other people in a raid setting, there is drama. 10 player groups want to expand to 25 player groups, trying to get 10 players online at a time isn't too bad, trying to make the move from 10 to 25 is hard. I've led guilds in World of Warcraft and encountered this problem.

    I'm happy with a 5 player group. Trying to find 4 other people that think like you, have similar schedules as you, similar interests, and similar dispositions is far, far, far easier than 9 other people, and exponentially easier than 24 other people.

    If Cryptic announces endgame raiding is going to be 25 players, I'll cancel my subscription immediately and go find something else to play. Admittedly, you can make an encounter more challenging and complex with 25 players, even more so with 40 players, and beyond, but you sacrifice too much to do so. Social groups in reality are rarely larger than 5-10 people anyways.

    Why would you want to spend 20 hours a week with 24 people you don't like?

    For teh epic lootz? Yeah right. 10 player conflicts are fine for me. I wont mind doing the work trying to find 9 other people that I don't mind so much. I, for one, won't deal with another game that requires me to spend time with 24 people I don't like.

    I've asked this in other threads like this and those of your side of the fence can never throw out an answer. In a PvE MMO (not RP or PvP as those are just allowed, not the core gameplay), what will you do with your time when you hit the cap and finish up the levelling missions if not do raid-like content?

    Also, why would you be with 24 people you don't like? I'm sorry if you've just had bad guild experiences in other MMOs, but the whole point is with them is that you Do like the people you're guilded with - at least for the most part. That's what makes it fun.

    I do like the suggestion of the content just scaling with group size as it would accomodate people like the one I quoted who would get to do those things with the smaller group they prefer.

    As for the PvP comment above...PvP is just something to add on top of a good core gameplay. Something to do on a whim or to have the occasional random encounter. If it were to become the final and only objective at the upper levels, well...that would just make it boring.

    I usually try to point the PvP or nothing crowd to games like L4D2 (which I love btw) as those are geared to be just a big fragfest, MMO's usually are not. Though broken mechanics and absurd balancing that lets those people have an unfair edge normally prevail longer in MMOs, so that might be their draw.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Do you realize what 25 man Trek-based encounters would entail?

    THERE'S A KLINGON, HE'S REALLY POWERFUL.

    OKAY SEND IN THE RED SHIRT.

    RED SHIRT HAS AGGRO.
    SCIENCE OFFICER, HEAL HIM.
    *23 phasers fly in*
    *3-10 minutes later*
    Yay we killed one klingon. We get our loot :)

    That makes no sense, and it woudn't be true to the away-team based incusions of the Star Trek universe.

    The star trek mythos is based around the iconic away teams we have come to know and love. Kirk, Bones, Spock, Scotty and Chekov are now Jimmy, Bobby, Alex, Theo and Jhonny. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ramierez wrote: »
    Also, why would you be with 24 people you don't like? I'm sorry if you've just had bad guild experiences in other MMOs, but the whole point is with them is that you Do like the people you're guilded with - at least for the most part. That's what makes it fun.

    This is so true.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ikkei wrote: »
    @Adalwulff: Well Open world PvP would mean some kind of redesign of the game.
    However it's not mutually exclusive with PvE raids. I don't even see those competing at all.

    @Shingi: I hear you perfectly. I personally hate those forms of elitism. I do think like you on this: "there can be a compromise between the two mindsets, and i'm sure which ever MMO manages to hit that balance will have a massively rewarding endgame that everyone can enjoy."

    Your proposition is a good idea, scaling 5-men for 10 to 15. That could do the trick for a while. However later on it seems to me that good raiding needs good design.

    Here are examples of mechanics I'd love to see implemented. I'm basing the numbers on a hypothetical 20-men raid.
    - half of them need to fight a major enemy fleet of 40 ships somewhere on the map. friendly npcs help.
    - meanwhile squads of 2-3 ships are off to activate specific devices on the map. these ships get an item useful later. they can fight their way or stealth through it.
    - bam, scenario moves on, 2 attacks from each side of the map
    - players need to organize, hold position for n minutes.
    - but a friendly npc was a spy and deactivates one of the players fleet. the other must come to rescue, and spoil some of the "special items" obtained before.
    - whatever items left help them defeat big boss who just appeared.
    - add ground somewhere (boarding the flagship to disable his uberzweaponz, get the "items" on foot and beam them back to ship, etc)
    - add many cut-off scenes and story-telling stuff
    - make it feel epic and actually a big issue on the scenario of the universe

    You have just totally entertained 20 players for an evening. Actually a bit more than that if it needs two or three tries to win it. I agree, it shouldn't be too difficult, nor a hardship as raids can be in some MMO. it should be entertaining yet challenging.

    What's wrong with having that?

    I think that would work wonderfully, thank you.

    I'm sure you meant it this way, but to elaborate, the ground section would be comprised of a combo of 5 players or a mix of players and their BO's while the rest of the fleet holds their ground in the space battle. If either side fails then it could be (doesn't have to be) a wipe. Like if the boarding party gets killed, then the fleet has X amount of time to relaunch the boarding mission to try and rescue the previous one and complete the mission.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I can't really see what kind of an endgame we will have. Some people become master crafters, some raid constantly, some make a ton of alts, some pvp que repeatedly, none of these seem to work with STO except pvp.

    I loved 40 man raids and all my guildmates in WoW, now it's just garbage in WoW. Addons have ruined the fun.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I would enjoy a squad based derrivitive of a larger-scale battle..but then you're still in a small group, so there's nothing else different about it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ramierez wrote: »
    I've asked this in other threads like this and those of your side of the fence can never throw out an answer. In a PvE MMO (not RP or PvP as those are just allowed, not the core gameplay), what will you do with your time when you hit the cap and finish up the levelling missions if not do raid-like content?

    Also, why would you be with 24 people you don't like? I'm sorry if you've just had bad guild experiences in other MMOs, but the whole point is with them is that you Do like the people you're guilded with - at least for the most part. That's what makes it fun.

    I do like the suggestion of the content just scaling with group size as it would accomodate people like the one I quoted who would get to do those things with the smaller group they prefer.

    I've got no problem with end game content. I like the idea. I don't see any issue with making difficult encounters once you hit the highest level possible.

    I see a problem with making content that requires 25-40 people to complete it.

    I'm a west coast college student. Balancing work, school, and family leaves my schedule a bit rampant. As such, my selection of people that meet the same schedule is smaller than someone who is, say, a high school student with no job on the east coast that can play until 4 am every day.

    Given a smaller selection of people, finding people who are mature, not racist, not homophobic, not flamers (as in people that constantly put other people down for their own self image), and interested in group progression while creating little drama, well, I believe you will get the picture. Why is it so hard to find people who are just generally good people, not jerks, but are still dedicated to getting the job done without spending the entire time goofing off, going afk, being inconsiderate, and still manage to share a similar schedule as me?

    Good luck finding 24 other people like that. My days of putting up with immature TRIBBLE from 16 year old kids are in the past. Why should I have to compromise what I want from this game just to see the end game content?

    I'm okay with 10 player encounters. They can be complex and challenging. I'd prefer 5 player conflicts, but I'll deal with 10 player if I must...

    Really, if you're a parent, do you want your 15 year old playing with a bunch of 17-18 year olds, constantly using profanity and glorifying drugs and abuse of women? Or do you want your girlfriend or wife to do the same? What about the girls who play the game? Do you want your boyfriends to be saturated in this kind of behavior just to see some good loot?

    Point is, the more people you require to spend a greater portion of time together, the more stressful the time is. Why do you want to pay to get stressed out? I do enough of that during finals week.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    yes it needs it.

    raid-i-sodes? 5 man? lawl.

    thats what NORMAL quests should take.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    i dont see why there cant be 5 man instances, scaled up 10-15 man versions and dedicated "raid" instances for larger groups all in the same game, they dont have to be mutually exclusive.

    the problem is "t3h l00tz".

    those in favour of multi person raids tend to say they feel the best equipment should only be obtainable from that content, and a lot of games stick to that ideal. its the carrot they dangle on the end of the stick they beat you with by forcing you into that kind of setting.. if you want the best gear, you have to raid, to raid you need a large group, to raid WELL you need a large, well organised group, and some of us dont play well with others, espcially if those others are trying to tell me how to play the character i've just taken to cap...

    over in champions, where this type of debate has raged, i once suggested that the best gear in the game be obtainable from vendors via a token system. these tokens would be dropped only in endgame instances and drop rate would be reasonable, but variable.

    for solo endgame content, the drop rate could be say 1 drop from an average 10 kills with items costing 100 tokens (approx 1,000 kills solo per item), for 5 man content the rate could go to 1/8, 10 man to 1/5 with the 20 man content being a 1/1 ratio..

    so everyone has access to the same equipment, without the need for grouping if the individual dislikes it, but the incentive to group is there because the time needed to get the items is massively increased by doind that.

    to me, thats a solution that could allow for everyone to be happy
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ioniumflux wrote:
    The real question is:
    Why WOUDLN'T one want raid content.
    Yep. I agree. It's the funnest thing to do in MMOs when you are max. People are against them because they assume Raids HAVE to be like WoW/Lineage/etc... but there are many ways to make CHALLENGING, GROUP CONTENT. That's all a raid is. If you get gear, gold, crafting stuff, etc.. is up to the devs. But as with every other thing in the game, of the reward is = to the challenge then it's cool.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Duskwood wrote:
    yes it needs it.

    raid-i-sodes? 5 man? lawl.

    thats what NORMAL quests should take.

    You're experiences in other games have been tainted.

    These are Klingons..not ZOMG DRAGONS GUISE. Phasers are lethal, and it doesn't take 25 of them focused on one target to kill even the mightiest of klingon warriors.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Jensiem wrote:

    Really, if you're a parent, do you want your 15 year old playing with a bunch of 17-18 year olds, constantly using profanity and glorifying drugs and abuse of women? Or do you want your girlfriend or wife to do the same? What about the girls who play the game? Do you want your boyfriends to be saturated in this kind of behavior just to see some good loot?

    Point is, the more people you require to spend a greater portion of time together, the more stressful the time is. Why do you want to pay to get stressed out? I do enough of that during finals week.


    Sorry the guilds/fleets ect you have been in or heard of are pretty rare.

    I have been in 3 big raiding guilds all in wow on both factions over the last 6 years.

    Last guild I was in Wildcards on bloodfeather, we had people from all age groups ranging from 13-14 years upto a 54 year old.

    Never had issues with bad language ect.

    Its how the guild is run the rules and the ENFORCMENT of them rules.

    As for balancing work/school/collage/family ect 90% of players have to do this. And it gets done.

    I remeber 40 man raid in MC BWL and NAXX and they were REALY fun, killing a boss was somthing to be PROUD of, hell it took WC 8 hours SOLID to kill onixia because EVERYONE wanted to stay and kill her <server second>.

    I love big raid but I would say to limit it to 20 man tops.

    But there is one thing your forgetting...

    Finding 30/40 people in Wow is hard as theres a limited amount of players on your server at that time on your faction.

    With STO WE ARE ALL ON THE SAME SERVER.

    LF 19 people to raid borg hub /w me

    I reckon youd get about 100 wispers plus at pretty much any given time ONCE the game is in full swing.

    3 million people on one server wont be hard to find 15/20 people
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Yes, I agree we need raid content!

    Honestly though, with the way the timeline has been changed to make the new game possible anything would be possible with the way the war i going on with the Klingons something must be in the works
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Raid content please. I do think that 25m would be a bit much. Lets get them to impliment a 10man something and go from there.

    Being able to group in a 10m for pvp would be nice. 10 v 10 sounds like a blast (pun intended). Briar patch 10v10 anyone?

    Bottom line though. There needs to be a serious end-game to hold people's interest.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Sorry the guilds/fleets ect you have been in or heard of are pretty rare.

    I have been in 3 big raiding guilds all in wow on both factions over the last 6 years.

    Last guild I was in Wildcards on bloodfeather, we had people from all age groups ranging from 13-14 years upto a 54 year old.

    Never had issues with bad language ect.

    Its how the guild is run the rules and the ENFORCMENT of them rules.

    As for balancing work/school/collage/family ect 90% of players have to do this. And it gets done.

    I remeber 40 man raid in MC BWL and NAXX and they were REALY fun, killing a boss was somthing to be PROUD of, hell it took WC 8 hours SOLID to kill onixia because EVERYONE wanted to stay and kill her <server second>.

    I love big raid but I would say to limit it to 20 man tops.

    But there is one thing your forgetting...

    Finding 30/40 people in Wow is hard as theres a limited amount of players on your server at that time on your faction.

    With STO WE ARE ALL ON THE SAME SERVER.

    LF 19 people to raid borg hub /w me

    I reckon youd get about 100 wispers plus at pretty much any given time ONCE the game is in full swing.

    3 million people on one server wont be hard to find 15/20 people

    Agreed 100%. I hadn't even thought of that, pick-ups in STO are more than possible.

    If some content, too hard for some when it's released, could in time become very easy as they upgrade their equipment through other means... all will be well.

    And joining a nice and civilized fleet is more than recommended to play with others and not just in your geek's bubble alone. I see much, much more harm to any personality in geeking alone for hours than socializing (with consequences, a general chat bears no consequence whatsoever, while in a fleet you must live with your past words and actions). There is a sense of responsibility that comes with social activities, the first of them being commitment to your engagements. Knowing what is collective involvement. And so many other things.


    @Shingi: I so agree with your token system. You know what? They should hire you right now to make that raid content. lol. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    no.

    10 man+ raids are more like jobs and are not fun unless all you care about is getting phat epic loot to increase your epeen.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ikkei wrote: »
    @Shingi: I so agree with your token system. You know what? They should hire you right now to make that raid content. lol. :)

    i wish! although south east UK to LA every day would be a hell of a commute!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Intrepidox wrote: »
    no.

    10 man+ raids are more like jobs and are not fun unless all you care about is getting phat epic loot to increase your epeen.

    I totally disagree. I've raided a lot. Guess what? I don't care about loot. I didn't, ever. It's just futile, accessory to me. What I love is the sense of collective involvement. The fact we're all there, people I know, I've played with, I appreciate for what they are and what they add to our group. Some I'm friend with, some I wouldn't really talk to outside the game. It doesn't matter, as long as we can build relationships from cordial to friendly.

    I love raiding and I don't care about loot because to me raiding is so much more than pixels. It's a human experience. It's like a football team.

    I'm sorry for all the people that had to experience the formidable thing that is raiding with a bunch of self-sufficient jer** driven only by lootz and egotistical ends. Because these people couldn't be any farther from the point of massive multi-player gaming, imho.

    But you really need to give this a try with a dozen other people of your liking. It's just as awesome as your favorite ST crew. Even better, it's real. And it's you.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ikkei wrote: »
    I totally disagree. I've raided a lot. Guess what? I don't care about loot. I didn't, ever. It's just futile, accessory to me. What I love is the sense of collective involvement. The fact we're all there, people I know, I've played with, I appreciate for what they are and what they add to our group. Some I'm friend with, some I wouldn't really talk to outside the game. It doesn't matter, as long as we can build relationships from cordial to friendly.

    I love raiding and I don't care about loot because to me raiding is so much more than pixels. It's a human experience. It's like a football team.

    I'm sorry for all the people that had to experience the formidable thing that is raiding with a bunch of self-sufficient jer** driven only by lootz and egotistical ends. Because these people couldn't be any farther from the point of massive multi-player gaming, imho.

    But you really need to give this a try with a dozen other people of your liking. It's just as awesome as your favorite ST crew. Even better, it's real. And it's you.

    Agreed, and note that (yet again) still no constructive input for what there should be instead.

    It's all well and good to say 'no blah blah blah', but if you can't at least provide something as an alternative, you're only advocating us sitting on our collective behinds reminiscing about our levelling days or afking on Risa for months at a time...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    No to lame raids
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ramierez wrote: »
    I've asked this in other threads like this and those of your side of the fence can never throw out an answer. In a PvE MMO (not RP or PvP as those are just allowed, not the core gameplay), what will you do with your time when you hit the cap and finish up the levelling missions if not do raid-like content?


    You would do the endgame five man content, which can be just as difficult as 10-25 man content. If you balance a five man to be difficult, you can make it very difficult and much less forgiving than a 10-25 man encounter.

    In Star Trek episodes, epic encounters have almost always been handled by small elite teams of around 3-5 people for away missions or 2-6 ships in space combat situations (not counting the massive battles, but important events from shows).

    I have no problem with Fleet Action scenarios that require a large and organized group. I feel Cryptic should allow raid sized groups to enter these and make it easy for each member of the raid to get into the same encounter. I do not feel this encounter should be locked though, unless your raid fills every single slot of the instance. Random players should still be able join the organized encounter if they so desire, and aid in the battle. Not an issue though if you fill out the instance...

    Basically, I think the five man Raidisodes, Fleet Actions, PvP, and Exploration should all give equal rewards and development time at endgame. This will allow for a variety of playstyles to co-exist peacefully and eliminate any potential gear elitism that can develop from any one particular endgame activity.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Thrishmal wrote: »

    I have no problem with Fleet Action scenarios that require a large and organized group. I feel Cryptic should allow raid sized groups to enter these and make it easy for each member of the raid to get into the same encounter. I do not feel this encounter should be locked though, unless your raid fills every single slot of the instance. Random players should still be able join the organized encounter if they so desire, and aid in the battle. Not an issue though if you fill out the instance...

    There are 2 problems with this logic that I can see.

    1.) Currently Cryptic has no feature to kick someone from a group. Cryptic also has no feature to kick someone out of a fleet battle. All they have is a system that promotes playing Escorts to get gear for the ship you really want to fly. Anyone could zone in and just get credit for the kill for a quest reward, then come back and loot their badge of lootness when the boss dies.

    How to avoid this? Allow removal of a party member if they aren't pulling their weight? Yay! Problem... created?

    2.) Being able to kick someone out of the group leads to the second problem. Core group goes in, maybe only 5 people? Boots the other 20 at the end of the match, before loot is handed out, 20 people get kicked, 5 people limp through the last few bits of the encounter and get all the loot.

    This is quite the same as just having some random loot drop and be on master looter, which means that the master looter will usually hand the gear to fleet members over random pugs, since fleet members are coming back, randoms aren't. Since you can't really choose who you are randomly placed with, you've got no defense against this.

    If you make raid content, the instance should be locked to your team. If you don't have enough players to fill the group, you pug more or go without.

    10 player content won't be so bad. I'd look forward to 10 player content. I've always detested Blizzard for demanding you work with first 39 other people (which they found was a failing model) and then 24 other people. Eventually they will probably just go to 10 player versions. From what I've seen and experience, even other RPG's like Dark age of Camelot (group limited at 6 or 8?) and Guild wars, Group limited at 5 for pve and 10 for pvp.
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