Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
Only to some extent.
I mean, as long as it is done with some level of competency, the handoff should not cause any significant hiccup in the race, contingent upon the performance of the rest of the team.
Hard reality is, there only so far anyone can carry a raid, sadly there is no limit on how bad someone can fuck shit up, which I think is where the illusion of difficult comes from, not the raid itself, but the limitlessness of how much damage a single player can cause.
Now, Alright, lets talk raiding.
A lot of people do not know this, but, If you are part of a good raid team, you know your position, what you are supposed to do, how to do it well, and should have more than one character raid ready to fill various positions, often, most serious raiders will have a Healer, a Specific Role (Tank or other raid specific position), and what basically is their main, which is often DPS.
This is so that they can see if something is going wrong, and respond accordingly.
Now, no joke, for the most part, raids, run within a raiding community/guild, go off without any issues, a good raid group can chew through raids often faster than most pugs can do generic dungeons, and that is not an exaggeration.
We all hear the stories.. those tales of saving a raid, using DDO as a core example, that go something like this.
The main tank dies because the rogue did not disarm the traps, they made a mistake, and only disarmed 5 of the 6 traps, and started to DPS, thinking all was well, and the main tank stepped on what should have been a disarmed floor trap, got hit by the boss and ate enough damage from the trap to kill them 5 times over. The Back up tank, stepped in as the Rogue is going "Oh Shit" and starts to get that trap disarmed, but, the back up tank just discovered they are not up to par, and goes down in a 3 hit combo by the boss, people are losing their shit, the main healer, who built mainly for survival, because healing does in fact cause agro, steps in, and face tanks while self healing, to give time for the back up healer to raise the main tank.
Now, what is not talked about, is this was their 4th raid that day, the other ones went smooth as glass, the Rogue, at best gets chided a little bit, everyone laughs, and the team moves on to the next raid, with the rogue of course, staying with them, because they have 6 more raids to do today, and one little mistake does not end the raid circuit.
The next 6 raids go off without so much as hiccup, and everyone gets their loot, glory, and exp, as they have done these raids together 100's of time already, and they plan to meet back again, next week, same time, to do them all again, because they don't see any reason why they won't do these raids 100's of more times together.
That tale of a single raid out of 10 done that day, and among hundreds of raids done together.
So... Is this content hard?
That is like asking, "Is running hard?" "Is handing off the baton in a relay race hard?"
To a Olympic or professional relay runner, they would scoff at this question, and outside maybe a memorable few times out of thousands did mistakes ever happen.
Where as someone running at the track meet for the first time worrying going all fumble fingers, because, well all they can think about is the few times things went bad for the Olympian, and not realize that was just a rare case out of thousands of runs, and the hard reality is that they, simply put, won't run fast enough to win the race. They have not worked out enough to know the routine up to this point at race day. So they are on the track, new and sloppy, and running awkward, with bad shoes on, and no coaching, so they try to make up for by rushing the baton hand-off and risk even greater screw ups.
The thing is, when it comes to raids, there is expectation that anyone that wants to raid is going to be good walking in.. and how the hell is that supposed to happen, if they don't have the time to learn and practice the raid to get good at it.
Really, I mean, if you talk with raiding guilds and communities, no joke, they train their people, they will have a tight team that will make the effort to learn the raid, often having other background members with them, with extra's as well, they will keep this up, so that some can learn the raid fully (often the leaders/officers), and then once a few of them master the raid, they teach the others.
They get alts to bypass the timers, do extra runs to teach others in their circle, have discussions in discord, etc, so they all can get good at it, once they get clean runs going, they will they try experimenting and testing against the raid, to get better, to find other ways to do things, etc. This highly depends on the guild.
No dis to anyone, but, Pugs simply put, do not have access to that. So it's going to be harder for them to know the raid, and thus the difficulty is not about their skill as a player directly.
So is it fair, that if you can't become a part of a support community that you should get less rewards in a game?
Like saying a Solo Rower, should get a smaller gold medal than a Rowing Team, in the Olympics, because they had to deal with more people.
Seems kinds of silly, IMHO.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
Me.. I loved the community and the raiding in DDO, the raids were involved and often thought provokingly fun, and the people I run with are solid fun peeps, so I would have no issues if someone could get equally good gear (Not the same mind you, but equally good) in other ventures.
I mean, maybe.. just maybe.. how about, give everyone the same size medal, and let them decided kind of content they will enjoy the most to earn it in.
If you enjoy raids, why should it hurt your feelings that someone can get an equal piece of gear by some other means.
Which is something I loved about DDO, raid gear, was not always the best gear, it was good gear, but not always the best.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I am just going to repost a recent one of mine from a FF raiding article:
Q. What's your definition of hardcore Scot?
A, "but we’ll be going on about 16 hours a day, sleep for 8 hours, go again, break throughout the day as we need. Usually try to take breaks, so if you need to use the bathroom while we’re making diagrams, etc. Eat food and review footage at the same time."
I guess those guys were all suffering from an illusion, they could have just waltzed in and aced it?
If we are going to use effort applied, lets try another example.
During the Mad Kind Event in GW2, I would run the Mad King Clock Tower Jump Puzzle, time and time and time again, failing at it, till my hands hurt.
I would take a break, and relax, and rub Icy Hot into my hands as I watched video's on how to beat it, when my hands felt well enough again, I would go make more attempts.
Outside Work and Sleep, I spent the entire week throwing myself against that tower, my wife, bless her put up with my insanity during that week, until I finally beat it.
I must have failed hundreds if not thousands of times against that tower, and since I could not be carried, I had to beat it all by myself, you would think after all that effort, I should have gotten at the very least, what would have amounted to a raid level reward.
Instead I got.. not much, really.
But, not going to lie, I am pretty sick of people thinking that Solo = Easy.
That's just some bullshit fantasy they all cling to justify their precious raids, that Clock Tower taught me that solo content can be punishingly hard.
No joke, all the hours I spent doing that, I met a lot of the people that were on the breaking point of giving up, many just "giving it a go this year to see if they got any better" and, as it would be, no they didn't, they failed and moved on.
So, that clock tower was testament to me, that just because I had to do it all by my damn self, did not mean it was in any way easy.
In fact, it could be argued that solo content should give the best rewards, as you can't be carried through them, unlike group content where a few competent people can carry some bads, and the vast amount of raid selling in GW2, being testament to that raids should not in fact offer the best rewards.
The best rewards should be the ones you have to earn.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
Only to some extent.
I mean, as long as it is done with some level of competency, the handoff should not cause any significant hiccup in the race, contingent upon the performance of the rest of the team.
Hard reality is, there only so far anyone can carry a raid, sadly there is no limit on how bad someone can fuck shit up, which I think is where the illusion of difficult comes from, not the raid itself, but the limitlessness of how much damage a single player can cause.
Now, Alright, lets talk raiding.
A lot of people do not know this, but, If you are part of a good raid team, you know your position, what you are supposed to do, how to do it well, and should have more than one character raid ready to fill various positions, often, most serious raiders will have a Healer, a Specific Role (Tank or other raid specific position), and what basically is their main, which is often DPS.
This is so that they can see if something is going wrong, and respond accordingly.
Now, no joke, for the most part, raids, run within a raiding community/guild, go off without any issues, a good raid group can chew through raids often faster than most pugs can do generic dungeons, and that is not an exaggeration.
We all hear the stories.. those tales of saving a raid, using DDO as a core example, that go something like this.
The main tank dies because the rogue did not disarm the traps, they made a mistake, and only disarmed 5 of the 6 traps, and started to DPS, thinking all was well, and the main tank stepped on what should have been a disarmed floor trap, got hit by the boss and ate enough damage from the trap to kill them 5 times over. The Back up tank, stepped in as the Rogue is going "Oh Shit" and starts to get that trap disarmed, but, the back up tank just discovered they are not up to par, and goes down in a 3 hit combo by the boss, people are losing their shit, the main healer, who built mainly for survival, because healing does in fact cause agro, steps in, and face tanks while self healing, to give time for the back up healer to raise the main tank.
Now, what is not talked about, is this was their 4th raid that day, the other ones went smooth as glass, the Rogue, at best gets chided a little bit, everyone laughs, and the team moves on to the next raid, with the rogue of course, staying with them, because they have 6 more raids to do today, and one little mistake does not end the raid circuit.
The next 6 raids go off without so much as hiccup, and everyone gets their loot, glory, and exp, as they have done these raids together 100's of time already, and they plan to meet back again, next week, same time, to do them all again, because they don't see any reason why they won't do these raids 100's of more times together.
That tale of a single raid out of 10 done that day, and among hundreds of raids done together.
So... Is this content hard?
That is like asking, "Is running hard?" "Is handing off the baton in a relay race hard?"
To a Olympic or professional relay runner, they would scoff at this question, and outside maybe a memorable few times out of thousands did mistakes ever happen.
Where as someone running at the track meet for the first time worrying going all fumble fingers, because, well all they can think about is the few times things went bad for the Olympian, and not realize that was just a rare case out of thousands of runs, and the hard reality is that they, simply put, won't run fast enough to win the race. They have not worked out enough to know the routine up to this point at race day. So they are on the track, new and sloppy, and running awkward, with bad shoes on, and no coaching, so they try to make up for by rushing the baton hand-off and risk even greater screw ups.
The thing is, when it comes to raids, there is expectation that anyone that wants to raid is going to be good walking in.. and how the hell is that supposed to happen, if they don't have the time to learn and practice the raid to get good at it.
Really, I mean, if you talk with raiding guilds and communities, no joke, they train their people, they will have a tight team that will make the effort to learn the raid, often having other background members with them, with extra's as well, they will keep this up, so that some can learn the raid fully (often the leaders/officers), and then once a few of them master the raid, they teach the others.
They get alts to bypass the timers, do extra runs to teach others in their circle, have discussions in discord, etc, so they all can get good at it, once they get clean runs going, they will they try experimenting and testing against the raid, to get better, to find other ways to do things, etc. This highly depends on the guild.
No dis to anyone, but, Pugs simply put, do not have access to that. So it's going to be harder for them to know the raid, and thus the difficulty is not about their skill as a player directly.
So is it fair, that if you can't become a part of a support community that you should get less rewards in a game?
Like saying a Solo Rower, should get a smaller gold medal than a Rowing Team, in the Olympics, because they had to deal with more people.
Seems kinds of silly, IMHO.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
Me.. I loved the community and the raiding in DDO, the raids were involved and often thought provokingly fun, and the people I run with are solid fun peeps, so I would have no issues if someone could get equally good gear (Not the same mind you, but equally good) in other ventures.
I mean, maybe.. just maybe.. how about, give everyone the same size medal, and let them decided kind of content they will enjoy the most to earn it in.
If you enjoy raids, why should it hurt your feelings that someone can get an equal piece of gear by some other means.
Which is something I loved about DDO, raid gear, was not always the best gear, it was good gear, but not always the best.
C'mon, any great athlete can win a gold medal in a single sport or event, but shouldn't decathletes get a larger one, or at least have the number 10 in a platinum leaf overlay?
Now that you bring it up team sport gold medals should be larger, I'll be letting the IOC know for sure.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
Only to some extent.
I mean, as long as it is done with some level of competency, the handoff should not cause any significant hiccup in the race, contingent upon the performance of the rest of the team.
Hard reality is, there only so far anyone can carry a raid, sadly there is no limit on how bad someone can fuck shit up, which I think is where the illusion of difficult comes from, not the raid itself, but the limitlessness of how much damage a single player can cause.
Now, Alright, lets talk raiding.
A lot of people do not know this, but, If you are part of a good raid team, you know your position, what you are supposed to do, how to do it well, and should have more than one character raid ready to fill various positions, often, most serious raiders will have a Healer, a Specific Role (Tank or other raid specific position), and what basically is their main, which is often DPS.
This is so that they can see if something is going wrong, and respond accordingly.
Now, no joke, for the most part, raids, run within a raiding community/guild, go off without any issues, a good raid group can chew through raids often faster than most pugs can do generic dungeons, and that is not an exaggeration.
We all hear the stories.. those tales of saving a raid, using DDO as a core example, that go something like this.
The main tank dies because the rogue did not disarm the traps, they made a mistake, and only disarmed 5 of the 6 traps, and started to DPS, thinking all was well, and the main tank stepped on what should have been a disarmed floor trap, got hit by the boss and ate enough damage from the trap to kill them 5 times over. The Back up tank, stepped in as the Rogue is going "Oh Shit" and starts to get that trap disarmed, but, the back up tank just discovered they are not up to par, and goes down in a 3 hit combo by the boss, people are losing their shit, the main healer, who built mainly for survival, because healing does in fact cause agro, steps in, and face tanks while self healing, to give time for the back up healer to raise the main tank.
Now, what is not talked about, is this was their 4th raid that day, the other ones went smooth as glass, the Rogue, at best gets chided a little bit, everyone laughs, and the team moves on to the next raid, with the rogue of course, staying with them, because they have 6 more raids to do today, and one little mistake does not end the raid circuit.
The next 6 raids go off without so much as hiccup, and everyone gets their loot, glory, and exp, as they have done these raids together 100's of time already, and they plan to meet back again, next week, same time, to do them all again, because they don't see any reason why they won't do these raids 100's of more times together.
That tale of a single raid out of 10 done that day, and among hundreds of raids done together.
So... Is this content hard?
That is like asking, "Is running hard?" "Is handing off the baton in a relay race hard?"
To a Olympic or professional relay runner, they would scoff at this question, and outside maybe a memorable few times out of thousands did mistakes ever happen.
Where as someone running at the track meet for the first time worrying going all fumble fingers, because, well all they can think about is the few times things went bad for the Olympian, and not realize that was just a rare case out of thousands of runs, and the hard reality is that they, simply put, won't run fast enough to win the race. They have not worked out enough to know the routine up to this point at race day. So they are on the track, new and sloppy, and running awkward, with bad shoes on, and no coaching, so they try to make up for by rushing the baton hand-off and risk even greater screw ups.
The thing is, when it comes to raids, there is expectation that anyone that wants to raid is going to be good walking in.. and how the hell is that supposed to happen, if they don't have the time to learn and practice the raid to get good at it.
Really, I mean, if you talk with raiding guilds and communities, no joke, they train their people, they will have a tight team that will make the effort to learn the raid, often having other background members with them, with extra's as well, they will keep this up, so that some can learn the raid fully (often the leaders/officers), and then once a few of them master the raid, they teach the others.
They get alts to bypass the timers, do extra runs to teach others in their circle, have discussions in discord, etc, so they all can get good at it, once they get clean runs going, they will they try experimenting and testing against the raid, to get better, to find other ways to do things, etc. This highly depends on the guild.
No dis to anyone, but, Pugs simply put, do not have access to that. So it's going to be harder for them to know the raid, and thus the difficulty is not about their skill as a player directly.
So is it fair, that if you can't become a part of a support community that you should get less rewards in a game?
Like saying a Solo Rower, should get a smaller gold medal than a Rowing Team, in the Olympics, because they had to deal with more people.
Seems kinds of silly, IMHO.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
Me.. I loved the community and the raiding in DDO, the raids were involved and often thought provokingly fun, and the people I run with are solid fun peeps, so I would have no issues if someone could get equally good gear (Not the same mind you, but equally good) in other ventures.
I mean, maybe.. just maybe.. how about, give everyone the same size medal, and let them decided kind of content they will enjoy the most to earn it in.
If you enjoy raids, why should it hurt your feelings that someone can get an equal piece of gear by some other means.
Which is something I loved about DDO, raid gear, was not always the best gear, it was good gear, but not always the best.
C'mon, any great athlete can win a gold medal in a single sport or event, but shouldn't decathletes get a larger one, or at least have the number 10 in a platinum leaf overlay?
Now that you bring it up team sport gold medals should be larger, I'll be letting the IOC know for sure.
Nahh.. lets give them medals that are divided in size by the number of people, after all, they had all those people helping them win, and didn't have to earn it on their own.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
I think the main reason why raid gear is usually the best gear in the game, because that is usually the last piece of gear you got.
Usually for raid you are time gated by the availability of your guildmates and the raid lock mechanic. So what ended up happening is it'll take you months to acquire the raid gear.
For solo content, since there are usually no time gate, you can just keep doing it until you reach your goal. I think you talked about how difficult the mad king tower is, but really that took you only 1 day to complete.
Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
Only to some extent.
I mean, as long as it is done with some level of competency, the handoff should not cause any significant hiccup in the race, contingent upon the performance of the rest of the team.
Hard reality is, there only so far anyone can carry a raid, sadly there is no limit on how bad someone can fuck shit up, which I think is where the illusion of difficult comes from, not the raid itself, but the limitlessness of how much damage a single player can cause.
Now, Alright, lets talk raiding.
A lot of people do not know this, but, If you are part of a good raid team, you know your position, what you are supposed to do, how to do it well, and should have more than one character raid ready to fill various positions, often, most serious raiders will have a Healer, a Specific Role (Tank or other raid specific position), and what basically is their main, which is often DPS.
This is so that they can see if something is going wrong, and respond accordingly.
Now, no joke, for the most part, raids, run within a raiding community/guild, go off without any issues, a good raid group can chew through raids often faster than most pugs can do generic dungeons, and that is not an exaggeration.
We all hear the stories.. those tales of saving a raid, using DDO as a core example, that go something like this.
The main tank dies because the rogue did not disarm the traps, they made a mistake, and only disarmed 5 of the 6 traps, and started to DPS, thinking all was well, and the main tank stepped on what should have been a disarmed floor trap, got hit by the boss and ate enough damage from the trap to kill them 5 times over. The Back up tank, stepped in as the Rogue is going "Oh Shit" and starts to get that trap disarmed, but, the back up tank just discovered they are not up to par, and goes down in a 3 hit combo by the boss, people are losing their shit, the main healer, who built mainly for survival, because healing does in fact cause agro, steps in, and face tanks while self healing, to give time for the back up healer to raise the main tank.
Now, what is not talked about, is this was their 4th raid that day, the other ones went smooth as glass, the Rogue, at best gets chided a little bit, everyone laughs, and the team moves on to the next raid, with the rogue of course, staying with them, because they have 6 more raids to do today, and one little mistake does not end the raid circuit.
The next 6 raids go off without so much as hiccup, and everyone gets their loot, glory, and exp, as they have done these raids together 100's of time already, and they plan to meet back again, next week, same time, to do them all again, because they don't see any reason why they won't do these raids 100's of more times together.
That tale of a single raid out of 10 done that day, and among hundreds of raids done together.
So... Is this content hard?
That is like asking, "Is running hard?" "Is handing off the baton in a relay race hard?"
To a Olympic or professional relay runner, they would scoff at this question, and outside maybe a memorable few times out of thousands did mistakes ever happen.
Where as someone running at the track meet for the first time worrying going all fumble fingers, because, well all they can think about is the few times things went bad for the Olympian, and not realize that was just a rare case out of thousands of runs, and the hard reality is that they, simply put, won't run fast enough to win the race. They have not worked out enough to know the routine up to this point at race day. So they are on the track, new and sloppy, and running awkward, with bad shoes on, and no coaching, so they try to make up for by rushing the baton hand-off and risk even greater screw ups.
The thing is, when it comes to raids, there is expectation that anyone that wants to raid is going to be good walking in.. and how the hell is that supposed to happen, if they don't have the time to learn and practice the raid to get good at it.
Really, I mean, if you talk with raiding guilds and communities, no joke, they train their people, they will have a tight team that will make the effort to learn the raid, often having other background members with them, with extra's as well, they will keep this up, so that some can learn the raid fully (often the leaders/officers), and then once a few of them master the raid, they teach the others.
They get alts to bypass the timers, do extra runs to teach others in their circle, have discussions in discord, etc, so they all can get good at it, once they get clean runs going, they will they try experimenting and testing against the raid, to get better, to find other ways to do things, etc. This highly depends on the guild.
No dis to anyone, but, Pugs simply put, do not have access to that. So it's going to be harder for them to know the raid, and thus the difficulty is not about their skill as a player directly.
So is it fair, that if you can't become a part of a support community that you should get less rewards in a game?
Like saying a Solo Rower, should get a smaller gold medal than a Rowing Team, in the Olympics, because they had to deal with more people.
Seems kinds of silly, IMHO.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
Me.. I loved the community and the raiding in DDO, the raids were involved and often thought provokingly fun, and the people I run with are solid fun peeps, so I would have no issues if someone could get equally good gear (Not the same mind you, but equally good) in other ventures.
I mean, maybe.. just maybe.. how about, give everyone the same size medal, and let them decided kind of content they will enjoy the most to earn it in.
If you enjoy raids, why should it hurt your feelings that someone can get an equal piece of gear by some other means.
Which is something I loved about DDO, raid gear, was not always the best gear, it was good gear, but not always the best.
I don't think solo is by definition easy, I do think over the years soloing has been made easier and easier by gaming studios. That's why it has an easy reputation, it does not have to be easy. Ralphie mentioned small team raids, I have been on tough ones, easier since there are fewer players to co-ordinate but they were not easy.
Studios expect players to have good co-ordination for a raid, they build in difficulty for that which you just don't get in solo. But solo could be way, way harder than it is in most MMOs now.
Pfft, anyone can succeed when letting a good raiding team carry them.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
So ergo, raiding is inherently more difficult in most occasions.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
I think the main reason why raid gear is usually the best gear in the game, because that is usually the last piece of gear you got.
Usually for raid you are time gated by the availability of your guildmates and the raid lock mechanic. So what ended up happening is it'll take you months to acquire the raid gear.
For solo content, since there are usually no time gate, you can just keep doing it until you reach your goal. I think you talked about how difficult the mad king tower is, but really that took you only 1 day to complete.
No.. read my post.. it didn't take me 1 day to complete.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Lost Ark the raiding stuff the high level dungeons is so totally out of my league I can never hope to do it. I have sadly lost all mobility and quickness due to rapidly advancing age.
That is tough to me. The things you say you can easily master is not something I can do. I can perhaps play a game like Everquest or even City of Heroes or may be even Dark Age of Camelot in raids. Many of the games nowadays are completely out of my reach as far as high level raiding go. Even WoW has to a certain extent all about moving out of red this and red that dance which my two left feet are stumbling over.
This plus working in a group makes these games very difficult. I could not even manage healing in a small dungeon on Wildstar because of the mad colour show I was constantly paying more attention on where to jump to instead of healing. This was really hard and tough for me.
So while you may scoff about how easy it is I think grouping at raid levels is indeed difficult and the better rewards are thus deserved.
I don't think solo is by definition easy, I do think over the years soloing has been made easier and easier by gaming studios. That's why it has an easy reputation, it does not have to be easy. Ralphie mentioned small team raids, I have been on tough ones, easier since there are fewer players to co-ordinate but they were not easy.
Studios expect players to have good co-ordination for a raid, they build in difficulty for that which you just don't get in solo. But solo could be way, way harder than it is in most MMOs now.
Not really, if you look at most raids or were part of a raiding community, once your team gets the mechanics and roles down, they become surprisingly easy, often with very little talk, hell sometimes people will be talking about their pets, or what they made for dinner, as we are raiding.
Honestly their entire difficulty sits in having a network to get in on raid runs and be with people willing to invest their time to teach you, simple as that.
And lets be honest, Pugs, Rando's and Solo players don't typically have access to that kind of resource, and thus, putting in content that works against them like that, as well as doing it in such a way that they will never have the top level gear ensuring that they feel like second class citizens for not raiding, is a great way to get them to move on and cease investing into your game.
Some games like DDO, have an established raid culture, but then you have other games like GW2, that learned the hard way, when they took a nose dive after putting in raids, that raids are not this holy grail of gaming. Now GW2 has since rebounded to some extent, I wager in no small part by moving away from raids and to putting more emphasis on their strike missions, (with IIRC are just recreations of the Boss fights in the Living World Story, Which IMHO is a great idea, because that way a solo or someone who only plays with a small group of friends can still practice the fight and learn the mechanics) are thriving.
I suppose it will just be a matter of time before they realize they need to put in another PvE Avenue to Legendary Armor, unless they plan to be content with bleeding a significant chunk of the players they get from Steam in a few months, we shall see how that plays out.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Lost Ark the raiding stuff the high level dungeons is so totally out of my league I can never hope to do it. I have sadly lost all mobility and quickness due to rapidly advancing age.
That is tough to me. The things you say you can easily master is not something I can do. I can perhaps play a game like Everquest or even City of Heroes or may be even Dark Age of Camelot in raids. Many of the games nowadays are completely out of my reach as far as high level raiding go. Even WoW has to a certain extent all about moving out of red this and red that dance which my two left feet are stumbling over.
This plus working in a group makes these games very difficult. I could not even manage healing in a small dungeon on Wildstar because of the mad colour show I was constantly paying more attention on where to jump to instead of healing. This was really hard and tough for me.
So while you may scoff about how easy it is I think grouping at raid levels is indeed difficult and the better rewards are thus deserved.
This is not a dis, but, chances are, any difficult solo and small group content is also out of your league.
The thing is, when it comes to content, challenging solo, small group, and raid, should all give equally viable rewards.
Someone who completes challenging solo content, should not get pointless junk, while someone who gets carried through a raid gets epic gear.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
How about we just skip the middle man and everyone gets the best gear just for logging on?
That would be called horizontal progression games.. and in no small sense of irony, there are some here that want that, I think even Scott advocates for that system.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Locking rewards behind "hard" solo content is probably far worse. Then people who are unskilled can't do it. The amount of outrage you get would probably be far worse than locking rewards behind raiding.
Usually you just lock rewards behind some sort of grind.
Locking rewards behind "hard" solo content is probably far worse. Then people who are unskilled can't do it. The amount of outrage you get would probably be far worse than locking rewards behind raiding.
Usually you just lock rewards behind some sort of grind.
Especially in mmos where it's usually class driven. Sucks to be a healer or a tank with crappy dps! lol
I would much rather in an online game with things being held behind group/guild focused content as opposed to solo content.
How about we just skip the middle man and everyone gets the best gear just for logging on?
That would be called horizontal progression games.. and in no small sense of irony, there are some here that want that, I think even Scott advocates for that system.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
I love this kind of system! The progression becomes not gear/level-based but player-based.
Which is very satisfying because victory becomes well deserved.
However, the problem is that bad players have then a tendency to leave, as they cannot catch up with time, levels, luck or credit cards... and then the game may have a tendency to die.
To go back on topic, I think that raids are a thing that stops the evolution of MMORPGs. It is seen as the peak of MMORPGs gameplay, and are expected in every game, but are in fact just another hamster wheel that turns endlessly on the same spot.
As such the problem is not: what is the hardest ? Your content or mine? (feel free to replace the word "content" by "weewee")
But, how to go beyond the flawed concept of the hamster-wheel-so-stupidly-called "endgame"?
How about we just skip the middle man and everyone gets the best gear just for logging on?
That would be called horizontal progression games.. and in no small sense of irony, there are some here that want that, I think even Scott advocates for that system.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
I love this kind of system! The progression becomes not gear/level-based but player-based.
Which is very satisfying because victory becomes well deserved.
However, the problem is that bad players have then a tendency to leave, as they cannot catch up with time, levels, luck or credit cards... and then the game may have a tendency to die.
To go back on topic, I think that raids are a thing that stops the evolution of MMORPGs. It is seen as the peak of MMORPGs gameplay, and are expected in every game, but are in fact just another hamster wheel that turns endlessly on the same spot.
As such the problem is not: what is the hardest ? Your content or mine? (feel free to replace the word "content" by "weewee")
But, how to go beyond the flawed concept of the hamster-wheel-so-stupidly-called "endgame"?
Yah.. like.. Totally agree with you that players tend to give up on games they can't really do.
This applies to any kind of game really, from multiplayer, to single player games, players tend to reach a point where their skill or ability caps out, and they often quit playing at that point, or start to drift away.
Nature of the Beast, Kind of like when someone plays their best game of Pac Man, and realizes, that they are in fact not the King of Kong. Their best, is just not good enough.
Sure they might drop a quarter again from time to time, but they know, it's just for funzies, any serious effort on their part is long gone.
Just the way things happens.
This is also why I am a strong advocate for making MMO's that target a specific demographic, and pretty much screw everyone else.
If the goal is to make a more casual game, then focus on casuals, target them, and build the best game you can for them, screw everyone else.
If the goal is build a game for hardcore raiders, make a game for that demographic, screw everyone else.
Sometimes people need to just accept that a game is not for them, and move on to a different game, but as you said, the developers need to ask themselves, is the demographic they want to target, enough to keep them afloat.
I guess that is where the real question sits.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
How about we just skip the middle man and everyone gets the best gear just for logging on?
That would be called horizontal progression games.. and in no small sense of irony, there are some here that want that, I think even Scott advocates for that system.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
I love this kind of system! The progression becomes not gear/level-based but player-based.
Which is very satisfying because victory becomes well deserved.
However, the problem is that bad players have then a tendency to leave, as they cannot catch up with time, levels, luck or credit cards... and then the game may have a tendency to die.
To go back on topic, I think that raids are a thing that stops the evolution of MMORPGs. It is seen as the peak of MMORPGs gameplay, and are expected in every game, but are in fact just another hamster wheel that turns endlessly on the same spot.
As such the problem is not: what is the hardest ? Your content or mine? (feel free to replace the word "content" by "weewee")
But, how to go beyond the flawed concept of the hamster-wheel-so-stupidly-called "endgame"?
Yah.. like.. Totally agree with you that players tend to give up on games they can't really do.
This applies to any kind of game really, from multiplayer, to single player games, players tend to reach a point where their skill or ability caps out, and they often quit playing at that point, or start to drift away.
Nature of the Beast, Kind of like when someone plays their best game of Pac Man, and realizes, that they are in fact not the King of Kong. Their best, is just not good enough.
Sure they might drop a quarter again from time to time, but they know, it's just for funzies, any serious effort on their part is long gone.
Just the way things happens.
You know where this concept is learned or experienced first? Organized youth sports.
They start out being played for "fun" but quite quickly they get move to being only for children who are good enough to make the cut.
From baseball to soccer to football there but comes an age when almost everyone is told, you are not good enough to go to the next level, and the journey ends.
For me in baseball it was in little league mine stopped. I apparently was so poor I failed to get "drafted" or picked for a team.
Tramatized me really, to be told this at what, 9 or 10 years old, I gave up on youth sports completely.
Fortunately discovered tennis which I wasn't half bad at but never dreamed of trying out for it competitively because I would have just hit the wall at some point.
Makes sense video games aren't much like that, developers try to find ways where people don't hit a wall based on their own skills.
In PVP the best solo or run organized small groups, for the rest of us there is the warm chaotic comfort of the Zerg.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well... the major factor in a MMO is time. Time to achieve something.
In Molten Core for instance, each boss drops 2 items, with some having a chance to drop 3, and Ragnaros 4. There are 10 bosses, so if you add the random drops from trash, that's approximately like 30 items max per run of 40 people.
Then you must subtract the items nobody wants because they are crap or everybody already has them. Let's say you have 50% chances of getting an item per raid of 2 hours. Yeah, I know, MC can be done in much less, but that's nowadays, back then it took closer to 4 hours at the beginning, if not more in case of wipes.
Then you must add the preparation, fire potions, ammunition, metal/crystal farming for the crafting...
And also all the work from the guild management to keep it all together, which is a lot of work.
And of course, you can only run a raid once a week.
So basically, a raider had a 50% chance of getting a useful item per week, for approximately 3 to 4 hours of gameplay. If he's going for a legendary, that's much more.
So should a solo player also have the chance to get a similar useful item in 4 hours every week ? I don't think so. There's much more to group playing than just killing bosses.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
How about we just skip the middle man and everyone gets the best gear just for logging on?
That would be called horizontal progression games.. and in no small sense of irony, there are some here that want that, I think even Scott advocates for that system.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
I love this kind of system! The progression becomes not gear/level-based but player-based.
Which is very satisfying because victory becomes well deserved.
However, the problem is that bad players have then a tendency to leave, as they cannot catch up with time, levels, luck or credit cards... and then the game may have a tendency to die.
To go back on topic, I think that raids are a thing that stops the evolution of MMORPGs. It is seen as the peak of MMORPGs gameplay, and are expected in every game, but are in fact just another hamster wheel that turns endlessly on the same spot.
As such the problem is not: what is the hardest ? Your content or mine? (feel free to replace the word "content" by "weewee")
But, how to go beyond the flawed concept of the hamster-wheel-so-stupidly-called "endgame"?
Yah.. like.. Totally agree with you that players tend to give up on games they can't really do.
This applies to any kind of game really, from multiplayer, to single player games, players tend to reach a point where their skill or ability caps out, and they often quit playing at that point, or start to drift away.
Nature of the Beast, Kind of like when someone plays their best game of Pac Man, and realizes, that they are in fact not the King of Kong. Their best, is just not good enough.
Sure they might drop a quarter again from time to time, but they know, it's just for funzies, any serious effort on their part is long gone.
Just the way things happens.
You know where this concept is learned or experienced first? Organized youth sports.
They start out being played for "fun" but quite quickly they get move to being only for children who are good enough to make the cut.
From baseball to soccer to football there but comes an age when almost everyone is told, you are not good enough to go to the next level, and the journey ends.
For me in baseball it was in little league mine stopped. I apparently was so poor I failed to get "drafted" or picked for a team.
Tramatized me really, to be told this at what, 9 or 10 years old, I gave up on youth sports completely.
Fortunately discovered tennis which I wasn't half bad at but never dreamed of trying out for it competitively because I would have just hit the wall at some point.
Makes sense video games aren't much like that, developers try to find ways where people don't hit a wall based on their own skills.
In PVP the best solo or run organized small groups, for the rest of us there is the warm chaotic comfort of the Zerg.
That's a very good relation, you first try out to play a group focused multiplayer game, like baseball, which is basically a Raid, where everyone needs to know their position on the field and do their job, where both the individual and overall skill of the team will play a role in if they are victorious or not.
When/If that does not work, due to lacking the skills to be on a team, either by lacking the social skills to have built that network of friends that would pick you regardless of skill, and work and play with you outside of school so you could get better, or just lacking the skills to play the game itself well enough so that the others would want you, regardless of your social standing with them, you moved to a single player style of game.
This is really, very similar to the MMO experience for many.
This is also why a lot more people that still enjoy physical activities end up doing things that they can enjoy in a solo and small group, as opposed to larger team style, like Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Running, Bicycling, Hiking, or in some cases, just going to gym to be fit and healthy.
And, I wager this happens with a lot of hobbies and activities, so MMO won't be some exception to this dynamic.
Now with Baseball, on the competitive level, the player is the product being sold, and the direct source of income comes the people in the stands.
With Video games, the Game itself is the Product being sold, and player is the direct source of income.
As such, a MMO has a lot in common with something like Bowling, where the money comes from the players directly, and has nothing to do with their skill as a player of the game, then it does with baseball where the skill of the player is what gets the best rewards.
and I think.. Developers are starting to catch a clue with this, that the Raiders are not generating them more money then the sod getting killed by giant rats in the starter zones, and with cash shops, there is even less a chance the raider who can earn everything in game is paying into the system as much as the mediocre players.
But that will be on the devs to decide how they make their game.. as others said.. sometimes they bet on the wrong horse, and it does not pony up the cash to keep the game alive.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Well... the major factor in a MMO is time. Time to achieve something.
In Molten Core for instance, each boss drops 2 items, with some having a chance to drop 3, and Ragnaros 4. There are 10 bosses, so if you add the random drops from trash, that's approximately like 30 items max per run of 40 people.
Then you must subtract the items nobody wants because they are crap or everybody already has them. Let's say you have 50% chances of getting an item per raid of 2 hours. Yeah, I know, MC can be done in much less, but that's nowadays, back then it took closer to 4 hours at the beginning, if not more in case of wipes.
Then you must add the preparation, fire potions, ammunition, metal/crystal farming for the crafting...
And also all the work from the guild management to keep it all together, which is a lot of work.
And of course, you can only run a raid once a week.
So basically, a raider had a 50% chance of getting a useful item per week, for approximately 3 to 4 hours of gameplay. If he's going for a legendary, that's much more.
So should a solo player also have the chance to get a similar useful item in 4 hours every week ? I don't think so. There's much more to group playing than just killing bosses.
Why not ?
I mean, really, think about it.
The solo player needs all the same build up and gearing if they plan to do challenging or difficult solo/small group content.
I wager Molten Core is a WoW thing, so I'll use DDO.
Doing a quest like Inferno of the Damned, for starters, you need to know the quest, no joke, you need to know the map, and the order, as mobs respawn, you can't just sit around, looking up what to do next, you need to know this map, and the order to do things, and be ready for each fight that is going to spring on you, dying solo at any point in this quest leads to a fail, and if you die in the wrong spots, even having a group won't save you, and can also lead to a fail. So you need to know this quest before you in.
You also need the means to trigger all the events, and since it is a dual environment quest, you need have all your resists, potions, weapon swaps, ready as well.
Since Mobs respawn at a pretty fast rate, you need to have a means to heal past that, and DDO, is a resource management game, you don't just heal up out of combat like you do in other MMO's, the only way you heal is through direct healing magic or rest shrines, and those are one shot.
As a quest, without someone that knows this dungeon, the chance to fail is pretty high all things said and done.
Now, I know this dungeon quite well, I have lead people through it hundreds of times, so, lets be honest, I know this quest, I can solo run it and make it look easy, most days, I also know if someone did something wrong that would cause a fail.
And I could tell someone many times over "When I trigger this portal, we are going to get attacked, be ready" and still watch them get obliterated in the fight.
So.. is there a lot more time and prep and money investment involved than the run time to complete this quest involved in ensuring that I can in fact complete this quest? Oh hell yah.
So why should that not be respected, but the time spent to prep for a raid should be?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Lost Ark the raiding stuff the high level dungeons is so totally out of my league I can never hope to do it. I have sadly lost all mobility and quickness due to rapidly advancing age.
That is tough to me. The things you say you can easily master is not something I can do. I can perhaps play a game like Everquest or even City of Heroes or may be even Dark Age of Camelot in raids. Many of the games nowadays are completely out of my reach as far as high level raiding go. Even WoW has to a certain extent all about moving out of red this and red that dance which my two left feet are stumbling over.
This plus working in a group makes these games very difficult. I could not even manage healing in a small dungeon on Wildstar because of the mad colour show I was constantly paying more attention on where to jump to instead of healing. This was really hard and tough for me.
So while you may scoff about how easy it is I think grouping at raid levels is indeed difficult and the better rewards are thus deserved.
This is not a dis, but, chances are, any difficult solo and small group content is also out of your league.
The thing is, when it comes to content, challenging solo, small group, and raid, should all give equally viable rewards.
Someone who completes challenging solo content, should not get pointless junk, while someone who gets carried through a raid gets epic gear.
You're not right entirely about what you said about soloing because I can solo to a certain extent. You see I can do the solo stuff on Lost Ark well enough. Even when I fail I'm not wasting anyone else's time but my own.
There are a lot of games where with time I can manage the solo stuff but the group stuff I can't, like in Wildstar I can solo Wildstar fine but the group stuff as a healer was really too hard for me.
So you're are not right and the rewards should not be the same in my opinion. In fact my situation illustrates perfectly why soloing and group content challenges one differently and should be rewarded accordingly.
Your relay race example was good though, but you missed the point. While it's true all 4 runners go as fast as they can, it's the coordination of the handoff between runners which can make or break the entire effort, same with group raiding, right?
It's a factor soloing never has to deal with, the outcome is totally within the players control, no coordination necessary outside of their own.
This has me curious, and too lazy to "Google it!"
I wonder what the differences between relay races vs solo runs, like 4x100 vs 400 meter race times
[edit]
I should add my thoughts: Games are "illusions." Many players want "better AI", yet they would LOSE every fight with an AI, as AI has zero reaction time, zero chance "to miss", and would have information the player does not. Unless...
The AI has to be handicapped in order to allow the player a chance to "win."
Taking a shot through a sniper scope is an "illusion" because "winds" don't blow in video games. Fires could show which way the wind blows, it usually doesn't.
My point being, Games are illusions.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I am just going to repost a recent one of mine from a FF raiding article:
Q. What's your definition of hardcore Scot?
A, "but we’ll be going on about 16 hours a day, sleep for 8 hours, go again, break throughout the day as we need. Usually try to take breaks, so if you need to use the bathroom while we’re making diagrams, etc. Eat food and review footage at the same time."
I guess those guys were all suffering from an illusion, they could have just waltzed in and aced it?
Yes, they suffered from "illusions", but in not how you're using the word. Did "the game" make them do things? Did the "other players" hold a gun to their heads?
Could they also choose NOT to do these things? There was something they valued more than the time they spent that they wanted. They did these by choice.
It's like "the game" made them do these things
"Difficulty" is when a mountain climber gets so tired that they can neither go up to the next ledge or down to the previous one without injury. They are "spurred on" by the reality of actual physical harm. Games are choices
I know that I'm being overly cynical, but thought I needed to throw this into the discussion. I choose to play games, too
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Comments
I mean, as long as it is done with some level of competency, the handoff should not cause any significant hiccup in the race, contingent upon the performance of the rest of the team.
Hard reality is, there only so far anyone can carry a raid, sadly there is no limit on how bad someone can fuck shit up, which I think is where the illusion of difficult comes from, not the raid itself, but the limitlessness of how much damage a single player can cause.
Now, Alright, lets talk raiding.
A lot of people do not know this, but, If you are part of a good raid team, you know your position, what you are supposed to do, how to do it well, and should have more than one character raid ready to fill various positions, often, most serious raiders will have a Healer, a Specific Role (Tank or other raid specific position), and what basically is their main, which is often DPS.
This is so that they can see if something is going wrong, and respond accordingly.
Now, no joke, for the most part, raids, run within a raiding community/guild, go off without any issues, a good raid group can chew through raids often faster than most pugs can do generic dungeons, and that is not an exaggeration.
We all hear the stories.. those tales of saving a raid, using DDO as a core example, that go something like this.
The main tank dies because the rogue did not disarm the traps, they made a mistake, and only disarmed 5 of the 6 traps, and started to DPS, thinking all was well, and the main tank stepped on what should have been a disarmed floor trap, got hit by the boss and ate enough damage from the trap to kill them 5 times over. The Back up tank, stepped in as the Rogue is going "Oh Shit" and starts to get that trap disarmed, but, the back up tank just discovered they are not up to par, and goes down in a 3 hit combo by the boss, people are losing their shit, the main healer, who built mainly for survival, because healing does in fact cause agro, steps in, and face tanks while self healing, to give time for the back up healer to raise the main tank.
Now, what is not talked about, is this was their 4th raid that day, the other ones went smooth as glass, the Rogue, at best gets chided a little bit, everyone laughs, and the team moves on to the next raid, with the rogue of course, staying with them, because they have 6 more raids to do today, and one little mistake does not end the raid circuit.
The next 6 raids go off without so much as hiccup, and everyone gets their loot, glory, and exp, as they have done these raids together 100's of time already, and they plan to meet back again, next week, same time, to do them all again, because they don't see any reason why they won't do these raids 100's of more times together.
That tale of a single raid out of 10 done that day, and among hundreds of raids done together.
So... Is this content hard?
That is like asking, "Is running hard?" "Is handing off the baton in a relay race hard?"
To a Olympic or professional relay runner, they would scoff at this question, and outside maybe a memorable few times out of thousands did mistakes ever happen.
Where as someone running at the track meet for the first time worrying going all fumble fingers, because, well all they can think about is the few times things went bad for the Olympian, and not realize that was just a rare case out of thousands of runs, and the hard reality is that they, simply put, won't run fast enough to win the race. They have not worked out enough to know the routine up to this point at race day. So they are on the track, new and sloppy, and running awkward, with bad shoes on, and no coaching, so they try to make up for by rushing the baton hand-off and risk even greater screw ups.
The thing is, when it comes to raids, there is expectation that anyone that wants to raid is going to be good walking in.. and how the hell is that supposed to happen, if they don't have the time to learn and practice the raid to get good at it.
Really, I mean, if you talk with raiding guilds and communities, no joke, they train their people, they will have a tight team that will make the effort to learn the raid, often having other background members with them, with extra's as well, they will keep this up, so that some can learn the raid fully (often the leaders/officers), and then once a few of them master the raid, they teach the others.
They get alts to bypass the timers, do extra runs to teach others in their circle, have discussions in discord, etc, so they all can get good at it, once they get clean runs going, they will they try experimenting and testing against the raid, to get better, to find other ways to do things, etc. This highly depends on the guild.
No dis to anyone, but, Pugs simply put, do not have access to that. So it's going to be harder for them to know the raid, and thus the difficulty is not about their skill as a player directly.
So is it fair, that if you can't become a part of a support community that you should get less rewards in a game?
Like saying a Solo Rower, should get a smaller gold medal than a Rowing Team, in the Olympics, because they had to deal with more people.
Seems kinds of silly, IMHO.
I mean, I don't see how it would devalue my raid gear because someone can do solo content and get equal gear, it just begs the question: Am I doing the Raid because I enjoy the community and the raid event, or am I putting up with the bullshit to get the loot.
Me.. I loved the community and the raiding in DDO, the raids were involved and often thought provokingly fun, and the people I run with are solid fun peeps, so I would have no issues if someone could get equally good gear (Not the same mind you, but equally good) in other ventures.
I mean, maybe.. just maybe.. how about, give everyone the same size medal, and let them decided kind of content they will enjoy the most to earn it in.
If you enjoy raids, why should it hurt your feelings that someone can get an equal piece of gear by some other means.
Which is something I loved about DDO, raid gear, was not always the best gear, it was good gear, but not always the best.
Neither side will ever agree or understand what makes it "fun" for the other side.
During the Mad Kind Event in GW2, I would run the Mad King Clock Tower Jump Puzzle, time and time and time again, failing at it, till my hands hurt.
I would take a break, and relax, and rub Icy Hot into my hands as I watched video's on how to beat it, when my hands felt well enough again, I would go make more attempts.
Outside Work and Sleep, I spent the entire week throwing myself against that tower, my wife, bless her put up with my insanity during that week, until I finally beat it.
I must have failed hundreds if not thousands of times against that tower, and since I could not be carried, I had to beat it all by myself, you would think after all that effort, I should have gotten at the very least, what would have amounted to a raid level reward.
Instead I got.. not much, really.
But, not going to lie, I am pretty sick of people thinking that Solo = Easy.
That's just some bullshit fantasy they all cling to justify their precious raids, that Clock Tower taught me that solo content can be punishingly hard.
No joke, all the hours I spent doing that, I met a lot of the people that were on the breaking point of giving up, many just "giving it a go this year to see if they got any better" and, as it would be, no they didn't, they failed and moved on.
So, that clock tower was testament to me, that just because I had to do it all by my damn self, did not mean it was in any way easy.
In fact, it could be argued that solo content should give the best rewards, as you can't be carried through them, unlike group content where a few competent people can carry some bads, and the vast amount of raid selling in GW2, being testament to that raids should not in fact offer the best rewards.
The best rewards should be the ones you have to earn.
Now that you bring it up team sport gold medals should be larger, I'll be letting the IOC know for sure.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think the main reason why raid gear is usually the best gear in the game, because that is usually the last piece of gear you got.
Usually for raid you are time gated by the availability of your guildmates and the raid lock mechanic. So what ended up happening is it'll take you months to acquire the raid gear.
For solo content, since there are usually no time gate, you can just keep doing it until you reach your goal. I think you talked about how difficult the mad king tower is, but really that took you only 1 day to complete.
Studios expect players to have good co-ordination for a raid, they build in difficulty for that which you just don't get in solo. But solo could be way, way harder than it is in most MMOs now.
That is tough to me. The things you say you can easily master is not something I can do. I can perhaps play a game like Everquest or even City of Heroes or may be even Dark Age of Camelot in raids. Many of the games nowadays are completely out of my reach as far as high level raiding go. Even WoW has to a certain extent all about moving out of red this and red that dance which my two left feet are stumbling over.
This plus working in a group makes these games very difficult. I could not even manage healing in a small dungeon on Wildstar because of the mad colour show I was constantly paying more attention on where to jump to instead of healing. This was really hard and tough for me.
So while you may scoff about how easy it is I think grouping at raid levels is indeed difficult and the better rewards are thus deserved.
Honestly their entire difficulty sits in having a network to get in on raid runs and be with people willing to invest their time to teach you, simple as that.
And lets be honest, Pugs, Rando's and Solo players don't typically have access to that kind of resource, and thus, putting in content that works against them like that, as well as doing it in such a way that they will never have the top level gear ensuring that they feel like second class citizens for not raiding, is a great way to get them to move on and cease investing into your game.
Some games like DDO, have an established raid culture, but then you have other games like GW2, that learned the hard way, when they took a nose dive after putting in raids, that raids are not this holy grail of gaming. Now GW2 has since rebounded to some extent, I wager in no small part by moving away from raids and to putting more emphasis on their strike missions, (with IIRC are just recreations of the Boss fights in the Living World Story, Which IMHO is a great idea, because that way a solo or someone who only plays with a small group of friends can still practice the fight and learn the mechanics) are thriving.
I suppose it will just be a matter of time before they realize they need to put in another PvE Avenue to Legendary Armor, unless they plan to be content with bleeding a significant chunk of the players they get from Steam in a few months, we shall see how that plays out.
The thing is, when it comes to content, challenging solo, small group, and raid, should all give equally viable rewards.
Someone who completes challenging solo content, should not get pointless junk, while someone who gets carried through a raid gets epic gear.
I'll bet money that they won't appreciate the truth of their own ideas when smothered with sarcasm like this.
Usually you just lock rewards behind some sort of grind.
I would much rather in an online game with things being held behind group/guild focused content as opposed to solo content.
I kid, carry on. It's entertaining to watch at least.
This applies to any kind of game really, from multiplayer, to single player games, players tend to reach a point where their skill or ability caps out, and they often quit playing at that point, or start to drift away.
Nature of the Beast, Kind of like when someone plays their best game of Pac Man, and realizes, that they are in fact not the King of Kong. Their best, is just not good enough.
Sure they might drop a quarter again from time to time, but they know, it's just for funzies, any serious effort on their part is long gone.
Just the way things happens.
This is also why I am a strong advocate for making MMO's that target a specific demographic, and pretty much screw everyone else.
If the goal is to make a more casual game, then focus on casuals, target them, and build the best game you can for them, screw everyone else.
If the goal is build a game for hardcore raiders, make a game for that demographic, screw everyone else.
Sometimes people need to just accept that a game is not for them, and move on to a different game, but as you said, the developers need to ask themselves, is the demographic they want to target, enough to keep them afloat.
I guess that is where the real question sits.
They start out being played for "fun" but quite quickly they get move to being only for children who are good enough to make the cut.
From baseball to soccer to football there but comes an age when almost everyone is told, you are not good enough to go to the next level, and the journey ends.
For me in baseball it was in little league mine stopped. I apparently was so poor I failed to get "drafted" or picked for a team.
Tramatized me really, to be told this at what, 9 or 10 years old, I gave up on youth sports completely.
Fortunately discovered tennis which I wasn't half bad at but never dreamed of trying out for it competitively because I would have just hit the wall at some point.
Makes sense video games aren't much like that, developers try to find ways where people don't hit a wall based on their own skills.
In PVP the best solo or run organized small groups, for the rest of us there is the warm chaotic comfort of the Zerg.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Time to achieve something.
Let's say you have 50% chances of getting an item per raid of 2 hours. Yeah, I know, MC can be done in much less, but that's nowadays, back then it took closer to 4 hours at the beginning, if not more in case of wipes.
Then you must add the preparation, fire potions, ammunition, metal/crystal farming for the crafting...
And also all the work from the guild management to keep it all together, which is a lot of work.
So basically, a raider had a 50% chance of getting a useful item per week, for approximately 3 to 4 hours of gameplay. If he's going for a legendary, that's much more.
So should a solo player also have the chance to get a similar useful item in 4 hours every week ? I don't think so. There's much more to group playing than just killing bosses.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
When/If that does not work, due to lacking the skills to be on a team, either by lacking the social skills to have built that network of friends that would pick you regardless of skill, and work and play with you outside of school so you could get better, or just lacking the skills to play the game itself well enough so that the others would want you, regardless of your social standing with them, you moved to a single player style of game.
This is really, very similar to the MMO experience for many.
This is also why a lot more people that still enjoy physical activities end up doing things that they can enjoy in a solo and small group, as opposed to larger team style, like Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Running, Bicycling, Hiking, or in some cases, just going to gym to be fit and healthy.
And, I wager this happens with a lot of hobbies and activities, so MMO won't be some exception to this dynamic.
Now with Baseball, on the competitive level, the player is the product being sold, and the direct source of income comes the people in the stands.
With Video games, the Game itself is the Product being sold, and player is the direct source of income.
As such, a MMO has a lot in common with something like Bowling, where the money comes from the players directly, and has nothing to do with their skill as a player of the game, then it does with baseball where the skill of the player is what gets the best rewards.
and I think.. Developers are starting to catch a clue with this, that the Raiders are not generating them more money then the sod getting killed by giant rats in the starter zones, and with cash shops, there is even less a chance the raider who can earn everything in game is paying into the system as much as the mediocre players.
But that will be on the devs to decide how they make their game.. as others said.. sometimes they bet on the wrong horse, and it does not pony up the cash to keep the game alive.
I mean, really, think about it.
The solo player needs all the same build up and gearing if they plan to do challenging or difficult solo/small group content.
I wager Molten Core is a WoW thing, so I'll use DDO.
Doing a quest like Inferno of the Damned, for starters, you need to know the quest, no joke, you need to know the map, and the order, as mobs respawn, you can't just sit around, looking up what to do next, you need to know this map, and the order to do things, and be ready for each fight that is going to spring on you, dying solo at any point in this quest leads to a fail, and if you die in the wrong spots, even having a group won't save you, and can also lead to a fail. So you need to know this quest before you in.
You also need the means to trigger all the events, and since it is a dual environment quest, you need have all your resists, potions, weapon swaps, ready as well.
Since Mobs respawn at a pretty fast rate, you need to have a means to heal past that, and DDO, is a resource management game, you don't just heal up out of combat like you do in other MMO's, the only way you heal is through direct healing magic or rest shrines, and those are one shot.
As a quest, without someone that knows this dungeon, the chance to fail is pretty high all things said and done.
Now, I know this dungeon quite well, I have lead people through it hundreds of times, so, lets be honest, I know this quest, I can solo run it and make it look easy, most days, I also know if someone did something wrong that would cause a fail.
And I could tell someone many times over "When I trigger this portal, we are going to get attacked, be ready" and still watch them get obliterated in the fight.
So.. is there a lot more time and prep and money investment involved than the run time to complete this quest involved in ensuring that I can in fact complete this quest? Oh hell yah.
So why should that not be respected, but the time spent to prep for a raid should be?
There are a lot of games where with time I can manage the solo stuff but the group stuff I can't, like in Wildstar I can solo Wildstar fine but the group stuff as a healer was really too hard for me.
So you're are not right and the rewards should not be the same in my opinion. In fact my situation illustrates perfectly why soloing and group content challenges one differently and should be rewarded accordingly.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR