AAAMEOW said: I dont' think it is a problem in GW2. Since there is no gear progression. You can easily get the BiS just by crafting. (or pretty much doing anything there are many ways to get gear with the highest stats).
The fact that they took an over 30% income decline within the first quarter after locking legendary armor behind raids, and kept bleeding income to the point that they ended up canceling all other projects and letting half their staff go to stay solvent, meass it was a major screw up on their part to cater to their 10% raiders.
You not realizing that it was such a huge problem just shows that you were not paying attention.
oh it's too bad. Legendary weapon can be bought in the trading post. I don't know they locked legendary armor.
I'm not a person that care about cosmetic that much. I suppose you guys just want gear for the prestige. Because there isn't even stats on the legendary armor... And people like you complain.
Not saying there is anything wrong with you guys. Plenty of people care about gear for the sack of caring about gear. Quite a bit of people complain on the GW2 forum too.
Legendary armor is released on may 2nd 2017 right? Google said their revenue went up that time. Where do you get the info their income took a 30% decline.
1) Your interpretation is obviously different, because most of what you have said thus-far has been focused on preserving the raiding dynamic as it's own thing. That runs counter to Lahn's dialogue. Even if you're quoting and saying you agree with him there, none of the rest of your rhetoric stands in line with that.
If you mean to say you agree with what Lahn said there, but not with us when that was the same kinda thing we said several pages ago, then that leads to the separate issue that you chose to change your mind to agree with what we had said previously, but also chose to continue contending it.
2) I'm suggesting everyone can contribute to it. Your obsession with soloers as the only counterpoint to raiders (who do not represent the full gaming community) is breaking any potential for conversation on that matter, since I am talking about the full gaming community.
At least you didn't bother quoting something you didn't read this time. Yeah, I make some big posts, but anything you want to address I can be certain to quote a paragraph covering the topic. Do you call being thorough "meandering"? Where is it that I walk off on odd analogies or tangents? Am I repeating myself each paragraph, or stepping from one element to the next? What part of that is losing you?
No, what I have said was eventually based on keeping gaming systems that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work. I was far more open to ideas at the start of this thread until it seemed to me that we just had solo enthusiasts promoting an 'anything but grouping, let alone raiding' agenda.
There is one rather large elephant in the room to any such restructuring of endgame play. Will any gaming studio ever support such a model, I doubt it? There are elements that can be found in other games but it is a complex approach, that inherently means there are going to be issues no one has thought of. If anything it might appeal to studios who want a GaaS and that's not what the baulk of gamers want.
I should finally point out, we all don't want your version of endgame, get over it and carry on playing.
I do agree with Scot that there is a tendency to talk about wrong and right endgame in this thread. Too bad since there are just different kinds of it, one isn’t superior to the other, that is just opinion.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can 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.
AAAMEOW said: I dont' think it is a problem in GW2. Since there is no gear progression. You can easily get the BiS just by crafting. (or pretty much doing anything there are many ways to get gear with the highest stats).
The fact that they took an over 30% income decline within the first quarter after locking legendary armor behind raids, and kept bleeding income to the point that they ended up canceling all other projects and letting half their staff go to stay solvent, meass it was a major screw up on their part to cater to their 10% raiders.
You not realizing that it was such a huge problem just shows that you were not paying attention.
oh it's too bad. Legendary weapon can be bought in the trading post. I don't know they locked legendary armor.
I'm not a person that care about cosmetic that much. I suppose you guys just want gear for the prestige. Because there isn't even stats on the legendary armor... And people like you complain.
Not saying there is anything wrong with you guys. Plenty of people care about gear for the sack of caring about gear. Quite a bit of people complain on the GW2 forum too.
Legendary armor is released on may 2nd 2017 right? Google said their revenue went up that time. Where do you get the info their income took a 30% decline.
A Few points.
1) Legendary Armor has the same stats as Ascended, along with the ability to swap stats out of combat, allowing you to modify or change your gear stats to meet a situation, this also ensures that Legendary Armor will be the last and only suit of armor you will ever need for that character, ever.
I have no idea where you got the idea that it did not have stats.
2) LoL, no, 2nd Quarter/2017, was PoF (Path of Fire) Pre-Order. Legendary Armor was Introduced with Heart of Thorns (HoT) (3rd Quarter/2015) along with the Raids they were locked behind.
The Tier 1 Journey for Legendary Armor was Put in with the First Raid, as such, no one could get past Tier 1, without first farming the Raid itself.
Anet explained that the rest of the armor and journey would be put in over time along with the other Raid wings, but that did not change the fact that Legendary Armor was introduced and implemented into the game with HoT. As such the damage to the population that it was going to be Raid Locked armor was already done.
After HoT, Anet saw a significant and continual decline in their overall sales till Path of Fire (PoF) (That was the jump up in 2Q/17, PoF Pre-Order, just FYI) was released, which was marketed and designed for their more casual player base. Also at this time, they put in a reward track for Legendary Armor in both WvW and sPvP at this time, removing it from being totally PvE Raid Locked.
As such, anyone that was not being deliberately obtuse could see that Raid Locking Top Tier gear in GW2, and trying to cater to their top 10% PvE players was akin to shooting themselves in the foot.
(edit, needed to fix some numbers)
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.
1) Your interpretation is obviously different, because most of what you have said thus-far has been focused on preserving the raiding dynamic as it's own thing. That runs counter to Lahn's dialogue. Even if you're quoting and saying you agree with him there, none of the rest of your rhetoric stands in line with that.
If you mean to say you agree with what Lahn said there, but not with us when that was the same kinda thing we said several pages ago, then that leads to the separate issue that you chose to change your mind to agree with what we had said previously, but also chose to continue contending it.
2) I'm suggesting everyone can contribute to it. Your obsession with soloers as the only counterpoint to raiders (who do not represent the full gaming community) is breaking any potential for conversation on that matter, since I am talking about the full gaming community.
At least you didn't bother quoting something you didn't read this time. Yeah, I make some big posts, but anything you want to address I can be certain to quote a paragraph covering the topic. Do you call being thorough "meandering"? Where is it that I walk off on odd analogies or tangents? Am I repeating myself each paragraph, or stepping from one element to the next? What part of that is losing you?
No, what I have said was eventually based on keeping gaming systems that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work. I was far more open to ideas at the start of this thread until it seemed to me that we just had solo enthusiasts promoting an 'anything but grouping, let alone raiding' agenda.
There is one rather large elephant in the room to any such restructuring of endgame play. Will any gaming studio ever support such a model, I doubt it? There are elements that can be found in other games but it is a complex approach, that inherently means there are going to be issues no one has thought of. If anything it might appeal to studios who want a GaaS and that's not what the baulk of gamers want.
I should finally point out, we all don't want your version of endgame, get over it and carry on playing.
Several major faults with your claim.
If your goal is "keep things that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work" you run into an immediate issue.
1) You just said you don't want games to evolve.
2) You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even experimented with these things, even though people like myself have given reference to games with examples in plenty of cases as to why something could work or does not work.
Your continued insistence that the suggestions are hinged on "solo enthusiasts" even though much of these suggestions have been hinged around making community relevant, also remains as nonsensical as ever. Seeing as solo play was only one suggestion ever made, and it's been regularly accompanied by other tracks focused on fostering community interaction and interdependence, your desire to shave the rest away to attack only one facet of it as if that is the only thing argued for is, very simply, a dishonest argument.
As for your second paragraph. Perhaps it's not what you want to hear, but MMOs are all Games as a Service. You play them on the time developers give you (with the exception being the legally murky private servers) and the game's design is entirely subject to what the studio wants to do with it over time.
And this does bring in issues, but it brings in issues that run counter to many of the stances you have chosen to take, as we can point at many titles that have focused on the raiding dynamic and consequently failed, because they neglected community in the process of doing so.
This is why we can look at examples like the Anet situation that @Ungood and I have talked about too. Because we have live demonstrations of what can and does go wrong with some of these systems we've been criticizing. Not just some opinion about "oh I dun like it", but instead it's "oh, this KILLS games".
Of course I don't assume everyone wants a singular vision of endgame, or of games in general. Were we talking about specific preferences, or systems to engage and retain users? Did you know I played a game called Raiderz that, well, was a game about raiding shiz(did you also know, that game eventually got shut down because the community around it was simply too small to sustain it)?
If we're talking about preferences, then I want an action-focused third person shooter MMO with the ability to run around with a NPC or player team as a squad and commit Rainbow Six style breach and clear strategies, or integrate with larger units to participate in guerrilla warfare scenarios in a sfi-ci fantasy setting. Endgame in that would likely revolve around a good amount of PvP, an entirely separate tract to what's been discussed here in general. I'd obviously still want that to pan out to cater to more than just the PvP crowd for user retention, but an action combat focused shooter built around the notion of highly scalable battlefield scenarios? Kind of a PvP game.
But instead, we are talking about the mechanics, how present systems have managed to retain users (or not retain them at all), and systems that could pad out perceived shortcomings to raise that retention.
And that would be a point I would address to @Lahnmir too. As it's not like anyone has said "get rid of raids" outright or that raiding is itself wrong to do, but we have said that it is only one form of endgame, and that it does not effectively cater to the majority of the userbase, which is a statement backed by the fact that any given example of raiding focused endgame you can see the subs dwindle as players run out of ancillary content. That does make it the wrong thing to focus on if it's going to be to the detriment of the community. Does that mean getting rid of raiding? No, that means offering a better distributed development of endgame content.
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
Then shouldn't that have been a response to Meow who was the one posing the WoW focused demonstration, which my post was a response to?
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
Then shouldn't that have been a response to Meow who was the one posing the WoW focused demonstration, which my post was a response to?
yah.. but you're more sane.
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.
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
Then shouldn't that have been a response to Meow who was the one posing the WoW focused demonstration, which my post was a response to?
I dont' have any problem with any games. Raid lock, non raid lock, sandbox, non sandbox, group focus, solo focus, I play them all.
The people who complain on the forum are the one having problem.
Like I said, many games out there, I just play what is there instead of complaining. If I dont' like it, I play other game.
You guys can keep complaining. I dont' find that for bad thing. People are suppose to fight for what they want.
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
Then shouldn't that have been a response to Meow who was the one posing the WoW focused demonstration, which my post was a response to?
I dont' have any problem with any games. Raid lock, non raid lock, sandbox, non sandbox, group focus, solo focus, I play them all.
The people who complain on the forum are the one having problem.
Like I said, many games out there, I just play what is there instead of complaining. If I dont' like it, I play other game.
You guys can keep complaining. I dont' find that for bad thing. People are suppose to fight for what they want.
So basically complaining about complaining. I think sometimes people take discussions being way to literal. Like it is word magic and will type things into existence.
These forums are about MMORPG discussion and many times go into design discussion. Asking the question people responding is par for the course.
No, what I have said was eventually based on keeping gaming systems that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work. I was far more open to ideas at the start of this thread until it seemed to me that we just had solo enthusiasts promoting an 'anything but grouping, let alone raiding' agenda.
There is one rather large elephant in the room to any such restructuring of endgame play. Will any gaming studio ever support such a model, I doubt it? There are elements that can be found in other games but it is a complex approach, that inherently means there are going to be issues no one has thought of. If anything it might appeal to studios who want a GaaS and that's not what the baulk of gamers want.
I should finally point out, we all don't want your version of endgame, get over it and carry on playing.
Several major faults with your claim.
If your goal is "keep things that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work" you run into an immediate issue.
1) You just said you don't want games to evolve.
2) You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even experimented with these things, even though people like myself have given reference to games with examples in plenty of cases as to why something could work or does not work.
Your continued insistence that the suggestions are hinged on "solo enthusiasts" even though much of these suggestions have been hinged around making community relevant, also remains as nonsensical as ever. Seeing as solo play was only one suggestion ever made, and it's been regularly accompanied by other tracks focused on fostering community interaction and interdependence, your desire to shave the rest away to attack only one facet of it as if that is the only thing argued for is, very simply, a dishonest argument.
As for your second paragraph. Perhaps it's not what you want to hear, but MMOs are all Games as a Service. You play them on the time developers give you (with the exception being the legally murky private servers) and the game's design is entirely subject to what the studio wants to do with it over time.
And this does bring in issues, but it brings in issues that run counter to many of the stances you have chosen to take, as we can point at many titles that have focused on the raiding dynamic and consequently failed, because they neglected community in the process of doing so.
This is why we can look at examples like the Anet situation that @Ungood and I have talked about too. Because we have live demonstrations of what can and does go wrong with some of these systems we've been criticizing. Not just some opinion about "oh I dun like it", but instead it's "oh, this KILLS games".
Of course I don't assume everyone wants a singular vision of endgame, or of games in general. Were we talking about specific preferences, or systems to engage and retain users? Did you know I played a game called Raiderz that, well, was a game about raiding shiz(did you also know, that game eventually got shut down because the community around it was simply too small to sustain it)?
If we're talking about preferences, then I want an action-focused third person shooter MMO with the ability to run around with a NPC or player team as a squad and commit Rainbow Six style breach and clear strategies, or integrate with larger units to participate in guerrilla warfare scenarios in a sfi-ci fantasy setting. Endgame in that would likely revolve around a good amount of PvP, an entirely separate tract to what's been discussed here in general. I'd obviously still want that to pan out to cater to more than just the PvP crowd for user retention, but an action combat focused shooter built around the notion of highly scalable battlefield scenarios? Kind of a PvP game.
But instead, we are talking about the mechanics, how present systems have managed to retain users (or not retain them at all), and systems that could pad out perceived shortcomings to raise that retention.
And that would be a point I would address to @Lahnmir too. As it's not like anyone has said "get rid of raids" outright or that raiding is itself wrong to do, but we have said that it is only one form of endgame, and that it does not effectively cater to the majority of the userbase, which is a statement backed by the fact that any given example of raiding focused endgame you can see the subs dwindle as players run out of ancillary content. That does make it the wrong thing to focus on if it's going to be to the detriment of the community. Does that mean getting rid of raiding? No, that means offering a better distributed development of endgame content.
I value a system that works more than one that's untested,
that does not mean I don't want to see games evolving it means I am pragmatic.
This is getting tiresome, of course if we are
talking total redesign anything is on the table. But if you were to ask me do I
think something that has worked is a safer bet than something untried, unsurprisingly I would say yes it was.
"You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even
experimented with these things" - I talked about the ESO example you gave
and the AoW example BC gave, so it is rather odd you think that.
I do think that most of what we had talked about has not
been seen in practise, as we have had umpteen ideas on here. That does not mean as
ideas they should not go forward, but naturally (to me anyway) what you
mentioned about top level ESO soloing quests and BC mentioned about mats
obtained as raid rewards seemed more pertinent. But Lahmnir’s idea interested
me the most in general terms because it seemed inclusive of the community while
giving the widest range of gameplay options.
MMORPG’s have not failed because of raiding they “failed”
because they have a life expectancy and the past several years has been a terrible
climate for MMOS, now I could be wrong (that’s something some of us on here are
prepared to be) but you are in la la land if you are certain you know why they closed. How was it not down to players moving away from MMOs or Fornite moving in and so
on. You should get a career in game production, you would be a savant, or maybe
you are just seeing what you want to see from those closures?
I have to take your clarification about not wanting to get
rid of raiding with a pinch of salt as nearly every time you talk about raids
they seems to be the root of all ills and your tone is very dismissive. Indeed
in your denial that raids need to go, you tell us why raids need to go. You can
see how that looks?
I think we have got each other blood boiling enough on this
one, so lets leave it there, we simply don’t agree and that’s no big deal. I
think no less of you, and hope to see you posting anon.
The idea that, it seems this whole discussion revolves around a single style of loot system, or even so much a single game.
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
Then shouldn't that have been a response to Meow who was the one posing the WoW focused demonstration, which my post was a response to?
I dont' have any problem with any games. Raid lock, non raid lock, sandbox, non sandbox, group focus, solo focus, I play them all.
The people who complain on the forum are the one having problem.
Like I said, many games out there, I just play what is there instead of complaining. If I dont' like it, I play other game.
You guys can keep complaining. I dont' find that for bad thing. People are suppose to fight for what they want.
So basically complaining about complaining. I think sometimes people take discussions being way to literal. Like it is word magic and will type things into existence.
These forums are about MMORPG discussion and many times go into design discussion. Asking the question people responding is par for the course.
ya, I probably take your topic a bit literal. Should mmorpg be raid lock or not... I just shrug and think why can't some mmo be raid lock while some isn't.
I don't have a problem with how gear is obtained. I just think it is reasonable that it should be reasonable equal in difficulty.
A side story is I played vanilla wow. I remember pvp gear is really difficult to obtain in the beginning. I literally grind 10 hours a day every day and still can't get the grand marshal gear. No one did, I think there is only 1 person on the entire server have it. And people on the forum are complaining why it is so easy to obtain pve where they can just do a bit of raiding. But pvp players have to grind all day and still not get it.
So I think it is reasonable for me to say I dont' have any problem with how gear is obtained. Just that they should be similar in difficulty.
AAAMEOW said: I dont' think it is a problem in GW2. Since there is no gear progression. You can easily get the BiS just by crafting. (or pretty much doing anything there are many ways to get gear with the highest stats).
The fact that they took an over 30% income decline within the first quarter after locking legendary armor behind raids, and kept bleeding income to the point that they ended up canceling all other projects and letting half their staff go to stay solvent, meass it was a major screw up on their part to cater to their 10% raiders.
You not realizing that it was such a huge problem just shows that you were not paying attention.
oh it's too bad. Legendary weapon can be bought in the trading post. I don't know they locked legendary armor.
I'm not a person that care about cosmetic that much. I suppose you guys just want gear for the prestige. Because there isn't even stats on the legendary armor... And people like you complain.
Not saying there is anything wrong with you guys. Plenty of people care about gear for the sack of caring about gear. Quite a bit of people complain on the GW2 forum too.
Legendary armor is released on may 2nd 2017 right? Google said their revenue went up that time. Where do you get the info their income took a 30% decline.
A Few points.
1) Legendary Armor has the same stats as Ascended, along with the ability to swap stats out of combat, allowing you to modify or change your gear stats to meet a situation, this also ensures that Legendary Armor will be the last and only suit of armor you will ever need for that character, ever.
I have no idea where you got the idea that it did not have stats.
Did Anet allowed sigil rune swaping on legendary gear? Been a while since I played GW2.
I never find the legendary perk of stat swapping be that useful because you can't swap sigil/rune anyway.
I value a system that works more than one that's untested,
that does not mean I don't want to see games evolving it means I am pragmatic.
This is getting tiresome, of course if we are
talking total redesign anything is on the table. But if you were to ask me do I
think something that has worked is a safer bet than something untried, unsurprisingly I would say yes it was.
"You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even
experimented with these things" - I talked about the ESO example you gave
and the AoW example BC gave, so it is rather odd you think that.
I do think that most of what we had talked about has not
been seen in practise, as we have had umpteen ideas on here. That does not mean as
ideas they should not go forward, but naturally (to me anyway) what you
mentioned about top level ESO soloing quests and BC mentioned about mats
obtained as raid rewards seemed more pertinent. But Lahmnir’s idea interested
me the most in general terms because it seemed inclusive of the community while
giving the widest range of gameplay options.
MMORPG’s have not failed because of raiding they “failed”
because they have a life expectancy and the past several years has been a terrible
climate for MMOS, now I could be wrong (that’s something some of us on here are
prepared to be) but you are in la la land if you are certain you know why they closed. How was it not down to players moving away from MMOs or Fornite moving in and so
on. You should get a career in game production, you would be a savant, or maybe
you are just seeing what you want to see from those closures?
I have to take your clarification about not wanting to get
rid of raiding with a pinch of salt as nearly every time you talk about raids
they seems to be the root of all ills and your tone is very dismissive. Indeed
in your denial that raids need to go, you tell us why raids need to go. You can
see how that looks?
I think we have got each other blood boiling enough on this
one, so lets leave it there, we simply don’t agree and that’s no big deal. I
think no less of you, and hope to see you posting anon.
Your first two paragraph/statements are contradictions. Yes, you have talked briefly, and then your most recent statement/claim;
...was a direct dismissal that those examples were ones mechanically showing what is and isn't working, not what "might work".
And what the hells are you talking about "top level ESO soloing quests"? My ESo examples were never focused on solo content. This is exactly why I have had this recurring issue with you, you continually have tried to wedge these things into a false perspective that no one but you possesses. It's no wonder you have issue with the things discussed, because you keep reinterpreting them.
This is why you finally taking Lahnmir's suggestion, even though it's basically the same discussion point we'd tried to have five pages ago, is such a contradiction since back at that point you'd entirely dismissed the very same concept to focus on the above false dichotomy you've been raving about each post instead.
And I have to ask where again you manage to interpret my statements as raids being the problem, when every time I have talked about the issues around endgame I have expressly framed it as the problem being too narrow a focus on a specific form of content instead of accounting for the game's community?
When I say why I think endgame is too narrow to cater to a wide audience, why do you interpret that as "why raids need to go"? Where have I ever said raids "need to go" or "why raids need to go"? Can you quote even one time I have said such?
Fact is you can't, because that's an entirely fictional claim you cooked up to whine about in spite of gods knows how many times I've had to correct you. You have this specific interpretation of everything so cemented in your head that you have to straight up bullshit about other people's posts, and that's honestly infuriating that you'd stoop so low to try and hold onto whatever the hell your position even is any more.
When you drum up claims like "the climate isn't good for MMOs" you have to follow with the logic of "why is it not good for MMOs". What is it about the current MMO titles that is failing, that is keeping the community from enjoying them? You wanna guess where we'd be headed with the answers to that?
If I am honest, I do think less of you, if only because you have shown no respect for honesty in these discussions. Feels a bit like when another poster got upset that I'd pointed out one game was older than another game.
I don't really think there should be alternate paths to the best gear for raiding outside raiding. It is a huge mistake that WoW made and continues to make. I think that the best gear in any MMO should come from the hardest content to complete, so typically raiding. I don't really think dungeons should ever give the best gear personally, but they should have their own viable progression path for those who want to just do dungeons. (Multiple tiers of them, NOT M+ style though) PvP gear should only really be strong in PvP, but should still be reasonable enough to do some easier PvE content with to work towards the other gear in those types of content. But PvP gear should also always be the best gear in PvP as well. Raid level gear should be on par with pretty good PvP gear though, but it should never be the best.
Raids exist as a really strong way to create social groups and I don't really think that you can get that kind of experience with smaller numbers of players just due to the sheer nature of everything that takes smaller numbers being much more puggable. Sure, you can pug raids as well, but most people would probably rather have a guild then deal with that if they are challenging enough.
One common misconception these days is that gear "shouldn't matter" and that it should only be cosmetic type rewards for the hardest content. I STRONGLY disagree with this concept. Not everyone can get the best gear or should be able to. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Just like how not everyone should be able to do the hardest content in the game. (AKA, Raids shouldn't have 4 difficulties, they should have 2 at the most)
UO and SWG had strong communities and practically no forced group content. Maybe there are lessons.
Wait, what? Not sure about UO, but reason I gave SWG a hard pass was at launch players were forced to regularly visit doctors and cantinas to restore health or what not.
SWG also has some fairly interconnected crafting mechanics I think, forcing players to work together to craft top gear yes?
UO used the well worn practice of forcing players to band together to fend off ganking arses, at least if they wanted to progress.
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 don't really think there should be alternate paths to the best gear for raiding outside raiding. It is a huge mistake that WoW made and continues to make. I think that the best gear in any MMO should come from the hardest content to complete, so typically raiding. I don't really think dungeons should ever give the best gear personally, but they should have their own viable progression path for those who want to just do dungeons. (Multiple tiers of them, NOT M+ style though) PvP gear should only really be strong in PvP, but should still be reasonable enough to do some easier PvE content with to work towards the other gear in those types of content. But PvP gear should also always be the best gear in PvP as well. Raid level gear should be on par with pretty good PvP gear though, but it should never be the best.
Raids exist as a really strong way to create social groups and I don't really think that you can get that kind of experience with smaller numbers of players just due to the sheer nature of everything that takes smaller numbers being much more puggable. Sure, you can pug raids as well, but most people would probably rather have a guild then deal with that if they are challenging enough.
One common misconception these days is that gear "shouldn't matter" and that it should only be cosmetic type rewards for the hardest content. I STRONGLY disagree with this concept. Not everyone can get the best gear or should be able to. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Just like how not everyone should be able to do the hardest content in the game. (AKA, Raids shouldn't have 4 difficulties, they should have 2 at the most)
UO and SWG had strong communities and practically no forced group content. Maybe there are lessons.
Wait, what? Not sure about UO, but reason I gave SWG a hard pass was at launch players were forced to regularly visit doctors and cantinas to restore health or what not.
SWG also has some fairly interconnected crafting mechanics I think, forcing players to work together to craft top gear yes?
UO used the well worn practice of forcing players to band together to fend off ganking arses, at least if they wanted to progress.
Yeah, but you weren't forced to group in combat. You were required to see other players for maintenance and crafting
I don't really think there should be alternate paths to the best gear for raiding outside raiding. It is a huge mistake that WoW made and continues to make. I think that the best gear in any MMO should come from the hardest content to complete, so typically raiding. I don't really think dungeons should ever give the best gear personally, but they should have their own viable progression path for those who want to just do dungeons. (Multiple tiers of them, NOT M+ style though) PvP gear should only really be strong in PvP, but should still be reasonable enough to do some easier PvE content with to work towards the other gear in those types of content. But PvP gear should also always be the best gear in PvP as well. Raid level gear should be on par with pretty good PvP gear though, but it should never be the best.
Raids exist as a really strong way to create social groups and I don't really think that you can get that kind of experience with smaller numbers of players just due to the sheer nature of everything that takes smaller numbers being much more puggable. Sure, you can pug raids as well, but most people would probably rather have a guild then deal with that if they are challenging enough.
One common misconception these days is that gear "shouldn't matter" and that it should only be cosmetic type rewards for the hardest content. I STRONGLY disagree with this concept. Not everyone can get the best gear or should be able to. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Just like how not everyone should be able to do the hardest content in the game. (AKA, Raids shouldn't have 4 difficulties, they should have 2 at the most)
UO and SWG had strong communities and practically no forced group content. Maybe there are lessons.
Wait, what? Not sure about UO, but reason I gave SWG a hard pass was at launch players were forced to regularly visit doctors and cantinas to restore health or what not.
SWG also has some fairly interconnected crafting mechanics I think, forcing players to work together to craft top gear yes?
UO used the well worn practice of forcing players to band together to fend off ganking arses, at least if they wanted to progress.
Yeah, but you weren't forced to group in combat. You were required to see other players for maintenance and crafting
Solid point, Player Interdependency can be a very solid way a game can build a solid and growing social structure, we don't always need to be forced to get together only to kill stuff.
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
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.
Solid point, Player Interdependency can be a very solid way a game can build a solid and growing social structure, we don't always need to be forced to get together only to kill stuff.
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
I would have both, the more grouping, the more socialising the better.
Solid point, Player Interdependency can be a very solid way a game can build a solid and growing social structure, we don't always need to be forced to get together only to kill stuff.
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
I would have both, the more grouping, the more socialising the better.
The more player interdepencies and interactions the better in my book, it's what makes MMORPGs stand out from other genres.
Even if the players don't necessarily like all of them, sometimes they need to be "encouraged" to accept them, for the good of the game world.
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 still think less people raid than people who do raid.
I think there may be a typo in there. Shades of "“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
I don't have all the numbers. But I am confident a lot more people raid in WoW now than used to (because I played the game).
Not every mmorpg is WoW or like WoW, true. But that is what happens when the OP starts from a generality as to all mmorpgs having a "small percentage" of raiders. If you object to overgeneralizations, I would begin there.
So if a small percentage raid generally raid... doesnt that mean a small percentage excluding WoW? Can you obtain top gear through casual LFR?
WoW: no, you don't get top gear through LFR, though it's better than from dungeons and such. In fact, you can actually get better gear from world quests than from LFR, that is once your items level has improved enough to make ilvl 370+ appear as rewards for you. Heck, you can sometimes even get at least up to ilvl 400 from faction caches, war fronts and metaquests, which is just below heroic level gear in the newest raid (Crucible of Storms, HC, is 405 and 410).
Btw, LFR is bottom tier of raiding in WoW. Next tiers are normal, heroic and mythic.
Amathe seems to be under the impression that LFR has made huge numbers of players starting raiding. That is far from the truth. I have roughly 50 people on my friends list, I only keep people I socialize a lot with on the list. Of these, I would guess maybe 20% occationally do LFRs, and not a single one of them do normal or higher. Also, I constantly see the very same guilds trying to recruit raiders month after month, suggesting it's not easy to get members who wants to raid.
As for the OP's question:
No, I don't think non-raiders should get top gear. I do, however, like WoW's current system. Good gear from multiple sources, but not the very best. I don't raid myself, and wouldn't mind getting the best gear (of course), but seriously, there's no need to get top raid gear if you're not raiding.
Solid point, Player Interdependency can be a very solid way a game can build a solid and growing social structure, we don't always need to be forced to get together only to kill stuff.
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
I would have both, the more grouping, the more socialising the better.
The more player interdepencies and interactions the better in my book, it's what makes MMORPGs stand out from other genres.
Even if the players don't necessarily like all of them, sometimes they need to be "encouraged" to accept them, for the good of the game world.
/mic drop
Originally, GW2 built on the idea of organic grouping, with players gathering together for social events, like DE's and World Bosses. This building a community of players without all the e-peen waving that Raids often bring with them.
Unfortunately, GW2 succumbed to the archaic idea of Raids and Raid Locked Gear, and their game has been going down ever since.
As such, no, we do not need to cling to ideas that make a small group of players happy, when they ultimately do more harm than good. The reality is, Raids do not build community, they divide it. This has been proven with every single game that has raids.
What we need is a game with more World Bosses and less Raids.
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.
Solid point, Player Interdependency can be a very solid way a game can build a solid and growing social structure, we don't always need to be forced to get together only to kill stuff.
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
I would have both, the more grouping, the more socialising the better.
The more player interdepencies and interactions the better in my book, it's what makes MMORPGs stand out from other genres.
Even if the players don't necessarily like all of them, sometimes they need to be "encouraged" to accept them, for the good of the game world.
/mic drop
Originally, GW2 built on the idea of organic grouping, with players gathering together for social events, like DE's and World Bosses. This building a community of players without all the e-peen waving that Raids often bring with them.
Unfortunately, GW2 succumbed to the archaic idea of Raids and Raid Locked Gear, and their game has been going down ever since.
As such, no, we do not need to cling to ideas that make a small group of players happy, when they ultimately do more harm than good. The reality is, Raids do not build community, they divide it. This has been proven with every single game that has raids.
What we need is a game with more World Bosses and less Raids.
I don't mind raids. Raids of a few kind I would prefer.
One where it is more monster hunter and you can go into serveral dangerous places that requires a large groups and take down NPC that require large groups. This is for gear to make hostile area easier and/or gear crafting materials.
Developer event that requires boss NPC to be taken down in dungeon. This is a per server one time thing.
Procedurally created threats that the system randomly generates from time to time.
I just don't like the world ending threat over and over on weekly demand.
I would still be apt to say the same as before that the problem that comes up around raiding is as Ungood mentioned, it's too closed off from the rest of the games they tend to be nested in. They are not an overall community activity, and instead fosters only a niche community that is not sufficient to sustain a title.
I would diverge on the solution to reference prior ideas about, while not changing raids in a direct sense, changing things like making the rewards different or opening them up to being tradeable and feed back into the player economy.
This would still need to be coupled with a shift to offering more viable alternative gameplay options outside of raids for players, as it remains the point that MMOs as a collaborative and social user experience needs more social factors rather than divisive ones.
Comments
I'm not a person that care about cosmetic that much. I suppose you guys just want gear for the prestige. Because there isn't even stats on the legendary armor... And people like you complain.
Not saying there is anything wrong with you guys. Plenty of people care about gear for the sack of caring about gear. Quite a bit of people complain on the GW2 forum too.
Legendary armor is released on may 2nd 2017 right? Google said their revenue went up that time. Where do you get the info their income took a 30% decline.
There is one rather large elephant in the room to any such restructuring of endgame play. Will any gaming studio ever support such a model, I doubt it? There are elements that can be found in other games but it is a complex approach, that inherently means there are going to be issues no one has thought of. If anything it might appeal to studios who want a GaaS and that's not what the baulk of gamers want.
I should finally point out, we all don't want your version of endgame, get over it and carry on playing.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
In some games, just due to how they are made, they have put themselves into a position where they are pretty much stuck with only one way to do things, but the players with only that kind of sampling, have not seen how other games have very successfully dealt with this exact issue.
So, in short, anyone that thinks that best gear should be raid locked, simply has not played a game where it wasn't, and has not seen how much better those games can be.
1) Legendary Armor has the same stats as Ascended, along with the ability to swap stats out of combat, allowing you to modify or change your gear stats to meet a situation, this also ensures that Legendary Armor will be the last and only suit of armor you will ever need for that character, ever.
I have no idea where you got the idea that it did not have stats.
2) LoL, no, 2nd Quarter/2017, was PoF (Path of Fire) Pre-Order. Legendary Armor was Introduced with Heart of Thorns (HoT) (3rd Quarter/2015) along with the Raids they were locked behind.
The Tier 1 Journey for Legendary Armor was Put in with the First Raid, as such, no one could get past Tier 1, without first farming the Raid itself.
Anet explained that the rest of the armor and journey would be put in over time along with the other Raid wings, but that did not change the fact that Legendary Armor was introduced and implemented into the game with HoT. As such the damage to the population that it was going to be Raid Locked armor was already done.
After HoT, Anet saw a significant and continual decline in their overall sales till Path of Fire (PoF) (That was the jump up in 2Q/17, PoF Pre-Order, just FYI) was released, which was marketed and designed for their more casual player base. Also at this time, they put in a reward track for Legendary Armor in both WvW and sPvP at this time, removing it from being totally PvE Raid Locked.
As such, anyone that was not being deliberately obtuse could see that Raid Locking Top Tier gear in GW2, and trying to cater to their top 10% PvE players was akin to shooting themselves in the foot.
(edit, needed to fix some numbers)
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
If your goal is "keep things that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work" you run into an immediate issue.
1) You just said you don't want games to evolve.
2) You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even experimented with these things, even though people like myself have given reference to games with examples in plenty of cases as to why something could work or does not work.
Your continued insistence that the suggestions are hinged on "solo enthusiasts" even though much of these suggestions have been hinged around making community relevant, also remains as nonsensical as ever. Seeing as solo play was only one suggestion ever made, and it's been regularly accompanied by other tracks focused on fostering community interaction and interdependence, your desire to shave the rest away to attack only one facet of it as if that is the only thing argued for is, very simply, a dishonest argument.
As for your second paragraph. Perhaps it's not what you want to hear, but MMOs are all Games as a Service. You play them on the time developers give you (with the exception being the legally murky private servers) and the game's design is entirely subject to what the studio wants to do with it over time.
And this does bring in issues, but it brings in issues that run counter to many of the stances you have chosen to take, as we can point at many titles that have focused on the raiding dynamic and consequently failed, because they neglected community in the process of doing so.
This is why we can look at examples like the Anet situation that @Ungood and I have talked about too. Because we have live demonstrations of what can and does go wrong with some of these systems we've been criticizing. Not just some opinion about "oh I dun like it", but instead it's "oh, this KILLS games".
Of course I don't assume everyone wants a singular vision of endgame, or of games in general. Were we talking about specific preferences, or systems to engage and retain users? Did you know I played a game called Raiderz that, well, was a game about raiding shiz(did you also know, that game eventually got shut down because the community around it was simply too small to sustain it)?
If we're talking about preferences, then I want an action-focused third person shooter MMO with the ability to run around with a NPC or player team as a squad and commit Rainbow Six style breach and clear strategies, or integrate with larger units to participate in guerrilla warfare scenarios in a sfi-ci fantasy setting. Endgame in that would likely revolve around a good amount of PvP, an entirely separate tract to what's been discussed here in general. I'd obviously still want that to pan out to cater to more than just the PvP crowd for user retention, but an action combat focused shooter built around the notion of highly scalable battlefield scenarios? Kind of a PvP game.
But instead, we are talking about the mechanics, how present systems have managed to retain users (or not retain them at all), and systems that could pad out perceived shortcomings to raise that retention.
And that would be a point I would address to @Lahnmir too. As it's not like anyone has said "get rid of raids" outright or that raiding is itself wrong to do, but we have said that it is only one form of endgame, and that it does not effectively cater to the majority of the userbase, which is a statement backed by the fact that any given example of raiding focused endgame you can see the subs dwindle as players run out of ancillary content. That does make it the wrong thing to focus on if it's going to be to the detriment of the community. Does that mean getting rid of raiding? No, that means offering a better distributed development of endgame content.
The people who complain on the forum are the one having problem.
Like I said, many games out there, I just play what is there instead of complaining. If I dont' like it, I play other game.
You guys can keep complaining. I dont' find that for bad thing. People are suppose to fight for what they want.
These forums are about MMORPG discussion and many times go into design discussion. Asking the question people responding is par for the course.
I value a system that works more than one that's untested, that does not mean I don't want to see games evolving it means I am pragmatic. This is getting tiresome, of course if we are talking total redesign anything is on the table. But if you were to ask me do I think something that has worked is a safer bet than something untried, unsurprisingly I would say yes it was.
"You are taking the stance that no games have demonstrated or even experimented with these things" - I talked about the ESO example you gave and the AoW example BC gave, so it is rather odd you think that.
I do think that most of what we had talked about has not been seen in practise, as we have had umpteen ideas on here. That does not mean as ideas they should not go forward, but naturally (to me anyway) what you mentioned about top level ESO soloing quests and BC mentioned about mats obtained as raid rewards seemed more pertinent. But Lahmnir’s idea interested me the most in general terms because it seemed inclusive of the community while giving the widest range of gameplay options.
MMORPG’s have not failed because of raiding they “failed” because they have a life expectancy and the past several years has been a terrible climate for MMOS, now I could be wrong (that’s something some of us on here are prepared to be) but you are in la la land if you are certain you know why they closed. How was it not down to players moving away from MMOs or Fornite moving in and so on. You should get a career in game production, you would be a savant, or maybe you are just seeing what you want to see from those closures?
I have to take your clarification about not wanting to get rid of raiding with a pinch of salt as nearly every time you talk about raids they seems to be the root of all ills and your tone is very dismissive. Indeed in your denial that raids need to go, you tell us why raids need to go. You can see how that looks?
I think we have got each other blood boiling enough on this one, so lets leave it there, we simply don’t agree and that’s no big deal. I think no less of you, and hope to see you posting anon.
I don't have a problem with how gear is obtained. I just think it is reasonable that it should be reasonable equal in difficulty.
A side story is I played vanilla wow. I remember pvp gear is really difficult to obtain in the beginning. I literally grind 10 hours a day every day and still can't get the grand marshal gear. No one did, I think there is only 1 person on the entire server have it. And people on the forum are complaining why it is so easy to obtain pve where they can just do a bit of raiding. But pvp players have to grind all day and still not get it.
So I think it is reasonable for me to say I dont' have any problem with how gear is obtained. Just that they should be similar in difficulty.
I never find the legendary perk of stat swapping be that useful because you can't swap sigil/rune anyway.
"keeping gaming systems that work rather than dropping them for possibilities that might work"
Read more at https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/481722/why-is-gear-raid-locked-if-a-small-percentage-of-players-raid/p13#P8OEiBfp0sxSDcZf.99
...was a direct dismissal that those examples were ones mechanically showing what is and isn't working, not what "might work".
And what the hells are you talking about "top level ESO soloing quests"? My ESo examples were never focused on solo content. This is exactly why I have had this recurring issue with you, you continually have tried to wedge these things into a false perspective that no one but you possesses. It's no wonder you have issue with the things discussed, because you keep reinterpreting them.
This is why you finally taking Lahnmir's suggestion, even though it's basically the same discussion point we'd tried to have five pages ago, is such a contradiction since back at that point you'd entirely dismissed the very same concept to focus on the above false dichotomy you've been raving about each post instead.
And I have to ask where again you manage to interpret my statements as raids being the problem, when every time I have talked about the issues around endgame I have expressly framed it as the problem being too narrow a focus on a specific form of content instead of accounting for the game's community?
When I say why I think endgame is too narrow to cater to a wide audience, why do you interpret that as "why raids need to go"? Where have I ever said raids "need to go" or "why raids need to go"? Can you quote even one time I have said such?
Fact is you can't, because that's an entirely fictional claim you cooked up to whine about in spite of gods knows how many times I've had to correct you. You have this specific interpretation of everything so cemented in your head that you have to straight up bullshit about other people's posts, and that's honestly infuriating that you'd stoop so low to try and hold onto whatever the hell your position even is any more.
When you drum up claims like "the climate isn't good for MMOs" you have to follow with the logic of "why is it not good for MMOs". What is it about the current MMO titles that is failing, that is keeping the community from enjoying them? You wanna guess where we'd be headed with the answers to that?
If I am honest, I do think less of you, if only because you have shown no respect for honesty in these discussions. Feels a bit like when another poster got upset that I'd pointed out one game was older than another game.
SWG also has some fairly interconnected crafting mechanics I think, forcing players to work together to craft top gear yes?
UO used the well worn practice of forcing players to band together to fend off ganking arses, at least if they wanted to progress.
"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
No different than buying things from crafters, or what have you.. good to see other ideas being explored.
Even if the players don't necessarily like all of them, sometimes they need to be "encouraged" to accept them, for the good of the game world.
/mic drop
"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
WoW: no, you don't get top gear through LFR, though it's better than from dungeons and such. In fact, you can actually get better gear from world quests than from LFR, that is once your items level has improved enough to make ilvl 370+ appear as rewards for you. Heck, you can sometimes even get at least up to ilvl 400 from faction caches, war fronts and metaquests, which is just below heroic level gear in the newest raid (Crucible of Storms, HC, is 405 and 410).
Btw, LFR is bottom tier of raiding in WoW. Next tiers are normal, heroic and mythic.
Amathe seems to be under the impression that LFR has made huge numbers of players starting raiding. That is far from the truth. I have roughly 50 people on my friends list, I only keep people I socialize a lot with on the list. Of these, I would guess maybe 20% occationally do LFRs, and not a single one of them do normal or higher. Also, I constantly see the very same guilds trying to recruit raiders month after month, suggesting it's not easy to get members who wants to raid.
As for the OP's question:
No, I don't think non-raiders should get top gear. I do, however, like WoW's current system. Good gear from multiple sources, but not the very best. I don't raid myself, and wouldn't mind getting the best gear (of course), but seriously, there's no need to get top raid gear if you're not raiding.
Unfortunately, GW2 succumbed to the archaic idea of Raids and Raid Locked Gear, and their game has been going down ever since.
As such, no, we do not need to cling to ideas that make a small group of players happy, when they ultimately do more harm than good. The reality is, Raids do not build community, they divide it. This has been proven with every single game that has raids.
What we need is a game with more World Bosses and less Raids.
One where it is more monster hunter and you can go into serveral dangerous places that requires a large groups and take down NPC that require large groups. This is for gear to make hostile area easier and/or gear crafting materials.
Developer event that requires boss NPC to be taken down in dungeon. This is a per server one time thing.
Procedurally created threats that the system randomly generates from time to time.
I just don't like the world ending threat over and over on weekly demand.
I would diverge on the solution to reference prior ideas about, while not changing raids in a direct sense, changing things like making the rewards different or opening them up to being tradeable and feed back into the player economy.
This would still need to be coupled with a shift to offering more viable alternative gameplay options outside of raids for players, as it remains the point that MMOs as a collaborative and social user experience needs more social factors rather than divisive ones.