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How Much Room for Error Do Most Raids Have in MMORPGs?
Ancient_Exile
Member RarePosts: 1,303
Please specify the MMORPG or MMORPGs and when you last participated in a raid in that game.
As for myself, I soloed (with an NPC Mercenary) several lower level raids in Everquest 2. I think I started doing it when my character was lvl 90 (back in 2014). But I would mentor down to an appropriate level (5 levels higher than the level of the raid, so I could still get loot). Did a couple lower level raids with a handful or less of friends/acquaintances and guild members also. Actually, I did participate in one large raid in Runes of Magic. And I think I remember that one player's mistake could cause everyone to fail. It might have been a 50-man raid, but I don't quite remember. Been a long time (2008).
EDIT: Oh, also, I played some high level dungeons in Neverwinter that sometimes felt like Raid difficulty (even though they only allowed 5-player groups)). This was especially the case right after Module 6: Elemental Evil was released back in April of 2015. Though, of course, any content in a game can be very difficult if player characters don't have the proper power-level of gear for it. In games that are very gear-dependent for power anyway.
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Comments
Room for error is obviously a lot higher in a raid than in a small group but is also situational.Like i said there are way too many different scenarios,you can't just lump ALL of raiding into a comparison versus ALL of small grouping.
There are MANY ,like several hundred small group Boss fights in FFXI that are much tougher than any Raid within for example Wow.Of course if you never played FFXI you'd have no clue and just think..whatever.
So i will educate those that just play Wow clones on how DIFFERENT combat can be MUCH more difficult than simply stating RAID !!.
Mobs in FFXI be it a Boss or any mob feed on TP "tactical points"which when a certain amount is attained can do very powerful moves and often are AOE moves.So if you just had 24 players all whacking on this Boss he would be going off with AOE's every few seconds,meaning the whole raid is red lining hit points.There is a bad side to that of course and that is no different than your typical ZERG raid and that is just have a pile of long range dps characters.
My point is to educate people that are BLIND gamer's,there is no ONE way,no way to say this is always right,there are variations in combat that are so diversified sometimes a small group is better than a Raid size and vice versa.
However if we are to simplify the whole idea,well then obviously having more tanks,more healers and more dps allows for lots of error which would make raiding the lowest denominator and nothing more than SIZE of group.
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I understand what you're saying. But, okay, how about Dungeons vs Raids in WoW? Why are many Raid guilds so selective and elitist if Raids are actually easier than Dungeons (have more room for error)?
BTW i come from FFXI the game with the toughest raid boss ever created..Absolute Virtue,you can do your own google to find out why.It is not really about human error but figuring out WHAT the Boss script is actually doing.
Anyhow to answer your query,combat has become 99% gear based and 1% human error.I could actually claim 100% gear based because without a certain gear score in Wow or whatever game,you are not EVER beating certain Bosses.
FFXI is the ONLY mmorpg i can think of that in the early years level 1-75 was NOT about your gear.You could win battles in noob gear because it was more about YOU and using your characters abilities.
So your selective RAID guilds are because they want the best geared players to make the combat the easiest.The ERROR side of combat is really NOT that difficult there are few occasions it MIGHT be a problem but not often.Once you KNOW the Bosses script then you simply wait for the timing which is where your human error comes into play.
So a simple example is MANY bosses have special moves at hit point intervals,maybe 20% hp or 75% hp which rely on players reacting to those moments.However even if you mess up there is a VERY good chance you will live and recover.There really is thousands of different scenarios i have been through where human error is a bigger part than other times it is hit n miss.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Okay, thanks. So, you're saying that all you have to do to qualify for a Raid Guild is have a certain Gear Score? And then all players have to do to be successful in a Raid is learn the timing and hopefully not screw up too badly or too many times?
Entry raiding tends to be really easy to the point where you can go with fewer people than needed. After that you tend to get some mechanism where people being slow on killing stuff gets you killed or people can die because they simply failed their awareness check.
In competitive games against skilled people they will pressure you to make mistakes and once you make a mistake they expose it. In raiding you often don't get pressured enough to make those sorts of mistakes.
Ok. To answer the OP. Often, Not much room. But, the raids in DDO are designed so that there are mechanics that needed to be handled. To use VoN, there are a LOT of traps and puzzles that need to be solved. However, in the case with the puzzles, one person works the puzzle and the others keep the trash mobs off them. While it is a team effort, the Trash beaters, don't need to be rocking their A game, they just need to be somewhat competent, in short, they need to be an effective club to beat the mobs with.
Just like traps are a one person task, but again, the trash mobs make that VERY hand, if you don't have someone to handle it.
VoN also has a few mechanics, like where players need to pull seperate levels at the same time, some of which requiring specific stat scores, like needing to meet a Strength requirement to pull a lever, or needing to meet an Intelligence requirement to activate a Rune.
However, a lot of that raid is about having a core set of people that know the raid, IE: They know where to find item A and know where Slot A is so they can put them together.
Since that raid is very complex, having people talk to the wrong mob at the wrong time can end the whole raid, as well as doing things like picking up items they really should not be picking up.
In VoN, a lot of the players are there as DPS, that is their task, but, in VoN you need to have at least those 4 core players that know the raid, and I don't mean "Oh yah, I kinda know this one" I mean, they KNOW the raid, and can lead a pack of 4 squirrels off to solve a puzzle room, and are able to pull their dead bodies out of the lava if need be, kind of Know this raid.
With that said, yes.. with the 4 of us, we needed our A game from Start to End. And even then, the end fight was a beast to chew through.
Having more would have been great, but it was VoN at level for Exp, which is often about as appealing as running your ass across a cheesegrater in a salt factory, so.. no one joined. If we just ran a VoN for loot, we would have auto-filled in a matter of seconds.
Anyway.. with that said, in DDO, yes, one imbecile can ruin most raids, even if the raids can be short-manned, ergo, we don't need the extra people to complete the raid, there are still many mechanics in place where if someone is doing something wrong it can make the quest so much harder that it becomes a wipe, or in some raids in DDO it can trigger total wipe mechanics. Like locking some doors in VoN before the task is done, can make the whole quest incompletable and we will need to restart.
Also, some raids in DDO have a need for a specific role, like ToD often has a demand for what is called a "Shadow Tank" and this person botching their role can wipe the raid very easy.
This is above and beyond the basic competency that is expected from people going into Raid in DDO, (this is of course contingent upon the difficulty of the raid, For people running Raids on Normal, there is a lot more room to be clueless) but, to use an example, in VoN, which ends with a fight with a Red Dragon, knowing that you should have Fire Resist/Protect on, perhaps above the spells and buffs, also have it inherent to your gear, as well as perhaps Ice or cold based weapons is expected.
As such, in DDO, Raid leaders will require gear checks for the Harder (Higher Level/Higher Difficulty) raids, because some people don't quite see the problem with attacking a Red Dragon with a flame based weapon.
On the flip side of that, you also have the people that have made a Icy Burst Greatsword of Greater Dragon Bane, crafting it just to ensure that it was ML 12, and they made this sword, just for VoN, and these people are the ones that can carry mediocre other players.
So ideally, as long as people follow basic directions and aren't where they aren't supposed to be, like Crushem... in DDO, there is a lot of room for carry.
Interesting. However, I believe most MMORPGs don't allow for the difficulty of dungeons and raids to be changed. So players don't usually have the opportunity to learn a raid on easier settings before trying the more challenging versions.
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The most unpredictable encounters are Player(s) vs Player(s).