RAIDING - What's the right size?

[Kreeper]

I'm aware that the game will involve PvP and obviously it will have different end game raiding dungeons etc.

What I want to know is what size suites us best? As I'm sure most everybody involved with this game / forums at this point are exeprianced/veteran MMO players for the most part. I want to touch base on what raid sizes people like best or feel should be implemented.


WAR - Raiding (PvE) capped at 6 man.
EQ1 - Raiding is at 72 flagged (more unflagged)
EQ2 - Raiding is capped at 24 man
AoC - Raiding is capped at 24 man
WoW - Prior to Burning Crusade it was 40 man raid content (Currently 25 now).

As you see I listed some past/new MMO's and what the end game content for "High End" raiding was like.

Personally, I feel 40 man raids was my cup of tea, I like the sense of having to have large guilds and mass cooperation involved to complete the best of the best content, now I'm quite aware they as far as I'm concerned they should have 10 mans and 6 mans kind of like WoW has currently.

But I strongly feel that in MO we should have 40 man Dungeon groups that it takes a hardcore group of guys to work and cordinate together. I don't want to play a game that everybody has the same gear because all the instances are easy to get into, when you play an MMO you want to have a sense of accomplishment because you are able to go to these crazy high end dungeons and get amazing gear. I don't want to be competing with people who have 40 hrs to grind pvp shit all day and have the same gear that it takes to 40 people to attain in a high end dungeon.

We need to find a happy medium somewhere....and hopefully Mortal Online can find it.

Please discuss the thoughts you guys have on this.

[admiralnlson]

There should be no cap to group size... that's all.

imho there shouldn't even be groups. They're useless :

You are near somebody else? There you go, you are forming a natural group. No need for specific /invite /join mechanics..

[Lachrymose]

yea, i don't think there needs to be a group cap either. if you can get enough people together, more power to you. it means there will be more people to split loot with though, so a 100 man raid won't be all that practical in a pve raid.

[Saviour]

If you by 40 man raids mean, that the raid should be difficult in the manner that you would need about 40 people for it I agree with you on that. (I would even like strong Raids not like Final Fantasy 18h raiding xD but dragons for example shouldn't be taken down so easily

But in no case should there be a cap for any raids if a clan wants to take 100 people for an easy raid they should be able to ;o

[Kreeper]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

yea, i don't think there needs to be a group cap either. if you can get enough people together, more power to you. it means there will be more people to split loot with though, so a 100 man raid won't be all that practical in a pve raid.

I havent voted yet but I think 40 mans is the sweet spot to be honest. My big concern is I dont want to spend my time in an MMO if someone can attain equivalant or better gear in PvP when I'm raiding 40 man raid content.

I'm not saying PvP gear should be horrible but it just shouldnt be the same as gear that takes 40 people to attain.

What are some other spectrums you can go down rather than just having tons of PvP based stats on PvP gear and it not counting for PvE stats, but yet you don't want to make PvP gear just worthless in PvE because naturally it takes time and dedication to acquire the best PvP gear, those people shouldnt totally be gimped in that aspect.

[Lyllyth]

BTW,
EQ1 is/was capped at 72 (12 x 6-man groups).
WoW is 25 (5 x 5-man groups)

[Zenir]

You have something in MO you don't have in the other games. "Raid Bosses" which are only there once, which drop only equip which is really unique.

-> More people in the raid, less equip
-> If you wait till you have your 120 people online and there the RB could already be dead.

There shouldn't be a cap, also it would just be weird if there was a cap.. i mean you go to your clan into the forest then suddenly a window pops up saying you can't go further with more than xx people?

[Kreeper]

Originally Posted by Lyllyth

BTW,
EQ1 is/was capped at 72 (12 x 6-man groups).
WoW is 25 (5 x 5-man groups)

Fixed! I knew i was close though!

[admiralnlson]

Kreeper, the poll you added does not fit a sandbox MMO...

It lacks an option like :

"No dedicated High End dungeons, I want to get usable gear through lots of different ways"

or something.

[Pett]

40 should be a good medium size. 24 has been too limiting for character involvement and utility. While it would be nice to not have a limiting factor and take a large amount of people, 80 involves too much outside organization and coordination, such as waiting for everyone to log on. Then if you design for 80-man raids, you're looking at longer and more boring content to offset the amount of manpower that can burn mobs down.

What I wouldn't mind seeing is a PvP-focused launch--iron out all class imbalances in the PvP environment. Then after a successful launch, kick back and work on new content with PvE raiding while players are indulging in the PvP frenzy. That way the players will have something new and interesting to do should they decide they want a break from all the PvP.

[Shinzon]

That would depend on the skill of each person... I would hope that 10 seasoned veterans of MO are able to match 30 relative freshmen...

[Odin]

Loved the 72 and 50 men raids in Everquest1. I think something between 60 and 80 would be awesome. Imagine which great encounter's the devs could build =)

War - 24 men = king - but thats not a real raid. I doubt that he would have scripts, epicgear and stuff like that.

[Kreeper]

Originally Posted by admiralnlson

Kreeper, the poll you added does not fit a sandbox MMO...

It lacks an option like :

"No dedicated High End dungeons, I want to get usable gear through lots of different ways"

or something.

Well you have to look at it as if without choice they were going to kinda have some form of PvE High End game content.

So you're saying you would rather not have any?

Originally Posted by Shinzon

That would depend on the skill of each person... I would hope that 10 seasoned veterans of MO are able to match 30 relative freshmen...

Naturally if your group is good enough you could get away with having 30ish people rather than 40 in a raid if you were good enough, but i wouldnt want them to make it much lower. The sheer fact of having 40 man content is because it takes a special group to do it and make it happen.

[1reaver1]

i am a fan of the "no cap". Personally if you have different races and classes spec'ed to different setting and so on, let them all try to play a roll. Personally i'd like to see content where NO RAID can take it down in theory even playing it perfectly without dying. Give us a FEW encounters you can expect everyone to wipe multiple times. It becomes a balance of pulling, rez'ing, DPS'ing, buffing, etc.

I am in no way saying i want all raid encounters like this. But it would be cool to have a few dragons or something spinkled in the game that are more a matter of brute force and wave attacks to kill.

[Kreeper]

Originally Posted by 1reaver1

i am a fan of the "no cap". Personally if you have different races and classes spec'ed to different setting and so on, let them all try to play a roll. Personally i'd like to see content where NO RAID can take it down in theory even playing it perfectly without dying. Give us a FEW encounters you can expect everyone to wipe multiple times. It becomes a balance of pulling, rez'ing, DPS'ing, buffing, etc.

I am in no way saying i want all raid encounters like this. But it would be cool to have a few dragons or something spinkled in the game that are more a matter of brute force and wave attacks to kill.

Yeah I absolutely think thats a good idea as well, having "rare" monsters that are just massive and just about impossible to kill without an amazing force seems really cool and unique actually.

But off set raid areas what do you think?

[Itza]

Originally Posted by Kreeper

But off set raid areas what do you think?

I don't think there should be dedicated raiding areas, like instances with a cap on how many people can enter. I would like the whole world to be one coherent big playing ground.

And if there are no "raid instances", how could you enforce the cap? If there is a grouping mechanic with limit on how many people can join, with no instances you could always make several raids. Therefore, I'd say no cap.

Of course I'd want some epic monsters to fight too, and then with unlimited raid size there can become a problem that even the most challenging fight can be zerged with large enough force, or the fight has to be tuned so that you really need the huge zerg to even try, which wouldn't be that good either. But there are some mechanics that can be used. I remember in another game there were bosses we'd rather kill with smaller raid, because the mechanics actually made the fight harder if you got too many people. Or maybe the dragon atop a mountain will look at a hundred people coming towards him, decide he's outmatched and fly away, whereas if you only approached with twenty or so, he'll think you're nice breakfast and fight you

I think Mortal Online should offer a new sandbox type raids. Hardcapped raid instances reek of theme parks, where the raid is the ride, and you have to be this tall to enter.

[Necro|FS]

In my opinion the so called raid should consist of as many as it takes, not a set number. It shouldn't be up to the devs to decide how many people they think they it takes to kill a monster. the only downside to this system is the loot, last hit is obsolete, damage-based is somewhat biased, but i think that should be the discussion..

[Reverend Mundane]

Originally Posted by Necro|FS

the only downside to this system is the loot, last hit is obsolete, damage-based is somewhat biased, but i think that should be the discussion..

You're talking about loot rules and loot rights? You don't really need them when the game has FFA PVP and full player loot. If someone takes something that doesn't belong to him, just kill him.

[Heliopios]

Originally Posted by Reverend Mundane

You're talking about loot rules and loot rights? You don't really need them when the game has FFA PVP and full player loot. If someone takes something that doesn't belong to him, just kill him.

Group takes 5 hours to kill an undead dragon, person takes skull (which is able to be made into a super amazingly collectible helmet), entire 200 man party gets into a huge free for all for the body. Epic.

[Reverend Mundane]

Originally Posted by Heliopios

Group takes 5 hours to kill an undead dragon, person takes skull (which is able to be made into a super amazingly collectible helmet), entire 200 man party gets into a huge free for all for the body. Epic.

And the skull goes to the two guys who were camping at the cave entrance when they ambush the winner and sole survivor of that 200 man brawl.

[haraldsmith]

I have always dreamed of a gigantic raid, like 1000 people around, i think that this would be awesome

[Rathius]

Not voting. There should be no cap... If you want to get the entire server to join you, awsome, if you want to go alone, good luck with that.

[Zigkirby]

There should not be raids unless it's soley for bragging rights. "Epic lootz" should not be in this game in any way, shape, or form, -ever-. Gear should be relitivly minor and only compliment the character's build and the player's playstyle. For example, if you kill a huge boss, loot all of it's bones, and craft it into armor, it shoulld be equal to the highest level of armor, which shouldn't be hard to obtain at endgame, with a unique skin for the armor, give it special abilities too, like being "soulbound" to the wearer, allowing him/her to track the armor if it is ever looted from him/her.

In short. Players should not have a big artifical advantage over other players at cap. The only advantage to gain from spending more time in a game compared to other players is character development and the natural skill you aquire from playing.

[ccoa]

Well, I guess if no raid is going to happen twice and it's possible that GM/Devs will be controlling the raid bosses maybe, depending on how many people are present, they would scale up the power/hp or something along those lines. I think it would be really cool and Dynamic, though it would have limits like say one person tried to solo it or it only scales up when its over 20 people or something along lines like that.

[admiralnlson]

Kreeper, in case you missed this:

Originally Posted by Mats Persson, StarVault

First of all, I'm not even sure what a "RAID" is, outside "that game". Where I come from, a "raid" is when you gather people from all around to sack a village, make a sudden attack on an enemy and so on. And yes, you will of course be free to to that. But I definitely can't see "raiding" in Mortal Online as the type of establishment it has become in other games.
PvE becomes very different in a PvP (or, PtP, Player-to-Player) game. Let's say your goal is to become a great history writer. The writing itself is very much a solo-thing, but you couldn't do your writing without a lot of PtP-interaction. Or say you'd like to become a master smith. When you sell weapons to other players (PtP), you'll undoubtedly become involved in their PvP conflicts. You'd probably want other people to help out in gathering and refining resources for you as well. Another example is if you (and your guild) is out on a "quest" to rescurrect some ancient creature for this or that reason. Your actions will affect other players (rescurrecting the creature might upset the balance of the Gods), and therefore other people might try to stop you or help you. I can think of few examples where end-game PvE won't affect the PtP/PvP, so I'm really not sure where to draw the line.

[bluealien1]

EDIT:

First of all, I'm not even sure what a "RAID" is, outside "that game". Where I come from, a "raid" is when you gather people from all around to sack a village, make a sudden attack on an enemy and so on. And yes, you will of course be free to to that. But I definitely can't see "raiding" in Mortal Online as the type of establishment it has become in other games.
PvE becomes very different in a PvP (or, PtP, Player-to-Player) game. Let's say your goal is to become a great history writer. The writing itself is very much a solo-thing, but you couldn't do your writing without a lot of PtP-interaction. Or say you'd like to become a master smith. When you sell weapons to other players (PtP), you'll undoubtedly become involved in their PvP conflicts. You'd probably want other people to help out in gathering and refining resources for you as well. Another example is if you (and your guild) is out on a "quest" to rescurrect some ancient creature for this or that reason. Your actions will affect other players (rescurrecting the creature might upset the balance of the Gods), and therefore other people might try to stop you or help you. I can think of few examples where end-game PvE won't affect the PtP/PvP, so I'm really not sure where to draw the line.

Pure win... I see alot of that around here, I like it.

[Divinius]

trying to get 80 people for a pve raid every night.... gl