General: Saturday Debate: Raiding

Stradden

Staff Writers Dan Fortier and Derek Czerkaski square off on one of the hottest topics in MMORPGs... raiding.

Derek Czerkaski:

Raiding; the gathering of guilds and their members en masse to fight grueling, hard-fought battles against epic monsters for 1337 lewt. That's one way to look at it. I hear "raiding" and I think of a monotonous, macro-mashing time-sink. Nothing like spamming 4-5 skills over and over, for 2-8 hours at a time, because that's what real strategy is about. While raiding can be fun initially, once a god/boss/HNM/insert-end-game-title-here has been beaten enough times to where the strategy has become standardized, all the fun is gone.

Read the whole article here.

severius

I, for one, detest raiding.  Maybe that's one of the reasons I hated EQ with such a passion back in the day .  For one thing loots have never really been one of my main motivations to play a game.  I am more into exploration and adventuring.  So going through a raid a few times to kill all the big bad boss monsters is more than enough for me.  When I first quit wow it was shortly after helping my guild down Ragnaros in MC.  I had done everything there was to do at that time and didnt seen any reason to keep playing.  The magic of the game was completely gone.  Several months later I resubbed to wow, leveled a new toon to 60, got through MC, BWL, ZG and AQ20 and had been well on our way through aq40 when I realized that I was going to have to raid grind in order to get the loot necessary to make naxx possible.  That was the end of the game for me.  The Burning Crusade seems to have gone a bit smarter in that Blizzard is shying away from the massive raids and making higher level gear attainable by a wider group of the population and I am sorely tempted to jump back in lol.



A number of years ago a change started to take place in gaming in general.  There had always been a small number of titles enjoyable to everyone but there were a greater share of games that were most accessible to the "hardcore" gamers.  Then there was the shift.  Instead of challenging the gamers more and more games came out that were geared more towards the average gamer rather than the "hardcore".  It was a matter purely of economics.  I think Blizzard realized this as they were preparing for their expansion.  Sure there are the "hardcore" raiding guilds.  But they are the vast minority. 



On my last server in wow (a heavily populated one at that) there were a handful of people decked out in teir 2's.  The rest of the people were in varying amounts of tier1, dungeon gear, and pvp gears.  On both horde and alliance side the "uber" guilds were selling services to get through MC, ZG, and AQ20.  And only the gullible few took up those offers not realizing that that sword or staff or bit of armor was not a guaranteed drop.  Spend 1000 gp to go through a midrange raid to walk out with nothing.



Sure there is a place for raiding, however it is not what the majority of the gamers want to do.  They want to see progression for themselves as they are paying their monthly fees and raids that are formulaic in everything but reward does not exactly equate to money well spent.

defafnyr

I personally hate raiding.  I HATE it.  Do I want it out of games?  No.  I'm not the only person playing.  The game has to be fun and fair for everyone.  I'm not a princess and I don't expect people that DO enjoy raiding to give it up for me or anyone else, even though I hate it.  Did I mention that I loathe raiding? 

A lot of other people enjoy it.  What I'd like to see is an alternative.  I think Vanguard went in the right direction with the pause areas, where you can do part of the dungeon, log at a safe spot and come back the next day and continue where you left off rather than have to start all over at the beginning. 

People that invest so much time to raiding to get all that epic gear deserve to have it, but there hasn't been an alternative that gets the same type of reward for those that can't invest that much time, and still be fair to those raiders.  Those that despise raiding, or simply can't raid because they have families and kids in soccer practice and such are  therefore, unable to compete when the game has PVP. 

I don't want raiding to go away, I want to see alternatives.

 

 

 

 

Emmeric

End game raiding to compete is the main reason i quit almost every game i have played.

 

I have a familly and dont have 12 hours to devote to a game everyday hoping for the 1 in 1,845,926,834,823 chance to drop.

Hours and hours spent leveling a toon to 50 or 60 in some games to find out it was all for not because now i need to buy the next x-pac to get the next set of rare ybah drop and that means more money spent and more time nneded to do it all over again

Daoc was a good game hit 50 go rvr take keeps fun and fresh idea. then it was SI wasnt bad x=pac nothing there wasnt attainiable with a little bit of time.

then the RA system from pvp came in. Part time player 3 hours a night couldnt keep up with the people who played 10 hours a day go to Emain get to mile gate get farmed. IM rr 10 and your rr 3 , haaahahah thxs for the RP's sucka..

Then came TOA and that made 80% of the population quit the game...

Then they made catacombs totally solo player freindly with new Overpowerd ill spam my magical claw on you for the win!!!!

Vampirr skilless class for the mentally challenged. As Geiko would say Even a caveman could do it.

Then came Labrinth of the Minutaur. New rare armor drops/items new class....

In the end being the part time player with around 20 hours a week to devote to a game its not worth playing any game that has any type of super raiding that only the ones with nothing better to do everyday like the 7 million teenagers that play WOW or the person with no job that lives in there parents basement and hasnt seen the light of day in 10 years.... Game favors only those and those alone.... Part time player has no chance to compete and in the end they all eventually quit.

 

Make a game with no pvp Personal rewards or gaer that attaniable by all weither its 20 hours a week i play or 60 hours a week ....

When that game comes it would be a great day.

 

Thony

If raiding was challenging then i would be okay with it but its far from challenging, but sometimes it is fun to do, just not willing to do the same thing over and over again.The same thing my personal experiance with people/friends that really like raiding are those that don't neccesary like mmorpg but they are more into or used to be more into FPS online games, 3 of my best friends hardcore CS players really love WOW and its raiding, the people i know that really like mmorpg really don't like raiding.

Please read that this is my personal opinion and experiance and i'm talking about people i know, so i'm not saying that everyone that likes fps online games is automaticly a raider or  doesn't really care for real mmorpg.

opusaug

I'd love to hear from someone who actually likes raiding.  Sometimes, I think they're more mythological than the dwarves and elves we pretend to be.

Heyian

I personally find raiding fun, but indeed it takes too much time. But again, you gotta see it this way, as it has been said, its in the game because people do enjoy it. The thing is, with end-game raids that takes 2-8 hours to complete depending on the raid and the game, you lose your casual players. When all major guilds in a server has been raiding end-game dungeons for a time, they become so powerful that its not even fun measuring against them. I think the best way to solve this is still have PvE raids that takes 2-8 hours in end-game with l33t loot, but again, a system that can give access to end-game gear to more casual players, like in PvP(or RvR) or something like it. Of course, its gonna take more time for em to get to that type of gear, but instead of having to play a 6 hours instance, they gotta put 10 hours in PvP lets say, and they get access to a reward that would be competitive to end-game gear obtained in high-instances. So they dont have to put 6 hours in a row of playing, they can come in, play for an hour or 2, log off, do what they gotta do, come back and continue to accumulate their points to finally get to a fair reward. Thats 1 option.  This way, you satisfy hardcore players and you keep your casual players competitive.

Edinho

Originally posted by Thony


If raiding was challenging then i would be okay with it but its far from challenging, but sometimes it is fun to do, just not willing to do the same thing over and over again.The same thing my personal experiance with people/friends that really like raiding are those that don't neccesary like mmorpg but they are more into or used to be more into FPS online games, 3 of my best friends hardcore CS players really love WOW and its raiding, the people i know that really like mmorpg really don't like raiding.
Please read that this is my personal opinion and experiance and i'm talking about people i know, so i'm not saying that everyone that likes fps online games is automaticly a raider or  doesn't really care for real mmorpg.

Thats probably because its their first mmorpg. I dont care much for the CS community seems to be populated by the same 1337 cretins that populate wow. Just my observation.





Raiding was fun the first time with a group of people you like being around. Then it just goes down hill rapidly. How developers get around this i dont know. Quests get boring. Raiding is just a massive time sink. The only mmorpg to be different is EVE, but thats far from perfect.

Neanderthal

The problem with raiding is that you can't have raiding AND have viable alternatives to raiding.  Because if there are viable alternatives then not enough people will be willing to do raids and then there won't be any raiding. 

Some people say they wouldn't mind if a game has raiding as long as there are alternatives.  Yeah, well, it doesn't work that way.  I mean it sounds nice, but you can't have it both ways.  If people don't have to raid for the best stuff then they won't.  Because, NEWSFLASH: very few people actually enjoy raiding.

Even the people who adamantly defend raiding...I don't beleive they really enjoy it.  For them it's not about having fun in the content it's about having a game design that shuts other people out of progression so that the raiders can have the edge.  So they can have the shiniest swords and strut around in the fanciest armor.  Provide a real alternative to raiding and the whole motivation for doing raids collapses. 

Game developers, for whatever reason, keep putting in raiding end-games.  Maybe just because it's easy content to design as some people say.  Anyway, they keep doing it.  They make vague promises that raiding won't be required ect., ect.  Which, while technically true, are certainly misleading when you reach high levels and find that there is no other way to progress.

What works in their favor is that people who don't want to raid keep falling for this.  The devs know that if they can sucker non-raiders into their game they can get their money up untill those people find out the awfull truth...and that's all that matters.  More and more I think that developers are looking at mmorpgs as a kind of disposable money-pump.  They probably figure that most people won't play longer than about one year anyway. 

So the devs make their promises.  Suck people in and get their money.  People get disgusted and leave.  A new game comes out with the same promises....and people fall for it all over again.

Unknown

Heres the way I see things its not raiding thats bad, but the .06% drop chance that has us raiding the same boss about 300 times. I mean raiding might be kinda fun if it was a trial sort of thing, you get to a level and now must gather forces to slay the dragon, but really why have us slay the same boss again and again and again.

I really think that is one of the primary reasons D&D online fell flat on its face, around lv 3 you have to start repeating quests to level up. I mean really who wants to save the same lady from the same kobolds half a dozen times.

JK-Kanosi

Most people's experience with raiding doesn't extend farther than that of WoW, EQ, or EQ2. But I can tell you from experience that not all raiding is loot driven or imperitive to complete. I liked DAoC's style of raiding the most. There were Dragons, Epic Monsters, and of course Trials of Atlantis. The system was not loot oriented, but ability oriented, except for the Dragon and Epic Monsters, which was more fun oriented. ToA raids allowed those that raided to gain special abilities that could help them in PvE or in PvP.

I think where most of the complaints about raiding is coming from is competition. When those that want to compete, can't compete, they get upset at those that can and the medium that allows them to outshine them. In this case, raiding is that medium. I don't think raiding should be loot oriented, but more challenge and fun oriented. I prefer not to do a raid more than a few times. And for the author that was complaining about raiding, most of WoW's playerbase has never beaten a raid boss. The raids are challenging and those that pioneer the raids have the most challenge figuring out how to beat them. To say that raiding is not challenging is to say that you can make it through a raid without dying. We all know that is not true, so your point on raiding not being challenging is invalid.

Raiding is a playstyle that some people like and some don't. I believe every playstyle should be rewarded based on the amount of effort it takes to accomplish that playstyle. After all, we play games for both fun and challenge; the reward should be no greater than the challenge it took to complete it. So if you really don't care about raiding, you shouldn't care about the rewards raiding brings you. After all, MMORPG's are mostly about community. We all choose our guilds usually by who is like minded. If you are guilded with like minded people, and those people hate raiding, then you should have no problem having the best gear not-raiding can get you. Getting that gear should be bragging rights enough if your fellow guildies can't get any better gear than that too.

 

JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by defafnyr


I personally hate raiding.  I HATE it.  Do I want it out of games?  No.  I'm not the only person playing.  The game has to be fun and fair for everyone.  I'm not a princess and I don't expect people that DO enjoy raiding to give it up for me or anyone else, even though I hate it.  Did I mention that I loathe raiding? 
A lot of other people enjoy it.  What I'd like to see is an alternative.  I think Vanguard went in the right direction with the pause areas, where you can do part of the dungeon, log at a safe spot and come back the next day and continue where you left off rather than have to start all over at the beginning. 
People that invest so much time to raiding to get all that epic gear deserve to have it, but there hasn't been an alternative that gets the same type of reward for those that can't invest that much time, and still be fair to those raiders.  Those that despise raiding, or simply can't raid because they have families and kids in soccer practice and such are  therefore, unable to compete when the game has PVP. 
I don't want raiding to go away, I want to see alternatives.
 
 
 
 

 

I agree that having pause areas would be a good idea. But lets be fair here. I am married and have a child in school myself, but I can still raid if I wanted to. I think it is more that people don't want to and use the parent card as an excuse. So I am playing the "If I can do it, so can you" card to prove that parents can raid if the CHOOSE to. However, I could agree that a lot of parents prioritize spending their evenings with their children then with a bunch of people online.

JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by Emmeric


End game raiding to compete is the main reason i quit almost every game i have played.
 
I have a familly and dont have 12 hours to devote to a game everyday hoping for the 1 in 1,845,926,834,823 chance to drop.
Hours and hours spent leveling a toon to 50 or 60 in some games to find out it was all for not because now i need to buy the next x-pac to get the next set of rare ybah drop and that means more money spent and more time nneded to do it all over again
Daoc was a good game hit 50 go rvr take keeps fun and fresh idea. then it was SI wasnt bad x=pac nothing there wasnt attainiable with a little bit of time.
then the RA system from pvp came in. Part time player 3 hours a night couldnt keep up with the people who played 10 hours a day go to Emain get to mile gate get farmed. IM rr 10 and your rr 3 , haaahahah thxs for the RP's sucka..
Then came TOA and that made 80% of the population quit the game...
Then they made catacombs totally solo player freindly with new Overpowerd ill spam my magical claw on you for the win!!!!
Vampirr skilless class for the mentally challenged. As Geiko would say Even a caveman could do it.
Then came Labrinth of the Minutaur. New rare armor drops/items new class....
In the end being the part time player with around 20 hours a week to devote to a game its not worth playing any game that has any type of super raiding that only the ones with nothing better to do everyday like the 7 million teenagers that play WOW or the person with no job that lives in there parents basement and hasnt seen the light of day in 10 years.... Game favors only those and those alone.... Part time player has no chance to compete and in the end they all eventually quit.
 
Make a game with no pvp Personal rewards or gaer that attaniable by all weither its 20 hours a week i play or 60 hours a week ....
When that game comes it would be a great day.
 

 

Again, this is personal choice. I play around 20 hours a week myself, but I can still find time to raid if I want to. Does that mean I can raid everyday like the hardcore? No, but I don't really care either. If I raid, I do so for the challenge of beating that mob. If I get a piece of gear out of it, wonderful, but it won't break my heart if I don't. I think it is a maturity issue. If you feel that you need to "pwn" everyone to have fun, then I feel sorry for you. I am perfectly happy raiding occasionally, whether I get loot or not, and competing against others and getting pwned in the process. So ToA and RA's in DAoC didn't make me quit, because I loved grouping with others to overcome challenges. Hell, RvR was a zerg fest anyways and the realm with the biggest zerg won. It didn't matter a whole lot what RA's or ToA abilities and artifacts you had. Of course, those that preferred small group and solo RvRing were screwed, but to each their own. To me, Catacombs killed the game. After Catacombs, no one wanted to group anymore. After that I played off and on and also bought the DR expansion pack. But after seeing LoTM, I said screw this game and quit for good. Like you, I've had enough of the overpowering classes being introduced in each expansion.

JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by Neanderthal


The problem with raiding is that you can't have raiding AND have viable alternatives to raiding.  Because if there are viable alternatives then not enough people will be willing to do raids and then there won't be any raiding. 
Some people say they wouldn't mind if a game has raiding as long as there are alternatives.  Yeah, well, it doesn't work that way.  I mean it sounds nice, but you can't have it both ways.  If people don't have to raid for the best stuff then they won't.  Because, NEWSFLASH: very few people actually enjoy raiding.
Even the people who adamantly defend raiding...I don't beleive they really enjoy it.  For them it's not about having fun in the content it's about having a game design that shuts other people out of progression so that the raiders can have the edge.  So they can have the shiniest swords and strut around in the fanciest armor.  Provide a real alternative to raiding and the whole motivation for doing raids collapses. 
Game developers, for whatever reason, keep putting in raiding end-games.  Maybe just because it's easy content to design as some people say.  Anyway, they keep doing it.  They make vague promises that raiding won't be required ect., ect.  Which, while technically true, are certainly misleading when you reach high levels and find that there is no other way to progress.
What works in their favor is that people who don't want to raid keep falling for this.  The devs know that if they can sucker non-raiders into their game they can get their money up untill those people find out the awfull truth...and that's all that matters.  More and more I think that developers are looking at mmorpgs as a kind of disposable money-pump.  They probably figure that most people won't play longer than about one year anyway. 
So the devs make their promises.  Suck people in and get their money.  People get disgusted and leave.  A new game comes out with the same promises....and people fall for it all over again.

 

Is WoW the only MMORPG you've only played? As I have said before, DAoC was not like WoW and they had raiding. Raiding wasn't necessary and you could get the best gear from crafters, but guess what? People still did raids. So you are wrong; with alternatives, those who like to raid, still will raid, just not habitually. I personally like small raids. I don't like doing them more than a few times, but I do like to do them. They are challenging having to learn how to beat the boss. It's not something I would do with just anyone either. I would only raid with my guild or alliance.

JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by Guler


Heres the way I see things its not raiding thats bad, but the .06% drop chance that has us raiding the same boss about 300 times. I mean raiding might be kinda fun if it was a trial sort of thing, you get to a level and now must gather forces to slay the dragon, but really why have us slay the same boss again and again and again.
I really think that is one of the primary reasons D&D online fell flat on its face, around lv 3 you have to start repeating quests to level up. I mean really who wants to save the same lady from the same kobolds half a dozen times.

 

I play DDO right now, along with WoW and it is not as you say it is. You do not have to repeat quests at level 3. I've had a level 5 Sorc at the start of the game and even then I didn't have to repeat content. Now, with a lot more content, I am level 3 playing with a once a week PnP style group and we don't have to repeat content. Sometimes we choose to, so we can have the challenge of beating it on elite, but we are never forced to.

As for your other point, I agree. Raiding is fun once or twice, but repeating the same raid is not. Hell, I personally don't have to have the best loot in the game, so I won't repeat raid in the first place.

XApotheosisX

Originally posted by Neanderthal


The problem with raiding is that you can't have raiding AND have viable alternatives to raiding.  Because if there are viable alternatives then not enough people will be willing to do raids and then there won't be any raiding. 
Some people say they wouldn't mind if a game has raiding as long as there are alternatives.  Yeah, well, it doesn't work that way.  I mean it sounds nice, but you can't have it both ways.  If people don't have to raid for the best stuff then they won't.  Because, NEWSFLASH: very few people actually enjoy raiding.

I disagree, I think you can have raid content as well as other ways of getting gear. People will still do the raid content if its fun and challenging. But thats what they will do it for is the fun and the challenge ... not farm it constantly.

I remember early in SWG the guild i was apart of on certain days would "raid". We ran through Lord Nyax's hideout (i think that was his name) on correllia. We ran through the Nightsister camp on dathomir (i believe). We did a bunch of the "dungeons" not because we were looking for uber loot, but because it was fun and a good challenge for our guild.

That being said, will some people NOT raid if they don't get uber gear? most definately and thats fine there are other games out there that they can play as well. Thing is as you can tell by most of the post on this very thread, the reason why people HATE raiding is because they are FORCED into it. You may actually get more people into raiding if the raid is more casual and fun and not the only way to progress your character.

maybe also if you complete the raid and kill the final boss of the instance a screen pops up that allows you to choose your reward. this way EVERYONE gets something out of the raid and not just a few. I have always thought it was a silly mechanic that 40 people have to kill a boss and 4 items drop.

Xyang

All i have to say about raiding it's that, it sucks if it's shoved to you in the throat by being the ultimate way to better your character. But it can be enjoyable here and there if it's not a forced feature to progress into the game.

Kraetus

Why would a debate concerning raiding ignore one of the most important points?  Raiding is the way it is, not because it's necessarily fun or engaging for a large portion of the population, but because it's a wildly effective timesink for all of the population.  40 people working together willingly--albeit grudgingly--each night to acquire a mere handful of "epix" is like manna from heaven to a game designer attempting to stretch the longevity of his content to as far as it will go.  Endless raiding doesn't make sense from a gamer standpoint; it makes sense from a business standpoint.  It is for precisely this reason I am skeptical that raiding will significantly change in the foreseeable future.  Non-raiders won't want to hear it, but as long as Blizzard has to use one of these to move their monthly income around, the system isn't going to evolve.



I'm going into Diatribe Mode at this point, so I won't be offended if you skip the rest of this post.



The even bigger aspect that people don't get is that raiding will never work to an adequate degree, and that is because of the loot-based MMO model currently being used.  EQ did more harm to this genre than anyone will ever realize; allow me to elucidate.  By following a model that emphasized loot over all else, game designers (and the players who allowed it to happen) trivialized community, reinforced min/maxing, dramatically increased acquisition-induced drama both in and outside the group setting, dramatically increased the temptation for gold and account buying, introduced the necessity for players to commit large blocks of time, and introduced websites like Thottbot, which take away any real thought or input on the part of the player in any given quest.



People on these fora are always tossing out what they believe to be the key criterion for reaching the next "generation" of MMORPGs.  Well, here's another stab at it:  MMOs won't radically evolve until we return to a model that emphasizes playing the game for the sake of the gameplay itself.  Until MMO designers start creating truly engaging MMOs, the main attraction of which is merely the enjoyment of the gameplay (as is the attraction for almost any game outside this genre) regardless of outside rewards and motivations, we're going to be mired in the same stagnant gameplay we've been seeing since the late 90s.  Unfortunately, though there are a few brave souls who are working towards this very goal in 2-3 upcoming games, advancement of gameplay has taken a backseat to all else, and I fear that we will have to flounder through another 3-4 "generations" before we see what MMOs can really do for mass entertainment.



WoW is a drop in the bucket compared to what this genre will one day achieve.

xrebel

I LOVE raiding... the first 5-10 times I do a dungeon (after that I turn into an alcoholic while raiding)



what I hate the most is going through the 4 bosses on farm every week in order to get 1 try a night on the new boss. (and being required to do this even if possible to skip for the gear...)



So... Ideas:

1. Move towards more the system WoW has been going towards... make each loot drop be a rare component for 2-3 different gear pieces for 2-3 different classes. This has gone a long way towards (for example) guilds running MC months after they need to because 3 people are missing 1 piece of gear off the last boss.



2. Multi-Wing dungeons. What I mean by this is you could have 3-4 options for different dungeon encounters... and each boss along the progression of that wing drops the loot you could get in the other 2-3 wings. This would go a long way towards the problem of seeing the same scenery every week... you could rotate wings to keep a slight variety, and have 4 times the number of encounters to learn and enjoy.



3.  Dynamic Dungeons/Dynamic Mobs/Dynamic bosses. One dungeon wing, you never know what it's going to look like/act like week to week. Change is good! (multi-wing + dynamic = endless fun!)



4. Dynamic Difficulty level. Mentioned in the OP debate was people leaving good groups of friends to join the elite guild and get gear... well this has happened to me (yes I know I was greedy... I regret it now.) What about scaling difficulty (or time requirement) based on the number of players that enter? Or change the amount of loot that drops. Have you ever waited an hour for a 40 man raid to form just to discover you can only get 25 people and it falls apart? This might fix that.



5. Everyone wins! Okay.. basically the current form of raiding seems to be "go into dungeon A,B,or C and have a chance to get the gear you want" It sucks! even if gear is flexible for 2-3 different classes... you could still wait months (bad luck, less dkp, any reason) to get that super-goose-electrolytic-blastermaster that you want. Instead have boss encounters, time spent, difficulty level (for dynamic dungeons), and whatever else go towards giving raid members a DKP-like currency. (you could still have random loot/money/crafting mats drop). This would have multiple benefits: Mostly free guilds from tracking DKP, make PUG's easier to organize... and let EVERYONE who puts the time/effort into the raid get something out of it! I would know that even though this boss is hard and we're working on it... in 4 more hours I'll have built up the "raid currency" to get a piece of gear or fancy sword I wanted.



erm well, I could go on for months with ideas... that's enough for now.

Vrazule

Sometimes I wish the whole raid issue would just go away.   You can't even find a casual game that doesn't force you to raid end game.  Even City of Heroes (which I consider to be one of the most casual friendly MMOs on the market) forces you to raid Hamidon in order to upgrade your powers beyond what casual play can do.  Ultimately, I'm sick and tired of the developing companies completely ignoring a significant portion of their market just so they can add some false sense of longevity to their games.  Why do casuals have this stigma of being flighty and moving from game to game?  Its because these developers refuse to actually cater to us, so why the hell should we stick around or show loyalty to any company that screws over our play style.

I've had it with thier business models.  I'm sick and tired of developers with chips on their shoulders who are unbelievably adversarial with casuals and our desires.  I've given up on the whole genre and will not likely return in the near future.  I'll consider subscribing to a MMO, if and only if it doesn't include any form of raiding period.  Until they create a MMO that caters to the casual play style from beginning to end, they won't get another dime from me.

xrebel

Originally posted by Vrazule
I've had it with thier business models.  I'm sick and tired of developers with chips on their shoulders who are unbelievably adversarial with casuals and our desires.  I've given up on the whole genre and will not likely return in the near future.  I'll consider subscribing to a MMO, if and only if it doesn't include any form of raiding period.  Until they create a MMO that caters to the casual play style from beginning to end, they won't get another dime from me.

I understand your feelings but think they are a bit dramatic...



Your problem could be solved just by adding equivalent small group/solo content (that understandably takes proportionally longer) but that involves the same level of rewards.



Or just by improving the raiding model.



I'm not sure abolishing raiding completely will ever happen, so I hope for the sake of your MMO career there can be another way to fix the issue for you.

Cymdai

I have only experienced one raid event that was enjoyable, personally.



FFXI had this event called the "Twinkling Treant" event. It was a server-wide effort, and it took several hundred people to succeed. It was great fun, but I'm not sure it counts as a raid.

Anofalye

/duel Dan Fortier.

 

The overwhelming majority NEVER raid in the endgame.  Raiding exist BECAUSE devs want to keep some players hooked and they appeal to the worst players, social gankers.  Bearing FoH or LoS or AL?  You're kidding me?  This is a TINY MINORITY, and a social gankers minority on top of that!  Yes, I am a tiny little boy who cry at about been stealed my grouping-toys...however everything rational in me tell me that I am right and that it is unfair!

 

Casuals they love invites, offers, and options.  These guilds are doing the OPPOSITE of what the casuals want.  You have to follow rules A, B and C which are all turning you into a cold jerk!  They are removing options, they insist that someone must have A, B or C to even group them/join them.  These guilds hate to do PUGs, casuals love to do PUGs...and I am honestly happy to provide them a PUG if I can.  These guilds, they would DESTROY loot rather than sell it to casuals, they have done it on many occasions and I was a witness and I find these guys deserving of nothing but raw hatred.

 

Raiding in it actual form is appealing mostly to the social gankers...  Good raiding could be built, but it would first have to not be enforced on anyone.  Best groupers deserve to be groupers!  Not social gankers!  Long ago, PvP-makers learn to not listen to gankers who request open FFA with full looting; they seem to be unable to make the same for PvE.  Both results in the same situation, the powerfull abuse the needy.  A powerfull player should lead by example no matter how silly this sound, not be rude with new players...and uber guilds are rude to everyone who doesn't raid with THEM; and they are usually rudes among themselves as well!  These guilds even have rules that you have to DITCH your group regardless of anything else, come on, how more of a jerk can these be?

Anofalye

Originally posted by xrebel

Originally posted by Vrazule
I've had it with thier business models.  I'm sick and tired of developers with chips on their shoulders who are unbelievably adversarial with casuals and our desires.  I've given up on the whole genre and will not likely return in the near future.  I'll consider subscribing to a MMO, if and only if it doesn't include any form of raiding period.  Until they create a MMO that caters to the casual play style from beginning to end, they won't get another dime from me.

I understand your feelings but think they are a bit dramatic...



Your problem could be solved just by adding equivalent small group/solo content (that understandably takes proportionally longer) but that involves the same level of rewards.



Or just by improving the raiding model.



I'm not sure abolishing raiding completely will ever happen, so I hope for the sake of your MMO career there can be another way to fix the issue for you.

LOL.

 

This player is right.  Raiding can't be enforced.  Raiding DOESN'T deserve any grouping tools.  Best groupers have to be groupers.

Tsiya

Originally posted by Anofalye


/duel Dan Fortier.
 
The overwhelming majority NEVER raid in the endgame.  Raiding exist BECAUSE devs want to keep some players hooked and they appeal to the worst players, social gankers.  Bearing FoH or LoS or AL?  You're kidding me?  This is a TINY MINORITY, and a social gankers minority on top of that!  Yes, I am a tiny little boy who cry at about been stealed my grouping-toys...however everything rational in me tell me that I am right and that it is unfair!
 
Casuals they love invites, offers, and options.  These guilds are doing the OPPOSITE of what the casuals want.  You have to follow rules A, B and C which are all turning you into a cold jerk!  They are removing options, they insist that someone must have A, B or C to even group them/join them.  These guilds hate to do PUGs, casuals love to do PUGs...and I am honestly happy to provide them a PUG if I can.  These guilds, they would DESTROY loot rather than sell it to casuals, they have done it on many occasions and I was a witness and I find these guys deserving of nothing but raw hatred.
 
Raiding in it actual form is appealing mostly to the social gankers...  Good raiding could be built, but it would first have to not be enforced on anyone.  Best groupers deserve to be groupers!  Not social gankers!  Long ago, PvP-makers learn to not listen to gankers who request open FFA with full looting; they seem to be unable to make the same for PvE.  Both results in the same situation, the powerfull abuse the needy.  A powerfull player should lead by example no matter how silly this sound, not be rude with new players...and uber guilds are rude to everyone who doesn't raid with THEM; and they are usually rudes among themselves as well!  These guilds even have rules that you have to DITCH your group regardless of anything else, come on, how more of a jerk can these be?

Just...wow. Sorry you had bad experiences, but not all raiders and/or raid guilds are like that. Pigeonhole much?



I raid for the challenge. Even with strategy guides for beating a boss, it can still take several attempts to get it down. And maybe the strat you found won't work with your raid setup. And next attempt, your setup is different, and you have to rethink everything again. On a lot of bosses we threw the accepted methods out the window and came up with our own methods, which actually worked. I raid for the thrill of having a bunch of people all working together to kill something very few have done before. Loot is purely secondary to me and a lot of my fellow raiders. Am I and my friends a one in a million setup? I seriously doubt it.



Rules? Don't be a jerk, and if you want to raid be at the instance at start time. What other rules do you need? If you're running with a bunch of autocratic jerks, then maybe there's other rules. But if you are, then raiding isn't fun, so don't do it. If it's not fun you're not doing it right.



I resent the social ganker comment. You do not know me, and you do not know my friends who raid with me. You don't like raiding, don't. But nobody can ever force you to raid. I'm not clear on why you feel forced I guess.

Zeka

Originally posted by Kraetus



MMOs won't radically evolve until we return to a model that emphasizes playing the game for the sake of the gameplay itself.  Until MMO designers start creating truly engaging MMOs, the main attraction of which is merely the enjoyment of the gameplay (as is the attraction for almost any game outside this genre) regardless of outside rewards and motivations, we're going to be mired in the same stagnant gameplay we've been seeing since the late 90s.  Fortunately, there are a few brave souls who are working towards this very goal in 2-3 upcoming games, advancement of gameplay has taken a backseat to all else, and I fear that we will have to flounder through another 3-4 "generations" before we see what MMOs can really do for mass entertainment.

I agree with you - didn't sound at all like a diatribe to me .  And I'm curious which are the games that you regard are finally thinking outside the mmo formula box.