Most likely said, but time. From my experiences raids are hours long, and far worse when 1) brand new or 2) bad group. I've been in short raids which are great (unless you're hard pressed to find enough people, then time plays a factor again).
The best analogy I can come up with is to compare it to an RTS. Imagine you go to play Starcraft online only to find that every single person you play against uses the exact same race and the exact same strategy every single time, and you only have one map available to you. Anyone who's played an RTS knows how god aweful boring that would be in a very short period of time. If your enemies strategy involved an early game Zerg rush, it might catch you off guard if it's your first time playing, but in no time flat you'd counter it, and every game from then on would involve you picking the same race and building the same buildings and units and doing the exact same thing every single time to counter their predictable actions, which defeat the entire purpose of playing the game. No thought, no skill, just going through a particular set of motions to achieve victory.
This is how raids are now. The first time you do it, it's interesting. Then every time after, it's the EXACT same thing. The number of mobs is the same, and their all in the same position, with the same stats and the same skills and strategies. No variation, no "on-the-fly" thinking or strategy adjustments required, just rote memorization.
The main problems about raiding is that it's hard to find a good group or any group at all, some raids are just boring (clear your way trough dozens of mobs until you get to the boss) and also people get really angry at any mistake you make during raiding (specially if healer or tank dies)...
gw2 will eliminate all this problems, just saying...
Here lies the problem....you couldn't get 60+ players to cooperate to do ANYthing these days. Some of us WERE around "back in the day," but that doesn't mean that modern raids don't have their own set of challenges. You just TRY to get 25 people to cooperate now and you'll see WHY there are no more 60+ player raids.
hence the "post WoW generation" term is coined:D Human evolution has not changed THAT drasticly in the last 11 years:D
those of us who LEARNED to cooperate isnt dead yet:) and the newer generation of gamers CAN learn to cooperate.
the fault is the content that is being designed not the human ability to cooperate.
it WASN'T easy to organize 72 people into a raid. god forbid if you were on Rallos Zek server killing the sleeper, which numbered well over 200 players:D all things considered that was one of the pinnacle moments in MMO history. on THE most hostile server(full fledge open PVP server), raiding the hardest mob ever in a game, that is KNOWN to be the hardest raiding MMO in history(also the game that created the whole concept of raiding). 3 RIVAL guilds came together to COOPERATE in the one epic fight that no other can in a live server. to understand the difficulty of this accomplishment, the CLERIC assigned to heal the tanks CAN kill the tank if they hit the wrong button:D it was OPEN PVP server:D ANY AE dmg a wizzy cast WILL damage the the whole raid:D
so... excuse me when i laugh at what you claim as an impossible task of getting 25 people to work together to kill a mediocer mob when EQ1 have accomplished raids 10 times the size in an environment that is at least 10 times the difficulty:D
Originally posted by psyclum Originally posted by just1opinion
Here lies the problem....you couldn't get 60+ players to cooperate to do ANYthing these days. Some of us WERE around "back in the day," but that doesn't mean that modern raids don't have their own set of challenges. You just TRY to get 25 people to cooperate now and you'll see WHY there are no more 60+ player raids.
hence the "post WoW generation" term is coined:D Human evolution has not changed THAT drasticly in the last 11 years:D those of us who LEARNED to cooperate isnt dead yet:) and the newer generation of gamers CAN learn to cooperate. the fault is the content that is being designed not the human ability to cooperate. it WASN'T easy to organize 72 people into a raid. god forbid if you were on Rallos Zek server killing the sleeper, which numbered well over 200 players:D all things considered that was one of the pinnacle moments in MMO history. on THE most hostile server(full fledge open PVP server), raiding the hardest mob ever in a game, that is KNOWN to be the hardest raiding MMO in history(also the game that created the whole concept of raiding). 3 RIVAL guilds came together to COOPERATE in the one epic fight that no other can in a live server. to understand the difficulty of this accomplishment, the CLERIC assigned to heal the tanks CAN kill the tank if they hit the wrong button:D it was OPEN PVP server:D ANY AE dmg a wizzy cast WILL damage the the whole raid:D so... excuse me when i laugh at what you claim as an impossible task of getting 25 people to work together to kill a mediocer mob when EQ1 have accomplished raids 10 times the size in an environment that is at least 10 times the difficulty:D
There is no "fault", as if somebody deliberately killed raiding. A large influx of new players who didn't want to spend a half hour or an hour waiting for people to get their stuff together to get into a raid, much less actually raid joined the games. These people, with money in their pockets let it be known that they wanted to play the game, not sit around waiting on other people so they could play the game. The developers listened. At the same time, developers kept the idea of tiered content and 'elite' gear or status via raiding. It's not really a mystery.
Raiding is fun when you can actually raid. Mostly I remember sitting around waiting for other people so I could raid.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
pfff weak:D real guilds raid 6 days a week and you need at least 65% raid attendance to stay in the guild:D only time you catch a break is when new expansion comes out and you got 1 month to max your lvl/AA's
I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, and I"ll be honest and say I haven't read all the posts on this thread...
For me it isn't the "raid" that I don't like. I'm fine with a dungeon that requires 20 people to fight a truly "epic" enemy. What has always bugged me about "endgame raids" in MMOs, and which is the primary reason why I have yet to really find an MMO that I've stuck with once I hit the cap, is that the game is designed around doing thoes same "epic" dungeons dozens of times.
I'm fine with raids. I've seen some that are really cool. But once I do it once and complete it I have no desire to repeat the content. It seems silly....On a different character maybe...but just like any quest...if I've already completed the objective I dont' really want to have to go do it again. If I'm tasked with killing a boss and I do so, why should I have to go back to kill him again?
The design of MMOs around repeating the same dungeons over and over again to get gear to then complete a different dungeon over and over again is more problem. Not the dungeons themselves, but their use as an "easy" endgame mechanic and wants us to continually repeat content over and over again chasing some "carrot on a stick" that we never quite reach.
pfff weak:D real guilds raid 6 days a week and you need at least 65% raid attendance to stay in the guild:D only time you catch a break is when new expansion comes out and you got 1 month to max your lvl/AA's
And it replaces your real-life job, but dont get paid for it, though some governments support these folks with welfare.
And it replaces your real-life job, but dont get paid for it, though some governments support these folks with welfare.
hahahah actually government doesnt pay for the 4 EQ accounts you keep active so yah you gotta get a real job too:D
the point is when you have people who got burned out from raiding, there were other people coming up the ranks to replace them. what killed the raiding game was WoW cuz the replacement pool ran dry from people going to the "5 man raids" in WoW:D
Raiding is fun when you can actually raid. Mostly I remember sitting around waiting for other people so I could raid.
aye, tis the cost of enjoyable raids. the more "expensive" the raid is(time wise) the sweeter the victory when you finally beat the encounter:)
kinda like the concept of no pain, no gain:D
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
Once you have done a raid a few times it becomes boring as watching paint dry. Then you also hvae to wait while the raid members get online, get stuff together, gear checks, potions.
I personally hate any game the has gear checks, even when you hvae have all the gear you never know when the next big patch is going to make it ' obsolete
I think raids should be much more dynamic in which you dont know whats going to happen even if you hvae raided the "Caves of Doom before" The old paths might be blocked now or a new boss or tribe now inhabits the place. And give us a mob AE thats not totally stupid where they dont go after just the tank
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
well yah, but if you consider the concept of pain and pleasure, you will see that w/o pain acting as a contrast, you cant really appreciate the degree of pleasure in the end. it's like people who climb Mt Everest, they SUFFER their way to the summit but when they reach there, the end accomplishment is that much sweeter.
Once you have done a raid a few times it becomes boring as watching paint dry. Then you also hvae to wait while the raid members get online, get stuff together, gear checks, potions.
I personally hate any game the has gear checks, even when you hvae have all the gear you never know when the next big patch is going to make it ' obsolete
I think raids should be much more dynamic in which you dont know whats going to happen even if you hvae raided the "Caves of Doom before" The old paths might be blocked now or a new boss or tribe now inhabits the place. And give us a mob AE thats not totally stupid where they dont go after just the tank
The problem with asking for computer controlled enemies that "don't just go after the tank" is that it requires sort of redesigning the entire "class-based" mechanics of most MMOs. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is difficult. If the mobs were smart and just ignored the tank, what would be the point of a tank? If all those skills they have to hold "agro" didn't work, because the mob was so smart, then the tank would be pointless. You would have to have a game with collision detection and make tanks only "tanks" purely by the fact that they can stand between the enemy and the "squishy" people in the back. Some games do that, but they are definitely the minority.
I really think in the end the problem with raids aren't the raids themselves, but that they have become the sole form of "end-game" in games like WoW. If they weren't intended to be repeated dozens of times for all the "gear" (which like you said becomes obsolete when they add a new level of raids), they would be fun. "End-game" needs to become more dynamic and interesting, instead of repetitive.
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
well yah, but if you consider the concept of pain and pleasure, you will see that w/o pain acting as a contrast, you cant really appreciate the degree of pleasure in the end. it's like people who climb Mt Everest, they SUFFER their way to the summit but when they reach there, the end accomplishment is that much sweeter.
THat doesn't mean you need both pain and pleasure in a form of entertainment (like a video-game). The "pain" that is counter-balancing it can come from some other part of your life (stress from work etc...). Forms of entertainment don't need to be laced with pain or discomfort. What if every time you pressed a button on your TV remote you got electrocuted? That really wouldn't enhance my "pleasure" from watching my favorite television show.
Once you have done a raid a few times it becomes boring as watching paint dry. Then you also hvae to wait while the raid members get online, get stuff together, gear checks, potions.
I personally hate any game the has gear checks, even when you hvae have all the gear you never know when the next big patch is going to make it ' obsolete
I think raids should be much more dynamic in which you dont know whats going to happen even if you hvae raided the "Caves of Doom before" The old paths might be blocked now or a new boss or tribe now inhabits the place. And give us a mob AE thats not totally stupid where they dont go after just the tank
true, but the journey of actually figuring out the fight, getting the organization of who needs to do what, and executing the strategy perfectly is the intrensic pleasures you get from raiding. i remember plenty of raids where at the end when we beat the boss, most of the guild dont really even care what the drop was:D we were just "OMFG we actually won!!!! i cant believe we pulled it off!!!, hurry up and huddle togethere so i can capture a screenshot to post on the guild page":D
a truly successful raid design offer as much intrensic reward as loot. I guess you can say most hardcore raiders are masochists where the intrensic reward of beating an impossible fight is more pleasurable then the loot you get at the end of the fight.
THat doesn't mean you need both pain and pleasure in a form of entertainment (like a video-game). The "pain" that is counter-balancing it can come from some other part of your life (stress from work etc...). Forms of entertainment don't need to be laced with pain or discomfort. What if every time you pressed a button on your TV remote you got electrocuted? That really wouldn't enhance my "pleasure" from watching my favorite television show.
well.... now we are getting into semantics. I did mention the COST is "time wasted."
no you dont actually get eletrocuted if you failed a raid, but you do lose all that TIME you put into preping the raid.
the reference of "no pain, no gain" is simply a "saying"... there isnt any real "pain" involved in playing a MMO...
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
well yah, but if you consider the concept of pain and pleasure, you will see that w/o pain acting as a contrast, you cant really appreciate the degree of pleasure in the end. it's like people who climb Mt Everest, they SUFFER their way to the summit but when they reach there, the end accomplishment is that much sweeter.
My pain is going to work all day and/or dealing with real lifes trials and tribulations...
The pleasure part is me coming home, getting an hour or two to sit down and get some pleasure out of a video game. The last thing i need in my down time, is to SUFFER, especially for something i am PAYING for....
Raiding is fun when you can actually raid. Mostly I remember sitting around waiting for other people so I could raid.
aye, tis the cost of enjoyable raids. the more "expensive" the raid is(time wise) the sweeter the victory when you finally beat the encounter:)
kinda like the concept of no pain, no gain:D
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
you prefer pain in real life over in a video game? your post confuses me...
First off...I'm using "pain" to refer not just to actual physical pain but stress, frustration etc...
My point was...everyone has some of that in real life. The point of entertainment, in my eyes, is purely for enjoyment. ENtertainment (games included) shouldn't add to the stress/pain/suffering of the real world. Maybe some people like to play a game that makes them physically sick, or emotionally upset etc... but for me I play a game to enjoy myself and to relax. I don't like the idea of "no pain, no gain" being associated with a video game. We shouldn't have to suffer in a game in order to derive entertainment value from it.
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
well yah, but if you consider the concept of pain and pleasure, you will see that w/o pain acting as a contrast, you cant really appreciate the degree of pleasure in the end. it's like people who climb Mt Everest, they SUFFER their way to the summit but when they reach there, the end accomplishment is that much sweeter.
My pain is going to work all day and/or dealing with real lifes trials and tribulations...
The pleasure part is me coming home, getting an hour or two to sit down and get some pleasure out of a video game. The last thing i need in my down time, is to SUFFER, especially for something i am PAYING for....
just search the dicussion on GW2 forum. People cheered the fact that Anet said no Raid Dungeons.
How is this surprising? I know two people who played GW1 and liked it enough to get to max level. These two were always big time soloers and complained that they couldn't get the best gear from soloing in EQ or WoW so it does not surprise me at all that fans of the GW franchise would be happy for another game that caters to the soloer or anti-groupers and anti-raiders.
Now if Blizzard announced that their next WoW expansion had no raid dungeons, I bet you would get more people rage quitting than cheering.
My pain is going to work all day and/or dealing with real lifes trials and tribulations...
The pleasure part is me coming home, getting an hour or two to sit down and get some pleasure out of a video game. The last thing i need in my down time, is to SUFFER, especially for something i am PAYING for....
well... i guess my "reference" to a "saying" is getting twisted to something that has nothing to do with the discussion:D
IF you say you dont want a "counter balance" to the "pleasure" in the game, then why not play a single player game and use ~godmode where you have zero chance of getting damaged much less getting killed...?
what most people need to realize is "godmode" isnt very enjoyable because there is no "counter balance" to the pleasure of being indestructable... if you ONLY want pleasure, then the pleasure itself isnt actually very pleasurable. counter balance is what makes the pleasure enjoyable.
you prefer pain in real life over in a video game? your post confuses me...
First off...I'm using "pain" to refer not just to actual physical pain but stress, frustration etc...
My point was...everyone has some of that in real life. The point of entertainment, in my eyes, is purely for enjoyment. ENtertainment (games included) shouldn't add to the stress/pain/suffering of the real world. Maybe some people like to play a game that makes them physically sick, or emotionally upset etc... but for me I play a game to enjoy myself and to relax. I don't like the idea of "no pain, no gain" being associated with a video game. We shouldn't have to suffer in a game in order to derive entertainment value from it.
in short you're talking about game that have no losing - which of course implies no winning. They do exist, and they're quite popular, but I don't think they're mmorpg's.
typically games have 'losing' as part of their comopnents, which you intepret as fustrating and stressful and all that. But some games have whats its called a "sandbox mode" without heavy winning or losing conditions. Two extremely relaxing games, despite ancient, and not mmo's are:
Traffic Giant
Majesty
These are games i deeply love, and I have played many times across the years. They both require minimal effort for the most part and can be quite fun.
But on the topic of MMO's...or multiplayer gaming of all kinds, really, the dominant population is looking for a different experience than that. Tey want win-loss style of play. Some like to overcome big obstacles. Well an obstacle isnt big unless its a threat. and if it is a threat, there's a good chance you'll fail to overcome it...no?
typically MMOs that lack objective and win/lose conditions don't do well. because you run into a bigger question: "what is there to do and why should i do it?".
I think we are getting off the original topic of the thread. I will say that when I was talking about not wanting a game with any "pain" involved, I wasn't personally thinking about a game that I can't "lose". I don't find dying in an MMO particularly frustrating. Sometimes it can actually be quite fun (depending on the manner of death). The "Pains" of an MMO that I was generally refering to were things like having to wait around being bored out of my mind while 30 people come together, or having to repeat the same content over and over and over and over again just to get the "gear" i need to move on to the next stage of repetitive content. I think perhaps everyone defines what frustrates them differently, so you may not agree with that. Dying is a game mechanic that I personally don't really have an issue with. A game being "difficult" is not something I have an issue with, and I really don't even associate it with the game having some sort of "pain" or a negative. The difficulty is not a negative, it is still all positive for me. The negatives are when I'm not enjoying myself, which are in situations like the examples I previously gave.
In any case to readdress the original topic; In my opinion I dislike raids not because I have a risk of dying or failing, but because they are associated with frustrating, seemingly unnecessary complications in a "game" that is supposed to be about enjoyment. Having to repeat content dozens of times is not enjoyable to me. i don't sit down and watch the exact same episode of a TV show every single night. Maybe occassionally I'll rewatch one of my favorite movies or TV episodes, but it is NOT the major component of my "TV-watching" experience (In reality I don't actually own cable and very rarely watch TV, but I'm using it as an example). Similarly, if I'm going to go on a game for 1 or 2 hours a night, I don't want to do the same thing every single night in order to reach whatever "end-game" the game is designed around.
Comments
Most likely said, but time. From my experiences raids are hours long, and far worse when 1) brand new or 2) bad group. I've been in short raids which are great (unless you're hard pressed to find enough people, then time plays a factor again).
For me it was always a time issue.
The best analogy I can come up with is to compare it to an RTS. Imagine you go to play Starcraft online only to find that every single person you play against uses the exact same race and the exact same strategy every single time, and you only have one map available to you. Anyone who's played an RTS knows how god aweful boring that would be in a very short period of time. If your enemies strategy involved an early game Zerg rush, it might catch you off guard if it's your first time playing, but in no time flat you'd counter it, and every game from then on would involve you picking the same race and building the same buildings and units and doing the exact same thing every single time to counter their predictable actions, which defeat the entire purpose of playing the game. No thought, no skill, just going through a particular set of motions to achieve victory.
This is how raids are now. The first time you do it, it's interesting. Then every time after, it's the EXACT same thing. The number of mobs is the same, and their all in the same position, with the same stats and the same skills and strategies. No variation, no "on-the-fly" thinking or strategy adjustments required, just rote memorization.
The main problems about raiding is that it's hard to find a good group or any group at all, some raids are just boring (clear your way trough dozens of mobs until you get to the boss) and also people get really angry at any mistake you make during raiding (specially if healer or tank dies)...
gw2 will eliminate all this problems, just saying...
Guild Wars 2 Youtube Croatian Maniacs
My Guild Wars titles
Personally I just avoid games that have many raids in them
hence the "post WoW generation" term is coined:D Human evolution has not changed THAT drasticly in the last 11 years:D
those of us who LEARNED to cooperate isnt dead yet:) and the newer generation of gamers CAN learn to cooperate.
the fault is the content that is being designed not the human ability to cooperate.
it WASN'T easy to organize 72 people into a raid. god forbid if you were on Rallos Zek server killing the sleeper, which numbered well over 200 players:D all things considered that was one of the pinnacle moments in MMO history. on THE most hostile server(full fledge open PVP server), raiding the hardest mob ever in a game, that is KNOWN to be the hardest raiding MMO in history(also the game that created the whole concept of raiding). 3 RIVAL guilds came together to COOPERATE in the one epic fight that no other can in a live server. to understand the difficulty of this accomplishment, the CLERIC assigned to heal the tanks CAN kill the tank if they hit the wrong button:D it was OPEN PVP server:D ANY AE dmg a wizzy cast WILL damage the the whole raid:D
so... excuse me when i laugh at what you claim as an impossible task of getting 25 people to work together to kill a mediocer mob when EQ1 have accomplished raids 10 times the size in an environment that is at least 10 times the difficulty:D
Hmm there was a time when i liked raiding, but it was insane to keep up with the guild i was in at that time.
Requirements before stepping into a raid.
1.Pots
2.Flasks
3.Food buffs
4.all gear enchanted
5.All gear socketed
Now these are just normal requirements when you are doing hard contend.
But now we gonne take a look at the shedules of raid times.
Raid stats at 20:00 ends on 00:00
3 or 5 days a week
Not doing so can mean no gearing up and end up falling behind and getting guild kicked.
Sure you got casual playing but thats even worse in my opinion.
Nothing worse then wanting to raid and half the guild not comming online as they dont feel ike raiding that night.
Iam done with strict pve raiding mmo's where you need to accept a second job or being outgeared by a mile if you dont.
Anet is going to push out contend without raiding and i love them for it.
Gone are the days of hardcore versus casuals
those of us who LEARNED to cooperate isnt dead yet:) and the newer generation of gamers CAN learn to cooperate.
the fault is the content that is being designed not the human ability to cooperate.
it WASN'T easy to organize 72 people into a raid. god forbid if you were on Rallos Zek server killing the sleeper, which numbered well over 200 players:D all things considered that was one of the pinnacle moments in MMO history. on THE most hostile server(full fledge open PVP server), raiding the hardest mob ever in a game, that is KNOWN to be the hardest raiding MMO in history(also the game that created the whole concept of raiding). 3 RIVAL guilds came together to COOPERATE in the one epic fight that no other can in a live server. to understand the difficulty of this accomplishment, the CLERIC assigned to heal the tanks CAN kill the tank if they hit the wrong button:D it was OPEN PVP server:D ANY AE dmg a wizzy cast WILL damage the the whole raid:D
so... excuse me when i laugh at what you claim as an impossible task of getting 25 people to work together to kill a mediocer mob when EQ1 have accomplished raids 10 times the size in an environment that is at least 10 times the difficulty:D
There is no "fault", as if somebody deliberately killed raiding. A large influx of new players who didn't want to spend a half hour or an hour waiting for people to get their stuff together to get into a raid, much less actually raid joined the games. These people, with money in their pockets let it be known that they wanted to play the game, not sit around waiting on other people so they could play the game. The developers listened. At the same time, developers kept the idea of tiered content and 'elite' gear or status via raiding. It's not really a mystery.
Raiding is fun when you can actually raid. Mostly I remember sitting around waiting for other people so I could raid.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
pfff weak:D real guilds raid 6 days a week and you need at least 65% raid attendance to stay in the guild:D only time you catch a break is when new expansion comes out and you got 1 month to max your lvl/AA's
I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, and I"ll be honest and say I haven't read all the posts on this thread...
For me it isn't the "raid" that I don't like. I'm fine with a dungeon that requires 20 people to fight a truly "epic" enemy. What has always bugged me about "endgame raids" in MMOs, and which is the primary reason why I have yet to really find an MMO that I've stuck with once I hit the cap, is that the game is designed around doing thoes same "epic" dungeons dozens of times.
I'm fine with raids. I've seen some that are really cool. But once I do it once and complete it I have no desire to repeat the content. It seems silly....On a different character maybe...but just like any quest...if I've already completed the objective I dont' really want to have to go do it again. If I'm tasked with killing a boss and I do so, why should I have to go back to kill him again?
The design of MMOs around repeating the same dungeons over and over again to get gear to then complete a different dungeon over and over again is more problem. Not the dungeons themselves, but their use as an "easy" endgame mechanic and wants us to continually repeat content over and over again chasing some "carrot on a stick" that we never quite reach.
And it replaces your real-life job, but dont get paid for it, though some governments support these folks with welfare.
aye, tis the cost of enjoyable raids. the more "expensive" the raid is(time wise) the sweeter the victory when you finally beat the encounter:)
kinda like the concept of no pain, no gain:D
hahahah actually government doesnt pay for the 4 EQ accounts you keep active so yah you gotta get a real job too:D
the point is when you have people who got burned out from raiding, there were other people coming up the ranks to replace them. what killed the raiding game was WoW cuz the replacement pool ran dry from people going to the "5 man raids" in WoW:D
I think it's sad when people start thinking things like "No pain, no gain" in connection with a videogame. These are, afterall, for our enjoyment. Pain should never really be a factor (Unless you enjoy that sort of thing...)
Once you have done a raid a few times it becomes boring as watching paint dry. Then you also hvae to wait while the raid members get online, get stuff together, gear checks, potions.
I personally hate any game the has gear checks, even when you hvae have all the gear you never know when the next big patch is going to make it ' obsolete
I think raids should be much more dynamic in which you dont know whats going to happen even if you hvae raided the "Caves of Doom before" The old paths might be blocked now or a new boss or tribe now inhabits the place. And give us a mob AE thats not totally stupid where they dont go after just the tank
well yah, but if you consider the concept of pain and pleasure, you will see that w/o pain acting as a contrast, you cant really appreciate the degree of pleasure in the end. it's like people who climb Mt Everest, they SUFFER their way to the summit but when they reach there, the end accomplishment is that much sweeter.
The problem with asking for computer controlled enemies that "don't just go after the tank" is that it requires sort of redesigning the entire "class-based" mechanics of most MMOs. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is difficult. If the mobs were smart and just ignored the tank, what would be the point of a tank? If all those skills they have to hold "agro" didn't work, because the mob was so smart, then the tank would be pointless. You would have to have a game with collision detection and make tanks only "tanks" purely by the fact that they can stand between the enemy and the "squishy" people in the back. Some games do that, but they are definitely the minority.
I really think in the end the problem with raids aren't the raids themselves, but that they have become the sole form of "end-game" in games like WoW. If they weren't intended to be repeated dozens of times for all the "gear" (which like you said becomes obsolete when they add a new level of raids), they would be fun. "End-game" needs to become more dynamic and interesting, instead of repetitive.
THat doesn't mean you need both pain and pleasure in a form of entertainment (like a video-game). The "pain" that is counter-balancing it can come from some other part of your life (stress from work etc...). Forms of entertainment don't need to be laced with pain or discomfort. What if every time you pressed a button on your TV remote you got electrocuted? That really wouldn't enhance my "pleasure" from watching my favorite television show.
true, but the journey of actually figuring out the fight, getting the organization of who needs to do what, and executing the strategy perfectly is the intrensic pleasures you get from raiding. i remember plenty of raids where at the end when we beat the boss, most of the guild dont really even care what the drop was:D we were just "OMFG we actually won!!!! i cant believe we pulled it off!!!, hurry up and huddle togethere so i can capture a screenshot to post on the guild page":D
a truly successful raid design offer as much intrensic reward as loot. I guess you can say most hardcore raiders are masochists where the intrensic reward of beating an impossible fight is more pleasurable then the loot you get at the end of the fight.
well.... now we are getting into semantics. I did mention the COST is "time wasted."
no you dont actually get eletrocuted if you failed a raid, but you do lose all that TIME you put into preping the raid.
the reference of "no pain, no gain" is simply a "saying"... there isnt any real "pain" involved in playing a MMO...
My pain is going to work all day and/or dealing with real lifes trials and tribulations...
The pleasure part is me coming home, getting an hour or two to sit down and get some pleasure out of a video game. The last thing i need in my down time, is to SUFFER, especially for something i am PAYING for....
First off...I'm using "pain" to refer not just to actual physical pain but stress, frustration etc...
My point was...everyone has some of that in real life. The point of entertainment, in my eyes, is purely for enjoyment. ENtertainment (games included) shouldn't add to the stress/pain/suffering of the real world. Maybe some people like to play a game that makes them physically sick, or emotionally upset etc... but for me I play a game to enjoy myself and to relax. I don't like the idea of "no pain, no gain" being associated with a video game. We shouldn't have to suffer in a game in order to derive entertainment value from it.
^^^^ My thoughts exactly.
How is this surprising? I know two people who played GW1 and liked it enough to get to max level. These two were always big time soloers and complained that they couldn't get the best gear from soloing in EQ or WoW so it does not surprise me at all that fans of the GW franchise would be happy for another game that caters to the soloer or anti-groupers and anti-raiders.
Now if Blizzard announced that their next WoW expansion had no raid dungeons, I bet you would get more people rage quitting than cheering.
well... i guess my "reference" to a "saying" is getting twisted to something that has nothing to do with the discussion:D
IF you say you dont want a "counter balance" to the "pleasure" in the game, then why not play a single player game and use ~godmode where you have zero chance of getting damaged much less getting killed...?
what most people need to realize is "godmode" isnt very enjoyable because there is no "counter balance" to the pleasure of being indestructable... if you ONLY want pleasure, then the pleasure itself isnt actually very pleasurable. counter balance is what makes the pleasure enjoyable.
I think we are getting off the original topic of the thread. I will say that when I was talking about not wanting a game with any "pain" involved, I wasn't personally thinking about a game that I can't "lose". I don't find dying in an MMO particularly frustrating. Sometimes it can actually be quite fun (depending on the manner of death). The "Pains" of an MMO that I was generally refering to were things like having to wait around being bored out of my mind while 30 people come together, or having to repeat the same content over and over and over and over again just to get the "gear" i need to move on to the next stage of repetitive content. I think perhaps everyone defines what frustrates them differently, so you may not agree with that. Dying is a game mechanic that I personally don't really have an issue with. A game being "difficult" is not something I have an issue with, and I really don't even associate it with the game having some sort of "pain" or a negative. The difficulty is not a negative, it is still all positive for me. The negatives are when I'm not enjoying myself, which are in situations like the examples I previously gave.
In any case to readdress the original topic; In my opinion I dislike raids not because I have a risk of dying or failing, but because they are associated with frustrating, seemingly unnecessary complications in a "game" that is supposed to be about enjoyment. Having to repeat content dozens of times is not enjoyable to me. i don't sit down and watch the exact same episode of a TV show every single night. Maybe occassionally I'll rewatch one of my favorite movies or TV episodes, but it is NOT the major component of my "TV-watching" experience (In reality I don't actually own cable and very rarely watch TV, but I'm using it as an example). Similarly, if I'm going to go on a game for 1 or 2 hours a night, I don't want to do the same thing every single night in order to reach whatever "end-game" the game is designed around.