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Group / Raid Size
Adamantine
Member RarePosts: 5,094
What group size do you think Pantheon should support ?
And how many groups should a Pantheon raid force allow ?
What are your reasons for these numbers ?
1. I think the group size of Pantheon should be 8, maybe even 10 or even 12. VGs group size was 6, which I think is also EQs group size, but I think thats getting too small.
Reasons:
a) The more players are in a group, the less problems there are to get enough of the less played classes
b) They said they wanted to do an different "trinity" - tank, healer, melee dd, magic dd, cc (*). That means forming PUGs is getting even harder. Larger group sized will be able to offset this.
2. I think the raid size of Pantheon should be at least 3 groups a 8 players. Simply because a raidforce should have a substantly increased power over a group, so 2 groups seems to be too small.
Also I think a raidforce should be able to have at least one of each class - well im moment 24 players would be plenty for just 12 classes, but maybe that will change in future. I could think of quite a number of missing classes - Bard, obviously. Necromancer seems to be missed a lot, too. And then theres Disciple, also Berserker and Inquisitor that never got implemented in Vanguard. Maybe a Mesmer (Anti-Mage) like in GW. Or a D&D style Barbarian (Berserker tank).
Finally I think every character in a raid force should matter, thus making raids too large isnt productive either. If one player screws up, there should be a chance for a wipe.
(*): CC = crowd control, DD = damage dealer
And how many groups should a Pantheon raid force allow ?
What are your reasons for these numbers ?
1. I think the group size of Pantheon should be 8, maybe even 10 or even 12. VGs group size was 6, which I think is also EQs group size, but I think thats getting too small.
Reasons:
a) The more players are in a group, the less problems there are to get enough of the less played classes
b) They said they wanted to do an different "trinity" - tank, healer, melee dd, magic dd, cc (*). That means forming PUGs is getting even harder. Larger group sized will be able to offset this.
2. I think the raid size of Pantheon should be at least 3 groups a 8 players. Simply because a raidforce should have a substantly increased power over a group, so 2 groups seems to be too small.
Also I think a raidforce should be able to have at least one of each class - well im moment 24 players would be plenty for just 12 classes, but maybe that will change in future. I could think of quite a number of missing classes - Bard, obviously. Necromancer seems to be missed a lot, too. And then theres Disciple, also Berserker and Inquisitor that never got implemented in Vanguard. Maybe a Mesmer (Anti-Mage) like in GW. Or a D&D style Barbarian (Berserker tank).
Finally I think every character in a raid force should matter, thus making raids too large isnt productive either. If one player screws up, there should be a chance for a wipe.
(*): CC = crowd control, DD = damage dealer
Comments
I would say 6 man groups standard, 24 man raid maximum design size with all kinds of content designed for in between.
With a 6 man group, you have 2 possible tanks (for special fights, adds, etc...), 1 main healer, 1 support healer, 1 CC, 1 support (or variation as needed). Any more and you start being more redundant than the group already is. A 6 man team allows for individualism and flexibility.
Obviously I'm being slightly facetious, but the point I'm trying to make is that content should not be so cut and dry that it is designed for an exact number of players with mandatory classes.
There should also be no caps - ever. Rules that interfere with players helping players and the massively multiplayer experience are a stepping stone to further limitations like instancing.
That is why you have a default group size to define what the content is optimally designed for. Do it with less than 6, more exp, do it with more than 6 less exp. This is a proper balance of risk/reward I think.
Err, you did not bother to read my OP, did you ?
If you have a 5 man variant of the trinity, but only groupsize 6, you dont have space for two tanks and two healers anymore.
That means you can just zerg any raid encounter.
Even now, without that sort of tech, I think people should be able to invite as many people to their party as they want. If the content is geared for 6-8 people, experience rates should diminish when more than that number are present in a group. However, ideally you'd want the content to in some way scale up to meet the needs of people who wish to play with more than 6 people. It should be the players choice though. If they don't mind making the content easier, and dealing with less loot for more people, they should totally have that option.
There were times when we took a small raid to camp the myconid king (fungi tunics) in Sebilis. Normally that camp was really risky, and required the party to basically sit on the zone out to avoid getting too many roaming fungus adds. We'd sit there for hours with 20 people, slaughtering fungus with no real risk, but that was our choice and we had a blast. If someone went through and altered EQ's mechanics to disallow that sort of thing, its safe to say many of our greatest memories would have never taken place.
So you are suggesting unlimited group sizes and then using a independent mechanic to deal with exp distribution, not a group container? That is one approach to the mechanics of it. You would need to also design similar independent mechanics to deal with buffs, auras, etc... The group size was a good way to specify scope of a given ability. This would also have to be an independent mechanic and you may run into problems with how you implement it.
My points about group size aren't any demand for a specific style of play, just a concern on how you implement the mechanics. I mean, having flexible dynamic party sizes is nice and all, but there are a ton of game play mechanics to consider with such a solution.
That was not my intention. Notice that with that 20 people there, you didn't all get exp, only each group got the exp. So, you had to share (ie allow one group to get the kill). That is because there was no risk, and so if you allowed that entire group of 20 to get the exp as if they were a group of 6, it would imbalance the risk/reward. That was my entire point about group sizes. They exist to tailor the reward and expectation of a given content experience. So for instance, if the dungeon is designed for 6 people, less is more risk and should gain more reward and more is less risk and should gain less reward. Until the content is dynamically adjusted as your first comment explained, there has to be a static means to define the risk/reward level of a given set of content.
Designing a group size and then content around that size is how that can be done. I am not saying that other ways are not feasible, but that was the point of my mention, that there has to exist so structure to apply various mechanics and limitations are a scope management tool, not a means to remove player choice.
In fact, limits are what create player choice. If the group size is 6 people, then choice on what that makeup should be is needed, how a given ability should be applied, etc... Much like the manner in which EQ applied limited spell gems to make people choose the right spells for any given situation. Too much player freedom in a design and you take away their need to choose resulting in bland game play.
In EQ, the dungeons were designed as such. There was no zerging and running through the content like a drunken fool, a good solid group of ideal and adequate equipped group could wipe very easily if they were not careful. In fact, some dungeons were so unforgiving that a solid group would have to slowly crawl through a dungeon and be prepared to wipe many times because it was inevitable, it was going to happen due to the content being that difficult.
They have to be careful with the flexibility of design. Choice in group make up needs to exist or it kind of defeats the point. If you design groups for every class to fit in, then it takes away the pro/con approach to content. This way, you design content to have a need for ALL classes and then force the players to choose their group makeup and come up with different solutions to the content without that specific classes ability.
This makes up for some interesting choices and promotes emergent play as people begin to "get by" with what they can in any given dungeon. When I think about the most entertaining times I had over the years in various games, it was always the experience of being in a situation without having the perfect tool and having to figure out a way to apply what we had to make the situation work.
This is how in EQ, "ghetto" CC came about where players used less than ideal means to control mobs when there was no enchanter present in the party. In EQ parties, you had to consider what class you would bring, and how you would apply that group make up to any given obstacle. Making group sizes perfect to use every class, or have the perfect tools for a given situation defeats that game play. My example of a group above was not to try and make it so every class can be present, it was so there was sufficient space for basic tools. I really think 6 man groups worked well for a game with many class types and selections as EQ/VG had.
I agree, you can't haphazardly remove restrictions. When it comes to group composition, that should be important if your goal is to achieve as much with as few people as possible. That, however, is not everyone's objective when playing an MMORPG. On the other hand, limiting active abilities is perfectly logical. Taking away that restriction resulted in challenging players to remember dozens of keybinds rather than actually using forethought and strategy in combat.
I definitely don't mean to imply that content should all become some completely random mishmash of mobs, only that with very simple tweaks, an easy dungeon could become a little less easy when there are large enough groups present. Nothing extreme, but there could definitely be a way to accommodate more people and maintain the sense of danger when more players are present. Just think, how many times did you run from top to bottom of a dungeon in EQ because so many players were present and waiting on mobs. Something about that never sat right with me.
So 6 for a group is about right for me. Never liked less in any game.
For Raids ill simply say: "6+". Why?
I hate hard limits. I really do. I loved how it worked in Everquest. Simply bring enough people to down the boss. If that number is 30, then 30 it is. If you need 60, then bring 60. I don't care if others consider it zerging. Progression is more fun if you can down a boss, no matter how. You will come back later and do it with less... but a pure "down" or "not down" is not fun most of the time. Also restricting guilds to x members per raid simply means restricting the possible tactics used.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Doesn't have to be 6+, I think it is just an easier mechanic to implement. That is, you implement "groups" of whatever size you tend to design it to and then allow those groups to be put into a "Raid" group for the purpose of game mechanic elements and the like. I honestly think the way raids are organized are just a convenience aspect of design that naturally progressed from group sizes.
Regardless of what you do, there has to be some logical organization to it and a proper means of implementing it into the games systems.
As for numbers, you design the encounter to be beaten based on a certain criteria. That criteria may be able to be met with a crack team of limited numbers who work really well together, understand their class inside and out and use various tactics to excel. Or... that may mean it takes a 100+ people to do it with poor tactics, unskilled application, etc... In my experience, a server "first" may happen with a few guilds working together using brute force, but that does not mean it is required.
But the zerging issue is something we're keeping in mind. If we are more open and less restrictive when it comes to group/raid sizes, then we do have to be concerned about someone bringing 20 people to a 15 man encounter. We don't want content and encounters trivialized due to zerging.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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There's also the idea of situational gear, where many of the more difficult and challenging encounters (both raid and group) drop items that are situationally very powerful, but not necessarily generally that much more powerful. An easy example are 'bane' items or items that protect you in extreme climates/atmospheres. So you may get an item that is really effective against, say, dragonkind, but against most other mobs, not necessarily better. Or you might find a talisman or other item that protects you against extreme climates in certain areas of the game, essentially unlocking those regions, but outside of those regions these items don't really do much.
The general idea is that 'better' doesn't have to mean 'always better' or 'always does more damage or has more AC'. Better can instead mean more specificity. Generally powerful items are useful most anywhere. But the really rare and powerful items (and not just items, but spells and abilities), those can be more powerful and effective in specific contexts, in specific areas, or against specific types of encounters, but not necessarily universally 'better'.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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- Raided items would give lots of stats all over the board and would be best for raiding, since they give you the defenses and hitpoints to survive raid encounters, many of which had lesser AoEs that would slaughter undergeared players.
- Quested items, from pretty long questlines, would be desireable because they gave unique clickies. They would also be pretty good items otherwise, well able to compete with raid drops, and still quite balanced for the class.
- Crafted items wouldnt be as powerful in general, but would allow to focus on certain areas to boost them. Required Ancient Crystals from raid drops (thought later there was other ways to get to them, but at that time Ancient Crystals no longer produced anything worthwhile for people with access to raid drops, since crafting never really got upgraded to level 55).
For example I once crafted a very sweet Greataxe for a guildy of which I still know the stats:
Masterwork Vagabond's Greataxe of Venom
+46 Constitution
+31 Dexterity
+15 Vitality
+499 Hitpoints
10% on Hit: Dark Venom
- Causes poison damage over 20 seconds
... some continental effect ...
Itemlevel 53, Required Playerlevel 48
With +46 Con and +499 HP this item gave a very nice hitpoint boost to a tank, for a total of about 650 HP (IIRC1 Con gave ~3.5 HP on level 50).
I would also suggest that there should be NPC crafters player can ask for some standard items to be crafted from such crafting raid drops at a certain price and with certain special ingredients. This would remove the pressure from players that they absolutely have to find a player crafter to make them an item from their drop. They can "just" get an "standard" item from the crafter instead. The standard item can even be slightly stronger than what a crafter might produce - it would then just be a raid drop, with many stats instead of just a few, and always some hitpoints and defenses.
Now that is something I could live with as long as it doesn't cross the line, otherwise you might was well call it what has always been in most MMOs, the bait and switch. Blizzard was quite infamous in my eyes when they explained in an interview how they felt about casuals and hardcores. Their philosophy is to create leveling content that is appealing to casuals and regular gamers, then change the content later on to be much more hardcore, such as raiding, in the hopes they can convert players to that play style. It was stated in such a manner that it was obvious they have little respect for certain play styles other than as revenue to support the "real gamers". I find that to be completely repulsive and underhanded. No sooner did I read that interview, I vowed to never patronize another Blizzard MMO unless they changed their attitude.
What's so bad about zerging tho?
I don't think you would have to balance that one out too much.
Just make content open world like EQ used to have, problem solved. Why?
Getting a HUGE zerg going to down Dragon x will take y time. If a skilled guild of players wants the same mob and only needs 50% of the people and get them going way faster,... well. The zerg will never get big before they need to engage OR the zerg will not engange at all before the coordinated guild does the boss.
On the other hand: If no guild is organized enough, or good / geared enough yet,... oh well. Zerg is a valid tactic then.
There are dozens and dozens of ways to make sure a pure zerg is not a straight and easy win. Just add some form of AoE and the zerg will need healers, enough healers. Adjust said AoEs to be targeted AoEs that hit HARD and people will actually want to go in with less people.
Bottom line:
Don't fight the zerg. It is a valid tactic that can be fun for progress but will fade out on it's own once enough guilds can handle the mob with less and getting there fast is more of an issue then getting there in numbers.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Besides, in EQ, zerging wasn't what provided the win. Zerging is what came about with games like WoW while players were running back to the fight in the open world content over and over, or running back to the raid instance very quickly to setup again for another try.
In EQ, raid wipes could often mean hours of recovery. There was no zerging in attempts and since having more numbers would not make a healing chain work any better or a tank chain time their switching better, or manage the agro better, having more didn't mean a direct increase in success.
Look I am all for making raids harder with the scaling discussion, but this fear that the game will be ruined because there is no cap is not true. This isn't WoW or any other mainstream game that has numerous features that lend to the problem of your zerging concern.
My point though was that even if we end up with the original EQ design, if the game is anything like EQ as I have mentioned, zerging isn't likely to be an issue.
That said, I personally have no issues with measures taken that attend to this concern providing they are "game play" solutions as Dullahan has discussed in another thread. There is no reason why any game play mechanic or feature can not be dealt with by action/consequence development style, much like zerging in EQ was not beneficial for the numerous reasons we pointed out.
One question. You seemed to be very concerned about zergs on raids, that some how more people than the boss is designed for will be able to take it down and gain the loot. Do you feel this way about all contested content?
For instance, as Dullahan mentioned in one post that people could camp boss spawns in the group dungeon with as many people as they liked, and as he said, there were even cases from time to time where a few groups did so.
Is that going to bother you? Do you want mechanics in place to stop that as well? I mean, we are talking about 18 people doing a mob that was designed for 6?. Certainly this is the same thing right? I mean, something must be done to stop the abuse that would result of 18 people killing a boss mob that drops a single item for them!
My point is, that your comments seem to not be considering what a contested content game is. Have you played one? Do you have any practical experience with such?
I am not trying to be argumentative, I am just trying to see if you understand the scope of the issue here, the style of the game this is and how it functions (ie a contested content open world system).
But yes, I see raids as special. You need multiple groups, you need the right strategy and the wits to find the strategy, you need discipline from everybody to follow this strategy, you need potent enough gear, you need to be able to play your classes, and you need the right class mix as well.
All these requirements lower once you managed to equip your raidforce well enough for the boss, but initially it can be very hard.
If you want to zerg non-raid content, I dont mind. Since the rewards arent any near as special as for raids, you'll usually end up having a hard time getting enough people for such zerging.
Besides, the better highlevel gear will usually be quest rewards, not boss mob drops. If a guild wants to quickly decently equip their new members with boss mob drops, I would say sure, totally go for it.
Here is the problem. Games today treat group content as "exp generation" rather than detailed game play. Group content is just fodder for people to fast run to earn gear, exp, and faction.
There are games however who have put extreme attention to game play in group content. For instance. LoTRO was very attentive to this process giving multiple roles, event aspects, etc... to a given "group" dungeon environment. This obviously has changed over the years while everything is "OMG GET TO THE END FAST TO GET MY TOKENS!!!", but the point is that group content can be just as involved.
So, back to my question to that poster. Why would raid be more important to zerg as opposed to that of group content?
The answer is... "BECAUSE YOU DON"T MIND" which is the whole issue here.
You see, hypocrisy knows no bounds.