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Why don't devs offer raiding and non-raiding servers?
raykor
Member UncommonPosts: 326
Raiding is a very controversial topic; many people choose to play or pass on a game based solely on the inclusion or omission of this feature. I don't want to start another discussion on raiding because that has been covered in excruciating detail in past threads.
I am simply pondering why devs put themselves in the position of alienating potential customers by choosing one side or the other of this thorny fence? AoC is too far in development for any significant changes but why oh why don’t devs of new games design their end-game dungeons in such a manner that they can easily be scaled for either raiding or small groups? Offer raiding and non-raiding servers, make both camps happy, get more customers, and avoid the whole drama associated with the subject.
Why don’t devs do this?
Comments
They really believe it would have no effect. They are wrong, but that is what they believe.
Funcom has separated PvP and PvE content so that you really only have to do what you want and you will not be penalized for doing so. Thus, negating your entire perspective.
Rising Arms.
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Rethaul, Dark Templar and squad leader of Scions of War
This is an interesting question and it's something I've wondered about too. I remember this came up on the Vanguard development boards and the raiders who joined the discussion were horrified at the idea. Partly they were afraid that the raiding servers would be so severely underpopulated that they would eventually be closed down and partly they were upset at the idea of being on a server with raiders only because then the uber raid gear would have less relative meaning because everyone on the server would have it (because they are all raiders).
But splitting servers based on raiding or non-raiding would certainly be informative. I'd love to see which type of server would be most popular and what the population ratio really would be.
I don't really have the energy right now to get into another debate about the place of raiding in AoC but I just came from browsing the official forums and there is a thread going on over there right now in which FANS of the game are reasuring a raider type by telling him that the best crafting gems will come from PvE raiding. Seeing as how crafting is, at the moment, the only known alternative to raiding and supposedly the way that top PvP gear will be aquired it's intersting to note that if they are correct then PvE raiding will be required if a person wants the best crafted gear (and thus the best PvP gear).
Now when I said the same thing on this board people told me I was full of it. So I was rather shocked that in that thread on the official boards nobody went rushing in to set them straight.
They are definitely wrong. There are many people that will absolutely stay away from a game with a raid-centric end-game and many that will gravitate to such content. Without taking a position for either play-style, I believe it is a significant enough issue to warrant separate servers. Again, it is not necessary for a company to decide which is better, just offer both and let the players choose. Given the ridiculous expense of creating a MMOG these days, it seems silly for devs to risk losing many potential customers by coming down on one side of such a controversial topic.
I wasn't asking how Funcom has designed their game. This was a generic pondering that would have been more at home in the general forums. The only reason I asked it in the AoC forum is because I was here doing some research on the role of raiding in this upcoming game. I couldn't help but be struck by the passionate posts on both sides of this topic and decided to ponder aloud.
This is funny. You are implying that the appeal of raiding to (some) raiders is not the actual act of raiding but the elitism associated with their willingness to "endure" such activities. I suspect that—for some raiders—this is probably true.
That would indeed be an interesting experiment.
Let's definitely not go there. It's all been said.
Hi OP,
You offer a good point of view of some of the mmorpg populous. I think the only real way to gauge interest in this is from feeback after a point of time from release. Right now is just a snapshot of the community, and from what I've read a call for this type of thing has probably only happened twice maybe in the last couple of years, without much support for it I'm afraid.
From Funcoms eyes I would get that, you don't have to raid to progress in the game. Its not forced on you (although some other think it is (mis-informed) ) . If you can get past that part, then is it more to do with the raid community on the server? That player type you don't want to mingle with, or just the content?
but then you have people like me who like raiding just not all the time, and like to pvp just not all the time. and lvling 2 chr's just to statify both sounds/feels too much like EvE =p
I don't think Drevnar could have put it any clearer. As I understand it the pve gear has no impact on the pvp aspect of the game, just as the gear you get from pvp will have no impact or be more or less useless for raiders. That way you do what you want and get rewarded accordingly. This is a non-issue if you ask me and it's just beating a dead horse that died for no reason.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
If the raiding gear provides gear needed to further your raiding career (at level 80), there can't be any complaints about it from people who don't raid.
They don't need the gear, since they don't raid, and it won't help the raider to have raid gear in the other end game activity, PvP.
Do I plan on raiding in AoC? Not much, unless it happens to be spectacularly fun (I doubt it, I'm burnt out on raiding for 2 years in high end EQ1 guilds). But if people want to do it, more power to them.
My level 70 mage in WoW hasn't raided more than a handful of times, and never got a single piece of loot from them, but I don't mind. I still have some fun stuff, and I have fun playing it, though I am not currently subscribed.
Keeping up with the Joneses is a futile and pointless pasttime. I was the #2 best equipped druid on my server in the PoP days, but what did that get me? Nothing. My ego doesn't need that tiny boost.
The best approach is to be inclusive. If there are people that like raids and people that don't like raids you want the game to include raids. This way you can satisfy both people. The raid people can raid and the non raid people don't have to raid. If the game didn't have raids then the raid people would just not play meaning you would loose that percent of the customer base. In the first case you would only loose some fring people that might not play the game cause their are raids in it even though they never have to go on a raid.
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Ethion
That sounds all nice and cozy but of course you are ignoring the whole reason why non-raider types get upset about raiding and why raiders have trouble co-existing at the end-game with non-raiders. See, the usual pattern in these games is that they start out with people playing solo and in small groups to progress their characters and then later on the solo and small group playstyles simply come to an end and are replaced with raiding.
But see, the solo and small group players don't want their playstlyes to be replaced by raiding. But they want to keep playing too. They want to keep progressing their characters too. They don't want the game to end for them at the end-game. And if there is some form of solo/small group end-game for them they don't want their progression to be arbitrarily held back so that raiders can stay ahead.
But the raiders don't want solo and small group progression to exist at end-game and if it does exist they insist that it has to be kept in check so that non-raid progression is always capped significantly lower than raid progression. Because, they say, there wouldn't be any point in raiding if you could get the same rewards through other activities.
Thus the impasse. If raiders get what they want the non-raiders are pissed off and if the non-raiders get what they want the raiders are pissed off.
At this point in the history of mmorpgs I find it difficult to believe that anyone could fail to understand the problem.
I don't play WoW but hasn't this exact conflict been playing out in that game? And how many millions of people play WoW? How could anyone not be aware of this?
I have read the WoW boards from time to time since the game released and I've seen this playing out on those boards. At first the endgame followed the usual pattern with solo and small group play ending to be replaced by raiding. The people who didn't want to raid were very angry and the raiders were happy. Then the devs started gradually improving things for non-raiders and everything they did in that regard made the non-raiders happier and the raiders angrier.
You simply can't please both groups at the same time on the same server.
It's really a very simple reason why they do not offer raiding and non-raiding servers. Raiding is an entire game in and of itself. In order to develop a game for raiders, that would make a raiding server feasible, you have to spend the majority of your time devoted to that developmentally. Otherwise you could end up with an end game raiding system as bad as wow's battleground system.
Now, I am sure as time goes on that there will be a few smallish pve raids added in and they may even be highly entertaining. This most assuredly is not something I would expect at launch though as I believe the end game for AOC is more focused towards the borderlands and besieging pve and pvp keeps, building your own guild's keeps and defending them.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Um, are you refering to AoC? If you were then you are woefully misinformed. The AoC devs already have said that there will be eight PvE raid dungeons in place at release with 20+ raid targets (each dungeon has multiple bosses). These are planned as 24 person raids.
The main reason why devs don't do raid and non-raid servers is simply developement time. To have separate servers for both these gamestyles has many drawbacks, most notably the fact that they would have to keep 2 separate codebases updated during development. Also they would have to have separate balancing and bugfixing for both versions. In developement terms it's just not feasible, nor is it really necessary.
One of my main problems with raiding in most current games is that the rewards are inherently single player focused instead of group or guild focused. As a result players are encouraged to be very selfish as all the raid rewards can only be claimed by a single person. A better way to change raids I think would be to make raid rewards guild based. A good example would be in AoC where guilds will be gathering resources for their battlekeeps or crafting villiages. Instead of having 1 or 2 pieces of uberloot dropped for 1 or 2 of the raid members, drop a certain amount of resources that will benefit the whole guild, or a special (limited) raid only resource that would allow a guild to make say weapons with slightly better stats or higher durability or something. Anything but current way of having 20+ people waste 3+ hours of their time so 1 or 2 people can get a piece of uber loot
Actually I guess I wasn't seeing this angle... So to summarize you would be happier if there were two servers. One with the 8 raid dungeons already announced and a second server with the 8 raid dungeons removed?
Frankly that seems like a pretty simple change... Would people want to play on the non raid version? This would be an interesting poll I'd think.
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Ethion
Some people like the team oriented raid activity. Having a few great loot drops and a chance to get them is what makes it rewarding. If it was just for some resource to make the guild house cooler it would be ok but not something I'd be that motivated to do.
Raid loot drops are what make raids desirable. Keep in mind setting up a raid, doing one successfully are not trivial accomplishments and everyone involved needs to work together and frequently work well. That is what makes it exciting and fun and ultimately beating the raid target so rewarding. The loot is the reward for the large effort in time, practice, and coordination.
The fact that the loot goes to 1-2 members doesn't hurt the reward at all. Those 1-2 members are now stronger and the next time we do this raid our guild will be stronger and it will go better. We will do it many times and people will get geared up which is what leads to the next tier or targets where the process repeats. Assuming you are in a guild really working through things for the first time it's a thrill to do the progression. The only downside is making sure you have the time or a guild that matches your availability.
Alas, I'm out of the raid scene mostly because or more activities in real life but I do urn for the days of yon when I killed many a raid target and sometimes reaped the great rewards for the effort!
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Ethion
Like most of the worries and arguments about MMORPG's I don't see the point in this one either.
Suppose you're a person who doesn't like raiding, you might even despise it, so when you read about a game having raid features are you suddenly disgusted? Does your mouth fill up with vomit at the thought? No it doesn't, because at the end of the day all you have to do is what? Not raid...
Raid instances are now an industry standard, most games by major developers are going to feature at least some type of raids, but not even the epitome of mistakes known as WoW has made the mistake of forcing you to raid. They do make the mistake of making it practically the only thing to do at end game other than PVP, but that's beside the point. The point is I doubt AoC or much of any MMORPG's that exist presently or are on the horizon are going to force you to get into a group of 20+ people in order to get to a part of the game that doesn't have to do with raiding.
If there was a situation like that, for instance you want to do a 5 man instance but you can only gain access to it if you do a 25 man raid instance first, I am totally against it, but so far I haven't seen that happen, most games separate raiding from dungeon running pretty well.
I don't think the issue is really with if the game has raiding or that they feel the need to raid. The issue is that people who raid have better equipment and non raiders feel inferior or like second class hasbeens compaired to raiders. So non raiders would prefer there are no raids or if their are raids that they have no loot that is better then what a non raider can get.
So I think just removing all the raid dungeons would be a simple solution that would make non raiders happy. It doesn't require any special code just setup a server and remove the raid dungeons. Seems like a simple enough thing to do. The only issue would be making sure their is enough demand to fill up a server so people can group up.
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Ethion
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
Just talking about the PvE side of things try to put yourself in the non-raiders' shoes for minute. Ok, I know that this is going to be difficult but just try to imagine for a moment that you don't like raiding and don't want to do it. You enjoy playing solo and in small groups. Alright, so you play the game and enjoy it as you level up. Along the way you improve your equipment.
Then you hit max level and you've done all the solo/small group content that will improve your gear. Now what? You look around and there's nothing left for you to do. There are no goals left for you to achieve. No rewards to motivate you. You don't need experience for levels anymore so there isn't much point in killing things for experience. You can't improve your equipment anymore so there isn't any point in running content for equipment.
So what's left?
Nothing.
Game over.
The only goals left to achieve are in the raid content but you don't like raiding and don't want to do it. The type of play you actually enjoyed has come to and end.
Now do you see the problem?
So I only read the first page of responses, so I appologize if I repeat any posts on the 2nd and 3rd pages...
Seperating PvE and PvP is important, from what I understand, AoC is doing this. WoW learned this lesson but a little too late.
Now, you can have the absolute best PvE gear and still get rolled in PvP because of the Resilience stat.
I think I remember that AoC is having PvP levels seperate from your PvE levels, this is a good step.
Anywho, back to raiding.
If you were to create Raiding and Non-Raiding servers, you'd essentially be removing a chunk of content from the game. Let's say you are ok with that. This is what I forsee happening.
Players max themselves on the small-group and solo non-raid content. They think, ok, what do I do now? I'm really well geared and experienced in PvE, so what's next?
So they either transfer their toon to a server that has Raiding, wait for expansions/additions, or get really bored. Or they switch to PvP.
On the other side of the same coin, if you are on a raiding server and you dont' raid you will always feel like you don't have the best stuff, that you aren't achieving the most PvE has to offer.
In a non-raiding server, you max just as much as the next guy in PvE w/o raiding, but then we you do max out what do you do?
I understand the feeling of not being able to raid and seeing others in this uber raiding gear and saying to yourself "damn it's not fair that I don't have access to that content / loot. "
If raiding is in the game, people wil want to do it or dislike raiding because they can't do it, and thus not be as "well geared" and accomplished as the raider. But if their is no raiding then everyone has an easy time getting to "max" in PvE, but then what do you do? Say you hate PvP, what then?
It's a double edged sword really. I dunno how it'd work itself out, but it'd be interesting to see what the player reaction was.
Good question and good thread. Keep it coming.
Another idea I've always had is to use the Heroic dungeon system they have in WoW, but for raids.
You have "Normal" and "Heroic" difficulty settings for raids.
The "Noraml" settings are easier and more forgiving then the raids we currently see in a game like WoW. The "Hardcore" are similar in difficulty / scale as we currently see in WoW, because honestly you have to be pretty hardcore to clear through all the raid content in WoW.
Just like in the Heroic dungeons, you make the Heroic raids have better gear, and make them more challenging and less forgiving of mistakes then the Normal versions.
You could even change the party-size requirements for the heroics vs. normal raids.
The Heroic could have the best gear and be challenging and require 24 people, but the Normal be easier and have not as good of gear and only need 12 people, for instance.
That way the more "casual" types have an easier time getting in the door and seeing the content, completing it, and progressing in PvE while the "hardcore" still have the best gear and are rewarded for their skill, coordination, and dedication to their craft.
Thoughts?
because most people who play dont give a toss whether raiding is in or not and the rest want raids?
those that pass on a game simply due to raiding are not only stuffed for decent games they are a minority. bite the bullet and play there is no law stating you MUST raid.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
IF they would make a raid-free and PvP-free server with all the BEST items available to groupers.
I would definitely buy the game and give it a chance.
But, I don't even think it is possible with these devs. You seems on a pointless quest. These devs think like Heereboya + EvE devs, they just don't get it. Or if they get it, they are evil and taking pleasure in shafting a % of the players. Either case, I am not holding my breath for this game.
As to Heereboya comment about: What after you max? Well, I may cancel my subscribtion or play alts until the next expansion, but who said maxing everything has to be done fast and easy? At any rate, me canceling and coming back is definitely a better outcome then me never purchasing the game.
CoX has already proven that grouping end game content outmatch raiding and PvP combined together and require far less work/programming. RSF/STF/LGTF vs Hamidon + Warship + level 50 PvP zone...RSF/STF/LGTF have many times more players doing them, days-in days-out.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
The journey is what matter.
The journey is determined by the path of progression for every achiever.
Raiding is enforced on every achiever.
Is that a tiny minority? I don't think so.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
In case some of you missed it, raykor (the op) was suggesting that raid content be scaled on non-raid servers so that it could be run by small groups. I just thought maybe I should mention that because it seems like some of you might not have gotten that point. In most cases all it would require is to lower the hitpoints of raid mobs so that instead of needing 24 people to throw damage at it you would only need 5 or 6 people.
It might not be a perfect solution but it would give small group players on-going content. And it wouldn't (or shouldn't) make raiders angry because they would be on a completely different server and couldn't be affected by it.
Heerobya, what you suggested with "normal" and "heroic" raids is similar but it would make small group players angry and I'll tell you why. You are saying that the heroic raids should result in better rewards based solely on the number of people present.
Now small-groupers are going to look at this and wonder why, if they put the same amount of time and effort into the same content, should their rewards be any less. If the content is scaled properly it should be just as dangerous for a group of 6 as it is for a group of 24. The only real difference is that the smaller the group is the more individual responsibility each person has.
I know very well what the raider response is to this though. They will say that the more people you have the more difficult it is just by virture of the fact that you have more people. And then the non-raiders say, no that just means you have more people to cover for slackers and less reponsibility for each individual so actually it's easier. And 'round and 'round we go.
I've been having these arguments for years and I know that no matter how much I talk I'm not going to change the minds of raiders. And I also know that no matter how much raiders talk they aren't going to change the minds of non-raiders.
It doesn't even matter who's right. What matters is that we are all people paying for entertainment and we each want what we want. Why should one segment of the player base be sacrificed to please the other? That's why the seperate servers idea is a fantastically good idea. Each group could have what they want and we could stop butting heads with each other.
And it's really so simple. All the devs would have to do is develop content in the normal way and then simply adjust it on the non-raid servers so that it could be used by small groups instead of large groups. Then people could choose which type of server to play on based on the type of end-game they want (large group or small group) and, hopefully, we could all stop yelling at each other.