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The perfect raid size? (Pve discussion)
Axehandle
Member Posts: 147
What is the ideal raid size for you? And why?
I personally enjoyed the 25 person size the most because it required heavy coordination but not so much it became a logistical nightmare.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
Comments
I voted 16. I am used to 24 players raids from EQ2 and I really enjoyed them, but as you said logistics were the biggest problem, especially later in the life of game.
I enjoy though 8 players operations in SWTOR. They are more intense and demand more skills and are not so forgiving (no ninja afk in the middle of fight - like it was possible in 24 raid).
16 players seems to be a golden middle. Still some logistics and the fun of doing something in a big group.
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Other............
MMO's should NOT rely on raids for content. Older mmo's we made up our own fights that could span anywhere at anytime. Was more fun and exciting. Today's games it feels like a chores to do this now. Sorry but raids/warzones are just bad and takes the fun out of it.
I prefer no limits. Raids always become a bit exclusive of certain classes/builds when you limit the amount of people you can bring.
Voted 16. To me this is large enough to be significant but not so large to require huge amount of time forming a group. I'd stretch this to a range of 15 to 20.
Very true with the smaller sized raids but once you get into the 20+ range you see much more class diversity. The days of the 40 person raids are over and likely to never return although I'd love to see 1 new mmo like ESO or eq next add a large scale 40 person or larger world raid. It's not the era of huge raids anymore but 1 massive raid dropping the bis gear or giving some difficult achievement would be cool.
Note if any devs troll here pay attention to this idea.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
I voted other because I want no raids, I am not interested in raiding at all. Besides, this is a PvE discussion? Raiding is PvP!
I pass.
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There is no 'perfect size'. Much better to have a more nebulous approach, ie, Small, Medium, or Large group activities. I am more inclined to pay attention to how long the thing will take. The longer the 'raid event', the more interesting it has to be for me to commit the time.
If it's a 'raid-n-hope' that you'll get the one drop....well, not likely to be playing that type of game in the first place.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Depends entirely on game mechanics and party dynamics.
Same as asking "How many players should be in a sports team?" -It depends on the sport.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Just make shit scalable.
You can attempt X *raid* with a group size of 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 .. and scale the content inside to the raid size. Limiting raids to *X number of people* is a bad idea. Make content scalable and everyone is happy. Of course the trick is to make the content as challenging at each level of scaling. If its a tough encounter with 5, ok with 10 and stupid easy with 20 ... we'll people will cluster up for the 20 version. If each version is as difficult and rewarding as every other version, then your group size determines which version you run. Some of your 20 man raid group could'ent make it tonight? Nps, run it in 15. You hate large raids? kewl run it as a 5. You got a few friends online .. into 10 man.
Static numbers are bad ... scalable content is the way to go. Hell DAoC had scalable instances way back years ago .. they would scale to the number of people (1-8) and the level of mobs was adjusted based on the levels present. Sure it was'ent raid content, just a repetable dungeon ... same in LotRO, Scalable instances in that game, the Skirmish system and the older tradeskill dungeons. Baffles me that we've not seen a game with pure scaleable end game content yet.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
To a degree.
Honestly the scaling in GW2 aint great. It does scale somewhat, but still runs into the too few or too many issue. Its DE your talking about, and scaling means throwing more mobs at the players when there is a decent player pop in the area. However it does cap out and you get to the point where stuff dies before it even renders on your screen if there are alot of people around. Knowing where stuff is going to spawn and AoEing that point is the best course of action.
Too few and the events just roll over you.
This is mostly an issue in Orr (the end level zones) as people are there to farm some quick looping event chains. Some chains are over camped and some have no one at all there and become impossible. Generally the 70-75 and 75-80 maps in Orr (Straights and Leap) are just fully contested (ie all way points blocked by mob activity) because there are no players there, and about half of Cursed shore is the same. The events people farm are dead in seconds, the other events just trample around killing any poor sod who happens near them.
They made some efforts in the right direction though, so cant knock them for that. Just dont work out so well in practice
It's a discussion of PvE raiding.
I voted other. I would say that the 15ish range is probably easiest to manage without becoming too exlusive. The problem of scaling is that you need to create a minimum about without it becoming too easy, and have to set a maximum amount without becoming too easy.
For those that say no to raiding all together, that's fine, but at the same time raiding can be a worthwhile activity that provides challenging content with defined parameters and clear goals. Where I feel raiding gets a bit silly is when it becomes a multi-hour, multi-day activity where you have to repeat the same raiding content in order to progress into the next level of raiding (aka wow model). Many other mmos created interesting raid content that was challenging, provided unique opportunities for character advancement, but didn't require you to make that the only focus of your endgame experience.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
I asked a similar question and it has been established that the most recent company go do it Arenanet tried it with gw2 and as was previously mentioned by someone experienced with that scaling Pve system said it hasn't worked very well. I can't speak of the success but according to others the scaling system is easier said than done.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
I have a hate-hate relationship with raids, because traditionally they've been associated with the damaging idea that recruiting X other players is something that should be rewarded by in-game rewards despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the game in its execution (depending instead on your personal charisma, social skills, and more often than not in this generation of MMOs, pre-existing relationships when you came to the game).
Getting ten people together and causing them not to screw up doesn't mean you should get better rewards than the guy who can do the same with only eight people. That's not because herding cats isn't challenging--it certainly is, to be sure--but because there's no in-game skill, risk, or accomplishment associated with that feat. For anybody who plays RPGs, it's the same problem as the "roleplay for success with charisma/intelligence, roll dice for success with strength/dexterity" issue that tends to attract justifiable criticism.
If you doubt that this is still a thing, spend five minutes over on the Rift boards and you'll spot a thread or two on the very issue, loaded up with the "best rewards should come from raids" arguments. It's unfortunate that, until recently, GW2 was the most promising effort to tackle this issue head-on. Shame things turned out the way they did.
That (raid perceptions--not Ascended-gate) is not what this is about, though, so now that it's out of the way, let me just say that I think it's possible, however difficult, to create a place for raids in a forward-looking game. The purpose of this design should be to accommodate people who have the preexisting relationships (or form them over the life of the game) and allow them to complete content in one-another's company rather than in segments. It should not be to add another hurdle to player advancement, gate access to content, or create a metaphorical stand-in for a designer's conviction that his or her pet-boss/dungeon/etc. should be super hard.
Having to roll the dice every weekend to see if Leeroy is going to fuck us this time shouldn't be a prerequisite to advancement, but it should be something that I can opt into if Leeroy is a friend of mine.
If this is the philosophy that's going into raid content design--or, hell, all content design--there comes a point where the technology should be able to support a group of arbitrary size. If you want to balance content around class interdependency, I think that's fair, and that would be a reasonable benchmark for minimum group size for content, but nobody's yet made a game with forty classes, one of each of which is required to complete a raid.
Usually you need a tank, enough healers to keep him alive, and enough DPS to kill the mob faster than it kills the raid. So you need one guy with a shield and an arbitrarily large number of healers and DPS. If you want, you can make content that requires two guys with shields, but that only goes so far before things get silly ("Alright, let's get you thirty-five tanks up in the corner over here to keep aggro on these adds. Yeah, I know it's tight, so go ahead and take off all your armor, grease each other up real good, and get familiar. Hold your shields up and you'll be fine.").
There comes a point after which inflating the raid has no meaning, because you're just adding redundancy, or worse, exaggerating aspects of the fight to make it take longer despite the fact that you've added no new gameplay (GW2 had serious problems here when it came to mob HP, even with only five-man content).
I think where the industry ought to be headed is to scaling content with mechanical floors and ceilings (e.g., you can't bring more than twenty people in here because we don't want to have to cap how many dots can be on the mob at once; you have to bring at least two tanks because there will be at least one add midway through the fight). Then if I want to take my five buddies into the Temple of Horrors, we've got the same chance of success, and the same rewards, as someone who brings his ten buddies.
Does this mean content that scales for raids should be soloable? Maybe; I think it's hard to escape that argument to some extent, but it's a lot easier for me to draw the line at requiring groups--and I think required grouping is better for game health also--than to requiring raids--since we've seen enough games where required raiding is usually the end of the line for at least as many players as the ones it causes to stick around.
What's the ideal raid size? How ever many people you have.
Peace and safety.
60 or 80. No scaling.
Failing that, I'll make do with 40.
Something like 10 feels like a semi-crowded taxi cab.
3+ groups.
The group size should be based on the game and how it plays. I honestly think 6 person groups is the right size but a lot of games use 4 or 5. A raid should consist of no less than 3 groups though. 2 groups is not a raid.
I like the idea of 6 person groups with 4 groups in a raid (24 total).
Complexity and difficulty can be scaled for any number, but the more people you have the easier it is for others to pick up the slack. Similarly, it can also be said that the more people you have the more easily it is to take an under skilled/geared/leveled/ect person.
Game population and design should be what determine grouping size. I don’t think there is one perfect size, just general guidelines.
--John Ruskin
I don't think the size is the real issue, I think how the content is balancedd is the real issue.
Having played DAOC back in the day, we used to be able to but together 100+ people raids and as long as we had a couple of good balanced groups we were usually good to go on the content.
Having played WOW, no matter is it was the 40 man raid, 25 man, 20, or 10, group makeup across the entire raid mattered. If the entire raid was not made up right, then you would likely fail. This is especially true when developers design gimmick encounters that require one certain class/skill.
I think a better approach is to design encounters that have a minimum group size, but allowing people to substitude numbers for perfect raid balance will create an overall better experience. Example: Encounter is designed for 20 people in a balanced raid, but you have 30 and are heavy on DPS, and light on tanks. You should still be able to do then encounter, provided you don't suck.
Pretty much this.
Although im tired of raids to be honest. I prefer small group content which IMO feels more "heroic".
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I so agree with this.. Raids should be inclusive social events, as it was when I first played EQ.. I loved when our guild would raid, and there was no technical start or finish.. Everyone was welcome to raid and show up and leave at anytime and still earn "points" for rewards.. It didn't matter if you played a plate tank class, or dps, or heals, or any one fo the many hybrid classes.. It was the most fun I had with guilding.. But once tiering started with PoP, things just fell apart..
No limits, let players decide how they want to scale difficult versus reward.
(rolling against 39 people is way different than rolling against 9).
And it stops the themepark issue of TANK & Healer to DD ratio.
Got two active tanks in your friendlist? No issue, take both!