Raid content for the non 1%

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Windance, Sep 11, 2019.

  1. Windance Elder

    I am in a raiding guild on Bertox. The number of players on the server has been shrinking consistently for many years. Nearly every expansion one of the raiding guilds ends up folding because it can't maintain enough players to cycle raids.

    I would like to point out that some of our guild members are in their 60's and 70's and while they love the game their reaction time, eye sight, and other medical conditions often make the knee jerk 6 sec emotes that cripple / wipe the raid painfully hard for them and us. These members have been playing for 15-20 years and no one wants to kick them out because they can't "get good".

    Even if we did kick them out of the raids there are not enough players around to back fill the slots. Last winter we running nearly full raids. When summer comes around we're down to the mid 40's and we end up back filling with people trying to box healers.

    Each time one of the guilds folds about half of the players just stop playing. I don't think we can take another TBL style expansion.

    My plea to the developers:

    - Make some of the T1 raids 'easy' so we can get our foot in the door.
    - Limit the number of 'knee' jerk raid wiping emotes, when you do have them, make them VERY visible like the big red rings in poFire raid.
    - Don't make them all DPS checks.
    - Make the group gear slightly worse than the last expansion raid gear. This makes it worth while to keep farming older raid content.
  2. Drakang Augur

    Less spread the raid to multiple locations would be nice. But cutting down the DPS check required to beat events before the fail mechanic kicks in would amazing. Heck I would even be fine with beat the event in under X time or you get less loot. But beat in X time or fail is harsh when that time requires a really good raid mix of top DPS players.
  3. Zolav Elder

    This is a legit argument simply because of the many years eq has been around and the older player base is probably very faithful. Your not asking for much really just a couple easier raids. I mean fire and stratos and smoke are pretty simple wouldn't that qualify in TBL?
  4. Coagagin Augur

    How about a 'senior TLP server' catering to a more mature audience?
    Lilybeme and Yinla like this.
  5. Windance Elder

    - Very few would want to 'start over'. That's why they end up quitting when their guild folds.

    We have a very solid crew of about 30-35 people who log in every raid night.

    My complaint about PoFire is a long raid night. We clear a path through the trash because our raid has non guild members who can't use the guild banner AND the corpse poofing to zone in adds another annoyance.

    Having to go out and get glyph's is kind of minor for those who play a lot, but not everyone has time to do that so I've been logging in the tanks to top off their AA.

    Stratos is a major DPS check and AA check which requires everyone at our level to again have glyph's ready to burn to survive the final bosses AE's.

    At this point we have both on farm but it took us 7 months to get there and they are still touch and go.
    Zunnoab likes this.
  6. Yinla Augur

    Does the new House of Thule TLP server appeal ?
    Its not starting over at level 1, you start at level 85 in the best expansion :) Back when raids were more fun and not so intense. :)
  7. Windance Elder

    Not everyone would move over. If not for the long time friends it would be easy enough to just jump servers and join a more 'gooder' group of raiders.
  8. Sancus Augur

    "Content for the non 1%" is hyperbolic, but there's a valid point to be made that completion rates have fallen over time. I made a more detailed post here, but the gist of it is:
    • EoK and RoS were more linear than TBM, and the difficulty of the raids did not progress very well across that linear path. This was especially a problem in RoS, where Vault, a raid halfway through the expansion that blocked further progression, had a lower in-era completion rate than the entirety of TBM or EoK in-era.
    • The number of guilds completing at least one current expansion raid in-era was relatively flat between TBM, EoK, and RoS, at 40, 39, and 38 respectively. While TBL is not yet over, the 28 we are currently at is low compared to previous expansions at the same point (39, 39, and 36 for TBM, EoK, and RoS, respectively). That is likely both a result of the aforementioned issues with RoS's difficulty curve and somewhat difficult TBL T1 raids relative to Vim and Vigor/Temple of Droga/Balance of Power.
    • "Fixing" this is arguably complicated, but at the very least I think reducing linearity (a la TBM) helps give guilds more options for progression and helps avoid a roadblock, as encountered in RoS. Furthermore, the difficulty curve from T1 raids to T3 raids should likely be steeper than in TBL (i.e. T1 should be significantly easier). While there's some variation, I think the current curve is relatively flat other than Mearatas. They have addressed flagging somewhat with recent changes, but I'm of the opinion the underlying difficulty was/is the primary issue.
    I think having a strong mid-tier and even family/pickup raid population is healthy for the (raid) game overall, and I do think the design of recent expansions haven't been conducive to maintaining such a population. The devs did mention in a Q+A that it was on their radar; I hope they do implement a more comprehensive long-term solution that creates some viable ongoing content for these guilds.
  9. lagkills Augur

    You get your raid content for the 99% when they implement group content for the 1%.

    Filthy unwashed casuals.
  10. Windance Elder

    Here is the big kill board for Bertox.

    There are only three raiding guilds left and one of them has gotten their first TBL win yet. How long before there are two ... then one ... then none ?
  11. Cadira Augur

    Tier Zero raids, IJS
    Allayna likes this.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    My opinion:
    * Make an easy versions of all the raids that has less damage, health and fewer mechanics
    * Easy versions drop loot that is between top end group loot and hard-mode raid loot

    You get much more utilization out of the content you're already making and provide a much better entry path to raiding for the playerbase than hoping last expansion's raids are still worth doing.
    Zunnoab and IblisTheMage like this.
  13. strongbus Augur

    nice idea. But wouldn't it just save time to make say the t1 raids easy raids with t1 gear and make the t2/t3 raid the super hard mode. They tried the easy/hard mode once. it didn't work out so good.
  14. Brohg Augur

    historically, pretty popular. CToV (RoF era), PoF/H (TBM era), Direwind/Icefall events in TSS. Notable potential holes? Pirate/fish/sphinx/shissar raids in TBS, Dinosaurs in TDS.

    In TBL? I might have split the Rise of Smoke events & demoted them, perhaps filling the "missing" events over time after expansion release.
    Cadira likes this.
  15. Whulfgar Augur

    Say no more.. you are the 1%..

    I've been on bertox when both Enceladus and the other 1 were active.. even then they lacked the capability to down expansions before the next..

    I feel sorry for ya..
  16. Bamboompow Augur

    We had those before. The revamped ToV. Revamped PoF and Hate. Not a new concept.

    Some good discussion here as we are not getting any younger so maybe more straight up Tank and Spanks which are a bit less twitchy button smash fests like those older content revamps might be fun for our more mature members. It will still need to be challenging enough so that even the guud will enjoy it, and not want to flush it down the toilet just for existing.

    Still, some of this talk is akin to what we have going on here where Western Washington(Urban Liberal) and Eastern Washington (Rural Conservative) want to create two new states sharing a border at the Cascades. Which is an easy cop out as opposed to actually trying to work out their differences. It just exacerbates the dichotomy and further reinforces the lack of compromise to have the two ideologies result in an actual physical divide.

    Having separate content is somewhat similar to that sort of silliness. It would be more beneficial to try to find as others have said...what retains players. That is going to mean that dreaded compromise word. Casuals may have to up their game a bit and escape the easy HA trap, but the old time elite veterans also have to acknowledge that not everyone is like them or has their resources or has played diligently for 20 years. Do the same thing for 20 years? That's a "Career". In the military you can retire with a pension after 20 years. Hopefully you are indeed guud. You have had 20 years to get there.

    People who you consider "filthy casual" have their perspective as well. Yes they are not as good as you by any stretch nor do they have the free time to dedicate, but they still want to get their money's worth eventually when they buy an expac. Typically anything that comes along to allow some catch up later gets abused and then crushed by the players who really didn't need that content for their mains to start with.That has to stop. Either by tuning it right or just being grateful that sometimes life gives someone other than youself a break. If you can't be grateful than at least be quiet.

    Or I could be wrong. Maybe this game is just another thing you have to put aside as the passage of time takes its toll. Thing is, there isn't that much new young blood coming on board either. So the two sides here need to figure out how to coexist as well as the devs thinking about if they want to be a arbitrator/mediator for that or just pour more gas on the fire.
  17. Allayna Augur

    The Rise of Smoke raid in beta was planned to be:

    Trial of Three/Trial of the Cyclone at the same time, how it is now
    Trial of Wending Ways/Trial of Amphitheater at the same time
    Trial of Ashes Cliffs Glory by itself

    In it's current form it is far easier, wouldn't you say? I did want those additional events though...
    Duder and Whulfgar like this.
  18. Brohg Augur

    I know about those plans. I think it could have been broken down further, to make the events accessible on the level of Maestro / FearGolems in their era.
    Zunnoab and Allayna like this.
  19. Cicelee Augur

    Any discussion about the three raiding guilds merging into one or two full guilds? I know it does not necessarily solve your OP (which has valid points), but it does address and potentially solve the roster issues.

    Another roadblock is the cost associated with a server transfer. I get it- DBG is a business, they want to make money. I do not know how many server transfer tokens are bought from marketplace each month. But the $25 IIRC fee probably prevents some from wanting to move servers, even with the accumulation of the 500 DBG cash every month (the individual may want to use it on other things). Offering a free server transfer with the condition that you cannot leave the server for 12/18/24 months could allow players to go to Bertox (for example) and raid there without financial obligation. The 12/18/24 ensures players cannot loot and scoot the Bertox guild...
  20. Rowanoak Elder

    I like the idea of tier 0 content for "foot-in-the-door" raids, like Corrupted ToV for RoF expansion, or the PoFear and Hate raids for TBM.
    I like the idea of tier 0 content rather than making tier 1 raids easier. We should not be tuning content to be beaten by smaller forces.
    As some have suggested, if you cant field a full force, consider a merger or an alliance, if that's not an option maybe ask the other 2 guilds if theyd like to join you on their alts on one of their offnights.

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