I miss large scale raids in MMOs

[MindTwist]

I miss large scale raids. The last time I did a really large raid was in the EQ expansion Planes of Power. I'm talking about raids of 60+ players. MMOs these days dont really go anywhere near that amount. I know that these large raids are hard to coordinate and can make your comp really work, but damn they are really fun when you get them going!!!

[bonecarverpm]

What i would really enjoy seeing is an instanced scalable raid zone. where it scales from one person up to a max of 24 people . That would be cool

[Blackguard]

I was never a particular fan of such huge raids because it took a major toll on my computer and became mostly unplayable. They're pretty cool sometimes, but making it interesting for that many people to fight one creature is pretty tough. You'd almost have to split them up and have different groups/raids performing different functions to achieve the same goal (possibly in the same instance, possibly in "shadow" instances where you are indirectly interacting with the other groups). Which, in itself, sounds pretty damn fun.

[jason]

Every type of raid has its supporters and detractors. There have been times where all I wanted was to get 2-4 groups of people together and raid something... but on the other hand, participating in a huge 72 man raid had its own thrills, especially if you were part of the team running the thing.

As I put in another thread around here, I'm all for removing hard caps on content. I realize that a developer may want to design his content to be optimally experienced by 5 people, or 25 people, but it really sucks as a player to keep running into the wall because I have 6, or 29, friends and we have to repeat content not just for the loot, but simply so people can experience it. Game devs should consider ways to remove hard caps and instead reward soft caps. Design the content for 5 people, but allow any number to go in, however have the reward scale upward as you approach the "optimal". That way, people who want to min/max content for the best possible reward can do so, but also people who just want to play can experience it as well without having to jump through extra hoops just to play with their friends.

[Draegan]

A giant clusterfuck of people fighting a mob isn't fun imo. The idea is cool, but meh. Give me a good 1 or 2 group dungeon and I'm extremely happy.

[jason]

No, a giant clusterfuck of people isn't fun... but then neither is a small clusterfuck of people. I've lead raids in EQ of 150 people trying to defeat content that any selection of 60 of us could not have done because we were ill equipped (PoP flagging raids). It was chaotic, but fun because no one was being a jackass demanding loot or flags (even when we won, the event only gives out 72 flags, so 70+ people weren't going to be getting it). *shrug* I enjoyed running that. On the other hand, I've run raids of 24 people or less (even down to just a single group) that were much less fun because of people being jackasses about loot or flags or whatever.

I'd much rather the game give the option of how many people can raid/adventure together rather than nailing them down to a hard cap.

[Draegan]

1-2 group content is a clusterfuck of people, and usually doesn't require you to form a small army with rules and discipline to beat. It tends to be fun, if done with people you're friendly with.

However the game Mr. Carebear is working on will be hardcore raiding because look who's running the company. Though I can't wait to see how they are conceptualizing it. Curt's got some very smart people working for him.

[Nybling]

1-2 group content is a clusterfuck of people, and usually doesn't require you to form a small army with rules and discipline to beat. It tends to be fun, if done with people you're friendly with.

However the game Mr. Carebear is working on will be hardcore raiding because look who's running the company. Though I can't wait to see how they are conceptualizing it. Curt's got some very smart people working for him.

I don't mind raids. All I ask a company to do is to make it so you don't have to impact guilds. Blizzard going from 40 to 25 might have helped smaller guilds, but in the long run it does hurt guilds who have been raiding with a certain # of friends, but now you can't bring along a couple of them. If you pick a # to have as a raid, stay with it as your main raid format. That's all I ask.

[Draegan]

I meant to say, "1-2 group content ISN'T..." oops

And..

You had 39+ Friends with you every night to raid with? Or when it was reduced 25 you had to leave some friends behind? Really? You're a very popular person.

[MindTwist]

I meant to say, "1-2 group content ISN'T..." oops

And..

You had 39+ Friends with you every night to raid with? Or when it was reduced 25 you had to leave some friends behind? Really? You're a very popular person.

Sounds like you haven't been in a good raiding guild. In EQ, I never felt like raiding was a giant clusterfuck. We had scheduled raid times. People got to the raid location early, groups were formed into the raid, and off we went. Raid strategies were discussed in the guild forums. It was actually a very well-oiled machine. Everyone participated and did their part, and we had a blast!

Now pick-up raids, on the other hand, can be what you would call a clusterfuck. I've had some good ones and some bad ones. I think that you just haven't been exposed to raiding with the right people.

And for players having 39+ friends? .... I have regularly been involved in raids over 70+ people. It's all about the guilds that you involve yourself with. It has nothing to do with being popular. What do you think, people open up their friends list and start sending tells to 40+ people? This stuff is all planned in advance.

[Nybling]

I don't know about you Draeg, but I view guilds as social vehicles to do content. You guild with people who have the same goals and same mindset and overtime you build friendships with those people. You'll help them with a quest, they'll help you with a quest, so on and so forth.

[Blackguard]

Every type of raid has its supporters and detractors. There have been times where all I wanted was to get 2-4 groups of people together and raid something... but on the other hand, participating in a huge 72 man raid had its own thrills, especially if you were part of the team running the thing.

As I put in another thread around here, I'm all for removing hard caps on content. I realize that a developer may want to design his content to be optimally experienced by 5 people, or 25 people, but it really sucks as a player to keep running into the wall because I have 6, or 29, friends and we have to repeat content not just for the loot, but simply so people can experience it. Game devs should consider ways to remove hard caps and instead reward soft caps. Design the content for 5 people, but allow any number to go in, however have the reward scale upward as you approach the "optimal". That way, people who want to min/max content for the best possible reward can do so, but also people who just want to play can experience it as well without having to jump through extra hoops just to play with their friends.

My complaints about this as a player, along with my answer as a developer.

"This stupid room is too small for my whole raid to fit in here!"
- Bring fewer people.

"This stupid raid is lagging my machine out!"
- Bring fewer people.

"Why does our instance keep crashing?!"
- Bring fewer people.

"This raid isn't fun! There's no challenge to it!"
- Bring fewer people.

"A lot of us in the raid didn't even get ANY loot, much less any GOOD loot!"
- Bring fewer people.

"You say we can use as many players as we want to kill this boss, but we never get get loot because of the scaling!"
- Bring fewer people.

"Fires of Heaven only managed to kill the dragon because they had 100 people in it. Pansies!"
- Mind your own business.

"Fires of Heaven claims to have killed the dragon with only 20 people. I call bullshit!"
- We have the logs, and we won't tell you how many people they used.

Player 1: "We took down Barzemon! World first!!!"
Player 2: "How many people did you use?"
Player 3: "They zerged the piss out of them."
Player 1: "Whatever, we took him down first."
- ...

[Nybling]

I freaking rolled on the floor. It's like you took a few of the threads from the WoW forums and posted the general idea of them here!

The key here is if you are going to put in a limitation to the # of people who will raid... keep that number consistant. If you want to cap it at 4 groups (say 20 to 24 people depending on group size), keep it that. Don't just go, "Hay guyz, going to 12-mans now!" because I do think that is a serious gripe from guilds.

[temp]

I freaking rolled on the floor. It's like you took a few of the threads from the WoW forums and posted the general idea of them here!

The key here is if you are going to put in a limitation to the # of people who will raid... keep that number consistant. If you want to cap it at 4 groups (say 20 to 24 people depending on group size), keep it that. Don't just go, "Hay guyz, going to 12-mans now!" because I do think that is a serious gripe from guilds.

Yes super shitty, when a guild setup is made for 40 man raids and now you just need 24 you run into a greate whine fest on your guild board. Id also love to see more big raids content were you have to work as a guild together to get the item to open the door. 6 to 24 man raids needed were you beat the endboss to get a drop that needs to be combined by a crafter for the key (which is dropable and can be taken out of the guildbanker).

[jason]

Anyone can play that game, Ryan...

For every time someone bitches about a raid problem due to bringing too many people, I can find a group of people who had 1 or 2 extra people they wanted to bring to that 5, 10, or 25 man raid who had to leave a friend behind just to fit under the "arbitrary" raid restriction.

All of your "bring fewer people" response would be handled by stating, "This raid was designed and optimized for X players. We allow you to bring more so that you don't have to leave friends behind, but it was not designed for more than X."

As for the Fires of Heaven complaints... yeah, people will bitch, but EQ1 had that, and it was solved by the players posting screen shots and videos.