Bit of a rant... venting frustration! Grrr!

Why do so many MMOGs have to put raiding in for the high end? Why not challenging group encounters? (And yes, WoW has challenging group encounters, but if you want to better your character, past a certain point, the best loot all comes from raids.)

When I saw that they'd hired some of the EQ raiding guild leaders for WoW devs, I had some serious reservations, but I went for a wait and see attitude... but it does seem like a large part of the WoW end game is raid oriented.

I just think the whole raiding concept sucks. You take 20, 40, 80 or however many people, and you have them go through the same places for weeks or months on end, doing the same things, killing the same things, all because you only get a few drops per run. They're challenging for maybe the first time you raid a place, and after that mostly boring.

I used to be in a heavy raiding guild... was there for over a year, and I think frustration with raiding was the main reason I quit EQ.

aybe I'm just tired of MMOGs in general... resent the forced timesinks, the wasted time raiding, etc. ;)

What do you all think about raiding?

Raiding is a natural progression in any game imo.. I played EQ for 5 years and trust me if it wasnt for the raiding content I would have quit after a year as there simply wouldnt have been anything to do..

They have to look to what will keep people interested and sticking raiding mobs in a game will do that. It also gives people / guilds a visible goal to work towards..

See, I disagree that it's a natural progression or the only way they can go; the devs can do similar things geared toward single groups, instead of spending all the time making raid content. Granted, it's not as "whole guild" friendly as raiding.

I think the major reason so many MMOGs do raids is because they're easy timesinks / fillers. You set the difficulty high enough, and the drop rate low enough, and you keep players busy for long enough to get more content / expansions out.

I do think it would be viable to have a single-group endgame path, where the dungeons get harder and harder, and you can upgrade gear incrementally. Say, the game had raiding and single group content, and both had equivalent rewards and difficulty (that is, single group content that is as hard for 5 as raiding content is for 40).

The only issue would be that it would require more time spent working on content, I suppose.

(And just for background on my viewpoint, I played EQ for almost four years myself. The last year and a half of that was spent raiding. I think Yrys had something over 300 days played when I quit, so I was hardly a "casual" player.)

As stated, it's a time sink...er filler. Besides, how else do you get a bunch of end-lvl players to do something?

I've always thought more dynamic content or encounters would make the monotony of raiding more interesting. Take for example a boss mob that usually has 4 standard fighting techniques it employes throughout a fight. After awhile, guilds usually learn how to beat the mob largely in part because it can predict what the mob will do and can plan ahead of time how to best defeat it. What if said boss mob had 20 techniques instead, and during an encounter would use a random number generator to pick 4 of those techniques to use. That way, whenever a guild encounters the boss mob the next time, they will never know what to expect. It will come down more to player skill and social interaction rather than scripted moves rehearsed ahead of time (or time and time again). It will DEFINITELY keep raiders on their toes. Of course, drop rates/numbers would have to improve in order to compensate for the added difficulty. Unfortunately it would take too much development effort to both a) implement it and b) make the encounter bug free.

Eh, just dreaming atm, don't mind me! Even if I ever do actually get one of my alt-mains to lvl 60 I will never have the timeslot free in my schedule to dedicate to any of it.

In order to make single group encounters that have equal level rewards to raid encounters, you would have the encounters beyond insanity difficult where one would see groups wiping time and time and time and time again to the same mob. Even then, it doesn't make sense to me that the mob would have as good a loot as the raid mob. My reasoning behind this is fairly simple. Usually in fantasy, the more powerful the creature, the more wealth it has and more powerful items it uses/has. So, you take a mob that it takes 40 people to take down, he should in general, have better gear than Sally the milkmaid or anything that a mere 5 people could handle. Also, it is a LOT harder to organize 40 people to take down a raid mob and has a lot more chances for mistakes than getting 5 people together to kill a mob. Epic level rewards take epic level effort.

outside of molten core and onyxia, raiding is certainly not more difficult than 5 manning an instance. a 10 man raid on strat or 15 man raid on ubrs can be done with minimal amounts of effort on the part of most people in the raid. 5 man groups in places like dire maul require people to perform specific tasks for their groups and do those tasks well because there is no one to pick up the slack, whereas in a raid you can easily slack off for a bit and it is hardly (if even) noticeable. epic level effort doesn't necessarily come from throwing more people at a mob in my opinion.

The good thing is WoW limited the raids so you dont have the 72 or 54 man raids that were a nightmare to organize if it wasnt a guild that raided all the time. A 15 man raid can be a dissaster but at least is is a smaller disaster that didn't take all night to form.

The 5 /10/15 limits are better for groups or smaller guilds and since they are instances you don't have the zone jumping of other games. I really don't see a problem with Raids in WoW as compaired to other games. True, you have to repeat the instance numerous times to get the gear but that would be the same with camping any rare item solo or in a group or raid. WoW has some nice quest items just below the raid level for those that dont want to raid a zone repeatedly for a chance at a drop. A guild with 15 - 20 good players can easily raid an instace and most good guilds make sure their players get the gear they need.

personally, I think it is often raiders desire to be "uber" that makes them complain they should have the only access to the "best" loot.

Personally, I like the dire maul concept. And would like to see a dire maul type dungeon that dropped the epic armor sets of MC. However, probably only the end boss of the dungeon.
So in 3 hours you get 1 epic piece for 5 people. Much the same ratio as MC.

We already in WOW have 1 alternative to Raid Gear. top PVP gear. Personally I think there needs to be 2 more.
Top Instance Gear. And LONG LONG Solo Gear.

So that WOW truly becomes the game for everyone.
Raid Gear ~ PVP Gear ~ Top Instance Gear ~ Solo Long/Big Quest.

By Solo, Im talking things like kill 1000 of a mob, collect 500, so on and so forth. Quests that would feel like they make a difference to world balance. Tibermaws will reward you for shifting the balance of power in Felwood/Winterspring thier way. Slay 1000 of their enemies and be rewarded

I just think the whole raiding concept sucks. You take 20, 40, 80 or however many people, and you have them go through the same places for weeks or months on end, doing the same things, killing the same things, all because you only get a few drops per run. They're challenging for maybe the first time you raid a place, and after that mostly boring.

The suggestion you bring up, to have harder single group runs with hight rewards would not solve this dilema. After a few runs of DireMaul, its boring. Also, I like the though of having something to look forward to, and to seperate maybe better players from the normal 60. I mean any moron can make 60, just listen to general chat. The 10/15 man raids in strat/scholo are a joke, for some easy loot.

On the flip side, because I am not in a raiding guild, and never get MC/Onyx raids, I am pretty well bored. Almost to the point of levellin up yet another alt. PvP seems to suck for non ranged attackers, and I am waiting on Battlegrounds before I decide to stay or go. How do the rest of you pass the time...?

i personally still enjoy dire maul runs quite a bit even though i've done 15 or so for tribute alone (and eagerly await the day the unyielding maul finally drops for me), and i force myself to do an ud strat run every day or two in the hopes of acquiring my wh mandress.

i've often thought to myself as i root a warrior at 35 yds and blast away at him as other casters around me do the same that pvp must really suck for melee characters. for them, i think pvp in winterspring is much better than pvp with the hundreds of random people always in ss, provided you can get some guildies to come along. the battles are more fun and challenging because they remain small in scale.

The suggestion you bring up, to have harder single group runs with hight rewards would not solve this dilema. After a few runs of DireMaul, its boring. Also, I like the though of having something to look forward to, and to seperate maybe better players from the normal 60. I mean any moron can make 60, just listen to general chat. The 10/15 man raids in strat/scholo are a joke, for some easy loot.

On the flip side, because I am not in a raiding guild, and never get MC/Onyx raids, I am pretty well bored. Almost to the point of levellin up yet another alt. PvP seems to suck for non ranged attackers, and I am waiting on Battlegrounds before I decide to stay or go. How do the rest of you pass the time...?

I guess that might be true, too. I'd still rather have a single-group oriented endgame than raid-oriented though. Maybe something like missions from CoH, but of course then you get into cut-and-paste level design.

Or maybe they need something like AA points. :P

Yeah, I wish 10 man Strat / Scholo raids weren't possible. As for boredom, let's see... I tried some instances, leveled a warrior to 60, tried more instances, tried a few raids, tried some PvP, made a few alts, wrote a bunch of UI AddOns... Lately I haven't been playing WoW though; just not very fun.

I guess that might be true, too. I'd still rather have a single-group oriented endgame than raid-oriented though. Maybe something like missions from CoH, but of course then you get into cut-and-paste level design.

Or maybe they need something like AA points. :P

Yeah, I wish 10 man Strat / Scholo raids weren't possible. As for boredom, let's see... I tried some instances, leveled a warrior to 60, tried more instances, tried a few raids, tried some PvP, made a few alts, wrote a bunch of UI AddOns... Lately I haven't been playing WoW though; just not very fun.


Why do you care that 10 man strat/scholo raids are possible?

Personally, I hate those dungeons 5 man, just because the challenge is in the yard trash. Yard Trash as the challenge is a bad thing. I don't want to waste hours and hours where the challenge is pulling multiple linked mobs so that CC/Tanking/Healing is the same repeated challenge over and over and over.

Think Basically Tier3 Time in Everquest. That tier, is a challenge not because of the encounters but because of groups of mobs at a time.

I don't just want dungeons where the challenge is the crowd.
I want dungeons where the bosses are the challenge.

Where tactics are challenge. Like what if you only had an hour to do make it to place X in an instance. And you could try and actually dodge wanders.

Basically, Everquest finally learned this lesson before WOW.
Think Ikky Instances where there were much less yard trash
Heck, my favorite raid was probably Ikky4

Well, I quit EQ before my guild ever got to Time or "Ikky" (GoD?), so I don't know much about those.

I apologize if the Strat / Scholo comment offended you, it's more a gripe on how it's hard to find people who want to do it single group, because they can 10 man it, than anything. :P

I actually like dealing with the large groups of mobs. You have to take group composition into consideration for how to deal with them. Granted, it might get boring a few hours in, when you're doing it for the 50th time...

Phase 3 in Time was just a bunch of single to triple pulls of "difficult" mobs that had nothing at all special about them, not their abilties, or models, or pull difficulty, etc. The hardest thing about Phase 3 is people forgetting to invis when they come up to the pull spot and training everyone. It was pretty much the most dull part of Time.

As for me, I don't think the challenge should be in the trash clearing either. But I don't think the non bosses of the dungeon SHOULD be trash. Just because they arn't the boss of the dungeon doesn't mean they should be dull.

Personally I'm looking for D&DO to put the excitement back into dungeon crawls. I don't think there's a lot WoW could do without upsetting the crowd to make things overall more interesting, challenging, and rewarding for small group encounters.

To Agree with Corlathist, the GoD/OOW trials were fun. That totally revived the game, IMHO. Ikk4 was challenging, and holy moly once you beat Inukta, it was a time for celebration. However, these were all raids. Assuming WoW expands to some raids like this, I think it'll be fun. They just need more content patches, and like soon :(

I personally like the way WOW has implemented their End Game raid content. They give those players/guilds with desire for true old school raiding Molten Core and Onyxia. They give those smaller guild/players with less desire to hard core raid DM and now ZG.

And for those who have never organized or been apart of a guild starting to raid and learn Molten Core and Onyxia the Epic Quality Rewards are perfect for the time spent and hours burned.

y guild spent a couple of months just to learn how to handle yard trash and get ourselves past Maggy. It was very tough and aggrevating but we overcame it as a guild.

And its not like it was in EQ where you raid 3 hours to get 1 or 2 items like someone posted earlier. On an average Molten Core run it takes about 3-4 hours and you get somewhere between 10-20 Epic Drops. Very well worth the time and effort IMO.
Onyxia also only really takes about 30-45 mins and you get about 2-3 Epic Drops.

Chubbs

I never got past elementals in EQ but I enjoy WoW raiding quite a bit. I remember doing Planar bosses that would take several hours to kill a single boss even with people that knew exactly what they were doing and had done so repeatedly. None of the WoW bosses take more than 30 minutes to kill, once you know how to kill them. Trash killing in Molten Core get monotonus but the trash mobs can at least sometimes drop epic set items and they often drop items for epic crafting.

We generally raid or try to raid everynight for about 4 hours. Currently we have MC on Fridays and do full clear then and we have BWL the rest of the week with an hour somewhere in there for Ony; and when possible Kaz and Az. Once we get Nef down we'll have BWL down to two nights a week and soon to one night, by that time we'll have Silthlus to work on. BWL has been a challenge for us, it's taken weeks to get some mobs down. But getting that "click" and figuring it out makes it worthwhile, and that's not about the loot that drops it's about the cheer that goes up in Vent with 40+ people screaming in unison.

The problem with doing top instance gear or solo gear would be that they would have to add lock out timers for 5 man and solo content. Or else a group could just run through the same dungeon ad nauseum for a few weeks and get everything they needed.

And it doesn't prevent randomness in drop rates. We had a warrior running through DM 10+ times a day for over a month before he got his warrior book, and this was a warrior in full Might gotten from MC. It was much more tedious for him to get a single drop in a 5 man dungeon than it was for our guild to get him 8 drops in a 40 man dungeon. It took more weeks of running MC for the 8 items than for the one but in basic number of dungeon runs he probably did DM more often then he did MC, and believe me he is much more sick of DM than he is of MC.

I also think Raiding is a part of the game. A vast majority of the population wants to be part of something larger than themselves. A family is enough for many, but most people want social activity outside of a family on at least a casual basis. This gives rise to parties, clubs, organizations, companies etc. People want to contribute to something more than they can on an individual basis so they pool their resources. At the same time people want to be rewarded for the work they put in. This happens in the form of increased social standing and feduciary gain. Most people want to join guilds. They want to be a part of something more than just the 5 people they are with all the time. Its very difficult to do anything of value in a virtual setting that doesn't involve raiding. People can meet and run together and hang in guild chat, but the only functions where more than a few people can attend and meaningfully participate are raids. My old guild used to go streak Kelethen or all go cliff diving, but there isn't a whole lot of meaningful participation there. I agree that smaller groups make you play your class better. Group synergy can be perfect, but sometimes you just want more than the same 5 people. Its inevitable that guilds will form. Designing raiding content is a way to keep guilds occupied so they don't turn their collective power to more destructive things like killing quest NPC's and the like. There must be reward, because as Yrys said, eventually strategies get worked out and people are no longer are challenged. There must be a reason for them to continue channeling the collective might of 40+ level 60 toons in a constructive way once the challenge is gone. Hence very powerful gear becomes the reward. At end levels money becomes irrelevant because no amount of money could buy the items you want. Now, you have a group of 40+ people who only get to "play" with their guild members durring a raid, and who are no longer really raiding for challenge, but raiding for loot only.

Ok my own personal opinion is that you better be part of a fun guild. Otherwise burnout is innevitable. That's why I was always part of a casual raiding guild. We sometimes would run the harder thigns we had everyone keyed for, but most of the time we would just screw around in mid-level dungeons and try wierd things like see how long a ranger could tank etc. It takes a lot of dedication to be part of a raiding guild, and if there isn't some chemistry to keep it still a game and not work then people just dissolve and quit playing.

Sorry to ramble,
Nyte

PS. I am such a huge fan of instancing. No more waiting for another guild to be finished. HOPING they weren't going to wait for the respawn and just camp the mob perpetually. There were actually some guilds with enough people in enough time zones to perma camp something. No matter what time of week/ time of day it was the same guild. That was the worst part about guilds, instead of a friendly affiliation, it became something similar to the mob.

Raiding is good. It gives a challenge to look forward to an otherwise dull end game.

However, I am sick of people taking 80, 120, etc. people and raiding Thrall. Pussies. Real guilds do it with 40.