:: Updated by Hannar @ 01/20/04 07:06 pm ::

19. Raiding


Wed Aug 27, 2003 08:17 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=74854&highlight=#74854

Moorgard wrote:

Bear in mind that metaguilds formed as a reaction to content, not as a natural social structure. What I mean is, when high-level content started showing up, guilds began to feel they needed a large number of players to beat it. When the developers had to design the next tier of content, they had to take that guild size into account, which in turn inspired guilds to grow further. The cycle kept going, until raids had to be designed as equations of DPS vs. mob hitpoints. I've raided almost all content in EQ. While I had a tremendous amount of fun doing so, ultimately raids become tedious. Where is the challenge in killing Fennin Ro for the tenth time? It's gone, because nothing you do (short of deliberate sabotage) can affect the outcome of that fight. If you're the warrior, you use your disc and position the mob. If you're the cleric, you hit a hotkey. If you're the ranger, you shoot your arrows. That's it. We want encounters where strategy is crucial. Where every member of your raid force has to be at the top of his or her game to pull off the victory. You simply can't do that if you require 60 or 70 bodies to throw at the target. Our mantra in designing EQ2 is DIME: we want players to have a Deep, Intimate, Meaningful, and Entertaining experience. When we have to make a decision about going one way or another with some aspect of design, we fall back to our mantra. That's not to say that dragon raids designed for a smaller number of people has to be easier than one designed for 70. If anything, we can make the encounter itself more challenging, because we can make it so the actions of every player matter. Being an "uber" player, then, becomes not a function of how many hours a week you can play, but... brace yourself here... how well you play your class. Again, this is one of those issues that scares people until you see it in action, mostly because a lot of us are used to the comfort factor of being just another body in a metaguild. We intend to give you all the thrill of that experience but with none of the anonymity. It's not an easy trick, but we're up for the challenge.

Thu Aug 28, 2003 01:51 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=75659&highlight=#75659

Moorgard wrote:

Valderen wrote: Yomarbalthasar, I undertsand what you're saying. But look at it this way, not sure if you were playing EQ before Kunark. Nagafen and Vox were "epic" encounters back then, and all they required was 24 people to do. I don't see doing Rallos Zek with 60-80 people to be more epic then doing Nagafen or Vox back then. That's an excellent point that some people forget. Our goal is to get back to the intimate, rewarding feeling of that kind of encounter. Also keep in mind that it's much easier to tune an ubermob if you know exactly how many people can be thrown at it. When you have to design content around a potentially unlimited number of clerics with basically infinite mana, you're much more restricted in what you can come up with.

Thu Aug 28, 2003 07:21 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=76070&highlight=#76070

Moorgard wrote:

Ewle Ebonlore wrote: Beating end game content should be a mixutre of: 1) Skill 2) Dedication 3) Leadership By tuning end game content for 3-4 groups you are only primarly promoting: 1) Skill When you take away the dedication and leadership qualities from the equation you lose allot of what made EQ1 great! How does a smaller raid size obviate either of the second two? You still need players who are dedicated. In fact, you need them to be *more* dedicated, because if they screw up it will be far more costly than in a larger group where you have a dozen other members of the same class to pick up the slack. You still need strong leadership. When you have limited resources to use against an opponent, a leader is required to be much smarter than if that leader has unlimited resources. We're simply talking about two different styles of leadership. Controlling a huge force has certain challenges (many of which are zero fun) that are not necessarily present on a smaller raid, but the smaller raid requires a level of focus that the huge force might not. As I said, I've been on the big raids. I've done everything from training Fear in the old days to pulling the elemental gods for a huge mass of players. I've lead raids against gods as well. Was it personally challenging? Sure, much of the time it was. But I can say with 100% certainty that there were an awful lot of people on those raids that weren't challenged at all, because their roles were either insignificant or basically nonexistant. Our raid system will require a high level of skill, deep dedication to the cause, and rock-solid leadership. From everyone. As a player, that challenge excites the heck out of me.

Thu Aug 28, 2003 07:34 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=76082&highlight=#76082

Moorgard wrote:

Tell me if this is a true statement: "There's no way six people can have fun and be challenged playing D&D together, because they won't ever have the sense of accomplishment and community that a group of 60 people playing it would." . . . . . Well, is it true? I'll go out on a limb and guess that nobody will come up with a well-supported way to say that it is. "Ah!" you say, "But D&D isn't EverQuest!" And you're right. But you know what? EverQuest II isn't EverQuest either.

Thu Aug 28, 2003 08:20 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=76132&highlight=#76132

Moorgard wrote:

Pikon wrote: But there saying moor it's more than just yes we killed this "uber" mob and please correct me if I'm wrong, They are saying we have done what so few have, that is another accomplishment in itself am I right? One of the arguments that people keep making is that if 24 people can theoretically kill MobX, that means far more raids will be killing the mob because it takes less people to do so. I'm saying that's not necessarily true. Think about this. Out of the typical raid force of 70, how many of those people could be yanked out of their normal roles and successfully lead the raid on their own? My opinion, based on years of raiding, is not a large number of people. Most are followers, not leaders. Limiting raids to smaller sizes doesn't necessarily mean more people will consume the same content. I'd argue that if anything it will make it more challenging, because folks who might have sat in the background and mashed a hotkey now have to step up to a new level of challenge. I'm actually concerned about *less* people consuming the content overall, because doing so takes more skill than many players have shown in the past. But for arguments sake, let's look at some math. Let's say that on a certain EQ server there are seven raid guilds of 70 players each in the top couple tiers of content. That's about 500 players, give or take. Now say that those guilds had to be broken down into units of 24 instead of 70. Assuming that encounters were scaled down in the exact same proportion, would all of those subdivided raid forces be just as successful as they were before? I'd say no, because not all players are created equal. A lot of it would come down to leadership and skill, and those factors would be in much shorter supply.

Mon Oct 06, 2003 03:16 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=106820&highlight=#106820

Moorgard wrote:

Viper1 wrote: do you think that raid encounters will be geared towards having 1 of each sub-class ? Nope. That wouldn't be very flexible.

11/22/03 10:30pm
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=60012238&start=60045888

Moorgard wrote:

We will indeed have raid content at all levels, not just the high end. I believe the first raids come into play at around level 15 or so.

Thu Jan 08, 2004 07:32 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=173897&highlight=#173897

Moorgard wrote:

cepheus wrote: The operative word when describing raid content groups is the word 'Maximum' -- as in, the Maximum size of a raid force is 24 players. This suggests that they will design raid content for forces less than 24, though greater than 6, players. Correct. There will be two-group raid content, for instance. Nothing says you have to have a full group for non-raid content. Certainly things will go more smoothly for you if you have at least one of every archetype, but skilled players who want to do more with less will find ways to do so.

1/8 10:22am
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=62303311&start=62307908

Moorgard wrote:

From a design perspective, we want raids to meet the same goals that experience groups do: to provide an intimate, personal experience and to give players a tactical challenge. Limiting the raid size to 24 accomplishes both things. It makes the contribution of every member much more important, giving players the feeling that they really do play a vital role in the encounter. The size limit also allows us to design battles that are based far more on tactics than on sheer numbers. The broader the range of player numbers that can be thrown at an encounter, the harder it is to balance. We don't want to trivialize content by allowing unlimited player resources to be thrown at it. If we design an encounter to be fun, challenging, and rewarding for 24 people but allow someone to bring 40 players to it, it essentially negates the challenge and undermines the pride felt by beating it. Encounters that scale based on the number of players attending sounds great, but depending on the granularity it could amount to a massive amount of work. Instead of designing one encounter, we'd essentially be making four or five encounters and working to ensure all of them are balanced would be a nightmare. When you're dealing with a metagroup of 70 players, you have to consider how the fight is different if 40 of them are priests as opposed to 40 of them being scouts. The more variables you have, the greater the extremes you have to go to in order to achieve balance. The goal of our raid system is not to be exclusionary, but rather to make fights tactical and meaningful. Whether raid size was set at 40, 60, or 100 there could be a case made for some other number; the limit we have chosen is 24 because it fits the gameplay experience we're trying to provide. If players lose a fight to a boss mob we don't want their reaction to be "we need bigger numbers," but rather "we need a better tactic."

1/8 2:49pm
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=62303311&start=62326506

Moorgard wrote:

"Even though it sounds reasonable, I highly doubt that's the way it's handled." Actually, it pretty much is. Say you go on a raid of Orc Lord Bobo and kill him. You get a temporary flag for seven days that says you can't fight him again during that time. During those seven days, other people can still trigger their own instances, but you personally can't attend another raid until your timer expires. This hypothetical scenario is basically the same as killing a mob in EQ that has a seven-day timer except that other people can make their own attempt. Those of you who like to race other guilds for content may see this as a bad thing, but the majority of players who have been on the losing end of such competition would likely consider it as a positive step. There are a couple other things to keep in mind. First, raids aren't generally going to be multi-hour events as they were in EQ. The instanced raid areas will be sub-zones within regular dungeons, and the events themselves will be relatively short in duration. So the actual raid itself might be a 20-30 minute thing on average, which negates a lot of the worries of what to do if someone wants to leave and so forth. Second, the raid itself isn't the only part of the equation. There will often be a series of tasks that must be accomplished to allow players to trigger a raid event, and some of those can take a significant time investment. It's not going to be like LDoN or the trials in PoJ where you're sitting around waiting for a timer to expire so you can click and enter; there will be quests and other requirements necessary for some of this content. It won't be a case of every individual needing to be keyed for an area, but some people are going to have to do preparatory work in order to trigger the raid.

Wed Feb 25, 2004 01:03 pm
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=220937&highlight=#220937

Moorgard wrote:

Instancing isn't there to serve up mobs on a silver platter. It's there to alleviate frustrations and bottlenecks that get in the way of enjoying the content you've earned a shot at. Boss mobs will be handled a variety of ways. Many will exist in pocket zones that you have to perform quests or other work to gain access to, others will exist in non-instanced areas. If a guild of 100 wants to send in four raid-forces who have earned access to a boss mob simultaneously, they can do so. I suspect that will rarely happen, however, based on my experience with how large guilds react to size-restricted content in EQ. It will be a natural function that smaller guilds become far more common at the raid level. We have all kinds of ways to control the flow of uber items into the world, including timers, quest restrictions, drop tables, and more. This is certainly not an issue we have ignored, so there's no need to fret that we're introducing a mechanic that's going to trivialize boss fights.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 03/15/04 10:09 am ::

Sat Mar 13, 2004 12:14 am
http://www.eqii.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=235916&highlight=#235916

Moorgard wrote:

The raid zones are definitely the exception rather than the rule. We will have *far* more pocket-zone encounters than full-zone raids. And the full-zone raids aren't just end-game zones, so don't assume their inclusion is our attempt at catering to uberguilds. We simply felt that making certain dungeons into fully instanced zones provided a better gaming experience in those situations. There's only a few of them, as opposed to many more encounters of the type I've been discussing for months.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/03/04 02:47 pm ::

03-24-2004 09:43 AM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=17788#M17788

Moorgard wrote:

I've always thought it would be very cool to get six friends in a room and play EQ together. That would be about the closest you could come to the P&P experience, because you'd get all the additional social interactions that happen in person which are so hard to capture online. The closest I've ever gotten is having three people in a room grouped up, and that was a blast. I've always thought that the ultimate guild would be one in which all the members could play in the same room. I think raiding would be so much smoother and there would be far less infighting and misunderstandings. But you'd need a pretty big room to hold 24 computers, not to mention your own power plant.

04-07-2004 07:34 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=38092#M38092

Moorgard wrote:

While perhaps there will be more guilds trying high-end encounters, I don't think there will be more uber players per capita than in any other game--including EQ. Because even though the content is arguably more available, it's not about availibility as much as it is about dedication. The majority of players simply don't fit into the playstyle of raiding constantly. Even if there was a target that dropped uberloot available every night for every guild, most of them simply wouldn't be raiding that often. Players who love to raid, raid. Players who love to be laid back and socialize will do that. Assuming that guilds in EQII will average from 24-40 players, I think people will move from one to another not based on size, but on ambition. I love being in GuildA, but they don't want to raid as often as I do, so I move to join GuildB instead. Same numbers, just totally different focus. The uberguilds in EQ are in most cases not the largest on their server, just the most dedicated to what they do. While it is safe to assume that size won't be the deciding factor for success in EverQuest II, it is not safe to assume that this means everyone will have equal amounts of loot. Ambition and dedication will be even more important keys for prosperity.

06-17-2004 07:37 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=135280#M135280

Moorgard wrote:

For epic zones (get used to this terminology--it's what the designers call instanced pocket zones) that are intended for a certain number of groups, the zone-in mechanism will limit the number of people who can enter. For contested bosses that are out in the open, conning it will tell you the maximum number of groups that can engage it. If you try to attack such a boss with a larger raid force than is intended, you'll be in for an unpleasant surprise. I'll leave it at that for now.

06-18-2004 06:19 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=135960#M135960

Moorgard wrote:

I'm not talking about spawning extra bosses or something that would allow one raid force to grief another. You'll know going in how many people the encounter is intended for, and if you try to contradict that then the only one who will suffer is your own raid force. Locking rules still apply to contested epic mobs. But you have to meet the raid size qualifications to be able to lock it.

06-26-2004 10:08 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=141394#M141394

Moorgard wrote:

xtro wrote: I also would like to know if the 24 max raid and the 24 subclasses was by design so a raid could have one of each subclass on it. No. The entire point of an archetype system is to provide flexibility rather than strict limitations.

06-26-2004 11:20 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=141440#M141440

Moorgard wrote:

Shuyunh wrote: MG, I think this archetype system makes sense at the group level, but at the raid level there should be some specialization that each subclass brings to the table. This will encourage guilds to look for a wide variaty of subclasses for thier membership. Subclasses bring specialization to both groups and raids. My point was that you aren't *required* to have one of every subclass at a raid, just as you won't need to exclude any particular subclass as being unnecessary. Because the core roles of each profession are balanced at the subclass level, all subclasses will have the tools to carry out their main jobs. But there will certainly be plenty of opportunities for the various subclasses to shine, and some particular fights may provide advantages to some subclasses over others. We aren't setting out to create a generic system, just one that provides a lot of flexibility.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 07/12/04 05:56 pm ::

07-10-2004 01:24 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=149104#M149104

Moorgard wrote:

I made a couple edits to the Combat and Raid FAQs that may be of interest, as they detail our new con system. A summary of the new information is below: How do I determine the difficulty of an opponent I’m going to fight? The target window tells you several important things about your opponent. It shows you the numerical level of the entity you have targeted. The color of the target's name indicates how challenging the encounter is: grey names mean the fight is below your abilities and will give no experience or reward, green names mean the opponent is very easy, blue names mean an easy fight, white names indicate the opponent is even with your abilities, yellow names mean the fight will be challenging, orange names indicate a difficult encounter, and red names mean the battle will be very dangerous. If the target has a red glow around its name, that means the target is aggressive toward you and will attack if you get too close to it. Targets with a threat level of grey will not attack you, even if they are aggressive to players within the intended level range of the encounter. In other words, you won't be attacked by anything that won't give you some reward for defeating it. I clicked on a goblin with a white name and saw it was level 8. I clicked on another goblin that was level 8, but its name was yellow. What makes them different? Level alone doesn't determine how challenging the encounter will be. Creatures have a tier value assigned to them that affects their capabilities; a higher tier means the opponent will be more challenging than the same type of creature with a lower tier. While the goblins are the same level in the example above, the one with the yellow name is tougher and will present more of a challenge (as well as a greater reward for defeating it). The tier system allows us to provide much more valuable feedback to the player than just an indication of the target's level. How will I know the number of groups that a raid is intended for? In the case of instanced events, you will be told either by a character in game or through some other means how many groups can enter the pocket zone where the encounter takes place. For contested boss fights in open areas, an icon next to the name of the boss will tell you the size of the raid force that is allowed to attack it. If you try to attack the encounter with a force larger than intended, you will be unable to lock the encounter or do damage to it; however, the opponent can attack and kill you at will. Attempts to cheat are therefore discouraged.

:: Updated by Hannar @ 08/01/04 05:12 pm ::

07-22-2004 03:28 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=156939#M156939

Moorgard wrote:

In my guild we had an officer channel for just this purpose, and it worked fine. You'll have the same ability to make custom chat channels in our game.

07-25-2004 03:34 PM
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=158488#M158488

Moorgard wrote:

In a raid-centric game there are few challenges that can't be overcome simply through numbers. Clerics running out of mana? Add more clerics. Mob regens too fast? Add more DPS classes. Going through tanks too quickly? Recruit more warriors. While there are some fights that can only be won if you use a certain tactic, once you know the tactic it's just about having enough warm bodies to allow the math to work out in your favor. The purpose of limiting the number of players on a raid is to eliminate that randomness from the equation. Because we know exactly what resources players can bring into a fight, we can concentrate on making content in which tactics determine whether or not you win instead of just numbers. Basing encounter balance upon a finite pool of resources is a good thing, and it will allow for exactly the kinds of "thinking" fights you're asking for.