Changes to Raid-Content/Zones

[Gelanin]

Okey, some of this was discussed in the following thread (http://forums.anarchyonline.com/show....php?t=433666), but since that also turned into a small flame fest, i've decided to try and make a new thread for it here, while hopefully the old thread can contain the flames.

As we all know there are not unlimited content in AO, and i think i can safely say that all of us want more Content, perhaps especially high-lvl content/Raid-zones.
Currently there are only a few raid-zones, Pandemonium, Bio-Dome, Alien Playfields and to some extent Camelot.

So, one of the highest prioritys should ofcourse be to make new/more raid content.

Another change FC should consider is making the current content accessible by more people and at their chosen time, not like it is today, where most content is owned by point-based bots. This prevent Guilds/Orgs/friends from accessing this content.

So, my suggestion for change is the following.

Instance all current raid-zones, and make them accessible by a key-system similiar to Bio-Dome.

Let there be several different sized boxes with keys for the different raid-zones. As an example you could have the following. (I'm using Pandemonium as an example here, but it could be any raid-zone)

Tiny box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 6 people)
Small box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 12 people)
Medium box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 18 people)
Large box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 24 people)
Huge box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 30 people)
Gargantuan box of Pandemonium Access Cards (up to 36 people)

This way the developers could adjust the content to the amount of people in the raid, avoiding the possibility for players to Zerg the content by just tossing more people on the raid. Each of the raids would be more or less equally hard because of the fact that the developers would know the maximum amount of players in the raid, and could adjust the difficulty accordingly, making sure the raid always was a challenge, nomatter if you were 18 people or 36 people.
This would also make new content last longer, since it would probably take the playerbase some time to actually figure out how to do a new raid zone, instead of just invading it with a 100+ people raid bot.

In other words, if you went into pandemonium with access cards from a Gargantuan box, the raid would be harder (more mobs, longer, harder mobs, different mobs, different tricks, perhaps even different loot tables)
than if you went into it with an accesscard from say a Medium box.

For some raids/raid-zones there might only be a Large and Huge box of access cards, while for another raid/raid-zone, you would only have a tiny/small box of access cards.

And with this content being instanced, you also make sure that everyone can actually access the content, compared to today when most of the content is camped by the zerg-bots, making it hard for Orgs or other groups of people to get access to the content. Or they could get access to it, and become very unpopular with everyone else who is on the zerg/point-bots.


Now, taking this even one step further, you could rotate on which raids are instanced in a particular week, while making other raids/raid-zones happen in 25% zones in that week, or being as it is today, to provide those who enjoy the thrill of the adrenaline when competing for a boss with another raid group.

That way you would get more variations of the same content, thereby making the same content last longer.

Quick example.

Week 1: Camelot/Tara: 25%, Pandemonium instanced and APF as it is today.
Week 2: Camelot/Tara: Instanced, Pandemonium in 25% gas, and APF instanced
Week 3: Camelot/Tara: As today, Pandemonium as today, and APF in 25% gas.

Imagine all the fun this would lead to :-)

Another alternative would be to give access to all raids/raid-zones as Instanced content, but in addition to that leave them as they are today aswell, giving the playerbase the best of both worlds.



PS! No flames, and please keep things civil and constructive critizism is always welcome. Useless whines are not :P

[Iriche]

bump

[Jaroba]

bump for Instanced Tara
bump for Instanced Pandemonium
apf works good as it is atm I think

towerwars is a big problem still. 140people attacking a base causing cc before any enemy has shown up... I shiver of the imaginary thought's in my head regarding lag crash cc that I think will occour when omni is getting in shape and fight with equal numbers O.o.

[Taikwandodo]

buzump

[Soule]

the recycling of the whole keycard mechanic idea is probably the best way to make raiding fun again in other raids than biodome without addidng new mechanics to the game I sure hope devs consider this. If this is impossible shorter timer or spawn upon TSS killing should provide more ressource for the crazy need of theses items and give more chance to whoever can raid the zone sucessfully at getting some reward after it. You could also make other beast like unique raids/encounters on the same timer with similar sought of items.

Another suggestion would be 1 or multiple PvP server for pvp wars since the lag is unbearable, some sort of system balancing numbers of players active on both side would be great as well. Character transfers would be awesome since it can take awhile between patches and finding fights long and boring.

Tara should be instanced and impossible to warp in dungeon, ideally on a PH system so the dungeon is always active instead of having everyone everyone and their sisters log in every 9hours. If not some sort of king of the hill PH mob in 2h0 that could give some interesting loot or perhaps an AoE buff upon death like the HI eremites boss to give an incentive to pvp there. Small things like +dmg add all off/def, maybe some title after a bunch of kills that give you acess to pvp loot. This mob should have a low % chance to spawn so people cant farm this too fast and move on.

[Khalem]

Personally i dont like the keycard system. And i dont much care for APF either as APF is content for 3 raids every 7 hours, on a schedule of Funcoms choosing.
Which in turn basically boils down to 2 zerg bots to give those who wants access to the content access, and one zone for orgs. Again, not enough content to go around to those who want it.

I much more favour a WoW like approach. The game itself should have a raid system (see WoW for an example) where a designated raid leader can manage up to say 6 or 8 teams for the largest raids. Once a raid force enters an instance, that instance stays open to that raid force for x hours. Upon completing the instance, each player gets flagged or a nano run in their NCU to prevent them from doing that instance again for say 12 or 18 hours. This gives you
1) Content on demand, which is what funcom keeps trying to play big on, but it really isnt there in the game today aside from SK and RK missions (Dont say aliens because its not quite on demand, you have to work to even get in a position to do the raid, but it somewhat on demand oriented yes, and HI isnt instanced to thats limited too and requires farming beforehand)
2) Loot flow control, as any single person or raid force can only access the content every x hours, but when they do want to access the content, its there.
3) An end to the boring zergs which is a nececcity due to the lack of content to go around.
4) A proper raid system in the game itself (Good god, its 4 years along, massive raid encounters are in the game, but AO doesnt have the mechanics to manage massive raids)
5) Did i mention less lag?

I keep bringing up WoW as an example, simply because it contained something i really loved. Content on demand by proper instancing. If i wanted to do a raid encounter i could get a few friends gathered and go off to an instanced dungeon and we would be allowed to have that to ourselves. No damage contest, just pure enjoying the content and the challenges it presented.

I also miss the quest system from WoW, but thats a different story.

[styxe]

*bump for this as an addition and not a change*

I don't think new loot has to be added, just maybe alternate ways of getting stuff. For example a second statue in Pandemonium for the instanced versions, so if you don't want to do zerg bots, you can take your org there to the instanced version, and the same for APF/Tara.

[Eruslavuro]

Personally i dont like the keycard system. And i dont much care for APF either as APF is content for 3 raids every 7 hours, on a schedule of Funcoms choosing.
Which in turn basically boils down to 2 zerg bots to give those who wants access to the content access, and one zone for orgs. Again, not enough content to go around to those who want it.

I much more favour a WoW like approach. The game itself should have a raid system (see WoW for an example) where a designated raid leader can manage up to say 6 or 8 teams for the largest raids. Once a raid force enters an instance, that instance stays open to that raid force for x hours. Upon completing the instance, each player gets flagged or a nano run in their NCU to prevent them from doing that instance again for say 12 or 18 hours. This gives you
1) Content on demand, which is what funcom keeps trying to play big on, but it really isnt there in the game today aside from SK and RK missions (Dont say aliens because its not quite on demand, you have to work to even get in a position to do the raid, but it somewhat on demand oriented yes, and HI isnt instanced to thats limited too and requires farming beforehand)
2) Loot flow control, as any single person or raid force can only access the content every x hours, but when they do want to access the content, its there.
3) An end to the boring zergs which is a nececcity due to the lack of content to go around.
4) A proper raid system in the game itself (Good god, its 4 years along, massive raid encounters are in the game, but AO doesnt have the mechanics to manage massive raids)
5) Did i mention less lag?

I keep bringing up WoW as an example, simply because it contained something i really loved. Content on demand by proper instancing. If i wanted to do a raid encounter i could get a few friends gathered and go off to an instanced dungeon and we would be allowed to have that to ourselves. No damage contest, just pure enjoying the content and the challenges it presented.

I also miss the quest system from WoW, but thats a different story.

A really big bump to this.. People might not like WoW but in some cases like this its really well organized and its fun. Ao need to adapt to the new reality of MMORPG, its a really urgent issue.

[Wanuarmi]

trying to force the whole server to coop on a monster doesnt work... pande should be instanced.

I have a feeling AO was abandoned though, its an old game with no major changes being made on a regular basis. maybe we are better off waiting for AO2, the unannounced funcom game.

im tired of the diablo-SL monster bashing, wish there was a reason to go back to RK. there isnt though, im gonna look for something else. maybe even live a little O_o

[Eruslavuro]

AO isnt abandoned.

And yes, its a old game, but its possible to make changes, if not.. Well.. maybe u right then.. But to do some serious changes it require time.

We dont need AO2, we just need some serious updates. atleast is what i think.

[darthgedo]

sorry to disappoint you, but with the current system settings (and cooling mechanism) of FunCom`s server base, instancing such a big zone will NEVER happen.
silirrion said it in this thread

[Khalem]

sorry to disappoint you, but with the current system settings (and cooling mechanism) of FunCom`s server base, instancing such a big zone will NEVER happen.
silirrion said it in this thread

Which does not mean it cant happen, just that it will have to undergo structural changes in order for it to happen first.

I personally think it would be well worth the investment in time to keep the endgame fun and challenging. Keeping playerbase happy == good(tm). Unlike now where the endgame content makes players frustrated, and did i mention, leave AO altogether because of it?

Sure funcom probably isnt even noticing it due to the number of new players flowing into the game, but they are loosing valuable community members due to neglecting the endgame content.

[Tritos]

AO really needs a new High - mid lvl Raidcontent, which one is tricky and new. Not only a Dungeon with old textures. Really something new and big one and not only bashing HP from a Boss down.
I not understand why FC is patching content so slowly. Please FC look at other popular MMORPG´s what they do. They feed the community with new stuff. Really new stuff. If FC would do this, alot of ppl would be happy and would stay at AO. But since AI there is no big content change. A Dungeon with 4-5 new Creatures, tricky things inside and fun for hours would be great.

How about a World event ? I like the Idea, like in EQ2 or WoW. To open a Gate for a dungeon, the community of a server must work together to open Gates or what ever to get into the new zone/dungeon.
Please FC think about. AO got a great world and have potential, dont miss it.

[Deathstalker]

A really big bump to this.. People might not like WoW but in some cases like this its really well organized and its fun. Ao need to adapt to the new reality of MMORPG, its a really urgent issue.

The WoW Disney grapics give me headaches.
But the instancing is godly. (gimme D3 plxkthxbbq)

[Gelanin]

bump

[Tech]

Another vote for this. More content-on-demand in the form of instanced raid zones would increase my enjoyment in AO by a lot. After being gone for two years and coming back, it's the same kind of bots running the show. It's time that FC takes what they were pioneers on (instancing) and improves on it again. At the very least introduce the biodome system more places.

[deniska]

Personally i dont like the keycard system. And i dont much care for APF either as APF is content for 3 raids every 7 hours, on a schedule of Funcoms choosing.
Which in turn basically boils down to 2 zerg bots to give those who wants access to the content access, and one zone for orgs. Again, not enough content to go around to those who want it.

I much more favour a WoW like approach. The game itself should have a raid system (see WoW for an example) where a designated raid leader can manage up to say 6 or 8 teams for the largest raids. Once a raid force enters an instance, that instance stays open to that raid force for x hours. Upon completing the instance, each player gets flagged or a nano run in their NCU to prevent them from doing that instance again for say 12 or 18 hours. This gives you
1) Content on demand, which is what funcom keeps trying to play big on, but it really isnt there in the game today aside from SK and RK missions (Dont say aliens because its not quite on demand, you have to work to even get in a position to do the raid, but it somewhat on demand oriented yes, and HI isnt instanced to thats limited too and requires farming beforehand)
2) Loot flow control, as any single person or raid force can only access the content every x hours, but when they do want to access the content, its there.
3) An end to the boring zergs which is a nececcity due to the lack of content to go around.
4) A proper raid system in the game itself (Good god, its 4 years along, massive raid encounters are in the game, but AO doesnt have the mechanics to manage massive raids)
5) Did i mention less lag?

I keep bringing up WoW as an example, simply because it contained something i really loved. Content on demand by proper instancing. If i wanted to do a raid encounter i could get a few friends gathered and go off to an instanced dungeon and we would be allowed to have that to ourselves. No damage contest, just pure enjoying the content and the challenges it presented.

I also miss the quest system from WoW, but thats a different story.

OMG im off to WoW
But if seriously: HUGE BUMP
Those instancing mechanics could solve 1. lag 2. stupid drama 3. zergness 4. stupid lust for specific zones with the best loot

Bottom line: FC start thinking about implementing something similar, because otherwise prety soon ARKs and GMs would be prety much alone on RK

[Piping_Hot]

Instanced content rocks. bump for this

[Eruslavuro]

Bottom line: FC start thinking about implementing something similar, because otherwise prety soon ARKs and GMs would be prety much alone on RK

BUMP!

[harkness]

I think some form of instancing would be ideal in the long run, but even applying BioDome style instancing will probably take more development effort than the increasingly large number of people at Zods/Beast would like.

One thing I've noticed after being in the clan Pande bot for a couple of months now is that players and Funcom should really look at accessibility of various end game content as a market system. It's easy for players to see it in terms of the points in the Pande bot. In the last two months points for high demand items such as memories has increased substantially. Same thing for tnh belts. Why is this? Basically, because there are more people showing up and wanting those items than there are items dropping. But unlike many other rare items in the game, players can't just decide to skip these items and level to the next ones, most players are deciding to grind more and more pande raids. It leads to people not wanting to miss even a single raid, and I believe leads to the 70+ person zods raids we've seen and the 110+ Beast raids.

Here's my suggestion: Reduce zods timers to 5 hours, and reduce Beast timer to 14 hours.

It's a really, really simple fix, that should be easy to change, test, and deploy. It should increase the supply of zods loot by about 20%, which may be a bit on the low side, but would at least start to offset the fact that there are so many more active 200+ players now.

Yes, it's true that there will still be people who attend every single zods raid because they are obsessed, but if they do, they will get all the loot they are interested in that bit faster, and then stop coming. I believe that most people would attend less often, either because they attend fanatically for a couple of weeks until they get a few memories, then become much less obsessed, or because they can only take 1 or two zods raids per day!

This is basic economics. Supply and demand. Funcom did a great thing by recognizing inflation of creds based in large part on ingots. Now it's time to recognize the scarcity of a fixed supply with ever increasing demand.

Arrien