How realistic is casual raiding?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by unsunghero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think the forums creates a biased impression that the game is mostly high end raiders while the actual majority of players are casual unguilded scrubs that only play a couple hours a week/month, don’t raid, and don’t even realize this forum exists

The appeal of this game to many casuals is that you can stay casual because you aren’t falling behind a never-ending new-expansion-release power curve. The reality is you still probably can’t ever catch up to the current high end but at least you can pretend you can. Whereas with TLP or modern MMO’s you know you’ll never catch up because by the time you do, another expansion has released invalidating all the current gear

I understand that most players on P99 are casual players who never/barely raid. However, I did do a lot of raiding in the Aftermath days. I know that you can easily get 300+ players in a raid zone if it is during a popular time. Losing a few hundred players due to changing the raid scene in a negative way wouldn't be healthy for P99.

The biggest problem I see is the potential for a cascading effect. First, the hardcore raiders will leave. This won't decimate the population, but it will reduce it by a good 10-20%. When the casual raiders fill in the gap, they will end up leaving faster due to getting what they wanted. This will cause more players to leave.

Having the population at a healthy level is what is keeping the casual players playing in my opinion. This means you get more opportunities for groups, cheaper items due to them being farmed more, etc.

If the population drops below a certain number, more people leave because the server feels empty. This has happened many times before in MMO's. If a multiplayer game has been running 1000+ players consistently for 5+ years, you don't want to mess with the formula. For some reason it works, even if we don't know why. It isn't worth the risk to change it in my opinion.

P99 is harder to get into than other games due to all of the hurdles you need to jump over to start playing. It does turn off a lot of new players. P99 isn't great at providing access to new players, so player turnaround is lower. This means losing players has a bigger effect.