Custom content - how much is too much?

[RDawg816]

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

The problem I see with all of this is that as it is now, the top end guilds are still going back and killing crap like Nagafen and Vox. This is insane!

I agree that the lower guilds should have access to this type of content. The problem is, it's not easy to do. There is nothing stopping people from doing this. Even if you said if you're raiding in Kunark and/or Velious you aren't allowed to kill raid mobs in the old world....A/A and other guilds would just have their 52 alt-army in an "unaffiliated" guild to create a loophole. Greedy people will be greedy. Jerks will be jerks. That's just how life is, unfortunately.

[Jorgam]

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

I know it seems insane - but the fact is that killing Naggy and Vox is still fun. In fact, it's even more fun when it's just a team of you and your friend's elite 52 dragonslayers who are more decked out than most casual 60s.

It really would be great if we started creating either instanced content of lower end raid mobs so that younger raid guilds could progress and get more recruits without immediately being stomped to shit by the topheavy guilds OR if the top guilds would open up these windows to other raiders and work as a community.

(the latter won't happen)

I'm not saying that it isn't fun for them or others who do these things, just that creating new custom content that is intended for use by the best of the best will have no effect on freeing up existing content. Any server pop/earthquake proves exactly what will happen if more raid targets are added.

[MammothMafia]

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

I'm not saying that it isn't fun for them or others who do these things, just that creating new custom content that is intended for use by the best of the best will have no effect on freeing up existing content. Any server pop/earthquake proves exactly what will happen if more raid targets are added.

How many years and people have been trying to figure this out? The solution is simple. Create content that actually takes time to raid.
Currently not a single encounter takes these top guilds longer than 10-20 minutes to down so of course they can down 10 targets in an evening sitting. Create a raid that actually takes 4 hours to consume, make 2 or 3 of them. Boom now all of the sudden the top guilds are busy for the next 4 hours. The smaller guilds would actually be able to try some of the classic content. They can wipe, try again, call in another guild to help, ect. Everyone enjoying content. Problem solved.

[fadetree]

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

How many years and people have been trying to figure this out? The solution is simple. Create content that actually takes time to raid.
Currently not a single encounter takes these top guilds longer than 10-20 minutes to down so of course they can down 10 targets in an evening sitting. Create a raid that actually takes 4 hours to consume, make 2 or 3 of them. Boom now all of the sudden the top guilds are busy for the next 4 hours. The smaller guilds would actually be able to try some of the classic content. They can wipe, try again, call in another guild to help, ect. Everyone enjoying content. Problem solved.

Nope. People get mad that you're just adding insane difficulty and random timesinks, and then they solve it anyway, and then you're back to where you started. Adding real, engaging 'difficulty' that lasts is hard as hell, and may actually be impossible.

[Ivory]

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

How many years and people have been trying to figure this out? The solution is simple. Create content that actually takes time to raid.
Currently not a single encounter takes these top guilds longer than 10-20 minutes to down so of course they can down 10 targets in an evening sitting. Create a raid that actually takes 4 hours to consume, make 2 or 3 of them. Boom now all of the sudden the top guilds are busy for the next 4 hours. The smaller guilds would actually be able to try some of the classic content. They can wipe, try again, call in another guild to help, ect. Everyone enjoying content. Problem solved.

Instead of trying to re-create entire games worth of content that actually provides challenges...

The real solution is far more simple. Just lower the level cap to 39 and ALL the end game content gets a HUGE boost in difficulty.

Players would need to invent entire new strategies to take on "rinse and repeat" raid mobs. Without adding anything new, suddenly everything would seem like new again through the eyes of a top raiding guild of level 39ers.

[Ikon]

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

True, you won't make everyone happy. I guess i had two main opinions here:

1) Scaling upward and creating more mudflation seems like a bad idea to me.
2) Adding level and AA grind just trivializes the content we already have. Sony just used it as the carrot to keep people paying. I'd rather the carrot be interesting things to do.

Why scale at all? Why not just more content of this caliber? Theres a reason people want to play in this era.

AA's in Luclin didn't trivial content any more than levels did. AA's were an option that was used to reduce trivializing content by adding extra levels and it gave people another option other than farming greens / running the same dungeons over and over.

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

Any thing custom is too much

Not classic

There are so many signifcant non-classic things on this server does classic really matter? Probably not anymore. Pulling mobs to zoneline in Kunark Velious because of lack of lazy aggro, binding in dungeons, monk FD - > Sneak... just some of them that completely change gameplay.

[Maciver]

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

AA's in Luclin didn't trivial content any more than levels did. AA's were an option that was used to reduce trivializing content by adding extra levels and it gave people another option other than farming greens / running the same dungeons over and over.


There are so many significant non-classic things on this server does classic really matter? Probably not anymore. Pulling mobs to zone line in Kunark Velious because of lack of lazy aggro, binding in dungeons, monk FD - > Sneak... just some of them that completely change game play.

The content gave people another option with or without AA.

Won't happen here anyway, so I guess it's not worth arguing about. There is like 20k AA on live now if you want lol.

[Ikon]

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

The content gave people another option with or without AA.

Won't happen here anyway, so I guess it's not worth arguing about. There is like 20k AA on live now if you want lol.

AA's gave people something to do, moreso than the content which is quickly completed, which is why within 3 months or less of an expansion new content was done and a new expansion was in the works.

I don't think you can accurately say AA's "wont happen" here. Maybe / maybe not.

[Maciver]

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

AA's gave people something to do, moreso than the content which is quickly completed, which is why within 3 months or less of an expansion new content was done and a new expansion was in the works.

I don't think you can accurately say AA's "wont happen" here. Maybe / maybe not.

Perhaps it was done, but you were not done gearing all your players in that amount of time. People were still needing stuff from aow, tunare, ntov, and other places when luclin released. Same with luclin and pop.

If they did release AA, at least you would have time to complete it. I couldn't ever keep up on live, they were pumping shit down our throats so fast. I gave up after pop. lol

We can agree to disagree ya?? I thought AA's were a shit addition. I was 60 damn it! i was done fucking grinding, I could just hang out and raid and help who needed it. Whats this? AA? Noooooooo! They changed my beloved models and gave me more xp to grind I was so angry! Aside from that i really enjoyed the content.

Edit: I would be fine even today with EQ if they stopped using levels as a carrot to chase. Just leave it alone and release new xpacs. The benefit of being max level is, you can just enjoy the content and dont have enourmos amounts of xp grinding facing you down. I was a working adult then and I am still a working adult today. I cursed EQ for a lot of years cause of the xp carrot and the try hard graphical up dates.

[Xzavie]

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

The problem I see with all of this is that as it is now, the top end guilds are still going back and killing crap like Nagafen and Vox. This is insane!

Until there is someway to keep them away from even the most basic of raid targets that are so far under their ability, nothing will change. I don't believe adding more content that is tailored to them will do anything to stop them from going back to killing every lower mob they can find once they are done with the new uber stuff that week, none but themselves can even see/kill.

This server is a case study on why raid instancing was created.