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.

[PlsNoBan]

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

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.

I'm going to just respectfully agree to disagree here. Even if you use the 300 number for "hardcore raiders" which I suspect it's probably a bit less than that. Many of those 300 are just warmbodies that are only in those guilds cause its the ONLY WAY to actually participate in high value endgame raiding. But even granting that 300. If you have 1000 players on the server at peak (rough estimate here) and you take 300 hardcore raiders and you make a change to make endgame more approachable to the majority of the server. Out of those 300 I can 100% guarantee that not 100% of those 300 people are going to go "Well this server sucks now I quit". I'd guess probably like 30% of those raiders may quit? That's being kind of generous I think? You're talking about losing less than 100 players at peak. The casuals not participating in endgame at all right now aren't going to start participating cause it becomes more approachable then get a few pieces of gear and go "Well I'm bored of the game I've been playing for 5+ years now cause I got some raid loot". Also on top of that like I mentioned earlier. How many players is P99 going to GAIN by bringing back people that left cause they were jaded by the current endgame system?

Just the way I see it. No way to really prove this one way or another without trying it. The comparison to TLP's doesn't really work I don't think. There's a lot of differences between P99 and TLP that change things. I certainly don't think P99 staff will ever entertain making changes like this though. People have been begging for changes like this for a decade and nothing has substantially changed so this conversation is ultimately pointless.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I'm going to just respectfully agree to disagree here. Even if you use the 300 number for "hardcore raiders" which I suspect it's probably a bit less than that. Many of those 300 are just warmbodies that are only in those guilds cause its the ONLY WAY to actually participate in high value endgame raiding. But even granting that 300. If you have 1000 players on the server at peak (rough estimate here) and you take 300 hardcore raiders and you make a change to make endgame more approachable to the majority of the server. Out of those 300 I can 100% guarantee that not 100% of those 300 people are going to go "Well this server sucks now I quit". I'd guess probably like 30% of those raiders may quit? That's being kind of generous I think? You're talking about losing less than 100 players at peak. The casuals not participating in endgame at all right now aren't going to start participating cause it becomes more approachable then get a few pieces of gear and go "Well I'm bored of the game I've been playing for 5+ years now cause I got some raid loot".

Just the way I see it. No way to really prove this one way or another without trying it. The comparison to TLP's doesn't really work I don't think. There's a lot of differences between P99 and TLP that change things. I certainly don't think P99 staff will ever entertain making changes like this though. People have been begging for changes like this for a decade and nothing has substantially changed so this conversation is ultimately pointless.

As you say, there is no way to know for sure until you try it. I am simply saying mistakes are harder to fix on P99 due to the barriers of entry and lower amount of new players coming in. I am not trying to claim that all of the raiders will leave, but you have to assume the worst case when you have no data. That is what I do.

That is why I would prefer to try any drastic changes on another P99 server, as I mentioned before. That way we don't lose players, and we get to see what will happen definitively. I agree with you that there are other factors in TLP that affect player turnaround, but it really is the closest analogy we have to P99.

[PlsNoBan]

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

As you say, there is no way to know for sure until you try it. I am simply saying mistakes are harder to fix on P99 due to the barriers of entry and lower amount of new players coming in. I am not trying to claim that all of the raiders will leave, but you have to assume the worst case when you have no data. That is what I do.

That is why I would prefer to try any drastic changes on another P99 server, as I mentioned before. That way we don't lose players, and we get to see what will happen definitively. I agree with you that there are other factors in TLP that affect player turnaround, but it really is the closest analogy we have to P99.

Yea I don't disagree with you here. I think it'd be cool to try new things either on blue and keep green with the current system or vice versa. I don't really care which server they do it on. I'd end up making a new main either way most likely. It's never going to happen though unfortunately. I'd love to be wrong here but I doubt it hehe

Little backstory on me: I raided pretty heavily back when IB was one of the top guilds. I wasn't with them super long cause the amount of neckbeardery was just too much for my tastes. I ended up taking a break from the game for a bit then coming back and joining BDA for a more casual experience and still getting *some* raiding in. I would've liked to get more raid targets but I wasn't willing to make P99 my second job to do so. I didn't want to park my characters and be unable to play them for extended periods of time. I wasn't a big altoholic I just wanted to play my main. Nothing was worse than having a day off work and not being able to play my fucking main cause it had to be parked for a 16hr window somewhere. I didn't want to feel obligated to track (so fucking stupid) for bonus dkp or whatever. It was just too much. BDA was much better in that regard but obviously didn't get as many targets. The toxicity of the p99 raid scene eventually pushed BDA leadership to entirely abandon p99 and took almost every single member with them to play on TLP's. Some have returned but most have not and I believe BDA was one of the larger guilds on the server in their heyday. I wanna say the BDA guild on TLP's had like over 200 members within the first week? This is why I say I think people may underestimate how many folks would return if endgame was a little more approachable without making it a job/chore. I don't know what the solution is and I don't think we'll get anything much different than status quo anyway. But that's my story.

[Mateo]

Revert almost all non-classic changes. DPS race raid targets.

[cd288]

Or at the very least give more DKP for showing up to contest and eliminate bonuses for FTEs and kills. Unless you're in the top guild, harder for new raiders to amass lots of DKP to catch up with the people who are at the top because half the DKP in an encounter comes if you actually engage and kill, which is hit or miss given the current meta

[Toxigen]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Or at the very least give more DKP for showing up to contest and eliminate bonuses for FTEs and kills. Unless you're in the top guild, harder for new raiders to amass lots of DKP to catch up with the people who are at the top because half the DKP in an encounter comes if you actually engage and kill, which is hit or miss given the current meta

Yes promote participation trophies and give even less incentive for the playmakers, good idea you fucking cuck.

[cd288]

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

Yes promote participation trophies and give even less incentive for the playmakers, good idea you fucking cuck.

Why do you care? Not like you're raiding with DKP anymore

[tadkins]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Or at the very least give more DKP for showing up to contest and eliminate bonuses for FTEs and kills. Unless you're in the top guild, harder for new raiders to amass lots of DKP to catch up with the people who are at the top because half the DKP in an encounter comes if you actually engage and kill, which is hit or miss given the current meta

At this point I feel like it would be impossible to get anything now. Everyone in every guild probably has too much "DKP" to compete with as a brand new raider.

In this case, I wish there was some kind of participation trophy.

[Toxigen]

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

At this point I feel like it would be impossible to get anything now. Everyone in every guild probably has too much "DKP" to compete with as a brand new raider.

In this case, I wish there was some kind of participation trophy.

DKP bloat / inflation is a real thing.

We should be nearing the end of the inevitable guild cycle. People get comfortable at the top, complacency sets in, then comes frustration (you are here)....slap a meta change on top and everything falls apart.

When they reform, get in early, raid as much as you can, and scoop up your most prized items on the cheap.

This is the way.