In an effort to allow everyone the opportunity to experience as much content as possible we’ve decided to lower the maximum players in raid content to 42 for any new content that is released in the future. Please note that this will not have an impact on the player caps for existing content. They will remain the same as they are now. We will be monitoring this change going forward and undertaking any needed balance changes that become necessary.
As always our goal is to have a game that’s both challenging and fun for everyone, and believe this change will be a move in the right direction. Thanks for continuing to provide the feedback and support to make EverQuest the best game it can be.
Rytan and the EQ Dev team
I think this is a very bad idea most raids now are tuned to 54 people and so many raiding guilds now have it set up to accomodate 54 people. Pushing it down to 42 will not only not allow some people to raid but will cause strife for those that get to raid all the time and those that don’t. Please change this I find it ridiculous.
By: SkylarES on July 22, 2008
at 11:55 pm
Please do NOT do this. It will be the death of raiding. These raids will still require huge numbers of clerics, and will marginalise many classes. A very bad idea. Make SOME raids 42 if you have to, but the healthy guilds with 54 attendess will be incredibly damaged by this. Having to drop 12 from the roster is insane.
By: Vermilya on July 23, 2008
at 12:07 am
As a player of both WoW and EQ at the end game level, I can only try and tell you not to do this. WoW raids are boring simply because it’s not possible to guarantee enough of each class to design encounters with enough depth and complexity.
Very few WoW Raids even equal many of EQ’s best raids — hell, barely equal many of EQ’s mid-tier raids (quality tiers, not progression) and the main reason is the player cap. 25 men does not a raid make, and neither does 10. But you might see that and say “Well, 42 does!” but no — you have a system that DOES work. There are enough mid-tier guilds on every server…
But I guess profits will tell, and you wont listen to this feedback.
By: Hikthur on July 23, 2008
at 12:13 am
This is probably the dumbest idea you guys have ever conceived. Think twice before you facilitate the demise of raiding guilds.
By: Terminat on July 23, 2008
at 12:13 am
Honestly, how is keeping 12 people that are raiding now out, helping more people see content? You think that crystallos was beat quick take a look at eq2 and wow and games with lower raid caps, their content is blowing through within a month of launch including bugs.
The feedback here, is tune to 46-48 people, expect people to bring 54. You can’t cut people that are already raiding out, certain classes will not be wanted because of minimizing the classes you don’t need, and maximizing those that you do need. Please think this over more, it could possibly be a very bad thing.
By: Karian on July 23, 2008
at 12:30 am
i have to agree, the guilds that are going to experience this content typically field 50-60+ a night for the 54 man raids… a change to 42 is going to lead to alot of people leaving the game over not being able to raid and further crippling other guilds. Tune it for 42 if you want but leave the 54 man cap
By: reshtal on July 23, 2008
at 12:38 am
If you must lower the numbers the raids are tuned for why not tune for 42 and leave it at 48 or 54 max?
Planes of Power raids certainly for the most part were not tuned around 72, and in most cases people did not bring 72, even though they could.
Hard caps will hurt a TON of guilds. If you must lower it to 42, please allow more than 42 in, hard caps are bad especially when they are so small.
By: Zunnoab on July 23, 2008
at 12:39 am
Will help alot of midrange guilds… might hurt the top ones tho. Probably better for the game overall.
By: Chania on July 23, 2008
at 12:40 am
There’s a lesson to be learned from WoW here. They moved from 40 to 25 and it killed half the guilds in the game, and forced extremely difficult changes in the ones that survived the transition. To cut 12 valuable and respected members from the raid roster or to ask the entire guild to sit out more often?
That doesn’t even account for what it will do to the raiding dynamic. Right now a lot of events are tuned so that they can be beaten by several different class compositions. Lowering the number of raiders possible reduced the number of options. Where once it wouldn’t matter if you had 6 knights on a raid vs. 4 now you have to bring 4 and cut the two in order to meet the space restrictions.
As far as end-game raiding, guilds I’m in touch with are not having issues with meeting 54 in the raid, and mid-level ones aren’t hurting due to being able to bring fewer than the cap with the much enhanced quality of groupable gear.
All I see coming out of this is drama in end-game guilds and more of the same for other guilds who won’t see the content until the gear needed to succeed in it becomes groupable.
By: Dayuna on July 23, 2008
at 12:49 am
You guys will destroy Everquest with this change , Ive been raiding for 7 years now nearly 8…. This will not work horrible idea you cannot change the game to cater to the minority and regardless what you might think or assume ….the majority of guilds that actually raid …are not family guilds they aren’t little guilds …they are the full deal with 50-80 active raiders at any given time ……if you want to destroy the game go ahead with this ..if u don’t ….try asking the raiding guilds about this first LOL ….
By: Wonglow 80 monk Raidleader on Druzzil ro on July 23, 2008
at 1:08 am
Its hard to unring the bell here, Have lesser guilds fold to bigger guilds due to needing larger raid numbers, and then essentially cause the larger guilds to Waitlist the extra 10 or so in order to experience the new content. This change will not un-retire all the guilds that the max cap has retired due to the difficulty of the previous content
By: Kitanoz on July 23, 2008
at 1:23 am
And so the downsizing to creep towards other games raid sizes continues.
I wonder if you understand how logistically the lower a raid size is, the lower the room there is in each guild for “roster bloat”, i.e carrying of extra members to be able to facilitate raids when there are some members missing.
You will downsize guilds even further, stratify to a greater extent, & unless you seriously address class balance ( & no I dont mean more cross-classing) concerns will create plenty of room to leave players without a guild of the style they enjoy.
I’m not happy about this change at all, what you think you are setting out to achieve is not what this will mean for EQ.
By: Skuz Bukit on July 23, 2008
at 1:30 am
I have to agree, I don’t see how this is going to help anyone.
The amount of healing and tanking for raids needed won’t chance, so the percentage of spots that go to which classes will get skewed.
I think I understand what changes you are shooting for, but to be 100% honest I think you just need to tune encounters for fewer people as opposed to limiting.
By: Imp on July 23, 2008
at 2:04 am
Perhaps this is not the best approach. How many people will be left out from raids and how many will stop loggin in every evening?
With Living Legacy events I was under the impression that players are actually welcome to come back and play again, but limiting access to raids/content doesn’t seem to help the game and it definitely doesn’t give players the opportunity to experience content.
By: Cyador on July 23, 2008
at 2:31 am
This will effectively cripple guilds that have recruited based on a 54 man raid for the past 5+ years.
Beta raid testing should prove to be very interesting. So much for one beastlord being “allowed” on raids, all of the excess fat has to be trimmed.
By: Kela the Gypsy on July 23, 2008
at 2:33 am
So you drop the raids from 72 to 54. Now you want to shrink it even further. Do you invision setting up to have raid sizes max at 6 or 12 in the future? Have we gotten to the point we need to collapse EQ down to the point where group content will be 2 players and raids will be 18? Please rethink this.
By: Lothnor on July 23, 2008
at 3:01 am
Instead of reducing it why not increase it to say 62 or so. The only advantage EQ has always had over WOW EQ2 is the raid content. I understand the need for some capping but reducing it just hinders raiding guilds and forcing more people over the fence to quiting EQ.
By: Dumbidea one on July 23, 2008
at 3:21 am
why not just merge servers again and leave the raid sizes alone?
By: shredclaw on July 23, 2008
at 3:24 am
I really HATE to agree with Wakk/Skuz, but this time i do.
When introduced, the limit was 72, to be reduced to the present 54 the very next expansion.
That was ok for the most part, because guilds had only begun recruiting for 72.
Those (top guilds mostly) that already had 72 individual members at that time suffered, as would guilds suffer today.
The difference is:
Back then it “only” affected a few guilds.
Now, it would affect MOST of the healthy guilds.
I mean, even casual games raid in alliances.
And i know about guilds that have regularly chars sitting in the GH during raid times, waiting for their chance to “get in”.
Make that change go live and you’ll hurt the game more than you did with any bug/negligence before.
Why?
Because grown, healthy guild structures AND relationships wil be forcibly disrupted.
implications inestimable.
By: Morrok_AB on July 23, 2008
at 3:30 am
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
This is probably the single worst idea ever to come out for the Everquest. This is EQ, not Wow etc.
Marginalize the less desirable raiding classes, forcing them out. Reduce guild sizes even further. Eliminate all previous content thats ‘reasonably current’ as guilds can no longer do them, due to reduced roster. Reduce ‘depth’ in a guild for covering of classes, thereby increasing reliance on several key players/classes. The list goes on why this is BAD.
We are one of the last remaining Aussie guilds, and already have people sitting out on raids, reducing it by two full groups is just Insane, and could well spell the death of the Raiding Game with solid communities within a Guild.
Can’t begin to describe how much I hate this idea, and what it bodes for the future of EQ.
By: Artremas on July 23, 2008
at 3:43 am
Could they not just make scaled loot based on how many are in raid such as what they are doing with rewards in Legacy? Does every shmo need to have top loot to maintain interest in the game? Raid size and complexity is the ONLY thing that
Everquest has over other MMORPGs.
By: Sscorn on July 23, 2008
at 3:59 am
not exactly the best idea in the world. there are alot of mid tier guild suffering right now from low numbers a couple of high end guilds too butt–that is no reason to lower what we need in order to place more people in those guilds at the expense of others. Guilds build reputations and people want to go to those guilds soley based on this (implying that the content they are in how well they are moving through it is part of said reputation). If you take and lower the cap on raid instance whose to say the wrost possible people to leave the guild for another wouldnt leave and cripple said guild? How many people do you think instead of changing guild would just stop playing? or is that your motivation behind all of this?
I’m just talking smack you dont have to believe me but raiders can be pretty fickle when they dont get to raid for weeks on end. have to sit on the bench the 5 hours or so they are online because they wanna progress through content with their specific set of friends, rather then join another guild with questionable leadership.
By: billyup on July 23, 2008
at 4:02 am
I agree, Kela.. If certain hybrid classes don’t receive abilities that either help them stand out, or are as of just as much importance as most abilities of main classes, some hybrids might just be getting benched over and over. However, I’m sure that the devs will prevent this from happening, and will adjust class abilities accordingly so that anyone has the potential to shine and not be left out.
By: Renon on July 23, 2008
at 4:07 am
I don’t understand the comment made “In an effort to allow everyone the opportunity to experience as much content as possible “.
Please explain how that will work for larger raiding guilds such as mine?
Most nights of the week when we raid we have 54 people raiding PLUS maybe up to 10/12 people sat out in our DKP channel so for us a reduction in numbers to 42 for raids will practically destroy us.
VERY bleak times ahead for hardcore raiders IMHO.
By: sicknotes on July 23, 2008
at 5:06 am
as a beastlord i am not looking forward to this at all we barely make it into raids as it is:(
By: lee on July 23, 2008
at 5:45 am
I have been playing for 8 years and this will probably force me to retire from EQ if this is implemented. I love my guild and its my “online” family. You will effectively break up my guild with this change.
QUOTED:
“In an effort to allow everyone the opportunity to experience as much content as possible we’ve decided to lower the maximum players in raid content to 42 for any new content that is released in the future.”
“Please note that this will not have an impact on the player caps for existing content. They will remain the same as they are now.”
How can a guild maintain 54 people to do “existing” content that they are currently progressing through, then have to have people sit out (leave the guild) to do any new content?
I would rethink this horrible idea. Remember, most raiders have multiple accounts and you will be risking many of those if this is implemented.
By: Afronstar on July 23, 2008
at 5:50 am
I’m not sure I understand what you plan to accomplish with this.
Current raid content typically requires progressing through expansions to gear up and be able to win the encounters and while increasing the level cap helps in some situations you will end up with raiding guilds that are fielding 50 + folks for raids telling 10% of their guildmates to sit out for raids?
Saluki
Ashen Vendetta
By: Salukifizz on July 23, 2008
at 6:08 am
Here a copy of what I posted in the EQ Forum:
Well lets see the situation on AB:
3 guilds in Crystallos – each kicking 12+ people???
1 more in MMM – kicking 12+ people???
3 more in Solteris – kicking 12+ people???
On other servers:
about 70 (!!!) Guilds at least (!) in Solteris – each kicking 12+ people???
What idea do have Devs at all about EQ??
Do ANY Dev actual PLAY EQ? (When I see what they do with the class balance, I think not, but thats another point)
IF there are servers wit a (too) low population, MERGE them.
Devs, are you SYSTEMATICAL DESTROYING EQ (after you nearly destroyed the Ranger class, SCNR)? Do you want to get rid of us? Then just say it CLEAR plz!
By: Hoheyd on July 23, 2008
at 7:03 am
As raidleader of an alliance of several casual familystyle oriented – not hardcore – raiding association I have to say THANKS!
We will sort out the boxed chars and we will have no problem with the new cap. The only issue I am asking about is if the NEW EXPANSION offers also raids for us midelevl guilds as done in the DoN-Expansion (e.g. tier 3-4)?
By: Tilluan AB on July 23, 2008
at 7:22 am
you folks need to take a real hard look at this again.
this was posted a day ago and theres already like 4 different threads 40 something pages total and no body thinks this is a good idea. how on earth can you say that lowering the ammount of people who can be in a raid will allow more people to enoy it? im gonna seal up some of the rooms in my house so more people can come in and enjoy the remaining rooms.
If something is supposed to “help” us and nobody wants it why do it?
By: notsileous on July 23, 2008
at 7:40 am
The words “bad” and “move” come to mind. Weren’t the Devs complaining just a few months back that no one did the raid content they made for 25-40 people in Omens through TSS, which is why they stopped making it?
By: Mindrix on July 23, 2008
at 9:00 am
Bad idea. Encouraging an alliance of “boxed” folks and further reducing EQ to even more of a ghost town? What about guilds that recruited hard to fill 54 slots??? Are we to trim out ppl?? Smaller guilds can go kill in past expansions and progress just fine with fewer numbers without being “cutting edge” once added lvl’s and such are in. With the changes rumor’d to be incoming for bards … that’ll make it easier to bunny raids down to 42 at least.
By: Choral on July 23, 2008
at 9:42 am
So, you understand this is a social game? Some people have been guilded with there friends for many years.
Now your apparently forcing them to go to other guilds. (Yeah i know there is the argument you dont have to you can sit out of a raid, but i pay to enjoy myself in this game)
Realistically your asking for each raiding guild to trim its roster by 16-20 people. Do you think those 20 people will find a new guild? Probably not because there the class’s that have no use in a min/max raid.
Now the hardest part for me is saying bye to people that have been in guilds for a long time. If you honestly think people are going to say “Well thats ok i’ll go to a new guild and raid with random_person_99 ” then i think you will get a shock. Lets be honest if the only time i can group with friends is in group content, well there are plenty of other games out there with better graphics and a better group game.
By: tuerlius on July 23, 2008
at 10:47 am
At the moment my guild has trouble with too many on raids with on average 3-6 people sitting out. Imagine how hard you are gonna make it for family/raiding guilds (ie 2-3 nights a week vs 5-6 nights a week/job) to decide who sits out, what is needed?
I know a lot of end guilds are folding, but who do you think picks up these members? The not so hard core raiding guilds. Please pull your collective heads out of your 4 points of contact.
As you can see on your own forums tons of people are against this. Business wise its smart to listen to your customer base. You have a milk cow here. Milk it. Down chop it up and serve it as Steak. Learn to savor it, not chow everything down at once. Highly disappointed in the game and the Devs if this is the future.
By: Loladene AB on July 23, 2008
at 10:51 am
I find this a pretty bad thing. The guilds are based upon raids that are 54 persons, and are probably based upon a force of around 65 person.
That leave around 11 out, which will now be increased to around 23.
This change has to be the potential to be a game buster, which will put another nail into the coffin.
With the present amount of 54, there are enough place for all the classes.
With 42, you can ask the question, do we need all more than 1 necro(do we even need 1), rangers (what do they give) , monks (would it not better to have a rogue instead, as bard pulls as well….
By: Mefisto on July 23, 2008
at 10:53 am
This is such a bad idea for us raiders.. you guys need to concider whos been supporting this game for 9 years really. yeah you want the casuals to play but dont alienate us hard core raiders either.
why not have both? 42 man raids and 54 for end content.
By: Gardorn on July 23, 2008
at 11:32 am
I can see and understand how this will help familystyle guilds and allowing them to raid. I also understand and fully agree with the others point about 54 man raids.
How about this for a compromise.
Set raids up like some of the expeditions.
Normal raid = 42 people allowed
Hard raid = 54 people allowed.
Of course they will have to adjust the loot won by the type of raid sellected just like in the task missions.
Them my 2 cents. Please.. keep the change
By: Zantog on July 23, 2008
at 12:15 pm
This game peaked when Time was the end point. My guild at the time had to turn people away from raids when the maximum was 72. Maybe you guys should figure out why you are losing players and fix that problem rather than just facilitate raids with fewer and fewer players.
One thing that has changed, progression was pretty linear back in the days of PoP but sufficiently complex to keep people interested. Now there are so many quest lines you don’t even know where you should be spending your time: Solteris, Crystallos, who knows? And you can skip entire threads and still progress. Hell, you don’t even need to be keyed for half the content anymore. Or you can get piggied in and then get your key without really having to earn it.
Continually lowering raid requirements will ultimately lead to the point where raiding is a thing of the past and all content will be groupable. Then guilds will begin to have little reason to exist and even more people will begin to leave the game.
By: Strongbowski on July 23, 2008
at 12:32 pm
This is just rediculous, for any guild that has been around for a while, now you force that many more people to sit out of raids, on top of the ones that already do? I think more people will quit due to being forced to smaller guilds than anything. I don’t log in to raid, just to be told I can’t raid. I’ve already in the past seen people leave guilds for this in 54 man raids. I can see much turmoil from this move in the future. There has to be a better way.
By: Vinterdod on July 23, 2008
at 12:37 pm
Have you ever thought that many of your top guilds have built themselves around 54 man raids? Do you really think that 12 to 20 people will sit out and wait thier turn? Those 12 to 20 people won’t go start a new guild they will log off. Those individuals aren’t playing casually, they aren’t grinding AAs or doing quests. They raid and that is it. When you take that away you will take away the reason they log on.
All corporations want to increase the bottom line. I’m sure in one of the SOE team meetings this was brainstormed on how to get new subscriptions. Many things look fantastic on paper but they simply don’t work out once put into action. A hard line on 42 is pretty intense and a big jump to take 12 people out of a raid.
It is very obvious that SOE over the past year or so has pushed to accomodate the casual player and compete with games such as WoW. It’s only good business sense if you don’t decaptitate your other customers. You do still have a decent population of raiders that push for the top end of the game and many of them are paying for extra accounts to box and enjoy the game at a challenging level. You still need to try and service all your customers not just one sector.
It would seem more reasonable to provide two progression paths one for lower raid numbers with gear to match and one for higher raid numbers with the best gear to match. This would provide enough flexibility for a smaller guild to raid, a low attendance night to be successful and a high raid attendance night to be challenged. At the very least change it to 49 as a test before bottoming out with 42.
I really think you’re making a mistake. While you may not break the bank or the game you will change it drastically and create a game that really isn’t Everquest. Perhaps you could name it SOE WoW II. That is after all who you have been trying to compete with for the past few years. Quick game, low need, less satisfaction, short mental span and boredom after six months. Your almost there!!!!
By: Juele on July 23, 2008
at 12:41 pm
Why not make the difficulty based on the number of members in the raid 24,36,48,72. I’m sure you guys can come up with a way to increase the hp’s and the hits per mob, on the number of people in the raid. Everyone is happy.
By: Greenfun on July 23, 2008
at 1:12 pm
Wow. You guys removed my 1st post and it did not have any foul language or was not berating anyone….
This is a terrible idea. I repeat, this is a terrible idea. You destroying high level raiding guilds with this. Our guild, Crimson Tempest on Maelin, we have about 75 raiders. Do you intend us to have to tell 30+ members a night to sit out of our raids?
How about making content geared toward 42 man raids AND having the traditional 54 man raids as well?
If this is a population issue, merge servers. Please don’t cripple the hard core raid guilds.
PLEASE, rethink, this…
By: Heeth Baar on July 23, 2008
at 1:36 pm
This will help every guild and every server, its a very good plan.
By: Terathel on July 23, 2008
at 1:41 pm
A few problems with it:
1) Less class variability in a guild. Cleric and Tank requirements will stay the same, but other classes, especially essentially redundant ones will be pushed out.
2) You’ll shut guild recruitment for months as guilds get down to size. Also makes future recruitment harder, a guild can currently carry several undergeared members and not affect performance while they get up to speed, this ability will be impaired.
3) Less ability to do things with non-optimal numbers. If you can have 54 and like 6 people aren’t there some night, you can probably do it with 48. It its only 42, you’re probably going to fail with 36.
Essentially makes each member a greater percentage of the raid, if you’re missing a key person it will be harder to compensate.
4) Guild sizes are tuned to raid content, but guilds are also most people’s #1 source of groups and friends. Lower sizing will mean smaller pools of potential groups. And since I anticipate that spells will require no less than 47 group missions per ‘rank 3′ spell in the next expansion…
5) Is there a need? Going to expansions every year has made it so more guilds have now caught up to the ‘end game’ There’s atleast 50 guilds done TBS and raiding in the current expansion, that’s probably highest that its been since PoP.
Just run the numbers on it, and focus on the concept of total Variance instead of Total numbers, I think you’ll find 42 lowers the number of nights you can raid well, not increases it.
By: Tryal on July 23, 2008
at 1:50 pm
Instead of screwing current raiding guilds, forcing them to “downsize”, why not introduce new 24/36/42 person raid content for the casual/family guilds.
If the casual/family guilds have high-end content aspirations but are limited due to server population decline then merge more servers.
By: ensrettet on July 23, 2008
at 2:10 pm
Why would you even consder a move like this?
Lets see some hard facts on this,if these guilds can’t kill said mobs with a 54 person raid,how are they going to be able to do it with a 42 person raid?
What happens to the other 12 people left?
They will not have the( opportunity to experience as much content as possible) they will be left out on the side lines.
(As always our goal is to have a game that’s both challenging and fun for everyone )
Not for the 12 others that are now sitting waiting to get subbed in.
Leave raiding at the current 54 spots please.
If these guilds can’t fill a 54 person raid becuase of lack of recruiting or low numbers merge the servers.
my 2 cents
Thank you
Badsdoc proud Member of a Public Raiding Guild
By: Badsdoc on July 23, 2008
at 2:19 pm
In an effort to allow everyone the opportunity to experience as much content as possible we’ve decided to lower the maximum players in raid content to 42 for any new content that is released in the future.
The opportunity exists now, why can’t people work harder to get into current content, like the rest of us. Guild rosters have been accomidating 54 plus members. To lower it will defiently impact guilds who already field 54 man raids. If anything you all should increase the maxium amount of people to accomidate guilds.
By: Xeilen on July 23, 2008
at 2:45 pm
Instead of caping the events at 42 – all you need to do is tune them for 42 and let guilds play the game as suits them.
By: Serano on July 23, 2008
at 2:57 pm
I don’t like lowering the number of task slots in future raid content. It MIGHT be some guilds don’t have the amount of members to fill the content’s slots, but there are other ways.
How’s the idea of “dynamic content”, i.e. if you have lesser people in the task the enemy mobs would be easier or have a lesser number?
When additional people join the task the mob’ difficulty could increase or additional enemies on the further way to the task’s End Boss could spawn.
Of course one alternative is to simply lock the task to keep the current difficulty.
The other alternative is to offer multiple task versions, i.e. for 42 ppl, 54 ppl and (please!) even up to 72 ppl.
.
Yes there are guilds which easily could pass the 54-ppl-mark.
Others normally have lesser people but they need or like challenges
So don’t do it in the hard way. It’s not bad to create contents for raids lesser 42 ppl, but if this applies to important content (flagging, progression), remember guilds which have a good member stock.
-HSishi
By: AB-HSishi on July 23, 2008
at 3:05 pm
@Tilluan-AB: Yes, and KICK all BSTs, Mages, Rngs, most Pallies, SKs and so on…
EQ isnt a game for selfish people which founded their own mini-guilds to feel better and feel “mighty”.
By: Hoheyd on July 23, 2008
at 3:07 pm
Please do NOT do this. We have a waiting list many nights of up to six folks as it is. Dropping to 40 max would give us 18 waiting to get in to raids. More folks get frustrated and quit. If you want to shut down EQ, just freaking set an end date and be finished. Death from starvation is a bad way to go.
By: Silverwolfe on July 23, 2008
at 3:11 pm
Dear Dev’s
I am concerned about this announcement and its impact on the raiding community. Guilds have been recruiting to support a 54 person raid instances for a very long time – since Gates. With this announcement the first day of expansion – we now have to sit 12 raiders from raiding new content as we are limited to 42, but are expected to continue to man 54 for SoF raids? How is cutting 12 people out of the opportunity of raiding going to allow “more” to see new content? What was a raid of 54 has 12 that are no longer part of the “team”, this will cause frustration and lead to more people leaving. Does this change now make raids have “quota’s for “X” amount of dps and healers and such that there is no opportunity vary the group /raid organization going in?
I seriously think if you wanted more to see new content you would not restrict raids to 42, why not let 72 go in? Or is this an attempt to correct content for a dwindling population of raiders for the top end guilds already farming Crystallos? Some of us are not at the end of current content and are still working through 54 man Solteris and SoF content and we can support numbers for these raids. So does this change allow the top end guilds to keep raiding with fewer raiders because they won’t be farming in SoF when the expansion comes out?
I believe this change will further splinter and fraction raiders, the more you reduce the #’s you go from a raid force – to small clique groups instances – which is what has happened in WoW when they went to 10 and 24 man raid content. We had at least 10 raiders return during Legacy and some are wanting to stay, now we have to say – well thanks for coming back but no room for you anymore? This just is counterproductive to keeping people in game.
If guilds are having issues getting 54 people then reducing the number does make the root cause go away, the cause is not being address, but “patched” with a temporary fix, that will cause more harm them good.
Xslia
Infinit – public raiders
Tunare Server
I raid with public on Tunare and Xslia is right on. I have said 100 times Sony would be better off paying 2-3 people per server to make a public raid group like Tunare has. It makes raiding fun easy and you do not have to join a guild to do it.
Sony need to understand that many raiders willnot raid 4-6 nights a week and they will progress slower. MANY MANY people solo and bot or just do not group. other do not want to raid at all but play with friends. making a 42 man raid system will not remedy the bulk of these players raiding more to see more content. It will not make thoes that do not raid raid more.
Take a poll and ask raiders if they want a 42 man raid system or of they would want a well run public raid set up on there server so they could raid from there own guild whenever they want to.
You can not make everyone happy but if you want to let everyone see more RAID content. Then hire a few poeple to emulate the well run public raid system on Tunare and you truely will be accomplishing your goal.
At 54 we are sitting 6-8 people or more most nights now. 42 man raid system will just make fewer see new content or just quit the game because they are tired of sitting out.
this says it all.
Dev’s try something diffrent for a change. try something that works and look at Tunare’s Public raid system. SWG showed what happens when De’v do not listen and this is a big step in that direction. i do not want to quit but i will follow my friends if they do.
By: Scott on July 23, 2008
at 3:16 pm
great for the lower teired guilds… utter genocide for the upper teired guilds- which i happen to be a member of. Someone mentioned this post in guild chat last night and the response was fast and furious. A lot of people are very upset and honestly this does threaten the roster for alot of upper teir guilds Im sure.
there has got to be another way.
By: Silenceigolden on July 23, 2008
at 3:33 pm
From a raiding guild’s perspective, this is an absolutely ludicrous idea. We are having to cut and penalize people as it is, when 72+ people show up on a Monday night to raid, and only 54 are allowed inside, are you seriously trying to pass lowering the max capacity to 42 now? How is this helping?
I’ve always thought people were pretty drama-tastic and overreacting to switch to another game or stop playing, just because of changes that come out, but I can completely feel for this one. All I DO is raid on EQ, and all you’re doing, is making it worse. I agree with Kela above me, so much for beastlords being allowed on raids. No room, trimming the extra fat. This is not opening up content to give all players a chance to experience and have more fun ~ this is, putting all the pressure on the vets shoulders to carry the entire raid through what they can complete on a smaller sized raid force’s allowance only.
Score one for the devs… guess it’s time to go re-roll as a tank.
By: Merekitty from Tunare on July 23, 2008
at 4:48 pm
Guilds with some casual players (aka you have a real life too) that are currently raid guilds need 85 to 90 people on the roster to keep the 54 man raid filled.
If your in a mid level guild of people that also has casual players, you will still be doing older content that has the 54 to 72 man limit…Those guilds go for 128+ people or band together in Alliances with several other small guilds to fill their raids and progress through content. So having a 42 man raid option at the high end is meaningless to them for about 3 or 4 more years, until they have the gear to beat that content.
For a serious raiding guild, Dropping 12 people outta the raid will be hard. Unless the tanking/healing requirements go seriously down, some classes raid usefulness will be largely eliminated as a max of 1 character in that class will be raid useful. Examples: Mages, Beastlords, Rangers, Druids, Paladins, Shadowknights, could all be considered tertiary characters with a 1 character per raid limit in a 42 man event, unless they are balanced to become more raid useful overall.
If you drop the healing and tanking requirements, there will be a large number of tanks and clerics that have nothing to do except maybe try to start a new guild, since they will be permanently wait listed in their current guilds. But this would be better overall than eliminating the usefulness of any class entirely for high end raids.
Raiding guilds that have been on the 54 person plan will have to continue recruiting new members for current content, then bench everyone who cant make it into the 42 man raids. Which would be extremely icky, lots of hard core players have been loyal and helpful to their current guild for years… so deciding who can go and who has to sit out won’t be pretty.
When the change was done from 72 to 54 man raids, A LOT of raid guilds couldn’t fill the 72 man raids… so there was not the same kind of impact that the drop from 54 to 42 would have.
It would most likely cause the generation of 1 to 3 new raid guilds on each server competing for high end content, due to the fact that there will be a lot of high end players that will not be useful to their current guild. So there will be even more guilds competing for the same player base.
If the usefulness of entire classes is eliminated due to the 42 man cap, there will be a lot of players that simply don’t want to start over on a new class and quit playing entirely, as no current raid guilds will be recruiting ANYONE, as they try not to have to bench any of their current players.. and let attrition slowly take care of the overage.
I understand the idea behind this move is to help mid level guilds progress to high end content. If you want to do that, instead of nerfing high-end content, you would be better off putting in an entire tier of mid-guild events.
If there were lots of 36 to 42 man events designed for mid level guilds with mid level rewards, that would gear them up as a guild to do higher end content… that would be extremely useful to current raiding guilds.. as when we lose people to attrition, this is where replacement players come from… AND extremely useful for more casual raiding guilds, to get to where they are playing the high end content. And beating monsters with Foci that are for the spells they use currently would be priceless for most of those players.
For example a mid level tiered healing focus reward similar to crystallos group rewards in comparison to current raiding guild rewards… would be Extremely useful for mid level raid guilds. Currently most mid level toons I know are in foci that work on level 70 to level 72 spells, and they are level 80 characters.
In fact a series of 36 man raid events would be more useful than 42 man raids for mid level guilds, as most of the alliances can get 54 to 72 people, so they could even run 2 events at the same time for their players, if there were 36 man raid events with decent rewards.
A series of 36 to 42 man raids for mid level guilds is a great idea, in that it will help narrow the armor gap and back-gearing problems that high end raid guilds have currently.
A series of 36 to 42 man raids will help mid level players enjoy everquest more.
However, dropping high end raid caps to 42 players, will seriously hurt the long term subscriber base of hard core raiders. I hope you seriously consider the alternative of putting in content to help mid level guilds, while keeping the 54 man raid limit on higher end content.
Catastrophie 7th Hammer
Former raid leader of several mid level guilds, spent most of her EQ career in mid level guilds.
Spent years running pick up raids for folks who needed things in 54 and 72 man events.
By: Caprich on July 23, 2008
at 4:53 pm
This will be devastating. At 54 we often have people sitting out of a raid. They want to raid, but they couldn’t get on early for many RL concerns, so they wait until someone has to drop out.
So– you dumb down events and instances even further? So it can be won by 42 people.
Trying to accomodate those “minimally necessary” classes will be even harder– Oh well do we need that chanter tonight? or Beasts– well only if we don’t have a shammy for slowing and focus. Rangers? eh– warrior tonight or a SK or Pally? Can’t a bard play them all sometimes?
I understand the “family- casual” guilds liking this. And I think equivalent content can be created to keep all patrons of EQ and SoE happy. You used to cater to all the High End guilds like FoH- changes. Well this is the pendulum swinging way too far back the other way.
You are just continuing to speed the end of EQ.
Please rethink this decision. Revamp, come up with some alternatives please.
By: Migraine on July 23, 2008
at 5:09 pm
Please reconsider; this will have a very negative impact on the game and community. Decreasing the maximum raid size will force a lot of people to sit out of raids on a regular basis, which will lead directly to boredom and people quitting the game (rather than reorganization of guilds into smaller entities, as I suspect was the expected outcome).
If you want raiding to be more inclusive–which I applaud–what you want is to decrease the amount of power a raid gains by adding more people, so that events can accommodate a wider range of raid sizes.
My suggestion is to use soft caps on raid sizes instead of hard caps. Master Vule in Dreadspire is an example of one way to do it: you can bring as many people as you want, but only a certain number of people can be engaged at any one time. Thus bringing additional people beyond the “soft cap” provides smaller benefits to the raid than if everyone could attack at once and overwhelm the mob with sheer numbers.
In an instanced zone, one way to do it would be as follows: once X people are on a mob’s hate list, the remaining people in the zone are frozen (mezzed, invulnerable, etc.) and become unfrozen as people die. Everyone gets a piece of the action or at least gets to watch, but the raid can still be tuned for X people without having to worry too much about what happens when another raid brings X+10 people.
I would also recommend eliminating regen on mobs so long as someone is on its hate list (assuming it can summon to guarantee that no one can be on the hate list without someone engaging the mob). Regen, which first became noticeable to me in the Demiplane of Blood, has the effect of disproportionately rewarding further addition of damage output to a raid. Suppose you have a mob that regenerates 40,000 hp per second. A raid that can do 60,000 damage per second would kill it twice as quickly as a raid that can do 50,000 damage per second, and a raid that can “only” do 40,000 damage per second would be completely unable to make any progress.
By: Palarran on July 23, 2008
at 5:14 pm
Raid forces which fall below the design threshold have difficulty progressing and they fall apart. This is the problem that I think you’re dealing with, at least as I understand it. Large raids are also difficult to properly playtest. The issue with a size reduction is that it doesn’t deal with the root cause.
If your cap is X players you naturally lose anyone above that cap because they tend to have nothing to do when people get together (they are excluded.) If you drop too far below X then you get nowhere and fall apart. It’s a generic problem with any fixed cap.
Have you considered designing raids which can be scaled up or down in size as an alternative? “Normal” raids of 36 and “Hard” raids of 54, for example, would permit a wider range of players to experience the content and would have much healthier overall dynamics.
By: Aaneras on July 23, 2008
at 5:20 pm
By reducing raid numbers to 42 you are forcing guilds to “downsize” which is effectively to remove members.
This will demoralise and kill many guilds.
Instead of penalising raiding guilds (many of which can meet the 54 person target) it would be far better (as other posters have suggested) to create mid-level content for 24/36/42 person raids.
By: ensrettet on July 23, 2008
at 5:45 pm
just an idea why not do some open raids like i hear of in old days where it took whole zone to kill it.throw in some 72 man raids. whats wrong with guilds joing forces.this is eq not wow if i wanted to solo all the time i would have joined wow with my friends.maby alot of people like oranges but i like apples dont like orgapple it tastes funny
By: mccoley on July 23, 2008
at 5:58 pm
P.S. dont change chess into checkers
By: mccoley on July 23, 2008
at 6:05 pm
Too soon. Fix class balance and close the casual vs raider gap work before you think about doing this.
That will probably take 2-3 expansions.
By: JazyaVechette on July 23, 2008
at 6:33 pm
1) Raids with large number keep me playing EQ. If I wanted to raid with smaller numbers there are other games I could play.
2) This change will likely effect some classes more then other.
3) This will hit west coast players or other people with slightly less then normal play times harder then East coast 9-5 types.
Now I play a warrior and I can be on-time for raids. My guild still has a least a year of raiding to get though before we see any of the raids in the next expansion. That said, I don’t see this as a positive change, mostly because it is a one size fits all solution. Others have suggests flexible raids that can be requested based on numbers. If that’s not possible you should consider have progression raids left at 54 people and some loot raids that require no additional flagging made avalible for 24, 36 or 42 player raids. Then guilds who are having an off night on attendence or are getting off to a slow start can have something to do.
I remember having to drop from 72 to 54 after we finished raiding PoP. My guild was in an alliance so we simply terminated the alliance. It was pretty painless for my guild, not so much for our alliance partners who found themselves out in the cold. It definately did not promote more people raiding.
And hasn’t the argument for raising the level cap every year been that it allows more people to experience the raid content even if they have lower numbers or less then idea raid make up. The main thing I see stopping smaller guilds and alliances from raiding zones like demi and deathknell is the current lock out system (which would require them to raid 3 or 4 nights a week when most raid 1-2 nights a week) and the fact that better loot can often be found in group zones.
By: Cerrena on July 23, 2008
at 6:37 pm
I agree 110% with Aaneras if you must change raiding make it an easy – hard difficulty setting lower number max for easier or lower progression raids and 54 max for the high teir raids…but if you reduce the max for future raids it will ensure the fall of every high end raid guild in all of EQ…do you really want that to happen?
Think about it for just one minute, think of how many people only play EQ to be with their friends/guildys, think about how many people would quit outright for seeing 12 of their very good friends being forced to leave their guild of years and years…your not only killing high end raiding your killing people’s emotions…this might be taking it to the extreme but you could be the cause of some serious depression in real life. To alot of people EQ is a way to escape their real life problems. Not to mention I know alot of people who have ingame relationships and people who are very dear to them, if they are forced to quit EQ from this stunt I guarantee you it will take a huge tole on them…there is no going back in progression if you even hint that certain people will be forced to go backward in progression that 100% ensures they will quit. Anyone that understands EQ will agree with me I guarantee it without a doubt in my mind.
By: Copperfist on July 23, 2008
at 6:38 pm
Dont do it, it will hurt EQ.
Think about it this way…
EQ started with unlimited raid size, based on how many you could bring without crashing the zone or overloading people’s connections.
Then the raid window was introduced… 72 people
Then most raids were lowered to 54, and now 42?! What are you thinking?
Ok so imagine a guild progressing through content… they need 72 people to progress… to the point where they only need 54 then 42? That just doesnt make sense. YAY we beat Time, now a bunch of you need to sitout or disband. YAY we beat SoF now a bunch more of you need to sit out or disband.
Smart move! Don’t do it.
If anything tune raids for 42 and make them slightly harder for every person you have over 42… but set a hard limit and force people to sit out. It didn’t go well with DoN and raids often had to split up into two seperate forces.
By: Erana on July 23, 2008
at 6:54 pm
I think they’re playing with fire on this one. Lowering the cap means that the players that do go on the raid will have to be more and more specialized. Why take a ranger if a rogue does 3 times more DPS?
By: EmEmOh on July 23, 2008
at 7:49 pm
Well np, ALL the greater guilds should recruit from those Guilds which find this Idea good, till they can fill TWO raids
By: Hoheyd on July 23, 2008
at 8:50 pm
Good change to help EQ.
By: OceanBLue on July 23, 2008
at 9:51 pm
It is the pure challenge from content that keeps raiders coming back night after night. I foresee major conflictions with the depth and complexity of raid events built around a 42 person raid.
High-end raid guilds will have ATLEAST 54 people show up on any one night. To restrict raids to 42 will be a wounding blow to everquest’s raid guilds and overall population.
Do Not Restrict Raids to 42, Stick With 54 !!
By: Obliterater, 80warrior of Silent Resurgence on July 23, 2008
at 11:17 pm
No way… Your basically going to destroy old content because guilds will be forced to build around a 42 man raid and they won’t be able to do any old content because it’s tuned for 54 man raids. By the time you can do oldschool raids with 42.. the gear will be worthless and there won’t be a point.
Seriously. You guys can’t properly tune mobs for a 54 man raid. How is this going to work for a 42 man raid. This is going to destroy guilds and likely cause a mass exodus as seen in GoD times..
By: Mediik7th on July 24, 2008
at 12:39 am
This is a very bad idea. It was bad enough for guild when you went from 72 to 54- If this went through I know I would not be able to get into raids. Its bad enough now trying to get to raid with 54. I know that there would be a bunch of players that would go elsewhere if the raids shrunk any more than they have.
By: Rayne on July 24, 2008
at 2:06 am
It’s kind of amusing watching all the elite guilds whine the most about having to downsize. You all should be rejoicing, as you won’t have to stay committed to actively stealing quality members from other guilds and servers in order to keep your nightly number of 54 people intact.
It’s gonna be such a huge ego crush having to accept the fact that those guilds and alliances 6-18 months behind you are going to catch up and experience the same content you are when you do . I could almost cry myself.
BQQHQQ
By: ViennaSausage on July 24, 2008
at 2:25 am
I could repeat what 99% of all the above responses say. Consider it done.
If you want MORE ppl to experience the game you allow MORE people into the raids.
Isnt that normal math?
I canT see how REDUCE equates to MORE. Is that Japanese math?
Causing guilds to have MORE on the WAIT list certainly does not achieve your goal. Reducing raid size leads to raids that consist of Warriors, Clerics, Shamans, and maybe Wizards. If I cant have the full gamut of classes that what Ill look for in raids. If you must, make raids LARGER and get rid of the wait list. Ah yes, that will achieve little but make the high end guild suck up more players and EQ will end up being 1000 12 man guilds and 2 raiding guilds.
The real solution is to get up off the subscription money and do some marketing. More PLAYERS is more people experienceing the game. More servers to accomodate those players is a good goal.
By: CorazonValiente on July 24, 2008
at 2:39 am
surely this can’t be a serious solution to a shrinking population. What you’re doing is shrinking the guild population, not addressing the need for certain classes and cooperation between guild mates.
It’s hard enough to get a couple good hard core Raid leaders, let alone get 4-8 Raid leaders all trying to push for total control..
think about it, what you’re actually doing is spliting the guild from the inside out.. we have enough of that crap as it is.
Are you asking each guild to form sub guilds with some being East coast, some West coast and some Euro?? why not let natual selection take place and everyone find a guild that fits their time slots?
Sure, you’re going to have top end guilds, an sub average amount of mid-range guilds and several lower end casual players who wished they had the time and energy to commit to getting high end loots.
All that’s happening ATM is a shrinking of the mid-range guilds.. either your top end, or casual. Embrace it like you have been, pass out random CoA caliber loots, or make them groupable, but don’t take away your hard-core raiders..-
By: Gevath on July 24, 2008
at 3:19 am
This is an incredibly intricate topic. Yes, you can make an event where 42 people, geared best as possible from the previous expansion can barely come to grips with, but somehow can preservere and overcome the difficulty of it, to win loot for a smaller pool of raiders. Sure, this will please that elite few who manage to take this event out. Sure, you could make this easier so maybe the “second best or really lucky third best” could beat the event. Maybe they sharpened their claws just right and poisoned their weapons at the precise moment they needed to. Maybe it will be easier than that. That anyone can just walk in it with fine steel and bronze armor and just take it out.
Obviously, these are extremes. Most folks on most servers won’t have the best of the best, and shouldn’t still be kitted up in fine steel and bronze. However, lowering the required amount of persons permitted into a raid event will not serve the greater masses, and will only sow the seeds of unhappiness. No raider (or upcoming raider) will truly appreciate their leaders running 42 man raids with 72 people in the raid.
It is almost as if the devs are attempting to make things more linear to the rest of the gaming world, and thus losing interest in the catered structure of the 54 man raids. Less effort, less money, less hours to produce, less time spent caring. Might as well pay less people to make the wonderful events that we enjoy doing right now. Make the whole project of EQ a mudsliding path to oblivion; after all the effort, love, life, and time that so many event developers put into the prior events, it seems an insult to the memories of beautiful zones of the expansions past. Is EQ going to shrink into nothingness, while the few who enjoy after this mediocrity slowly dwindle away? It is impossible to cater to the needs of all players at once, yet I feel that this caters to no one in the game.
Why not change the maximum capacity of the raid structure as well? Increasing it would cause more drama in a 42 man situation, but open areas would be even easier to take out. Decreasing it would permit the raid to “fill up faster” and “have less people sitting out” but at the same time, the time it would take to program this form of change might take too long to matter anyway.
EQ is a massive, beautiful game. We love it the way it is. Will we still love it when something big is changed?
Hoping you won’t separate the numbers,
Stumblelord, 80th level ShadowKnight
Sacred Destiny
Tunare Server
Raider of the Public force
By: Stumblelord, Tunare on July 24, 2008
at 3:50 am
Once upon a time, you could tell a raider from a Casual player simply by virtue of gear and content access EARNED. Sony has changed that and it looks like want to close that gap even more. You will loose more then you gain and amoungest other reasons people have left the game, you will cause more to leave.
I play this game for the challenge of a large group of people working together for a common goal, make that to easy for me and I and others like me will say our good byes. Make us have to cut our raids numbers down even more that will also cause a lot of us to say our good byes.
There is a differance from the casual player and a hard raider, neither is bad but it is a choice that the game affords. Make the differance to close and all you will have left is casual players.
By: GeabMarine on July 24, 2008
at 5:39 am
Those of you who think this is a good idea have NO CLUE about raiding dynamics in a guild at all. Seriously. It will really hurt far more people than it will benefit.
SOE – take the advice given here, and advice I’ve given you in the past via feedbacks. SCALE THE CONTENT DYNAMICALLY. You have a great template in the form of the LDoN missions – just expand on it. 36, 42, 54 and 72 man content – easy, normal, hard and very hard. Boom. problem solved. The little guilds who scratch to feild 30 people for a raid now have raid content. Maybe it won’t give the highest ranked gear, but they see the zone, the bosses, they experience the difficulty like they are supposed to. If they want to see the really hard stuff and get the rewards from the hardest instances, then they will have to band together in alliances to make it happen. I’m sure, even on the most barren of servers, two guilds can scratch together 60 raiders.
If there is a server that CAN’T do that – do you really think nerfing raids is going to make them playable? They will STILL be abandoned. Give those poor folks a new home on a server with more people.
Don’t do this. I’m adding my voice to the masses shouting for sanity here.
God Bless,
mik
By: mikitta on July 24, 2008
at 5:54 am
Most of the pro’s here didnt get the main point:
Druids, Rangers, mages, Necros, bards, most pallies/SKs, Necros will not be wanted in raids anymore.
Most of this classes are already yet USELESS in raids!
Druids? What for? Get more clerics in.
Rangers? What for at all? Camp a buff bot
Mages? What for? Camp a CoH bot.
Most of this classes are ONLY in the raids atm, CAUSE they are 54 sized!
And does ANYONE really believe, SOE will tune new contents the way, Druids, Rangers, Mages (e.g.) are NEEDED?
Pathetic!
By: Hoheyd on July 24, 2008
at 7:15 am
This is truly a bad idea… an im not the first one to say this. However you have opened a cann of wurms and as a responce the players responded in a thread on the SoE forum.
How come this thread was removed ?
You cant just close pandora’s box ones it is opened, and we wont forget this subject.
By: Brimir-AB on July 24, 2008
at 7:44 am
For heaven’s sake don’t cap them at 42, tune them so that a really skilled team of 42ish can win maybe, but leave the hard cap as it is.
So many guild officers have worked their butt off trying to manage guild numbers to meet the current raid cap, reducing it like this undermines all the work they have put in to recruiting and development.
By: Iluien on July 24, 2008
at 7:51 am
“the point is:
In an effort to ***allow everyone the opportunity to experience as much content as possible *** we’ve decided to lower the maximum players in raid content to 42″
By: Tilluan AB on July 24, 2008
at 10:20 am
No, no, no, no, no, NO!!! Moving the raid maximum down to 42 on new raids in the expansion would be a VERY bad move!
Leave the max cap where it currently is. I suggest this: Put in a raid version for 54 max and another version with 42 max. Allow for some variation in the strength of the loot awarded from them.
That would be a “win-win” in my book. Bigger, longer established raid guilds don’t have to ask their members to sit out of a raid and smaller guilds get a chance to try new content!
By: Kiya on July 24, 2008
at 11:12 am
My guild is in SoF on a four day a week raid schedule. Most nights, there are 2-6 people on the waiting list. Every now and then, we get a night with 48, or 44. We go ahead and raid anyhow. If our vote counts, I vote NO. The point of this is to make family guilds see more raid content. Hmmm. Let’s look at that statement.
1) Family guilds don’t have the gear from end zone/near end zone expansions to withstand the content. The groupable gear that came out with Secrets, while nice, doesn’t give resists needed for the AE’s. Therefore, making a new expansion family friendly also requires raids that are family friendly. Maybe a solution would be to offer some 42 person raids that are scaled to a specific gear level…say CoA, or Demi.
2) Wanting to see more raid content and actually wanting to do the raids are two different animals. Most players in family guilds are in family guilds because they don’t WANT to raid alot, or they don’t have the time to raid.
3) 54 person raids give needed dps, heals and tanks. A 42 person raid either has to need less of these or to be scaled down in difficulty.
4) We gear apps with app runs or rots. We are already cognizant of the fact that recruiting from guilds behind us in content have less than ideal hp/mana pools. We are looking for the player to be exceptional…not the gear, tho certainly exceptional NON HACKED gear is welcome.
SUGGESTIONS: I liked the idea of scaling difficulty raids if you are so concerned about raiders (since most of these responses are from raiders, it looks, though, like you need to get out of Washington and get a real feel for the rest of the country ). Just make sure that less honest people aren’t scaling it down then adding in a bunch to whip through it.
Why can’t raids be kept as they are, though? You have always made…easier raids with each expansion. What i mean is, just make some that are easier for lesser geared guilds to do? Maybe call it….Mini BMK3 or something. Make it similar to Prototype without the you know, 12 k ae
. Make it a 6 k ae. Maybe, have 2 or 3 different NPC’s that give the instances out; one gives out the intended raid version content (54 person, well geared) and another gives out 42 person 300 average mana/hp gear slots, and maybe even a third that gives out 42 person 250 hp/mana range, or whatever is appropriate.
42 person raids are not the answer to whatever you are trying to accomplish. Ask family guilds how many they actually have on for raids, or how many stay past a first wipe on new content. People that leave after a wipe DO NOT WANT TO RAID. Raiding is about dying. Raiding is about pushing your limits and testing yourself and your ability to work as a team. Making lower numbered raids for people that DO NOT WANT TO RAID is not the solution. Others have given some suggestions, also. Please look into those.
You can’t please all the people all of the time: this is true. But please don’t fix something that isnt broken yet. ( lol, fix the broken stuff first
)
By: Gentsia on July 24, 2008
at 12:05 pm
I was in a raiding guild during PoP that had trouble with the 72 man raid size. This was due to a lack of recruiting, plain and simple. We wanted to stay with the people we were familiar with and not add any new faces. The guild folded in PoP.
With 54 man raids, I saw no difference in how guilds functioned. Those that recruited stayed alive: those that did not failed. Whenever a guild fails, people leave the game, even if just temporarily.
This failure to recruit stemmed from poor leadership. With a limited number of intelligent and talented leaders in the game, the introduction of 42 man raids will push a large number of players ( mostly of utility classes) out of guilds that have good leaders, and force them to join ineffective guilds, or form their own. The glut of utility classes will leave all guilds at a loss to figure out how to include four mages/necros/bards/what-have-you, when they already have more than they need.
This change will seperate friends, and cause a general loss of playing base. I read one dev say that subscribership is down. This change will kill the game: guaranteed. You have a lot of satisfied customers atm and a few that are on the fence.
This change will produce a ton of unsatisfied customers and won’t do anything to keep the fence sitters.
By: Sscorn on July 24, 2008
at 1:29 pm
This won’t fix the guilds who already can’t get 54 in raids, and will only hurt the ones who can. Two glaring problems: 1) It won’t affect older content, so that a guild HAS to keep a force to do 54 man content while trying to progress through 42 man content. 2) Major class balance issues which you yourself said could be a problem, especially since an average of only 2.5 of each class would be on a 42 man raid. Good luck finding a guild that will ever have less than 3 warriors and 4 clerics.
By: Megdarin on July 24, 2008
at 2:34 pm
Eat the rich!
Take the number of guilds that field 54+, and multiply that by 12. That’s the number of additional people who will have to now sit out of events. As those who are made to sit out tend to be the least useful for the given event, it will end up being certain classes due to the inherent imbalance. A trimming of the fat so to speak.
Most likely a large portion of them will just leave the game, as there’s no room for them in other guilds in similar progression, and you definitely cannot make a successful guild out of all the marginalized leftover classes. If it’s your spouse/S.O. or good friend of X years who leaves due to this marginalization, that may well be the impetus you needed to go cold turkey on your EQ addition yourself.
Any ’solution’ to a perceived problem with player retention that is predicated on the certainty of forcing players to quit seems to me to be undesirable. At best you would have to say that it is a bet placed by SOE that the losses from the mid tier will hopefully be stymied enough in a year or two to make up for the immediate losses of players raiding the current content.
By: ---Xislaben--- on July 24, 2008
at 3:00 pm
Oh no! Now guilds have to remove 12 DPS classes and quit zerging encounters…you people are ridiculous. All the “hardcore” players just seem to be a bunch of babies. Just make all your box’d alts sit out.
Good call!
By: Pershon on July 24, 2008
at 3:21 pm
Whiners, take a breather.
How many bots do you think are at each of your raids?
Do you seriously predict that all the top end guilds will have to kick 12+ members because of this?
Geez
By: petur on July 24, 2008
at 5:21 pm
Why not just tune the raids for 42 but have a 54 man cap? The hard cap of 42 is going to make it harder for guild leaders to organize raids, not easier. Since most content is capped at 54, they’ll have to organize 54 man raids for non-SoD events and 42 man raids for SoD content.. that seems like double work – how is that easier?
This change really doesn’t make any sense… it sounds like you guys are making a ton of extra work for yourselves, and its just so not necessary.
By: Fizzlepop on July 24, 2008
at 8:57 pm
Yes, I do. We use zero bots in our raids, and I’m not aware of any other top end guilds that do either.
By: Tevik on July 25, 2008
at 12:17 am
Good intentions, Bad idea.
In order for a progression guild to venture into the next expansion, means they will have to farm 54 man raids, to gear up, to then start working on 42 man raids. Makes absolutely no sense. Bench 12 mains to hit new content, but you’ll still need them to continue to farm the older content, so you’re geared well enough to handle the new content, meanwhile those 12(most likely hybrids) are deprived of new content, because they were one of the sacrifices made to slim down to 42.
I can understand Sony’s point of view to make content accessible to more people. I can understand that to continue to offer EQ it needs to be profitable, but to penalize the guilds that have been able to fill raids, and to move the focus of the next expansion to mid range guilds who cannot field the numbers for a 54 man raid, isn’t fair.
Server Merger……….just because the numbers seem high on each server, consider the amount of people running multiple accounts, and it reduces what you feel the actual population is by 50-65%.
Not being able to field 54 players for alot of guilds is a server population issue, so why tone down raids, and aim content at mid range guilds, whose main problem is there aren’t enough players on the server to fill their ranks.
To do this will not only cause more people to leave, but will demoralize the people who remain.
By: Spiderlily on July 25, 2008
at 12:44 am
I think scaling the raid encounter difficulty to the number of players in the raid would be the way to go. A raid force of 30 should have as much difficulty as a raid force of 54 in successfully completing the encounter. This would allow all guilds the opportunity to experience all content as expressed above. I do not believe the loot should be scaled however. I just feel the number of loot drops should be lower. 30-36 players should get 2 drops. 37-48 get 3 drops and 49+ can have 4 drops. This would help balance out the speed in which guilds outfit their members. Just my opinion anyways.
By: pkeel on July 25, 2008
at 1:21 am
Breathe easy. They’re no longer dropping the number to 42, and are keeping it at 54.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=136398
By: Selerra on July 25, 2008
at 2:30 am
Petur and Pershon,
We field 60 – 66 members a night. That is 6 to 12 members sitting out already. We don’t allow Boxed alts ever. Your assumptions are WAY off. Quit assuming you know the high end when you obviously don’t.
Thank you Devs for listening to your customers.
Thank you for not killing Everquest.
By: Heeth Baar on July 25, 2008
at 2:00 pm
Might work out if a raid encounter becomes harder with 43+ people in the raid. A bit easier with 42-, but not enough to discourage more or less, but allows for smaller guilds to complete an encounter. Maybe even throw in another piece of loot to compensate for a bit harder encounter for a little bigger raid.
By: Bombir on July 26, 2008
at 6:16 am
Im glad they are keeping it as such. Im in the top guild on Zek (the server that everyone says is dying) and we have 15-20 people sitting out every night. Our apps raid for all of 30-45 minutes a night before they are removed.
By: aspit on July 30, 2008
at 2:39 pm