What Characteristics Make A Great Raiding Game?

Greetings Everyone,

I wanted to get the raiders feedback on some things. I would like you to please post a top 5 or top 10 things your perfect raiding game would have. What things are most critical to you for the game to possess for you to enjoy raiding in it. I will be passing this feedback to some of my developer friends so please be professional and concise :).

Foghladha

Raiding interface. Its a key item missing in GW2. By this I mean the ability for people to join a raid party, which is typically 10-40 man, and be able to see each other's status and effects and interact through things like buffs and heals. This is crucial for proper raid leading, sub grouping and interaction. Also, will they have in game statistical feedback or at least allow third party mods so we can collect individual characters data during raid events., such as overall dps and healing, dps and healing during boss fights, etc... Finally, progressive content. 5 man content should prepare a character for initial raids, with content added over time that requires success in the previous tier, usually in the form of gear and/or "keys" to the next tier.

» Edited on: 2013-02-04 13:40:45

Dynamic events that cause the raid group to be into 2+ small groups and coordinating at times. Its fun to see a large group blasting away at some big bad boss, but to truely make a good raid i think the event needs to demand certain things from certain types of fighters. Melee needing to react to this, ranged needing to do this, add healers and tanks having their own assignements. This assigns individually responsibility to the raid members. I can tell you back in Vanilla wow 40 man Molten Core raids, 15 of those people usually were dead weight. Which is why in guilds that launched on new servers you saw them go into Molten Core with 25 people and down content. Because 15 of those people didn't need to be there. Demanding that each raid member be "present" and "in the moment" is nice. Responsibility! Now, you can dumb this down and offer less of a reward for those less skilled players that may not be able to handle the responsibility, or increase it to create more of a challenge. Individual effort combining to create a group effort. Another main thing to me was diversity. Raid fights can't have the same old mechanics. Tank this here, blow up adds, save cooldowns for 25%... standard mechanics get old fast. Events need to be dynamic in order to be interesting.

I'll take a stab at this, my only experience raiding was in Rift as a member of Aegis. Balanced Instances - Not only in the difficulty of the fights within a single instance, but also balance amongst the raids themselves. I saw a couple of ways that this was done in Rift and Drowned Halls and Gilded Prophecy provide great examples. If the two had been released together then the raiding community would have seen a technically difficult instance in the form of Gilded Prophecy paired with a learning instance with Drowned Halls. This meant that Gilded Prophecy would keep more experienced raiders attentive and allow for less experienced or even players with no experience in raiding to cut their teeth on a scaling instance designed for learning in Drowned Halls. Raid Flexibility - Rift allowed this by changing roles and Guild Wars 2 would be able to allow this due to all the character customization that a player can perform on the fly. Allow members of the raid the ability to switch up the roles they can perform in an instance without needing to return to a trainer or equivalent. Also, grant classes the ability to perform at least 75-80% of the duties needed in a raid (that is if the game is heavily class based). Essentially allow the raid the ability to navigate through mechanics with the players rather than the classes. Atmosphere - Progression groups spend a lot of time in instances and attention needs to be paid to not only the end but the beginning and middle (where most groups spend a majority of their time) of the atmosphere of the instance. River of Souls in Rift really did erode your soul after a while whereas the wings and art of Hammerknell and Infernal Dawn made for absolutely enjoyable travel through those two instances. Eventually, any instance is going to wear on a player after so many weeks and months spent there but a little variety and gorgeous artwork can lessen that wear mightily. Reward - "Loot! loot! loot! Ow the loot! Bloomin' loot! That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot." Again progression groups are going to be spending hours upon hours in an instance and the gear grind does insane things to a normal person. However, from what I have seen most raiders are a bit laid back when it comes to actual loot(it is a lot like forums, a majority of the posters are rather kind and courteous, but then there are the ones who post derogatory or inflammatory comments constantly), what does seem to drive a lot of players onward are the vanity rewards that can be achieved through achievements, simple completion of an instance or however they are attained. Costume items, titles, mounts, gear skins, anything unique that can be gained in an instance allows players to feel rewarded and extend their own personal contentment. I apologize for using so many Rift references and examples, but currently that is the only frame of reference I have for raiding. Hope this helps, and I also hope it is not to verbose (I really did try to keep it concise, but no plan survives first contact with a keyboard).

» Edited on: 2013-02-04 14:42:06

Boss Mechanics: • Challenging, interesting boss mechanics that take teamwork and perseverance to beat • Varied design so that sometimes you participate in an 'event' and other times kill one, two, or multiple bosses. (Think Gruul's Lair, the Gunship or Hyjal/Black Temple in Wow, or GP in Rift) but more up to date and innovative. • A job for classes in the raid during different fights whether it be silences, interrupts, cc, or unique class abilities. • Interactive environment where you use items from the raid to assist you, like the reflective shield in Fractals of the Mists in GW2. • Healing mechanics to keep the heal team interested like cleanses, watching debuffs and a mixture of heal intensive and cleanse phases. • Multi level encounters made up of distinct phases and abilities for the raid to counter. • The need for spatial awareness from the whole raid, like not standing in 'poo' and being in the right place at the right time. Just standing there and dpsing or healing and watching the boss's health dwindle does not cut it for me. • Trinity, how I miss you!!!!! Raiding kinda blows without trinity! Progression • There must be a sense of progression, this is crucial to successful raiding. Not too hasty, not too daunting or unachievable. The idea that the team is making progress appeals to everyone and can make or break a raid. Guildbreaking encounters you slog at for 6 months are not fun! • The sense that you learn together and beat the enemy. Progression from raid to raid starting with a learner raid, medium raid and then the mother of all challenges as the end game raid. 10 man raids to supplement and help the main raiding effort. Rift was very good at this in the first year. Raid achievments for mounts/titles (like the different coloured dragons) UI • Custom raid ui, with the ability to mod. • Reporting mod so you can review and assess what you were lacking if you find an encounter difficult to beat. • Voice comms overlay worked into the ui for your channel. • Raid chat, raid warnings, ready check etc. Raid tools to help the raidleader. A raid invite/accept menu the raidleader uses to invite the team to forthcoming raids. Loot Tables • Unique gear, crafting recipes and vanity pets accessible only in the raid. This gear may also be obtained by pvp or crafting, but is in some way different and specific to the raid. This is the reward spent for all your hours in the raid! • A one hour after raid ability to trade between raiders in case mistakes are made with loot. • An in built raid loot tracker for the raid leaders would be awesome. • Tier set pieces that look sexy and have great stats. Recognisable! • Tokens collected each time you raid that reward the committed raider balanced with BOE trash drops for those raiding casually. Story/Lore • The reason you are raiding worked into the lore not just a random attachment to it. • The idea that what you are killing is a threat to your faction/race. • Unique cut scenes you see the first time, but not too long (remember "In the mountains" speech from Ulduar..... yeah, not that!) • Raid quests which when completed give you a unique item/weapon/pet or whatever. I would also like to see a reduction in the numbers needed for a raid to 15 or 10. Getting 20 people together can be a nightmare. This would allow hardcore and casual raiders to raid more easily. Variable difficulties for the same raid can also work, "normal" and "heroic" versions of the same content with boss variations. Overall, the key points are great game and boss mechanics, unique loot, progression as a team and a mixture of fun and challenge.

» Edited on: 2013-02-04 17:35:13

My raiding experience starts with Everquest, so I may be a bit old fashioned. Raid Size flexibility. A Raid defined as anything designed for more then a single group to complete. Allowing you to take anything from 6 to 60, or more, to any of them. Designing for 20 to 30 players in most cases. Not having to turn your Raiders away from a Raid is huge. Gear should last, the raiding gear from one tier/expansion is great gear to start off raiding again in the next. Their shall be Jackpot gear. "Wow itemnamehere dropped! No one shall go home empty handed. Some form of account bound raid currency used to buy upgrades. Random member of the raid is not a target for anything that must be deal with quickly or fail. There is a pattern for the effect such that you can assign someone to take the hit and deal with it. Gear shall be recognized in the streets as it where. Appearance slots as in EQ2 go a long way. Can continue showing off your pride and joy long after it is behind the power curve. "I'm showing the old X tier class set, nice huh" Crafting/Questing/Dungeoning interaction. To get the best out of some items you must complete some outside of raiding activities. Every class should have something unique that they bring to the game, that helps in raiding. One of a class should never be enough to satisfy the entire raid. There must be a reason to go back to that raid once you have the jackpot gear, account bound stuff helps a great deal. And yes, there should be in game support for the activity, an interface, several built in loot systems to choose between (bid/roll/leader) ----------- On second thoughts, many of these could be used for making dungeons great in ones game as well. We've all had to turn away friends from a group as they would be "one too many" for the interface.

I came too late to the discussion. All of the above ^ Rift is currently the set standard for what I enjoyed about raiding (But also WoW 2006-2008) - Small Tight raids of 10-25 people but also options for 40-50 persons for a more casual raid (family sized) - Amazing scripted bosses with lots of poo - multi-phased fights and utilising player mechanics like interrupts and crowd control - Good loot rewards via boss loot tables, tokens and Random BoE drops - Hard modes integrated into the standard raid ie; more challenge and better loot if you kill bosses in a different order (see Yogg+0) - Non Linear dungeons. I would love to see a raid with multiple pathways and/or vertical layers (Blackrock Depths) or something where a raid might need to split into two or three groups and do simultaneous actions to defeat a section. - Don't be afraid of cliches or stereotype environments or bosses, Sometimes killing an evil wizard in a dark stonewalled dungeon is sometimes more exciting than doing an alternative raid in a forest, or elemental plane. Lastly and this goes for all aspects of the game, the loot should be comparable to the challenge. Do a raid in a certain order to fight impossibru boss should reap the best reward. Also in WvW/RvR The greater the challenge should also give a comparable reward.

» Edited on: 2013-02-04 17:35:06

» Edited on: 2013-02-04 17:37:04

Fights that don't fail or succeed on 'gimmicks' I primarily raided as a Healer in WoW and absolutely hated fights where there was some kind of mechanic where you had to use a separate skill bar totally unrelated to your role (Teron Gorefiend, I'm looking at you). It caused hours of frustration and angst as people who were slower to pick up on new playstyles and key combos struggled and caused the raid to fail. Again and again and again... If you have a 'gimmick' where someone can choose to play that role, that's fine. But randomly picking someone doesn't work. Flexible raid composition Not having a Priest who can mind control or a Hunter who can use tranq shot shouldn't mean you can't complete a boss or have to pug a spot. Also, having to bring specific classes to get specific buffs is also a no-no. While I wouldn't go so far as to say 'dump the Trinity' (I love healing too much to ever say that!), it can be hard enough to get 25 or even 10 people together without having to turn away people because 'sorry we need a -insert other class here-'. Alternate ways to earn gear other than loot drops Tokens, reputation points, etc. that you get for simply participating/killing bosses and can collect to redeem on gear are a great way to reward people for consistent attendance and helps get them through the dry periods where the RNG doesn't go their way in loot drops. Flexible display/communication of information Give me alternate ways of seeing my raid bars, buffs/debuffs, etc. I modded the heck out of my WoW interface because I found it extremely difficult to process all the information that went on in a raid. People's brains work in different ways, and letting people customise information is increases people's enjoyment and doesn't necessarily have to decrease the skill needed. The Trinity Like Hex, I miss the Trinity. I miss healing and I know others do as well. But let people play a class that can heal or tank or dps (though not necessarily all in one fight), to increase raid flexibility and make life outside raiding a little less painful. I levelled a Resto Druid before the days of respecs or multiple specs and I never want to do anything like that again!

» Edited on: 2013-02-05 00:23:18

The 3 most important things are the following: 1) Encounters are varying in nature and require player skill, mechanical understanding, coordination and sometimes a bit of luck to defeat. 2) The rewards for completion of encounters are fitting for the amount of time expected to complete them. 3) The visual immersion of the encounter is good enough to allow players to be in them for long amounts of time without getting headaches or feel like the environment of every encounter looks exactly the same.

I used to raid in EQ. I think most of the crew here is giving about the same answers and I agree with them. I would agrre with Cerulean's 4th point because these days continuous hours at a computer without breaks are killer. Variety is definitely a key thing - in how the bosses have to be killed, the looks of he loot, and even the eye candy of the area to make it fun for how repetitious the play can be to gain what you want.

Here are 8: 1)Interesting and engaging strategies and challenges that require cooperation and coordination. 2) Encounter effects visible and clear, with good indications that one is succeeding or failing ... no invisible AOE's of death or one-shotting unless there is ample information or warning that this will occur. 3) Scaling difficulty levels, "goldilocks" level of difficulty. Not too hard, not too easy. Reward matches difficulty. 4) Consistent and involving story that integrates well with the rest of the game and character development. A fun sense of the heroic throughout encounters. The raid should be accomplishing something that matters. 5) Choice: being able to choose different encounters and different encounter difficulty levels with corresponding rewards. 6) A clean and customizible presentation of what is happening in the game, both from a UI perspective and from gameplay graphics/animation 7) No encounter or game bugs. None. Bugs kill fun. 8) Fresh content and updates. Even the best raids get old after a while. A postscript: I've played many MMO raid encounters, and the best Raid instance I've seen is WoW's Ulduar raid. They got almost everything right there. If a company could consistently pull that quality, they'd have me forever. There was none before and none since that were anywhere near this quality in any game I've seen, though the Icecrown Citadel (developed at near the same time by Blizz, was a not too distant second). However, WoW was terribly slow at releasing new content even as these were being released.

Just going to add a couple of my own thoughts to this thread as many things have already been said before this. 1. Mind control is annoying especially when you are a certain class and can mass mind control your raid, it makes it to where the person that enjoys playing that role, can't do it on those fights. It has also caused much frustration with wipes when a tank gets mind controlled and can't tank. 2. Dodge/roll- I think this would make things easier for pug raids and such, because having a more effective way out of bad stuff is a good thing. 3.Raid frame/click box healing- I have healed in many games, I believe healing classes have their place in mmo's and trinity may be necessary in raiding. However I have been tired of not even getting to look at the boss because I am too busy watching green bars go up and down while spamming 1 healing spell over and over. I wanna look at the boss and see how awesome they are and when I kill him I want more of an accomplished feeling than " man I filled those green bars up amazingly well". I want to be in the action, not just a bystander. Many times I have been spamming my healing to look up and realize that boss they worked to design for months is dead and I didn't realize it. Like I said before a lot of things have already been posted, but these are just a few of the things throughout my gaming adventures that I have found.

***Really hate having games with normal raid content.. then that same content on hardmode... and then that same content on some crazy difficulty with o'wait more boss hp and more raid damage. If a game IS going to have multiple difficulty modes then I need to point to the right way to do it and that was Ulduar back in Wrath of the Lich King. Same instance, completely different boss design based on normal mode or heroic mode. ***Natural progression of content. Entry content needs to be difficult but not insane to accomplish. But the content from there needs to natural get more difficult and tighter tuned. Burning Crusade in World of Warcraft was a great example of this. While Karazhan was probably a little more difficult than it needed to be for an entry instance the general concept of where difficulties went from there was accurate. ***I am also ok with having some gear obtainable outside of raids as an ALTERNATIVE to raid gear. Key point is some pieces, not an entire gear set. Whether this is through a token currency system and/or from other filler smaller raid content doesn't matter to me. ***Raid content available upon release of the game or shortly thereafter. Minimal to no stagnation of content available. Whether that's through making content difficult to progress through and slowly introducing new content, or through making content a little easier and coming out with new raid content on a more frequent basis doesn't matter to me. Although I would slightly prefer more difficult content over the later. ***Don't use world bosses for raid level gear unless your game centers around the concept of open world content. And if it does be prepared to make sure the servers are able to handle massive amounts of players in certain zones/areas with minimal issues as far as lag/crashing is concerned. ***UNIQUE BOSS ENCOUNTER DESIGN. This is probably going to be the most difficult out of all things since most unique encounters have been done in so many varying ways.

I have a limited raiding experience, mainly Vanguard. I like the 4-5 group, 20-30 people size raid. Challenging, don't want to finish a raid dungeon on the first time through. To me going after a boss on a number of nights and learning the mechanics and strategies of a fight make finally beating the fight that much better. Unique fights. Don't want every fight to be tank & spank. Like the fights where the boss does this at certain time or certain %. Again I don't have alot of different raiding experience, but really enjoyed the raiding I did do in Vanguard. Not sire how many others here played, but they had Ancient Port Warehouse and you could choose a different wing to do on different nights. Just seemed like you had alot of options.

I agree with Daphyd. I have been raiding with Daphyd and company through 3 or 4 games (hard to keep track) over a few years. Been out of the action for almost 2 months now; and have been giving a lot of thought to what makes me love to raid. Many games are a bother because they want to become all things. Having varying forms of the same game, that are not interlinked is the only way to accomplish this. Do not force pvp or pve upon folks. They do not mix. For a pve raid server, all leveling should be built around learning a well defined class with a specific role. Tank, Heals, and DPS (Ranged and Melee). Leveling should be done through dungeon like encounters where people are taught their roles and learn the basics of Teamwork. Solo play should enlist companions to fill the roles other than the main chosen role of the player. This will help build the initial role models and teamwork to the newest of players. Early dungeons should teach teamwork by replacing the companions with other players and tackling more challenging content. I raid because of the people I raid with. Working as a team ... together ... and depending on others while doing your best to fulfill your duties. I raid for the camaraderie and sense of accomplishment ... as a TEAM member. Raids should have Boss encounters that are easily reached with minimal trash. The run back should be nearly non-existent. The Bosses should start with a beginning set of abilities, where normally geared individuals can work together to overcome the mechanics. EVERYONE in the raid should receive an item of gear that is a step up when they first complete the encounter. With the new gear and practice, the bosses become easy. The next step of difficulty is not so much just a damage increase but an addition of a mechanic that requires the previous level to be second nature so the new mechanic can be worked into the progression. This can continue indefinitely. With varying combinations of mechanics, and damage levels. Any number of instances could be draped in the same mechanics with slightly differing circumstance and a change of scenery. Raiding will always be the same. It is a new "system" the team has to learn that makes a new instance or Boss. The scenery and sounds with clever indicators that give the needed freshness. Attention to detail always shows. When you walk into an encounter and get an overwhelming sense of what is to come ... makes the satisfaction that much more when your team finally overcomes the obstacles and you are soooo familiar with every part of what was once a startling new environment. Make the strategies straight forward and well known ... with easily recognizable indicators. The difficulty should be in the team work required. Tanks should have to swap or pickup. DPS needs change targets at times and move, healers must stay ahead of the game. Any encounter that requires anticipation on the part of each player, will be successful. This anticipation should be taught through experience beginning at the very first level of raid. Raid Frames and UI's that are appropriate to position. Healers should have click frames for healing with all the mouse buttons and modifiers, but the healing needs to be almost intuitive so that healing to far after the fact is difficult ... anticipation is required of all positions or those 2 buttons get worn out with the enjoyment. I have mostly been a healer. We are always the ones to blame. Healers should not be running around, but concentrating on the other players and the mechanics affecting those players. For me, healing was the most difficult pressure cooker I ever faced ... when I was initially asked to give it a try. I would have given the games up early on if I had not attempted and then enjoyed the challenge. If every position is made accountable with a bit of pressure, then every position can feel the enjoyment of a goal achieved. No need for so many talents and trees. Make it about the teamwork, with the gear a simple tool to "mitigate and boost" for continued progression. I could ramble on forever. Haven't slept in awhile and seriously jet-lagged. By the way Daph, I agree, but consider Icecrown Citadel the pinnacle of WoW ... with Ulduar just behind.

My perfect raiding game would require these points: 1- The most important thing to me would be the trinity. But make it where people can change roles so that if someone has to leave another could replace the critical roles like healer and tank. 2- Do away with the easy mode in raids. Make people have to work to even get in them. Make at least 1 person in each greoup have to obtain a key to enter the raid zone. Too many end game content has been dumbed down so much that it can be plowed through in 1 day without hardly any though or strat. Those may be ok for the casual gamer but to me all it does is make end game not even worth doing because everyone ends up with the same armor and no sense of worth. Raids should be hard not easy. One of the things I miss the most in raiding is multple days in one raid zone. Raiding should be progressive in the zone. You should not be able to roll on through 5 or 6 bosses in 1 night. 3- Make bosses scripted and cut down the ways you can beat them to make you have to follow a strat not just attack and spam skills. 4- Create outdoor bosses that can be contested. Yeah this has caused issues in other games but it also was one of the most fun things I ever encountered in a MMO. I have very fond memories of eq 1 days fighting over outdoor dragons. 5- Get rid of the set drops in the raid zones and the problems with people waiting months for there armor to drop. Have each boss drop armor patterns that are generic like hat chest and such. Also have each boss drop a certain amount of a special coin which together at a raid vender would be used to get these pieces. Make the lesser pieces like hands and gloves cost lower amount of coins then the higher pieces/ A full raid run should give you enough tokens to aquire maybe gloves or wristband but not a chestpiece. This would eliminate the bottlenecks with armor drops for the classes , take away the need for dkp, but also give people a reason to keep raiding and not just get there armor and bail. Because you will not get your full set handed to you easily. 6- Set up mini raid zones system for the non hardcore raiders that would have a slightly lower tier armor then the full on raids but would give those who do not want to raid a sense of achievement. Give it the same system of armor aquirement as the hardcore raiding zones. 7. Put in multiple variations of armor appearances and states for each class to appeal to all the different playing styles. But make the apperance section interchangable. People like to be different not cookie cutters. This could cost a slightly different amount in coins to compensate for it but allow them to choose what there armor looks like. Dyes can be used through crafting . I am strictly speaking what the armor looks like. One of my biggest let downs in alot of the games has been looking like someone elses twin after raiding for months. 8. Put in some sort of bonus system for those raiders going back to a old raid zone to outfit someone who has been away from game for awhile and has been left behind. We all know this happens and its quite depressing for the people who want to come back to the game and want to contribute to raiding but cannot because they are too far behnd and it would take too much effort to get them caught up. Maybe how this could work is set up a hard special quest given by the raid gear outfitters that requires someone in full raid gear for that zone to broker the deal with the npc for you. This quest would need help of a raid to finish but would offer those helping the tier they are in and the person doing the quest the tier armor needed to start the raiding the people helping him are in. This should also be hard enough because it would eliminate people abusing it because you need someone in full tier armor to intiate it. I have alot of little personal things I could go on and on about. But these 8 would have to be the top things I would consider making a good raiding game.

I have done a great deal of raiding in various games. There are so many great ideas listed above. One of the most important to me would be raid size flexibility. I would like to see a system that allows you to bring in whatever size group you want and then scales accordingly. If we had 7 people or 23, it could be done. I always hated leaving someone out of the group that wanted to participate but based on size limits they couldn't. On the flip side, I do wish there was opportunity to see all the dungeons/raids as a solo player as well. Sometimes you just cant find a group. I also agree with some form of reward for those that go back to older content to lead new players that have never seen those events. I always enjoyed attunements or longer quests in order to be able to enter an area. It always seems that if people have been challenged in certain ways in easier places - that by the time they got to the harder content, there was more understanding of their class and role.

In addition to my comments above, one thing I would like to see return to MMO Raiding is attunements. Many people might disagree but I believe If done right, an attunement quest would be a solo quest chain, be it personal story or whatever, that teaches you the required skills to defeat the bosses in a raid. The quest chain ends at a climactic group dungeon that grants you a key or item that attunes you and grants access to the raid. The important thing that attunements did was prepare the raider for what lay ahead, and also set the story plot and the role you are about to play in that story. I have seen attunements done badly and also attunements done well. If they are done well they are not looked upon as restricting access to content but instead, created to set the story, prepare the player for what they are about to get into, and are a subtle way of teaching them what special abilities the bosses have and how to avoid them or counter them. I honestly miss the days when Raids had attunements because they really did well in telling the story of the raid in question and they added a sub-layer of raid progression for each raid after the first.

My early experience with raiding was EQ1, that said, only one thing would make me happy about raiding and that would be no size limit to the number of people you can bring. We had just as much fun bringing 60 half geared people on a raid to Kael as I ever had bringing only the 40 elite peeps in WoW. I guess I just dislike the exclusion of people just because there is a number cap.