Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

40 man raids are fine. They will be beaten more then you think. They will also be used in the next tier when pugs can do them cause they will out gear them. All they have to do is put nice housing items, dyes and stuff on them and they will remain relevant content.

Sound to me people hate the thought of not getting the best gear because they won't do 40 man's or cant.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

Last time I logged onto DDO I saw winter coins or some shit floating everywhere and was spammed with news about how it was my last chance to forge some whatever gay shit they were pushing that week. Dungeon design in DDO is the best there ever will be and I'll lick their balls for that until my throat bleeds but the rest of that game is such atrocious ass I can't be bothered. Fuck any game that doesn't have some sort of auto-group finder as well but requires grouping to do anything meaningful.

Been playing SC2 but i can only 10 pool so many people before I get bored.

I haven't played an MMO in like 2 years. How has not a single decent fucking one come out. This is bullshit.

Click to expand...

Path of Exile, not an MMO, though.

its a two part question: is content that is not easily attainable by a lot of people an aspiration or is it a wall? The second part imo is more important, which is how will the developer react to how people react?

Historically in MMOs over the past 5 years, when people hit "the wall" (different for each person) they quit. There is just sooooo much stuff to do out there, there is no reason to try and get better or make new friends or whatever, you can just hop onto the next thing after having played 30 or 60 days. So if/when a ton of people cancel their subs, how will Carbine react?

Will they be like every other studio and make a bunch of crazy kneejerk promises and changes that make little sense, to try and stem the tide? Or will they be happy with retaining X hardcore raiders players and their groupies (for lack of a better word) and cater to them?

if they stick to their design ideas and are happy without a million subs it sounds great, but given that they are owned by NCSoft and the history of MMO devs its hard to believe that will happen.

cinge_sl said:

So don't do 40 mans.

Click to expand...

Abefroman_sl said:

How about don't do the 40 man?

Click to expand...

I was talking aboutcompetitive PvEthere, which I'm clearly interested. Carbine clearly said 40 man will be the competitive format (best gear / difficulty).

Abefroman_sl said:

40 man raids are fine. They will be beaten more then you think. They will also be used in the next tier when pugs can do them cause they will out gear them. All they have to do is put nice housing items, dyes and stuff on them and they will remain relevant content.

Sound to me people hate the thought of not getting the best gear because they won't do 40 man's or cant.

Click to expand...

THey also said they have a plan on nerfing them as time goes on. So when you have your second tier, your hardcore guild of 20 people may be able to complete them then? I have no idea how they plan on doing it.

Bondurant_sl said:

I was talking aboutcompetitive PvEthere, which I'm clearly interested. Carbine clearly said 40 man will be the competitive format (best gear / difficulty).

Click to expand...

You want competitive PVE but you want it streamlined and on your terms?

I don't think Carbine is the problem here. Either become a dirty casual or suck it up and do the 40 mans.

I think the tools for raids a la LFR are more important than the actual number. The reason WOW dropped it's 40 man raids is because of mudflation and turnover and the game being more streamlined and casual friendly. That's pretty much most of our complaints about WOW, and the fact Carbine is going in the opposite direction is actually a breath of fresh air.

The genre is slowly expanding. If you want easier, friendly raids WOW is the game for you. If you want bigger raids with a single difficulty level, apparently Wildstar is trying to make a game for you. If you want difficult raids, single difficulty then Rift is probably for you if you want 10-20 man stuff.

There are options out there, I wouldn't cry about WS 40 mans. I think they are making 20 mans too. I guess you'll have to live without having the best gear in the game unless you put some organizational effort in. I think that's ok because Carbine is being upfront about it. It's kind of refreshing.

Now lets see if they have the balls to not cave in on that stance 6 months from now.

Gecko_sl said:

You want competitive PVE but you want it streamlined and on your terms?

I don't think Carbine is the problem here. Either become a dirty casual or suck it up and do the 40 mans.

I think the tools for raids a la LFR are more important than the actual number. The reason WOW dropped it's 40 man raids is because of mudflation and turnover and the game being more streamlined and casual friendly. That's pretty much most of our complaints about WOW, and the fact Carbine is going in the opposite direction is actually a breath of fresh air.

Click to expand...

I've never said anything about competitive PvE being streamlined or casualized on my terms, I did both 40man and 25HM man modes in WoW and I think current 25HM man is better because it remains highly competitive without having the artificial difficulty of micromanaging 5-10 terrible players every damn night just to reach 40. I'm all about hardcore focused content, 1% etc because I think people needs goals, and I think it's okay for a game to have some content where most of the casual playerbase will never be able to go / do. But I also think 40 man was a lot of about the artificial difficulty of managing a viable roster every night. Most of the time it wasn't about encounter difficulty, but about "how many people are AFK tonight".

I like having a high number and having to coordinate which adds a layer of complexity, but also gives a group wiggle room. In a game with tens of thousands of players, and especially with the fact so many Wildstar players will be MMO vets it should make little difference if encounters are 40 man or 25. I personally like having the lesser encounters require 20 and the harder ones require 40 as it does exactly what you are complaining about, require more organization and coordination.

The bottom line is your 40 man argument can be made about 25 mans, or heck, even 10 mans. Carbine's design seems to be harder encounters requiring more people which seems solid to me.

A lot of the problems with WOW 40 mans was class balance, which won't be as much of an issue with Wildstar due to more people being able to do more roles.

Yes I'd agree with you, managing 40 man is "harder" than 25 man, but to me it's artificial, I'd rather spend my raiding night chainwiping on some encounter than waiting for JohnnyHunter to have his father's computer for the night or Ninjehwarriornaruto to replace our most efficient DPS rogue who just got stuck at work.

How is it artificial? The bottom line is 40 people is an actual mechanic that is used to ramp up raid difficulty, and not an artificial issue. If your guild has 20 solid raiders, then ally with another guild that has 20 solid raiders. It's no different than 10 man guilds wanting to do 25 man combat, correct? You figure out how to get the people or you don't do it. A lot will depend on the tools Wildstar offers, too.

WOWs raiding is built around a cheap, streamlined solution to combat heavy turnover and to allow insulation among guilds. It's the exact same thing as Flex: an idea built on the games churn due to WOW being an older game with heavy mudflation and catering to a more casual audience. These are not issues Wildstar will have. At least not right away.

In regards to your Timmy problem, Carbine has simplified raiding at the base level. If you lack DPS, the fact everyone can DPS will mitigate the overall need for a particiular class. It will be far, far easier to setup a 40 man raid personnel wise in Wildstar than a 25H in WOW, so I think you're wrong with your underlying complaint, but we'll have to wait and see.

"We lack DPS" said no one ever Joke aside, I think it's artificial because it just relies on how hard it is to manage the roster rather than perfecting the encounter. Of course you can say "but both are what makes it hard" and then I realize opinions differ a lot based on what one did experience during 40 man raiding era. Maybe I had to deal with too many Timmys (love the name) during my time. I'm gonna agree with you as well on the "we'll have to wait and see", maybe it will turn good. I'm still pessimistic though.

I think I have rose colored glasses because I enjoyed 40 mans in Vanilla far more than 25H, mainly due to the Timmy problem and turnover before I became a WOW statistic.

I just like the design. I actually wish it went 10 -> 20 -> 40 -> 75 raids ramping up difficulty and rewards. I could be way off, too. I know zero about the game past level 20.

WOW vanilla 40 mans were so awesome. competing with 7 other mages sucked though
Get too rags , run to my spot
summon child
press this button till the monster falls down and you win yayyy

go off and power nap

Draegan_sl said:

The genre is slowly expanding. If you want easier, friendly raids WOW is the game for you. If you want bigger raids with a single difficulty level, apparently Wildstar is trying to make a game for you. If you want difficult raids, single difficulty then Rift is probably for you if you want 10-20 man stuff.

There are options out there, I wouldn't cry about WS 40 mans. I think they are making 20 mans too. I guess you'll have to live without having the best gear in the game unless you put some organizational effort in. I think that's ok because Carbine is being upfront about it. It's kind of refreshing.

Now lets see if they have the balls to not cave in on that stance 6 months from now.

Click to expand...

I see no problem with what they are talking about trying. It's worth a shot. As for having the balls to stick to it that is another thing all together like you said. They will probably cave like every game before them.

It really depends on their attrition. Designers cave because the subs crater and it is, after all, a money making enterprise.

Carbine is at least smart enough to be adding enough systems to keep the filthy casuals occupied in an effort to stem that hideous industry-standard attrition that we know is going to occur.

Can they flesh them out enough in the time they have left in order for that strategy to be effective? We'll see. I do think that the pvp-crutch is being used here the same way that it's been used since I can remember... but we'll see.

40 man raids also, in theory, help build community. The best thing they could do is make loot drop tables huge, limit the amount dropped (2-3 per boss, 5 bosses in raid or something), and have short lockouts (24-48 hours). Then you can actually have a shit ton of people interacting and switching in and out of a raid so they can get their fiery sword of paladin-ness. You don't have to wait for trucker bob to get off third shift schedule or the one normal guy to sidestep his girlfriend or for the healer-mom's ex-husband take her kids.

I think it's either numbers vs 'perfect form' raiding for the top 1% gear. More people are probably in support of 'perfect form' shit, but most will simply not have the ability/gear to do so. Also major stat crunches lend way to people looking for exploits/bugs. Though those will still happen no matter what.

spronk_sl said:

its a two part question: is content that is not easily attainable by a lot of people an aspiration or is it a wall? The second part imo is more important, which is how will the developer react to how people react?

Historically in MMOs over the past 5 years, when people hit "the wall" (different for each person) they quit. There is just sooooo much stuff to do out there, there is no reason to try and get better or make new friends or whatever, you can just hop onto the next thing after having played 30 or 60 days. So if/when a ton of people cancel their subs, how will Carbine react?

Will they be like every other studio and make a bunch of crazy kneejerk promises and changes that make little sense, to try and stem the tide? Or will they be happy with retaining X hardcore raiders players and their groupies (for lack of a better word) and cater to them?

if they stick to their design ideas and are happy without a million subs it sounds great, but given that they are owned by NCSoft and the history of MMO devs its hard to believe that will happen.

Click to expand...

A Good Post.

It's not the late nineties any more. There's enough decent F2P MMOs out there now that people can just turn and walk away if shit stinks.

Sithro_sl said:

Path of Exile, not an MMO, though.

Click to expand...

I'm really not liking path of exile. Everything is done okay and nothing so far is really offensive. Just nothing really stands out. I made the mistake of reading forums and my personal hygiene is in too good of condition for me to understand what anybody is saying.

Itzena_sl said:

A Good Post.

It's not the late nineties any more. There's enough decent F2P MMOs out there now that people can just turn and walk away if shit stinks.

Click to expand...

The better question is does it really stink though? Perception vs. reality. There are a lot more choices out there now, and would they cave in and make everything more casual/accessible for fear of losing more potential subs to the blob of other games that will cater to that? Or...would they deal with that and try to make a deeper game not built around catering to as many people as possible.

2 different questions of whether people hitting a wall actually "stinks" vs. how do we handle this dilemma as a business decision.