T5 - Too easy?

[leyor]

People bitch that things are too easy, but really the game being too hard is more the problem. The t4/t5 guilds don't have this problem, but it would really be interesting to find out how much of the player base has never killed T3/T4. I bet its over half the games population. I don't want these fights dumbed down, but I can see the disconnect between those that can, and the rest of the game population.

Always difficult to balance that different players have different playstyles and ability to contribute time.
In Everquest, my guild needed to have 72 players per raid and raiding 6h a day, 6 days a week to stay competitive. (Mixed US/Euro guild).
In AoC we're older. 24 players per raid, 3h raids, 3 times a week. That's a pretty low time commitment for being the top raiding guild.

Not sure how much lower the bar can be lowered to make the content both inclusive but also retain an amount of competitiveness.

[Khaletohep]

Why does a MMO have to be competitive?

Example: I've enjoyed Fallout 3, although I played it several years after release. Did I care that most players killed Colonel Autumn before me? No.
And even if I bought and played the game just after release, I'd expect somebody to complete it faster who's on vacation or sth. Does that diminish my enjoyment? No.
Is it important to me if one guild or another practiced T5 encounters on Testlive to be zomfbgfirst!!!11 guild on live servers to complete them? Uhm, no.

In others words:

It's not all that important how fast two to three guilds complete the content, but how long the majority of players will take. As a developer, I'd always have that one single encounter nobody ever completes, so as to have that one single carrot just out of reach - and I think most do that. But the raid as a whole - who cares if it is "too easy", as long as there are people that wipe on old school Vistrix?

[Mantic0r3]

you will care when you lose people because your game is too easy. (as a dev)

[Valicard]

you will care when you lose people because your game is too easy. (as a dev)

Think the devs (and not to mention Funcom's finance division) will care a lot more when only 1% of the population can actually do the content they've invested in. It's like making a 200 million dollar movie then only releasing in 1 theater in the entire world.. it's going to be a disaster.

[MashMash]

Think the devs (and not to mention Funcom's finance division) will care a lot more when only 1% of the population can actually do the content they've invested in. It's like making a 200 million dollar movie then only releasing in 1 theater in the entire world.. it's going to be a disaster.

I'd still probably wanna see that movie

[Caudilloo]

Actually I think that it is a good thing. After spending some more time with Vistrix I think she could use a slight nerf since she might be a contentblocker for many guilds. Yakhmar and Champion are OK I suppose.

From what people tell me Kyllikki is harder then any boss they fought so far. This is a good thing. Over the last 2 years AoC has lost many players due to lack of challenge. Personally I hope that for the coming 6 months only a handfull of guild manage to kill her. That way people always have a goal to strive for and a new challenge to complete.
Then after a while when Cetriss is coming close bring her down to Yakhmar/Champion level so any decent guild can kill her and get prepared for T6.

Something that is exclusive only makes you want it more.

[Bibik]

you will care when you lose people because your game is too easy. (as a dev)

Same can be said with game being too hard (and in greater proportions). That's why Cirith said part of his job is to balance the content to be balanced difficulty-wise.
Also, frustration =/= difficulty. Sometimes, encounters mechanics are really frustrating so many players skip it on purpose. Main goal is still to have fun and it is still the first thing devs have to aim when designing pve content. Even if T5 would be "kind of easy", if it's fun, it can live longer than harder content but boring fights.

[Chass-]

I'm actually quite jealous of the guilds that haven't cleared anything yet ... its the most fun I have in PVE in aoc, doing new bosses, trying new stuff, progressing and eventually getting the kill.

But to comment on the name of the thread: T5 - too easy? No

[Caudilloo]

-Result: No kill yet, but was damn close last night on Yakhmar. 99% chance of success next week if same people forms raid.

How is this going?

[Blows]

How is this going?

Down to 99.7% success for next weeks raid!