24 Player Raiding: A Relic of the past?

[Valicard]

I don't know how it is for Euro players(u.s. morning times) but for U.S. players; Raiding. Is. Dead. There is only 1 maybe 2 Guilds that is active to any degree in the U.S. that can clear T3 and T4 with a reasonable chance of success (greater then 50%). The rest of the U.S. time guilds in Crom(very few remaining) have been doing T3 and T4 for ages and ages and are still nowhere close to even forming half an in-guild raid If these guilds do manage to spend the next hour trying to fill in global the raids have maybe a ~25% chance to full clear...and that's with several wipes and hours of hours wasted time. These "other" guilds are slowly fading away, mainly because people who do come on for raids wipe and wipe and wipe for 3 1/2 hours and have nothing to show for it in the end. 1 or 2 smart guys go "why the &#!$ am I wasting my time on this ?!" quit and don't show up for the next raid. In turn, raidleaders are forced to go to global where it could take up to another 1~2 hours to fill and/or not fill at all and just disband. This further debilitates the guild/raiding and the whole thing just ends up in a endless spiral of death until the guild and a whole bunch of players folds.

Now we are down to one server.

I know what you're thinking, "Well, I don't think there's anything wrong!...." You know because I belong to this one guild that can assemble the same 24 people again and again every week and eventually put things on farm until it gets "boring". Especially, for Americans, it's very hard to feel anything outside their "bubble". I'm not saying this is all Americans but in general due to the very independent and even entrepreneurial mentality of Americans, they have this "Well, as long as I'm having fun.I don't care". But how long before the game stops development altogether for lack of revenue? I'm sure it'll still be hosted by FC (note Anarchy Online) but do you really want to play in a ghost town of a game?

Your own property is concerned when your neighbor's house is on fire. ~ Horace

Some suggestions:

+Focus on 6 man dungeons more and/or make T6 a 12 man raid only.

+Dungeons drop tokens for raid loot. 99% of your customers have access to *most* dungeons(some have steep learning curves compared to rewards and hence a coin-toss if you can form a group for one.) Only 1% have access to raids. Raiding is a test of can you call up 24 other guys to meet at XYZ time and then herd these sheep through ABC holes. Especially, in the ultra low u.s. pop this is just impossible.

+Setup, a built-in raid scheduler with reminders and "mini-game" teleport feature.

+No locks on raids, but loot drops on first kill of the week only.

[Texan615]

Been saying for a while there only needs to be 1 US guild, with raids based on time zones (east coast and west coast raid times) and with weekend raids as well.

All tiers of raiding would be covered in this setup, from T1 raids to T5 progression raiding, and everything in between.

But everyone wants to be the leader of their own little guild and the vicious pug cycle continues.

[MashMash]

I don't know how it is for Euro players(u.s. morning times) but for U.S. players; Raiding. Is. Dead. There is only 1 maybe 2 Guilds that is active to any degree in the U.S. that can clear T3 and T4 with a reasonable chance of success (greater then 50%). The rest of the U.S. time guilds in Crom(very few remaining) have been doing T3 and T4 for ages and ages and are still nowhere close to even forming half an in-guild raid If these guilds do manage to spend the next hour trying to fill in global the raids have maybe a ~25% chance to full clear...and that's with several wipes and hours of hours wasted time. These "other" guilds are slowly fading away, mainly because people who do come on for raids wipe and wipe and wipe for 3 1/2 hours and have nothing to show for it in the end. 1 or 2 smart guys go "why the &#!$ am I wasting my time on this ?!" quit and don't show up for the next raid. In turn, raidleaders are forced to go to global where it could take up to another 1~2 hours to fill and/or not fill at all and just disband. This further debilitates the guild/raiding and the whole thing just ends up in a endless spiral of death until the guild and a whole bunch of players folds.

Now we are down to one server.

I know what you're thinking, "Well, I don't think there's anything wrong!...." You know because I belong to this one guild that can assemble the same 24 people again and again every week and eventually put things on farm until it gets "boring". Especially, for Americans, it's very hard to feel anything outside their "bubble". I'm not saying this is all Americans but in general due to the very independent and even entrepreneurial mentality of Americans, they have this "Well, as long as I'm having fun.I don't care". But how long before the game stops development altogether for lack of revenue? I'm sure it'll still be hosted by FC (note Anarchy Online) but do you really want to play in a ghost town of a game?

Your own property is concerned when your neighbor's house is on fire. ~ Horace

Some suggestions:

+Focus on 6 man dungeons more and/or make T6 a 12 man raid only.

+Dungeons drop tokens for raid loot. 99% of your customers have access to *most* dungeons(some have steep learning curves compared to rewards and hence a coin-toss if you can form a group for one.) Only 1% have access to raids. Raiding is a test of can you call up 24 other guys to meet at XYZ time and then herd these sheep through ABC holes. Especially, in the ultra low u.s. pop this is just impossible.

+Setup, a built-in raid scheduler with reminders and "mini-game" teleport feature.

+No locks on raids, but loot drops on first kill of the week only.

I think they mentioned a 12 man raid didn't they? One of those Dragon Spine dungeons that's not out yet? Something like that.

Bit iffy on dungeons dropping raid tokens - why raid then? People would just farm dungeons, because they are inevitably easier. People will do something easier, even though it takes longer over something that's shorter, but more difficult - it's tedious but reliable. (Human nature sux like that).

They can't even add bags or storage without it being a huge resource sink or massive issue - in game schedule or ports would be a nightmare. There aren't even any ports to the new raid!

What do you mean first kill of week? Like, per toon? Having no loot after a toon killed it would just be a different form of lock - no one would want to take than toon anyway. Because no loot lol.

[Mirasta]

12 men raids are ok but only in addition to the 24s like in wow to help smaller guilds. I wouldnt do 12 men raids or even pay for that content.

[tapwater]

Been saying for a while there only needs to be 1 US guild, with raids based on time zones (east coast and west coast raid times) and with weekend raids as well.

All tiers of raiding would be covered in this setup, from T1 raids to T5 progression raiding, and everything in between.

But everyone wants to be the leader of their own little guild and the vicious pug cycle continues.

The problem is too many people have different mindsets. Not everyone gets along with everyone else. One guild may think doing this one way is more fair than another. One guild may support weaker players more than another. For these reasons and more, we can't simply merge all US guilds into one.

On another note, if there was only 1 US raiding guild, which contained all the US raiders, then wouldn't that be really no different to how it is now? Instead of calling out to global, we would be calling out to the guild channel with all the same people involved (minus any EU/AUS/Everywhere else) people you could pick up out of global.

[Valicard]

Some dungeons are much much harder then anything T4 can dish out(can't say about T5 yet) The point is you're working with a much smaller group of people who know the tactics and have been in successful groups. Many of the UC/DS dungeons aren't a cake walk.. but there's a natural tendency to improve and do better and actually learn their class because there isn't 23 other people to hide behind. It's pretty damn evident who's not jumping off the cliff on the candle boss fast enough, who or who all are not pulling weight on zodiac is harder.

You can also make dungeons ridiculously hard, but Funcom seems to focus on raids as if it's some anathema to their money troubles. It's crazy, I've been online for the past couple years every night and have been in almost every raid with almost all the u.s. guilds on Crom. It's dead folks. It's not only dead, but raiding is painful to do. If Funcom continues to make raid content for 1% and thinks people will continuously do these unsuccessful and downright torturous raids then they should just change their company's name to Paincom and get it over with.

BTW, I meant a toon can only recieve loot for that week (just like it is now). But the raid instance respawns the bosses (so they can be killed again) for practice purposes by guilds.

[tapwater]

What do you mean first kill of week? Like, per toon? Having no loot after a toon killed it would just be a different form of lock - no one would want to take than toon anyway. Because no loot lol.

Some people would do it just for fun or the good/betterment of the guild/raid. I.E. The guild 2nd raid can't get past boss x because they can't get another good Tos (for whatever reason), then instead of calling it quits, someone on hox #3 relogs to his Tos, which ran and got loot in Raid 1, so that the guild can kill the boss and move on and get loot for everyone else.

[Valicard]

On another note, if there was only 1 US raiding guild, which contained all the US raiders, then wouldn't that be really no different to how it is now? Instead of calling out to global, we would be calling out to the guild channel with all the same people involved (minus any EU/AUS/Everywhere else) people you could pick up out of global.

No. Because with everyone under one roof things can get sorted out much mote efficiently. People would have access to a single 'Big Board' of a schedule and insert their names accordingly. Right now, a lot of this "lets take 2 hours to fill my raid" business can be resolved if people knew what everyone else wants to do and when, then he/she can plan accordingly. Currently, it's like everyone randomly logging on and rolling a hundred sided die and hoping it matches another guy's roll exactly... it's just vastly inefficient.

[pelethor]

perhaps you could try create something similer to crom pugs http://crompugs.guildlaunch.com/

its a raiding force that has raiders from many different guilds it raids during eu time and has a website where anyone can join the site and apply for a raiding spot and then sign up for raids whenever he/she feels like it,they have a t4 raid every week and clear it

it seems like the kind of thing you guys are talking about,perhaps a US version of that would be what you're looking for if you got organised I'm sure it would be something you could make happen

[sugarspice]

No. Because with everyone under one roof things can get sorted out much mote efficiently. People would have access to a single 'Big Board' of a schedule and insert their names accordingly. Right now, a lot of this "lets take 2 hours to fill my raid" business can be resolved if people knew what everyone else wants to do and when, then he/she can plan accordingly. Currently, it's like everyone randomly logging on and rolling a hundred sided die and hoping it matches another guy's roll exactly... it's just vastly inefficient.

WE have no problem filling our t4 raids, we have no desire to merge our guild with anyone elses guild, but would help folks If they need help.