One mans view of 2.0 and neccessary changes.

[brasileira]

PROBABLY NO ONE WILL READ ME BUT

we sure need new zones, and some like 12 cap just like wiz is thinking about cmal4...
but not 1 or 2 new zones.. we do need like 10 new zones, from lvl 10-65.

With new equipment , maybe some new charms that may drop from new bosses with new affects,
and some new moneysinker items, otherwise there is nothing to spend ones money after 30.

The class changes are ok, just need in feel that rangers still need a slightly increse on their dps.. otherwise they will ALWAYS sit on raids, because they cant dps and they cant tank

 

[diolas]

This whole situation reminds me of when they introduced the first raid cap. It stunk back then and it will stink now until people get used to the new changes. I can only hope wiz sticks to his guns and leaves it at a 18 with a 2 per class limit. Focus should be spent on adding more raid content and tweaking the difficulty of existing content to suit the new raid limit rather than continuing to adjust the size (which will only lead to more adjusting of content in the end).

 

[SprintFun]

I'm probably going to try 21 and see how that works out, I'd rather take things slowly now that the big changes are over.

I think this would be a good thing only if the cap of 2 per class goes in with it, otherwise people will just load up on healers for those 3 new spots. Sorry if this was addressed in the sea of nonsense and guild penis measurements.

 

[Eldorath]

Upping the cap to 21 without having classes limited to two is going to cause balancing issues. Lets look at two raids (these are assuming they already have 2 of each class maximum, and as far as healers they have 2 clerics, 2 druids, 1 shaman, which is probably the "optimal" setup right now, anyway) :

-Raid 1 fills its 3 extra slots with an additional cleric, druid, wizard
-Raid 2 fills its slot with a bard, enchanter, and ranger

If raid 1 had 5 healers, then they've just moved up to 7 healers, and on pure melee fights they should have enough healer mana to keep the fight going for at least an additional 30% of the original length of the fight. 30% is a really long time. Even on none pure melee fights they will obviously still be able to go a noticably large difference longer than a raid with only 5 healers. Raid 2 might have a slight dps advantage over Raid 1, but its not going to gain say a 30% dps increase from those 3 classes. Not to mention encounters where offtanking is necessary, Raid 2 is screwed compared to Raid 1, it doesn't have enough heals to keep up the number of people Raid 1 can, for the amount of time Raid 1 can.

If the cap is left at 3 of each class, and especially moved to 21, then the Raid 1 setup will have a clear advantage. Therefore Raid 1 will be able to complete encounters more effectively than Raid 2. Raid 1's setup would be clearly preferred by most guilds. Then the "non-essential classes" get screwed and the last three slots fill up with druid/cleric/one DPS.

And back to the example, you might be thinking that, oh what difference is one or two more healers going to make, it really is a big enough difference to make either 1) Encounters unreasonably easy for Raid 1, or 2) Encounters unreasonably hard for Raid 2. Encounters need to be designed and rebalanced with a max of 6 or 8 healers in mind (and I'm guessing most raids won't be using that maximum because they are already tight enough). Since DPS has not been adjusted much except on a few encounters that were simply undoable, healer mana has been one of the decided factor in many fights. Adding in 2 more healers to those fights would make them incredible easier.

 

[antihelei]

I've noticed alot recently that some guilds are running outrageously high amounts of healers on their raids. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 2 shamans. 3 clerics, 2 druids, 3 shamans. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 3 shamans. In some cases, these are the same guilds that are complaining that they are being forced to sit out mages and rangers and necromancers etc. These raids are not optimally set up, currently I think that being able to have 7-9 healers on an 18 man raid is really just running the raid in easy mode, allowing healers to either be botted or make mistakes and still win the encounters. Encounters are possible with 5 healers, but only with 5 healers who know what they are doing and don't make any mistakes. Steel currently runs a 2 cleric, 2 druid, 1 shaman set up and we have not encountered a problem with being forced to sit anyone (except our 3rd bard) and we have not fought a mob that couldn't be defeated with our setup. All it takes is planning, focus and skill. With 7-9 healers however, the healers have too much room to miss a heal, or they don't have to switch targets, hell, you could run a raid no problem with 9 actual people each botting a healer because there is that much room for error with a raid comprised of half healers. Perhaps, if the 2 per class raid limit went in, and the max on healers is 6 then the guilds complaining that they cant find a slot for their rangers and mages could find that slot. But maybe if that happened they would find that their healers aren't so good when its their ass on the line. (Not calling anyone out, but with 5-6 healers you can tell who sucks alot easier)

 

[Lufia]

I've noticed alot recently that some guilds are running outrageously high amounts of healers on their raids. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 2 shamans. 3 clerics, 2 druids, 3 shamans. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 3 shamans. In some cases, these are the same guilds that are complaining that they are being forced to sit out mages and rangers and necromancers etc.

I've seen a variety of raid setups just from running /who's on guilds when they are raiding, but I'd like to see people post what they currently run, as well as how it will change if Wiz was to widdle the 18-man setup down to a 2-per-class as was previously confirmed as intended to be implemented. I'd really like to see if the problem of extra 'non-essential' classes is solved by enforcing this cap? I realize that it will not alleviate Ruin's overall roster pains, but perhaps it could help.

Here's our current setup, which will not change when 2-per-class is put in:
1 WAR
1 SK
1 PAL
1 BRD
1 RNG
1 ROG
1 BST
1 MNK
2 CLR
2 DRU
1 SHM
1 ENC
2 WIZ
1 MAG
1 NEC

If we were to move to a 21-man 3-per-cap setup, we would add 1 CLR, 1 DRU/SHM, and 1 WIZ/SHM/DRU. More healing only decreases the excitement value by extending the length of encounters and moving away from the current setup in which encounters die quickly, but still require quality execution of the strat.

 

[chelkey]

The server population took an immediate leap down and is now climbing back up to where it was.

I expected this, and I accept it. People have quit over these changes, some more people will probably quit over these changes. Others will end up finding a new guild instead of their old guild (Steel/Defiance, PR/Exodus). There's also been an upshot in new guilds and membership of the smaller guilds.

The one thing you don't get because you're too busy thinking...
or, let me translate:
... is that these changes were made for the benefit of the smaller guilds that have been constantly getting erased from existance over the history of SOD because they can never get up to a stable 30 man raiding force. Why can't they get up to a 30 man raiding force? Because the larger guilds keep eating up their best members since those best members don't want to be stuck at a lower tier forever.

Rinse, repeat.

The large guilds like Ruin are getting screwed right now. I've never denied that. But it will pass and people will find their new places, as opposed to the screwing of the smaller guilds which would just keep going on and on and on and on and on forever until there was nothing left except three or four big guilds.

The above is the point most are not understanding, and continue to cry for the past.
And yes, you can keep just the three or four big guilds, like we have done in the past, but then SoD becomes a private server for the elite few and deters new people from wanting to join the game. That makes the game end up at a stand still and eventually will die. With the 3 or 4 guilds taking hits and new guilds able to be up and coming, this will continue a pattern of more new guilds and more new people will join the game, and on and on and on. Much better than the on and on and on, ok, now what do we do, there's nothing left??

And as far as friends having to leave the top tier guilds to join other guilds. So what? You cannot still be friends with these folks just because they are in other guild?? Someone I think mentioned that would be like telling your family member you cannot be a part of my family anymore. Why because they have a different name tag on their shirt?? Or did they marry and get a new last name?? That's just ridiculous. I live in CT, my best friend moved to GA. Are we supposed to not be friends anymore because we don't live in the same state? NO, we still talk several times a day, and occasionally we get together, not as often as in the past, but she's still my best friend. So hence, your ex-guild mate will still be your friend, and yeah, you won't raid with them as often, but you still can raid/group together occasionally. And what's this thing callled /tell?? Oh yeah, you can still talk to them all day and night.

So those that are in the top 3 or 4 guilds and really want to be a part of SoD, will join other guilds and guess what, they can still be your friends. Some, unfortunately will leave the game, but hey, that's ok, because eventually we will have many more new blood to make friends with.

And as far as this nonsense goes about raid numbers. You work with what you have, and you keep working at it until you succeed. More satisfaction is gotten from an encounter beaten against the odds, than an encounter beaten just because you have the right numbers. Yes, it might take longer, and yea, you may wipe alot. But, you will have learned to think, be on your toes, diversify, multi-task, etc. Not just show up, hang around for several hours, push a few buttons, joke around with your friends and call it a night. I have never been closer to folks than when I have shared several hours of strategizing and making things work with what we have. THAT truly makes you feel like a part of a family. Not to mention, I have seen raids made of all one class succeed. It's just a matter of knowing your class, knowing the other's capabilities, and strategizig so they all work together.

And as far as folks getting left out...I'm all for at tops 20 cap with 3 class cap. The 3 class cap so that folks don't get left out. Yeah, it may suck that you cannot do such and such a raid tonight because you have more utility than healers or tanks or whatever the case. But, the 3 class cap makes it possible when there are 3 say, beastlords on or 3 rangers, not exactly what you wanted for classes, but hey, that's where you'll have to strategize and make it work. And if by chance there are 4 of one class on, rarely, then that's ok, because most have BoTs they can switch to on this rare occasion.

Any thing is possible if you use the effort and your head to make things work. If you don't like making an effort and you truly want to just button push and chat, then maybe this is not the game for you. Try, maybe Pogo.com??

 

[Malluas]

I've noticed alot recently that some guilds are running outrageously high amounts of healers on their raids. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 2 shamans. 3 clerics, 2 druids, 3 shamans. 3 clerics, 3 druids, 3 shamans. In some cases, these are the same guilds that are complaining that they are being forced to sit out mages and rangers and necromancers etc. These raids are not optimally set up, currently I think that being able to have 7-9 healers on an 18 man raid is really just running the raid in easy mode, allowing healers to either be botted or make mistakes and still win the encounters. Encounters are possible with 5 healers, but only with 5 healers who know what they are doing and don't make any mistakes. Steel currently runs a 2 cleric, 2 druid, 1 shaman set up and we have not encountered a problem with being forced to sit anyone (except our 3rd bard) and we have not fought a mob that couldn't be defeated with our setup. All it takes is planning, focus and skill. With 7-9 healers however, the healers have too much room to miss a heal, or they don't have to switch targets, hell, you could run a raid no problem with 9 actual people each botting a healer because there is that much room for error with a raid comprised of half healers.  Perhaps, if the 2 per class raid limit went in, and the max on healers is 6 then the guilds complaining that they cant find a slot for their rangers and mages could find that slot. But maybe if that happened they would find that their healers aren't so good when its their ass on the line. (Not calling anyone out, but with 5-6 healers you can tell who sucks alot easier)

IP, Thaz tower.. nuff said

 

[Aaubert]

Bull, Ruin has always been 20% hardcore, never miss a raid except once in a great while players, and the rest are casual, 3-4 times a week players. I challenge any upcoming (not reformed) 'new' guild leader to post "I have a team of 18 people that raids every single raid without fail we dont need ANY other people to round out the team". The 36 man cap had allowed Ruin to keep a roster of 45ish people and because so many people were just casual players, it averaged out to 30 to 36 a night, the only night where we might run over and have to camp bots, was Sunday nights (typically when everyone has free time).

Ruin will not be recruiting again for a long time, and when/if we do, it will be hardcore only, because we cant afford to have casual players with such a small raid cap.

a lot of what i hear people complaining about (nicely from some, or demeaningly from breaker-the-oft-banned, AKA Junius on these boards, not Jun.... /sigh), is how hard it is to cut people. i understand that people aren't cattle, and that it sucks. I did this on live when the limit went from 72 people on time/GoD raids to 36. If you think 36 to 18 makes people feel upset about being cut, try doubling the number of people you're kicking out. Instead of changing the entire set-up of SoD to make it less than what Wiz is trying for, I think it would be nice if there was a way to keep some of the solidarity, even if people aren't raiding with the same groups every night.

serverwide channels, as they were in live, could be really nice. a serverwide.ruin would allow these people a common link... I know I felt my biggest feelings of community in the serverwide.whatever channels on live, and it seems that the majority of the problems being asked about here are about community, and how hard it is to tell friends, *hey, i'm raiding with NOT YOU tonight*...

somehow, the people within forsaken manage to be friendly with other people outside of forsaken, even if they're not inviting them to their guild roster. maybe it'd be possible for other people to somehow be friends with others even if they're not reading /gu.

 

[Aaubert]

IP, Thaz tower.. nuff said

lawlers@ego, and completely ignoring the point of what antihelei was saying.

 

[volvov2]

words

The point is that cutting down the raid cap is actually making it harder for the average player to see the raid game when every guild from now on will be looking for hardcore players only because they cant afford to have 2 part time enchanters, then when both show up, you have to tell a person you cant raid because whatever target you are aiming for, you cant spare 1 slot to fit them in. And then the next day, neither log on and you have to bot one. syduck:

Eventually, due to class restrictions and such a low cap, I predict the big guilds raids to be made up of:

1 Warrior (with one on bot standby in case the encounter calls for 2)
1 Shadowknight or monk (probably monk unless the encounter needs an SK)
2 clerics
2 druids
2 shaman
2 wizards
2 rogues
1 enchanter (with one on bot standby in case the encounter calls for 2)
1 bard
4 other classes, probably necro, mage, beastlord and some random 18th

 

[rab]

Seems like you're saying HARDCORE guilds will have to recruit hardcore people. Who knew?

 

[zodium]

This whole situation reminds me of when they introduced the first raid cap. It stunk back then and it will stink now until people get used to the new changes. I can only hope wiz sticks to his guns and leaves it at a 18 with a 2 per class limit. Focus should be spent on adding more raid content and tweaking the difficulty of existing content to suit the new raid limit rather than continuing to adjust the size (which will only lead to more adjusting of content in the end).

COSMIC MILESTONE; DIOLAS AND ZODIUM IN AGREEMENT

What I tried to say with my earlier post is that you all are barking up the wrong tree if you want to discuss this: the raid efficiency argument doesn't hold water because you have ALWAYS needed a max efficiency setup to compete, with 36 or 18. Now if it isn't feasible to raid with 18/21 and it still isn't after the dust has settled, then the raid mobs obviously need tuning down.

 

[junius]

Wrong zodium, each choice now holds twice as much weight if not more. Previously you could have taken 4 warriors on your raid, it wasnt hardcore efficient but you could still kill everything on the server with that setup. Now if you tried that move you couldnt kill half the shit on the server. The new raid guilds will eliminate all the casuals and replace them with standby bots ala forsaken and legacy. When the hardcore get bored they will not log on, but this time they wont ask for the raids to be cut down for everyone to their personal style of raiding they will just quit and not come back. Furthermore I remember full well what legacy was modeled and founded after and I still to this day do not agree with it nor your idea that certain class's are not useful.

 

[luciferblack]

When the hardcore get bored they will not log on, but this time they wont ask for the raids to be cut down for everyone to their personal style of raiding they will just quit and not come back.

So why would it be bad if the server had preference for a casual play style for once?

That's fine if people think raiding should be "hardcore", but honestly I welcome the more intimate nature of the smaller raid size.

Also, raid size shouldn't be the be-all-end-all of things. Wiz, Xeldan, and everyone else are capable of tweaking/tuning encounters.

If a "hardcore" guild is going to be leaving out casual players and substituting the players with bots, then that's their own problem and something they need to address. If they then get bored and don't log in, then I guess the casual players will fill those roles the bots had eventually won't they? And if at some point there are no "hardcore" players left, then I'm sure the encounters would be tuned yet again.

The good thing about the server is that it changes.

I don't feel that the server should be customized around whatever Guild X thinks is the right way to do things.

 

[Malluas]

lawlers@ego, and completely ignoring the point of what antihelei was saying.

no its cause you need healers there foo. When this hit that hard you can't have one person padding for the entire fight.

 

[antihelei]

no its cause you need healers there foo. When this hit that hard you can't have one person padding for the entire fight.

then they arent tuned properly because needing a raid that is 40%+ healers when healers are only 20% of all the available classes is broken

 

[Malluas]

then maybe so but atm both need a decent amount of healers. more so Thaz

 

[Jinxat]

Alright, im through with arguing and as such this will be my last post on the subject. All of you guys that havent yet experienced IP/thaz tower dont see how hard some of these mobs hit and the amount of hp that they have. You will realize that unless you are geared like forsaken is, that you will have no chance on the encounters and that your healers will most likely run OOM at or around 30-50 %. The raid setup we are running now is the optimal raid setup and since we ARE maximizing on clerics and other healers more slots would allow us to add in other classes that are less wanted. We arent excluding other classes because we want to, we are excluding them because, well, if we didnt there is no way that we could possibly do what we have done since the 2.0 changes without doing so. The fact of the matter is that you can't compare pre-IP mobs and pre-thaz mobs to OP/DHK/torment/air mobs. Until you have experienced what we have, please dont shit on us and talk about how we have a bad raid setup and its our fault that we exclude people and that we are horrible people.

Another thing about the "dream team" argument. I was saying before that with a 36 man raid cap, you didn't NEED 36 people. You could raid with less and many guilds did that. Ill take forsaken/legacy here for example because they are the poster child for this whole system. They had a solid core and usually didnt have more than 25-30 on raids. They had a CORE of people with a few extra's that would raid casually. The point being that it would only take a certain amount of people to kill mobs (ie: NOT THE MAXIMUM RAIDFORCE) allowed for people who were geared/aa'd less to participate at their level without hindering them. Now, you take the current raid setup. Lets say that since the changes you had one too many of x class quit and that class is mandatory for raids. So, you go recruiting and you recruit said player of x class for whatever reason. This player is, however, severly undergeared compared to the rest of your guild and will hinder you on most mobs at the current tier you are at. Since with this new character its almost like raiding with 17 instead of 18 it is harder to get them geared up on the fly while hitting your usual targets as it was with say, a 36 man raid cap since you need everybody to be at their best for alot of encounters to be beaten under the 2.0 ruleset.

I would prefer raid caps being increased to 24. Wiz, however, doesnt want raids to be this big and would rather something in the low 20s, I would accept this and take it because being able to raid with 3 more people, of whatever class, gives a little more room for error with regards to a raid setup. It would also allow me and others to raid with people that they had previously raided with. I played The Game for about 3-4 years, I played WoW for the good part of a year, and I played other MMO's as well. In none of these games was I forced to cut members of my guild unless they were acting out of line and needed a kick in the ass. I dont know what you are talking about with all of these games being forced to cut people and that is a natural thing to occur because in all my time I actually saw quite the contrary. More often than not we were constantly looking for more people, casual or hardcore, to come aboard to help us kill harder things. I never came here whining about making the change. I simply posted my thoughts on the OP's opinions and defended my position. Since when is that whining?

To close, you can say whatever you want about ruin and other guilds I dont even care anymore. The fact of the matter is that you can not compare mobs like warden of torment or seductress to other mobs that are in IP and thaz tower. Hell, the trash mobs in IP and thaz tower are probably equally hard to encounters in your tier. Im not trying to say that you guys are any lesser than us, I am trying to say that there is no possible way as it currently stands that if we ran a raid with 5 healers we would be able to kill alot of the things that we are right now, and I think this would apply for even forsaken who is currently the best of the best.

Just one more note: I would like steel who has the "best" raid setup to go and try killing even the wardwyrms with 5 healers in OP. I would wager that with 5 healers you guys wouldnt even last long enough to see one of them die. There is no way that 5 healers can keep up two tanks (this isnt even counting rampage tanks) long enough for you to kill one or both. The same would apply for IP trash. Also, another thing is that we have asked for certain things to be rebalanced before coming here. If you would actually read other topics you would be able to see this. Personally though, I dont like to go whining when things are hard. I like a challenge myself, and I dont like to have admins following me around fine tuning every single mob in the game because, well they have better things to do then babysit us.

 

[Syalara]

I still dont see a benefit for a smaller guild here...and im not talking about a splinter from a top tier raiding guild either. I mean the guilds who say how they 'miss out' on content due to not being on of the "uber" raiding guilds.

They will miss out on the same content now if not more because they most likely wont have the pool of toons to pull from to make a perfect 18 or 21 man setup. So family guilds will be doing what now? Either asking players to roll different toons to make a perfect setup or doing what they always did....miss out on content cause of their goals are diff from a real raiding guilds. I am not saying raiding guilds are better, they just typically have a different ruleset to one extent ot another.

Family guilds did not miss content due to player numbers previously, they missed content due to lack of aaing and lack of coordination and lack of resists and lack of being able to figure out many encounters and lack of players consistently logging in. And the top guilds didnt gobble up the players from those guilds, the players in those guilds who gave a shit about progression simply found a home where progression was realistic and was a goal. In most cases.

When there are enough of those players around Dalaya with no real home a new raiding guild would pop up. Take Steel v1 for example, I recall a mass exodus of 65's from smaller family type guilds to join Steel....because they wanted to raid and progress and AA, not stagnate in a family guild that maybe lacked real leadership or a common consensus of direction or a guild that simply chose to only dabble in the raid game or whatever. Or also the alliance between Aeternus and SR and/or Empire back in the day....they didnt do that cause none of those guilds had 36 members....they did that cause niether guild at the time had the right mix of classes who were raidworthy and could be counted upon to login for a raid. You think those issues go poof when you reduce the player cap? No, it get exacerbated becuase with a tight cap on class and players a guilds options are much more limited on how an encounter could be beaten.

So is 36 too much? Ya ok maybe but a 2 per class cap w/ 18 or 21 total isnt raiding. It is Adept hunting gone wrong. 24 or much preferrably 30 sound like better numbers to me....a kind of meet in the middle approach where ya maybe nobody is perfectly happy but both sides can suck it up and live as happily as could be expected.

I dont speak for any of the guilds I mentioned or pretend to know their 'true' reasons for whatever....ithese are just my observations and conclusions.