Chaotic Alliance Raid Experiment: Changes to Improve the Fun for More People
There are two glaring issues that make the CAR unfun for SOME people: the time that it takes searching/filling/refilling in PF and the difficult checks in phase two that make people want to quit.
Please consider these five changes to improve the fun factor.
Note 1: By 'less-skilled players' I think players that struggle with the Chaotic as it currently is; they will try extremes, want to do them, but may or may not be able clear or reclear them consistently. By 'more-skilled players' I think players who can complete the Chaotic as it is given enough luck with other players around them; these players are comfortable with reclearing savages. I consider myself more-skilled, but enjoy playing with anyone at any skill level.
Note 2: The amounts of currency below are just examples of a basic framework for demonstration purposes. They would probably have to be heavily adjusted, as would the cost of reward items.
1) Give players who are progging and helping people prog Demimateria I and II (DI and DII): those who are progging would get only DI and people who have already cleared would get DI and DII. Progging difficult content can take dozens of hours over weeks: players should be able to buy a piece of gear or two along the way. The lockout should be changed to 45 minutes (from 90 minutes). Payout of the D would be at the end of lockouts based on the average total health removed from the boss from the best 4 or 5 pulls. So if the payout is 5 DI and 5 DII upon killing the boss, players who do not manage to kill the boss and averaged 45% total health remaining at a lockout would receive 2 DI or 2 DI and 2 DII. [Approximate health remaining: 0-20% = 4, 20-40% = 3, 40-60% = 2, 60-80% = 1, 80-100% = 0; In practice one should probably pick health points that correspond to important prog points in the fight.] The purpose of such a payout system is to value everyone's time regardless of skill level even if players do not kill a boss. Yes, people who have already cleared are getting more, but they need to be incentivized because they could be off in farm parties hoping to guarantee clears. This way more players would be accepted into PFs. More players would stay for the lockout. More people would stay and try to clear even if mistakes were made because you would literally lose the chunk of the currency you already earned: 4 D is way better than nothing. The total stress level of players who dislike time sinks where you get no prog or earn nothing after potentially dozens of hours of PF filling would be greatly alleviated. It might even allow PFs to be more numerous and fill faster.
2) Make the content more accessible to a larger percentage of the players in terms of difficulty. Most of this fight feels perfect. The first and third phases is/are fantastic. The DPS check is very reasonable. But the 24-man towers and swap are just too much for many players. These mechanics do not teach as much as they filter out players. The whole fight would be a lot more fun for a lot more people without these two mechanics. The towers should be reduced to one person in each tower. And the swap should not be required.
3) Make the 24-man towers and the swap optional team challenges. Making the fight easier for the masses would potentially hurt the experience of the more-skilled players: I do love the towers and swap on a personal level, but I hate the way the number of participants in CAR is reduced with them and the negative, cringy attitudes it has brought out in PFs. If within the same content it were possible for more-skilled players to choose to do something extra-challenging a lot of them should be somewhat satisfied. So in this case if all 24 people were in their proper towers each player would get 1 DI and 1 DII automatically. If both sets of towers were done perfectly each player would get a third DI and a third DII. The swap would be optional: portals would appear on the ground with a countdown and if everyone alive was in their portal at the end of the countdown the swap would occur. A swap bonus would be granted to everyone upon completing the fight (only upon completing the fight). *** Another alternative approach to the swap mechanic could be that it only occurs if enough damage has been done to the CoD before the swap is supposed to happen: kind of like triggering a mini enrage. Basically if the raid damage is good enough they would trigger the bonus difficulty challenge. A similar damage check approach could be done with the towers: they would be blue without glowing circles if only 1 person is required but red with glowing circles if she is really angry and everyone is required. *** I'm sure other optional challenges could be thought up by SE that could make fights like this have a more dynamic difficulty based on the skill-level shown by the players who are present. Imagine hidden mini enrage bonus challenges that only the best of the best can trigger: you might think you have found them all but when the ilvl cap is reached groups might find some new boss mechanic that makes the fight even harder. If your shields and heals are too good and your DPS is too high maybe she might punish you even more by gaining extra health and triggering a short new phase. The point is that you can create a fight that has difficult optional team challenges and or a fight that adjusts to the skill-level of those present.
4) Create personal challenge bonuses so players can earn extra currency based on their personal skill and performance level. Upon reaching the lockout or clearing the fight players could earn extra currency for doing specific things. Some examples: not hitting anyone with your hand or eye attacks; sufficient use of mits for raidwides; avoiding all non-player-aimed aoe mechanics; doing sufficient DPS, healing, voking based on your job class; performing enough dps during a burst window; etc. At the end, two random challenges could be selected from a large list and you could get an extra 1 or 2 DI or DII if you fulfilled the requirements. Players who did not earn the bonus might consider how to improve for next time. Such bonus incentives would teach new players to use their mits or read their tooltips and skilled players could try to do everything to ensure themselves full bonuses no matter which ones are randomly selected. *** If numbers 1-3 were adopted I don't think this one would be necessary, but it would still be fun to have.
5) Create a Daily Chaotic Alliance Raid Roulette: Over time create a series of CARs in this style. Similar to Frontline PVP maps there would be a different CAR rotating each day. Instead of the daily rewards being allocated upon completion only, they would also be allocated upon reaching the 45 minute lockout. Since which alliance you are in could impact the tasks you are to complete you would choose which alliance (A, B, or C) that you want to be in. In fact it would be ideal if you had the option to select two or three alliances as well if you are comfortable anywhere. Make the currencies the same for all the CARs and have a growing pool of loot so people can get older mounts or hair even when new CARs and rewards are released. The goal is longevity. These CARs should be learned by new players years from now. They should remain alongside Extremes in terms of base difficulty and be an important stepping stone before going into Savage. If the Optional Team Challenges and or Mini Enrage Bonus Challenges are adopted it might be possible to have Mandatory Challenge Days where all the most difficult Savage mechanics are guaranteed to occur for the more-skilled players.
I am not suggesting such systems are employed for all content in the game, just this niche, more-difficult, more-time-consuming content where more people need to play together. If this content rewarded progging to value everyone's time, made extra difficult team challenges optional or dps-check based, and introduced bonus personal challenges I think a larger chunk of the spectrum of players could spend more time having more fun while learning or helping. More less-skilled players would have a safe place to challenge themselves and learn without feeling like time failing is time wasted. A larger number of more-skilled players would not feel so angry being present even if the less-skilled are having trouble or someone is having an off day. Such content would develop a more permanent longevity. Multiple Chaotic raids in such a format (preferably with the same or exchangeable currencies and overlapping reward pools) could eventually be part of a daily Chaotic Roulette and would make an ideal place for players to learn important mechanics which they could transfer to other parts of the game. I think difficult content with a dynamic-difficulty variability within a single piece of content would be a more fun place for larger numbers of people to easily congregate and have fun.
Thanks for your consideration,
Hasta.
