Allowing for variable raid group sizes

[Fendred]

No matter what MMORPG a player goes to, a persistent problem with end game is there are never exactly the right number of raiders to give all competent raiders a group. Hard limits on player number will always leave stragglers, which is something completely outside the control of the player base to fix.

While it may be difficult to perfectly balance and will undoubtedly require a change in the loot system, I feel that allowing parties to take excess players along with them would make the community a much happier place in the long run. Raiding is about doing something with friends, and nothing is worse than seeing your friend leave the game because he got left out of the fun. There really is no good alternative progression for a raider other than raiding (at least no one has found a good substitute yet).

[Fornix]

Even though it's a shame to have to let players forced to sit out due to raid capacity is reached. It's nigh impossible to do it any other way. A completely dynamic system would be impossible to balance. As e.g. 30 players vs. 6 players would make a vast difference in allowed positioning, boss skill rotations, etc.

Small variations could be better balanced, e.g. 8-man could probably be squeezen in a 7-9 or possibly 6-10 player range. However, in practise what you'd quickly see in that case is the question: "But what about our 9th/11th friend?".

[Fendred]

Even though it's a shame to have to let players forced to sit out due to raid capacity is reached. It's nigh impossible to do it any other way. A completely dynamic system would be impossible to balance. As e.g. 30 players vs. 6 players would make a vast difference in allowed positioning, boss skill rotations, etc.

Small variations could be better balanced, e.g. 8-man could probably be squeezen in a 7-9 or possibly 6-10 player range. However, in practise what you'd quickly see in that case is the question: "But what about our 9th/11th friend?".

Ugh, screw balance. Nothing in a game is perfectly balanced anyway. For instance, DPS in MMORPGs is never perfectly balanced because creating a variety of unique encounters renders the task impossible. So I say let's just see how close we can get it to being balanced and call it even.

[Fornix]

Ugh, screw balance. Nothing in a game is perfectly balanced anyway. A perfectly balanced game would be so sterile it wouldn't hold anyone's attention. Case in point, DPS in MMORPGs is never perfectly balanced because creating a variety of unique encounters renders the task impossible. So I say let's just see how close we can get it to being balanced and call it even.

I'm not so much meaning balanced as in equal or fair between different groups. But more along the lines of balanced in a manner that the content can be completed without running into situations in which the number of players there is of such an amount that it actually causes the group to run stuck.

Think turn 6. People get chained together and have to break free. Without making the fight a meaningless encounter in which most people would never have to move anymore, the chains would need to affect more players. However, if multi-linked still, the number of players chained together could be of a number which makes it impossible to spread far enough on the small plot of land.

As such the encounter would need to be revised, for greater party sizes different tactics may be required to be introduced, and ultimately there may be a need to create 5 or more varieties of the same raid boss; as the extra number of players people expect to bring along will never be the same anyway.

[Fendred]

...
Think turn 6. People get chained together and have to break free. Without making the fight a meaningless encounter in which most people would never have to move anymore, the chains would need to affect more players. However, if multi-linked still, the number of players chained together could be of a number which makes it impossible to spread far enough on the small plot of land.

As such the encounter would need to be revised, for greater party sizes different tactics may be required to be introduced, and ultimately there may be a need to create 5 or more varieties of the same raid boss; as the extra number of players people expect to bring along will never be the same anyway.

The turn 6 example is easily remedied by changing the algorithm for choosing chain targets from purely random to a randomly ordered queue where each DD is guaranteed to get chained at least once during the fight. Because the game breaks combatants down into three distinct roles, its easy to understand what is needed when adding more of them to a fight. Adding a new damage dealer requires they buff the boss's HP total to compensate, but little else. Additional tank would require a smaller buff to hit points and maybe a little more flexibility on tank swap mechanics. The more healers there are, the more damage gets spread to other members of the party that needs to be healed.

Obviously there are limits to what they could do before stuff starts to break down, but the flexible party size would never need to go above at most a cap of fifteen players. A flex cap maxing out at twelve would be more likely.

Again, I'm not saying they allow you to bring twenty four people to do turn six, but to allow a little variability which requires minor tweaks at best.