How to make the 3rd raid difficulty work

[Mindiori]

Obviously there's always a huge disconnect/back and forth, with the politically correct 'don't offend the casual gamer by gating content' sentiment in these discussions.

I regularly hear the excuse that; 'People don't want to pay for other people to enjoy content they can't complete. Especially if they feel that content takes a lot of developer attention off of other things that they can'.

Yet we play a game together. One that lives and dies on interaction and community. Subsequently why wouldn't everyone want every demographic to be catered to - in order to preserve the game and help it grow? Everyone benefits from that.

I'd imagine the most effective way to deal with a challenge tier is to incorporate a separate progression system into it of some kind. A little like PoTD. In past games, developers have implemented mostly vanity rewards to, 'i achieved that, can show it off but - it doesnt physically make me more powerful'. It works. No reason that cant be built upon further.

[technole]

Yeah, the people saying it's easier because they heard of clear rates or their friends clearing tend to be the ones who hadn't done the content themselves, today or when it was relevant.

Even Speed running is even a progression-style of raiding too. One mess-up you have wipe and start-over. You get the Lapis phase in A11S? That's not a speed kill. Heck a lot of groups still don't even skip that today.

I like how some people say unsync is going to make it like taking loot from a baby. If you mess up the enumeration circles in A6S/A8S today, everyone in it automatically takes 99,999 damage. This isn't like normal mode where you just get a measly damage stack.

A8S Gavel? You still have to perform those mechanic checks otherwise BJ just says you don't pass and wipes everyone. How unsync is going to change that?

[Cetonis]

Higher-ilvl weapons would also serve as glamour, you know. And there'd be nothing stopping SE from adding other vanity things, just like they do now. I'm taking it as assumed/obvious that some vanity will be included in whatever the rewards are. Why wouldn't it be?

Think of it this way - if there were five fights a tier, with the +5 ilvl weapon and a mount coming at the end as usual, would anyone complain? No, not at all. Even if the last fight were on another difficulty level compared to the rest (see: A8S).

All I'm saying is that SE should use a similar incentive set to what they do for the hardest fights now; the one that's always been successful at getting people interested in tackling such hard content. I don't see how this is crazy in any way.

[Magic-Mal]

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What they will complain about is their gear being useless when the patch comes out. Why put an ilvl that high on the gear that's meant to be glamour? Useless.

SE has only ever tried putting titles in a super hard mode. They never tried putting a bunch of different things in as rewards. They've never tried making a new hard mode that rewarded vanity only things like mounts, minions, furniture, glamour etc(Oh wait! They did. PotD 101-200 and it was successful because people do it).

I don't see how that is crazy in anyway. What is so cool about having gear that you worked soooo hard for that will be trash next patch? Thats what raiders are always complaining about. "My gear is made useless next tier". Okay, solution? Make it stuff that will last forever.

One of the problems Gordias had was the retention rate. People were quitting because they think "Why am I doing all this work, trying so hard.. for 10 ilvls that will be made pointless next tier? I quit. Not worth my time."

When you think about it +10ilvl rewards for super hard raids already failed with Gordias. It wasn't worth many peoples' time. And the later it got into the tier, the less amount of people who wanted to do it there were because "Why do so much work when NM Midas will drop gear stronger than this? I'll wait for nerfs" Key word there. That's why Creator is successful. It's more worth 10ilvls.

"Why do so much work when NM Midas will drop gear stronger than this? I'll wait for nerfs"

Wouldn't be able to say that with a mount, title, minion, furniture, music, glamour, or hairstyle. Because they have unlimited value whereas some i280 piece has limited value.

You keep the ilvl sync on super hard content that rewards i280 gear and it's value decreases when new stuff comes out.

You keep the ilvl sync on super hard content that rewards special vanity items and its value increases when new stuff comes out.

[Cetonis]

Make it stuff that will last forever.

But I'm not saying that they shouldn't. And a weapon would count as glamour. "Why put an ilvl that high"? Because it makes the weapon more desirable than not doing that, obviously.

People aren't so bizarrely backwards that they'd rather have an ilvl 1 piece than an ilvl 280 piece. The ones who complain about vertical progression will always complain about that, no matter what you do. Their opinion is irrelevant here.

And SE has put weapons and mounts on a super hard mode. Gordias. It was fine. They did a weapon and a minion on Midas. It was fine. People would have given up on PotD 200 too, if it was as hard as those; comparing to that is absurd.

If you're arguing that a weapon alone wouldn't be sufficient, of course it wouldn't be. I'm not saying that it would. There can and should be more than that. But what I am saying is, that assuming there's a weapon in the package, making it a +5ilvl one is strictly beneficial.

Aside from making the reward sexier to some subset of people, it also allows for only giving the weapon of the job you cleared on, which nudges people to go back and do it on other jobs if they do clear. You're not making 15 mounts or minions or glamour sets, but you can certainly do 15 weapons.