How to make the 3rd raid difficulty work

[Ghishlain]

For the fastest farm giving you plenty of time to do something else...

The speed kill groups have done the fights enough times to gear their mains, secondary, and tertiary jobs to the teeth. They have no use for "faster" kills.

Let alone the fact they'll wipe for a few hours in an attempt to shave five seconds off their final kill time.

Yeah, the people doing speed kills and killing things like Refurbisher 0 in 2 minutes and 36 seconds aren't doing it for efficient farming.

You're right, no (worthwile) reward...but also no weekly farm enforced so that people won't start complaining that there is nothing to do...which, by the way is also not enforced by neither a title reward nor the challenge to beat the content, giving your top-tier content absurdingly low lifetime.

Definitely not worth the cost.

If the content is challenging enough to keep world first players going at it for a month, then I think we've achieved the "WTH KINDA DIFFICULTY IS THIS?!" nail since it'll keep most progression raiders well beyond that (assuming they can even clear it) - something for them to strive for.

Keep it minimal ilvl even after the gear level increases and the content will stay around.

[Cetonis]

snip

Anecdotes ignoring scale. The number of groups putting any serious amount of time into getting speedkill rankings is in the (low) double digits. Mayyybe two hundred players at best, probably less. Similarly miniscule numbers of players do the other things you linked. That's not worth making an entire piece of content for.

Several thousand people each put the time in to clear Gordias and Midas Savage. Thousands more spent a lot of time trying. Those offered unique, extra-powerful weapons at the end. Zero complaints about said weapon existing. I don't recall substantive complaints about Coil gear either. It was just the story issue.

The catch-up gear process is about fairness to people wanting to start raiding on the next tier, and about incentivizing odd patch casual content, not about responding to desperate cries over raid gear exclusivity.

If you're SE, why in the hell would you put a bunch of effort into a whole new piece of content, and then run the risk of people not caring by offering some pure vanity reward for it? When there's absolutely zero downside whatsoever to making the reward more enticing.

[technole]

But at some point you will just unsynch it and get what you want. Plus, the current difficulty is low, far more low than ever before, for more people to be able to get all of this. Because they whined to get it.

Unsync? You mean when it's irrelevant like 6+ months down the line. I enjoy the rewards today while it's relevant, that is really all that matters. The fact that raiders get at-least a 3-month advantage on 270 ilvl is already good enough, and practically an entire cycle on the highest ilvl weapon that's okay too. If you don't raid, you don't need an i275 to do your roulettes or Dun Scaith weekly. Raids use the gear to make weekly savage clears easier. Or optimize, speed run, or try different things that lower ilvl or gear that has non-preferable stats doesn't allow you to do.


Even if the difficulty is lower than Gordias and Midas this tier, that is okay because it made YoshiP and the developers happy to see something obtainable. Yet the A12S clear rate was still pretty low compared to the overall population that had completed A9S. However this go around they don't have to worry about anything because anyone who wants the Alexander story can get that without difficulty. So they don't have to throw echo and all sorts of nerfs when the content is still relevant.

Still, the mid-hardcore want more to do. Even if it's a smaller part of the raiding community.

[Ghishlain]

Anecdotes ignoring scale. The number of groups putting any serious amount of time into getting speedkill rankings is in the (low) double digits. Mayyybe two hundred players at best, probably less. Similarly miniscule numbers of players do the other things you linked. That's not worth making an entire piece of content for.

Several thousand people each put the time in to clear Gordias and Midas Savage. Thousands more spent a lot of time trying. Those offered unique, extra-powerful weapons at the end. Zero complaints about said weapon existing. I don't recall substantive complaints about Coil gear either. It was just the story issue.

The catch-up gear process is about fairness to people wanting to start raiding on the next tier, and about incentivizing odd patch casual content, not about responding to desperate cries over raid gear exclusivity.

If you're SE, why in the hell would you put a bunch of effort into a whole new piece of content, and then run the risk of people not caring by offering some pure vanity reward for it? When there's absolutely zero downside whatsoever to making the reward more enticing.

I'm going to just have to agree to disagree. I do not believe an ilvl incentive is necessary.

I will openly admit that I am biased as well. I've always felt that my critical comment towards the "it's too easy!" crowd is the fact that the vast majority of those players haven't even attempted to try to challenge themselves. Like you've said in your previous post, min-sync A4S or A8S, doing A4S with Nisi, heck even do A8S and not sacrificing Water. Even A8S with current gear scores and echo presents a pretty stark challenge compared to A12S with the same gear.

I think for me the biggest issue with giving an ilvl incentive is that suddenly there will be a group of players who feel entitled to attain that boost, even if the intent of the content was to crush you over a million times before you can beat it. It'll lead to, for the lack of a better word, whining.

I do believe part of this issue is the fact that there isn't enough content. I feel we both agree that there needs to be more content overall that is appealing to both the midcore and to elite players alike (note not elitist players) and the fact that YoshiP is contemplating this "next level of challenge" is a good thing for the game's health. You can't have super hard content as it'll alienate the midcore and you can't have above average content as it'll alienate the elite players so it'll be good to have the two different levels of content available and should placate many of the "too easy!" or "too hard!" comments.

I'll also expand on my thoughts about why I do not believe ilvl reward is important as it stems from my own perception on how they should do this challenging content. The content should be designed with min ilvl forced on, thus it becomes a matter of player skill to clear the content and not player gear. ilvl rewards mean nothing to this content and thus no need to be rewarded either. However, rewarding ilvl boosts would encourage what I stated in my third paragraph of this post - more whining. Perhaps that won't happen, and perhaps I'm being too critical of the overall population, but that is my thoughts behind it.

Time will tell what will happen because in the end, all these posts are our personal opinions for the Dev team to read and for others to provide additional input or disagreements too.

[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?

[Magic-Mal]

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Beating super hard content for gear that's only 10 ilvls higher, that may or may not even be BiS(because of side stats), and that will also be made trash in the next patch where the average crafter has gear as strong as yours, is not a great incentive to me at all.

As long as you keep the difficulty synced, a mount will never be trashed. A hairstyle will never be trashed. A minion will never be trashed. A weapon glamour or armor glamour will never be trashed. Music will never be trashed. Furniture will never be trashed, unless you trash it.

However if the content only rewards i280 gear but we're at i380 and the content is still synced, people won't even bother. You're doing irrelevant content that's really hard. Because it's all outdated.

Vanity rewards are never outdated. People still farm ponies allllll the time. And people will still farm birds later.

a previous post:

(Examples)
Glamour:
-Faust/Hummelfaust/Faust Z armors and weapons
-A10S Gobbiewhatshisname's gunblade or gear
-E.D.D Lance

Furniture:
-Alexander Statue
-Cruise Chaser statue
-Faust Z striking dummy

Minions:
-Wind-Up Steamroller
-Wind-Up Refurbisher

Mounts:
-Gobwidow
-Onslaughter

These are the kinds of rewards I'd expect from the "end of the game when you beat everything" challenge.

When it comes to raiders, they always are showing off the stuff no matter how ugly it is because it's prestige stuff. So that's not even an issue.

[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.