Wandermist said
I love it how your title has absolutely no connection to your thread at all, but anyway
Well if you reward little bit better gear for good performance would not that encourage people to do better.
Instead iwell it is jus another dungeoun and prepare them for raids. Right? You understand the concept right? See how the are connected. Good performance for little bit better gear.
As far as the search function. Well does not work to well in my experiencing. Have to go through a lot of threads to find right info. Better to have useful information to develope toons all in one place for the most part. But thing forums would be good place to put that info after all cause not all good players make videos.
But could be encouraged to share what they know in a Forum. No such categories exists. Would be cool if category like Player Developement was there a place for toons to contribute knowledge.
Another thing Intrepid could do is to allow guilds to have spectator mode for dungeouns and raids for their guildies so they could learn the fight that way.
Your definition of a "mentoring program" is very different to mine.
To be brutally honest, forums seem to be going out of favour when it comes to learning about games. More and more people are using discord for that instead. In WoW for instance every class has a dedicated discord server for learning about your class and discussing it. I'd be surprised if we didn't see the same thing happen with Ashes of creation.
I would actually love to have a spectator function for raids and dungeons as long as you can choose who you let watch you.
To make myself clear, i don't think it is a problem that raid loot is stronger then loot outside of raiding, my issue is the power creep that happens when they constantly increase the power with each new iteration of raid content.
I agree, I just disagree that the solution is to alter the paradigm of raid loot.
That is where it is for a reason, even if you don't fully grasp the reasons (which is ok, it isn't your thing).
The solution is to make it so the power gap between players is able to be at least somewhat bridged.
There are two main ways of doing this. One is to always add an increase in the power of non-raid loot along with increases in raid loot power.
The other is to have systems in place that make it so there is a reasonable expectation that raid loot ( or the specific components needed to craft it) will always be up for sale on the open market.
Either of these will nullify the issue.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This is true in some segments of the game, but not in the top end raid environment.
Top end raiding is all about results.
Even top end raiders like to feel that their character is getting stronger. Sure results matter more in top end raiding but the RPG elements are still present.
Speedrunning is the equivalent of working on the same piece of content over and over again. It is the like working on one raid boss for years and years - you aren't getting better at the whole game, you are just getting better at that one piece of content.
The different is that the piece of content speedrunners are doing over and over again just happens to be the whole game. This is due to the fact that such games are very limited in terms of content. If someone took the same engine and made new content, those players wouldn't automatically be speedrunning that content, which suggests that it isn't the players that improved, it is only their ability on the specific piece of content.
The techniques picked up from speedrunning one game can be applied to speedrunning other games of the same genre. If you can speedrun DarkSouls 3 you can speedrun Bloodborne and Sekiro for example. Speedrunners often switch games of the same genre to spice things up and not get burned out. And it's not just the mechanical skill either, but the knowledge of how the systems work. 2 games by the same developer (particularly in the same franchise) will have very similar mechanics. There is a technique called "load warp" that can be done in all the Elder Scrolls and Fallout Games, along with a bunch of other techniques.
Agreed.
Even better, have it change during combat - then their rotation changes on the fly.
This is something EQ2 does, which is what makes it such a good raid game. Spell cast speed, along with recast speed, spell power and GCD all being able to be affected mid combat in that game is why you don't have a spell rotation, but rather a spell priority.
You need to think fast in order to maximize your output, and that makes for a much more enjoyable game than simply deciding before the fight exactly what your rotation will be - even if it is different from the previous fight.
I'll have to take your word on that as I haven't played enough EQ2 to be fully familiar with the combat system.
It isn't the only reward, but it is (and will always remain) the main reward. I've never argued that such things can't exist.
My argument here is simply that gear upgrades as rewards for PvE raids that in turn allow the raid to take on the next level of challenge will always have to be a part PvE raiding, and any game that wants open PvP as well as PvE raids will simply need to work around that basic fact.
I agree with you that it has always been the main reward, but does it need to be? Can you keep the core RPG element of character progression without gear upgrades?
Regardless, if we keep the gear upgrades as rewards and want to keep open world PvP balanced the only kind of solution I can come up with is to allow players to equip gear for certain pieces of content, so gear acquired in a raid can only be worn in a raid. The problem with this is that players who do more than one type of content will have to carry around multiple sets of gear, which is a problem in a game like Ashes where we are limited on how much we can carry.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
To make myself clear, i don't think it is a problem that raid loot is stronger then loot outside of raiding, my issue is the power creep that happens when they constantly increase the power with each new iteration of raid content.
I agree, I just disagree that the solution is to alter the paradigm of raid loot.
That is where it is for a reason, even if you don't fully grasp the reasons (which is ok, it isn't your thing).
The solution is to make it so the power gap between players is able to be at least somewhat bridged.
There are two main ways of doing this. One is to always add an increase in the power of non-raid loot along with increases in raid loot power.
The other is to have systems in place that make it so there is a reasonable expectation that raid loot ( or the specific components needed to craft it) will always be up for sale on the open market.
Either of these will nullify the issue.
I get your reason and agree that there are people like you who enjoy and prefer raiding to be like that. I'm saying there are others that could still get enjoyment out of raiding with more of a focus on horizontal rewards.
I don't like catch up mechanics and is another reason i'd prefer a raid gear with more horizontal rewards. To me, catch up mechanics is one of the reasons i don't feel motivated to raid in some games as the raiding rewards are just going to be made available in easier content later down the line. I'd prefer raiding to have more unique horizontal rewards that don't need to be made available to players outside of raiding later down the line so they can catch up in power.
Yes, those are other solutions and if you prefer those then cool but i feel they are patches for the real problem. I'd prefer a more horizontal approach to raid gear as i don't find the constant power increasing compelling anymore and am annoyed with the issues it has caused. I'm much more interested in them trying to find other ways to make raid gear special besides constantly giving it bigger numbers.
Another thing that could be done it to have a couple of eight man dungeouns that are at the dificulty level of a raid. . Seems like the transition from dungeouns to raids is something like Dungeouns No problem. Then go to raids and seem like a fish out of water.
Not to sure why this is. But would be nice to give people some knobs to turn to make envoringment raid like. Guessing people make mistakes in dungeons and get away with it but in raids it causes wipes. So goal should be zero mistakes in dungeouns. Would be cool to have an app to track such progress.
I agree with you that it has always been the main reward, but does it need to be? Can you keep the core RPG element of character progression without gear upgrades?
It would be possible to have non-gear rewards, but I don't see it being possible to not have character progression as a reward. It could come in other forms, but there needs to be character progression - gear is just the easiest way for developer to implement it, and players to understand it.
Regardless of what form it takes though, the issue will persist. There will always be some players that have progressed their character more than others, and those others will always not like this situation.
Regardless, if we keep the gear upgrades as rewards and want to keep open world PvP balanced the only kind of solution I can come up with is to allow players to equip gear for certain pieces of content, so gear acquired in a raid can only be worn in a raid. The problem with this is that players who do more than one type of content will have to carry around multiple sets of gear, which is a problem in a game like Ashes where we are limited on how much we can carry.
The other problem with this is that you aren't progressing your character, you would be progressing a content type.
I actually do think it is a viable solution to this problem to just tell players "this is the game world, this is where the character progression is, the character progression can be traded, have at it".
If someone enters this game knowing that the absolute best gear to PvP in comes from a raid, they have no reason to complain about that fact in the future.
I get your reason and agree that there are people like you who enjoy and prefer raiding to be like that. I'm saying there are others that could still get enjoyment out of raiding with more of a focus on horizontal rewards.
There absolutely would be "some" people that are fine with that, but probably not enough to fill a 40 man raid.
Also, people that are fine with horizontal progression are not usually the types of people to push things to the limit, which is kind of what raiding at the very top end is about. This would result in any game that puts in a horizontal progression system for raids not having an overly competitive or challenging raid scene.
they are patches for the real problem
I disagree.
Either allowing all gear to be traded, or maintaining a scheme where there is never that much of a gap between raiders and active and competent non-raiders is a fix to the core of the issue - assuming that issue is the gap in power between raiders and non-raiders.
A one off giveaway of gear to allow non-raiders to catch up is a patch.
If gear can be traded freely, no one is able to make any excuses for their gear, as their gear is a direct reflection of their financial situation in the game and nothing more. This kind of thing is bad in a game that has an easy way to convert real money in to in game money, but if that doesn't exist, your gear is then a direct reflection of what you are capable of doing in game.
I can't see how anything could be any more fair than that.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited March 2020
I don't think this argument is about fair, it's about a different way of doing things.
I know i don't have any stats to say how many people would enjoy it but to my knowledge, you don't either. We are arguing if a game could go a route vs all games going that route. Not sure why you have to be like that.
I don't consider giving players the rewards for content they have not done as a solution and it's necessity as a problem. In games where items can be distributed by the economy (usually sandboxes), yes, you are giving players a way to catch up in power but are still making content obsolete which causes the portion of the world that that content exists to not have a much of a use.
Another thing that could be done to hone in a players skill is to put mini bosses out in the open world that way they could practice on them without having to make a raid group. That way they could practice on actual in game content with out having to committ to an entire raid. So if you have raid like fights out in open world (not talking about mobs as previously stated) Pretty sure we are already having world bosses but I am talking about monsters that are slightly easier to kill and not so many people needed. They could fall in the category of rare spawn.
In summary would like to say that information that needs to be given to people to get them started in the right direction could be fit in the case of forums in aobut 45 min of reading. I am a tank and could make guide but guide is not the point it is getting the information to people. Would not recommend discord. unless there are going to mentors in discord all the time, plus what is the point of saying the same thing over and over again when it could just be documented.
Just want to share a story. It was the time in a guilds life to start competative raiding so raid leader recruited good players top dpsers to start. Well this particular guild had non meta methods of tanking and pulling and putting down mobs so the new toons that just got recruited aurgued with raid leader on how to do the raid.
Eventually Raid leader got sick of it and got rid of them and recruited people with no raiding experience and checked profiles to make sure they were not experienced raiders. And that is how they became the number 2 guild on their server. So is just a matter of teaching poeple how to develope raiding skills.
Persanlly normal non competative raiding is a joke to me cause well Bosses do not do cc chains or focus the healer or kite or try to pull cool downs from you and waste them like in PvP environment. Really kind of hard to beleive that lots of raiders think they have skill but only have progressed to the point that is required of them and actually end up belittling people... Really funny to how same toons that top dps meters are same toons running in world pvp. A joke as in well I could proabably out perform most guildies first time doing raid. But ounce again not becuase I am special or have skill but because was in an evorinment that was lot more demanding than raiding. (3v3 bracket PvP)
So would really encourage Ashes of Creation to invest Player Development or Mentoring program.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Another thing that could be done to hone in a players skill is to put mini bosses out in the open world that way they could practice on them without having to make a raid group. That way they could practice on actual in game content with out having to committ to an entire raid. So if you have raid like fights out in open world (not talking about mobs as previously stated) Pretty sure we are already having world bosses but I am talking about monsters that are slightly easier to kill and not so many people needed. They could fall in the category of rare spawn.
At this point it might help to give us a list of player skills that you think are required for raiding which they struggle to learn before going into their first raid. That would give us a better idea of what you think needs fixing and how to go about doing it.
For me personally the key skills I look for in a raider are:
1. Clear communication
2. Spacial awareness
3. The progression mindset (i.e. not getting frustrated when the boss doesn't die in 2 pulls).
Out of those 3, the only 1 you can really practice in a solo mmorpg environment is the spacial awareness. Clear communication in a raid environment can only really be practised in a raid environment, and the progression mindset can really only be practised if the content you are doing is hard enough to make you work for it. While there are games that do this (Dark Souls being the obvious example), you typically won't find anything like that in an mmorpg.
Another thing that could be done to help player develop their skills Is to have progressive difficulty in the dungeouns. If you have all the dungeouns at same difficulty at max level then people will just play at that level. As alreadyh mentioned there should be some challenging dungeouns but. Seems to be a huge gap between raids and dungeouns. This actually works really well in League of Legends. You have various degrees of AI. Play against AI at intermediate level AI and at really low levels like 10 and below we end up losing cause they did not do begginer bots first.
So if the dungeoun mechanis graudally approach raid mechanics then the learning curb will not be so steep per say.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Another thing that could be done to help player develop their skills Is to have progressive difficulty in the dungeouns. If you have all the dungeouns at same difficulty at max level then people will just play at that level. As alreadyh mentioned there should be some challenging dungeouns but. Seems to be a huge gap between raids and dungeouns. This actually works really well in League of Legends. You have various degrees of AI. Play against AI at intermediate level AI and at really low levels like 10 and below we end up losing cause they did not do begginer bots first.
So if the dungeoun mechanis graudally approach raid mechanics then the learning curb will not be so steep per say.
This is more a problem of levels and gear than mechanics. When you are levelling up in an mmorpg, if you find a piece of content too hard all you have to do is level up your character a bit and the challenge suddenly becomes trivial. Because of this a lot of players get used to going into dungeons over-levelled and over-geared. When these players hit max level they are forced to go into raids without being over-geared and can't handle it.
Unless you go out of your way to enter low level dungeons under-geared you won't be prepared for it when you reach max level.
Another thing that could be done to help player develop their skills Is to have progressive difficulty in the dungeouns. If you have all the dungeouns at same difficulty at max level then people will just play at that level. As alreadyh mentioned there should be some challenging dungeouns but. Seems to be a huge gap between raids and dungeouns. This actually works really well in League of Legends. You have various degrees of AI. Play against AI at intermediate level AI and at really low levels like 10 and below we end up losing cause they did not do begginer bots first.
So if the dungeoun mechanis graudally approach raid mechanics then the learning curb will not be so steep per say.
In almost every game I've ever played, the hardest group content is harder than the easiest raid content (and rewards better a well).
The problem isn't that there is a gap between group and raid content in terms of difficulty, the problem is that people don't want to do things that they perceive as hard, yet they want the rewards from it.
For the most part, this content isn't hard because of some gear requirement, it is hard because of the coordination needed.
You can't really say that games should put in hard group content so group based players have content to use as a stepping stone between group and raid content, when many games already have group content that is designed to fill this role, and group based players largely ignore it.
Was thinking about how people have pets like falcons and dogs so when someone is taking raid and dungeoun mechanics the dog would bark and falcon would awk to let them know that they are taking unecessary damage. So pet trains toon to avoid damage.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Was thinking about how people have pets like falcons and dogs so when someone is taking raid and dungeoun mechanics the dog would bark and falcon would awk to let them know that they are taking unecessary damage. So pet trains toon to avoid damage.
I fear we're going round and round in circles here but this isn't going to magically make players better to the point where they don't stand in things they shouldn't.
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PlateauMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If there has to be an annoying companion telling me what to do all the time, I would like for it to be a cute dog or falcon though. As long as it's not too annoying/constant/obvious. Just like, if you keep messing up a mechanic, eventually your little birdo friend flies to the safe spot and bounces around while looking at you. And when you stop dying all the time, he can relax and stop showing you the way.
I dunno, it's not a perfect idea, but it's workable. Maybe just for tutorials. I'll root for any idea with cute doggos though.
Any content that has something like that in it would feel like a tutorial.
My concern is that if it is in the whole game, then the whole game would feel like a tutorial. People like myself would finish that tutorial, and then wonder where the actual game is.
Well I am just presenting ideas no point in going into actuall game mechanics of how often or options to make it optional and so on think Devs are smart enough to figure all that out. I used to do that a lot, but some of the gents and ladies working on this project have a lot of experience making games Plus there other things to consider, like that might be just to taxing on the engine.
On top of all that game is not out yet so we are in the dark about a lot of things. Ashes of Creation could just decide not have mentoring programs so that players could have a sense of discovery as they learn to play the game. Huge draw back about effective mentoring programs is well toons could go right through all of the content really quickly. There is a lot of things to discuss and consider.
But let me share another short story, was part of a guild were people would get kicked from normal dungeouns and some how they believed they were to hard for them. At the time I had mostly raid gear and in WoW the floor is so far from the ceiling that it meant I was doing more than twice dps required for normal dungeouns. So we made a guild group and basically carried them through normal dungeouns and so they could not get kicked. (not much of a carry just normal dungeouns). Well they ended up going on to Herioc raiding. It was just a matter of teaching them how to do it.
But personally do not have time to teach every player how to raid so think there should be standardized system in place for people that want to pursue raiding,
Raiding requirements are:
Well for this game lets say 25 keybindings and let say 1 second global cooldown comes out to 12 wpm at lets say 97% accuracy. Right? Point of this not to be thinking about lets say were the letter T is when typing the word the so mind can be focused and raid mechanis.
Raid awareness. Same amount of awareness that is needed to drive a car IRL of course there are lots of people that do not pay attention when they drive but you get the idea.
Most raids mechincs involve changing targets or moving your toon to certain location, There are some other raid mechinics that require jumping at certain times and interaccting with environment. But mostly just changing targets and moving your toon around.
Ounce again just talking about finishing a normal raid.
While there are no magical solutions for every one But since everyone basically has to learn the same things to raid a practical solution can be created for most people.
While there are no magical solutions for every one But since everyone basically has to learn the same things to raid a practical solution can be created for most people.
That practical solution is the content itself.
People with no raiding experience should not be going out and forming a raiding guild with other people with no raiding experience, they should be joining an existing guild.
Existing guilds that are not at the top end (and even some that are) understand and accept that they will have to teach new recruits a few things, even if that player has raided in the past. In most games (WoW is the only exclusion here that I know of), the guild will have to teach the new recruit how that guild takes on each encounter, even if the new recruit has killed that encounter in another guild.
If that new recruit hasn't done any raiding, then the guild understands that there is a little more to teach. However, that additional teaching won't take up much more time than the time it takes to teach a new recruit that has killed the encounter in question how your guild takes it on.
Basically, you seem to have a solution here without a problem.
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mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited March 2020
They have already been talking about a Mentor program so we know that they at least plan on having one.
They have already been talking about a Mentor program so we know that they at least plan on having one.
That's a different kind of mentor program though.
@consultant You touched on a very important factor: player confidence. Personally, I feel the levelling process is where players should gain confidence in failing and learning so that they believe they can at least try more difficult content later on and take the initiative to do that by themselves.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Well for this game lets say 25 keybindings and let say 1 second global cooldown comes out to 12 wpm at lets say 97% accuracy. Right? Point of this not to be thinking about lets say were the letter T is when typing the word the so mind can be focused and raid mechanis.
Just touching on this particular point. Muscle memory (i.e. using your abilities without having to think about it) comes from just playing the game. The problem occurs when you have abilities that are required for raids but are never used in open world gameplay. For example, if you never need to use your CC abilities while levelling, even if you have those abilities on your hotbar, you won't have developed the muscle memory to use them in a high pressure situation like a raid.
One of the players said this about one of my points is that I was talking about LFR and I somewhat agree with that statement..
So one way to put something Like LFR which is WoW instant que easy raid system. Is to take a dungeoun and have it so it can be converted to a 16 man raid. Kind of revamped version of dungeoun. Really just a place for toons to practice team work. This way you will not have to have an extremely easy version of an actual raid. If you have a really easy version of a raid that is more difficult think this kind of takes away from the more difficult experience cause you feel like you have already done it.
Would also make it clear to players that that modes is more of a practice mode.
The rising of the shield hero, is a somewhat fantastic anime and with a strange mix of an RPG not so mmo, since they are really only 4 "players", the curiosity of this anime is that it has an idea that fascinated me for an mmo, these players can win improvements or evolutions of their skills linked to the professions , the protagonist by collecting and raising his level of herbalist acquires an evolution of his weapon and therefore of some abilities, this idea I liked a lot, because a player who might not be as skilled in PvE or PvP content but enjoys grind could improve his character in a different way not by gear, but by the same evolutions of his skills, I understand the problem that is creating improvements for all classes / professions , but players would not be totally tied to content that they may not enjoy or are not very skilled and with this they could have more options and see how their character grows and improves with what they like
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Your definition of a "mentoring program" is very different to mine.
To be brutally honest, forums seem to be going out of favour when it comes to learning about games. More and more people are using discord for that instead. In WoW for instance every class has a dedicated discord server for learning about your class and discussing it. I'd be surprised if we didn't see the same thing happen with Ashes of creation.
I would actually love to have a spectator function for raids and dungeons as long as you can choose who you let watch you.
That is where it is for a reason, even if you don't fully grasp the reasons (which is ok, it isn't your thing).
The solution is to make it so the power gap between players is able to be at least somewhat bridged.
There are two main ways of doing this. One is to always add an increase in the power of non-raid loot along with increases in raid loot power.
The other is to have systems in place that make it so there is a reasonable expectation that raid loot ( or the specific components needed to craft it) will always be up for sale on the open market.
Either of these will nullify the issue.
Even top end raiders like to feel that their character is getting stronger. Sure results matter more in top end raiding but the RPG elements are still present.
The techniques picked up from speedrunning one game can be applied to speedrunning other games of the same genre. If you can speedrun DarkSouls 3 you can speedrun Bloodborne and Sekiro for example. Speedrunners often switch games of the same genre to spice things up and not get burned out. And it's not just the mechanical skill either, but the knowledge of how the systems work. 2 games by the same developer (particularly in the same franchise) will have very similar mechanics. There is a technique called "load warp" that can be done in all the Elder Scrolls and Fallout Games, along with a bunch of other techniques.
I'll have to take your word on that as I haven't played enough EQ2 to be fully familiar with the combat system.
I agree with you that it has always been the main reward, but does it need to be? Can you keep the core RPG element of character progression without gear upgrades?
Regardless, if we keep the gear upgrades as rewards and want to keep open world PvP balanced the only kind of solution I can come up with is to allow players to equip gear for certain pieces of content, so gear acquired in a raid can only be worn in a raid. The problem with this is that players who do more than one type of content will have to carry around multiple sets of gear, which is a problem in a game like Ashes where we are limited on how much we can carry.
I get your reason and agree that there are people like you who enjoy and prefer raiding to be like that. I'm saying there are others that could still get enjoyment out of raiding with more of a focus on horizontal rewards.
I don't like catch up mechanics and is another reason i'd prefer a raid gear with more horizontal rewards. To me, catch up mechanics is one of the reasons i don't feel motivated to raid in some games as the raiding rewards are just going to be made available in easier content later down the line. I'd prefer raiding to have more unique horizontal rewards that don't need to be made available to players outside of raiding later down the line so they can catch up in power.
Yes, those are other solutions and if you prefer those then cool but i feel they are patches for the real problem. I'd prefer a more horizontal approach to raid gear as i don't find the constant power increasing compelling anymore and am annoyed with the issues it has caused. I'm much more interested in them trying to find other ways to make raid gear special besides constantly giving it bigger numbers.
Not to sure why this is. But would be nice to give people some knobs to turn to make envoringment raid like. Guessing people make mistakes in dungeons and get away with it but in raids it causes wipes. So goal should be zero mistakes in dungeouns. Would be cool to have an app to track such progress.
Regardless of what form it takes though, the issue will persist. There will always be some players that have progressed their character more than others, and those others will always not like this situation. The other problem with this is that you aren't progressing your character, you would be progressing a content type.
I actually do think it is a viable solution to this problem to just tell players "this is the game world, this is where the character progression is, the character progression can be traded, have at it".
If someone enters this game knowing that the absolute best gear to PvP in comes from a raid, they have no reason to complain about that fact in the future.
Also, people that are fine with horizontal progression are not usually the types of people to push things to the limit, which is kind of what raiding at the very top end is about. This would result in any game that puts in a horizontal progression system for raids not having an overly competitive or challenging raid scene.
I disagree.
Either allowing all gear to be traded, or maintaining a scheme where there is never that much of a gap between raiders and active and competent non-raiders is a fix to the core of the issue - assuming that issue is the gap in power between raiders and non-raiders.
A one off giveaway of gear to allow non-raiders to catch up is a patch.
If gear can be traded freely, no one is able to make any excuses for their gear, as their gear is a direct reflection of their financial situation in the game and nothing more. This kind of thing is bad in a game that has an easy way to convert real money in to in game money, but if that doesn't exist, your gear is then a direct reflection of what you are capable of doing in game.
I can't see how anything could be any more fair than that.
I know i don't have any stats to say how many people would enjoy it but to my knowledge, you don't either. We are arguing if a game could go a route vs all games going that route. Not sure why you have to be like that.
I don't consider giving players the rewards for content they have not done as a solution and it's necessity as a problem. In games where items can be distributed by the economy (usually sandboxes), yes, you are giving players a way to catch up in power but are still making content obsolete which causes the portion of the world that that content exists to not have a much of a use.
In summary would like to say that information that needs to be given to people to get them started in the right direction could be fit in the case of forums in aobut 45 min of reading. I am a tank and could make guide but guide is not the point it is getting the information to people. Would not recommend discord. unless there are going to mentors in discord all the time, plus what is the point of saying the same thing over and over again when it could just be documented.
Just want to share a story. It was the time in a guilds life to start competative raiding so raid leader recruited good players top dpsers to start. Well this particular guild had non meta methods of tanking and pulling and putting down mobs so the new toons that just got recruited aurgued with raid leader on how to do the raid.
Eventually Raid leader got sick of it and got rid of them and recruited people with no raiding experience and checked profiles to make sure they were not experienced raiders. And that is how they became the number 2 guild on their server. So is just a matter of teaching poeple how to develope raiding skills.
Persanlly normal non competative raiding is a joke to me cause well Bosses do not do cc chains or focus the healer or kite or try to pull cool downs from you and waste them like in PvP environment. Really kind of hard to beleive that lots of raiders think they have skill but only have progressed to the point that is required of them and actually end up belittling people... Really funny to how same toons that top dps meters are same toons running in world pvp. A joke as in well I could proabably out perform most guildies first time doing raid. But ounce again not becuase I am special or have skill but because was in an evorinment that was lot more demanding than raiding. (3v3 bracket PvP)
So would really encourage Ashes of Creation to invest Player Development or Mentoring program.
At this point it might help to give us a list of player skills that you think are required for raiding which they struggle to learn before going into their first raid. That would give us a better idea of what you think needs fixing and how to go about doing it.
For me personally the key skills I look for in a raider are:
1. Clear communication
2. Spacial awareness
3. The progression mindset (i.e. not getting frustrated when the boss doesn't die in 2 pulls).
Out of those 3, the only 1 you can really practice in a solo mmorpg environment is the spacial awareness. Clear communication in a raid environment can only really be practised in a raid environment, and the progression mindset can really only be practised if the content you are doing is hard enough to make you work for it. While there are games that do this (Dark Souls being the obvious example), you typically won't find anything like that in an mmorpg.
So if the dungeoun mechanis graudally approach raid mechanics then the learning curb will not be so steep per say.
This is more a problem of levels and gear than mechanics. When you are levelling up in an mmorpg, if you find a piece of content too hard all you have to do is level up your character a bit and the challenge suddenly becomes trivial. Because of this a lot of players get used to going into dungeons over-levelled and over-geared. When these players hit max level they are forced to go into raids without being over-geared and can't handle it.
Unless you go out of your way to enter low level dungeons under-geared you won't be prepared for it when you reach max level.
The problem isn't that there is a gap between group and raid content in terms of difficulty, the problem is that people don't want to do things that they perceive as hard, yet they want the rewards from it.
For the most part, this content isn't hard because of some gear requirement, it is hard because of the coordination needed.
You can't really say that games should put in hard group content so group based players have content to use as a stepping stone between group and raid content, when many games already have group content that is designed to fill this role, and group based players largely ignore it.
I fear we're going round and round in circles here but this isn't going to magically make players better to the point where they don't stand in things they shouldn't.
I dunno, it's not a perfect idea, but it's workable. Maybe just for tutorials. I'll root for any idea with cute doggos though.
My concern is that if it is in the whole game, then the whole game would feel like a tutorial. People like myself would finish that tutorial, and then wonder where the actual game is.
On top of all that game is not out yet so we are in the dark about a lot of things. Ashes of Creation could just decide not have mentoring programs so that players could have a sense of discovery as they learn to play the game. Huge draw back about effective mentoring programs is well toons could go right through all of the content really quickly. There is a lot of things to discuss and consider.
But let me share another short story, was part of a guild were people would get kicked from normal dungeouns and some how they believed they were to hard for them. At the time I had mostly raid gear and in WoW the floor is so far from the ceiling that it meant I was doing more than twice dps required for normal dungeouns. So we made a guild group and basically carried them through normal dungeouns and so they could not get kicked. (not much of a carry just normal dungeouns). Well they ended up going on to Herioc raiding. It was just a matter of teaching them how to do it.
But personally do not have time to teach every player how to raid so think there should be standardized system in place for people that want to pursue raiding,
Raiding requirements are:
Well for this game lets say 25 keybindings and let say 1 second global cooldown comes out to 12 wpm at lets say 97% accuracy. Right? Point of this not to be thinking about lets say were the letter T is when typing the word the so mind can be focused and raid mechanis.
Raid awareness. Same amount of awareness that is needed to drive a car IRL of course there are lots of people that do not pay attention when they drive but you get the idea.
Most raids mechincs involve changing targets or moving your toon to certain location, There are some other raid mechinics that require jumping at certain times and interaccting with environment. But mostly just changing targets and moving your toon around.
Ounce again just talking about finishing a normal raid.
While there are no magical solutions for every one But since everyone basically has to learn the same things to raid a practical solution can be created for most people.
People with no raiding experience should not be going out and forming a raiding guild with other people with no raiding experience, they should be joining an existing guild.
Existing guilds that are not at the top end (and even some that are) understand and accept that they will have to teach new recruits a few things, even if that player has raided in the past. In most games (WoW is the only exclusion here that I know of), the guild will have to teach the new recruit how that guild takes on each encounter, even if the new recruit has killed that encounter in another guild.
If that new recruit hasn't done any raiding, then the guild understands that there is a little more to teach. However, that additional teaching won't take up much more time than the time it takes to teach a new recruit that has killed the encounter in question how your guild takes it on.
Basically, you seem to have a solution here without a problem.
That's a different kind of mentor program though.
@consultant You touched on a very important factor: player confidence. Personally, I feel the levelling process is where players should gain confidence in failing and learning so that they believe they can at least try more difficult content later on and take the initiative to do that by themselves.
Just touching on this particular point. Muscle memory (i.e. using your abilities without having to think about it) comes from just playing the game. The problem occurs when you have abilities that are required for raids but are never used in open world gameplay. For example, if you never need to use your CC abilities while levelling, even if you have those abilities on your hotbar, you won't have developed the muscle memory to use them in a high pressure situation like a raid.
Thanks for the info was nto aware of that.
So one way to put something Like LFR which is WoW instant que easy raid system. Is to take a dungeoun and have it so it can be converted to a 16 man raid. Kind of revamped version of dungeoun. Really just a place for toons to practice team work. This way you will not have to have an extremely easy version of an actual raid. If you have a really easy version of a raid that is more difficult think this kind of takes away from the more difficult experience cause you feel like you have already done it.
Would also make it clear to players that that modes is more of a practice mode.