Dungeon and Raid Content Difficulty

We know that the difficulty of dungeon and raid content is determined by your performance as a group. Since I had nothing much to do, I came up with an alternate idea to this, and would love to hear your opinions on it.

So here's how it goes. There are 4 modes of difficulty for dungeon and raid content. Normal, Hard, Challenging, and Impossible.

Normal Mode - The bosses have a moderate amount of mechanics. Dodging is not a must, as getting hit by these abilities will only half health you. Essentially like Normal Mode in WoW. The gear you get from this type of dungeon/raid will be of grade C. (Skill Required: B, Knowledge Required: B )

Hard Mode - Similar to normal mode, but this time dodging is more heavily emphasized. Standing in telegraphed abilities will one-shot you. Bosses in this mode will have more mechanics, and its a must to play around them or it will be deadly to your group. This is similar to Heroic Mode in WoW. The gear you get from this type of dungeon/raid will be of grade B, which is about 15% better than grade C gear. (Skill Required: A, Knowledge Required: A)

Challenging Mode- The mechanical skill required from the player, in this mode, will be the same as Hard Mode. However this time, alongside bosses, the environment and individual mobs will have additional mechanics that you need to know and react to. To give you an example, consider an evil Alchemist's dungeon. One mechanic of the dungeon would be that the Alchemist will release different colored chemicals into the air at different times. Mobs and some plants/items in the environment, will react differently to the different chemicals. Mobs might gain specific attributes or mechanics depending on the chemical used and in what order it may be used in. Plants may grow in size and root your team. They may also cause damage to the dungeon/raid, resulting in rocks and other debris falling on your group etc. etc. Some of the different chemicals could also be poisonous to you or affect your group in different ways. So essentially, you will need to have knowledge of a TON of different mechanics in that particular dungeon/raid. The gear you get from this type of dungeon/raid will be of grade A, which is about 10% better than grade B gear. (Skill Required: A, Knowledge Required: S)

Impossible Mode - Combine the knowledge required in Challenging Mode with solid mechanical skill, and you will get Impossible Mode. In this mode, everything hits harder and dodging is of EXTREME importance. A single person failing to dodge or react to a key ability, can wipe your whole group. The gear you get from this type of dungeon/raid will be of grade S, which is about 8% better than grade A gear. (Skill Required: S, Knowledge Required: S)

So now that I've explained the different difficulties, I'll move on to how to implement this into the game.

Essentially, there are going to be things called Morph Potions. When a dungeon/raid opens, it will spawn in Normal Mode. You can perform a ritual with one of these potions, that morphs the dungeon/raid into Hard, Challenging, or Impossible Mode. The time and resources taken to brew Morph Potions for different modes will be different. Hard morph potions can be made in 1 day, Challenging morph potions can be made in about 4 days, and Impossible morph potions can be made in about 8 days.

The resources taken to make each of these morph potions will also vary. Hard morph potions require moderate amount of resources, challenging morph potions require a high amount, and impossible morph potions require a very large amount. These resources will also be highly varied, hence requiring the assistance of a number of different professions in the game.

Also, If a group performs a hard morph ritual on a dungeon/raid, a challenging morph ritual can overwrite this. Similarly, an impossible morph ritual can overwrite challenging and hard morph rituals. However, both of this can only happen before 30% of the dungeon has been cleared.

So, what do you guys think? I honestly think I spent way too much time on this lol. But I thought it was a cool idea and that it would be interesting to talk about.

EDIT - Significantly lowered the difference in quality between different gear types, as it was a bit much.

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Comments

Tragnar

As far as we know there will be "thresholds" for how well you've done to change the predetermined loot tables of next encounters. So you should be able to reach the "Impossible Mode" on 4th boss if on every previous boss the raid did so good to acquire the best loot table upgrade.

Your suggestion puts on the players unnecessary choice to opt into a certain difficulty. Having the game dynamically reward you based on how good you've killed stuff is much better.

If anything the question should be how difficult the absolute hardest version of raids can be.

CaptnChuck

Tragnar wrote: »

As far as we know there will be "thresholds" for how well you've done to change the predetermined loot tables of next encounters. So you should be able to reach the "Impossible Mode" on 4th boss if on every previous boss the raid did so good to acquire the best loot table upgrade.

Your suggestion puts on the players unnecessary choice to opt into a certain difficulty. Having the game dynamically reward you based on how good you've killed stuff is much better.

If anything the question should be how difficult the absolute hardest version of raids can be.

Yea but that limits it so that only the bosses towards the end of that dungeon/raid will be that difficult. What I suggested lets you run the content at a difficulty that you want, right from the start.

Tragnar

Well, entry bosses are mostly looked as free loot and personally I really like the fantasy of delving deeper into a raid and finding increasingly better loot.

Also these difficulty categories label guilds by the difficulty setting they raid. Not to say that the lowest difficulty will always be under pressure to be more inclusive.

Also at this moment we have no idea if the better loot tables are going to give more resources or straight up higher quality resources. This is an important qualification, because the first option rewards in short "riches" and the second "power". Also we have no idea whether the worst loot tables will be able to cover the gear upkeep of all raiders. We know that repairing will be a big thing, but we do not know if in order to repair raid gear we will have to get resources found only in raids.

Aardvark

dungeon and raids are going to be more about if you have 200 people griefing you during them. If you are left alone to do the content it will be joke easy as if it wasnt you would never get it done due to griefers. This is why games that have serious pve have that part instanced.

CaptnChuck

Aardvark wrote: »

dungeon and raids are going to be more about if you have 200 people griefing you during them. If you are left alone to do the content it will be joke easy as if it wasnt you would never get it done due to griefers. This is why games that have serious pve have that part instanced.

Yea I worry about this too. Not sure how they are going to solve this problem though. Maybe they could have a mode similar to the IMPOSSIBLE mode that I suggested, be instanced. Since 99% of players won't be able to do it, maybe it might not change much but idk.

Tarnish

Aardvark actually made the point/question i had. In Classic WoW World bosses are pretty annoying. I love the idea of fighting a Raid Level boss in the world, however if i have a rival guild wanting that same boss we will be stuck until one of our raid teams log. I have been there for the 6 to 8 hour tug of war and tag fighting for the bosses. This will likely deter PVE world content which from what i have read and heard is close to 80% of the content. Very troubling thoughts. Maybe they are depending on the PVP system to cause DK's and cause them to be labeled and killed. Either way i see more of a mess than anything else in the world raiding.

Khronus

I would be very impressed to see parts of every dungeon opening up as the nodes advances in levels. A way to refresh the dungeon as time progresses. Each boss can get new abilities to avoid and drop new loot based on the difficulty chosen for each run.

Talents

This doesn't work too well since the majority of dungeons and raids are open world which means it's not just your group in them.

Hansrutger

Oh yes we definitively need LFR, normal, heroic and mythic difficulty of everything! All hail the imbalance. No thank you, you might have had a good intention with this but I really don't want the game to balance things around this many amount of groups of players. This is what brings me and many others a lot of frustration in WoW.

CaptnChuck

Hansrutger wrote: »

Oh yes we definitively need LFR, normal, heroic and mythic difficulty of everything! All hail the imbalance. No thank you, you might have had a good intention with this but I really don't want the game to balance things around this many amount of groups of players. This is what brings me and many others a lot of frustration in WoW.

Not everyone is equally skilled. You need content for every type of player. Besides, the principal behind my idea isn't that different from what is going to exist in AoC. If you're good enough, you get better gear.

CaptnChuck

Talents wrote: »

This doesn't work too well since the majority of dungeons and raids are open world which means it's not just your group in them.

So? Why would it not work?

Kaelang

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Talents wrote: »

This doesn't work too well since the majority of dungeons and raids are open world which means it's not just your group in them.

So? Why would it not work?

You need to take into account player interference into scaling of difficulty. You can't have a boss that requires full focus and mechanical awareness whilst taking into account a random player running up to your healers and ganking them.

Inixia

I'm actually... not personally a fan of tiered content for a single dungeon/encounter.
(and I expect some people to disagree and that's ok)
But I do like a tiered progression overall as you move from lower tier dungeons to hard and more complex ones, getting more gear as you go and laying down natural building blocks to becoming better.

And by that I mean I like clearly defined, and scaling progression. I like when mmo's have at least a few raids that take awhile to get through, and maybe a few that are possibly too tough for all but the most coordinated groups (if even).

The reason I believe this is because many modern MMO's often go for an 'accessible to all' approach to raiding. They don't want any content to not be available (at least in some form) to the casual player. And it's a *huge* mistake, people immediately binge through the endgame and then burnout or immediately want the dev team to churn out more. Because withholding that content by making it progressively difficult actually plays an important role in our enjoyment of the game - it spaces it out, it gives guilds reasons to stick together and meet up each week, build connections, and the prize at the end of that tunnel is not just a shiny weapon skin but the experience of knowing you've mastered the mechanics, and of seeing a new boss or a new corner of the dungeon that many others wouldn't. Some of my best moments are in raiding, and it dilutes it a little bit imo if the experience is just beating the same dragon everyone' s fighting but on a different difficulty (which may not even be clearly broadcasted) rather than just slaying a cool new dragon the first time.

Warth

Yes you can, that's why you have a second raid there whose job it is to protect the boss raid.

Hansrutger

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Hansrutger wrote: »

Oh yes we definitively need LFR, normal, heroic and mythic difficulty of everything! All hail the imbalance. No thank you, you might have had a good intention with this but I really don't want the game to balance things around this many amount of groups of players. This is what brings me and many others a lot of frustration in WoW.

Not everyone is equally skilled. You need content for every type of player. Besides, the principal behind my idea isn't that different from what is going to exist in AoC. If you're good enough, you get better gear.

The issue that I'm having with these kind of multi difficulty designs is that it creates a much larger barrier between the groups of different skilled players, that it becomes very uneven very fast. And this isn't coming from someone crying "grief me free loot pliz" but someone who really loves to push content. Yes, not everyone should have the best items, but everyone should within a reasonable level be able to participate in obtaining said items.

CaptnChuck

Kaelang wrote: »

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Talents wrote: »

This doesn't work too well since the majority of dungeons and raids are open world which means it's not just your group in them.

So? Why would it not work?

You need to take into account player interference into scaling of difficulty. You can't have a boss that requires full focus and mechanical awareness whilst taking into account a random player running up to your healers and ganking them.

And that's the exact problem that @Aardvark told. This is something people will have to deal with even with the current system. The time you take to clear the boss will be greater if you spend time dealing with contesters. This will give you worse gear even if you can perform much better. So its not something that is just prevalent with my idea.

Kneczhevo

Who plays a MMORPG on easy mode!? 0.01% maybe, and that's to learn the layout. The loot and content is at 100%.

I get some people aren't on par with others, but dumbing down content to cater to those needing a handicap, is only going to hamper their progression.

"Don't complain the lava is to hot. Quit standing in the lava."

CaptnChuck

Hansrutger wrote: »

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Hansrutger wrote: »

Oh yes we definitively need LFR, normal, heroic and mythic difficulty of everything! All hail the imbalance. No thank you, you might have had a good intention with this but I really don't want the game to balance things around this many amount of groups of players. This is what brings me and many others a lot of frustration in WoW.

Not everyone is equally skilled. You need content for every type of player. Besides, the principal behind my idea isn't that different from what is going to exist in AoC. If you're good enough, you get better gear.

The issue that I'm having with these kind of multi difficulty designs is that it creates a much larger barrier between the groups of different skilled players, that it becomes very uneven very fast. And this isn't coming from someone crying "grief me free loot pliz" but someone who really loves to push content. Yes, not everyone should have the best items, but everyone should within a reasonable level be able to participate in obtaining said items.

There should be a clear barrier between people who can't dodge a single telegraphed skillshot, and the people that take every single thing about a boss into account when fighting it. The difference in gear between these types of players must be small but significant. That's why if you read my post, you'll notice that the difference in the quality of the gear keeps decreasing the higher you go. You could lower it even further. The numbers are just make do, I think the difference should be more like this:

Grade B should be about 15% better than Grade C gear. Grade A should be about 10% better than Grade B gear. And finally Grade S gear should be about 8% better than Grade A gear.

Daedrik45

In theory I like this idea, but I don’t see people taking 8 days to craft an impossible potion only to have other raid groups come in and steal the dungeon. I would see guilds literally waiting for other guilds to craft said potion just to steal the raid/dungeon. Tho that encounter would be a moment of great triumph or great sadness lol

CaptnChuck

Daedrik45 wrote: »

In theory I like this idea, but I don’t see people taking 8 days to craft an impossible potion only to have other raid groups come in and steal the dungeon. I would see guilds literally waiting for other guilds to craft said potion just to steal the raid/dungeon. Tho that encounter would be a moment of great triumph or great sadness lol

Yea that can be a problem.

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