MMOs - A Raid Bench.

[Fayvren]

After the change from 40 players to 25 players in wow raids, one of the major things that guilds changed was stacking raids for optimum performance on new bosses. One of the problems I've seen with this in the past is a) having players rotate out on bosses and miss out on potential loot and b) having to manage raid / guild rosters to run raids successfully. It was always hard to keep enough people interested so that we could raid every day but manage it so no one felt left out.

With 25 man raids, encounters require much more precision. Attnetion to detail that would be almost impossible to expect from 40 players in anything but the top guilds. But it's also been alot harder to field the necessary groups for each fight.

One solution I've contemplated was having raid boss "bench players" where you would bring extra players into a raid instance that would be marked as "observers" on raid boss encounters. 30-40 men for clearing trash 25 players for the boss. The closest thing would be like the extra characters you have in Final Fantasy that dont participate in battle but are part of your group. Sure its a very arbitrary game mechanic that is not really part of "role play" but I imagine a creative designer could somehow script it into the story. There are numerous benefits to this. For 1 it alleviates alot of the problems about managing a guild as well as roster stacking. You could also tune trash differently than bosses with trash being tuned for >25 players and then bosses tuned for the specific number allocated. The bench players would then be eligbile for loot distribution as well giving them incentive to come to raids and not become upset about "sitting out"

Another benefit would be that it would let the rookies see the fight as it was executed without having to be thrown in on an attempt and be expected to figure it out on the fly.

Curious as to what people think about this as a game mechanic.

[venom]

If the bench people were eligible for loot, then I see guilds selling those spots to non-guild members. No fear of them fucking up the encounter this way either.

[Suineg]

Making a whole new game mechanic to fix a 'flaw' in boss design is a slippery slope.

Not to mention that 25 man bosses drop enough loot to properly gear 25 people in a prescribed amount of time. You add in 'observers' and you would have to up the amount of loot. The guilds capable of running it 25 with ease will stack with alts as observers and just gain more loot thereby 'exploiting' more gear.

I don't really see any pro's and a lot of con's.

[Wilfan]

EDIT: beaten.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Fayvren

After the change from 40 players to 25 players in wow raids, one of the major things that guilds changed was stacking raids for optimum performance on new bosses. One of the problems I've seen with this in the past is a) having players rotate out on bosses and miss out on potential loot and b) having to manage raid / guild rosters to run raids successfully. It was always hard to keep enough people interested so that we could raid every day but manage it so no one felt left out.

With 25 man raids, encounters require much more precision. Attnetion to detail that would be almost impossible to expect from 40 players in anything but the top guilds. But it's also been alot harder to field the necessary groups for each fight.

One solution I've contemplated was having raid boss "bench players" where you would bring extra players into a raid instance that would be marked as "observers" on raid boss encounters. 30-40 men for clearing trash 25 players for the boss. The closest thing would be like the extra characters you have in Final Fantasy that dont participate in battle but are part of your group. Sure its a very arbitrary game mechanic that is not really part of "role play" but I imagine a creative designer could somehow script it into the story. There are numerous benefits to this. For 1 it alleviates alot of the problems about managing a guild as well as roster stacking. You could also tune trash differently than bosses with trash being tuned for >25 players and then bosses tuned for the specific number allocated. The bench players would then be eligbile for loot distribution as well giving them incentive to come to raids and not become upset about "sitting out"

Another benefit would be that it would let the rookies see the fight as it was executed without having to be thrown in on an attempt and be expected to figure it out on the fly.

Curious as to what people think about this as a game mechanic.

And what benefit would these speedbumps get for clearing a dungeon so someone else can come in and get the loot?

Hey guys! Mandatory raid time! Today, you all (aka, the sucky team) get to spend a few hours killing trash monsters and getting drops that none of you probably want, and when you're done, we (aka, the officers and players we like) can come in and ice the bosses for the loot that we want.

It's been a while since I played WoW, but if an instance is tuned for 25 people, why would they let you bring in more to circumvent the 25 person limit?

[Malakriss]

Guilds that aren't stupid greedy retarded fucks already cycle players in for bosses to get the drops or to clear the trash in hope of a drop. If you're not in the raid you should be doing something else that's constructive.

What you're suggesting would ultimately be used for two purposes only 1) Observer tool for boss strats making them insanely easier, 2) Loot selling, where you can now stick in all the piss poor players with gold on the bench and not deal with their bullshit while killing the mob.

[Tuco]

This does seem like a bandage for a bigger problem. The problem results because if you have both difficult and original encounters it is inevitable that optimal raid composition will result for each encounter.

It would be best to make an effort to mitigate this such that the general optimal raid composition is (RaidSize / #OfDifferentClasses) people per class. Every instance of this being extremely skewed in an encounter can probably have changes to either the class or the encounter to fix, but that would require constant rebalancing and would limit the originality of the encounter.

[Zerai]

I kinda just miss EQ style. They can say "this raid is balanced for 25 people". Shitty guilds will bring 50, good, 20-25. Sure lots of people zerged shit, but they ended up getting fucked because the loot was distributed too far and they all ended up with partially geared raids and sucked anyway.

[JustWalking]

What I could see is merely just having the extras tag along to be an Observer. If your brand spankin new, it would help to tag along and be able to see the raid executed correctly, so when you jump in you know what to do. Thats not to say you shouldnt research your role before hand, but it definitely would be a cool little feature.

[Gnome Eater]

A handy guide for WoW raids:

More shaman = more good. The optimal number is somewhere around 6, for twin ereddar I am sure there is an upper number on how many chain heal bots you want but not sure if anyone has hit it.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by JustWalking

What I could see is merely just having the extras tag along to be an Observer. If your brand spankin new, it would help to tag along and be able to see the raid executed correctly, so when you jump in you know what to do. Thats not to say you shouldnt research your role before hand, but it definitely would be a cool little feature.

Or your guild could just write a post detailing how the raid will be executed and tell you to read it.

[Fayvren]

After seeing the responses I totally agree with whats being said about loot and all the rest. Those are definite issues which Im not sure have a good solution.

I guess I just have an issue with alot of the ramifications of having a hard cap on players, along with encounters that are skewed one way or another. At the beginning of TBC for instance, it was just balanced terribly against melee classes. I remember subbing out TONS of melee for gruul etc because having them there was a huge liability.

Having great players that are willing to sacrifice etc and study encounters is of course the best case. But I cant imagine that subbing people in and out constnatly is what designers / developers had in mind when creating raids in general.

[Mahes]

I think adding optional 40 man raids with loot comparable to the 25 mans of a certain tier would be the most ideal way(Maybe even 50 man). Yes it takes a lot more coordiantion, but it also allows a lot more freedon for what classes/Specs you can bring to a raid.

The problem of course with this idea is the amount of time it would take to develop.

Just imagine how bad this will get with the Death Night class. If they are great tanks, nobody will want them for any other spec, period. If they actually tank better than a certain other class, that will wipe out that class/spec. As it stands now, Druids tank very nicely on single target, Paladins do well on multiple targets and warriors are inbetween. Where will the New class fit? If they are great Melee DPS why will you need a rogue? Will Death Nights bring anything else to a group, like a buff or some other kind of enhancements? Maybe they will be the first tank with the ability to ressurect players?

They should have never gone to 25 man.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Tuco

This does seem like a bandage for a bigger problem.

This.

The problem is raid caps and 'optimal' raid composition will always leave someone sitting out. And it's not always poor players or 'filler'. Some encounters require less healing and more DPS to beat an enrage timer, others require massive healing and simply outlasting the boss. Those two raids will not be made of the same people yet both will be needed at some point. It's incredibly lame as hell to sit outside of a raid instance waiting for your number to be called so you can go in and help kill a boss that you may not even need only to be replaced for the next one.

I think the best course for future games (don't expect this in WoW at all) is dynamically powered mobs. The more people you bring the more powerful they are and the more items from their loot table they drop. With 25 you may get the usual 3 tokens and 1-2 unique items but with 40 you may get 4 tokens and 2-3 unique items.

[Arbitrary]

I think WoW has pretty much taken the standard raid mechanics and loot structure as far as they can go. Allowing people to ghost watch raids to not feel left out is a poor fix for a system I'm pretty much tired of.