Suggestion: add casual raid difficulty

[rabidfox]

Just going to preface this with: I have zero interest in this suggestion myself, it's not something I need as I don't have issues getting & doing raids. But from other posts, some people have trouble finding raid groups based off their time zone & current server populations and/or have trouble with even normal difficulty raids (if they try to solo/shortman them as result of not finding full groups). So on that note:

Add casual difficulty to raids (as that difficulty already exists for quests) and let hires be useable in casual difficulty mode (to make it easier for people to solo/shortman that need that extra help); just make the loot rate/runes acquired low enough that's a heavy trade-off vs normal raiding difficulties.

(*obviously a few raids would still be mechanically impossible to solo, but that's when short manning would come into play)

 

[Toede]

Not sure what balance people are referring to. There is no balance to speak of. This game already allows people with a hundred past lives and that top end gear to group with a first life new player in a loin cloth. Gatekeeping for the sake of gatekeeping is not a valid argument. As has already been posted multiple times, raids are not hard to do. That's just a straight up reality. All you need to get high end gear is to be in the right club with enough people all in the same place at the same time. There is no balance what so ever in that nor is there any in attempting to deprive others who aren't in your club from obtaining the same items. It hurts nobody to give out a small bit of reward that can add up overtime for anyone willing to spend that time to grind it out on a more casual setting. Except maybe people's egos.

Personally, I think just the setting alone would be very valuable for people who want a less pressure way to learn the raids or to just cut out all the raider bs and enjoy the content. But I am also not opposed to them getting a little reward for it either.

 

[l_remmie]

I'm not seeing a world where ssg will give casual raids a chance to drop gear or even runes.

I'm hoping we can have "story mode" / "training mode" and not have it cause 3day raid timer. And even that i think is pushing the bounds of reality.

 

[Shear-buckler]

The question is why would someone who plays low difficulties need powerful raid items? If someone plays easier difficulties they do not need them.

No one needs raid items. There is no content in the game with strict requirements of raid items. Should they just be removed? No of course not, they are a fun and interesting addition to character progression.

People who want to get raid items on casual are those who want an easy button to get powerful raid items on low difficulty so that they would be able to grind the best equipment for low effort.

So yes, it IS balance to have 0 chance for that.

This is a really nice idea to enable people to experience the story and content, but it should not make the top gear easier to get in the process. If that was the true intent behind this suggestion then no thanks.

Getting raid items already has an easy button. There is absolutely no skill, effort or contribution required to get raid items. All you have to do is play on the right time zone and join EH pugs that will auto complete regardless of what you do. Play on the right server and the right time zone and spend some money of raid timers and you can have all the raid loot you want in no time for no effort at all even if you literally is the worst player in the game.

If you are worried about the top gear being too easy to access then expand the mythic bonuses for raid items. That way there is still a lot of incentive to raid and even more so to run higher difficulties while not leaving players on the wrong time zone out of key gearing elements for entire expansions.

 

[Arch-Necromancer]

Getting raid items already has an easy button. There is absolutely no skill, effort or contribution required to get raid items. All you have to do is play on the right time zone and join EH pugs that will auto complete regardless of what you do.

It is already hard to find a group for a raid and now if you make a new difficulty it will be even harder to find a group.

But if you remove drop chances then that difficulty will only be used for learning and story reasons and not also for item/ingredient grinding.

So it will not have that much negative impact on grouping.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I will stop at that. I actually do not really care either way. If there would be some drop rates I would be fine with it.

I actually just wanted to put a magnifying glass on the people's intents why they would want this to be introduced so that devs can then make a better analysis on the global impact of adding this to the game.

 

[Toede]

I assure you, anyone who would run this difficulty is already not joining your groups. I will say it again, if this would pull away normal raiders, then that means they don't enjoy raiding to begin with. And that's a whole other topic. Or to put it another way, I will just quote rabidfox:

Even if it was 1/2 the runes and drop chance of normal difficulty, it wouldn't really effect people who already regularly raid. I currently don't join normal difficulty raids because I'm not going to go on timer when I can easily do R1s any night of the week; it's not worth giving up the extra runes and higher loot chances (plus chances at boosted gear). The people that I know tend to only settle for easier raid difficulties when solid grouping options aren't available and casual would be same thing, just with one more step easier available than right now.


I don't know how many people don't raid currently, but if it did help ease more people into raiding then it seems like it would be a win to me.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

All the ones i mentioned about soloing above are basically single room fights, with some having a short path to get to that fight or an offshoot path to be able to complete the raid(reavers fate). All usually have one tricky mechanic to understand but on normal can be very manageable with active play. Our permadeath team ran all of these in hardcore and we are not genuine raiders, nor do we care for raiding or especially endgame raiding or grinding. Honestly if you dont find raids fun just dont play them you wont be missing anything.

On the contrary, in games like this one, I often find raids the most fun and exciting activities available, solo or in a good group (good groups being nearly impossible to find), precisely because the monsters do such interesting things. I would like to see enemies in normal quests do more interesting things (to a limit) and have written numerous suggestions proposing such things.

Thanks again for the advice. If the stars ever align, I will give it another try.

 

[dur]

Not sure what balance people are referring to. There is no balance to speak of. This game already allows people with a hundred past lives and that top end gear to group with a first life new player in a loin cloth. Gatekeeping for the sake of gatekeeping is not a valid argument. As has already been posted multiple times, raids are not hard to do. That's just a straight up reality. All you need to get high end gear is to be in the right club with enough people all in the same place at the same time. There is no balance what so ever in that nor is there any in attempting to deprive others who aren't in your club from obtaining the same items. It hurts nobody to give out a small bit of reward that can add up overtime for anyone willing to spend that time to grind it out on a more casual setting. Except maybe people's egos.

Personally, I think just the setting alone would be very valuable for people who want a less pressure way to learn the raids or to just cut out all the raider bs and enjoy the content. But I am also not opposed to them getting a little reward for it either.

+1 and +1

 

[gravisrs]

+1

as this opens the gate for newbies that are afraid of raids.

 

[Ying]

I'm for anything that gets more people into raiding.

 

[rabidfox]

There's a new raid coming out soon; would be perfect time to implement a casual mode in it...

 

[Spook]

I would use it because I hate you all.

 

[Jaspar]

Hardcore has proven that this is not needed, raids can be completed flawlessly without death at an appropriate level range. Some like the ones listed above can be soloed flawlessly in existing extreme ruleset permadeath guilds that currently exist, without ship buffs and favor buffs and limited untwinked gear on first life toons.

There is no need to provide casual access to the raids.

Becsuse casual people play hardcore?

Is that really your rationale ??

"Casuals dont deserve my shinies" is the true reason you should have posted.

 

[DBZ]

Pretty sure he got a perma bann

 

[Garix]

I have no interest in raiding. All power to you if it's your bag, but it's not mine.
However.
If it meant I could actually get Commendations of Heroism for buying certain augments (https://ddowiki.com/page/Augment_Slot/Purchasable_Augments#Agate_Twistiron_(ML_24)) I'd be a very happy camper.

 

[Bjond]

The folks I know with the issue are more in the camp of "no one runs over LH in my time-zone", not "no one runs any at all". One asked about R1 KT just a couple days ago, which we run every week; offered a spot, but got "I know, but I can't make your start time!".

IMHO, the further you are from 2100 EST, the harder it will be for you to find raids.

 

[Arianrhod]

I would be in favor of this (actually posted a similar thread some years back in the old forums). Some of us learn best on our own, and a casual raid difficulty that allows hirelings (for those raids where multiple bodies are needed) would be great for people wanting to learn the ropes without being led through by others

 

[Uska]

I wouldn't do it but have no objections to it

 

[Rathy]

Oh, this would be lovely for learning what to do in the raids with my static group!

Long ago, we (3 player static group) tried two raids and failed both of them (Shroud and the one in Necro). While I have done Chrono and Von (and one other one I can't remember in season 1) during HC seasons, I have never done any other raids and would love to learn them!

I don't have enough info to judge if using hires should be allowed (or if the coding work is easy enough to do) or what to do about the quality and quantity of the loot but a causal setting would be nice to help my group learn the basics at least!

 

[DBZ]

Hires not allowed join a guild thats new player raid friendly with your friends

Von, ADQ, and THE Truth are easy ones for your static team to learn on

 

[nix]

Letting hirelings into raids would likely be more helpful for the more casual player.

Or not ... knowing how good the hire ai is :LOL: