Raid Encounter Ideas

[Artalis the Elder]

<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Premise/Problem: </span></strong></p><p>Too much of the existing content focuses around stacking aoes, curses and hellish aoe damage that has to be healed through and control effects that make players wish the raid was over. This rewards linear thinking and a general non-creative optimization of raid dps/heals.</p><p>The result of this is every raid force looks vaguely the same based on current trends in gear/aa's/spells.</p><p>Players are smart and this game is their passion. They will crunch numbers in ways that SOE doesn't necessarily have time to do or might not even think of. In a static environment once a strat is developed it will ALWAYS work making that content essentially boring once the application of the strat is perfected.</p><p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Solution:</span></strong></p><p><strong></strong>Stop making success dependent exclusively on the those factors on every fight. Stop making mob scripts that never change. Dynamic = Exciting.</p><p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Examples:</span></strong></p><p>Instead of making mobs simply drop hate positions, make one that puts a debuff on the tank that causes their hate to decay so that eventually the mob must be handed off. We do not play an MMORPG for twitch game-play that's what FPS are for. Memwipes are irritating.</p><p>Make Positioning matter so that if a certain mob can SEE a healer it ill nuke or port them or something. So that if a bunch of scouts pile up on their butt they will swat them away or if all the casters hang out in one area the mob will throw a firecarpet at them or a meteor out of the sky or something.</p><p>Make a mob that when they get hit with a large damage spike, he actually reacts. Imagine the fun if a wizzy drops a 200k nuke on the mob and in response the mob curses them by name sends them flying, hurting but not killing them, but making them run back with everyone snickering. Getting punted by Bob the Archmage might actually be a mark of honor. Or maybe he turns around and sets them on fire and all the healers have to pile on heals to keep them alive before the explode and set everyone else around them on fire, making them explode etc.</p><p>If the mob senses that one healer is pumping out a ton of heals, maybe he'll imprison them in a cage that has to be broken out of (from the inside and out)</p><p>How about a fight with adds that can only be tanked one on one by fighters that heal as soon as they are damaged, making summoner tank pets actually useful?</p><p>How about a castle siege like old school DFC/Deathtoll with archers on ramparts that need to be mezzed/charmed and ballista/catapults that need to be destroyed, stuff for ranged dps and casters to focus on, while guards rush in for tanks and melee to pick up.</p><p>How about a sacrifice that must be stopped, quickly burning though waves of (scary looking undead?) adds to get to the hapless victim and free them before the terrible rite can be completed?</p><p>How about an otherworldly creature that must be pushed back through a gate? A fight where knockbacks matter and have to be used carefully to actually PUSH the mob?</p><p>How about a mob that can much more easily be defeated by the use of certain weapons found in the zone secured by minibosses, one for each archetype that can only be equipped for a minute or so before it's dropped and then must be used by someone else?</p><p>I could go on and on.</p><p>Some of the above ideas are REACTIVE not simply scripted. So if a raid party attempts to do the fight one way, it might not be the same fight that another raid force experiences. Or if a force's roster changes so too will the fight.</p><p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Things not to do:</span></strong></p><p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Don't make it so people can't do their jobs.</span></span></em></strong></p><p>Players have chosen their classes so that they can push their buttons. They like their buttons. Don't make their buttons not work. It is not fun to stare at your screen while your teammates work on a mob and have your buttons not work.</p><p>DPS'ers want to dps, Chanters want to actually MEZZ and manage power(well some of them anyway) Troubs might like to do a litlte of all of the above. Dirges might want to do something besides rez squishies after soul-crushing aoe's.</p><p>Healers might actually want to heal and dps and cure.</p><p>Get away from timed aoe's They are getting old. Maybe make an aoe a reactive response to something like a damage spike but realistically it's not interesting anymore and having a cycle of 3 aoe's that repeat every minute is just unimaginative.</p><p>Control effects should be used sparingly if at all and lets face it, curses are getting old.</p><p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Things to consider:</span></strong></p><p>Make the fights FUN. Think about what is fun and do that. Think about what is NOT fun and DON'T DO THAT.</p><p>Make the fights reward creative thinking. Don't make encounters that can ONLY be beaten in one specific way.</p><p>Give occasional chances for everyone to be in the limelight. Don't make the game about who pumps out the most dps or who has the most mitigation, there are other roles, other players and they should occasionally be rewarded with a bit of recognition.</p>

[Gaige]

<p>Most of that has already been done, the rest of it would make the game worse as you'd have to have certain classes for certain fights and the rest of the ideas wouldn't work and/or are terrible.</p><p>It sounds like you haven't progressed very far in this expansion by some of your complaints.</p>

[Tylia]

<p>I don't know, some of it sounded pretty fun to me.</p>

[Vinyard]

<p>The castle/fortress siege idea would be pretty awesome for a Velious raid *cough Kael Drakkal*</p>

[Artalis the Elder]

<p>Which complaints do you disagree with Gaige? I'd love to know.</p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Kiki@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong></strong>Stop making success dependent exclusively on the those factors on every fight. Stop making mob scripts that never change. Dynamic = Exciting.</p></blockquote><p>Dynamic fights are exciting, but they also usually have elements that are based on luck.  Personally, I have no problem with that, but a lot of people do. </p><p>The only complaint that I think everyone can probably agree on is that it sucks to incapacitate players for any length of time (like Maalus Imbued or Vaclaz Released, if you don't have a ton of cures).</p>

[Artalis the Elder]

<p><cite>Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kiki@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong></strong>Stop making success dependent exclusively on the those factors on every fight. Stop making mob scripts that never change. Dynamic = Exciting.</p></blockquote><p>Dynamic fights are exciting, but they also usually have elements that are based on luck.  Personally, I have no problem with that, but a lot of people do. </p><p>The only complaint that I think everyone can probably agree on is that it sucks to incapacitate players for any length of time (like Maalus Imbued or Vaclaz Released, if you don't have a ton of cures).</p></blockquote><p>If you were to simply pick a dynamic effect out of thin air, sure. But if the Mob responds dynamically to the raid's tactics...</p><p>Example:</p><p>Our buddy Bob the Archmage doesn't like it when he's cornered and surrounded by a bunch of greedy adventurers. So when the number of PC's within 3m exceeds 7 give or take a couple he does the following.</p><p>50% chance he casts Shockwave, stunning the raid briefly and porting to one of 5 (predetermined and non-buggy) different locations nearby to resume dotting and nuking the raid from a pool of spells in his script</p><p>or</p><p>50% chance he casts Repulsion and sends everyone flying doing moderate damage and then resuming his casting routine.</p><p>Note the use of variables and keep in mind what it would be like trying these mobs out for the first few times.</p><p>"[Removed for Content]!? Last time he punted us, what's different now?!"</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Kiki@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Quabi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kiki@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong></strong>Stop making success dependent exclusively on the those factors on every fight. Stop making mob scripts that never change. Dynamic = Exciting.</p></blockquote><p>Dynamic fights are exciting, but they also usually have elements that are based on luck.  Personally, I have no problem with that, but a lot of people do. </p><p>The only complaint that I think everyone can probably agree on is that it sucks to incapacitate players for any length of time (like Maalus Imbued or Vaclaz Released, if you don't have a ton of cures).</p></blockquote><p>If you were to simply pick a dynamic effect out of thin air, sure. But if the Mob responds dynamically to the raid's tactics...</p><p>Example:</p><p>Our buddy Bob the Archmage doesn't like it when he's cornered and surrounded by a bunch of greedy adventurers. So when the number of PC's within 3m exceeds 7 give or take a couple he does the following.</p><p>50% chance he casts Shockwave, stunning the raid briefly and porting to one of 5 (predetermined and non-buggy) different locations nearby to resume dotting and nuking the raid from a pool of spells in his script</p><p>or</p><p>50% chance he casts Repulsion and sends everyone flying doing moderate damage and then resuming his casting routine.</p><p>Note the use of variables and keep in mind what it would be like trying these mobs out for the first few times.</p><p>"[Removed for Content]!? Last time he punted us, what's different now?!"</p></blockquote><p>And then it would be just another mob cause you know what he can do cause no matter what its still a script....thats not very dynamic.</p><p>Also with what you propose which is scripted dynamic encounters...its to easy to minipulate.</p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Kiki@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Our buddy Bob the Archmage doesn't like it when he's cornered and surrounded by a bunch of greedy adventurers. So when the number of PC's within 3m exceeds 7 give or take a couple he does the following.</p><p>50% chance he casts Shockwave, stunning the raid briefly and porting to one of 5 (predetermined and non-buggy) different locations nearby to resume dotting and nuking the raid from a pool of spells in his script</p><p>or</p><p>50% chance he casts Repulsion and sends everyone flying doing moderate damage and then resuming his casting routine.</p><p>Note the use of variables and keep in mind what it would be like trying these mobs out for the first few times.</p><p>"[Removed for Content]!? Last time he punted us, what's different now?!"</p></blockquote><p>Presumably the mob would give a hint about the cause of the stun/knockback, so the strat would simply be to not have many (or even any) people melee him.  Nothing really dynamic about that...you just do the same thing every pull in order to avoid the stun/knockback and the fight is the same each time.</p>

[hellfire]

<p>Also people have a hard time it seems to be able to handle tasks that are hard coded or hard scripted.I casn imagine the crying about  how much harder something is if it had dynamic events.</p><p>Even with something that has dynamic  mechanic where something  always chages dependant of multiple reasons ....there would still be a pattern just one that you can now control more.</p>

[Artalis the Elder]

<p>And if the mob responded differently if he was being ranged?</p><p>It was just an example not a complete script. I'm also not advocating COMPLETE randomness but perhaps some cause/effect things that would make some sense.</p><p>Maybe Bob has a couple nasty spells that are interruptible so you WANT to be hitting him but you would have to find the sweet spot with the number of people. </p><p>I'm suggesting that we shake things up a bit and give these supposed Epic mobs some sort of reasonable level of AI that would make the encounters a bit less static and stale.</p>