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Malaqai · 02-05-2009, 05:12 AM

Thanon@Runnyeye wrote:

QFT
I've been saying this for years. A lot of people like to hate on WoW (don't ask me why...jealousy maybe?) but after having played it alongside of EQ2 I can honestly say that WoW is years ahead of EQ2 when it comes to the complexity of their raid encounters. Since the very beginning when WoW released, Blizzard has included scripted content, all they way from the ground up. Solo quests, group dungeons, all the way to raids, are heavily scripted in their game.
It took Sony nearly 5 years to introduce scripting into their game. Their players have gotten so used to ezmode raiding that--for the most part--the average EQ2 player is unable to cope with it. Why? Because they got used to the ezmode raiding over the years.
A typical raid mob in EQ2 (until TSO) is the following:
Knockback. AoE. DoT. The strategy is the same. Pull mob to corner. Avoid KB. Joust AoE. Cure the DoT. DPS till dead.
That's it. That was EQ2 raiding up until late RoK/TSO. The HARDEST part about these fights was dealing with some mobs who might do a mem-wipe. Simple. Easy. Boring.
They started to add scripting to fights in late-tier RoK and especially in TSO. I, for one, love it. No longer do a few select people carry the raid. (The tank, a couple of healers, your highest DPS...pre TSO EQ2 raids were literally beatable so long as you had a good tank and good healers. The rest of it was just piling enough DPS on the mobs to kill them) Now you need to have not only a balanced makeup of classes, but you MUST have EVERY person on the raid paying attention, because now EVERY person on the raid is important. It's not just about planting a mob in the corner, jousting his AoE, and curing DoTs. Now it's about flipping switches, clicking shinies, changing mob positioning multiple times during the fight, watching your power consumption, triggering specific effects, having set time limits to cure detrimental...ALL occuring at the same time which requires an effort of coordination on the part of EVERY member of the raid.
This is child's play in WoW. Seriously. There's a reason 11 million people play that game, and it ain't cuz it's "ezmode" like everyone says. It's because it's FUN. The raids are CHALLENGING. The scripting makes it a FAR better game, and it's sad that EQ2 took this long to add it to their game.
Now, that being said, I prefer EQ2 to WoW. Why? I can't stand the cartoony graphics, and I grew up on EQ1, so I'm naturally particular to EQ2. And while I admire and complement Blizzard on what they are doing with their game, it can't change the fact that they also have a lot of detrimental things in their game, such as welfare epics (which TSO shard armor is bordering on). But at the end of the day the one thing they have that Sony is JUST NOW adding to the game is heavily scripted encounters that start at the solo level and go all the way up to the raids.
For people who can't get past VS, you are in for a rude awakening when you get to TSO. If your guild can't focus for the 8-10 minutes that it takes to kill VS, you are never going to be able to break past the first named or two in TOMC, because it requires more than just a few minutes of concentration. Hell, our guild had our first pull on Nexona last week (yeah we are behind the times) and we were looking at the fail restrictions on her and figured out that it's going to be a MINIMUM of a 15 minute fight with our non-mythical DPS, probably more like 20 minutes.
Our guild is PSYCHED to be up against a challenge that requires us to focus for 20 minutes, for each person needing to do something different and unique, to be important, rather than standing in a corner and healing...joust AoE....dps...joust AoE....heal....joust AoE...dps...joust AoE...
You get the picture.
Scripting FTW

You're so right!Best part of those scripted fights is not only do you have to do everything EXACTLY on a already decided linear line, which makes it, guess what.... Much more boring that stuff where you can improvise like Rumbler, Wuoshi, etc.

Also, it's also great, and I'll say this again, since EQ is so stable and then you fight Switchmaster or someone and 6 of your raiders get booted, get the yellow screen, you wipe.

FUN!

02-05-2009, 05:12 AM	#148
Malaqai Loremaster Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 70	Thanon@Runnyeye wrote: QFT I've been saying this for years. A lot of people like to hate on WoW (don't ask me why...jealousy maybe?) but after having played it alongside of EQ2 I can honestly say that WoW is years ahead of EQ2 when it comes to the complexity of their raid encounters. Since the very beginning when WoW released, Blizzard has included scripted content, all they way from the ground up. Solo quests, group dungeons, all the way to raids, are heavily scripted in their game. It took Sony nearly 5 years to introduce scripting into their game. Their players have gotten so used to ezmode raiding that--for the most part--the average EQ2 player is unable to cope with it. Why? Because they got used to the ezmode raiding over the years. A typical raid mob in EQ2 (until TSO) is the following: Knockback. AoE. DoT. The strategy is the same. Pull mob to corner. Avoid KB. Joust AoE. Cure the DoT. DPS till dead. That's it. That was EQ2 raiding up until late RoK/TSO. The HARDEST part about these fights was dealing with some mobs who might do a mem-wipe. Simple. Easy. Boring. They started to add scripting to fights in late-tier RoK and especially in TSO. I, for one, love it. No longer do a few select people carry the raid. (The tank, a couple of healers, your highest DPS...pre TSO EQ2 raids were literally beatable so long as you had a good tank and good healers. The rest of it was just piling enough DPS on the mobs to kill them) Now you need to have not only a balanced makeup of classes, but you MUST have EVERY person on the raid paying attention, because now EVERY person on the raid is important. It's not just about planting a mob in the corner, jousting his AoE, and curing DoTs. Now it's about flipping switches, clicking shinies, changing mob positioning multiple times during the fight, watching your power consumption, triggering specific effects, having set time limits to cure detrimental...ALL occuring at the same time which requires an effort of coordination on the part of EVERY member of the raid. This is child's play in WoW. Seriously. There's a reason 11 million people play that game, and it ain't cuz it's "ezmode" like everyone says. It's because it's FUN. The raids are CHALLENGING. The scripting makes it a FAR better game, and it's sad that EQ2 took this long to add it to their game. Now, that being said, I prefer EQ2 to WoW. Why? I can't stand the cartoony graphics, and I grew up on EQ1, so I'm naturally particular to EQ2. And while I admire and complement Blizzard on what they are doing with their game, it can't change the fact that they also have a lot of detrimental things in their game, such as welfare epics (which TSO shard armor is bordering on). But at the end of the day the one thing they have that Sony is JUST NOW adding to the game is heavily scripted encounters that start at the solo level and go all the way up to the raids. For people who can't get past VS, you are in for a rude awakening when you get to TSO. If your guild can't focus for the 8-10 minutes that it takes to kill VS, you are never going to be able to break past the first named or two in TOMC, because it requires more than just a few minutes of concentration. Hell, our guild had our first pull on Nexona last week (yeah we are behind the times) and we were looking at the fail restrictions on her and figured out that it's going to be a MINIMUM of a 15 minute fight with our non-mythical DPS, probably more like 20 minutes. Our guild is PSYCHED to be up against a challenge that requires us to focus for 20 minutes, for each person needing to do something different and unique, to be important, rather than standing in a corner and healing...joust AoE....dps...joust AoE....heal....joust AoE...dps...joust AoE... You get the picture. Scripting FTW You're so right!Best part of those scripted fights is not only do you have to do everything EXACTLY on a already decided linear line, which makes it, guess what.... Much more boring that stuff where you can improvise like Rumbler, Wuoshi, etc. Also, it's also great, and I'll say this again, since EQ is so stable and then you fight Switchmaster or someone and 6 of your raiders get booted, get the yellow screen, you wipe. FUN!