Why do Raids have a Forced reset timer?

[Whistu]

Raiding for weeks in the same instance at the same boss would be stupid even for newer guilds. if a guild realy only has 1hr a week to raid, they just shouldnt be raiding. and these guilds would actually gain more overall to just kill Duke every week untill they can down 2 or 3 or 4 bosses in that 1hr then spending weeks working on the next boss getting no gear.

If you do not raid enough in one week to get down the instance that takes about 2hrs with average geared players and a few wipes added in once you know the strat and such, then you are never going to spend enough time to really progress on latter bosses. When under-geared and not a high quality raid group it takes a very long time to get some bosses do for the first time and even after that its not always simple ad quick.

1week resets are to be honest too long, all of the T1 raid content should be getting reset every
3 days for better progression, not being made longer resets or even options of longer

I'd still like a reason allowing more people to participate in this content has a negative effect on anyone.

[Jaya]

If you are a casual gamer, why are you trying to do the high-rated endgame content?

what do those 2 things have to do with each other? Casual players raid... they just raid casually.

Being able to extend raid lockouts is a nice tool for casual raiders.

[The Real Viz Shady]

I'm not opposed to it, but you guys are really only hurting yourselves by keeping an instance open indefinitely. You guys will have an easier time while gearing up on the content that you can pass while working on your sticking points.

[Sirhealsalot]

Raid content should be included in the LFD tool. No idea why it isn't. If people want to pug a raid, why shouldn't they be able to do so? I did it countless times in WoW, often with great results.

[nefermore]

Because farming happens.

[Byamee]

I can see having the option to not reset a raid instance for guilds who have the previous bosses on farm, and just want to concentrate on the last boss, but for a casual guild wanting to chip away at it, doesn't really make sense. I'm a casual raider myself, but just chipping away at content isn't going to get you anywhere. 1. You won't have the gear to get the next 1-2 down and 2. You're losing out on getting marks that will eventually get you more gear and help progression. If you want something casual, that's not a time sink, then stick with GP. Once you have the mechanics down, you can usually have the frist 3 bosses down within an hour-hour and a half, and it's only a 10 man.

I can agree with the lockout timers being too long, but then again, if they reset twice a week, content would be getting downed faster now than it is now. That might be good for most of the community, but there would be a blow back from some of the hardcore folks that complete it all in half the time then have nothing else to do until the next raid zone gets released.

[Whistu]

The argument that a guild shouldn't chip away makes no sense. The point is the guild *could* reset it back to the first boss if they wanted. Not having it reset by force would also allow a casual guild to make attempts on the first boss, move on to the second -or- reset it and go back to the first, at their own time table. Just because a guild doesn't have enough dedicated raiders to make said attempts 2-3 times a week means they shouldn't raid? Once again, I'm looking for a negative to the player base. Having options hardly seems like a negative.

[Galibier]

[QUOTE=Whistu;2875596]

Uh..what? Raiding in this game is about progression inside the zone? How does forcing a reset to a raid change progression, it hinders it...not promotes it. Let's be honest, it's more of the "gerbil on a wheel" aspect that is designed to keep people playing, however i see it as a mechanism to do the opposite. You chip away at it? Huh? Again, if you chip away at something, it shouldn't come right back should it!? [QUOTE]

The point is though with the current raid structure you can't chip away at it. If there was not a soft reset on trash based on each named. If the named's did heal to full before you reformed or you could zerg them okay, but you can't do this. If your raid time is so limited that an unlimited amount of time is needed for a zone other guilds can clear in 2 hours minus, you simply won't be able to get the script down for Infiltrator Hylas or GS.

I understand that it could/will affect the physical allocation of memory. But a cost to ROI for Trion IMO would be less people quitting the game because such a feature would allow for more people to actually participate in the content, and it would allow more guilds to actually function post T2 content without loosing players to boredom and guild hopping.

Just adding this proposed feature would not accomplish your goal. All that it would lead to, (or adding raids to the lfd tool) due to the way raids are structured in this game, is people complaining that after 3 weeks they haven't managed to get past the second named.

What do you think woul discourage people more? Having the hard reset or being able to endlessly bang you head against the same mob time and time again with little to no success.

Now if you want to talk about addressing the entire raid structure, this is something we can have a legitimate debate on. That said just removing the hard lock out adds an expense to Trion without addressing the real issue which is how raidng is structured. The raiding in this game is not WotLK. It's arguably easier than early WoW or Hardmode Eq2 BUT Scott Hartsman and the Raid dev team have an old school view of raiding. Raiding to them is for raiders. Encounters may be nerfed later for the more casual player but only after the next level of raiding has been introduced. This old school view of raiding has influenced the entire structure, from lock out timers to named progression and difficulty in the zone. All you have to do is listen to Gersh and Hartsman when they say things like "we know everyone doesn't or can't raid. That is why when we add new content we want to have events that other players can participate in." (Podcast 38 most notably). When stuff like this is said, inherent in the statement is that raiding will be limited to a specific demographic of players.

[Kymeric]

The "hardcore" hit new content first. MMORPGs need to make that content take a long time that they can minimize "there's no content left, I'm bored" and keep as many people paying subscriptions as possible. The casuals are still making their way through old content, so at this point they don't need to be catered to.

At some point, the "hardcore" get done with the content anyway. That's when you nerf the old content, so the casuals can do it, thereby keeping them from unsubbing, and introduce new "hard" content to keep the "hardcore" from unsubbing.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

At this point in the history of the MMORPG genre, it would be naive to think that all of these things haven't been carefully calculated.

[Galibier]

Also one point on the "if you don't have 2-3 days a week" thing. What is the definition of casual you are using? We have well over 20 raiders. Our charter states that raiders recruited pre 1.3 better expect a 25% sit rate, those after 1.3 should expect an even higher sit rate. Since our raid force formed we have only had 2 raid nights a week (soon expanding t three though) which means everyone in the guild has averaged less than 2 days a week raiding, however we are now working on Plutonus and Harbringer in RoS.

I think if you more firmly defined "casual" we might better understand why and what is really being asked for.

[Whistu]

I think everybody's definition of casual is going to be different. If my guild was able to form up 20 people and raid once a week, what's wrong with that? People have jobs, wives, children, lives. Getting together once a week to play poker, go fishing, drink some beers, or play an MMO. If your guild is able to do it more often, awesome. If your guild can clear a raid in 2.5 hours, more power to you. My simple point is, how does allowing a guild that can put together a 20 man less frequently being able to not have a dungeon reset affect those that can raid more often?

"Maybe raiding isn't for you". EXACTLY, the way it stands now.

I *understand* that yes, if we have trouble downing the first boss, the second will be even worse. I have raided before. But again, we have trouble on second boss, we simply reset it. THAT is the option. I could agree that if we only had the option of choosing a forced reset OR having to complete the raid from start to finish before we could reset the raid, then things would be different. We are talking about the option to let it go past the reset date, and having a manual reset. I have raided in the past, and I have had experiences where you may get a group once a week that IS capable of completing boss's, but NOT capable of being there enough times *before* the reset happens, which, stifles the progression in its own right. I'm simply talking about the option. NOT the best way to progress.

[Galibier]

I think everybody's definition of casual is going to be different. If my guild was able to form up 20 people and raid once a week, what's wrong with that? People have jobs, wives, children, lives. Getting together once a week to play poker, go fishing, drink some beers, or play an MMO. If your guild is able to do it more often, awesome. If your guild can clear a raid in 2.5 hours, more power to you. My simple point is, how does allowing a guild that can put together a 20 man less frequently being able to not have a dungeon reset affect those that can raid more often?

"Maybe raiding isn't for you". EXACTLY, the way it stands now.

I *understand* that yes, if we have trouble downing the first boss, the second will be even worse. I have raided before. But again, we have trouble on second boss, we simply reset it. THAT is the option. I could agree that if we only had the option of choosing a forced reset OR having to complete the raid from start to finish before we could reset the raid, then things would be different. We are talking about the option to let it go past the reset date, and having a manual reset. I have raided in the past, and I have had experiences where you may get a group once a week that IS capable of completing boss's, but NOT capable of being there enough times *before* the reset happens, which, stifles the progression in its own right. I'm simply talking about the option. NOT the best way to progress.

If you noticed however that is why I noted my guild. The members have been averaging less than 2 days a week of raiding since we started due to our size and out chartered sit rates to deal with our size. Even with that we are killing stuff quite nicely. TIME raiding is clearly not at issue then.

What is at issue is inability to kill a mob. Give it a weeek, give it a month give it two months. Since your issue is that "how many times are we expected to do t2's". Well it's until you get the needed gear. If you have the needed gear killing Duke, Even Infiltrator should not be issues. Duke is a basic gear check. The only "hard" part of that script is killing the thing so Duke gets slowed during his rage phase. Infiltrator is both a gear and a script check.

If you have issues with Duke then you don't have the gear. Go back to t2's and get more. If you are having issues with Infiltrator look and see what is killing your raid. If it's people getting knocked into the wisps or they can't don't the blinding bombs its a script issue. If you aren't killing him fast enough or your healers just can't keep people alive its a gear issue. Again those many of these issues are NOT about banging your head against that mob. if people can't handle a script at one level they need to do the earlier scripts until they can do them without screwing up.

If you did raid in the past you know the WORST thing for a raid force is when morale goes into the dumper. The easiest way to get morale to go into the dumper is to bang your head against a wall mindlessly with no progress.

[Jaya]

Because farming happens.

Farming doesn't have anything to do with it. The question isn't "why do raids have a timed lockout" ...which would have something to do with farming. It's "why are raids forced to reset their lockout"... which is about the opposite of farming.

[Vayra]

1 week is plenty of time to work on progressing in a given raid. Hell, there's even pug (or semi pug) raids on my shard who have cleared at least up until and including Hylas and Warmaster + foci (and maybe even herald or plut, but not sure on that yet). All you need is a few hours a few nights a week. If your players are even semi competent you should be able to down a new boss every week until you hit Lord Greenscale or Plutonus/Herald which can take a little while longer.

[Jaya]

1 week is plenty of time to work on progressing in a given raid. Hell, there's even pug (or semi pug) raids on my shard who have cleared at least up until and including Hylas and Warmaster + foci (and maybe even herald or plut, but not sure on that yet). All you need is a few hours a few nights a week. If your players are even semi competent you should be able to down a new boss every week until you hit Lord Greenscale or Plutonus/Herald which can take a little while longer.

and what about the folks who can't get together for more than an hour or so?

especially for casual players (and remember casual does not mean "hardcore player who only plays a X hours a week"), 2 hours can mean that you get stuck on the first couple bosses long after they can't produce any sort of meaningful loot when you're forced to reset the lockout every week.