Time for cross shard invites & raid groups?

[AlexTrickle]

Firstly note that I am speaking from an EU perspective and not US.

Special Olympics are currently on Blightweald shard a.k.a 'Deadweald'. We knew this when we transferred and its perfectly lag free for out main raiding however it presented an interesting predicament for my alts.

Do I leave them on Icewatch, by far and away the most active EU shard, or bring them with my main for crafting/support purposes. After experimenting with splitting my four characters across the 3 (excluding the RP shard) remaining EU shards I found that I was struggling money/crafting wise to sustain raid consumables for any and all of my characters. Thus I consolidated my warrior and rogue to Blightweald so I had all trade skills together. The downside to this is they struggle to find weekly groups or better yet HK pugs.

A year on from entering HK and I still love the raid, more so than the new and finished ID, and would happily do HK 3 or 4 times a week on all my characters. But with the way 'serious' raiding guilds (defiant) in EU are spread:


Icewatch: Destiny
Bloodiron: Vengeance, eXile
Blightweald: Special Olympics, Heresy, MOIRAE

The skilled playerbase is too thinly spread making 'competent' HK pugs next to impossibe. Within the above guilds I know there is 20-30 HK and ID ready alts and a good solid alt raiding core could exist.

Now some say half the problem is me being elitist in requiring 11/11 when I put "LFM HK" but when you know your alt along with many many others are capable of clearing HK then you don't really want sicaron or grug wipes. Yet even on Icewatch at peak population requiring 11/11 resulted in a raid not filling, however with cross shard invites and raid groups this problem wouldn't exist.

A further benefit for cross shard invites and raid groups would be for trialing members, if you recruit someone from another shard. This prevents issues of if they're not good enough and transfer off a locked shard just to trial they are then stuck on your server.

TLDR - Cross shard invites would make pugs a lot more accessible to EU (and I'm sure US) players, especially the more serious guilds who make the difficult decision of lower population shards for better quality raiding.

[NearioNL]

Ok from your perspective I can understand this.
Its indeed a bit elitist to require 11/11(dont condone it, its your right. its your game, its your fun ;)). I do wonder about this though: You require the alt to be 11/11? or the main, so you know they know the mechanics?

So yes this would be a nice option to implement, not only for the top guilds but for the rest as well.

Good idea

[hohlistix]

would work great in conjunction with a way to link an alts achievements (you can already view achievements from all characters, why not be able to link them).

[GoldChrish]

10man versions in future content, raid full

[Pines]

Cross shard Mastermodes, 10 / 20 person raids, Instant Adventures, et cetera would all be welcome additions.

[Vera]

But with the way 'serious' raiding guilds (defiant) in EU are spread:

Icewatch:
Bloodiron: Vengeance, eXile
Blightweald: Special Olympics, Heresy

FTFY

more words

[KK]

Have you tried GDKP runs? It would allow you to bring in some of those non 11/11 pugs but your guildies who have no ALTs that need gear could bring thier Mains to carry the pugs and make plat for thier time

[Chrissibow]

Firstly note that I am speaking from an EU perspective and not US.

Special Olympics are currently on Blightweald shard a.k.a 'Deadweald'. We knew this when we transferred and its perfectly lag free for out main raiding however it presented an interesting predicament for my alts.

Do I leave them on Icewatch, by far and away the most active EU shard, or bring them with my main for crafting/support purposes. After experimenting with splitting my four characters across the 3 (excluding the RP shard) remaining EU shards I found that I was struggling money/crafting wise to sustain raid consumables for any and all of my characters. Thus I consolidated my warrior and rogue to Blightweald so I had all trade skills together. The downside to this is they struggle to find weekly groups or better yet HK pugs.

A year on from entering HK and I still love the raid, more so than the new and finished ID, and would happily do HK 3 or 4 times a week on all my characters. But with the way 'serious' raiding guilds (defiant) in EU are spread:


Icewatch: Destiny
Bloodiron: Vengeance, eXile
Blightweald: Special Olympics, Heresy, MOIRAE

The skilled playerbase is too thinly spread making 'competent' HK pugs next to impossibe. Within the above guilds I know there is 20-30 HK and ID ready alts and a good solid alt raiding core could exist.

Now some say half the problem is me being elitist in requiring 11/11 when I put "LFM HK" but when you know your alt along with many many others are capable of clearing HK then you don't really want sicaron or grug wipes. Yet even on Icewatch at peak population requiring 11/11 resulted in a raid not filling, however with cross shard invites and raid groups this problem wouldn't exist.

A further benefit for cross shard invites and raid groups would be for trialing members, if you recruit someone from another shard. This prevents issues of if they're not good enough and transfer off a locked shard just to trial they are then stuck on your server.

TLDR - Cross shard invites would make pugs a lot more accessible to EU (and I'm sure US) players, especially the more serious guilds who make the difficult decision of lower population shards for better quality raiding.

X shard stuff would be good.

But the problem Rift has now is people want people who have done HK 11/11 to do HK. If you can do HK you don't need HK.

Rift isn't growing new players.

The weekly Raid quests have just about kill any full raid clears. So if you are gearing up good luck. If you meet the hit/focus for HK. Good luck if you are new no one wants you. They want 11/11 HK geared toons to do a Raid you don't need if you are 11/11 in HK.

A ugly pattern.

I vote yes to X shard invites. And vote no to achievements. They are killing Rift along with weekly Raids

I even have a Alt Cleric. Who can get nothing else what so ever from GSB, GP, DH, RoS. She's geared enough to tank HK. But can't because she can't get into HK because she's not 11/11. Yes a new tank can be exciting in HK. I use this as a example of what if I was a new player. This new player after a week or 2 would just quit. Even thou the person is geared enough for HK you can't get into HK for the new gear.

No one wants to gear anyone. And anyone wanted to gear up can't because raids never get run other than the weekly part. Even then people are now spamming, "LFM for GSB weekly must be geared and know the fights." This leaves out new players. Very ugly indeed.

[TheGrinnz]

X shard stuff would be good.

But the problem Rift has now is people want people who have done HK 11/11 to do HK. If you can do HK you don't need HK.

Rift isn't growing new players.

The weekly Raid quests have just about kill any full raid clears. So if you are gearing up good luck. If you meet the hit/focus for HK. Good luck if you are new no one wants you. They want 11/11 HK geared toons to do a Raid you don't need if you are 11/11 in HK.

A ugly pattern.

I vote yes to X shard invites. And vote no to achievements. They are killing Rift along with weekly Raids

I even have a Alt Cleric. Who can get nothing else what so ever from GSB, GP, DH, RoS. She's geared enough to tank HK. But can't because she can't get into HK because she's not 11/11. Yes a new tank can be exciting in HK. I use this as a example of what if I was a new player. This new player after a week or 2 would just quit. Even thou the person is geared enough for HK you can't get into HK for the new gear.

No one wants to gear anyone. And anyone wanted to gear up can't because raids never get run other than the weekly part. Even then people are now spamming, "LFM for GSB weekly must be geared and know the fights." This leaves out new players. Very ugly indeed.

I don't have this problem. Perhaps you should stop complaining about it and form your own runs.

[Pokesi]

+over 9000 to this.
I need to keep my alts on bloodiron with my main for many reasons, but I would still love to do HK/ID pugs with them which isnt possible atm.

[Soulsurfing]

Cross shard Mastermodes, 10 / 20 person raids, Instant Adventures, et cetera would all be welcome additions.

Win.

If it gets much worse they may have to implement cross faction grouping. Its already present in pvp.

[NearioNL]

No one wants to gear anyone. And anyone wanted to gear up can't because raids never get run other than the weekly part. Even then people are now spamming, "LFM for GSB weekly must be geared and know the fights." This leaves out new players. Very ugly indeed.

are enough guilds/pugs out there who dont ask achievements, and dont care about you being 11/11 or not.
enough chances for new people. look harder, maybe on another shard though

[BehemothDog]

X shard stuff would be good.


No one wants to gear anyone. And anyone wanted to gear up can't because raids never get run other than the weekly part. Even then people are now spamming, "LFM for GSB weekly must be geared and know the fights." This leaves out new players. Very ugly indeed.

Funny, every Wednesday since my alt hit 50 I have full cleared every t1 raid. (before dinner too)

[Not Listing It Here]

Weeklies:

T1 10 man - kill one boss
T1 20 man - kill two bosses

not sure this would help with raid groups but for the T2 content
the 10 man should be the phoenix
the 20 man should be Grug, Sicaron and Estrode

as for cross shard - I can see pros and cons, but at this point couldn't really hurt anything

[Talking The Hardest]

To be honest it's surprising they haven't added this already they have had the tools to do it for awhile(e.g. dungeon finder tool and pvp)