Do raids need easy/normal/hard difficulty mode? [merged]

[Sobx.1758]

If you want to play with your friends, then do that, not sure why suddenly anyone would suggest you can't. If you want to play in squads that don't play meta, then join the squads accordingly. If you can't find these squads then literally make one yourself.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

I think they should prioritize social aspect both within and without. I don't have the energy now that I did then to do that sort of thing. I haven't personally played FFXIV, but I've heard good things about their community because of systems they've implemented to encourage people helping each other out in raiding.

Though I don't feel like you can wash content creator's hands so easily, even though I agree with many of your points. A major complaint about vanilla has been that for DPS it's mage or gtfo, and that's a content creator problem with them over-emphasizing mages as a great DPS class (other DPS classes work fine and some even have versions of CC that work on monsters that polymorph doesn't, and other types of utility to boot, hunters being king at agro control). The game didn't change, but the internet did. It's influenced and impacted MMOs and their original formulas. Vanilla iterations of old games are a great example of this.

That trend was just the inevitable result of the content design. Content creators at best accelerated its spread, but it would have spread anyway. Besides, as soon as raiding community became a community, instead of just a bunch of separate small groups (which, again, was pretty much a natural consequence of the content itself), the road to the future was set in stone.

 

It's a simple thing, really. The truth is that Players, in general, don;t like to lose. That is true equally whether it's casuals or hardcores. I mean, they usually have no problem in wiping once or twice, or in learning new mechanics. Each player however has a breakpoint of how long (time, number of attempts) they're able to repeat content before they get bored/angry/give up. Also, once they succeed in learning, their capability to stomach further failures goes down very fast. It may be okay to wipe a few times (or sometimes more than just a few) during he learning process, but once you get the content on farm mode, failures will suddenly become far less acceptable. This is even more pronounced in case where progress is slow enough player does not see it, or (and here we get to the core of the issue) if the player thinks the wipe/mistakes were not their fault.

 

So, make a content difficult enough, and players will get encouraged to learn in order not to fail (which, of course, works only if they can learn fast enough). Make the difficulty in such a way that to pass you need group coordination however, and suddenly you add a need to improve others. Or replace others, if they won't improve fast enoug for your liking. Which goes back to what i mentioned before - the trend of replacing socializing for your social needs by "socializing" for your in-game goals. Trend of making "friends" mainly with those goals in mind, and, as such, treating them more like tools to achieve those, rather than like people you just like to have fun with.

 

Notice, btw, how all that is based on your perception of what the weak points in your group are (and why). Content creators can at best help shape that perception, but it would exist regardless (in fact, with the lack of outside sources of information, it is often even more biased and rooted in misinformation and false beliefs).

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If you want to play with your friends, then do that, not sure why suddenly anyone would suggest you can't. If you want to play in squads that don't play meta, then join the squads accordingly. If you can't find these squads then literally make one yourself.

 

 

Ah, you see, that's the insidiousness of the issue. Nobody suggests you can't play with your friends. Nobody outright forbids you from playing with them. It's just that some types of content strongly encourage you to approach grouping with more utilitarian approach. And, eventually, the same mentality gets shared by most players that play those types of content (often without them even noticing there might be something wrong with it).

[Sobx.1758]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Ah, you see, that's the insidiousness of the issue. Nobody suggests you can't play with your friends. Nobody outright forbids you from playing with them. It's just that some types of content strongly encourage you to approach grouping with more utilitarian approach. And, eventually, the same mentality gets shared by most players that play those types of content (often without them even noticing there might be something wrong with it).

Well then, I've been bamboozled by statements like:

"you accept flaws in your friends, but if it's a flawed cog, well, it gets replaced."

[or other about how "you can't choose who you're playing with" for some reason?]

Because it almost seems as if you want to both care and not care about requiring efficiency from your squads. "I want to play with friends, but if a friend is worse at the game? BYE THEN!" So... you don't want to play with friends, but with better players, I guess? You understand that you put your own values in order here and nobody said you can't learn the content along with your friends? If there's not enough of them you CAN make pretty much "open squads" for anyone to fill up and then keep trying. Nobody needs to be replaced, if you replace someone because they failed then it seems to be your choice, not the game's or devs'.

And as it was already mentioned many times, "this type of content" is balanced much below what you actually can potentially achieve in this game. You don't need that perfect (or even super strong) performance or top dps. And there are builds that deliver enough dps in a simple rotation or almost no rotation at all. But if someone wants to pretend that they can't play with firends "because those cogs need to constantly get replaced", then they can keep pretending that. Too bad it still looks like nothing more than just pretending.

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

59 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Well then, I've been bamboozled by statements like:

"you accept flaws in your friends, but if it's a flawed cog, well, it gets replaced."

[or other about how "you can't choose who you're playing with" for some reason?]

Because it almost seems as if you want to both care and not care about requiring efficiency from your squads.

So, you missed the important distinction. I care about playing with friends. The content however cares about players working as a well-oiled machine. If the content makes it extremely difficult, or next to impossible to play it with some of my friends, then that's it. No amount of care on my part will change that. At this point i can either give up on that content, or "adjust" my friends. Neither option seems appealing to me.

 

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And as it was already mentioned many times, "this type of content" is balanced much below what you actually can potentially achieve in this game.

Yes. "potentially". In practice however most players are below that level.

 

Edit: Oh, i almost didn't notice how you tried to shift the argument. We weren't even talking about my likes and dislikes at all. We were talking about the general trend in hardcore community that raids generate. Which is exactly that most raider players when grouping do primarily care about efficiency, with potential friendship being far second on the list. With many caring only about that, and beyond that not giving a flying kitten about who they are about to group with. Because for them results are all that matters.

 

A community created for the sake of completing some specific goals is held together only by desire to complete said goals. And by nothing more.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

So, you missed the important distinction. I care about playing with friends. The content however cares about players working as a well-oiled machine. If the content makes it extremely difficult, or next to impossible to play it with some of my friends, then that's it. No amount of care on my part will change that. At this point i can either give up on that content, or "adjust" my friends. Neither option seems appealing to me.

That's the point, the players don't need to work as a well-oiled machine. You don't need optimal or even near optimal. You don't need to all stay alive to succeed. You don't need to never fail or be faster than the other guy. If you want to, then it's your choice. I've literally learned on pugs and nobody kicked me for failing. I run with arcdps simply for my own curiosity and I never point out someones "not doing enough" and for the most part neither anyone else. If you ACTUALLY run with your friends there's nothing standing in the way of doing that. Unless you always want it to be faster, better and more efficient, but then -again- that's your own choice and not something that's needed for this content. And if you don't want to help your friends understand the content or their builds then what's even the point of playing with them in the first place. You might as well stay in open world or do wahtever separately and keep talking on voice comms.

 

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Yes. "potentially". In practice however most players are below that level.

And they easly can be, which is what I said there.

 

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Edit: Oh, i almost didn't notice how you tried to shift the argument. We weren't even talking about my likes and dislikes at all.

I didn't try shifting anything, I wasn't even quoting anyone specific. I just read through some posts and then commented on whatever stood out for me, which was that silly "I can't even play with my friends, because they're not perfect, so the content tells me to replace them" (nope, not an actual quote, but that's pretty much what it is), which isn't even something I've seen the first time tried to be pushed in regards of raids.

 

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We were talking about the general trend in hardcore community that raids generate. Which is exactly that most raider players when grouping do primarily care about efficiency, with potential friendship being far second on the list.

So you can't play with your friends "because hardcore community wants efficiency"? You don't need to play with "hardcore community", even moreso when you and your friends don't want to. Joind squads accordingly. Make your squads accordingly. This is still nothing more than complaining about self-imposed limitations. The game doesn't want or need you to be super efficient, claiming that is just wrong, because it's very clearly not balanced around that.

 

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With many caring only about that, and beyond that not giving a flying kitten about who they are about to group with. Because for them results are all that matters.

And why do you care what "they" want? You swap your friends for "them" and then complain that "they" want you to play one way and not the other? Then don't join "them" and play with your friends how you want.

 

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A community created for the sake of completing some specific goals is held together only by desire to complete said goals. And by nothing more.

Only if you willingfully join it and then claim you had/have no choice. But you did and do.

 

 

 

e: oh nooo, that random reaction emote totally proved me wrong 🙃 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

@Sobx.1758I'm not going to respond to all those points, because that again is trying to shift the topic - what i can personally do and personally want is completely irrelevant to the discussion i was participating until you jumped in. That discussion was about how the community (well, PvE hardcore community) has changed, and how raids were a factor in that change.

 

You can point all the stuff i can or might do to me all day, but it does not change the basic fact - the community did change in the way i described, for the reasons i did mention. You may argue that nobody forces anyone to do anything, and that everyone can choose on their own, and has noone to blame, or say some other thigs, but the end point is that yes, the raid community did change into one which is primarily aimed at efficiency, goals and skill, and where grouping is being made mainly along those lines. And it changed for the reasons i mentioned.

 

Basically, the content offered incentives to treat your co-players in utilitarian way, and not as friends, and many players bought into that. Those players that did buy into that, due to said incentives, on average did better than those that did not. And so it was those players (and not the others) that shaped the rest of the raiding community to their own image.

 

Whatever you might say, or personally think about it, that did happen.

[Astralporing.1957]

(and separate  from the above, in order not to mix two different discussions)

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And they easly can be, which is what I said there.

When i said that most players are below "that" level, by "that" i meant the level raids are balanced around. It may seem low to you, but it is still above of where most of players are. And in many cases it's not just slightly above, but way above.

 

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

@Sobx.1758I'm not going to respond to all those points, because that again is trying to shift the topic

It's not trying to shift anything, but it sure is convenient for you to keep repeating in order to run from what you or some other people tried to push in regards of raids.

 

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what i can personally do and personally want is completely irrelevant to the discussion i was participating until you jumped in. That discussion was about how the community (well, PvE hardcore community) has changed, and how raids were a factor in that change.

I'm not "jumping in" on your discussion, I intentionally didn't even quote any of the posts above, so you can continue talking with whomever you were talking separately. I'm literally commenting on the single point made that I keep seeing here and there. The point that's just false and no amount of you running away from it or trying to claim that "it's just me shifting your discussion" will change that. If you want to keep talking about "hardcore pve community", then keep doing that with the person you were doing it, I don't see me responding to any of that and yet you try to tell me I jumped in on that discussion when I didn't.

 

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You can point all the stuff i can or might do to me all day,

And I did. And you consistently run away from it, because you know I'm right. No problem.

 

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but it does not change the basic fact - the community did change in the way i described, for the reasons i did mention. You may argue that nobody forces anyone to do anything, and that everyone can choose on their own, and has noone to blame, or say some other thigs, but the end point is that yes, the raid community did change into one which is primarily aimed at efficiency, goals and skill, and where grouping is being made mainly along those lines. And it changed for the reasons i mentioned.

No, it didn't, but you sure sound like someone who tries to define lfg/randoms while not participating in those squads, while that's pretty much all I did AND do, so I know it's false and that community isn't suddenly "one solid mass of hardcore players kicking everyone left and right for smallest mistakes" whether you like it or not.

 

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Basically, the content offered incentives to treat your co-players in utilitarian way,

As much as it would by trying to claim you can't play in open world with your bad friends, because you need to keep waiting for them to catch up whenever they spot something new or pretty much all the time because they don't care and just keep holding 1 (or constantly using knockbacks while you're playing melee). You insert yourself into better squads, because you want to, you don't make open squads because you want the more efficient ones. Somehow whenever I'm in open squads (and not only open ones, more often than not also true for squads with kp reqs if someone somehow happens to fail), people don't force others into meta builds/comps, don't flame and don't kick after every mistake -or multiple mistakes- despite what some people on this forum try to pretend is consistently the norm. Must be magic.

Or, you know... you choose to join specific type of players because in the end YOU want that efficiency from others and then pretend it's the community or the game 🤔  ...no, can't be that, I'm sure "magic" is the more probable answer here.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Sobx.1758
"matter" > "amount"