Raid Progression System (Please Discuss)

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

Hey everyone,

Does anyone think that we will ever see a raid tier where the raid bosses are separated into their own individual instances with their own lockouts? Currently FFXIV has introduced a raid system that allow you to defeat a raid boss and then progress to the next boss in a separate instance and lockout.

In the current set up you can only complete the most difficult content if you are able to set aside 4 or more hours to complete the entire raid tier. In addition this experience becomes more difficult when pugging because of the constant turnover of raid members during each raid. If a raid fails then you need to find a group that is currently at the same content for the week or you will need to join a “fresh” group and complete raid content that you have already finished during your lockout. There is the option that you can host a raid group and save a lockout but then you are not able to return to bosses that may still have gear that you are interested in obtaining.

If each boss was set to its own lockout then you could just join a raid group for each individual boss that you need and be done for the week. This would also allow you to progress a raid tier at your own pace. It may take 1 week or 20 weeks to complete a tier but at least you would be able to focus attempts exclusively on the bosses that you need especially in those final AOTC weeks.

In this type of system it could still be possible to follow the usual raid orders

Here is a sample Flow Chart for Raid Boss progression in a 10 Boss Raid

Boss 1 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 2 and 3

Boss 2 and 3 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 4, 5, and 6

Boss 4 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 7

Boss 5 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 8

Boss 6 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 9

Boss 7, 8 and 9 Defeat -> Unlocks Boss 10

Each of these unlocks could be linked to a characters achievement. If you have obtained the achievement then you have the ability to progress to specific set of bosses during the raid tier.

During realm first or world first mythic raiding this type of system may not work as well by gating each instance behind an individual achievement. A workaround for this could be that guild achievements also unlock the ability to enter the deeper raid instance. This bypass could apply if 70% of the group inside of the instance is from the same guild that has obtained the achievement. This would allow players to bring alternates into the raid without having all of the content completed. To avoid abuse in this type of guild system you can have the raid instance collapse after a minute or two if the 70% threshold is not maintained.

In order to facilitate a more streamlined raid experience for groups that are doing a “full clear”, NPCs or Waypoints could be introduced after the defeat of each boss. A player could then interact with either of these and select from a dialogue list the next content that they wish to complete. This would help bypass the need to zone out and then in to a new instance. The time lost during the transition between instances would probably (depending on each computer) be comparable to the time it takes to backtrack after a boss and move to the next wing of a raid.

I understand that this type of content may not be preferred by some players but from a more casual standpoint it would make the content more approachable for other players. This would probably open mythic level raiding to a larger amount of the population knowing that they can complete an individual boss without being locked out for the rest of the week for an entire raid tier.

Please feel free to discuss!

2

Just going to guistimate that you’re making a lot of weird and wrong assumptions for how the system actually works in WoW.

There’s a lot of apples to oranges in your scope, you’re comparing FF14 which is a 4 boss tier to WoW which is traditionally 8+ for each tier. 14’s hardest difficulty is tranditionally more viewed to be on par as heroic in WoW, with it at it’s hardest being entry level mythic.

For mythic, it’s not designed to be pugged. That’s the differentiation, all other settings are designed to be pugged and have a lot of your requests already inherently built into either the raid ID extension system or by zoning into an instance where the current progress of that player is set.

If you join a group late on heroic, you don’t become loot locked to previous bosses so you’re always available to reset your instance and get a fresh instance or join a different group that’s on boss 4 or 5 that you want gear from if you missed it.

These are inherent pacing mechanics, this isn’t an apples to apples comparison.

But again, this is going on the fault assumption that mythic is designed to be pugged. LFR is designed to be pugged and queue, normal is designed to be beer league or pugged, heroic is designed for organized groups that aren’t very good but often does get pugged, mythic is designed for organized guilds that are skilled.

This is where you completely lost me though.

Raid extension has always existed since TBC. For AotC, people just don’t do it because there’s not really a value in doing it for standard runs. Raid ID saving and manually flipping however is a system that is commonly used to get people their mounts through sales, charity events, or by guilds who want the upgrade “token” from the last boss of the raid while not having to do the entire raid.

On mythic, it’s common for guilds to get to the last two bosses and continually extend until killed because they get to a point where the gear doesn’t traditionally help them in final weeks.

But to this, again there doesn’t need to be a discussion when it pertains to mythic because it’s a mythic only situation. It’s a difficulty inherently designed to not be pugged, and thus has those restrictions.

You’re approaching this backwards, you think the restrictions are what makes it difficult to raid, but if you remove the restrictions this will cause people who are failing in heroic while being overgeared and causing the PUG issues there and continually saturating them into mythic and the entire community will be split and further broken.

3

I just want to point out that this is completely and absolutely not true. In fact this statement is laughable. I say the last tier boss of FFXIV is usually at least as hard as the 2nd to last boss of any mythic raid tier in wow (with few exceptions such as M’uru). If you are telling me Alex 3 from FF was easier than Wrathion (or even Za’qul or any 2nd to last boss for that matter) then you haven’t raided in FFXIV.

4

FFXIV bosses are usually far more mechanically heavy oriented than WOW which makes things hilariously harder for a fair number of people.

5

Thanks for offering some discourse to this thread. When I typed this out I was just trying to put some thoughts down in writing to help develop the idea. I have only developed these from thinking about how complicated life gets and all the gaming opportunities you miss out on when life gets crazy.

I am going to go ahead and respond to this portion of your argument because I think you have tossed your opinion into how these raids were designed. If I were to use your analogy, I would say that heroic is the beer league and LFR is the most difficulty content in the game. The interpretation of the difficulty of the content is based on the player who is completing the content. These may be actual quotes from blizzards internal memos but, I don’t really know.

Please don’t ever let a game company feed you gruel and then call it steak. Every piece of content that is ever created and then sold to us should be discussed because we, even if we are not able to complete this content, are still paying to have this content created. If we don’t discuss the content, then blizzard would not be capable of developing content that we all deserve.

My next question is, If content is designed for organized guilds that are skilled. Why does this content need to be explicitly designed in a way that only guilds can complete it? Completing content is always going to be easier when you organize a group or guild that is experienced, disciplined, and organized. However, I have seen many pugs that can clear the first 3 mythic bosses of raids, the only thing that they are missing is typically the time and ability to easily organize a group for attempts on the later bosses in the raids. I understand that there are limitations to how easily these groups can do the content, mainly due to lack of sufficient Raid Leading, organization, consistency etc. I don’t see why the price of entry is so steep for a majority of the players.

I am not by any means suggesting that the content it self be made any easier. Just remove a little bit of the hamster wheel portion of a game that we all enjoy playing. I think that this type of adjustment could be beneficial to every single player that plays the game.

You say that the FF14 bosses are viewed as being comparable to heroic raid bosses or even entry mythic bosses in difficulty. Is this comparison based on the fact that the difficulty of the boss itself is the same or that it feels easier because you don’t have to dump 4 hours of game time each and every time you log in? Could wasted time be the real raid boss?

Yeah that statement was real raw. I was just trying to explain that sometimes getting that final boss takedown during a raid tier can take some extra time, or maybe that trinket from the 7th boss will never drop for you. These situations exist and some times you grind it out and you don’t get that win or trinket whether it takes you 30 attempts or 1000 attempts. In these situations it feels terrible not only to not be able to get the loot or the kill but to have to go back and complete all the previous content to just have access to these boss fights.

I think I sent you to visit Peter Pan on this one. I was just expanding on hypothetical raid system that I was discussing. These systems would allow for a raid team to progress at a similar pace as if the raid instance was just one instance. This isn’t a perfect fix to an imperfect problem.

I’ve had a Horadric Staff mule too. But still this just feels like a Band-Aid that guilds have created to fix a problem that is believed to not be a problem. Why should these guilds even have to create the mules to hold lockouts for content they have already unlocked?

Looks like I am the lost boy here. My experience pugging in FFXIV was stellar and I was able to complete all raids publicly despite all of the “over geared PUGS”. In this scenario I love both the apples and the oranges and wish I could consume them the way that I prefer. I would love to see the data that shows that this type of experiment would be a mistake for World of Warcraft.

I would think that Blizz has probably explored this idea and even did internal testing or polls in regards to these types of systems. We don’t necessarily get a transparent view into the game design and sometimes it is fun to just have a conversation about these ideas.

6

PUGs in FFXIV were definitely a tier or two above of PUGs you find in WOW (even at reasonably high m+ level like 18 or higher).

7

And you’d be hilariously wrong.

No, the difficulty of the content can be objectively measured by dps and healing requirements, necessity of timed CDs, mechanical execution, etc.

The relative difficulty you’re talking about isn’t at all relevant to game design, especially when you’re comparing the experience of a solo player pugging or queueing for easy difficulties in bad groups and organized groups of players managing the most challenging content.

Because if it’s made easy enough for 20 randos with no organization there is no challenge for the people who are looking for that. There is plenty of easy content for disorganized groups and solo players. Mythic raiding is meant to cater to the group of people that want something more.

Again, because if it was easier, the players it is actually designed for would have nothing in the game. 99% of the game is for anyone who wants to do it. There is nothing wrong with a tiny subsection of the game being reserved for the players who aren’t looking to have guaranteed success with a minimum of challenge.

8

I am not arguing about the difficulty of the game being changed. I would hate to see blizzard go in and make mythic difficulty a cake walk. A nerf to the time boss would be appreciated. Many people can complete the content but can’t find the time to complete it. Why not experiment with raid progression design?

9

This is why the discussion is not worth having, because you’re approaching this from the foundation that there is a problem while ignoring there are 3 dedicated difficulties where what you’re requesting is possible.

Organized people will always out preform people who are not organized. This is true in gaming, sports, work activities, and friends who know each other. To inherently state that is not the case, is an argument for making the game easier.

It’s based off the fact that FF14 Savage mode has similar clear rates as AotC and “Ultimates” which are usually only one per expansion have the clear rates of Cutting Edge.

I don’t even understand what you’re trying to imply when you’re insisting that the time is spent on the boss, there’s pull counts that guild will publish for WoW and 14. The average kill for an end of tier Savage boss is between 50-75 pulls, that is on par with the average kill for an early to mid mythic boss for average guilds that don’t get CE by the end of the tier.

This has been irrelevant since Legion where the majority of straggling guilds will out gear the content prior to pulling it in late tier progression. They don’t need the gear, I even as much have stated that for a reason why they extend. M+ weekly cache gear 4 months into a tier will always make redoing bosses irrelevant when it’s coming to an end of a tier.

I’m commenting on the lockout as a form of holding the skips, you’re commending on a skip as a form to eliminate the lockout. The lockout, which only formally exists in mythic.

And you can, it’s called heroic; which is the difficulty that’s on par with what you’ve done in 14.

It is okay for a game to have a difficulty setting that not everyone can do.

10

And again you would be dead wrong. WoW heroic raid is not even comparable in terms of difficulty to FF14 savage last boss. Show me FFlogs to prove that you even have done FF14 raiding. You have no clue what you are talking about.