What game modes could work for epic?

[knightgf]

Epic levels need a lot of work, no matter how you look at it. But I think one thing epic levels really need are different game modes, to help make it stand out more than heroic settings and to provide incentive for players to play in epic levels. What game modes do you think could work for epic?

I can't think of much, but here's a few:



City expansion: If you complete a series of quests (Such as the Mark of Vol quests + Raid, Gainthold quests + Raid, exc.) you can unlock a resource management style of gameplay. Your goal is to invest platinum or astral shards into the area, which you can use to build things, and these can either generate resources, unlock stuff or serve as decoration. It takes time and plenty of investable resources, but if done right, you can reap some good rewards! Upon reincarnation, the city expansion games are locked, and can generate resources for up to x amount of days, but once you hit the minimum level you need to regain access (Which is usually around mid-epic levels) you carry on where you left off.
Faction quests: Upon hitting level 30, you have the option of joining planar factions. These are similar to epic destinies in terms of what factions you can choose and what benefits the faction specializes in (You'll have arcane, divine, martial, and drudic factions), but these tend to provide more in the way of vendors and items than abilities, although you can still gain a few abilities from doing faction quests. There's a lot of details that still need to be worked out but I think this would be a interesting addition to the game if done right.
More guild-beneficial stuff: I find that epic levels tend to generate less guild renown than heroic levels, and there's not that much content out there in general that targets guilds. What better way to help shore up that gap than to provide more guild related stuff at high levels? I was thinking of quests that reward guild renown instead of XP, guild items such as a reusable beacon, guild unlockables and guild-specific treasure. It's a rough idea, and other people definitely would know how to better implement this stuff in DDO, but if done right, it can be a great addition for epic levels.
Hireling crafting: This is a really interesting one, rather than relying on a store for hirelings, why not create your own? Of course, these hirelings are subject to the 1-out-per-person rule, and are bound to account, but you can customize the hireling like any other player. In addition, on the hireling side, you can also adjust what equipment they use, how often they use it, their behavior, how many abilities they can use, and more! Any hireling you create is also indefinitely reusable, and if you don't like what you build, you can recycle their contract to regain some resources you've used. It's a pretty expensive mode and takes up a bit of time, but it can work out pretty well.


What do you think should be added as a game mode for epic levels?

[Saekee]

cool ideas

[Angelic-council]

If we think about the future of DDO.. considering they have to keep adding new stuff so it doesn't get boring. It's a hard one. We also have lag issues and City expansion sounds like a lot of work and a different game at that point. But DDO doesn't have PvP, only team play.. So, maybe a mode that has competition feature?

Some players enjoy to replay and character customization. But their final goal is to, stand out. So competing with other players would bring something big in my opinion. My only question is just how.. Tournaments?

[Maquist]

If we think about the future of DDO.. considering they have to keep adding new stuff so it doesn't get boring. It's a hard one. We also have lag issues and City expansion sounds like a lot of work and a different game at that point. But DDO doesn't have PvP, only team play.. So, maybe a mode that has competition feature?

Some players enjoy to replay and character customization. But their final goal is to, stand out. So competing with other players would bring something big in my opinion. My only question is just how.. Tournaments?

So do you mean something like this: two groups decide they want to compete against each other, so they enter the GvG (group v. group) area, the leaders agree on a quest, then both teams start at the same time. The game keeps track of all the positive points (e.g. - damage dealt to enemies, kills, breakables broken, traps disarmed, optionals completed, etc.) and grants points based on the time it takes to finish the quest, then subtracts negative points (damage done to players, player deaths, pet deaths, rest shrines used), and then the two scores are compared. Or could your group just go in and run a quest, and there would be some kind of scoreboard that would show all this?

[Marshal_Lannes]

I think all four are excellent ideas and even if only one were put into place it would give people something to do besides grind XP.

[Ralmeth]

Deathtrap Dungeon...a large, expansive quest filled with lots of nasty mobs, traps, etc, and for replay value different areas could spawn different encounters. Everyone in the group enters the quest, but everyone gets their own instance, no hires allowed (i.e. no one to rez you) and the first person to the end wins!

[Knobull]

Friendly fire.

[FranOhmsford]

Epic levels need a lot of work, no matter how you look at it. But I think one thing epic levels really need are different game modes, to help make it stand out more than heroic settings and to provide incentive for players to play in epic levels. What game modes do you think could work for epic?

I can't think of much, but here's a few:



City expansion: If you complete a series of quests (Such as the Mark of Vol quests + Raid, Gainthold quests + Raid, exc.) you can unlock a resource management style of gameplay. Your goal is to invest platinum or astral shards into the area, which you can use to build things, and these can either generate resources, unlock stuff or serve as decoration. It takes time and plenty of investable resources, but if done right, you can reap some good rewards! Upon reincarnation, the city expansion games are locked, and can generate resources for up to x amount of days, but once you hit the minimum level you need to regain access (Which is usually around mid-epic levels) you carry on where you left off.
Faction quests: Upon hitting level 30, you have the option of joining planar factions. These are similar to epic destinies in terms of what factions you can choose and what benefits the faction specializes in (You'll have arcane, divine, martial, and drudic factions), but these tend to provide more in the way of vendors and items than abilities, although you can still gain a few abilities from doing faction quests. There's a lot of details that still need to be worked out but I think this would be a interesting addition to the game if done right.
More guild-beneficial stuff: I find that epic levels tend to generate less guild renown than heroic levels, and there's not that much content out there in general that targets guilds. What better way to help shore up that gap than to provide more guild related stuff at high levels? I was thinking of quests that reward guild renown instead of XP, guild items such as a reusable beacon, guild unlockables and guild-specific treasure. It's a rough idea, and other people definitely would know how to better implement this stuff in DDO, but if done right, it can be a great addition for epic levels.
Hireling crafting: This is a really interesting one, rather than relying on a store for hirelings, why not create your own? Of course, these hirelings are subject to the 1-out-per-person rule, and are bound to account, but you can customize the hireling like any other player. In addition, on the hireling side, you can also adjust what equipment they use, how often they use it, their behavior, how many abilities they can use, and more! Any hireling you create is also indefinitely reusable, and if you don't like what you build, you can recycle their contract to regain some resources you've used. It's a pretty expensive mode and takes up a bit of time, but it can work out pretty well.


What do you think should be added as a game mode for epic levels?

How about Open Play Area with randomised Quests?
Preferably not just for Epic Play but for Completionists and those who have a few TRs behind them and want a real challenge.

Open up Nulb as the Hub and have the area for miles around the Temple of Elemental Evil be completely lawless except for Nulb.

Players can go there at Lvl 1 or Lvl 30 and it's instanced to a four level range like Mabar used to be so that you only come across approximately level appropriate mobs, quests and challenges.

PvP will be enabled upon entrance to the lawless zone {disabled while in the village of Nulb} so that players dumb enough to go into that lawless zone solo or indeed not in a full group get what they're blatantly asking for.
The instancing by level range will reduce the possibilities of PvP assassins being able to take out whole parties.

A Neverwinter style Player Quest/Challenge Creation tool would be a nice addition eventually but what is really necessary for this is for the game to be able to create fully randomised quests and Challenges {preferably with mobs that fit the level range so no Oozes/Kobolds in Lvl 30 content or Pit Fiends/Dragons in Lvl 1 content}.

Spells and Effects in this zone should work closer to how they do in PnP - So no standing in Firewalls or firing Fireballs off at Point Blank Range unless you've yourself got major fire resist, prot and absorption.
Warlock Aura and Chain would be unusable in groups for fear of killing your entire Party. Chain Lightning would be another that the Wizard/Sorc would be unable to guarantee would only hit mobs.

Shrines in the lawless zone would be rare and likely be already in use by other parties - who you might not want to face when they've just shrined and you really need to.
Shrines in the lawless zone would also have a 1hr timer between use.
Only Rest Shrines would be available - Bring your own Resurrection Abilities or bind yourself to Nulb if you don't have any. Upon Releasing to anywhere other than Nulb you may not re-enter the lawless zone for 24 hours.
ALSO: If you return to The Hall of Heroes for any reason whatsoever {like to rebuff at your airship} you also may not return to Nulb for 24 hrs - All Shipbuffs will be removed upon entering Nulb/The Lawless Zone.

Quests and Challenges inside the zone though random would still be instanced so only your party is involved in your quest - there may be the possibility for "opposed quests and open zone Challenges though".
Like in the zone outside there will be no Res Shrines inside these quests or challenges JUST Rest Shrines and those Rest Shrines will have a 90 minute Timer between uses.

The Entire Zone incl. Quests and Challenges will be set to the highest possible difficulty by default with no C/N/H options. {If the highest difficulty is higher than Elite {say Reaper} there will also be no Elite Option.
All Mobs will count as Champions with random Champion Buffs but Remnant Drops will be correspondingly lower {every mob will drop at least one Rem when it dies but there'll be very few dropping 50,60,70+}.


As for the instance settings and difficulty:
Lvl 1-4 instance will not have level 1-4 mobs in it - They'll be CR 8+ minimum {Think Elite Lvl 4 Quests like Proof is in the Poison}. Bosses will be CR 15+
Lvl 27-30 instance will be an absolute nightmare
There will be no Lvl 26 or lower players in the Lvl 27-30 instance!
There will be no Lvl 5+ players in the Lvl 1-4 instance!
And all instances in between will also be set to only allow players of the instance level range to enter said instance.


Rewards will be High XP, High Favour, High Renown and Special Loot:
Special Loot will be only equipable/usable in Nulb, The Lawless Zone and Quests/Challenges inside said Zone {Maybe also ToEE if that is upgraded to fit}.
Special Loot will be lootable by other players if they kill you in Lawless Zone PvP. {Normal Loot however will not be}.

Nulb NPCs/Traders will not accept Astral Shards or Platinum or Remnants. They will only accept Oerth Gold, Silver and Copper Coins gained from the Lawless Zone - These Traders will have special items and pots/scrolls etc. for sale {some of these pots/scrolls etc. and special items may be usable elsewhere in game}.

IF You're not ready for the Lawless Zone don't enter the Lawless Zone!
It's there for those who need the Challenge it will provide!

[Ulfo]

Friendly fire.

With IPS, surely! Gimme two! 8)

[Ykt]

Hireling crafting: This is a really interesting one, rather than relying on a store for hirelings, why not create your own? Of course, these hirelings are subject to the 1-out-per-person rule, and are bound to account, but you can customize the hireling like any other player. In addition, on the hireling side, you can also adjust what equipment they use, how often they use it, their behavior, how many abilities they can use, and more! Any hireling you create is also indefinitely reusable, and if you don't like what you build, you can recycle their contract to regain some resources you've used. It's a pretty expensive mode and takes up a bit of time, but it can work out pretty well.

How about transforming alt characters into hirelings?

[Marshal_Lannes]

IF You're not ready for the Lawless Zone don't enter the Lawless Zone!
It's there for those who need the Challenge it will provide!

Pass. Right now there is already a lot of discontent about the relative power between one class and another. Can you imagine how that would scale up if there was a PVP mode? PVP is also against what D&D stands for, which I hope is one of the reasons the game never really developed it, much like you can't play evil characters. I see no benefit to this PVP zone. There are plenty of MMOs out there which are heavily geared toward a PVP dynamic no reason to throw something onto this one which would neccasarilly be a poor imitation of that concept.

[FranOhmsford]

Pass. Right now there is already a lot of discontent about the relative power between one class and another. Can you imagine how that would scale up if there was a PVP mode? PVP is also against what D&D stands for, which I hope is one of the reasons the game never really developed it, much like you can't play evil characters. I see no benefit to this PVP zone. There are plenty of MMOs out there which are heavily geared toward a PVP dynamic no reason to throw something onto this one which would neccasarilly be a poor imitation of that concept.

I am against PvP in DDO - I've made no bones about this fact over the years - I don't want PvP in DDO!

But this suggestion isn't about PvP - PvP is simply an extra Challenge inside the suggestion.
The whole point of the suggestion is to make an End-Game area for those Players who've done everything else - WHAT IS End-Game in DDO? It's NOT Lvl 30 Content! Because most DDO players don't want to be stuck at one level forever!
DDO players want to be able to change characters and remain at the top of their game - That's why we do all those TRs and ERs and then continue to TR or ER even after they're all done {There were people with 60,70 lives behind them pre Epic Reincarnations - Why were they still TRing? NOT Because there was no End-Game content, they weren't being challenged while TRing either and were earning nothing from that TRing! They were still TRing because they wanted to play their Completionist and Triple Completionist Characters on every possible build!}.

My suggestion would allow them a max challenge at EVERY Level! Not just at Lvl 30 or Lvl 20+ if we take the all lvl 20+s can get into all End-Game content we have right now.}.

My suggestion would allow players to set part of that challenge themselves - The possibility of another group of players {of a similar level to you - 1-4,5-8 etc.} being possibly around that corner or at that shrine waiting to ambush you is a major challenge that in no way can AI emulate!
This suggestion would also cut down the Solo Possibilities for this content because even the absolute best soloer would be cautious about the possibility of facing 6 other players who could all be pretty strong themselves.

This setting would be completely separate from the rest of the game - It would be aimed squarely at those who've already completed the majority of Past Lives and got fully geared up AND have a full knowledge of the game and their Build!
If you CHOOSE to ask the planeshifter to send you to Nulb then you still have the option to not leave the confines of that safe village for the "Lawless Zone" outside it - You can still return to Stormreach/Eveningstar without actually having stepped into the "Lawless Zone".
There'd be no mistaken entry into the "Lawless Zone" - First you have to ask to go to Nulb, then you have to choose to leave Nulb by any of the entries into the "Lawless Zone" rather than by the planeshifter back to Stormreach/Eveningstar.

And to avoid the possibility of a few players constantly griefing others there's:
a) the tight level ranges for the instances - So your Lvl 30 Griefers aren't attacking anyone lower than Lvl 27.
and
b) I don't want to neuter the difficult by allowing people to switch on/off PvP option but perhaps the Devs could only allow so many PvP conflicts per Group per day so that if a Group is attacked by other Groups 3x or attacks other Groups 3x it gains PvP immunity for 24 hrs.
a third possibility could be:
c) The Devs could have a 15% chance that a good NPC {possible defender of Nulb} will step in to aid a clearly weaker victim against a stronger aggressor to further minimise the issue of Griefing.

These options are all for the "Open Lawless Zone".
The Quest and Challenge Instance PvP would be more of an Opposed Quest/Challenge where two Groups can CHOOSE to go up against each other OR if no other group is available just standard AI for the quests/challenges in that zone {but up to a certain point during the quest/challenge a second group could CHOOSE to enter and replace the opposing AI.}.
I'd suggest these challenges be set up as one group coming at the boss from one direction and the other group coming at him from the other direction - it's possible the first group could kill the boss and leave the quest/challenge before the second group even makes it to the boss but it's also possible that the two groups could end up fighting each other to get to the boss.
Have the cut off where the second group cannot enter be like when the first group enters the boss fight or when it's physically impossible time-wise for the second group to reach the boss before the first group unless the first group suffers a wipe.



TL/DR This suggestion isn't about PvP, It's about Challenge and actually being able to provide the strongest possible Challenge to the best of the best Players.
It's the issue that Players won't accept Challenge without commensurate Rewards but those Rewards then leave us in a Catch-22 situation by trivialising the Challenge once they're got!
PvP adds randomness and difficulty to the Challenge that AI can never replicate.

[Marshal_Lannes]

The whole point of the suggestion is to make an End-Game area for those Players who've done everything else - WHAT IS End-Game in DDO? It's NOT Lvl 30 Content! Because most DDO players don't want to be stuck at one level forever!


Is this really true? In the ToD era many players were L20. Many players ran 5 or 6 raids a day. When Epics only allowed L20s to participate then people stayed at 20. Did some TR? Sure, of course, but many played an end game. There were no complaints about staying at L20 and needing things to do. It all stems from power creep. Now have all those players moved on and only the TR players are left? That is possible.

Your PVP element to the 'lawless zone' really is bad idea open to all sorts of abuse. I can tell you straight away that players will camp at shrines and kill any PCs that happen by. This happens in other PVP games all the time at their equivalent of shrines or entrances to zones. In any event, they aren't going to make it anyway so there is no point arguing over something that is never going to happen.

[FranOhmsford]

Is this really true? In the ToD era many players were L20. Many players ran 5 or 6 raids a day. When Epics only allowed L20s to participate then people stayed at 20. Did some TR? Sure, of course, but many played an end game. There were no complaints about staying at L20 and needing things to do. It all stems from power creep. Now have all those players moved on and only the TR players are left? That is possible.

5 or 6 raids a day?

Which Raids would those be then?

Shroud was the only Raid people ran that regularly and that was simply because of Greensteel!

ToD, HoX, VoD, Chronoscope, Reaver's Fate, Abbot, LoB and MA weren't run Daily at all - Maybe once every 3 days but definitely not daily! {BTW there was no such thing as Raid Bypass Timers back then - You had to have at least 3 Capped alts to run all those Raids Daily and though a number of people did cap alts it was usually to have the right one needed by the Group or to run the same Raid multiple times in one go - Shroud again and again and again and again and again!

As for people staying at 20, yes some did but a large number DIDN'T!
The problem was that for many people it just wasn't feasible to run Epics on 1st Life Characters, you got to 20, got your 20 tokens and TRd.
Then when you got back to 20 you did the same thing again, and again, and again, and again because by this time you'd realised that past lives made getting end-game gear easier but getting end-game gear didn't make past lives easier {well unless you count Greensteel as End-Game Gear which many people did}.

Then by the time you got completionist {never mind Triple Comp} you'd run pretty much the entire End-Game many times over {Just not staying there for any real length of time} and people just carried on TRing because the point was to find that perfect build {which of course you're never going to find}.

The Devs added Epic Levels and MotU with Lvl 25, 28+EDs and now Lvl 30 and Legendary End-Game but the vast majority of people are STILL TRing and NOW ERing too - THEY'RE NOT STAYING AT END-GAME!
Those who got Triple Comp and many who never even got there got bored at the perceived lack of Challenge having beaten the game over and over again SO THEY LEFT!

The Devs have tried to make newer quests more difficult to cater to TRd Characters but they ignored the fact that to get difficulty right it HAS to be tailored to the people they're aiming it at.
IF You're creating a difficulty designed for those with at least 3 Past Lives then lock out 1st and 2nd Life Characters from even entering it! - Those who would have completed it as 1st or 2nd Life Characters now have something to actually look forward to on their 3rd Life+ {Different Quests to run}.
IF You're creating an End-Game difficulty then Pre MotU Lvl 20 Epic had it's issues but it was a lot better than what we have today - Don't get me wrong, despite what I've said in this post I really wish the Devs had made Legendary actually Legendary and locked out anyone Lvl 27 or below from even entering it while aiming the actual difficulty squarely at those who were not just Lvl 28 or even Lvl 30 but would be expected to have at least a few {whether Epic or Heroic} past lives behind them! The Devs could then have made it more difficult because they'd have had much more specific numbers to work with of what people could be fairly expected to have.

Again though we'd still have the same problem of people playing the End-Game in spurts in between TRing and ERing - Because there's just so much Grind in that TR/ER set-up!
It's easier to put off farming for End-Game Loot that you don't expect to use that much for a long time than it is to put off TRing which helps you at ALL levels!



P.S. I had 20 Shrouds on my Battle Cleric prior to MotU coming out - That Cleric was still 1st Life up to Lvl 24/25 {I think I TRd at 24 but may have got 25}.
I ran Epics prior to MotU on that Character too - Mainly Snitch, Partycrashers, Big Top and BoB {The easier ones} as well as Devil Assault for obvious reasons.
Epic Pugs were common but mainly for Tokens and TRing purposes - There was always at least one person in Epic Pugs who was specifically after tokens to TR, Usually more than one person.

[Marshal_Lannes]

5 or 6 raids a day?

Which Raids would those be then?

Shroud was the only Raid people ran that regularly and that was simply because of Greensteel!

ToD, HoX, VoD, Chronoscope, Reaver's Fate, Abbot, LoB and MA weren't run Daily at all - Maybe once every 3 days but definitely not daily! {BTW there was no such thing as Raid Bypass Timers back then - You had to have at least 3 Capped alts to run all those Raids Daily and though a number of people did cap alts it was usually to have the right one needed by the Group or to run the same Raid multiple times in one go - Shroud again and again and again and again and again!

As for people staying at 20, yes some did but a large number DIDN'T!
The problem was that for many people it just wasn't feasible to run Epics on 1st Life Characters, you got to 20, got your 20 tokens and TRd.
Then when you got back to 20 you did the same thing again, and again, and again, and again because by this time you'd realised that past lives made getting end-game gear easier but getting end-game gear didn't make past lives easier {well unless you count Greensteel as End-Game Gear which many people did}.

.

I'm sorry but this is TR revisionist history. People did run 5-7 raids on raid days. ADQ, ToD, HoX, VoD, Reavers, Abbott, Shroud. Shroud was run constantly. If people were TRing all the time how were there Shroud guild runs and LFMs constantly up? People did not TR nearly as much because it was much harder to TR and you had to have pretty good gear (the whole benefit of Shroud GS was that it made TR much easier). People stayed at 20 to run ToD because they wanted +3 Tomes and ToD rings. People wanted an eSoS. Many people were engaged in this, there were almost no completionists, a small handful per server. End game was THE game. Only after all these raids were compromised did the TR mechanic become the end game. Some things are certainly better in the game now but there is no doubt that was the golden age of player cooperation and challenge.

[FranOhmsford]

People did run 5-7 raids on raid days.


On Raid days now is it?

Your previous words were "daily". Which has a totally different meaning which I'm sure you're aware of!

Abbot was most certainly NOT run every 3-4 days - Even in the biggest Raid Guilds you'd still need to pug it out if you wanted to run it that often and Abbot Pugs were extremely uncommon!
Maybe once a week a Raid Group would add Abbot to their list {the weekend when the most players are available}.

Reaver's Fate was already well on the way to obsolescence BEFORE MotU changed the dynamics of the game.

E-ADQ2 and E-Chronoscope weren't that common in Pugs.
ToD runs were Rare.

VoD and HoX were played out for many Capped Players long before MotU arrived too.

So that leaves Shroud {for again...OBVIOUS reasons} and usually it was a case of Shroud only runs - Maybe once a week you'd have the Full Raid List and certainly not daily!}.



Oh and all of those Raids, Except the Epic Ones were available to TRing Players just as much as to End-Game Players - You could run ToD at 17-18 or Shroud/VoD/HoX at 15-16 if you wanted to.

People would stay at End-Game for 2-4 weeks sometimes and run a number of Raids while they were capped but people staying at End-Game for longer than that was uncommon!
The vast majority of players wanted to get past lives behind them because as you say there were only a handful of completionists per server at that time - Which means that 99% players still had many multiple lives to work through!

Of course the 3 day TR was a thing too {quite a big thing and there was a LOT of TR Zerging going on which turned a lot of newbies off the game!} and for people who could TR and get back to 20 in 3 days a 3 day Raid Timer was no issue - The big issue was the completion counter going away upon TR so they HAD to stay at 20 for long enough to get their 20 completions if they were to run any of those Raids more than a couple times each life.





I think I've already said this but I'll say it again anyway - I feel the End-Game back then was a lot better than the End-Game we have today! I feel that the TR/ER Grind we have today is a lot worse than the TR Grind we had back then! I feel that the Devs shot themselves in the foot with the TR mechanic in that though it keeps some players playing {Grinding} for much longer it puts off a lot of new players when they realise just how far they have to go and there's such a huge gap now between players of ostensibly the same level {Heck you've got Lvl 20s who are massively stronger than other characters who are Lvl 30!} that the Devs simply cannot cater to all though they keep trying to and therefore pleasing none!

However: You're looking back through extremely Rose-Tinted Glasses - Shroud, VoD, HoX, Abbot, ADQ - All were 3+ Years old when MotU came out and most were played out by already by those who you say were still running them daily!
Shroud had a major advantage in that it's Loot Mechanic was incredibly useful and open ended {You could always work at making more - You didn't stop farming Shroud like you do with other Raids when you get that one piece you wanted out of each Raid!}.
MA and LoB were incredibly badly designed and many people simply ignored them!
E-Chrono was new{ish} yes but those who wanted the full set had by the time MotU came out got it already AND THEN found out that MotU completely invalidated all that work!




MotU was the end of an era!
It changed the game completely!
But the game wasn't Perfect before MotU either - It had many problems {some that still exist!}.




Finally:
People can and do run 5-6 different Raids on a weekly Raid night right now too AND they can farm out 20 runs of MoD or DoJ in what? 7 hrs on a single character at 20 minutes per run?
That was the Death Knell for Raids - Timer Bypasses!
Farm out the gear you want in just a few days - Never run that Raid again because you never gave yourself the chance to learn to ENJOY it!
I'm still seeing lots of L-Shrouds and L-TSs though {not so many L-HoX} with at least one pretty much guaranteed to be in the LFM every time I log on! So perhaps the Devs are finally reviving a Raid Culture.

Your massive exaggeration of "5+ raids daily" was wrong but I'm not saying there weren't people running Raids back then OR that there weren't people staying at End-Game JUST that the Majority weren't!

[Marshal_Lannes]

I agree that MoTU and Raid bypass timers effectively killed end game. MoTU provided loot that was better than much of the previous raid loot making running those raids more a hobby than a need for characters along with providing only one new raid. CiTW was then effectively killed with Raider's Box rewards with most characters getting two and the awful drop rate of Coms. Raid bypass timers ruined any chance at re-establishing an end game as power gamers zerged through 20 completes drastically reducing the shelf life of raids. There have been so many mistakes made in the raiding scene I am not sure anything can be done to fix it at this point.

[knightgf]

Hmmm, very interesting. This discussion confirms my suspicions that the raids are lacking and that there's not much of an epic endgame. More solutions! We need more solutions! I will say one thing though: PvP is not a good solution, as this game is HORRIBLY unbalanced for it, and is unbalanced for PvE as it is. But what other solutions could we have for different game modes? Hmm...

One rough idea I just thought of is a 'command' mode; Basically you command hundreds of forces on a overhead map and your goal is to either wipe out the opposing force, obtain an item, or cause some sort of effect on the battlefield that does something greatly beneficial to you or your allies. You can even join in on the battle if you choose to do so, but know that you face a uphill battle should you chose to join, and is best reserved for cleaning up enemy formations or attempting to sabotage the enemy by defeating/debuffing a key foe. The only problem with this idea is that the A.I. is absolutely terrible, and setting this up for groups may be a bit tricky, although it wont be as bad as making good A.I.; probably the best way is to have a player or 2 command forces, while the rest can just be on the battlefield. It would be good hybrid gameplay were it to be successfully implemented.