Should raids run at level have shorter or removed repeatition timers?

[EatSmart]

I noticed something today. With the exception of Tempest Spine, I rarely see a level-appropriate group posted for raids. I've certainly seen a few that quickly disband, but only roughly once a week do I see a group formed at level that actually fills. This is in stark contrast to Tempest Spine, where you can see a level appropriate group up regularly. Credit where it is due, a significant contributor is TS being a f2p raid. However. 3 day timers on a raid essentially mean that once run, a character will have outlevelled the raid well before they come off timer.

This feels off to me for several reasons. The percentage of runs being done at level make a small fraction of the completions. Effort put in towards balancing the raid to be an entertaining challenge is wasted. We simply rock up with over level characters and crush it when we want to work towards our shinies, because that is the path of highest success frequency. This is the antithesis of the philosophy of awarding better loot for more challenging completions.

I propose that changing the way raid timers work would encourage more players to play these raids at level. I propose that raid timers should not be applied (or at the very least vastly reduced to, say, 1 hour) when a player completes a raid within its bravery range.

[MRH]

IMO they are fine as they are.

the timers prevent groups from farming items from raids back to back to back..... in one week you could have all kinds of raid loot from just one raid if there was no timer.

remember there is more than one setting for raids.... Normal / Hard/ Elite so when you run it on hard its lvl is up +1 , elite +2 so you will still be in range and still get xp.

[Angelus_dead]

I propose that changing the way raid timers work would encourage more players to play these raids at level. I propose that raid timers should not be applied (or at the very least vastly reduced to, say, 1 hour) when a player completes a raid within its bravery range.

Yes, the lockout timer for non-cap level raids are a clear design problem, although not highly important because the number of non-cap players doing raids would be low for other reasons.

There are many approaches that could've been used to deal with this:

• Float all raids up in level each time the cap is raised.
• Separate lockout timers per-difficulty setting.
• Reduced / none lockout timer for low-level raid.
• Advancing in level clears all lockout timers.
• Players can still enter raids while locked out, but they can't get special raid loot.

[MRMechMan]

/Not signed.


Any new caster I rolled would be parked at level 12-14 till a torc was pulled.

[EatSmart]

/Not signed.

Any new caster I rolled would be parked at level 12-14 till a torc was pulled.

Would this be a bad thing though?

I have 10 characters at cap, 4 of these are arcanes/divines and some of the others have blue bars too. Only one of these has a torc, and that took nearly 2 years and 80+ completions to pull. The others have not seen one yet although they are younger and mostly only have 20+ completions. Rare raid loot is still going to be hard to acquire within the time span of the raid giving xp, and the ransack mechanic will still prevent overfarming in an intense burst.

I think the emergent play under the rules of shorter/removed timers would be people running each raid 10ish times at level in at level parties, and then moving on. Thats exactly the desired effect wanted: people running the raid at level in preference to over level auto-win runs.

If i'm wrong, and instead people are so dedicated that they will sacrifice levelling to stay at level for a raid in order to farm it, then that would be fantastic - thats created the conditions for a thriving "nostalgia" style subgenre of play. That's expanded the depth of playstyle for little to no effort.

[DeltaBravo]

I think a 24 hour timer would be fine. You can do the quests you like atleast once each day on the toons you like, While not being able to hardcore farm the raid on a single toon.

This would go hand in hand with the all items on each 20 completions suggs allready been on a post, Make theese 2 things happen and you will see alot more happy players.. But will maybe also see some leave game due to got all the items they want on a third of the time.

so i will sign lowering the repeating timer.

/signed.

[EatSmart]

Yes, the lockout timer for non-cap level raids are a clear design problem, although not highly important because the number of non-cap players doing raids would be low for other reasons.

There are many approaches that could've been used to deal with this:

• Float all raids up in level each time the cap is raised.
• Separate lockout timers per-difficulty setting.
• Reduced / none lockout timer for low-level raid.
• Advancing in level clears all lockout timers.
• Players can still enter raids while locked out, but they can't get special raid loot.

Is there one that you prefer as a solution, and why do you prefer that solution?

1 - I see this as being hard to impliment due to the "you cant please everyone" rule. This is loosely what happened with shroud when the blade changes made a de facto difficulty increase. The raid became more relevent to higher level players, and the loot could be said to have improved (although not that well initially). I think that this option would soak a lot of dev time for not much gain, and could annoy as many people as it pleases.
2 - Would also increase the number of times an over-level group could run in a time period. I dont think anyone is particularly interested in increasing the speed at which auto-win groups can acquire gear. (I may be wrong, but i'd like to hear a convincing argument for it)
3 - is the option being debated in this thread
4 - I quite like this one
5 - Ransack already does this.

[Uska]

No to removing timers maybe add a way to buy a once per raid token you can buy in the store to reduce it by a day or so for say 75-100 tp and maybe shorten timers for VIP's by 12 hours

[EatSmart]

the timers prevent groups from farming items from raids back to back to back..... in one week you could have all kinds of raid loot from just one raid if there was no timer.

If this is "a bad thing" for an at level group to be able to do (and I disagree with that statement), then this doesnt preclude a much reduced raid timer providing the "gear acquisition speed bump".

remember there is more than one setting for raids.... Normal / Hard/ Elite so when you run it on hard its lvl is up +1 , elite +2 so you will still be in range and still get xp.

I may be guilty of seeing the world only according to my experience here, but 2-3 levels go by very quickly even on 3rd life. If someone owns VoN to do the von raid, then they have access to the quests that let them power zerg through that level range too. If someone owns demon sands to do DQ, then they likewise own the quests that let them power zerg through that level range. If I am guilty of seeing the world through the eyes of a power gamer out of touch with the reality of how long it takes to level in that bracket, then I still dont see an issue. Effectively the more casual players are getting a bone thrown their way by this.

[Niv-mizzet]

He has a point. Once you realize that your time is better spent just taking the xp past the raid and coming back later on loot runs to snag what you missed, you never really bother doing von6 after ebrave von5 etc.

I would like to see the following implemented to encourage at-level raiding.

If you complete the raid on hard, and earn the hard bravery bonus (IE you have never run the raid yet on this life, and the entire party is considered 'at-level') your chance to pull raid-loot from applicable chests is increased drastically.

If you complete the raid on elite, and earn the elite bravery bonus, you are guaranteed to have a random raid-loot piece drop in your name.

Bear in mind, that means you have ONE guaranteed loot PER LIFE, and ONLY if you run the raid as an elite bravery raid, following all the restrictions that that entails.

"But this still only encourages people to run it once and then outlevel it!" you say.

To which I say: If I really wanted an SoS, I might be convinced to wait at 12 for 3 days, and join the next bravery run of VoN. While the chest would no longer treat me with any unique care, since I am not getting a bravery bonus personally, there are possibly 11 other people there who are about to have things they may not want drop in their name, and my dice are always ready to roll!


Alternatively to that, a once-per-life timer reduction after earning a bravery bonus from a raid.

Somewhere in the middle of those would be getting an extra raid chest on bravery runs.

[biggin]

/not signed

And not because I wouldn't benefit from it, because I (and everyone else) definitely would. If they would have done this years ago it would have made sense simply for the fact that you rolled a toon, capped it, then had to grind the gear. With TR's, under you're proposed system, you could easily have just about everything you could want on your first life. I do agree that I would like to see BB tied to raid loot at level.

Take Hound for example. It's a seven minute run. Seven runs to ransack the chest would take less than an hour. Multiply that by 12 people in the raid and you'll be leaving stuff in the chests by the end of it.

[Ungood]

I propose that changing the way raid timers work would encourage more players to play these raids at level. I propose that raid timers should not be applied (or at the very least vastly reduced to, say, 1 hour) when a player completes a raid within its bravery range.

The problem with this is that raids that are 18th to 20th level could not be done outside the bravery range and thus would be ransacked brutally.

So either a special case would need to be applied to raids 18th and higher, Which would cause people to get all upset that they are being prejudiced against, at the higher level raids, blah, blah, blah, or people would stay at lower levels, IE: Hold 12th so they could farm VoN till they were done with it, then level up to DQ, and this would not be done with the idea to "have fun" but, they would complain they are being punished because they could not level up like the game is designed to do, and still get their loot.

Really, There is no winning on that. So they may as well leave the timer in, and leave things alone.

[dotHackSign]

No to removing timers maybe add a way to buy a once per raid token you can buy in the store to reduce it by a day or so for say 75-100 tp and maybe shorten timers for VIP's by 12 hours

Oooo Shorten Timers for VIPs? I'm listening

I think timers should be shortened but not eliminated. I imagine the timers are in place to prevent lag and servers being melted on the weekends due to hard core blokes running the raids non-stop. I'd shorten them to something like a day and a half or maybe even 18 hours to keep things a little broken up between lag fests.