Group content pathway community discussion

[Ydiss]

A couple questions for you all.

If we were to create, say from tier 4 upwards, a way to get the same or similar gear and progress through the tiers but only with a single group, where it's balanced against the existing option to raid (which I feel is necessary from tier 4 upwards, personally) by adding greater challenges on failure with the group pathway, is that something you'd like to see?

Quick example:

Currently, tier 4 requires that you kill fennin ro (or cheese it with a coh of course) to progress to tier 5. I'd say to single group that encounter (with an actual tier 3/4 group) is a huge stretch so let's just say you really can only raid currently to reach t5. Fine for guilds that can raid. But what about those who can't? What about those who can but struggle to get 2+ groups on at the same time?

Alternatively, what if you had 6 players online and could instead visit lavastorm mountains, kill your way through some new tier 4 content to sol A, zone into an instance for groups and dungeon crawl through to a group boss that is the group equivalent of fennin ro?

Let's say all the same gear drops. Let's say you can then flag 6 players, once per 24 hours, for tier 5. But add a challenge to it that increases risk or cost. Extreme example, you need to do a corpse run if you die or gear from tier 4 is "damaged" and needs repairing by doing a quest in the same zone to persuade the goblin repairer to fix your gear.

Additional question... If this pathway existed and was a fun, viable way for a group to progress, what do you think about removing back flagging?

I haven't really thought of all possibilities but whatever we do it'll be fun and meaningful but, essentially, means that a guild that can raid won't prefer to do it the group way.

Any thoughts are welcome. This is all just theory crafting at the moment.

[ocsi]

I love that idea. I think the gear is designed fine for tiers, it's the content itself that is the barrier to solo / group progression. Same loot drops are fine.

An alternate progression path for tiers with new zones (lavastorm and sol A being a perfect example of fenin equivalent) would be very fun. I'd be tempted to play through it with a new group just for the experience.

Also perfect for that group playthrough i'm trying to organize

Question: in the event that you can't get more than 3 or 4 in a group, would these progression paths be able to accomodate that somehow vs a full group of 6?

[Ydiss]

It's possible to scale things like mob hit points and damage to allow 3-5 player groups. I'd say the minimum does need to be 3 (perhaps a duo and a bot, I am hearing good things about the current revision's bot code).

So yes, that's something we can accommodate. It might just be that we scale up the "cost" to still keep it more desirable to do it with 6 instead of splitting up 6 into 3. Or even worse, splitting a 24 player raid into 8 groups

[ocsi]

Sounds fair enough... Challenge accepted

[dusta]

Heh lots us raiders who have farmed all our stuff got everything over the years would love to see some content pushed for us. VT got tiresome quite fast once i got nearly everything needed. I see lots group content being added or group like content that is easy. Please take some time to think of your elders who been waiting years for something new in our era.

[Ydiss]

Hi dustah

Tier 9 players haven't been forgotten. We've spent the last 10 months building content just for tier 9 players and t10 is on the drawing board already (I have posted about our plans a couple times before).

That said, this is feeling out ideas to support our players who can't raid or box 24 toons; there's undoubtedly a gap in the progress path for those players and I'd like to think THF isn't one of those "play until level 70 then raid, raid, raid" deals.

I think the healthy approach is to build the server's content as broadly as possible, rather than focus only on one particular group at once. Don't you agree?

Edit: forgot to add, our priority right now (will happen before t9 content is released) is to get Rof2 out for testing and ultimately our only client. I think you'd agree with our current list of priorities

[Lillu]

New content is on the horizon, GM Ydiss is working on it for 10 months and I believe it will be up to par and in many cases superior to everything what we have right now.. I mean it! And we have RoF2 support coming even before that if all goes well, so stay tuned.

As for being bored at max level.. So, we've been discussing this with the DEVs for a while now and I think this last post is a great confirmation that some changes are indeed needed for the long term health of our custom content. Namely, the backflagging system and the way players can completely skip content on their journey to defeat the meanest enemies of the Hidden Forest.

We had/have players playing on THF for many years, some even up to 7-8 years enjoying the content we offer. Nowadays, we have players coming over, starting fresh, getting carried by guilds, backflagged by tokens and basically totally neglecting 90% of the content we offer. Just because they can (and I don't blaming them for doing so) but this way they just don't see the content what we offer. I understand some only care about the top 10% of the content, the latest tier, but we have a lot to offer, a totally unique journey that should not be neglected nor skipped. It will degrade the feel of accomplishment, the achievement of reaching the end game.

[dusta]

I agree with everything said here. I think the rushing is mainly so they can actually do content with the elders who do log in. And allows to go back and farm/do things with the easy gear rotting. How i did it anyhow rafe helped me loads then i went back and experienced everything on my own at my pace. I was rushed by him ill say but then it got where i was helping him every morning.

[xadien]

Awesome!

I would like the ability to interact with some of the lower tier stuff in other guilds/groups. Groups that maybe need an enchanter to get past DSK3 or a tank with a little more meat on their bones. Not "Carry through", just assist. I am a happy supporter of THF for many years, and still enjoy logging in.

[Ydiss]

I really liked eq2's mentoring system for that, xadien. If you didn't play it, it let a higher level mentor a lower level and effectively reduced their level and stats down to the same level, whilst retaining skills and spells.

EQ and eqemu don't innately support that but some way to allow a t9 player help a t3 player without overpowering the content would be excellent.

For now, we'll try to work on group content options. But it's worth thinking about.