Seeking opinions: is the current raid design encouraging passive behaviour ?

[athos.9034]

Hi all,

 

So, I decided to write this post after something that happened to me recently while doing the statue encounter in HoC. In a 20+ kp pug group, we get to the eyes and need to decide who gets the throwing job. After 5 min of nobody answering, and playing for one of the first time on a dps class in this encounter, I said I'd give it a go. I had thrown only once shortly after release when it was still chronos' job, and unsurprisingly it was a fail. After three mediocre tries, I got kicked from the party. I am not complaining at all about this, I think in a kp party a commander can kick someone not doing the job, but I felt a bit annoyed by the fact that I was filling in the role when nobody wanted to. In fact, I was not angry at any player, but rather at the mechanics themselves.

 

That's why I wanted some opinions on raid design in general. It seems to me that W5 has created, certainly unconsciously, incentives for passive behaviour. For instance, greens on Dhuum. Or even greens on the Death Eater. I feel like some people are just waiting for the others to do it, because only a few need to deal with those mechanics. And I feel like that design based on a partition of players gives a vital importance to some players while others deal with easier mechanics. It's like the cannons at Sabetha: all the players need to deal with the boss fight's mechanics, but two have additional mechanics to deal with. And I think that's the issue, that some players have more mechanics than others, making it uneven. Certainly a bad idea as no comparison can be drawn, but what if the people taking greens at Dhuum would have a buff that prevents them from being afflicted/shackled? It's like trading a mechanic by another one.

 

Of course, I had to mention Deimos. Although enjoyable, I believe this fight could have been better. The very fact that range strat is a thing says it all, as we can deliberately ignore three mechanics (pizza, ward, and blacks). On a four attack fight (fourth being the hands, but meant to be kited), that's a lot. As a result, three people have key roles (hk, bk, tank), and very few mistakes are possible from these players. It does not mean that it's harder, because when one is used to it, it is not; it means that you need to train the rotation for hk or tank, and pay attention as GS bk, whereas you can dps from mid on your first time. It's the amount of effort a player needs to put into it that matters imo . When I see dps players eating the pizza and running back mid to be healed as if nothing happened, I think about the tank that can't fail a block on the edge or the hk having to dodge in CM. Problem is, some players are multiclass and enjoy trying different roles. Others are fine with the mid-afk, to the point that some pug groups are "do mid strat or I leave". Result is, this fight is way easier than intended IF these three roles are nailed. And I think that this could have been solved by adjusting the mechanics (for example, a random aggro for blacks except for the hk and tank, so that all the players have to move and dodge).

 

Conversely, I think Mathias is an interesting fight, as all the players have to deal with all the mechanics randomly. Similarly, Desmina is also interesting, as players need to cope with different mechanics, but the walls are a common mechanic that is punishing (yet, the importance given to the pusher might be a bit too much, in the sense that the AoE is quite punishing). And I would personally like to see more of that kind of design in the coming raids. What about you guys?

 

PS: I am not against the idea of different roles and different mechanics. For instance, I don't think that the heal druid in Desmina is the passive of the pusher, because of the sustained healing the squad needs. However, I am against a design that makes some players train specific mechanics whereas others can just do the usual and drink a coffee, cause their mistakes don't matter, whereas the ones of formers can cause a wipe.

[Blocki.4931]

I always see this in fractals, where people wait around for somebody to change the fractal and some awkward silence happens lol

 

 

[Feanor.2358]

It is necessary, I think. VG greens, Sabetha cannons, KC pushing, Xera clearing... there are always vital roles to play in a fight that have to be tackled by only a few players, because ultimately that makes the fight more interesting and dynamic than having everyone rush to the same spot.

 

In my experience this can usually be sorted out in a sensible way in statics. It's just a matter of playing to your strengths. You don't assign your top dps on a duty that will ruin their damage output, you assign someone who is performing worse, or a support, if able. Or you just rotate there to prevent staleness and make everyone learn. Only fair, right? The problem only emerges when playing in a pug, where you're not likely to ever see that same group of players again. Perhaps it's ok, I don't know. In any case, for your example I'd fault your commander. It is his duty to find a player capable of doing a job and volunteering at least gets you points for effort.

[Vinceman.4572]

That's why I like Matthias & Sloth most because except shrooms everybody has to pull its weight. More than we see during other fights. I'm also always getting annoyed by the fact I see a Dhuum lfg asking for tank, green kiter + 2 other greens and at best the commander is stack druid or deadeye dps (or something rly easy) without going greens. Same with Desmina - the most crucial part is tanking and pushing and still that's what people are searching the most. I once quit a run when a guild needed a pusher and they were 9/10. They constantly rooted the golem, pulled him to us and their scourge was incapable to press one button - namely epi - correctly (he used it on cd no matter what).

Groups being that trashy is the reason why I don't pug and play raids anymore.

[shejesa.3712]

Well, let's be honest, such passivity isn't a new thing. It's been here all the time, greens, canons, shrooms, mortars, glenna, towers, pushing, anything from MO, hand/black kiting, finally pushing golems, greens, lights, greens again, kiting. There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

[Vinceman.4572]

> @"shejesa.3712" said:

> There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

 

Nah, let's be honest here! A lot of people can execute a lot if not all mechanics on every other raid boss but struggle on Dhuum greens. This mechanic is by far the worst mechanic Anet has introduced into the game over the last couple years. I've had about 1k LIs before wing 5 got introduced and I was voluntarily picking a lot of special mechanics when it came to these awkward silences that were mentioned here before in the past. I didn't care for years but the one on Dhuum is the most shixxiest one due to being very inconsistent. Don't get me wrong it's clear for me that there's almost no rng involved but when I see hardcore veteran raiders struggling and even sellers doing Dhuum daily and fail it I think it's not that "easy" as some are pretending.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > @"shejesa.3712" said:

> > There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

>

> Nah, let's be honest here! A lot of people can execute a lot if not all mechanics on every other raid boss but struggle on Dhuum greens. This mechanic is by far the worst mechanic Anet has introduced into the game over the last couple years. I've had about 1k LIs before wing 5 got introduced and I was voluntarily picking a lot of special mechanics when it came to these awkward silences that were mentioned here before in the past. I didn't care for years but the one on Dhuum is the most shixxiest one due to being very inconsistent. Don't get me wrong it's clear for me that there's almost no rng involved but when I see hardcore veteran raiders struggling and even sellers doing Dhuum daily and fail it I think it's not that "easy" as some are pretending.

 

I think the largest issue with the greens is the mechanic is highly sensitive to latency. If your ping is good, it's a piece of cake. If it isn't, may the Six help you.

[Vinceman.4572]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > > @"shejesa.3712" said:

> > > There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

> >

> > Nah, let's be honest here! A lot of people can execute a lot if not all mechanics on every other raid boss but struggle on Dhuum greens. This mechanic is by far the worst mechanic Anet has introduced into the game over the last couple years. I've had about 1k LIs before wing 5 got introduced and I was voluntarily picking a lot of special mechanics when it came to these awkward silences that were mentioned here before in the past. I didn't care for years but the one on Dhuum is the most shixxiest one due to being very inconsistent. Don't get me wrong it's clear for me that there's almost no rng involved but when I see hardcore veteran raiders struggling and even sellers doing Dhuum daily and fail it I think it's not that "easy" as some are pretending.

>

> I think the largest issue with the greens is the mechanic is highly sensitive to latency. If your ping is good, it's a piece of cake. If it isn't, may the Six help you.

 

Agreed.

[maxwelgm.4315]

I feel you OP. My first ever static and actual learning of raids I was a druid and had to do greens for Dhuum. Took 2 weeks for all of us to nail the boss down to a T (not to mention I have permanent 120ms+ ping due to geography). I can very consistently do it but it's just so tiresome to see people miss bombs and such down there due to insisting on performing their rotations. It's doubly frustrating to see people can't even sidestep the poison fields from his standard attack, or walk towards his back during lesser death mark.

 

With that said, I think a healthy mix of global vs local mechanics is "easily" achievable so that no one feels a heavy burden. Matthias and Sloth definitely fit in this and it shows when people can either 1-shot these without difficulty or get stuck for hours due to people not carrying their own weight and dragging others down in mechanics. In Sloth you could argue that the mushroom eaters have more mechanics but in reality they are relieved of dodging shakes and condis while they are eating, which is very good design. Meanwhile the others have the burden of not hitting their fellow slubling while managing the tanking mechanics at random. In Matthias every mechanic picks people randomly which is nothing short of awesome and definitely encourages everyone to actually be paying attention to their surroundings instead of their skill bar. In short, "global" mechanics are things like everything in Matt where everyone is subject to the mechanic, or Sloth knockdowns, while "local" mechanics are things like cannons, mushrooms, kiting, etc. that can be delivered by a single player at all times. Using your example of Deimos if the pizza attack had a permanent damage reduction debuff (that you had to pick up tears to remove) that would then be a global mechanic rather than a simple dodge you can miss or even ignore in purpose.

 

In spite of agreeing with you though, I don't think Anet should implement this in every single encounter. Sometimes it's ok to have things like orb pushing and explicit toughness-based tanking. Going back to Dhuum which is their latest design, I think it strikes really good balance with only a few shortcomings; I'd say definitely never repeat the greens mechanics again (I hope Anet learned the lesson, that they shouldn't pull off something they're not sure the client can handle), but otherwise there is a healthy dose of global and local mechanics (shackles and bombs are enough to keep people on the edge, if only Dhuum was a little more enthusiastic with regards to forcing changes of positioning, kinda like the CM already does). I do agree that earlier bosses like Sabetha perhaps relied too much in having single players pull off stunts with no regards to their teams, and vice versa, and that others like Deimos (specially so) puts too much of a burden in individual players by not re-targetting mechanics like oil, but they seem to already have learned most of the lessons you mention with Soulless Horror and Dhuum which are the actual bosses in W5.

 

 

[athos.9034]

Thanks for sharing your experience guys,

 

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> It is necessary, I think. VG greens, Sabetha cannons, KC pushing, Xera clearing... there are always vital roles to play in a fight that have to be tackled by only a few players, because ultimately that makes the fight more interesting and dynamic than having everyone rush to the same spot.

>

> In my experience this can usually be sorted out in a sensible way in statics. It's just a matter of playing to your strengths.

 

You make a fair point, I should have mentioned for pug raiding mostly. I think you're right when you say that in static, it's about rationalising strengths and weaknesses, whereas in pug raiding it's sometimes more about defection. Plus, you can also try new things more easily and get advice from more experienced players in this role. It's always pleasant to get advice from someone who knows on your first hk experience =)

However, I would not consider evenly those mechanics. For example, VG greens are not punishing, you can blatantly ignore them. And for Xera, clearing the shards is more the role of any dps, so I see it more as an extension of the job. Conversely, cannons and KC pushing are vital (to be honest, I don't know what happens if you just hit one rift everytime at KC, I guess there's a wipe at some point? No one could ever stand doing the phasing 18 times anyway). I agree with you that it makes the fight more dynamic, typically Cairn is bland because of this, but I think there could be a bit more balance between the roles of each player so that everybody in the squad has to pull their weight.

 

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> That's why I like Matthias & Sloth most because except shrooms everybody has to pull its weight. More than we see during other fights. I'm also always getting annoyed by the fact I see a Dhuum lfg asking for tank, green kiter + 2 other greens and at best the commander is stack druid or deadeye dps (or something rly easy) without going greens. Same with Desmina - the most crucial part is tanking and pushing and still that's what people are searching the most. I once quit a run when a guild needed a pusher and they were 9/10. They constantly rooted the golem, pulled him to us and their scourge was incapable to press one button - namely epi - correctly (he used it on cd no matter what).

 

I agree with the Desmina example to a certain extent. Of course, tanking and pushing are the most crucial parts. But I believe (and I know some people who would not agree) that it's the responsibility of everybody to pay attention. You can be the most trained pusher, having a chrono pulling out ToT, a mirage hitting pistol 5, or even a scourge using fear, you'll have some troubles. And, I personally consider that if a push was missed or an epi delayed, players need to pay a bit of attention and be prepared to move. Problem is when the whole squad puts the entire responsibility on you without trying to understand what went wrong.

 

> @"shejesa.3712" said:

> Well, let's be honest, such passivity isn't a new thing. It's been here all the time, greens, canons, shrooms, mortars, glenna, towers, pushing, anything from MO, hand/black kiting, finally pushing golems, greens, lights, greens again, kiting. There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer.

 

Well it's true that it's not new, Sabetha is W1 after all. But even if all these roles need some player to volunteer, they are not all vital and do not require the same amount of skill. Eating a shroom is pretty menial once you're told how to do it. Plus, as someone mentioned, when you are an eater, you skip some mechanics. Same goes with MO, claim is a tank job, and protect is just a button to press once (in case if not great dps). There are punishing in a way, a tank not able to claim is deadly, and a no protect is a risk of wipe in a disorganised group, but it is kind of a team effort: having multiple scouts coming at the stack at the same time is hard to deal with, so dps classes and druids need to pay attention. Like tanking at Xera and shard clearing. And I would agree with Vinceman, the green mechanic is a bit different due to the debatable implementation.

 

> @"maxwelgm.4315" said:

 

> With that said, I think a healthy mix of global vs local mechanics is "easily" achievable so that no one feels a heavy burden. Matthias and Sloth definitely fit in this and it shows when people can either 1-shot these without difficulty or get stuck for hours due to people not carrying their own weight and dragging others down in mechanics. In Sloth you could argue that the mushroom eaters have more mechanics but in reality they are relieved of dodging shakes and condis while they are eating, which is very good design. Meanwhile the others have the burden of not hitting their fellow slubling while managing the tanking mechanics at random. In Matthias every mechanic picks people randomly which is nothing short of awesome and definitely encourages everyone to actually be paying attention to their surroundings instead of their skill bar. In short, "global" mechanics are things like everything in Matt where everyone is subject to the mechanic, or Sloth knockdowns, while "local" mechanics are things like cannons, mushrooms, kiting, etc. that can be delivered by a single player at all times. Using your example of Deimos if the pizza attack had a permanent damage reduction debuff (that you had to pick up tears to remove) that would then be a global mechanic rather than a simple dodge you can miss or even ignore in purpose.

>

> In spite of agreeing with you though, I don't think Anet should implement this in every single encounter. Sometimes it's ok to have things like orb pushing and explicit toughness-based tanking. Going back to Dhuum which is their latest design, I think it strikes really good balance with only a few shortcomings; I'd say definitely never repeat the greens mechanics again (I hope Anet learned the lesson, that they shouldn't pull off something they're not sure the client can handle), but otherwise there is a healthy dose of global and local mechanics (shackles and bombs are enough to keep people on the edge, if only Dhuum was a little more enthusiastic with regards to forcing changes of positioning, kinda like the CM already does). I do agree that earlier bosses like Sabetha perhaps relied too much in having single players pull off stunts with no regards to their teams, and vice versa, and that others like Deimos (specially so) puts too much of a burden in individual players by not re-targetting mechanics like oil, but they seem to already have learned most of the lessons you mention with Soulless Horror and Dhuum which are the actual bosses in W5.

 

Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing ! And I agree with the mix of global and local mechanics, provided that the balance is there and does not overburden some roles. As chrono main, I am completely fine with toughness-based tanking (even though it prevents from having some really funny moments like in Sloth or Samarog). For instance, many would say that Xera relies heavily on the tank. Yet, I don't feel an overwhelming burden when tanking, mostly because 1. there is a deadly attack that is random, 2. shard clearing is vital so that the boss doesn't turn into a boon bot. Yes, you need to learn the tanking positions and adapt according to the overall damage (and be prepared to change your plan if some dpses fall alseep throughout the fight), but it's a shared responsibility. Unless the squad wants to try her retaliation. There wouldn't be the shard mechanic though, I would argue differently.

As far as Dhuum, I personally feel that the green mechanic is overly punishing for one player. Miss it, it's a wipe, don't collect 5 orbs, you're dead. I'm not sure that the affliction and the shackle bring enough balance. In my opinion, a more interesting mechanic could have been to reutilise the teleport mechanic from Xera: every 30s, one random player or more (except the tank) would be teleported to collect the orbs, then he gets a debuff of 1:30 or so that prevents him from being sent again. With a rework of the orb mechanic. Perhaps it's a bad idea, but I think it'd be a way to avoid the dps-golem-rotation-get-out-of-the-stack-sometimes and the offchrono falling asleep. However, I really like the idea of the affliction and shackles, the damage coming from your teammate mistakes more than the boss.

[Cyninja.2954]

Honestly the passivity starts way earlier.

 

How many people are willing to form their own squad?

 

How many just semi afk follow without actually knowing the precise mechanics (or bothering with going beyond understanding the bare minimum for their 1 class)?

 

There is a reason why certain bosses (Sabetha, Sloth, Xera, Deimos, Dhuum) are a pain to do for many players (and I have stopped running Deimos with PUGs if no handkiter is available right from the start. No way I'm wasting hours on that fight until someone shows up). Basically the moment something more than pure rotation (and even that is to much for some people) is demanded you get a split in the player base. Those that are willing to do the mechanic, and those who are not. I've seen semi static groups with PUGs fail at Sloth (even though they had very decent dps) because people were incapable of properly doing mushrooms.

 

In the end it boils down to: are you willing to be part of the solution and take on more responsibility or part of the masses which do the bare minimum to get by relying on others.

 

One of the reasons I started main playing chrono (beside the fact that the mesmer was my main since very early vanilla) was just that: I was sick on having to rely on others for tanking and support.

 

> @"athos.9034" said:

> Of course, I had to mention Deimos. Although enjoyable, I believe this fight could have been better. The very fact that range strat is a thing says it all, as we can deliberately ignore three mechanics (pizza, ward, and blacks).

 

Yet people still manage to walk into black or fail basic mechanics even with ranged strat in PUG groups. There is no way to force every person to have equal responsibility. Any fight where that is the case becomes very tedious and difficult (see Dhuum where the most special roles are required).

 

This has always been the case with group content though even in traditional MMOs with trinity. Some people were willing to tank and heal, the vast majority just does damage with often way less responsibility.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > @"shejesa.3712" said:

> > There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

>

> Nah, let's be honest here! A lot of people can execute a lot if not all mechanics on every other raid boss but struggle on Dhuum greens. This mechanic is by far the worst mechanic Anet has introduced into the game over the last couple years. I've had about 1k LIs before wing 5 got introduced and I was voluntarily picking a lot of special mechanics when it came to these awkward silences that were mentioned here before in the past. I didn't care for years but the one on Dhuum is the most shixxiest one due to being very inconsistent. Don't get me wrong it's clear for me that there's almost no rng involved but when I see hardcore veteran raiders struggling and even sellers doing Dhuum daily and fail it I think it's not that "easy" as some are pretending.

 

I think green on dhuum is ok if ping is stable, I do dhuum weekly as kite+g2

 

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > > @"shejesa.3712" said:

> > > There's a lot of mechanics that are forcing people to volunteer. But then you get a lot of noobs who have their precious 250LI but can't go for greens on Dhuum.

> >

> > Nah, let's be honest here! A lot of people can execute a lot if not all mechanics on every other raid boss but struggle on Dhuum greens. This mechanic is by far the worst mechanic Anet has introduced into the game over the last couple years. I've had about 1k LIs before wing 5 got introduced and I was voluntarily picking a lot of special mechanics when it came to these awkward silences that were mentioned here before in the past. I didn't care for years but the one on Dhuum is the most shixxiest one due to being very inconsistent. Don't get me wrong it's clear for me that there's almost no rng involved but when I see hardcore veteran raiders struggling and even sellers doing Dhuum daily and fail it I think it's not that "easy" as some are pretending.

>

> I think the largest issue with the greens is the mechanic is highly sensitive to latency. If your ping is good, it's a piece of cake. If it isn't, may the Six help you.

 

High ping itself is not the problem. Unstable ping is the problem, because the hit detection changes all the time (or more like feels different all the time), since the server sees you in a slightly different spot than you see yourself on the screen. If ping is 50ms or 250ms it does not matter as long as it is stable, if it switches around all the time it becomes horrible since you cannot trust in it anymore.

[Talindra.4958]

Switch off mobile phone in case they go in wireless and do download .. that's when it can stuff up the game..Btw ping 250 and 400 can be quite a difference in executing a certain mechanic and getting skill land right. But generally at 400 ping we just need to be a bit more switch on

That commander is bad btw. There's other group .. just forget this guy.

I like w5 but dhuum cm has to be my least favorite. Funny yes but having to train so many hours for it.. no.