119686-wildstar-has-two-speeds-extra-casual-and-extra-hardcore

== Content ==
			
There is nothing in between.Someone can level to 50 and learn to do dungeons, but after that? Dailies. After 6 months of playing? This player would have to have very limited time to play, or they’d have nothing to do right now (apart from levelling alts).Alternatively, they can commit to 2+ (depending on guild) raid nights per week and then supports the raiding with consumables, maxing Ability and AMP points, and placing optimal runes in gear. This player makes a decent number of raids to avoid getting dropped from the team.Where’s the challenging content for small guilds trying to maintain an existing or growing community? This content is required to bridge the gap, and feed the raiding guilds with new players. It also provides a place for a resting raider to play. It’s just not there in Wildstar. Wildstar is supposed to hark back to the “glory” days of Vanilla WoW. Well, guess what? There was more than 40-man raids in Vanilla WoW.I remember:
    10 Man Scholo and Strat (after they capped it at 10 ;-) and before the drop to 5)
    15 man UBRS (before they dropped it to 10)
    Tier 0.5 chain. Huge grind, but worth it for the gear. (Replicated recently with the legendary cloak quest)
    Craftable epics. Again, a lot of grinding, but achievable.
This “in between” content is provided in WoW nowadays with LFR and Flex modes (or whatever they are called now). It’s also filled with craftable epics, tiered rewards from valor points and the odd holiday “freebie” loot. PvE players who sit in between Extra Casual and Extra Hardcore have a place to play.In Wildstar, where is:
    The equivalent of UBRS/Kharazan etc? Why isn’t there a 10-man Sim Core of GA? or even DS? Or just some dedicated 10-man stuff?
    Tiered loot? Yes, I can install an addon and look at the power of items, but why isn’t this something to aim for? Why isn’t this part of the game design?
    ilvl (or gear power etc) requirement for content? It’s a better measure that you have the gear for content than you were carried through a dungeon or was in a group when someone killed a level 20 boss. Do it by Assault/Support power or some other means. Putting gear gates in for content inspires people to grind better gear
    Daily variation. How hard is this? Make some dailies easier than others. More travelling, less monsters, anything. Making a grind extra grindy with no variation is not fun for me.
TLDR: Please add some 10-man content so that small guilds aren’t forced to jump to 20 man raiding to find something challenging/fun to do. In general this “jump” kills the small guild.	
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In Wildstar, where is:
    The equivalent of UBRS/Kharazan etc? Why isn’t there a 10-man Sim Core of GA? or even DS? Or just some dedicated 10-man stuff?
    Tiered loot? Yes, I can install an addon and look at the power of items, but why isn’t this something to aim for? Why isn’t this part of the game design?
    ilvl (or gear power etc) requirement for content? It’s a better measure that you have the gear for content than you were carried through a dungeon or was in a group when someone killed a level 20 boss. Do it by Assault/Support power or some other means. Putting gear gates in for content inspires people to grind better gear
    Daily variation. How hard is this? Make some dailies easier than others. More travelling, less monsters, anything. Making a grind extra grindy with no variation is not fun for me.
TLDR: Please add some 10-man content so that small guilds aren’t forced to jump to 20 man raiding to find something challenging/fun to do. In general this “jump” kills the small guild.
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Oh, and that 0.5 chain was not worth it in my opinion.  Much easier to obtain better gear from a raid (by the time that tier was released, my server had multiple pug MC runs). And nearly equivalent gear from dungeons which was good enough to begin raiding with.  The bonuses were rubbish, and the stats were marginally better.  If it was in from the start, it would have been one thing, but most guilds that had aims to raid, were doing so by that time, and it was outdated.
 
I did it on my priest because it was interesting, not because of the upgrades.  And I would not do it in Wildstar if they introduced a grind heavy line for gear that was between dungeons and raids because avoiding damage is a cornerstone of this game, not out gearing it.	
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			- Responded to wrong post.	
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I believe they just put veteran shiphands onto the PTR in addition to the reduction of datascape to 20man which are nice steps.
 
The Veteran shiphands especially if they're tuned right will be good for small guild activities that people should be able to do solo and scale accordingly.
 
10 man swordmaiden actually sounds quite interesting, same with malgrave trail. It would at least be interesting to see and be a good middle ground. I do remember back when blackrock spire and scholomance were 15 mans(before the nurfs that made them 5-10 mannable) being rather fun and a gradual step up from 5 mans as opposed to a more drastic one that felt kinda "right". The same with going from karazhan to Gruuls and such.(Using WoW examples since that seems to be what folks are most familair with)
 
So very interesting idea there...
			
				
	Edited December 10, 2014 by Typrop	
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I can't speak to Vanilla Wow Raiding, as when I played it I reached max level a month or so before the first expansion.  So a lot of it passed me by.
 
I understand the cry for a more gradual progression for smaller guilds to take. Perhaps that is something that will be addressed in the months to come.  But what many people forget is that Dungeons are hard, and part of progression.  To a casual player, progressing through Stormtalon, Kel'Voreth, or Scullcano isn't unheard of.  I went through it with my first guild as I was gearing up.  We got stuck on bosses, looked up strategies on bosses, and communicated just like I do with my current guild as we progress through GA.
 
For the player that has gotten attuned and is simply waiting to raid, I would recommend a sister guild or something of the like. if 2 guilds partner up with 10 players each, then you can raid GA with the same roster you would a 10 man raid alone.  
 
As for something Developer side, I firmly believe Sanctuary of the Sword-maiden was meant to be that middle step.  It looks and feels like a raid that got shrunk down to a five man during development.  Four distinctive areas, each with a boss and mini boss, leading to a final challenge and final boss seems like a 10 man raid.  I might just be theory-crafting here, but removing the linear pathing of challenges and tackling each area in any order...rebalancing the bosses for 10 people... maybe throwing another boss in the center islands area... could easly make SotS the 10 man raid your looking for. 	
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I believe they just put veteran shiphands onto the PTR in addition to the reduction of datascape to 20man which are nice steps.
 
The Veteran shiphands especially if they're tuned right will be good for small guild activities that people should be able to do solo and scale accordingly.
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There's a lot of in between Veteran dungeons are badder than large group content in other games.  That's meant to be the tiering process, vet adventures, vet dungeons, then 20 (and later 40 until they drop the requirement in Datascape) raids.  Having raided in WoW, I can say that, unless they've seriously stepped up the difficulty level, what you're missing is  the more casual group content.  That's why vet shiphands are being run in so quickly; they need content to essentially take the place of heroic dungeons.  Veteran dungeons in Wildstar ARE your ten man content, your LFR, if you will.  They're puggable in a vague sense by people who really know what they're doing, they can't just be hopped into by someone expecting to immediately make a difference.  The difficulty of them is just too high.
 
Veteran adventures should take the place of a tier before the tier, a FAR more casual experience that will take any number of players on a much more casual basis.  That's really what's being introduced.  Forget the player numbers, your ten man raiding is five man in Wildstar.  There is not really a need for ten man raiding.  I can see the argument behind removing 40, lots of people talk about that roster boss being unbeatable at that scale.  But 20 is eminently possible, and I think it's a good scale.  Just remember how progression works in this game.  Those vet dungeons aren't throwaways, and you could really need the gear from them before stepping into GA.	
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There is nothing in between.
 
Someone can level to 50 and learn to do dungeons, but after that? Dailies. After 6 months of playing? This player would have to have very limited time to play, or they’d have nothing to do right now (apart from levelling alts).
 
Alternatively, they can commit to 2+ (depending on guild) raid nights per week and then supports the raiding with consumables, maxing Ability and AMP points, and placing optimal runes in gear. This player makes a decent number of raids to avoid getting dropped from the team.
 
Where’s the challenging content for small guilds trying to maintain an existing or growing community? This content is required to bridge the gap, and feed the raiding guilds with new players. It also provides a place for a resting raider to play. It’s just not there in Wildstar. Wildstar is supposed to hark back to the “glory” days of Vanilla WoW. Well, guess what? There was more than 40-man raids in Vanilla WoW.
 
I remember:
    10 Man Scholo and Strat (after they capped it at 10 ;-) and before the drop to 5)
    15 man UBRS (before they dropped it to 10)
    Tier 0.5 chain. Huge grind, but worth it for the gear. (Replicated recently with the legendary cloak quest)
    Craftable epics. Again, a lot of grinding, but achievable.
This “in between” content is provided in WoW nowadays with LFR and Flex modes (or whatever they are called now). It’s also filled with craftable epics, tiered rewards from valor points and the odd holiday “freebie” loot. PvE players who sit in between Extra Casual and Extra Hardcore have a place to play.
 
In Wildstar, where is:
    The equivalent of UBRS/Kharazan etc? Why isn’t there a 10-man Sim Core of GA? or even DS? Or just some dedicated 10-man stuff?
    Tiered loot? Yes, I can install an addon and look at the power of items, but why isn’t this something to aim for? Why isn’t this part of the game design?
    ilvl (or gear power etc) requirement for content? It’s a better measure that you have the gear for content than you were carried through a dungeon or was in a group when someone killed a level 20 boss. Do it by Assault/Support power or some other means. Putting gear gates in for content inspires people to grind better gear
    Daily variation. How hard is this? Make some dailies easier than others. More travelling, less monsters, anything. Making a grind extra grindy with no variation is not fun for me.
TLDR: Please add some 10-man content so that small guilds aren’t forced to jump to 20 man raiding to find something challenging/fun to do. In general this “jump” kills the small guild.
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  ilvl (or gear power etc) requirement for content? It’s a better measure that you have the gear for content than you were carried through a dungeon or was in a group when someone killed a level 20 boss. Do it by Assault/Support power or some other means. Putting gear gates in for content inspires people to grind better gear
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i think In-House Voice Chat would be the best resolution regarding the struggles of pugging with people.
 
half the time i ran a pug it ended early because either:
1- a player consistently couldnt understand the fight and the group gave up
2-people were raging about why someone was bad then left.
 
 
if everyone had voice chat already installed on the game, more people could communicate and sort things out.
 
 
If wildstar is intended to play with difficulty, then voice chat is necessary. however, guilds shouldnt be forced to buy chat servers because the game they are playing doesnt provide it. (CARBINE WTF)	
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I'm honestly against 10 man content(at least downsizing even more so of current raids), and to answer your question the reason there's not a 10 man version of GA/DS is rather simple... You have fights designed around having more than 2 tanks and some more than 3 healers. In the case of downsizing DS you still have 20 slots so it's not as bad but you would have barely any DPS spots available in 10 at times.
 
Example: Convergence has 4 bosses separated into 4 corners, when ersoth is up you still need 3 tanks and 3 healers but when he's not up you have 4 bosses so by then you have 2 dps total 4 tanks/4 healers. While a dps can technically tank one of the bosses, you're still in a difficult situation role-wise. It's not easy to have that many players available to switch roles either realistically.If they decided to heavily nerf the fight to fit a 10 man scheme it'd end up being much much easier, and in that case I'd rather the gear from 10 man be worse as well. There are methods they could do to change it but it'd make most fights much more of a joke basically.	
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			I don't think there's a need for 10 people content. Dungeons are already challenging, their design is really good... I'm not sure about what 5 more people could bring to the fight. Let's rephrase this: raids offer a good casual group experience. Dungeons are more about perfection in execution. Raids are a lot more forgiving, most boss aoes are slow, boss themselves are slow, you have quite a lot of time to react in Genetic Archives, aoes are a non-issue as long as you're constantly moving (and not a melee probably) and it's mostly up to a handful of people not to screw up the key roles to more or less carry the raid while most dps have a relaxed casual experience. Dungeons on the other hand are demanding for everyone. You can't screw up something even as a dps, you're allowed to walk in one aoe before you die and many bosses unleash hell all the time, the playground is often fully covered with multiple layers of red and you basically have less than 0.5s to react to anything while having to anticipate precisely what you're going to do in the next 10s or you die. So how would you see 10 people content? The chaos factor doesn't exist with 10 people so you're basically doing dungeons x2 with aoes hitting 50% harder because you have two healers and you can add a couple of tank swap mechanics because you might have two tanks. I'm not sure why more people equals more fun to you but in this game 10 people raids wouldn't work well IMO (GA is easy enough, it's far, far easier than what I expected and I started raiding yesterday), 10 people dungeons, maybe but I don't see the necessity to have such content.	
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I believe they just put veteran shiphands onto the PTR
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+1  You can even see how much time was wasted on Omnicore.  I mean really, have you seen that thing?  It's a glorified World Story mission that Carbine sold to you as a single player "dungeon."
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To do stuff, or not to do stuff.
That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to RP
and in housing spend outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of raid bosses
And by opposing end them. To wipe, to weep--	
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I expected it to be as much.  And I REALLY enjoy it.
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			the raids are tuned for 20-40 man people so that probably won't change anytime soon.  What this game needs is a higher population so stuff can actually be done.	
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the raids are tuned for 20-40 man people so that probably won't change anytime soon.  What this game needs is a higher population so stuff can actually be done.
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I'm honestly against 10 man content(at least downsizing even more so of current raids), and to answer your question the reason there's not a 10 man version of GA/DS is rather simple... You have fights designed around having more than 2 tanks and some more than 3 healers. In the case of downsizing DS you still have 20 slots so it's not as bad but you would have barely any DPS spots available in 10 at times.
 
Example: Convergence has 4 bosses separated into 4 corners, when ersoth is up you still need 3 tanks and 3 healers but when he's not up you have 4 bosses so by then you have 2 dps total 4 tanks/4 healers. While a dps can technically tank one of the bosses, you're still in a difficult situation role-wise. It's not easy to have that many players available to switch roles either realistically.
 
If they decided to heavily nerf the fight to fit a 10 man scheme it'd end up being much much easier, and in that case I'd rather the gear from 10 man be worse as well. There are methods they could do to change it but it'd make most fights much more of a joke basically.
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This is all your matter of opinion.  You are assuming it can't be tuned for 10 man, when in fact, I am sure they are more than capable of being able to.  You don't know if it would be easier or not but I am sure one of the 2 would be a little easier sure.  WoW's example of SoO a lot of the 10 man fights were harder than 25 man.  Not all, but most.  Especially the final Heroic boss as 10 man was a lot harder.  But overall they were still fairly close at least in tuning.  It does take a lot more work though which is why Blizzard made their hardest mode to be only 20 man as they said themselves it was getting difficult to tune 25 and 10 man Heroic. 
 
But like I said, it doesn't mean WildStar couldn't do it and heck, I didn't think some of the fights WoW had could be tuned for different group sizes but they did it. 
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This is all your matter of opinion.  You are assuming it can't be tuned for 10 man, when in fact, I am sure they are more than capable of being able to.  You don't know if it would be easier or not but I am sure one of the 2 would be a little easier sure.  WoW's example of SoO a lot of the 10 man fights were harder than 25 man.  Not all, but most.  Especially the final Heroic boss as 10 man was a lot harder.  But overall they were still fairly close at least in tuning.  It does take a lot more work though which is why Blizzard made their hardest mode to be only 20 man as they said themselves it was getting difficult to tune 25 and 10 man Heroic. 
 
But like I said, it doesn't mean WildStar couldn't do it and heck, I didn't think some of the fights WoW had could be tuned for different group sizes but they did it. 
 
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In the future, I would not mind seeing new, unique, 10-person content.  However I would not want to see us try to modify existing content because it would amount to a square peg/round hole problem.
 
I also have to agree with Vic and others that Veteran Dungeons really *are* the in-between step in terms of challenge between other group content and raiding.  It's not about how many people it takes, it's about challenge and skill.  They are NOT easy, nor should they be.
 
No offense meant to all the folks who only know raiding and progression from WoW, but I think we need to stop trying to turn this game into that one.  Nor should it be any other.  Wildstar should be Wildstar, and if we're going to present solutions to problems, they should be ones that fit in with the strengths the game already has.	
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