118364-changes-coming-to-datascape-page-2

Page 1, Page 2
== Content ==
			
{| class="blockquote"
girls I reckon ;)
----
	
----
			
40 man raiding was the single biggest reason I bought this game, and my guild is just now entering Datascape. I will continue playing this game for the combat, however... I want you to know that I *cupcake*ing hate your company now.
 
Every reason you listed could have been avoided with better management and planning. I am thoroughly pissed, but I'm not about to quit since I've spent so much getting my toon rich and geared.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
But that's part of the point of a 40 man raid - logistics and team play!  Organization and coordination is supposed to be something to overcome. And it's very doable. Guilds that want to do it, can do it. But I guess it's become the trend to argue "that's too hard" more than try to overcome the actual game objectives. 
 
If there's enough people to find for a 20 man raid, there's enough people for a 40 man raid... and if there isn't the game is in more trouble than any of us realize.
 
This was an unnecessary change, and too many of you are making assumptions as to why.
----
			
So lets get this right... most of the game population seems to be happy with the change, like lets take a stab in the dark at 80%, some people are unhappy with the change who currently raid DS, some who are close to raiding DS are unhappy they wont get to do 40man... or much of it.
And Lethality wants the game to remain unchanged and is probably grumpy that bugs are getting fixed.
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
----
			
I, for one, am happy to see the change. I know a lot of people that stopped playing the game because the end game isn't very casual friendly. I think this is a good compromise between the casual player and the hardcore player.
 
As for others, I can see going through all the comments that the change is far more liked than disliked. Very wise change, so keep it up with that frame of mind.	
----
			It is not the size of the raid that matters, but what is inside that counts! 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I don't think removing content is the way to go. There's no reason to remove the 40 people instance unless it's too much work to balance (and then you should state it). Just remove it from the queues list, don't make the entrance visible but it doesn't have to disappear. I'm pretty sure that if the game grows suddenly some big guilds will enjoy 40 people content.
----
			
YAY, this is good news....Now to find 19 others, and I am in...
 
Getting 40 players, 40 individuals, it a tough task to be sure. And then the coordination is like herding Cats.  
 
We have all seen it, the Epic Fail of Leroy Jenkins "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hooKVstzbz0"
 
That one individual like  And why pugs, and often guild raids fail.
 
If you have 20 skill players (players that know their job and the mechanics of the individual instance), then all is good.  Getting this many is a challenge and often need to include some that do not understand what they are doing.  Putting together 40, next to impossible unless you have a bunch of kids that do nothing but play games all day.  
 
So changing it to a 20 man raid, sounds like a good decision IMO.
 
Zath	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
We are re-balancing Datascape to be a 20-player raid instance instead of its current 40-player size.
 
This is, obviously, a big change and will frustrate and excite players to varying degrees. I would like to take the time to explain some of the reasoning behind this decision.
 
We spoke to a number of raiding guilds--including all of the ones at that time who had experience within Datascape. The feedback across the board listed the extreme pressure that the 'roster boss' put upon those guilds, and the (in our opinion) excessive amount of additional stress it required simply to maintain a stable 40-player raid roster.
 
Our analytics shows that the player buy-in (number of players attempting the raid) is too low and that the player turnover (players who entered, then left and did not return) is much too high.
 
This change should greatly help in addressing 'roster boss,' player buy-in, and player turnover rate without losing the epic experience of defeating some of the most challenging encounters in the market. Making this change will also allow us to improve the experience in several additional ways:
Combat - Our combat system functions much more cleanly in a smaller 20-player raid environment. We feel that it has been extremely successful in Genetic Archives. Reducing the number of players in Datascape to match Genetic Archives allows the encounters and rooms and mechanics to be much cleaner, clearer, and enjoyable for players.
FPS - More people means more load, and a 40-player raid further restricted the pool of players with machines that were capable of running the content as smoothly as we’d like. Reducing the player count will greatly reduce the load on players' connections and computers, helping out quite a bit for a number of rooms and encounters within Datascape.
Future Content - With a consistent raid size, it allows us to streamline our future content and no longer split it among varying raid sizes. This will allow future zones to have more clearly defined places in the progression, and avoid the disconnect that can arise when attempting to compare raids of different sizes.
Guild Management - Running a guild is a lot of work. Having two separate raid sizes forced many guilds to attempt to rapidly expand from 20 to 40 players after finishing Genetic Archives, additionally causing the work required to manage that many people to increase exponentially. Having our raid sizes be consistent across all zones will create a clear expectation and balance for players and guilds that they can plan and build around.
Testing - It is very difficult not just for players, but also for us to assemble 40 people to test these encounters. This has made it very difficult for us to adequately test many of these encounters internally. Reducing the size will allow us to balance, tune, and bug-fix our encounters much more effectively.Finally, I'd like to make a couple more points that deserve clarification and answer a few questions that are surely incoming:
 
When is this happening?
Currently we are planning to convert Datascape to its 20-player version with our 1.2.0 patch.
It will be available on PTR in its 20-player iteration as soon as the next drop arrives there, and we would greatly appreciate all help players are willing to offer in testing it!
 
Additionally, we created a PTR-only version of the raid's teleporter to allow groups to jump to any room in the instance and test it without having to progress naturally through the zone.
 
Are the encounters being nerfed?
No, they are not.
Some aspects may feel easier to handle because of the reduced player count, but none of the encounters are being reduced in difficulty.
 
Will the 40 still be available?
No, it will not. Existing achievements earned in the 40-player will be converted to Galactic Hotshot achievements.
The 40-player version will remain available until Datascape-20 goes live.
 
Will the gear be changing?
UPDATE:  I'm actually going to edit this section. J-Tal's team is doing a huge amount of work on the item-progression within the game that will go live with 1.2.0 along with this change. In that light, yes, the itemization will be changing. However, Datascape will continue to drop the best PvE items in the game.
The number of items that drop per kill will be reduced to match the new raid size--you can expect it to drop about the same number of items per boss/miniboss as Genetic Archives.
 
Any questions that weren't answered?
Please post in this thread and I will answer as many as I can. I will also update this post with the questions and answers as I go.
 
Thank you all for playing and for giving us so much feedback, so many amazing wipes, and some amazing boss kills!
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It would be nice to have the option to scale the raid as needed, depending on the guild and players available that same day. A raid of 30 seems to be a good way between 20 and 40. Scaling option such as going from 20 to 30, or vice versa depending upon players availability. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
+2 ( me & wife ) and possible +2 ( our children ) for 20 man raids.
 
The game keeps getting better and better. Thank you!
----