Supporting PvE Raiders in Ashes

I don't think they're a dying breed at all personally, but I come from that sort of background too.

The topic however, is about PvE Raiders, moreso than PvX Raiders, so I just wanted to do what I could to help you understand why 'PvE Raiders' might not have much stamina for this game.

And, to help you understand the imbalance somewhat. If the lockout was a thing, I would consider it 'equal PvX', if they also made sure Arenas had no rewards or only rewarded with bits of progression, like instances (maybe for your Social Org, but people would cheese it if it wasn't something that players explicitly needed to compete over).

Similarly, if more instances become a thing (probably BCNM style, where you just occasionally get to unlock an instance of your choice after enough time doing open world things) there are forms in which I'd consider that 'equal' PvX.

And I wouldn't expect PvPMains to play for long, or PvEMains to play for long.

But I will also say that if you wanted to ease either group into it, then 'Hierarchical Content' and making sure they have nothing like the 'Lockout Title', would be best.

I can hope, but I'm not expecting it. TL doesn't require you to do anything to fight Guild Bosses, you just have a weekly limit. Not much related flows there.

I'd take BCNM/KSNM in Ashes anytime, even if it took twice as long as it generally takes in FFXI to gather enough Seals to get access to an instance that no one can keep you (and your chosen comrades) out of. Note, I mean this as 'I think this is a good support system for PvEMain players'. I don't personally care about it, as I don't think I can define myself as PvPMain or PvEMain.

Other people define that for me by being stronger than I am, in games, because those are the types of game I play. When the strong say 'you are not allowed to play this part of the game', I play the other. When both halves are cut off, I eventually probably play something else.

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Btw, how do you foresee your caravan idea working with this kind of setup? There's a high chance that several raids will happen at the same time, and a relatively high chance that they'll end at the same time as well, so how would those post-pve caravans would be happening? Just a ton of caravans running out of the depth of the dungeon?

Cause that kinda sounds like a big mess.

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Got it, so it's a double protection for the pvers.

Guild wars will supposedly have no loot, cause it's an "event". I'd assume node wars will be the same. So only corrupted attacks would apply.

So any even quarter-smart guild would simply put all their loot on a random (obviously trusted) player and the enemy would have to PK literally the entire damn guild to have a real chance at the loot.

And even then, we don't know what the drop value will even be, so the chances are - barely any mats will even drop. And even if the value is high - smarter guilds will have a designated PKer alt who pretty much "TPs" the loot carrier outside of the dungeon with all the remaining loot.

In other words, instances will simply let guilds farm everything they can get out of said instances for absolutely free.

So we're back to the "repeatable instances give "gear", while repeatable arenas don't".

This simply doesn't work with what Steven is trying to build. I'm fine if those instances give enhancement stones or smth, though I'd still prefer if they were way harder than any other boss in the game (outside of the top ones of course), cause overabundance of enhancement is also a problem.

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Corrupting your entire guild just to have a tiny chance to get a small piece of the boss loot is literally never worth it (especially considering that we're now talking about the weaker bosses who wouldn't be dropping super valuable stuff).

And my mention of n/g wars was in the context of "if you declare war against the guild that's farming the boss - your kills won't reward you, because loot doesn't drop during wars".

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Again though, you gotta win against potentially way stronger opponents to get anything out of those arenas. Also, don't think we've heard whether we can run arenas at all times. The game is built on prime time, so I wouldn't be surprised if arenas were too (once again an L2 thing).

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Yes, the biggest example of that has been "enhancements" and whatever the fuck "buying power" means.

And I've already said that I'm ok with instanced pve rewarding enhancements, but at a slow pace (same as I'd want arenas to be).

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Except now it's even less loot Yes, probably dying one extra time will be an inconvenience to people (though, once again, that's a free TP out of the dungeon), but it has pretty much no impact on the redistribution of loot.

Your caravan idea achieved that goal, though I still believe that you previously didn't point out that part of your idea was that only a fraction of the loot would be in the caravan, so even that could potentially just be seen as "a sunk cost that's worth it, because instance was completely for free".

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Here we come to that "planning doesn't survive conflict" or whatever. Depending on the cost of wardeccing (and if it is a forced one, rather than a "requires acceptance from the victim to go through") - I guarantee that guilds will use wars as a means of blocking content. Mainly because wars provide free pvp anywhere, against your enemy.

Like, if anything, my strat works much better against your suggestion than what I'd prefer, because guilds would just block out the instance entrance by simply killing the guild.

Obviously in my preferred design that would also happen, but at least then the enemy guild would be ready for it, because they'd be pvxers (or at the very least hire pvpers for it). And I understand that your group's point is the existence of the instance itself, because it allows parallel farming, but majority of people care more about being simply flagged upon (let alone killed). Today's twitch chat seems to have confirmed that point once again. People were whining about CARAVANS (like, the most pvpiest non-siege part of the game).

This is why I said that there's no real way to attract pvers into the game. This is simply not a game like that. You can have good pve, to attract anyone who's willing to pvx, but then they'd also be competitive and would want to secure their farm, rather than share it.