Some (Hopefully) Constructive Criticism for the Raid System
First off, I fully believe with last week’s patch, CG has largely delivered on their initial goal of making the Krayt raid at least equal to the rewards of the old system for most guilds engaging with it (that’s different than being equal for every player, sorry perennial top 10 HSTR finishers.) If you feel differently, there are several posts with pages of argument on old rewards vs new rewards. Having said that, there are several areas where I think the current system could be tweaked or improved with an eye toward making it a better, more player friendly experience or ensuring its in line with all of the rewards we had in the old system.
· Credits – While its still certainly possible to get the 5.5m credits we got in the old system, and I like having the choice to get some extra carbs if I need them instead, its definitely more of a pain to find them and now a bit subject to RNG to keep the same amount income we had previously. Putting a good sized chunk of credits in the weekly shipments (maybe something like 3m for 1875 credits?) would make it a lot easier to keep a steady diet of credits from coming in without needing to make sure we never miss one of the four store refreshes.
· Kyros – The cost for Kyros in the new system is quite prohibitive, which certainly makes sense. If they were priced like G12+ gear, one of the games few remaining bottlenecks would be trivialized which is obviously something CG doesn’t want. But putting maybe putting a small amount of them in the weekly store at a good deal for Mk3 tokens would make up for the loss of GET2 that many of us dumped straight into Kyros?
· Guild Currency Characters – I think CG has already said this is on their radar, but new players definitely need a way to get the guild currency characters much quicker than the new system allows. Just make them cost MK1 and call it a day.
· Personal Rewards – I love the idea of the Personal Reward track, and it felt pretty good at the initial release. While I think its phenomenal rewards were adjusted to let guild get worthwhile rewards at a much earlier box, it did have the side effect of trivializing the personal reward track. It’d probably be tough to roll this back for the current iteration of the raid, but I hope CG considers putting more of the rewards on the personal track for the next iteration of this raid in a year (or 18 months, or whatever it ends up being.)
· Reward Box Gaps – There are some notably large leaps between the guild reward boxes, 25m-90m, 130m – 265m in particular are sized so that it seems like a lot of guilds will hit the lower tier and just not have much impetus to keep investing in these characters, especially when the personal boxes offer so few rewards for pushing on your own. I think adding a box midway between those steps might lead to more guilds spending gear and pushing for another step.
· Full Raid Participation – A lot of players have been able to participate in raids very sporadically after the initial push to beat them over the course of a raids life cycle. With the new style of raid, its going to be far more punishing for guilds where not every player contributes every single raid long after the content has been trivialized as far as performance goes. Theres already a mechanic in game that seems like it could address this. Giving players the option to submit the personal best as their contribution to guild rewards would be a great player friendly option. I’m sure CG wants people to keep actively engaging, so I’d propose this option only contribute to the guild score and sacrifice the personal track. That would still encourage people to engage 6 months from now without punishing the guild when players simply don’t have the time in a given week.
These are just some thoughts on ways the raid could be made more player friendly without significantly impacting the in game economy. Any holes to poke in this, or obvious things I missed?
· Credits – While its still certainly possible to get the 5.5m credits we got in the old system, and I like having the choice to get some extra carbs if I need them instead, its definitely more of a pain to find them and now a bit subject to RNG to keep the same amount income we had previously. Putting a good sized chunk of credits in the weekly shipments (maybe something like 3m for 1875 credits?) would make it a lot easier to keep a steady diet of credits from coming in without needing to make sure we never miss one of the four store refreshes.
· Kyros – The cost for Kyros in the new system is quite prohibitive, which certainly makes sense. If they were priced like G12+ gear, one of the games few remaining bottlenecks would be trivialized which is obviously something CG doesn’t want. But putting maybe putting a small amount of them in the weekly store at a good deal for Mk3 tokens would make up for the loss of GET2 that many of us dumped straight into Kyros?
· Guild Currency Characters – I think CG has already said this is on their radar, but new players definitely need a way to get the guild currency characters much quicker than the new system allows. Just make them cost MK1 and call it a day.
· Personal Rewards – I love the idea of the Personal Reward track, and it felt pretty good at the initial release. While I think its phenomenal rewards were adjusted to let guild get worthwhile rewards at a much earlier box, it did have the side effect of trivializing the personal reward track. It’d probably be tough to roll this back for the current iteration of the raid, but I hope CG considers putting more of the rewards on the personal track for the next iteration of this raid in a year (or 18 months, or whatever it ends up being.)
· Reward Box Gaps – There are some notably large leaps between the guild reward boxes, 25m-90m, 130m – 265m in particular are sized so that it seems like a lot of guilds will hit the lower tier and just not have much impetus to keep investing in these characters, especially when the personal boxes offer so few rewards for pushing on your own. I think adding a box midway between those steps might lead to more guilds spending gear and pushing for another step.
· Full Raid Participation – A lot of players have been able to participate in raids very sporadically after the initial push to beat them over the course of a raids life cycle. With the new style of raid, its going to be far more punishing for guilds where not every player contributes every single raid long after the content has been trivialized as far as performance goes. Theres already a mechanic in game that seems like it could address this. Giving players the option to submit the personal best as their contribution to guild rewards would be a great player friendly option. I’m sure CG wants people to keep actively engaging, so I’d propose this option only contribute to the guild score and sacrifice the personal track. That would still encourage people to engage 6 months from now without punishing the guild when players simply don’t have the time in a given week.
These are just some thoughts on ways the raid could be made more player friendly without significantly impacting the in game economy. Any holes to poke in this, or obvious things I missed?
