The very real problem with "24 mans"

[Pent]

We have several problems plaguing this game one of which seems to be more odd and annoying than anything else but which can tell you a lot about the community as a whole. Currently we have 6 "24 man" zones. Blackram and Nightshade are outdated and so are only visited when they are the daily challenge. However not once did I encounter a problem finding a group for these when 45 was cap. Now we have Frostscale, Beastbog, Plog Sanctum, Zaiwei Ruins, and Soulstone Plains. Frostscale and Plogs are essentially dead and I have seldom seen groups farming these areas which shouldn't be the case considering their daily rewards, though Frostcale is a very taxing daily routine as a whole. The problem remains that even in "active" 24 man zones no one wants to group. Now while there is no "real" incentive to group in the current active areas, zones like Frostscale and Beastbog are designed to be grouped. The kills in these areas take on average 30 minutes to an hour to complete. You know what would make it faster? Grouping. But noone takes advantage of this, instead they go about their own thing because they probably don't want to be tasked with helping others complete their dailies. It makes no sense in an MMO that people take the "easy way" out and solo instead of the efficient way out and group up. Well that's my 2 cents on the issue.

[DomiSotto]

These areas are dead on my server. Save for Zaiwei ruins. ALL of them, but Zaiwei. Literally, thy are empty. How I know? Checked out all of them on a fresh level 50.

[AttacKat]

1 hour ago, Pent said:

We have several problems plaguing this game one of which seems to be more odd and annoying than anything else but which can tell you a lot about the community as a whole.

Real problem: lazy a** community who only want to leech, which makes the BOTS looks like the friendly "players".

 

EG: Handful of players actually does the 24 man raids, spends time and effort to trigger the main boss. No enough of them to actually kill the main boss, so shouts take place in faction chat, then channel gets full because now you have 100 people wanting to get that boss loot, and the boss lasts <30 seconds, if that long, causing the lower DPS players not getting their 1% and lose out.

 

How to solve: Have quest triggers, unless you killed X-mini-bosses, your main boss kill WILL NOT count. This will require the players that wants that boss loot to kill the necessary mini-boss triggers.

[Shadzar]

The problem is the game design, having required things from these areas, that are unable to do solo and require mass amounts of people, but all the players are forced to speed into and through them to the content beyond. This leaves no new player growth potential as new players will be unable to do these to progress.

 

For all the posturing NC does, the game is pay to progress in every aspect solely because of the weapon and accessory paths being fixed and required by all. Cookie cutter classes only variation is in differing skill trees. If you get left behind on your server, might as well quit plying because you have no hope of ever getting to the newest content.

 

BnS highlights the worst of video games since the early 90s in forgetting real life exists. So if you get sick and cant continue your progress is lost and unable to return to it. Likewise if you have other real world obligations for a few days. This is why the revolutionary save feature made NES Legend of Zelda so big. It was no longer an arcade game where yo had to keep pumping in quarters to progress, but you could pause the game and turn it off and return later right where you left off.

 

This pretty much makes BnS another quarter gobbler arcade game, so if you don't keep up you will forever be behind. As such you not only have no choice in items except "outfit" you have no choice in how to play. It is the worst railroad there is. The senseless grind in Final Fantasy 7 (original) was more rewarding than the senseless grind in BnS because you got to make choices. BnS offers zero choice for the player, it doesnt even really offer the illusion of choice where the players actions really mean nothing at all.

 

As many have said it is alt/new player unfriendly, has zero replayability, and will never be fixed because they have to focus on adding new things in Korea for the high level players and can't take time to revisit and redesign lower level content. Why they opened the game up 4 years later for other regions and expected it not to fail bewilders me.

[KlausFlouride]

The solution for 24 man raids is to make them just that: 24 man raids. What do I mean? Have it setup as a raid would be in other games with four 6 man groups tied together having 3 group leads and one raid leader. Once they engage the boss nobody outside the raid can engage it or get credit for it. It is essentially locked. The issue being that the zone would have to allow for more than 24 people in them which would destroy framerates. The raids in this game are a travesty and I wouldn't be surprised if they were an add-on to solve some real or perceived issue the dev team had.

[Shadzar]

That "raid" concept wouldn't be needed if the game design wasnt severely flawed to begin with.

 

As it is, any 24-man zone may have MORE than 24 players. You have limited number of channels that are hard coded, so all it takes is 24 individuals to enter a channel, and it should stop there, but it allows EACH of those 24 to form a full party, then they can go into the channel, leave the party, and each of those 24*6 invite a full party and so on. This is how it worked prior to Silverfrost and how SSP gets over 60+ people in it also making it impossible for MANY people to progress in them unless they have rushed to get the highest gear to deal the most damage to compete for the loot drops.

 

The best thing would be these 24-man to work would be put it in cross-server list (while including green dungeons back to it), and put a wall blocking people from entering if they have less than 24 players in the lobby, unless all agree to go in short on 24 people.

 

Like how Pigsty has the poison blocking the entrance and you have to burn it, but an actual X gate like Ebon Hall portal in Jadestone or wherever that either waits for all 24 to be present for the instance, or all present agree to go in with less than 24, and then only 24 can ever be allowed to enter such as works for 4-man and 6-man instances.

 

Then ow version of the zone can be left for people that just want to get specific thing done like some achievement for killing the bosses with skull bombs or something.

 

They alrady have most of the technology and coding for this in place since they have instances and cross server working, they also have the X gates, they jsut need to make them work together and then you don't have to do much else to group more than 1 party to a "raid".

[Daktaro]

I don't go to 24mans because ain't got time fo dat..
Spend 2-4 hours a day on game just doing dungeon dailies and misty woods (for soulstones since I can't do SSP).

If 24mans were more valuable use of time than dungeons it would be different but currently they're not.

Beastbog is especially not worth because of the ridiculous spawn delays.

But put moonstones/soulstones in 24mans and hell yea I'll go o-o

[DyvorKurozu]

3 hours ago, Daktaro said:

I don't go to 24mans because ain't got time fo dat..
Spend 2-4 hours a day on game just doing dungeon dailies and misty woods (for soulstones since I can't do SSP).

If 24mans were more valuable use of time than dungeons it would be different but currently they're not.

Beastbog is especially not worth because of the ridiculous spawn delays.

But put moonstones/soulstones in 24mans and hell yea I'll go o-o

This is also another big issue: they just aren't worth the time+effort since the gold in total you get from them is alright to a new player, but as we all know the true goldmaking lies in doing 4-man dungeon runs (6 for lesser geared people) and in SSP so that is where the players will go while the 24Man dungeons are left to rot in their own corners with the daily challenges springing them temporarily to "life" in a false manner since it doesn't help new players at all when there are all the high-geared players waiting at the boss area for the main boss/daily challenge to spawn for just one day and then poof, the 24M is dead again. There's so many different options to revive these areas and make them more attractive for veteran players while helping the new players alike without making any complex changes like making them into cross-serverable(adding mat drop chances, etc.), however we all know already that NCSoft doesn't give a damn about the freebie players and only want to enjoy their golden shower from the whales and wallet warriors that are grinding the SF content like mindless drones.

[Shadzar]

That would be actually easy. 24-man could drop something called "item food" that cannot be traded, cannot be mailed to another character on the same account, cannot be sold on the market. This "item food" could be used to upgrade ANY weapon or accessory at ANY level, but you can only use it for 1 type of upgrade material and only for 10% of the amount of that material.

 

So it cannot be used to make Moonwater Transformation stones, but could be used to replace soulstones in a weapon or accessory upgrade or breakthrough, or moonstones, etc. Obviously it couldn't replace something you need 9 or less of like the weapon or accessory needed for evolution or breaktrough, only the materials where there is an excessive amount of grind require in specific dungeons that wear people out and burn them out of doing those dungeons.

 

If they dropped form all blue or purple dungeons, then people can begin collecting them from Blackram Narrows onward to save until needed in Moonwater and not have to fight the 700 AP players to try to get stingers right away for example, and make use of their soulstones for crafting if they so choose, which would remove some of the pressure on SSP.

 

This could mean all 24-man areas could drop them from quests or even treasures and the 10% rule for 1 item in an evolution or breakthrough means you can't stock up on them too much to try to bypass using the actual materials. Heck they could even drop more frequently in things like Brilliant Chef's Treasure, than in say a normal Chef's Treasure.

 

This way higher levels might be enticed to actually revisit 24-man areas to help get the bosses to spawn Poh, Macho Man, Froghemoth thing in Beast bog, etc... but not sit there forever trying to get them, or if they DO sit there with 700 AP trying to get these things from Poh it would force NC to open more channels and spread people out more so that lower levels in need of those areas have more people to help spawn the bosses like Poh, MM, etc.

[United17]

Why would anyone be there? They give crap Frostscale can be ...ok i guess cause you killing bosses having fun but beastbog no way. Why would anyone be in there? Everyone's doing whatever they can to add to their daily grind, and a group will usually just slow you down.