Just how many raiders are there? - Page 7

Illuminator · 03-10-2008, 05:55 PM

Do it on a wizard and we'll talk.

Pinski · 03-10-2008, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinski

Which you'll see is going to be crazy sick when they upgrade it into an Illusory Arm proc.(25% Melee/Ranged DA)

Sorry, I'm wrong.

Close but I'll let everybody go okay, avatar loot on trak.

Fizbiz · 03-10-2008, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urbannaja

).

That came up with 210 total guilds who have killed Imzok...7350 raiders
Guilds who are in VP - 63 with 2205 raiders
Of those guilds only 10 have killed an avatar..350 raiders

From MMOGCHART.COM » Charts it's reported that EQ2 has 200,000 subscribers...which may or may not be accurate and doesn't account for alts, but it's the best I can find since SOE doesn't release that stuff.

Sooo that means that approximately 3.6% of EQ2's population is a raider. With 1.1% being in VP, and only .0175% are killing contested.

Here's the numbers from each server from the progression threads(notice a couple don't have any listed, and a couple only showed those who have cleared).

Looks about right.

But as some posters pointed out the under reporting of Lower tiered cleared zones is common.

Guilds already in or cleared VP tend to post it online as they are quite proud of getting there.

That said I would speculate that 6% of servers are raiders, with still around 1% in VP.

That would put about 15% of actual raiders as "Elite or Hard-core" if you consider being in VP the litmuous test for being such a raider.

Zormik · 03-18-2008, 06:55 AM

The list is not entirely correct. By example there are 2 avatarkilling guilds on splitpaw (fable and validus).

On top of that you forget some other facts. A (semi-)hardcore guild on average has between 26 and 35 members. A casual raiding guild can often contains 50 people that raid.

On average you can easily say that every raider has a second account. I don't know many who don't and i do know a lot who even have more then 2.

On top of that, there are a lot of guilds trying to finish zones in T8 but just didn't get there yet.

So the number will be vastly bigger then you think. If i look at splitpaw and how many people are raiding then i often get the impression it's the majority of the server.

Ipaan · 03-18-2008, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zormik

The list is not entirely correct. By example there are 2 avatarkilling guilds on splitpaw (fable and validus).

On top of that you forget some other facts. A (semi-)hardcore guild on average has between 26 and 35 members. A casual raiding guild can often contains 50 people that raid.

On average you can easily say that every raider has a second account. I don't know many who don't and i do know a lot who even have more then 2.

On top of that, there are a lot of guilds trying to finish zones in T8 but just didn't get there yet.

So the number will be vastly bigger then you think. If i look at splitpaw and how many people are raiding then i often get the impression it's the majority of the server.

Agree here with a few exceptions... Splitpaw _is_ a raider heavy server, just not a lot of supreme raiders. Nearly everyone raids here, but not all T8 successful.
And well, only one T8 avatar killing guild so far. ;) I don't doubt a second that it will change though.

Virulence · 03-18-2008, 03:02 PM

With under 4% of playerbase being active raiders even if you were to assume raiders are disporportionately more likely to own 2nd accounts bringing the total to say 6-7% of total accounts, devs spending time fine tuning encounters like Avatars or VP pretty much makes zero business sense yet it is occurring because that fraction of a percent is the most vocal.

This is a great analysis and IMO they need to vastly increase the accessability of high end raiding for more people. This would actually benefit hardcore raiders the most because it would be a better reason to drive more resources towards bug free boss scripts and better itemization that what exists currently.

Im not saying raiding should be retarded easy but eliminating any time sinks and simplifying the encounters would go a long way to bringing more players into the fold.

Ipaan · 03-18-2008, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Virulence

Im not saying raiding should be retarded easy but eliminating any time sinks and simplifying the encounters would go a long way to bringing more players into the fold.

Not saying you're wrong, in fact you're right, in one way... Having more people doing some things would get their focus on that, true, but by eliminating time sinks and simplifying encounters, the game itself would be utterly boring for the ones that today are classed "hardcore" or close to; i.e. those who have time to play close to 7 days a week and that already runs around just studying every corner of EFP/QH several days of the week because the only things that are challenging are things they're already locked out from.
It would just give those more time to get fed up with a game that already is either impossible (read unkillable mobs) or too easy when you actually bother maximizing you gaming skills and finding two dozen other players who do.

One thing I think actually fucked up the survivability of this expansion from a raider's PoV was the persistant zones in combination with the "tagging" for later tiers.

Let's just compare EH with VP for example.
Any guild could enter EH and get wtfpwn:ed as the went around the first corner, and slowly proceed up to the first nameds to be even more owned unless they actually knew what they were doing.
VP, heck I bet there are a crapload of raiding people out there who doesn't even know where VP is located, or at least wouldn't if it wasn't for being forced to run around every damn corner of RoK to hit lvl 80 by questing. Even less they know that they will get wtfpwned when they do their first pull not aware of roamers' pathing etc. Hence, nothing to even remotely strive to achieve apart from having a zone name on the map.

Let's then just pretend that you couldn't clear VP with all Ad3:s and mastercrafted gear (well, perhaps not anymore with the recent changes of Druushk and Nexona, but still). Would VP have been cleared by almost all semihardcore raid guilds and above within 1½ month or so after launch - with a long and boring questing based leveling and flagging through lower zones - without the persistant zones including the mandatory server crashes every now and then and people getting booted when the 25:th char enters the zone or those who camp the zone gets a power shortage during the night?

Of course it wouldn't!
Then of course there was other things like major lag issues with charm etc in EH with release, but still...

I think that just like you said, when you actually can reach the zones and see them, even if it's only the first room, then the interest for them will grow. Most of all if the zone has such a magnificent entrance scenery as VP does. But it doesn't necessarily have to be weaksauce enough for everyone to even kill trashmobs.

In the same way, time sinks are boring, but not something that can't be beaten by time even by casual guilds. It rather will force them more or less to focus more, learn more and do things better if they realize that "oh shit, we can't even remotely clear this thing in four hours if we do this dps or wait 3 min between each pull". Then they will strive to make it even further into the zone next time and one day by the end of the expansion they might even be up towards the end of the zone, feeling that they actually achieved something instead of grinding through the zone in slow motion clearing it in 9 days, and keep doing that throughout the expansion.

Just some thoughts this late evening.

Virulence · 03-19-2008, 12:21 PM

What Im implying is the idea of raiding needs to be ready for mass consumption before the people pulling the business strings of SoE will devote more programming time to it. You have a bunch of MBA types in an office looking at spreadsheets of what people do online with their time and it will be disproportionately spent soloing, tradeskilling and most often standing around with your respective dick in your hand. The more gentle the slope is for people to enter raiding, the more those Excel spreadsheets will shift the focus of the game producers toward that content. Right now I still think the "training wheel" raids are too long and difficult for Jane and John Doe gamer. By altering the slope, maintaining a gradual ramp up in difficulty without cock-block type zones/mobs and retooling itemization from top to bottom (ie ensuring no VP piece is at all inferior to a lower tier one) the overall health of the game will greatly improve in the long run.

methulah · 03-23-2008, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Virulence

What Im implying is the idea of raiding needs to be ready for mass consumption before the people pulling the business strings of SoE will devote more programming time to it. You have a bunch of MBA types in an office looking at spreadsheets of what people do online with their time and it will be disproportionately spent soloing, tradeskilling and most often standing around with your respective dick in your hand. The more gentle the slope is for people to enter raiding, the more those Excel spreadsheets will shift the focus of the game producers toward that content. Right now I still think the "training wheel" raids are too long and difficult for Jane and John Doe gamer. By altering the slope, maintaining a gradual ramp up in difficulty without cock-block type zones/mobs and retooling itemization from top to bottom (ie ensuring no VP piece is at all inferior to a lower tier one) the overall health of the game will greatly improve in the long run.

Bullshit. If top tier raiding was mass consumption stuff, then there wouldn't be any sense of accomplishment (however small it is at the moment), and as such, there wouldn't be any reason to raid.

No, we don't need more raiders to get the developers to see that raiding's important. We need developers who have the ability to see full stop. Who do most crafters make their cash off? Who do people sell their masters to? Who runs the class boards on these forums? Who makes level chat come alive? Who writes the maps, epic guides and all the other shit everyone uses on a daily basis?

Who are the most dedicated fans? Those with the most involvement. And now, they're getting their ass kicked on a routine basis by the hand that's supposed to feed them, and they're leaving in droves. They're going to leave an economy in ruins, the game dead and Smed's crew scratching their collective head, thinking, "who would've thought that one percent of one percent really mattered?"

Yeah, there are lots of top tier raiders. There are also last tier raiders, pickup raiders, and so on, so on... It's difficult to find a single active player for whom raiding doesn't effect in some kind of way.

It seems counter-intuitive to almost actively piss off all these raiding folks.