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By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2009-11-19 12:33 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I think the Atlas statue is sort of a like mini version of an old Hamidon raid - you get a lot of players just hanging out together and chatting, although it can also get quite quiet sometimes too, as there's no actual reason to be there except to hang out.|
Originally Posted by Castle
I can certainly understand the feelings of the folks who miss the social aspect of the old raid. It's similar to me missing the social aspect of EQ's camp a spot gameplay. It wasn't fun, but it gave you plenty of time to meet new people and to socialize, and in many ways, that's what these games are for.
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But it makes for an awesome first view of the city for new players, with the huge statue and City Hall in the background, and all the weird and wonderful costumes, powers and vet pets on view under the statue.
The fact that so many players do hang out like that does prove that the social aspect is a very important part of an MMO.
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The old Hami may have had problems, but in my opinion the new one is far worse. Possibly I'm biased but we used to raid Hami on Guardian three times a week nearly always successfully from issue 4 thru issue 8. Towards the end we were running 25 - 30 minute raids like clockwork and we had fun doing it.
Then came issue 9 and the new Hami. I tried it, and I tanked the first successful raid on the Test Server... still it was a pain in the butt. When issue 9 went live most of us veteran raiders tried the new encounter and most of those I knew didn't like it and moved on to other areas.
I attended more than 300 raids based on my HO storage racks in the Issue 4-8 period; I've attended exactly 4 raids since. It may be a "better" encounter now, but it's absolutely zero fun for me anymore.
So chalk that up to a vote of no for the new Hami. The STF is considerably more fun and offers the same rewards.
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Hey, Castle and BAB,
Do you know that Virtue is now doing evacuate-less raids now (most of the time)?
We don't run/tp out between blooms anymore. As a bloom is about to happen, the Regen Auras are reapplied and the tanks and scrapper run to grab the Yellow mitos and melee them to death again.
My Regen Scrapper doesn't even need an EoE.
And sometimes, if we do have enough EoEs and experienced people, we'll skip wiping out the last bloom and finish off Hami with the last bloom out (without Shivan or nukes).
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Although not totally exact experiences, I'm about 80-90% in agreement with Samuel here.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The old Hamidon was a frikkin' mess. I know people always tout the social aspects, but for me it always sounded like a bunch of 12-year-old telling UR MOM jokes for four hours straight. I'd have turned off my Broadcast if it weren't important to hear the leaders' chat.
And the event itself was absurdly boring if you're not one of the designated few. I brought a Scrapper, so I spent half the time sitting on my hands and half the time lagging out. Literally sitting on my hands. "OK, everyone who doesn't have a hold, just stand back and wait." Yeah, great gaming there. And with a bazillion people, the lag was epic. Not only did my system grind to a halt even with all the graphics turned down, but the server slowed down, as well. I couldn't see the Hamidon, I couldn't see our effects, I couldn't see more than 20 people (out of 200), powers on a 5-second recharge took a minute to recharge and I essentially spent the last quarter to half of the battle just staring at my combat tab, waiting to see system messages that a power had recharged so I could click it. If there's anything more boring, I don't know what it is. And to top it all off, not only did people rush out to nuke as many Hamidon Buds as they could (good thing the Hamidon Enhancement were no longer given out by these) but as the raid people stood back in the now empty Hamidon crater, swapping their spoils, someone thought it was very funny to start dragging Monsters into the pit, thus preventing people from trading. And not just a monster or two, mind you. I left after we took down five and had five more coming. I left with most of the raid, in fact. There was NOTHING about the old raid that I could describe as good. At all. |
I was only a part of 1 Hami ready on the Liberty server and wow....it was booooring....a good 50% of the time I was there was just me sitting around doing nothing. And then when everyone was ready to hit hami, again like Samuel, I couldn't see hami, waited 'forever' for my 1 sec powers to recharge, etc....etc....
And yeah the broadcast chatter was mainly "your mom" or other lovely jokes/comments...lots of 'friend' talk...if you didn't know who was who/what not then it was very isolated.
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And here I was thinking States was responsible for the new Hamidon Raid. * gets out the tar and pitchforks and storms the cubicle of BaBs!*
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Originally Posted by Castle
I'll give you a bit of background on it.
The old Hami event had problems, we all knew that. Most of us didn't participate in Hami raids, though, so we only knew about it via bug reports, datamining and second hand observation. One day, I wandered into Pohsyb's office while he was on one of these events. I talked with him and watched for half an hour, all the while he floated up near the zone ceiling dropping Phantom Army down onto Hami, along side 2 or 3 other Illusion controllers. That was his job...it was boring. After that, I started paying more attention to the Hami event and how it was run and I realized the entire event was like that -- aberrant playstyle atop aberrant playstyle. I decided that, at some point, we should really do something about it. Nothing happened, though. I never got a clear idea of what *should* be done to improve it, and it sort of languished in that state...until BABs was hired. He was a veteran Hami-raider, and had definite ideas of how to make a better raid. He campaigned for production to put time in the schedule to revise the event, and eventually got it. Then he, myself, Ghost Falcon and a few others (I don't actually recall who all was involved at the time, Posi may have been, Pohsyb, too, maybe even geko...but I don't remember) sat down in a series of meetings and hashed out BABs design. The end result was the new event. I can certainly understand the feelings of the folks who miss the social aspect of the old raid. It's similar to me missing the social aspect of EQ's camp a spot gameplay. It wasn't fun, but it gave you plenty of time to meet new people and to socialize, and in many ways, that's what these games are for. |
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The collective story of how it got to this state in the first place is probably a lot more interesting than the actual raids themselves. As I was one of the people involved in the early days of the level 50 Hamidon, I'm privy to some but not all the details. I know, for example, that the tactic of dropping Phantom Army was first invented on Triumph during a raid I was leading by an in-game friend of mine. Prior to that, the absolute rule was no pets because the thought was that pets would draw unnecessary aggro. It didn't occur to anyone until that moment that they could be dropped from outside mito range by a controller far away from the rest of the players to draw aggro away from the attacking group.|
Originally Posted by Castle
I'll give you a bit of background on it.
The old Hami event had problems, we all knew that. Most of us didn't participate in Hami raids, though, so we only knew about it via bug reports, datamining and second hand observation. One day, I wandered into Pohsyb's office while he was on one of these events. I talked with him and watched for half an hour, all the while he floated up near the zone ceiling dropping Phantom Army down onto Hami, along side 2 or 3 other Illusion controllers. That was his job...it was boring. After that, I started paying more attention to the Hami event and how it was run and I realized the entire event was like that -- aberrant playstyle atop aberrant playstyle. I decided that, at some point, we should really do something about it. Nothing happened, though. I never got a clear idea of what *should* be done to improve it, and it sort of languished in that state...until BABs was hired. He was a veteran Hami-raider, and had definite ideas of how to make a better raid. He campaigned for production to put time in the schedule to revise the event, and eventually got it. Then he, myself, Ghost Falcon and a few others (I don't actually recall who all was involved at the time, Posi may have been, Pohsyb, too, maybe even geko...but I don't remember) sat down in a series of meetings and hashed out BABs design. The end result was the new event. I can certainly understand the feelings of the folks who miss the social aspect of the old raid. It's similar to me missing the social aspect of EQ's camp a spot gameplay. It wasn't fun, but it gave you plenty of time to meet new people and to socialize, and in many ways, that's what these games are for. |
(At least, that is my understanding to the best of my knowledge, and when tactics were discussed at the time no one contradicted my statement that PA dropping was unique at the time Triumph first started doing it).
I don't know who first invented Regen tanking. I do recall that the hold strategy was formulated after a test server raid (which was coordinated between people on different servers to try out strategies in an environment where it would be easier to experiment and also try to get a larger number of sustained raiders) where a player (I forget which one, but I probably have the name written down somewhere) happened to notice that Hamidon was getting held momentarily in his chat logs.
And I know that the players (Freedom in particular) actually "invented" the proscribed "proper" strategy for taking down Hamidon that was designed into the encounter (the triangle attack pattern) but I don't think (not certain) it was ever used to success, because the hold strategy preempted it before it could be perfected. And most of us thought it couldn't be the "correct" strategy because it was too silly.
Plus the level 50 Hamidon is a veritable mosh-pit of weird tactics. Phase shift targeters? Check. Fulcrum-shifting swarms? Check. Intergalactic-ranged snipers? Check. Enervating field as an attack? Check. My guess is that if everyone that was involved from about November 2004 to May 2005 collaborated, you could fill a book on just the level 50 Hami raid activities.
On a personal note, I believe the very first time I ever PMed BaB was to discuss the I9 Hamidon update. Specifically to chide him for making defense worthless in it. Come to think of it, the I9 beta test of the revamped Hamidon has its own set of memes associated with it. RUN FASTER, for example. It seems Hamidon has always contributed more to the lore of the game than to the actual gameplay of the game, Oil Slick Arrow and Howling Twilight notwithstanding.
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I think I would have less of an issue if there wasn't a population cap in place. I realize that it was like everything else, done for a reason, but... it's really limiting. That's not even full 8 person teams, with 50. And I think I brought it up at one of the conventions in years past, that right after the raid changed, I was still losing most of the visuals if someone's aura went off - even with only 50 people in the zone. I think that may have sparked some kind of action, but not really sure, as I didn't bother going back to try again too often.
I don't want this game to feel like WORK. I have reality to do that for me, my reality sucks. I want my game life to be fun. Yes, I know, you need to earn stuff... however after doing probably more than 50 raids with the old style on my one 50, and then 2 on my later ones? It just didn't feel like it was worth my time or effort. I wasn't enjoying it, I won't bother going to do it again.
While it's true that "setting yourself on autofire" is "abberant" (since when is "what players like to do that isn't griefing" so wrong I might ask?) the old raid felt more like an assembly line of chatty workers. The new one, more like you're the tools being used, rather than the people using them.
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I still have several screenshots of that, taken on 03/30/2007 and 03/31/2007. I was playing my storm/psi defender and was having video card issues at the time.
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Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I tanked the first successful raid on the Test Server...
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I have an old screenie of a raid that ended up with a yellow dawn. You are probably quite familiar with who the particular griefer was that day.
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Originally Posted by Neuronia
No.
The new Hami is a tedious pain in the posterior. On Champion we used to raid 2-3 times a day at times on Sundays (depended on respawn timer) and at least several times a week. It was actually pretty sweet. You had your flying Phantom army droppers to hold Hami's aggro. Then you had the Forcefielder walking around with a healing blanket while someone called the Mitos to be defeated. It's been a while, but I think we used to get Greens first, then yellows or whatever. In truth though we mostly moved in a circular pattern and shot stuff. Then came the fun at times hilarious part, the attack on Hami. We'd all SWARM Hami (and log in our second accounts) and just get hits. At this point, massive griefing happened...people would pull in Monsters, spawn Kronos, hit Hami with Immobs and try to break the hold chain on Hamidon. Once holds were set, -Regen was applied and attackers were called in. At the end, everyone got their Hamis in 30-35 minutes, sometimes less. It was actually a ton of fun. I'm having fun with the new ones as well, but there's less drama (a positive thing, but doesn't do much to my Monday forum reading...). Of course, when the griefers prevailed, you had a YELLOW DAWN! A Yellow Mito would spawn for everyone in the bowl and wipe EVERYONE. These would either be hilarious or frustrating, depending on your mindset, and would cause an aborted raid.  P.S. Agree to disagree with Castle on this. The new ones are less fun and more work. The old ones were a massive gunslinging shootfest where you could do all sorts of stuff (unless you were a Scrapper, heh) and the threat of Yellow Dawn made it all the more fun. |
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The old Hami raids were boring and laggy and involved a lot of waiting around doing nothing by those of us who wanted to be considerate and show up early, while everyone tried to drag more controllers and empaths into the raid, broadcast spam, people not listening to the leaders, "Total Focus is a hold!" and a massive lag spike as the population of the Hive shot up just as the last few mitos were going down. And that was on Champion. I went to a grand total of one raid on Freedom, it was a total mess.
The new Hami raids are boring and laggy and involve a lot of waiting around doing nothing by those of us who want to guarantee ourselves a spot in the raid, but with less broadcast spam and mooching, and the raid itself goes a lot faster. Now that I think about it, I have the Architect commlink to keep myself amused for that hour spent waiting....I think I should raid more.
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tl;dr|
Originally Posted by Castle
I'll give you a bit of background on it.
The old Hami event had problems, we all knew that. Most of us didn't participate in Hami raids, though, so we only knew about it via bug reports, datamining and second hand observation. One day, I wandered into Pohsyb's office while he was on one of these events. I talked with him and watched for half an hour, all the while he floated up near the zone ceiling dropping Phantom Army down onto Hami, along side 2 or 3 other Illusion controllers. That was his job...it was boring. After that, I started paying more attention to the Hami event and how it was run and I realized the entire event was like that -- aberrant playstyle atop aberrant playstyle. I decided that, at some point, we should really do something about it. Nothing happened, though. I never got a clear idea of what *should* be done to improve it, and it sort of languished in that state...until BABs was hired. He was a veteran Hami-raider, and had definite ideas of how to make a better raid. He campaigned for production to put time in the schedule to revise the event, and eventually got it. Then he, myself, Ghost Falcon and a few others (I don't actually recall who all was involved at the time, Posi may have been, Pohsyb, too, maybe even geko...but I don't remember) sat down in a series of meetings and hashed out BABs design. The end result was the new event. I can certainly understand the feelings of the folks who miss the social aspect of the old raid. It's similar to me missing the social aspect of EQ's camp a spot gameplay. It wasn't fun, but it gave you plenty of time to meet new people and to socialize, and in many ways, that's what these games are for. |
It's all BAB's fault! :P
Anyways, I like both incarnations of the raids for different reasons. The social aspect was a lot of fun and having a ton of characters gathering up to take on this super-ultra foe just seemed very... heroic. Like the entire Justice League or Green Lantern Corp gathering to take on this epic threat.
With the "new" Hami Raid... less epic in that regard with the 50 player max. It's also annoying when a raid is announced and the zone fills up quickly.
Perhaps the cap could be raised to 75 or 100 people at some point?
The timer on the rewards is annoying as well. With the old style you could get maybe 2 or 3 raids in succession depending on how many people wanted to hang around.
Now that Hami-Os are (relatively) obsolete that we have the Invention System, maybe a new type of reward should be looked at. Yea, merits are great and all... but you can get them everywhere. Perhaps something to complement the merits? Like a temp power of sorts? Being able to summon a Hami mito (weakened version of course) as a pet would be sweet. Or a Hami shield power. Heck, even a Hami Beam temp power would be sweet!
Okay, went off a tangent...
Hami raids were, are and forever will be entertaining- Hey look, a nickel!
Btw... anyone remember Kronos Titans being spawned during the raids? Ahhhh the good ol' days.
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"Oil Slick? WTF?!?!"|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
T
On a personal note, I believe the very first time I ever PMed BaB was to discuss the I9 Hamidon update. Specifically to chide him for making defense worthless in it. Come to think of it, the I9 beta test of the revamped Hamidon has its own set of memes associated with it. RUN FASTER, for example. It seems Hamidon has always contributed more to the lore of the game than to the actual gameplay of the game, Oil Slick Arrow and Howling Twilight notwithstanding. |
So anyway, I've always been in favor of the new raid. It isn't perfect, but it's far more interesting. There are a few points brought up by Zek I'd like to address.
Workload vs Funload- The old Hami Raids you describe are the ones done after all the extensive strategizing to come up with a final method. The new Hami Raids you describe are ones done by somewhat inexperienced groups who aren't always familiar with their roles. Learning takes time. I'm sure when you learned to drive, you couldn't divide focus on listening to the radio or talking to other people easily. Same with a Hami Raid. Once people are familiar, it becomes habit, and it's a lot easier to chill out and have fun with it.
Population Limit- I don't agree that having "only" 50 people is what is minimizing the fun of raids. Realistically, a human can only pay effective attention to a dozen or so people at a time anyway. 6+ full teams of people is a lot. 50 people would be a rocking party in the real world.
Solutions to make the raid better- When Hami was the only raid in the game, BaB told me there wasn't much chance they would work on creating a Raid Control system to better manage several teams, and control the population of a raid zone so that when people drop, they can get back in without missing out on the chance to be part of the finale. Now that we have Hami, Rikti Ship, Banner events, and more to come, I think that is an issue that should be revisited. Being able to control things a little more smoothly would go a long way to making the few remaining sources of angst in raiding go away. I don't think more people is the best answer.
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I still can't see the social aspect. All it does is reduce the game to a glorified chat room, and that's far easier to achieve without having to show up for a raid. Just chat with people over a global channel and that's that. But an event that requires me to show up and DO NOTHING is just not well designed.|
Originally Posted by Zekiran_Immortal
While it's true that "setting yourself on autofire" is "abberant" (since when is "what players like to do that isn't griefing" so wrong I might ask?) the old raid felt more like an assembly line of chatty workers. The new one, more like you're the tools being used, rather than the people using them.
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Especially for me, since the "social aspect" irritates me a lot more than it helps me enjoy the game.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Gonna disagree with this specifically. Flying, healing, maintaining bubbles, firing ranged attacks may be fun. But did you ever bring a Scrapper with no ranged attacks to the old raid? Ever bring a non granite Tanker? Simple truth is, old Hami needed 4 specific Powersets spread among 8-12 people. Everyone else was dead weight. A raid where everyone has a different job, and those jobs are specifically tailored to the strengths of their ATs, is somehow worse in your estimation?|
Originally Posted by Zekiran_Immortal
While it's true that "setting yourself on autofire" is "abberant" (since when is "what players like to do that isn't griefing" so wrong I might ask?) the old raid felt more like an assembly line of chatty workers. The new one, more like you're the tools being used, rather than the people using them.
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In the old raid, I was the tool being used. In the new raid, I'm a participant.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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I don't think its possible to make a raid where tactics are important, but at least some players don't feel like they are trapped or controlled by those tactical dictates. The original level 50 Hamidon was a degenerate case where there was a functional strategy that had very few tactical components that couldn't be heavily automated. For all its social side-benefits, I don't think that is a good target to aim for in general.
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Originally Posted by Zekiran_Immortal
I don't want this game to feel like WORK.
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That, and many of us grew tired of either getting griefed by Giant Monster pullers, or fighting for manpower to start a raid only to have the zone maxed out with moochers for the last 10 minutes (and keeping fallen raiders who had worked hard up to that point out of the Hive). Do I miss the old social aspect of the raid? Certainly. However, in comparison to the aberrant gameplay it inspired, along with the mooching and greifing, I much prefer the new, tactics-required, everyone-pulls-their-weight Hami raid.
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Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
Gonna disagree with this specifically. Flying, healing, maintaining bubbles, firing ranged attacks may be fun. But did you ever bring a Scrapper with no ranged attacks to the old raid? Ever bring a non granite Tanker? Simple truth is, old Hami needed 4 specific Powersets spread among 8-12 people. Everyone else was dead weight. A raid where everyone has a different job, and those jobs are specifically tailored to the strengths of their ATs, is somehow worse in your estimation?
In the old raid, I was the tool being used. In the new raid, I'm a participant. |
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Sam's pretty much right. I'd add that A) You couldn't have an aura or a cape in your costume, B) Lag was still horrendous anyway, C) If you were a controller (especially illusion controller) you were ESSENTIAL, but for many ATs you almost had no reason to be there at all. I had a fire/axe scrapper and no fly power (no such thing as temps back then) and my purpose was to superjump up and try to hit a mito a couple of times. I wasn't needed. In fact, if I hadn't had two good trollers in my SG at the time, I probably would never even have been invited.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The old Hamidon was a frikkin' mess. I know people always tout the social aspects, but for me it always sounded like a bunch of 12-year-old telling UR MOM jokes for four hours straight. I'd have turned off my Broadcast if it weren't important to hear the leaders' chat.
And the event itself was absurdly boring if you're not one of the designated few. I brought a Scrapper, so I spent half the time sitting on my hands and half the time lagging out. Literally sitting on my hands. "OK, everyone who doesn't have a hold, just stand back and wait." Yeah, great gaming there. And with a bazillion people, the lag was epic. Not only did my system grind to a halt even with all the graphics turned down, but the server slowed down, as well. I couldn't see the Hamidon, I couldn't see our effects, I couldn't see more than 20 people (out of 200), powers on a 5-second recharge took a minute to recharge and I essentially spent the last quarter to half of the battle just staring at my combat tab, waiting to see system messages that a power had recharged so I could click it. If there's anything more boring, I don't know what it is. And to top it all off, not only did people rush out to nuke as many Hamidon Buds as they could (good thing the Hamidon Enhancement were no longer given out by these) but as the raid people stood back in the now empty Hamidon crater, swapping their spoils, someone thought it was very funny to start dragging Monsters into the pit, thus preventing people from trading. And not just a monster or two, mind you. I left after we took down five and had five more coming. I left with most of the raid, in fact. There was NOTHING about the old raid that I could describe as good. At all. |
And it was long and mindlessly dull. I only did it twice (on Pinnacle at the time).
Today's Hami raids are fun, IMO. I'm on Virtue so I've done quite a few. Everybody has a role, and everybody needs to do their job. You all need to be on the same page. But it's not difficult to do, and you can join and have the basics explained to you in just a few minutes.
Last raids I was on were a week ago Wednesday, when Virtue conducted two evacless raids back to back. Lotsa fun. ^_^
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Were you doing Guardian's "okay, we had our raid and it went well, the rest of you peasants can have a raid without interference since we got what we wanted" private SG raids, or the more public raids that the SG allowed afterward if they didn't slip up and cause a yellow dawn or otherwise feel the regular players were out of line?|
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
The old Hami may have had problems, but in my opinion the new one is far worse. Possibly I'm biased but we used to raid Hami on Guardian three times a week nearly always successfully from issue 4 thru issue 8. Towards the end we were running 25 - 30 minute raids like clockwork and we had fun doing it.
Then came issue 9 and the new Hami. I tried it, and I tanked the first successful raid on the Test Server... still it was a pain in the butt. When issue 9 went live most of us veteran raiders tried the new encounter and most of those I knew didn't like it and moved on to other areas. I attended more than 300 raids based on my HO storage racks in the Issue 4-8 period; I've attended exactly 4 raids since. It may be a "better" encounter now, but it's absolutely zero fun for me anymore. So chalk that up to a vote of no for the new Hami. The STF is considerably more fun and offers the same rewards. |
Regardless, when the new raids went live i was playing mostly on Virtue and found the raids there to be quite fast and fun. Most raids were completed in about 45 minutes. Since they were advertised in the forums, global channels and even through broadcast in several zones, and held at the same times and dates every week they were first come, first serve public events that hinged on everybody doing what they were good at and adapting based on which AT's/sets showed up.
Virtue raids are still going strong, but i haven't been to many Virtue raids since the first successful use of the no evac strategy. Which is sort of a shame, since getting that to work was an interesting change in tactics and i've missed the most recent innovation that combines elements of the no evac strategy sans the pets with regular tactics.
Oh, and redside raids are entertaining in that they remind more of the old Hamidon raid with the MM pet stream drawing aggro.
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Public raids, the Twilight Avengers were the only SG regularly raiding at the time. We rarely had major issues with them... public raids happened Mon/Wed/Fri and TA raided at other times. Yeah, there was occasional friction but actual conflict was pretty rare. We, the public raiders, had set raid times and TA didn't interfere and we returned the favor.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Were you doing Guardian's "okay, we had our raid and it went well, the rest of you peasants can have a raid without interference since we got what we wanted" private SG raids, or the more public raids that the SG allowed afterward if they didn't slip up and cause a yellow dawn or otherwise feel the regular players were out of line?
Regardless, when the new raids went live i was playing mostly on Virtue and found the raids there to be quite fast and fun. Most raids were completed in about 45 minutes. Since they were advertised in the forums, global channels and even through broadcast in several zones, and held at the same times and dates every week they were first come, first serve public events that hinged on everybody doing what they were good at and adapting based on which AT's/sets showed up. Virtue raids are still going strong, but i haven't been to many Virtue raids since the first successful use of the no evac strategy. Which is sort of a shame, since getting that to work was an interesting change in tactics and i've missed the most recent innovation that combines elements of the no evac strategy sans the pets with regular tactics. Oh, and redside raids are entertaining in that they remind more of the old Hamidon raid with the MM pet stream drawing aggro. |
Both the public raiders and TA were pretty good at Hami and yellow dawns were rare.
Of course all this is neither here nor there now, and if people enjoy the current incarnation of the raid then more power to them. I don't enjoy the current raid myself so I do other things instead.
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I haven't done the new raid, and it doesn't seem all that appealing. On the other hand, I really disliked the old raid, for reasons others have given. Of course, that was when Champion was known as "The Hami Drama Server".
It's a hard thing to do right, and I hope they manage it some day.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Quote:
Virtue Redside Raids dont use MM streaming anymore |
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Were you doing Guardian's "okay, we had our raid and it went well, the rest of you peasants can have a raid without interference since we got what we wanted" private SG raids, or the more public raids that the SG allowed afterward if they didn't slip up and cause a yellow dawn or otherwise feel the regular players were out of line?
Regardless, when the new raids went live i was playing mostly on Virtue and found the raids there to be quite fast and fun. Most raids were completed in about 45 minutes. Since they were advertised in the forums, global channels and even through broadcast in several zones, and held at the same times and dates every week they were first come, first serve public events that hinged on everybody doing what they were good at and adapting based on which AT's/sets showed up. Virtue raids are still going strong, but i haven't been to many Virtue raids since the first successful use of the no evac strategy. Which is sort of a shame, since getting that to work was an interesting change in tactics and i've missed the most recent innovation that combines elements of the no evac strategy sans the pets with regular tactics. Oh, and redside raids are entertaining in that they remind more of the old Hamidon raid with the MM pet stream drawing aggro. |
And for Blueside, Evac-less is now pretty much the standard raid strategy unless we dont have enough attendance that raid. (typically the second raid)
"An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of BS." -General George Patton
-Lord Azazel
Can only speak from Union.
Since the new hamidon I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times there has been a Hamidon raid.
One of the few successful ones where the first hamidon raid after issue 9 hit (took us 7 hours).
The reason I think... not enough people. Could be the timing set etc.. but most of the raids have also ended with fail. (Looking at a previous post in this thread and envies Virtue)
Each failed attempt have made it not worth it in many peoples eyes (Too much debt, too little reward etc).
Only been on one redside raid aswell, did not go very well.
The one we are planning to do now... well I hope it will work out or it might be the last nail in the coffin for us vs Hammi. 
Lady Arete on Unionhandbook
My Excel Badge tool
I very much prefer Hamidon's current incarnation. The old one was fine for socializing or shouting out random internet memes, but other than that it was boring.
@Demobot
Also on Steam
I miss the Hami-buds soo much. We were trying to make Hami-bud plushies until they were taken out.
They could add them back and just make them an additional creature to kill at the end.
I really enjoyed trying to kill them before they 'escaped' and made a new Hami.o
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I came in after the Hami raids were changed, so I've never done the old versions. The new ones, for me at least, have been great fun (I run with the blueside Justice group), since it seems that every time we do it, someone comes up with a variant or something goofy to try. And there's usually much cheerful yammering in broadcast, which is generally entertaining in and of itself.
I think a lot of it has to do with mindset. If you go in determined to be bored, you'll be bored. If you go in all gung-ho (with a group of folks willing to indulge you), you can have a blast. (Like the folks on... Virtue, I think it was, who decided to run a seven-minute Hami raid... thanks to calling in nukes.)
I go in to have fun... it's a GREAT way to get the healing badges (and damage badges, and debt badges), and the merits don't hurt either.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
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