This got pretty long in the end 800+ words sadly, but cant keep it under 200-300. This post is just about joining and entering the raid. When we get future along the CDI or move onto the next part of raid CDI I will post my responses to rewards, raid structure, mechanics and all the good stuff which will be based on this first post.
Enjoy, and as always! Pm for clarification.
Proposal Overview
• To use and improve already ingame systems.
Goal of Proposal
• Improving the commander system/standard 5-man group function not only for Raiding but for organizing WvW, World bosses and more.
• Letting hardcore experience hard content with story as well as the casuals in less hard encounters
Proposal Functionality
Size of the raid
As others in this thread have expressed, raiding should be instanced and designed for a fixed group of players, here my suggestion is
• 10 man (which will be able to scale to 15) (numbers can change)
• 25 (which will be able to scale to 30)(numbers can change)
The reasons for the +5 scaling is, you are most likely able to find 10 people willing to spend some time in a raid, either from your guild or as a pug, and still being able to bring 5 more people if you happen to be more than 10 up to 15, on the other hand if you are more than 15 ready for a raid night you are very likely able to fill a roster of at least 25 people up to 30. (Here I will argue against myself that maybe 20-25 is better)
Forming the groupe
Forming the group uses the already ingame system of commander to be able to make the groupe (People interested in doing raids will most likely know/or have a person in the guild with a tag) the commander and the people of the squad will have a few option available to them.
• Show in a new window all the members of the squad divided into (2 groups of 5for 10-man version up to 3 groups of 5 man. And for 25 man, 5 groups of 5 man up to 6 groups of 5 man) this is shown in the window as simple party UI with the max amount of groups being (max number of people in a squad/5). The squad leader is able to move people around the groups to better manage everything (example, a group for condi, group for melee and more). This will management will only be available if the squad option is set to private, else it will work as it does now where people can join and the squad and open the squad window and see which group inside the squad you belong to, even if you run with your own group outside the squad system.
• And of course a leave button for members of the squad and for the squad leader an option to kick or add and make squad public or make squad private and only allow people he invites into the squad (which will mean that if you want to join a private squad you cannot be in a group because the commander decides which group you belong to)
Entering the raid and modes
The entrance to the raid will show options in the same way as dungeons do. You will be seeing
• Enter “tourist mode” 10-15 man story mode
• Enter 10-15 man mode
• Enter 25-30 man mode
These different modes have different boss mechanics and scaling. First of is the story mode: It is the same dungeon as the other two modes BUT! This mode is made easy so that even a pug group can complete the bosses and get some loot. The bosses base mechanic will only be a part of this mode and the health and damage should not be so high that they cannot complete it. So all the extra mechanics/health increase/damage increase that make the fight harder will be in 10-15 and 25-30. This makes it so casuals that want to have a go at the raid can at least get though it and experience the story while still getting some loot.
Second is the 10-15 man mode: Everything is the same as above except for more mechanics/health/damage to the bosses. Rewards will be better (and more interesting, here me out later :b) the encounters have to be different in some way and a little longer.
Third is 25-30: Again everything as in 10-15 just more mechanics maybe more health/damage, and again, better/different loot from 10-15.
(I have ideas on how to make extra boss mechanics as event(Will require some explaining later), flow of the different raids, how to keep track of resets via achievement system, distributing rewards via achievements and standard boss chests , and the rewards themselves already written down, and will post later when we get to that CDI)
Associated Risks
• Not being able to find a person with the commander tag to start the raid (But I doubt it since so many have commander tag but rarely uses it)
• The commander options and squad window being to confusion for new people to this system to understand
• Cluttering the achievement panels with a lot of stuff I will later be posting about
Dungeons being about how fast you clear then compared to being able to clear them makes me sad.