Are there any zone that has a raid boss that requires a group to defeat?

If not, how do you all feel about having a zone with a boss that requires a raid party to clear?

Most zones and bosses have been solo-able.

This could make things more fun for gen 10 players, especially with legendary loot dropping (like Excalibur!).

Imagine having to take on King Arthur and his Knights of the Round table led by Lancelot and supported by Merlin. All in a !recall trapped room (as if Merlin a mage/phyz would let you recall).

Please share your thoughts.

Sounds fun, would this just be a gen 10 thing or a max level thing?

Maybe it could be a lv 49 thing once you were in Negs and didn't need exp (the mobs wouldn't give exp or very very little), with some geared towards lower gen players and some geared towards higher ones.

There would be higher than normal gold (since you don't need exp) and % chance of decent eq.

Also you could only do them once a day, once a week?

I like the idea of "end game" material, however I think we need to focus on fixing other classes.

As it's right now, Mages seem to be the only classes than can do the upper level zones. I feel that one way we can fix this is by adding bonuses to armor ratings and damage reduction to "combat front" classes.

Monks/Cyborgs/Barbs/Knights/Rangers should have some sort of +armor/damage reduction or something similar along those lines. Maybe have a passive "parry" effect to dodge attacks.

Thief/Bard/Merc should get some nice damage buffs for not being "focused" on, like how thieves get crazy amount of damage for backstab if not in combat, and circle while a mob/player is in combat.

Cleric/Mage/Bard/Physic/Psi should really be support classes, where clerics and psionics can heal decently (and easily) and Mages/Bards/Physics can shoot from ranged (i.e, not in direct combat).

There's nothing more than I like thinking about than doing all the levels of Hell with a Good Knight, Good Cleric, and Barb/Ranger. Group heal just makes me so happy.

THEN I think the End Bosses would be legit, with chances of dropping quad damages, maybe even qp's (Very rare) and if we do the professions route, mats to create rare items.

Thoughts/ideas/suggestions?

The original thread was more about the idea of a zone or instance with multiple classes working together, which helps make everyone much more effective if one person isn't expected to do everything. I think you're more talking about individual effectiveness.

As a group barb is a great damage dealer if healed by say a good cleric, the tank could be a ranger/phy, a thief could be stunning mobs, disarming them and tripping them, and a good knight can be shield bashing them down, etc. etc. etc.

Fixing classes and making a zone are fairly different things I think, one requires coders (classes), one needs builders (rooms/areas). As long as characters were in a group, a dungeon like this wouldn't be impossible.

To address your points:

Psi, Monks and Rangers can all do high gen zones depending on what the zones are and their secondary class.

Brywing (psi) does Gith and Heaven 1 and can do some hell levels.

Monks can do malhelvek and cybertech (from what I hear)

Rangers are very good at tanking, especially when you combine thornskin and electrostatic.

There are some classes that need some love at some point… I would REALLY love to see a Good Kni equivalent of Soulless But that type of theory crafting is probably a different thread?

I like the idea of qps! That would be a great reward. The raid boss and zone would require a group to access and defeat. Maybe 3-5players.

There could be multiple raids for different gens. That can also tie in withthe stories that Trust has been gathering.

Super unique drops would be great. Maybe the boss drops a special item for all in the party. Like a magical whistle that grants a unique pet summon.

The harder raid bosses could drop a legendary item. This could be an item that can only have one in the game. Like an excalibur.

It would be up to the raid team to see who gets the item. Or the boss could be set to automatically give the item to the person who gives the killing blow.

With new raid bosses come new items.

It would make things really fun.

Revamped zones could be made into raid bosses.

I just hope I can be there to witness the bickering and fighting over who gets the item if you are going to have this super amazing item load only once in a zone that requires a group effort.

This sounds like a quest idea that is trying to get turned into a zone.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way speaking on behalf of the immortal staff, but I think raid bosses on Tempus are difficult to achieve. The players of Tempus are incredibly ingenious and always seem to find a way to take out mobs solo.

There are currently bosses in Tempus that are located in isolated and !recall rooms, there are bosses that have been set to max gen/level/atts, there are bosses that have permanent double damage, there are bosses that quad themselves in battle, there are bosses that summon in other minions to assist them, there are bosses with 1 hit kills, there are bosses that disable casting/altering/triggering/peforming and in all cases, players have always been able to figure out ways to solo these bosses.

Whether it's through the clever use of v-stones, unholy stalkers, hoardes of elementals, legions of devils, or whatever other method, the players always find a way to go it alone.

I think in raids in MMOs, you have multiple classes that need to aid each other in order to overcome the boss. However, in Tempus, it feels to me that once a high gen player figures out how to tank a boss, they don't really need the help of others.

I think many of the high level bosses and zones could already be considered "raid bosses" for low-mid gen players, but how often do you see groups of mid-gens grouping up to raid hell?

Anyone have any ideas of how we could make raid bosses that actually requires a group of people to beat?

You could have multiple separate bosses that spawn in consecutive rooms. But they won't load until each room has a human player in the room. So you'd need a certain amount of players to activate the rooms.

First, create 'boss' abilities that use mechanics that benefit from having balanced classes. For example, "We had better bring a ranger or a cleric, or those stacks of stone-to-flesh will kill us!"

Second, create encounter abilities or mechanics that benefit from having multiple victims. For example, Big Bad Boss swings his axe, cleaving the party. Damage is split between the number of players actively engaging Big Bad Boss in combat. Such abilities would not be affected by most player-controlled NPCs.

Third, improve mechanics to clean up group activity. Reduce spam from auto-attacks to increase visibility on what is happening in the encounter. Improved defense commands were helpful to encourage grouping. Furthermore, some healing commands would be helpful to let healers monitor the party, perhaps at prompt. e.g. Healerguy (excellent) Merriam (small wounds) Aconite (big nasty)

By focusing primarily on encounter-focused mechanics, we can ensure we don't touch the rest of the game unintentionally. For example, it's ill-advised to decide that healing done in combat will heal for half its normal amount, since this could affect players soloing a single NPC elsewhere in the game. However, it's tough to balance when so many class abilities can be found on potions, scrolls, syringes, pills, equipment, and implants!

In order to bring Raid Bosses into the game, you first need to isolate skills/spells/abilities to certain classes. Make a healer, and a tank absolutely necessary. Give a time limit to these bosses, so that DPS classes (damage per second) classes are necessary. Let's say, if the boss is not killed within a certain time, it will automatically kill its target, or all targets, in 1 hit. Or they exponentially gain more damage reduction until they're invincible unless they killed in time.

1) Remove most, if not all, healing abilities from all tanks and DPS classes. Leave Heal for Knights, but give Clerics a in-battle restore spell, or a HOT (Healing Over Time spell, let's say, heals 200 hp per second for 5 seconds). The tanking classes could potentially be Barb/Ranger/Knight/Cyborg. Although I would recommend revamping the Knight class to be more of a paladin class (good paladin for healing/evil paladin for DPS). More remort skills/spells would be needed to accomplish this in order to differentiate the two. Same with Cleric (good for healing/evil for DPS). Make restoration a good cleric remort spell, and make Disruption a evil Clerics remort spell that does more damage, or added DOT (damage over time) afterwards.

2) Remove conjuring abilities from Mages/Clerics/Bards, and change the way Locust works - this would make them solely a DPS class. Summoned tanks are silly and only take away from the game.

3) Revamp or add another healing class. In order to prevent adding new classes, I would suggest making a good aligned Bard a healer type class. I can't really think of any other class that could possibly be a healer with their current set up. Psionics and Physicists are more of support classes that should be useful for spelling down mobs, buffing group members, and being backup DPS/healers. Make electrostatic field castable on other players - it is hands down one of the best spells for tanking.

4) Revamped Thief into a Rogue-type class (perhaps combine them with the Ranger class), dual-wielders who specialize and deal damage with poisons. Make dual wielding + triple attack the only way to quadruple attack. They are currently a useless class that is rarely played because they don't bring anything to the table. Changing them would make them a DPS class, obviously.

5) Remove all gear that give Invis or Trans, and make stealth (hide/sneak) the new method of being hidden from mobs. This would also make Mages/Phys beneficial in your group for their Invisibility/Transmittance spells. Changing this would make a lot more zones harder to do solo as nearly every end game zone has mobs that aggro. Can do the same for flight gear, making Mages/Phys/Clerics useful for their flight spells (change Air Walk so that it's not only castable on self).

6) Give armor/damage reduction bonuses to to the Tanks, damroll bonuses to DPS classes, and healing bonuses to Healers. No DPS class should be able to attain 75% damage reduction (make armor bonuses way less for casters). And no DPS or healing class should be able to tank any sort of raid boss. End game gear (stuff that everyone uses) could have added +class/!class flags on them - this would differentiate gear for DPS/Tanking/Healing without having to change all the equipment in the game. For instance, make the Tarrasquian Carapace only usable for Tanking classes and upgrade the resistances, maxhit, and armor. DPS classes should use something more like the Tarrasquapusian Carapace, with upgraded damroll, or stats that give bonus to damage. Gives extra, extra, extra damage resistances to shields, as this is what defines a tank.

7) Change the way AOE (area of effect) affects work, so that group members don't get hit by it. Earthquake, Fission Blast, Meteor Storm, and Sonic Disruption, Inferno, etc should all require more mana to cast and have a DOT effect added on them (for example, Earthquake could do 500 damage and -2 dex (stumple effect) initially, and 100 damage and -1 dex every second for 8 seconds (capped at -10 dex). The minus stat effect would disappear unless the spell is recasted before the last tick, still in which case -10 dex is max. This way it doesn't need to be spammed, and allows for different low mana costing casts that do different things in between. I seriously can solo entire zones just spam casting Earthquake, Sonic Disruption, or Chain Lightning. It's too easy being a Cleric/Mage/Bard.

I understand all of this would change the game entirely and the coding required is probably out of the question, but it's fun to imagine what this game could turn into.

I really dig most of Red's ideas there.

Agree. So what happens to secondary classes? Clearly if you are a "tank" class as your primary, how does the secondary class come in?

At the core, we are saying the key to balance is not just providing all classes strengths, but also ensuring each has weaknesses. This creates interesting strategy. However, the remort class system could easily erase the weaknesses of your primary class. If a Ranger tanks, why not remort him as a good Cleric? If a healer can't do damage, just remort them as a Mage.

Perhaps secondary classes must reach something like half power.

Then, to prevent Tank-Healer or Tank-DPS from being overpowered, require a shield or similar mechanic that requires one hand to be used for the defensive item. You are now half damage because you wield just 1 weapon. If you wield two weapons then you take a significant defensive penalty.

To prevent Healer-Tank or Healer-DPS, require an object like a staff or wand, again perhaps in hand, in order to heal while engaged in combat. Equipment in most slots would no longer be able to be switched out while in combat. Perhaps only allow switching to a weapon .

To prevent DPS-Tank or DPS-Healer, implement the above two systems which would require a DPS-focused physical class to have both hands using a weapon.

Again, when I say "prevent" combos, I only mean "prevent from becoming overpowered, dominant strategies and completely eliminating the weaknesses." All class combinations should be valid. Primary class choice would be perhaps ²⁄₃ of a character's strength with ¹⁄₃ coming from secondary. (And of course equipment and tactics separately impact strength.)

I think an easy fix to secondary classes is to just convert certain skills/spells into remort skills/spells. This would primarily include major tanking, healing, and damage abilities. I wouldn't suggest converting them all because it would inhibit anyone from solo leveling. The key would be to balance all classes so any combination of class-type could still level on their own.

1) Healer/Tank or Tank/Healer - A tank class can still deal damage, and doesn't necessarily need to use a shield if they're a primary/secondary healer. Barbs can still be damage machines with Discipline of steel, so someone could potentially play a Barb as a DPS class too. But in order to create balance, they wouldn't be the best DPS class.

2) Healer/DPS - Wouldn't be able to deal damage as effectively as a DPS/Healer, but number one in healing. With addition to HOT (healing over time) spells, a good Cleric for example wouldn't need to just spam heal anymore. They could cast "Renew", which could heal 1000 HP over a time span of 5 seconds, in order to use damaging abilities while being healed at the same time.

3) DPS/Healer - Damage output is greater, but healing is lesser than a Healer/DPS. Takes more damage than being a Tank primary.

4) Tank/DPS or DPS/Tank - This could still work if lessened out of combat heal abilities are still there, such as medic/firstaid/self repair, etc. Good survivability with good damage output, but dead last in the healing field.

This would also create a balance to the game where no one would really go DPS/DPS, Healer/Healer, or Tank/Tank in order to level by themselves. There are enough support classes that can do both to make almost any combination efficient. However, it could be suggested that these dual combinations can be played for end game content, where groups are required. Give each class type a flag, where if you have 2 of the same flag, you would get extra bonuses, like 1.5x damage flag to DPS/DPS, ¹⁄₂ damage flag to Tank/Tank, and 2x healing bonus to Healer/Healer. Heck, with these bonuses, they should be able to level on their own as well.

I have to head out, but wanted to send this out. I will try to add to it later.

It seems to me if you needed two hands on weapons to truly do damage, one hand on a shield to truly tank (knight = metal shield, ranger = natural shield, cyborg = cybernetic shield), and one hand on an emblem of some kind to heal, you could effectively determine primary class roles effectively using this method. You could use other methods for reduced effectiveness (tanks could parry if dual wielding, at much less value than using a shield, and healers could trade a healing emblem for a damaging one).

Getting most of your power from your primary class would be the reason why a Ranger/Mercenary would be best leveraged with a shield in a group setting, unless a tank already existed, in which case he might use two weapons. Likewise, he could might wear a shield when solo if he needed the defensive value against stronger mobs, but dual wield against lower-level mobs.

Thanks Red. I really love the thought and energy that went into your responses. Merriam built on it nicely too.

Here is an idea. Are imms able to take command of a mob? Perhaps a raid boss could be approached in a different way while classes are balanced. If an imm could posess the mob, then the raid boss is human controlled.

It could be a one time a month raid event with a unique prize for everyone in the successful raid party (i like whistle that summons a personal mob).

The imm can pick which mob to command. A raid against a human controlled Tarrasque? Or Malhelivik?

In the meantime, we could gather a group of testers to test the changes Red brought up. Start with adjusting skills/spells lists. Then gain feedback and adjust more.

Anyone up for volunteering as a tester? I am.