04-22-2006, 01:11 AM
Part of the problem is how to count the organisational challenge of getting 40 people pulling together. My own guild took about three months to clear MC once we became serious (there was some abortive effort before that with a rapidly changing player mix), mostly spent on the middle bosses - once we gelled as a group the last few bosses went down very quickly. I've heard of MC experienced guilds rerolling on a new server and clearing eight bosses on their first run (and then needing to grind faction to summon Domo).
As an individual player, I found most MC fights easier to execute than typical five-man play - whether tanking, healing, crowd control or DPS there simply wasn't ever the need to multitask that comes when the party has much more limited resources. Raid lead was a lot harder but due to the difficulties of managing such a large group not the complexity of the fights.
I feel that that management/organisational level is basically a one-time cost - once a guild is able to get forty people smoothly following orders, they're not likely to lose that ability and don't need to spend a lot of effort maintaining it. So my balance for 'MC grade 5-man instance' would involve a long and involved keying quest, then relatively straightforward fights inside (though still requiring more from each player than MC does, designed for players in better gear than Strath et al assume and with a lower margin for error).
As an individual player, I found most MC fights easier to execute than typical five-man play - whether tanking, healing, crowd control or DPS there simply wasn't ever the need to multitask that comes when the party has much more limited resources. Raid lead was a lot harder but due to the difficulties of managing such a large group not the complexity of the fights.
I feel that that management/organisational level is basically a one-time cost - once a guild is able to get forty people smoothly following orders, they're not likely to lose that ability and don't need to spend a lot of effort maintaining it. So my balance for 'MC grade 5-man instance' would involve a long and involved keying quest, then relatively straightforward fights inside (though still requiring more from each player than MC does, designed for players in better gear than Strath et al assume and with a lower margin for error).