"Strike Teams" - A Substitute for Raids

So I was thinking about SWtoR, and realizing that even if I played it, I probably wouldn't be in for the long-term because of the potential endgame. When it comes to raiding, I'd play WoW. That's Blizzard's wheelhouse, and you should do something different if you want to compete. Plus, a dozen smugglers and a dozen jedi all facing a single sith lord with 1 trillion hp or whatever just wouldn't fit with that world. Han Solo wouldn't be part of an MMO raid.

But if the endgame was just more 5-man stuff, it wouldn't seem like a "serious" game to me. There needs to be some way to step it up at max level, and the option to play with more than a single group should be there. However, building an endgame around 10- or 25-man groups is, frankly, not a good idea, especially considering how scheduled and job-like raiding becomes.

Then I had an idea that would fit perfectly in the Star Wars universe, and could be used in other games as well:

Strike Teams.

Instead of a 10-man raid on a dungeon, you have a pair of 5-man teams that are linked into a Strike Force, with a shared chat channel and some other ui components (scale it up for larger groups). Then, each Strike Team of 5 goes into the dungeon from two different entrances or angles, with two different goals that link together. You are still playing in 5-man groups, but you're also getting a more shared and epic experience akin to raiding.

Let me walk you through an example. I know some of the elements I'm about to describe aren't part of the ToR world, but let's pretend for this example that we are in the time period of the original Star Wars films:

You form a Strike Force out of two Strike Teams: Red and Blue (oh, oh, let us name them in-game!). Blue Team approaches an Imperial Battleship in a millenium-falcon type vehicle pretending to be a cargo delivery. Once in the hangar bay, they begin to take out stormtroopers on their way to disable some of the security measures of the ship. Meanwhile, Red Team sneaks up on the Battleship by hiding behind asteroids, and launches an attack in a set of x-wings just as Blue Team opens fire inside the ship, creating a mutual distraction for each other. Once Blue Team takes out some of the defenses, Red Team boards in a different section of the Battleship and progresses towards the brig to rescue a captured rebel leader. Meanwhile, Blue Team takes out security and creates distractions that help the enemy from noticing Red Team, utilizing constant communication between the teams. As the mission reaches its climax, Blue Team unexpectedly faces down a Sith officer who has appeared to put a stop to their sabotage, while Red Team is pinned against the locked door to a cargo chute that leads down to the hangar bay, fending off wave after wave of security bots while protecting the rebel leader. Once the Sith officer goes down, Blue Team can activate the hatch allowing Red Team to reach them, and both teams escape together on the Millenium Falcon. Perhaps they lay explosives before they leave, leading to a dramatic ending as the teams fly away from the exploding imperial ship.


What do you think?