The content would probably scale just like everything else in the game with number of players, but you could set it to a steeper curve. That way it's technically possible with one, just extremely difficult. And extremely difficult as in makes FSC, Grinchlin and DaN look like a walk in the park.
The trick is doing it in a way that doesn't involve cramming as many enemies into as small a room as possible. Something like this would probably require new enemy types. Not that that's a bad thing.
The idea of running amok with a party of eight blinds and robs me of the ability to think rationally. Some scaling would definitely be in order, but I think it would more-or-less turn out to be a Hard mode for the game if the difficulty would scale as Klipik suggests. That could be fun, especially since we'd have a second squad of Knights in on the action.
Obviously it'd only be for higher level players, like post-Vana and for some even harder raids post-DaN. I imagine they'd be long with lots of powerful opponents requiring multiple people of different playstyles (Gunner, swords, bombs, guardians / tanks, strikers, etc)
I don't care if it's nothing like what I'm vaguely suggestion I just want to play new high level content in this game lol
I do think that there would have to be more than one raid, perhaps 1-3 pre vana (knight elite to defender elite) and 1-3 post vana with some being so hard we need LD classes just to cope. Though I do agree that an 8 player DaN style level would probably crash the servers. In addition, maybe as well as having all of the levels in the clockworks (though I think it would have to be like 1 in 25,considering how many I am suggesting) maybe have some of the less lucrative (though still better than the equivalent Boss) raids have a chance to come up as a danger mission.
P.S. Hi Glacies big fan #I(used to)listentoAP
I think 6-player parties would be good, but you need to make sure that standard enemies don't get too much health otherwise it's not hard to kill them, just takes a long time and leaves more opportunities to have teammates mess with your groove.
However boss monsters can have health buffed for each player added still. "Common boss" enemies, such as trojans, dreadnaughts, and giant lichen colonies, could also receive the health boost. Certain other large monsters such as lichen colonies, alpha wolvers, and lumbers could also stack up health, but all other enemies would remain with health maxed at 4 players, maybe up to 5 players.
Anyways, at this point, you would need large boss areas, and a reason to lead a larger party. Potentially you could have two separate parties that join together for the boss - something treacherous enough for you to call in backup. Lockdown class shields would be amazing for this sort of situation, such as strikers rushing in to assist a normal-shielded party, or perhaps a normal group of knights that comes in and destroys stuff as recons scout ahead and solve puzzles.
Would likely need new exciting bosses behind these. Having two tortodrones + a new tortomega, all at once with some respawning mecha knights, devilites, or greavers would definitely keep the heat up. Other boss ideas can be double collectors + the grinchlin assault final battlepod, a trio of wolver legends (vog, skolver, snarbolax), a tier 3 Margrel with two grimalkins that want to ruin your day + respawning silkwing, or perhaps this Rock Golem boss battle I came up with a while back.
I would say having two squads doing their own thing for most of the level would be good, perhaps buffing the other party through certain ways or assisting when possible, but the teams would not group up until the end.
Maybe have certain parts of the level in which puzzles needing more than one person are evident; such as switches that need to be hit at (relatively, were human after all) the same time. Or bits where ghost blocks block one part of the party, and not the other, and the party needs to help each other (ICMF attempts to do this but it just devolves into a gate blocking troll fest rather quickly) ,and party buttons thwart any attempts to trap your teammates on the the other side of the map.
About health scaling though, if you look at other MMOs that have raids, their raid trash mobs do take longer to kill than open-world ones. So the enemies should be probably about as hard as the health scaling would be. For example, enemies usually die to one or two brandish charges on solo elite. In an 8-player raid, instead of increasing the number of enemies, make each maybe react/move faster and have enough health to not be one-shot by an entire party's brandish charges. Otherwise, no matter how many enemies you put on the screen, they will all die instantly to 8 Nitronomes, or Combusters, or Blitzes, or whatever the best AoE weapon for the monster type happens to be.
On a similar note, and building off what I said in my last post, health should only scale down to a point. In keeping with the SK theme of "cooperation is encouraged, but not required", This instance should be technically solo-able. However, the enemies' health should scale down to around the level of a normal 4-man party. That means, if you were to solo this run, it would be equivalent to doing a normal run while dragging 3 dead knights.
Another option for health scaling and difficulty is to have the missions take place on lower depths, probably 30+, without introducing new gear tiers or only doing so as rewards for said missions. That way all the numbers are higher, like they should be, but the levels become more solo-able after running them several times because of the better gear (as well as the knowledge of the run).
Also, some existing ideas of bosses and runs that could be used as a basis for this "raid":
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/78190
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/75049
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/74848
Health scaling is +33% per party member after the first, so it shouldn't be an issue.
1 party member = 100%
4 party members = 200% (199% but who cares)
6 party members = 266%
8 party members = 333%
However the ratio of health over what a full party normally entails would be different and more accepting-
4 party members = 100% of health with 4 party members
6 party members = 133%
8 party members = 166%
So a lot tankier? Yes. But hardly unreasonably tankier. You'd have twice as many people to dish out damage and people already kill everything before I get there.
If I may quote a great man...
"Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. The event is about to start. Tonight we will treat you with a classic masterpiece, 'Ode to Lag'. We have two knights playing the Nitronome, another two playing the Irontech, another two playing the elegant Big Angry, and four playing the masterful Pulsar. If your connection is not absolutely perfect and sterilized of any trace of lag you will spontaneously combust within ten seconds of the performance beginning."
~The One And Only
Anybody want to party up and see if we all can get disconnected? I got nitrome and electron vortex.
I don't think the playerbase is large enough to support 8 player raids. The bulk of my play is in groups of two, not because it's better but because it's hard enough to locate player 2, let alone players 3, 4 and with your suggestion 5 through 8.
Maybe if it was lucrative enough? It would have to effectively out-money-make the merchants, so that they'd actually want to do it. If it was easy peasy it could also make use of the FSC farmers, but IDK.
OK OK OK I've got it! Make it super rare, like the Margrel fight but not event oriented and on the spot. So like one in a hundred clockwork tunnels during non-events have a special entrance that lets you create a party. That way you can't sell it and have to invite your friends.. and since they all want the rewards, they'll actually go on it with you.