Raid Changes

[Daldolma]

Poop-socking is far better for server health than one mega-guild dominating content by perma-tracking 96 hour windows and having 30 raiders available at any time of any day. But poop-socking could be solved, too. Instead of the silly "first raid force" rule that resulted in hours upon hours of poop-socking, just make it FTE. It will take guilds 30 minutes to arrive, buff, and wait on a pop. Every guild that wants a shot can show up and pray for FTE, same as everyone else. After a few weeks of that absolute misery, you'd have a rotation.

It absolutely would alleviate the dominance of the top guilds, by the way, if implemented by FTE rather than first raid force. TMO can be as big and mobile and "determined" as they want. If 150 people from 5 different guilds are sitting on VS's spawn point hoping for FTE, TMO's odds are pretty crappy relative to the 90% they're claiming now. Ditto for every other mob.

Obviously that scenario would be an absolute mess, but that's the point. Things have to get bad before they can get better. EQ Classic raiding worked because everyone had the power to make life miserable for everyone else unless there was at least some degree of cooperation. That created a community. The current rules minimize friction and make GMs' lives easier, but they do that by creating a bastardized version of EQ raiding. Most raid mobs are uncontested because the current rules just threw progressively more ridiculous obstacles in the way of raid mobs until only one guild was willing to keep trying.

I don't see what the issue would be with classic variance and FTE rules. If you're worried about disputes, implement a FTE-shout. I don't understand how there can be any disagreement that the current raiding scene is broken. There's only one raiding guild, and they had 77 members at an uncontested raid last night. Does that sound classic to anyone?

[Nlaar]

bump for great thread.

[Splorf22]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Poop-socking is far better for server health than one mega-guild dominating content by perma-tracking 96 hour windows and having 30 raiders available at any time of any day. But poop-socking could be solved, too. Instead of the silly "first raid force" rule that resulted in hours upon hours of poop-socking, just make it FTE. It will take guilds 30 minutes to arrive, buff, and wait on a pop. Every guild that wants a shot can show up and pray for FTE, same as everyone else. After a few weeks of that absolute misery, you'd have a rotation.

This is actually a pretty reasonable idea; I'm surprised no one has pointed this out before.

All things being equal though I think racing is more fun than rotations. Its just that racing in the same zone doesn't work very well.

[Daldolma]

Racing is definitely more fun -- it's just not feasible. With variance, an enormous guild will emerge and absorb its way to domination until there's really no competition left. Size rules. We've seen that play out. Without variance, a mess in the endgame would inevitably lead to rotations between a handful of capable, mid-sized guilds.

The only solutions to allow racing and competition would be totally foreign to classic EQ and would change the game itself. PvP in raid areas is the best idea I've heard, but that's not classic blue EverQuest. It would be a different game. Allowing training might help create some competition, but then you have to deal with griefers that are just training endlessly for the sake of ruining an entire guild's day.

[Lostprophets]

I understand the staffs debunkle here. but we're currently living in a separate era of P99 than it was back in 2009-2010. Back then it was IB Vs Transcendence with a Splash of Divinity there WAS a server raid rotation, and it worked fine, and no disrespect but the way I remember it IB was butt-hurt so bad that they didn't get all the pixels they got this variance, not the server...after that It mutated into a big IB Vs DA Poop sock session, with other raiding guilds just getting planar armor and very luckilly getting a dragon/god/demi verrrrrrry rarely....like 1 in 4~ months.

I have been here since 09 myself, I can't honestly make one real complaint about the server other than the variance being a nightmare. It really needs to be greatly taken in consideration upon the player bases comments, and polls. 80+% of us want it gone.

If we randomly repop the server once a week like i mentioned at the beginning of the thread (and keep Draco/Maestro/Other 3 dayers on 3 day timers following their deaths), the lesser guilds WOULD have a chance at getting things, and would be content with that...Currently, we cannot.

Why?

This is a 13 year old game on an emulated server and as much as we all love and appreciate what the staff are doing..most people have jobs and lives and cant live around a bat phone or sitting around tracking a mob 24/7-365. Currently there is Two guilds and ONLY two guilds able to do this due to their freakishly large member base. and that results in what you guys don't want as quoted By Rogeans quote a few posts ago.. "alleviate the dominance of top guilds over the rest of them". thats what's happening now.

We gotta have lives, and have fun but, we all gotta have balance and not all day every day EQ.

[Nlaar]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

One huge difference that I've witnessed on p99 compared to my eqlive server experience is the massive amounts of players per raiding guild.

On classic live, I'm not sure if it was the inter-guild conflicts, lack of enough loot to go around, or generally wanting to compete, but there were never guilds this large.


Why so large, raid guilds?

The answers may be found within this thread.

Spoiler: Large variances => Large tracking jobs => Large guilds.

[Nirgon]

The compass and pet window needed to go. Quick fixes to make the server much more classic.

[falkun]

Originally Posted by Nlaar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Spoiler: Large variances => Large tracking jobs => Large guilds.

Its less about the tracking and more about being able to mobilize a kill-capable raid force at any hour of the day. Trak at 3AM on a Saturday night, we got this! CT at 2:45PM on a Thursday, we got this! I definitely remember being on Live and going "well, its midnight, but High Priest is still up. Good luck rest of server, this guild is calling it a night!"

[Writ3r]

Mostly the reason variance got put in is because there was more than the 2 guilds finally competing for raid targets way back when and a few select individuals threw hissy fits aka the dawn of the first rule lawyers to get this enacted so they could benefit themselves/guild and horde loot for their RMT transactions.

Variance never helped anything other than the pockets of a few individuals which i am assuming still remains the case otherwise with this much of the populace speaking out it would indeed be removed to cater to the CLASSIC experience. Not to mention improve the overall enjoyment of the majority actually playing the game.

It is just getting ridiculous how contradictory the statements of the staff have been over the course of time especially within this particular issue. Nilbog needs to listen to his own intuition and close out these outside influences who want to please a select minority since after all it is HIS project and i know he leans more towards cooperation, healthy community, and CLASSIC situations in game.

[Asher]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Poop-socking is far better for server health than one mega-guild dominating content by perma-tracking 96 hour windows and having 30 raiders available at any time of any day. But poop-socking could be solved, too. Instead of the silly "first raid force" rule that resulted in hours upon hours of poop-socking, just make it FTE. It will take guilds 30 minutes to arrive, buff, and wait on a pop. Every guild that wants a shot can show up and pray for FTE, same as everyone else. After a few weeks of that absolute misery, you'd have a rotation.

It absolutely would alleviate the dominance of the top guilds, by the way, if implemented by FTE rather than first raid force. TMO can be as big and mobile and "determined" as they want. If 150 people from 5 different guilds are sitting on VS's spawn point hoping for FTE, TMO's odds are pretty crappy relative to the 90% they're claiming now. Ditto for every other mob.

Obviously that scenario would be an absolute mess, but that's the point. Things have to get bad before they can get better. EQ Classic raiding worked because everyone had the power to make life miserable for everyone else unless there was at least some degree of cooperation. That created a community. The current rules minimize friction and make GMs' lives easier, but they do that by creating a bastardized version of EQ raiding. Most raid mobs are uncontested because the current rules just threw progressively more ridiculous obstacles in the way of raid mobs until only one guild was willing to keep trying.

I don't see what the issue would be with classic variance and FTE rules. If you're worried about disputes, implement a FTE-shout. I don't understand how there can be any disagreement that the current raiding scene is broken. There's only one raiding guild, and they had 77 members at an uncontested raid last night. Does that sound classic to anyone?

Well said.

Asher