First in Force.

[maestrom]

Hey folks!

I've been reading a lot of craziness on the forums lately and I wanted to see what people think about raid rules. This is what I think would work. I wanted to make some acknowledgements and assumptions to start out with though.

First. I'm fully aware that the staff "likes" it the way things are and that any major changes like the one I'm about to suggest are unlikely. Thinking about this kinda stuff is just fun for me and I wanted to see what other people thought.

Second. I'm really not looking to start a fight here. Maybe FTE is really the "best" way to do things. I'm perfectly happy to be convinced that FTE leads to a healthier, happier, more fun server. To that end, go wild with comparing different scenarios under both rulesets and why one or the other yields a better result.

The Rule: A guild or alliance may at one time claim one unclaimed target by: (1) gathering its raid force in the zone where the target spawns and (2) communicating clearly to the zone, and to any party who asks, which target the guild or alliance intends to claim. Once a claim is made, the claiming guild or alliance must maintain its raid force in the zone or forfeit its claim. A guild or alliance has 2 hours from the spawn of the target to kill its target, at which point the target becomes FTE. Unclaimed targets are FTE.

Definitions:

Alliance: A group of two or more guilds that have agreed in advance and on the P99 forums to act together for the purposes of FIF. Formation/Dissolution of an alliance will take effect 7 days after both guilds have posted in the appropriate P99 forum.

Raid Force: This term would need negotiation and would be target specific. One objective way to address this issue would be to look at raid force sizes for the target for the past 5-6 kills and take an average.

Target: This is the one that needs the most negotiation. Statue but not AoW? NToV targets but not Aary? I think that generally, Target = 1 single mob + anything it triggers. This would keep people from claiming AoW and then another guild claiming Statue and then sitting on Statue for the full 2 hours to grief the AoW claimant. Similarly, there would be problems with Aary that would need to get worked out. I know currently Rampage is the only guild doing most of NToV, but it won't stay that way forever.

The reason I like this system is it forces guilds to prioritize targets and it allows smaller guilds to pick up lower priority targets without fear of groups of Uber_Guild_1 alts from jumping past them to snipe a Trak kill. Similarly, there is relatively small opportunity to "steal" targets through rule lawyering here. There's no reason to train trash away, because you can take your time and clear it. Any petitionquesting would take place at IZ, without trains, and would be over whether or not the raid force was actually in the zone, which can be pretty easily tracked.

Let me know what you guys think!

[Samoht]

Sounds impossible to enforce.

[maestrom]

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

Sounds impossible to enforce.

I don't really see how this could be harder to enforce than the current model described by sirken in his most recent chat.

No need for competing fraps or trains or rule lawyering.

[Samoht]

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

I don't really see how this could be harder to enforce than the current model described by sirken in his most recent chat.

Logs vs he-said-she-said.

[maestrom]

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

Logs vs he-said-she-said.

I guess I'm not understanding the situation you're imagining. /who says 60 guildA in the zone. GuildB says "nuh uh they only have 10 people". Should be pretty easy to check who is right...

[am0n]

I like your idea.

Unfortunately, as you said, the server staff, who don't play on the server, like things how they are. And the people who are friendly with the server staff also likes things how they are, because they get most of the kills and aren't particularly interested in seeing smaller guilds get in on the fun.

In the end, it probably will be harder to police, since a guild can have multiple forces, claiming multiple spawns, and just argue that at the time they were asked in Zone A which spawn they were claiming, they claimed the spawn in Zone A. But five minutes later, when asked in Zone B, they changed their plans and claimed the target in Zone B.

What it comes down to is shitheads will be shitheads when it comes to pixels.

[Samoht]

You seem to assume that the top-end guilds on this server have some kind of courtesy. They do not. If a guild is deemed to be moving too slow in the eyes of another, they will be leapfrogged.

Also, who is to determine what arbitrary amount of bodies constitutes a "force?" Are you going to set it per encounter? Will the values be adjusted down as the expected gear values move up?

No. Your solution is not better than the existing one.

One thing you have to remember is that this server caters to a specific class of man-children. You have to accommodate the worst in them, not the best. A FTE gives a clear log of who was the first to engage the mob, regardless of the amount of training or general douchebaggery occurring. Asking these people to agree to who was there first in force would turn the emphasis from something automatic like FTE to something that would have to be proven after the fact on every raid target.

You're basically moving the onus from legitimate kills to legitimate force, which still leaves room for young lawyers to skew the interpretation.

This is why they moved to instances on live.

[Morlaeth]

This is so 2010.

[Oleris]

listen to sirkens last twitch broadcast about the issues FIF brought....

[maestrom]

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

You seem to assume that the top-end guilds on this server have some kind of courtesy. They do not. If a guild is deemed to be moving too slow in the eyes of another, they will be leapfrogged.

Also, who is to determine what arbitrary amount of bodies constitutes a "force?" Are you going to set it per encounter? Will the values be adjusted down as the expected gear values move up?

No. Your solution is not better than the existing one.

One thing you have to remember is that this server caters to a specific class of man-children. You have to accommodate the worst in them, not the best. A FTE gives a clear log of who was the first to engage the mob, regardless of the amount of training or general douchebaggery occurring. Asking these people to agree to who was there first in force would turn the emphasis from something automatic like FTE to something that would have to be proven after the fact on every raid target.

You're basically moving the onus from legitimate kills to legitimate force, which still leaves room for young lawyers to skew the interpretation.

This is why they moved to instances on live.

I make no assumptions about whether a guild is courteous or not.

Under this rule, if you leapfrog, you get spanked.

I discussed in my post an idea for what I think would be a workable guide for "raid force".

I guess "give them everything because they'll break the rules if they don't get what they want" isn't a satisfying solution for me, which lead me to write this up.

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

listen to sirkens last twitch broadcast about the issues FIF brought....

FIF was never the rule here. It has always been FTE (aside from rotations). The reason FTE has evolved into the silliness it is now is 5-6 raid forces would camp on top of spawns and kill him within seconds. This wouldn't happen with FIF because only the guild with the claim would have a right to kill the target.

FIF moves the fixation of a right to kill a mob from the moment is engaged to the moment a raid force arrives in the zone.