Leapfrogging

[Rogean]

So I'm curious.

People who played live back in the day, on servers that did NOT have forced raid mob rotations, how did the GM's there handle a situation where Guild A is clearing trash towards a raid boss and is completely leapfrogged by Guild B which rushes to engage the mob when Guild A sits down to med. Obviously this is one large reason we are hesitant to go with a first to engage policy, but I'm curious to hear the answers and suggestions.

Also keep in mind there may frequently be situations where two guilds start clearing at the same time, leapfrogging eachother.

[azeth]

On Rodcet Nife the first guild to engage trash (drakes on the way to NToV named, trash Giants toward King etc) had a player-implemented "right" to whichever named they so choose.

If Zone X had named A + B. Guilds 1, 2, 3 could be inside waiting for forces to gather, but if Guild 4 shows up and starts clearing, they get whichever target they so choose.

In the situation where we saw camped mages for CoH, this same "rule" stayed true. GM's did get involved, unsure how frequently, and afaik the guild who best argued that it was the first to start clearing, was allowed to stay.

[Rogean]

On Rodcet Nife the first guild to engage trash (drakes on the way to NToV named, trash Giants toward King etc) had a player-implemented "right"

What if a guild starts clearing trash with only a single group while it waits for the rest of it's members to show up?

[azeth]

What if a guild starts clearing trash with only a single group while it waits for the rest of it's members to show up?

edited - It really (always) came down to who best provided proof they were first to start clearing with a reasonable amount of people. Reasonable meaning enough people to handle the target, not just the trash.

Guild 1 is sitting at the ent to NToV with 10 people (even a solid 10 people, main tank, clerics, whomever) and decides to start trash pulling while the remaining 10 show up for Eashen. If Guild 2 arrives 20 strong with Guild 1 still around 10, they would have been able to technically "leapfrog" Guild 1 by finishing trash pulls on the way to Eashen.

In the above example I can see where/how GM's would get involved if for instance Guild 1 (the one that was leapfrogged due to low numbers) ended up with 20 people in their raid before Guild 2 made it to Eashen.

So who technically gets the named? Consider - Guild 1 started trash, but without numbers. Guild 2 arrived with reasonable numbers and began trash, but Guild 1 accumulated a raid force before Eashen was engaged. In this instance I'm positive a GM would have granted the first chance at Eashen to Guild 2 IF they could provide proof via screenshot of Guild 1's numbers at the time Guild 2 engaged trash with a raid-sized force.

[Melias]

During Luclin the first guild to kill Blob 1 in VT had claim to the rest of the zone until they left.

Also, single group clears for a raid were never really acknowledged.

GMs didn't intervene unless training occured (in which case it was ultimately just hearsay), or the other guild tried to killsteal the raid mob. They let the community sort it out 95% of the time.

[Supreme]

So I'm curious.

People who played live back in the day, on servers that did NOT have forced raid mob rotations, how did the GM's there handle a situation where Guild A is clearing trash towards a raid boss and is completely leapfrogged by Guild B which rushes to engage the mob when Guild A sits down to med. Obviously this is one large reason we are hesitant to go with a first to engage policy, but I'm curious to hear the answers and suggestions.

Also keep in mind there may frequently be situations where two guilds start clearing at the same time, leapfrogging eachother.

They did nothing. One group one kill..one loot. Solusek Ro was a good example so was Nameless. If your group got the kill you got the loot. End of discussion. Guilds would usually wait for them to either wipe then clean up the mess or engage and hope their DPS group got the XP.

At some point sony would recognize that having a server with TONS of raid worthy players and guilds was not financially effective and thus created other servers with /movelog to alleviate the problem.

I am sure that if GMs/Sony would have conceptualized the idea of "instancing" they would have implemented it pre-GOD era to retain player base as well. IMHO.

[Bumamgar]

I never had GMs enforce any sort of leapfrogging rules for single named (ie: trash clearing in Fear or clearing down to the Royals in Chardok, etc). There were only two cases on EMarr where there were leapfrogging standards that were upheld by GMs: NToV in Velious and Vex Thal in Luclin. In both cases there was a "key mob" that once killed was considered claim to the rest of the wing/zone. For NToV it was Aary, and for VT it was Blob 1.

To avoid getting leapfrogged on single mobs guilds developed strategies to minimize the risk of being leapfrogged. For example, instead of clearing down to the royals, a common tactic was to pull them to the zoneline. Other tactics involved training away the trash so that the raid could move in to the main target without clearing, etc.

[Humerox]

Found a link to a 3 day Guild Summit in San Diego hosted my Smed and crew. The problem is going to be your involvement in server issues and how they are handled. Your time is important...you don't need to be babysitting 24/7, and a system needs to be in place for the azzhats. Designing rules for submission of problems may be a start:



Policy:

The following issues may be submitted for a Guild Critical issue.
1) Spawn Disputes (When NPC triggers or Targets are spawned)
2) Raid Disruption (Training, Harassment, Kill Stealing, Leap Frogging, and Ninjalooting)
3) Character Flag Issues (NPC being under the world or not spawning). This may only be used if this affects a significant portion of your guild.
4) Incorrect Event Functionality

Guild Leaders will be limited to submitting a request 3 times a week during In-Game business hours Monday through Sunday (designate a time). We will be able to verify that the Guild Leaders are sending in the request based on their email address. If you have a new email address, please update your registration information, and let us know.

Procedure:
1) The Guild Leader submits a request to : <email>
2) Provide the one of the following text on the subject line: Guild Critical – Spawn Dispute, Guild Critical – NPC Name spawned, Guild Critical – Raid Disruption, Guild Critical – Flagging Issue, or Guild Critical – Event Dysfunction
3) Provide the Guild Leader, Guild, and Server name.
4) Please be as detailed as possible in your message by providing all parties involved including character names, NPC names, zone

Original article is:

HERE (http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?18413-SoE-Guild-Summit-Report)

[Kraun]

The GM's did nothing on the servers i played. Guild A cleared to Trak then would med .Guild B would just rush past and engage first. GM would tell Guild A tough luck and stop spamming petitions or your all banned.

[Starklen]

You dealt with it the ski mask way.

[Ravhin]

Indeed - I was a Guide in the classic/Kunark era, at which time only "kill stealing" was an enforceable offense. KSing defined only on a mob to mob basis, i.e. whichever player or group that engages a mob first has the right to kill it, and if another player/group engages after with the intent to KS that was against the rules.

This was almost always applied to exp situations and never raids for a few reasons. One, ability to verify. Typically we would get a petition from a group about some asshat KSing them, would go invis and sit around for a few minutes and see it actually happen, and then could do something. For a raid target it's a one time deal and we weren't going to sit around and watch guilds buff/ready to engage on the off chance that another guild was going to KS. Two, it was a per mob rule, so no concept of trash mobs. Ie it would have been technically legal for Guild A to clear giants leading up to Nag and then have Guild B engage, as long as Guild A hadn't actually agroed Nag when Guild B engaged.

Likely not the answer you were looking for, as I doubt the question was "what was the official GM policy?" but rather "what would be a good policy?"

rav

[Anaiyah]

I think the main point is getting a bit lost here. The methods of working out kills was usually dynamic. GMs here should not aim to provide a static ruleset for these situations, they should realize that an equilibrium will emerge naturally so long as players have freedom.

EQ was never pretty and nice. Servers were not havens of cooperation between high end guilds, however, mutual agreements ALWAYS emerged naturally.

I find your example of leapfrogging to be pretty unrealistic. Only a guild full of utter retards (literally) is going to see another guild zone in and continue just clearing trash then take a med break at the boss. That never happened in live, so it shouldnt be an issue that you worry about. What would happen is they would stop clearing trash, and a standoff of who is going to be oom and be clearing trash would begin...of course followed by the guilds that arent full of retards coming to SOME kind of arrangement.

Player freedom and responsibility is the only thing gms need to worry about with raid rules, especially if this is an emulation of classic.

[apollyon arali]

Not knowing how many guilds are able to kill cazic on 1999 etc...

I recall on my server only 2 guilds were able to do ubermob A...lets say Trak for example. They were able to work out a rotation. Guild A gets Trak, if they failed that night (agreed upon time to kill OR number of attempts)..then Guild B gets to kill. Then the next pop would be Guild B since Guild A failed thier attempt. Then Guild A again..etc etc.

yard trash was first come first serve in between spawns. Of course when Trak popped for example, then the guild who was up for that kill cleared trash too.

anyways..takes a little coopreration and agreements between guilds.

[mmiles8]

From my old Guide Handbook:

8.2.3 Contested Spawn Complaints

When a complaint is received indicating that a spawn or kill is contested, a disruption investigation should first be initiated according to the procedures of section 8.2.2 to determine if harassment or Zone/Area disruption is occurring. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, instruct the parties involved in the contested spawn situation to work out a compromise. Then leave the scene.

If another complaint is received involving the same spawn site, another disruption investigation should be initiated. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, if any of the parties involved were involved in the initial situation, establish a compromise for the parties to which the parties are required to abide. The compromise should be as described in section 8.2.3.1. Any party refusing to abide by the compromise established by the CS Representative should be issued a warning for disruption.

On PvP servers, where players can reach a solution to the contested spawn situation, the CS Representative does not need to require the players to share the spawn.

8.2.3.1 The compromise will require all parties to take turns killing the spawn(s). All parties involved in the contested spawn should be instructed to use /random 0 100 to choose a number. The CS Representative then uses /random 0 100. The individual with the closest number to the CS Representative’s number will be next in the rotation. The CS Representative then bases the rest of the rotation order on how close the other parties’ numbers were to theirs. The compromise established by a CS Representative must be objective and not require the CS Representative to choose one customer over another based on subjective criteria. The CS Representative is the arbiter in any disputes in establishing the compromise.

[Dukat]

If you've been following the discussion then you probably know where I stand on this matter :)

I think we really need to get out of forum court and start playing this game the way it was meant to be played.

[Yoite]

We split into two parts. The main raid that cleared to the target, and the "bouncers" that PKed others as they entered the zone.

only time a leapfrog would occur is if guild b gathers enough force to overcome the bouncers at which point we would either train the trash on em and evac and go back to clearing or we would all get killed and lose our raid target.

good ole Tallon Zek

GMs never got invloved. in our guilds case, every group had a wiz or druid for evac. if we got trained while on a target we would all evac our groups and either start again or have an epic pvp fight at the entrance with the opposing guild.

[Goobles]

What if a guild starts clearing trash with only a single group while it waits for the rest of it's members to show up?

I don't think you remember the beginning of this entire shit blizzard when it started with IB/Trans. Trans camped Naggy for 12 hours, and IB was in full force, heading to Naggy and Trans had like 3 groups. So we(IB) cleared all the trash, and they brought more reinforcements after we cleared the path. They got 3 attempts to bring Naggy down, since Wenai told us that if we engaged we would be banned.

----

Now, the best way to handle this bullshit is to say that a capable force must be present and active to claim a mob or a zone. That's how it was handled on SoD. Oh, and poopsocking sucks. 3day spawn timer with 12 hour variance would be a great idea. I know it's not the 'classic' 7 day spawn timer, but neither is the current spawn variance.

[Nizzarr]

I would go with what Mmiles8 posted.

If someone(see guild,alliances or whatever) contest a spawn, then it should go on rotation until both or all parties get one spawn. Subsequent spawns wouldnt be "randomed"

Example: IB and DA are in fear and CT spawns(which also brings dracoliche back up) Both guilds contest the spawns and random for dracoliche and ct. Whoever loses gets the next dracoliche and/or the next CT.

Next CT spawns and Remedy is there as well as whoever lost the first ct, they do the same shenanigans.

Contesting a spawn would need to be 20 poeple of the same guild, alliances or group. Probably same guild to avoid abuse of the rules.

You can contest a spawn until the mob is at 97% health.

Failure to comply with the contest rules, your guild is disbanded and all members banned for 10 days.

[Kelven]

On Rodcet Nife the first guild to engage trash (drakes on the way to NToV named, trash Giants toward King etc) had a player-implemented "right" to whichever named they so choose.

If Zone X had named A + B. Guilds 1, 2, 3 could be inside waiting for forces to gather, but if Guild 4 shows up and starts clearing, they get whichever target they so choose.

In the situation where we saw camped mages for CoH, this same "rule" stayed true. GM's did get involved, unsure how frequently, and afaik the guild who best argued that it was the first to start clearing, was allowed to stay.

Azeth's statement is right on the nose.

Whoever starts clearing to the boss first, has claim. If you wiped then the next in line got to engage ( after 100% regen of the boss - this was highly enforced. )

If you started clearing with less then 2 groups, you were usually leapfrogged and ignored. BUT the force leapfrogging you must be large enough to take out the boss with the numbers they had leapfrogged you with.

ex:
Guild-A has 12 members and starts clearing FG's , Guild-B runs up with 14 members and tries to leapfrog you. This wasn't acceptable as the raid forces were too similar in numbers, you would have to jump the small group with at least 18-20+ people.

This also didn't apply if the forces were 20-25 members vs 40. Just because you're bigger, if the 20-25 man force started clearing before you did, they have rights.

( rotation was only adopted after guilds would repeatedly camp the same spawn over and over for days, claiming the "we cleared first" rights. )

[Nizzarr]

It's practically a rotation between the guilds willing to show up for spawns. The time to contest most mob will be so low that not everyone will be able to mobilize 20 poeple to contest.

This effectively removes a bit of poopsocking

[Rogean]

Just to clarify.. this has to do with a mob that is already spawned. We have a plan in place that we are announcing shortly that will deal with mobs that haven't spawned yet.

[Frankee]

Yea, this is why i loved playing on PVP server. Had a problem? you could solve it yourself.

Personally i think that if any guild gets in there and can get the kill, they deserve the kill. If a guild is willing to camp out a spawn and can get the players there before anyone else to secure that camp spot / spawn then so be it.

If you can't do the same then I don't see why other players should let you have a chance.

I believe that even in worst case scenario, you have 3 guilds waiting in zone for the pop watching, whoever can mobilize first and get the kill should get it. I think it would be fun to have 3 guilds hittin on the mob just to see who ends up with the kill and loot.

For example, earlier on the server our group was camping MM tunnel area, guy spawned with Crested Mistmoore Shield, we wiped trying to pull him and when we got back there was a high level mage working through the tunnel (respawns popped on us when we pulled).

I sent him a tell and politely asked if we could have the spawn because we were there for 3h+ and wiped on him and he said sure and let us have it and just passed it by which was really nice of him. If he decided to take this mob, what could we really have done? sit there, bitch and whine? petition a GM?

Nothing gives us the right to that mob in our opinion, I actually expected him to take it but it doesn't hurt to ask!

I mean, yes it helps if people respect camps and the CC checks work great and everyone has an understanding of that kind of play style. If your a dick and just rob peoples camps all the time then the players will know and hopefully outcast you properly.

I'm more of a "hey, lets all work together and down this boss and share the loot with /random" if other guilds showed up and i was leading one of the parties there, but I think its dumb if you have a guild camping or "in queue" to kill the mob and a guild is sitting there ready to go and some kinda superficial player rule is holding the guild that is ready back from the kill.

Just my mentality from playing on PvP servers, maybe I'm a little jaded...

Thats my 2 cp anyway!

[Rogean]

Let's say on topic. Obviously this is not a pvp server and pvp solutions are pointless to post here, I've already deleted one post about it.

We're talking about a mob that's already spawned. Don't worry about a mob that hasn't spawned yet.

[Anaiyah]

If there is a plan for future spawns it should apply to an already spawned mob as well...

I fail to see a reason why you shouldn't apply whatever new rules are coming to the current situation. If they cant deal with a spawned mob what CAN they deal with lol?

[azeth]

If there is a plan for future spawns it should apply to an already spawned mob as well...

I fail to see a reason why you shouldn't apply whatever new rules are coming to the current situation. If they cant deal with a spawned mob what CAN they deal with lol?

I believe Rogean was talking about whether a mob was literally "spawned" as in up/alive versus poopsock camping.

[nilbog]

If there is a plan for future spawns it should apply to an already spawned mob as well...

I fail to see a reason why you shouldn't apply whatever new rules are coming to the current situation. If they cant deal with a spawned mob what CAN they deal with lol?

Stay on topic. This post contributes nothing but your opinion.

[Overcast]

/random 100? :)

[snifs]

On Tarew Marr, most guilds, followed a first to engage policy. Once, on a Zlandicar raid we totally engaged at the same time, so it became a KS thing. There were no hard feelings between the guilds...at least not nearly as bad as we have on P99 at the moment.

There was always at least 1 guild, that would leapfrog and try and KS, it's just something that happened, and was rarely that big of deal. The other guilds simply always prepared for it. When we saw them in zone, we'd be prepared for the boss kill, with buffs and mana, at anytime.

Rarely did GM's intervene, and when they did...they would follow a first to engage scenario.

Something like NToV was always...first to kill Aaryonar (sp?) got rights to NToV.

[Reiker]

I never had GMs enforce any sort of leapfrogging rules for single named (ie: trash clearing in Fear or clearing down to the Royals in Chardok, etc). There were only two cases on EMarr where there were leapfrogging standards that were upheld by GMs: NToV in Velious and Vex Thal in Luclin. In both cases there was a "key mob" that once killed was considered claim to the rest of the wing/zone. For NToV it was Aary, and for VT it was Blob 1.

Pretty much my experiences in classic. In progression on one ever cared about "rights mobs" it was a complete free-for-all.

[Rogean]

There was always at least 1 guild, that would leapfrog and try and KS, it's just something that happened, and was rarely that big of deal. The other guilds simply always prepared for it. When we saw them in zone, we'd be prepared for the boss kill, with buffs and mana, at anytime.

Don't confuse people now. Theres leapfrogging, and theres KS'ing. KS'ing is actually attacking a mob after another guild ALREADY engaged it and out dps'ing them to get the kill. Leapfrogging is running past a guild that has been preparing to kill the mob / did the trash clearing to a mob to engage the mob first.

[eqholmes]

On luclin it was pretty much the same way Snifs described it. Although I will say most guild on our server actually respected each other enough that the guild that wasn’t ready buff/mana/etc they would sit back and hope for a wipe so that they could pull the mob at whatever % he was down to.

Holmes 50 Nerco DA
Gretzky 50 Ranger DA

[falderon_MT]

I am seeing alot of what if's being posted....this is not rocket science imo.

The first guild with a FULL raid force in the zone should have the rights to the mob in question...just because 5 guys have camped it for 3 days doesn't mean squat. The Raid force that engages the mob first should have full rights...not some other 10 man team who has been farming trash imo.

[Dukat]

Don't confuse people now. Theres leapfrogging, and theres KS'ing. KS'ing is actually attacking a mob after another guild ALREADY engaged it and out dps'ing them to get the kill. Leapfrogging is running past a guild that has been preparing to kill the mob / did the trash clearing to a mob to engage the mob first.

Clearing the trash is a minor hurdle on the way to the raid target. I see no objective merit to clearing the trash first. The only thing that should count is how much DPS you can bring to the raid target itself. Whether you choose to clear the trash first, or attempt an interception is a matter of raid strategy.

[Abacab2]

First force regardless if it was 10 or if it was 72 to actually engage a mob was the guild that claimed the mob, upon engage other guilds could heckle on the sidelines and delay the other guild into a wipe.

[Nightblade]

On Quellious, there was a community ruling that anyone who showed activity to take down a mob, had the intent, and the forces able to do so, claimed it (like moving to clear trash to safely pull it, etc etc). The vast majority of the player base would abide by it, and even then, if a group was missing 2-3 people that would be there for an average 'take down attempt', an incoming group would standby and wait to see if guild A killed it, wiped, or didn't have the intent of killing it.

Then again, most of Quellious was also nice enough to talk to each other about the intent of a raid in a zone, and see to some sort of agreement. When I was working on my rogue's epic, our guild zoned into Kedge at the same time as another, but instead of racing to the end for the robe I needed and hoped we killed him first, our guilds joined forces to kill him. They had a bard that needed the spine, I needed the robe. A win for all sides.

Would that we could live in a more perfect world, eh?

[Phallax]

On Quellious, there was a community ruling that anyone who showed activity to take down a mob, had the intent, and the forces able to do so, claimed it (like moving to clear trash to safely pull it, etc etc). The vast majority of the player base would abide by it, and even then, if a group was missing 2-3 people that would be there for an average 'take down attempt', an incoming group would standby and wait to see if guild A killed it, wiped, or didn't have the intent of killing it.

Then again, most of Quellious was also nice enough to talk to each other about the intent of a raid in a zone, and see to some sort of agreement. When I was working on my rogue's epic, our guild zoned into Kedge at the same time as another, but instead of racing to the end for the robe I needed and hoped we killed him first, our guilds joined forces to kill him. They had a bard that needed the spine, I needed the robe. A win for all sides.

Would that we could live in a more perfect world, eh?

This is how Tunare was for the most part. It sounds like alot of you grew up on very immature and greedy servers. Tunare, just had a mutual unwritten law, first to be in zone clearing with a force had claim, simple as that. I only recall 1 leapfrog moment with Ssra Emp and a GM just came and checked logs of who tagged the first trash to lay claim.

[Bubbles]

lol we're barely to page 4, and Rogean's already sorry he asked, I bet :)

[yaaaflow]

My raid solution that totally won't happen but would be fun: add a /raid tag for people, and when it is on if a raid mob spawns everyone with that tag is ported to a random zone and they can mobilize from there ;p Or just have raid mobs port out anyone in the zone or connecting zones upon spawn.

[Skope]

There wasn't much leapfrogging on Prexus, it was always quite civil. But here I've seen leapfrogging from guilds just to clear the yard trash with no targets up at all. It can get quite nasty and I don't honestly understand it at all...

I'd imagine it can be resolved by a "first to zone" or a "first to engage yard trash" rule, but that just plays into the poopsocking we're essentially trying to solve, so I'm not sure how effective that would really be. The problem is that it's very hard to prove any of that, regardless of the zone. It would be easier in hate, for example, but doing so in fear would be nearly impossible with the variety of camp locations people tend to sit on.

The best way to do it would be in having rules structured to prevent that sort of thing from occurring in the first place. Training alone can be hard enough to prove due to wall and social aggro, but trying to prove leapfrogging would be even more difficult.

[xorbier]

I never had GMs enforce any sort of leapfrogging rules for single named (ie: trash clearing in Fear or clearing down to the Royals in Chardok, etc). There were only two cases on EMarr where there were leapfrogging standards that were upheld by GMs: NToV in Velious and Vex Thal in Luclin. In both cases there was a "key mob" that once killed was considered claim to the rest of the wing/zone. For NToV it was Aary, and for VT it was Blob 1.

To avoid getting leapfrogged on single mobs guilds developed strategies to minimize the risk of being leapfrogged. For example, instead of clearing down to the royals, a common tactic was to pull them to the zoneline. Other tactics involved training away the trash so that the raid could move in to the main target without clearing, etc.

It was like this on my server too. You learned tactics to reduce leapfrogging and mobilizing quickly was key. Sometimes it was a fun race to the target!

[azeth]

It was like this on my server too. You learned tactics to reduce leapfrogging and mobilizing quickly was key. Sometimes it was a fun race to the target!

The race, to me, is concluded the moment a viable "Trash" target is pulled/killed by a raid-sized group.

example - Trakanon's "viable trash" of course would be the golems (golems right?). A guild who's started clearing (with a feasible Trakanon sized raid) from the Fungus Covered Scale Tunic area down to Trak cannot then be "leapfrogged" by a separate guild.

[fwaits]

On Drinal, if there was not an agreement between competing guilds for a zone/target, the generally accepted/enforced policy was first in zone with sufficient minimum raid force had rights. This was generally honored and worked fairly well. There are obviously details/specifics of this such as how many people is sufficient for the zone/mob in question, how long does that claim last (1 try, given time interval, etc), and such, but that's the general policy that was in place for the time I was around. (Up through GoD/OoW timeframe)

[Chicka]

First to engage means just that. Some encounters are regarded as multi-mob (e.g. NTOV) so FTE for the entire encounter is based on FTE the first mob. Clearing trash is not engaging the mob. There is no such thing as "leapfrog" unless the encounter has been engaged by guild A and guild B engages the next mob in the encounter.

Two rules (GM enforced): No training, no ksing. As has been previously mentioned the ks rule often wasn't enforced due to practicality, unless it was a common occurrence and could be predicted. The reality is most guilds realize that acting like asshats will get the same asshattery back at them (probably from multiple guilds on this server) - the net result for those guilds is a much harder time, more wipes, and less loot. It doesn't make sense in the end.

Whatever the rules turn into, please, please, do not have anything that gives precedence to who was in zone first - that would be poopsock all over again.

[Noleafclover]

Off-topic, sounds like you've got some sort of FFA anti-camping rules for before the mob spawns. AND I LOVE IT! Tracking/killing'd be awesome.

A solution to leapfrogging/ksing would be to use timers still, but only after the boss spawns. 15 claims, second has to have 15 to call time. Change the timer length for CT or any planar boss while trash is up to 1:30 or 2 hours to allow for clearing.

[Tronjer]

My old server had two top guilds claiming all current content and there was an unwritten rule between us to not involve GM's, since nobody really wanted some kind of forced rotation or stuff.

So when we got leapfrogged in Vex Thal once, we just sucked it up.

[Jeice]

There was zero enforcement, guilds would fight over the mobs and try to get there first. Leapfroging was sometimes part of Classic and thats something people knew and expected. Normally though if a guild was in doing something and another guild showed up they would sit and wait. If the guild wiped they would go steal the kill for obvious reasons, sometimes help the wiped guild do a CR... There was no rule on "saving" a target or requiring players to camp in a zone with 15 players for 48 hours so that they can be guaranteed the boss. I have yet to raid on P99, but from the rules I see and how certain things are dealt with I have to say its not close to the feel of playing real Classic. The whole thing of raiding back then was argueing with other guilds, making friendships with some and having pacts. The GM's did not play favorites or ban people for silly things, they let the kids play.

[Yukkers]

They made instances...

[Allizia]

In my experience rulings were made mostly on a "how do I get out of this with the least amount of drama" perspective from the GM's. As the top guild we were pretty much always ruled against regardless of the situation simple because another farm kill for us was less of a loss then an important or step up kill for an up and coming guild

It eventually got bad enough that a forced rotation was created

[Troy]

Like has been posted, officially the GM policy only considered single mobs at a time so you could leapfrog to your heart's content and GM's couldn't/shouldn't have done anything about it.

[rioisk]

So I'm curious.

People who played live back in the day, on servers that did NOT have forced raid mob rotations, how did the GM's there handle a situation where Guild A is clearing trash towards a raid boss and is completely leapfrogged by Guild B which rushes to engage the mob when Guild A sits down to med. Obviously this is one large reason we are hesitant to go with a first to engage policy, but I'm curious to hear the answers and suggestions.

Also keep in mind there may frequently be situations where two guilds start clearing at the same time, leapfrogging eachother.

I like that you're expressing public interest in this. Would you care to share whether new raid rules are being developed?

[yaaaflow]

Just to clarify.. this has to do with a mob that is already spawned. We have a plan in place that we are announcing shortly that will deal with mobs that haven't spawned yet.

reading comprehension ++

[kenzar]

Probably not much help to you Rogean, but on Rallos Zek the raiding guilds were pretty much left to there own devices. there was diplomacy and it worked well. but in the event some guild decided to "leapfrog" a raid target the GM's would tell us to resolve our own problems through the pvp mechanic enabled on the server, simple as that. to be honest most things on RZ were resolved using the pvp mechanic, might made right there, and i kind of miss that.

[Bardzilla]

GM's rule pretty much was whoever got the loot from dps, got the loot. Unless the GM witnessed something himself. The "player rules" (first come first serve) > all, and while there was some guilds that exceeded the player made expectations, those guilds were well known, and got the same respect they showed.
It worked well the race was fun, when you won, and sucked when you lost, just like any competition. And sometimes you would loose the race, but the guild would wipe from racing and you'd win the war.

[Goobles]

I stand by my 3day 12 hour spawn variance thing. There will be less of a craze and frenzy to get mobs. Esp. in Kunark.

[G13]

My raid solution that totally won't happen but would be fun: add a /raid tag for people, and when it is on if a raid mob spawns everyone with that tag is ported to a random zone and they can mobilize from there ;p Or just have raid mobs port out anyone in the zone or connecting zones upon spawn.

I thought of something similar

If you raid here you tag yourself with the /raid command

When a boss pops you get ported to a starting zone. You can't port from that zone either. You have to mobilize your force and run out of there. Would also be cool if you were not allowed out of the zone until you had a raid force of 15. Might encourage guild alliances and all sorts of nice little political movements. Something this server unfortunately lacks.

Wishful thinking but man that would be awesome

[eqdruid76]

There is only one solution that will even come close to working. And it's one you definitely don't want to do.

Spawn the raid mob manually, flag it as unkillable. Stand there until a raid force is assembled. At 15 players, it's their mob. When the poopsockers log on top of the mob, warp them out. When the next guild zones in to try to leapfrog, send them packing. When the first raid force nears the boss, flag it as killable.

This is the only way to ensure fairness among a playerbase of exploiters, kill-stealers, and douchebags. It's not the least bit classic, but neither is the attitude of the playerbase. It's akin to standing over a group of kids to make sure they don't hurt each other on the playground. But that's what they are; a bunch of kids. This crew can't handle fair-play or even friendly competition. They WANT to piss off their rivals. And they'll do it any way they can. And they get a huge thrill out of getting away with it.

Aye, you have much better things to do than babysit every raid kill on your server. Although, would it be any less time-consuming than dealing with the shit that's happening now on raid kills? You've already got one full-time babysitter in EC, and that's been effective. Might be something to think about. People still get their phat lewtz, and it could still be random...as random as you want it to be.

[Remfin]

On my server (Terris-Thule) they absolutely enforced no leapfrogging. There weren't that many disputes over the life of the server that I know of (at least not involving the top 2 guilds), but the ones that happened involved GMs dictating who had first claim and who had to back up.

Kunark will probably help a lot...you either had the wizards or you didn't for VS, and Trakanon was a long clear to fight over and potentially waste your time when someone was clearly on the way. And VP, of course, is obvious.

[Allizia]

This is the only way to ensure fairness among a playerbase of exploiters, kill-stealers, and douchebags. It's not the least bit classic, but neither is the attitude of the playerbase. It's akin to standing over a group of kids to make sure they don't hurt each other on the playground. But that's what they are; a bunch of kids. This crew can't handle fair-play or even friendly competition. They WANT to piss off their rivals. And they'll do it any way they can. And they get a huge thrill out of getting away with it.


Pretty much dead on, people on P99 don't want to compete against anything but each other. I started on a PvP server and there was actually more respect for each other there. It's amazing that the raiding community has actually devolved and the younger crowd was actually more mature and respectful then the same crowd 10 years later.

[Allizia]

On my server (Terris-Thule) they absolutely enforced no leapfrogging. There weren't that many disputes over the life of the server that I know of (at least not involving the top 2 guilds), but the ones that happened involved GMs dictating who had first claim and who had to back up.

Kunark will probably help a lot...you either had the wizards or you didn't for VS, and Trakanon was a long clear to fight over and potentially waste your time when someone was clearly on the way. And VP, of course, is obvious.

Kunark will be better for a month or so, but then all hell is going to break lose, mark my words =P Trak and VS are extremely important (much more than any current raid target) and people are going to go to absolutely any means necessary to get those kills

[mmiles8]

Aside from the policy and procedure I posted for a contested spawn, the rules for a mob that was already up were clear and simple. The first guild to engage with intent (engaging to kill rather than to stall or disrupt) and capability (if you couldn't kill it with what you engaged with, it was disruption, if folks trickled in after you had engaged, they had better be sitting on the sidelines in case you fail, and not joining in) to kill the mob had rights to it. If a guild engaged, buffed or not, another guild could not engage until that guild had succeeded or failed. Nitpicking semantics and trying to argue the letter of the law over the spirit of the law was simply ignored. The staff's determination was final.

If a guild engaged with a force too small to kill the boss, to buy time for the rest to arrive had action taken in line with disruption. There were no flat numbers to work technicalities around. The only rule that the staff had to abide by in making their determination was that the criteria used in making their determination could not be subjective (no determinations on who was better equipped to handle it with a smaller force, who deserved it more, etc).

In terms of leapfrogging, refer back to the old post on contested spawns. First visit, tell them to work it out themselves. If called back, /random 100 and suck it up.

After enough times of getting zero sympathy or entitlement, guilds will be less inclined to depend on the RNG, and start working out mutually beneficial agreements on their own.

The important thing in preventing the constant whining is to stick them with /randoms when they can't play nice. It was an incredibly effective long-term solution on live once implemented. If the staff decides to implement that as a final and unchanging policy, I think they'll see how effective it becomes for making folks work things out on their own.

[fastboy21]

on xev the player enforced rules for engagement were that:

1. once a force large enough to attack a named started clearing into a zone to get to a named they had the first shot at it. the second guild could remain in zone and follow behind and have a shot at the mob if the first guild wiped.

2. in some end-game zones there were gateway mobs that, once killed, gave you a shot at the next mobs for a certain period of time. For example, whichever guild killed aereyonar would have the rights to nameds in NTOV for 3 days.

It was easier on Xev because, being a split server, there were only a handful of real raid guilds capable of end game content. This changed around PoP and things predictably got more chaotic as more guilds entered into desired content.

***

The reason why things worked so well on Xev was that the players, especially the officers of the top two guilds, made arrangements with one another. It was not always pleasant, and there were occasional very nasty confrontations when players debated over who got to something first or whose turn it was at something. For the most part, however, the players kept things organized and came to recognized agreements on most major content.

The problem on p1999 is that, while we are following the normal timeline so far (that is, kunark/sky have not been opened), things here have progressed much farther than I recall them at this point on live classic. We have about a dozen guilds, maybe more, that can easily kill vox and naggy. There are more level 50s running around atm (and fewer lvl 1s) than there were at this point in classic.

I do remember classic content being a total total nitemare on Povar as far as guild competition. Maybe this is testament to the success of the GMs/Devs successfully recreating classic. From my recollection the only "fix" for any of this was the release of more raid content...that is to say, kunark.

Personally, I do not think that we need to release Kunark early (and perhaps it wouldn't be possible to do so if we wanted as the devs may not be ready), but I think the source of much frustration is the advanced progression of the server for where it is in the true classic timeline.

[Jaco]

On live everything was sum up into the "Play Nice Policy", you know the saying don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.

So when one guild was zoning into a plane no other guild would zone zone in to compete.
Same with a mob spawned, if one raid force is ready to engage, no one would rush them, but would wait till they either kill or fail.
Ofc after a failed attempt they would talk to 1st raid force to check wether they would give it another shot or if the 2nd raid force could go for it. Otherwise its killstealing, period.
It was basically the rules setup by the dominating guild(s) on my server, Mith Marr.

Spawn variance also encourages spawn camping and zerg guilds to sit 24/7 waiting for repop.. Please remove it, on live it was a set timer, so you don't "need" to camp, you come, if you are the first here you kill and if not you leave the place.
Just kick/port out/temp ban any guild that is camping an unspawned mob and won't see it anymore.

And please no rotation, if one guild is better than others at raiding then they deserve any kill, if others sit around semi afk or cant mobilize fast enough, then its too bad for them.

Oh yeah most importantly on live, GMs were actually enforcing the rules w/o any favoritism ... OOOPS did I say that ?!?!
If GMs were actually doing their duty, we wouldnt see such BS around. When people know they won't be punished because they have a GM friend or guildmate then they just act like idiots.
THIS is the problem you have to solve.

[mmiles8]

The reason why things worked so well on Xev was that the players...made arrangements with one another...the players kept things organized and came to recognized agreements on most major content.



Fastboy21 could not be a better testimonial to using the GM's policies from live.

Xev was where I was a Guide. It had a kickass SMT that cared, was professional, and went by the book.

The important thing in preventing the constant whining is to stick them with /randoms when they can't play nice. It was an incredibly effective long-term solution on live once implemented. If the staff decides to implement that as a final and unchanging policy, I think they'll see how effective it becomes for making folks work things out on their own.

[Xzerion]

agreements are all well and good, most us of would agree thats whats best. But what happens when one guild breaks the agreement? Whats that accountability look like?

[azeth]

Accountability for breaking a pre established raid rule should mirror whatever punishment a KS warrants.

[Cyrano]

GMs rarely got involved on my server, usually only if there was a bug. Our server used a first to engage agreement but it was never explicitly written out in a rule set. There were plenty of time where Guild A was preparing and Guild B came in to Leapfrog, so they just both attacked the same mob and whoever got the loot won.

Ninja Looting and repeated training on the other hand did get GM involvement, perma-bans IIRC.

[Molitoth]

On tribunal we only had 2-3 guild that were raid worthy. We all respected each other and if another guild was already assembled in the zone... we let them have it.

There were a few run-ins where both guilds assembled at the same time, and to solve it we had one person from each guild duel it out.


If people on this server would quit being such douchebags, everything should be fine.

For instance, guild A breaks fear (smoothly) the other day and then guild B zergs in after the fact to steal most of the zone mobs.... lame.

[mmiles8]

agreements are all well and good, most us of would agree thats whats best. But what happens when one guild breaks the agreement? Whats that accountability look like?

Here's how policy was, by the book. I've trimmed the parts that are irrelevant like funny names and bad language, and bolded the parts that answer your question. Above all else, the point that I'd most like to illustrate, is that when this policy is enforced consistently - across the board, and to the letter - no one likes the RNG, and they choose to work amongst themselves to find a mutually agreeable solution.


8.2.3 Contested Spawn Complaints

When a complaint is received indicating that a spawn or kill is contested, a disruption investigation should first be initiated according to the procedures of section 8.2.2 to determine if harassment or Zone/Area disruption is occurring. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, instruct the parties involved in the contested spawn situation to work out a compromise. Then leave the scene.

If another complaint is received involving the same spawn site, another disruption investigation should be initiated. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, if any of the parties involved were involved in the initial situation, establish a compromise for the parties to which the parties are required to abide. The compromise should be as described in section 8.2.3.1. Any party refusing to abide by the compromise established by the CS Representative should be issued a warning for disruption.

8.2.3.1 The compromise will require all parties to take turns killing the spawn(s). All parties involved in the contested spawn should be instructed to use /random 0 100 to choose a number. The CS Representative then uses /random 0 100. The individual with the closest number to the CS Representative’s number will be next in the rotation. The CS Representative then bases the rest of the rotation order on how close the other parties’ numbers were to theirs. The compromise established by a CS Representative must be objective and not require the CS Representative to choose one customer over another based on subjective criteria. The CS Representative is the arbiter in any disputes in establishing the compromise.

8.2 Disruption

8.2.1 Disruption is defined as any activity that is disruptive to the game play of others, though not necessarily with the intent to do so. Disruption has been sub-categorized into major and minor types.

8.2.1.2 Examples of Major Disruption:

Zone/Area Disruption – monopolizing most or all of the kills in an area rather than stealing from a specific player or group of players, deliberately blocking a doorway or narrow area so other players can’t get past, refusing to cooperate with the other parties at a contested spawn site after having been instructed to do so by a CS Representative

8.2.2 Disruption Procedures

8.2.2.1 Disruption is the most difficult problem to deal with, as the accused are frequently not doing it with the intention of disrupting, but simply having fun or behaving as they wish. The key to dealing with Disruption situations is to defuse them with as little customer aggravation as possible.

8.2.2.2 When a Disruption petition comes in, the process is as follows:
• Identify the complainer and the suspected antagonist. Document their character name, level, zone, and account name.
• Go to the zone in question, remaining invisible and anonymous, being sure not to tell
the petitioner you are coming.
• Bring a fellow Guide if possible, preferably invisible and /anon.
• Observe the behavior in question and that of those complaining.
• If there is no problem with the behavior as you and your fellow Guide see it, then explain this to the complainer and close the petition.

8.2.2.3 If it is not possible to distinguish which behavior is worse, the accuser or the accused, engage both groups.

8.2.2.4 If it appears that the accused is being intentionally disruptive,
• Gather information.
• Engage the accused, explain that their behavior is disruptive, and issue a warning. Tell the accused to stop the behavior, then disengage from the incident.
• Do NOT argue or debate the incident with the accused. Do not discuss the incident past what is required to explain the nature of the disruption to them.
• Take note of everything said by the accused and add it to the documentation.
• Record the incident in the abuse database and in the customer's soulmark (using the /warn command) for further review.

8.2.2.5 If the accused is obviously being disruptive, but not necessarily intentionally,
• Engage the accused.
• Attempt to convince the accused to cease the activity, explaining that it is disruptive.

8.2.2.6 If the customer becomes confrontational, treat the issue as if it were intentional, described above.

8.2.2.7 For minor disruptions, three warnings will be issued. The perpetrator will then be suspended for a minimum period of three days. For major disruptions, two warnings will be issued, followed by suspension for a discretionary period with a one-week minimum. The next major disruption offense following suspension for major disruption will result in the player being banned.


Yes, everyone will have their own personal anecdote of support staff who didn't follow protocol. There was a reason Guides were eventually forbidden from handling disputes, and plenty of GMs who got canned. But that's what happens at 8 bits an hour. Xev was a tight ship, and you can see what happens when it's run like one, from fastboy's post above.

Ok I'm done editing now.

[Molitoth]

On live everything was sum up into the "Play Nice Policy", you know the saying don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.

So when one guild was zoning into a plane no other guild would zone zone in to compete.
Same with a mob spawned, if one raid force is ready to engage, no one would rush them, but would wait till they either kill or fail.
Ofc after a failed attempt they would talk to 1st raid force to check wether they would give it another shot or if the 2nd raid force could go for it. Otherwise its killstealing, period.
It was basically the rules setup by the dominating guild(s) on my server, Mith Marr.

Spawn variance also encourages spawn camping and zerg guilds to sit 24/7 waiting for repop.. Please remove it, on live it was a set timer, so you don't "need" to camp, you come, if you are the first here you kill and if not you leave the place.
Just kick/port out/temp ban any guild that is camping an unspawned mob and won't see it anymore.

And please no rotation, if one guild is better than others at raiding then they deserve any kill, if others sit around semi afk or cant mobilize fast enough, then its too bad for them.

Oh yeah most importantly on live, GMs were actually enforcing the rules w/o any favoritism ... OOOPS did I say that ?!?!
If GMs were actually doing their duty, we wouldnt see such BS around. When people know they won't be punished because they have a GM friend or guildmate then they just act like idiots.
THIS is the problem you have to solve.

Very nicely said.

[Noser]

Can't we just race to targets from EC tunnels somehow and skip the poopsockery.

[ziggyholiday]

First to have X amount of players in zone shouldn't matter at all unless that amount is what it takes to take the mob out.

First to have the raid force required to kill the mob AND pulling trash should have first go at the mob. The other raid(s) can sit and watch them down the mob or fail and pick it up after them.

Setting something up like "first to have 15 in zone gets mob" is retarded because people will stay in that zone with the min required for as long as it takes. Additionally just because you can handle trash doesn't mean you can handle the boss.

If it takes 30+ to kill target A then the first guild in zone and pulling trash with 30+ gets first try.

[Vothsisx]

On live everything was sum up into the "Play Nice Policy", you know the saying don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.

So when one guild was zoning into a plane no other guild would zone zone in to compete.
Same with a mob spawned, if one raid force is ready to engage, no one would rush them, but would wait till they either kill or fail.
Ofc after a failed attempt they would talk to 1st raid force to check wether they would give it another shot or if the 2nd raid force could go for it. Otherwise its killstealing, period.
It was basically the rules setup by the dominating guild(s) on my server, Mith Marr.


This is what I remember as well, though I did not play on MM.

Spawn variance also encourages spawn camping and zerg guilds to sit 24/7 waiting for repop.. Please remove it, on live it was a set timer, so you don't "need" to camp, you come, if you are the first here you kill and if not you leave the place.
Just kick/port out/temp ban any guild that is camping an unspawned mob and won't see it anymore.

And please no rotation, if one guild is better than others at raiding then they deserve any kill, if others sit around semi afk or cant mobilize fast enough, then its too bad for them.

People will still "camp" a raid mob if it is due. While off topic, I believe it's appropriate to convey this story:

Guild A is waiting at the ice wall in Kael with 6 people. Statue is due up that night.
Guild B has been clearing the arena with a raid force for some time. They know Statue is due as well. As they have a raid gathered, they go and sit in Statue's room hoping to kill him.
Guild A calls leapfrogging. Guild B calls BS, as no mob was up.
Statue pops. Guild B kills Statue.
While Guild B does loot from Statue, Guild A zones in in full force and kills Idol. Guild A then gives B an ultimatum to pull AoW or they will.
Guild A then trains AoW onto guild B while they are doing loot, rezzing, etc.

Apologies again for the derail, but this is a valid problem that will come up once Kunark and SoV are up.

[Noleafclover]

First to have X amount of players in zone shouldn't matter at all unless that amount is what it takes to take the mob out.

First to have the raid force required to kill the mob AND pulling trash should have first go at the mob. The other raid(s) can sit and watch them down the mob or fail and pick it up after them.

Setting something up like "first to have 15 in zone gets mob" is retarded because people will stay in that zone with the min required for as long as it takes. Additionally just because you can handle trash doesn't mean you can handle the boss.

If it takes 30+ to kill target A then the first guild in zone and pulling trash with 30+ gets first try.

The reason the numbers are presently 15 is BECAUSE that's about the amount for almost all present raid bosses.

I like keeping timers for post-boss spawns 'cause that keeps things moving, people shouldn't be allowed to leisurely clear trash and wait an hour and a half for 60+ people to show up.

And as for the second-to-last paragraph, Rogean said he had a change planned for before the mob. Since we currently camp, any change would presumably be to something other than poopsocking.

Most importantly, I hereby demand the forum spellchecker recognize "poopsocking."

[azeth]

Guild 1 is sitting at the ent to NToV with 10 people (even a solid 10 people, main tank, clerics, whomever) and decides to start trash pulling while the remaining 10 show up for Eashen. If Guild 2 arrives 20 strong with Guild 1 still around 10, they would have been able to technically "leapfrog" Guild 1 by finishing trash pulls on the way to Eashen.

In the above example I can see where/how GM's would get involved if for instance Guild 1 (the one that was leapfrogged due to low numbers) ended up with 20 people in their raid before Guild 2 made it to Eashen.

So who technically gets the named? Consider - Guild 1 started trash, but without numbers. Guild 2 arrived with reasonable numbers and began trash, but Guild 1 accumulated a raid force before Eashen was engaged. In this instance I'm positive a GM would have granted the first chance at Eashen to Guild 2 IF they could provide proof via screenshot of Guild 1's numbers (10 people) at the time Guild 2 engaged trash with a raid-sized force.

I'm not quoting this because I wrote it, but over a few pages I feel people have in their owns words agreed to the end result of this example.

Can anyone argue in this example that Guild 2 does not deserve rights to the first shot on Eashen?

[Chicka]

I'm not quoting this because I wrote it, but over a few pages I feel people have in their owns words agreed to the end result of this example.

Can anyone argue in this example that Guild 2 does not deserve rights to the first shot on Eashen?

Sure, they haven't engaged. There are sometimes player rules regarding trash, but any guild could ignore those. Usually though, it is not trash but a key mob that defines the start of engagement with an encounter.

[Atern]

On Tholuxe it was always first to engage the mob in question when I was involved. I never raided VT, but for areas like NToV, even when a guild would kill Aary, there were times when 2 guilds would kill the flurries and then move in different directions to kill the other dragons. The only time GMs got involved was if 2 guilds were on the same mob and one of them petitioned. Training happened, but it didn't usually bring about GM involvement. It was a total FFA to the point of engaging the mob.

[owenh]

on the rathe server we had a calender that all the other big guilds shared and on x day it was our turn for fear (whatever ) and if we wiped any of the other raid guilds that could get a force up could come do it. BoTs was the biggest guild and the shadiest and they respected the arrangement too... there was never any big problems with ks'ing or leapfrogging. granted we were a smaller raid guild so we only got like 2 shots a month at fear and 2 for hate but after kunark and velious that wasn't an issue anymore

[Tork]

In LoS, we called it steamrolling - and we liked it.

On the face of things, I have no issue with it - contention, competition and conflict made EQ a better game - nothing was a lock, and if you wanted it, you had enough unemployed college kids who could count to 3 and press CH, you took it.

Rotation, sharing and other such words are best saved for internet porn.

[Chicka]

on the rathe server we had a calender that all the other big guilds shared and on x day it was our turn for fear (whatever ) and if we wiped any of the other raid guilds that could get a force up could come do it. BoTs was the biggest guild and the shadiest and they respected the arrangement too... there was never any big problems with ks'ing or leapfrogging. granted we were a smaller raid guild so we only got like 2 shots a month at fear and 2 for hate but after kunark and velious that wasn't an issue anymore

Wait, you had a rotation to clear trash?

[Jeice]

In LoS, we called it steamrolling - and we liked it.

On the face of things, I have no issue with it - contention, competition and conflict made EQ a better game - nothing was a lock, and if you wanted it, you had enough unemployed college kids who could count to 3 and press CH, you took it.

Rotation, sharing and other such words are best saved for internet porn.

This

[Beau]

As far as my server went, we didn't really have Gm interaction UNLESS someone was committing banable/suspendable offenses.(ks, train, ninja etc...) Steam rolling happened, but that was just the nature of the game. A lot of players were unhappy but ultimately things worked themselves out.

[Haynar]

GMs usually only intervened when KSing was happening on raid mobs that I saw.

GMs did nothing about leapfrogging. Only if disruptions were involved such as training or other types of harassment.

Raids were always about mobilizing the fastest. First to engage, start the event, etc., get the mob.

Haynar

[RKromwell]

Happened all the time on Xegony. Leapfrog, trains, pretty much anything that could happen, did. We had a special group of folks on Xegony that felt entitled to do anything they wanted. I don't think an answer was ever found until the game was big enough that it just didn't matter any more.

[Haynar]

Happened all the time on Xegony. Leapfrog, trains, pretty much anything that could happen, did. We had a special group of folks on Xegony that felt entitled to do anything they wanted. I don't think an answer was ever found until the game was big enough that it just didn't matter any more.
Being from Xegony, it is not that it didn't happen, but there were very few times that GMs would intervene. Leapfrogging was never one of them. As there got to be fewer GMs around, having one intervene was even more difficult.

But back on topic ... I have never seen any intervention due to leapfrogging.

Haynar

[Otto]

GMs usually only intervened when KSing was happening on raid mobs that I saw.

GMs did nothing about leapfrogging. Only if disruptions were involved such as training or other types of harassment.

Raids were always about mobilizing the fastest. First to engage, start the event, etc., get the mob.

Haynar

Much like Haynar's experience, this is how it was on Rodcet Pre-Luclin. I remember being pissed that my guild was letting our rivals (Forsaken) go after emp since it was their 'turn'.

[logiktrip]

Being from Xegony, it is not that it didn't happen, but there were very few times that GMs would intervene. Leapfrogging was never one of them. As there got to be fewer GMs around, having one intervene was even more difficult.

But back on topic ... I have never seen any intervention due to leapfrogging.

Haynar

There are some scripted encounters that could cause major problems with leapfrogging in the future. I wish it hadn't had to be that way, but I'm sure it will come up again. If guild A kills Statue (spawns AoW), and another guild pulls that AoW, it isn't quite the same as leapfrogging past trash. Same with Taskmasters and the Cursed cycle in Luclin.

There was a situation on Terris where a guild had cleared all the way to creator while another guild was attempting a different target - but we still ended up with that guild charging past us to engage XtC.

I really hope a good solution is reached, because with the amount of guilds we have looking to get into this content, it will get messy.

[Tork]

Let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste. It would be nothing short of madness for you, brave king, and your valiant troops to perish. All because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.

[Hrist]

I played on Vallon, and regardless if someone had been clearing trash for 10hours, it was always the last one alive claims the zone, but I guess this doesn't help very much (pvp classic server pls ~)

[Jeice]

I think its silly how raiding on this server is done. I know of many players who would much rather have competition and not be required to sit and wait out a spawn. Not only does it not seem like the game we all grew up to love, but in my eyes it actually seems worse that people can claim spawns and not even be at their computers when the mob is up.

I am hoping by the time I get to 50 to raid the rules of the game have changed and we can allow the steam rolling and guild competition begin!

[yaeger]

I'm loathe to suggest this, to add more load onto the Devs, but I have a suggestion.

First, pretty much everyone that's playing now knows everything about the raid targets before they even raid. We know respawn timers, loot tables, strategy, numbers, anything and everything about these 'classic' mobs. They've been killed so many times in so many different ways that it's trivial.

Why don't we change it. The awesome thing about Classic was trying to learn encounters, expect the unexpected. The majority of the players on this server have raided at some point on Live, are familiar with what EQ expects from a successful raid force, and can use Google to answer any and all questions.

I know this topic is about leapfrogging, but I believe that solving the challenge of raid difficulty will help eliminate it.

Here is an option that I think might be viable.

- Create a counter on raid targets (bosses). This will increase the difficulty slowly to create a steady and consistent challenge as raid forces gear up.

a) When a boss is killed, the next time it spawns, it'll spawn with 1% more health, damage (to attacks, aoe's, and various special abilities).
b) Make the bonuses cumulative. If Phinny is killed 5 times, he'd get a 5% bonus.
c) The bonus will wear off by 1% every spawn cycle it's up without being killed (with spawn timer +/- 2x the random spawn delay).

[azeth]

Much like Haynar's experience, this is how it was on Rodcet Pre-Luclin. I remember being pissed that my guild was letting our rivals (Forsaken) go after emp since it was their 'turn'.

What guild were you in? Anthology, my guild, never participated in a rotation nor am I aware of one. Except of course early early on during Velious Ascent and AoD rotated NToV.

[Otto]

What guild were you in? Anthology, my guild, never participated in a rotation nor am I aware of one. Except of course early early on during Velious Ascent and AoD rotated NToV.

Was actually in Forsaken, hated it, joined Pyrho's guild, then joined Conviction when they formed.

[Kainzo]

GM's only intervened if there were trains / conflict. 95% of the time, the community banished the people who kept breaking rotations / rules on mobs that were widely conflicted.

[Allizia]

I'm loathe to suggest this, to add more load onto the Devs, but I have a suggestion.

First, pretty much everyone that's playing now knows everything about the raid targets before they even raid. We know respawn timers, loot tables, strategy, numbers, anything and everything about these 'classic' mobs. They've been killed so many times in so many different ways that it's trivial.

Why don't we change it. The awesome thing about Classic was trying to learn encounters, expect the unexpected. The majority of the players on this server have raided at some point on Live, are familiar with what EQ expects from a successful raid force, and can use Google to answer any and all questions.

I know this topic is about leapfrogging, but I believe that solving the challenge of raid difficulty will help eliminate it.

Here is an option that I think might be viable.

- Create a counter on raid targets (bosses). This will increase the difficulty slowly to create a steady and consistent challenge as raid forces gear up.

a) When a boss is killed, the next time it spawns, it'll spawn with 1% more health, damage (to attacks, aoe's, and various special abilities).
b) Make the bonuses cumulative. If Phinny is killed 5 times, he'd get a 5% bonus.
c) The bonus will wear off by 1% every spawn cycle it's up without being killed (with spawn timer +/- 2x the random spawn delay).

what? are you high or is this for serious... It's great you are trying to find a solution, but I think yall are looking a bit too deep into things =P I can shoot this idea down from about 8 different angles, no offense

[Xadion]

Here is my 2cp

I played day 1 on Veeshan, home of FoH and many other guilds that make other servers look like childs play in terms of raiding etc.

We never had GM enforced rotation- because although how much the high end guilds where hardcore and could all be assholes- there was a general respect among the guilds- FoH,CD,CoE etc etc if there was a force in stage, lets say PoFear it would be a race to get a force and break westwall- whomever broke the zone, got the zone.

Kunark, I cant tell you much as I raided very little near the top end guilds at that time- Velious was the same, first to get into their respective wing had it- leapfrogging happend mostly in north, and 90% of the time resulted in training each other and then a GM would kick one guild out- usualy after they leapfrogged and got 1 dragon or two- as they would not skip the guild, but at the split at the begining most would go right kill Dargon and the other two as they move to the ring interception/vulak area- if there was leap frogging the other guild would go kill the AoE knockback one and the fish one- then usualy there would be some trains (aka we r just pulling tripplets watch out!) and then a GM would come in and sort things out, if it ever got that far.

Mostly things will be okay come Velious- that is if there are a good number of overlapping desired pops. Just the number of things to do in velious will fix it, Kunark and Sky will not...what is there to raid in Kunark? Sky, Trak, VS, Chardoc, 3 world dragons...oh yes the trial zone of ToV..that will take forever to get into because of the Trakanon drop. Kunark may only help depending on the attitude of Epics, as many of them require popping back into old raid zones, PoF/H and alot in Air/Sky- are the guilds going to focus on taking a force to clear out the gholems and CT rather than sit poopsocking VS? Time will tell.

The only real solution is have more content than is needed, that /may/ happen in kunark- but I honestly do not see it happening untill velious.

rant random over

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Fastboy21 could not be a better testimonial to using the GM's policies from live.

Xev was where I was a Guide. It had a kickass SMT that cared, was professional, and went by the book.



I also did most of my early raiding on Xev (and came from Povar). I was not high enough to be in the raiding game during classic. I did just a couple of Naggy/Vox raids before Kunark got rolling, but by mid Kunark and all of Velious I was an active raider in Honored Circle (a decided second tier guild) and the The Hand (I felt we were the 3rd best guild on the server behind Harmonium and Altera Vita).

Even as a third place guild we got out mobs. I don't remember much leapfrogging at all. We all just understood that it would reflect on our reputation as a guild and would come back 10 fold if we tried to be asshats. We would hang out and follow others in some times to see if they would wipe. Some times if we had followed another guild in as they killed trash and they stopped for a long time to talk strategy and med, we would give them a short warning (like, engage in 3 min or we will). Anyway, the specifics don't matter so much.

As mmiles8 pointed out, we knew that if we could not work things out on our own, a gm or guide would show up and /ran 100. Nothing sucks worse than that, having the mob doled out randomly instead of on merit. So we settled on behavioral norms for the server, not in a grand guild council meeting, but just through the collective self centered actions of each party... good ol' invisible hand, Adam Smith stuff. That's not to say that we would reach the exact same equilibrium here on P99, but we would find some balance point.

[azeth]

As mmiles8 pointed out, we knew that if we could not work things out on our own, a gm or guide would show up and /ran 100. Nothing sucks worse than that, having the mob doled out randomly instead of on merit. So we settled on behavioral norms for the server, not in a grand guild council meeting...

This ^. It's as if you could bypass the entire "strategy for resolving raid disputes" by implementing a rock solid consequence such as /random 100. In a situation where a dispute arises due to leapfrogging and a guide/GM shows up, allow the guide/GM to determine a time frame that an agreement must be reached between the guilds involved (something like 5-10 minutes). If both parties have not agreed by that time - /random 100.

"Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure."

[guineapig]

Good points Dumesh and Azeth.

If poopsocking is truly going to be done away with then the above ideas should be "good enough"...

I have yet to see much ostracizing on a guidl wide level on this server, but one would hope it would happen in this case.

[Tork]

You beg the question everyone wants poopsocking removed, which I know not to be true - viva la rants and flames~

[azeth]

Just to clarify.. this has to do with a mob that is already spawned. We have a plan in place that we are announcing shortly that will deal with mobs that haven't spawned yet.

We aren't speaking in regards to poopsocking. This is a blast thread itending to solicit opinions/ideas on how to handle leapfrogging.

[guineapig]

You beg the question everyone wants poopsocking removed, which I know not to be true - viva la rants and flames~

The only people that I can imagine wouldn't want to do away with poopsocking are the ones that are afraid that it's the only way for them to get a raid target. In other words Poopsockers are afraid of actual competition and prefer to just stand in line.

As stated before:
We have a plan in place that we are announcing shortly that will deal with mobs that haven't spawned yet.

Looking forward to it and am interested in how things will progress with said changes. :)

[Supreme]

I remember there was a incident on Solusek Ro where the guilds involved could not work out a solution.

GM stepped in and stated that everyone present was part of the raid and the loot had to be shared among all guilds present.

Shared Loot...gann.

[Jael]

Being from Xegony, it is not that it didn't happen, but there were very few times that GMs would intervene. Leapfrogging was never one of them. As there got to be fewer GMs around, having one intervene was even more difficult.

But back on topic ... I have never seen any intervention due to leapfrogging.

Haynar


If you're one of Xegony's unwanted Gits, then you know how it was handled already. The first powerful guild ran everything and everyone, and took what they wanted when they wanted... until there was another guild (then 2 guilds then 3 etc) that became strong enough to not be pushed around.

Only when that happened were alliances formed, and things worked out among the guilds themselves.

The ONLY time a GM intervened was in Sleeper's Tomb, and both guilds got kicked out of the zone, however neither were suspended or banned and the guild that attacked first got to keep their loots.

*shrug*


However, now I have a fascination with who you were on Xegony. Hit me with a PM, if you would be so kind. :)

[azeth]

I'm interested if those of you who have "not seen GM intervention due to leapfrogging" are in agreement with that non-policy?

Consider a guild has a mage parked in NToV for COH. You and your guild drop Aary and pull the left wall drakes. What if that guild opens the mage and starts bringing people in ahead of you? Do you agree still the best policy is no policy?

^ I am not agreeing/disagreeing with either PoV.

[logiktrip]

Letting the players work it out is preferable, but the major difference was that on live servers people and guilds cared about their reputation to a different degree than they do here.

For example, two guilds on Terris-Thule were barred from entering Ssra for 24hours after a similar incident. The GM's made it clear they weren't going to deal with it, so we were forced to work alongside one another for the benefit of both guilds (we didn't want removed from our primary targets again.)

Things weren't all roses and we still bumped heads, but there was a working relationship that developed. I'm not sure that this is viable on a server with so little raid content while also having so many people ready to raid, but it would be nice.

[Serin]

The only times i ever saw GM intervention on my server was during kunark and luclin era.. Basically certain mobs were free for all targets, and certain mobs were "whoever gets there first with the most people"..

One time i remember in particular, was that a guild that was notorious for zerging would call in their entire guild (level 1-60) and have them all sit in a zone in order to lag the zone server so bad that it would prevent anyone from engaging the boss mob. (They actually brought down the zone servers several times)

When that happened the GMs stepped in and set up a forced rotation, because no agreement could be made between the guilds..

However, the other case was free for all targets..
Once the GMs got fed up enough with actually trying to mediate between guild conflicts.. They declared certain spawns "Too Contested" to be rotated. Things like Venril Sathir fell under this rule, as did Avatar of War, and King Tormax.. (basically mini-bosses) Those mobs would effectively become huge clusterfucks where every guild would run in and engage immediately and try to out damage everyone else.. It made it chaotic to say the least, but also made it quite random as to who actually "won" the loot..

That being said, Sure there were some people who would QQ cause they didn't get king tormax's head.. or whatever piece of loot they wanted.. but it made it very fair.. cause whoever could do the most damage won..

All in all, the gms didn't do much in the cat herding business.. They mainly stuck to what they were good at.. Fixing problems.. and let the uber-guilds sort out their own rotations..

[Oogmog]

I think what people are failing to realize, things were handled different on every server. Those who claim there was never GM intervention may have been on a server where this was true and others saying forced rotations/guidelines were presented to them could be true as well. I've skimmed through a lot of these forums, however, on my server we were forced into rotations just because the GMs who worked our server got sick of dealing with our crap.

We were forced to work out a rotation on VS and Trak after many problems/attempted KS's/leapfrogging/training.

In Velious, this is how things went down:
First guild to kill the rat guard in DN had rights to Zland(Until a wipe).
First guild to kill trash to Ikitair the Venom could not be leapfrogged unless they wiped and the first guild to kill roy had 24 hours from the time of his death to have NToV with no competition.
First guild to kill the first giant in the arena(Was a particular spawn, couldn't remember his name) could claim Vindicator/Statue/AoW.
Whoever was pulling and attempting to split Dain had his rights.
Yelinak was pretty much a first engage and it was yours since there was no trash(Mage CoH).
Whichever guild began clearing Tormax's area had his claim.

These rules for Velious were set in place after a Tormax raid where my guild was set up and pulling Tormax to WL zone line and our only rivals guild started zoning in and attempting to botch our pulls. After about an hour of the monks training each other, a GM showed up and asked which guild was there with a force first and began pulling.. it was our guild, so we had the chance on him first and if we wiped the other guild could claim it. Unfortunately, we were low on numbers and they ate our mod rods(right in front of the GM and nothing was done haha) and we wiped and it was theirs. Following the raid, the GM sat down with the two guild leader and created a system for every contested mob during the expansion.

So pretty much in Velious it's easy to have a fix for leapfrogging because on many occasions the trash itself requires a raid force to get through, or the dungeon is completely linear and you can assign a mob to claim the named. With Classic/Kunark, you can clear with a single group or 10 people or whatever. IMO, the only fair way to fix this is designate a set number of people actually clearing trash. Take for example, a group of 6 is clearing Shrooms etc on the way to Trakanon - by all means they can clear, set up a CoH chain if they wish, whatever. If a raid of 24 shows up, the group with 6 cannot delay them because they were there "first." In that instance it's not really leapfrogging but one guild trying to stall.

I'm not sure if this has been stated or not, and I apologize if so, but there's one underlying cause for this shitstorm that we're dealing with and its the fact that on any "normal" live server, there was maybe 2-3 guilds top competing over the planes/gods/dragons. Right now, I would say there are probably 6-7 guilds capable of downing those targets. While we're trying to relive the classic experience, there's never been a time where guilds would camp for days on end just for one single pop. Furthermore, on every server on live I've been a part of, if there was a guild in hate/fear/sky, it was just a general rule of thumb it was their zone and if CT/Inny/Dracho/Maestro popped while you were there it was your lucky day. Here, there's too many guilds competing for the armor drops for that to be an option.

[Kastro]

Another Solution would be to just enable PVP in all Raid/ Planar Zones :)