NToV harder than VP ?

[Hamedore]

Never raided any of the zones.
Are mobs in NToV harder than VP ? (higher MR...) or is it the same difficulty ?

[lurk]

VP dragons only have 32k hp and you cant hide from AEs. You gotta put them down fast. Hoshkar is still pretty beastly.

A lot of ntov dragons are slowable and you can hide from AEs. They have a lot more hp but are mostly pretty easy with a good ch chain as long as your dps is dodging AEs. Vyemm is considered the hardest dragon in tov since he hits for like 1100 unslowable with an annoying knockback ae, i dont know if its in the timeline but he eventually gets permarooted which adds considerably to the difficulty

Ntov is harder just because it takes more coordination

[Erati]

the mobs are much more difficult but the tactics are much easier due to walls / slows

maybe Hoshkar could give some NTOV dragons a run for their money but VP dragons die within 30 sec of engaging them while some ToV encounters take 3-4 min

[Cecily]

Make NToV an outdoor zone imo.

[Daldaen]

Fix resist code IMO

[Cecily]

Don't need to make this game any easier. NToV is a joke. Low number VP is probably the most fun raid encounters ATM.

[Daldaen]

And it would be way more fun if Hoshkar could be pulled off by 10-12 people, given his AE was actually resistable with proper resists.

As it stands, the Hoshkar/Zlexak, and Nexona AEs are damn near unresistable even with 255 resists. Which is wrong.

All-or-nothing AEs should resist at a higher rate than those which have a potential for partial resists. Furthermore these AEs very likely have non-classic resist modifiers (or lure checks) which they did not have until after the resist revamp in Luclin, which allowed you to buff up to 500 resists.

[Man0warr]

Hosh/Zlexak AE still really hard to resist on Phinny. It's got a -150 resist adjust after all.

[Daldaen]

Hosh/Zlexak AE still really hard to resist on Phinny. It's got a -150 resist adjust after all.

Try again when you're rolling in Vex Thal gear. The resists on that stuff surpasses even PoTime.

With decent resists and a bard you should resist most all of those AEs at cap on Phinigel. Druushk is actually the most difficult fight due to the AE being allowed to partial hit.

[Raev]

Don't need to make this game any easier. NToV is a joke. Low number VP is probably the most fun raid encounters ATM.

The big problem is variance and racing, which makes everyone zerg because they don't want to ever wipe. The small problem is not fixing tl box/coh pulling. Brad McQuaid would have a heart attack if he saw how we do the content now.

[Daldaen]

Some nerds love the racing. Other nerds don't want to race and just want to kill dragons.

To each their own.

But every nerd on the planet thinks huge variance is dumb. 1 hour variance would be more than enough to do the job it needs to do.

But they're never going to reduce it because ??? I've not heard a good logical argument for keeping 16 hour variance.

[Cecily]

I'm actually in favor of huge variance, we don't have huge variance atm.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

The big problem is variance and racing, which makes everyone zerg because they don't want to ever wipe. The small problem is not fixing tl box/coh pulling. Brad McQuaid would have a heart attack if he saw how p99 is gm'd.

fixed it

[Atmas]

VP was much harder than NToV relative to the time it was released. Sony or whoever it was then said they would never again release such difficult content. Obviously over the years we created a bunch of tactics to somewhat gimp it, but as it was intended it was crazy stuff. Those splitting wurms that AoE for 500 are horrendous. Only being able to zone out on a pad that is under a dragon, bleckkk.

[kaev]

...
But every nerd on the planet thinks huge variance is dumb. 1 hour variance would be more than enough to do the job it needs to do.

But they're never going to reduce it because ??? I've not heard a good logical argument for keeping 16 hour variance.

My hypothesis is that our dear overlord is trolling the raiders who insist on making much of the raid game here such a toxic swamp.

[nostalgiaquest]

the mobs are much more difficult but the tactics are much easier due to walls / slows

maybe Hoshkar could give some NTOV dragons a run for their money but VP dragons die within 30 sec of engaging them while some ToV encounters take 3-4 min

3-4 minutes? I remember the first time my guild killed vulak back on live pre luclin it was like a 20 minute fight.

Makes me sad to see how trivialized this game has become.

[khandman]

server wipe

[icedwards]

3-4 minutes? I remember the first time my guild killed vulak back on live pre luclin it was like a 20 minute fight.

Makes me sad to see how trivialized this game has become.

A lot more rogues and dragon bane wizards these days. Vulak is trivial once slowed anyways.

[lurk]

3-4 minutes? I remember the first time my guild killed vulak back on live pre luclin it was like a 20 minute fight.

Makes me sad to see how trivialized this game has become.

Theres a video on youtube of rampage doing vulak with low numbers and it took over 30 min. Raids just generally have zerg forces now

[Alanus]

VP was much harder than NToV relative to the time it was released. Sony or whoever it was then said they would never again release such difficult content.

And then they made Tacvi, which was tuned for a level cap of 70 and not 65 (despite being released with a cap of 65). Tunat was a nightmare

[Raev]

Some nerds love the racing. Other nerds don't want to race and just want to kill dragons.
Don't be disingenuous. I'd say there are maybe 30 people on the server who actually enjoy racing, 300 people who don't mind logging in at all hours for batphones and tracking a bit here and there, and 3000 who think the current 'competition' is fucking stupid. These groups are not equally distributed.

48+ hour variance please. Would help kill off a lot of this contrived racing BS.
Any amount of variance will always make tracking/FTE the primary means of competition and wall staring the only skill that matters. Only rotations and repops prioritize actual EQ gear/coordination/skill etc.

[Daldaen]

Well, yeah, rotations where entire guilds could focus on streamlining their class skill instead of Crown of Rile spam would be ideal. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. WTB rooted raid targets?

I think rooted raid targets would be hilarious. But all that would do is shift the strategy. Guilds would just create a massive train down from the raid target, run their raid force up, and keep reaggroing their train until they're done, and then evac out.

I can't think of any way to force a trash clear mechanically on this server unless you implement lazy/forget aggro distances that live currently has.

@Raev, I don't think I was being disingenuous. There are probably closer to 50-60 people who enjoy racing, and 500ish who are on a Batphone and respond at varying hours of the day. I didn't suggest they were equivalent size... And lol @ the notion that there are 3,000 people in addition to the above nerds, let alone 3,000 who check the boards and are privy to the state of raiding on this server.

[Raev]

And lol @ the notion that there are 3,000 people in addition to the above nerds, let alone 3,000 who check the boards and are privy to the state of raiding on this server.

Daldaen, your replies in this thread are making me very sad. It's obvious with even a small amount of back-of-the-envelope math that there are far more than 3000 people who play Project 1999 semi-regularly.

Rogean claims 1 million unique ingame names. Conservatively assuming 20 names squatted per player, that's 50,000 players. More likely is over 100,000 over the course of the server
Project 1999 has 1300+ players online at peak; are you seriously suggesting that nearly 50% of the active players on the server all log in at 6PM every day?

A much more reasonable estimate is 10-15 thousand unique players per month. And I'm sure most of them have at least heard about the raid scene, probably from the twink monk who was stomping all of MM's pond camp. The insane competition of the raid scene percolates down and infects other interactions.

TLDR: playing Mario Kart to decide who can kill pixel dragons is fucking stupid, and the vast majority of players on the server recognize this, including you before your exposure to weapons grade Pixels

[Erati]

Mario Kart has turtle shells you throw at your opponents - p99 racing is lacking fun features such as this :(

[Cecily]

Mario Kart has turtle shells you throw at your opponents - p99 racing is lacking fun features such as this :(
This guy used to be a pretty good turtle shell.

http://i.imgur.com/bjAz9OU.jpg

[Raev]

I just don't understand how anyone can possibly enjoy staring at the screen for 16 hours waiting for something to happen. And I don't think anyone really does; racers are simply addicted to the dopamine of yellow text, status within the guild, and increased pixels.

And yeah, no CSR VP was a lot more interesting than the current setup. It would be fun to try no CSR NTOV for a week; I'd be curious to see what happens.

[Lojik]

Any amount of variance will always make tracking/FTE the primary means of competition and wall staring the only skill that matters. Only rotations and repops prioritize actual EQ gear/coordination/skill etc.

Here's the thing though: in its current form,the tracking windows are short enough that players are willing to put up with the windows, and long enough that guilds usually reward trackers pretty well. Extend the windows to +- 1 week (300+hours) and guilds that lock down targets face a bit of a quandary when it comes to their dkp system, as they need to reward trackers much more, but not incentivize it so much that trackers win everything (then others wouldn't log in for kills.) Plus almost every target is in window all the time, so guilds would have to employ lots of trackers to keep content on lockdown. You'd probably just see a few elite targets perma tracked, while lots of other targets would sometimes be up for a while.

[Daldaen]

Daldaen, your replies in this thread are making me very sad. It's obvious with even a small amount of back-of-the-envelope math that there are far more than 3000 people who play Project 1999 semi-regularly.

Rogean claims 1 million unique ingame names. Conservatively assuming 20 names squatted per player, that's 50,000 players. More likely is over 100,000 over the course of the server
Project 1999 has 1300+ players online at peak; are you seriously suggesting that nearly 50% of the active players on the server all log in at 6PM every day?

A much more reasonable estimate is 10-15 thousand unique players per month. And I'm sure most of them have at least heard about the raid scene, probably from the twink monk who was stomping all of MM's pond camp. The insane competition of the raid scene percolates down and infects other interactions.

TLDR: playing Mario Kart to decide who can kill pixel dragons is fucking stupid, and the vast majority of players on the server recognize this, including you before your exposure to weapons grade Pixels
Assuming my views be swayed by exposure to pixels saddens me.

The competition on this server has always been dumb and not my cup of tea. I liked the being rushed aspect of it, but couldn't give any less cares to what guilds to kill what. Instances were without a doubt the best thing to ever happen to EQ. Without those, every way of determining who gets bosses is going to be dumb. I've always been partial to the challenge being the actual event design rather than getting to stake your claim to being able to engage said event. Which is why I'm so very pro-Luclin/PoP/Every expansion up until SoF when they started with dumb itemization crushing the mid-tier raiding incentive.

I honestly do think a good chunk of the population you see every night prime time are people who play daily on this server. I also do think that a sizeable portion of those who play casually maybe once or twice a week, don't have maxed level characters and honestly don't discuss / care about the raid scene at all. I can't say I've ever seen the raid scene come up or be discussed in some low level zone, not that I frequent them much lately.

[Brut]

TLDR: playing Mario Kart to decide who can kill pixel dragons is fucking stupid, and the vast majority of players on the server recognize this, including you before your exposure to weapons grade Pixels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIEizf2S9As

The sad reality is that unless staff enforces a straight up rotation, the competition will always keep getting more and more cutthroat to a point where the rules are stretched to their absolute limit. One guild wants it just a bit more than the other, so they take one step further to gain an advantage, so the other guild follows suit, until they're both eventually sitting ontop of the spawn point. Out of all the 72h window autofires, Coth ducking garbage, herpaderp non CSR VPs and FTE without logic or fairness that have gone on before as raidscene meta, running for merbs with 1h mercy timer is pretty damned light and easy.

On topic, VP is imo harder since it requires a key to enter, the wurm splitting and random abilities mechanics can be pretty mean and unpredictable, roaming named dragons, can't get out without getting to the exits or rezzing outta there. Boss encounters in ToV need more bodies and you need proper class composition instead of 30 random whatever classes to throw at the 32k hp mob, but overall would say VP is far more demanding.

[fadetree]

So...this is why instancing got invented.

[Nitsude]

48+ hour variance please. Would help kill off a lot of this contrived racing BS.

Switch variance and set respawn time. Every major raid target goes into window 16 hours after death with 3-7 day variance.

[ruidian]

I can't think of any way to force a trash clear mechanically on this server unless you implement lazy/forget aggro distances that live currently has.

How about making train pulls against the rules? If one did on live what people do here, it would be a suspension or ban. You couldn't train ntov to wtov and drag a dragon to the zone in. It's called zone disruption. And it didn't matter if you said "hey look out we're intentionally training a zillion mobs." You're intentionally training at that point, that's a suspension/ban.

[ruidian]

Switch variance and set respawn time. Every major raid target goes into window 16 hours after death with 3-7 day variance.

And this.

[fadetree]

How about making train pulls against the rules? If one did on live what people do here, it would be a suspension or ban. You couldn't train ntov to wtov and drag a dragon to the zone in. It's called zone disruption. And it didn't matter if you said "hey look out we're intentionally training a zillion mobs." You're intentionally training at that point, that's a suspension/ban.

Then you have to have a CS watching things, and deal with long explanations and arguments, and etc. They don't want to do that, and I don't blame them.

[maskedmelon]

Just make NToV like gum with a 28 minute respawn timer, but add phs and decrease chance of named to 1%

Could accommodate a dozen guilds at once :3

[Zuranthium]

So...this is why instancing got invented.

PvP is a much better solution.

Or if you have instancing, at least do it in such a way that the raid target itself is not instanced and there is competition with a PvE qualifier activity. When a raid mob spawns, teleport each guild who is present to some kind of instanced fight (with a capped number of players on each team). Whoever wins it the fastest is given a window to kill the raid target. If they fail, then the raid target becomes open to everyone (after healing back to the full health).

[maskedmelon]

Can always change to 48hr respawn and 7-9day lockouts on all raid targets.

[Raev]

PVP is a pretty mediocre solution, because EQ mechanics don't support PVP very well and in any case it's just about the biggest zerg.

[Fountree]

Nothings really that hard with the right strategies, numbers and classes. Vulak and Vyemm were killed day 1 on here, and on beta with players in all kunark gear.

This is how fast VP dragons died in 2012 (to the legendary classic TMO):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FwEC9nhfZQ

[Zuranthium]

PVP is a pretty mediocre solution, because EQ mechanics don't support PVP very well and in any case it's just about the biggest zerg.

Have structured PvP matches (24v24 perhaps) with set gear to determine who gets the rights to kill raid targets. Yeah the mechanics aren't great but it's ALWAYS going to be better than the normal trash game.

[icedwards]

Have structured PvP matches (24v24 perhaps) with set gear to determine who gets the rights to kill raid targets. Yeah the mechanics aren't great but it's ALWAYS going to be better than the normal trash game.

Are you high? There's an entire server dedicated to EQ pvp and it barely hits 48 people on at one time.

[Rygar]

Possible solution to racing / training / not clearing to mob: Designate adds around certain targets to grant +15k HP to a designated raid target. You could easily get some 200k HP VP dragons that no one would dare train to engage.

Maybe certain random adds also make a dragon unslowable in NToV. Better clear them out just in case.

Won't happen (#notclassic), but fun solution to think about.

[Man0warr]

P99 BDA died for this.

[Zuranthium]

Are you high? There's an entire server dedicated to EQ pvp and it barely hits 48 people on at one time.

There are no structured PvP matches on that server.

It's still a better server even without structured PvP, though, since the gameplay has more depth and unpredictability than braindead blue. People in general are ignorant and scared of open PvP, hence Red's low population. If Red was the only server option and everyone was playing on it, the game would be so much better and people would enjoy it more.

[nectarprime]

If Red was the only server option and everyone was playing on it, the game would be so much better and people would enjoy it more.

Yeah and if there was only dog poop to eat people would love it too.

[icedwards]

There are no structured PvP matches on that server.

It's still a better server even without structured PvP, though, since the gameplay has more depth and unpredictability than braindead blue. People in general are ignorant and scared of open PvP, hence Red's low population. If Red was the only server option and everyone was playing on it, the game would be so much better and people would enjoy it more.

Definitely high.
http://i.imgur.com/sRwilXd.gif

[azeth]

Yeah and if there was only dog poop to eat people would love it too.

hmmm.. interesting quandry


i... reluctantly agree.