Instancing & Faster Repops: Why both would be bad for P99

[Zorlon]

A a foreword, my opinions are based on actual experience with both Raid Instancing and Supercharged Repop times. Faster respawns on Ragefire where I was with the top guild Twisted Legacy, and raid instancing with Asylum of Shadow on Phinigel.

Project 1999 only continues to exist today with a strong population because of the scarcity of content and items entering the world.

The success of Phinigel rests solely on the fact that there is content after Velious. The game keeps moving forward and keeps players engaged and chasing that next big number. If Phinigel stopped at Velious like P99 did, it would already be an underpopulated server.

Raid Instancing wouldn't work on P99 in the long run. For the first few months it would be amazing and everyone would be creaming their pants but I promise, no I guarantee, that this server would actually "die" within maybe 1 year tops of raid instancing implementation. I put die in quotes because while I realize people would still play here, and that a Velious Locked Raid Instance server would be really amazing (for a while), you would actually just get geared and beat the game too fast and we would lose too many players to burnout to sustain a healthy population. The 10th time <Guild> downs Vulak, along with the other 12 guilds that did so that week, would put into perspective just how "done" the server really is. When you get your 6th piece of Vulak loot in as many weeks and realize that's it - there's no more - I don't get to take this shit to the moon and fight even tougher shit now - the reality might actually set in. Right now, however, there is a carrot to chase and that carrot will be there for a very long time so long as the admins of this server continue to manage it as such.

As far as Faster Respawns go, let's take a trip back to Ragefire when the "Mitigation of the Mighty" buff was added to all raid bosses. If you're unfamiliar with what the "MOTM" buff is just take 2 minutes and google it. One function of that buff reduced the respawn time of the raid mob that had it. Now I do not remember what the Classic raid mobs had for reduction, but it was pretty significant, like half. I do remember however what Trakanon's repop was. His window started only 18 hours after he was killed with a maximum 12 hour variance. So yes, Trakanon spawns every 18-30 hours.

With that fast of a repop, surely everyone on the server would get a chance to raid.....right? WRONG. My guild still killed Trakanon (and EVERY raid encounter) within 20-30 minutes of spawn to dead on a 24/7 Batphone. The only guild that was able to get ONE Trak kill was the EU guild that pulled some nice tricks using the /pickzone command. That happened exactly once. It wasn't until Phinigel was announced and the vote to open Velious early failed that people stopped logging in and the rest of the server was able to start actually playing the game. The fast respawns allowed us to gear out so heavily and so fast that the next best guild could not possibly have ever won a DPS race even with twice the numbers (and that happened more than a few times).

Faster respawns will not fix the raid scene, rather, it will make it much, much worse. The top guilds will still continue to devour the content just as fast as it spawns. You will not burn the hardcores out. They WANT to poopsock, race, and compete. That's their game. Everyone on Ragefire told us that Twisted Legacy would burn out after a month of killing Trakanon every day but it didn't happen. If Phinigel was never launched we would have went into Velious as the only guild on the server that cleared Kunark in era unless we gave the EU guild a pity clear just because they were pretty good sports about allowing us to take a shit on them every single day. If you think there is even a lottery ticket's chance of that not happening here then you're very, very disconnected from the reality of the situation.

With all of that said, I'm not here to offer some grand solution of what this server should or should not do. I do not currently raid here so I have no horse in the race. I do however see people crying about the raid scene multiple times a day and the two most popular "fixes" that people come up with are Raid Instancing or Reducing Repop Timers and I wanted to share my opinion about the subject.

So to conclude, through my experience, I do not believe either system would offer a healthy future for this server.

Thanks for reading.

[Draulius]

I agree.

[Pokesan]

Phinigel has instances and 10 times the population

didn't read

[maskedmelonpai]

too many woords. i didn't read them, but i think you probably don't need 95% of them.

i read the bold part though; it spoke to me. good work with that. gonna offer a half star bonus for that.

[Swish]

Also didn't read, but just wanted to say the content of the title...

http://i.imgur.com/apRp7TQ.gif

[Swish]

Phinigel has instances and 10 times the population

didn't read

It's also got a lot of dead zones as there's a bunch of expansions out now.

Also also, it's got people farming and selling kronos on it...sounds really classic and immersive, when you get past the Daybreak cash logo and all the other shitty additions that weren't around originally.

[indiscriminate_hater]

Filed under: AA anon alt

[Ravager]

tl;dr

Just because you would not like instancing and faster repops does not mean it would be bad for P99. After all, faster repops (weekly patches) and instances (several servers) are both classic and didn't kill EQ in classic era. If EQ stagnated on the same content for years on end, with 20 raid capable guilds shitting on each other on a single server, our memories of it wouldn't be so rosy, and classic's subscription numbers wouldn't have been so impressive.

[Bones]

I agree with the OP, and this is coming from a very casual player that has been around since day one and can count on 2 hands the amount of raid target kills I've been a part of. Instancing is not classic, doesn't fit within the frame of velious era everquest, and should never be implemented on this server.

That being said, if you really want change in the raid scene here you need to get into politics and advocate/lobby for welfare reform so the poopsockers have to actually leave their houses and get jobs to inhibit their ability to log 100+ hours of play time on a weekly basis. I understand there will always be people like this, but it seems like there's a disturbing amount of them on p99 compared to classic retail.
I think a higher percentage of EQ'ers actually worked and had jobs back in 1999-2001 before obamacarewelfarestate went into full swing, and when the economy was in much better shape.
I remember pick up groups for Naggy/Vox being formed in EC on a consistent basis during late kunark all the way into luclin era. How many times has Naggy or Vox been PUG'd on p99? Have they ever been PUG'd even once? I would be shocked if they aren't on permafarm by a single 4-5 man group of overgeared de-leveled lvl 52 alts of some top end raiding guild that don't even need the loot just selling it in EC tunnel.

[Nexii]

Agree but a second blue server wouldn't hurt.

[Vilkata]

Instance it all. I want VP all to myself.

[branamil]

Please god no instances. That would be so depressing in an MMO. That's one of the reasons WoW started dying. But, I'm confident they would never do that, something is complex as zone instances without bugs is out of reach for volunteer programmers. I don't think they want the overhead.

[Mygicmeen]

Im rather torn. What about instancing older content like hate?

[Swish]

"I want to go online to meet as few other people as possible" - players today.

If you want all the content to yourself in a game, play Skyrim.

[jolanar]

I mean I think for the most part we all agree and that's why we are here to begin with.

[Erati]

inb4 Daldaen

[Lagaidh]

I've seen this topic, or many like it, come and go over the years. It really always boils down to this:

There's nothing wrong with P99 that can't be fixed by people treating others like they are also people. The greed-induced "othering" that goes on is shameful this many years in.

[Daldaen]

Ragefire is dumb.

Set respawn to 2 hours and you can't sock it all, eventually killing Dozekar every 2 hours would be less attractive and guilds would schedule raid times to hang out and kill targets.

Would solve most problems and when problems did arise guilds could work things out like "we will do NToV Monday and you do it Tuesday".

Pretty simple. The timeline is almost complete and once it comes off the rails when they don't launch Luclin throw in the super fast 2 hour respawn on all mobs over 2 hours and all will be well.

[pogs4ever]

agree with daldaen, once the last patch comes off, you may as well accelerate the server to its deathbed, 7 day repop is a slow death march of attrition.

after last patch, the sooner you kill off the server the sooner devs and all of us can move on with our lives.

[Ravager]

but but but welfare pixels and and and earn it and and and get gud

[indiscriminate_hater]

Welfare pixels for some, tiny American flags for others

[Swish]

Ragefire is dumb.

Set respawn to 2 hours and you can't sock it all, eventually killing Dozekar every 2 hours would be less attractive and guilds would schedule raid times to hang out and kill targets.

http://i.imgur.com/1gBWIug.gif


The not classic ideas are real strong the last day or so.

[philonius]

Please god no instances. That would be so depressing in an MMO. That's one of the reasons WoW started dying. But, I'm confident they would never do that, something is complex as zone instances without bugs is out of reach for volunteer programmers. I don't think they want the overhead.

WoW used instancing from the very start. WoW is dying because its a 13 year old game at this point, instances have nothing to do with it.

[Rygar]

I think your post is really well worded and sorted out, I tend to agree with you. What makes the top end so 'immersive' if we could use that word is how much work you need to put in to get that item you are hoping for.

EQ is a game of delayed gratification, you work hard and long to accomplish something you want. When you get it, that means something.

When you instance or put it on 2hr farm and you are /randoming for Vulak items cause DKP becomes too hard to track and/or spends too fast, I think it makes that item lose value to the user.

[Kotopes]

What about lockdown timer on raid targets? You kill Trak and your whole account cannot attack or in any way affect it for a set period of time (a week etc.)?

One reason I never went for raiding despite several tries here is because it eventually turns you into a no-sleep poopsocking batphone retard.

[Ravager]

I think your post is really well worded and sorted out, I tend to agree with you. What makes the top end so 'immersive' if we could use that word is how much work you need to put in to get that item you are hoping for.

EQ is a game of delayed gratification, you work hard and long to accomplish something you want. When you get it, that means something.

When you instance or put it on 2hr farm and you are /randoming for Vulak items cause DKP becomes too hard to track and/or spends too fast, I think it makes that item lose value to the user.

How long should it take a person to acquire an item before it becomes valuable? 4 Hours game time? 100 hours game time? 1000? 5000? Should those who get lucky and get an item they wanted almost immediately delete it and try again to increase its worth? If it's worth more, does that make it more useful?

[Nixtar]

The not classic ideas are real strong the last day or so.

Happens when you have a server which is extremely top heavy on max level characters.
The classic feel is a pipe-dream at this point. Instead with have foot races and a cutthroat competition for raid mobs.

The exp bonus on Red, for instance, is why I don't play there(well, the main reason). I do not want to blow through all that awesome classic content. Why the hell would I want to rush straight into a brick wall, i.e. Velious? Pixels? What's the point? If Red wants to become great then it is the PvP culture and interaction which needs to be improved. I mean, why would I want to join a PvP server for PvE reasons?

Auld Lang Syne is the only thing classic on P99.

[Bubbles]

I enjoy the part where he points out that just about anyone with a pulse would have Vulak-and-below on farm status immediately with instances...

But the fact that everyone's neckbearded out of these encounters is healthier for the server long term.

Fun little exercise: go to work tomorrow and try to explain to a secretary you spend your sundays either binded into google hangouts as the eyes for hours on end... Or the guy with that feed in the corner of his screen who sits waiting for up to 8 hours waiting for the exact moment to race against dozens of others spending their weekend the same way.

If the first adjective out of her mouth is 'healthy' instead of 'cult member' or 'roleplaying a virgin', switch jobs immediately.

[Swish]

What do you do when hundreds of people have done all the content? Got BiS on 6-13 characters, etc?

What then? What is there to look forward to? Getting to 60 with every race/class combo? Hoarding one billion plat?

It's a slow burning server, let it be <3

[Tetsuo]

"EQ is a game of delayed gratification, you work hard and long to accomplish something you want. When you get it, that means something" agree 100%

What makes EQ fun is how hard and grueling it can be and how satisfying reaching your goal is.

The relief of finishing up a hell level, hitting 60, and running all around norrath for a staff that can click haste is what makes EQ fun and EQ was designed to be tough like that.

However it wasn't designed for a top heavy server that isn't going to add new content which leads to the poopsocked end game content.

If you want to keep the challenge and slow pace but eliminate the poopsocking you could increase raid respawns BUT create a 7 day lockout to replace the classic 7 day respawn for the guild and or player that killed w/e raid target.

This would allow more access to content but prevent farming the raid target for 16 hours strait.

[fadetree]

New blue/green server needed imho. Yes, it would quickly attain the same kind of poopsockery, but at half the level it is now. P99 is too crowded at the end game.

[maskedmelon]

New blue/green server needed imho. Yes, it would quickly attain the same kind of poopsockery, but at half the level it is now. P99 is too crowded at the end game.

you a sock half-full or half-empty kinda guy, fadet?

[Ivah]

Agree but a second blue server wouldn't hurt.

Look at how shity the blue server is alrdy. Why would they put in extra man hours to try and police a second one.

[zati]

IDK if it was already suggested but, maybe they should let the community decide by creating an identical server but with different rules... for example:

Copy the entire P1999 Blue server (characters,level, equipment, etc)

Make P1999 Blue W/Instances/faster repops the whole sha-bang
**not starting from lvl 0**ALL chars are copied and transfered.**


Let the two servers stay active side-by-side for about a year. The one wit the most population stays. Lowest population gets deleted. Same process can be done for Luclin/PoP expansions.

Although... with the announcement of the new agnarr server daybreak is doing P99 a favor. Hopefully yall choose wisely

[Llodd]

"Project 1999 only continues to exist today with a strong population because of the scarcity of content and items entering the world."

I sometimes think this is perhaps how the staff view it. But it's BS, because they are enabling the high turnover rate at the top end with the raid scene mechanics. If they wanted to truly make the server classic, particulary with regards to item scarcity they would remove all the training and pulling to zone ins of Dragons and force raids to tackle the content how it's is suposed to be - clearing of trash/cothing + clearing. Added bonus of this would be no need for the ridiculously non classic fte races.

[zodium]

"Project 1999 only continues to exist today with a strong population because of the scarcity of content and items entering the world."

I sometimes think this is perhaps how the staff view it. But it's BS, because they are enabling the high turnover rate at the top end with the raid scene mechanics. If they wanted to truly make the server classic, particulary with regards to item scarcity they would remove all the training and pulling to zone ins of Dragons and force raids to tackle the content how it's is suposed to be - clearing of trash/cothing + clearing. Added bonus of this would be no need for the ridiculously non classic fte races.

I'm not gonna speak to how the staff does or does not view things, but as a 2.5 month P99 player, to me, the biggest thing that makes P99 feels like an emulator and not like actual classic gameplay is definitely the raid pulling.

I was never high end elite when I played Xegony on Live (to the release of Luclin), but I did raid up to some TOV, and I never once saw all the frankly obscure pulling work that's common here on P99. People would clear trash to raid mobs and kill them there, which meant a fairly significant time investment per raid mob for the whole force. It was also pretty chill.

I'm honestly not sure what's changed between Live and P99 since the mechanics should be relatively identical, yet the gameplay decidedly isn't, and it's not a change for the better for anyone involved, IMO. With that said, I'm not having much trouble accessing content and don't necessarily this needs to be changed urgently, and I'm sure it's trickier to do than it seems from my relatively ignorant perspective, just my two cents I guess.

Definitely keep scarcity the way it is and don't Trammel up the server or reboot it, just make us clear to the targets and fight there instead of COTHing or pulling to zoneline or whatever dumb stuff we do now. It'd be both more fun and more ~classic~, everyone wins.

[86753o9]

I agree with the OP, and this is coming from a very casual player that has been around since day one and can count on 2 hands the amount of raid target kills I've been a part of. Instancing is not classic, doesn't fit within the frame of velious era everquest, and should never be implemented on this server.

That being said, if you really want change in the raid scene here you need to get into politics and advocate/lobby for welfare reform so the poopsockers have to actually leave their houses and get jobs to inhibit their ability to log 100+ hours of play time on a weekly basis. I understand there will always be people like this, but it seems like there's a disturbing amount of them on p99 compared to classic retail.
I think a higher percentage of EQ'ers actually worked and had jobs back in 1999-2001 before obamacarewelfarestate went into full swing, and when the economy was in much better shape.
I remember pick up groups for Naggy/Vox being formed in EC on a consistent basis during late kunark all the way into luclin era. How many times has Naggy or Vox been PUG'd on p99? Have they ever been PUG'd even once? I would be shocked if they aren't on permafarm by a single 4-5 man group of overgeared de-leveled lvl 52 alts of some top end raiding guild that don't even need the loot just selling it in EC tunnel.

The meth/adderal epidemic wasn't as extensive back in 1999 either.

[Damn]

Instance it all. I want VP all to myself.

Just play red if you want instanced raiding

The only time you'll be bothered is when a bunch of rednecks decide to zone in scream yall and odoyle rules a few times and then you do what you want