Special Encounters

[Talislor]

Hello Green and Teal,

I'm new around here. I joined roughly a month ago for the launch of the new server. Before that, I played EverQuest between its launch in 1999 and a month into Velious, 2000. Despite my lack of years playing the game, EverQuest made a lasting impression on me and is easily my favorite game of all time. My memory is also uncorrupted by all the changes that went into Live following that time.

One of the things I enjoyed was raiding, both dragons and planes. I was there, on Veeshan server, when Fires of Heaven accomplished a world-first kill on Nagafen. Great times! I have a lot of pride for my old server and its players.

Reading the Project 1999 forums I see a recurring theme about toxicity in the raiding scene. Although I don't have the background of a long-time member of this community or even a clear understanding of why certain decisions have been made, I think this one particular patch note explains exactly the feelings of the EverQuest Live team with regards to special encounters.



------------------------------
June 22, 2000 9:00 am
------------------------------

*Vox and Nagafen*

Over the past couple of weeks, we've received more and more reports of
these dragons being bested by smaller and smaller groups of higher-
level (high 50s) adventurers. As we've always felt that Dragons should
be special encounters that require a large number of people, we were
left with some choices.

One choice available to us was to increase the power of the dragons to
a level where the level 60 folks would find them challenging. This
would have the disadvantage of forever placing them out-of-reach for
those who did not buy Kunark, and place them further out-of-reach for
those who did, but are just now approaching the levels where they could
go on Dragon raids. Another possible solution was to make the dragons
flee (depop) when engaged by a more powerful group of people. This
would have the undesired effect of allowing some people to deny others
the experience of fighting a dragon.

Instead of raising the bar as mentioned above, we've instead decided
that dragons, or at least these two dragons, should have the magical
ability to pick their own fights. Players of level 53 or above will now
encounter some difficulty when attempting to assist in combat with
these dragons. This should help 40s and low 50-level characters with
their chances to encounter a dragon without worry of getting forced out
by much higher level players. In addition, it also has the added effect
of creating a natural progression from the younger dragons of Antonica
to the elder and more formidable dragons of Kunark.


-The EverQuest Team
------------------------------


http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches-2000-1.html

The main points to take away are these:

1) The Live team saw fit to alter the classic experience to ensure that classic special encounters were not trivialized. These had an exception to standard operation, policies, and procedures employed at the time.

2) These encounters were intended for a large number of participants. As I recall, the first world-kill on Nagafen had ~50 participants.

3) The intended audience for these encounters is stated as 40s and low 50-level characters.

4) A small number of players should not deny others the opportunity of fighting the dragons.

After seeing the recent stream of Green server slaying Nagafen, witnessing the strategy, and considering the levels and the number of players involved, I am convinced this encounter fails to achieve its intended goals.

I can't imagine anyone saying that upgrading the special encounters would ruin their classic experience. To me, the classic experience is the once described by the Live team back in 2000, stated above.

I can't imagine any raiding guilds saying they want the raids to be trivial. High risk is what consummates the rewards, makes the game exciting, and makes the battles epic.

So, if I can get any attention from the people in charge, may I request the special encounters be upgraded in difficulty, keeping with the stated intention for how they should be played? We have at least another year of Nagafen and Vox. Let's make them risky enough that failures are inevitable. Competing raid forces should be allowed take turns trying to win.

I doubt I'm the first person to suggest all this. For players who have been with Project 1999 for years, how did the conversation go and what were the highlights? Am I taking this too seriously? Let me know.

[DMN]

You forgot:

5. Saw fit to not do anything about charm.

[Ligma]

They killed vox a week later without charm. Stop crying.

[bubur]

you're well within reason to bring this up op. on blue they instituted a bunch of rules to keep content from being monopolized: https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189856 at least addressing your point #4

as far as i know they haven't yet applied these rules to green/teal. i guess you'd need more than one raiding guild to have that discussion, but i suspect it will happen pretty soon

as for your other points, players over 52 (i think?) can't engage vox/naggy. that's actually coded in, since that restriction happened in classic eq within timeline, as you quoted here


but really, there's not much you can do to stop players from meta-gaming every small thing in eq over its 10 years of emulation and half-dozen tlp servers. the encounters are a lot easier now. everyone has an opinion as to why that is. to name a few: GINA, pressure to use charms across enc/necro/dru, full knowledge of stat mechanics and char optimization, cheesy corner strats, voice chat ch chains, just bluntforce experience of doing it 100 times... a combination of these imo. people dont even gear resists anymore. you can't really fight it, unless you want to suggest a custom hardmode EQ server with brand new rules

[Videri]

Staff here are not likely to tweak the numbers because it would be an unclassic change (yes, they have made unclassic changes before, but that doesn’t justify miving even further from classic). But even if you did tweak the numbers, it would still get it done quickly and efficiently because we have so much knowledge. The playerbase knows what classes to play, how to level efficiently, what parts of the world to ignore or skip over, how the mechanics work, how to play their class, etc. The Plains Cat is out of the bag.

[cd288]

You forgot:

5. Saw fit to not do anything about charm.

Best thing to do on these forums is just ignore anything DMN says

[DMN]

Best thing to do on these forums is just ignore anything DMN says

Low IQ guttersnipes are like the gift that just keeps giving for my ego.

[Bardp1999]

Detoxx solo'd Ragefire

[azeth]

Detoxx solo'd Ragefire

Not specifically about him/that kill, but it's funny to me when a player gets full paladin/cleric/shaman/enchanter buffs & soulfire/reaper etc... then claims to "solo" something.

[uygi]

Not specifically about him/that kill, but it's funny to me when a player gets full paladin/cleric/shaman/enchanter buffs & soulfire/reaper etc... then claims to "solo" something.

It’s not soloing, but it is still impressive...

[Talislor]

Hey everyone, thanks for all your great responses.

@DMN: At this stage I want to avoid discussion about specific measures to address the problem, and instead focus on the justifications needed to make a change.

@azeth: I also want to avoid downplaying anyone's or any group's achievements. The things that have been accomplished are incredible, and lets give them recognition for it.

@Videri: You confirmed that there are cases where "unclassic" changes were applied to the game. Although I find 40-50 player raids with a high degree of risk and uncertainty to be very classic, let me follow up below.


What justifications are needed to push through a hike in difficulty for these special encounters? The EQ Live team already gave us all the justifications they needed to push through changes two decades ago. In addition to those, which we have already met, what else should be necessary?

5) Community Support - Yes, I believe we have it. The lack of controversy to my original post as evidence.

I am making this effort because I am passionate and sincere about the difficulty of special encounters. Baring any unmet justifications for making a change, what is the next step to get acknowledgment that this case is valid from the people in charge?

Could there be any restrictions due to the agreement between Project 1999 and Daybreak? Should I reach out to Daybreak to make them aware of the issue and start a bridge between them and Project 1999?

A little guidance would be great. Thank you.

[kul69]

The reality is you're playing on P99, not classic EQ. No one knows why but the PMs want things to be this way. If it was up to the server community guilds like TMO would have been banned permanently the 100th time they RMT'd a new account to use cheats on to get loot and then have the account banned but the loot stays with the 10 core members of the guild. I mean they even caught like half the server using cheats at one point and gave them a slap on the wrist only for them to continue their cheat fueled raid tyranny. Abusing obvious P99 loopholes that aren't classic or weren't abused in classic and thus not nerfed is the bread and butter of raiding on P99. Accept it or accept you'll never be getting raid kills. The reality is that no one actually wants to play EQ. They're just addicted to the feeling of progress being made. The skinner box. So they'll poop sock 40 hours on camping green mobs so they can cheese dragons and feel like they're using some kind of sophisticated pro strat. In reality if those strats had been used in classic they would have been nerfed exactly as you're outlining. Nothing will be done.

[Videri]

I don't wanna act too stubborn here, but it's true:

(yes, they have made unclassic changes before, but that doesn’t justify moving even further from classic)

Anyway, good luck with this effort to experience classic difficulty, but I suspect you may soon feel like Don Quixote.

Perhaps the practical thing to do would be set a goal of killing Naggy and Vox yourself with only 30 people, or only 20, or something like that. People have done it with even less, in fact, but that may have taken place in later eras...

[Vormotus]

Nothing will be done.

I never been much for raiding, but yeah, seems the endgame spectrum is quite weird to my old vintage eyes, shame that your statement seems to me to be the truth of it when night falls.:(
https://i.imgur.com/Z9g9cX6.gif

[Ekl_Mortain]

I agree with OP. Doing nothing is Unclassic. The teams from live were Reactive to their players and came up with alternate methods to change an original design, but still keep it within the realms of acceptable play-ability.

from my perspective a big problem is a mix of meta gaming and the need to be the best. It's just get a guild, plvl to 60, get the best loot then retire. There is so much content that players just ignore. Why not go be a Brewer? Or a baker for a week? Go set up a smithy in some random location and help people with some sharpening stones.

Go be a druid in Kelethin and set up at the druid circles and behave like a druid for a day or two? Have some fun!

[Endonde]

The problem with increasing difficulty of raid mobs within p99 is that to increase it in a way that still represents classic everquest simply means increasing the dragons hp, or damage output. The issue with this approach is that all it does is force players to bring more people to kill the dragons, and doesn't really increase the difficulty for each individual player.

Even on Blue where staff made unclassic changes to effect the way raids were done in Velious, the changes essentially made it so that the largest guild always had an advantage. The changes in difficulty didn't open content to more players, I would argue it did the exact opposite.

Either way I think there is probably a 0% chance of any substantial mechanics changes happening on this server at least not for a long time, and I think it's way too early to even be considering any changes to the raid scene. The server has only be open a month, and Seal Team is the only guild raiding, as more players reach 50 other guilds may start raiding. Competition causes rushed engages and an increase chance of failure, so really we should just give it time and see what happens.

[AgentEpilot]

I agree with OP. Doing nothing is Unclassic. The teams from live were Reactive to their players and came up with alternate methods to change an original design, but still keep it within the realms of acceptable play-ability.

from my perspective a big problem is a mix of meta gaming and the need to be the best. It's just get a guild, plvl to 60, get the best loot then retire. There is so much content that players just ignore. Why not go be a Brewer? Or a baker for a week? Go set up a smithy in some random location and help people with some sharpening stones.

Go be a druid in Kelethin and set up at the druid circles and behave like a druid for a day or two? Have some fun!

The teams on live were also being paid with a monthly subscription. Don’t get me wrong changes would be good and in an ideal setting they would be discouraging this neckberd council but it would make an already busy group of volunteers even busier.

[derpcake2]

The problem with increasing difficulty of raid mobs within p99 is that to increase it in a way that still represents classic everquest simply means increasing the dragons hp, or damage output.

Bad players complaining that better players take content is very classic.

Of course since the bad players are bad, they don't understand that difficulty increases won't benefit them at all, since bottom of the barrel players remain bottom of the barrel, regardless of the situation.

[Ekl_Mortain]

The teams on live were also being paid with a monthly subscription. Don’t get me wrong changes would be good and in an ideal setting they would be discouraging this neckberd council but it would make an already busy group of volunteers even busier.

Hahaha true enough. They do a grand job. They need to find more volunteer staff me thinks. Get that Interview and Guide apprenticeships going hahaha.


Either way I think there is probably a 0% chance of any substantial mechanics changes happening on this server at least not for a long time, and I think it's way too early to even be considering any changes to the raid scene. The server has only be open a month, and Seal Team is the only guild raiding, as more players reach 50 other guilds may start raiding. Competition causes rushed engages and an increase chance of failure, so really we should just give it time and see what happens.

You make a very valid point about changes and how young the server is. Give it time and see what happens when the next part of the timeline is out and compare the Then from Now.

[Dreenk317]

Make the raid more difficult for yourself. I know for a fact that vox has been killed with a single group of lvl 52's. Didnt even have a healer for the fight. Was one of my favorite memories on this server.

Didnt require the devs to a damn thing.

[astuce999]

I still think the solution is more servers; Teal has dramatically improved life on both Green and Teal, a 2nd split (this one with a guaranteed reunification upon Kunark) would be enough to improve the upcoming raid scene.

The conundrum with "Classic" is that you basically have two fundamentally opposed camps; Nostalgia and Competition.

Nostalgia is looking to relive the glory days of content "I remember that!" or achieve certain bucket list goals "back in the day, I was never able to get soandso item or kill soandso mob".

Competition is looking to relive the glory days of competing with, outwitting, outsmarting, outwaiting, outgearing, outfarming, and just plain denying other players. Killing Nagafen has no meaning in itself. Killing Nagafen First, Killing Nagafen Solo, Killing Nagafen while 2 other guilds were racing, Killing Nagafen every week to make sure no other guilds do, is everything.

At its worse, Nostalgia has very rosy glasses (e.g. I should be able to get a manastone with 2-4 hour playtime a week) and Competition is toxic.

At its best, Nostalgia takes very little to please the player (e.g. I ran from Kelethin to Erudin, it took 3 hours and I loved every second) and Competition feels olympian (e.g. I got the AC in Sro with 4 farmers in zone but my antonian javelin got me FTE, it was epic, I didn't sleep that night).

cheers,

Astuce

[Talislor]

One last time, thanks everyone for your participation. I think we’ve gathered enough information on this topic to say there is no consensus, there is insufficient motivation, and there is doubt that the volunteer staff could pull it off (not that I wouldn’t be willing to help). Kindly remember that I’m just a new guy asking questions and try not to hold any grudges. XD

@kul69: You’re right that P99 isn’t classic EQ, but the market placement creates that illusion. I think this is confusing because sometimes you see great efforts going into the facsimile, but it’s missing a lot of important details. More focus on player experiences with the special encounters is the one single area I would have chosen for improvement.

@Ekl_Mortain: Meta gaming only speaks to the amazing possibilities of the open world game-play found in EverQuest. I like meta gaming, especially the halfling runs. However, when a single group can solo a dragon it kinda ruins the lore (among other things). I used to read all of it back in 1999. The lore is rather brilliant.

@Endonde: I don’t want to detail too much on how you could raise the difficulty of the special encounters, but my preference would be to add more randomized behaviors and eliminate predictability. I think this would be effective in increasing the required raid size without complicating gear requirements. This approach could also be an effective countermeasure to thwart certain Gina triggers.

@derpcake2: I think you’ve mis-characterized my intent.

Thanks again everyone. I’m pretty much done with this thread. I appreciate all the replies though.

[Wallicker]

Nerf clickie aggro and make Soulfire Paladin only.

[Evia]

Nerf clickie aggro and make Soulfire Paladin only.

+1

[Ekl_Mortain]

@Ekl_Mortain: Meta gaming only speaks to the amazing possibilities of the open world game-play found in EverQuest. I like meta gaming, especially the halfling runs. However, when a single group can solo a dragon it kinda ruins the lore (among other things). I used to read all of it back in 1999. The lore is rather brilliant.

Oh when i say meta i should clarify that players skip the learning process, Which is what i found to be the most fun on EQ. I know there is a wiki with all the information on it, i use it for maps when i am lost, but i would much rather find my way first, or if its for a tradeskill see if i can find someone who will teach me. That was the adventure i loved.

And agreed, the lore is wonderful and continuous. The constant mystery of the world of Norrath.

[aaezil]

Naggy/vox both been killed with single groups i think

[kul69]

Hahaha true enough. They do a grand job. They need to find more volunteer staff me thinks. Get that Interview and Guide apprenticeships going hahaha.

You make a very valid point about changes and how young the server is. Give it time and see what happens when the next part of the timeline is out and compare the Then from Now.

There are more than enough volunteers. The bottleneck is not on applicants.

Also I think every single server GM has turned out to be corrupt on P99 except Braknar who quit out of disgust that the PMs weren't doing anything to let him support the server as it needed to be supported.

P99 is getting stale and it's because of the all the cheese not being nerfed. The game is boiling down to basically spending level 20-50 in HHK and then farm a list of specific cheese raid clickies to have your chance at some 30 year old dragon loot depending on how the same 5-10 cheaters feel. How long it takes a player to figure out that this is all the end game has to offer is up to them.

It is undeniable that the staff is supporting this. Like I said, most of those people from the "top guilds" on P99 should have been permanently banned years ago and on all the alts they keep farming up to break rules.

People have said this forever and then it comes out GMs are handing out items to e-whores and telling people when dragons are going to spawn. The whole end game scene on P99 is full of scumbags and it would be pretty easy to clean it up if there was even the slightest bit of will to do so. It would start with getting rid of cheese clicks like soulfire and actually making the dragons a challenging encounter as OP stated would have happened in live.

If entire guilds were farming soulfires to click from inventory so they could kill dragons easily it would have been nerfed. Not on P99 though. Instead it's endless discussions of rotations, or rooted dragons, or whatever nonsense while ignoring the rotting core of P99 raiding being a trivial joke where no one ever wipes if they have the prerequisite cheese items to trivialize everything.

[Ligma]

Charmed mobs tanking dragons while raids heal them with soulfires is a nice fantasy for angry nerds to rage about but isn't a thing in reality.

[Frostback]

Great post op! Have you seen the other streams of seal team taking down vox? I don't have experience raiding on live but there was a lot of people in each raid for seal team, all lvl 39+. While raiding on the blue server, guilds used similar tactics but had to race each other to get the numbers required to take down the dragons which makes it a lot more competitive and risky.

[kul69]

Charmed mobs tanking dragons while raids heal them with soulfires is a nice fantasy for angry nerds to rage about but isn't a thing in reality.

Um an SK "soloed" a dragon with just buffs and clickies. You're just trying to cover up what you're a part of. Raiding on P99 is clicking soulfires, supporting charm, and everyone healing a tank spamming clickies for aggro.

Seal Team poop socking nets making it a requirement for loot. Hilarious. I guess hoops are out, have to find the next clicky. Good thing they won't nerf soulfire, then you'd really be fucked.

I've never liked raiding in EQ but P99 is a whole new level of boring trivialized content. Funny to me that clicking lifetaps on dragons was the line but as long as a fight is "simulated" and instead soulfire heals are used it's totally fine.

P99 is not classic. Don't worry. No one is going to take your pretend raids away Ligma.

[Ligma]

Um an SK "soloed" a dragon with just buffs and clickies

We're talking about green. Literally anyone can solo yeldema.

I watched seal teams vox kill and it seemed 100% classic in strategy to me. Except maybe some mallet charges, but agro isn't a problem when the whole raid is dodging AEs. And the imp didn't once tank naggy but somehow over time it turns into 'imp tanked naggy with soulfires'

And how are nets even comparable to hoops?

[Ekl_Mortain]

Yea i've already noticed the deaf ears around here. It's a damn shame because i came back hoping to find remnants of live (the player base) trying to keep that golden gem alive. That was not the case. I Still come across the good players in game, but from what i hear with the late game, i'll be getting to 30 then just roleplaying for the rest of it till kurnac hahaha.

On the note with Seal team and other guilds. It's a shame their "Upper tier" members have given them such a bad name, the members of Seal team i've met are for the most part only in it because they have been bullied into it. I.e you cant get this camp/loot unless you join a guild. Hell, one of their members assisted me with a very nice item out of generosity, and i loved that. Thats the ideal Guild member. However with everything else, It's like watching high schoolers go at it.

[Ekl_Mortain]

Eh. I just won't join a guild and anything i find that i don't need i'll be giving away. That includes Raid items, Money, Food/drink, Trade training, Porting. Everything. Because i'm a nice guy. :D I won't ever get what i want in vision for this, but i can at least share my experience of the game and how i was brought up with it for others.

Edit*Spelling.

[vossiewulf]

We played Blue and ran up a few 50ish characters 7 years ago or so without ever joining any guilds for similar reasons.

But then again, we never joined guilds in classic either, not that we didn't receive invites. Even without joining a guild, after a few months the two of us signing on resulted in walls of tells that would take us 20 minutes just to reasonably answer everyone. During that we'd get four invites to go places and would always be in a position of disappointing people by saying no. It drove us from playing EQ a couple times because it became like a job with significant responsibilities.

Back on Blue and here, we maintain quite a bit lower profile by mostly soloing/duoing, and it's been nice as neither of us have schedules that allow long camps or any commitments really- for example I'm on call 24/7 and anyone who likes buying stuff on the intertubes should want me to drop EQ when one of those calls come in. And unfortunately they occur typically at least 2-3 times a week. Wouldn't exactly be good to be a key player in a raid or even a super tricky dungeon and then just say sorry GNOC page bye and slam the connection.

And we've had tons of fun playing EQ Classic - Less Stress. We waste precious powerleveling time wandering around exploring and doing some quests and instead of camping 27 hours for something we buy it if we decide it's that useful. Start a couple necros and get them to giant-hunting level they can make endless amounts of money with little effort and can fund lots of alts.

Now the way we think about it is a hard fight at 15 and a hard fight at 30 and at 45 and even 60 are all basically identical in duration and challenge, the only difference being you click on different icons and the numbers involved are higher or lower. So unless your goal is raiding, which requires high levels, there really isn't any reason at all to rush. Fun is had by finding challenging hunting spots that push you to your skill limits, whether they be level 10 or 40, and the most fun of all is hunting a spot that requires a full group to be operating at skill limits.

[vossiewulf]

Eh. I just won't join a guild and anything i find that i don't need i'll be giving away. That includes Raid items, Money, Food/drink, Trade training, Porting. Everything. Because i'm a nice guy. :D I won't ever get what i want in vision for this, but i can at least share my experience of the game and how i was brought up with it for others.

+1 good egg detected

[Doktoor]

We played Blue and ran up a few 50ish characters 7 years ago or so without ever joining any guilds for similar reasons.

But then again, we never joined guilds in classic either, not that we didn't receive invites. Even without joining a guild, after a few months the two of us signing on resulted in walls of tells that would take us 20 minutes just to reasonably answer everyone. During that we'd get four invites to go places and would always be in a position of disappointing people by saying no. It drove us from playing EQ a couple times because it became like a job with significant responsibilities.

Back on Blue and here, we maintain quite a bit lower profile by mostly soloing/duoing, and it's been nice as neither of us have schedules that allow long camps or any commitments really- for example I'm on call 24/7 and anyone who likes buying stuff on the intertubes should want me to drop EQ when one of those calls come in. And unfortunately they occur typically at least 2-3 times a week. Wouldn't exactly be good to be a key player in a raid or even a super tricky dungeon and then just say sorry GNOC page bye and slam the connection.

And we've had tons of fun playing EQ Classic - Less Stress. We waste precious powerleveling time wandering around exploring and doing some quests and instead of camping 27 hours for something we buy it if we decide it's that useful. Start a couple necros and get them to giant-hunting level they can make endless amounts of money with little effort and can fund lots of alts.

Now the way we think about it is a hard fight at 15 and a hard fight at 30 and at 45 and even 60 are all basically identical in duration and challenge, the only difference being you click on different icons and the numbers involved are higher or lower. So unless your goal is raiding, which requires high levels, there really isn't any reason at all to rush. Fun is had by finding challenging hunting spots that push you to your skill limits, whether they be level 10 or 40, and the most fun of all is hunting a spot that requires a full group to be operating at skill limits.

Great post