Raiding proposal - Level the playing field

[rubicaant]

I wanted to put forth an idea, that's probably been discussed a hundred times. I believe one way to vastly improve the blue raid scene would be to start having 3-4 quakes per month. I think that at least 1 should be weekday 7cst, and one should be weekend 1pm. One for European Times, and then 1 per month that is random.

This would vastly reduce stinky socks, while still being very competitive. Doesn't increase item drops, or if it does it's just by a little. The big guilds will still get the high value targets, but smaller guilds will have a crack at some things. I believe it could also reduce petition quest a bit too. It's easier to pivot to another target if another guild beat you on assembling when you aren't all fighting over the only target that's up.

And lastly, it would be very fun. Imagine knowing a quake is coming every other week, can preplan with the family that they just don't get to talk to you that day. And logon and see how many targets your guild can get this time. And some could argue that this proposal is more classic-like than our current iteration. We had almost weekly repops for years on live.

GMs please consider this, even for one month as a trial. Thank you!

[karadin]

I think 3-4 is excessive, but 1 Euro friendly and 1 US friendly quake per month would be more than welcome.

[xdrcfrx]

I think 3-4 is excessive, but 1 Euro friendly and 1 US friendly quake per month would be more than welcome.

3-4 quakes a month would basically replace the weekly natural respawn cycle, I guess. I guess you'd end up with a net increase in 3-day and 5-day spawns, though.

I've always been fond of the idea that ToV, or at least North, be changed so that it's like the CT fear spawn - when Vulak pops, the whole wing repops. You'd have some interesting risks to take, if inner ring dragons were up and vulak was still in window, and would maybe make the competition in ToV a little less fraught, which might help alleviate some of the urgency which drives the petitionquest game.

[rubicaant]

Yea, 1 US, 1 Euro and maybe 1 random every 1-2 months might be more realistic. Would go a long way toward player fun and server health.

[rubicaant]

3-4 quakes a month would basically replace the weekly natural respawn cycle, I guess. I guess you'd end up with a net increase in 3-day and 5-day spawns, though.

I've always been fond of the idea that ToV, or at least North, be changed so that it's like the CT fear spawn - when Vulak pops, the whole wing repops. You'd have some interesting risks to take, if inner ring dragons were up and vulak was still in window, and would maybe make the competition in ToV a little less fraught, which might help alleviate some of the urgency which drives the petitionquest game.

Would be some kinks to work out. Maybe the quest mobs shouldn't repop with scheduled Quakes., and we just keep rotating, air clicking or randoming for those

[karadin]

3-4 quakes a month would basically replace the weekly natural respawn cycle, I guess. I guess you'd end up with a net increase in 3-day and 5-day spawns, though.

I've always been fond of the idea that ToV, or at least North, be changed so that it's like the CT fear spawn - when Vulak pops, the whole wing repops. You'd have some interesting risks to take, if inner ring dragons were up and vulak was still in window, and would maybe make the competition in ToV a little less fraught, which might help alleviate some of the urgency which drives the petitionquest game.

It'd be fun to trial for a month, but if you make that permanent you take away a lot of really fun competitive encounters (most Zlandi coths, all racing, ladyn/jorll coth RTE races). It's kind of like a pseudo rotation, in essence. Almost every encounter would be non-competitive except for the last few hours of NToV. Tightening up the windows twice (or even once) per month would be very welcomed though and would still give smaller guilds more targets.

[xdrcfrx]

It'd be fun to trial for a month, but if you make that permanent you take away a lot of really fun competitive encounters (most Zlandi coths, all racing, ladyn/jorll coth RTE races). It's kind of like a pseudo rotation, in essence. Almost every encounter would be non-competitive except for the last few hours of NToV. Tightening up the windows twice (or even once) per month would be very welcomed though and would still give smaller guilds more targets.

yeah, there's def some points you'd need to work out, and I'm sure there's some unanticipated consequences that would pop up. My thinking is that if you just did the vulak/NToV change, then it would still allow for natural respawn of mobs in north, such that the coth races for doubles/trips, the foot race for ikatiar, etc., would all still be in play at times. Other zones would of course not be implicated.

It would even (quelle horreur) provide an interesting incentive for guilds to cooperate with one another. If Vulak spawn caused all of north to pop, the server could theoretically let vulak drift a bit from the rest of the names mobs in the wing, and then guarantee itself a second set of inner ring dragons every week. Just have to be willing to let vulak sit for a day, each spawn. maybe pick a single blocker to leave up as a kind of alarm so that if someone moves to snipe, others have time in advance to gather and contest.

Think most agree that blue raid scene needs something to accommodate competition while maybe discouraging the petitions, at least. Maybe not, though. I'm sure there's a fair number of people totally fine with how things are at present.

[condap99]

How to resolve petitions - FTE lockouts

How to resolve casual access to dragons - alter mindset of casuals from thinking that because they are casual, that they must be in a casual guild. If what you seek is to play casually, but kill dragons when you do play - then you are a casual raider, not a casual player. Your guild affiliation should reflect this.

There - solved both of the major problems with the server, without requiring a code change that won't happen, or quakes that won't happen.

[rubicaant]

Most casual raiders don't want to login at 2am to get targets. More timely Quakes solves that and allows folks to stay with their chosen community.

[rubicaant]

Plus camping out for 16 hours for one mob is less fun than logging on and slaying 5 in one night. But that's just me :)

[condap99]

Most casual raiders don't want to login at 2am to get targets. More timely Quakes solves that and allows folks to stay with their chosen community.

So don't log in for targets outside of your playtime? Or be ok with being in a guild that doesn't compete for competitive targets?

Plus camping out for 16 hours for one mob is less fun than logging on and slaying 5 in one night. But that's just me :)

You're wasting your time if your solution includes GMs quaking more often or implementing a code change like respawn all of north if vulak pops. We literally had GMs tell us that they were going to quake it 2x a month. Like 8 months into it, we learned that instead of coding it to happen randomly, it relied on them manually hitting a button. And ofcourse, like any manual process, it fizzled out.

[xdrcfrx]

So don't log in for targets outside of your playtime? Or be ok with being in a guild that doesn't compete for competitive targets?

This same rationale could be applied to complaints from the FRAG and Riot about timer's being spread out, couldn't it? So just don't contest every single spawn, at all hours of the day?

This is a game, after all. People make friends, and prefer not to have to leave the communities they are part of in order to experience the various content the game has to offer. Taking it so seriously that you're unwilling to share anything, ever, is part of the problem. Competition is fun, but it's only one of several ingredients that make p99 enjoyable. Serpentine draft was meant to address this point, but seal team (surely acting alone, and not at all coordinated with anyone else on blue I'm sure) probably going to see to it that it falls apart. So we're back to square zero.


You're wasting your time if your solution includes GMs quaking more often or implementing a code change like respawn all of north if vulak pops. We literally had GMs tell us that they were going to quake it 2x a month. Like 8 months into it, we learned that instead of coding it to happen randomly, it relied on them manually hitting a button. And ofcourse, like any manual process, it fizzled out.

I think this conversation is mostly a speculative "wouldn't it be nice, if..." kind of a thing. I doubt anyone really expects those kinds of changes to be made. It's still worth the thought experiment of talking through the ideas though, if just to see whether or not you can forecast out the strengths and weaknesses.

[rubicaant]

Yea I don't think the coding changes to NToV would ever happen, and frequent quakes may be a pipe dream, but definitely feasible.

[Foxplay]

Quakes are best for smaller guilds, as well as the ultra competitive. Since it's impossible to kill everything and be everywhere at once smaller guilds will get a target or two on a quake (provided they try and don't go for a priority 1 target)

It's good for the competitive guilds too because it has all of them playing the game instead of just the 16hr yellow text warriors

[Croco]

the staff don't care anymore, we barely get quakes and haven't had a holiday exp increase in about a year and a half

[Fammaden]

And some could argue that this proposal is more classic-like than our current iteration. We had almost weekly repops for years on live.

Its absolutely more classic, anyone old enough to have raided back then remembers the frequent server maintenance downtime. Difference being that it would occur during west coast business hours when the devs were at work, so like 1PM EST on a random ass Tuesday they bring down the servers and the uber guilds scramble to be in place to log in for AoW or whatever.

Not nearly as many people could work from home back then. The raid scene was run by college students, with a healthy contingent of unemployed, shift workers, ten on/ten off schedules, etc. Raid guilds had a lot of housewife and deployed military representation in the roster.

the staff don't care anymore, we barely get quakes and haven't had a holiday exp increase in about a year and a half

Pretty sure there was a quote from Rog at green launch that he didn't want to do special xp bonuses with a fresh server, and we've been seeing the absence of them ever since.

[Xulia]

I think 3-4 is excessive, but 1 Euro friendly and 1 US friendly quake per month would be more than welcome.

That’s a solid and fair proposal IMO

[enjchanter]

just rotate it fk it at this point

[feniin]

just rotate it fk it at this point

[Videri]

just rotate it fk it at this point

[zodium]

You're wasting your time if your solution includes GMs quaking more often or implementing a code change like respawn all of north if vulak pops. We literally had GMs tell us that they were going to quake it 2x a month. Like 8 months into it, we learned that instead of coding it to happen randomly, it relied on them manually hitting a button. And ofcourse, like any manual process, it fizzled out.

it's well known that two quakes a month, distributed as a random chance per day rather than the old system, would solve like 50% of raiding scene problems. however, a lot of eqemu code is presumably still glued together from random candy letters lethalencounter found in his couch circa 2003. in conclusion: lol. and also, lmao.

[spikeviking]

lol and lmao all in one go.

[Naethyn]

K1C1

[ollyisk]

Quakes are undeniably the most fun time on the server, probably the greatest distribution of loot, and it cuts down on the whole staring at wall things. However, some people like staring at walls though, so we don't want to exclude them.

The best thing would a hybrid system, something like three quakes (at random times Thursday-Sunday) in which no mobs naturally spawn after, and then allow natural spawn timers after the third consecutive quake.

Quake, quake, quake, natural spawns, quake, quake, quake, natural spawns.

This or something like this would alleviate several of the problems "at the top," and allow for more interesting competition.

[zodium]

imagine if there were two quakes a month, guilds weren't allowed to account share armies of bots, and all legacy items were deleted

[mattydef]

The sweatiest of our nerd p99 brethren will not stand for so many welfare pixels to be distributed monthly. If you want the items they have, you must work for it, and when I say work for it, I mean call out of work and sit at your computer for 16 hours of course.

[MaCtastic]

The sweatiest of our nerd p99 brethren will not stand for so many welfare pixels to be distributed monthly.

Wonder how many of the 'no welfare pixels' team are actually on welfare?

[Nexii]

imagine if there were two quakes a month, guilds weren't allowed to account share armies of bots, and all legacy items were deleted

It would be more classic. Too late to put the genie back in the bottle though. Might be okay for a new server.

[condap99]

This same rationale could be applied to complaints from the FRAG and Riot about timer's being spread out, couldn't it? So just don't contest every single spawn, at all hours of the day?

This is a game, after all. People make friends, and prefer not to have to leave the communities they are part of in order to experience the various content the game has to offer. Taking it so seriously that you're unwilling to share anything, ever, is part of the problem. Competition is fun, but it's only one of several ingredients that make p99 enjoyable. Serpentine draft was meant to address this point, but seal team (surely acting alone, and not at all coordinated with anyone else on blue I'm sure) probably going to see to it that it falls apart. So we're back to square zero.


No. The same logic couldn't be applied. Because you just lifted the scope of the conversation from the individual player, to an entire raiding entity.

Individual players choose when to log in or not log in.

Raiding entities have players globally, and are specifically designed to support 24/7 coverage. They will never stop contesting targets because that's not how a random dude on the forums thinks the game should be played.

It's extremely simple. "People make friends, and prefer not to have to leave the communities they are part of in order to experience the various content the game has to offer." This is the tradeoff that you have to consider. Stay with the guilds that don't care enough about raiding to have the infrastructure to win competitively because you like them or know them irl or whatever... or join the raiding entities that do care about winning, and have the infrastructure in place to do it.

That's your choice. There's no wrong answer. But the rules won't be changed so that you don't have to make the choice. Live with your decisions and stop complaining about how the system isn't fair.

[feniin]

ITT we rationalize our pixel sickness instead of making the place better.

[xdrcfrx]

No. The same logic couldn't be applied. Because you just lifted the scope of the conversation from the individual player, to an entire raiding entity.

Individual players choose when to log in or not log in.

Raiding entities have players globally, and are specifically designed to support 24/7 coverage. They will never stop contesting targets because that's not how a random dude on the forums thinks the game should be played.

It's extremely simple. "People make friends, and prefer not to have to leave the communities they are part of in order to experience the various content the game has to offer." This is the tradeoff that you have to consider. Stay with the guilds that don't care enough about raiding to have the infrastructure to win competitively because you like them or know them irl or whatever... or join the raiding entities that do care about winning, and have the infrastructure in place to do it.

That's your choice. There's no wrong answer. But the rules won't be changed so that you don't have to make the choice. Live with your decisions and stop complaining about how the system isn't fair.

Well shame on me for discussing the topic of the thread, I guess. More quakes would be good, both as a means of allowing more people to experience the content and as a tool to keep respawn timers relatively stacked up. A serpent draft 4 times a year is good, and is not an onerous burden on anyone. IMO a CT-in-fear type mechanic for with Vulak in ToV would alleviate a lot of the angst that lies at the root of the near constant petitionquest that goes along with the raiding environment on p99 blue. Those were the the points of discussion, none is a complaint about the fairness of the system. You'll recognize that elsewhere I acknowledge the server is a baseline FFA environment, and that aspect is 100% part of what makes p99 attractive.

Get over yourself.

[Twochain]

Well shame on me for discussing the topic of the thread, I guess. More quakes would be good, both as a means of allowing more people to experience the content and as a tool to keep respawn timers relatively stacked up. A serpent draft 4 times a year is good, and is not an onerous burden on anyone. IMO a CT-in-fear type mechanic for with Vulak in ToV would alleviate a lot of the angst that lies at the root of the near constant petitionquest that goes along with the raiding environment on p99 blue. Those were the the points of discussion, none is a complaint about the fairness of the system. You'll recognize that elsewhere I acknowledge the server is a baseline FFA environment, and that aspect is 100% part of what makes p99 attractive.

Get over yourself.

The issue with Vulak is the training (mobs) required to snag a competitive kill. Not only do you have to kite a bunch of mobs, you have to do it around 250 other people. It's always going to be a bonanza at Vulak. A CT call wouldn't help that.

Personally I can't fathom why we haven't went back to the footrace/FTE lockout meta. AT LEAST FOR A MONTH TEST RUN. Maybe Riot will be more willing to try it out now?

[choppedandglued]

\
And lastly, it would be very fun. Imagine knowing a quake is coming every other week, can preplan with the family that they just don't get to talk to you that day. \

Imagine knowing a quake is coming every other week, can preplan with the family that they just don't get to talk to you that day

can preplan with the family that they just don't get to talk to you that day




they just don't get to talk to you that day :(

[rogerk]

The issue with Vulak is the training (mobs) required to snag a competitive kill. Not only do you have to kite a bunch of mobs, you have to do it around 250 other people.

I despise how 90% of the games content has been cut out because the "META" is to just train everything you're supposed to kill away. Part of the problem IMO. ( that and the armies of shared characters which are essentially bots )

[Wokka]

While I agree more quakes would be nice (I think we currently at like 50+ days since the last one), good luck getting the GM's onboard. They usually too busy playing WoW to spend 10 minutes to look at p99 issues, just look how long petitions take to get sorted, can literally be 6 months later before a ruling is handed down. Hence another "problem", quakes usually bring more petitions because of the mad rush to kill everything. The GM's have made it abundantly clear they would rather let petitions pile up and then just ban hammer everyone rather than sorting it out early. So if more quakes equals more petitions, its something the GM's will avoid. Maybe some more staff would help overall?

[xdrcfrx]

The issue with Vulak is the training (mobs) required to snag a competitive kill. Not only do you have to kite a bunch of mobs, you have to do it around 250 other people. It's always going to be a bonanza at Vulak. A CT call wouldn't help that.

Personally I can't fathom why we haven't went back to the footrace/FTE lockout meta. AT LEAST FOR A MONTH TEST RUN. Maybe Riot will be more willing to try it out now?

Not the call mechanic, the zone-wide re-pop.

[Croco]

Personally I can't fathom why we haven't went back to the footrace/FTE lockout meta. AT LEAST FOR A MONTH TEST RUN. Maybe Riot will be more willing to try it out now?

The last thing the raiding meta needs is MORE mario kart. At least with the current Vulak engage there are a ton of roles that need to be filled by a ton of people. Footrace is just 4-6 people from each guild doing a thing and everyone else sitting on their ass until they finish.

[getsome]

Time for the Ring of Vulak.

[Twochain]

The last thing the raiding meta needs is MORE mario kart. At least with the current Vulak engage there are a ton of roles that need to be filled by a ton of people. Footrace is just 4-6 people from each guild doing a thing and everyone else sitting on their ass until they finish.

In regard to this and the meta switching of the raid scene... I kind of think it's been fun and interesting how the raid scene has changed over the years. While this isn't my favorite way to raid ToV, it's cool how much it's changed. And even years (at this point) since the dragons were rooted, new strategies are still being implemented every week.

You say it's Mario Kart, I say it's a fun 5 minute event per mob to decide it's fate in a no hard feelings way. I don't think there should be a racer limit. And if there is one, it should be high, like 10+. So that everyone can get a chance.

Have you ever been in a raid guild during a race meta? POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP VULAK VULAK GOGOOGGOGOOGGOGOOGOGO... shit is fun. And it easily decides the mob.

Like i've said before, racing in ToV besides maybe doze is nothing like racing in other zones. You have to run through a LOT of mobs that will one round you. If kittens brought 10 people to the line, I'd give them at LEAST a 10% chance of winning the mob, even more once they got better at doing it. Compare that, to a 0% chance of winning a mob in tov bringing 10 people.

We could even make it a community event. If all the smaller guilds agreed to a "Race for ToV" event, we could try it out the first window after a quake.

DA Idols will be an issue. Perhaps that's something we can fix collaboratively.

Rotations? No fun. I don't think the GM's are too keen on it either. The competition on this server is fun, and shouldn't be stamped out so that everyone can get a chance at ToV loot molten core style.

If you hate racing, suggest something else plz i'm very much all ears

[Nexii]

While I agree more quakes would be nice (I think we currently at like 50+ days since the last one), good luck getting the GM's onboard. They usually too busy playing WoW to spend 10 minutes to look at p99 issues, just look how long petitions take to get sorted, can literally be 6 months later before a ruling is handed down. Hence another "problem", quakes usually bring more petitions because of the mad rush to kill everything. The GM's have made it abundantly clear they would rather let petitions pile up and then just ban hammer everyone rather than sorting it out early. So if more quakes equals more petitions, its something the GM's will avoid. Maybe some more staff would help overall?

Not entirely accurate. The GMs that handle petitions don't have the power to quake the server. Only Nilbog and Rogean have that ability.

[Danth]

The competition on this server is fun, and shouldn't be stamped out so that everyone can get a chance at ToV loot molten core style.

Fun for you maybe. What about the folks who don't enjoy the same thing you do? It's no longer a single-server environment. There doesn't have to be only a single set of rules anymore. I don't see a compelling reason why P99 should have two PvE servers that have practically the same rulesets. The time-limited progression server looks like the obvious place to cater to the racers because its a race by its very nature. Blue could evolve into something else.

Danth

[Detoxx]

54 days and counting!

[Detoxx]

Fun for you maybe. What about the folks who don't enjoy the same thing you do? It's no longer a single-server environment. There doesn't have to be only a single set of rules anymore. I don't see a compelling reason why P99 should have two PvE servers that have practically the same rulesets. The time-limited progression server looks like the obvious place to cater to the racers because its a race by its very nature. Blue could evolve into something else.

Danth

Also to this I will say what I have always said:

There is unlimited amount of servers, whether through EQEmu or EQ Live that provide exactly what you want. There is 1 that provides competition the way it was in classic.

[rubicaant]

But to be fair, the proposal I'm asking for would be a much more classic experience than we have now. And more EQs would still be very competitive, would be a lot of racing. It would just reduce socking, and consolidate the amount of time it takes to raid per month into fewer days. I know that may not be for everybody, but sounds extremely fun to me.

[Danth]

Also to this I will say what I have always said:

There is unlimited amount of servers, whether through EQEmu or EQ Live that provide exactly what you want. There is 1 that provides competition the way it was in classic.

Incorrect. None of those other games or servers offers the quality of re-created 2001 mechanics that P99 offers. If one of 'em did while maintaining a ruleset I liked better, I'd be there and not here. Since such an alternative doesn't exist (Maybe EQC circa 2032, hah!) I'll tolerate the bad along with the good here on P99. There are also two P99 PvE servers now, not 1, so your other point is also outdated. At least with the Velious era we can have a sort of detente--you and those like you can sequester yourselves away in Temple Veeshan where you don't matter and leave the rest of the game open for folks like me. It's acceptable, if not ideal.

Danth

[Thaak]

Also to this I will say what I have always said:

There is unlimited amount of servers, whether through EQEmu or EQ Live that provide exactly what you want. There is 1 that provides competition the way it was in classic.

You really might be the dumbest motherfucker on this server, and that's saying a lot.

The "competition" you desire never existed in classic, because classic was never a stagnant, time locked world.

Competition is fun. Competition for every mob 24/7 is not. Chill the fuck out.

[Croco]

Also to this I will say what I have always said:

There is unlimited amount of servers, whether through EQEmu or EQ Live that provide exactly what you want. There is 1 that provides competition the way it was in classic.

Nothing about how raiding is on this server is classic.

[feniin]

Nothing about how raiding is on this server is classic.

[Arcticflava]

Also to this I will say what I have always said:

There is unlimited amount of servers, whether through EQEmu or EQ Live that provide exactly what you want. There is 1 that provides competition the way it was in classic.

You always say there is an infinite supply of EQ severs? What and odd and ignorant statement to always be saying.

[mattydef]

Nothing about how raiding is on this server is classic.

[Twochain]

What raids did ya'll do in classic and in what era did you do them?

If you guys were classic raiders let's hear stories.

[Gustoo]

Quakes should be completely random and unpredictable. Just like live. Quantity per month? 0-2 it was rare to see any more than 2 patches in one month.

They should also occasionally have the blue and or green server DOWN so those players have to consider red, which is how I started playing on rallos zek on live. My server was down.

The game isn't supposed to be fully predictable, this isn't even an argument. We are supposed to care about classic. Server resets on a regular and unpredictable basis are classic.

[feniin]

What raids did ya'll do in classic and in what era did you do them?

If you guys were classic raiders let's hear stories.

Everything was scheduled and rotated between the top two guilds on my server (Prophecy and Phantom Raiders - Bertoxx Server). They did some sort of first in force thing for non-rotated targets. Very rarely was there anything that resembles p99 raiding.

Edit: to be fair, they also didn't track and know spawn variances the way we do here. Servers also were reset frequently.

[Twochain]

Everything was scheduled and rotated between the top two guilds on my server (Prophecy and Phantom Raiders - Bertoxx Server). They did some sort of first in force thing for non-rotated targets. Very rarely was there anything that resembles p99 raiding.

Edit: to be fair, they also didn't track and know spawn variances the way we do here. Servers also were reset frequently.

Aw/Am rotated some top mobs on earthquakes throughout the years. I believe at one point there was a 1 vulak for 1 doze rotation, and 1 vulak for 1 vyemm rotation post rooted dragons