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dragolyche
05-31-2011, 10:58 AM
Hi folks,


Some big guilds rule some boss in the game(naggy/vox/ cazic etc...). These guilds kill everytime a boss 15/20mn after it poped.

So, what do yu think about a system rotation target like on karana server.

Maybe, all raiding guilds could talking about that ?

On karana server, the rotation system worked well and everyone were coll and quiet. Average power guild could try some raiding target.

Peace.

Tiggles
05-31-2011, 11:00 AM
totally posting in this thread.


Also

So the 2 guilds that get every mob would get LESS mobs? so other guilds can kill mobs?


why would they do that?

Skope
05-31-2011, 11:02 AM
here we go again...

The only thing that doesn't make sense here is the variance on spawn pops -- something that no server on EQ live ever had. The variance is here to keep players from training/badmouthing/KSing each other and the GMs focusing on development and fixing bugs. Unfortunately, as a result raiding here on p99 is the furthest thing away from a "classic experience." It's essentially babysitting by taking the toys away so they don't hurt each other in the process of playing so the parents can focus on their work and not on the inevitable yelling kicking and screaming.

Mcbard
05-31-2011, 11:50 AM
This sounds like a terrible idea imo. When it comes to playing and raiding at a high level in classic EQ (read: competing) I don't think any guild or group of players should have to be forced into giving something up so that the others, who are not as good as them, have a shot at the same mobs/loot. If they want to kill certain mobs/loot they should be given every opportunity to compete with the dominating guild(s) but there should not be an established rotation that hinders the dominant group of players from getting what they have worked for. If they wanted to make a rotation because they no longer wanted those mobs, or maybe another guild had locked down something that they now wanted access to and so a bi-spawn rotation or something was worked out between those guilds, then I would be all for it, but a forces rotation isn't really classic, and doesn't really reward the competitive atmosphere that so many know and love about EQ.

Messianic
05-31-2011, 12:00 PM
http://www.project1999.org/forums/search.php?searchid=730102

It's been tried.

Duie
05-31-2011, 12:43 PM
if it was truelly a race to the mobs or even a real compition then fine , But the reality of the so called compition is camp at said mob, Mass text to log in form groups and kill it in under 5 min.

Then you have the Clusterfuck of 144+ people from all difrent guild training one another in Fear(intentionally or not) just to get CT. this one I think we can all agree could be done better. Like say First guild to zone in gets the mob and you got 3 hours to totally clear and kill CT ... FFA after 3 hours. If you can not clear it, you must forfit


My idea is more of a Tier system, progresion if you will. Tier one guilds agree to stay out of old world raiding areas till epics go live. Tier 2 guilds must complete Sky /Naggy/Vox before they can progress. Tier3 must be able to clear fear /hate and both gods .

Once epics goes in however Both tier Two and three must wait there turn. in return Tier one guilds could be called on to help the tier 2 or 3 guilds<see Divinity/Bregan> and as such you would be in somewhat of an alliance.... Yes tier 2 and 3 guilds would eventually loose people to tier one but however the comunity would be a lot stronger for this.

As far as tier goes. If tier one gulds wanna train each other fine. If tier 2 wants to rotate great. If tier 3 wants to poopsock so be it but for this to work you have to stay in line.

Before you shoot this down, how about really have a conversation about it.As it stands now ,we have basicly 1 guild that gets everything and im sure they are ok w/ that but what does that do to build a comunity.. you know , the thing that made classic the best game ever .

Maurk
05-31-2011, 12:54 PM
Was sooo fun when Rogean made hate pvp that one time.

Skope
05-31-2011, 12:57 PM
what? why?

What the GMs need to do here is stop giving a crap about leading the babies by their hands and let it settle itself. No training? fine. FTE / KSing, it's all fair game.

Not a single server on live had variance. Small guilds succeeded because they had less people to key and get epics/loot for before they moved on to the next step. Here, because of variance, you mass recruit and you'll increase your chances. On live people knew when shit died -- exactly 3 days ago. When's it gonna pop? Exactly 3 days from now. Either the players/GMs came up with and enforced the rules (rotation, FTE, FFA) and it worked itself out, or they simply didn't make up any rules at all.

As it stands, the furthest thing from a classic experience on this server is the raid situation, and it's been this way for years now.

Shiftin
05-31-2011, 01:12 PM
Before you shoot this down, how about really have a conversation about it.As it stands now ,we have basicly 1 guild that gets everything and im sure they are ok w/ that but what does that do to build a comunity.. you know , the thing that made classic the best game ever .

Here's where the great divide exists in ideology. This is not what made classic great for me or a ton of other people. The people that disagree with you formed the guilds getting the bosses specifically because we disagree with this stance.

Yes, on Tunare we had a very community oriented feel. We pugged naggy and vox even into early Kunark. I led these raids for the better part of 6 months so I know they can be fun.

However, what drew me back to this server were all the awesome memories I have of racing for mobs in Kunark and Velious. Many near misses and victories are still vivid in my mind.

Aside from this, those old world bosses still drop stuff that's amazing until well into velious:
-BCG is a best in slot item for all int and wis casters + priests + bards who have a CoF or CoP.
-Naggy and Vox still drop dragon haste, gaunlets of fiery might, tobrins eyepatches, red and white dragon scales that are useful for what they make and for epics.
-Innoruuk drops encylopedia that makes necro pets absurdly powerful.
-CT drops a sweet robe that doesn't really have a replacement until you kill phara dar.

Do you see where I'm going with this? All of these mobs you want the top guilds to ignore drop things which are legitimate upgrades for our members, especially the new members we have to take in to compensate for the relatively high turnover on an EMU server. We are not killing them just to say we did it, we are killing them because we need the loot as well to get stronger and stay competitive.

moklianne
05-31-2011, 01:16 PM
However, what drew me back to this server were all the awesome memories I have of racing for mobs in Kunark and Velious. Many near misses and victories are still vivid in my mind.


Ditto. Since I started in Luclin, we raced other guilds all the way through Luclin and PoP. The highs are so much higher when you finally organize to beat out that other guild that has been beating you the past few times. The game began to stagnate when instanced grouping/raiding was put in.

Duie
05-31-2011, 01:17 PM
And yes Variance must be done away with. For that to happen though. WE as a comunity Must start acting like adults and come up with something that benifits both power gamers and casuals a like.

Curently the guild I am in isnt even tier 3 and im fine w/ that. It may take us 6 months to be ready to raid,, good w/ that too. what i myself am not fine with is that in order to even get a chance at even oldworld stuff, i gotta quit my job, wife and be on call 24/7. We can simply do better and if your competing or rotating w/ 2 or 3 guilds compairded to how it is now, everyone will atleast get there chance....... Even if they must wait to get it.

Bruno
05-31-2011, 01:20 PM
+1

Ele
05-31-2011, 01:22 PM
if it was truelly a race to the mobs or even a real compition then fine , But the reality of the so called compition is camp at said mob, Mass text to log in form groups and kill it in under 5 min.

Then you have the Clusterfuck of 144+ people from all difrent guild training one another in Fear(intentionally or not) just to get CT. this one I think we can all agree could be done better. Like say First guild to zone in gets the mob and you got 3 hours to totally clear and kill CT ... FFA after 3 hours. If you can not clear it, you must forfit


My idea is more of a Tier system, progresion if you will. Tier one guilds agree to stay out of old world raiding areas till epics go live. Tier 2 guilds must complete Sky /Naggy/Vox before they can progress. Tier3 must be able to clear fear /hate and both gods .

Once epics goes in however Both tier Two and three must wait there turn. in return Tier one guilds could be called on to help the tier 2 or 3 guilds<see Divinity/Bregan> and as such you would be in somewhat of an alliance.... Yes tier 2 and 3 guilds would eventually loose people to tier one but however the comunity would be a lot stronger for this.

As far as tier goes. If tier one gulds wanna train each other fine. If tier 2 wants to rotate great. If tier 3 wants to poopsock so be it but for this to work you have to stay in line.

Before you shoot this down, how about really have a conversation about it.As it stands now ,we have basicly 1 guild that gets everything and im sure they are ok w/ that but what does that do to build a comunity.. you know , the thing that made classic the best game ever .

3 hours to clear? The guilds getting CT don't even bother to clear it.

Skope
05-31-2011, 01:24 PM
And yes Variance must be done away with. For that to happen though. WE as a comunity Must start acting like adults and come up with something that benifits both power gamers and casuals a like.

Curently the guild I am in isnt even tier 3 and im fine w/ that. It may take us 6 months to be ready to raid,, good w/ that too. what i myself am not fine with is that in order to even get a chance at even oldworld stuff, i gotta quit my job, wife and be on call 24/7. We can simply do better and if your competing or rotating w/ 2 or 3 guilds compairded to how it is now, everyone will atleast get there chance....... Even if they must wait to get it.

That's my point. Raiding on live wasn't who had the most time to sit on their PC, it was who had the players capable to take down a target and who was smart enough to find the ToDs and consequently the spawn times. The largest amount of effort you put in was "do i want to wake up at 2am to drop ____ ?"

You don't need people to act like adults; that's unrealistic. What you currently have is GMs forcing people to act like adults by weeding out those who have jobs and social lives in order to make their own lives easier and keep the raid scene from being a hateful monster. That's easily enough to deal with: Simply don't give a shit. If Rogean/Nilbog agreed to let the raid scene work itself out and take their hands off then you'd have a level playing field and one that *actually resembled what raiding was on live.*

Versus
05-31-2011, 01:24 PM
Competition is what makes this server fun. You think the 30sec-2min boss fights are what do it for people? Nope!

http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv173/religion_lol/Random%20Stuff/sj_popcorn.gif

Skope
05-31-2011, 01:26 PM
Competition is what makes this server fun. You think the 30sec-2min boss fights are what do it for people? Nope!

http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv173/religion_lol/Random%20Stuff/sj_popcorn.gif

what competition? tracking for 4 days because of a non-classic mechanic, competition? that's not competition. Competition is all raiding guilds capable of downing a target there. That's competition.

Shiftin
05-31-2011, 01:29 PM
And yes Variance must be done away with. For that to happen though. WE as a comunity Must start acting like adults and come up with something that benifits both power gamers and casuals a like.

They tried this, it's called instanced content. There are lots of games that cater to this. EQ raiding is not one of them.


Curently the guild I am in isnt even tier 3 and im fine w/ that. It may take us 6 months to be ready to raid,, good w/ that too. what i myself am not fine with is that in order to even get a chance at even oldworld stuff, i gotta quit my job, wife and be on call 24/7. We can simply do better and if your competing or rotating w/ 2 or 3 guilds compairded to how it is now, everyone will atleast get there chance....... Even if they must wait to get it.

Again, no. I work a very real job with normal hours, have a great marriage and a 2 year old and have made 45% of our raids over the last 9 months. There isn't a guild on this server that expects its entire membership to be available to go 24 hours a day. Some people have this "luxury" and some do not but even within the top 2 guilds, the concern is far more for your competence than your playtime.

If you don't know what it's like to raid here, it seems pretty absurd to continue to make assumptions about the workings of guilds you don't deal with.

Pudge
05-31-2011, 01:32 PM
you boys need some red99

Skope
05-31-2011, 01:33 PM
Shiftin, you'd be able to make 70-80% of raids if it were dumped. Furthermore, you'd know exactly when your free time is beforehand.

But the one argument that trumps anything anyone can possibly think of that defends variance is this: It's not classic.

Shiftin
05-31-2011, 01:38 PM
Shiftin, you'd be able to make 70-80% of raids if it were dumped. Furthermore, you'd know exactly when your free time is beforehand.

But the one argument that trumps anything anyone can possibly think of that defends variance is this: It's not classic.

I didn't say anything to defend the variance. I'm a simulate patch day guy myself :)

john_savage1982
05-31-2011, 01:38 PM
Classic EQ is about some kids having toys to show off in EC and others not. That's why we see so many power-gamers and heavy competition at end-game in P1999. God knows why they care so much. God only knows.

Skope
05-31-2011, 01:41 PM
I didn't say anything to defend the variance. I'm a simulate patch day guy myself :)

simulated patch day has nothing to do with it and is a separate issue altogether. But, yes, I'm glad they actually started repopping on patch days too.

dragolyche
05-31-2011, 01:45 PM
This sounds like a terrible idea imo. When it comes to playing and raiding at a high level in classic EQ (read: competing) I don't think any guild or group of players should have to be forced into giving something up so that the others, who are not as good as them, have a shot at the same mobs/loot. If they want to kill certain mobs/loot they should be given every opportunity to compete with the dominating guild(s) but there should not be an established rotation that hinders the dominant group of players from getting what they have worked for. If they wanted to make a rotation because they no longer wanted those mobs, or maybe another guild had locked down something that they now wanted access to and so a bi-spawn rotation or something was worked out between those guilds, then I would be all for it, but a forces rotation isn't really classic, and doesn't really reward the competitive atmosphere that so many know and love about EQ.

Yes but some players don t like competition and aren't hardcore. Maybe we can play together : Hardcore and casual player.

And rotation existed on karana while Kurnak. So its "classic"

Aadill
05-31-2011, 01:48 PM
Rotation didn't exist on other servers, so it is my opinion that it also "classic."

Skope
05-31-2011, 01:51 PM
Rotation didn't exist on other servers, so it is my opinion that it also "classic."

it existed on servers, as did FTE and as did FFA. There were timers (30mins to get it or it's fair game) or even KSing. There were servers where monks wouldn't attack a target because they were busy training other guilds. Hearing about wizard-only groups wasn't uncommon either. These were all player and/or GM decided. The stupid variance server-side mechanic, though, was never on any EQ live server for any period of time. That's strictly a retarded p99 thing.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 01:53 PM
Just playing devil's advocate~

Voradan
05-31-2011, 01:56 PM
Although this is more or less me just tossing a little more fuel to the fire of a heated debate.. I have all was have been a bit of a pyro..

I know Quellious had a raid rotation between the raid guilds. It was a community effort like people are saying. The raiding guilds of Quellious got tired of fighting over certain raid content I would like to say it was mostly dungeon based things like VP and NToV (which is not in game yet), but things like Trak(for example) was first come first served. Keep in mind if a force started getting mobilized and was there right in front of Trak (again for example) most guilds would let them be.

I guess the biggest point I am trying to make is that other servers on the SOE servers did do rotations to a degree.

Hrmm I think I might of just added to the mess.. oh well heh

Skope
05-31-2011, 02:02 PM
Just playing devil's advocate~

so then would you agree with me that it'd be a good idea to dump it? Because what I just quoted says nothing fruitful whatsoever.

Versus
05-31-2011, 02:08 PM
I'd just like to say that removing variance would create a massive clusterfuck and headache. You'd have 3-4 guilds with timers on almost everything and they'd be training and petitioning their way around the game every week. Shit would be mayhem and GM's would kill themselves.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 02:09 PM
I didn't say whether I want it dumped or not. Frankly I play when I can and when I can't trust that my guildmates at least attempt to race for the raid mobs that spawn at odd hours due to variance. It's led to some interesting tactics that even upon failing has left us with some fun experiences.

Do I want to know that I only have to log on at 6:35pm est every week? Nah, I'd probably not play as often. On the other hand, others would play more. Dumping variance and adding rotations may be classic but racing, training, and wiping are just as classic depending on where you came from. Rotations would be reasonable if you still had to be responsible for tracking the mob and if you didn't realize it was up, failed, or decided to pass due to low numbers at an odd hour, it would go to the next on the list.

The fruit of my post: If you feel it a better idea to add rotations "because it's classic," keep variance but tighten the window a bit, add rotation but impose strict time limits that are dynamic with level ranges/item increases (set this via guilds deciding on what is considered reasonable yet still competitive)

Skope
05-31-2011, 02:12 PM
I'd just like to say that removing variance would create a massive clusterfuck and headache. You'd have 3-4 guilds with timers on almost everything and they'd be training and petitioning their way around the game every week. Shit would be mayhem and GM's would kill themselves.

yes it would, and so what? It worked itself out on live, it'll work itself out here. Forcing made-up rules and completely changing the way the raiding scene works is far worse. It's destroying competition. In fact, i'll do you TMO guys a favor. Want to do as well as TR/Ascension? Start mass recruiting. That way you can get by the variance/window problem and you'll always have enough to down a target, because that's the solution they employ and has been employed since variance was introduced. On live these were the guilds that first fell apart, whereas here they just merge and restructure, rinse/repeat.

Furthermore, guilds have been training for ages now and it won't suddenly begin or stop with a new rule set. /petition and submit screenshot then wait.

The easiest thing for the GMs to do is wipe their hands clean and say "go for it." Whatever happens happens. Much like before, if you want to make your own rules that we will enforce then we'll all abide by it. You can still restrict training and have 4-5 guilds going after a target.

Dravingar
05-31-2011, 02:21 PM
yes it would, and so what? It worked itself out on live, it'll work itself out here. Forcing made-up rules and completely changing the way the raiding scene works is far worse. It's destroying competition. In fact, i'll do you TMO guys a favor. Want to do as well as TR/Ascension? Start mass recruiting. That way you can get by the variance/window problem and you'll always have enough to down a target, because that's the solution they employ and has been employed since variance was introduced. On live these were the guilds that first fell apart, whereas here they just merge and restructure, rinse/repeat.

Furthermore, guilds have been training for ages now and it won't suddenly begin or stop with a new rule set. /petition and submit screenshot then wait.

The easiest thing for the GMs to do is wipe their hands clean and say "go for it." Whatever happens happens. Much like before, if you want to make your own rules that we will enforce then we'll all abide by it. You can still restrict training and have 4-5 guilds going after a target.

You mad.

Bruman
05-31-2011, 02:21 PM
The variance needs to go.

Skope
05-31-2011, 02:29 PM
You mad.

no, I classic.

http://trollercoaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/trollface_hd.png

Aadill, i'm not implying rotation. Training, KSing, FFA, FTE, rotation were ALL classic. Variance was NOT. Any sort of variance is retarded. Do you remember how it was like to raid during velious? get there an hour before it spawns, start clearing. Tracking was used only to find the ToDs and consequently the spawn times. If you got lazy then you'd wait for a patch day. Variance as a rule shouldn't even be an option.

Even if you despise the idea of rotation, it still bears a ton more merit than variance. TBH, i'd be happier with an FTE/KSing scenario than any sort of rotation.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 02:51 PM
The problem is that getting there an hour before it spawns means other guilds will get there 2 hours before it spawns. What was the rule for ToV? Kill Aary and the rest is yours? Whose ready to engage and petition the GMs for FTE? Is it KS or train and no bad blood comes from one guild merrily going on their way through the rest of the loot pinatas or is each dragon FTE? or even varianced... boy that would be a shitter.

Rotation with no variance or hard work with variance? hell if I know which is better. I take the GMs idea as a bittersweet resolution - you get there and engage the mob by being fast, sneaky, or ballsy. It takes more effort from tracking but also from organization and cohesiveness. The GMs don't have to get involved on every kill unless there is a problem. As of recently there hasn't been a problem because one guild wipes on the pull and the other gets it, one tracker mistweets and the call to kill never goes out, or better yet the mob is already did before another guild even gets there.

Sure that may not be classic but it's less painful for the people in charge. When someone gets legitimately trained and the excrement hits the oscillator then a GM is called. If EVERYONE knows when stuff is going to spawn how will it be expected to be less involved for the staff?

This is mere speculation, mind you. I can't claim one is better over the other but I don't feel that your argument is convincing enough. Noble Dojorn was one of the most contested spawns because his timer was known down to the second. Sir Lucan was fairly contested and caused heated arguments between guilds. Phinny was never a big issue because very few people were willing to put the effort into killing him in a way that he was killable so the mob was dead by time a large gang of people came in to tank and spank him. Things DID become KS/trainfests and the GMs got pissed off. Those are just small targets compared to the Kunark and eventually Velious stuff.

JenJen
05-31-2011, 02:55 PM
how can people have the energy to go through all this again? if you want a boss, quit your guild and join the guild that kills them most regularly. its only a game.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 02:57 PM
how can people have the energy to go through all this again? if you want a boss, quit your guild and join the guild that kills them most regularly. its only a game.

Upping post counts~

Troy
05-31-2011, 02:57 PM
The same way they have the energy to be in game or ready to be in game at a moment's notice 24/7 for months/years. Meth maybe? I don't know.

Skope
05-31-2011, 03:02 PM
You're missing one question...

Why should the staff bother? Right now, they don't want a headache. I think both you and i, and any person who's been here raiding for longer 2-3 months knows that variance was put in to keep GM involvement low. They're busy with other shit and don't need to hear our crap. The problem is that it doesn't in any way resemble EQ live raiding. People didn't need to track mobs, they tracked guilds. Here comes FoH to Seb -- guess who died?

If they take their hands off of us and let us play like the big boys we are then it'll settle itself. That's how it happened on every single live server. Forcing the raiding playerbase to behave by limiting who can grab targets and when by creating something that was never classic just so they can maintain a certain level of stability at the cost of shitting on the classic EQ raiding experience is unfair.

There was a reason the majority of the more successful guilds were college students and older people and not 14 year olds who had the most time on their hands. Right now, with the current rules + variance it boils down to: do you have endless hours to waste and/or are you willing to mass recruit? We've both been around long enough to know that's been the case for years now. I was hoping they'd wake up and realize that it has to change soon and kunark would do that, but they haven't and it's still the same ol' shit.

JenJen
05-31-2011, 03:03 PM
are post counts valuable or something? can i sell mine? whats the going price? whoop-e-doo.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 03:27 PM
There was a reason the majority of the more successful guilds were college students and older people and not 14 year olds who had the most time on their hands. Right now, with the current rules + variance it boils down to: do you have endless hours to waste and/or are you willing to mass recruit?

College students have the MOST time to waste what are you talking about?! Also of note, the people raiding on this server were those 14-18 year olds.

Kidding.

As far as the staff not wanting to get involved: the point of Project 1999 is to make a working emulation of EverQuest as it was in 1999, right? The mechanics of social interactions are not part of that emulation. Take a look at the Fippy Darkpaw forums - they're doing the same variance style raiding and it has caused fighting. The alternative, however, has just as many people wanting to experience 1999 with the mindset and knowledge and I doubt it would be any different. The GMs there have had to do so much shit to appease the players that it is ridiculous.

And no, JenJen, post counts don't mean anything I was just being facetious.

Lazortag
05-31-2011, 03:37 PM
Okay, I used to be against the variance but recently I've become for it. I think that the variance would have been great before Kunark, because without it most mobs would respawn at the same time which would mean no one could possibly poopsock every target, and it would be just like having patch day repops every week. However, since Kunark launched, some targets are massively prioritized over others (Trak/VS but mostly Trak). Not having variance empowers people who just camp the spawn points of raid targets, because poopsocking is less of an investment - you literally just have to arrive about 5 minutes before it spawns to get the target, whereas with the variance it's more about tracking targets and mobilizing faster (or camping the spawn point as soon as the window starts, but as I said that's a greater investment because you could be poopsocking the mob for up to 4 days).

It's also possible that a guild could arrive 1 minute before the first poopsocking guild, which then creates a race to the bottom where every guild is trying to out-poopsock the other, instead of gambling on mobilizing to the important targets faster. Since Trak is prioritized over the other bosses, this is where all the poopsockery would be focused, which would suck for everyone.

I also don't think of this as being that un-classic because it's more of a policy of the devs (like not allowing 2-boxing, or not adopting the same play nice policy as sony) than it is a change in content. Maybe these are silly arguments, I was in kind of a rush when I posted this, so if I need to clear anything up I'll come back and post later.

edit: also, the anti-divinity tags are totally unwarranted. Grow up.

Skope
05-31-2011, 03:37 PM
My argument is that they shouldn't be trying to appease the players, and you apparently seem to be agreeing with me in that respect. The major part of p99 was to emulate the EQ experience, and the variance is taking massive crap on it. If they really wanted to make it happy-flowers-holding-hands they'd have put in a mandatory rotation, but they didn't because we said no. In fact, i still say no.

It's great reliving the leveling and grouping, and then you get to raiding and realize that it's nothing like you remember.

Geegoo, it is sort of silly. You can poopsock all you want if everyone knows when the thing died, but poopsocking doesn't mean you get the target. Without variance you'd need a new ruleset, therefore the notion that you get the target because you were there first is false. Therefore, get there 3 days before the spawn or 5 minutes, everyone has the same opportunity to drop it -- just like live. Poopsock holds no advantage. The only reason it was an advantage before was because people were abusing the rules we agreed to and it was something we failed to address. Variance as a mechanic is there only to make the GMs lives easier

Bruman
05-31-2011, 04:08 PM
The problem is that getting there an hour before it spawns means other guilds will get there 2 hours before it spawns.

The problem with it is that it just encourages leap frogging. Which is supar skillz yo.

The point is - variance isn't solving anything. It just makes new issues, and doesn't represent classic gameplay. I'd be fine with non-classic solutions if they actually addressed issues - instead, this is just as bad as anything else. It was a nice try by GMs to shut people up and stop guild fighting. But it's not. So why deviate? We're not gaining anything..

Aadill
05-31-2011, 04:10 PM
Variance as a mechanic is there only to make the GMs lives easier

That was the only point I was really trying to make, whether I worded it well or not. It's much less of a hassle for them to use one rule to make everything work. Beyond that it requires people who know everything about the game via searchable web content to beat it or not. Variance plays in a new aspect that still makes it challenging and keeps the GMs from having to deal with it every single week. The result, however, is an extremely large window in which one has to track. If they halved it I'm sure a lot of people would be happy.

Skope
05-31-2011, 04:13 PM
That was the only point I was really trying to make, whether I worded it well or not. It's much less of a hassle for them to use one rule to make everything work. Beyond that it requires people who know everything about the game via searchable web content to beat it or not. Variance plays in a new aspect that still makes it challenging and keeps the GMs from having to deal with it every single week. The result, however, is an extremely large window in which one has to track. If they halved it I'm sure a lot of people would be happy.

but then it would defeat the purpose of variance in the first place -- to minimize the inevitable involvement.

It doesn't make it challenging... don't kid yourself. Challenging isn't 4 days waiting to see something spawn and wasting hours upon hours until it does. That's not challenging, that's called unnecessary.

Challenging would be 5 guilds all vying for a single target because they know exactly when it's gonna pop and the GMs saying "work it out amongst yourselves." That, my friend, is a challenge.

Nedala
05-31-2011, 04:20 PM
lol @ everyone who wants the variance gone. You guys like poopsocking dont you?

No variance would either end in massive poopsocking or in a massive clusterfuck each time. gm has to come each time and see who attacked first because 4 guilds are camping the spawn, anyone remember when everyone knew nobles timer? oh the joy. The variance makes people actually race for targets, with no variance there wouldn't be any races ever, except for patchday repops.


if it was truelly a race to the mobs or even a real compition then fine , But the reality of the so called compition is camp at said mob, Mass text to log in form groups and kill it in under 5 min.




Yeah actually most kills are races and not what you describe above, you really sound like you have no idea how the raiding scene on this server works.

what i myself am not fine with is that in order to even get a chance at even oldworld stuff, i gotta quit my job, wife and be on call 24/7.

Shows how clueless you are again, most of my guildmates have jobs and/or family. Im working too and guess what i even get to kill kunark stuff!

Messianic
05-31-2011, 04:24 PM
That's not challenging, that's called unnecessary.

Like 60% of everything we do in EQ is "unnecessary." We play it because we're elitist hipsters who don't like WoW, which endeavors to remove all that is "unnecessary" in favor of a gaming experience most people enjoy more to make more $$$ and have more resources to expand the scope and appeal of the game.

This is a niche game, and therefore has "unnecessary" rules and mechanics, i.e. we refuse to change mechanics which could be streamlined.

Skope
05-31-2011, 04:26 PM
Nedala, are you fucking kidding me?

That's EXACTLY the way it worked on live. people KNEW when things would pop and they'd get there beforehand. If there were no variance here there would have to be new rules or no rules at all, and either one i'm completely okay with. FFS, that's why you GOT rotation, FFA, FTE, and all the other crazy shit people came up with. There WERE massive clusterfucks. I can actually remember rolling a /random to see who got the first shot at a particular target. Never, and i repeat, never was there any server or moment in EQ history where people waited for a target with a variance. Ever.

Susanbanthony
05-31-2011, 04:27 PM
Keep the variance, just make it a full repop every time. Everything dies in a couple hours on full repops anyways, so the 7 day spawns with a +/- 2 day variance all end up in the same window anyway.

Just make the full repop a variance with +/- 1 or 2 days... there's still the unknown but it also forces guilds to prioritize and gives other guilds a shot at raid targets that aren't highly prioritized by the upper tier guilds while also having the element of needing to race to targets.

Aadill
05-31-2011, 04:30 PM
Keep the variance, just make it a full repop every time. Everything dies in a couple hours on full repops anyways, so the 7 day spawns with a +/- 2 day variance all end up in the same window anyway.

Just make the full repop a variance with +/- 1 or 2 days... there's still the unknown but it also forces guilds to prioritize and gives other guilds a shot at raid targets that aren't highly prioritized by the upper tier guilds while also having the element of needing to race to targets.

Best idea yet.

Skope
05-31-2011, 04:33 PM
Best idea yet.

No, because it doesnt do anything for vox, naggy, gore, sev. Maybe naggy, but repopping FGs is stupid. Furthermore, it doesn't address FTE, FFA, poopsock or what have you. Not to mention, how the hell is this gonna play in velious?

Throw variance in the toilet, let the babies work it out amongst themselves within actual classic EQ mechanics.

Susanbanthony
05-31-2011, 04:38 PM
It works for the dragons... why not?

Only do it for mobs with multiple day spawns (except perhaps Draco and Maestro). FG's and the like can stay at 12, 8, or 2 hours.

Velious is a different story, I'll give you that.

Nedala
05-31-2011, 04:40 PM
Nedala, are you fucking kidding me?

That's EXACTLY the way it worked on live. people KNEW when things would pop and they'd get there beforehand. If there were no variance here there would have to be new rules or no rules at all, and either one i'm completely okay with. FFS, that's why you GOT rotation, FFA, FTE, and all the other crazy shit people came up with. There WERE massive clusterfucks. I can actually remember rolling a /random to see who got the first shot at a particular target. Never, and i repeat, never was there any server or moment in EQ history where people waited for a target with a variance. Ever.

Are you fucking kidding me? We had poopsocking ON THIS SERVER; even when the variance was in, when we had the "first 15 people in zone rule" are you actually believing there wouldnt be massive poopsocking with a variance on this server? This is not live, there are way more raiding guilds. We had poopsocking with variance it would be awful without one. The rules like we have right now are good. And if classic raid experience actually means you have to camp a raid target for hours (days) to get a chance to kill them, then im happy we dont have classic raiding experience here.

Skope
05-31-2011, 04:46 PM
Nedala, if you're gonna be pulling shit out of your ass you may start with some common sense.

I never said poopsocking was the next alternative, in fact you did. Poopsock was there because the first group of 15+ in a zone got claim to a target. If you get rid of variance you wouldn't have that. Sat in the zone for 4 days to get innoruuk? tough shit, here's 20 people who are gonna engage him first that got here 5 minutes ago because they knew when he was going to spawn. Variance came in to discourage poopsocking because people thought nobody would actually poopsock. Well... they did anyway.

Want to cure poopsock with no variance? Make it rotation, make it FFA, make it FTE, make it /random between the guilds there. All of these imply no poopsock.

Dc2mitchell
05-31-2011, 04:46 PM
Although this is more or less me just tossing a little more fuel to the fire of a heated debate.. I have all was have been a bit of a pyro..

I know Quellious had a raid rotation between the raid guilds. It was a community effort like people are saying. The raiding guilds of Quellious got tired of fighting over certain raid content I would like to say it was mostly dungeon based things like VP and NToV (which is not in game yet), but things like Trak(for example) was first come first served. Keep in mind if a force started getting mobilized and was there right in front of Trak (again for example) most guilds would let them be.

I guess the biggest point I am trying to make is that other servers on the SOE servers did do rotations to a degree.

Hrmm I think I might of just added to the mess.. oh well heh

I was on Quellious as well, it worked wonders and lots had a chance at loot who otherwise would not even be able to look at the mobs. Seems to me the ones most bothered by a rotation, are the ones who feel everything is theirs which are usually the most powerful guilds with much time on their hands.. MINE! I agree with competition, but monopoly as a whole different ball of wax.

School yard mentality isnt what this game was based on and why it did so well. It was the interaction with others with like minded goals within the game. The ones that play 40+ hours a week are [B]usually[B] the same people that are stating that it should be first come first serve. The same people are stating that type of competition was what made the game. In fact, the game was made by the lesser guilds, which were the majority.

With that in mind, how long would the game actually last when you make it more difficult for the lesser guilds to actually enjoy high end content? Higher tier guilds wouldnt have a minor league to pluck from when someone is on hiatus. The higher end guild would nonetheless be on an empty server.

Lets regulate it with a flagging system... higher end blow through it... Aww shucks we lost people... now backflag.... game dies.

If everyone gets a shot, the above doesnt happen nor does it need to be implemented.

I have been on both ends of the spectrum. High end raiding guild that demanded alot of time. Medium casual guild that got its chances only when we worked with others in order to take a shot at bosses.

I spent more time with the raid guild than the casual and I would have killed for the comaraderie of my original guild. By the time I got what I wanted, the original guild had been absorbed by others. I know many of them felt the same way.

All in the name of pixel loot.

My 2 cents...

Kika Maslyaka
05-31-2011, 05:31 PM
ah the endless debate about "fairness" of raiding vs "competition" :D

I see only 3 options here:

1. Classic static respawns. Just how it was, with all the drama, player arranged rotations (which end up only observed by SOME of the guilds, since its impossible to force in anyway), prime-time drama and wide range cockblocking

2. Instancing - everyone gets their own sandbox. You ALWAYS get your kills, you ALWAYS get any gear you want.. And you virtually will NEVER hear about any other guild ever again, or that there even maybe other people outside of your guild....
Solves the drama problem permanently, but totally undermines a concept of massive multiplayer world...

3. Variance spawns... While not classic, it at least gives you SOME chance at getting a target you want, albeit somewhat RANDOM at times, and keeps a fair amount of competition

Don't really see any options beyond these. Chose your poison

Lazortag
05-31-2011, 05:40 PM
Keep the variance, just make it a full repop every time. Everything dies in a couple hours on full repops anyways, so the 7 day spawns with a +/- 2 day variance all end up in the same window anyway.

Just make the full repop a variance with +/- 1 or 2 days... there's still the unknown but it also forces guilds to prioritize and gives other guilds a shot at raid targets that aren't highly prioritized by the upper tier guilds while also having the element of needing to race to targets.

I like this idea but it's not clear when the windows would open for the next batch of repops. Would it be after the last boss is killed? Also isn't it a bit unfair that you only need to track naggy (for example) to know if Trak is up? Basically if one raid mob spawns you know the others have all spawned so you only need to track one. It doesn't seem as meritocratic as the current system.

Lelroni
05-31-2011, 06:02 PM
Are you fucking kidding me? We had poopsocking ON THIS SERVER; even when the variance was in, when we had the "first 15 people in zone rule" are you actually believing there wouldnt be massive poopsocking with a variance on this server? This is not live, there are way more raiding guilds. We had poopsocking with variance it would be awful without one. The rules like we have right now are good. And if classic raid experience actually means you have to camp a raid target for hours (days) to get a chance to kill them, then im happy we dont have classic raiding experience here.

The problem with the 15 people rule, and whatever the fuck else was being used back in pre-kunark days was there were too many guilds and not enough mobs.

How many raid targets were there before kunark?

Inny, CT, Naggy, Vox, some sky bosses, so around 5-8 raid targets?

Now with Kunark, we have Gore, Sev, Trak, Talendor, VS, Fayd, almost double the raid targets, are guilds that greedy that they want to have everything?

Take out the variance, I'm sure the big guilds won't be able to poopsock everything, you'll have to share ;).

Rejuvenation
05-31-2011, 06:22 PM
The system is fine the way it is, there currently is one guild that is significantly more prepared for some of the harder fights than others right now. When the other guilds catch up, there wont be as much of a monopoly.

Nedala
05-31-2011, 06:26 PM
Nedala, if you're gonna be pulling shit out of your ass you may start with some common sense.

I never said poopsocking was the next alternative, in fact you did. Poopsock was there because the first group of 15+ in a zone got claim to a target. If you get rid of variance you wouldn't have that. Sat in the zone for 4 days to get innoruuk? tough shit, here's 20 people who are gonna engage him first that got here 5 minutes ago because they knew when he was going to spawn. Variance came in to discourage poopsocking because people thought nobody would actually poopsock. Well... they did anyway.

Want to cure poopsock with no variance? Make it rotation, make it FFA, make it FTE, make it /random between the guilds there. All of these imply no poopsock.

You are right, but these imply the other option i mentioned: A huge clusterfuck. We had this at noble dojorn before, when multiple guilds knew he was going to spawn. Cant you imagine what happens? How can you tell who was first to engage when 100+ from different guilds are sitting on his spawn point? You cant even call that raiding anymore, a mob spawns and multiple guilds beating on him so he goes down in 5 seconds, and then get a GM to decide who gets the loot, yay.

Make it /random between guilds? seriously?

None of your ideas is even nearly as good as what we current have. At least not for people that want to compete. And thats what EQ raiding is about, if we had a rotation i could go play EQ2 or WoW and raid instanced based.

Splorf22
05-31-2011, 06:27 PM
You know I have a cousin who is a doctor. He actually ended up moving practices because in his old location he had doctors in the office who wouldn't do their share of call. Apparently this is a huge problem in the medical world, because no one wants to be on call. It's pretty obvious that no one likes to be available 24/7.

I don't understand how Shiftin makes it to 50% of TR's raids while living a normal life. Let's assume he is a standard wage slave who sleeps 8 hours a day and spends 10 hours per day at work (counting lunch/commuting) five days a week. That's already 106 out of 168 hours, leaving a mere 37% of time available for potential raids even if he is willing to stop taking showers, having dinner with his kids, or any other activity when a raid is called.

So while the current system may be meritocratic, if you want to even smell a raid target on Project 1999 you basically have to commit leaving whatever you are doing at any time, and join a huge guild so that they will have enough available people at any given time to take down a raid. In my humble opinion, this sucks.

I much prefer Susanbanthony/Skope's suggestion of just popping all the raid targets at once, but with no variance, about once a week (I suggest every 6 days 18 hours to rotate through all timezones) and temporarily suspending all rules in the raid zones for about two hours.

I think there are a number of huge advantages:

1. Raid night immediately becomes a huge event for the 50+ crowd. The server population would be 1200+ easily. With all targets up the uberguilds would make sure 100% of their population was on.
2. Casual players actually have a chance to either make time in their schedule or just skip the event. Smaller guilds can ally for targets.
3. With training and ks'ing OK for the event, the challenge and excitement level would go way up. You can't just clear a few roamers on the way to Cazic Thule any more, you have to burn down the zone or risk some other guild dropping it on you. Raid night would probably last 5-6 hours before all the mobs were down because of this.
4. Alternatively, players could just play nice and divide up the targets reasonably (kinda boring IMO).
5. This is easy to try. Just schedule it once and see what happens.

Skope
05-31-2011, 06:35 PM
The system is fine the way it is, there currently is one guild that is significantly more prepared for some of the harder fights than others right now. When the other guilds catch up, there wont be as much of a monopoly.

damnit juju, the notion of preparedness =! tracking. Variance didn't exist on live. Preparedness meant organizing your guild's resists and gear and telling them what to do, not spend 4 days waiting for something to spawn in a massive window.

And Nedala, welcome to everquest. All of those clusterfucks and KSing and training and even rotations were all classic EQ behavior and rules. This idea that variance encourages people who try harder isn't classic either. People didn't get targets because they sat in the zone for 4 days, they got it because they were able to kill it when other guilds weren't, or were willing to wake up when other guilds didn't. Not to mention, you can cure the clusterfucks and whatnot. 6 guilds at a target with 20+ for each? /random to see who goes in what order. Don't want to wake up at 4am to kill a target? you still don't have to.

My point is variance is unnecessary and benefits only those who mass recruit and who are willing to waste time (or cheat) -- this is a COMPLETELY new concept that was invented here to stop poopsocking, which didn't work, and now to ease the GM involvement, which is unnecessary.

Splorf22
05-31-2011, 06:56 PM
None of your ideas is even nearly as good as what we current have. At least not for people that want to compete. And thats what EQ raiding is about, if we had a rotation i could go play EQ2 or WoW and raid instanced based.

Hey, I'm all for competition. The question though is what kind of competition. And right now that competition is who is willing to drop whatever they are doing at any given time to kill a raid mob.

Ronas
05-31-2011, 08:58 PM
Sorry no hand out for you. Plus taking out bosses only takes around 20-30 people. Its not all that much if you consider most guild at the moment have over 50 people. Its just most guild are not willing to put in the work/time and organization to be able to have only 1/3, 1/2 of there guild to come on when things are up.

Really quite simple, if your current guild cannot do that then join one that can. There is currently around 6 guilds that have the numbers to take out bosses. 1 with double the others, 5 with generally the same amount yet only 2 are competing. What the hell are the other 4 doing?

Skope
05-31-2011, 09:08 PM
Sorry no hand out for you. Plus taking out bosses only takes around 20-30 people. Its not all that much if you consider most guild at the moment have over 50 people. Its just most guild are not willing to put in the work/time and organization to be able to have only 1/3, 1/2 of there guild to come on when things are up.

Really quite simple, if your current guild cannot do that then join one that can. There is currently around 6 guilds that have the numbers to take out bosses. 1 with double the others, 5 with generally the same amount yet only 2 are competing. What the hell are the other 4 doing?

Ronas, your idiotic notion of competing has nothing to do with the original everquest. This idea that a guild who gets a target in a 4-day window is somehow "competing" has been invented here on p99. Nobody's looking for a handout, and i'm certainly not. What I want is actual classic raiding.

Ronas
05-31-2011, 09:35 PM
Skope, if you gonna try to lawyer in that variance isnt classic, then they may as well remove the two boxing restriction, allowing MQ/ShowEQ, put back all the bugs/exploits.

It was put into p99 to make the server in a way where it doesn't jeopardize the classic feel. As in people now know everything, whilst when it was on live everything was new. Now everyone knows loopholes to make life harder/easier to get the unfair advantage over others. And this is why they put all these limiters in to cut down on that kind of unfairness as well as save themselves the headache.

I said it before, that this server was like my server on live, and if the variance were to be removed, you have 200+ players lagging one another out to get the boss kill, KSing/Training/Memblurring bosses and burning it down, etc. It not gonna work, and rotation wont work too because on this server the raid side of things is cut throat.

Skope
05-31-2011, 09:37 PM
No, it was put into p99 to prevent poopsocking, which it didn't prevent at all. It stayed because it eases the pressure on GMs from hearing /petitions, and that's not needed. You still had training/KSing/Memblurring even with variance. Your point is moot.

this notion that it'll cause more KSing, training and etc... it won't. That has more to do with the raiding and server ruleset than it has to do with variance

gnomishfirework
06-01-2011, 01:44 AM
This sounds like a terrible idea imo. When it comes to playing and raiding at a high level in classic EQ (read: competing) I don't think any guild or group of players should have to be forced into giving something up so that the others, who are not as good as them, have a shot at the same mobs/loot. If they want to kill certain mobs/loot they should be given every opportunity to compete with the dominating guild(s) but there should not be an established rotation that hinders the dominant group of players from getting what they have worked for. If they wanted to make a rotation because they no longer wanted those mobs, or maybe another guild had locked down something that they now wanted access to and so a bi-spawn rotation or something was worked out between those guilds, then I would be all for it, but a forces rotation isn't really classic, and doesn't really reward the competitive atmosphere that so many know and love about EQ.

LOL

You should willingly do a rotation because it's the fair thing to do. Everquest doesn't reward you based on skill but on time you are able to devote to the game. A good rotation will have "free days" where anyone can kill. So you can plug your ass or fill your socks and feel superior to those guilds comprised of people who aren't willing or able to devote all their time to a decade old game.

It must be fun to have a PvP mentality on a pve server. Very safe of you.

Stumpes
06-01-2011, 01:54 AM
What the GMs need to do here is stop giving a crap about leading the babies by their hands and let it settle itself. No training? fine. FTE / KSing, it's all fair game.



I totally agree. Most guilds are not suited for raiding, and would take hours to even attempt to get the group together for 1 attempt, let alone if they wiped and tried multiple times.

The GMs need to stop being so picky about raiding. Let the people play like they remember, not being dragged around by some worthless rules that were not enforced in the game we are EMULATING!

Hobby
06-01-2011, 01:59 AM
If you want a mob, then put in the effort to get it.

As far as changing how raid targets spawn, I am not the one who makes the decision...but I doubt it is going to change simply because theres no reason to change it. Raid targets are meant to be highly competitive, and thats exactly how it is.

bakkily
06-01-2011, 02:13 AM
so what is tr's secret to finding raid mobs so quick?

Bruno
06-01-2011, 02:17 AM
so what is tr's secret to finding raid mobs so quick?

Harry Potter maps.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 02:40 AM
This isn't Soviet Russia, this is Everquest mate.

Troy
06-01-2011, 02:40 AM
If you want a mob, then put in the time to get it.


fixed.

EQ requires time, not effort. Being at your computer for a 96 hour spawn window is a hard thing to do, and I guess takes some form of "skill" but it is not the type of skill people on here are professing to possess. To get mobs, you need to make EQ your #1 priority in life. That doesn't reflect on one's playing ability AT ALL. It merely reflects commitment. Commitment != Skill. People confusing the two in these threads is always amusing.

lulz I'm so pro, I can press log in faster than you!

Lazortag
06-01-2011, 02:58 AM
fixed.

EQ requires time, not effort. Being at your computer for a 96 hour spawn window is a hard thing to do, and I guess takes some form of "skill" but it is not the type of skill people on here are professing to possess. To get mobs, you need to make EQ your #1 priority in life. That doesn't reflect on one's playing ability AT ALL. It merely reflects commitment. Commitment != Skill. People confusing the two in these threads is always amusing.

lulz I'm so pro, I can press log in faster than you!

Why can't it be both time and effort?

Salty
06-01-2011, 03:02 AM
You stay in the zone until a dragon spawns.

You know when the dragon dies.

You set the timer.


The day before next spawn you sit there with 40 of your pals.


You collect loot.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 03:09 AM
fixed.

EQ requires time, not effort. Being at your computer for a 96 hour spawn window is a hard thing to do, and I guess takes some form of "skill" but it is not the type of skill people on here are professing to possess. To get mobs, you need to make EQ your #1 priority in life. That doesn't reflect on one's playing ability AT ALL. It merely reflects commitment. Commitment != Skill. People confusing the two in these threads is always amusing.

lulz I'm so pro, I can press log in faster than you!

Seriously, I only work 15 hours a week why is the guy who who works 50 hours getting more pay than me. This is so not fair !

Nedala
06-01-2011, 03:11 AM
No, it was put into p99 to prevent poopsocking, which it didn't prevent at all. It stayed because it eases the pressure on GMs from hearing /petitions, and that's not needed. You still had training/KSing/Memblurring even with variance. Your point is moot.




It didnt prevent poopsocking? it did not? on what server do you play? Who is currently poopsocking?? you want classic raiding as it was back then? its not possible, because without a variance you will have 5 guilds beating on one target, why cant you see that? Not the guild who "can kill" a target would get the kills, it would always be the guild that engaged first. Make /random for a kill order? Grats first guild in line on your kill.

Seriously did you ever raid on this server? You dont sound like it.

Nedala
06-01-2011, 03:16 AM
fixed.

EQ requires time, not effort. Being at your computer for a 96 hour spawn window is a hard thing to do, and I guess takes some form of "skill" but it is not the type of skill people on here are professing to possess. To get mobs, you need to make EQ your #1 priority in life. That doesn't reflect on one's playing ability AT ALL. It merely reflects commitment. Commitment != Skill. People confusing the two in these threads is always amusing.

lulz I'm so pro, I can press log in faster than you!


Wow another one who obviously has no idea how raiding on this server works. It amazes me how everyone whose not getting raidmobs thinks people have to have no RL to be able to compete, you are so wrong. Main argument of people who dont get raidmobs is "it doesnt take skill it takes time". Tell that to the guilds who wiped to gore with 65+ while we killed her with 31. Clearly we had more time, and won cause all of us sat in DL for the whole window.

tekniq
06-01-2011, 03:17 AM
Due to the way raid targets are setup, you just have to accept it for what it is. you can't emulate the "classic feel" for everything. one thing i miss about classic is the challenge of taking down raid targets with the fewest numbers - that made you the baddest guild on the server, not because you have the most people in your guild with the luxury of having people as robots sitting there tracking targets for 4 out of 7 days.

I noticed that on this server, in order to get the gear you want, EQ has to be a really high priority in your life. I came to accept the fact that I will probably never see/fight any raid targets because I'm not part of the power guilds. My guild is tier2/3 and by the time we want to get something, TR and the like is already there. Yea it upset me, but now I just accepted it. You really have to have a lot of spare time or massive numbers if you want to hit a raid target.

If you're a working man, have a family, and a general life outside gaming, you probably won't hit any raid targets unless you're in the power guilds. Though it would be nice to take down a god/dragon with few numbers from a tier2 guild, mobilizing and rushing by the power guilds will force you to hit mobs before you are really ready, but that's what makes this server p99, not classic. This server is not designed for boss-fighting strategy, rather the "strategy" is placed on mobilization. EQ on this server has evolved and will never be fully classic.

Honestly, the only suggestion I can make that can satisfy people like me (who don't have the luxury of playing EQ all day) and the hard-core gamers is a god/dragon repop simultaneously. Since all dragons/gods are taken down within minutes of spawn, once the last dragon/god has been hit, the timer will be reset for next week during the window and next week all gods/dragons will simultaneously pop within the window. As someone said, this will force guilds to prioritize which mob is most important for them and give the lesser guilds opportunities to take down old-world targets. Competition will still be thriving and there will most likely be less /petitions due to it, BUT in reality, i doubt the GMs will do shit about it, but I do believe this will be the fairest for all guilds and possibly the most fun. Also if this strategy is put in place, 24/7 hard-core trackers will prolong their lives roughly on average of 2 years due to the fact that they won't sit there burning their eyes staring at a computer screen eating a bag of funyuns and will also give them an opportunity to shower and exercise which will benefit RL health :D, but like i said, it is what it is I doubt anything will change and you just gotta accept it the way it is. if you want consistent phat lewtz, go join TR.

my 2c.

Marley
06-01-2011, 03:23 AM
TR are very skilled, I give them that. They are not gods though. They do wipe. Rush them to engage, you'll get your shot.

nambar
06-01-2011, 03:47 AM
The problem with the server isn't variance, it's the lack of raiding know-how for everyone but TR.

Get your acts together. This game is 14 years old how do you still not know how to play it? Make your members get resist gear, make everyone get an Overthere hammer for quicker ports organizing, etc. God these things are basic. I swear most of you just show up at a raid mob and think you're set for loot and act surprise when you wipe and TR strolls in and kills it.

Stop letting just any clown into your guild. Make sure they have proper gear and knowledge, screen them for godsakes. Don't be like TMO and run around with 400 members but can only kill Inny on patch days.

You'd feel a lot more competition and see more races if it weren't just Ascension attempting (and losing) to beat TR.

Skope
06-01-2011, 08:15 AM
If you want a mob, then put in the effort to get it.

As far as changing how raid targets spawn, I am not the one who makes the decision...but I doubt it is going to change simply because theres no reason to change it. Raid targets are meant to be highly competitive, and thats exactly how it is.

Hobby, when in the history of any EQ live server did time = effort? Anyone who says time = effort, especially in the case of raiding, is flat out lying to themselves. The notion of tracking for 4 days to batphone when something spawns is something that was invented HERE. You want to call it effort? I'll call it unnecessary p99 behavior. How's that? I spent more time tracking pegasus than i ever did a single target. You know why? because you didn't have to track targets. Live servers didn't batphone because the people didn't have phones, but because there were no windows at all. You may have gotten an email when a server taken down to race to the targets that came up, but never because someone sat in the zone for 96 hours to wait for something to pop and you dropped what you were doing at the drop of a dime. on live you had 5-6 guilds at one spawn. I can recall 4 guilds at trak and the guildleaders discussing between themselves how to settle it. THAT was EQ. The concept of "racing" was invented here. On live the only racing that was done was when a server came back up or when there were 2 targets that spawned at ~the same time (which was incredibly frequent because of how common it was for live servers to go down and back up again, but because of variance you very very very rarely have that here). This notion of "racing", aka answering a batphone and spending 4 pointless days waiting for something to spawn, is strictly a p99 thing. You can do without it -- that's called classic.

This idea that no variance will lead to poopsocking is just as flat-out idiotic. With FTE rules there is no poopsocking. Don't like FTE because it'll cause too much drama and GM involvement? Make it /random. Whoever gets there 20mins beforehand with 20+ gets to /random and you go in that order. Hell, make it FFA and train your asses off, i don't care. What i do care about is that the single thing that's furthest from the actual classic experience here is this decrepit crutch that was put up to stop shitty behavior from guilds that ultimately didn't work or help, and now people are looking for any reason we can muster up to keep it. As it stands, variance does only one thing, and that's limit GM involvement. The reality is that it can be handled far better than using a gigantic window. The better question, though, is why it's being handled at all? The GMs should decide to let the players work it out... you know, like real everquest.

It's not classic.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 08:49 AM
The concept of "racing" was invented here. On live the only racing that was done was when a server came back up or when there were 2 targets that spawned at ~the same time
It's not classic.

Holy shit, You never played classic. Racing happened every single day but with way more trains/drama/KS'ing than on here.

Skope
06-01-2011, 08:51 AM
Yes it did, but between targets, server ups and knowing when things would spawn. THAT was live racing. 4 days of waiting and 15 minutes of racing isn't the way live worked, and that's what i'm getting at. Trains/KSing depends on the server rules and raid rules, and can comfortably say that there's far more drama here than there was on live.

Susanbanthony
06-01-2011, 09:02 AM
I much prefer Susanbanthony/Skope's suggestion of just popping all the raid targets at once, but with no variance, about once a week (I suggest every 6 days 18 hours to rotate through all timezones) and temporarily suspending all rules in the raid zones for about two hours.

I think there are a number of huge advantages:

1. Raid night immediately becomes a huge event for the 50+ crowd. The server population would be 1200+ easily. With all targets up the uberguilds would make sure 100% of their population was on.
2. Casual players actually have a chance to either make time in their schedule or just skip the event. Smaller guilds can ally for targets.
3. With training and ks'ing OK for the event, the challenge and excitement level would go way up. You can't just clear a few roamers on the way to Cazic Thule any more, you have to burn down the zone or risk some other guild dropping it on you. Raid night would probably last 5-6 hours before all the mobs were down because of this.
4. Alternatively, players could just play nice and divide up the targets reasonably (kinda boring IMO).
5. This is easy to try. Just schedule it once and see what happens.

I like this idea just as a p99 social experiment to see how guild leaders handle things... option 3 or option 4.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 09:06 AM
and can comfortably say that there's far more drama here than there was on live.

Look at our FnR, we have a ton of drama!

Skope
06-01-2011, 09:46 AM
It's just... silly.

The GMs are encouraging a certain way of raiding that's completely unnecessary. If they want us out of their hair there are a dozen different ways of doing it that won't rape the classic feel of raiding and would actually be more efficient at decreasing the amount of petitions.

Duie
06-01-2011, 09:55 AM
Aside from this, those old world bosses still drop stuff that's amazing until well into velious:
-BCG is a best in slot item for all int and wis casters + priests + bards who have a CoF or CoP.
-Naggy and Vox still drop dragon haste, gaunlets of fiery might, tobrins eyepatches, red and white dragon scales that are useful for what they make and for epics.
-Innoruuk drops encylopedia that makes necro pets absurdly powerful.
-CT drops a sweet robe that doesn't really have a replacement until you kill phara dar.

Do you see where I'm going with this? All of these mobs you want the top guilds to ignore drop things which are legitimate upgrades for our members, especially the new members we have to take in to compensate for the relatively high turnover on an EMU server. We are not killing them just to say we did it, we are killing them because we need the loot as well to get stronger and stay competitive.

as you mentioned you will get upgrades as soon as vp goes into play. by tier one agreeing to this they will also get first crack at epic so the dragonscale point is mute as well as CT /Inny(which would be defaulted to you if the said guild couldnt kill them). You are also not seeing that tier 2 and 3 would be giving up what is considered top priority targets(IE curently all of kunark dragons and VS). Tiers would work and what I wrote down is a rough draft. Tier rules would have to be something everyone could live with and thus guild Leaders would have to sit down and come up with said rules.

Something else you are missing as well. In a tier system you would not be recruiting unequiped players. By the time a player gets bored or wants to join the top dogs , they are mostlikely going to have planer and dragon loot from the old world. Human nature dictates youll still get your recruits But more likely than not, you wont have to backtrackto get the new batch equiped

Skope
06-01-2011, 10:02 AM
About VP and velious: (this is something i'm stealing from a guildie who's on the fence about the issue that i didn't think about)

What about guardian bosses/mini bosses? Certain zones/encounters were meant to be cleared from start to finish in a chronological order. The velious raiding zones are a prime example. How would that work? All the bosses should spawn in order, otherwise you're defeating the purpose of the zone. You can't have vulak spawning before the others unless you plan to change the way the zone was meant to work. But with variance, right now that's exactly what would happen.

We can't keep this up forever. It needs to go sooner or later; why not now?

These are all legitimate concerns and points, i'd like to think. Not that a GM has to answer, but it would certainly be nice if they chimed in on this.

tj218
06-01-2011, 10:02 AM
What about limiting the size of the guilds to say 40-50?

That would force guilds to work together (unless all guildies are on at the same time) and share the raid mobs while still keeping the "effort" and mobilization aspect in place.

Duie
06-01-2011, 10:11 AM
lol @ everyone who wants the variance gone. You guys like poopsocking dont you?

No variance would either end in massive poopsocking or in a massive clusterfuck each time. gm has to come each time and see who attacked first because 4 guilds are camping the spawn, anyone remember when everyone knew nobles timer? oh the joy. The variance makes people actually race for targets, with no variance there wouldn't be any races ever, except for patchday repops.




Yeah actually most kills are races and not what you describe above, you really sound like you have no idea how the raiding scene on this server works.



Shows how clueless you are again, most of my guildmates have jobs and/or family. Im working too and guess what i even get to kill kunark stuff!

How quicky one forgets that not even a week ago you had a guild kiting one dragon so others couldnt engage, that not even a month ago 3 guilds were camped at trak layer waiting for it to spawn.6 months ago the same thing was happening at naggy layer. Granted TR has an advantage as they are what once was Darkwind(eurotimes) and IB(USA times) soi guess you cant remeber getting up at 4 am to kill a mob... your right... I have no clue

moklianne
06-01-2011, 10:15 AM
How quicky one forgets that not even a week ago you had a guild kiting one dragon so others couldnt engage, that not even a month ago 3 guilds were camped at trak layer waiting for it to spawn.6 months ago the same thing was happening at naggy layer. Granted TR has an advantage as they are what once was Darkwind(eurotimes) and IB(USA times) soi guess you cant remeber getting up at 4 am to kill a mob... your right... I have no clue

They should put in the raid window and change the rules so that its whoever does the most damage.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 10:19 AM
Still missing the point.

BCG = best belt in the game until endgame VELIOUS.

CRoA = Best robe in game until Phara Dar, the last boss of a zone that isn't even out yet.

Innoruuk foci, particularly the necro book, will never have an upgrade on this server. Ever.

Tobrin's = Best in Slot for most casters for a very long time.

Tiered system serves no purpose for the guilds willing and capable of killing them. It's a socialist system that serves to help the little guy. Nowhere here is any incentive given to the ones with the "power" to relinquish said nerdery.

In short, you very rarely get something you want simply by asking for it.

dragolyche
06-01-2011, 10:34 AM
If you want a mob, then put in the effort to get it.

As far as changing how raid targets spawn, I am not the one who makes the decision...but I doubt it is going to change simply because theres no reason to change it. Raid targets are meant to be highly competitive, and thats exactly how it is.

Sure, maybe you say that because you are a member of the Big guild.

Maybe yu don t know, dear guide, they are not only Harcore players in this server ?

Well if Guides don t want to find a good answer for every players (hardcores and casuals, big guilds and average guilds) its not necessary to debat about that.

Peace.

Dr4z3r
06-01-2011, 10:36 AM
can comfortably say that there's far more drama here than there was on live.

Hah, good one!

dragolyche
06-01-2011, 10:43 AM
Actually is impossible to get any big target. One or Maybe two guilds kill/farm these spots and give no chance to other guilds.

its not a competition, its a monopoly.

Hobby
06-01-2011, 10:59 AM
I have not played a "play" character since end of november. I have always firmly believed if a guild wants a target, then effort needs to go into preparing for it and time needs to go into tracking for it. Its a union of ideas to get the target, and that is what TR has done and that is what The A Team are currently working on doing (with good results).

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 11:03 AM
Actually is impossible to get any big target. One or Maybe two guilds kill/farm these spots and give no chance to other guilds.

its not a competition, its a monopoly.

Your point?

It was like that on most servers. It was definitely like that on Povar. Not so much Brell Serilis - that server was probably one of the most civilized servers in the game, in terms of diplomacy and reason.

It was also virtually unknown, on the "raiding scene." Think on that.

Which would I prefer, personally? Doesn't matter much.

Nedala
06-01-2011, 11:05 AM
This idea that no variance will lead to poopsocking is just as flat-out idiotic. With FTE rules there is no poopsocking. Don't like FTE because it'll cause too much drama and GM involvement? Make it /random. Whoever gets there 20mins beforehand with 20+ gets to /random and you go in that order. Hell, make it FFA and train your asses off, i don't care. What i do care about is that the single thing that's furthest from the actual classic experience here is this decrepit crutch that was put up to stop shitty behavior from guilds that ultimately didn't work or help, and now people are looking for any reason we can muster up to keep it.



Ok you dont want to understand it right? Can we PLEASE make it FTE without variance just for one week so skope finally understands its the biggest bullshit ever? Why doesnt it get into your head? If you had it FTE it would end every single time with multiple guilds sitting on a mobs spawn before he spawns and zerging him down in a few seconds and then get a GM to decide who gets loot! God damnit we had that at noble dojorn why in hell of earth cant you see how this sucks?? Ok you could prevent that with your /random idea, but guess what /random for raidtargets is not classic! And you couldnt force guilds to do that anyway, so you would have to setup a rule again like first 20 in zone which would lead to poopsock again.

No matter what: remove variance = kill the raiding scene.



The concept of "racing" was invented here. On live the only racing that was done was when a server came back up or when there were 2 targets that spawned at ~the same time (which was incredibly frequent because of how common it was for live servers to go down and back up again, but because of variance you very very very rarely have that here). This notion of "racing", aka answering a batphone and spending 4 pointless days waiting for something to spawn, is strictly a p99 thing. You can do without it -- that's called classic.



The concept of racing was NOT invented here. Like youself stated, it happend on each server down and that was a lot. And by very very very very very very very very very very very rarely, you mean like once each 1-2 weeks, right? Because thats about how often we have full server repops on p99. Doesnt sound very rare to me. Oh and there was batphoning on live too, guess you never were in a raiding guild.

Seriously, what we have now is as classic as it can get. Because what would happen on this server without a variance, is certainly more unclassic than what we have now.

Skope
06-01-2011, 11:06 AM
I have not played a "play" character since end of november. I have always firmly believed if a guild wants a target, then effort needs to go into preparing for it and time needs to go into tracking for it. Its a union of ideas to get the target, and that is what TR has done and that is what The A Team are currently working on doing (with good results).

oh ffs, hobby. my point, and the point being reiterated over and over again here, isn't about "effort" or "drive", it's about the rules which govern all of that. You have (and in classic you had) effort, and drive, and coordination with or without variance. The issue here is the variance, not how much you want something.

To boot, it can't stay the same as it is now with velious unless the GMs are willing to completely change the way some zones worked -- and i would throw VP in that boat as well.

Nedala, I'd be happier with training and KSing and rotation and dirty tactics. That's how the game actually worked, the fact that you wouldn't like it doesn't mean 2 shits. If you're smart about the rules you can still avoid all of that and do it without variance.

With the number of patches/reboots per month on live you didn't need to track. When did stuff spawn? oh yes, exactly 12.22am, 2 days ago when the server came down, +3 or +7. Now pick which target you think you want the most and which guild will be at which target. It was more about which target should we aim for when it gets back up or when they're going to spawn at the same time, whereas here it's wait 4 days, batphone, get hammer out, proc, port.

One last thing... keep saying I didn't play classic, but before you do, ask some of your guildies who remember me from back on prexus, then stfu. :)

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 11:10 AM
oh ffs, hobby. my point, and the point being reiterated over and over again here, isn't about "effort" or "drive", it's about the rules which govern all of that. You have (and in classic you had) effort, and drive, and coordination with or without variance. The issue here is the variance, not how much you want something.

To boot, it can't stay the same as it is now with velious unless the GMs are willing to completely change the way some zones worked -- and i would throw VP in that boat as well.

First it was complaints about poopsocking. Variance was implemented.

Now it's complaints about variance.

It's the Circle of Life, and it moves us all; through despair and hope; through faith and love, until we find our place on the path unwinding in the circle - The Circle of Life.

Susanbanthony
06-01-2011, 11:10 AM
I wouldn't mind keeping the variance and at least shortening the window to +/- 24 hours so we don't have to park our main's in a spot for (up to) 4 days out of the week.

Doors
06-01-2011, 11:12 AM
They should just instance all the raid encounters amirite

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 11:14 AM
as you mentioned you will get upgrades as soon as vp goes into play. by tier one agreeing to this they will also get first crack at epic so the dragonscale point is mute as well as CT /Inny(which would be defaulted to you if the said guild couldnt kill them). You are also not seeing that tier 2 and 3 would be giving up what is considered top priority targets(IE curently all of kunark dragons and VS). Tiers would work and what I wrote down is a rough draft. Tier rules would have to be something everyone could live with and thus guild Leaders would have to sit down and come up with said rules.

I want you to view this from the perspective of the people who already kill almost everything. You're telling us that agreeing to not get loot will ensure that guilds which can't currently compete with us will let us have first crack at things that are in more in demand at some later abstract date. Why would TR (or asc, or TMO or whatever) agree to not kill mobs that have things we need? The immediate trade off is that we dont' have to race guilds who can't necessarily kill all of the kunark targets anyway?

VP doesn't have upgrades for every slot, and gearing up an entire guild through VP would take forever when it eventually comes out.


Something else you are missing as well. In a tier system you would not be recruiting unequiped players. By the time a player gets bored or wants to join the top dogs , they are mostlikely going to have planer and dragon loot from the old world. Human nature dictates youll still get your recruits But more likely than not, you wont have to backtrackto get the new batch equiped

There are current, longstanding members of the "tier 1" guilds who have been around for more than 6 months raiding without a BCG, or CoF, or RBB, or Inny book etc. Loot does not fall from the sky and people who have been rewarded with dragon haste or uber items don't typically jump ship. Loot actually enters the world slower here than it did in classic because of how infrequently we have patches which add in repops, and then you have to spread it out over a top heavy population

About VP and velious: (this is something i'm stealing from a guildie who's on the fence about the issue that i didn't think about)

What about guardian bosses/mini bosses? Certain zones/encounters were meant to be cleared from start to finish in a chronological order. The velious raiding zones are a prime example. How would that work? All the bosses should spawn in order, otherwise you're defeating the purpose of the zone. You can't have vulak spawning before the others unless you plan to change the way the zone was meant to work. But with variance, right now that's exactly what would happen.

We can't keep this up forever. It needs to go sooner or later; why not now?

These are all legitimate concerns and points, i'd like to think. Not that a GM has to answer, but it would certainly be nice if they chimed in on this.

I understand your passion for this, but you're getting some things wrong. ToV North is the only velious raid zone meant to be killed "in order" to any degree (except maybe statue -> AoW). The Vulak ring event wasn't triggerable until every dragon in north was dead and we have rules for triggered spawns. Let's cross the ToV bridge when we get to it in 18 months.

Time equaled effort in classic as soon as they added long key quests. VP key can take 50-60 hours and VT key later took even longer. Certain classes' epics involve a crapton of waiting around.

Also, everyone loves to forget (or never did these raids during classic) but there was some variance in classic EQ. Kunark outdoor dragons didn't all spawn on server up. Vox/Nag had 8 or 12 hour variances. It's not like it was here, but you didn't show up at vox knowing she's spawn at 3:02 on the dot with a raid foce buffed and ready to go. Again, I led these raids and there was a few times we'd go kill naggy and vox wasn't up yet so we had to push her to the next night despite killing both of them back to back the previous week.

What about limiting the size of the guilds to say 40-50?

That would force guilds to work together (unless all guildies are on at the same time) and share the raid mobs while still keeping the "effort" and mobilization aspect in place.

This is the most insane thing in the entire thread. Force a hard cap on guilds so you have to split loot between them every time a mob spawns and you don't have enough on?

Aadill
06-01-2011, 11:16 AM
I would also vote for variance being dropped to a smaller window, as well. That would at least alleviate some of the complaints but still warrant effort/time/whatever you want to call it into reaching mob targets.

As far as VP/NToV/Sleeper's etc I would like to think that once two or more guilds are capable of entering them and killing the mobs that it is done in a much more reasonable manner without variance on those mobs. Take a look at how VP and ToV are done - kill the first dragon and the rest is yours. Race is over. That should be continued here for sake of less issues, and it would be possible to maybe agree to a rotation at that point but for now regular raid mobs not being on variance and possibly being on FTE/rotation would cause more bottlenecks and frustration.

Furthermore, not all "raid" mobs currently have a variance and not all "raid" mobs require one. I use quotes because depending on how you look at it they may be construed as raid targets and therefore worthy targets. Every target without variance? Nah.

Skope
06-01-2011, 11:21 AM
If it were dropped to 4-12 hours i'd be fine with it, but right now we're talking ten times that number.

Shiftin, i think you understand my point. Those zones (particularly the velious ones) were structured in such a way that the word "progression" would be deemed as the best possible way to describe a guild's approach. You went from one to the other. Iirc there was no variance in those zones either; not even a small one. Keeping a variance in those zones, perhaps even any sort of variance, would defeat the purpose of how and why they were made.

EDIT: actually, no i'm not. Unless it's like classic where the ones that had a small variance have a small variance and those that don't still don't, i wouldn't be happy. I'd just be *happier* with a far far smaller window. The fact is, though, it doesn't address the concerns of /petitions and clusterfucks. Like i said a million times over, dealing with the clusterfuck issue has little to do with variance, it's just that a large variance discourages it. There's still many ways to deal with the issue of having 5-6 guilds at a single target. Because, right now variance serves only that purpose: keep clusterfucks to bear minimum.

Hobby
06-01-2011, 11:27 AM
Skope I am not going to say anything more than this: There are 20x more issues involved with having static timers as compared to a varience.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 11:30 AM
Because, right now variance serves only that purpose: keep clusterfucks to bear minimum.

With a small crew of unpaid devs doing this for their own enjoyment they chose this as a reasonable alternative. Sure it may not be perfectly classic but neither is having previous knowledge on how to attempt a mob even before you've set foot in the zone where it spawns. Keep variance in, maybe lower the window size. That would make everyone happy if anything were to be changed.

Skope
06-01-2011, 11:34 AM
Skope I am not going to say anything more than this: There are 20x more issues involved with having static timers as compared to a varience.

And there's better ways to solve the /petitions and clusterfucks that would ensue if it were removed. That's the gist of my argument. That's not me being hopeful, that's me being realistic. You could actually have LESS work to do with the raiding scene if it were done properly. But keeping variance in, especially for the future, only creates further problems that will need to be addressed. It's like seeing a really ugly wound and deciding to patch it up with a bandaid. and as the life of the server goes on the wound just gets more and more infected until you need surgery to properly clean it.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 11:37 AM
And there's better ways to solve the /petitions and clusterfucks that would ensue if it were removed. That's the gist of my argument. That's not me being hopeful, that's me being realistic.

Get the rules changed, apply for guide status. Be online when each mob spawns.






Ding Fire Giant status. Doin' big things.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 11:37 AM
Because, right now variance serves only that purpose: keep clusterfucks to bear minimum.

http://i.qkme.me/1iox.jpg

Skope
06-01-2011, 11:40 AM
Get the rules changed, apply for guide status. Be online when each mob spawns.






Ding Fire Giant status. Doin' big things.

From the same guy who couldn't voice his opinion in fear that durison would backslap him.

Two can play this game. My concerns/ideas are perfectly legitimate. Your nonsensical statements, though, aren't.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 11:45 AM
My concerns/ideas are perfectly legitimate.

me2

Aadill
06-01-2011, 11:45 AM
From the same guy who couldn't voice his opinion in fear that durison would backslap him.

Two can play this game. My concerns/ideas are perfectly legitimate. Your nonsensical statements, though, aren't.

What? I was being serious and legitimate when I posted that. If you want the rules to follow something that we, as members of raiding guilds as well as GMs, are all well aware what kind of shitstorm it will bring, then be the one to babysit each and every situation. My concerns/ideas are perfectly legitimate.


Furthermore I'm fairly certain you are unaware of how Durison and I, or anyone else for that matter, interact so don't try to turn that into a personal flame.

EDIT: Here's my opinion: Variance allows a level of competition different from that of live. There are 5, 6, maybe even 7 guilds who consider themselves raiding guilds, and therefore would want raid targets. Rotations were tried on here and failed because no one is going to wait a month to take a stab at a raid target (assuming you get Trak, for example.. you wouldn't see it again till a month later, which would be worthless as far as a raid target/quest mob goes). It worked with two guilds, it failed with three.

If you work for it you have a much better shot at it. Similarly, if you don't track you don't even know when it was last killed until someone else tells you.

If mobs spawned on the dot you'd have a repeat of Noble Dojorn. Dojorn was one of the "raid" mobs I was referring to as he isn't important enough to always kill and was easily put on a rotation between a few guilds for the purpose of playing nice and not having any bad blood between them. When that rotation failed due to no shows the rotation ended. If every mob spawned on the dot you'd get into a situation where people won't want to play so nice because the targets are way more valuable, which is something Shiftin and quite a few others have been pointing out. These valuable targets would be FTE which would require a GM because at least two guilds will be going for it. Maybe in most cases it would simply lead to the same camp out on the spawn point issue and poopsocking would only continue. The easiest solution? Variance. Multiple mobs are in window and priorities are made. Sometimes races occur between the guilds that want the mob. They find new tactics to kill the mob, some of which are not new but were not widely used on live servers. This keeps it interesting. In the interest of not boring people to death with excessive variance windows I wouldn't mind a reduction from +/- 48 to +/- 24 or 36. That keeps it interesting and removes a portion of the frustration. Seems pretty legitimate to me.

Skope
06-01-2011, 11:50 AM
oh shutup... http://www.zewp.com/dump/photo/youstrollin.jpg

Aadill, if you really want to know ways to bypass the shitstorm that will inevitably ensue, then PM me. I'm not offering alternatives here for a thread that will just head to RnF. There's rules now that most people abide by even with 3-4 guilds at a single target. shit, that happened just a couple of days ago. why the hell would adding another guild or two be any different?

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:07 PM
Not one good reason for any of the guilds getting the kills to concede to surrender those kills.

You have a group of two hundred people going after a small number of targets. No matter what you say, no matter how you organize it, regulate it, oversee it, it will always leave someone unhappy.

Right now, the people who don't spend the time for the kills, or do not have the numbers, do not get the kills. There is no magic GM intercession directing these guilds to their targets; it is what it is because it is sought.

You offer solutions. Solutions to what? What is the problem? And can that problem (which I would argue is the curse of humans in groups) ever be solved?

If you remove the variance, we're back to poopsocking. It's that simple.

Skope
06-01-2011, 12:12 PM
The problem is something we crafted in order to defeat a problem (which it didn't defeat) is now dictating the way the raid scene works. It is the single biggest thing that's keeping this server from feeling like a true classic server.

Whether people/guilds like it or not doesn't matter. Just look at the recent dot nerf. There was one rule that trumped all player concerns and the moaning and bitching and that was: Is it classic? Quite clearly the answer here is no.

Two-boxing was classic and so was SEQ (though it became a bannable offense later). These things, among others, were banned for the general health of the server and its population. Assuming variance is one of these isn't just unfair, it's flat out untrue.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:31 PM
Variances were put in place to dissuade the poopsock phenomenon. It was done in order to improve the server raiding scene's "quality of life."

No amount of guild legislation can change the fact that the server's population has a higher number of gamers who have seen (and want to see again) EQ's endgame. Enforcing a rotational system will bring more and more guilds to petition entry to the rotation. The raiding scene then becomes bogged down with elaborate raiding rules that put our current rule set to shame in their complexity. The game ceases to be about mobilization and becomes a beaurocracy where the rules are made by those who wish to preserve their holdings at the higher tiers of content.

I see nothing wrong with the way things are, now. Certain allowances are made on this server to preserve the quality of gameplay - allowances that are not true to classic experience. That's reasonable.

Troy
06-01-2011, 12:33 PM
Gotta love TR members lying about their priorities to preserve their pixel status. It is fact that with a 4-day spawn window, you will NOT consistently get chances at targets unless EQ is your #1 priority in life. Your guild can do so by just having a massive number of people such that at any hour of any day there is a raid force online, but no single individual can consistently be part of that force without prioritizing EQ over anything else. How can you guys possibly argue against this?

Skope
06-01-2011, 12:39 PM
Nobody is saying rotation -- get that thought out of your head. I'm certainly not. I don't want a rotation. The game doesn't cease to be about mobilization when we created this wacked-out version of raiding and mobilization in the first place. Mobilization isn't waiting 4 days for something to spawn and 15 minutes of mobilizing. Like i told hobby, that's what I'll call unnecessary p99 behavior.

You're discussing hypothetical alternatives, none of which i suggested or agree with, in order to prove your point that they're better than the current system. That's the epitome of a straw man argument. I didn't say, nor do i agree with your alternatives. What I'm doing is telling you the current system is broken and will need fixing sooner or later without listing my alternatives here -- if you want them, just PM me. But if you want to argue with me, do so on the merit of what I'm presenting, not via hypothetical scenarios which you think I would put forth.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:39 PM
Even if it were the case that P99's "top raiding guilds" were built on people who did nothing but play EQ to monopolize the content... what of it?

Is it the server's obligation, is it the server's population's obligation, to ensure you see the content you want to see?

Crushbone newb groups disagree.

Bard swarmkiters disagree.

The necro at Frenzy disagrees.

The guys at Drolvarg Warlord disagree.

You get what you can accomplish. If someone wants to live in a litter-strewn basement to ensure he gets a freaking Cobalt Breastplate, is envy really the sentiment you want to express?

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:43 PM
What I'm doing is telling you the current system is broken

This is where we disagree.

I don't say I like it. I actually liked the beaurocratic method.

I don't see anything wrong with the system as it is, however, but I'll respect your opinion that it is.

Troy
06-01-2011, 12:46 PM
Even if it were the case that P99's "top raiding guilds" were built on people who did nothing but play EQ to monopolize the content... what of it?

It didn't work that way on live and shouldn't work that way here. The only people defending it (and justifiably so, why would they want more competition?) are the ones in said monopoly.

Skope
06-01-2011, 12:47 PM
I don't care about items. I gave away my dragon/god loot before i took a break. I gave away my acct info to guildies and all of my stuff is still there, welcomed back with open arms. Loot, believe it or not, is not why i play this game. If you don't want to take my word for it you're free to ask wiggles or ninik. and if you think they're lying to you you likely have a severe case of paranoia and should see a medical professional.

The difference between the necro at frenzy and the mass recruiting, 4 day tracking guilds (unnecessary p99 behavior) is that the necro at frenzy abides by the classic rules of EQ, whereas the massive variance is something we created to combat a problem and it didn't work. Currently, it only works to limit the raid scene in such a way that was never possible or ever happened on EQ live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZ6tvqhk8U

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:51 PM
Troy - Who the hell says it didn't?

I've played on two different servers on Live EQ.

On Brell Serilis, the end game was controlled entirely by a council of guilds who, in retrospect, manipulated the rules to ensure their superiority. It was civilized, but it was what it was - controlled content.

On Povar, there was Triton. And there was Triton. Everything else was under their heel, once RA fell to dust (through a particularly foul subterfuge on the part of Triton's leadership).

There's always a guild, or a couple warring guilds, who fight over the top tier content, either through brute force like P99, or through politics. You're looking at the game through rose-tinted glasses, I think.

dragolyche
06-01-2011, 12:53 PM
Troy - Who the hell says it didn't?

I've played on two different servers on Live EQ.

On Brell Serilis, the end game was controlled entirely by a council of guilds who, in retrospect, manipulated the rules to ensure their superiority. It was civilized, but it was what it was - controlled content.

On Povar, there was Triton. And there was Triton. Everything else was under their heel, once RA fell to dust (through a particularly foul subterfuge on the part of Triton's leadership).

There's always a guild, or a couple warring guilds, who fight over the top tier content, either through brute force like P99, or through politics. You're looking at the game through rose-tinted glasses, I think.

Not on karana server. System rotation forbidden that and everyone were happy. GM too, not steal/drama about target etcc.... This system keep everyone quiet.

Only zergers were not happy.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:55 PM
the massive variance is something we created to combat a problem and it didn't work.]

It stopped poopsocking. In my opinion, it was effective. But I respect your opinion that it wasn't.

Second attempt to politely disengage from an argument which offers no solution from the plaintiff.

Skope
06-01-2011, 12:57 PM
for those accusing me of bias or an agenda...

This is taken directly from the divinity members forums. My post in response to a guildie.

juju, you're under the assumption it would stay the same rules we have now but no variance. This assumption doesn't make sense. Furthermore, so what? even if it comes down to KSing or FTE or even rotation, i would rather all of these things than wait 4 days for a mob to spawn. It's not classic... the single rule that governed the entire direction of this server somehow doesn't apply now? what?

Things worked themselves out on live. Guilds got bigger and badder and others fell apart. It's already happened here. We're still here. We're not going anywhere, regardless of variance or not.

But, most importantly, I'm not doing this as a divinity agenda. How many more/less targets we'll get has absolutely zero bearing on why i'm trying to push this. I'm doing it because I think it's fucking stupid and it's wrong.


EDIT: for those that know me know that this isn't something new. But to come to the table or even disagree with me you'd have to be willing to do the same, and to be quite frank there's only a handful of people in the bigger guilds that would do just as i am willing to do.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 12:58 PM
Not on karana server. System rotation forbidden that and everyone were happy.

This server is different from how my favorite server (Brell) was, and it appears to be different from your home server as well. We're all from different servers, mate, and it can't encapsulate all of them.

This isn't Karana. It's not Povar, and it's not Brell. It isn't Quellious or Rallos Zek or Sesame Street or Little China or Zimbabwe. It's P99.

Nedala
06-01-2011, 01:01 PM
whereas the massive variance is something we created to combat a problem and it didn't work.



you keep saying variance was created to solve a problem, and it didnt work. Im not sure if said problem was poopsocking or GM intervention, but whatever of those 2 you talking about, it certainly worked.

There is (almost) no poopsocking
There is (almost) no GM intervention

so why are you saying it didnt work?




Not on karana server. System rotation forbidden that and everyone were happy.

I doubt the rotation forbid that, the rotation pretty sure was only player, and not GM enforced. Maybe the guilds on your server were all about the same strength, but im sure if there would have been one guild dominating most of the content, they wouldn't have given a flying fuck about the rotation.

Ledzepp02
06-01-2011, 01:01 PM
Thoroughly enjoying Skopes tangential analogies that have 0 connection to the argument.

However, Skope, you're missing the point that this server is not classic, period. We all have prior knowledge, web sites, word of mouth, etc etc, that put every one of us at an advantage to those back in 1999-2000. By this fact alone, arguing "is it classic" is a moot point, and you need to cease and desist.

The Guides/GM's, as previously mentioned, are doing this FOR FREE. Considering this, and the fact that removing the variance (reverting back to poopsock-mode) would insure at least tenfold the number of crying petitions, poopsocked targets, and general asshatery, I hope you can realize WHY your argument is invalid.

-Ledz

Troy
06-01-2011, 01:04 PM
Troy - Who the hell says it didn't?

I've played on two different servers on Live EQ.

On Brell Serilis, the end game was controlled entirely by a council of guilds who, in retrospect, manipulated the rules to ensure their superiority. It was civilized, but it was what it was - controlled content.

On Povar, there was Triton. And there was Triton. Everything else was under their heel, once RA fell to dust (through a particularly foul subterfuge on the part of Triton's leadership).

There's always a guild, or a couple warring guilds, who fight over the top tier content, either through brute force like P99, or through politics. You're looking at the game through rose-tinted glasses, I think.

In classic any guild could show up at spawn time and take a shot, sure people might not like it but GM's weren't going to enforce those player-made rules.

I play a tracking class and am not willing to spend 90+% of my play time sitting semi-AFK hitting track waiting to trigger a mass communication to the guild. Nor am I going to leave work to log on when a boss spawns, or wake up in the middle of the night, or leave dinner, or leave rehearsal, or drop anything I'm doing that is not playing EQ. A player like me could still see a lot of bosses in classic. On P99 it's unlikely I'll see one until every hardcore player is fully equipped with the best Velious gear.

So yes, I want the rules changed to something that will benefit me. That something, however, IS HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY WAS. :cool:

Pudge
06-01-2011, 01:08 PM
hey guys. red99 will have static timers so that everyone knows when the mob is up and it will be a pvp clusterfuck. jelly?

Skope
06-01-2011, 01:09 PM
Zepp, sooner or later variance will run into a wall, especially in velious. I've thought about the ass-hattery that would ensue, in fact i've mentioned it repeatedly. But there's ways of getting by that without having to prop up a 4 day window. The fact that they're doing it for free isn't a new concept... i've been here longer than you, friend. I know that they have zero requirement to appease the bitching, but the "is it classic?" argument has been the argument that's been brought up again and again, patch day after patch day. It's the reason p99 exists in the first place. It's a mantra that's spoken at whisper volume that guides the way this server works. When steering away from it you generally had to have a very good reason; what i'm doing is questioning this reason.

Nedala, variance or not, whoever engages first gets the target. Welcome to FTE (first to engage). This doesn't change if there's a smaller or larger window, or a window at all. A guild coming 5 minutes before the spawn has just as much right as one who's been there for 3 days. Variance is independent of FTE. Variance, originally, was introduced to discourage poopsocking and it flat out didn't work. It did for a couple of weeks, but then DA quickly got to poopsocking and IB used the excuse of "if they're doing it, we have to do it too." In fact, it probably goes back even father, but if you want a P99 history lesson this isn't the forum for it.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 01:10 PM
I play a tracking class and am not willing to spend 90+% of my play time sitting semi-AFK hitting track waiting to trigger a mass communication to the guild.

Regardless of your personal priorities (which sound healthy), there are gamers who WILL do just that. You can't ask them not to do it, for your benefit.

Remove the variance and you'll likely see those same people eventually sitting on the spawnpoint, while you're sleeping your six hours before you gotta slog off to work. That's life, mate, and your choices are what they are.

Troy
06-01-2011, 01:15 PM
Regardless of your personal priorities (which sound healthy), there are gamers who WILL do just that. You can't ask them not to do it, for your benefit.

Remove the variance and you'll likely see those same people eventually sitting on the spawnpoint, while you're sleeping your six hours before you gotta slog off to work. That's life, mate, and your choices are what they are.

The difference is that if I know the spawn is due at 3AM I can choose to camp there and wake up at 2:30, have my chance at it (maybe I win, maybe I lose), and log back off at 3:30. If it's due between 3AM Monday and 3AM Friday, I'm not likely to have a chance without spending way more than an hour of time on it. My choices were actually semi-compatible with the classic environment. Why P99 encourages a non-classic EQ>Life raiding mindset is beyond me.

Asher
06-01-2011, 01:18 PM
However, Skope, you're missing the point that this server is not classic, period. We all have prior knowledge, web sites, word of mouth, etc etc, that put every one of us at an advantage to those back in 1999-2000. By this fact alone, arguing "is it classic" is a moot point, and you need to cease and desist.
-Ledz

Last I heard, this server was supposed to be modeled after Classic EQ.

With all the bugs and everything I think we all realize it is not classic EQ and it is provided to us for free but this is one thing that could be easily changed back to classic if the GMs willed it.

BTW, wth does having prior knowledge of EQ have to do with this server supposedly being modeled after Classic EQ?

Asher

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 01:19 PM
In classic any guild could show up at spawn time and take a shot, sure people might not like it but GM's weren't going to enforce those player-made rules.

I play a tracking class and am not willing to spend 90+% of my play time sitting semi-AFK hitting track waiting to trigger a mass communication to the guild. Nor am I going to leave work to log on when a boss spawns, or wake up in the middle of the night, or leave dinner, or leave rehearsal, or drop anything I'm doing that is not playing EQ. A player like me could still see a lot of bosses in classic. On P99 it's unlikely I'll see one until every hardcore player is fully equipped with the best Velious gear.

So yes, I want the rules changed to something that will benefit me. That something, however, IS HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY WAS. :cool:

I want to reiterate that you have absolutely no clue how the top guilds are run or work. I hope that the vitriol you and others continue to spew serves the purpose of satisfying your need to feel like there's an outside injustice keeping you from indulging yourself in everything you think EQ should be, but it is not based in the reality of how this server works or how EQ actually was 11 years ago.

You genuinely think that only people who play bards, rangers and druids do the tracking for all of these targets?

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 01:19 PM
Troy - Because people will sit on the spawnpoint before it spawns, to kill it before you.

Troy
06-01-2011, 01:27 PM
I want to reiterate that you have absolutely no clue how the top guilds are run or work. I hope that the vitriol you and others continue to spew serves the purpose of satisfying your need to feel like there's an outside injustice keeping you from indulging yourself in everything you think EQ should be, but it is not based in the reality of how this server works or how EQ actually was 11 years ago.

You genuinely think that only people who play bards, rangers and druids do the tracking for all of these targets?

Who cares. SOMEONE is doing the tracking. SOMEONE is needlessly wasting their time. Whether it's one person for 4 days straight on IV caffeine or 96 people taking 1-hour shifts, it's still up to 96 wasted hours supporting a non-classic mechanic.

Unless you're arguing that you guys don't have people tracking targets and just happen to all sign in at once magically right after targets spawn. Divine intuition?

Skope
06-01-2011, 01:31 PM
Troy - Because people will sit on the spawnpoint before it spawns, to kill it before you.

That's where actual raid and server rules come in.

FTE, FFA, KS, /random, etc., would all dictate how that works. Variance has no bearing on these whatsoever. err, it does, but rather, it shouldn't.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 01:31 PM
Tracking is a burden, and it would be lessenned for everyone if the windows were shortened, which seems to be a pretty popular solution if you read this thread.

Again, you do realize that most raid mobs in classic EQ were on some sort of variance, right? No, it wasn't this large but you could never log in at an exact time to go kill nagafen.

Nedala
06-01-2011, 01:36 PM
Nedala, variance or not, whoever engages first gets the target. Welcome to FTE (first to engage). This doesn't change if there's a smaller or larger window, or a window at all. A guild coming 5 minutes before the spawn has just as much right as one who's been there for 3 days. Variance is independent of FTE. Variance, originally, was introduced to discourage poopsocking and it flat out didn't work. It did for a couple of weeks, but then DA quickly got to poopsocking and IB used the excuse of "if they're doing it, we have to do it too." In fact, it probably goes back even father, but if you want a P99 history lesson this isn't the forum for it.


But there you are wrong again, variance wasnt put in to stop the poopsocking it was put in to stop GM intervention, and it worked.

And then FTE was put in to stop poopsocking, and it worked.

You are aware nobody is poopsocking currently to get bosses, are you?
But here you are claiming it didn't work.

And to FTE: this is exactly the problem, No variance + FTE = 5 guilds sitting on his spawn, yes it doesnt matter who was there first and thats exactly the problem everyone will be there, and everybody will try to be the first guild to engage.

Just an example:

Guild A, B, C and D know trakanon is going to spawn. Guild A is there since a day, guild B since a couple hours guild C andD just arrived.

So, trak spawns, all guilds beat on him, he goes down in a few seconds, nobody has a clue who engaged first, a GM comes looks into the logs and awards the loot. This is how every important spawn would work, especially trak. And you seriously prefere this scenario over what we have now?

Is that what you call raiding? The guilds wouldn't even need to be capable of killing trak, since 4 other guilds are helping anyway.

Troy
06-01-2011, 01:38 PM
Tracking is a burden, and it would be lessenned for everyone if the windows were shortened, which seems to be a pretty popular solution if you read this thread.

Again, you do realize that most raid mobs in classic EQ were on some sort of variance, right? No, it wasn't this large but you could never log in at an exact time to go kill nagafen.

And it would be lessened the most if we had classic spawns. Do you NOT want that? I'm confused.

Skope
06-01-2011, 01:39 PM
Tracking is a burden, and it would be lessenned for everyone if the windows were shortened, which seems to be a pretty popular solution if you read this thread.

Again, you do realize that most raid mobs in classic EQ were on some sort of variance, right? No, it wasn't this large but you could never log in at an exact time to go kill nagafen.

The point is they were practically negligible and pale in comparison to what we have here. Iirc, not all of them were on a variance, either. Unfortunately, decreasing the length of the variance significantly poses other problems, as the variance is in place currently to limit GM involvement. There's more than 1 issue that would need fixing, but i'm glad we can at least see it somewhat similarly.

Nedala, you're attacking me but i'm uttering much the same words you are... there WILL be clusterfucks. Can we avoid them? yes. Can we do it without variance? Absolutely. Remember, though, clusterfucks were classic. Avoiding clusterfucks with certain raiding rules was also classic. This 4 day window is not and it's unnecessary.

Rais
06-01-2011, 01:40 PM
There shouldn't be any variance at all. Pop everything after the next server crash/patch, and let guilds choose what they are to go for. It was like that on live. Why should it be any different here?

A guild can't be in 7 places at once. Want to call it a classic server, then run it like one. At least jacking up melee or spell casters for these patches are just like it was on live. Run one or two things on a code server and say its working,put it on live and in fact its bugged to hell.

Troy
06-01-2011, 01:40 PM
You are aware nobody is poopsocking currently to get bosses, are you?
But here you are claiming it didn't work.

Are you really going to sit here and say that you don't have at least one person right now in range of a boss that's due to spawn? Sure it's no longer 15 people, but it's not zero like you claim. I guess one is better than fifteen, but it's still silly and not classic.

Bruman
06-01-2011, 01:44 PM
Fuck it, if you want to handle the situation of "More guilds can handle the mob than ever could on live", going to deviate from classic, then just make it spawn every 2 hours :P

"Ugh...we can't farm fear trash because CT keeps DTing all night!"

Aadill
06-01-2011, 01:44 PM
Here's what happens in the current raiding scene:

1) A mob spawns on a variance, unbeknownst to ANYONE except first and foremost to any trackers in the zone.

2) A mass communication is sent out to the guilds that have trackers in the zone that are aware of the event

3) Each guild that received the call mobilizes from any and every zone because they were doing other things, which in Kunark generally requires mobilization from multiple zones in multiple fashions whether it be OT hammers, evacs from dungeons, etc.

4) Those guilds buff and wait for a reasonable number of players and start pulling trash or engage the mob either by pulling to their raid or sending in the tank. USUALLY this results in all but one guild being caught off guard, so there are no FTE issues.

5) The mob dies.

6) The guild moves to a mobilization spot, continues about their business, or passes out loot.


Under a no-variance solution:

1) A mob spawns at a known time due to any and all guilds that were previously in the zone watching the last time it was killed are aware of it (which unless trackers are still being utilized will not result in any gain on the part of any guild not currently tracking).

2) Prior to this spawn event, a mass communication is made well in advance for every knowledgeable guild to simply move to a zone and buff/camp out and log back in just minutes prior to it's spawn.

3) Upon spawn every and all guilds who were aware of the spawn will attempt to receive FTE and will either KS the mob and take the loot (GM intervention) or /petition to have the loot returned to them because they feel they were FTE (also GM intervention)

4) The mob dies or wipes the first raid force.

5) The loot is passed out and guilds go about their business/move to the next known spawn.


In your concept I fail to see how poopsocking was reduced. Most importantly, however, would be that MORE GM intervention is required. In the current state the entire spawn is a surprise and therefore causes guilds to have to genuinely race for a mob instead of pre-mobilizing. THAT is the competition that the top tier guilds are vying for because as of right now we're all aware of how much hp the mobs have, the spells they cast, the resist they need, etc.; "Save 150 on poison, start the CH chain and throw in the tanks and we'll be good to go!"

The result? Multiple guilds being ready, chomping at the bit to hit target nearest mob and throwing a javelin or shooting an arrow at the mob, hoping to get FTE.

I don't see how that is any more related to skill because no effort is involved on the guild as a whole. As of right now, the moment a mob spawns the guilds have to put forth their best efforts to get there first and engage. NO raid mob is going to sit up for more than a few minutes unless it's in Sky, so you're going to have to be there before it spawns. Yes, the current raiding guilds do agree on this and that is because we KNOW we are going to go for the mob in any means possible. Nedala and Shiftin represent the same angle: no one is currently poopsocking to any large degree and each mob is a race because we now have old world and Kunark raid mobs to mobilize for - too many targets to poopsock.


Would it be nice to shorten the windows? Hell yes! With enough targets after the expansion it would be the best choice made by the player base and GMs. Poopsocking may go up a little but GM intervention will still be minimal. As a bonus, trackers wouldn't have to track as long and could go about their business instead of staying home from work, not playing for days, eating bags of Funyuns, or whathaveyou. As of right now, everyone that is attempting the challenge of killing a raid mob is doing so and following the rules. Anyone not attempting within the bounds of the rules, which are pretty freeform, do not like the variance. My personal opinion is that I enjoy the variance but wish it was shorter. Rotations would be too easy and no variance would be horrid.

Shiftin mentions some variance always existed for old world stuff. Was that added when old world dragons went to 52 and below only? Maybe that can be implemented~

Furthermore, the mentions of Velious are way off and any guild attempting those areas will be well aware of how difficult it is. The GMs are also well aware of this and will probably go to great lengths to make sure that the experience is as normalized as it can be. How? Simple player made rule just as it was on live: Kill the first dragon and get the rest - no variance on the rest of the mobs.


Second edit: Skope: Instead of having me PM you, just post your thoughts, as that is the point of this thread that has popped up so many times before.

Third edit: Skope: I'm also not disagreeing with you that variance isn't classic, but the alternative that you present doesn't sit well with one of the very people that sits in a zone for 4 to 12 hours a day on a tracking shift.

Rejuvenation
06-01-2011, 01:50 PM
for those accusing me of bias or an agenda...

This is taken directly from the divinity members forums. My post in response to a guildie.

juju, you're under the assumption it would stay the same rules we have now but no variance. This assumption doesn't make sense. Furthermore, so what? even if it comes down to KSing or FTE or even rotation, i would rather all of these things than wait 4 days for a mob to spawn. It's not classic... the single rule that governed the entire direction of this server somehow doesn't apply now? what?

Things worked themselves out on live. Guilds got bigger and badder and others fell apart. It's already happened here. We're still here. We're not going anywhere, regardless of variance or not.

But, most importantly, I'm not doing this as a divinity agenda. How many more/less targets we'll get has absolutely zero bearing on why i'm trying to push this. I'm doing it because I think it's fucking stupid and it's wrong.


EDIT: for those that know me know that this isn't something new. But to come to the table or even disagree with me you'd have to be willing to do the same, and to be quite frank there's only a handful of people in the bigger guilds that would do just as i am willing to do.

I like this juju guy...He's got style.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 01:50 PM
That's where actual raid and server rules come in.

I respect this idea a lot. I don't see it working with the current high end climate, without GM intercession, but I'd love to see someone with enough charisma and political push attempt it.

It would take a lot more effort and time than tracking Vox for eight hours with an audio trigger.

Skope
06-01-2011, 01:52 PM
Aadill, you're doing the same thing Humwawa was: a strawman argument.

Dumping variance, as i noted on the previous page, raises other issues. Assuming FTE with no changes minus variance, though, is your own issue that you've just created. It requires rewriting it all and starting from a blank slate. Your scenario is just one in a dozen of scenarios that played themselves out daily on live servers.

Furthermore, your own proposal of lessening the windows creates much the same problem -- clusterfuck(s). That one wasn't so implausible was it? But think about it further and you'll realize that many of them face much the same issue.

There are ways to reduce GM involvement while keeping it strictly, or as close to, classic as we possibly can. The guilds willing to wake up at 3am will always get more targets. The guilds that wipe will lose their shots. There will still be tiered progression. Wake up people.

Dr4z3r
06-01-2011, 01:59 PM
Variance is independent of FTE. Variance, originally, was introduced to discourage poopsocking and it flat out didn't work.

This is not correct. It DID work. There is less of both poopsocking and GM's intervening on raids as a result of variance being introduced.

Skope, you're arguing in circles: You say variance is bad, someone else says how bad an alternative would be, and then you say "if you want to know what my alternative would be, PM me," and go back to saying "it's bad & not classic, so get rid of it."

There are two ways out of this circle: either stop posting, or write out your actual alternative proposal so that people can take a look at it. Or both! You can stop posting here, and start writing up a legitimate proposal to be submitted privately to Nilbog or whoever for evaluation as an alternative to the current system. That way you don't have to deal with the oh-so-villainous TR members straw-manning you and defending your monopoly - it can be nice & quiet.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 02:03 PM
I'm in Ascension and agree with Shiftin, Nedala, and Humwawa.

Susanbanthony
06-01-2011, 02:04 PM
I'm in Ascension and agree with Shiftin, Nedala, and Humwawa.

Asher
06-01-2011, 02:05 PM
Yes, Big Brother is required because P99 players are all babies and cannot resolve issues on their own. :rolleyes:

Asher

Skope
06-01-2011, 02:06 PM
This is not correct. It DID work. There is less of both poopsocking and GM's intervening on raids as a result of variance being introduced.

Skope, you're arguing in circles: You say variance is bad, someone else says how bad an alternative would be, and then you say "if you want to know what my alternative would be, PM me," and go back to saying "it's bad & not classic, so get rid of it."

There are two ways out of this circle: either stop posting, or write out your actual alternative proposal so that people can take a look at it. Or both! You can stop posting here, and start writing up a legitimate proposal to be submitted privately to Nilbog or whoever for evaluation as an alternative to the current system. That way you don't have to deal with the oh-so-villainous TR members straw-manning you and defending your monopoly - it can be nice & quiet.

No, it didn't work. Those of us who played here last summer can vouch for this personally -- especially those in DA and IB. There was no FTE then, it was first come first serve. The only mobilization that occurred during that entire summer and part of that spring was racing to the next poopsock spot. Poopsock wasn't a valid raid technique, it was a large loophole that variance couldn't cover up.

And I'm not going to post any of my alternatives here. But i will say what's been posted, including crazy-FTE by aadill, rotation by others, are options that I'd never favor.

Anything that I would propose would go straight to nilbog/rogean or be open for discussion between those deemed worthy of it. Unfortunately, the mere nature of the p99 forums often tanks any idea of fruitful conversation down the fucking toilet.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:09 PM
Skope, sir - I see nothing wrong with a variance on raid mobs to prohibit poopsocking, regardless of it being "true to classic" or not. I see nothing wrong with a variance now, or in the future.

Your argument is based on your belief that variance is contrary to classic experience, and that a staggered boss spawn time will conflict with Velious content for some reason. I don't believe it will. Where's the legendary, oft-referenced Strawman here?

I was in DA during the legendary poopsocking Summer. It was the inverse of competition - you raced to the mob, except the mob wasn't up yet. Still racing, but with an added 48 hours of bullshit.

This will happen again without a variance, and it will take some great diplomacy to even approach a player-controlled solution without needless, and still-present animosity.

It would take, in short, a massive amount of time and effort on the part of a few, in order to organize a system for the many. An amount of time it seems many, many posters believe shouldn't be invested in a video game, anyway.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 02:11 PM
Anything that I would propose would go straight to nilbog/rogean or be open for discussion between those deemed worthy of it.

Susanbanthony
06-01-2011, 02:11 PM
Anything that I would propose would go straight to nilbog/rogean or be open for discussion between those deemed worthy of it. Unfortunately, the mere nature of the p99 forums often tanks any idea of fruitful conversation down the fucking toilet.

I actually thought we we're having a fairly constructive discussion with folks offering alternatives and a civil discussion about those alternatives. You seem to be the only one unwilling to do so.

Amelinda
06-01-2011, 02:15 PM
No variance would either end in massive poopsocking or in a massive clusterfuck each time. gm has to come each time and see who attacked first because 4 guilds are camping the spawn,
^

Aadill
06-01-2011, 02:15 PM
The point of variance was not to prevent poopsocking, it was to prevent the need for GM interevention. The WINDOW of variance was increased* to reduce the chances that a guild would consider poopsocking. The guilds that chose to continue to poopsock did so because they wanted the raid mobs of which at the time there were only 6, one of which was worthless and one of which was quickly losing priority when sky opened.

Now that more raid mobs are available those same guilds still want the original 6 mobs and then some and currently RACE for them. There is no premobilizing unless it's the last few mobs in window. Recently, there has been very little GM intervention save one incident that I am aware of. Poopsocking was limited by the sheer number of mobs available in the game.

Furthermore, my "crazy FTE" situation is exactly what happened for months with Noble Dojorn, of which was a raid target with a known spawn time down to the second. How many times were the GMs petitioned during that timeframe between Divinity, IB, and DA? Anecdotal or not this is not a fallacy based on a hypothetical, this is historically accurate for Project 1999.

*I want to point out that an indirect result of the original window was that the variance was misunderstood and was then doubled to reflect the post by the GMs, so the increase was merely a correction to the original intended value which WOULD dissuade more from poopsocking

Skope
06-01-2011, 02:17 PM
Variances were put in place to dissuade the poopsock phenomenon. It was done in order to improve the server raiding scene's "quality of life."

No amount of guild legislation can change the fact that the server's population has a higher number of gamers who have seen (and want to see again) EQ's endgame. Enforcing a rotational system will bring more and more guilds to petition entry to the rotation. The raiding scene then becomes bogged down with elaborate raiding rules that put our current rule set to shame in their complexity. The game ceases to be about mobilization and becomes a beaurocracy where the rules are made by those who wish to preserve their holdings at the higher tiers of content.

I see nothing wrong with the way things are, now. Certain allowances are made on this server to preserve the quality of gameplay - allowances that are not true to classic experience. That's reasonable.

enforcing a blablabla... i never said rotation. these were your words. hence my strawman comment.

But, more importantly, i like it the way it is doesn't mean squat here. I liked having my necro be able to snarekite, unfortunately "i like" isn't a legitimate argument.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:20 PM
No need to be rude.

Conversely, the system is as it is, by virtue of the server admins and GMs, regardless of what you yourself want.

So there! Nyah.

Skope
06-01-2011, 02:24 PM
There's quite a bit I think the lot of us can agree with, including the decreasing of variance windows. Of course, the GM involvement and /petition that would inevitably come from that would mean it'd have to be done as an overhaul rather than a patch-up. It's certainly possible, so i don't see why so many people are being so damn negative about it. If i'm coming across that way, please know that it's not my intention. I've got quite a few ideas in my head.

Aadill, i actually want to lessen the burden on the GMs. There are ways to do this. The population is quite high, i'm sure there is lots they still want to get done. I'm not doing this to dick anyone over or for my own benefit. I honestly thought variance couldn't survive during kunark and expected it to be gone when i came back... i was unpleasantly surprised. But the reality is it still poses problems for the playerbase and the devs for future expansions and zones and it should be dealt with.

Troy
06-01-2011, 02:24 PM
Furthermore, my "crazy FTE" situation is exactly what happened for months with Noble Dojorn, of which was a raid target with a known spawn time down to the second. How many times were the GMs petitioned during that timeframe between Divinity, IB, and DA? Anecdotal or not this is not a fallacy based on a hypothetical, this is historically accurate for Project 1999.


Alternatively one dev could take 5 minutes to write a script for every raid mob to yell out the name on who engaged it first. Bam, FTE argument solved for every raid for all eternity. These are not hard problems to solve, EQ is a simple game.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 02:27 PM
Alternatively one dev could take 5 minutes to write a script for every raid mob to yell out the name on who engaged it first. Bam, FTE argument solved for every raid for all eternity. These are not hard problems to solve, EQ is a simple game.

I think Rogean took a look at this because that was suggested at one point as a way to remove all doubts about FTE so no GMs would have to be called even in the current raid scene, but that doesn't set apart "skill" from pre-mobilizing/poopsocking, classic or not, which is something I think (not verified) that Skope had an additional issue with over the current raiding scene. I may be wrong on that but that's the impression I got.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:28 PM
Alternatively one dev could take 5 minutes to write a script for every raid mob to yell out the name on who engaged it first.

This is no more classic than a variance...

I don't mean to troll, I'm just making a point.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 02:29 PM
I still don't understand how, if you have a plan that solves all of these problems, you don't post it here so we can talk about it.

Skope
06-01-2011, 02:32 PM
That was suggested at one point as a way to remove all doubts about FTE so no GMs would have to be called even in the current raid scene, but that doesn't set apart "skill" from pre-mobilizing/poopsocking, classic or not.

No, but it does address the issue of keeping FTE and clusterfuck(s). As i said before, in classic you still had tiered guilds -- in fact, you have them here. Poopsock all you want, if you don't engage first it's not yours in an FTE setting. Poopsock advantages go down the toilet. Whoever engaged it first gets the loot after it dies. Training, KSing, etc; all old rules would still apply. That's just 1 alternative. Of course, this may cause some issues with some guilds not willing to give up a pop and KSing. I can certainly see that happening.

Shiftin, i'm just not going to propose anything over these forums. You can chat with me about it, hell i'll sign onto irc and do it that way. But p99 forums have a tendency to litter serious discussion with stupidity.

Just to add that KSing a raid mob has happened here before. The notion that it'll become worse depends on how the rules are set.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 02:35 PM
Edited my post, soz Skope

Asher
06-01-2011, 02:37 PM
This is no more classic than a variance...

I don't mean to troll, I'm just making a point.

and obviously he prefers this non-classic solution to the current, and probably your prefered non-classic solution.

post count = post count +1

Asher

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:39 PM
(if you'd read anything, the summary of Troy's posts is to change it to classic, for his benefit)


:)

Hobby
06-01-2011, 02:40 PM
How many times were the GMs petitioned during that timeframe between Divinity, IB, and DA? Anecdotal or not this is not a fallacy based on a hypothetical, this is historically accurate for Project 1999.




Take the number of raid targets available in classic and multiple it by 4 every week...per guild.

Troy
06-01-2011, 02:42 PM
This is no more classic than a variance...

I don't mean to troll, I'm just making a point.

It's true, but I'd argue one line of text being different would be closer to classic than completely changing spawn timers - while at the same time solving the problem of GM involvement in arguments in a much simpler way. In fact, it would be a useful addition even with the spawn variance to pre-empt any FTE-related petitions.

If you want to make it 'look' more classic to the players, instead of a /shout have it the mob /tell every gm/guide instead. But then they'd have to essentially come /shout it themselves anyway....

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:44 PM
(if you'd read anything, the summary of Troy's posts is to change it to classic, for his benefit)


:)

This came out a tad snottier than I intended. It was more my taking Asher's trollbait than a slam on you, if that changes anything.

Troy
06-01-2011, 02:46 PM
(if you'd read anything, the summary of Troy's posts is to change it to classic, for his benefit)


:)

And the summary of TR/Ascension posts is to keep it non-classic for their benefit. Your point? Of course no one is going to argue for rules that make things more challenging for them, that is a given. That's why we use facts to make objective arguments.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:48 PM
Hah! Beat you to the apology!

I'm not arguing to keep it as it is, fior my guild or anyone elses'. I believe human beings en mass, particularly gamer human beings en masse, would take a chisel and hammer to your cranium if they thought they'd find an upgrade nestled in your still-living brain.

Dr4z3r
06-01-2011, 02:49 PM
I still don't understand how, if you have a plan that solves all of these problems, you don't post it here so we can talk about it.

^

Ledzepp02
06-01-2011, 02:50 PM
But p99 forums have a tendency to litter serious discussion with stupidity.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony

Troy
06-01-2011, 02:51 PM
Hah! Beat you to the apology!

I'm not arguing to keep it as it is, fior my guild or anyone elses'. I believe human beings en mass, particularly gamer human beings en masse, would take a chisel and hammer to your cranium if they thought they'd find an upgrade nestled in your still-living brain.

That does seem to be true in more than just gaming.

Asher
06-01-2011, 02:52 PM
(if you'd read anything, the summary of Troy's posts is to change it to classic, for his benefit)


:)

I thought the scope of the server was to model it after Classic EQ, as closely as possible, for everyone's benefit.

Asher

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 02:53 PM
Orthodoxy flourishes very rarely, in practice.

Ledzepp02
06-01-2011, 02:55 PM
gamer human beings en masse, would take a chisel and hammer to your cranium if they thought they'd find an upgrade nestled in your still-living brain.

http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr107/Ledzepp_wow/shaun_of_the_dead_zombieslol.gif

Vidrata
06-01-2011, 02:56 PM
imo, the camp rules need changed for anything to fixed. KS'ing, afk camping (wtf?) and GM intervention in anything (minus exploits), should all be gone.

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 02:58 PM
question.

how did variance stop poopsocking? (assuming that poopsocking is staying logged in forever to try to pin down a spawn) if your guild has the timer you just log in 5 before respawn. if your guild wants the timer you check the zone a bunch to see when the guild that has the timer is killing it, find them kiling it, now you have the timer too. log in earlier.

(as i was typing that ^ i realize this v)

ohhhhh, now i seee. to keep a camp you log in like its midnight premier of some movie to be absolutely sure no one has stolen your camp rights. yeah that would promote poopsocking.


how much is the variance though? why wouldn't you just log in and camp it out, i know you don't know exactly when it will spawn, but if the variance is only like 6 or 10 hours (so +/- 3 to 5 hours) your still waiting out the same absurdly long time. maybe the psychology of not knowing when what your waiting for will happen makes the opportunity cost of waiting too high for your average 99er.

someone who's actually taken part in this madness explain it to me!

Dr4z3r
06-01-2011, 03:02 PM
how much is the variance though? why wouldn't you just log in and camp it out, i know you don't know exactly when it will spawn, but if the variance is only like 6 or 10 hours (so +/- 3 to 5 hours) your still waiting out the same absurdly long time. maybe the psychology of not knowing when what your waiting for will happen makes the opportunity cost of waiting too high for your average 99er.

someone who's actually taken part in this madness explain it to me!

The variance on the big targets is 96 hours.

Big guilds will have one or two priority targets they keep a tracker at (usually multiple people, in shifts), and send out mass communications when the mob spawns.

Then, it's a race to be the first to engage & kill the mob.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 03:02 PM
Variance is currently 7 days +/- 48 hours from when it last died. That is a 96 hour window in which the mob will spawn again, basically 5 to 9 days later.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 03:02 PM
The difference is partly psychological, but also the loophole in the rules that allowed the practice maintained that you maintain 15 people at the spawn point, at their keyboards. Rollcalls could be randomly requested, with a time limit of one minute, to ensure you weren't "faking it."

It was miserable.

Troy
06-01-2011, 03:03 PM
edit: already covered by other posters.

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 03:04 PM
imo, the camp rules need changed for anything to fixed. KS'ing, afk camping (wtf?) and GM intervention in anything (minus exploits), should all be gone.

i mean to claim the camp, as i read in the sticky, you basically need to be able to kill the mob as soon as it spawns. so if your at the camp waiting for your group and another group shows up, i think its perfectly fair for them to ask you to pull the mob right now so they can get their shot at it next. if you can't pull the mob, or you do and die, isn't it their turn?

Aadill
06-01-2011, 03:04 PM
The difference is partly psychological, but also the loophole in the rules that allowed the practice maintained that you maintain 15 people at the spawn point, at their keyboards. Rollcalls could be randomly requested, with a time limit of one minute, to ensure you weren't "faking it."

It was miserable.

To clarify, this was last summer. Guilds actually moved into a zone with a force of 15+ to get first claim to a mob and then had to wait anywhere from 5 to 9 days for the mob to spawn again. If the mob had priority they would move to the zone well before the window even opened.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 03:07 PM
i mean to claim the camp, as i read in the sticky, you basically need to be able to kill the mob as soon as it spawns. so if your at the camp waiting for your group and another group shows up, i think its perfectly fair for them to ask you to pull the mob right now so they can get their shot at it next. if you can't pull the mob, or you do and die, isn't it their turn?

Yep! That only goes for XP/loot camps, not boss mobs.

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 03:09 PM
so scenario:

mob spawns and 2 people from 2 different guilds are tracking it. it spawns! mass texting!!!!!
both guilds are racing to get a large enough force there.

guild A has 15 people there and claims the camp, but for this mob they know they will need more players and a few specific players that are still around X min away from being there.

guild B shows up seconds later with a complete raid force and is ready to go.


my questions, using the "rule set" as it is right now:

1. how long does guild A have to get those people who are X min away their before they have to forefit their camp.
2. if guild A pulls, assuming that the rest of their group will make it there in time to save them from death, but this doesn't work out and they wipe, does guild B get their shot next?
3. is guild A and B likely to train/KS/or otherwise grief each other in a scenario like this?

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 03:11 PM
Yep! That only goes for XP/loot camps, not boss mobs.

oh where's the sticky for boss mobs?

Aadill
06-01-2011, 03:12 PM
Those rules don't apply anymore; there is no claim to a boss mob using 15 people unless you look to last year's raiding rules. (it used to be 15 people in zone, anywhere). Back in the day Guild B would be able to roll call Guild A and give them 1 minute to respond with all 15 people otherwise Guild B would get first shot at a mob.

As far as back then, there were instances where some petitions were made by both sides, and some situations worked out without petitions. It was a very complicated set of raid rules that have since been dropped.

As far as the sticky for boss mobs: Most of it doesn't apply even if you find it: Variance is 3 day +/- 24 hours or 7 day +/- 48 hours depending on the mob, and it's simply FTE... work stuff out amongst yourselves.

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 03:16 PM
so right now rule set is first come first serve, but with mob variance? and with (high?) potential of griefing in the case of a close race

Seaweedpimp
06-01-2011, 03:19 PM
Yeah actually most kills are races and not what you describe above, you really sound like you have no idea how the raiding scene on this server works.



Shows how clueless you are again, most of my guildmates have jobs and/or family. Im working too and guess what i even get to kill kunark stuff!



Mostly, mostly...

Skope
06-01-2011, 03:39 PM
Don't forget the bumgardener fiasco, who somehow tried to convince the server that he wasn't there when the rules were set and thus didn't have to abide by them. Drama flourishes and shit will hit the fan regardless of whether it's a 4 day window or not. The dojorn case being a prime example (and keeper of souls, as well). it ultimately worked itself out. Both with rule adjustments and player involvement. Both of these mobs are spawns that were not on a variance. Initially caused problems, sure, but they've been worked out.

When FTE hit the GMs/guides knew full well that there would be shitstorms in the near future, and they were there and hovering for the following 2-3 weeks. The argument that minimizing or removing variance will cause shitstorms is the same one we saw during poopsock > FTE.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 03:45 PM
You've yet to say what's wrong with it, to begin with.

No, it's not classic. A lot of things aren't. With the way the raid scene is, it helps more than hurts.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 03:49 PM
Actually KoS was worked out with a previous rule already stated by the GMs (triggered mobs). Dojorn only worked if players made agreements to make a rotation.

The lack of shitstorms that happened that were predicted with the loss of the poopsocking rules was due to the fact that variance stayed in and therefore still played a part in who was able to race to a mob and engage it first. It had very little to do with two guilds forcibly fighting over a spawn that they would know would happen at an exact point in time ala Dojorn.

snwbrdr642: griefing isn't allowed on this server and as such is petitionable. Sometimes it causes loot to change hands but most of the time it isn't provable.

Skope
06-01-2011, 04:10 PM
You've yet to say what's wrong with it, to begin with.

No, it's not classic. A lot of things aren't. With the way the raid scene is, it helps more than hurts.

Sort of like how you're claiming that it helps more than it hurts. Is that a good answer? Actually, i've gone through each of these in my previous posts. So here's a summary because you seem to have forgotten and/or lazy.

1 - You can't keep variance the way it is and maintain the classic spirit of raiding through velious. These two quite simply can't coexist with the current windows and rule set unless you're willing to concede that certain encounters, and more importantly the spirit of encounters, will be far different from classic and to be frank, a lot worse.

2 - It's not classic. This mantra dictates how this server works and why it was founded. The burden of proof isn't on those who wish to see a change > classic, but rather those who defend what's not classic. Defending boxing is far harder than defending variance. This server has a relatively low pop. in comparison to the old live servers so encouraging grouping is a priority. Now go ahead and defend SEQ.

3 - There should be no need for the GMs to babysit, invisible hand or not. Currently variance is the invisible hand that babysits by limiting which guilds can or can't compete in order to minimize GM intervention, much like poopsocking. During poopsock there was the argument that "you can poopsock too." Sure... but why the hell should I when it's clearly broken? People wouldn't admit it was broken until the forums were filled with complains and finally people caved in and things were changed. Looking back, no one in their right mind would think it was a good idea. These problems, though created by shitty raid rules, can be sorted out via raid rules and server rules instead of using variance as a p99-created limiting factor.

4 - What it's done is sprung this notion that wasting time tracking for 4 days and mobilizing for 15 minutes somehow = skill and success. This was never the case on live (or here, if you can remember back far enough) and this was created here and only here due to poopsock. Poopsock is gone and thus there should be no need for the massive windows. Big guilds who recruit more members that can replace those that leave are more successful. On live this quite simply wasn't true. Different people on different servers may or may not agree with this, but the reality here is that this is propagated by variance and smaller guilds have absolutely no shot.

5 - The spirit of raiding. On EQ live you didn't need to stay at your comp 24/7 and wait 4 days to be successful and enjoy high end content. That's something that we created here and it's being furthered by variance. It changes the way people approach the game and it's unhealthy. EQ isn't a job, and if you were smart you would plan your week accordingly. Here you have no such option.

The last one is a biggie... If a noobie comes here to experience classic EQ raiding he's come to the wrong place. Not because of the mass of raiders, but because the rules are currently picking out who can and who can't make it; the same rules which had nothing at all to do with why that person came here in the first place.


You can still have guilds who are better and who are worse. you will have players who are ostracized and those who are looked to for advice. you'll have guilds who can finish and claim raid bosses like they did on live, the only difference is the GMs shouldn't be helping to make these decisions. You can still run a server that minimizes poo-throwing and a relatively hands off approach. With variance i feel like it's a "hands off" approach, but only so far as the players are always within arms reach.

almost forgot...
http://files.sharenator.com/u_mad_bro_RE_Picture_Challenge_3-s469x428-160564.jpg

Messianic
06-01-2011, 04:14 PM
I was kind of skeptical, but Skope is pretty much owning the thread.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 04:22 PM
He's not doing a dang thing until he outlines the magical set of rules he's going to propose that somehow allow disallow poopsocking, allow first to engage, and won't result in a massive GM timesink, but his entire solution hinges on something that he only wants to share with certain people.

Skope
06-01-2011, 04:25 PM
He's not doing a dang thing until he outlines the magical set of rules he's going to propose that somehow allow disallow poopsocking, allow first to engage, and won't result in a massive GM timesink, but his entire solution hinges on something that he only wants to share with certain people.

yet you haven't PMed me. I'll go ahead and assume you don't care. Funny thing, though, nobody actually has.

The point of my outline and posts is to provide the reasons why it's so fucking screwed. Now you're looking for a magic bullet that i can provide. Whatever I say will ultimately be debated back n' forth with idiots agreeing and disagreeing, and reasonable people making points against and for. But whatever i say doesn't mean jack shit until rogean/nilbog read and/or decide. This includes my opinion and yours. unfortunately for you, only one of us is fucking coherent.

Now go ahead and ask me why i didn't propose anything on these forums? want the answer? because you clearly didn't give a shit what I had to say until now.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 04:29 PM
I haven't PMd you because i'm not going to jump through hoops to hear your idea. Get it out in the light of day and there are more than a few reasonable people here who want to talk about it, in a group setting like this. Maybe we can refine it and improve it or point out things you didn't think about?

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 04:30 PM
1 - It changes very little about Kunark, and changes the "Crawl" raid encounters only a little. I think in your case, the word "spirit" is synonymous with "nostalgia," which, while a major power behind this server, is also a poisoned concept - nostalgia often clouds the reality of the past. It also allows hindsight, and all the innocence of the past is absolutely obliterated by experience. ToV will be a nightmare without one of two things - guild cooperation and coordination, or variance. Given the nature of people, I sincerely doubt the former can ever happen. If you want to be our Martin Luther King Jr. and unite us, do that.

2 - It's not classic. Neither is the need for IP exemptions. There *are* in fact people who feel very strongly about being able to multibox, and they should be able to, shouldn't they? I'm sure plenty of players never even thought to multibox in Classic, and had they known that it was even possible, more would have tried it in the Kunark era. They'd be considerate of each other, surely - all it takes is a consensus between the multiboxers, politeness, and courtesy and we'd never see things like a six man group at Fungi King run by the same guy for 48 hours straight. Right?

3 - There should be no need for the GMs to babysit, invisible hand or not. I can't argue with this. Nevertheless, it happened in Classic on multiple servers.

4 - Quick mobilization is absolutely foremost in EverQuest raiding. A competent crew capable of it is the full picture.

5 - The spirit of raiding is nostalgia, corrupted by hindsight.

The last one is a biggie... If a noobie comes here to experience classic EQ raiding he's come to the wrong place, unless he applies to a guild.

Almost forgot!

If you want to be the guy who forms a cordial consensus between the major raiding guilds on the server, I strongly suggest dispensing with the passive aggressive victim stigma you seem to project. I had no interest in trolling you. I don't agree with you. =)

Skope
06-01-2011, 04:32 PM
I haven't PMd you because i'm not going to jump through hoops to hear your idea. Get it out in the light of day and there are more than a few reasonable people here who want to talk about it, in a group setting like this. Maybe we can refine it and improve it or point out things you didn't think about?

That's exactly what i want, but both of us have been around long enough to know that it won't happen here on the p99 forums. A separate medium, sure, but most definitely won't happen here. I don't think anything i've mentioned to be unreasonable, thus to assume that i'm hiding something or being unreasonable isn't fair. If you want to chat with me you're welcome to do so. In fact, i'd love to have lots of people discuss the various options and alternatives, but i stress that i won't do it here.

Humwawa, i'm not going thru your arguments as their flawed and i frankly don't think i have to. Reread what I wrote and you'll find your answers.

I will answer the last one, though.

The noobie shouldn't be forced to join a big guild because of a dumbass limitation to truly be in a raiding guild. Currently, this is the way it is. That isn't everquest, that's your version of everquest.

Humwawa
06-01-2011, 04:42 PM
nou ur flawed lololol

Seriously? If that's as far as we can go, then so be it.

And saying that a noobie shouldn't be expected to join a guild to raid is easily the most thoroughly, heartbreakingly innocent thing you've said yet. Maybe he should get his five other buddies he met in Crushbone in days of yore, ride their stardust ponies to the planar gates and crush the forces of evil with their camaraderie and good will. Are you serious?

Best of luck in uniting the hordes, Skope Khan.

Aadill
06-01-2011, 04:43 PM
That's exactly what i want, but both of us have been around long enough to know that it won't happen here on the p99 forums. A separate medium, sure, but most definitely won't happen here. I don't think anything i've mentioned to be unreasonable, thus to assume that i'm hiding something or being unreasonable isn't fair. If you want to chat with me you're welcome to do so. In fact, i'd love to have lots of people discuss the various options and alternatives, but i stress that i won't do it here.

Make a new thread and reveal your idea. This isn't RnF so it will be moderated. The rules were changed the last time in the same manner.

Skope
06-01-2011, 04:44 PM
does this mean i won?

I'd love to host an honest and open forum. Forum or not, though, unless the Nilbog/Rogean read and tell me to fuck off or digest some of what I've said it's all for nothing.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 04:52 PM
Create a new post with an idea. Hobby and amelinda are at least reading this that we can see, plus i'm sure GP is around. You're confusing General with R&F.

Skope
06-01-2011, 04:57 PM
Create a new post with an idea. Hobby and amelinda are at least reading this that we can see, plus i'm sure GP is around. You're confusing General with R&F.

No, no i'm not. Furthermore, you're looking for "an idea." Like I said, a magic bullet. I don't have one, i have a list of alternatives that I think should be discussed. But before they are, i'd like nilbog/rogean to at least read what i've wrote, particularly that block-o-text from the previous page to even proceed to that point. If they disagree with me and think i'm pulling shit out of my ass, then so be it. But if they think there's some credence in my arguments then we can move from there.

Dravingar
06-01-2011, 05:04 PM
So I messaged this Skope fella trying to see what his glorious idea was and I got this....

i'd like to hear from nilbog/rogean before I suggest anything at all. Regardless of what i say, unless they agree with me that there's inherent problems in the current system then what I have to say means jack shit.

Sounds to me like he's just trolling hard or an idiot.

Azzbad
06-01-2011, 05:04 PM
I'm pretty sure Nilbog has some bigger issues to deal with right now...

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 05:05 PM
skope, shifts shouting aside, i really appreciate the time you put into your numerical outline near the top of this page, post 204 (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showpost.php?p=303819&postcount=204).


i would like to hear your idea and i will PM you.


also, i would like to share my initial impression on one aspect of your post. i'm kind of skeptical whenever you bring up the idea of recreating the classic spirit of raiding. while i think it is a noble goal and i would very much like to see it recreated or emulated as closely as possible, i believe that it is entirely impossible under all rule sets. this is because it is not dependent on the rule set at all, it is dependent on the player base, the goals of that player base and additionally the proportion of the player base that is looking to achieve experience A, B or C. (meaning the amount of players that want to get one thing out of the game relative to the amount of players looking to get something else out of the game).

Skope
06-01-2011, 05:06 PM
Yep, that's me. Supreme troll. I'm not budging, though. Unless there's confirmation that there may potentially be a problem or not you'll get nothing.

Yes, it's nearly impossible to fully and completely emulate classic eq and that experience. But there should be no reason to deviate unless there's good ground for it. As i said, there's FAR more reason to ban multiboxing than there is for massive variance.

Azzbad, it takes 2 minutes to read it. That's all i'm asking.

M.Bison
06-01-2011, 05:11 PM
ITT: Skope bitches about the current state of raiding, then offers no suggestions on how to improve it.

snwbrdr642
06-01-2011, 05:14 PM
skope bitches

checkin out those hotties

Nedala
06-01-2011, 05:32 PM
Alternatively one dev could take 5 minutes to write a script for every raid mob to yell out the name on who engaged it first. Bam, FTE argument solved for every raid for all eternity. These are not hard problems to solve, EQ is a simple game.


This idea is actually not bad, but it doesnt solve the main problem (i have with his) at all. Because there would be no skill needed to kill a raidmob, the guild that would engage first would get the kill, and who has the first hit on a target out of 100+ people is more or less luck. Right now the guild that moblizes the fastest gets the kill and not the one that has the luck to land the first hit.

Skope
06-01-2011, 05:35 PM
This idea is actually not bad, but it doesnt solve the main problem (i have with his) at all. Because there would be no skill needed to kill a raidmob, the guild that would engage first would get the kill, and who has the first hit on a target out of 100+ people is more or less luck. Right now the guild that moblizes the fastest gets the kill and not the one that has the luck to land the first hit.

Nedala, that's how some servers on live worked with FTE rules. Screenshot or have the GMs prove it, and if another guild looted a piece they'd not only ban the player who did so but sometimes even split the guild apart outright. You also had the "let them decide amongst themselves" approach, or when a GM was superpissed he'd port everyone out of the zone and let it rot. His idea is actually quite good in the sense that it'll be clear just who engaged it first, but as i said, it only applies to FTE. There are many other rule sets out there that can be agreed upon.

The fact that you think this unnecessary p99 behavior (aka 4 day variance and quick mobilization) differentiates the strong from the weak isn't a strong argument. There was mobilizing and tracking on live, it just wasn't anywhere near a 4 day period. Guilds still parked at certain mobs and had to pick and choose what they'd go after. Mobilizing and tracking wasn't invented here with variance, it was just taken to an unnecessary extreme.

Zereh
06-01-2011, 05:36 PM
^^ Then we get to deal with more of what happened with Gore ... someone kiting her around until their raid force was fully assembled and ready. Hollering out who was "first to engage" doesn't resolve any issues, it merely adds other ones.

Skope
06-01-2011, 05:40 PM
^^ Then we get to deal with more of what happened with Gore ... someone kiting her around until their raid force was fully assembled and ready. Hollering out who was "first to engage" doesn't resolve any issues, it merely adds other ones.

we have rules against that. You had the right to grab it and/or screenshot the kiting. You're not allowed to kite a mob if you're not willing to engage it outright.

Bubbles
06-01-2011, 06:14 PM
The immediate trade off is that we dont' have to race guilds who can't necessarily kill all of the kunark targets anyway?


I agree with most everything else you said but....

c'mon seriously....

There's a huge difference between having 30-70 people a tweet/text away from sitting on a raid mob's nuts, and 'being able to kill kunark targets'.

The only real 'skill' encounter left out there is VP, and it'd be pretty hard to ignore the idea that the real 'skill' in VP is going to be locking Trak down hard enough to keep any other guild with a pulse and the ability to google out of the zone entirely. :)

Trystych
06-01-2011, 06:19 PM
I think you underestimate the difficulty of some of the kunark bosses Bubbles.

Especially since the latest patch, some of these fights are no joke.

Nedala
06-01-2011, 06:21 PM
I agree with most everything else you said but....

c'mon seriously....

There's a huge difference between having 30-70 people a tweet/text away from sitting on a raid mob's nuts, and 'being able to kill kunark targets'.

The only real 'skill' encounter left out there is VP, and it'd be pretty hard to ignore the idea that the real 'skill' in VP is going to be locking Trak down hard enough to keep any other guild with a pulse and the ability to google out of the zone entirely. :)

We were the only guild able to kill gore prior to the patch, and shes a lot harder now since the last nerf. Im pretty sure most guilds cant kill her, nor trak.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 06:23 PM
Bubbles, 2 weeks ago when 2 other completely separate raids couldn't get trak below 85%, and last week 60 people from 2 guilds couldn't kill gore.

They're harder now.

Raavak
06-01-2011, 06:38 PM
We were the only guild able to kill gore prior to the patch, and shes a lot harder now since the last nerf. Im pretty sure most guilds cant kill her, nor trak.

They can if they know how. No offense, but throwing alot of people at a mob is not the only strategy in EQ, its just the easiest and most forgiving when mistakes are made by individuals. There were lots of "smaller" guilds killing this stuff in 2000. Sometimes you have to think outside the box.

Rais
06-01-2011, 06:43 PM
Trust what Bubbles has to say. Kunark bosses aren't hard, sure they were buggy and TR sure took advantage of that fact with Trak.

The only "hard" part of Kunark bosses, is Hosh in VP. Anything else is just time to do it.

Harder now as compared to No Blinding, No correctly working AOE, Melee Damage being too much? The fact Trak was even killed 1 month into Kunark tells you just how hard he is.

Give me 35 good players, and I can give you a dead trak/gore/sev/tal everyday they spawn.

Shiftin
06-01-2011, 06:48 PM
How few people do we have to kill stuff with before people quit with that nonsense?

Rais
06-01-2011, 06:53 PM
Think the argument they were making is, just because people throw numbers at a dragon, doesn't mean shit. You can throw 36 lvl 50 wizards at naggy, I know who will win, and I'll give you a hint, it has a tail.

So there is no nonsense. Stop taking stuff so personally. You're the one who threw out the 60 people nonsense. I can counter, where the 2 guilds really working together?Or were they both rushing to dick over TR and not have the correct force to win. The 2 different guilds the week before trying Trak, were they serious attempts? VD tried with 25 people, just to give it a shot and see what happened.Stop thumping yourself on the chest thinking EQ is this great hard game. Sure it can be a challenge, but the right numbers and people who are awake can beat anything.

I sure in the hell wouldn't be bragging about any trak kills up till now.Killing a Bugged out encounter with messed up melee damage added on, isn't something to hoop and holla about.

Hobby
06-01-2011, 08:11 PM
Not posting idea's, but rather waiting for rogean or nilbog to respond, is wasting your time. Ill explain why...
Rogean:
Handles the CSR team, manages EQEMU, hosts the website and server, does the ip exemptions/reimbursements/lost characters, deals with players on a whole.
Nilbog: main coder/leader of P99, handles all things code...content. thats database, perl, maps etc... the project as a whole.


They, for the most part, do not have the time to waste discussing a new raiding scene...especially when there is nothing wrong with what we have already. That is not to say they are not open to the idea, but the tweaking and the general public agreeance is the ONLY THING THAT WOULD GET THEIR ATTENTION.

We are not opposed to editing and improving rules. But, as they are right now, theres very little reason to change anything. If better ideas become public consensus, then its now something we would consider amongst ourselves.

Keep in mind that we enjoy the competition, and reducing competition to a poopsock time-sink only causes more problems. Its nice to think "well we wont need gm's if we do this..." but this isnt a fairytale. Every change in a rule will either increase work for us or decrease it. We have FTE Varience because it takes us almost out of the equation --- 200 people do not sit on a spawn point, its clearly a race and people will see who engage it first 90% of the time, thus leaving very little to us to monitor.

A smaller varience is nice in theory, but it increases the risk of poopsocking, thus increasing the risk of causing US issues.

My favorite idea has been and always will be a completely random spawn. Sunday to Saturday, every mob has a chance to pop only once in that entire week (except draco), if the mob hasnt popped by saturday night it would be forced. Then sunday all timers start again. That will never happen, but i personally like it.

Skope
06-01-2011, 08:21 PM
Getting the general playerbase to agree was how the rules have been changed before. The problem is getting input from the GMs/Devs as to what would or wouldn't work. It's fruitless for me to be shooting in the dark if I don't know where the boundaries are.

Randomized spawn is even further from what we have now and doesn't cure the issue but rather exacerbate it.

I noted that the smaller variance, though great in theory, would increase GM involvement, but then so did FTE when it first came out. Over the course of 2-3 weeks things eventually died down. I think the argument that decreasing windows to reasonable levels somehow doesn't address that issue isn't being realistic, as FTE didn't address that issue either, in fact it just made it worse.

How much leeway is there? What is the leeway? My point is there are questions that'd need to be answered before you can even come up with a plausible idea that would suit the GM/Devs before selling it to the playerbase.

As for nothing wrong with what we have... hobby, please. There's plenty wrong with what we have, and no matter what we pick someone's gonna find some faults. My point, and the wall-o-text explanation, was showing exactly what's wrong with what we have. The first decision isn't "let's make something perfect", but rather "let's try to get less wrong this time."

Making the mobs spawn just as they did on live should be the default option, not variance. It's far easier to build around and justify the rules in a classic EQ raiding frame then it is one as heavily controlled as we have now.

Hobby
06-01-2011, 08:26 PM
I said it was what i liked personally, not that it would ever be apart of the server.

And creating more work for gm's is what is out..It is easy to change a timer, its easy to change and enforce rules...The thing that will never change is : Mob A spawns, players B~Z kill. We will not make zone-repops happen for every mob, we will not change encounters period.



Mob A spawns, players B~Z kill it.

Skope
06-01-2011, 08:28 PM
Then toss the massive variance and make it classic variance. Problem solved.

From there you can work around having less GM involvement -- if that's even necessary.

Hobby
06-01-2011, 08:29 PM
...sigh

Skope
06-01-2011, 08:38 PM
...sigh

is the same shit you're trying to prevent, albeit half-heartedly (no shit). That suggestion -- which is all it was -- still is more credible than the current solution we have.

I'm not a fool, i understand. There's thousands of players and GMs who don't want to pander or focus around a raiding scene that will just spew venom and bitch, moan and cry whenever something doesn't go their way. They're impossible to please and trying to do so is an endless endeavor and a pointless agenda. But to say that there's no problem isn't true at all. There's definitely a problem.

I'm not here to provide you a golden solution. there is no such thing. But to even consider that there may be a better idea requires that you agree that there's flaws in the current one.

Versus
06-01-2011, 08:45 PM
...sigh

my thoughts 15 pages ago.

Troy
06-01-2011, 08:56 PM
My favorite idea has been and always will be a completely random spawn. Sunday to Saturday, every mob has a chance to pop only once in that entire week (except draco), if the mob hasnt popped by saturday night it would be forced. Then sunday all timers start again. That will never happen, but i personally like it.

I'd actually be in favor of this if it were completely random on an even longer time scale. Make it so there's a chance of bosses respawning everywhere from instantly to say 3 months, with the expected spawn time set to the classic timer. Make it such a huge window that tracking will no longer be possible.

Basically I'm against anything that encourages people to sit for long periods of time waiting for something to spawn, that is not competing it is wasting time.

I'd possibly also be in favor of other non-classic solutions such has having bosses spawn 3x as often but with 1/3 the loot (or an even higher ratio), making it so that more people could do high end stuff without changing the amount of items entering the world.

Innovative
06-01-2011, 09:04 PM
I think when most people played this game we were teenagers but now should be somewhat grown up adults. It's a shame that Guild A can spend time in a zone clearing to Target A, when Guild B shows up knowing Guild A's intentions, and can kill Target A before Guild A can due to sheer force and numbers. Guild B should at least wait to see if Guild A would wipe or not. It's just a matter of niceness. When this stuff happens it makes me wonder what these people are like in real life.

"With, without... and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?"

Skope
06-01-2011, 09:06 PM
Want a serious, classic suggestion, hobby?

Make the timers/variances just as they were on live. Start with that.

Then we can do FTE, as that'll probably suit the most amount of people as a general rule of engagement. I personally know there was a way you guys had to see which mob was engaged by whom and when. I've seen it in action a few months ago. There will certainly be an influx of /petitions the first 3-4 weeks of the variances getting slimmed down or completely removed, but you can also be far more strict with the way punishments are dealt out. To boot, you don't even have to do it as a priority. Take a week or two, i don't care. So long as the issue gets resolved and the guilty party is dealt with accordingly, i don't care how long it takes you. Guilds have taken their own screenshots to prove who engaged said target first as well and it's been dealt with without GM assistance before.

If there were a way (just as somebody suggested earlier) for the mob to shout who engaged first it would settle the issue. The /shout determines it all.

No sitting in aggro range requirement, no poopsocking advantage, none of that. You will get guilds teaming up to get a better chance at loot and if you think sitting on the spawn point at trak is a good idea, then good luck to you. Hell, make them all an hour window. Surprise bitch!

First guild who is buffed and can engage the fastest without wiping gets a legitimate shot.

There would be issues that arise, such as who gets the next shot if the guild/party who engaged first wipes? That'd have to be smoothed over.

This is obviously just one of a number of alternatives to the current system that would take out the variance and only slightly (i think) increase GM involvement. Started with this one because the idea of a mob /shout intrigued me.

nambar
06-01-2011, 09:55 PM
Want a serious, classic suggestion, hobby?

Make the timers/variances just as they were on live. Start with that.

Then we can do FTE, as that'll probably suit the most amount of people as a general rule of engagement. I personally know there was a way you guys had to see which mob was engaged by whom and when. I've seen it in action a few months ago. There will certainly be an influx of /petitions the first 3-4 weeks of the variances getting slimmed down or completely removed, but you can also be far more strict with the way punishments are dealt out. To boot, you don't even have to do it as a priority. Take a week or two, i don't care. So long as the issue gets resolved and the guilty party is dealt with accordingly, i don't care how long it takes you. Guilds have taken their own screenshots to prove who engaged said target first as well and it's been dealt with without GM assistance before.

If there were a way (just as somebody suggested earlier) for the mob to shout who engaged first it would settle the issue. The /shout determines it all.

No sitting in aggro range requirement, no poopsocking advantage, none of that. You will get guilds teaming up to get a better chance at loot and if you think sitting on the spawn point at trak is a good idea, then good luck to you. Hell, make them all an hour window. Surprise bitch!

First guild who is buffed and can engage the fastest without wiping gets a legitimate shot.

There would be issues that arise, such as who gets the next shot if the guild/party who engaged first wipes? That'd have to be smoothed over.

This is obviously just one of a number of alternatives to the current system that would take out the variance and only slightly (i think) increase GM involvement. Started with this one because the idea of a mob /shout intrigued me.

Bah bah bah bah

Tell your guild to learn to play before whining noob.

Vidrata
06-02-2011, 12:24 AM
Remove raid targets from tracking =)

Nedala
06-02-2011, 01:59 AM
Make serverwide messages each time a raidmob spawns imo. Problem fixed. Oh wait, not classic :(

tekniq
06-02-2011, 02:34 AM
Skope, I admire your relentless effort though it may be futile. I am not a hardcore gamer and have a life outside EQ and would love to get a chance at raid targets and i'm sure there are many more out there like me who do as well, but don't get a chance due to 24/7 trackers and guilds with massive amounts of numbers. If you were running for president, you would have my vote!

Ledzepp02
06-02-2011, 03:09 AM
But to say that there's no problem isn't true at all. There's definitely a problem

The only problem is that you are mad that TR is getting the majority of the kills, mainly Trak because after leveling their mains to 60 what else is there to do besides park them there, if VP is the desired goal by all "hardcore" raiders?

You are mad that targets are not easily acquired by the general population.

The fact is, they put in time and effort to prepare and strategize, hence why they effectively obtain more targets than the rest of us, especially Trak, being that it is their highest priority.

The system as of now minimizes poopsocking and GM intervention. We've been over this. You can argue classic/not-classic all you want. But, you need to seriously consider the fact that these Guides/GM's are NOT GETTING PAID TO BABYSIT YOU. Sony/Verant Guides were.

So, with that said, if the current system is working fairly for guilds to obtain targets based on the time and effort put in to acquiring said targets, and the Guides/GM's can focus on fixing bugs, answering petitions, generally making the server a better place to play on, all you are arguing for is to leave bugs unfixed, characters to be stuck in random places, and unnecessary headaches between raiding guilds because now GM's have to be involved in every dispute.

Basically, you need to quit trying to fix what is not broken. I'm looking at the BIG picture here buddy. When are you going to take those toilet paper rolls off your eyes?

Skope
06-02-2011, 06:49 AM
Zepp, the problem isn't that a single guild got a majority of the kills... I played on prexus where KTF was literally 10 steps above everyone else. The problem, though, is that if KTF played here they wouldn't be able to do the same, or have any chance at all. Why? Because of variance. I'm not mad that a single guild gets the kills, i just can't believe we're forcefully limiting which guilds and players can and can't do it -- the same limitation that never ever existed on any live server.

Currently the playing field isn't anywhere close to being even. On live you had smaller guilds getting targets and larger guilds (sit down, this one may shock you) had no advantage whatsoever when it came to raiding. Gore/Sev/Fay/Nag/Vox/Trak/VS are all on 4 day windows... 4 days. Even if you wanted to track them all 24/7 you'd be at a massive disadvantage against the guild who recruits anything with a pulse. In fact, it's been this way since we introduced variance. And why? is it necessary? We have FTE, there's no need to have massive windows to prevent poopsocking. Zepp, not only is it not classic, but it's stupid.

Valroth66
06-02-2011, 07:16 AM
Zepp, the problem isn't that a single guild got a majority of the kills... I played on prexus where KTF was literally 10 steps above everyone else. The problem, though, is that if KTF played here they wouldn't be able to do the same, or have any chance at all. Why? Because of variance. I'm not mad that a single guild gets the kills, i just can't believe we're forcefully limiting which guilds and players can and can't do it -- the same limitation that never ever existed on any live server.

Currently the playing field isn't anywhere close to being even. On live you had smaller guilds getting targets and larger guilds (sit down, this one may shock you) had no advantage whatsoever when it came to raiding. Gore/Sev/Fay/Nag/Vox/Trak/VS are all on 4 day windows... 4 days. Even if you wanted to track them all 24/7 you'd be at a massive disadvantage against the guild who recruits anything with a pulse. In fact, it's been this way since we introduced variance. And why? is it necessary? We have FTE, there's no need to have massive windows to prevent poopsocking. Zepp, not only is it not classic, but it's stupid.

So it's an even playing field?