The Most Unclassic Raid Scene Fix Ever

[Splorf22]

Note: I don't think this is a legitimate solution, I just think its kinda cool.

I feel that the fundamental problem with the P1999 raid scene is too many players. If every mob's spawn time was known in advance, 4-5 guilds of 200 players total could easily show up. This created a no-fun environment where said raid mob popped, was immediately one-shotted by hundreds of players, and then the GMs got to sort things out and award loot. To avoid this, the current system of variance was created. The primary purpose of variance is get rid of as many players as possible. By spreading the mob's spawn times out, only the most unemployed, err dedicated players would spend hours tracking and being willing to log on at a moment's notice at 4AM.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that EQ is just not designed to handle players racing for mobs. Think about Nagafen and the fire giants: if your guild straightforwardly kills them, the next guild simply leapfrogs you. If you train stuff around its quite hard to not randomly wipe the other guild.

This leads very straightforwardly to an obvious question: How can we make the EQ endgame PvE again? Since we currently have a huge and well equipped player base, that would mean that all the mobs would have to get a substantial boost. So, the most unclassic raid scene fix ever: When every raid mob spawns, it gets a 10 level and 250% hp boost, decreasing by 1 level and 25% hp per hour. So Trakanon would spawn at L75 with about 200k hp; after 5 hours he would be L70 with 120k hp, and after 10 hours he would be "normal" at L65 with 32k hp. To compensate for the increased difficulty, each raid mob would have additional items added to the loot table which would be removed as time went on, so if you killed trak at L72 you might get 4 BPs and 5 teeth, at L68 you might get 3 BPs and 4 teeth, and at 65 he would be back to his normal loot table.

Obviously the numbers could be tweaked; it might be cool to tweak the "guardians" of raid mobs as well - it would be funny if all the fire giants were suddenly L60 and hitting for 300 for a few hours after Nagafen spawns. And if you are paying attention you are realizing this is basically a version of instancing.

Anyway, I don't think this will or should happen, but there are two cool things about it: this scenario would really encourage players to work together rather than fighting each other for the scraps, and I think there would be some pretty epic zergs :D

[Ssleeve]

Sounds like a pretty cool idea, but would most likely just promote the p99 trend of enormous mega guilds who trivialize content through pure numbers.

[Psionide]

make raid zones pvp let the paramedics sort em out....

[Flunklesnarkin]

making stuff harder would make sense to me.


after all.. challenge is the fun of eq

[CallnOutTheNubs]

Note: I don't think this is a legitimate solution, I just think its kinda cool.

I feel that the fundamental problem with the P1999 raid scene is too many players. If every mob's spawn time was known in advance, 4-5 guilds of 200 players total could easily show up. This created a no-fun environment where said raid mob popped, was immediately one-shotted by hundreds of players, and then the GMs got to sort things out and award loot. To avoid this, the current system of variance was created. The primary purpose of variance is get rid of as many players as possible. By spreading the mob's spawn times out, only the most unemployed, err dedicated players would spend hours tracking and being willing to log on at a moment's notice at 4AM.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that EQ is just not designed to handle players racing for mobs. Think about Nagafen and the fire giants: if your guild straightforwardly kills them, the next guild simply leapfrogs you. If you train stuff around its quite hard to not randomly wipe the other guild.

This leads very straightforwardly to an obvious question: How can we make the EQ endgame PvE again? Since we currently have a huge and well equipped player base, that would mean that all the mobs would have to get a substantial boost. So, the most unclassic raid scene fix ever: When every raid mob spawns, it gets a 10 level and 250% hp boost, decreasing by 1 level and 25% hp per hour. So Trakanon would spawn at L75 with about 200k hp; after 5 hours he would be L70 with 120k hp, and after 10 hours he would be "normal" at L65 with 32k hp. To compensate for the increased difficulty, each raid mob would have additional items added to the loot table which would be removed as time went on, so if you killed trak at L72 you might get 4 BPs and 5 teeth, at L68 you might get 3 BPs and 4 teeth, and at 65 he would be back to his normal loot table.

Obviously the numbers could be tweaked; it might be cool to tweak the "guardians" of raid mobs as well - it would be funny if all the fire giants were suddenly L60 and hitting for 300 for a few hours after Nagafen spawns. And if you are paying attention you are realizing this is basically a version of instancing.

Anyway, I don't think this will or should happen, but there are two cool things about it: this scenario would really encourage players to work together rather than fighting each other for the scraps, and I think there would be some pretty epic zergs :D

+1 for this guys thinking

atm this games way to easy for the ammount of well geared endgame players we got cause if you think its fun to kill 32k hp mobs in 10secs after tracking them for days and days you got brain problems.

[bluejam]

This kind of thread pops up every few weeks. No one (in charge) cares anymore. Get used to it until Velious is out or leave.

[Rilen]

Solid in theory but in practice it would just mean more mobs for TMO. They could field the 120+ needed to drop any of your buffed mobs and would end up mopping up, as per usual.

[Lazortag]

Why not just have simultaneous repops or something actually close to classic?

[Paumad]

Why not just have simultaneous repops or something actually close to classic?
Repops are fun.

[Splorf22]

Why not just have simultaneous repops or something actually close to classic?

I agree; I posted a long thread about that and got no interest from the admins.

However, the main difference from this thread is that in principle at least this changes the endgame scene from guilds racing to guilds working together (err zerging) the raid bosses with the 100+ people that would be required to take down what would basically be a Velious mob with Kunark gear.

As stated I don't think this will or should happen, its just a cute idea.

[Secrets]

Or you could just give kill credit to everyone who engaged in the raid, move items off loot tables, and give points for killing the NPC instead of loot. Spend the points on the items you want from raid targets. Each raid target will give cumulative points.

To further this idea, make points assigned at random to different players who are hated by the NPC

Plenty of MMOs are doing this to promote community and I don't see why it wouldn't work in an open world non-instanced MMO.

Oh wait, this is classic EQ, it's supposed to have these inherit drama issues and be unresolvable.

[Harrison]

It makes more sense but will never work here.

[Kwitchercryn]

Idk, they had the point system in wow, and coming from a hardcore end game raiding guild, I hated the justice/valor system. But, it did open up more chance for loot in the end, instead of spending countless hours for only 2-3 pieces of loot. If EQ was actually instanced, it would fix all these problems.

But that just wasnt classic EQ. Maybe if the game was "phased" so when a guild took down a boss, anybody that had a hand in the raid would be "Saved" to that boss kill for a day or two, and the boss would respawn say 10 minutes later, but anybody that had a hand in the raid couldnt interact with the boss, and the boss wouldnt aggro the raid.

I know this is suppose to be as close to classic as possible, and that is what I am looking forward to playing, just throwing some ideas out there, in spirit of the thread :P

[Galaa]

Im surprised that no one has mentioned "Its not classic" yet :D

[Kwitchercryn]

Im surprised that no one has mentioned "Its not classic" yet :D


/gasp!:eek: You shut your mouth! :p

[Kika Maslyaka]

Or you could just give kill credit to everyone who engaged in the raid, move items off loot tables, and give points for killing the NPC instead of loot. Spend the points on the items you want from raid targets. Each raid target will give cumulative points.

To further this idea, make points assigned at random to different players who are hated by the NPC

Plenty of MMOs are doing this to promote community and I don't see why it wouldn't work in an open world non-instanced MMO.

Oh wait, this is classic EQ, it's supposed to have these inherit drama issues and be unresolvable.

this is how LDON worked...well more or less...
Thought after couple months of grinding points in the same 4 dungeons over and over started to get on nerves...

The only other thing that will heavily reduce raid drama is a LOT more raids targets (like PoP era a lot). Which is of course non classic ;)

[Lulz Sect]

Roll on red or continue to wait in line.

Problem?

[Galelor]

Instanced raids and lockout timers, IMO, are the 2 best raid level implementations in the history of EQ.

That said, like it or not, they are not even close to "classic".

[bylbob]

Well for the peoples saying these ideas are not classic, the community of p99 is not classic aswell, we didn't have guilds logging on at anytime of the day or guilds using batphones or vent... peoples used to negociate rotations often at their disavantage just to have a relaxing and fun game experience.
Also the vast majority of the playerbase was a lot more undergeared than here because expacs were coming live faster, so we didn't farm the same crap for months to get the top of the top gear, wich ment more wipes and longer raids in the end.

[username1337]

Note: I don't think this is a legitimate solution, I just think its kinda cool.

I feel that the fundamental problem with the P1999 raid scene is too many players. If every mob's spawn time was known in advance, 4-5 guilds of 200 players total could easily show up. This created a no-fun environment where said raid mob popped, was immediately one-shotted by hundreds of players, and then the GMs got to sort things out and award loot. To avoid this, the current system of variance was created. The primary purpose of variance is get rid of as many players as possible. By spreading the mob's spawn times out, only the most unemployed, err dedicated players would spend hours tracking and being willing to log on at a moment's notice at 4AM.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that EQ is just not designed to handle players racing for mobs. Think about Nagafen and the fire giants: if your guild straightforwardly kills them, the next guild simply leapfrogs you. If you train stuff around its quite hard to not randomly wipe the other guild.

This leads very straightforwardly to an obvious question: How can we make the EQ endgame PvE again? Since we currently have a huge and well equipped player base, that would mean that all the mobs would have to get a substantial boost. So, the most unclassic raid scene fix ever: When every raid mob spawns, it gets a 10 level and 250% hp boost, decreasing by 1 level and 25% hp per hour. So Trakanon would spawn at L75 with about 200k hp; after 5 hours he would be L70 with 120k hp, and after 10 hours he would be "normal" at L65 with 32k hp. To compensate for the increased difficulty, each raid mob would have additional items added to the loot table which would be removed as time went on, so if you killed trak at L72 you might get 4 BPs and 5 teeth, at L68 you might get 3 BPs and 4 teeth, and at 65 he would be back to his normal loot table.

Obviously the numbers could be tweaked; it might be cool to tweak the "guardians" of raid mobs as well - it would be funny if all the fire giants were suddenly L60 and hitting for 300 for a few hours after Nagafen spawns. And if you are paying attention you are realizing this is basically a version of instancing.

Anyway, I don't think this will or should happen, but there are two cool things about it: this scenario would really encourage players to work together rather than fighting each other for the scraps, and I think there would be some pretty epic zergs :D

Great idea. A suggestion to further refine the idea would be to combine this with simultaneous respawns and you basically have a dozen nearly impossibly hard mobs to kill up all at once. You could also add any number of further tweaks like giving any player involved in a raid kill a small lockout (like 24 hours) on groupings of raid targets after downing a raid target. To further add to your harder mobs dropping more loot - the less players in the encounter then the more the loot the mob will drop. A combination of all these tweaks would:

1) Reward skill over time commitment - rewarding guilds with more loot that use the least numbers and engage the hardest version of targets.

2) Increase the challenge factor to trivialized content.

3) Open up the arena for more guilds to compete by remove some emphasis from mobilization (which let's be honest is the biggest barrier to entry due to not everybody playing 24 hours a day or being able to answer a batphone at all hours of the day/night)

The fundamental problem you're hitting on is part of a much larger problem with P1999 and the so called "Classic" experience and that is we aren't in the years 1999-2000. We have wikis and allakhazam and countless forums to tell us everything about the game. We "know" about hybrid penalities and how to maximize experience gain. Quests and most particular Epics have been reduced to following instructions. Heck even though maps are disabled we still have maps for every zone if we get lost.

It's sad, however, that the main reason none of these raid-fixing features, however well they may fix end-game raiding, will never be implemented is because P1999's goal is to recreate classic mechanics and not the experience, which is are two different animals altogether. Until server devs wake up and acknowledge that P1999 is far from Classic and tweaking the game with non-classic mechanics will actually increase the classic feel then week after week we'll continue to see the same messed up raiding scene.

Hopefully the few new tweaked classic servers that will be rolling out this year will provide some competition for P1999.

[Splorf22]

Or you could just give kill credit to everyone who engaged in the raid, move items off loot tables, and give points for killing the NPC instead of loot. Spend the points on the items you want from raid targets. Each raid target will give cumulative points.

To further this idea, make points assigned at random to different players who are hated by the NPC

Plenty of MMOs are doing this to promote community and I don't see why it wouldn't work in an open world non-instanced MMO.

Oh wait, this is classic EQ, it's supposed to have these inherit drama issues and be unresolvable.

This post really irritates me, and confirms something I've wondered for a long time: that the admins enjoy watching the current raid drama as players go nuts for a few pixels. Hello: you guys already added variance WHICH IS NOT CLASSIC. Yet you won't do server reboots WHICH ARE CLASSIC, and under which we would still have all the competition but without the 80+ hours per day at the computer.

Instead its just "oooo drama", then complain about the behavior of the raid guilds when they get down and dirty and try to win the silly no-life raid scene you guys have created.

[Kraegan]

Well for the peoples saying these ideas are not classic, the community of p99 is not classic aswell, we didn't have guilds logging on at anytime of the day or guilds using batphones or vent....

True, many times my guild coordinated a dragon killing or fear raid in Chat before the server came up on patch days :)

[druidWTT]

We always used a raid calander on Brell, idk why it has not been tried here.

[Zithax]

Create more raids, problem solved. Oh but wait, thats carebear right? That's not CLASSIC EQ LOL RIGHT? This isn't WoW right? Well ok then :(

Also, increasing difficulty may just lead to the exact same situations of 200 people showing up and bumrushing a lvl 75 mob with 200k hp then letting a GM sort it out, instead of waiting for the difficulty of the mob to decrease. Thats why mobs were given abilities like ae fear, and ae dd's, etc., to gauge balance and player skill rather than simply upping silly numbers like lvl and hp, because you inevitably run into a high enough lvl target where no spells can hit, melee can't hit, and the shit will straight up wreck everyone no matter their gear, level, or skill. While a minor increase in difficulty in this simple manner may be worthy, there HAS to be a limit. We can throw lvl 90 mobs in here with 500k hp that quad for 1k, but if no one ever can kill it then there's no point and it doesnt help anyone. Then if the 200 player bumrush cant even kill it, what happens? the same people camp it until difficulty decreases, or they keep trying putting in many useless attempts in order to gauge the difficulty as it decreases over time. Add an engagement time limit? That does nothing, then you have the 200 player poopsock bumrush waiting for the other guild to go, or coordinating and splitting loot. If you up the difficulty, you MUST increase the loot power or amount of loot, its just plain practical and sensible. So while I and everyone else may think this is a good idea from its face, when you dig deeper its simply illogical and would only serve to create a whole new set of problems, which should not be the goal will this sort of 'solution'.

[Sylexis]

Y'see, unless the devs decide to break the classic setup of the server (though I agree they need to stop with the variance spawn timers and just make random world resets to disrupt the timers) all player made suggestions revolve around TMO being charitable. And last I checked TMO didn't appear to be a Non-profit care bear raiding organization. They want loot, more than they want to give you loot. End of story.

[falkun]

I honestly cannot say that TMO is about loot. Not that I do know what they are about, but as an outsider (more accurately, a VD outsider), I get the sense they are about "bragging rights". But they want these bragging rights in a PVE game. It feels like they are trying to win at DOTA without the ability to kill the other team's characters: You've still technically won the objective, but you've missed the entire point of the game getting there.

Now I'm sure to get flamed for stating "they miss the point of the game," but in a PVE environment, the point of the game is to see the content, kill the content, and from those deaths loot equipment that makes yourself better so you can see more content, thus repeating the cycle in a ladder-type fashion. The two problems with this PVE environment is that the content is not being developed as fast as its being consumed, so the ladder philosophy stagnates, and that without instancing, advancement up the ladder system can be blocked by competition.

There is a reason instancing was introduced on pretty much every MMO after EQ, it was to alleviate the 2nd point outlined above. The method proposed by the OP addresses the 1st point outlined above.

[happyhappy]

While a valiant effort to fix this broken raid scene, I believe that your previous idea of simulated patch days and and server crash was a much more elegant and close to classic fix, not to mention a lot easier to implement for our overworked devs. I'd much rather that they code in two simple timers and go back to spending their spare time on releasing Velious for the whole server than them trying to code and balance an new untested method that ultimately would only benefit the raiding scene.

Speaking of which, if I recall correctly, Nilbog did seem to show some interest in the idea, so not all hope is lost. Was there any other talk of it?

[happyhappy]

nt

[porigromus]

Instanced raid zones with lockout timers, that would be amazing in classic EQ! Personally what I didn't like about the expansions after the trilogy was instant teleporation, expansions that felt out of place with classic (cats on a moon, mix-matched graphics, giant gathering spot for everyone (POK).

I wouldn't mind seeing EQ classic 2.0 later. I think it would be cool after this server stops at Velious, the devs could start making customizations that do not kill the classic feel. Maybe a auctioneer system (npc in tunnel you can interact with like WoW's auctioneer system ... admit it .. it was a good system!) Custom AAs, rest XP, instanced raid mobs with lockout timers, faster mana regen / health regen out of combat.

They can use the empty PvP server to start out the trilogy again without customizations. :)

[Kevlar]

Does this server do weekly resets?

I remember the great thing about live was a weekly reset for their hardware maintenance. It was early in the week like Mon or Tues, the game always reset and all the raid mobs would spawn at once. A lot of times more than once a week whenever they discovered a new exploit and had to put in an emergency patch.

Does P1999 do regular weekly resets? Putting all the raid mobs up at once at least once a week would give a lot more guilds a chance at spawns, instead of one guild perpetually spacing out the respawns to their liking.

[Joroz]

they could be like classic and put up a new server at same patch level and allow /movelog just like they did on live when it got too busy. that's classic behaviour at its finest. you would always see the raid scene split and thin down when they offered this option up to split off to a new server.

[Razdeline]

Raiding is easy now and the scene will never be classic because:

A.) voice chat
b.) stable internet connections (no lag, ever)
c.) batphones

[Flunklesnarkin]

Raiding is easy now and the scene will never be classic because:

A.) voice chat
b.) stable internet connections (no lag, ever)
c.) batphones

could always implement a lag emulator


randomly disconnect people in raid zones when dragons spawn >_>

[LizardNecro]

could always implement a lag emulator


randomly disconnect people in raid zones when dragons spawn >_>

I think that's been implemented in plane of fear :)

[mwatt]

I think they should triple the spawn frequency and narrow the variance windows. This requires no additional GM oversight and virtually no new coding.