How realistic is casual raiding?
 

I’m looking at this for green 2.0. As someone who doesn’t have time, nor do I care about the truly hardcore raiding how realistic is it to still have access to raid targets? I know some are more contested than others but I really know very little about the actual raid scene. While I’m not opposed to buying MQs and such I’d prefer to avoid it if I can. Is it realistic to do it on a more casual schedule? Does access to raids for a casual change through the eras the server will progress through? Feel free to add anything else I should know. Note I don’t really want opinions about raiding and whether you personally think it’s fun or not, I can decide for myself when or if I experience it.

Don't expect to get any highly desired raid targets with any kind of regularity unless you join 1 of (usually 2) of the zerg neckbeard raid guilds that control all the content 99% of the time. Be prepared to answer batphones at all hours of the day/night. Casual raiding is kind of a meme on p99. Unless ur happy with "raiding" consisting of basically HoT and trash tier targets that the top 2 guilds don't care about as much.

Not sure how the guilds work on Green, but casual raiding is very much a thing on Blue. The top guilds no longer require raid attendance minimums, so you can attend whichever raids you want, whenever you want. You probably won't be able to get the highest tier loot due to it taking a long time to acquire that much DKP as a casual, but you could get low to mid tier raid loot just fine.

Spoken like someone who isn't in one of those top guilds.

You can absolutely be in a top guild and still be "casual", at least in the "not answering every batphone" sense. Will you make it to every big boss raid? No, probably not.

But you can still make it to whatever raids happen when you are online, and over time you'll accrue DKP. Eventually, someday, you'll get lucky, and the guild will be doing the raid boss that drops the item you want ... while you're online to fight it. Then you'll get to spend those DKP and get the phat lewtz you desire.

The only issue is that some guilds might have a minimum participation requirement, either during the application process or permanently. But unless you are super casual it should still be possible to hit that requirement. I think in Kingdom (we're recruiting!) it's like 10%, but only if you want to be in the highest "class" of raiding (ie. be able to spend the max DKP for those big items); you can be in the guild without any raid participation, and just only be able to bid on 90% of the (not-biggest-ticket) items.

Oh, also top end raid guilds might want you to have certain raiding gear, so to join them you may need to spend some time in the EC tunnel.

And even if you are super casual and can't make that requirement ... there are still tons of guilds other than the top ones, which raid most of the targets on the server, and don't have any minimum participation or gear requirements. You won't get Vulak, but you can still do a ton of raiding and get lots of great items.

That actually sounds like exactly what I was hoping it would be like. I know casual has a pretty broad definition but for me it’s mostly that I can’t dedicate my life to raiding but I can certainly do a few hours multiple nights a week. I just want to experience a part of eq I haven’t done before and actually gear a character through it. I know I might not be able to get every last BiS item and I’m fine with that.

When the server is in just "classic" EQ it's probably the easiest time to be a casual and get raid gear as the only real content is Hate/Fear clears. In Kunark there is a bit more mobs to go after but it doesn't change to much. Come Velious it just becomes a numbers game and every raid guild needs "warmbodies" who are casuals that just show up. Will you get Vulak, AoW or Tunare loot as a casual? Probably not unless you are a paladin or SK or your guild has had the content on farm with minimal competition for a year. Every guild needs casual members and you can easily get some gear for what raids you do show up to. It's also incredibly class dependent, playing a rogue/monk/war? You going to be waiting a long time for good gear. Playing ranger/sk/paladin? You won't have to wait that long for half decent raid gear.

I figure I’m just going to play what I want and not worry about how popular it is. I’m using the last months of green to test out different race/class combos to figure out what I really want to play. It’s mostly that I’m looking to change things up and not play what I normally do and try out new things. The way I see it if I’m enjoying myself in the raid scene it won’t matter how long it takes to get items and if I’m not then playing a class for easier loot won’t matter.

Yeah currently on green there's quite a relaxed policy for most raid guilds. However you should be aware that if you join one, it will be very cliquey and you might have a hard time making your way if you can only play on a casual schedule. I'm somewhere between casual and neckbeard depending on work, but its quite fun. It's not just ST dominating everything on green anymore.

:) You should definitely join a raid guild.

Kingdom is recruiting if you want to be able to kill the biggest baddies on the server, but if you want a guild that tackles smaller foes to "get your feet wet" https://wiki.project1999.com/Green_Guilds has lots of other options.

(NOTE: I say this as a Kingdom member ... but also as someone who got started raiding with a smaller guild, Anonymous. Both have pros/cons.)

So there's two types of raids:

1) Semi-scheduled content — Some group of guilds have agreed to rotate access to a raid zone on a weekly/semi-weekly basis. So these raids will mostly be scheduled and easy to attend. Think Plane of Sky, Plane of Fear... basically the Planes and less competitive content.

2) 'Batphone' content — These are highly desirable mobs that get killed as soon as possible after they spawn. Someone from your guild sits around 'tracking' for when they spawn then sends out a guild-wide text or discord message alerting everyone to assemble and try to get the kill. This could be at any time—4am, 4pm, Midnight whenever. This mobs tend to drop the best of the best gear.

Type 1) content is much easier for casuals obviously, but type 2) content is actually pretty achievable as well. Just set healthy limits on when you're willing to respond to a batphone.

As for guilds, generally each guild does a different balance of type 1) and type 2) content. So you should pick your guild based off what type of content you want to experience. A common pattern is to start in a more type 1) heavy guild then swap to a type 2) heavy guild as you get bored with the scheduled content.

All that being said, if we're talking about Green 2.0, you should know there's very few batphonable targets for the first 2 years of a sever. So I highly suggest joining the most competitive guild and just being a casual in it. You will get to experience all the content and get a good shot at decent loot. Moreover, the longer you are in a guild, the more clout (social and DKP) you have which means as new content releases you will have quicker access to the new loot.

Hope this is somewhat informative. Cheers.