Thoughts on end game raiding
 

There has been a lot of controversy and hate lately involving the idea of a TOV rotation between guilds on this server and I understand why. The competition between guilds is what really makes eq fun and exciting for the most part. However, there is a big difference between competition and domination/monopoly of content. I think that is why a lot of people are open to the idea of a rotation of some form.
One idea I thought of recently was what if there was a limit on the number of people that can be in a raiding guild? This would eliminate the "zerg" guilds and level the playing field for everyone making competition on this server fair and probably much more fun for everyone involved. Getting the mob would rest on the guild's skill level not how many people they can throw on one target at once.
There already exists a minimum requirement for a guild to form, why not a maximum? End game raiding is like a sport we don't see teams in football, baseball, basketball etc of various numbers they all have equal amounts of players on the field at once. If one team had double or triple the amount of players on the field would that be fair or even fun to watch? My guess would be no and I really think that applies to Everquest.
What do you guys think? Concerning what the limit would be and how it would be implemented is a whole other discussion I just want to hear some thoughts on the subject. These are my own ideas and do not reflect my guild in any way. Let's discuss!

I would totally watch a game with a full roster of 53 Chiefs on the field repeatedly sack Tom Brady for an hour.

Seriously though, neat idea. I wouldn't be opposed to trying it but it seems like a pretty narrow ruleset and would force guilds who aren't even necessarily competitive to cut people simply because they are large. Think Dial a Port and Dawn Believers, et cetera.

If you're going to say "let's only apply this rule to certain guilds who take targets" then I see the problem being a start up guild never having the opportunity to evolve into a raiding guild without slashing members.

Also, who decides what the magic maximum number is? I don't mean to approach this completely negatively, but I do see multiple issues with this idea.

What about alliances?

I don’t think there would be a very feasible set limit on guild numbers. Mainly because you can have a 40 person guild but there is no way those 40 people could always be on and ready for a raid at the same time. Maybe just a limit on the number of raiders in a zone or maybe make the limit something like 100 just to make up for different RL situations keeping all of your players busy. Idk. I do think it would be fun to see like 9+ small raid forces competing for one target rather then 2-3 Huge guilds sending countless numbers at a target.

Another good question. If alliances are allowed nothing will change, people will just creat three guilds to disguise one big guild.

Can I respectfully interject and disagree entirely?

I have had a love affair with EQ/P99 for 20 years and inter-guild competition is the least fun part of the game.

The problem you would like to fix, IMO, is that there are too many end game players trying to consume too little end game content.

We need more game.

The sensible answer to me, is instancing raid content, increasing spawn rates of long timer raid mobs, and increasing frequency of quest-related mob triggers (Chardok 2 goblin, WW Scout, Coldain rings).

Filed under not classic

I also disagree with guild competition being fun as well, but only because it's not quite competition. A competition implies a lot of things that EQ raids don't have. This is more like a bunch of greedy animals in a Walmart trampling each other on a black Friday sale. There's no real competition. We all know the state of it, there's no need to go into it, but not many people actually find this fun. They just do it for the pixels.

On the opposite end of things instancing content or increasing spawnrates to the point where things aren't rare eliminates the point of this content as well. This works in a themepark like WoW because no one playing those games regularly has even a single brain cell. They farm that gear which is then totally useless for anything other than doing the same raid again. In EQ you can use that gear for other things, so flooding the server with it has a hugely negative impact, moreso than me not having a raid drop. Of course item inflation isn't such an issue on blue because everyone is geared AF, and if there's ever a new server neckbeards will dominate things like snowfeather to the point where normal players will never ever have a chance of getting it.. but..

The problem ultimately isn't that we need more game, or even that there's too many players. It's just that EQ was great when no one knew anything and learning stuff off the internet was barely even a concept. Now everyone knows everything, and the people who find nothing else fun but playing EQ every waking moment of their life will do what they do. That's just the way it is. Much like the anti-green haters, we must all learn to accept the neckbeards, for they were once people too, and we may become like them in the future.

There is no solution to the problem that is perfect. The best case scenario is to make AM concede every other spawn. We can act there is competition but thg he fact is AM gets more pixels than every other guild combined every single week. Stop pretending AG winning a CT means anything, competition is at an all time low.

Pretty much, I mean it's obvious having a raid size cap is healthy for the raid scene, literaly every other MMO do it, but it's not classic EQ.