Raid windows
 

As those of you that have been here awhile know, all raid targets have + or - 8 hours to their window. This means that any guild that wants raid targets on this server needs to have people willing to stare at their spawn for up to 16 hours.

To prevent guilds from "camping" raid zones for days on end, there are "first to engage" rules on raid targets. The first guild that has someone run up from the entrance and aggro the mob gets an hour to kill the target.

Racing to the mob is pretty fun. Sitting there for 15 hours and change in not. It basically disqualifies anyone but the most hardcore guilds from competing. It requires a minority of players to do the "tracking" work for the guild. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you can imagine how this breeds resentment and burnout. It also kind of creates a race to the bottom with the p99 player base.

There are three options I see:

1) Keep the status quo.

2) Lower the windows. If a dragon is only in window for 8 hours, all kinds of people can race for it. 8 Hours really isn't that much staring between several people. It will also allow a little more racing and a little less staring. If it were up to me the window would be only 4 hours, but ill settle for 8.

3) raise the windows. The hope is that if there are 48 hour windows or something crazy, people will stop tracking the dragons...this never really works on making the sever less hardcore, it just makes it more hardcore. But it is true that technically there is less insta-engaging.

Vote for the one of the 3 options if you have an opinion please. If you don't care don't vote.

I care, but I don't know which of the options I prefer. I used to favor shorter windows but I'm not so sure any more.

Yeah, 16-hour windows are ridiculous, but seems to me cutting the window primarily benefits the people who are already getting those targets. If you don't want to track for 16 hours, don't. The people do have already demonstrated that they value the pixels more than the tracking time they put in. They're still going to be there at whatever odd hour a window happens to fall. So I don't see how narrowing the window significantly changes the distribution of loot or raid opportunities on the server.

If the raid target spawn system changes, I think it should be to expand everyone's opportunity to get those targets, not just to make the hard core folks' lives easier. That might be something like option 3, which Sirken has advocated (at least, I think this has been his position): a multi-day variance to break poop-socking entirely...except I'm also not sure that would do it. But at least if that did happen, it would be a dice throw re: who finds the target up and who can mobilize fastest.

But I think we might need something beyond just adjustments to variance to really equalize opportunity in the way I'd like. I'm sure I'm in the minority and I know it'll never happen, but I'm starting to think GM-managed rotations, a questable trigger, or even some kind of instancing system (which I used to be completely opposed to) might be preferable.

Please provide more evidence for this outcome. From here it looks like 16 hour variance has you begging for mercy. It seems clear that longer variance would break your will to 'dominate all content', as you folks are so fond of saying.

16 hour windows that always start at a set time each week

Saturday 8am all windows open and done by sunday. Everyone gets to go on with their lives

I've thought about something like this too. One problem, and I think Sirken has mentioned this as a concern of his, is that some players live outside the continental US. I'm sure it's a minority, but possibly a significant enough minority that staff/we need to think about them too.

I don't think 8 hour windows have ever been tried. So I have no empirical evidence as guild (or alliance of guilds) on the cust like CSG would be able to get more targets.

All I can say is, its obviously not going to hurt. This "burn them out" strategy has never worked, and will never work. There are too many people that quit and comeback after breaks. Our FTErs are constantly refreshed by new players and returning old players. Large windows do one thing: they make addicts lives shittier.

If that's a big plus to you, all I can say is: "you mad bro?" Its pretty ironic to get all shitty and resentful for people "taking the game too seriously."

This isn't Kunark. All kinds of people can be in a raid guild. So if you want raid loot and you arent in a raid guild, it really is your fault. Its not like most of A/A dont have jobs and families.

I, personally, don't want to camp 16 hour windows. I wouldn't mind racing and would like them to be shorter. That doesn't mean everyone in my guild feels the same, or that this helps the pixil outcome of my guild.

you don't get to act like you're the mature adult in the room when your argument is "you mad bro?"

my good chum

I like the scheduled window idea (weekdays 6:00pm to 11:59pm EST, weekends 6:00 EST Friday, through 11:59pm EST Sunday).

16 hour variance is hot garbage, but it's in place to keep dragons from exclusively being killed on NA time.

The real solution is more repops. Bi-weekly and during the weekend. At the very least it would stop guilds from purposely spreading timers out from Monday to Saturday.