Raid Changes

[godbox]

there is literally no way that you could make the raid scene worse. noone actually thinks varience gives smaller guilds a shot does it? set pops or varience w/ regular reset would at least give more of the server an opportunity to scramble for stuff while the big dogs figure out which they want to hit first.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

The problem with that is GuildA is completely capable of logging in a full raid force at all hours of the day. Guilds b-z are not lol. Variance does not play in our favor.

[Sirken]

Originally Posted by Sweetbaby Jesus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Variance does not play in our favor.

i wholeheartedly disagree with this statement, but i've been wrong before. i'm pretty sure Rogean has posted somewhere about this already, i'll direct him to this thread so he can see you guys' opinions as well.

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Sirken [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

yes i read the original post. i'm thinking i didnt make my response clear enough. i'll try again.

lazortag, youre very right, your guild would have a better chance at raid targets that the top guild no longer wants/needs or considers a priority. and you may even sneak a VS, though they'd be far and few between.

down side is this, it would limit trak kills to the top guild, and as such, would limit VP to the top guild. 10 min is MORE than enough time for the top guild to camp out at ledge.

odds are the #2 guild would start locking down the raid mobs that they can take from the top guild. so most likely, you'd get even less VS kills than you do now.

Less VS kills than we get now? So you mean less than 1 over the span of 2 years? Oh no, anything but that!

Sarcasm aside, my point is that having mobs spawn separately from each other at random times of the day makes it easier for larger guilds to monopolize content. When things spawn simultaneously, smaller guilds get more chances at mobs than normal. For evidence of this fact, see: every single server reset that has ever happened on this server, and probably many on Live.

You might be right that Trak/VS are nearly impossible for casual guilds to kill on a server repop because the top guilds can be certain of when they will spawn. The thing is, they are nearly impossible for casual guilds to get on varianced spawns even when the top guilds don't know when they'll spawn, again, as evidenced by this server's entire history. When has a small guild ever killed Trak? We got close a few times, but it was either on a repop or when TMO was raid suspended. Smaller guilds don't have large enough raid forces to kill those mobs within the minute or so that they are alive after spawning, so I'd say our chances are just as good if not better if we know beforehand when they'll spawn. If our chances are worse, it's a wash, since those aren't a priority for us and our 18 man raid force at this time.

I should add that these simultaneous repops are good for GM's, too, because all the raiding is condensed into an hour or two, and there are usually less raid disputes, so it means you have less work to do over the week.

Let me ask you this: why do you think small guilds currently almost never get any mobs outside of server repops? Do you honestly think it's because of lack of skill, or because we just don't try hard enough? Or do you think it's more likely that waiting for an average of 48 hours for a small chance at pixels is a monumental waste of time?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Sirken [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

also right now, some of the server resets already do repop all the raid mobs.

and i know some top guilds send out the batsignal any time the server comes down for any reason just in case there's a full respawn.

having it happen 100% of the time makes it more predictable, anything that's more predictable will be taken advantage of by which ever guild is currently at the top of the food chain.

the variance ONLY exists to give other guilds a shot at the raid mobs. if it didnt exist, then for example, if GuildA kills trak, the rest of the server only knows when trak is due if they can find out exactly when he died. with a variance, you only need a ball park idea of when the mob died to figure out the window. Furthermore, GuildA would know EXACTLY when to log in the raid force, as opposed to being at the mercy of a variance, like everyone else.

guilds with trackers/scouts and with mandatory batphones will always get to mobs before guilds that dont use these things, because they can mobilize faster.

Pretty much every content patch results in a full repop. It's not just the "big guilds" that send raid alerts and prepare for repops - we do it too. As for the variance existing to make things easier for the little guy, I will again direct you to this server's long history of the variance being extremely unfavorable to smaller guilds. If you think it should help us, why hasn't it? :p

edit again: just to be clear, I'm not saying "get rid of the variance entirely" (shortening it to +/- 12 hours would be tolerable), I'm saying simultaneous repops are best. They're also classic. Let's not try to fix what isn't broken.

[Nlaar]

In regards to Lazortag's latest post...

He did a great job highlighting this fact but let us reinforce...

There is a STAGGERING amount of historical evidence on P99 to support his latest post.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

agreed

Hi Nlaar, Rustytaco here. Long time no see

[Asher]

Originally Posted by Sirken [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i wholeheartedly disagree with this statement, but i've been wrong before. i'm pretty sure Rogean has posted somewhere about this already, i'll direct him to this thread so he can see you guys' opinions as well.

Variance is in the favour of guilds who are willing to track mobs for long periods of time and have the numbers willing to be on call to field a strong attempt.

I strongly agree with everything Lazortag said.

/beats the dead horse further

Asher

[Ravager]

Isn't the reason TMO can steamroll most mobs on a repop, and in variance, a result of mass recruiting to deal with variance in the first place? Last night they simultaneously killed VS with 20 and Trak with 60 within moments of the server coming back up. Without variance, would their guild have been built big enough to log on 80 people at once?

[Rooj]

If anyone out there believes that the smaller guilds are out there claiming raid spawns even a little bit frequently, you are completely wrong. It's pretty obvious that there should be some changes.

Here's what I don't get, though. And you'll have to forgive me as I did not raid on Live back then, so I don't know what system was used there and how it relates/compares to what we have on P99. But 48+- hours window is absolutely insane, and ridiculous. Windows aren't meant to be like that. Windows are supposed to be small, a few hours at most. I think the highest a window should ever be is +- 3 hours, though 1.5 or even heck, -+ 30 minutes would be ideal. And then instead of having an even respawn time - 5 days, for example - you make it 5 days minus like 8 hours or so (112 hours in this scenario), to cause the mob to spawn at a different time of day each time. These are just my opinions, not really suggesting anything.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Originally Posted by Ravager [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Isn't the reason TMO can steamroll most mobs on a repop, and in variance, a result of mass recruiting to deal with variance in the first place? Last night they simultaneously killed VS with 20 and Trak with 60 within moments of the server coming back up. Without variance, would their guild have been built big enough to log on 80 people at once?

We killed VS first then ported to EJ and ran to Trak. Trak was up for over 20 minutes.

We are running very high on membership right now. We pulled ~60 for most targets, but we went even higher in VP (We call this the "Phara`Dar is up" effect.)