About Spawn variance....

[fastboy21]

the frustration over boss spawns and camping and sitting (aka "effort") at a spawn is what classic EQ was all about. If you've decided you want to be an uber raider in classic EQ that is what you are signing up for.

there just isn't a lot of raid content in classic. the raid content that exists is mostly boring, easy (with a few exceptions), and generally unrewarding imo as gamer. Kunark and Velious fix this in my opinion.

despite my actual sarcasm in my previous posts I don't entirely disagree with Supreme. I think his mechanism to change it is wrong, but his bottom line is that he just wants more spawns (to be in line with the number of spawns in classic). He is correct about the number here being lower than it was on live.

The solution should be to find a way to spawn mobs on scheduled server restarts. I realize that the devs have said this is very difficult to do in previous threads without creating a way to exploit it through intentional zone crashes. With the limited number of major bosses in classic I would suggest that the devs just manually pop the hand full of bosses on server up. I don't know if that is easy, hard, or impossible. I trust the devs have thought about it.

Mobs spawning on server up was a MAJOR part of raiding in classic EQ. It meant that number 2 and 3 guilds were going to be guaranteed a shot at some content because the number 1 guild can't be everywhere at once. It may have been a "flaw" that the original live devs didn't intentionally put into the game, but you can't recreate the real feel of classic competition without it.

[astarothel]

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

got away with it for long.

LOL. Like Sony would have stopped it. There's nothing to 'get away with' related to it.

[Humerox]

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

LOL. Like Sony would have stopped it. There's nothing to 'get away with' related to it.

Actually, they did. On some servers there was forced rotation. On others, nothing was said about training and FFA. On still others, the player guilds came up with calendars.

Not only that, entire guilds moved to different servers in order to be able to do content, if the other solutions didn't work for them. We don't have that luxury.

Get away with it was in reference to the playerbase allowing it. Problem is, we kind of boxed ourselves in with the ruleset, simply by thinking camping for days on end was too far-fetched to even consider. We being the original guilds that came up with what we thought was going to be a fair resolution to the same essential problem.

Point is, there was not one server that had guilds permacamping the boss spawns, that was not addressed in one fashion or the other.

When you see the posts coming from people that think they won't get their piece of the end-game action, and basing their decision on whether or not to even play here, it's worrisome.

This is what I meant about rocking the boat, because asking for increased spawns when it only rewards 2 or maybe 3 guilds is ludicrous. Especially when there's 6 or more guilds able to do the content, but not willing to afk a toon until they get a call that a boss has spawned.

And if you say that every toon camping those boss mobs for days has an awake and at-the-keyboard person attending it...I don't have any qualms about saying it isn't true. I won't argue this point either, because we all know it's being done.

The best days here were when we watched IB and Tranny mobilizing for mobs. Div was starting to get shots too, and when the current ruleset was formulated, it was formulated as an inter-guild effort; its entire intent and purpose was to ensure fairness not only for the guilds involved, but for future guilds as they became able to raid and participate.

What's here now is ridiculous.

[Chicka]

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

This is what I meant about rocking the boat, because asking for increased spawns when it only rewards 2 or maybe 3 guilds is ludicrous.

He's asking for the classic experience, no more, no less. Who it benefits is irrelevant.

Personally, I never played on a server where GM's enforced rules other than play nice and FTE (first to engage). AFAIK GM's were not supposed to enforce any other rules - whether player sanctioned or not. I'm pretty sure any GM trying to enforce a 15 people in zone to claim mob "A" rule, that essentially forced the top guilds to camp instead of race, thereby not playing the game and likely burn out and leave, would have been persuaded otherwise by the powers that be.

The fact is that at no time in the first three expansions was there enough uber loot to feed every person who happened to ding the top level. Rotation doesn't solve that, it just makes it so that those who do put in the effort to be first and to kill cleanly are not rewarded by being equipped to take on the newer content.

The biggest blow mind to me is not that the guilds are camping (someone is going to start it) but that:

a) on a "classic" server such a non-classic thing as variance was actually coded and then a non-classic rule is enforced to bork it to high hell
b) it hasn't been changed back now it is quite clearly a dumb idea

[Starklen]

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

I will make this response as simple as i can.

It is not about probability. It is about 16 spawns in a 30 day cycle being the MINIMUM number of boss mobs that spawn instead of 12. The current system has 16 boss mobs as the MEDIAN of 12 (lowest number) and 20 (highest number).Which is much more in line with classic than the current system.

I'm not sure if you misspoke, but the median is the middle value, not the lowest.

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

A lot of you are mistaken on the current spawn variance... maestro/draco are 3days +/- 12 hours for a total 24 hour window. Gods/dragons are 7days +/- 24 hours for a total of 48 hours window. There are not 48 and 96 hour windows.... they are 24 and 48. The only reason DA/IB (and now WI) camps for days on end is because we get there before the window even begins to hold claim. These guilds are the ones who deserve the kills for the amount of time they spend camping them. You are not going to zone in and be able to kill a god/dragon when you have other guilds putting more effort. A lot of you people are simply tryin to be jackasses saying we have no jobs etc when this is false. We are simply keeping EQ loaded... Its really not that hard.

The 3 day bosses are on +- 24 hours and the 7 day bosses are on +- 48 hours. For example, the window for a boss like draco opens exactly 2 days after you kill him. This is also a matter of public record in the guild discussion forum.

[Humerox]

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

Personally, I never played on a server where GM's enforced rules other than play nice and FTE (first to engage). AFAIK GM's were not supposed to enforce any other rules - whether player sanctioned or not.

This would be fine by me. At least it would break the monotony. FTE is about as fair as it gets.
I wouldn't mind at all spawns going back to the original timers and rate brought more in line with classic, IF this utterly insane camping wasn't involved.


Like I said...we didn't see it as a potential problem. We were wrong.

[Frankee]

One of the things i loved about a pvp server is that no one ever complained about camps or anything.

People would champ check when the zoned in, 95% of the time people played nice because getting killed and being messed with was an option. Very rare was there an instance where you would have a players even contest a camp but when that did happen, you fought for it, end of story.

If possible, i say flag raid zones as PVP arenas [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Evorix]

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

The 3 day bosses are on +- 24 hours and the 7 day bosses are on +- 48 hours. For example, the window for a boss like draco opens exactly 2 days after you kill him. This is also a matter of public record in the guild discussion forum.

Think what you would like... If you have ever seen a boss spawn out of the 24/48 windows that i proclaim, then please share. My experience is that they have not. I'm not sure if this is intended or not.

[Skope]

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

Backfire how?

It does not change permacamping or anything of the sort. It simply brings the boss spawns more in line with "CLASSIC EVERQUEST" than this current system.

The problem is this poopsocking for 5 days for a target -- even splitting a raid force in two to hold two targets -- isn't classic either. Shortening the spawn variance simply makes the aforementioned 24 hours easier. Does it solve that problem? No, it doesn't. Not it any way shape or form. Would I like to see patch-day respawns? Absolutely! I know the GMs have stated they wanted to steer away from that, but if it were done at various intervals, say 3am one night then 4pm the next patch, it would spread things out for people in various time zones. There's also the issue of purposeful zone crashing, but really that's happened with the rules we have now, so I really don't see how it could possibly be getting any worse nor how it would affect the spawns, but ultimately that's a separate argument and somewhat of a digression.

Just to clarify, camping one of the big 4 with 20 people isn't "effort," it's the exact opposite. It's laziness as a tactic and right now it's being applauded and is the ONLY way to kill one of the big four. It's a seriously disgusting tactic that needs to go. Don't be delusional, there is no excuse for what's become of the raiding scene at the moment. But this proposal won't fix that, nor does it truly add what patch-day respawns did for live. I'm not trying to be bitter, but there have been better thought-out proposals that have been swept under the rug because a few people nitpick at the smallest details and avoid the giant elephant in the room.

[mmiles8]

Ok, since there seems to be some question as to how this was handled in live, here's the policy taken straight out of my old guide handbook. IMO, our Devs should consider using the option highlighted in RED:

8.2.1.2 Examples of Major Disruption:
Zone/Area Disruption – monopolizing most or all of the kills in an area rather than stealing from a specific player or group of players.

8.2.3 Contested Spawn Complaints

When a complaint is received indicating that a spawn or kill is contested, a disruption investigation should first be initiated according to the procedures of section 8.2.2 to determine if harassment or Zone/Area disruption is occurring. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, instruct the parties involved in the contested spawn situation to work out a compromise. Then leave the scene.

If another complaint is received involving the same spawn site, another disruption investigation should be initiated. After following those procedures and issuing warnings as necessary, if any of the parties involved were involved in the initial situation, establish a compromise for the parties to which the parties are required to abide. The compromise should be as described in section 8.2.3.1. Any party refusing to abide by the compromise established by the CS Representative should be issued a warning for disruption.

On PvP servers, where players can reach a solution to the contested spawn situation, the CS Representative does not need to require the players to share the spawn.

8.2.3.1 The compromise will require all parties to take turns killing the spawn(s). All parties involved in the contested spawn should be instructed to use /random 0 100 to choose a number. The CS Representative then uses /random 0 100. The individual with the closest number to the CS Representative’s number will be next in the rotation. The CS Representative then bases the rest of the rotation order on how close the other parties’ numbers were to theirs. The compromise established by a CS Representative must be objective and not require the CS Representative to choose one customer over another based on subjective criteria. The CS Representative is the arbiter in any disputes in establishing the compromise.
8.2.3.1

The rule was that camps were ok as long as all players agreed to abide by the 'camping' system. If someone wanted to show up and buck the system, camps weren't officially recognized.

If permacamping had happened on live, I can tell you exactly what would have happened. The Devs had as much of a sense of humor and distaste for douchebags there as here, especially when it was Verant running the show. /becomenpc is a targettable command. It had the handy feature of allowing you to take the shape of an NPC model and be killed by players. Use your imagination.