Bob's Perfect World- A wall of text regarding the raid scene on P99

[Aadill]

Perhaps a definition of poopsocking needs to be cleared up: poopsocking should (and has) been defined as being online on the spawn point of a mob, fully buffed in order to immediately engage a mob (possibly with auto attack on) in attempts to have an immediate engage. This requires all players present to be sitting at their computer desk ready to attack. The term poopsocking implies you can't leave to go poop because you'll miss something in the game. While there have been instances of poopsocking, most players take turns in shifts on tracking mobs, playing near a mob's spawn area, or even being loged in at all.

Since the inception of Kunark, about the only mobs where players have ever actively waited for it to spawn are Trakanon and VS.

Trakanon is generally camped by logging players out at the ledge due to the otherwise high potential for leapfrogging when coming from the zoneline. This has been done by both guilds for quite some time and is nothing new or even debilitating seeing as the majority of the players are 60 and most don't care about experience or droppable loot (some do and they play other characters while their mains are camped out). Leapfrogging on this server has always been an issue. Camping at the ledge simply removed it from the equation. Trakanon is camped by both guilds by logging out at the ledge. A tracker or group of trackers in the form of an xp group maintain a presence close to Trak's lair to alert either guild of Trakanon spawning. Only on one occasion has there been an actual poopsocking of Trakanon where everyone stayed logged in and buffed with autoattack on on top of his spawn. The window is so short that it's easy to get tied up in the zone very often and sometimes people play for long periods of time because there is a good chance of having the mob spawn during that window.

Venril Sathir is actively camped by XP groups in the area or in the sewers at Verix Kyloxs' camp since a VP key piece is located there. Venril Sathir has been poopsocked on a few occasions but generally only at the end of his window. Karnor's Castle is considered the go-to zone for guild-wide transport around Kunark. That is a tactic that you can find from many online sources and consequently why you generally find a large number of players from both guilds there regardless of the status of Venril Sathir's window.

There are no "4 day long poopsock fests" where players are at their computer ready to go within half a second. That was last summer and has long been gone. As of now, some level of tracking work is put into raiding and sometimes characters get surrendered in the interest of getting a mob kill but no one is looking to sit logged in all day every day. If you want actual poopsocking look no further than Sony's latest progression server. Last time I looked at Fippy it was in way worse condition where everyone DID stay logged in and Shadowknights were used to instantly HT a boss with the assisted use of MQ. Even worse, they were still using the first 15 in zone rule to enforce claim.

So yeah, is this classic? No... but the raid scene has a lot of petitions because neither side is willing to back down in thinking they had FTE on a mob. Both guilds are ready to go within seconds of each other for the most part, and with FTE as the only rule it's only a matter of having some method to know ahead of time so both guilds don't go attacking a mob and THEN go about petitioning. The best fix for that would be for the mob to have a shout when engaged. The first person on the agro list would get it and then everyone know who should be attacking the mob. That was proposed a long long long time ago and it never happened (although I could be imagining it so let me go look this up).

[Lazortag]

Aadill, you're very smart and a lot of what you said is true. I especially agree about Fippy being in a far unhealthier state than our server, and you're right to clarify what poopsocking actually is, and how there's less of it.

Still, like I said, the "entry cost" to the upper-end of the raid scene is still way too high. It's too high both by the standard of what was expected in classic and by the standard of how much time the average person can reasonably devote to this game. Even if you don't need to have your whole guild sit on a spawn point for 4 days, you sometimes need trackers to track mobs for that long, which has proven to be very unhealthy for the server. Most aspiring high-end guilds just don't have the numbers to devote to taking shifts tracking mobs at every hour of the day. Most casual raid guilds don't have enough european players in their roster to even be able to track mobs early in the morning, so they just don't even bother to track at all, since it would be such a huge waste of time if a mob spawned when no one was up (plus it would be hard to get a TOD so you'd often waste time tracking the mob after it died). Do you see how that can be discouraging? And to top it all of, this was never how it worked in classic. Back then you had to devote a lot of time to the game, sure, but you never had to make one of your guildies go through a 96 hour tracking shift just so you can get a chance at dragon loot.

[Skope]

you're both walking in circles and missing the crux of the argument

The 4-day windows were introduced to combat something that's a "natural" aspect of the game, but it's entirely fallen short of its intended purpose and today serves absolutely no purpose at all. Done. That's it.

If you want to know how to compete/abuse then this is how it's impacted the server:

It's forced guilds to mass recruit or devote entirely too much time or a combination of the two.

It's caused severe paleness among the top two raiding guilds.

With FTE -- and even during poopsock -- the amount of GM intervention required hasn't subsided and it's only caused more animosity between the two groups of pasty individuals.

It's caused those guilds/people that could potentially have provided competition during live to fall behind because of a useless server rule.

The only real pro at this point is that it decreases the "potential" amount of /petitions, and i say potential VERY loosely as even with the 4-day windows you buttheads keep butting heads.

[Mcbard]

I agree with what you said, my only question is how: how do you "fix" that problem via a game mechanic or social construct that A) benifits everyone, and B) is more inline with classic EverQuest?

Edit: directed at giga

[Lazortag]

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

I agree with what you said, my only question is how: how do you "fix" that problem via a game mechanic or social construct that A) benifits everyone, and B) is more inline with classic EverQuest?

Edit: directed at giga

Well, my idea might be a bit crazy (and I've already said it), but here is is again: reduce the variance significantly, have guilds rotate on mobs that they've killed before (doesn't have to be GM-enforced, can just be a gentleman's agreement), but make server repops fair game. For example: If Transatlantic Order has killed Nagafen, Inny, and CT, and The Mystical Rampage has killed Vox, Inny and Faydedar, then they'd set up a calendar for Inny but TO would have exclusive rights to Naggy and CT, while TMR would have exclusive rights to Vox and Fay. But, if TMR kills Naggy on a server repop, then TO should share 1/2 of the Naggy's with them because TMR has proven that they can mobilize to Naggy and kill him fair and square.

edit: and don't call me giga

[Mcbard]

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

Well, my idea might be a bit crazy (and I've already said it), but here is is again: reduce the variance significantly, have guilds rotate on mobs that they've killed before (doesn't have to be GM-enforced, can just be a gentleman's agreement), but make server repops fair game. For example: If Transatlantic Order has killed Nagafen, Inny, and CT, and The Mystical Rampage has killed Vox, Inny and Faydedar, then they'd set up a calendar for Inny but TO would have exclusive rights to Naggy and CT, while TMR would have exclusive rights to Vox and Fay. But, if TMR kills Naggy on a server repop, then TO should share 1/2 of the Naggy's with them because TMR has proven that they can mobilize to Naggy and kill him fair and square.

edit: and don't call me giga

That doesn't benefit everyone though.

[Aadill]

That also breaks epic quests.

[Lazortag]

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

That doesn't benefit everyone though.

Sure it does. The ridiculous amount of time you spend tracking just for a ~50% chance at loot, you can now spend doing something productive! Plus you would still get the vast majority of mobs. You would get proportionally more mobs per minute that you play the game, so just think of it that way.

Originally Posted by Aadill

That also breaks epic quests.

How?

[Aadill]

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

How?

I'm fairly certain not everyone is going to hold hands and help other guilds with their epic quest pieces for mobs that they don't have rights to (I could be wrong but that's just my somewhat cynical observation) There would have to be other methods to beat out someone on a mob they have sole ownership of other than just server resets otherwise some epic quests for some guilds would never be finished.

EDIT: as far as the mention of time played vs loot won: honestly it's only a few minutes difference for some. Most of the time multiple people use tracker accounts and at best you're maybe sitting online on a level 60 character chatting up a storm or watchin movies for a few hours. There's not much to gain/be productive doing while tracking, yes.. but there's also not much reason to be productive on that particular character. Everyone else on the raid is logged out with an incapacitated character or may be out leveling in the same zone or on another character. It's not perfect but as far as the time sink goes it's not as large of a change as you may think. The majority of the time played actually comes from waiting on the pull and/or waiting for other guilds to kill it or wipe, which provides at least some level of competition. if we changed it to your method it would simply be a rotation EXCEPT on server repop days, limiting the amount of competition and further beefing up rotations PER MOB which would get really messy.*

*Assuming I understood the raid proposal correctly.

[Skope]

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

I'm fairly certain not everyone is going to hold hands and help other guilds with their epic quest pieces for mobs that they don't have rights to (I could be wrong but that's just my somewhat cynical observation) There would have to be other methods to beat out someone on a mob they have sole ownership of other than just server resets otherwise some epic quests for some guilds would never be finished.

EDIT: as far as the mention of time played vs loot won: honestly it's only a few minutes difference for some. Most of the time multiple people use tracker accounts and at best you're maybe sitting online on a level 60 character chatting up a storm or watchin movies for a few hours. There's not much to gain/be productive doing while tracking, yes.. but there's also not much reason to be productive on that particular character. Everyone else on the raid is logged out with an incapacitated character or may be out leveling in the same zone or on another character. It's not perfect but as far as the time sink goes it's not as large of a change as you may think. The majority of the time played actually comes from waiting on the pull and/or waiting for other guilds to kill it or wipe, which provides at least some level of competition.

as far as the 4 day windows, that plays in how? i think you mean to say that it doesn't.

I understand the arguments for and against a rule change... hell, people were practically spitting on me during a previous thread and then i had some of the same people pat me on the back for calling it like it was. But that's all besides the point. Any discussion regarding rules or even changes in the rules should be done after the 4-day variance is kicked. I've been trying to come up with a logical defense of it but have come up short for more than a year. It just doesn't make any sense anymore, if it ever made sense in the first place, and it's still here.

Babysteps.