Raid scene: Variance Socking

[texwilly]

Soooo, I have been watching the discussions on the "raid" scene issues ever since the variance increase. The staff thought that if they increased variance, it would help deter socking. On the contrary, it made the socking worse in the end run.

I'm part of a high end Class C guild and really don't play much because I'm requested to sock my character fully buffed at different locations throughout most of the week. What this increased variance has in effect done to my gaming experience is that it has relegated my character to being logged out unless a mob has been bat-phoned. Joining a raid guild has in effect, reduced my ability to play my character. So, now i reroll a second main to be able to compete with other FFA mob spawns when multiple things are in window. I'm foreseeing the future here that I will need a 3rd main soon for Velious spawns vs. Kunark spawns vs. other FFA repops. And finally, I will need a 4th main to just play the game with friends.

My experience raiding Velious/PoP/GoD/DoN/OOW on live with Altruistic Valorians on Morell-Thule/Erollissi Marr, was that we had a rotation with the other top guilds on the server. We were fairly competitive at different times, the leading guild on the server for different stints (elite for our server, if you will).

This leads me to what I believe broke this server's ability to maintain the "classic" raid experience I was accustomed to. We have a server reminiscent of the days when i played live, but stuck in the same spot for too long (no Velious). I think that is the obvious issue that most of us agree on, lack of content to spread out in. Again, server staff thought to keep things competitive, we should increase variance to get people to go play their characters and only mobilize when a dragon spawns. All of the solution discussions seem to have lead to a consensus that guilds want a shorter variance so that we don't have to sock for so many hours. The intention of the increased variance was to eliminate socking, not elongate it.

TL[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]R. Has much thought been given to, DARE I SAY, increasing the variance significantly to get people to stop camping out at the zonelines fully buffed? Derubael has recently and CLEARLY stated that he does not approve of guilds having groups prepped outside of raid target zones ready to be COTHed. Significant additions to the variance (+- 72hrs or more) would make it much more difficult for raid guilds to poopsock every single spawning dragon.

On live, I clearly remember knowing much less about when mobs would be repopping as we track carefully here. I never "socked" a mob on live in about 3 years of solid raiding (again, fairly competitive), and had to look up the term "poopsock" when i began P99 a couple of years ago. I have followed most of the posts and have not seen this option fleshed out by CSR or guild leaders very clearly.

To start the conversation, I would like to highlight a few benefits to this idea.

1. Should drastically reduce socking.
2. Should maintain competition.
3. Should allow smaller guilds to grow into competitive raiders naturally (IE: they could focus target mobs, sacrificing many other targets for key progression pieces (think Zlandicar/Klandicar)).
4. FTE races would be significantly reduced. Stalling tactics would be difficult while waiting for enough guild members to get to the zone and buff/med. (Remember the days when you would be prepping for a dragon, only pulling it when you thought your team was ready, pushing the limits to beat your opposing guild? This is good competition).
5. Increased tracking times (a big negative, but it was a necessary evil on Live as i remember it).

I propose this independently, without the voice of any guild, strictly from my personal detest of the current raiding environment. I am always a devil's advocate and asked the question to myself "Maybe the GM's just didn't go far enough with the idea?". This FTE-race sock-fest is horrible.