ATTN: All Raiding Guilds

[Pint]

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

Awakened and Aftermath agree to reduced variance and increased repops hugely.

Put a stamp on it.

Everyone agrees to those things that we have no authority to exact or expectation to see forthcoming. How about you agree to the one thing we can do which is set reasonable standards for competition. Aftermath will continue to advocate putting a hard cap on the number of people required to sock an encounter so that there is no p99 arms race. We still do not understand your aversion and insistence on using unlimited #'s of both racers and coth mages = \

[Detoxx]

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

Everyone agrees to those things that we have no authority to exact or expectation to see forthcoming. How about you agree to the one thing we can do which is set reasonable standards for competition. Aftermath will continue to advocate putting a hard cap on the number of people required to sock an encounter so that there is no p99 arms race. We still do not understand your aversion and insistence on using unlimited #'s of both racers and coth mages = \

Been trying for weeks. They wont have it. Its a simple solution to a big problem and im sure any guild would agree to it.

[Kileras]

The reason guilds like mine are able to find room to breathe is because of how much of a time commitment it is for your massive forces to go for the best content in the game. Now when it comes to repops being frequent I understand how this benefits basically everyone on the server who is going to try and up their activity in raiding, but smaller variance is something that i think we all "want" but in practice only hurts the majority of the smaller tier guilds.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if you guys weren't so busy with the body sink that is tracking/parking for NtoV and other targets... would you just end up bored and coming down the food chain to out-game/out-sock the lower tier content that has been moderately accessible to anyone that wants to try and step up to compete?

anything that happens that lightens the load on the large guilds from a logistics point of view, does nothing to stop the mentality that you want to get every single thing you can get. So, by lightening that burden of the sock it just invites you to lock down even more content ( barring a quake ).

Us more casual folks are the ones that find the socking and tracking barrier of entry so daunting, i want it gone more than anyone. Problem is this server is so incredibly top heavy and competitive that if that burden was lifted universally i only see it resulting in the largest most dedicated guilds locking down even more content.

This goes back to the original issue as well, are we meting to discuss how wack all this training is and what the punishments should be? or are we meeting to actually deal with the incredibly difficult raiding environment/culture as a whole? For some reason, i don't think the latter is on the table.

tl;dr, reducing time commitment/resource commitment will just make competitive guilds fill their man hours with locking down more mobs, Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Pint]

If windows are shorter and repops are more frequent then we're not going to have time to go contest you in kunark bc we will have too much overlap to contend with on the fronts that we are interested in. It would mean your chances at ntov would decline but your chances at ntov are already effectively 0% so I'm not sure where else youre aiming to go. The only reason aftermath currently kills anything in kunark is bc the windows are stretching out and we're less consumed with the targets we want. Ultimately you are wrong on this one and the reality is exactly opposite of your interpretation (in my opinion).

[Daldaen]

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

Been trying for weeks. They wont have it. Its a simple solution to a big problem and im sure any guild would agree to it.

The tracking/poopsocking requirements aren't what precipitated this conversation Detoxx. Nor do I expect them to be a major focus of the summit.

Outdated raid rules are though.

Q10: What about a raid mob being indefinitely kited, stalled, or occupied?
A: It is against server policy to indefinitely kite, stall, or otherwise keep occupied, a raid mob without intention of killing it. You either bring it to your raid, die, or zone out. Obvious stalling of a raid mob, especially in situations to prevent engagement by another guild/party, is against the rules. Ignorance is not an excuse to break this rule, if you are pulling raid targets, we expect you to know what you’re doing.

Q11: What about training away trash mobs?
A: This is acceptable, but if you choose to use this tactic, you must keep in mind that you are responsible for your trains/mobs. Meaning if your trainer dies, and the mobs go wipe another guild, that’s still training. When the time comes to purposely drop the train, make sure to communicate and coordinate with any other guilds in the zone.

Q12: What exactly does the Staff consider a stall?
A: As far as engage stalls, the Staff will grant you one DA, or about 19 seconds on an engage before considering it a stall. So it’s important that guilds do not engage a mob until they are ready to kill it. The spirit of the rule (and what we are looking to do here) is to prevent guilds from locking up a target before they are ready to kill it, just to prevent other guilds that are ready to kill it first/faster. If you stall, you need to drop aggro immediately and concede/forfeit the mob. Any number of players can be considered to be stalling a mob, what we look for is the engage of the kill force.

Q13: Will the planes be open to everyone?
A: Yes. Please be respectful to your fellow players and respect their space. If there is a guild/party raiding Hate for some armor and they start pulling creatures, don't go up there and sit on top of them pulling mobs in their area as well. If Guild A is doing Hate, then perhaps Guild B should be doing Fear. Basically, don't be a douche bag. If you insist on being in the planes at the same time as another guild/party, you may not set up camp on top of where another guild/party has already set up camp. To clarify, there is no limit to the number of guilds/people allowed in the planes at one time.

Q14: Do we have "No-CSR" zones on Project 1999?
A: At the moment, no.

Q15: Are either of my two trackers allowed to get FTE?
A: Absolutely not. If one of your trackers gains FTE, you need to drop aggro immediately and concede/forfeit the mob.

Q16: Are we allowed to bind at raid mobs? And/or camp out toons at raid mobs?
A: Absolutely not.

Every one of these rules were written before there were perma rooted raid mobs, before there were aggro linked guards, before there were raids that requires you clear the entire zone first, back when mobs only had 32k HP max and died in 1 minute, etc.

They need to be revisited and clarified to be crystal clear so that everyone knows what's what.

For example rule 16 could easily be rewritten to say "you may only have X players attempting to acquire FTE at a starting spot / entrance at any one time". This would resolve one of your larger gripes. But that's up to every guild at this summit to decide and voice their opinion on.

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I will echo what Pint said. Very short variance means 19 ToV targets, 3 First Brood Dragons, 3 Kael Targets, 2 PoFear targets are all overlapping. When all of that is going on, there will be 0 focus placed on things like Kunark or early Velious mobs. Even things like Klandicar and Dracoliche as you have seen, have fallen to the side in favor of other mobs.

Contrary to popular belief, most of our guild's sleep, work and live a life. We don't always have several full raid forces ready to bounce between 5 raid zones for 5 targets spawning within the same hour.

[Breaken]

Reducing variance puts windows of *all* mobs closer together. (Kunark and Velious)

Assume for a moment that midday Sunday we had a respawn, and all mobs were up. They will all die within.. 4? hours? Now if the variance of the server was 8 hours, week after week, these mobs will spawn overlapping. It would take much longer for the spawns to spread like they are right now. As it currently stands, mobs are so spread out that guilds can compete on more mobs, granted it requires a tremendous amount of work due to basically having a new mob in window at all times.

Couple reduced variance with more sim repops, and windows will stay close together even longer, maybe indefinitely. This allows the smaller guilds to have uncontested raids because I can guarantee you won't see Awakened, and probably the same for Aftermath, going for any mob deemed "lesser" when CT, KT, Doze, and Vulak are in window at the same time.

[Kileras]

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

If windows are shorter and repops are more frequent then we're not going to have time to go contest you in kunark bc we will have too much overlap to contend with on the fronts that we are interested in. It would mean your chances at ntov would decline but your chances at ntov are already effectively 0% so I'm not sure where else youre aiming to go. The only reason aftermath currently kills anything in kunark is bc the windows are stretching out and we're less consumed with the targets we want. Ultimately you are wrong on this one and the reality is exactly opposite of your interpretation (in my opinion).

I agree with you completely if there are frequent quakes, as in my first comment. But smaller windows without more frequent quakes is what i was talking about.

[Daldaen]

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

I agree with you completely if there are frequent quakes, as in my first comment. But smaller windows without more frequent quakes is what i was talking about.

It's still very unlikely and would take at least 1-2 months of no reset to have this unfold... Even then, I don't see much if any effort being put into Sev for example when Hoshkar begins dropping green scales, regardless of the spread of Windows.

[arsenalpow]

It turns ToV into a roped off area essentially. Even on a repop if pulling to the entrance is a thing it becomes almost impossible for a second guild to setup. That was apparent during the last repop when we got steamrolled by a bad ForsakenGard pull.

Lesser variance would be swell, but I think 16 hours gives a fair shake to the euro population. That amount of variance gets pops all throughout the day. Limiting variance to a small amount ensures that mobs will never really leave their initial windows.

Something that would be a simple fix is earthquake currently fully reset velious timers but not any other timers. That's bad.

[Daldaen]

ToV has 3-4 safe spots basically.

Entrance, LTK, Eashen Stairs and 1-2 little hallways/corners in HoT.

If guilds aren't allowed to pull to entrance, which I do understand the motivation behind, there aren't many safe spots left. Now... You can suggest people just clear up, but as long as FTE remains the mode of determining rights to a mob that's bound to encourage training, leapfrogging and QQ.

The zone simply was not designed for multiple guilds competing for the same mob. It's a dungeon that has linear paths where guilds must herpderp on top of one another.

Removing the non-classic Flurry Drakes that roam between Triplets and Doubles would add 2 more safe spots which would alleviate some of the issues, but not all of them.