Three step plan to fixing P99 blue endgame

[messiah_b]

Changing the variability to be longer doesn't solve one of the greatest problems right now, which almost everyone will agree, is variability. Variability doesn't take away socking. It has simply moved to tracker alarms and sms lists instead of actually sitting in zone. You will have no change going to a 52 schedule - if anything it will be worse after a 2 week wait and everyone is in a frenzy.

Raid contesting is the last thing you want to do on regular full server repop. If you get into a CR/Train war with another guild, the rest of the server is going to clean-up all other content in the meantime. If you show up at Trak and someone beat you, hoof it to the next.

Change to replicate exact spawn times from classic, along with simulated downtimes every 10-14 days and a lot of your problems will melt away.

Sorry to be bold, but the above is true for this server now. It may not be perfect but I guarantee it will be better than it is now. Get rid of Unemployed Edition.

[Ruenaros]

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

This is interesting. I don't know about 52 times a year... as that might mean all of the targets spawn within 2 months, which would be more non-classic than having a variance. Maybe something like.. 2 (7 day) spawns guaranteed over 2 weeks? I'm not saying this will happen, but if it's better than what we have, keeps people entertained, and lessens work for us, it's a good suggestion.

Raiding folks, what potential banes or boons would happen if a system like this was enacted? Speculate.

So basically a randomized maintenance day pop. It would be an improvement over the current setup, but I'm still not a fan largely b/c if that spawn wave occurs at any non-primetime hour than the big guilds are still going to mop up everything before the little(er) guys get a chance to take a crack at something.

Predictable timing of the spawn is what makes the top tier guilds have to think hard about where they want to head first. CT may not be up in 30 minutes if they decide to go after Trak and/or VS first, etc. The smaller more casual guilds simply can't mobilize at random times during the work day with big enough numbers to tackle big targets... but easily can if they know in advance when they need to be on.

[Splorf22]

My favorite proposal was a mixture of planned-in-advance repops and unscheduled repops. For example, if we kept the current system but also had a server reboot on the first of every month and one sometime during the third week that would already be a massive improvement I think.

[Lazortag]

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

So basically a randomized maintenance day pop. It would be an improvement over the current setup, but I'm still not a fan largely b/c if that spawn wave occurs at any non-primetime hour than the big guilds are still going to mop up everything before the little(er) guys get a chance to take a crack at something.

Predictable timing of the spawn is what makes the top tier guilds have to think hard about where they want to head first. CT may not be up in 30 minutes if they decide to go after Trak and/or VS first, etc.

But patch days weren't "predictable" on Live. I think this is actually very fair. As someone from a smaller guild it doesn't concern me that IB/VD/TMO will get clean sweeps on some weeks where the spawns happen at 4AM, because on other weeks we will still be able to compete under a very fun and meritocratic system. Also I should point out that Euros are allowed to raid too, so the spawns should really be random.

[Ruenaros]

Maintenance days were every Tuesday. There was unscheduled outages and emergency patches that would cause pops as well, that random element was obviously most welcome too!

[messiah_b]

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

Also I should point out that Euros are allowed to raid too, so the spawns should really be random.

I agree completely. I probably misspoke a bit by saying 'scheduled restarts', but I have no problem with a variance on when a full re-pop happens, but variance should only be on full re-pops. I think the 1 scheduled, and 1 variable full re-pop every 14 days is brilliant.

This experiment was already done in the wild during classic:

Trak - no variance - no one ever alarm clocked Trak down 30 mins after pop in classic.

Ragefire - variance - almost universally agreed to be one of the worst parts of the trilogy.

[Lazortag]

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

Maintenance days were every Tuesday. There was unscheduled outages and emergency patches that would cause pops as well, that random element was obviously most welcome too!

I'm not sure this is even true (I certainly don't remember this being every Tuesday and I started in 1999), but if it is, then the maintenance didn't always last the same amount of time, so there was some unpredictability to it.

[messiah_b]

Every Tuesday there was a server restart for maintenance whether there was a patch or not so would last between 1 hour and however long the patch took.

Any outage or emergency patch would also re-pop everything.

[Deanob]

Heres the thing. VP and Trak was already on rotation. People were fine with it. It worked. Why not apply it to the rest of the server and implement a strategy for up coming guilds to join it. (eg. Must kill trak without a wipe. Three wipes in a row and your out)

[Lazortag]

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

Heres the thing. VP and Trak was already on rotation. People were fine with it. It worked. Why not apply it to the rest of the server and implement a strategy for up coming guilds to join it. (eg. Must kill trak without a wipe. Three wipes in a row and your out)

Because maybe not everyone wants a rotation if there's a competitive alternative that's still accessible for smaller guilds.