Thoughts on end game raiding

[Mblake1981]

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

Well there are Classic Mechanics and there is Classic Experience. The two are not necessarily compatible.

To give a classic experience to players (i.e. ability to consume content) GMs might need to modify the classic mechanics.

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

The sooner we start approaching raid rules design from "what do players want and how do we design a raid cycle with space for those preferences" rather than "these player preferences are counter to The Vision and must be constrained in ways that definitely won't have massive unforeseen consequences," the sooner we'll have working rules.

The Vision was fine for 1999, a time when people needed a good computer for gaming, paying a sub fee, multiple acc's were rare and player meta/mechanic/strategy knowledge and communication abilities was limited in comparison to today.

The only way to get a Classic experience is with a time machine, those don't exist. How many of us get random drops from our dial up connections these days?

Imo the issues we suffer today were self regulating in era. No guild raid # caps, rotations, instances, an army of alt bots, a full account or multiple of level 60 characters with NToV gear, an all in one wiki page.. and some players still feel the need to add things like map programs to aid them.

Any real changes, including ones GMs have implemented to "make it work 2012+" are not classic and not a true part of the museum. A player who never experienced EQ in original era comes in expecting "the classic experience" but that can't be replicated. 3D games have been around for over 20+ years. That feeling of going from an N64 to something like EQ on computer is long gone.

[walfreyydo]

Back in the day on the PVP servers, guilds had to fight one another for the spawn. Food for thought.

[Champion_Standing]

Guild caps would just mean the current population that's dominating raid content would split into 3-4 guilds and do the same. You could make rules against it I guess, I'm sure the average player would love the prospect of only being able to raid with a single character. Also, I'm sure the GMs would love sifting through dozens of guild rosters making sure nobody is double dipping. Sounds like a blast tbh, where do I sign?

[snyder43]

Originally Posted by foxchris509 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The competition between guilds is what really makes eq fun and exciting for the most part.

Competition in p99 raiding is one guild's pull team of 3-6 members vs another guild's pull team of 3-6 members trying to get FTE on a mob while the other 60-140 people in the competing guilds stare at the wall.

This is exciting if you're part of the pull team, but otherwise it's just sad.

[loramin]

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

Well there are Classic Mechanics and there is Classic Experience. The two are not necessarily compatible.

To give a classic experience to players (i.e. ability to consume content) GMs might need to modify the classic mechanics.

You are absolutely 100% correct about the distinction between classic mechanics and experience ... and 100% incorrect about which one the staff here cares about. With only a couple of "exceptions that prove the rule", P99 is all about classic mechanics over classic experience.

I'm not putting a value judgement on which one the staff should prefer, that's just how the people who run this server want things. Although I will say I empathize with their choice because truly e-creating the classic experience we all remember is probably impossible.

[Moerne]

I think to suggest that one top guild dominating raid content isn't classic is ignorant. It's not used now, but anyone remember the term "Uberguild"? It referred to that one or two guilds on a server that completely dominated the content. Always hated by most of the rest of the server. I bet most of you can probably even still name the ones from your servers, or the more famous ones that everyone knew. There was always huge pushback against these guilds. Sometimes that worked into a rotation, most often not. My server forums had a thread title "Trakanon is FFA" in the velious era that as long and bitterly fought over as anything we've ever had on RnF for P99. For me personally, this is a part of the game that I loved and missed with the era of instancing for raids. Honestly, if you just want to be able to raid on your own schedule, why even play P99? That's what the instanced raids are for.

[AegnorP99]

I don't raid these days, but it's just the quantity of content vs. quantity of raiders that forces P99-levels of pixel insanity. A rotation spreads loot around among guilds better, but doesn't really address the actual problem. I don't think the raid scene can be fixed without either instancing or increasing spawn frequency. I love that there are no instances on P99, so I don't personally like that solution. However, I could totally get behind reduced respawn times. Could drop 7-day spawns to 24 hours and 3-day spawns to 12 hours or something. People could still have their "competition", but major targets would be available at pretty much all times.

[Siberious]

Put every raid mob in window 1 hour after it dies, can leave # of days as is for when a guaranteed spawn would be, this removes 16h window socking nonsense that plagues the server. Unlink Vulak to facilitate this or don't, not a big deal. Exceptions could be made for Naggy/Ragefire & VS/VSR. Let people sock spawns, who cares anyways mobs are always in window, can only do it so long and let's people idk kill in zones without being penalized. Only have to deal with train petitions this way, as any means of getting FTE otherwise is fine and other mobs can spawn at any moment.

There you go problem solved, you're welcome. Have fun socking mobs 24 hours a day if you want to be insane, this otherwise reduces GM work and opens up targets to a broader audience and adds more without instancing anything or removing respawn windows entirely. Maybe people will just kill a few mobs here and there for fun instead of socking everything. (yeah I know, what a naive statement, of course socking mobs 24/7 is what real classic EQ players do! I must be a peasant).

[Rygar]

What if each guild can declare a window for the week? Window limited to 6hrs. If a mob is engaged is in your window you can kill it. You can break your window up however you choose (so have multiple smaller windows)

Maybe there is a standing 3hr FFA window.

This would limit socking hopefully, encourage some strategy around declaring a time, and still have a competitive window for everyone.

Guild leaders post window to private forum, GM reveals windows via public sticky post update.

Kind of dumb, but maybe a solution that can please everyone.

[Polixa]

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

You are absolutely 100% correct about the distinction between classic mechanics and experience ... and 100% incorrect about which one the staff here cares about. With only a couple of "exceptions that prove the rule", P99 is all about classic mechanics over classic experience.

I'm not putting a value judgement on which one the staff should prefer, that's just how the people who run this server want things. Although I will say I empathize with their choice because truly e-creating the classic experience we all remember is probably impossible.

I'm not saying the staff "should" do a U-turn on their design philosophy. It's their sandbox and I'm grateful to be allowed in.

Yes, I am putting a value judgement on which one the staff should prefer. But I understand my value judgement is not theirs, c'est la vie.

In other words, I have an opinion on what would make the server more fun to play on (like we all have, even when we disagree) and like everyone else, I appreciate that the P99 "Vision" does not have my fun as it's primary goal (and I don't mean that in the snarky way it sounds, just stating a fact of life).