Raid Rules Alternative

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

This is effectively just a repost of my proposal in Nizzar's thread. I'm reposting in hopes of generating more on topic discussion. Maybe the ideas can stay in this thread and the drama can stay in the other one /pipedream

Anyway...

There are some people who can be logged in nearly 24 horus a day because they work from home, or don't work, or whatever, but even those people want to play the game. By that, I mean that they want to camp an item or help PL a friend, or play an alt, or maybe just log out and do something else with their time. They don't want to park themselves and alt tab out to surf the web, or play another game, or watch TV/movies, or do housework. They do it now for one simple reason: Under the current rules, it produces results.

Most people will do whatever works that is within the letter of the rules and within their personal ability (read: available time as well as skill set).

So, if we have collectively decided that camping is a "Bad Thing" tm. Then any solution has to do more than wave an index finger and say "camping is bad, don't do it". We need to change the incentives so that camping is more painful, or just doesn't produce better results than other strategies.

AFK camping only works because the current rules grant a guaranteed first shot. So, my first proposal is to totally chuck those rules and go to a FFA with one basic rule.

First to aggro + 15 minute limit to mass engage.

Whoever can get the first aggro on the mob has 15 min to maintain aggro and have his or her guild engage. As long as the battle has begun in earnest (I'll define this as being tanked instead of kited) within 15 min of the first aggro, and there was an unbroken chain of aggro by members of that first guild through the whole 15 minutes, other guilds must back off until the first guild gets the kill or wipes. If the first guild wipes completely and the mob loses aggro, then he becomes FFA again.

If someone can successfully kite a boss for 7 or 8 minutes while his guild mobilizes, then that's cool with me, because it is definitely a skill related to gameplay in EQ. Anyway, the kiting provision is more of a catch-all that is thinking forward to some of the outdoor encounters coming in Kunark and Velious. We don't want one guy from guild X kiting Talendor around for a half an hour waiting for his guild to log in and port over. There has to be a limit. However, I think 15 min is reasonable.

The traditional complaints about FFA are Training, KSing, and excessive need for GM involvement. Obviously, training and KSing are already against server rules. They should be the only reason to involve a GM, and as per the devs, this should be a rare event. They want us to solve things by ourselves. So, how do we make sure that both real KSing and false reports to the GMs of KSing when it didn't happen are rare events. Again, the answer is in the incentives. The penalties for training/ks'ing AND for falsely reporting those charges when they aren't true should both be severe, perhaps a one month IP and account ban, or de-level to 20 or something similarly harsh.

I really believe those few measures (perhaps with a slight adjustment to the time limits) would be enough to ensure equal opportunity with limited camping. The camping becomes much less attractive when the first crack is not guaranteed just for showing up first and when they campers' eyeballs have to be on the screen. I would also strongly favor reducing the variance to +0 to 12 hours. This would still help the spawns rotate around the clock. However, with a more narrow window, there will be less of a pressure to maintain a constant presence in a zone for days... maybe just a few hours. Again, I cannot stress enough how different this form of camping would be.... first to aggro and fully engage within 15 min is a very different standard. The people doing the camping actually have to be capable of completing the kill or at least holding on while the rest of their guildmates mobilize, and they will actually have to be at the keyboard with eyeballs on screen, or else someone else who is waiting on the spawn might get first aggro.

However, as much as I want that to happen, I am afraid it might not. The devs might not want to ratchet up the penalties for KSing, Training, etc. But, those penalties will be essential to setting up the proper expectations among the player base, especially in the first week or two of this system being in place. That deterrent is vital to this plan. After 3 or 4 people get deleveled or IP banned for a month, people will stop KSing and will be too afraid to level unfounded accusations at others. After that, I believe there would be very few calls to GMs. This satisfies their requirements. As for the players, we will all get a shot. If we can get a force to the mob when it's up or about to spawn and get the first aggro, we can all get a chance to kill it. Then the game is all about keeping solid intel on when targets were killed, when they are due, scouting, picking your battles, mobilizing to your chosen target, and having a good pull team that can get first aggro (or back off when they lose so they don't get banned).

I have a second proposal that is just a tweak of the rules we have, but I don't care for it anywhere near as much. If my first proposal goes up in flames or is ignored, I may post the second one.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Wrei

2. First to engage rule 15min, exactly like Dumesh outlined with a small adjustment here and there for specific bosses that requires planar clears.

You don't need adjustments for that. If a guild can aggro the boss and complete the kill without all the trash being pulled, bully for them. The 15 min starts from the time the boss is aggro'd. It doesn't matter what happens to the trash before or after that time as long as no one is training each other.

Originally Posted by Wrei

3. Increase Time variance even more to + or - 7 ~ 10 days. Add in a flat 8 hours before variance starts on time of the death of the boss (Emil's idea). To further discourage camping even with these rules.

I think this would be a big mistake. The variance only needs to be enough to ensure that the bosses sometimes spawn during Euro and Aussie prime times. The larger the variance, the lower the value of the knowledge of the mobs last time of death and the higher the incentive to keep trackers and / or small crews camping. Also, please notice that in my post I am advocating only a positive element to the variance... never shorter than the base spawn time, only up to 12 hours beyond the base. This keeps the window relatively small, but still has the effect of rotating the spawn around the clock.

I'd also be in favor of random 0-12 hour or 0-24 hour patch day spawns, but only on patch days. I'm not sure how the code would be written, but basically I am saying, only restart the timers if the server is brought down intentionally for a patch that is posted on the boards. This would make sure there is no incentive by players to find a way to crash the zone or the server to get more spawns.

[mitic]

increasing spawn timer or mob engage within 15 mins, an hour, 2 hours or 6 hours wont help at all to change anything in the current situation

the ONLY solution to make EVERYONE happy would be a calendar system = guild has time to kill a boss for a whole day in a weekly rotation. if the guild in line doesnt make it for the kill then the next one (planned for the next week) gets the shot.

[Spirell]

In order for FFA to really work well, they need to get the raid tool working, and allow a whole raid's DPS to count for the kill credit. I can already see the drama on an FFA type engage where 1 group of the "other guild" goes in and KSes the mob, and we are back to square 1 with forcing the issue to "mom and dad" (aka GMs). Or even worse 1 of the guilds gets upset because you were able to get engage first and decides to engage as well, causing mass chaos.

It would eliminate the camping for sure, because just cause you stayed there all night does not mean you can ready first on pop

[Omnimorph]

Make every raid mob zonewide DT everyone every 6 seconds... problem solved.

Well i think anything is better than camping mobs, so... i'd be more for these rules than what we currently have.

[Jify]

1. 1 Hour afk = booted from server (this should fix the non raiders problem of getting booted randomly for being afk). Honestly if your going to be afk for more than an hour just log back on.

I agree!

2. First to engage rule 15min, exactly like Dumesh outlined with a small adjustment here and there for specific bosses that requires planar clears.

Agree. Keep the 2 golem rule on CT, but apply the "first to agro - 15min to mass engage" part in for killing Golems!

3. Increase Time variance even more to + or - 7 ~ 10 days. Add in a flat 8 hours before variance starts on time of the death of the boss (Emil's idea). To further discourage camping even with these rules.

IMO, current variance is enough to discourage camping, if all it takes is someone to run into zone and agro before you do.

4. Offer draconian consequences for lying / fabricating incidents to GM. If proof was ever found that X person was guilty of making shit up, go beyond the 1 month ban. PERMA BAN of IP and account, repeat offenses from full members of X guild = dissolution of sketchy guild.

That's pretty extreme. I'd promote a deleveling of 5 levels, to bring them below the planar requirement. But no perma banning. There have been times when I was 100% sure we were in the right, and GMs ruled against us. (not to say they are inhuman and always make the correct decisions, but we must abide by them)

[Erasong]

this rule and suicide kings are looking good so far. hopefully people act on it.

[JaVeDK]

How about a raid specific sub-forum for all these discussions? Most of the server don't really care about any of this, and it's annoying that all the interesting posts are lost in the raid spam. I'm sure the raiders would appreciate having all the raid related threads gathered as well.

[Ektar]

What happens when two people sit on nagafen's spawn point? We're both staring intently at the screen, and both hit taunt or attack or whatever immediately.

YES naggy did have first agro on someone, but that will NOT be determined until after the ensuing clusterfuck of both guilds thinking they were first. Furthermore how will it be determined? By a gm's logs; which is trying to be avoided.

[astarothel]

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

the ONLY solution to make EVERYONE happy would be a calendar system

Broad generalization. It is wrong.