New Lodizal Agreement Proposal

[weaseal]

Background:
As it stands, Lodizal is a simple FTE mob, whoever gets first engage wins. So most people park pets on his spawn point, and try to hit their '/pet attack' macro ASAP on pop.

The problem:
This FTE method rewards two things which do not require any skill.
1) Ping -- players who live near the P99 server have a significant advantage over those who do not. This requires no skill and is purely based on luck, and cannot be easily compensated for.

2) Autofire -- the current FTE status of the camp strongly encourages players to use autofire programs to beat others to FTE. There's basically no reason not to use it. Obviously I have no way of proving that anyone is, but I strongly suspect that most people who camp Lodizal are using autofire.

Proposal:
Let's change Lodizal to a roll, like scout. The winner gets dibs on the kill for 30 minutes, and players who rolled stay to help kill, or the winner can ask their guild for help if not enough people are around.

[weaseal]

Additional details: The roll window would be 20 seconds, meaning that the cutoff for the final roll would be 20 seconds after the first roll. From discussions with GMs, the server does not log rolls, so players would be encouraged to record video in case of a dispute.

If the winning roll player has not killed Lodizal within the allocated 30 minute period, Lodizal then becomes the sole opportunity of 2nd place roll, and so on. If 2nd place roll has left the zone by that time, s/he is skipped and it goes to 3rd place, and so on.

Loot:
It doesn't matter who gets XP, who got FTE, or who got the final blow. Only the roll matters with regard to who wins loot. If someone who did not win the roll takes the loot without permission from the winner, they are in violation of the agreement and GMs could punish appropriately. An abandoned Lodizal corpse is not FFA loot (consider the winning player may be swapping to an alt to loot).

[loramin]

I like this, very much. I think clickfests are dumb, and player agreements (whatever their faults) are superior.

However, I do have to warn you (and I say this as someone who helped make the Shady Goblin agreement happen) ... agreements are very hard to get started. You have to get everyone "on the ground" involved to agree to them. Forum posts a good first step, but they're only the beginning.

Maybe the staff would accept it if everyone except one jackass who refuses ... but with Shady we had to put up with Siryado breaking the agreement multiple times, even after everyone else agreed to it. It was only after he finally gave up that we finally got the agreement "cemented", and it was only then that the staff began "policing" it and punishing people who turned-in instead of rolling.

Personally I kinda of hope the staff rolls out "/list 2.0" and applies it to mobs like Lodizal, making such an agreement necessary. But since they operate on their own timetable it could be years until that happens ... if it even does. So it's very possible this agreement is the only chance to end the clickfest anytime soon.

I wish you luck!

[RevSaber]

Why not just do /picks and AoCs at this point... Smh...

[Jimjam]

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

Why not just do /picks and AoCs at this point... Smh...

Great question! I’m sure there are almost as many answers to this question as there are players.

Here is my answer: Because a complaint about instances is they reduce the world by removing community, whereas consensus and cooperation is the opposite of that.

[jolanar]

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

Great question! I’m sure there are almost as many answers to this question as there are players.

Here is my answer: Because a complaint about instances is they reduce the world by removing community, whereas consensus and cooperation is the opposite of that.

Is it really a consensus though? Do the majority of the players even visit the forums regularly? Or is it 30 or 40 forumquesters who probably don't even play much anymore deciding these things?

[elwing]

I don't like this agreement but I hate the cheaters autofireing even more..

[Lotxi]

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

Is it really a consensus though? Do the majority of the players even visit the forums regularly? Or is it 30 or 40 forumquesters who probably don't even play much anymore deciding these things?

It's definitely not people on the forums deciding how these things work. As Loramin mentioned with regards to the Shady Goblin roll, it doesn't matter what people on the forum decide unless you convince people on the ground to go along with the agreement. Just look at the ring 8 poll for a great example of this: an overwhelming majority of forum responders support changing how the roll works but that doesn't mean the roll has changed or will change as a result.

[kaizersoze]

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

Great question! I’m sure there are almost as many answers to this question as there are players.

Here is my answer: Because a complaint about instances is they reduce the world by removing community, whereas consensus and cooperation is the opposite of that.

If by removing community you mean people can schedule raids and have lives outside of socking for 16 hours just to not kill said mob, yeah, it removes the community.

Instances came because the people who were getting paid running it realized people could not feasibly sustain healthy relationships, stable jobs, and poopsock 17 hours a day and wake up at 3am as a functioning adult who pays their sub fees. Lets not forget there was still open world bosses once instances came out, but a single guild monopolizing everything also ceased to exist. None of that really matters since this is free though.

[LazyHydras]

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

If by removing community you mean people can schedule raids and have lives outside of socking for 16 hours just to not kill said mob, yeah, it removes the community.

Instances came because the people who were getting paid running it realized people could not feasibly sustain healthy relationships, stable jobs, and poopsock 17 hours a day and wake up at 3am as a functioning adult who pays their sub fees. Lets not forget there was still open world bosses once instances came out, but a single guild monopolizing everything also ceased to exist. None of that really matters since this is free though.

Very good point. I think that MMORPGs since the year 2000 have proven that you can have instanced raid content while still maintaining a level of hardcore play that is not "casual friendly." Classic WoW was evidence of this with the difficulty of Naxxramas.