New Raiding Rules: A Unified Approach

[captincrust]

If we are to make progress as a community on a sort of agreed set of raiding rules, the most reasonable way to come up with them is by tackling them an issue at a time. In this spirit, please post BRIEFLY a few key components you wish to discuss and we can do just that. To start, I've come up with two specific strategies that need a good look at and a server-wide policy:

1) Training: http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1249581

2) Camping characters at raid spawns: http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1249597

I'll be hotlinking these two issues shortly so they can be discussed SEPARATELY and clearly. Please post some bullet points for our new server raid charter so we can all get back to competing with one another

[captincrust]

Premise: Training is a currently accepted tactic most notably in VP, Inny, and CT encounters. This is unofficially supported by our lovely hosts for this server but I personally feel it is detrimental to the server in a few ways:

1) The guild with the best ability to handle trains of varying sizes wins. More often than not, the success of a group hit with a train is simply HOW MANY there are and puts A LOT of emphasis on which guild is bigger rather than how that guild plays.

2) After multiple groups have wiped to a back and forth train, it becomes exponentially more difficult for any group to recover and make a new attempt simply because they have less of an ability to deal with a train but a monk, for example, still has the same ability to CAUSE a train immediately upon being rez'd. No fun for anyone.

3) Even if a group assembled and began an attempt upon a target, a train would turn a 20% target from a sure-fire win for a good team into easy pickings for whoever showed up late and brought a train with them. The incentive to mobilize and cause positive impact against raids targets is highly diminished because of this.

NOTE: These are the issues I HAVE SEEN. These examples are currently in violation of the server policies in some case but I have seen it occur more often than not and the issue of training in particular needs to have a new charter with a NO tolerance policy in order to be effective.

ENFORCEABILITY: The biggest problem I see with training is being able to prove a train was caused and therefore enforce any sort of action against offenders. Because of this, I believe a ZERO tolerance policy should be enacted (accidental or intentional trains be considered equal). In order to make an effective policy, I suggest that ANY TRAIN caused intentionally or unintentionally by any member of a guild against another guild that HAS ALREADY engaged a target should ban that guild from killing/looting that particular instance of the mob as well as ban the guild from the zone for a period of 2 hours. The rule is simple, severe and has no permanent penalty (which I think is important).

Let's discuss, should training be permissible? Why?

[Lazie]

You obviously haven't been reading the current server news updates.

[captincrust]

Premise: Camping out characters at raid target spawn points is standard practice on this server (ala Trakanon, VS). Back on Live I never heard of such behavior (presumably because not many people had more than one or two lvl 60 char whereas here we have alot of people with accounts full of them). One thing that was always the great equalizer when it came to finding a raid target was the ability of any guild to mobilize from any point to get to the target and required ALOT of preparation, training, and general player skill. Camping out effectively eliminates this and favor whichever guild has more people willing to camp out high level characters at a target spawn (read: zerg strategy). It would be excellent to see this practice prohibited as it would offer incentive to players who practice and to leaders who spend time training and organizing groups.

This could function as easily as an agreement or could be as rigid as the devs employing a trigger that prevents characters from camping when in range of specific spawn locations. I'm not exactly sure how to prevent this practice from occurring but it does seem to favor numbers over skill which, I think most would agree, is a key problem with our current situation.

[Durka]

Training
Training can be defined as the intentional manipulation of NPC Placement and Aggro in such a way that causes it to attack another player that it wouldn't have otherwise if at it's normal spawn location. The most basic form of this is "dumping" mobs near another player or party and escaping via a form of teleportation or death. Intentional or not, this is against the rules. This rule is not limited to the basic example given, as there are many different forms of training players will use. You take all responsibility for mobs that you aggro. If you are trying to escape from a pack of NPC's but there is another group in your way, do not run through them. Even if your intention is not to train them, it would inevitable cause this and you may be subject to disciplinary. It is recommended that you take the death (Your responsibility for aggroing the mobs) and request a resurrection from nearby players.

If you happen to accidentally train a group of players, please immedietely notify the staff via /petition that you have done so by accident. Apologize to the players in question, and assist them with any recovery needed. If the staff hears about your train before you tell them, intention is no longer an excuse. (Repeated unintentional trains will still result in disciplinary action).

Although Rogean is very strict on this specific policy, I think it can be even stricter. You know how many times my guild has wiped from trains during a raid? Its ridiculous. Its primarily the reason why I don't want to raid here as often as I would like. I dont want my time wasted because some dbag with a sense of entitlement brings a few beez on top of us to get the upper hand in a raid target.

Any person doing that should be banned. Its so disrespectful on many levels. Recovering a raid force from a train takes a lot of time and not everyone can log in for extra time just because some **** wanted to get an advantage.

It also ruins the PR of a guild - hate to say it, but just because it is the action of one person, I personally feel that if a guild lets a person like that do that stuff they are equally responsible. Dont invite dbags into your guild, or guildremove them once they take actions like that. I would expect my guild to remove me if I had that behavior. Other guilds turn a blind eye and say "Hmm, yeah we didnt tell personx to do that, sorry". Sorry is NOT good enough. Reprimand and no repeat behavior is.

I think we all can agree that we have experienced this and want this to be something considered when re-writing our raiding rules.

[Rhambuk]

You obviously haven't been reading the current server news updates.

There is no more training in VP.

Thank Cazic almighty!

[captincrust]

You obviously haven't been reading the current server news updates.

Lazie: Please read what I've written before responding. /commoncourtesyplease

[Durka]

Not manageable and yes it was 'kind of' classic. If they cant camp in one room, they will camp in the other. If they cannot camp in the zone, then they will camp outside it. Just too much law involved with this.

[Lazie]

Lazie: Please read what I've written before responding. /commoncourtesyplease

I did it was mostly ridiculous and with information that was false to begin with.

[goshozal]

My favorite part of this one was how the title uses the phrase "a unified approach" and the body has links to two separate threads on two separate concepts.