Venril Sathir Tactics and Overall Tactics

[Striiker]

The Venril Sathir pop today (February 11) involved questionable tactics employed by some who were after him. This is completely against the spirit of the rules if not completely against the vague "letter" of them.. I would appreciate hearing from all raid guilds and most importantly, from Sirken and/or Rogean about this.

These guilds had a warrior and cleric as trackers plus about 5-ish people logged in, in the zone, ready to rush to support the "trackers" as they engage on pop. This is pretty blatantly poop-socking the target. There's no chance for rushing members to VS to engage him with this kind of tactic. It's rule-lawyering past comments made about having a group in the zone "XPing". Really guys, is this the level of "competition" that is needed? Why can we not agree to level the field here and let everyone have a realistic shot at this?

Sirken or Rogean, can you please lay down the line and enforce it so that this ongoing encroachment ends? The majority of guilds trying for FFA targets are doing their best to adhere to the spirit of the rules in the interests of competition. Being absent in defining rules and enforcing them just encourages more of this and eventually poop-socking will be back in full swing (as in some cases, it already is).

Proposal (enhances competition and mobilization without rewarding those camped or bound in the zone):
1) Trackers can't engage targets. Leave maximum at two trackers. The is more competitive as you not only need to get a force in zone, you need to zone in your tagger. Let the trackers only track.
2) No more grabbing FTE with pets / summoned eyes, etc.
3) Members of guilds camped in the zone or active in the zone must leave the zone before being involved in the engage. (to combat people bound in the zone, all must enter via a zone line or a group port).

[arsenalpow]

The whole point of the play nice policy, specifically in the FFA cycles, was to promote competition. Racing into Hate or Fear trying to get the target into camp is one thing. Parking a pet on Fay or Sev's spawn point with 3-4 other pets is a stupid dice roll. This next iteration of the VS sock is the same shit but only slightly less worse than a parked pet.

These tactics aren't fostering competition. There's no race. VS spawns and a cleric/warrior pair stalls for X seconds while a force that's been logged in for Y hours at the KC entrance beelines to VS. That's not really competition. I know RnF is already blowing up about this because it's fun to rip on the class R guilds but anyone who thinks this is tantamount to competition needs to get their fucking head checked. What's done is done, but going forward I'd like there to be actual competition and not a roll of the dice to see which pet Sev/Fay aggros or which warrior/cleric duo can snap off a mallet/net charge 3.2 seconds after VS spawns.

[Erati]

The whole point of the play nice policy, specifically in the FFA cycles, was to promote competition. Racing into Hate or Fear trying to get the target into camp is one thing. Parking a pet on Fay or Sev's spawn point with 3-4 other pets is a stupid dice roll. This next iteration of the VS sock is the same shit but only slightly less worse than a parked pet.

These tactics aren't fostering competition. There's no race. VS spawns and a cleric/warrior pair stalls for X seconds while a force that's been logged in for Y hours at the KC entrance beelines to VS. That's not really competition. I know RnF is already blowing up about this because it's fun to rip on the class R guilds but anyone who thinks this is tantamount to competition needs to get their fucking head checked. What's done is done, but going forward I'd like there to be actual competition and not a roll of the dice to see which pet Sev/Fay aggros or which warrior/cleric duo can snap off a mallet/net charge 3.2 seconds after VS spawns.

agree with Chest. This is the raid discussion other guild leaders, we are not here to flame or name call, just to discuss and promote the betterment of competition for the healthy growth of this server.

[Splorf22]

Personally I think all EQ PVE competition is silly, but my opinions there have been well documented.

My question is: If TMO and FE and such had 5+ in zone, why were they allowed to engage at all? I think we need a clarification of:

Guilds may not have any more than two representatives present at a raid spawn location.

[Snackies]

The Venril Sathir pop today (February 11) involved questionable tactics employed by some who were after him. This is completely against the spirit of the rules if not completely against the vague "letter" of them.. I would appreciate hearing from all raid guilds and most importantly, from Sirken and/or Rogean about this.

These guilds had a warrior and cleric as trackers plus about 5-ish people logged in, in the zone, ready to rush to support the "trackers" as they engage on pop. This is pretty blatantly poop-socking the target. There's no chance for rushing members to VS to engage him with this kind of tactic. It's rule-lawyering past comments made about having a group in the zone "XPing". Really guys, is this the level of "competition" that is needed? Why can we not agree to level the field here and let everyone have a realistic shot at this?

Sirken or Rogean, can you please lay down the line and enforce it so that this ongoing encroachment ends? The majority of guilds trying for FFA targets are doing their best to adhere to the spirit of the rules in the interests of competition. Being absent in defining rules and enforcing them just encourages more of this and eventually poop-socking will be back in full swing (as in some cases, it already is).

Proposal (enhances competition and mobilization without rewarding those camped or bound in the zone):
1) Trackers can't engage targets. Leave maximum at two trackers. The is more competitive as you not only need to get a force in zone, you need to zone in your tagger. Let the trackers only track.
2) No more grabbing FTE with pets / summoned eyes, etc.
3) Members of guilds camped in the zone or active in the zone must leave the zone before being involved in the engage. (to combat people bound in the zone, all must enter via a zone line or a group port).

These concerns will most likely result in GM clarification/rule refinement (since I see the discussion boiling down to here's how C wants to raid vs. how R wants to raid) but here are some personal thoughts below:

Proposal #1 Thoughts:

From a C guild standpoint, selecting what class combinations that track/engage based on who's available is part of getting that edge over the competition. It's also not always feasable to field these ideal combinations where another guild might be able to, resulting in having to wait longer for an engage to be possible. Tracker class selection tactics are used for other raid targets such as Trakanon (mage trackers that are ready to CoTH to give them an edge, for example).


Proposal #2 Thoughts:

Pet/eye pulls are one of the safest and best ways to pull a dragon. Currently a raid target will wait three full seconds before engaging anything, giving attack FTE'ers a chance to get their edge against pet/eye/DA body pullers.

Tossing around ideas, increasing the initial aggro time to ten seconds (arbitrary value) may be a possible solution. This should give any half-awake tracker/puller an opportunity to attempt a riskier tag over the person who wants to dice-roll with their troll-faced green con pet sitting under it or drop an eye from miles away.


Proposal #3 Thoughts:

100% would be a policing nightmare - especially with KC where people love to just afk for hours on end. More importantly, right-side trains wouldn't result in so many dead/angry people which creates the most colorful ooc conversations.

My question is: If TMO and FE and such had 5+ in zone, why were they allowed to engage at all? I think we need a clarification of:

From our understanding, as long as there are only 2 representatives beyond the zone-in this is acceptable grounds for a full engage.

I've been proactive/an asshole about anyone not adhering to the above understanding in particular with this VS. This goes for similar circumstances moving forward (such as Trakanon being in window. We will be forcing out those that want to xp in Sebilis from now on so there is NO grey area).

[Splorf22]

From our understanding, as long as there are only 2 representatives beyond the zone-in this is acceptable grounds for a full engage.

Ahh, so you had 5 guys hanging out at the zone in, and if that is deemed unacceptable you'll just park them right outside in DL. To me this still smells like poopsocking, and I'm sure Taken will be doing it at the next FFA VS, but it seems like a reasonable interpretation of the rules.

Still think we need to change the variance for this kind of stuff.

[getsome]

which warrior/cleric duo can snap off a mallet/net charge 3.2 seconds after VS spawns.

So everyone can continue this conversation with accurate information.

[Tue Feb 11 08:58:53 2014] You say to your guild, 'VS'
[Tue Feb 11 09:00:35 2014] Venril Sathir engages Domjot!

[Yaolin]

102 Seconds, need more of these to keep All-Time Engage Records

[Komodon]

[Tue Feb 11 09:00:35 2014] Venril Sathir engages Domjot!

Just for further clarification, Domjot was also camped at the entrance before making the run down on pop.

[Erati]

Just for further clarification, Domjot was also camped at the entrance before making the run down on pop.

well our monk FD in the room claimed otherwise but I am not here to start a he said/she said debate about last nights VS.

Last night's VS proved that guilds are pushing boundaries with each respawn, and we need to define what is acceptable tactics for everyone to enjoy a competitive raid scene.

some of these encounters need specific 'encounter' rules that we can all agree to because like it or not each of these mobs has a vastly different set of circumstances that lead up to a successful kill. Its impossible for one grey sentence to simply define everything.

[Striiker]

Thank you Snackies for your thoughts and you certainly make valid points. Ultimately, what I have been trying for a while now is to get some clarification from the staff on these vague areas. BDA was raid suspended for being too close to Trakanon when he popped and they subsequently engaged so we are all trying to err on the side of safety however each week or encounter, we see other guilds pushing through the grey area without consequence so then we have no choice but to adopt those tactics the next time at which point there is additional encroachment on the spawn and into poop-socking (slippery slope)

I thought of proposing that we all agree to not log out in zones with target pops imminent and to mandate that guild members in the zone (other than trackers) not be involved in the engage however that got nowhere.. Perhaps we can get some agreement on this one point as a start? The windows are 16 hours so I am sure that members can resist killing Drolvarg #420 for a short period of time for example. Trackers can easily see who is in zone and check combat logs to see if those people are involved with heals, fighting, etc so that should be sufficient. This would be something all guilds can agree upon and we would not need to drag staff into it. If they get involved, it can be a lot harsher a policy than is wanted.

[Komodon]

well our monk FD in the room claimed otherwise but I am not here to start a he said/she said debate about last nights VS.

Last night's VS proved that guilds are pushing boundaries with each respawn, and we need to define what is acceptable tactics for everyone to enjoy a competitive raid scene.

some of these encounters need specific 'encounter' rules that we can all agree to because like it or not each of these mobs has a vastly different set of circumstances that lead up to a successful kill. Its impossible for one grey sentence to simply define everything.

All that VS proved was your own willingness to immediate jump to a "they must be playing shady" conclusion, apparently without making any legitimate effort to verify the surrounding facts and/or attempt to talk it out with us before coming here to throw up this rather petty accusation. In fact, Snackies actually spent a good deal of night policing our guys in KC, and the only real complaint i heard going on was over the room being cleared by the trackers. Which wasn't us, but was something we've been telling our guild not to do.

Anyway, sometimes a little communication can go a long way, especially when you are dealing with second hand information. On that note, hit me up in game on Mazam if you want to exchange logs on your claim of our 5 man entrance poopsock. That certainly wasn't the case on spawn either btw.

(Sorry for the late reply too. Busy day :))

[Sadad]

1) Trackers can't engage targets. Leave maximum at two trackers. The is more competitive as you not only need to get a force in zone, you need to zone in your tagger. Let the trackers only track.
2) No more grabbing FTE with pets / summoned eyes, etc.
3) Members of guilds camped in the zone or active in the zone must leave the zone before being involved in the engage. (to combat people bound in the zone, all must enter via a zone line or a group port).

I definitely like the first two. You can claim there are tactics involved with choosing trackers, but all you are doing is confining the sock to one or two people. The idea behind the new rules is to get us racing, and I can't imagine anything that goes more against the spirit of that than pet FTE.