ATTN: All Raiding Guilds

[Sirken]

Hail Adventurers!

I've been trying to set up a little summit meeting for a while now, and i do apologize for the delay in getting it done. but here's what you need to know,

Sunday April 3rd at 2pm EST there will be a discussion regarding Raid Rules because they are severely out of date.

All raiding guilds are invited to send one representative to this meeting/discussion, this is a hard limit, do not ask for exceptions.

We will meet on Discord (depending on the number of people), you can download it for free here: https://discordapp.com/download

thank you very much,
Sirken


PS - Because of the scheduled meeting between all top guilds on Sunday, King Tormax will follow a different ruleset. An agreement has been made between Europa, Aftermath and Awakened (which is enough for me to enforce it as rule for now) that King Tormax will be a Foot Race from the Wakenening Lands zone line, at the beginning of the snow. Once King Tormax spawns, whoever wins the footrace (gets the FTE message) their guild earns 1 attempt at him.
This means when the FTE message goes out, everyone will die and King Tormax will reset. The guild that won then can clear all trash up to him and kill the guards linked to him before engaging. This will eliminate any training away of trash mobs.
Same should apply for statue as he'll be in window on thursday.

[arsenalpow]

The fk is Discord?

[Daldaen]

The fk is Discord?

This.

[arsenalpow]

Oh, it's this free thing.

https://discordapp.com/

[Kileras]

Anonymous will be present.

[Llandris]

Discord > Skype

[Detoxx]

Will be there! Skype please!

[Breaken]

Doing it in Skype will be an issue due to no push to talk key. Hearing 15 people mashing keyboards or fans running in the background will be annoying.

[arsenalpow]

Doing it in Skype will be an issue due to no push to talk key. Hearing 15 people mashing keyboards or fans running in the background will be annoying.

You can absolutely make it push to talk. When you immediately log in you can flip your status to muted, then create a bind on your keyboard that turns mute off. Total push to talk functionality.

[Detoxx]

Also, this was not specified but is SoW the max speed for KT and Statue?

[Kileras]

Also, this was not specified but is SoW the max speed for KT and Statue?

& no shadowstep plz.

[Pint]

Big fan, is # of racers unlimited?

[bktroost]

and the rule lawyering begins. 50000 people at scale and cheetah is legal. He didn't give you specifics.

[arsenalpow]

Kael is an indoor zone though. Scale is risky and I don't think cheetah would last long enough after zoning through to warrant the initial boost.

[Pan]

Omni will attend.

[Detoxx]

Aftermath is fine with SoW only, no shadowstep. Cheetah is irrelevant since Kael is indoors.

Big fan, is # of racers unlimited?

Would be nice to have an agreement on this but not imperative.

[bktroost]

Stop with the player made rules please. CSG will be following server rules and what the GMs state.

[Breaken]

Aftermath is fine with SoW only, no shadowstep. Cheetah is irrelevant since Kael is indoors.

Awakened will be outrunning you.

(Good luck to all! :P)

[Detoxx]

Stop with the player made rules please. CSG will be following server rules and what the GMs state.

I see no server rule on what speed to use and no GM statement so Scale it is!

[Pint]

I love it, you guys dont even want to acknowledge that we're trying to level the playing field to directly benefit you! Attend a few no rules races and see where the player bases of Awakened and Aftermath rank for yourselves on the dedication scales and how out of hand this can get ; )

[Pint]

I want to follow up that you all need to take a step back, unload your personal bias and use your heads. We can all go nuts on a single tormax and you might win that single tormax. In the process sirken will watch ~100 people standing around waiting for a mob and he will roll his eyes and slap down a generic rule that you'll all nit pick over for the next few months bc we're all hopeless. Or you could approach this with an eye toward the future where every guild has to commit 2? people with a handful of sow potions and all be on equal footing, so every single week for the foreseeable future your guilds have a legitimate chance to win an fte which results in you getting 20 minutes to mobilize a raid force and kill a high end target... This then ends up going over well bc the playing field is fair and we open up tov to similar opportunities where every guild can compete on a playing field that is both equitable and reasonable.

Just bc we propose something that helps reduce the commitment burden for ourselves does not always immediately result in a net negative for you. Use your heads and actually think about the implications and outcomes of your stances in the long term. Your guilds do not have to be relegated to kunark for another 6 months just bc youre too proud to acknowledge when your opposition is trying to be reasonable and constructive.

[Katpal]

Divinity will attend

[Daldaen]

The problem with SoW only is it allows people with:

Bind sight
Levitate rings
Shadowstep masks

To get an advantage.

Whereas if you put everyone on Spirit of Scale, you cannot cast bind sight inside for that slight advantage, you won't be advantaged to instant click Shadowstep masks or lev rings as that will kill your SoS also.

Really, it's a speed buff cast every 72min and prevents a lot of the retarded cheese strategies, putting everyone on even footing. Yes, it does require a shaman or Druid show up every hour to cast a buff... We all know the server doesn't have any shortage of those two classes. If you have several FTEers willing to sit waiting for a mob to spawn during a 16 hour window, surely you can get a Druid or a shaman to show up once an hour to refresh buffs.

I had a long drawn out post written up and forgot to post before driving for 4 hours and then it poofed. Basically I'm cool with a run up race and the winner being able to classicly clear guards or whatever they want to do... But the way it is written on LawyerQuest 99, it is vague.

How long do they have to make their one attempt? I think 30-60min is solid enough time to split out his guards and then him.
Does a botched pull including Tormax count as your one attempt? IMO if Tormax ever summons someone, I.E. You dropped it to 97% that counts as your attempt.
If a guild is wiping during their one attempt, can guilds attempt to snipe? If so expect a desynchfest of 4 guilds piling on top of each other.

[Pint]

20 minutes to engage kt imo. If he slaughters your raid before he's summoning and before you've run a Ch chain on him for more than like a minute then its not an attempt? I'm significantly less concerned with the details of how you kill the mob then I am with what is required to have a reasonable chance at competing in the race week in and week out.

I also don't care if its scale or sow personally. I just know that everyone can sow themselves and scale requires an additional person to commit to the encounter and despite what everyone loves to think, we (aftermath) prefer enlisting as few people as possible to track these targets.

[Daldaen]

That is a fair point of view to have, but you have to admit, Scale does limit the chance of people using obscure stupid clickies or abilities to gain small advantages, which in this style of an FTE race are absolutely necessary to win since you don't need to live after you get FTE.

Really, if you have people in your guild willing to have several players covering a 16-hour window, you can probably find someone to log on one of the 10,000 druid/shaman alts and cast a speed buff once every 60-72minutes.

[Detoxx]

That is a fair point of view to have, but you have to admit, Scale does limit the chance of people using obscure stupid clickies or abilities to gain small advantages, which in this style of an FTE race are absolutely necessary to win since you don't need to live after you get FTE.

Really, if you have people in your guild willing to have several players covering a 16-hour window, you can probably find someone to log on one of the 10,000 druid/shaman alts and cast a speed buff once every 60-72minutes.

Sure we could. But as stated and as I have been telling you guys for weeks, we're looking to reduce the amount of time required to raid on a 17 year old elf sim. Our agreed statue run ups went from 4 people required to track to about 25. This will happen on KT without fte caps and set rules.

This is no longer about Aftermath and Awakened. This agreement on KT and statue could change the server for the better. It could give any guild a fair chance at killing any mob in velious without forcing the absolute insanity of CoTH maging. All it takes is some simple ground rules and I guarantee my guild will not break them without harsh penalty or even guild removal.

[Daldaen]

Yes and I think that the allowance of Spirit of Scale reduces the likelihood people will be required to farm Shadowstep masks or have bags of Levitate rings in order to compete. Asking 1 druid or shaman to show up once an hour is hardly increasing the number of people required to put in time tracking.

We just need server agreed upon rules in order for the better server environment to take place. Player made agreements are far too flimsy since there is no recourse if one is broken.

Or... we could just get lots of Sim Repops $$$

[arsenalpow]

Just do sow. Jeez.

[Anichek]

How about everyone just posts agenda items instead of pushing their entire pile into the pot in this thread? Sorry I can't attend, I have a RL commitment until about 4pm or so that day. Enjoy a healthy dose of Glorious Dear Leader, Chest Rockwell! :-)

[Ella`Ella]

Just do sow. Jeez.

Pras

[bktroost]

There have been a lot of words... and I've not seen server rule changed by sirken regarding this race.

So I'm going to have my few people who can cast scale hang out and my one person watching tormax show up and if we tag a giant we tag a giant. I don't care enough to have a jury decide for me the pros and cons of sow v.s. scale as it pertains to 50 clickies and strat a-z as seen in VP or NToV....

My gosh guys. Why is everquest so hard?

[Culkasi]

What Nemce said - can we for once not try to rules lawyer the shit out of something that is supposed to make our lives a little bit easier?
If you think what you are planning to do might by dodgy, newsflash; don't do it. We are trying to create a better environment, try to help with that, not worry about how you get these specific Statue/KT pixels.

Now, back to the important part about this, the meeting. I will attend, I hope many of the existing raid guilds and maybe even some up and coming ones will as well, and we can have a constrcutive chat about how to make the raid scene more inclusive and less about who can get closest to the edge of the law without stepping over the line.

[Daldaen]

The problem is without clearly defined rules all of this stuff will be on the table. Some of it may be so dumb that you may find that in an attempt to be inclusive and not rule lawyering, the guilds you are hoping to include are turned off because they cannot or refuse to stoop to the levels other guilds will with gimmicky clickies, tricks and mechanics.

Dodgy strategies win mobs. See CotHing to a raid mob and instantly gating. That would be dead tomorrow if Sirken said it was not okay for all raid targets. But outside of GM intervention things like this simply will not change.

We will see how Statue and King Tormax shake out tomorrow/Sunday. For the time being it shouldn't be too gimmicky because scale prevents stupid clickies.

We've all been posting for over a year a way to make the raid scene more inclusive. Reduced variance and far more frequent sim repops to better simulate classic. Unfortunately the keys to both of those changes are in Rogean's possession only.

[Pint]

Everyone wants clearly defined server rules. The problem is that sirken, the guy who makes the rules, does not play everquest and does not have first hand experience with raiding here. He is going to give us the best rules he can but if you guys don't stop being dense and start helping to lay the ground work for those rules then you are going to end up getting the short end of this deal.

Nothing about this is hard, you take 5 minutes to think about these very basic concepts and you decide what is and isn't good for your people in the long term. Youre thinking about 1 tormax, the rest of us are planning for the next 6 months for tormax. Dont under think this bc you feel like somehow negotiating with your peers is beneath you. That attitude is what has lead to every other rule change and as history has proven time and time again, it does not work in the long term and it is particularly harsh on the casual guilds.

Shadowstep should obviously be illegal. I'm not really seeing the advantage of sow expect maybe that short cut at hub to get to statue? What would solve all of this and be immensely amusing to me is no run speed buffs at all. I do see the advantage of scale from your angle though and I think it has merit. Its just a balance between bind sight classes having a 1-2 second advantage off the line or needing another person to show up every hour, which is obviously not something that aftermath wouldn't be able to manage.

[Kileras]

Everyone is tracking the darn thing anyway, why not just make it sow only and no levi, and put a zone wide message in when it spawns. If you are honestly looking to cut down on the manpower and stupidity of tracking on some of these targets then just remove the extra body that needs to be committed for 16 hours sitting there face tracking. Removes the bind sight shenanigans and the body time commitment.

Not against face tracking but face tracking 16 hour windows just to lose because you don't have a bind sight class ( i suppose spirit of scale also fixes this ) seems pretty lame.

Looking forward to the discussion and I hope something good comes out of it for everyone involved.

[Daldaen]

Honestly...

Every single guild in this forum, and those who don't even have access yet because they are new can get behind a single universal truth.

Getting 3-5 Simulated Repops a month would drastically improve the raid situation on this server.

When the entire server shakes, and every mob is up, guilds can mostly go through and do a lot of their own things. If you want to rush to King Tormax and clear his guards and then pull him, you can. Other guilds may be occupied with Dozekar or Eashen or Cazic Thule.

Guilds who previously had no shot at a Trakanon, now can because he will be left up.

Basically every guild is allowed to take a step up because mobs that are typically 2nd/3rd tier targets for the neckbeards guilds now will be left alone for an hour or two. Likewise guilds that are currently dominating VP may move to Velious. Guilds that are very casual may be able to try their hand at Nagafen or Vox or Faydedar. Etc.

This is the one thing I think, without fail, that every guild can get behind. Why can we not have the sim repop key given to Sirken or Braknar or Llandris so that we can see them in a higher frequency (which I will again mention, is very classic because of how frequent live patches and server instability was)?

At least 1 European hour repop a month and at least 2 American hour repops a month, with 1-2 on weekends or random hours spread through the month I think would provide the most coverage that would be fair proportionally to the servers population.

[arsenalpow]

It's not going to be on the table. We all want less variance and simulated repops and fixed resist tables but that requires dev involvement and they are likely working on other stuff.

We have 16 hours of variance, an absurd raid scene, and dated raid rules. If Detoxx is serious when he's saying its no longer just about him or Awakened and it's about the health of the raid scene, then maybe something relevant will come from this summit.

[Daldaen]

There have been how many raid discussions with GMs in the life of the past two years Chest? One, maybe Two?

I think it should be brought up that Simulated Repops and possibly reduced variance are huge pluses that everyone could get behind that would reduce petitions. Yes, it requires some code changing, but Rogean was able to add spam filtering just to deal with Greengrocer, I'm sure he could swing some automated sim repops if Sirken is behind the idea.

[arsenalpow]

There have been how many raid discussions with GMs in the life of the past two years Chest? One, maybe Two?

I think it should be brought up that Simulated Repops and possibly reduced variance are huge pluses that everyone could get behind that would reduce petitions. Yes, it requires some code changing, but Rogean was able to add spam filtering just to deal with Greengrocer, I'm sure he could swing some automated sim repops if Sirken is behind the idea.

I'm not a huge fan of 16 hours of variance, but I understand why it's a fair number. It gives the Euro contingent a fair shot at seeing something pop during their hours regardless of when the window opens. Shorter windows mean if a mob is localized around the US primetime it will stay that way unless it goes late over and over and over.

The staff always says the same thing, work it out amongst yourselves. They've never really strayed from that message, but since 2009 nothing has ever been worked out. The closest things we've ever had to cooperation is the Ragefire list, the skyday rotation, and the Class R rotation, and all of those had their problems at varying points.

Would I like to kill some more ToV content? Sure. When Velious first opened Telk or Gozz would be up for a few hours, you could mobilize and get it done. We killed Eashen and Ikatiar easy peasy a couple weeks in, but like everything else in the history of p99 things got more and more hardcore and now we have the current ToV raid scene. This is the raid scene that no one really wants to participate in. You and Aftermath begrudgingly do so because it's what's required now, but it's not fun. Y'all like the loot, you like winning a race, but you don't like everything involved to get that loot. You don't like the tracking, constantly recharging, escalating tactics, and then there's the aftershow of frapsquest and lawyering and deal making.

We all play a part in this. You choose to participate, and you're forced to escalate tactics to win, there's no point in contesting if you aren't willing to match the competitions tactics right? I choose to participate in a limited fashion because I can only stomach so much of it. Others don't participate at all because they are essentially priced out.

We can all make it better, or we can continue down the destructive path we've always followed since the start of the server.

[Kileras]

frequent earthquakes means you have to be a batphone guild or you get nothing. I am not opposed to them, but just pointing out that if we quaked every weekend then even if you went for the most uncontested target, you would still need to get your guild in line with batphone/neckbeard culture to take a stab at it because if all of us larger guilds know that every mob in the game is up, many of us will just go down the list and norrath will be a safe spot in under an hour.

Anonymous would definitely benefit from frequent repops and smaller windows because we subscribe to that culture, and maybe that simply IS the raid scene culture here... but I felt it was worth pointing out that it is the spacing of the windows/lost timers ( because the lower targets aren't a priority ) that create space for smaller guilds to step up and find room.

[arsenalpow]

frequent earthquakes means you have to be a batphone guild or you get nothing. I am not opposed to them, but just pointing out that if we quaked every weekend then even if you went for the most uncontested target, you would still need to get your guild in line with batphone/neckbeard culture to take a stab at it because if all of us larger guilds know that every mob in the game is up, many of us will just go down the list and norrath will be a safe spot in under an hour.

Anonymous would definitely benefit from frequent repops and smaller windows because we subscribe to that culture, and maybe that simply IS the raid scene culture here... but I felt it was worth pointing out that it is the spacing of the windows/lost timers ( because the lower targets aren't a priority ) that create space for smaller guilds to step up and find room.

A quake provides room to operate too though. KT, Yelinak, Dain, ToV targets, Klan, Zlan, ST minis, VP, choice Kunark targets. People can only be one place at a time (unless they're splitting forces) which gives you a chance at something you wouldn't normally have access to. Yes, it would require a batphone type mentality but as you said that's probably a requirement for raiding on p99 if you want any sort of raid target.

[Daldaen]

On P99 you are basically required to have a Batphone.

Guilds who don't Batphone are already getting nothing. So a slight chance where everything spawns during your 1-2-3 scheduled raids a week, where every other guild is occupied with targets leaving you a chance to go after one... That sounds better than them currently hoping for someone to not notice a Faydedar spawn or something of that nature and that to just happen to coincide with their already scheduled raid time, does it not?

Outside of a rigid rotation, absolutely 0 variance so exact spawn times are known, or instanced raiding, I don't see how a guild with no Batphone would do well under any sort of rule set. And the 3 scenarios I just listed are extremely unlikely to happen.

[Pint]

everyone wants more repops to be sure but i think everyone needs to focus on things we can do for ourselves. if the meeting gets held and everyone comes in without having put any consideration into the issues then we're all going to walk away with something that every party is going to be second guessing the very next day. why not do everyone a favor and at least attempt to establish some reasonable standards for the raid scene instead of ending up having to agree to the best broad solution in real time bc there are too many voices who havnt taken any time to consider the issues beforehand.

i can already imagine week 1 after everyone in skype agrees that racing in tov for fte sounds like a great idea and leaving it at that. guilds show up to see 100 people standing at the tov door then they all train the living shit out of each other for 20 minutes before someone from awakened or aftermath finally ends up making it to the target and everyone else is standing around pissed off and wondering who is going to cr their guild for them.

p99, the online gaming community that rivals the us congress for partisan nonsense.

[Pan]

One thing that hasn't been brought up on the 2x proposed races is the training.

I have to think that part of the purpose of the footrace is to give the winning guild a chance to kill the target without affecting/making a mess for the other players in the zone. (And the rules as posted read a single attempt - nowhere does it say 20 mins - nor is there any other time imposed - which lends at least some credence to this supposition.)

If we have a bunch of non-factioned people motoring thru the see invis giants to get to the statue tag, that will make a big mess for those playing in the area - and by the raid rules as written, DQ that guild from any attempt on the target, irrespective of the FTE outcome.

That, of course, hasn't been spelled out, but "responsible for trains" and "conceding" are pretty clear in the raid rules as written.

Not gonna be as much of a thing with KT as it is Statue.

I don't really care what the race rules are. But they do need to be spelled out in advance (rather than not - or just before (people need time to get the right horse to the track)).

[Daldaen]

This is why FTE and 16 hour variance may not be the perfect solution to deciding who gets an attempt. It encourages blind racing to a target considering nothing else, especially now that you don't even have to live after getting FTE. People will be reckless when getting in there, and proving who has aggro on a train that wipes a poor Arena group will be difficult in the inevitable cluster of FTEers.

Which again goes back to sim repops 3-5 times monthly replacing most 7-day respawn would be far superior to the variance Windows we have. It won't be a race of 5 guilds plowing through a casual group in the arena. Likely only 1 guild will head up to Statue and other guilds will see that and figure their time is better spent at another uncontested target.

[Pan]

You know I like and have been advocating for the repops for a long, long time Dald.

I think that these races are a one-off and not meant to be a permanent solution - nor is it my impression that they're even a model for one. They seem to be a self-contained thing (irrespective of how you guys have been racing) for a specific purpose (a follow-on to a training conversation re ToV, I believe). Might be a beta test, I guess, for future policy, too?? Dunno there.

I was more getting at the one-off notion of it - and how we're gonna behave specifically on Statue this time (regarding train potential). I think that for today's race, that's germane.

[Pint]

How long are we assuming the winning guild has to engage statue or kt? Is it unlimited?

[Pan]

No limits in the current ruleset as posted. In fact, it seems to encourage being deliberate (for the reason that I added italics to below):

"The guild that won then can clear all trash up to him and kill the guards linked to him before engaging. This will eliminate any training away of trash mobs."

Seems to be encouraging a more traditional kill than a zone-affecting pull.

[Daldaen]

But can we still pull to the zone if we control the train keeping it in the arena area and dropping it back in statues area? I don't see why we should be required to clear the armors or guardians back there if we have a way of pulling him out without disrupting the zone?

Also if it spawns at 3AM and we get FTE... We could leave it up til 8PM to ensure we have an AoW kill force available?

[Detoxx]

Aftermath will be assuming that Spirit of Scale is the max speed and that intentionally leaving the mob up for an inordinate amount of time is unacceptable. If we get FTE, I think an hour is reasonable. If you are leaving the mob up longer than that, its safe to assume youre doing it just to break the spirit of the rule.

Considering you need 30 to kill statue, there is no reason to leave him up more than an hour. Also, whoever kills Statue, the 20 minute rule should still be in effect for AoW.

[Pan]

I have no answers. I was just trying to intuit the reasoning behind it. And it seems like the driver is not affecting the rest of the zone.

I know with time we can pull KT to just about anywhere. But not instantly. So were we to win either, we'd probably not kill all of the guards/accompanying targets - but we'd be careful not to make a train mess either.

But I'm just talking out my arse trying to interpret intent.

[Detoxx]

I have no answers. I was just trying to intuit the reasoning behind it. And it seems like the driver is not affecting the rest of the zone.

I know with time we can pull KT to just about anywhere. But not instantly. So were we to win either, we'd probably not kill all of the guards/accompanying targets - but we'd be careful not to make a train mess either.

But I'm just talking out my arse trying to interpret intent.

This is a temporary fix until we meet on Sunday. Not permanent.

[Daldaen]

If it's a temporary fix that's fine. But no one guild should be determining what is an inordinate amount of time to engage these raid mobs. Each guild will need varying amounts of clear, and prep time. Plus this is a rather unique opportunity for several guilds who haven't stepped too much into the Velious raid scene, I don't think allowing them to wait out an engage on Statue for a more prime time slot to have their best attendance on AoW is the end of the world.

[Daldaen]

So regarding the talk...

Will it be in Skype or will it be in Discord?

So far these guilds have posted:

Aftermath
Anonymous
Awakened
Azure Guard
Bregan D'Aerth
Divinity
Europa
Omni

So 8 representatives, Sirken and maybe Llandris/Brakan? 8-10 is fine for Skype, no? If not do people without Discord need to download it and set it up?

[Detoxx]

If it's a temporary fix that's fine. But no one guild should be determining what is an inordinate amount of time to engage these raid mobs. Each guild will need varying amounts of clear, and prep time. Plus this is a rather unique opportunity for several guilds who haven't stepped too much into the Velious raid scene, I don't think allowing them to wait out an engage on Statue for a more prime time slot to have their best attendance on AoW is the end of the world.

Well at this rate, every guild is going to do whatever they want since no one can come to simple agreements here. Cant wait for this meeting on Sunday....

[Katpal]

Divinity will also attend, so that makes 8.

Can we just do SoW then and may the best man win?

[Daldaen]

We don't want to do SoW because it allows for other stupid things like levitate rings and Shadowstep masks and bind sight.

Just grab a spirit of scale every 70 minutes and you will be on even footing with everyone else. And every class can partake if they so choose, not limited to just bind sighters.

[Katpal]

I was actually implying that just doing SoW would mean no other stupid things would be allowed, thus requiring that we all trust each other to stick to those parameters. If sticking to Scale is the only way we can do that, then I'll assume that's the decision since we are already in window.

Thanks!

[Llandris]

So 8 representatives, Sirken and maybe Llandris/Brakan? 8-10 is fine for Skype, no? If not do people without Discord need to download it and set it up?

It will most likely be on skype

[Pan]

If we could all free ourselves from any notion of p99 and step back a bit, this footrace thing is a pretty good microcosm of a lot of what we see on p99:

From the staff:
Vague rules.
Lack of clarification when prompted.
The potential for post hoc punishements based on interpretations that were asked for but not given before the fact.

From us (collectively - not mapping this on any single person or guild - remember, we're looking at this from an unbiased 50,000 feet):
Looking for any possible unintended edge.
Mapping interpretations onto it (time, as an example here).
Ignoring the spirit of the thing.
6+ pages of posturing/neck-bearding as a response to lack of clarification.
Requiring a bulletproof edict for us not to potentially do stupid things contrary to the point of the exercise.

(Don't get too caught up in what I'm saying that we (collectively) are doing - especially defending single things. The point is more that the raiding playerbase and leadership has a role in what we've created...and this one event is an illustrative fractal of that.)

We all kind of own what p99 raiding is like - staff and players (and leaders) alike.

The Statue window is open right now. We don't know what the rules of the race are and simple questions haven't been answered. We all wouldn't be surprised if the sword of Damocles were not swinging over the heads of the shadow-steppers or the lev-ringers.

And we (collectively) are trying to figure out how to near the threshold of exploitation without crossing it. But have no idea what that really means in this case - and often, ever. And, further, what (if anything) will happen when it's bumped up again or completely crossed.

This is the kind of stuff I'm interested in. I don't really care what the rules are or what they become. What I do care about is:

1. That they're communicated clearly.
2. That they're enforced uniformly.
3. That they're enforced consistently.

Failing those 3 things, this is going to be another masturbatory exercise and we'll be back at the table again after a while with these selfsame issues in play.

[Pint]

it should be pointed out that shadow step and levitate "exploits" are not in any way advantageous in kael due to the terrain you cross to get from WL to both tormax and statue. id also point out that there isnt anywhere in tov to take advantage of them either.

[Detoxx]

Agreement worked out well! Was glad to see some new competition there. Hopefully it can continue

[arsenalpow]

Agreement worked out well! Was glad to see some new competition there. Hopefully it can continue

The agreement worked out, but it's just a new type of sock. Aside from Dev intervention and overhaul does anyone have any new ideas to make the raid scene less "socky" ?

[Culkasi]

Weekly bag limits? /duck

[arsenalpow]

Weekly bag limits? /duck
Bag limits, point systems, lockouts, and that r word

That's all stuff that's been discussed at one point or another. I'm just looking for anything that could be brought to the summit to help ease the sock. I mean I put in 6 hours yesterday as an FTEr. I didn't like doing that, but it is what it is. Fifield was probably there for all 14 before it finally popped. Maybe that's a better solution than a coth race but it's only fractionally better and it's just moving the sock yet again. We went from spawn points to zone lines to login screens and back to zonelines with racers.

A sock is a sock is a sock. Let's not sugarcoat it.

[Culkasi]

I understand what you are saying Chest, I just don't see how it can happen. As long as there is just one guild willing to spend resources doing it, the rest can either do the same, or go away. There has been no coth-tracking on Sev for a long time, you guys showed up last weekend, started coth-ttracking, refused to talk about it, and we could either open our own two chains (welcome back Kunark) or call it a day. Its just the way this server works, more investment = more pixels, and pixels are more important than our sanity.
If its not server rules, any agreement on this server, rotation/non-mage/Noble/insertsomethingelshere only lasts until someone is willing to take a step closer to the edge of sanity for pixels. It becomes an escalating arms race.

I am all for stopping all this nonsense, but as you and I both know, any agremeent we make will only last until someone inevitably makes a pixel-grab, unless it is somehow enforced.
We have too many mouths to feed with too little food, so people becoming willing to things that none of us should have too, to try and feed. The only way to stop that, is to regulate our ways out of it from the top, because self regulation doesn't work.

[Daldaen]

The agreement worked out, but it's just a new type of sock. Aside from Dev intervention and overhaul does anyone have any new ideas to make the raid scene less "socky" ?

Again - Sim Repops. The solution to all of this has been extremely apparent we just need Sirken to exert his influence and ask Rogean to give him the keys to sim repopping or ask Rogean if he can automate sim repops in some way. I know I know, it's not a rule but it really is the best solution to all our troubles outside of new content (which won't happen).

Everything will move the sock outside of sim repops and low variance. You can counter the sock with limits on numbers of people that are racing for you... But this presents its own challenges. What happens if all your racers die? How do other guilds know who your racers are? Even after solving those problems you still have guys socking for 16 hours... Just less of them overall.

[Pint]

The agreement worked out, but it's just a new type of sock. Aside from Dev intervention and overhaul does anyone have any new ideas to make the raid scene less "socky" ?

Limit the number of people required to sock to a reasonable number so your guild can take it in shifts. Also reduce variance to a more reasonable number so that we're only waiting like 1/3 of a dat for a spawn instead of 2/3. And obviously repops, repops, repops.

[Daldaen]

Limit the number of people required to sock to a reasonable number so your guild can take it in shifts. Also reduce variance to a more reasonable number so that we're only waiting like 1/3 of a dat for a spawn instead of 2/3. And obviously repops, repops, repops.

Awakened and Aftermath agree to reduced variance and increased repops hugely.

Put a stamp on it.

[Pint]

You guys know we could always construct a player made agreement that all capable guilds sign off on then pre define the penalties for breaking parts or all of the agreement and sign off on those punishments, then have sirken sign off on it. Or we could keep pretending like elf sim politics are the equivalent of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and there just is no solution to our nonsense.

[Pint]

Awakened and Aftermath agree to reduced variance and increased repops hugely.

Put a stamp on it.

Everyone agrees to those things that we have no authority to exact or expectation to see forthcoming. How about you agree to the one thing we can do which is set reasonable standards for competition. Aftermath will continue to advocate putting a hard cap on the number of people required to sock an encounter so that there is no p99 arms race. We still do not understand your aversion and insistence on using unlimited #'s of both racers and coth mages = \

[Detoxx]

Everyone agrees to those things that we have no authority to exact or expectation to see forthcoming. How about you agree to the one thing we can do which is set reasonable standards for competition. Aftermath will continue to advocate putting a hard cap on the number of people required to sock an encounter so that there is no p99 arms race. We still do not understand your aversion and insistence on using unlimited #'s of both racers and coth mages = \

Been trying for weeks. They wont have it. Its a simple solution to a big problem and im sure any guild would agree to it.

[Kileras]

The reason guilds like mine are able to find room to breathe is because of how much of a time commitment it is for your massive forces to go for the best content in the game. Now when it comes to repops being frequent I understand how this benefits basically everyone on the server who is going to try and up their activity in raiding, but smaller variance is something that i think we all "want" but in practice only hurts the majority of the smaller tier guilds.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if you guys weren't so busy with the body sink that is tracking/parking for NtoV and other targets... would you just end up bored and coming down the food chain to out-game/out-sock the lower tier content that has been moderately accessible to anyone that wants to try and step up to compete?

anything that happens that lightens the load on the large guilds from a logistics point of view, does nothing to stop the mentality that you want to get every single thing you can get. So, by lightening that burden of the sock it just invites you to lock down even more content ( barring a quake ).

Us more casual folks are the ones that find the socking and tracking barrier of entry so daunting, i want it gone more than anyone. Problem is this server is so incredibly top heavy and competitive that if that burden was lifted universally i only see it resulting in the largest most dedicated guilds locking down even more content.

This goes back to the original issue as well, are we meting to discuss how wack all this training is and what the punishments should be? or are we meeting to actually deal with the incredibly difficult raiding environment/culture as a whole? For some reason, i don't think the latter is on the table.

tl;dr, reducing time commitment/resource commitment will just make competitive guilds fill their man hours with locking down more mobs, Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Pint]

If windows are shorter and repops are more frequent then we're not going to have time to go contest you in kunark bc we will have too much overlap to contend with on the fronts that we are interested in. It would mean your chances at ntov would decline but your chances at ntov are already effectively 0% so I'm not sure where else youre aiming to go. The only reason aftermath currently kills anything in kunark is bc the windows are stretching out and we're less consumed with the targets we want. Ultimately you are wrong on this one and the reality is exactly opposite of your interpretation (in my opinion).

[Daldaen]

Been trying for weeks. They wont have it. Its a simple solution to a big problem and im sure any guild would agree to it.

The tracking/poopsocking requirements aren't what precipitated this conversation Detoxx. Nor do I expect them to be a major focus of the summit.

Outdated raid rules are though.

Q10: What about a raid mob being indefinitely kited, stalled, or occupied?
A: It is against server policy to indefinitely kite, stall, or otherwise keep occupied, a raid mob without intention of killing it. You either bring it to your raid, die, or zone out. Obvious stalling of a raid mob, especially in situations to prevent engagement by another guild/party, is against the rules. Ignorance is not an excuse to break this rule, if you are pulling raid targets, we expect you to know what you’re doing.

Q11: What about training away trash mobs?
A: This is acceptable, but if you choose to use this tactic, you must keep in mind that you are responsible for your trains/mobs. Meaning if your trainer dies, and the mobs go wipe another guild, that’s still training. When the time comes to purposely drop the train, make sure to communicate and coordinate with any other guilds in the zone.

Q12: What exactly does the Staff consider a stall?
A: As far as engage stalls, the Staff will grant you one DA, or about 19 seconds on an engage before considering it a stall. So it’s important that guilds do not engage a mob until they are ready to kill it. The spirit of the rule (and what we are looking to do here) is to prevent guilds from locking up a target before they are ready to kill it, just to prevent other guilds that are ready to kill it first/faster. If you stall, you need to drop aggro immediately and concede/forfeit the mob. Any number of players can be considered to be stalling a mob, what we look for is the engage of the kill force.

Q13: Will the planes be open to everyone?
A: Yes. Please be respectful to your fellow players and respect their space. If there is a guild/party raiding Hate for some armor and they start pulling creatures, don't go up there and sit on top of them pulling mobs in their area as well. If Guild A is doing Hate, then perhaps Guild B should be doing Fear. Basically, don't be a douche bag. If you insist on being in the planes at the same time as another guild/party, you may not set up camp on top of where another guild/party has already set up camp. To clarify, there is no limit to the number of guilds/people allowed in the planes at one time.

Q14: Do we have "No-CSR" zones on Project 1999?
A: At the moment, no.

Q15: Are either of my two trackers allowed to get FTE?
A: Absolutely not. If one of your trackers gains FTE, you need to drop aggro immediately and concede/forfeit the mob.

Q16: Are we allowed to bind at raid mobs? And/or camp out toons at raid mobs?
A: Absolutely not.

Every one of these rules were written before there were perma rooted raid mobs, before there were aggro linked guards, before there were raids that requires you clear the entire zone first, back when mobs only had 32k HP max and died in 1 minute, etc.

They need to be revisited and clarified to be crystal clear so that everyone knows what's what.

For example rule 16 could easily be rewritten to say "you may only have X players attempting to acquire FTE at a starting spot / entrance at any one time". This would resolve one of your larger gripes. But that's up to every guild at this summit to decide and voice their opinion on.

------

I will echo what Pint said. Very short variance means 19 ToV targets, 3 First Brood Dragons, 3 Kael Targets, 2 PoFear targets are all overlapping. When all of that is going on, there will be 0 focus placed on things like Kunark or early Velious mobs. Even things like Klandicar and Dracoliche as you have seen, have fallen to the side in favor of other mobs.

Contrary to popular belief, most of our guild's sleep, work and live a life. We don't always have several full raid forces ready to bounce between 5 raid zones for 5 targets spawning within the same hour.

[Breaken]

Reducing variance puts windows of *all* mobs closer together. (Kunark and Velious)

Assume for a moment that midday Sunday we had a respawn, and all mobs were up. They will all die within.. 4? hours? Now if the variance of the server was 8 hours, week after week, these mobs will spawn overlapping. It would take much longer for the spawns to spread like they are right now. As it currently stands, mobs are so spread out that guilds can compete on more mobs, granted it requires a tremendous amount of work due to basically having a new mob in window at all times.

Couple reduced variance with more sim repops, and windows will stay close together even longer, maybe indefinitely. This allows the smaller guilds to have uncontested raids because I can guarantee you won't see Awakened, and probably the same for Aftermath, going for any mob deemed "lesser" when CT, KT, Doze, and Vulak are in window at the same time.

[Kileras]

If windows are shorter and repops are more frequent then we're not going to have time to go contest you in kunark bc we will have too much overlap to contend with on the fronts that we are interested in. It would mean your chances at ntov would decline but your chances at ntov are already effectively 0% so I'm not sure where else youre aiming to go. The only reason aftermath currently kills anything in kunark is bc the windows are stretching out and we're less consumed with the targets we want. Ultimately you are wrong on this one and the reality is exactly opposite of your interpretation (in my opinion).


I agree with you completely if there are frequent quakes, as in my first comment. But smaller windows without more frequent quakes is what i was talking about.

[Daldaen]

I agree with you completely if there are frequent quakes, as in my first comment. But smaller windows without more frequent quakes is what i was talking about.

It's still very unlikely and would take at least 1-2 months of no reset to have this unfold... Even then, I don't see much if any effort being put into Sev for example when Hoshkar begins dropping green scales, regardless of the spread of Windows.

[arsenalpow]

It turns ToV into a roped off area essentially. Even on a repop if pulling to the entrance is a thing it becomes almost impossible for a second guild to setup. That was apparent during the last repop when we got steamrolled by a bad ForsakenGard pull.

Lesser variance would be swell, but I think 16 hours gives a fair shake to the euro population. That amount of variance gets pops all throughout the day. Limiting variance to a small amount ensures that mobs will never really leave their initial windows.

Something that would be a simple fix is earthquake currently fully reset velious timers but not any other timers. That's bad.

[Daldaen]

ToV has 3-4 safe spots basically.

Entrance, LTK, Eashen Stairs and 1-2 little hallways/corners in HoT.

If guilds aren't allowed to pull to entrance, which I do understand the motivation behind, there aren't many safe spots left. Now... You can suggest people just clear up, but as long as FTE remains the mode of determining rights to a mob that's bound to encourage training, leapfrogging and QQ.

The zone simply was not designed for multiple guilds competing for the same mob. It's a dungeon that has linear paths where guilds must herpderp on top of one another.

Removing the non-classic Flurry Drakes that roam between Triplets and Doubles would add 2 more safe spots which would alleviate some of the issues, but not all of them.

[arsenalpow]

ToV has 3-4 safe spots basically.

Entrance, LTK, Eashen Stairs and 1-2 little hallways/corners in HoT.

If guilds aren't allowed to pull to entrance, which I do understand the motivation behind, there aren't many safe spots left. Now... You can suggest people just clear up, but as long as FTE remains the mode of determining rights to a mob that's bound to encourage training, leapfrogging and QQ.

The zone simply was not designed for multiple guilds competing for the same mob. It's a dungeon that has linear paths where guilds must herpderp on top of one another.

Removing the non-classic Flurry Drakes that roam between Triplets and Doubles would add 2 more safe spots which would alleviate some of the issues, but not all of them.

Eashen stairs are only kinda safe. If a force is at the stairs, pulling anything from North will likely eat that raid force, it's just like pulling through someone at the entrance hallway.

Everything you're saying is why we need to re-think the raid scene somehow. You're right, ToV wasn't meant to be shared because there are a minimal number of spots, so let's figure something out. We are in this super unique scenario where there's literally 10 guilds that could kill stuff in ToV, and probably 5 or 6 that could merc Vulak or Vyemm. That's never been something any EQ server has had to deal with, the next expansion would open and the pressure would be released. We don't have that here. Footraces for a shot are a tiny improvement over a coth race but it's still a tiny bandaid on a gaping wound.

[bktroost]

If winning weren't important you could just rotate single attempts on mobs each week. Do you know how many failed attempts the casual guilds would have on the dragons they actually CAN kill? There would be plenty of ffa competition each week.

Also, very few casual guilds want to spend their entire weekend killing every Dragon in ToV, especially if we are killing up to the mobs. Too much time investment. So if you went down the rotation road you wouldn't be divvying up the zone into equal shares. Hard core would stay Hard core and not all guilds would be created equal...which is 100% fine by everyone involved.

[Daldaen]

It's not so much winning that's important/fun, what's important to most of my guildmates and what make raiding fun for them is feeling pressured/strapped for time by competing guilds contesting and engaging mobs before you know whether you're truly going to win. Whether the Ch chain is still being tossed together, adds are still being cleared/removed, people are still logging in, etc. I'm sure everyone can remember their most fun raid encounters.

Many of them stem from one of two things, atleast for me personally (this extends to live, Mac and P99). A solid guild effort working towards a goal and eventually downing a boss you had wiped to many times before, or managing to pull off a kill of a mob you have been farming when the odds were against you and your class makeup was far from ideal. Those fights when a paladin tanks 40% of the fight. Or where the clerics are running on fumes for 30%, etc.

Rotating ToV would not work out well. If you were leading an AG raid to Kreizenn and Vulak spawns... Awakened and Aftermath are going to want to pull Vulak immediately. Waiting an hour or two for you to clear into Kreizenn to kill him just isn't feasible. This goes for about everything in ToV. If you're clearing to a target, and another one spawns, the zone is too linear for guilds to not have to pull/run/train through each other.

[Katpal]

Banning the train pulling would be a nice start. Trash mobs are there for a reason and clearing to the target is the easiest way to avoid disrupting a zone. No one said it would be easy, but I would prefer to play the game, not manipulate it.

Working together along with GM assistance is how we solve this and I hope this is what Sunday is all about.

-Katlin, Divinity

[bktroost]

It's not so much winning that's important/fun, what's important to most of my guildmates and what make raiding fun for them is feeling pressured/strapped for time by competing guilds contesting and engaging mobs before you know whether you're truly going to win. Whether the Ch chain is still being tossed together, adds are still being cleared/removed, people are still logging in, etc. I'm sure everyone can remember their most fun raid encounters.

Many of them stem from one of two things, atleast for me personally (this extends to live, Mac and P99). A solid guild effort working towards a goal and eventually downing a boss you had wiped to many times before, or managing to pull off a kill of a mob you have been farming when the odds were against you and your class makeup was far from ideal. Those fights when a paladin tanks 40% of the fight. Or where the clerics are running on fumes for 30%, etc.

Rotating ToV would not work out well. If you were leading an AG raid to Kreizenn and Vulak spawns... Awakened and Aftermath are going to want to pull Vulak immediately. Waiting an hour or two for you to clear into Kreizenn to kill him just isn't feasible. This goes for about everything in ToV. If you're clearing to a target, and another one spawns, the zone is too linear for guilds to not have to pull/run/train through each other.

The problem is that is ALREADY how it works. In our current scenario, If mob A pops and your guild is already killing mob B at entrance, I can log my guild in at entrance and start cothing them and fighting through the trash and flurries to mob A. You cannot immediately pull through a camp without training them and that's your responsibility as the one controlling the train. It is not the responsibility of the bystander raid that is actively fighting to that encounter. Now if the guild sets up camp in a pull spot and is waiting for more players to log on, etc then they are intentionally causing zone disruption. However, that does not mean you can pull through them and train them. Two wrongs get both guilds suspended; two wrongs do not make a right.

That being said. A rotation would be exactly the scenario we are currently in now as far as pulling is concerned. You would in fact have to wait for that other guild to move to their mob before pulling the other mob to entrance if that is how you chose to race for that mob. (though in that scenario the guild just cleared all the way up so there's no reason why you couldn't just race your raid force up to the mob)

[Pint]

i find it unlikely that the staff is going to 180 and support the idea of a rotation. i also dont think you guys are being realistic about clearing to dragons for kills. it is a lot of fun, but it will take you 1-2 extra hours at a minimum per dragon in a wing with 15 dragons. you will kill your guilds clearing through the wings, you will train your guilds trying to split out dragons, you will fail the fight itself due to being in the middle of a hostile wing with poor positioning choices to set your fight up or simply due to being green at the specific encounter. this will take you 2-5 hours per dragon and during that time the bigger better organized guilds will simply walk over your corpses and kill the mob in front of you. im not trying to be an asshole, im simply trying to depict the reality of how these things would play out, especially at the start. this would compound with the fact that their are 15 dragons in north wing, even if it was one of the more capable guilds it would still take them 2 hours per dragon and them working in the wing would effectively lock you out of it. the only way a rotation would work is some form of extreme rotation in which the entire wing was given to a specific guild for a large span of hours and then you would have to hope for the mobs to spawn at the perfect times on the ideal days for your raid force. it seems to me that before the staff went through the serious amounts of headache and overhaul it would take to institute a real workable rotation that they would instead just throw up their hands and declare tov a FFA nut house and walk away.

[Pan]

At the heart of it, it's a resource distribution problem that's exacerbated by the reasons that Chest mentioned (i.e. ecosystem filled with a ton of potentially apex-ish predators).

The predators (guilds) in this ecosystem, don't have a switch for "sated". And, really, none of us are yet anyway. We all have people who still "need" things (spanning the gamut in a lot of cases).

It's also pretty clear that a lot of folks enjoy competition in one form or another. If we didn't, we'd all build our own emus and play there.

-------

I think that the real issue here - and it's not been addressed anywhere - is what the owners of this emu want it to look like - in terms of raid culture AND resource distribution. On some level, that's up to them - and the rules that they write and enforce should support that "vision".

They've said in the past that they want an open system - that it's "classic" for one guild to dominate and consume all the resources (pixels). Yet we have seen that's not entirely true because they implemented the R/C/FFA solution to break the TMO monopoly on consumption. So we have to think that definition of "classic" isn't exactly what they want.

If it were up to me, I'd press the owners/gods of this server (Rogean/Nilbog) for their vision - what they want the thing to look like - how they want the resources to end up falling out - and THEN tune to that.

There are a million ways to get that done - a million rulesets that you could implement - a million tiny tweaks to code to support that outcome. Some better than others, but even the dumb ones could get the job done. If the job were actually defined.

But really, I don't think they know what they want. Or haven't approached it that way nor communicated that. So we're rather left in the dark trying to answer questions that haven't been asked. And to lead our guilds in ways that make sense and make p99 meaningful to the players who choose to share our tag.

Rogean - Nilbog: Tell us what you want this place to look like. Tell us what your expectations are of the raid scene. Tell us how the pixels should fall out, in your minds, among the hierarchy of the predators. ----- and "classic" is NOT an answer - the nature of the server isn't classic for a TON of reasons - not the least of which is its topheavy nature. So that's just a copout. You have something here that's eclipsed "classic" and there's no replicating classic relationships among guilds and vs. E of PvE. (and I'm not suggesting that the code, generally, nor the mechanics deviate from the "classic" that you've replicated - it's more the economics, broadly (resource distribution, for one) that have gotten lost and loose and can nor will ever be "classic" - and that's an important distinction)

Then let us get together and propose some solutions to support your vision. Be willing to implement them - including maybe some code changes. And be willing to tune to that vision that we all share (we will have bought in evidenced by the participation of those who chose to continue).

I kinda feel like we've been trying to patch the same thing since the R/C/FFA talks. And, if you'll recall, those talks and Sirken-implemented outcomes got turned sideways and replaced by Rogean...with something that he hoped would support his vision (whether he'd articulate it that way or not).

Yet here we are again.

I realize that this is long and pretty conceptual. But what do they say the definition of insanity is?

[bktroost]

i find it unlikely that the staff is going to 180 and support the idea of a rotation. i also dont think you guys are being realistic about clearing to dragons for kills. it is a lot of fun, but it will take you 1-2 extra hours at a minimum per dragon in a wing with 15 dragons. you will kill your guilds clearing through the wings, you will train your guilds trying to split out dragons, you will fail the fight itself due to being in the middle of a hostile wing with poor positioning choices to set your fight up or simply due to being green at the specific encounter. this will take you 2-5 hours per dragon and during that time the bigger better organized guilds will simply walk over your corpses and kill the mob in front of you. im not trying to be an asshole, im simply trying to depict the reality of how these things would play out, especially at the start. this would compound with the fact that their are 15 dragons in north wing, even if it was one of the more capable guilds it would still take them 2 hours per dragon and them working in the wing would effectively lock you out of it. the only way a rotation would work is some form of extreme rotation in which the entire wing was given to a specific guild for a large span of hours and then you would have to hope for the mobs to spawn at the perfect times on the ideal days for your raid force. it seems to me that before the staff went through the serious amounts of headache and overhaul it would take to institute a real workable rotation that they would instead just throw up their hands and declare tov a FFA nut house and walk away.


I actually did this. I was trained 5 Times and killed a .GoV Dragon in about an hour. I am using real data. You are hypothesizing. Where is your data?

[bktroost]

I actually did this. I was trained 5 times and killed a. NToV Dragon in about an hour. I am using real data. You are hypothesizing. Where is your data?

I realize that sounds more like I'm being snarky than actually inquiring. All I've seen was pulling to entrance since early on. I wasn't watching the first month. I'm actually asking to get the data you are referring to when things must have been different and didn't work.

[Daldaen]

When competition started in ToV, most kills occurred in the Aaryonar tunnel. The guilds would clear the 2 statics at the stairs and then pull every dragon past the Aary stairs where it would get tagged out and pulled into camp.

The problem with this of course was there is only 1 single location for guilds to occupy. Guilds would often train each other with the baby drakes, Eashen guards and wyverns when late comers would run by recklessly. Also some guilds would be parked out at the stairs up to Aary and some at the Eashen ramp, the later has to pull through the former. It's very messy. Plus there were some issues with certain individuals summoning eyes and dropping trains on other guilds thinking it was undetectable. In short, guilds being asked to sit on top of each other in the one viable camp leads to huge issues.

Veeshan's Peak has operated and will continue to operate in the same capacity that it has for the past 2-3 years where dragons are pulled across the zone and ripped off.

What about ToV makes it not allowable for the same strategies to take place? Yes it's a level 46 zone rather than a keyed quest. And yes there are HoT raids that occasionally occur. But even with those in mind. ToV is the end zone like VP. I think high end/neckbeard guilds can be more vocal about trains coming through, holding aggro on them, dropping them in better locations and giving warning when dropping them like the raid rules ask.

[Culkasi]

Raid rules don't say its okay to drop a train as long as you warn people - raid rules say you are responsible to make sure your train doesn't destroy someone else. If you can't do that, then don't train, take your time and kill the mobs in another way. The people for whom 2 hrs / mob is unacceptable are those that want to kill 25 mobs every cycle - for the rest of us its very reasonable - heck, we'd be willing to spend an entire Sunday on 1 NToV mob. Food for thought.

[Pint]

I actually did this. I was trained 5 Times and killed a .GoV Dragon in about an hour. I am using real data. You are hypothesizing. Where is your data?

I was there that day when you cothed your raid up to triplets and promptly trained yourselves killing everyone. Even not counting the server down time after your wipe it still took you well over an hour to kill cekenar and cekenar and the other triplets are in a pretty unique place where only 5 mobs require clearing. I'm not really just theory crafting, I've cleared into the wing multiple times to kill various dragons and pre zone in days we used to set up our raid every week at various places within the wing, its a very messy place to be and anything can go wrong as you saw with cekenar. Had that cekenar been contested we would've walked over your corpses and killed it, the triplets are essentially beefed up vindis in relation to dps output and hp totals.

[Pint]

It's probably worth acknowledging that VP trash repops in 6 minutes and tov takes 72 minutes. I also don't want to gloss over the fact that your guilds would be happy to take a few hours to kill 1 dragon and find that rewarding, it would be rewarding and fun. The problem is that the larger guilds probably wouldn't be patient enough to wait you out and additionally depending on the dragon your multi hour long pursuit puts you in the way of the other 14 potential dragons.

[Daldaen]

Raid rules don't say its okay to drop a train as long as you warn people - raid rules say you are responsible to make sure your train doesn't destroy someone else. If you can't do that, then don't train, take your time and kill the mobs in another way. The people for whom 2 hrs / mob is unacceptable are those that want to kill 25 mobs every cycle - for the rest of us its very reasonable - heck, we'd be willing to spend an entire Sunday on 1 NToV mob. Food for thought.

No the rules state this:


Q11: What about training away trash mobs?
A: This is acceptable, but if you choose to use this tactic, you must keep in mind that you are responsible for your trains/mobs. Meaning if your trainer dies, and the mobs go wipe another guild, that’s still training. When the time comes to purposely drop the train, make sure to communicate and coordinate with any other guilds in the zone.

If your trainer dies you're responsible for the train. However if your trainer doesn't die, when it comes time to drop the train, you must clearly coordinate that with the zone. At which it is the zones responsibility to take care, however the trainer needs to be clear about where the train is an give ample warning.

Trains in ToV are typically dropped mostly beyond the north door by Awakened because of how our pull works, the counter train brings anything KoS to CoV friendlies back to its proper place in North, impacting no one unless you are sitting in the 4-way of ToV, in which case you are just sitting there to be in a direct pull path and complain about it. There is no real reason to be in the 4-way of ToV for any extended period of time.

Trains in Kael are typically dropped in the EW tunnel and have ample time to give warning to anyone running through to hang out at EW zoneline or duck away near plate house. This is something guilds competing for these targets could improve upon.

I think the issue isn't that trains are needing to be banned, they just need to be controlled better, dropped in better locations and clearly communicated to the rest of the zone when/where they will be dropped.

It is fully possible to ask/require guilds pulling Tormax for example to DA run back through their train and drop it back in KT Area to impact minimal people. Its also possible to ask ToV trainers to drop their trains beyond the north door rather than leave them in West.

This is not Karnor's Castle where a raid mob is being pulled past 2-3 very typical and often filled camps. No guilds hang out in the 4-way in ToV or in the NToV hallways. Very few guilds or groups hang out in the EW Tunnel, or KT Area lately, if they do they can easily move aside for 1-2minutes as a train comes through once every 7 days.

[Culkasi]

This is where we fundemantelly disagree - the rest of the server should not move away from anything because 2 guilds feel the need to to kill so many mobs every cycle, that they have to be done so quickly, that the only way to do it is by training.

[Daldaen]

Indeed this is definitely where our views differ.

My view is that the rest of the server should not be forced to slog through several hours of NToV clearing for every single dragon just because 3 guilds feel they want to start dungeon crawling to mobs, and petition any guild that tries to pull because they stand in the middle of the pull path.

Either way, one side wants to force the other side to conform to their play style. Why should the side stating they only want to make 1-2 attempts a week force the side who is interested in contesting every single mob every single week, and has been for months, to conforming to their play style all of a sudden?

I don't think being asked to move to the side for a total of about 2-3 minutes out of a week in Kael (in areas no one typically groups) or just not hanging out in the 4-way or NToV hallways in ToV for extended periods of time (which there is literally no reason to do) is that ridiculous to allow for a more sleek raid environment.

Thats what doesn't make sense to me.

[Pan]

I think that the disagreement is more about splitting hairs than disagreeing.

First of all, you're only quoting one aspect of the training rules. Culk is interpreting them more broadly than you.

Q1: What is considered a "raid" on Project 1999?
A: A raid is any group of players looking to engage a raid target OR any force consisting of more than one group united in a common goal. This means that three people can be considered a raid if they intend to kill Dracoliche, or 20 people clearing fear trash. Most epic NPC's are not strictly considered "raid" mobs. The exception to this is Ragefire, which is considered a 'raid target' for the purposes of qualifying a group as a raid only. For all other intents and purposes, Ragefire is treated like an Epic NPC (IE, camp/poopsock rules do not apply). Please keep in mind that because of the need to clear to a raid target, trains enacted on players in the way of your raid are considered raid violations and action could be taken against your guild as a whole, regardless of whether the victims are part of a raid. It is in your best interest to be very careful when racing for a target, especially when it involves training away mobs.


Q2: What exactly is Raid Disruption or Raid Interference?
A: Q3 and Q4 deal with what to do when this happens, but "Raid disruption" and "raid interference" are broad terms that cover a long list of things (near simultaneous FTE, training, kill-stealing, setting of AEs on other people, any violation of the posted raid rules, etc).

Q11: What about training away trash mobs?
A: This is acceptable, but if you choose to use this tactic, you must keep in mind that you are responsible for your trains/mobs. Meaning if your trainer dies, and the mobs go wipe another guild, that’s still training. When the time comes to purposely drop the train, make sure to communicate and coordinate with any other guilds in the zone.

Also note that the communication in Q11 doesn't absolve responsibility even with communication. Unless you want to twist it.

For the sake of argument, assume that Culk is right in his interpretation. And leave it at that for a second.

On some level, for this thread, his "rightness" becomes irrelevant because we've all been called to this summit tomorrow to revisit and revamp the raid rules. And this thread seems to be the right venue to discuss changes and clarifications in advance.

I don't blame you guys for advocating for training in ToV. It's a mess mechanically there and it's in your best interest to try to change the raid rules to allow it.

Culk (and I and others) may fundamentally disagree with the approach as the rules read currently. And to say that we don't have a dog in the fight is short sighted. To wit, the way the rules read has prevented CSG from competing for targets like KT in Kael because it's impossible to do KT any other way given how fast he's pulled. And we were unwilling to train the rest of the zone, so that target is off the table for us. (And before you start telling me that stuff always goes to EW, that's patently untrue. We've eaten plenty of backwash at various times from both KT and Statue pulls - including raid wipes - since Velious release. Moreover, you (nor I) just cannot control who zones into EW and when, so therefore you run on a risk/reward basis (i.e. chances are low that people will be zoning in to Kael during - so therefore your risk of violating the training rule supersedes the potential reward from KT - and it's a risk you're willing to take) whereas CSG has chosen not to engage in that math but, instead, pass on that target because we're unwilling to assume the risk of willfully breaking the rules out of principle to compete on KT like you guys do.) And that's not insignificant nor unimportant.

But that doesn't mean it's not something that you should bring to the table tomorrow. Nor does it mean that this isn't the right place to make a case in advance. Nor does it mean that the rules might not need to be changed with zone mechanics in mind.

That said, amending the rules to allow/encourage training with impunity and/or without consequence might not be the only or best solution. There could be something a whole lot more elegant - or a whole lot more inconvenient that shakes out of this mess. And apparently we all have a voice in it.

Whatever does happen, though, we'll all need to adapt to whatever comes of it.

--------------------------

In a VERY unrelated side note, I think we should all press Sirken early on to see if there's any hope of getting code amended. We know that is something he cannot do personally, but only suggest. If we can determine that's off (or on) the table from the very beginning, that will save (or cause) a lot of noise and keep the discussion better focused on what we actually have to work with in making the raid scene better and saner across the board.

[Pint]

I think you're avoiding the guys issue daldaen. Both of our guilds train into north and drop them when they are in north by design. He is saying that his guild should have the right to be in the north wing and not get over run by our trains and he is correct. If they want to be in north and not get trained that is reasonable but the current raid rules prohibit you from being in the vicinity of a raid mob prior to its spawn so there isn't really a way for them to pre position in north and still be eligible for the dragon that spawns. If they try to.mobilize and get in there before we pull it might be acceptable but currently since a pull happens within 12 seconds of a spawn that doesn't seem feasible.

[Pint]

I dont think I'm buying that csg wont do tormax bc they think the training is wrong, I think the reality is that you dont trust your people to be able to control or contain the chaos that comes with these high intensity situations. If we were race clearing to tormax instead of train pulling then you would be in the same situation where you dont fully trust your pull team not to train yourselves or your opponents while trying to speed clear and split to tormax. If you've got enough competent people then these strategies are not as unwieldy as people make them out to be, consider the number of targets killed over the past few months to the number of raid suspensions given out.

[Culkasi]

I dont think I'm buying that csg wont do tormax bc they think the training is wrong, I think the reality is that you dont trust your people to be able to control or contain the chaos that comes with these high intensity situations. If we were race clearing to tormax instead of train pulling then you would be in the same situation where you dont fully trust your pull team not to train yourselves or your opponents while trying to speed clear and split to tormax. If you've got enough competent people then these strategies are not as unwieldy as people make them out to be, consider the number of targets killed over the past few months to the number of raid suspensions given out.

Then you don't know us very well - that is 100% the only reason we haven't attempted King Tormax. If we were afraid we couldn't do it, we would try, see were we failed, go away and improve, and come back, like we have on every other single encounter we've progressed through.

[bktroost]

I dont think I'm buying that csg wont do tormax bc they think the training is wrong, I think the reality is that you dont trust your people to be able to control or contain the chaos that comes with these high intensity situations. If we were race clearing to tormax instead of train pulling then you would be in the same situation where you dont fully trust your pull team not to train yourselves or your opponents while trying to speed clear and split to tormax. If you've got enough competent people then these strategies are not as unwieldy as people make them out to be, consider the number of targets killed over the past few months to the number of raid suspensions given out.

You are incorrect. Can we not afford locket of escapes? Can we not bring 100 people to a batphone? 80% of them being level 60? Arn't 2/3rds of the CSG leadership monk mains? No, ability is not the concern. It's entirely about the environment of the server.

We will show up to CT and play with the big boys on CT at 4am est or whatever this week was because THAT is some fun competition right there. Good clean fun where no one gets hurt and I got no problem losing to the faster aoe team and the better raid force. But training Kael or ToV with mobs and wiping literally all life in a pursuit for my personal pixels is not how i see the raid rules. To us, that's an exclusive format at best and an environment built on raid infractions at worst.

Let's not distract ourselves with conversation of ability. It has no part in this discussion.

[Sirken]

Just a small update.

For the voice chat I'm leaning towards discord, please have that installed on your computer if you are planning to attend. You can download it for free here: https://discordapp.com/download


Regarding Variance; we have no plans, intentions, or desire to adjust the current Variance. It use to be a much larger window, and currently we feel it's in a nice middle ground between what Variance use to be and not having Variance at all. So love it or hate it, it's not worth discussing in this thread.

Regarding Earthquakes/Sim Repops: Literally everyone agrees that 3-5 repops a month would be ideal and work wonders across the board for everyone. I've never seen a player say more repops would be a bad idea. so again this topic is not worth discussing in this thread.


You pals should focus on problems within the raid scene. Things like training, griefing, rules that no longer apply and need to be changed, how to change those rules, revamping the concession system in a 3+ guild system, other ways incidents can be worked out between guilds when its more than just two guilds, how to avoid petitioning every encounter, and things within that realm, etc. Those are the types of things you should all be discussing here, with a focus on ToV and Kael (as those seem to be the biggest problem zones).


Another thing ive been hearing and getting messages about is who all will be here for this meeting. I'm looking for guild leaders of actual raiding guilds. The reason for this is that while i'd love to invite literally every guild leader on the server, the fact of the matter is that we've already seen in the past that things get increasingly harder with every extra person you add. I simply do not feel it's necessary to include everyone just so no one feels left out, or not special. you are all very special unique snowflakes. i just firmly believe it would be best to limit attendance to the Guild Leaders of the guilds that are currently dealing with the shit storm, as they are the ones most familiar with the issues and would have the best insight on those issues.

i hope this helped clear some things up, and i am very much looking forward to talking with you all tomorrow.

<3
Sirken

[Pint]

Damn that is soul crushing but also extremely helpful. Two of the biggest issues currently due to kunark era rules are the rules around a stall and a kite. They need to be looked at very closely which is probably going to be a difficult conversation since only 2 of the guilds have a significant deal of experience with the intricacies of stalling and kiting as it relates to tov and Kael = \

[Pan]

Pint, I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. But you cannot read my mind so I object to you mapping that onto me. This probably isn't the right place for this, but maybe it is. Because our perspective counts, too, when it comes to discussing the rules. What follows is a portion of a post that I made to our guild forums on 8 Feb 2016 called: PSA - a word on target selection and being Omni:

I’ve heard there are some questions about why we select the targets that we do.

I need to make a few things clear right up front. There are some raid rules for this server. They live here: (links provided)

And even though they do not get enforced regularly or consistently we follow them. Even tho the punishments are seldom enough to serve as a deterrent, we follow them.

The reason we follow them is because we’re guests here. If I come into your house and you ask me not to drink all of your beer and not to kick your dog, I don’t. Because it’s your house and I’m a guest. So, too, is it on the server with the server’s rules.

That means several things to us. First, it limits our target selection. Many of you saw the trains that we ate on King Tormax. On this server, King Tormax is pulled to the zone – with his friends flopped off somewhere. Not necessarily onto people, but without any regard to the backwash pathing through the zone. (more raid rules quoted)

That means given the way that the rules are enforced now, guilds who are willing to break those rules kill KT instantly. They don’t clear to him. So, too, is it in NToV. You must necessarily cheat to kill those mobs.

What that means for us, in this moment, is KT and NToV mobs (and to a degree, VP mobs) are off the table for us if we choose to follow the rules. And we have a (nearly) two year history of that. I won’t lead a guild that kicks the dog and drinks all of the beer. That’s not what Omni has been, nor will it be.

But that necessarily limits our target selections. So we make the best decisions we can within the rules.


This was met with broad approval by my guildmates. And within CSG, too. And that IS the reason that KT is off the table for us for now (except on repops).

But Pint, your reply speaks volumes regarding the raid scene on the server. The very fact that you cannot imagine someone doing something out of principle, thereby needing to map another (baser) motivation onto it is very telling.

But you've got NO business trying to divine intentions. You're dead wrong on this one.

[Daldaen]

Just a small update.

For the voice chat I'm leaning towards discord, please have that installed on your computer if you are planning to attend. You can download it for free here: https://discordapp.com/download


Regarding Variance; we have no plans, intentions, or desire to adjust the current Variance. It use to be a much larger window, and currently we feel it's in a nice middle ground between what Variance use to be and not having Variance at all. So love it or hate it, it's not worth discussing in this thread.

Regarding Earthquakes/Sim Repops: Literally everyone agrees that 3-5 repops a month would be ideal and work wonders across the board for everyone. I've never seen a player say more repops would be a bad idea. so again this topic is not worth discussing in this thread.


You pals should focus on problems within the raid scene. Things like training, griefing, rules that no longer apply and need to be changed, how to change those rules, revamping the concession system in a 3+ guild system, other ways incidents can be worked out between guilds when its more than just two guilds, how to avoid petitioning every encounter, and things within that realm, etc. Those are the types of things you should all be discussing here, with a focus on ToV and Kael (as those seem to be the biggest problem zones).


Another thing ive been hearing and getting messages about is who all will be here for this meeting. I'm looking for guild leaders of actual raiding guilds. The reason for this is that while i'd love to invite literally every guild leader on the server, the fact of the matter is that we've already seen in the past that things get increasingly harder with every extra person you add. I simply do not feel it's necessary to include everyone just so no one feels left out, or not special. you are all very special unique snowflakes. i just firmly believe it would be best to limit attendance to the Guild Leaders of the guilds that are currently dealing with the shit storm, as they are the ones most familiar with the issues and would have the best insight on those issues.

i hope this helped clear some things up, and i am very much looking forward to talking with you all tomorrow.

<3
Sirken

Taking the discussion of Variance Reduction and Increased Sim Repops off the table removes the absolute most important / viable solutions to resolving a huge number of issues we have with our raid scene here Sirken. Are these really things that Rogean will not touch? As you said, everyone agrees it would be a good thing.

--I realize its not a topic for tomorrows summit, but can you push Rogean to give you the capability or automate sim repops, as it would make your (and every raid guild on this server's) life far easier.

As Chest stated earlier, any other rule changes will simply be bandaids onto a festering wound.

We can surely talk about revamping some rules to be brought up to date, but that will not reduce the number of petitions, trains, or the concession scene much at all. Those are all issues that arise out of too many top-end guilds and not enough content being up simultaneously forcing them to spread out.

[arsenalpow]

Div/Anon should send a singular rep, as should CSG. I don't need to hear a position 3 separate times from CSG nor do I want to hear all 3 of you agreeing with each other after every point you make.

[Culkasi]

Div/Anon should send a singular rep, as should CSG. I don't need to hear a position 3 separate times from CSG nor do I want to hear all 3 of you agreeing with each other after every point you make.

We are 3 individual raid guilds and of course Cloki, Nemce and I will all participate. I cannot speak for Divinity and Anonymous.

[arsenalpow]

We are 3 individual raid guilds and of course Cloki, Nemce and I will all participate. I cannot speak for Divinity and Anonymous.

You refer to yourselves as the raiding alliance CSG, you aren't 3 separate guilds when it comes to actual contested raiding. CSG kills Klandicars and Cekenars or whatever. Europa has a skyday, but so does infernus and blackheart pirates and you don't see them with a seat at this table.

Everyone else gets one rep, so should your raiding entity. I don't want an echo.

[Culkasi]

We are individual guilds who make individual decisions. Just like you didn't get to dictate who was a guild in Class R, you don't get to dictate it now. Be less worried about echoes and more worried about what to discuss tomorrow.

[arsenalpow]

We are individual guilds who make individual decisions. Just like you didn't get to dictate who was a guild in Class R, you don't get to dictate it now. Be less worried about echoes and more worried about what to discuss tomorrow.

Based on my posts in this thread it would seem that I have a solid grasp of the raiding issues on this server, I also understand when Sirken says one rep he means one rep.

[Culkasi]

Based on my posts in this thread it would seem that I have a solid grasp of the raiding issues on this server, I also understand when Sirken says one rep he means one rep.

Yep, one rep from each gulid who raid in ToV and Kael etc. We all do that, individually, we have all, individually, eaten the crap from backwash trains, we are all, individually, capable of killing most of the stuff on this server - we do it together because your actions forced us to, and we found out we like each other and trust each other - but we are still 3 very individual raiding guilds who spend 95% of the week raiding on our own.
CSG only exists because you wanted to exclude people from content, and it was our weapon against it (heck, we even named it after the derogatory term you used to describe us) - Sirken has in communication with me clearly said his expectation is that we'll all 3 be there, and of course that is how it should be.
Please try not to bring that arrogance to the meeting tomorrow, it doesn't become you nor the discussions we are going to have.

[Pan]

There's a medium-sized elephant in this particular room, too, that hasn't been addressed for good reason. And that is:

Guilds have gotten together amongst themselves and established rotations for various targets and zones. Some more formal than others. And some more persistent than others.

Whether people want to talk about it (or the barrier to entry into these rotations) is pretty irrelevant. But what IS relevant is that as a stopgap to some of the idiocy in the rules and the mechanics, that is a go-to play for nearly all of us (us included in our sphere).

So there's that, too.

[Kileras]

Divinity / Anon would like to have 1 representative each. Our working together is very recent and while I understand where Chest is coming from I don't think that either of us would feel comfortable not being present. I have no interest in this taking all day and I am not a parrot, I am here to listen and hopefully contribute in any way I can to make this somehow get better.

I plan on being there, and actually excited to meet you all more formally and at the least develop a discourse with some of you.

[arsenalpow]

I'm interested in a productive summit, and having 3 people representing the same exact raiding entity under the guise of "we're 3 separate raiding guilds guy" is counter productive. Cloki is going to make some point with a bunch of five syllable words, then Nemce will vehemently agree with Cloki and expound upon that exact same position, then Culkasi can also chip in with agreement give more of the exact same points. That won't be productive. I've only been to every single one of these things, I know how they go. You should send one rep or have one speaking rep.

[Sirken]

to clarify, if your guild has access to these forums, then the staff probably considers you a raiding guild.

you'd think my post said only Awakened and Aftermath are invited based on the messages i've gotten :p

[Sirken]

I'm interested in a productive summit, and having 3 people representing the same exact raiding entity under the guise of "we're 3 separate raiding guilds guy" is counter productive. Cloki is going to make some point with a bunch of five syllable words, then Nemce will vehemently agree with Cloki and expound upon that exact same position, then Culkasi can also chip in with agreement give more of the exact same points. That won't be productive. I've only been to every single one of these things, I know how they go. You should send one rep or have one speaking rep.

Each guild can send 1 rep. if you don't like it, you don't have to attend.

if someone is just going to parrot a previous speaker, then i'm just going to cut them off and move on to the next person. ideally, if a person just wants to echo something that's already been said, they can simply say "i agree with everything soandso said"

[Pint]

its time to get real and start exchanging ideas on the problems with the rules as they pertain to velious. i do not want to be condescending but awakened and aftermath know significantly more than the rest of you in relation to what the problems are with these zones with the current rule set. it would be very beneficial for you guys to start throwing out specifics and to start asking questions about what and why certain things are problematic. i know youre all going to want to discuss the train pulling issue which is absolutely fair game, but you also need to begin to establish an understanding of some of the real week in and week out issues that we're having in these zones if you want to participate in fixing them.

most of the consistent problems revolve around "vicinity of mob X", what is a kite and what amount of wiggle room is there for a messy pull to not be classified as a kite, what is a stall and what amount of wiggle room is there for a botched and recovered engage to not be considered a stall.

it is also worth everyone's time to try and set out a clear set of standards for minimizing the sock and competing for FTE if you truly wish to start entering tov and kael. if you do not clearly set out standards for these zones then awakened and aftermath will start an arms race to muscle you out of them.

the bolded parts are 4 issues i think you all need to begin to get a good grasp of before you enter a real time 8 way discussion on topics that you might not know enough about to make a well informed decision.

[Pint]

csg and anon/div thing isnt a terribly big deal to aftermath, they can all have input, they should vote as a singular block though obviously.

[Pan]

Pint, there's no doubt that you guys are far more experienced with the mechanics of those zones and the problems that they create. And our input will be limited and based on MUCH less experience than yours. I'm under no illusions that way.

And I think we all share the goal and values of reducing the sock and having a sane raid environment.

And, for the record, I'm not necessarily against the idea of "train pulling" if that's how it shakes out.

On some level, I don't really care what the ruleset ends up being as long as it's:
1) communicated
2) enforced
3) enforced consistently

We can adapt our playstyle to whatever the owners of the p99 box dictate.

That said, part of your advocacy is based on the playstyle that you've adopted. You state:
It's probably worth acknowledging that VP trash repops in 6 minutes and tov takes 72 minutes. I also don't want to gloss over the fact that your guilds would be happy to take a few hours to kill 1 dragon and find that rewarding, it would be rewarding and fun. The problem is that the larger guilds probably wouldn't be patient enough to wait you out and additionally depending on the dragon your multi hour long pursuit puts you in the way of the other 14 potential dragons.

Not wanting to be patient on your part is a choice. Should I advocate patience in the meeting, that's my choice - and has nothing to do with my understanding of the intricacies of the pulls and mechanics there. But you are NOT, logically, ethically, conceptually, or any other -lly more right than I in your position. They're just different. And that's part of the reason for the discussion.

Hypothetically, they could say "fuck it" and decide to tether the nameds in NToV and delete the accounts of trainers. And we'd (collectively) deal with it. Or, on the other end, they could say, "fuck it...NToV is a CSR-free zone, you ingrates" and we'd deal with that, too.

But don't conflate a playstyle preference with knowledge of the zone. They're two different issues completely. On the latter, you're miles ahead. On the former, opinions will differ (and be largely irrelevant once any changes that come out of this are codified).

[Daldaen]

The four points Pint highlights are issues/topics we have discussed internally between our guilds, however having a server wide rule governing these would certainly help a lot of situations.

[Katpal]

To Pint specifically -

Divinity addressed your #1 Bold type point, train pulling, because it was consistent train pulling by the top two guilds that ended our tenure in ToV. We were repeatedly trained in every safe and unsafe spot that we attempted to kill in. We were in ToV from DAY ONE of Velious and remained there for months, despite being trained at West exit, crawling West, and crawling North. We killed named dragons there from the FIRST WEEK, so please don't presume or imply that because we aren't there now that we weren't there before or that we aren't capable of being there now. We aren't there currently because despite being consistently wiped out by other guilds train pulling, petitioning got us nowhere and nothing was done. Talking to the training guild either got us no response or a lecture about how dare we be in their path. We ultimately decided to stay out of everyone's way, stick to west exit and clear to Telk or Gozz and possibly get a shot at LTK if she spawned during our 4 hour armor farm on Sundays. The arbitrary rule that prevented us from doing that (not killing dragons in same wing you are camped in) left us no other option than to train or be trained. We chose neither and ended our run at ToV dragons in hopes that future talks would lead to a resolution.

Before the above mentioned "wing rule" was in effect, we were killing flurry drakes in north wing when Jorlleag spawned and we cleared to it and killed it. We took similar actions with Telk, Gozz and LTK. So to suggest that there is no other way that ToV can be cleared is simply incorrect.

Threatening to take any action to muscle other guilds out of a zone is nothing new to Divinity. You've already done it successfully, why not do it again?

The bottom line is that there is no reason why any guild should have a monopoly on a zone just to facilitate them being able to train pull their mobs without consequence simply because it's easier and takes less time and certainly not at the expense of another guild that is interested in armor farming or contesting dragons.

I have mostly stayed out of the discussion in this thread, opting to have my say at the summit tomorrow and I would like to think that there is a solution that we can work out amongst ourselves, but you simply can't make the kind of statements you're making and expect positive results.

-Katlin, Divinity

[Detoxx]

Taking the discussion of Variance Reduction and Increased Sim Repops off the table removes the absolute most important / viable solutions to resolving a huge number of issues we have with our raid scene here Sirken. Are these really things that Rogean will not touch? As you said, everyone agrees it would be a good thing.

--I realize its not a topic for tomorrows summit, but can you push Rogean to give you the capability or automate sim repops, as it would make your (and every raid guild on this server's) life far easier.

As Chest stated earlier, any other rule changes will simply be bandaids onto a festering wound.

We can surely talk about revamping some rules to be brought up to date, but that will not reduce the number of petitions, trains, or the concession scene much at all. Those are all issues that arise out of too many top-end guilds and not enough content being up simultaneously forcing them to spread out.

Repops and variance do not have an affect on petty kite / stall rules and training.

[Daldaen]

Yes they do.

Reduced Variance = Mobs stacking up and spawning simultaneously
Increased Repops = All Mobs spawning simultaneously

When mobs are spawning simultaneously, guilds will spread out and go for different targets and not be all piled on top of each other contesting the exact same ones every time. This will lead to reduced trains / stall calls because guilds are busy killing their own mobs.

Again, I am not trying to say the stall, kite, concede, or training rules should not be revisited. Quite to the contrary. But the fact of the matter is, if Sirken really wants the raid scene to be improved and to see less issues with these topics, Sim Repops and Reduced Variance are the clear gateways to achieving that goal of making his life, and raiding life here in general more favorable for everyone involved.

[Detoxx]

Daldaen, Sirken has clearly stated this meeting has nothing to do with either of those topics. There are other ways that grown adults should be able to come to agreements here, please focus on that instead of just reiterating the obvious.

[Daldaen]

There are a lot of things adults should be able of doing that they seem incapable of managing on this server like remaining calm and remembering its just a video game.

It just baffles me that somehow the most obvious solution to so many issues is just outright off the table when it is universally favored and the most classic solution among all of them.

I know what raid rules I'd like to bring up to be reviewed for this but Rogean really should consider a way to farm out sim repopping to an automated system or to trusted GMs as it will make their lives far easier. This thread was merely an announcement for the summit, what we discuss within will likely not have a huge amount of baring on how the summit proceeds. Thus why we are getting together to discuss things.

[Pint]

Pint, there's no doubt that you guys are far more experienced with the mechanics of those zones and the problems that they create. And our input will be limited and based on MUCH less experience than yours. I'm under no illusions that way.

And I think we all share the goal and values of reducing the sock and having a sane raid environment.

And, for the record, I'm not necessarily against the idea of "train pulling" if that's how it shakes out.

On some level, I don't really care what the ruleset ends up being as long as it's:
1) communicated
2) enforced
3) enforced consistently

We can adapt our playstyle to whatever the owners of the p99 box dictate.

That said, part of your advocacy is based on the playstyle that you've adopted. You state:
It's probably worth acknowledging that VP trash repops in 6 minutes and tov takes 72 minutes. I also don't want to gloss over the fact that your guilds would be happy to take a few hours to kill 1 dragon and find that rewarding, it would be rewarding and fun. The problem is that the larger guilds probably wouldn't be patient enough to wait you out and additionally depending on the dragon your multi hour long pursuit puts you in the way of the other 14 potential dragons.

Not wanting to be patient on your part is a choice. Should I advocate patience in the meeting, that's my choice - and has nothing to do with my understanding of the intricacies of the pulls and mechanics there. But you are NOT, logically, ethically, conceptually, or any other -lly more right than I in your position. They're just different. And that's part of the reason for the discussion.

Hypothetically, they could say "fuck it" and decide to tether the nameds in NToV and delete the accounts of trainers. And we'd (collectively) deal with it. Or, on the other end, they could say, "fuck it...NToV is a CSR-free zone, you ingrates" and we'd deal with that, too.

But don't conflate a playstyle preference with knowledge of the zone. They're two different issues completely. On the latter, you're miles ahead. On the former, opinions will differ (and be largely irrelevant once any changes that come out of this are codified).

Cloki man, that is too many words to say 2 very basic things, trim it down for us in the future please! Your point about communication and enforcement +1'd. Your point about patience is noted but II have to be realistic when I approach these things, if a dragon pops at 3am on Sunday and my guys can kill it in 20 minutes and get back to sleep then all of the high minded moralistic reasoning in the world isn't going to convince them to spend an extra 2 hours to accomplish the end goal.

[Pint]

You guys are still not approaching the issues, you all know what's going to happen tmrw when 8 people sit down to discuss all of these issues without any real pre negotiations to understand each others issues and helping each other understand what everyone else is and isn't missing. At this point youre going to start off with train pulling and never get past that discussion, 3 hrs into that argument we're going to end up with some patchwork fix that hasn't been thought through or no fix at all.

[Pint]

we ought to set up a bda style rotation where you can be added to the tov mob list if you can kill sontalak around the clock, i think aftermath could get behind that.

[Sirken]

you will need Discord on your computer, PM me for the link to join