Enough with the alliances

[sammoHung]

Title.

[DillPickerson]

Why?

[shovelquest]

Post.

[sammoHung]

Why?

Here's what winds up happening:

6 guilds qualify for the Draft. All 6 guilds get their Draft picks. Seems like the server is in for great competition come natural spawns / quakes.

But - when natural spawns / quakes happen - there's actually only 3 raid forces contributing to the competition. 2 of the Draft guilds get folded into their Alliance raid force, while the 6th guild doesn't compete with the high-value targets.

So it would seem on Draft day that there are 6 (about to be 7) raid forces that are ready to compete.. when realistically it's only 2 zerg forces with 120+ players, and 1 large guild with 60-70 raiding.

When joining one of the non-draft qualifying guilds, they are ALL tied to an Alliance. They are either feeder guilds, or they have an agreement to basically be raid-bots for one of the larger entities.

There are no more independent entities on Green (except, seemingly Kingdom)

[Ibex]

Why is that a problem? I'm not being an obtuse dick, just genuinely curious why that is a problem.

[shovelquest]

Cus alliances make every guild the zerg.

[WarpathEQ]

Conversely you get a system that creates <Marginal Threats> of the world who were created by members of the large draft guilds to grift the draft by splitting into a smaller faction to take additional draft mobs and hold Lady N for 40 minutes on every quake

[shovelquest]

Im just glad OP isn't a commie slug and wants individuals to start up competition again.

[sammoHung]

Why is that a problem? I'm not being an obtuse dick, just genuinely curious why that is a problem.

Well, from a few viewpoints:

As someone who enjoys raid competition in the true sense of pitting skilled players against each other
- It makes every raid a zergfest. Skill doesn't matter when you have the zerg of 3 guilds combined to take down Jorlleag. Especially in the gear that people have accumulated over the course of 4 years of Velious: Every raid can be done with 42-48 players. Maybe you want 60 for Vulak, Tunare, AoW, Dain and Yelinak.. but not for every single raid. With the zerg comes also lack of responsibility on raid mishaps. Train at Eashen's Peak? Hope your OBS has a good angle to see which one of the zerg trained wyverns on top of 200 players.

As someone who just wants to raid casually
- There is precisely 1 "Casual" raid guild left. Every other guild is either one of the "top" guilds or an appendix to one of the top guilds. There will be no new guilds breaking in to the raiding scene, unless they are spin-offs of existing guilds - or as Warpath mentioned - a way to grift the Draft system. Boy, do I miss <The Drift>

As someone who despises CSR disputes, the UN, and people who find ways to skirt the rules
- I've seen it happen, but it continues no doubt --- Guild A and Guild B are in alliance. Guild B is the smaller guild. Guild B "accidentally" trains Guild C, a competing guild. Guild B admits wrongdoing and concedes 3. But Guild A faces no consequences - despite the fact that Guilds A and B were teamed up for the encounter. Like I said, I've seen this happen.

[shovelquest]

Competition is unfair.