The Loraen Plan

[Splorf22]

I thought I'd go ahead and do this since Xasten is trying to make some fixes. I think if we are going to push for something it should be something awesome. I doubt anything would actually work, but I like planning, and the sound of my own voice (look of my own writing?). Anyway, if I were in charge this is what I would do.

So, what are the problems with the current raid scene? (rhetorical) Our friends in TMO may love it but the reality is a huge number of people simply look at it like a smelly sock and turn their noses away as soon as possible. So here is how I would fix each of what I see as the problems.

Not enough mobs
The biggest problem we have is that we have a top-heavy player base which is far too large for the number of boss pops we have. Solution: repop all bosses 3 times per week simultaneously, each with 1/3 their normal loot table (so basically each boss would drop 1 item rather than 2-4). With three times as many raid encounters per week and everything synchronized, everyone who wishes will at least be able to attempt something, without flooding the economy with loot to the point that every L1 twink has a BCG.

Tracking & Batphoning
It's ludicrous that to have a shot to kill boss mobs with your friends you have have your char sitting at the character select screen while you watch a movie. Solution: remove variance and make all spawn times known in advance.

FTE nonsense
Most of this will go away with simultaneous repops which spread out the guilds. But it will still be a problem with a fairly obvious solution: any time a boss mob is engaged, it will shout PlayerX <GuildX>, you've ruined your own lands! or any other similar message.

Poopsocking
If spawn times are known in advance, everyone will sit on the spawn point for hours hoping for FTE/15 on the spawn for hours etc. Solution: when a boss mob spawns, everyone in the zone will effectively have the succor spell cast on them, teleporting them to the zone safe point and clearing aggro. Anyone who logs in to the zone while the boss mob is up will log in at the zone safe point. Finally, any zone which contains a boss mob will fully respawn. So no more ledge camping - instead people will have to make it all the way down, possibly dealing with see invis etc.

Alt Armies
Currently players with multiple L60 chars have a huge advantage over those who don't, because they can camp their characters fully buffed near the mobs. Even with the new spawn rules we know there would be a ton of people camped out at the KC and Sebilis entrances. Solution: any time you log into a zone with a raid boss, your IP is "bound" to that character. You cannot log into any zone with a raid boss with another character for the next hour.

95% of the server doesn't get to see Veeshan's Peak
Veeshan's Peak is the top zone in the Kunark expansion, yet even most of the people with keys can't zone in without getting trained. The whole point of the simultaneous repops is to spread out the server anyway; this won't be accomplished if TMO/FE both just send in the SKs to play defense while they clean up the rest of the ordinary targets.

Classicness
I don't think the Loraen plan is massively less classic (other than the antipoop/alt code, which is only necessary because of the slow progression on this server) than the silly variance we have here. If the devs want to revert to classic, I'm fine with that. If we are going to be unclassic, we should do it in a cool way.

Results
How do I see this shaking out: I think at first TMO/FE will still get the vast majority of pixels, but they won't be getting clean sweeps. If I were a top raiding guild I would camp out my ~100 raiders in 2-3 squads to contest a few old world targets (some assortment of CT/Draco, VS, and Trak) and then have them all evac to Skyfire to take out as many VP dragons as possible. But if see invis are up, it might take 10-15 minutes which might just be enough time for FE to take, say, Phara Dar, so who knows.

So basically I think under the Loraen plan the top guilds would get about the same amount of pixels they do now, but the 2nd tier guilds would get a few here and there and more importantly everyone would at least be able to participate in the raid scene, even if ineffectively. At this point the onus is on them to stop sucking, since raiding would no longer require such a massive time investment. The top tier guilds would probably spend the same amount of time raiding, but it would be actually fighting and killing mobs rather than poopsocking, tracking, and so on.

[Lostprophets]

Simulated patch days (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?p=727799), or bust. :D

[Slave]

Things that would fix raiding on P99:

-Remove Variance
This would remove the unnatural advantages that the larger guilds have over smaller ones to Track raid targets. Additionally, it would bring the server MUCH closer to a Classic ruleset.

-Add FTE Shout
This would remove the necessity of the GMs to find these records and assuage lots of disagreement between players that would otherwise occur. It would provide a valuable tool to raid leaders and guilds to more strategically engage targets, such as in the case if a small, weakish guild obtains FTE.

-Apply Play Nice Policy to Veeshan's Peak
This would cause the top guilds to race for the most valuable targets as they spawn, instead of being able to use their entire raid force to block other guilds from ever entering the zone, through denial of Trak Teeth, epic drops, and important upgrades. It would be a more Classic implementation of the zone and rules, it would be fair, and most importantly, it would open up the raid scene completely.

-Add simulated patch days
This would cause raid mobs to spawn at the same time, and add more targets for guilds to engage over the course of the server. It would create the very situation that almost everyone claims to love: the race for targets. It would be completely Classic in nature, and it would have massive synergy with the other methods as described above.

[Elements]

Interesting plan but I think you are asking too much of Rogean and the GMs.

[Doors]

I don't understand what's so wrong with enforced rotation.

[Slave]

I generally find myself largely in agreement with both Loraen and Tecmos on many issues in the game, as we are in similar situations with similar temperament. I always appreciate their intelligent posts. Still, I firmly believe that even a combination of any two of the above fixes I listed would significantly improve raiding on P99 without the necessity of changing the number of spawns (and corresponding loot) so dramatically, which may have other repercussions.

[Elements]

I don't understand what's so wrong with enforced rotation.

Your asking something for nothing. Socking is a problem of behaviour from the players of the server and we have the power to fix it ourselves without asking someone else to do it for us.

Sure it would be great if the GMs wanted to step up and enforce it but we can't expect if from them.

[Elements]

Everything here sounds good but who is getting paid to implement it?

[Doors]

Your asking something for nothing. Socking is a problem of behaviour from the players of the server and we have the power to fix it ourselves without asking someone else to do it for us.

Sure it would be great if the GMs wanted to step up and enforce it but we can't expect if from them.

And why not? It's less work for them after it's been established. Anyone breaking it gets raid suspended. GMs need to go back, check logs, remove loot, redistribute loot, as it stands now.

If high end guilds want competition its on red99. Enforce a rotation and be done with all the bullshit.

[Splorf22]

Slave I said increase spawns by N but decrease loot/boss by N. So the net # of items/week into the economy wouldn't change. What you have done is very similar, but if patch days are fun why not have 3? :D

Lost: I'm basically proposing simulated patch days

Alarti: I'm counting on you to provide some rnf material

[Autotune]

I don't understand what's so wrong with enforced rotation.

says the person who tried to BAHLANK a manastone and got ousted.

[Doors]

Stealin stalking me and unable to keep trolling to RnF. Typical TMO member shitting up the server and forums.

Still not sure why enforced rotation is a bad idea.

[Slave]

Slave I said increase spawns by N but decrease loot/boss by N. So the net # of items/week into the economy wouldn't change. What you have done is very similar, but if patch days are fun why not have 3? :D

Lost: I'm basically proposing simulated patch days

Alarti: I'm counting on you to provide some rnf material

Right, I was commenting on the fact that an increased number of spawns with correspondingly less loot could have unintended consequences. People already compete over every instance of significant raid mobs; imagine if this trend continues, only with 1/3rd of the loot as possible reward. You would have tripled the problem and added an unClassic mechanic which can easily have other issues associated that we haven't sussed out.

[Autotune]

Stealin stalking me and unable to keep trolling to RnF. Typical TMO member shitting up the server and forums.

Still not sure why enforced rotation is a bad idea.

Because Rogean already said it will never happen. Therefore any idea that has already been completely shot down by Rogean = a bad idea.

[Lostprophets]

Lost: I'm basically proposing simulated patch days

yes, but split up ones :(

If we can't have a rotation (which said won't happen *again*), might as well have all dragons pop at once...once a week and everyone can race til their eyes bleed...and get a full batch of loot, then go back to our every day lives...instead of waiting for multiple ones.

[Tippett]

Blue forums starting to sound like Red.

AKA Long threads with constructive ideas and discussions from players that will never be acknowledged/discussed/implemented by staff.

[Itap]

Simulated patch days (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?p=727799), or bust. :D

+1

[Autotune]

Blue forums starting to sound like Red.

AKA Long threads with constructive ideas and discussions from players that will never be acknowledged/discussed/implemented by staff.

well, we get ours acknowledged, then we get the red treatment of promises that never get fulfilled.

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[Joroz]

have your char sitting at the character select screen

one of the most annoying features of p99... networking was shitty back in 1999 and theres no way you could keep a toon at char select screen longer than 5 minutes before it kicked you back to the login prompt.

[Tecmos Deception]

repop all bosses 3 times per week simultaneously, each with 1/3 their normal loot table

Eh. More activity? Yes. But TMO is always talking about how they have such a high turnover rate, because people burn out on raiding... especially when they don't have a (good) chance at loot and especially when they don't need any more loot. 3x the amount of raiding spread out amongst maybe 3-4x as many raiders, but with the same amount of overall loot that exists now, is going to be ugly. People will get tired of constantly killing (and wiping!) to the same things knowing that there is only a small chance of an item they need dropping and only a small chance of that item being given to them. The whole "well it's just fun to kill this stuff" thing wears off eventually for most people.



FTE nonsense
Most of this will go away with simultaneous repops which spread out the guilds. But it will still be a problem with a fairly obvious solution: any time a boss mob is engaged, it will shout PlayerX <GuildX>, you've ruined your own lands! or any other similar message.

Well... this makes it known who was FTE, sure. But "I didn't see it in the spam of raiding" and a hundred other arguments will crop up, some more or less legitimate than others. And heavy-handed enforcement of the FTE shout isn't going to make people more likely to pay attention for and mind the FTE shouts.



Poopsocking
If spawn times are known in advance, everyone will sit on the spawn point for hours hoping for FTE/15 on the spawn for hours etc. Solution: when a boss mob spawns, everyone in the zone will effectively have the succor spell cast on them, teleporting them to the zone safe point and clearing aggro. Anyone who logs in to the zone while the boss mob is up will log in at the zone safe point. Finally, any zone which contains a boss mob will fully respawn. So no more ledge camping - instead people will have to make it all the way down, possibly dealing with see invis etc.

Couple of things. This totally works over groups who aren't raiding by moving them out of their camp and resetting the mobs in the way and creating a million situations where something like this will happen: trak pops and a new group gets down to king to take him before the group who was actually there.

Also, while I don't really like the raid scene as it is, I also REALLY don't like making the extra effort/thought that some people put into the game meaningless. If a certain group is willing to camp out at ledge or sit in VS spawn room or make use of mages and COTH groups... more power to them.



Alt Armies
Currently players with multiple L60 chars have a huge advantage over those who don't, because they can camp their characters fully buffed near the mobs. Even with the new spawn rules we know there would be a ton of people camped out at the KC and Sebilis entrances. Solution: any time you log into a zone with a raid boss, your IP is "bound" to that character. You cannot log into any zone with a raid boss with another character for the next hour.

Again. Retroactively screwing people who were willing/able to put in more effort/thought/time/whatever. Not cool. See my last comments vvvvvvv




I think that the solution to this problem, or as close to a solution as we can probably get, is simulated patch day repops (details of what days, what times, staggered or simultaneous respawns... I don't know). It will force big guilds to either spread thin enough that they will lose fights or they will have to select a handful of targets they REALLY want. As much as TMO may talk about how well they've done at killing 80+% of the mobs on repops in the past, those repops were 99.9% unscheduled... which only made it EASIER for the only guild with strong batphone/mobilization systems in place.

"Punishing" (not exactly the right word, but you've got to see how someone who spent a lot of time and effort and money getting an "alt army" and characters logged in just the right spots in VP and stuff is going to think they're being punished for these things by your measures) the more active/more thoughtful/more experienced players with extra mechanics like succors and IP locks would be terrible, imo.

Giving small/casual guilds notice of respawns so that they can prove that they aren't total scrubby by working together or picking targets wisely, while not screwing others out of the efforts they've already put into the game, is the way to go.

[Tecmos Deception]

Also related, it looks like nilbog posted less than a half an hour ago saying that there are raid changes that are actually in the works right now? I was kind of confused by a 30-second "read" of his post. Trying to make waffles but they're proving more challenging than pancakes or french toast :(

[nilbog]

http://lparchive.org/Tecmos-Deception/Update%207/38-ePSXe_2007-05-02_19-28-22-98.jpg

[Autotune]

http://lparchive.org/Tecmos-Deception/Update%207/38-ePSXe_2007-05-02_19-28-22-98.jpg

I should mail you a drink, I think that's legal-ish.

[Tecmos Deception]

<3 Deception

Did you play the sequels, Nilbog?

[nilbog]

Nope. Just the original on ps1.

[Tecmos Deception]

You're missin out, if you like the first one! The rest of the games lack capturing souls, monsters, items, leveling up, and releasing Satan on an unsuspecting world, but they have interactive terrain traps, trap combos, and more hilarious translations.

Sorry to sidetrack your thread Lor, haha. Actually, Nilbog did it first :p

[Slave]

You're missin out, if you like the first one! The rest of the games lack capturing souls, monsters, items, leveling up, and releasing Satan on an unsuspecting world, but they have interactive terrain traps, trap combos, and more hilarious translations.

Sorry to sidetrack your thread Lor, haha. Actually, Nilbog did it first :p

Kagero's Deception is superb. It doesn't have quite the atmosphere of the first, but the gameplay is outstanding.

[Lexical]

wtf is this garbage Loraen? Bring back the trains!

[OMGWTF420]

1. remove variance
2. allow training
3. ??
4. profit