Raid Rules Alternative

[Stickyfingers]

Why not just make everything pop at the same time once a week? Then DA would get one and IB would too, the rest of the raid mobs would be open too, as DA and IB would be occupied with their respective raid mob, so a guild like Divinity could try some harder mobs. If Divinity is unable to, DA or IB (or anyone) could go in later and get the unkilled raid mobs. This means DA and IB could still get a raid mob a week, if not 2 or even 3.

[Akame]

Thank you Dumesh, this is by far the best suggestion I've seen on these boards yet for raid rules and I love the first aggro 15 minutes to engage with high penalties for ksing, training and falsifying reports.

Originally Posted by Ektar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What happens when two people sit on nagafen's spawn point? We're both staring intently at the screen, and both hit taunt or attack or whatever immediately.

YES naggy did have first agro on someone, but that will NOT be determined until after the ensuing clusterfuck of both guilds thinking they were first. Furthermore how will it be determined? By a gm's logs; which is trying to be avoided.

If two players, aggro at once, and 2 guilds are sitting there, alive, awake and ready to engage then /random for it and leave the gm's be.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That is definitely a viable solution. Sometimes agro is random, though. You'd really have to hope to be in range to attack, taunt, or shoot a bow to ensure first agro otherwise you'll be super mad when some afk dude happens to grab agro first. Other than that it would at least add the argument of "we aggroed first so step down till we win or lose." I assume a zonewide shout would be the easiest way to also catch it in logs if anyone chose to take an issue to a GM.

Aggro and hold the aggro in a sustainable way by not dying, ie kite. sending someone in the room to aggro first and die doesn't count. As soon as your aggro'er dies, the mobs fair game again.

Indoor mobs have to be able to be engaged and sustained without losing aggro due to a wipe or having to FD to survive.

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by Akame [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Aggro and hold the aggro in a sustainable way by not dying, ie kite. sending someone in the room to aggro first and die doesn't count. As soon as your aggro'er dies, the mobs fair game again.

Indoor mobs have to be able to be engaged and sustained without losing aggro due to a wipe or having to FD to survive.

Yeah indoor mobs definitely have a different means to maintain agro, same as any mob that DTs would also require. The idea itself is very straightforward and simple and could very easily work. Perhaps some stipulations for things like CT need to be added so that you don't have one guild clear the zone for CT only to have another gank it. The golems rule might work here.

[Akame]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah indoor mobs definitely have a different means to maintain agro, same as any mob that DTs would also require. The idea itself is very straightforward and simple and could very easily work. Perhaps some stipulations for things like CT need to be added so that you don't have one guild clear the zone for CT only to have another gank it. The golems rule might work here.

By golems rule I'm assuming you mean some kind of security blanket of time to reengage to account for death touches?

Sounds good to me [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Getting back on topic. Reposted from other thread:

Dumesh's idea still focuses on FFA and is only really applicable, as he said, to outside boss encounters....

Negative, not what I said. This applies to all bosses.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not to mention the fact that by attempting to steal agro, you're pretty much going against server rules of attempting to KS engaged mobs. Find me a situation where you're not going to have an opposing raid force attempting to agro the mob off of the original kiter.

If another guild steals aggro from the kiters, they are KSing and violating the rule. I posted of First aggro + 15 min to engage in force.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If, on the flipside, you are saying that once agro a guild would have 15 minutes to get ready and engage while the kiter(s) kite, we might be on to something.

Yup, that's how it works.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I will say that for all of the outside dragons in Kunark and Velious, this is a pretty good idea...Damaging a mob to make it summon would be the biggest offense, here.

Another guild interfering after first aggro would be violating the rule and violating the basic server play nice policies. There is already a procedure for reporting and resolving this behavior. This is where the stiff bans come in as a disincentive.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In the event of that, I hope the guild with claim would be ready to engage very quickly,

That's the 15 min part of the rule.

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I would consider this one hell of a pro idea for later expansions and hope that it could discussed in the next guild meeting!

I think it works now too, but thank you.

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by Akame [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

By golems rule I'm assuming you mean some kind of security blanket of time to reengage to account for death touches?

Sounds good to me [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah as it exists in the current ruleset if you kill 2 golems you get first shot at CT, and once zone is clear you have 10 minutes to engage. The reason why CT requires so much special attention is because it requires everything in the zone to be dead. If CT is up and the golems are up you have to deal with DT agro lists that are zonewide. That's not fun at all, and as such the CT encounter should be more based on the golems. Otherwise, when your raid gets DTd or camps out, another group could claim CT. Hardly fair at all as the script is unavoidable. It would really just be a matter of fair play. It doesn't take long to log in and log out, by any means. As long as there aren't any shifty moves it's all good [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Pyrocat [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't think deleveling is a solution GMs would want. It's very non-classic and guilds can PL whoever took the fall anyway.

Temp bans of 14-30 days sounds good, and I like Xzerions (I think) idea of needing an officer to vouch for whomever got a GM involved, who would share the weight of their ban.

Perhaps not, this is the one area that takes the most input from the server devs. I'm not sure what the ideal penalty is. I just know it must be harsh and the devs must be ok with handing it out however many times it takes to get the message out to the server community. I have a feeling that if it is harsh enough it shouldn't have to be done more than 6-12 times before people quit looking to break the rules to get what they want.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Ektar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What happens when two people sit on nagafen's spawn point? We're both staring intently at the screen, and both hit taunt or attack or whatever immediately.

YES naggy did have first agro on someone, but that will NOT be determined until after the ensuing clusterfuck of both guilds thinking they were first. Furthermore how will it be determined? By a gm's logs; which is trying to be avoided.

What happens the first few times is that the GMs get petitioned and some people get month long bans.

What happens after that is that the people in charge of pulling pay more attention and if they detect that they did not truly have the first aggro, they back off and let the other team have it per the rules.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Stickyfingers [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Why not just make everything pop at the same time once a week? Then DA would get one and IB would too, the rest of the raid mobs would be open too, as DA and IB would be occupied with their respective raid mob, so a guild like Divinity could try some harder mobs. If Divinity is unable to, DA or IB (or anyone) could go in later and get the unkilled raid mobs. This means DA and IB could still get a raid mob a week, if not 2 or even 3.

Well, the only real negatives of patch days spawns with no variance are that people have an incentive to try bringing down the zone or the server looking for repops. I addressed that point earlier though.

The other negative is that Euro players get the first shot, then US players, then Aussies get nothing. That should be the only reason for a variance imo. Making the spawn times nearly unpredictable encourages more camping, not less... unless you make the variance so huge that the mob might not spawn for 15 days or something, and that is decidedly not classic, and also a horrible idea.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah indoor mobs definitely have a different means to maintain agro, same as any mob that DTs would also require. The idea itself is very straightforward and simple and could very easily work. Perhaps some stipulations for things like CT need to be added so that you don't have one guild clear the zone for CT only to have another gank it. The golems rule might work here.

They don't require different rules so much as different tactics. If the mob DTs, you better send two pullers so that one can complete the pull after the DT. Also, you better be prepared to put more bodies on it within 30 sec or so. Nothing about the rule needs to change to account for that. Guilds just have to employ different methods.

As for CT and planar clears... I am not totally opposed to making certain concessions to those that would add complexity to the rules for CT or zones with trash to be cleared, but I don't think it is needed. In my mind, the most likely outcome is that among the guilds that will be competing for CT, his last time of death will be at least roughly known by all parties, and so, with a variance timer that is under control, those guilds will have the plane cleared or nearly so by the time CT is spawning. However, that won't always be the case, so we should consider what the likely player behavior is under my rule if there is a full pop in PoFear.

As the zone is nearly clear, guilds will (or should) reposition themselves near CTs walking path. They will have long pulls back to their raid force. They should have their trackers monitoring how many mobs remain. When they are comfortable that they can handle CT (all trash cleared or not) then they can go for the pull. If another group is also their and they make the decision to go for the pull first, then either they get the kill or they wipe. Worst case is that they go for it too early and the summoned mobs kill part or all of another guilds' raid. Well, to me, that falls under training someone, and is ban worthy. Factor that into your decisions about when to attempt a pull. Don't pull what you can't handle. That works just like any xp zone. You are free to pull 10 mobs next to someone else and kill them... as long as you can kill the mobs. If you do that and die and end up wiping someone else... you are training them.

Killing through trash doesn't earn a guild anything but the xp and loot from from those corpses. I don't like leapfrogging, most people don't like it. I think if guild/raid leaders will spend more time sending each other tells, less of it will happen. If Guild X chooses to continue trying to leapfrog and can do it without training and violating the server rules, then they are welcome to do it. In my mind, the best consequence of that behavior is that no other guild will respect the Guild X's presence in a zone and will sometimes band together to leapfrog Guild X. If Guilds Y and Z see Guild X starting to clear FGs, they might rationally decide to punish Guild X by rolling right through them with sufficient numbers to bum rush Naggy and the last 3 FGs at the same time. If they can do that without training or violating first aggro + 15 min, then good for them. In the end though, and equilibrium should settle out where guilds stop trying to leapfrog because of the dangers or violating the training rules or the first aggro + 15 min rule.

No matter what we do, the raiding game is going to feel very tight until Kunark. It will still be tight in Kunark, but the raid targets will more than double. That will relive the pressure a measurable amount. There are just not that many targets relative to the number of people that want to raid them. That's fine though, the scarcity is part of what make the loot and the experience of the kill a valuable thing.

We collectively came up with a set of rules that kinda worked for awhile. Then people's behavior settled into it's most logical conclusion, camping. Now we're trying to come up with a different set of rules to keep people's behavior to certain standards while they compete. The more rules you lay down, the more opportunity there is for loopholes and unforeseen consequences. Keep it simple. Punish the douches who can't follow the rules. Make the punishment severe enough that people will want to follow the rules even when it means they will lose a chance at loot. The internal monologue of Guild X's raid leader or puller should look like this:

I could KS Maestro even though Guild Y got first aggro and I want his loot, but then again, I don't want half my guild banned for a month... I guess I'll let Guild Y continue with their attempt and hope they wipe

not this:

Damn, those newbs from Guild Y may have gotten the first aggro, but I have more DPS here, I'll throw the kitchen sink at Maestro fast and he will come to our raid. I'll tell Guild Y's puller he is a dumbfuck douche and my guild had the aggro all the time... worst case is they'll petition, but the guides won't do anything.