we should definitely introduce variance.

[GradnerLives]

I'm convinced that anyone who supports this idea never played on blue.

Here's what happens when the variance you've suggested is implemented:

Spawns now occur within 8-16 hour windows, requiring a tracker to be online for that full time. DKP is now awarded for tracking for both guilds, as neither can afford to leave a target untracked. Nihilum will work towards spreading the spawn timers out over multiple days so that multiple targets do not need to be tracked at once. In turn, their main raiding force will be camped out at whatever target is currently in window. When a target spawns, nihilum's full raid force will receive a batphone and login.

With a larger pool of members, nihilum will not have any issue keeping people tracking as individual members will have a relatively low number of required hours, since it can be spread out across all members. With more dragon-loot in their bank currently, they will not experience the same level of burnout since there will be many advantages to new apps (OT hammers, cheap trak bp's, Sky-bank, etc.) already inherent to their dominant position on the server. It will not be as difficult to convince new members to track as they are actively downing targets frequently enough that the results of this tracking time will be apparent to new apps.

Since Azrael has a smaller pool of members, they will experience much heavier burnout since each member will be required to track for much longer individually, as it cannot be spread out across as many people. They will likely have to implement a restrictive minimum amount of tracking hours otherwise the burden will fall on a small core of dedicated players (as has happened to blue raiding guilds like FE, IB, BDA when they attempted to dethrone TMO). Since they are not actively downing targets currently, it will likely become more difficult to get new players dedicated to tracking since they will not see the point when they are not seeing results from it.

Variance is more likely to destroy your guild than it is to allow you to get dragon kills. It's happened the exact same way on blue to more guilds than I can remember off hand. FE, Fusion, BDA when they wanted to compete last summer, DA, VD, IB. All of them ended up disbanding or giving up on competing once they burned out or the competition beat them with numbers. The only example of a secondary guild overcoming the main raiding guild on blue (TMO's conquest of IB) happened as a direct consequence of the numbers game. IB had tighter recruitment policies and TMO merged with a few other guilds and accepted pretty much anyone with a pulse at that time.


Here's what happens now:

On Saturday, it was my first experience raiding on a repop day, as I recently apped to nilly. I literally didn't see one azrael player all day, and didn't hear about any azrael contesting targets besides some small number guerilla pvp in VP which really only served to stall nihilum, since azrael didn't appear to have a force large enough to actually down a target. On Friday when we did trak, there was a single Azrael group harassing late stragglers as they made their way to the prep area, but no actual attempt to contest, just an attempt to stall.

Don't act like we zerg everytime just because every so often the full raid force shows up. There were just over 20 people at that trakanon. That's pretty close to the minimum required to actually kill him. You NEED to be able to contest the minimum number of people required to kill him, especially if you don't have VP loot on many of your raiding mains.

If you can't contest spawns with PVP when you know EXACTLY when and where they'll be, what makes you think you can contest spawns when you won't know?

Even with full variance as I'd mentioned in my post in the previous variance thread (i.e. CT spawns in 7 days +/- 7 days, any time from 1 second to 2 weeks after his previous death) a larger raid force has a decided advantage over a smaller one, since they have more players to mobilize whenever it becomes necessary.


In Summary:

Don't fool yourself thinking that nilly will be unprepared or disorganized enough to NOT be camping their entire raidforce out at these targets and contesting with the same number of players they do currently. There will be less PVP on a whole due to how advantageous it will be to have a raid force fully buffed and prepared camped near a target ready to pounce when a tracker calls.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that your off hours crew will be stronger than theirs, since this is really a factor entirely dependent on the total number of members to begin with. They have a larger guild, so they'll have more people willing to camp out and wake up at 4am or 6am than you will.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that it will change from a game of numbers to a game of skill, it won't. This game inherently favors numbers, always has, always will (see: blue server raiding). There is no skill involved in tracking off hours or camping out a raid force. It's all a matter of burning out the other side quicker, and nihilum is in a better position to do that to you than you are to them.


TLDR:

TL;DR: Variance means less PVP, and Nihilum still wins. What's your point?