Ragefire Agreement/Rotation

[Tricky Beverage]

Amen to everything that Motec just posted.

As a cleric of VD who is affected by this rotation, let me start by saying that I have two major concerns with the proposed rotation. I think I speak to the concerns of most of the VD players responding in this thread. These concerns are particularly important to me because I am coming up on 40 hours of waiting for Ragefire to spawn (I've been here the longest post-patch of any cleric other than Emmdano). As you can see from my time stamp, it's currently 6am EST (and I've been here all night).

However, before I address my concerns about the rotation, I suggest that we all set aside our differences for a moment and band together on something that will affect us ALL to a much greater extent over the long haul than the rotation particulars. It probably is not common knowledge yet (since only VD has really been here in force post-patch), but the Ragefire spawn cycle is definitely NOT working as it should be.

According to all of the classic evidence in Elethia's Ragefire spawn cycle petition thread (for which ALL of us clerics on the server owe Ele a debt of gratitude), Ragefire should pop 0-72 hours after Naggy dies and then every 23 hours thereafter until the next Naggy spawn. This spawn pattern seemed to receive overwhelming support for being classic.

Kanras replied to the thread saying only that the Ragefire spawn would be fixed, 0-3 days post-Naggy, multiple spawns possible per Naggy, pending update. Although Kanras never explicitly said it, everyone in the thread apparently believed this response to mean the during the next patch (2/20) the spawn cycle would be implemented according to the classic evidence presented by Ele and supported (at least anecdotally) by all the clerics in the thread who played classic. Specifically, everyone assumed 0-72 hours after Naggy dies, Ragefire can spawn and then every 23 hours thereafter until the next Naggy spawn.

Then when Naggy and Ragefire both spawned in one afternoon immediately following the patch (2/20), everyone assumed Ragefire's spawn cycle had been fixed to the classic system and that he would be popping roughly once a day for the next week until Naggy respawned (+/- variance). However, as someone who has been sitting at this camp for 30+ hours since the last Ragefire pop, I can say with certainty that Ragefire is NOT spawning as intended on the 23 hour schedule. Whether Kanras did modify the Ragefire spawn to ALWAYS be 0-72 hours or not is unclear. For all we can tell, Kanras might have forgotten the Ragefire fix altogether on this patch (unlikely, but we won't know for sure unless/until Ragefire takes over 72 hours to spawn).

To reiterate, Ragefire is currently (post-patch) taking much longer to spawn than is classic according to the evidence in Ele's bug petition thread. Perhaps there is a chance for multiple Ragefires to spawn after Naggy is killed, but we are not getting ~1/day after the initial Ragefire variance that we all believed we would. I will try to submit a bug report on this later today (unless I end up asleep at the wheel from this camp).

Now, on to my two concerns regarding the rotation:

1. The window to kill Ragefire should be 30 minutes or one wipe, as originally suggested. The official triggered mob policy is 20 minutes. Any guild that is going to insist on a spot in the rotation should be willing and able to get a raid force together and stomp Ragefire within this time frame, just like the top 3 guilds would do.

2. More importantly, any guild taking its turn in the rotation should do so without the assistance of other guilds. If your guild is unable to kill Ragefire without another guild helping, then you and the other guild should be sharing one rotation slot, not two.

This is much the same reason that TMO has refused to add VD to the Trak rotation, even though VD is obviously capable of killing Trak without IB's assistance. Likewise, TMO is (understandably) unwilling to have VD in VP unless we're (a) able to break in on our own or (b) sharing IB's half of the rotation, which seems unlikely at present.

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

CT won't be rotated for the same reason Trak won't be rotated with you by choice...IB and VD are one guild. It would be idiotic to give a force that raids together for every single target outside of VP an independent slot in a rotation when we could just compete with you 50/50 like we do now.

I'm not suggesting -- although I think some might -- that either IB or TMO has bad intentions in supporting this 6-guild rotation. But it is very easy for either of these guilds to support an extremely inclusive rotation during the week when only VD can raid and it doesn't affect either IB or TMO. Even if their intentions are entirely pure, it will be very difficult for these two powerhouse guilds to continuously share a 6-guild rotation with guilds that don't have the numbers to kill Ragefire without teaming up together. It would be both very convenient and very predictable for one of these super raid guilds to insist on a revised (and more restrictive) rotation in 2-4 weeks time, or decide to click air after all, despite insisting this week that VD is evil and greedy if we don't like the rotation agreement.

There is one important caveat to this second concern/suggestion: NiNik has received almost universal support from everyone in every guild for deserving her epic. I don't know NiNik personally, but she does seem to be a class act. So if all the guilds perhaps wanted to pitch in and help with NiNik's epic, that seems perfectly acceptable as a one-time exception to the "one-guild-one-slot" rule.

I feel like I'm being a bully toward the smaller/more casual raid guilds. And truthfully, I hate that. Still, the fact is that if your guild can't raid and kill Ragefire by itself in a timely fashion, then you should reconsider insisting on a rotation spot. If you can only kill Ragefire as a cooperative effort with another guild, then you and that other guild should share a rotation slot.

TL;DR VERSION --

1. We all need to work together to get the Ragefire spawn fixed to the more favorable classic spawn cycle. This is something that will tremendously benefit us all.

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?p=564582#post56458

2. The Ragefire rotation should be limited to a 30 minute window (more than the standard triggered mob limit) per kill/wipe. Likewise, rotation guilds should not receive assistance from other rotation guilds (or should be willing to share a rotation slot with the cooperating guild). If a guild does not have the players to handle either of these requirements, perhaps the guild should reconsider insisting on a rotation slot.