An alternative to variance

[Troubled]

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

As far as FFA, if the class R list is 10 guilds long and a mob spawns once a week, that's 10 weeks. If I get one shot at it every 10 weeks and only have a 17% chance to have it spawn during a time I can kill it (Since I'm barred from an alliance) it is definitely far better for me to try my hand at FFA.

Not that I understand what you guys are getting at by talking about the rotation in a thread about FFA variance/socking, but just to clarify, you would get a shot at it once every 30 weeks. R slots come along 1/3 of the time.

The rub was that guilds would gimpatron up for mobs like Gore and disperse for shit like VS, creating actual scenarios where you'd see your shot at the mob once every 30 weeks. It would have been acceptable if all those guilds could kill the rest of the mobs solo, but they couldn't and that's why we introduced gatekeepers in a tiered progression system. Keeping the rotation as is was going to create even MORE smaller guilds to clog it up. We weren't looking to make sure every guild survived. Just wanted to keep things moving along.

Since the fall of the rotation, the health of surviving R guilds has improved and the raid scene has become more competitive, which is a great thing for guilds actually looking to survive winter in the wild west environment that it will undoubtedly be. I know my guild has learned a lot and I can tell others have as well, as well as more people showing up ready to raid FFA targets.


Anyway, I still think ending variance is the only way to stop socking, unless they actually coded in random repops as Sirken mentioned.

[Juryiel]

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

Not that I understand what you guys are getting at by talking about a rotation in a thread about FFA variance/socking, but just to clarify, you would get a shot at it once every 30 weeks. R slots come along 1/3 of the time.

The rub was that guilds would gimpatron up for mobs like Gore and disperse for shit like VS, creating actual scenarios where you'd see your shot at the mob once every 30 weeks. It would have been acceptable if all those guilds could kill the rest of the mobs solo, but they couldn't and that's why we introduced gatekeepers in a tiered progression system.

I thought the thread was about the best solutions to the poopsocking problem (rotation!) [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And yeah that number was just to be a simple example (1/10) and not based on server circumstances.

I think the issue with the second point is because guilds are just put on the rotation for all mobs by default. Though, every person I spoke with seemed to appreciate that concern and be willing to come to a reasonable solution (that did not involve making Gore a gatekeeper).

[Troubled]

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

I thought the thread was about the best solutions to the poopsocking problem (rotation!) [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And yeah that number was just to be a simple example (1/10) and not based on server circumstances.

I think the issue with the second point is because guilds are just put on the rotation for all mobs by default. Though, every person I spoke with seemed to appreciate that concern and be willing to come to a reasonable solution (that did not involve making Gore a gatekeeper).

The socking problem is not just an R problem which is the only place you can invoke the rotation, making it basically futile as a means to stop all socking.

P.S. We made CT the gatekeeper in the last couple iterations of the proposal.

[Juryiel]

I didn't see every iteration of the proposal, only because the whole ultimatum and short time window thing seemed like a bad approach. Why not even have each mob be its own gatekeeper? I would guess not many people would object to that. At least not of the sort of "Well you are gate keeping an easier mob behind a tougher mob".

Also, GMs can do whatever. Maybe they'll surprise us by abolishing C/R/FFA and make everything into a rotation! I guess I'm not sure what the thread is about. Removing variance is the easiest thing to do but by far not the best. It is definitely the one most likely to get done, but then, that doesn't really require a thread does it? GMs know we sock and that we want lower variance.

PLayer rotation would eliminate socking in R and lower it in FFA (less R guilds would compete in FFA), and no GM intervention is required. So I think it's highly related. You want the GMs to do something to eliminate poopsocking? Why don't you try to do something to at least reduce it first to show GMs how important it is to you? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Personally, as long as things are FFA I support as large variance as possible, so instead of reducing variance I would make the probability density function for a mob spawning to be uniform, so that a mob has an equal chance to spawn at any point in time. Would love to see people poopsock that. There will be no windows [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]