First in Force.

[Vallanor]

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

I'm pretty sure you can skip through the content on sky with a keyed necromancer....cost of corpse summoning an entire raid is much cheaper than the plat big guilds spend per raid on recharges in the velious era....

I think the point is that you don't have three other guilds breathing down your neck training everything in sight grasping for FTE in Sky. You can crawl from bottom to top if you really want to.

Granted, if there were a high-value target with variance dropping NToV style loot on Isle 8, there would be all kinds of shenanigans up there every week, so it's more due to how the zone is set than with anything else.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

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

...This wouldn't happen with FIF because only the guild with the claim would have a right to kill the target....

This would just turn into a diff version of FTE. As it stands FTE involves mobilizing and, as soon as you can get and keep a FTE, you launch the attack.

FiF has several serious problems:

1) defining what a force is, which would be very mob dependent and each guild would naturally lowball what they consider an adequate force for them.

2) can a force add to itself as more people log on? If not, yeah, that's gonna be popular. Who closes the window for "ok, this is your force, no more may join?"

3) would replacements be allowed as the guild waits? How would that work? Can you start out your force with a dozen rangers then gradually try to get other classes in?

4) if the force # drops below the required number, due to a ld, do they lose the right?

5) socking the camp from when it's spawn window opens, which means that the "FTE" moment means who has a force at zone at the moment spawn window opens, which means guilds would actually sock to be able to sock

6) Can a guild camp multiple spawn windows as long as they have a sufficient force at each?

Way too many problems. Rules upon rules upon rules.

But I do think Velious dragons need to be leashed.

[maestrom]

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

This would just turn into a diff version of FTE. As it stands FTE involves mobilizing and, as soon as you can get and keep a FTE, you launch the attack.

FiF has several serious problems:

1) defining what a force is, which would be very mob dependent and each guild would naturally lowball what they consider an adequate force for them.

I thought about this--tieing the definition of raid force to specific targets. It might be best to handle it by groups. Kunark and lower targets need 24. Velious-era mobs take something more. 48?

2) can a force add to itself as more people log on? If not, yeah, that's gonna be popular. Who closes the window for "ok, this is your force, no more may join?"

There would be no "window" for when you can no longer bring people into a raid. The intent of this rule isn't to force guilds to take down targets with fewer people. The intent of the rule is to allow guilds to lock in ONE target at a time as theirs so they don't have to worry about trainfests and FTE sniping.

3) would replacements be allowed as the guild waits? How would that work? Can you start out your force with a dozen rangers then gradually try to get other classes in?

I thought about this, but since people can't two-box I don't see a reason why we need to worry about who is actually sitting there. If the guild has claimed 1 target, then they can't claim another target. They can go FTE unclaimed targets or farm other loot/group content. But I imagine the players who get left socking would get grumpy and either get their guild to give up the sock or cycle people around. No reason to say that it has to stay this 24 people.

4) if the force # drops below the required number, due to a ld, do they lose the right?

This has given me some trouble. It could either be handled with a "-5" rule. Or a timer. Once claimed, you have an allowance of 5 raiders. If you lose 5 raiders (such as going from 24-5= 19 raiders) then you lose the claim. Another solution is as follows. Guild A claims target. Guild B zones in. Guild A loses 5 people and drops below the raid force threshold. Guild B can inform Guild A that their timer has started and they have X minutes to get back up to 24 or they lose their claim.

I am sympathetic to a rule that says if your raid has some lag and drops below "raid force" that you lose your claim automatically, but that might be easiest to enforce. I don't expect it will happen that often though.

5) socking the camp from when it's spawn window opens, which means that the "FTE" moment means who has a force at zone at the moment spawn window opens, which means guilds would actually sock to be able to sock

The rule does not discuss windows. I imagine claims won't go in on targets that aren't in window. But if a guild really really wants to claim Tormax even though he won't be in window for 3 more days, then i supposed they're free to sock Tormax all week. I imagine this won't happen, because...

6) Can a guild camp multiple spawn windows as long as they have a sufficient force at each?

No. The rule says you get ONE claim per guild/alliance at a time. If guild A plants its raid force at and claims Tormax, it cannot put another raid force at Sontalak and claim him. One claim per guild/alliance.

[Man0warr]

Originally Posted by jcr4990 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Know what'd be a better system? Every mob only spawning on sim repops that happen regularly. Get rid of tracking get rid of variance get rid of poopsocking. Every dragon/raid mob in the game spawns on a random schedule of sim repops once a week or so. It's been suggested many times by many different people and has very little downside and many upsides. Have no idea why it hasn't been done or at least tried.

As far as raiding on P99 goes. Sim repops are just about as fun as it gets imo. Every guild racing around and trying to strategize on what target to go for and try to figure out what other guilds are doing what so you know where to go next. Big guilds can't monopolize everything when it all spawns at the same time so the smaller guilds get to do stuff too. Only potential downside I can see is if the repop happens at a bad time and you happen to be working all day or have other RL obligations and you basically miss all the good raids for a week. I can see that part sucking but I still think overall it'd be better than what we have now.

That's the best solution, and it's been suggested multitudes of times to Rogean/Sirken/Nilbog. For whatever reason they don't want to do it.

[Expediency]

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

FiF has several serious problems:

1) defining what a force is, which would be very mob dependent and each guild would naturally lowball what they consider an adequate force for them.

2) can a force add to itself as more people log on? If not, yeah, that's gonna be popular. Who closes the window for "ok, this is your force, no more may join?"

3) would replacements be allowed as the guild waits? How would that work? Can you start out your force with a dozen rangers then gradually try to get other classes in?

4) if the force # drops below the required number, due to a ld, do they lose the right?

5) socking the camp from when it's spawn window opens, which means that the "FTE" moment means who has a force at zone at the moment spawn window opens, which means guilds would actually sock to be able to sock

6) Can a guild camp multiple spawn windows as long as they have a sufficient force at each?

Way too many problems. Rules upon rules upon rules.

But I do think Velious dragons need to be leashed.

These seem like easy questions.

1. They only get to declare one force. Any size. Small minimum, say 10
2. Absolutely, players can come and go. Just requires the minimum to be present, openly claiming intent to clear to a target and kill it.
3. The idea of "force" is not specific to classes. You have the right to kill a mob with your force unimpeded, and you can have as many or as few of whatever you want. And they can be anywhere in the zone waiting.
4. There would need to be a cutoff, such as two hours after spawn before it becomes fair game. If you have the minimum and someone goes LD that is their problem. Small issues like that are where lawyerquesting gets a foothold and doesnt let go. IF someone claims a camp, has only 10 people in their guild, and one of them goes LD just give them a few minutes to get the person back online.

5. Legit question, I would say if two guilds want to contest the same thing, should be determined by officers /randoming out of 1000 in a public area before the mob spawns or any force has been set up, with no guild being able to claim FiF on the same target multiple times in a row.
6. Absolutely not, at least not in multiple zones. You get one force, no matter the size. Claim it wisely.

[maestrom]

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

5. Legit question, I would say if two guilds want to contest the same thing, should be determined by officers /randoming out of 1000 in a public area before the mob spawns or any force has been set up, with no guild being able to claim FiF on the same target multiple times in a row.

You're spot on except for this.

The rule says nothing about targets being in window. Guilds are free to sock targets as long as they want. They're gonna sock anyways, I say make socking a 100% shot at the target.

If Target A has a 16 hour window, and that window starts in 6 hours. Your guild is free, if it wants to, to roll its raid force into the zone and claim the fuck out of that target. The point of the rule is to give smaller guilds a tool that they can use to ensure they get a shot at targets they want, be they epic encounters, other kunark targets, or lower priority/easier Velious targets.

Big dog guilds will still get the vast majority of the pixels, but a small but determined force of adventurers will have a way of saying "Yes. Saturday we get Gorenaire, get your bodies ready", even if that means Saturday starts on Friday night.

Shit's classic.

[Expediency]

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

You're spot on except for this.

The rule says nothing about targets being in window. Guilds are free to sock targets as long as they want. They're gonna sock anyways, I say make socking a 100% shot at the target.

If Target A has a 16 hour window, and that window starts in 6 hours. Your guild is free, if it wants to, to roll its raid force into the zone and claim the fuck out of that target. The point of the rule is to give smaller guilds a tool that they can use to ensure they get a shot at targets they want, be they epic encounters, other kunark targets, or lower priority/easier Velious targets.

Big dog guilds will still get the vast majority of the pixels, but a small but determined force of adventurers will have a way of saying "Yes. Saturday we get Gorenaire, get your bodies ready", even if that means Saturday starts on Friday night.

Shit's classic.

I'm down with this. And the longer you sock something to make sure you get it, the whole time you are removing your entire guild from other considerations. One guild can claim a force at trak for the next two weeks and bag a few kills, but they would be removing their ability to make any claim on any other target for that entire span. This also eliminates the awful byproduct of FTE: sitting at zone and not being able to exp in zone while your guild socks a target. There's no reason other than the FTE madness for why we cant hunt in a zone while a mob is in window. When VS is in window you have 2-4 guilds who have characters who cant hunt there and they might not even get the spawn. This eliminates both of those problems.

I think there will be times, such as after updates or server respawns where the server will have been empty and there will be situations where nobody has claimed a force and several groups are trying. We'd need a mechanism to settle that.

[Vallanor]

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

I think there will be times, such as after updates or server respawns where the server will have been empty and there will be situations where nobody has claimed a force and several groups or trying. We'd need a mechanism to settle that.

I think existing FTE rules would just apply in that scenario. With everything up simultaneously, FTE actually works pretty well since you can always find an unengaged target somewhere. For any normal spawns that arent claimed, you'll still be looking at FTE races anyway. This only eliminates the FTE race for a target a guIld has determined is high priority.

Just for clarification, let's say a guild claims Trak and has 20 members hanging out in Seb. There's nothing stopping the remaining members of that guild from FTE'ing to their heart's content elsewhere as long as they also maintain a presence at Trak, correct?

I think FIF would be an interesting fix to some of the issues on the server, but it mostly benefits guilds like AG and hurts power-hitters that can currently tackle NToV, so I really don't see it going anywhere.

[maestrom]

You touched on one of the additional benefits of fif. Second or third tier guilds looking for trak will set of their raid force at juggs (one guild at a time of course, because they will have claimed it). No insta-gibbing of trak, because these guilds will of course not be able to do trak without buffing and coordination, many of them will be their first shot at him on p99.

[Expediency]

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

Just for clarification, let's say a guild claims Trak and has 20 members hanging out in Seb. There's nothing stopping the remaining members of that guild from FTE'ing to their heart's content elsewhere as long as they also maintain a presence at Trak, correct?

Any target not being claimed by a force should be open to normal FTE rules. I have been trying to count in my head how many forces this would result in, since one per guild is clearly the only way of keeping track of it. There are four guilds who can kill any contested target. (nobody is gonna sock something only rampage can kill). There are another 10-15 guilds with sufficient strength to kill almost any target on the server provided they can gather and clear the area to the boss, and then some smaller guilds who could sock a target that they'd never get otherwise.

The people who run this sever go to great lengths to make this a classic experience, even removing things like buff timers when they find out how to do that. Why cant we as a community take at least some basic steps to try to bring some classic raids back? You cant actually experience any of the raid content here. The only classic style raids I've ever seen on this server are weekly sky raids (since uncontested) and the open vox raid a few months back. In fact, a "real" raid is so rare that the devs spawned vox twice because someone felt sorry for us.