CSG Successfully Crawls NToV Despite EQ Being Difficult

[Morphyus]

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

I know this is RnF but for those interested, I'll just post my best summary of this weekend.

It took us like 5 hours from Aary spot to Vulak's death, walking on Koi, Lady M and twins. It was the first time ever for most stepping in this zone so far. We didn't know some very simple mechanics skilled monks must have mastered for years. Our pulling team learnt a lot. We had to be slow and careful. We didn't wipe at all until after Vulak.We killed a lot of trash, many of the flurrys, got nice loot on those. We gained automatism and off tanking skills to the limit. Our crew managed a train of 5 trash+1flurry. Might seem easy to an experienced raider, but to us it was fantastic !
We managed to kill all the dragons in NTov on the first try but Vyemm. Even lady M whose fight was pathetic and badly managed (early pull, unprepared tank, badly positioned crew, the whole failure bingo). Vulak was a loooong fight. Some clerics announced 40% mana at... 92%.
The triplet split I was scared about was actually really easy. The longest was probably the crossing split north of Vulak. Lots of mobs, not so easy to break LoS.
Ruffel did actually play the Spin around song during Lady N. Was a fun moment.
I dreaded Zlexak poison like Hoshkar's and it was actually very simple and automatic to avoid using LoS. He went down quite slowly, but surely.






I would really NOT do it every week. It was a lot of fun for once though.
Fifield I find your post amidst this RnF nonsense, very refreshing. If I had to do this every week I definitely would pull to entrance. If I had to compete, I'd definitely make it so I get FTE and walk on the competitor. I wouldn't want to spend more time than needed in this zone.
Like you, I find this is a win-win situation. It's just a bit sad it has to be forced on you guys. I'd be happy if you left us 1 week of the quarter, hence about 4 out of the 52+2*12=76 cycles.

We got some kind of non written non binding agreement with PS and the rest of the server : we don't touch Kunark or WToV, Dain, Velk, Yeli. We eventually killed Yeli because they couldn't. I believe this made lots of players happy. I think they are still learning VP and we don't interfere there. There is definitely in this case a trickle down effect.

Were this pixels undeserved because we didn't have to compete against another guild ? Maybe, I don't know. We had to compete against ourselves. We still wipe on Trak. So... You never know with CSG. We had to not train ourselves, not ninja afk all the time, respect the chain, follow when asked, chain rebuff, spend consumables, manage people in the need to go for a while but wanting to come back... All this things you don't have to manage when you simply pull for the literally hundredth time to zone in to an over geared crew of seasoned knowledgeable raiders.
Do you guys ever had to manage a hidden factionned afk rogue in the corned you're supposed to tank, preventing the tank to actually position correctly ? This is the kind of shit we are dealing with in CSG [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I read that we spend more time than some and can't be considered casuals because of the play time. Hmmm maybe those don't have kids. Try to do something by yourself. Now do it with a kid. We have lots of kids in our guilds we need to teach. So everything is more difficult, takes more time. Some of us play a lot, probably more than some A/A neckbeards. But everytime we do something, we have to teach the newcomers. We always have those guys getting lost at LDC when we go for Nagafen. I don't think we haven't had to rescue some guy falling in the trap to Vox on one attempt. We are CSG, we are noobs. We deal with it.

As for the loots, they mostly sucked and now I understand why the pixel lusty guys really NEED their dose. Lol at the double robe on Dagarn. Lol at Poison+Runed tear on Doze when you know you get him twice a year. Mask of fall on Aary. Mask and 2h on Eashen. 11/24 weapon on Jorlleag... We still got the DS Trident, Kreizen flame, 2x Horn on Neve. Orb of confusion but most of the loot is somehow disappointing.
Yesterday on Statue we got a Reaver. I'm not kidding, just a single Reaver.
I was delusional, thinking you could get lots of shinies during a clear. It's not true. Especially when you have to spread the 5 interesting loots amongst 80 people.
Hopefully, we got lots of Ancient armor drops, that was cool. Like a full set of each almost.


All in all, very nice moment. I'd like to do this a few times a year.

PS : Oh yeah, forgot : RnF. A little troll is mandatory :
It felt good to spend so much time in game for so little result. Felt like real classic EQ. The day I don't have the 16h to play on a saturday night, I'll join A/A to just have to log for 10 mins each time and get 10 times the loots putting not half the effort into it. For the moment, I'm way too hardcore to join A/A.

PPS : If that's not a crawl, I don't know what is :
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Spot on

[Fifield]

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

Fifield I find your post amidst this RnF nonsense, very refreshing.
Like you, I find this is a win-win situation. It's just a bit sad it has to be forced on you guys. I'd be happy if you left us 1 week of the quarter, hence about 4 out of the 52+2*12=76 cycles.

Ty sir, you don't have to explain to the Manerz of the world what or how you guys did ToV. When the opportunity rises, do it your own way, no matter how long it took. You did it and you had fun.

As to leaving ToV alone, eh thats a whole different topic. I know myself I play P99 to raid, playing alts is fun and all but we enjoy the madness. Even these 10 days seem long but thats what PUBG is for right?

I know the drive isn't there for you guys but i sure do wish you guys competed more. I completely get that you feel its not worth your time to track and "compete". Its not the way you want to play the game. But i remember being in Taken back in the day, we went after CT against the big boys and got crushed over and over. Finally we got a CT and it was the greatest feeling around. Took alot of wipes, alot of learning. lots of hours but man, the good ol days.

Seize the opportunity during those repops, were only 2 guilds we cant take everything in A/A.

[Ssouky]

https://imgur.com/a/uGnhG

[Mytral]

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

https://imgur.com/a/uGnhG

CSG Crawl Confirmed!!!

[Dolalin]

I would really NOT do it every week. It was a lot of fun for once though.

Restating my point from earlier: the reason there's so much competition at the high end is because *this stuff is too easily pulled and thus trivialized*.

It's supposed to be a pain in the ass to clear. This discourages doing it every week and hogging the zone.

Staff could hit two birds with one stone here and mandate crawling North. It's self regulating. The boredom and burnout that sets in will regulate the end game here.

[paulgiamatti]

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

Restating my point from earlier: the reason there's so much competition at the high end is because *this stuff is too easily pulled and thus trivialized*.

Well, I wouldn't exactly call that easy - easier than it should be, sure, but I think anything short of impossible is too easy when it comes to conveyor-belting NToV dragons to the zone in, effectively immiserating any unfortunate soul who happens to zone in mid-fight. Easy to the neckbeard who's done it a thousand times, sure, but it's still a difficult thing to learn for the few people who have to do it. That's the convenience of A/A's wholly unclassic method - it puts all the work on a few key playmakers while the rest of the raid waits to stare at dragon butt and push a button every 10 seconds or so. Crawling raises the level of difficulty for the entire raid so that every single person needs to be on their A-game. A rising tide lifting all boats would be an appropriate analogy.

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

The boredom and burnout that sets in will regulate the end game here.

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

[Lhancelot]

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

Well, I wouldn't exactly call that easy - easier than it should be, sure, but I think anything short of impossible is too easy when it comes to conveyor-belting NToV dragons to the zone in, effectively immiserating any unfortunate soul who happens to zone in mid-fight.

Easy to the neckbeard who's done it a thousand times, sure, but it's still a difficult thing to learn for the few people who have to do it.

That's the convenience of A/A's wholly unclassic method - it puts all the work on a few key playmakers while the rest of the raid waits to stare at dragon butt and push a button every 10 seconds or so.

Crawling raises the level of difficulty for the entire raid so that every single person needs to be on their A-game. A rising tide lifting all boats would be an appropriate analogy.

This was an awesome way to explain the present raiding phenomenon on P99 regarding the dragons.

I fixed it for you Paul, by adding space inbetween your sentences as it was way too bunched up!

Besides that, perfect explanation and I loved the part about conveyor belting dragons. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[paulgiamatti]

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

I fixed it for you Paul, by adding space inbetween your sentences as it was way too bunched up!

Viva la paragraphia.

[Pubo]

Even though I missed 90% of the weekend, I had damn fun and I'm convinced it was the most fun many of us had in a long time.

Well written Ssouky. I disarmed picked the reaver from the ground btw so technically it wasn't even looted [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Happy to be part of this even just the little bit I had time to join. This thread kinda saddens me a bit though but there are some shinies in here as well [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Mead]

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

The boredom and burnout that sets in will regulate the end game here.

https://youtu.be/JL--TkrtLrU?t=13