Current state of blue vs. green?

[kjs86z2]

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

the root cause of everything turning to shit was when the high end players lowered their recruiting standards

yes because of rooted dragons

unroot + 1 hour lockout + merge = people wanting to raid again

until then the only thing keeping people logging in is pixel sickness

[evanderheide]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You need to touch grass since you've clearly become so immersed that you look at everything through a "competition" and endgame/raiding lens.

A lot of us just want a merge because we enjoy the feeling of a more crowded world in general.

This guy gets it and is making the same argument I am from a player perspective.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

A lot of us just want a merge because we enjoy the feeling of a more crowded world in general.

Not to mention a new Green resetting that server back to pre-Kunark.

But it was a typical myopic Solist post. The guy doesn't understand why MMORPG's exist, nor what actual competitive gaming is.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by kjs86z2 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

yes because of rooted dragons

unroot + 1 hour lockout + merge = people wanting to raid again

until then the only thing keeping people logging in is pixel sickness

Indeed. Unrooting dragons will allow smaller guilds to compete with larger guilds again, which will make things more interesting.

[Ekco]

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

nor what actual competitive gaming is.

actual competitive games are mostly balanced with some fairy dust of jank sprinkled in for people to madpost and care about

EQ literally has that formula ass backwards and always has

they didn't build a esports stadium in my city because people are interested in watching people raiding in a theme park for casuals or playing the worst balanced pvp game in the history of gaming.

send post.

[Solist]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You need to touch grass since you've clearly become so immersed that you look at everything through a "competition" and endgame/raiding lens.

A lot of us just want a merge because we enjoy the feeling of a more crowded world in general.

Then you should push the CSR to make the server rules bring players back.

Hundreds of us want to play on blue again. But the current rules simply do not allow it to happen. The writing has been on the wall for years, every guild told CSR what a disaster rooting dragons would be. What a disaster linking guard aggro is. What a disaster removing lockouts was (and the reasons for doing it are gone).

Your CSR are the problem. More players with a merger just means more players would leave, not stay. Merging 300 and 600 people together makes a 600 person server, not a 900.

Thats because the current rules and mechanics do not allow fair competition where you can win mobs with 20-25 people in small guilds, win even more mobs with 30-50 people in bigger guilds, and win even more mobs with 70-80 people in massive zergs. Right now it's 170 person guild wins everything, noone competes, noone even logs in.

You need a roster of 500 people with 300 of them 'active', with 100 of them reliable to be able to compete. Considering both servers are rapidly declining in players; it is what it is. Once Castle gets a few more dunks green will be just as shit as blue.

The playing environment is what brings players and keeps them. Make an environment that doesn't make attempting to compete futile and people do. We've seen it in the past. This whole 'draft' giveaway crap drives more and more people away....they only play during the drafts and otherwise it's a ghost town.

Giving people mobs doesnt make them want to play. Giving them the opportunity to win mobs fairly does. Most of Fuse is also MIA because it's so boring winning when there's no competition lol, All thats left are the kittens coat tail riders who are still excited to win; but soon enough they'll also learn shallow uncompetitive EQ is boring as shit. May as well play on a GM server and #summonitem your own BIS. Good luck to them but currently it's one guild holding the entire server hostage; and it's their right and perogative to do so because the rules favor and force that guild to exist like that.

It's CSR's creation alone. Hundreds of players would return if the servers had rules that attracted players. Merging the servers halves the amount of mobs per person available across both servers; while forcing everyone not in the dominant guild to quit. As seen on blue, as seen on green already. I'm sorry but your problem isn't 'they will come, it's built'; but rather 'build it and they will come'.. Where's Ray Kinsella to mow down his corn field when you need him.

[Zuranthium]

Everquest is not about boring ass raids and there is no such thing as competitive raiding without PvP or other mechanisms to reward actual player skill and teamwork. Racing for FTE's is not real skill and the game inherently rewards zergs, because there is no mechanism to prevent it, and it inherently rewards low level gameplay, as the NPC's are too brainless to go attack the priority targets (which is the mere starting layer of higher level gameplay).

[Teddie1056]

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

Then you should push the CSR to make the server rules bring players back.

Hundreds of us want to play on blue again. But the current rules simply do not allow it to happen. The writing has been on the wall for years, every guild told CSR what a disaster rooting dragons would be. What a disaster linking guard aggro is. What a disaster removing lockouts was (and the reasons for doing it are gone).

Your CSR are the problem. More players with a merger just means more players would leave, not stay. Merging 300 and 600 people together makes a 600 person server, not a 900.

Thats because the current rules and mechanics do not allow fair competition where you can win mobs with 20-25 people in small guilds, win even more mobs with 30-50 people in bigger guilds, and win even more mobs with 70-80 people in massive zergs. Right now it's 170 person guild wins everything, noone competes, noone even logs in.

You need a roster of 500 people with 300 of them 'active', with 100 of them reliable to be able to compete. Considering both servers are rapidly declining in players; it is what it is. Once Castle gets a few more dunks green will be just as shit as blue.

The playing environment is what brings players and keeps them. Make an environment that doesn't make attempting to compete futile and people do. We've seen it in the past. This whole 'draft' giveaway crap drives more and more people away....they only play during the drafts and otherwise it's a ghost town.

Giving people mobs doesnt make them want to play. Giving them the opportunity to win mobs fairly does. Most of Fuse is also MIA because it's so boring winning when there's no competition lol, All thats left are the kittens coat tail riders who are still excited to win; but soon enough they'll also learn shallow uncompetitive EQ is boring as shit. May as well play on a GM server and #summonitem your own BIS. Good luck to them but currently it's one guild holding the entire server hostage; and it's their right and perogative to do so because the rules favor and force that guild to exist like that.

It's CSR's creation alone. Hundreds of players would return if the servers had rules that attracted players. Merging the servers halves the amount of mobs per person available across both servers; while forcing everyone not in the dominant guild to quit. As seen on blue, as seen on green already. I'm sorry but your problem isn't 'they will come, it's built'; but rather 'build it and they will come'.. Where's Ray Kinsella to mow down his corn field when you need him.

Amen

[Solist]

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

Everquest is not about boring ass raids and there is no such thing as competitive raiding without PvP or other mechanisms to reward actual player skill and teamwork. Racing for FTE's is not real skill and the game inherently rewards zergs, because there is no mechanism to prevent it, and it inherently rewards low level gameplay, as the NPC's are too brainless to go attack the priority targets (which is the mere starting layer of higher level gameplay).

Ok let's just assume you've never done anything on blue competitive, and break down a little bit.

Why I'm engaging with DSMlite I don't know, but here goes.

without PvP or other mechanisms to reward actual player skill and teamwork

Competitive raiding on blue IS player vs player. It is who is better prepared, who is better prepared on the aggregate, who has the highest standards. Actual red PVP in everquest is horrible, and never scaled well with content past classic. In velious it's simply untenable. But you beat your fellow player by being a better organised package.

You do this by mobilising faster, being able to engage faster with less people, being able to sustain longer without optimal class and numerical composition, and being able to pivot from one strategy to another quickly with no explanation needed.

Changing from a pet pull to a mage bomb to a DA toggle to a backtag all in the same 30 second period, and all 5 or 6 of the moving parts all play their part perfectly is what made Vanquish stomp everyone. And there is no barrier to entry to that, thats the beauty of blue raiding. Aside from a couple of bots that are easy to level there is zero barrier to entry. Every guild can practice, train, and execute.

You know all the 'strategies' people use to clear out all the npc's curently aren't like...'just the way' you do it, but they're eroded versions of pretty finessed methods developed during the competitive eras. You think we just did non kos low hp trainups in VP for the lols? It was a forced evolution from kos low hp trainups which evolved from full hp trainups which evolved from multiple people throwing bodies at it trainups which evolved from the no rules eras of moving raids around the zone and trying to kill the opposing raid etc.

People don't kite 6 vulak guards for fun; they do it because you need 6 people pumping more than MT aggro into a mob with linked aggro. It evolved from doing 4-3-2-1 drake engages, which evolved from drake clearing while trying to bump slow vulak+friends and engage 1-2-3-4 mobs at once, which evolved from non linked trainaways, which evolved from backtagging vulak solo unlinked when unrooted. Everything we do, on every single mob on blue/green has a lineage of optimisation. And for some of them several additional levels of optimisation still to come if the competitive edge ever requires it.

Racing for FTE's is not real skill and the game

You've never raced for content have you. Never had a game folder specific to racing, made characters specific to racing, broken down every possible controllable variable to optimise; then done quite literal thousands of practice runs.

I hate that shit too. But to say it took no skill is laughably ignorant. We'd spend 10hours straight practicing the same lines. I love chaotic VP runs with SOW speed. Kael racing is the worst and needs a good looking at.

Then stunningly decided despite being fastest of everyone, to then also likely cheat. He is/was genuinely the quickest dude on the server without scripting a thing. It's a shame, if (I think so) he cheated.

game inherently rewards zergs, because there is no mechanism to prevent it

Change the rules. The rules did not favor zergs for years. Then we changed the rules.
Then we changed the mechanics rooting dragons and leashing some.
Then we changed the mechanics again linking aggro.

Make rules that favor the individual input, not the size of the guild; and add a component of equalising the field to it.

My suggestion is:
Racing from specific points, using only sow speed, using only 200 range insta clicks only, only 1 DA, ban selos and ban ranged attack. That levels the playing field massively. Add an hour lockout. Add a 10min cooldown from TOD before you can earn another lockout. Job done. Bunch of 20-40 man guilds will be having a great time, while 50-100man guilds will also get more than their share of mobs still.

Too many races currently favor massive zergs as they dont reward the race win without a massive roster so the balance of probability is of 2-3 7k tanks, and 20 clerics logging in to stabilise anything, along with 5 quads to train away anything needed.

Lockouts really open up a lot of zones, and more casual strategy. It removes so many barriers, removes a lot of the week to week logistical load, and cuts down massively on consumable use. Some fights in Project Lightning I would use 14-15 wort pots, 9 clicks of each, tanking something waiting on appropriate heal chains. This isn't uncommon or special; its just the dumb shit you have to do to endure instant engages like a Doze. Instead that can be one thin bone wand click, and zero consumables, with 40+mins to set up, kill a couple of wurms and 2 mobs, control an engage nice and steadily etc. Full casual dad spec raiding is awesome when you have lockouts.

as the NPC's are too brainless to go attack the priority targets

If you don't find it rewarding to kill npc's in everquest, you're not challenging yourself by doing it with low enough numbers.

But I agree with you. EQ isn't about the mobs or the gear, it's about the people you play with and the player vs player you get to compete in. The most balanced PVP in EQ is the blue servers in that regard. Killing mobs in the game uncontested is the most boring game you can imagine. When it's competitive engages in the giant sized guilds all the playmakers pretty much AFK once the mob is stable. Noone is interested in killing Vulak #97. We're all interested in ways to compete to secure that mob though.

higher level gameplay

It seems to me you havn't taken part in even mid level gameplay uncontested on these servers except for draft mobs, and thats ok. You've maybe wasted your time on these servers when there was such excellent non competitive options.

The real issue on blue and green is the CSR are also like you, inexperienced, unknowledgeable, not technically minded, not inquisitive, and have always been 'have nots' and think the big bad guys raiding competitively were somehow this elitist club of shitheads. Every guild was just normal folks asked to partake in a few hoop jumping exercises to get prepared, and to try not to stand in the wrong spot too often. EQ isn't hard. The servers thrived when competition was easy to access, fair for the individual, and did not reward being the largest zerg exclusively; only rewarded it ratiometrically to their size.

[Solist]

I should add, there's lots of solutions to the problem.

If we have to have raid rules (which I think are stupid anyway), lockouts seems to be the best way to do it. Lockouts reward massive guilds who can kill fast. Lockouts reward small guilds who don't need the infrastructure and roster to support live engages.

Lockouts are rife for being stupidly optimised by autists however. So removing as much of the bullshit as possible like illusion swaps, windstriker cheese, slowing people down so they're susceptible to npc's in VP. Lockouts were never perfect, but they could be as close to perfect as we've ever seen.

I'd even add that lockout racing that races only ever start every 6 minutes. So you have 5min59sec to get logged in, sow, prepared on a toon to watch 30 elves all yeeting at whatever random mob. That would be gold. Make it super casual friendly for the most casual dad spec EQ to still get lucky.