Thought Experiment: How Could Rotations Be Competitive?

[Ooloo]

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

What is measured by competition in EverQuest?

Being good at everquest

[Fammaden]

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

I am not sure why people think competition is bad. We have plenty of games that revolve around competition, Basketball, Chess, Etc. If you don't like those games, don't play them. Everquest has competition built into it, which isn't a bad thing.

Yes, and other competitive events like that have rules and enforcement in real time by a third party arbiter. Referees, umpires, judges, etc.

The biggest issues plaguing the raid scene are that we have rules that aren't enforced and the players aren't monitored or penalized. And when they are enforced its months later, which is not helpful in behavioral shaping when punishments aren't dealt in a timely manner.

With all due respect to our overworked and underappreciated volunteer staff (who believe it or not have a lot of other shit to do that's unrelated to raiding), the raid game is totally lacking in this enforcement that's necessary for head-to-head competition.

This is not a controversial take. Basically every raider agrees with this issue, doesn't matter if you're Vanq or Riot, Seal/Force or Kingdom/Safe, everyone agrees this is a problem. They only disagree on who should be getting the most penalty flags thrown at them.

Because the raid scene is lacking the needed officiating, its not valid to hold up competitive raiding as some sort of virtue on P99. Competitions need straightforward and consistent rulebooks with someone ensuring that both teams are playing by the rules at all times, or it devolves into a chaotic race to the bottom.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Yes, and other competitive events like that have rules and enforcement in real time by a third party arbiter. Referees, umpires, judges, etc.

The biggest issues plaguing the raid scene are that we have rules that aren't enforced and the players aren't monitored or penalized. And when they are enforced its months later, which is not helpful in behavioral shaping when punishments aren't dealt in a timely manner.

With all due respect to our overworked and underappreciated volunteer staff (who believe it or not have a lot of other shit to do that's unrelated to raiding), the raid game is totally lacking in this enforcement that's necessary for head-to-head competition.

This is not a controversial take. Basically every raider agrees with this issue, doesn't matter if you're Vanq or Riot, Seal/Force or Kingdom/Safe, everyone agrees this is a problem. They only disagree on who should be getting the most penalty flags thrown at them.

Because the raid scene is lacking the needed officiating, its not valid to hold up competitive raiding as some sort of virtue on P99. Competitions need straightforward and consistent rulebooks with someone ensuring that both teams are playing by the rules at all times, or it devolves into a chaotic race to the bottom.

I do agree with your assessment here. But the answer is quite simple: Remove the rules that require GM intervention, and let the players govern themselves. Yes, there will be a few weeks of people going wild and training other guilds ad-nauseum. But eventually everybody would get tired of it (including the trainers), and the players would govern themselves.

The staff should create a sandbox in which the players figure out what's best. That is what made Everquest a much more social game than most modern MMO's these days. You actually had to make friends and uphold agreements. It isn't like modern MMO's where you can get everything you want without needing to talk to anyone, due to the exact systems people are suggesting. Instancing is the modern form of rotations, and games have given you what you asked for close to 20 years now. P99 is awesome because it is one of the few MMO's that does something different.

[Ooloo]

For some reason people think EQ requires no skill but then also moan all day about how hard it is to win

[Ooloo]

Jib nobody is talking about cheating though. Obviously I have nothing but sympathy for the people who have to deal with petitions about cheating in the game, but the idea is that *they are cheating*. This isn't 'nam, there are rules. Abide the rules and see who wins, it really is a primal and timeless human instinct.

[Elizondo]

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

Jib nobody is talking about cheating though. Obviously I have nothing but sympathy for the people who have to deal with petitions about cheating in the game, but the idea is that *they are cheating*. This isn't 'nam, there are rules. Abide the rules and see who wins, it really is a primal and timeless human instinct.

Tell Walter, I'm sorry

[Ooloo]

Also I do like OP's idea..

[zati]

that's tall order for a game that wasn't even suppose to be competitive in the first place by the original creators. racing not even classic. in 99' multiple live servers with over 1k population and racing for "first-time-ever kills" was the so-called 'competition'. end game on p99 is jus an evolution of neckbeards setting the rules on the game board

not saying it ain't impossible, but its 2022 and since the server came out there hasn't been a great solution besides FTE it or a full-time GM babysitting a bunch of 30-50 yr olds. without gm intervention to code in some non-classic stuff you'll just end up right back to fte's or some troublesome intricate rules that would put off any new raiders from wanting to play. (too many rules to follow)

my stance is.. If you wanna really truly desire to raid endgame either join the top 2(3?) guilds, accept the unfavorable fate of tracking,batphones,dkp hoarders,neckbeards etc. stop trying to make an unfair game-"fair" you'll just break the thing is the sad truth after playing on this server for 7 yrs lol

[loramin]

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

that's tall order for a game that wasn't even suppose to be competitive in the first place by the original creators. racing not even classic. in 99' multiple live servers with over 1k population and racing for "first-time-ever kills" was the so-called 'competition'. end game on p99 is jus an evolution of neckbeards setting the rules on the game board

not saying it ain't impossible, but its 2022 and since the server came out there hasn't been a great solution besides FTE it or a full-time GM babysitting a bunch of 30-50 yr olds. without gm intervention to code in some non-classic stuff you'll just end up right back to fte's or some troublesome intricate rules that would put off any new raiders from wanting to play. (too many rules to follow)

my stance is.. If you wanna really truly desire to raid endgame either join the top 2(3?) guilds, accept the unfavorable fate of tracking,batphones,dkp hoarders,neckbeards etc. stop trying to make an unfair game-"fair" you'll just break the thing is the sad truth after playing on this server for 7 yrs lol

No one said anything about "fair": I just asked about competitive rotations.

Such rotations are simply a different way of handling the fact that we have more players than raid mobs ... not necessarily a more "fair" way.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

No one said anything about "fair": I just asked about competitive rotations.

Such rotations are simply a different way of handling the fact that we have more players than raid mobs ... not necessarily a more "fair" way.

Again, you can't have "competitive rotations". Competitions and rotations are antithetical. You're example you gave at the beginning of the thread was bag limits, which is switching between competitions and rotations, rather than blending the two into "competitive rotations".

The biggest issue with your example (besides what I mentioned above), is that kill speed is heavily determined by how many people you can bring on average to the raid. So basically the biggest guild would always win the "competition" and get their higher bag limit. It would also further incentivize creating one giant guild who always wins, lowering competition. If the bag limit increase is unlimited, then you end up back where we were before bag limits, and if the bag limit is simply increased once, then that is the new bag limit.

As I stated before, the only way you could blend the two is something like a consolation prize. You keep up the competition because the killer of the raid mob gets first picks at the loot. That is the incentive to place first. But the second place guild gets a "consolation prize". You are effectively rotating the loot between the two top guilds, but sometimes an underdog could claim the "consolation prize" too. However, I don't like the idea, as it would be a headache to figure out who was in second place.

Honestly the server was much better when Dragons were unrooted, pushing mobs was a thing, and clickies were un-nerfed. We had FOUR guilds competing in ToV. Kittens, Azure Guard, Aftermath, and Riot. You had two casual guilds and two top guilds to pick from to try and get loot. It was a much better system in terms of smaller guilds being able to snag mobs without a massive response team. That ability for smaller guilds to compete with bigger guilds is what allowed for guild diversity. With rooted dragons, the push nerf, and the clickie nerfs, you are now basically required to have a large guild if you want to kill the bigger targets, which means small guilds basically cannot compete.