Raid Changes

[Lazortag]

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

Oh, and re: the European players, you're clearly not getting it. Daytime repops are European prime time. I don't know why you have this delusion that every no variance mob would be spawning US primetime and hanging Europe out to dry. It would depend entirely on when the original server repop was. Given recent server history, it seems more likely that raid mobs would start popping in European prime time and slowly drift toward US prime time with each new pop. Just randomize the time at which each server repop/simulated patch takes place. There will be weeks where European players have an enormous advantage, and weeks where all the pops come in US prime time. Just like classic.

...What?? Every patch for the past year has been between 7PM and 11PM EST as far as I can recall, which is way too late for most European players. If you took away variance entirely, then all mobs would die within a 30 minute time frame, and next week they'd respawn only slightly later. If your suggestion is to have random simulated patch days then you'll have the opposite problem since for several weeks straight, mobs will only spawn early in the morning for westerners. The time of day that mobs spawn one week shouldn't determine when they spawn the next week on an international server.

Originally Posted by Daldolma

Sounds awfully similar to when people would say "do you really think they're going to track for 96 hours straight?" The answer is yes. They'll track every mob and keep 40+ online all day on the one day that repops are due. They're not going to just walk away and say aw, shucks. They'll sell a few more Trak BPs, buy a few more tracker accounts, and be as good to go as ever.

But you're right. Guilds would have the option of sitting in a zone while a mob is in window and hoping he spawns. That's otherwise known as poop-socking, and you'd probably be doing it with 2 or 3 other guilds depending on your target. But yeah, if that's what you want, that would be an option available to you. That was the entire reason variance was added in the first place, though -- to eliminate that kind of behavior.

The problem is that currently, they have a few people who are able to track for unreasonably long stretches of time. If the windows were shortened, they'd need multiple people able to track for smaller stretches of time. Even if they could track every mob, smaller guilds would probably camp near their priority mobs*, or just outrace them when more than one mob spawns at a time. What if Trak or some VP mob is in window during a day when everything else is popping? Do you think TMO and BDA are going to risk giving the other guild a free shot at Trak if they mobilize for some low-priority target like Inny? Another huge difference is that if you lose a mob that you tracked under the new system, you don't lose 4 days of your life for nothing, and you still have a reasonable idea of when the TOD was if a mob spawns when your guild was asleep.

Basically what will happen is this: TMO will lose mobs because they can't be everywhere at once. The current system gives them more security because if they go for a mob, the chance of another one spawning at the same time is extremely low, and they keep track of all the TOD's so that if another mob is in window, they don't lose a huge part of their raid force trying to track it. If 10 other mobs are in window, are you going to spare 10 of your raiders just to track them? I doubt it.

*I'm not ashamed about poopsocking for a few hours if the alternative is to poopsock it for several days. Also, 2-3 guilds poopsocking one mob is extremely unlikely given that there are over a dozen raid mobs and less than a dozen raid guilds.

edit: also, I think that small guilds *can* beat TMO to certain targets, and they just need to be willing to track. Currently I don't see how any casual player would be willing to track because it is such a colossal time investment.

[Daldolma]

18 hours isn't going to be the rapid-fire respawn that you seem to think it is. It takes less than 20 minutes for TMO to mobilize and take down a mob once it spawns. Multiple priority targets popping at the same time is going to be the exception, not the rule. Maybe they'll choose to let a Maestro, Sev, or Talendor slide every now and then, but they're not going to have any problem at all taking down Trak, VS, Inny, CT, VP, and Gore. They don't even have any real competition for VP and Gore.

There are two scenarios given an 18-hour variance. One is that TMO will go zone to zone annihilating everything as it spawns, and the only hope other guilds will have is to poopsock. This is the most likely scenario.

The other is that TMO will poopsock Trak and/or VS with BDA for 18 hours.

There's one thing in common with both of those scenarios: return of the sock. It's not classic, it's not how the endgame was meant to be played, and there's no reason for it. There are 9,000 better ways to cater to a small European population that, as Autotune pointed out, doesn't even comprise a guild of their own at the moment.

[Autotune]

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

18 hours isn't going to be the rapid-fire respawn that you seem to think it is. It takes less than 20 minutes for TMO to mobilize and take down a mob once it spawns. Multiple priority targets popping at the same time is going to be the exception, not the rule. Maybe they'll choose to let a Maestro, Sev, or Talendor slide every now and then, but they're not going to have any problem at all taking down Trak, VS, Inny, CT, VP, and Gore. They don't even have any real competition for VP and Gore.

There are two scenarios given an 18-hour variance. One is that TMO will go zone to zone annihilating everything as it spawns, and the only hope other guilds will have is to poopsock. This is the most likely scenario.

The other is that TMO will poopsock Trak and/or VS with BDA for 18 hours.

There's one thing in common with both of those scenarios: return of the sock. It's not classic, it's not how the endgame was meant to be played, and there's no reason for it. There are 9,000 better ways to cater to a small European population that, as Autotune pointed out, doesn't even comprise a guild of their own at the moment.

You're very right, 18hrs is not going to make it rapid fire respawn every time it comes around, but that's not exactly what it's intended to do.

While you get the 18hr windows, you basically only deal with them every other week. Guilds would get bi-weekly repops (something that should be in already) and then the next week they get the variance. 18hrs won't give them rapid fire repops, but does put urgency into targets as well as priority when it comes to decision making for guilds.

BDA can take out most (if not all) of VP. Divinity can kill many of the kunark dragons solo, same with taken and some of the other guilds (only difficult one being gore). Smaller guilds can take out some of the same dragons and other targets.

I honestly see nearly every raid capable guild joining in and taking a slice of the pie where they can and as previous p99 history tells me, during repops most guilds try to travel the path of least resistance.

All this does is eliminate the advantage that huge guilds hold over small guilds. If nothing else, it gets the smaller/normal guilds involved.

Who cares if they poop sock a few windows here and there, odds are that they won't have to poop sock long, if even at all. Not all windows ride out to a poopsock.

[Asher]

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

BDA can take out most (if not all) of VP.

First let me say I sincerely appreciate your input and polite conduct in this discussion.

Secondly, lets all not forget that we need the GMs to remove this silliness of legal training in VP.

It was never tolerated on live and should not be tolerated here.

Asher

[Autotune]

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

First let me say I sincerely appreciate your input and polite conduct in this discussion.

Secondly, lets all not forget that we need the GMs to remove this silliness of legal training in VP.

It was never tolerated on live and should not be tolerated here.

Asher

Eh? You say that as if it's a shocker lol

on your second point, we definitely disagree.

[Alarti0001]

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

First let me say I sincerely appreciate your input and polite conduct in this discussion.

Secondly, lets all not forget that we need the GMs to remove this silliness of legal training in VP.

It was never tolerated on live and should not be tolerated here.

Asher

It was tolerated on live.

[Ravager]

Nobody can say for sure what the result will be until it's tried. Afterall, the TMO megaguild was an unintended consequence of 4 day variance. This server is a perpetual work in progress and I don't see what the harm would be to try some of these ideas for a few weeks and then guage the waters then. I doubt there will be any lasting damage to the player base that isn't already going on through attrition right now.

[aldred]

I like the idea of testing stuff, this is what makes the best results in software development [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Nlaar]

Bumpage.

[gloine36]

Just ban the top guild every other week for weekly reboots.