Asking a favor from the two top guilds on the server

[maverixdamighty]

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

I am sure that far more players would be happy with a full rotation than would not (namely TMO and possibly FE). The best idea would be to have a GM set it up and run it. This would still take far less time then dealing with countless bickering and fte petitions.

proposal: have two tiers of raiding guilds and two tiers of raid targets.
Basically, guilds take turns killing target mobs. They have a 12 hour window after spawn to take down their mob regardless of how many times they wipe. After the window expires, the mob drops to the next guild in rotation.

To be able to qualify, a guild must demonstrate the ability to defeat a specific mob in the rotation. Not sure if gm's are able to do something like spawn the mob with no loot. To enter t1, a guild most have x amount of keys to VP or something of the sort.

This solution has more benefits than cons for sure. This is a GAME, lets give everybody a chance to enjoy all of its content.

TMO/FE --> if you guys are hellbent on arguing who is top guild, etc. then I suggest you all just go to the arena, whip it out, and battle.

Thoughts?

No.

[maverixdamighty]

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

Being part of a guild means you can exclude people you'd prefer not to be guilded with. One of our policies for example is that we don't allow people who've been banned for MQ/SEQ. So if we merged with 3 other guilds, we'd have to unconditionally let in a bunch of players who we'd otherwise reject, and allow them to skip our app processes. I'm not trying to sound elitist, I'm sure that the aforementioned guilds wouldn't want to lower their standards either. Your suggestion is patently ridiculous otherwise it would have been tried already.



So if the raid scene makes merging necessary to compete, is it the smaller guilds who are at fault, or is it the raid scene that is flawed? Casual guilds have many players in them who were in top raid guilds on Live. It's not that we're incapable of competing or somehow inept at this game, it's that this is a different version of the game we all played, and in this version, the cost of competing at TMO/FE's level is unreasonable.

(I'm predicting a response that accuses me of being a socialist, wanting rotations on every mob, and/or of wanting the variance removed entirely when none of those were mentioned in my post)

I know you pretty well and you know my stance on this when I was in divinity and even now. The only difference here and on live is all this extra built in variance crap. On live the vast majority of servers had top guilds similar to tmo/fe that monopolized the spawns they wanted. This opened up for other guilds when new content opened up. IMO that is the only thing that is going to help this server.

[KotBK]

The fact Sirken suggests being pro-zerg makes me wonder why Nilbog who is anti-zerg allows him to be at the top of the GM ladder with such differing ideals.

Both good gents obviously, but still i would have to side with the creator of the project rather than the lead GM. This raid scene isn't classic albeit for many reasons, possibly Rogean feels the same way as Sirken (this i don't know). None the less there is a change that should be made and it isn't forcing guilds to do as they don't please.

I would assume the majority of this server has experience of having played this game in the past and knows the general way to play it. With that being said it leaves little room for the argument of people being less skilled or unknowing with a population of minuscule percentage being truly fresh to the game. The game is just that a game, it was made to be fun and to share in that experience with others. Just because guilds aren't getting the mobs now doesn't mean they can't or don't have the drive, many just prefer not to get involved with the current set of tactics required to do so. Still even so the beauty of a game like this is fun can still be had in many ways.

Nilbog's proposed ideas just need to come sooner rather than later because i think that they will atleast help alleviate the pressure and tension of these forms of discussion until Velious (or more content in general) is released. After all many of us are here for nostalgic purposes so just to see the mobs regardless of failed attempts still provides a rush, one in which all deserve to get an opportunity to experience in my opinion.

[Splorf22]

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

why dont all these smaller guilds just merge to form a competitive guild, as opposed to hoping a mob pops within your guilds peak play time. for example u said 5pm-1am you'd be good to go, but not outside those hours.

so maybe time to think outside the box? if FC, FV, Div, and Taken were to merge, you would easily be able to start competing on just about any mob.

people will argue that they shouldnt have to merge to compete. and i will simply disagree because its not true. every top guild goes through mergers on their way to the top.

doing things the way you want, and doing things the way things need to be done to compete, are not always the same path. and theres a very good chance at some point you have to decide which of those paths you are going to embark on, because most times its not possible to do both.

So when I read this post, Sirken, I was simply shocked. You aren't wrong per se: if you want to raid on P1999, the formula is to join a 100 man zerg so that tracking hours can be distributed and there will be enough people to log in a raid force 24/7. It was TR's formula when they merged with IB, TMO's formula when they merged with DA, and now FE's formula. It's a formula anyone can follow. EQ simply isn't that hard.

What shocked me is that you don't understand that the current raiding scene is not fun for probably 2/3 of the players. It's like a hotdog eating contest: it sounds good but you just end up vomiting. I could app TMO or FE and probably get in, but I made the A-Team specifically because I didn't want to play the batphone/poopsock/fte sniping game. I think the encounters are much more fun with fewer players. I have spent some time with TMO in VP and other than the forum trolls they are all ready nice guys, but its just not that fun because with 45-55 players the dragons are simply annihilated. Challenge level: 0. Pixels: considerable.

And finally, don't you think its a bit ironic that you are criticizing players for 'failing to compete' when what makes the competition so annoying is variance, and variance is . . . not classic at all? We have a server where the compass is disabled because its not classic, but the most important aspect of the raid scene is deliberately changed to only allow huge zerg guilds to succeed.

[uygi]

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

the big guilds should let smaller guilds try every raid boss that pops for awhile (more than one week every three months), but then as soon as the smaller guild wipes the big guys are allowed to step in. =p lets be real, the big guys would still get 80%+ of the kills. and they'd get to laugh while the smaller guilds fail hard.

That's a much hairier idea than you probably realize. There are encounters right now, most notably Inny, CT and Trak, where one guild's wipe can often kill the other guild, at which point it turns into a real shit show. Then somebody messes up their CR (or maybe it's on purpose) and everybody gets trained again, etc. More guilds present, especially with less experience, lower levels and less encounter understanding would only make it worse. Then on top of that, FE and TMO (plus whoever else might theoretically be down to try) have the mess of trying to FTE versus eachother immediately as the smaller guild wipes. It would be a real mess. Now if TMO and FE were to /random to see who goes first instead of an all-out FTE lottery, that would solve this and some other problems (especially the problem of a guild with insufficient force getting a kill, which goes both ways).

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

If players want to compete with the top guild(s), they can just join them.
...
And asking top guilds to enter a rotation seems doomed to fail (at least with the current protagonists).

New guilds have come up to compete in the last couple years with varying success. When I joined in 2010, DA and IB were the established top dogs. Between long-term alliances, short-term cooperation and competing on their own, VD certainly managed to win things in its time. TMO began its attempt to raid seriously when Kunark came out, and was a challenger at the time to IB/TR and DA/Asc/Fusion. TMO ultimately merged with DA/Asc/Fusion. BDA did, for a brief while, manage to put up some competition for TMO. And once upon a time Divinity got god and dragon kills as well (or so I'm told). You have to be willing to try and willing to fail a bunch before you start winning on a competitive server.

Also, TMO, IB and VD at one time had a three-way raiding agreement which set Trak/VP rotations and established rules beyond the server rules, and later IB/TMO had a 2-guild agreement. It could happen again. The #1 thing that I think prevents rotation is people across any guilds involved getting all butthurt or uppity about crap.

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

Being part of a guild means you can exclude people you'd prefer not to be guilded with.
...
So if we merged with 3 other guilds, we'd have to unconditionally...

No, you wouldn't. There would be terms set. Most likely, one guild would absorb another and exercise primary authority. That's how that kind of thing usually works.


Also, the smaller guilds can work together to apply pressure. Get some spawn windows figured out, and when Trak is late in window know what else is in window and go for it, because FE and TMO are going to be focused on Trak. Heck, let's insert some code that makes world dragons likely to spawn any time Trak is alive. That'll give small guilds a head start.

Also, I think Sirken completely understands what's going on on the server. It's people crowded in a bubble working within a fairly arbitrary but necessary rules framework according to a pattern that has developed over years. He's just being realistic. It isn't Sirken job to dictate how we can make the raid scene equitable; he just works on the GM side within the same framework as the players, dealing with the limitations and enforcing the rules of the server.

[Tenlaar]

Just as a random question, is it possible to do in-game polls with this server's set up? I would love to see the results of an "are you satisfied with the raiding scene" poll.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

the answer would be "yes," because the poll itself would be zerged. accounts created, characters power leveled up to the voting level, all to win the vote. that is how deep the sickness runs.

[uygi]

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

Just as a random question, is it possible to do in-game polls with this server's set up? I would love to see the results of an "are you satisfied with the raiding scene" poll.

I doubt it, just because there's nothing that limits the number of characters or accounts any one person has. It would get messed with.

[slappytwotoes]

This thread is getting derailed by Sirken's comments... no guilds need to merge.

Is TMO on board with this? CHECK (according to Tiggles)
Is FE on board with this? CHECK (I think.. according to Shinko)

We still need:

Confirm 1 week every 3 months;
Confirm the raid targets (outdoor dragons + Draco/Maestro?) or all raid targets?
Confirm timer to FTE (24 hours?);
anything else?;

Smaller guilds on board?
A-Team? CHECK (according to Lorean)
Divinity? CHECK (according to OP)
Taken?
Full Circle?
Flawless?
any other I missed?

Let's finish this checklist and see where we're at.

[Shinko]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Shinko correct me if I'm wrong but are you proposing something like:

1st spawn: TMO
2nd spawn: FE
3rd spawn: everyone not in TMO/FE
4th spawn: TMO/FE race
5th spawn: TMO/FE race

If you can get TMO to agree to it I think it would be a pretty reasonable plan. I don't think TMO will agree to it though. I don't understand it, but they enjoy the current raid scene. Especially Eccezan would miss his RnF posts too much.

But I think you had a solid idea and I'll support you if you want/need it (for whatever that is worth).

4th and 5th Every Guild Race and if a guild thats not tmo get on the racemob with out pooping or somthing gets put on rotation list? somthing like this i don't know yet i will have to come up with somthing that fair for all partys if guilds would really want somthing. but this is just an idea, and such so

also stop calling tmo and fe zerg guilds im sorry the a team has like 6 players but the core of each guild tmo and fe is really small so

ie if vel dropped right now FE would not be getting lots of targets