Battleaxe, why would the people that loved GoD consider it a train wreck? They loved it and by their criteria it wasn't. It's only a train wreck to those that value the the same criteria you value. Your view can be the majority but it's only your opinion, not a fact
GoD likely would have looked much different had 12 of the top 15 guilds not poofed during the PoP FoH catastrophe.
I doubt it. While FoH took off, another leading guild ended up having a Paladin and then later an Enchanter tanking all of PoTime. The progression to PoTime was quite the trial but once you were there it was a "candyland" visited by guilds and pickup raids for 5 years at a minimum. GoD on the other had had no one beating it before the next expansion, an acknowledgement that it was tuned for characters 5 levels higher than it should have been, migration to a new version of DirectX and collision detection problems, the president of SOE stating it was SOE's worst mistake in its first 5 years, etc. It's not opinion but fact that GoD had major issues that affected its popularity with a large segment of EQ's population. Its popular among those who favor overtuned content to say GoD wouldn't have been an issue except for PoP or UF wouldn't have been one except for SoD but evidence doesn't support that point of view. (By extension that's like saying EQ would have been more popular except for WoW - how did that argument work out??) Mr. Smedley didn't have to apologize for PoTime (in fact, SOE defended it and most players came around to their viewpoint). He didn't have to - it rocked. (I happen to think ToV was even better than PoTime but...) PoTime and GoD are famous in the history of MMoRPGs for very different reasons. Some people like ultra-hot Thai food. The market however suggests a chain serving hamburgers and French fries pleases a larger market. Is SOE in business to make money or drive away the larger share of the market? Do they hope to serve millions or thousands?
Lol, this reminded me of something.. The Plane of Time2003-05-09 18:50:26 - Furor PlanedefilerYou have 14 Days. If after that time the Plane is not properly tuned, I am deleting my characters, and cancelling all of my accounts. The rest of my guild will follow suit, as will several other guilds and people that play Everquest.To be brief, I did not work my off, jumping through your idiotic hoops with my friends and guildmates, so I could go to a zone where only groups of 18 could enjoy the content. EVEN if past these initial moronic events I can finally get my entire guild in to raid with me, YOU GUYS. Seriously, YOU.I cannot believe this... right now I'm just so pissed off. I am sitting here in the Plane of Time, and 3/4 of my guild is just sitting around while a group of 18 is repeatedly trying to beat one of the mini ring encounters. Don't you people have ANY DECENCY? SMEDLEY WHY DON'T YOU STOP COUNTING YOUR MONEY AND START ISSUING ORDERS?The tragic irony of creating the ultimate encounter in the form of the Rathe which requires 80 people to defeat and then to limit encounters in the Plane of Time to 18.14 Days.... after that this site will change from the most popular EQ fan site on the internet to the most popular World of Warcraft fan site on the internet. I'm done playing ball with you useless fuckers... it's my turn.- Now the creative director of World of Warcraft
Nod. He appears to have failed to understand that you could do more than one of the mini-events at a time and ragequit. Or perhaps he only disliked temporarily breaking down into multiple teams for a single phase. A legitimate complaint was that high level guilds could block the progression of other guilds by keeping some events dead - a situation that ultimately led to instanced content. But the you've got 14 days letter was waaay offbase. BTW, I don't recall 12 of the 15 top guilds poofing because of PoTime. My recollection is that the Raid Guild Progression chart stopped listing guilds that were no longer progressing (perhaps) in response to my referring to when they had disappeared and the size of the reductions - it didn't support the idea that easier content was destroying raiding.
We've been working on this raid since release...we did a few runs during the lag, and managed to figure out the minis phase at that time, wiping, as I'm sure many guilds are, at the red con phase in the last 25%. The lag was extremely discouraging for many of our raiders though, so we only did 1 or 2 attempts a week max, until the lag had been fixed. Like many guilds, we are suffering from not only the summer lull, but the extreme boredom from farming t1 for so long (since week 1 for both releases), and we are struggling to bring 54 real players into the event. Had this raid been released in something like february or march, I think we'd have a much better shot. As it is though we've bled users since then, many who were just so jaded with cotf that they quit entirely. Lack of excitement with the new spells, AA, powar, and initial lagfest on ToR didn't help. Nevertheless, I am happy that the raid is challenging, and that not all raids are beaten on day 1. I think we will eventually beat this, but...I don't think we'll be able to reduce it to the time that some of the top-top guilds are able to do it in, and it still feels very far away from any sort of farming. I would really really like if there was some sort of checkpoint added after the minis. Perhaps once we 'figure' the raid out, we'll be able to do that part faster, but as it is, it's taking us 40+ minutes just to get to the 25% phase. We don't have any issue with it and we never wipe before then, but it's essentially limiting us to 1, maybe 2 attempts a night. Being able to resume the raid after minis would be fantastic in letting more guilds work their way through it (imo). It's basically a 75 minute raid for us right now. I also have a couple questions about the raid mechanics at the very end of the raid. I know guilds like to be ultra secret and stuff about their strat...fine...but I'd appreciate if someone could answer these just for my own sanity - either in pm or the thread: 1) When kyle reaches 5% and goes (shielded), do the blue cons stop respawning at that point? Or do all the reds need to be dead first? What if Kyle has healed past 5% (though still says (shielded) )? 2) During the last 5% phase, do you continue to get red cons every 45s until 0%? Can you only dps kyle when there are no adds up during his shielded form? 3) And finally, we haven't tried this, but just curious what happens - if you don't kill those first 4 blues before the minis, will you only get 4 more at 50%? or will it be 8 more still, for a total of 12 up?
Just made first attempt at this raid today so wont comment on it yet. But I will note that completely blocking such a large number of max geared players from any upgrades until they can beat one event is unprecedented in EQ history. Even in VoA with huge blocking raids like Rubak and Pillars people still had items to improve and were slowly earning slowly from gear easy events of the same tier. In RoF you had the potential for a similar situation to RoT in Chelsith but guilds capable of putting together a full raid pushed threw that well before they hit max gear. Throwing a event like RoT at max geared players in the low turnout portion of the year with zero other alternatives for them to advance there characters is a huge mistake.
1) kill the blues after he is shielded and they do not respawn, even if he regens slightly. 2) kill ALL the reds while he is shielded and they stop spawning, though you may get 2 extras after all dead (happened to us on both our wins)once all the reds and blues are dead he becomes unshielded and you can kill him. 3) no idea, we alway kill our 4 at 75%.
As a disclaimer, I'm in a raid guild that has gotten part 1/3 of the way into HoF and has beat the first two COTF raid. We try hard but we are certainly not a top level or even mid tier guild. That being said, I don't see the problem with having a raid that is challenging to the higher tier guilds. It's only one raid. There are 8 other raids in COTF that, if you are working on Rot, I can only imagine you think are easy. Isn't it good to have something to work on?
Thanks Yinla, much appreciated. One followup question - if all the reds are dead during the shielded phase, but blues are still alive, do you continue to get red adds? IE, is it necessary to kill the blues before the reds to ensure that once the reds are dead you get no further adds? Or do the reds stop spawning once all reds are dead, regardless of blues at that point?
All of this being said - I don't necessarily suggest that RoT is "too hard". My comments chiefly apply to those who favor events that are GoD or GoD2 like in their difficulty. You are a minority of a minority. Pandering to you for even one event when there are so few events is bad for the game. IF only 10 guilds have beaten this event a month from now, I might have an opinion about its tuning. With the lag issue addressed I don't think that will happen. Challenging - I'd suggest not praising challenging and then decrying the difficulty of assembling a complete raid force, ignoring that your guild is continuously recruiting, and that you are asking for spoilers. Keeping a guild running in the face of changing circumstance and having to work out raid mechanics is part of the challenge you say you favor.
The two reds that spawn every 45 seconds keep spawning, even while KB is shielded. They only stop spawning when you manage to get KB unshielded, which happens when all blues and reds are dead.
This raid and PoW were designed the way they were because too many complained that raids were too easy. The swing of the pendulum to difficult maybe went too far driven a little on spite. If I was an aggravated coder (and most coders are) and someone said that my work was not very challenging, I would be like....Oh really!? Then make ... Well pow and rot.
Sometimes I wonder about the little stuff. Like are 8 blues necessary, why not 4 like in Phase1. I don't think at a glance that the number of blues being CCed would dramatically change the operation order of a successful win. BUT, only have 4 blues on ET, would allow more open ET targets for Reds, leaving 1 spot for bayle, and leaving 4 spots for a double spawn of red. Just that little change would allow more DPS switching, and targeting of things like Advisors. Adding to the the guilds total dps, against the dps check.
The 8 blues, to me, almost feel like the dev was intending they be handled a certain way. They don't really have that many hps. It's almost like they want you to, I don't know, maybe handle 6 or so at a time while possibly using the other two to keep the events anti-mes mechanics at bay. TL;DR -> Bards are still pretty awesome for this event.
Yeah, most guilds have restrictions on giving any information out they learn. I can give you publicly available information without violating guild policy. I always save the non-NDA information off before the beta forums are removed. You can find all the information from beta by googling ("tower's aide" pastebin) - the quotations are important. From there, your questions will be answered: 1. Blue cons stop respawning the moment bayle shields. 2. He does not unshield until ALL adds are dead, not just blue cons. As a matter of fact, reds will continue to spawn until all are dead, not just the blues. This is a prohibitive mechanism to ensure you deal with all the red cons and don't just burn the blues/boss. You must keep up to beat the event. The dev write up I reference spells this out fairly well. 3. Hrm. I seriously doubt it, but I can't tell you one way or another. No where in my referenced material is a statement that there will ever be more than eight blues up. Its a curious question, but I'm not sure it has any practical use. P.s., there is alot more information in that Dev write-up that may be of value. Exact spawn chances of each type of add, the reason durations are frequently halved, etc. Tower's Aide effect is something to pay attention to.
I'm not sure you can compare War to Rot. With the lag fixed, most guilds seem to be on the brink of winning. If you go check freelance or zam, you'll see that the win is really a RNG factor in a lot of cases depending on how lucky you are with advisors. I think its of a proper difficulty level, a welcome challenge but definitely in reach. War, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast altogether.
