Every raid event require a minimum of X class, some others a tad more heavier for a specific class... but there is a work around for most situation. I doubt that every guilds does the exact same thing to win each events... Are you mad at those slower then the pro players or asking for the event made easier so that the better players can pick there nose of boredom. Any time invested is never wasted in my book. {edited} may as well not say anything then what I was going to! I dont want to sound like im asking for more one off but I dont mind them as bad as you lol. I just like the fact that you must plan your practice better to make it count and as far as i know guild leader dont win events alone but with 53 others willing to make that guild leader proud! <rant off>[/quote]
The issue with one off raids is if the instance or event bugs, something weird happens.. you have lost that week and not your fault. Every other case you can get a new instance and try again. not these. One player does something stupid and the raid loses a chest.. that is no fun either. learning them can be no fun as well.. go far as you have seen.. wipe, come back next week. that is another bundle of joy. no more one shot raids please.
Considering that Daybreak has been very busy with the new ownership, the progression servers, and a bunch of layoffs, part of the reason for this thread is to remind them, as I said in one of my posts, to check those stats and see if things are as they want. It would be nice to hear from them whether they feel the TDS raids are "working as intended" or if they might consider some changes. It would also be nice if Daybreak would design one raid to be really super hard, so the uber guilds can feel they got something the rest of us don't, and one raid that is impossible to win so the uber guilds can have something to beat their heads against and know the feeling. Then all the other raids should be able to be won by a normal guild with a whole lot of attempts, with none of this "one off" that makes it impossible to practice. .
We've heard from them. They've made substantial changes to several events. VERY substantial changes. Those several events that received substantial changes - they were nearly super hard when released. They were still beaten by some of the top guilds. Impossible to beat? GoD raids were pretty rough before the next expansion was released. While everything wasn't beaten before the next expansion was released a lot of it was. That's with GoD acknowledged to be tuned 5 levels higher than the max level in GoD. Brick wall. See how it feels. Feels good. I'm pretty sure normal guilds are beating them. Small force guilds, casual guilds that historically don't beat every event before the next expansion - they aren't normal progression raid guilds. They lack a Strategos who can analyze events and come up with a strategy that works for their guild, a high attendance core that allows lessons learned to be carried over to the next raid, recruitment that delivers a second Enchanter if a second Enchanter is needed, or the ability to focus and respond to emotes with Gina telling you in giant letters what to do, or etc. Genuine progression guilds have these attributes with mid-tier having some rough edges and top guilds operating more like a Swiss watch. Performance -> outcomes. It doesn't take a whole lot to figure out to mezz those mobs, kite the other kind, put FV on extended target and heal her, etc. 40 normal progression raid guilds have done it. On the other hand pickup raids, family raids, and casual guild raids can resemble a herd of cats. Of course if half the raid doesn't know what to do and do it after the 10th time you've tried an encounter you are going to have poor results. Performance -> outcomes. Top end guilds practiced 2-5 times (maybe 1 guild beat the fist one off first try. Dunno). The mid-tier perhaps 4-8 on harder events. True anyone who practices 14+ times is likely only to be practicing failure. But that's coupled directly to their performance and not a lack of an opportunity to practice. I've been in a mid-tier guild. It was a huge rush to earn a win versus content the top guilds on the server were still doing. I was once in a not progression raid guild too - it wouldn't/couldn't change and I moved on. Those not interested or committed enough to current content raiding to make the required effort of course stayed.
I had this vision of an angry dwarf with a horned helm being tossed at the brick wall, coincidentally (or not) by six folks, with the dwarf yelling about casual boxers getting everything handed to them, even dwarves...
Mostly agree. You can't write raids for the top 5 guilds and expect everyone else to have fun too. Hard / easy could better be done with Long/short. The top end guilds can beat them "quick and dirty" and do 3-4 raids a night. The "lesser half" can still beat them if they are "not stupid" - but it might take so long, that they can only do 1-2 events in a night. Sounds fair to me. -R
Will? Hate to break it to you, but they already said. "No more expansions." Expansions are to be replaced with bi-yearly "adventure packs" or some such nonsense. Less content = death spiral. That's just the game business. -R
You can increase the difficulty as you move through the progression. EQ operates like a giant sorting device. RvR and amount of successful effort made vs increasingly difficult content determines what bin you end up in. THAT is the way a character advancement game should be built. Hard/Easy with Easy yielding less loot of the same quality - that's everybody gets the same plastic "Winner" trophies and ice cream. No thank you - this is an adult game (not just an activity or an amusement park where you don't keep score) with success vs. challenge rewarded and failure or success vs trivial not rewarded. Challenge is rightfully defined as challenge to a well constructed, full sized, well previous content geared average force. Not necessarily a major challenge to a Top Ten guild nor ever doable while its current by sub par progression raid guild. Not every random collection of 5 players much less 4 players (without mercs) can take on all group content. Not every random collection of 54 should be able to beat current raid content much less 45ish. "Uber" should get better/noobie should get inferior just as things work (or should) in group content. Can't handle T4 (or raid event 2) - unless you can show it's skewed toward failure with only 10% of those with a well constructed, full sized, well previous content geared raid force (or group) attempting it actually succeeding you don't have a leg to stand on. If on most servers 1-2 "uber" guilds have beaten it, 2ish mid-tier guilds are making progress, and your guild isn't getting anywhere the problem is not the tuning.. "Quick and dirty" (roaring through more events in less time) and "lesser half" (fewer events) is an "everyone gets the same trophies" variant and is particularly odius given a limited number of events. Angy Dwarf? Well, I did one raid 50 times or so with one former guild before a win. Angry? Yes. Determined. You better believe it. We had the wrong strat. You only needed to have 10 players have a mask. You need several ingredients to secure a win. Paying $19.95/mo isn't and never should be enough. Not in a character advancement game.
First congratulations to those (mostly to Battleaxe for the most defensive replies), for being a member of some of the Elite raid guilds who have beaten anything that comes there way. Truly, you are all lucky and fortunate to have amassed such superior players. Players that have put in the time, effort, hours of gleaning cross class information, replacing players with ever better styles all because of your high standards of membership. With your exacting standards of performance you have every proud reason to feel threatened by any substandard guild that even has the audacity to offer a perceived suggestion to equalize the status quo. Yes I feel a little envy for those guilds present and in the past who have accomplished feats of which only a few can. We call them Heroes, and we respect them and know we all cant be a hero. Honestly, I do wish to convey a hearty "well done" but somehow nothing has been suggested from the anti-change side of the house that can fix the problem of losing more and more guilds. No, not ALL the people that makes up a guild but just those that still care about the game and are trying to hold our (weaker?) guilds together. So far all It has been is a big NEGATIVE to any changes to EQ that MIGHT help this matter. I hear you loud and clear...The changes must be done by the players to better the game and not the other way around. I only made a couple suggestions that possibly could help but I am not the person in charge nor do I claim to have all the answers or wish to make all guilds into the same elite status. Instead of rejecting ANY suggested change, try making your own that would help the (mid tier, casual, family oriented, second class, fill in the blank whatever you wish to call non-uber), guilds that are faltering. Heaven help us all if actual guild "Raid Secrets" be shared among everyone of how to beat a raid. Mine and I'm sure the "other" guilds do not wish to be elite status but we do wish to see more enjoyment. I am NOT asking for handouts nor raids so damn easy anyone that can tap a keyboard can win but that's where its at. EQ has a tremendous amount of players who cannot or will not meet your uber status guilds requirements. Those are player induced problems (The Have's vs the Have Not's). I'm trying to overcome game proprietor induced problems that might help stave off some of our player loss due to frustration. Frustration from simply losing raids over and over, losing other longstanding raid members who have had enough, frustration over spinning up new members only to find out we were just used as a "training" spot for Uber guilds. Elite class guilds can easily tell us to farm out the deadbeats, pull in better players, don't forget your game triggers, set up training raids, cross chat with classes to increase output, pull up your pants, get a job, get a hair cut, blah blah blah, on and on etc etc. Yeah.....we know all those helpful tips thank you very much...the second class guilds and even guilds that USED to be uber has got that. Fun, remember that? Its fun to surround yourself with actual family and friends that you've been with for years and who decide to stick it out through thick and thin. Yes we are one of those guilds that used to be able to get it done, (sooner or later). One day we'll even look back upon TDS and beat it too. But not today, nor probably not in the next 3 months, but eventually we will. We are YOU, just now in the throes of what YOU might become. So who is going to listen to you when your the last of the uber guilds around with not enough small fish to feed on and help pay the EQ subscriptions so you can keep showing off the latest gear in the guild lobby and posting the big win on your boards? This isn't just about leveling the playing field nor us taking shortcuts down a rosy yellow brick road that you had to beat down demons through Hells gates. Its about simple survival. You better sit up and start acknowledging the problem and quit simply spouting "oh woe is you". The second class guilds aspire and enjoy the SAME thing you do...to defeat a raid that has exhausted us to the point we know we earned something. The mechanics are the same in each raid guild, just a different player style or makeup. All guilds don't have mega rich enchanters, berserkers, and wizards, with a tank lineup that can out slug the New York Yankees. We have dedicated EQ paying customers that some have disabilities with sound and sight. Some who don't quite react fast enough to knee jerking changes of game pace. Yeah, we know...not progression guild material, but they are more faithful to EQ and their guild than a junk yard dog. So we can only make do with what we have until we can get others. But also don't blame a guild for being that way......we didn't wish it buts its what has evolved or de-evolved with player reduction. Don't forget we also have hard core players too in the non-progression guilds that most times can cover for the uber rejects game play and can probably out do some of your best players. With that said here is another suggestion that MIGHT help and maintain status quo since that is of utmost importance it seems. If elite and non- elite cant agree there's a problem, create a separate server just for that purpose and free move all the top guilds. Call it The Wolves Den. Hard core settings for those that has all the brains and brawn and enjoys the challenge to take on the Devil himself. You can brag all day your server is the best. Good luck replacing your players though.....they'll probably have to agree to change over to a new server but hey, Daybreak can make more money perhaps. The other server you can call it Puppy Love for all I care, for the seemingly weak game wimps like myself and others who are having a more difficult time holding it together. Both servers will have the same game content so when you call up reinforcements they'll at least be able to somewhat fit in with current gear. If anyone wants to try an easier or harder setting, well...pay up and move. This way you got your world and I have mine and Daybreak has their money. In the end, its not really about which side is right, wrong, or indifferent on this discussion, it's all about the green. Good luck to you and me and all the ones like us, we all both hope EQ survives.
Wow, wall of text. I skimmed it but didn't read it word for word. I lead casual raids on our server, on off nights. For us, the biggest thing that would help is reducing the keying. With a vastly rotating raid force it's hard to keep flags for events up without constant backtracking. This was a mega pain in RoF. It's a smaller pain in CoTF, but it's still there. I can see the same difficulties (4 event 1 keys to move on) during TDS being an issue. For TDS events for your crew, I don't think any TDS event is that hard as long as you tell all your clerics to mem BDA since your helper (FV) tanks like an unbuffed ranger who forgot where their weaponshield button is, and aggros like their is no tomorrow. You'll struggle on some events, but they're beatable. The one offs, 2's pretty much a gimme, 1 they've nerfed so hard I once tanked every trash mob during the hardest phase. (I don't recommend this plan, I got a bit lucky). Stop worrying about wall of texting, and just go do it. After the nerfs, it's not that hard.
Thank you kindly Bigstomp for the advice. Just as an FYI, we have already beaten the first Arx raid 14 times. Yes, I realize we're still way behind the power curve after what 8? months of expansion going live. The advice might help others reading this at least. However, the stupid stick has been beating us on the head for all other events and please don't take anything as an insult when I say I can only laugh when you say the rest are easy. Anything is easy once its figured out. Yeah one day the clue bird will crap on our head. Its just frustrating the early events into the expansion have us down still while some other worthy guilds cannot even break the first. Kind of puzzling in some ways between top guilds and others. To be the best you'll have them down within say 3 months and on farm in about 6. But after almost a year and hardly not even broken into the raids?, that's the real downer. We're not looking for being first, just finishing. Btw, nice that you run off night raids, my respect. Dreeknail on my server sometimes runs old expansion pickup raids too. I don't know him personally but anyone that can run those HAS to be patient and good.
Here's the thing. If you make it easier so that everyone can show up and get a trophy, where is the actual sense of accomplishment. Something has more meaning to accomplish when it's not something everyone does accomplish. The same thing happens in life outside of gaming. Life isn't fair and not everything should be geared towards everyone. Really, I think the real issue here is that there are some long standing guilds with fairly proud histories that are now struggling. As other guilds faltered and faded in years past, yours has managed to survive. Now it's your turn to start taking that downward turn. Attrition (players leaving for higher end guilds, players retiring and players that would normally be your pool for replacements) is hitting you. You can't put forth a consistent effort. The numbers that can carry the froth through raids is diminishing. Pride and dedication to old guilds is making people look at requesting content be eased in a last ditch effort to maintain history and tradition. It's hard to see something you're proud of starting to whither away. Rather than requesting things be made easy, why not look for ways to regain traction as a guild? Look for a niche to fill. Perhaps raiding at a completely different time of day than other guilds on your server can attract good people wanting to raid that can't with the other guilds. Find another guild in similar decline and merge or do joint raids. Find a unique way to reward people or unique policies that might be attractive. If you want to survive, you need to stand out and become attractive to the types of players that can put in enough dedication to carry and win raids. It might mean losing some longstanding members that don't fit the new mold. Decide what meets the goals of the majority and try a new direction. Or else, accept you are what you are and enjoy the family you've become and have fun doing the raids that you can beat.
Mid-tier guilds have beaten all of or are 1 event short of beating all of TDS. While a couple of historically better guilds have inexplicably not done well in TDS IMO this is usually due to a change in leadership or having a half-dozen players get a belly full of lackadasial effort or loot distribution and going elsewhere. Check http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/ to see if in fact there has been major collapse over the last 3-5 expansions. Uber, upper mid tier, lower mid-tier, not progression raid guilds. Ubers are very early finishers.and often farm extensively completely gearing up almost all of their members Upper mid tier finish a few months later and completely gear up the majority of their members Lower mid-tier usually don't finish until after the next expansion is launched but have geared up many in the lower tiers. Not progression raid guilds often work on previous expansions and extra content like revamped ToV, PoWar and complain that everything is tooo haaaard for their low attendance members who don't remember progress from week to week and get better as a result because half of them were not there last week, don't use or don't pay attention to Gina's huge emote responses, what's the extended target list and why would I put FV on it??, etc. Group events often a qjuite a bit like the raid. Alla and EQ Resource often have write ups. This forum often has debates that are practically spoilers for contentious events. Third class non progression raid guilds - casual guilds entitled to casual results, family guilds entitled to family outings, and collapsed because of internal strife former uber guilds (Rare). I left a casual guild containing EQ friends because they weren't up to raiding. I don't remeber the names of weren't up to it guilds I was in for my first 3 years playing EQ. Neither does EQ remember them. They wanted to buy anonymity and they got it. The second class guilds, the upper and lower mid tier, do earn and enjoy what the uber guilds earn earlier. The not raid progression guilds (not even third class since they aren't in the running) do not. Not until those raids are previous content and additional levels trivialize them. They cherry pick older and extra content (IF they are up to farming the great items in group content PoWar with up to 3-4 groups making that stuff doable for them). Always have. Kindly don't play the disability card. Some members of "uber" guilds struggle with physical and health limitations too. Or the we have a life you don't card - members of "uber" guilds have families, go to college/do their residency/study for the bar exam, have duty in foreign lans, run businesses, etc. too. They'd have to move 4-6 guilds per server to make can't perform to standards guild look uber. It's all about measuring up. If a guild can't perform like a raid progression guild (uber, upper mid-tier, lower mid-tier) it isn't one and is limited in its target list to older and extra content. As someone who publicly supported a bell curve skewed toward success for average normal progression guilds (uber, upper mid-tier, lower mid-tier) I also acknowledge the existence of guilds who can't do the work. They have (and always have had) summer school (extra non progression) and remedial (previous) content - not current progression raids. Which btw ARE fun. Many progression raid guilds run pickup raids to benefit casuals because those older and extra raids ARE fun (we don't however run current progression content pickup raids. You want our trophies, earn them).
Battleaxe and the truly insipid, and short-sighted dev who listened to him and idiots like him, were responsibly for the largest annihilation of the low and mid-tier guilds via spell focus degradation. Try raiding anything when all your casters and priests are better off in group gear, when they get no prize at the end for their effort(ever!) By the time they "fixed" it to what it is today most of the low and mid-teir guilds died, and with them EQs player population. Whatever the type of guild you are in, I think we can all agree that what keeps a guild alive is having a common goal. For most guilds that is raiding(even if its old content.) The uber guilds need more than 1 evenings worth of raids to maintain cohesion. The mid, and low-teir guilds need to be able to win something and at least feel like they are progressing(for all their members/classes.) Neither of these things are happening. At the moment Battleaxe and my guild(who are on the same server.) Are facing the same problem, we are both dealing with the attrition of our guildmates who are wasting time on Ragefire/lockjaw. Our guildees show up on raid nights but when half your server is busy on another server, your entire guild has less of a presence. By the time they get sick of it(and they always do) and come back to the main servers, how many of their guildmates will still be there waiting for them. The next expansion "campaign" better be a miracle and mainly on the raiding end. If it's not, most of these remaining guilds will lose the focus that keeps them running. Your guild is your "online family," If it falls apart so does your main reason to keep logging on/paying. Then EQ will just be a scrapheap FTP game with gimmicks to con suckers out of money.
Thread title talks about a lack of raids, and has turned into raider vs casual #53,782 thread. Typical veteran forums The events themselves are not hard. But one thing I have noticed with some casuals is they do not play their character to maximum effectiveness. Not saying all casuals, but enough on each raid attempt to make it more difficult for the group. Example- casters get a spell called Shield of Consequence (upgrade to Shield of Fate from COTF). This is a self buff rune that absorbs 150k total AOE damage or something like that. I see casters not use the buff when an event starts, or when it fades during the event not refresh it. Then they start taking AOE damage and either die or have their druid healer have to heal them, taking the druid away from other things. Example 2- some casuals save their burn stuff, every one of them, for the end named. An event could take 24 minutes long, in which time you could have used a 10 minute refresh burn disc three times. Instead it is only used once. I remember recently doing WK1 on my alt monk. In between phases I checked out the buffs of a fellow monk in my group. It was only until the named that he used Zan Fi AA. For those not familiar, Zan Fi improves DPS for 5 minutes, and has a 7 minute refresh. Which means theoretically a monk can improve DPS over 70% of the time. WK1 is around a 15-20 minute event for this event, so he could have had Zan Fi up for 11-14 minutes or so. He had it up for the last 2 minutes. It is the small things like this that hurt casual guilds. Not the events. Sometimes responders to threads like this say "Play better" and it may come across rude and disrespectful. And with that tone, I can understand that reaction. But there is *some* merit to the message. Just takes others to help educate, and it also takes that casual wanting to listen and improve. That last statement, too often, the casual is stubborn and believes they are great. Can lead a horse to water... cannot make it drink.
When half of your casters in a top 20 guild are using some 2 expansion old gear (OMG you were wearing an Anguish belt??!! Biggest upgrade evah!!!!), hybrids and Warriors are using group content cultural armor with 2 year old inferior focci Lastblood augments there's an issue. When group content cultural armor with 2 year old inferior focci Lastblood augments is finally fixed only to make Warriors desperate to gear up as fast as possible while casters ride spellbooks and old focii there's an even more severe problem. The neat part is, devs can look at player gear and see if Warriors are gearing up as fast as they can and casters are soloing new content in old gear. They were. Casters preferred being powerful when new content was released and SOE unfixed things. Killed casuals and the mid-tier? 1. Casters are always front loaded and less gear dependent. If you want to claim casuals and the mid tier rode that for all it was worth feel free. 2. The mid-tier got a HUGE boost in SoD and another with PoWar. Casual raiders got a huge boost with PoWar. SoD not so much - they were doing Malarian Queen, etc. 3. A lot of the mid-tier went from 1/2-1 expansion behind to finishing current content when Daybreak went to gear reset/episodic expansions. 4. In my experience dissatisfaction with loot distribution and a lackadaisical attitude by much of one's guild casing core members to depart or the departure of guild leadership are the leading causes for mid-tier guild effectiveness reduction. 5. The last tier got a focii bump rather soon after degregation was altered (reduced). That's carryover rather than degregation. Um, afaik most guilds are rather firm. You don't play alts anywhere during raid time. There are enough guildmembers who don't have upgrades that are available from group content to keep people busy if they want to advance their guild by advancing others. If people consider themselves done and choose not to worry about guildmates they'll play another game or do something else when not raiding should TLP servers not exist. When everything rots 4 raid weeks in a row and there are no more upgrades to be found in group content then I'll agree there wasn't enough content (for my guild. We might be early finisher stalled because of our early success).
They did that for far far far to long, and it ruined the raid game for tens of thousands of people(casters and priests.) Which in turn ruined the raid game for tens of thousands of mid and low end raiders. Which in turn gave their guilds no real purpose, thus they died out. The price of doing it your way, cost the game most its playerbase. You wish to continue destroying the game for most of its players, eventually killing the game itself(from lack of subs.)
It did not ruin the game for them. Casters often not bothering to upgrade gear while Warriors had to (some guilds actually had to give Warriors loot priority and some said so publicly) was the issue. Now if you want to assert that no longer being advantaged (not that many casters who routinely molo group content are not advantaged anyway) caused some casters to quit, so did ending 6 Wizard Mana Burn groups that we're killing dragons raids were still after and SK green pet pulling. Oh and a stop to 75/75/75 Last Blood gear. The casters in my guild got their new focii at the same time I was getting my additional AC from raids. The difference is I do bukkis for DPS and OP caters don't do anymore 110% of my DPS. they do 300-400%. OP much? Lest you forget Porky, I argued that content was too exclusive starting in Solteris. I argued that there should be beach head content in new expansions and catchup content like PoTme, Anguish, Solteris, and even SoD. I've argued for a bell curve skewed toward success for normal well geared in previous content full sized progression raid guilds. Hardly up with the 1%, down with 99% of all raiders. But that unfair things like Old Man McKensie raid items should require recent raiding, not 2 shrouded missions. That casters should be just as gear dependent as Warriors, that dropped in raids armor should be better than cultural with 2 year old Lastblood augs. That stun where it operates provides more damage reduction than all of the disciplines available to Warriors during WoS (I played a Paladin alt at the time and knew how OP Paladins were.) Fair does not mean either elitest or everybody wins to heck with RvR and balance.
A question for you guys/girls... How many top tier guilds are there according to elitegamerslounge's progression page? This is not a loaded question, I'm just curious where the line between top and midtier is being drawn.
