Looking in RoS raids halfway into expansion year

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fian, May 15, 2018.

  1. Outlander Engine Elder

    This is desperately needed if you want to maintain/grow the player base. The balance of "easy to learn, hard to master" is way out of whack.
    Perplexed likes this.
  2. ShadowMan Augur

    One situation you have zero control over, if the devs make it all easy mode thats that.
    The other situation you have control over, you make the adjustments needed to win. Its not missing ideal lineups or the raids themselves in many cases that are the problem preventing the win.

    Not to long ago I was in the same boat many people here seem to be in. I credit people showing up every night to get stuff completed but you can only bang you head against something for so long before you have to realize something is very wrong and that just showing up isn't enough. Stuff I remember off the top of my head that applied at least to my guild when stuck.

    • We had one good MA, if he wasn't on or died targets wouldn't be marked, targets would take 5 seconds or more to be marked, or the wrong targets were being marked. Massive loss of dps that snow balled into more mobs being up at once requiring more healing, tanking and dps for no reason. Lots would just stand there when this happened afraid to damage the wrong mob.
    • Alliances were not being used effectively. We would have 3 necros on and only one using it. Two rogues and neither used it. 4 shadow knights often on the same mob or at least pairs of 2 on the same mob and not using it. 4 shaman and only one using it. 3 mages and only 1 or none using it. This is a massive loss in dps and healing for zero reason.
    • Aggro after the top 3 to 4 tanks was garbage. Any time you had more than 4 targets needing aggro it could take a full tic or more before a tank would show up on aggro leading to healer or dps deaths in many cases. Snow balls out of control really quick.
    • Tanks after the top few not effectively using their tools. We had some great people who played paladins or shadow knights for many years but that always wanted to save their stuff for oh moments often leading to them dying when they shouldn't.
    • Not having a designated rezzor or team. It was expected that everyone just toss them in as they could which often lead to the best healers doing the most important jobs being the ones to try and fit it in impacting what they were doing because others were to busy or thought someone else had it covered.
    • Poor situational awareness. We had people we knew no matter what that would die if they had to do anything other than stand in one spot. If they were emoted and had to move away from the raid, had to run away from an aura, had to turn off attack to avoid eating some riposte buff or that needle buff from cactus they wouldn't or would do so so poorly it impacted a bunch of people.
    • Support. We would have bards over writing IoG repeatedly. We would have shaman who clicked their epic every 5 minutes if you were lucky. We had 2 beastlords in raids and maybe twice in a week you would see a paragon. We would see one of two bards put in a wizard group regularly because some wizards were friends with the raid leader and convinced him the mana help to them was better than placing that bard with necromancers or a melee group depending on the raid.
    • Wasted resources. We would have 3 rangers all fire auspice off in a 20 second period. We would have 2 shadow knights drop harm touch at the same time. 3 CoP clicks in 6 seconds. We had melee who would pop their burn when the pleased without shaman epic or bard stuff. Or that would drop everything at once for 60 seconds of glory when the event would take us 15 minutes or more and their overall numbers were horrid by not staggering some of it. Or casters who burned as they pleased without auspice, IoG, black wolf, bard or whatever pushing the mob past some point or killing a mob they should not have moving a script forward before the raid was ready for it.
    • Healers who always were saving some AA or click instead of using them in some staggered pattern as a team.
    • Death Afks, people would die and just afk after or would take a rez and sit there doing nothing for 3 minutes instead of helping at a lower degree. This happened with healers, dps and tanks at times.
    • Just poor execution. Raid leader would say when this mob pops or when this happens do this first and foremost and people still would take 6 or 12 seconds or more to react if at all.
    And on an on. Put this all together and you see how 54 people can show up but its really like only 40 are present when the raid is tuned for at least 48 being present and playing effectively.
  3. Lianeb Augur

    There are a lot of people that attach a false sense of loyalty to this game verse game enjoyment. Trust me I did it for years, in the end I moved on and have enjoyed the game much much more. Did I leave fiends behind? But I also made a lot of new ones. And some of my closest friends actually moved with me.
    Whulfgar and Allayna like this.
  4. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    To ME, there IS no "false sense of loyalty" - it is the basis for everything.
    When i joined my guild, i made a choice. Not all is well or as i wished it to be, of course.
    But leaving is the "easy way out" - and especially when i think back to the time before my many-year long break, i always compare that to "rats jumping ship".
    Leaving might be the solution for YOU (the individual), certainly. But you're more than likely to leave the others in even deeper than they are now. Especially if your "closest friends" jump ship with you.
    A guild, especially when in trouble, needs it's members to stick together and improve together - not for it's member's to seek greener pastures. That mentality usually backfires, sometimes sooner but sadly more often later. But backfire eventually it will, because it's a personality flaw of those people.
    And it's that much more satisfying to go through some bad times together and make it out together!
    That's what builds a team. Or breaks it, if you fail.
    Do you really want to be an element of failure? i don't.
  5. Lianeb Augur

    Maybe you can otherwise explain why mid-tier and lower guilds are always on the forums complaining about not fielding full raids or not not meeting dps requirements. It’s pretty simple, they put their heart and soul into their current guild and WANT to see that guild succeed through the tough times and I applaud that. I did it for 13 years. At some point you realize the guild you poured your soul into is not going to make the cut of decreasing populations with little to no insentive to attract good players to help push your guilds success. Be it leadership or apathy that makes people in your guild unhappy and move on I don’t know. Not everyone needs to be the captain of the sinking ship. This the false loyalty I speak of. I say enjoy the game as intended and not pull your hair out when you log in on raid night to 35 ready to go.
  6. Allayna Augur

    Lack of alliance in any raid setting makes me lol.

    Last week Machin Shin began running the open raids again for Xegony and we had a warrior ask why he was near the top of a heal parse....no clue about alliance.

    1 Rogue can fire alliance, no excuses there.

    As for Shadowman's post: I can say there are tools in game or ways for a leader to negate each and everything in that post if used.

    1: Set MA 1,2,3 OR go top down ETW when MA dies.
    2: Priests alliance each other's groups, set up GINA to tell you when a class detrimental alliance is on a mob...and when it fulminates.
    3: If tanking is that rough...you could utilize a ae/fort rotation or harmonious on SK/deflect until your lesser tanks establish aggro.
    4: Follow up with tanks, look at their dmg taken parses...you'll see who doesn't disc, coach them.
    5: Designated rezzer? Every paladin in our raid has a rez stick, plus every druid and shaman, working to get the clerics to get it as well. We utilize the ETW to set 1 healer each AND cycle through corpses key, mine is X.
    6: Some of that can be mitigated with the use of GINA, attack off stuff and drusella moving now etc.
    7, 8 and 9: Casters get bards? I wish... Bard's leading epic with a shaman click following, GINA FTW. As for the other support, sounds there needs to be someone else helping you out, class leadership perhaps that coordinates and calls for...paragon, auspice, etc...but on an assignment, soandso click auspice now...
    10: People who don't take rezzes don't get to raid?
    11: The last one....I feel like the RL in MS could say nothing the whole fight and we'd still accomplish the same goals...it's changes in the pattern that would need a key up. Basically, the whole raid force should know the strategy going into the fight.

    To sum up a bit of the end there, I know that Lianeb or myself say very little about paragon, auspice, CR, SOTW, Aid MGBs; we have class leaders in those roles who make assignments and follow through with them. Burns are constant and coordinated within the groups...we don't micromanage the adps within a group.
    Zaviere likes this.
  7. p2aa Augur

    Ah, I have the feeling to read again the exact same thing than the last year's post about "Queen is too hard".
    Some guilds seem to be heading soon to be 2 expansions later. At this stage, I think these guilds should merge to progress.
    Because really I think that if you are still unable to beat the hard raids of EoK raids, after new lvl cap, then you have indeed a serious problem in your raid force.
  8. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    I agree, there's many tools that often just need to be used more/better to see an improvement.
    If that's enough though, depends.
    Some of the "solutions" in your lists don't work for "lesser" guilds much.
    Like "10: People who don't take rezzes don't get to raid?" - sure, if you have a comfortable bench, this problem solves itself. If you haven't though, then disciplinary action likely only compounds the issue instead of solving it, since the core (not taking a rez) is - if happens regularly - based on a personality flaw.

    That is, i think, true for every raidforce who's beaten an event countless times - people know what to do and when.
    But when actually learning, it's a different matter entirely imo - even for a guild like yours, isn't it?


    That is simply explained: Because recruitment pool has much dried up and "lower guilds" (mid tier these days, since lower guilds have long folded) are suffering from it. The high-end guilds per server are benefitting from this for a short time but read through posts above: even server #2 guilds are feeling the lack of players already.

    Top guilds burn through stuff because they not only have full rosters, but also mostly optimized ones.
    Tiers further down the latter may not have the sort of aDPS to replicate the top guild's DPS-numbers, but the number of raiders allows them to succeed still. Those that struggle with RoS T1 or even still with EoK of any tier are most likely lacking both sufficient number of raiders in the first place AND their raid-composition is more than likely more than suboptimal. Because they have to work with what they got.

    The "work with what they got" also prohibits much disciplinary action btw...
    Like with ANY online activity, there's a difference when it comes to accountability and adjusted behavior because of that compared to if you were to deal with the same person face-to-face.


    I agree with you, there is that point - especially when you find yourself finding lacking raw numbers consistently. I've experienced it myself back then when i was GL and RL of "my" alliance.
    The responsible choice when one finds himself at that point though imo is to try to change the system from within, not to go into exile and point back. Even if that means that someone has to have the courage and put up a guildpost about a merger or dissolvement or a "revolution" or something. There should be no "false pride" (what i think you are talking about), nor any hesitation to bring up even "hard" topics in a guild discussion.
    Perhaps there is something other people are willing to do or something they see that you do not - discussin brings such things and different views to light.
    The difference is: One allows the entity to decide, the other is pushing them even deeper in.

    I for my part might still respect the players that have left my guilds over the time (some i do, most i don't), but i've always been off better without them too. Perhaps less successful (back then my guild went through 3 splits which i experienced as member, officer and leader. And i have to say that, if the first group that split off had decided otherwise, you could now see that guild listed on the leaderboard, as other guilds have taken "our" place back then) but always closer with the remaining ones.
    And it is telling in my eyes that those players that were responsible for the split i experienced as a member quit playing alltogether long before i did and are still (as opposed to myself) gone.

    No, really: I do not care for people that leave. i might miss them, yes, but that's it.
  9. p2aa Augur

    I completely disagree about this. Why people that try to play their class at their best potential should be punished like this ? These people took the time to learn their class knowing all the subtleties of it.
    Allayna likes this.
  10. Cicelee Augur

    So you just highlighted the problem. It is not the difficulty of EOK/ROS raids. It is the fact that an enchanter is first on the parse.

    Once your enchanter is out of the top 10 and is replaced by berserkers/rangers/rogues/monks/wizards/magicians/necromancers, then you will be defeating these raids...
    Allayna likes this.
  11. Allayna Augur


    Simplification takes away abilities...only from the "elite" that learn all that their class has to offer, look at shaman CC abilities after the "simplification" of their AA root line.
  12. Denial_Sinfae Augur

    Yeah! I get to end discussions!

    Awe dang. There were pages. Nm.
  13. sojero One hit wonder


    I am no longer guilded with Lianeb, but I was there for a time that he came to this awareness, and he did everything he could, but everything worked against him. In the end, he had to leave for his mental health I believe. He is a good person and a good raid leader,one of the best I have had the privilege of raiding with. There is a lot of backstory to/before his leaving, and shouldn't be taken as he abandoned ship before he did everything (reemphasize on everything) before he did leave.
    Allayna and Lianeb like this.
  14. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    There is always a "back story".
    And i can not comment on THIS player's specific case. I was commenting on loyalty and that for me there no "false loyalty".
    In a guild it's often like in politics: You need to find majorities.
    If you can't you have the choice to abide by what the majority dictates/decides or leave, yes.
    But leaving a guild imo is always only the "simple" solution, and only for the individual leaving.
    Because leaving resolves nothing, only possibly compounds the issue.
  15. Whulfgar Augur

    Couple things .

    Thing the first : Most of the top tier'ed talent left from this server. I know because this was my home server.

    Thing the second : There might still be enough talent to actually form up an alliance of sorts or restart server wide guild to push harder then the individual efforts can achieve in an of themselves. (tho doubtful)

    Thing the third : Just because a couple other "none bleeding edge guilds" have not yet beaten the content does not mean that content overall has to be adjusted so those less then average players / guilds can then beat content.

    This game is not about balance of each individual guild. Or individual game play. This is where the problem truly lies.. Individual player skill per raid force overall. If you are in a guild that can not beat the content. That is not a reflection on the content. It is a reflection on your own raid forces.

    Thing the fourth : This particular server from every thing I've seen (An I still have toons on it) shows to me it may be if not thee lowest .. arguably close to it in overall server population. Having a lower on average population mean's less bad @$$ players there are to pick / choose from, thus said guilds probably need to treat people better.. /shrug who knows I do not raid on this server any longer, but I do still play on it.
  16. gotwar Gotcharms

    There are, as of RoS, 510 SPA's coded into the EQ spell code.

    Many of these SPA's are duplicates of older SPA's to resolve stacking issues.

    As a new player, or even a long time casual player, it's a monumental task to try and understand how these interact with each other and how to optimize their use. Even resolving these within your own archetype is a huge task the majority of the playerbase has 0 interest in delving into.

    You can minimize the required learning without drastically reducing the upper limit of skill expression within a class. Granted, doing so is a huge task I don't see getting accomplished anytime soon - if ever - but it's the only way to resolve the "content too hard!" vs "gitgud!" argument. If you make raid encounters with an adjusted difficulty aimed at casual raid forces, those of us who want more challenging content get bored and leave. If you don't adjust the difficulty, more raid forces continue to fold and leave the game.

    The core of the issue is that massive skill gap and the difficulty in closing it. The source of the skill gap is the bloated mechanics behind stacking and skills.

    Again, it's not going to be the popular opinion, but if you want an actual resolution to the ever increasing inability for lower-tiered forces to complete content, that's it.
    Outlander Engine and Sancus like this.
  17. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Leaving can also be the difference between someone continuing to play EQ and them quitting which in the end is the same for the guild they leave.
    Allayna and Lianeb like this.
  18. Toomba Elder

    People could just be happy completing what they are able to, If hardcore raiders found it challenging to beat an event, and mr casual that does 3,000 dps wants to get the same gear as serious players, he should stay upset until he figures it out
    Whulfgar likes this.
  19. ShadowMan Augur

    I wasn't saying this is why my guild can't win. I was posting stuff off the top of my head from prior raid guild experiences that usually are the reasons guilds are failing not that an event is so hard it blocks everyone but the top 5%. However many would rather just complain about it here on the forums that the raid is broken rather than fixing the issues that repeatedly come up anytime something isn't a simple tank and spank event.

    I 100% agree they are all easily fixed with the right tools and leadership but lots do not know that or as I said would rather flame the boards until its nerfed down rather than expecting its raid force to do 80% of what they should all the time.

    If you have 10 solid total dps players that are zerkers, necros, wizards, mages then yes an enchanter shouldn't be beating them regularly. However a good enchanter is amazing and can pretty regularly beat rangers, rogues and monks. Druids and shadow knights also can add nice chunks of dps to help a guild overall while also doing their intended jobs. But you typically don't see that when everything isn't being handled as it should.
  20. Lianeb Augur

    Could not agree more