Raid content for the non 1%

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Windance, Sep 11, 2019.

  1. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    I’d be okay with this as long as it doesn’t offer all the rewards for completion. Maybe as soon as you get the buff the raid is disqualified from getting conquerer achievement, but still awards loot. That way the lower tier raiding guilds can continue to gear up until they can get over the hurdle.
  2. kizant Augur

    I wouldn't really mind if people still get the same loot and achievements. But it would make sense to leave the feature turned off until at least some number of guilds have completed the event.
  3. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    I’m in a mid tier guild and we struggle to beat the Empyr raids. Still no Maeratas wins for us. When we DO beat Empyr, it feels great. Getting participation rewards would cheapen such victories for me. Naturally I don’t speak for anyone else and this opinion is my own.
    Spellfire, Bigstomp and Maedhros like this.
  4. kizant Augur

    I made a post on the issue tracker about it. If people think this concept is worthwhile then give it a vote. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been suggested by devs in the past but they thought players would have too big a of a negative reaction to it.
    https://dgcissuetracker.com/browse/EQ-2420

    Maybe it does need some reduction in rewards if you have the buff on when you win. Maybe the chest drops 1 less item. Or maybe there some achievement for winning it without a buff or a time trial that could be needed for an upgraded reward for completing everything. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal but I can understand why it would bother some people.
  5. Voxynn Elder

    The problem with the none 1% that raids..

    They simply don't care enough on either an individual basis or hold accountability of the people who perform poorly..

    As I said.. 1 of the 2 most basic issues.. not everyone is a complete bad mofo at their class..

    An what's worse is they do not care to learn their class BETTER.. in order to make their guild a 1% raiding guild.

    Yes I know alot of the issue is lack of players.. however if lack of players was THAT bad they would not HAVE a raid force.. so those that DO show up HAVE.. To play at a level of finess and skill level they simply are not capable of in order to off set those whom are not shown up ..

    Basically the problem with the none1% is lack of skill to BE.. a 1% .
  6. Allayna Augur

    @ Kizant - I like the idea, but instead of removing items from the chest, how about 1 additional chest pops if you beat it prior to the zonewide buff aura. 1 item in the chest and it's a loot table of either the current expansion tradeskill item (muhbis for TBL) OR a trophy for beating the event hard mode!!!

    There is precedent in that Convorteum had 2 chests if events were done a certain way iirc.

    For comic relief tho...on Xegony opens we had 3 emote fails on Fire, /rs : next person to fail an emote is booted from the raid.
    0 emote fails after that

    X person died - got a rez stick rez and spoke up requesting not rez him if it wasn't going to be a 96% or a call.
    Leave the raid if you don't like the rez.

    I relay these anecdotes because performance is an issue that effects everyone on raids and mediocrity, when accepted will continue to be mediocre.
    kizant likes this.
  7. Bigstomp Augur


    It sucks to be the recipient of many of those 90's (especially if having a rough night needing many rezzes) , but xp is so easy to regain.
    Take the 90, stand up, be useful to the raid again.
  8. Windance Augur


    We care. We call out folks who miss emotes. We will have people who can't do emotes sit out. We just don't have enough people to bench someone for not playing their class 'well enough'.

    I think it would be a lot easier to BE a 1% if you are surrounded by other 1% who you can tap into for advise / guidance.

    With many of the key class web sites dying / dead, that information is much harder to find and communicate to those of us who are not party to your private information. Much of which is held behind closed doors so you don't give other guilds a leg up in the race for #1.

    Are there any top guilds willing to share their class specific information to help us the rest of us get good ?
  9. sojero One hit wonder


    I will share any SK specific information that is asked for, send me a PM and ask anything you want.
  10. Maedhros High King

    There are a bunch of great community supported threads on eqfreelance.net. Thanks Furro!
    Don't just think there are some ultra secret strats that the top folks in the top guild's use and that's why they are more successful however.
    A ton of it comes down to reaction times and situational awareness.
    Ultimately complacency versus aggressiveness in the desire to succeed and improve is the greatest factor.
    Elyssanda, yosco, Belexes and 2 others like this.
  11. Scornfire The Nimbus Prince

    The freelance boards have Class Guides curated by fantastic players, if the guide for your class is a bit out of date *Cough*, you can most likely contact the poster ingame and they'll be happy to share their knowledge
    yosco likes this.
  12. Tolzol Augur

    http://eqzerker.boards.net/ For zerkers, not much conversation happens on the site, but the info is there and I’ll keep it updated and answer peoples questions for as long as I’m around.
    Yinla likes this.
  13. Zunnoab Augur

    As far as multiple difficulty levels and achievements go, the answer is simple to me: achievements for the harder versions. I'm not saying I think they have the resources to do it. The only one thing I will stand firmly on is that I think one size fits all enrage timers (and timed mechanics when taken to an extreme) are terrible.

    As I said before, I don't know of any six second emotes, but they should keep things sane. The Conflagration Generals having an extremely finnicky balance mechanic within 1-2% is ridiculous. It's not the aspect of the fight most likely to cause a wipe (I have to wonder if they considered both generals cast the punishment AE when tuning the damage), but it is pretty hilariously unreasonable and in my opinion makes the achievements funny. What exactly is hugely out of balance in comparison to 1%? I don't want to derail into something specific to the event, but I am seriously scratching my head if the ridiculously strict balance was intended.

    Actually, the Chardok Vault does this. The heal time for the dervishes gets a bit longer each time.

    There are also events in the past, such as Meldrath, with checkpoints but that are still possible to beat in one go. I'm positive there is a better example than Meldrath, since you have to change rooms for him, but it's escaping my memory at this time. I recall a boss that has higher health if you fail, but doesn't completely reset.

    I'm not saying it's the solution, however it's not unheard of in the game.
  14. Sancus Augur

    That was an awful mechanic. It encouraged guilds to just leave someone FD in the room while they hid out yonder waiting for the event to get easier. The event not resetting while someone was FD was likely unintended (probably an exploit), but even if people had stayed in the room, "sit around twiddling your thumbs until the event gets easier" is a pretty terrible mechanic.

    That's the primary problem with that idea - too many events have trivial parts where you can coast, and it would encourage guilds to do that until the buff powered up enough to help them get through the difficult parts. It would probably work, in that guilds would defeat more events, but I think there has to be a better solution that doesn't cause low end guilds to literally die in real life out of bordem.
    Elyssanda and Maedhros like this.
  15. Zunnoab Augur

    The fact the event doesn't reset and has a soft checkpoint of sorts is a completely different subject from the increasing timers. Is it an exploit? I outright told the developers about it in a discussion thread, and checkpoints are not unheard of in the game. If it's an exploit, they chose not to do anything about it. The dervishes do not auto aggro and then they path around the room without script aggro. It has nothing to do with feign death.

    When initially doing the event, I refused to take advantage of the known quirks of the zone's events. I am not speaking about not helping the Queen kill her captains, which makes sense in the context of the event. (This was NOT Inverse Logic, to be clear to people reading, I had not planned on discussing this publicly again but it's relevant - I did bring this up publicly when it happened). Then they changed the zone and literally added "lol" to mob names. It was cold and heartless how they went about that, and people were literally in tears when our alliance progressed after that several month setback and broke into Kor-Sha Laboratory. I don't like the way that all went down, but it was the right choice rather than reducing the number of raid forces on the server a couple years earlier than was necessary eventually.

    Regardless, I'm not saying that's the right way of going about it. It's just something they did implement. Offtanking them for a couple rounds (we only needed to do so 2-3 to beat the timer at the time) was all that was necessary. The event continues to increase the timer long after that.

    It does bring up another good point though, their making events harder months after an expansion launches can be an annoyance to the strongest guilds, but devastating if not outright guild/raid force killing to lower or mid tier guilds.
  16. Drogba Augur

    Zunnoab and yosco like this.
  17. Raccoo Augur

    There are also several EQ players who stream to twitch, and some of those record their raids. Around 4-5 from Silent Redemption alone. 3-4 from Return of the Exiled. 1 from Machin Shin I think? 1-2 from Silent Resurgence. 1-2 from Scarlet Vengeance. I've probably missed a few.
  18. Zunnoab Augur

    Keep in mind there is more than raw information that is required to make a raid force function. Not only that, but seeing how a very powerful raid force does something at times is only superficially relevant to how a weaker force must go about things.

    They are, of course, very good resources despite that.

    A raid force requires an organizational structure that takes work. A mid or especially lower tier force will have people with a wide array of skills. Some will excel in areas where others will fail. Perhaps a very attentive tank will be abysmal at emotes in an event until having experienced the event 5+ times and even then fail more than others. Perhaps one of the best DPS in a force will be a tad slow if on specialized assignments on a raid, making them more suited to just doing that one role (in that case it's actually better since sacrificing the best DPSers for scripted event mechanics is better to avoid). Perhaps someone who for whatever reason does 30% of the DPS of the best in their class in an event is actually astoundingly good at locking things down with their crowd control abilities. Perhaps the best healer has a family life and can only be on 45% of the time, and won't always know when they have to leave.

    Current design essentially doesn't even allow bad times to so much as exist. A weaker force, if this keeps up, cannot function period. I didn't even get into the extreme luxury of being able to tailor the raid roster for specific events. For most, it's a matter of filling the roster, much less finding skilled players, much less getting the exact optimal ratios of certain classes. Target selection is dictated by who is able to be online, and if the wrong person has to leave the list of viable targets changes. Working on a hard event in those circumstances is not just having people perform better, it's having the right people on at the right time often enough to hammer the event without burning people out and risking even less times of opportunity to have the people on to even consider trying.

    That is the reality of a low/mid tier raid force. So in addition to those factors you need people willing to not just step up to lead, but stay through it through good and bad times. Having separate people able to do loot, record loot, take attendance, attend the raid roster, instruct their classes and analyze their performance, give raid direction, assign tanks and such, etc. is a huge blessing. Without segregating as many duties as possible, the stress on each individual member of the leadership increases, to the point saying "yes here is some info please try and improve" can help, but will not solve things on its own. There is a huge array of contribution factors to a raid, and in a mid/low tier force the fact is the best players may be necessary to win but they cannot win on their own either. That is what makes it a team game.

    The short of that is: it's great people are sharing that information, but it's a separate subject from the destructive tuning habits the last few expansions. My guild can call pretty much whatever we want most of the time. We fill raids consistently. That is a luxury a lower tier guild doesn't have.
    Maedhros likes this.
  19. Whulfgar Augur

    This is roughly 90% of EQ top 1% verses not top 1%.

    In raids where emot's have decal's on the ground you have to run outta ..

    Who's gonna know when to move .. an faster ?

    The person who play's in 1st person mode ? Or the person who plays in chase mode (Camera behind the head of their toon) ?

    From all that I've seen personally .. its gonna be that player .. playing in chase mode 99% of the time.
  20. Whulfgar Augur

    Things that can automatically help in Raids where Emot's are decal'ed on the floor or anything like this..

    1. Play in chase mode : Camera far behind the toons head an angle it up so your looking down at the back of your toons head.

    2. Situational Awareness .. You are invading another (albeit pixles) entity's home.. We are there to plunder their items.. You HAVE to think everything that is in there is designed to keeel joo...

    3. Events that require you to huddle .. HUDDLE.. now in my guild a certain cleric when we doing Esianti at the Sunshine decal on the ground part, does not realize we HUDDLE .. so as not to get TOO MANY decals on the ground. I explained this to them an they reply with a I know how the event works man.. yet .. NEVER DO THEY HUDDLE .. I the warrior have had to rez this individual no less then a dozen times because they play in 1st person, an can't see when they are outta the white decal on the ground or if they spawned a SECOND white decal on the ground because they too ignorant to huddle.. so basically .. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS ...

    4. Follow your raid leader's instructions. Pretty basic an obvious .. But the lower one goes in guilds that raid .. the WORSE .. this very thing becomes by more an more an yep.. MORE people..

    5. STOP THE ALTS .. If you can not stop yourself from playing alt's to the point your main is suffering DUE to you wanting to play alts .. this is a YOU problem.. an is 1 of the reasons the none 1% .. ARE the none 1% .

    I'm sure this list could def .. go on an on an on an on .. ad naseum.. but these are thee most basic from what I've seen personally in every guild I've ever been in where the player's themselves can easily fix themselves..