Encounter Locking in 2024

Encounter locking or (FTE) has undoubtably fixed some of the issues that they were setting out to fix. I don't think there is a large contingent of people that are fighting to bring back malicious trains to the game. However, I would argue that it has broken more then it fixed for the old school player. People who have faced the negative part of competition in the game have put in enough tickets that this seems like the best route. No one likes their epic mob to be stolen for the 10th time. It is still possible to grief people with FTE, its just different. As we continue into the next TLP's more exploits will be found and griefing will continue. The part that no one is talking about is the negative part of removing dps races. For a ton of people some of our best memories are fighting to down a raid target in the open world. On top of that leveling alts OOG, and most all OOG activities have been squashed. Finally, how many more chunks do you think you can take out of the original Everquest before people just stop coming back for the new TLP? If you change the game completely to appease a group of new, younger people will that fill the hole that the masses of habitual TLP'ers leaves. Vote NO on FTE for the upcoming TLP. At least one of them should be FTE free! At the very least there has to be a comprimise that eliminates some negatives, while keeping most of the positives.

In its current form mobs can be locked to other people and attack you. Happens more often than sometimes, suck when it happens forces your whole crew to zone or die when it happens.

I'm sure one of them will have it, but I hope they don't all have it. They seemed to like it a lot in the interview.

Player interaction is a huge part of MMORPGS. This includes competition. EQ was a lot less hardcore than its counterpart back then (Ultima Online), but it was still very competative. Batphones at 3 am as your guild trains from kael entrance to Vindi and downs him racing another guild to statue is part of the experience. A bard highsunning your mobs and the massive amount of drama on the forums afterward is just special. D*ck waving contests between pullers. The jankyness and chaos of EQ is the most fun part about it.

Trains are absolutely part of the charm. Having to book it in Unrest because the floor above was wiping and had to run breaks up the monotony. Death is not a big deal at all these days with how fast xp is.

I hope Daybreak realizes that player interaction is what sets this game apart, negative and positive. FTE not even letting you help someone unless they /yell is especially silly. I don't know if Oakwynd was unpopular due to FTE or because Mischief spoiled everyone, but we really need an option to not have it in May.

They can like it all they want but if a ton of the players dont like it they will have to tune it down or remove it from certain servers. The upcoming TLP's are a great place to try one with, one without and see which one is more popular. I guarantee the non FTE server would outclass the FTE one.

Agreed. I am surprised no one has trolled you for your opinion on the matter or called you a botter or whatever it is that some players do to try and push their own agenda. I personally dislike FTE and think it is annoying. If I wanted a camp and felt like being mean about it, I could just take your camp with 1 toon instead of a bot crew needing 10 to do it. I can totally understand where some people are coming from though, and it does have its upsides as well. Hopefully they do 2 servers, 1 with and 1 without. I will see you guys on the one that does not have FTE if I have the option.

That's the goal, at least one without.

I'm pretty sure FTE is here to stay and will probably be enabled on every new server from here on out.

I sure hope not, I don't think after Oakwynd they have any reason to believe its going to be successful as it is now. They will do what is best for their business hopefully, and I would argue that is less FTE.

Then I won't be playing on a new TLP server.

For me FTE is a step too far from the original game.

It fundamentally changes EQ, if nothing else they can tone it down to effect some of the worst things. Allow your friends list to be exempt from the encounter locking feature would fix the issue with OOG alts. Remove all OW raid targets from the list so that big guilds can compete over loot. Tons of things they could do to make it less toxic than it is currently.

But it doesnt have be. Having my group's gameplay and fun disrupted because of another group's actions does not create a charming memory. Think about those people who only have 30 minutes to play. Instead of grinding out mobs for 30 minutes, they died because your group wiped. They now have to spend time getting back to the zone they were in, and in some cases, fight back to their camp. They have now spent almost all of their time just traveling instead of playing.

I have really only noticed a handful of very vocal people who hate FTE. Most seem indifferent (I am in the indifferent category) For 90% of the population it changes literally nothing about how they play. They aren't runnin out of group DPS or PLing their 45th alt with their druid account (both still doable with FTE, you just have to yell the mobs off) and don't get me started on open world raid mobs, no one races anymore. No one has cared about the open world race in years. Most of the EQ population wouldn't have their gameplay experience altered at all if you full on removed raid mobs from the OW entirely, because they raid on their schedule, in their DZs, and that is it.

I am pretty sure DPG doesn't care that your out of group alt is inconvenienced, or that it is harder to PL your wizard box. Those things seem like they would be pretty low on the priority list. And I would bet a kidney that DPG doesn't care a lick about the OW raid mob race (that doesn't actually ever happen because everyone who wants to do open world mobs all joins the same mega guild, because no one actually wants to race, they just want to win.)

Half a dozen people on the forums have declared they hate it and will never play on an FTE server. Seems about the same number that hated truebox or raid instances. Times change, EQ changes. It may no longer be your cup of tea. Sorry about that, I am sure you can adapt, there are lots of other games out there.

it seems that your fellow negative attention seekers either can't resist doing these negative things to people who don't enjoy them (and who then complain to daybreak), OR you all just can't resist trying to weaponize the petition system against each other. either way, DB doesn't want to adult us anymore because its too exhausting and expensive, so here we are with FTE.

I get plenty of FTE in WoW - which I play on a regular basis. I will play on an FTE server regardless, even though I would prefer to go without it.

Also the botters just learned to spam rune or heal on you to unlock it and exploit it and take the mob anyways. Very broken. Unlikely to be continued.

That's because they were willing to try Oakwynd..

The people not commenting refused to even engage with the system and test oakwynd out....which is a shockingly large number of players.

I played on Oakwynd exclusively because I knew they'd try to carry this forward to every TLP and I wanted to make sure proper feedback was given so that it was fixed properly.

Currently mobs locked to other people cannot be attacked or defending against at all even if they start attacking YOU.

Mobs ending up on your because the other person ran a train through your groups bards aoe song, and then not being able to defend against the mobs that are now killing you or chasing you out of the zone is broken and has no place in Everquest.

JChan said on the EQ Show that trains are basically non-existent now, which just goes to show how out of touch they are with the actual gameplay we are experiencing.

I went to Oakwynd specifically to see if it was as bad as it seemed. Spoiler, it is. Most of the people who are going to hate it have yet to realize just how much it changes the game. Expect more FTE vitriol if they announce it on both new servers. Now is the time to voice our concerns in the hopes they will put it in reverse.

this basically sounds like all the stuff we heard before it came out and then 99% of if it turned out to be false and FTE just wasn't a big deal for people who play like normal humans.

I'd rather have an un-attackable mob once a month than be trained by the guy who thinks "negative interactions are an important part of the game" every other night.

Your arguing passed my point, I think there is a way to refine the system to remove the bad parts of it, while still preventing trains. Or one of the two likely servers can be without it and everyone can play how they would like to.