fixing the raid scene without instancing

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by kraggnar, Jul 16, 2015.

  1. lalaloup Augur

    That's why I don't like those terms. They only hold a consistent meaning to people with the same conceptual attachments.

    I just wanted to be specific, no socio-gaming-political agenda.
  2. Rhiyannon Augur

    instancing too hard? okay!

    then police the servers, get GMs, not just observing guides, bring the full pnp back.
    Owndar, Kellaer, Vaclav and 1 other person like this.
  3. Banuvan Augur


    While I agree I don't think they have the resources for that either.
  4. Fallfyres Augur

    --------
    Duct tape and shabby chic.
  5. PathToEternity pathtoeternity.pro


    Nevertheless, we appreciate the open and honest communication rather than hearing "that's not classic" or "competition is good for the server."

    I think several of us know this would be a massive undertaking. It's not a quick, easy, or simple fix. I am not really sure what to say to that. It's also true, however, that the size and demand of the playerbase exceeds the size and supply of the content and so not addressing the problem does mean loss of revenue as players unsubscribe and leave (most of them who will not return until there is another TLP).

    I don't state it this way like we are presenting you, the devs, with some sort of ultimatum. In fact I am one of the 1%'s, a TL officer - trust me, I'm not going anywhere. I'm enjoying gobbling up all this loot and content. But I am telling you that the pie is getting smaller by the day and that some of these decisions, even the hard ones, don't seem to make sense. Ragefire was originally slated for June, but was launched in May; I think almost anyone interested in some instancing outlet would have been just fine waiting the extra month for the tools you mention to be built and the code you mention to be written (and many would probably have understood delaying until July for this).

    Furthermore, I know that as the devs, even though you are doing the coding, you're essentially the messengers, and there is no need to shoot you for the message. We know it's your management who is trying to do cost benefit analysis on whether instancing makes sense or not.

    We're asking you to ask them to revisit the numbers, especially in context of the timeline. These problems will not resolve themselves on their own prior to Plane of Time. Thing is, Plane of Time isn't just around the corner. We're looking at a timeline of two more years of this?

    I guess what I'm saying is, on a personal level, I don't care. I have been present for like 20 - 30 kills of almost every boss in Classic. Except for maybe a Vox cloak (on a Shaman?) I pretty much have all the raid gear I'm looking for. I'm just fooling around at this point.

    You probably don't care either. I mean I know you do, the same way I do, but on a personal level it doesn't really affect your life or your day job. You come in, code, have meetings, etc. and whether instancing is added or not doesn't really change anything you do at work.

    But your management should care. People are leaving the server. They will not come back. There's a business decision to be made here. Maybe in the long run the best ROI actually is deciding not to add instancing? I have no idea.

    You also don't have to sit down amongst yourselves to brainstorm the problem. We know the EQ dev team is small, but you have an army of invested players here willing to help communicate and hash out ideas. Hell, I posted this question to the community about a week ago here and 30 pages later it's still generating civil discussion.

    If you decide to fix this you do have to make the decisions about how to code what, but the community isn't short on coming up with potential ideas. We just need to know if you are interested in hearing them or not, we need to know if you will take us seriously or not. For example you asked about how the lockouts would work - off the top of my head I can seem them working by denying players entry to the base instance of the zone since the raid targets only spawn in the base instance (this solves the question for Phinny, Yael, Vox, and Naggy anyway). I'm using that as an example only, there are solutions to most of these problems but we need to know if they are worth discussing or not.

    Thank you for reading.
  6. Prathun Developer

    So how hard is it? As a comparison, creating the harbinger epic workaround NPCs and their functionality was a relatively simple solution for relieving bottlenecks on epic 1.0 quests and that was a solid two weeks of design time of planning, implementation, and testing. Launching an instance, reading in lockouts to spawn the correct NPC(s), and applying lockouts on their death(s) makes things more complicated. And many encounters are challenging because of multiple NPCs that are implicitly or explicitly part of the battle. How do we replicate that safely without creating triggerable experience or loot opportunities? And where do we put characters that zone into the instance? And how do people get in and out? And do any of these encounters use scripts that check what zone the NPC is in or what zone spawn identifier it's using that will break if that data changes (Hint: the answer is yes) and how bad would that be? There's a significant amount of research, planning, handcrafted design data, and testing that would go into each instanced event.
  7. bobjones1208 Augur

    Maybe you need to put JChan on it. She programmed the entire queue system over night and that was supposed to be "a tremendous amount of work".
    Rhiyannon and PrathunEQ like this.
  8. Prathun Developer

    Instanced raid content is 100% a design task, not a programming task. It's all plugging in data, preferably the right data, but sometimes close enough data will do. JChan, as amazing as she is, would not be the implementer as she's more of a codey-coder type.
    Elkay, Saroc_Luclin, Simone and 2 others like this.
  9. bobjones1208 Augur

    I should have added a smiley or something. I was just giving you a hard time. I'm a former dev, so it was more of a LOL to myself, but it didn't come across very well on a forum.

    A soufflé sounds delicious though ;)
    Simone and PrathunEQ like this.
  10. Vaclav Augur


    Then Prat - question - why not do a middle ground and skip most of the hassle you're talking about and just create SOMETHING to keep people busy?

    As Jain said - people are going to get bored and quit and that's not good for DBG's bottom line.
    Banuvan and Hateseeker like this.
  11. Prathun Developer

    I should switch to decaf is the real lesson to be learned here. ;)
    Now where's a soufflé when you need one?
    Rhiyannon, Simone and Aneuren like this.
  12. Elkay Augur


    I understand encounter locking/lockouts would be a doozy for raid targets and would definitely be a lot of custom coding. I never recommended encounter-locking beyond group single target stuff, a la EQ2 normal mobs. I think the biggest problem with group content is the charm stealing, anyway.

    As far as the rest, wouldn't they function the same as any other raid expedition? I would think the NPC to enter the expedition would be at/near the encounter, i.e. the prep room for Naggy. So you'd still have to fight down there as a raid as you normally would. I can also understand adjustments being necessary for some existing scripts where it's not a tank & spank like Naggy, if the scripts were written with specific non-instanced zone pointers. Most of those type of encounters are later on, Velious+ I think? There'd be buffer time to adjust those over the next 6-12 months before Velious likely hits.

    Yeah, it's probably weeks of work including the QA cycle for dealing with some existing scripts later on, but I would think the simple single encounters (classic gods and kunark dragons) wouldn't be so bad? We know resources are at a premium right now. Maybe this could be a future one-time purchase, like the heroic forge armor? A one time "raid expedition" token that unlocks the feature? That'd help absorb the cost. Dunno, just throwing it out there. There's obviously interest in being able to schedule raid times, if you have any other ideas to toss around the dev table.

    Anyway, thanks for joining the conversation! Always good to talk dev talk. :)
    PrathunEQ likes this.
  13. Gregolo Augur


    Can I be among the first to say, that this level of interaction with the community is exactly what the community needs and is a breath of fresh air. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I appreciate you taking the time to post and explain the inner thoughts of the dev team.
    Simone, Finwen, Numiko and 2 others like this.
  14. Elkay Augur

    Agreed 100%, even if the community might not like the answers. Constructive round-table discussions go a long way with customers feeling they actually have a say in what they're paying for.
    Rhiyannon, Simone and Finwen like this.
  15. Rauven Augur


    Just one server at a minimum would require 3 people. This is so the shifts could be staggered in a way and so they could fit in a 40 hour work week. Then you have to pay a salary, social security, medicaid, and the new medical expenses with the affordable care act. Next you have to provide healthcare. Finally any other benefits GMs are entitled to.

    We'd need to add another fee on top of all access to play on the server and keep the 5000 players we have now to make it work.
  16. Hateseeker Augur


    This is just interaction about the code aspect. We really need more interaction on the philosophical side of things but the decisionmakers are apparently not as open as the coders.

    The work involved is only a part of the decisionmaking process; the benefits to be gained are another part, and the producer doesn't discuss that except for one sided pronouncements.
  17. Prathun Developer

    Excellent question. Earlier I saw that you suggested a new instanced raid to give people something to chew on. We could do that... but there's a cost. It would mean one more raid now and one less raid in the future. Any time spent implementing content for progression now comes right out of the content budget for the fall expansion/campaign. We have a tight and ambitious schedule and we're not comfortable with cutting planned content.
    Behee, Simone, Aneuren and 1 other person like this.
  18. Elkay Augur

    I did suggest a Legends server. I know it'll never happen, though.
  19. Numiko Augur

    I wish Absor and Prathun had done the Massively interview instead of Holly, she is to.... management and really has an awkward Marie Antoinette way of saying things...

    Even though I have not always agreed with the other two they are straight shooters in my books and would not dance around like Holly did and just told it like it is.

    I think we would have ended up with a lot less drama in the long run.
    Elkay likes this.
  20. Tarrin Augur

    I dunno. It seems like if Holly would have "danced around" the "casuals don't deserve to kill naggy" quote people constantly bring up, we'd have a lot less drama. But she said it very direct. More direct than I would have said it, even if I agree.
    Simone likes this.