Enforced Raid Rotation Discussion Thread

And will you still feel the same way when the guild that goes the day before you manipulates the spawn times so that all your mobs repop within an hour of each other? Or when the guild that goes the day before you manipulates the spawn times so you don't get to kill inny or CT at all on your designated day?

They have 3 hours, after that it is anyone's. If they start manipulating spawn times then so will everyone else. This is the most fair system that can be done.

Everyone should be happy that the loot is going to be spread out and the player base will hang around. A few expansions from now the average guild won't be able to compete in the raid scene and raiding guilds will be able replenish their ranks with players from these guilds.

Why would the player base hang around? It's going to be at best 1 mob every 10 days or so for anyone not TL. And then they will stomp you at Kunark launch with no rotation in place.

Anyone who was going to quit still will, long before instanced content arrives.

During classic it wasn't so bad and there were several guilds that were getting some of the boss kills. By the time Kunark rolled around however EoE just socked and blocked everyone else out of advancing which caused many of the other raid guilds to simply fold up with most of the their members quitting with the remaining ones trying to join or form new guilds. During Kunark raiding guilds like The Faceless, Dead Halfling Society, Black Syndicate and European Union ceased to exist; many members of these guilds tried forming a new guild called The Adversary but it didn't last long before it too closed up shop. This greatly reduced the population of the server that also led to the few smaller and/or more casual minded guilds such as The Golden Age and Friendship Network to quit.

By the time the dust settled about half way through Velious era there was only 3 serious guilds left on the server; Echoes of Elysium, League of Grand Adventurer's and Reload Ing Pleasewait. The population of the server never recovered and it became much more difficult to find PUGs with most group action happening with members of your own guild. By the time Luclin rolled around, EoE simply locked down most of the raid content and prevented LoGA from killing Lord Inquistor Seru or Emperor Ssraezsha or even entering Vex Thal. Those of us in RIP played at Asian times so largely didn't have to involve ourselves in the Prime Time drama between LoGA and EoE and simply did our raiding about a half an expansion behind the rest of the server by raiding the Luclin targets that were available and Velious content in Temple of Veeshan, Sleeper's Tomb and Kael Drakkel.

The toxicity caused lack of GM involvement is exactly why the server was eventually reduced to being a ghost town.

Because right now it's 0 mobs period for anyone not in TL or Apok. Now there is a reason to hang around and join a guild that is going to get in on the rotation. 1 mob in 10 days is fine, not everyone is a greedy bastard that needs to kill every mob, every day, all the time.

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Does this really open up content for more people? Cant certain guilds who already have the ability to monopolize content just split into smaller guilds and hog the rotations?

Instancing is the only way to go, imo.

I wish the devs would just come out and say, "Look, this whole rotation thing is a temporary fix until we start rolling out instances in the future. We don't have an ETA since it takes awhile to complete each one (or the ones we think should be instanced), but we will slowly release each raid instance when they are completed. So until then, lets do this rotation thing."

I bet you guilds will be more cooperative during this whole ordeal.

Would be so nice to see this.

Here's to hoping they roll out with Kunark.

If you actually new the spawn times that have happened since DBG changes to raid mobs.

This is purely to distract everyone from the fact that DDD is running on live for all the pro instance people to try out and realize they've been lied to this entire time about how hard it would be to do instanced classic raids.

And what would be the problem with that?

My guild is defined as a "casual" guild. We're made up of a lot of people from guilds from back in the day - ranging from the small FnF guilds, to other casual guilds, to second tier raid guilds, to one of the top uber guilds....

We have numbers to kill stuff. Especially the pre-revamp bosses. Of course we never got a chance to get those mobs - hell, we had a hard time getting a mini in Hate and not having TL, Apok, or someone else zerg it while it was in our camp, being actively killed....heck, a lot of nights it was hard to keep a frickin armor mob in our camp, being actively killed, when bards/chanters from other guilds would come in and try and charm-steal them

Post revamp, I dunno what we could, or couldn't kill.

However, with DB enforcing rotations, you can sure as heck bet that we're going to get into the mix and try. We'll also be sure to get DB involved if said rotation rules aren't fair to people and are just designed to let TL and Apok keep their current lockdown on mobs.

TL and Apok on RF - you're going to be forced to play nice - my guess is that DB got tired of all the /reports and petitions being sent in and finally decided to do something that wouldn't cost them a lot of resources - and this is it.

You can try and use the LJ rotation rules as your baseline - I think they were decent enough pre-revamp of mobs (maybe a tweak here or there). However, the barrier to entry in the LJ rotation rules post-revamp are completely out of the question - my guess is you'll see a lot of non-TL/non-Apok guilds looking to get a shot and having to get DB involved.

You can't try and tell me, either, that guilds "should have talked to us before and we'd come to some terms" - I tried to do that last night with your raid leader in Sky when you teleported 100+ on top of us on isle 1. Sent a tell to one of your members to find out who was leading (they were nice enough to tell me) and sent your raid leader a tell so we could try to avoid stepping on toes. Funny - got no response after repeated tells.

Change occurs when problems exist. This announcement is a pretty drastic change for the server, obviously indicating that there are problems for (some) of the population.

Before trying to devise a solution, you have to identify the problem(s). As best I can tell, this change was brought about by:

1. Many forum posts from people wanting instanced content so that they would have a shot at raid bosses.
2. Some guilds complaining that other guilds are monopolizing raid content.

The solution in this thread attempts to address the problems directly. I will also try to keep my thoughts as unbiased as possible. For the sake of being transparent of my own opinions, I have been a member of hardcore guilds and some less so. (TL, RoI, RoE) I have seen both sides of the coin.

It would seem, given the timing of this announcement, that this was a reaction to the outcry for instanced raid content. While it is a step in the right direction, a simple raid rotation will not solve this problem. The people wanting instanced content are the people who work 40+ hours in a week, or have family obligations, and have a finite amount of playtime during set time periods.

The other complaints are from other hardcore raiders that simply cannot compete with the size and organization of TL. I can assure you that these guys are not just a "zerg guild." They have structure that few guilds on the server can compete with. Yes, they have a lot of time on their hands. But lets face it, some of us wish we had just as much time to work with as they do. Anyways, to the point...

Given we are clearly trying to address two completely different problems, a hybrid solution is in order:

Create two tiers within the raiding scene. One being competitive, the other being "scheduled" for the lack of a better word. I don't use the word casual, because many of the people in the "scheduled" bracket still play 40+ hours a week.

On the "Competitive" tier, you would have TL, Apok, and any other guild that has the numbers and dedication to compete for raid targets 24/7. These guilds would use a rotation similar to what LJ uses, and what Skyp has suggested here:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...ted-legacys-raiding-proposal-rotation.225246/

On the "Scheduled" tier, you would have any other guild that has the strength to kill the raid targets, but at a time that can be reserved ahead of time via a managed document (public google doc updated by the guild leaders.)

How would this work? (example)
Sunday-Thursday the "Competitive" tier own the raid scene. Their rotation would be in effect (details tbd by their leaders.) Friday & Saturday the "Scheduled" tier own the raid scene. When a guild defeats Nagafen for the first time, they declare which tier they enter. Neither tier is allowed to touch a raid mob during time periods that are not declared as theirs.

What does this mean for "Competitive" players?
It means that you will have a small rotation. Less guilds to compete in a rotation with, and you will only be competing against other hardcore players. Smaller rotation, more loots = easier to feed more mouths. Obviously these larger guilds are given a much larger window. Raid mobs are able to be killed within an hour of spawning, rather than having to set global rules of more casual guilds needing more time to set up. The list goes on. (P.S. A lot of these guys are college students that go drinking on the weekends anyways

What does this mean for "Scheduled" players?
You can actually raid during a scheduled time period(instanced raids, anyone?). For two full days, you will be able to sign up for, and schedule your raid content via a managed document with other guild leaders. Guild leaders in this tier can also work out the details. The spawn to kill window will be more lenient than the competitive window.

But what about....?
Yes, I realize that spawn windows can impede on the "scheduled" tier. If DBG choses to entertain this solution, their devs would need to modify spawn windows for these two days to ensure that raid mobs will pop at the start of the window. They've shown us that they're willing to work with us. I'm hopeful that if we give them a solution that doesn't involve a million hours of coding, they will be willing to listen.

Thoughts anyone? Please keep them insightful and if you don't think it will work, please provide a reason why. We're trying to address real problems here, and DBG has given us a chance to work this out ourselves. Let's make the best of it.

Thalanos
Reign of Insanity

What a waste. Scrap this and find a real solution please. Having to deal with the now wildly altered boss timers and their buffing. Throw in the random TL and Apoc jerks that ignore anything we all work out and tell the guides or GM how it's currently their time or FFA time and they are going to be killing everything. This is a terrible idea.

If people don't fall to order naturally, then trying to force it on them is as effective as herding cats.

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*Perhaps they do not want to address the 'how it will be enforced part' to prevent pre-planning for shiz-heads.

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*Probs a good plan since 'they' --neither DBG, NOR the various players in the raid force situation at this time, def have not been bringing up your particular kind of playstyle in the negotiating discussions of said raid rotations.

I just finished reading this message that people have turned into a farce. here is how i see it:
1) you can not just arbitrarily say oh you must be able to kill one of these targets to be placed on the list.
2) placing a 1 hour time will ensure that TL gets the kill or apok or other jerk of a guild, same with 3 hours. why? because they don't give a damn and will engage 1 second past the time if the first guild isn't as skilled or have better numbers than them.
3) they will start their training techniques to delay the guild engaging.

here is my explanation: 1) stop trying to make it your server. It is just as much as my server as it is your server. if my guild wants to attempt the mob give us the chance to learn vice saying you got one chance and it's past the time so we don't care. if you do that no one can even attempt it since many haven't tried before and thus don't know strats that work for THEM.
2) the same here as #1 these guilds have trained people just because, they don't care about rules. they will do what it takes to get the mob thus a time limit is STUPID.
3) see #1 and #2.

my point is this. guild rotation can not be dictated by one guild or even a few guilds. there are more than 5 guilds right now that COULD go after these bosses and this thread will not be able to solve the issues, we must have a "summit" and discuss this with the guilds that feel they CAN do so and come to an equitable solution.

I was going to come out and say this, but you already did.