I am a guild that does TBM T1 raids and now trying to break into EOK T1. I also raid with a public raid force that does TBM T1, T2 (hopefully T3 soon) and also is now trying to break into EOK T1. Obviously, there is overlap between the 2. My guild doesn't appreciate it when I get lockouts on the content they are doing, so I need to avoid raids with the public group that conflicts. The problem is they don't announce in advance what raid they are doing, so my first warning is when the expedition screen shows up with the raid they have chosen. When that happens, obviously I would leave the raid and expedition. However, one time I had a lockout anyway. To be honest, I am not 100% sure if I left the expedition or not, but I have heard that leaving the expedition is not enough - that you can still get a lockout if the raid force was successful. Does anyone know how lockouts work for TBM and later raids? A developer response would be ideal.
Some time back in underfoot a - Insert Banned For A Week Guild Name Here - farmed a raid a dozen plus times a nite before getting caught. They would drop all raid mains from the DZ at low health of the named, add in the minimum needed junk alts to eat the lockout, and to not lose the DR, rinse and repeat. Some time after this devs decides to add the lock to the start of the DZ. Doing this had several negative effects. The biggest being you get a lockout no matter what. This prevents you from trying to raid it again and you get no flag. They need to tie the lockout to engage of the raid not the initial grab of the DZ.
It's really, really, odd that your raid leader for the public raid doesn't give you guys a heads-up in advance as to what his/the raid's target is. Are they in a teamspeak or something that you aren't?
You also get a lockout for all events completed in the DZ, even if you are on the bench or logged out. Since I only raid with my guild it doesn't really matter, but that has always seemed wrong to me.
all due respect, unless your public leader gives you all heads up first, your priority is to your guild first, public raiding will have to take a back seat. EoK for informative purposes is five days, but again, guild first imo.
I agree my priority is to my main guild and that is why I want to avoid lockouts, but the point is I am not a part of the raid force that takes down the target. I leave the expedition before they engage. I don't see how I benefit unfairly by leaving an expedition 1 minute after it starts. Now as far as the exploit. I am of 2 minds. One, who really cares? Each character can still only benefit from the raid once. If you want to farm a raid for your alts, I don't see how that is breaking the integrity of the game. You can still have alts in a raid force that could never beat the content on their own. It is just an issue of degree, and geared alts won't break anything. Two, this strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am not the only one that has a raid guild and also joins a public raid force. This rule is harming me even though I have no relation to the exploit they are trying to prevent. If they are deadset keeping this code in, the least they can do is change it from start of expedition to some other point like when raid is initiated/boss loses health, etc. P.S. I would still appreciate it if a developer can confirm exactly what is the criteria for the lockout.
Not all of the events, it drops you from the dz list of members after about an hour since that's more than long enough to avoid exploits. The rant from that particular guild that was suspended was quite epicly hilarious.
Thank you for a dev response. It would be really helpful if this was tailored more to prevent just the exploit. Some possible solutions: Only affect those that actually zoned into the instance If a person leaves the expedition within 10 minutes of start, remove them from the instance list
Another option would be to give everyone in a raid the option to accept/reject the expedition like a taskadd gets. I think this would be viewed as a negative for most raiders, though, so the other solutions above are better. I suppose an option where you decide whether to get the taskadd window would be one way to do this.
You'll just have to trust me that we've talked this over a lot. Doing what you suggest would re-enable the exploits that we put this in to avoid. Honestly, if people won't tell you what event you're doing, that seems silly. For all they know, you already have the lockout for whatever event. I wish it was possible for people and game to work perfectly together, but they can't. We do what we can. A
Unfortunately raid leadership is not being helpful in this, and there are only so many public raids on a server (they are the only one doing T2). I think they may be doing it to try and get people to leave guilds and join theirs. Anyway, the fact remains that your "exploit fix" is harming those not involved with the exploit. If you can't tailor it to only impact the exploiters, then my request is you remove your fix entirely. I really don't see what the big deal is - it is still one chest per character. Even with the exploit fix in place, raids can still push a certain number of undergeared alts in a raid. If you are deadset on keeping your anti-exploit code, then it seems like the best option is my third proposal. Let players decide if they want to get a taskadd message when a raid gets a new expedition. Default behavior is no message.
This is kind of a ridiculous request to have the code changed because people leading your raids aren't even telling you what event they're going to do next. Ask before you join the raid what they're doing. It's not an "exploit fix". It IS an exploit fix. Period. Triality and quite possibly other guilds were using it to flat out CHEAT and get weeks worth of loot in one week back in Underfoot. I don't ever want to see that hole opened up in the slightest bit, especially just because a public raid won't tell you what they're going to do before they get the dz.
Please explain the exploit. They had to complete a raid multiple times to gear their alts. If their alts were stronger, they could have just beaten the raid with their alts instead of their mains. Using your main character to gear alts is a part of EQ. I know I have done it, just not in raids. Supported EQ provides ways to gear alts already. Taskadd them to loot chest after the encounter is beaten (happens all the time with rotting loot). For flagging purposes, T1 keys are in a T2 chest so that you can backflag one player per raid. Anyway, I don't really care whether raiders can gear their alts or not. My second highest character is 91 and as a result isn't even a raider. What I do care is if DBQ is going to try and "fix" an exploit, it should do no harm to non-exploiters. This one does, as I have detailed above. While I wish the raid leadership was more understanding, they aren't. They don't really care if occasional raiders get lockouts or not. But I am not paying them to take care of my concerns. I do pay DBQ. That is why I am asking for DBQ to fix what they broke with their anti-exploit code.
The exploit was fill up the raid, one alt. At around the 5% mark everyone would drop the DZ except that one alt. Since you don't zone out right away, the mob would die and the chest would spawn. The alt would then add everyone back that wanted loot. No one had a lockout, so they just did the event again and YAY more loot. More loot... more loot. The only people that got locked out were ones not paying attention and didn't drop. Their entire guild - Mains, alts, bazaar mules, everyone got suspended for a week. It was a huge cryfest and they lashed out at Sony big time on their website for it being "unfair" since the claim was other guilds did it too. The thing is, they were the #1 guild in the game for many years at the time. Even if there were other guilds doing it, it was making an example out of them for cheating the system. Sorry Fian, but nothing is broken. Your public raids are broken if they're not telling you what raid they're doing before you go to the next event. If you're joining a raid at the last minute without asking what they're doing then you're at fault here. You need to find out what they're doing.
Thank you for explaining the exploit. I can understand why it needed to be fixed. There are plenty of other ways to have blocked the exploit. Anyway, you say nothing is broken, but I have already detailed above how I am negatively impacted by current code. I am not getting access to 10 chests. I am getting 0. As for me being at fault. I have already asked for advance notification. They have said no.
