I disagree with the flag-less unlock plan. Not completely, but as proposed. I think it would be better to extend the unlock period from 1 to 2-months, or maybe 3 per tier, but have flags in place that allows them to be unlocked sooner. Let the guilds that want to compete, compete under traditional flagging and let the guilds that want to bypass progression bypass it after an appropriate waiting period.
Hey DBG I like this change but you could actually please EVERYONE here and have best of both worlds: 1. Keep the flagless time lock system 2. Also keep the flagging for guilds that want to get ahead of time lock Hardcore raiders will be happy. Casual raiders also happy.
I like the plan, but will acknowledge there are alternatives that would probably make more people happy.
Also, I would add that there are beta forums for discussion of ToV/beta stuff. It's getting annoying trying to slog through the beta crap to read the relevant live crap.
You mean like how it's annoying trying to slog through the TLP crap to read the relevant live crap, yeah.
Not everyone has access to the beta forums, but this is important information for all raiders. Scroll passed if you're not interested.
I think every zone and raid should be unlocked. I HATE the flagging system and they just use it as an annoying time sink. Especially requiring flagging for regular exp zones. Let people go to the zone they want to exp in. People who don't have a lot of play time or miss the initial group frenzy, to flag for the new zones, are often out of luck after. A fun quest or something to get into a zone is one thing, but not difficult group missions.
I like this new way of handling raids. Let guilds decide which raids they want to attempt. For the top guilds, they will finish them in the month of the raids release, just let other guilds have a chance to look at the raids. They still have to win the raids to get the loots, so there is no participation trophy here.
The entire game is a time sink. That's the point. People that complain about anything in this game as a time sink astound me. I am fine with no flagging for raids (note, they didn't say no flagging for zone access did they?). I am fine with no flagging for zones (fine with me and all my alts). I'm even fine with being able to request any raid. I'm just worried they will be so easy as to invalidate any reason to put in an effort. I doubt we get another Mearatas, though I hope so.
Not a fan of the proposed raid staggering, it removes the competition and sense of urgency. I don't really care where we place with this implementation, because placement becomes irrelevant. Our planning and number of attempts no longer has any effect on when we get to access new tiers of raids. There's a sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from building on your successes and seeing where the team's hard work ranks you among your peers. The purely time-gated, no progression required release of raid tiers throws that out the window. This saps my enthusiasm for playing.
Err, the unlocks don't actually change who finishes what raid first. Bragging rights for beating the toughest raid first will still be up for grabs, they just removed the flagging...
Unless the 'toughest' raid is as 'tough' as Talendor, and it will be just about who can raid at midnight PST.
I just wanted to contract this proposal with RoS flag raiding requirements. One of the public raid forces I raid with could probably do the first RoS T2 raid, but since very few have the EOK T4 flag, it isn't an option. Now THAT, was a bad raid flagging design. (To the dev's credit, the original plan was to block ROS T1 with the EOK T4 flag - at least they didn't implement that).
If that's the case, then raiding in EQ is a joke and the developers have failed to provide an endgame experience. I'd like to give them enough credit to think that difficult final raids are the target, not an accident.
