T3 hype

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Lisard, Mar 8, 2021.

  1. The real Sandaormo Augur

    We sitting in here -- I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen: We talking about practice. Not a game. Not a game. Not a game.
    - Allen Iverson
    Redsumm likes this.
  2. Beimeith Lord of the Game


    Well, the ranking itself was setup long ago back in the days when guilds didn't beat everything on the same week much less the same day much less a few minutes/seconds apart.

    The problem is there really isn't a better way to do it. Any type of skill-based ranking is inherently subjective:

    Is Guild_A that beats an event in 5 minutes because they lag it out so badly they can ignore the mechanics really "better" than Guild_B that takes 20 minutes to win but follows every emote/mechanic?

    Is Guild_B better than Guild_A if they beat it faster, but also stole/copied Guild_A's strategy rather than make their own?

    Is Guild_A better than Guild_B if A beats it first time on Live, but practiced it 10 times on Beta, while B beats it after 2 attempts on Live, but never practiced on Beta?

    Even if you try to use something like a points system (which believe me, has been suggested MANY times), you haven't solved any of the above issues while you add several more:

    How do you assign the points? Is it set amount or does it fluctuate based on how many other guilds have won? (e.g. 10 for first win, 9 for second, etc.), or based on time? (e.g. 1 minute = 1 point).

    Then you have: do you only accept the first time a guild wins, or can a guild submit a better/faster win time later?

    How, if any, do you account for changes to the event? Nerfing or making it more difficult? Do you reset and make guilds requalify on the nerfed event? Do you give extra points for beating it pre-nerf, ensuring that any guild who beats the nerfed version is incapable of getting the highest score?

    And if you do that, what about changes to a specific class? If Guild_A stacked 9 of OP_Class and got a high score on an event, but then OP_Class gets hits hard by a nerf and they can never match their original score, should it be changed? What about the reverse (Sucky_Class becomes OP)?

    How do you handle unintentional bugs? (E.g. you zone into an event and it auto-wins, or it despawns at 10% when it shouldn't). Does the guild get penalized for this? Lose points?

    How do you handle exploits? (E.g. a guild finds a spot they can no-damage tank, or finds a way to (illegitimately) avoid taking AE damage).


    Every one of these situations has happened in EQ at some point, and this is by no means a comprehensive list.
  3. Maedhros High King

    grats all!
  4. Cailen Augur

    Replaced by Spectre Death Swarm..... thankfully we survived it.
  5. Fenthen aka Rath

    That's a really funny way of requesting "Aldryn leads Iratus Lepus raids from now on please", not sure he'd go for it!
    Jennre likes this.
  6. ArtremasEQ Augur

    T3 was fun, Vulak has been murdered, Conqueror complete for another year.

    But we should all be aware there are still MANY MANY guilds that havn't completed T2 (or perhaps even won a T2 event yet). Not all guilds in all timezones can summon a force of 54 actually players for example, yet still muddle through, often getting there eventually.

    My biggest disappointment with CoV is the reward for completing Vanquisher (all Raid Achieves) is super weak vs the effort. A few purple ornaments from a past era ? /yawn.
    Such a massive comedown compared to TBL (maxing 4 evolving items), or even ToV (max the DPS aug). I suspect we will likely do them just for the completionists, but really zero other incentive.
    cadres, Lianeb and -----Cinexa----- like this.
  7. Windance Augur

    I think next year DB should skip doing any beta testing and just release everything on the first day of the expansion.

    Then you would get to see who is truly the best. Walking into a completely new raid, working out the emotes, triggers, etc.

    Not just a Mario Brothers "speed run".
    Pano likes this.
  8. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    do you understand how buggy and broken Quests and raids are in beta? I've got a decent rep with the devs because I go out of my way to help them as much as I can, fixing texts in quests, reporting bugged quests, finding places where I shouldn't be able to get and having up to 3 devs show up and go well how the.. how did you get in there? finding graphics bugs, etc. Beta is for more than raids, but then we have raids. have you ever worked with a dev on one when you start, and he says , well that's not supposed to happen, lets change this, ok , something should have happened, restarting it, changed that.. working with devs on raids can take 4+ hours with a LOT of sitting there twiddling your thumbs while they make changes in situ and in the end, it's still not done, so they schedule another group to come in and make more changes.
    its not like the raids are in primetime form and gtg when we all go in and try. and we don't raid them over and over only to figure things out. we work to find out what isn't working. when we did the mearatas raid we did just the death thing to see which classes spawned which mephits, and there was a correlation, that in the end, didn't matter because you just can't control who died in the raids. when Beta ended for TBL, I don't think any of the T3 raids were actually in finalized versions.

    ok, fine, we get the race isn't your thing, and you have sour grapes. I hate coffee, Mt Dew, and Dr Pepper, but I don't sit here telling you they should all be banned and everything should taste like white tea for everyone.

    Oh and I don't just do this during BETA, just yesterday I emailed a couple of them with some errors in text for live quests, that have been LIVE for years that I just never bothered doing before.
    kizant and Jumbur like this.
  9. KrakenReality Augur

    Reading this made me physically cringe. You're paying do all of this QA work for them. I guess you get to have your bragging rights, but doing unpaid labor for an investment firm is nonsense.

    Stop beta testing, stop pre-ordering, and you'll get better work from the DPG.
  10. Tour Augur

    Sounds like you enjoy community created “race” aspect of the game more than the actual game itself. Cause you’re not going to get a functional game without Beta testing. In fact, even pure functionality aside, if your goal was a more fair race you’d actually make it less fair by the existence of various bugs and exploits no longer removed during Beta.
    FawnTemplar, Jennre and Jumbur like this.
  11. German Augur


    Everything these days is "beta tested" either formally or after it goes to market. If we don't help make the game better before launch, you'll be trying to fix it after it goes live. Luclin and Planes of Power in era were riddled with bugs or not even completed with a tremendously larger staff.

    200 adds on Sontalak, Tantorlings with Tantor level health regen were fixed so others could enjoy it on day one of launching those tiers.

    I'd just prefer you say thank you instead of telling those of us who helped the others enjoy the game to stop doing what we want.
    Benito, FawnTemplar, Jennre and 3 others like this.
  12. KrakenReality Augur


    You want to keep doing work for free? These places rely on people like you, so they can cut QA staff. Basically, you're putting people out of work.

    Found you a job opportunity:

    QA Analyst Temp
    https://www.daybreakgames.com/careers?job=5063701002
  13. Windance Augur

    You DO have a good point about the devs needing to test the raids mechanics before the go live, so my suggestion of not having any beta testing isn't realistic.


    I don't really care one way or the other on the speed race, so no sour grapes here

    What I do find disheartening is the comments about how "trivial" the raids are.
  14. German Augur


    Far more guilds would hit artificial walls if testing were not done with a real raid force.

    Arbiter early on in beta was beatable but was far longer than it is in live so more guilds have a chance to beat it. The difference between before and after on that event is real. If I remember right, in its original form it would have spread out the differences in completion times due to the hit points but what fun is mashing on mobs for over an hour because the regen is set too high? Not to mention the aura's going boom much faster (root in particular). The DoTs were dialed back as well.
  15. German Augur


    Its only work if you have to do it. Nobody makes us do it, we "volunteer" to help.
  16. KrakenReality Augur


    Yes, and that's 100% the problem.
  17. Cragzop Cranky Wizard

    Congrats to RoI in continuing your impressive streak.

    Congrats to SR for coming in second.

    The early in thread snide pot shots at the lack of difficulty of completing T3 and/or all the CoV raids seems ... silly at this point. The same people generally make the same snide comments year over year (it's in the forums ... you can look it up). And yet they do nothing to change the behavior. I'd say act like you've been there before ... but you keep doing the same thing so maybe try something different next time?

    So ... for the top guilds ... how much time did your guild spend on the raids before launch? MS had 20 raid attendance days on Beta (including dev raids), although some of those days were short due to low turn out, so let's say about 60 raiding hours on Beta. Plus who knows how many hours folks spent off line going through video, logs, etc. plus the time spent in Beta in general grouping, doing missions ... and then those who talked, helped in other guilds' raids, etc.

    My point is ... there's a ton ... a ton of time and effort invested in Beta, and most of it involves how to win ... not how do we make this more fun. I'd say the majority of the decision makers in the top guilds probably have the most fun of the year in Beta, rather than actually doing the raids on Live. Ego stroking (of lack thereof) happens on Live. And I also do think there is generally enjoyment from those first attempts at each raid on Live (barring bugs). But I also get a sense of "is that all there is?" undercurrent from folks once an expansion is fully released.

    Does anyone think that things will be different next year for raids?

    I do think there are several avenues of things to try, but I think number one priority is to demand more from the raid developers before any raid hits Beta. Some of the raids went onto Beta that feel like there wasn't a simple ... all the mobs we want killed have x hit points and modern raid forces average y dps so it will take z time to complete this raid ... calculation done for it. Along with calculations not done for how much healing needs to happen for a 54 toon raid force from all the various aes now that are pretty close to impossible to miss.

    I know that the dev time table is rough with the ridiculous notion that they need to put out a new expansion before the end of each year (and on top of that, do it for two games that share resources). But that's not on the players, that's on the studio and owners. But as players, we can certainly demand that Beta raids actually be Beta quality instead of pre-Alpha a lot of the times.
  18. Cicelee Augur

    What is easy for some is not easy for others. Some people, and some guilds, tend to forget that. And while some of us like hard and challenging content, developers and game companies have a responsibility to the masses and to themselves. They have a responsibility to the majority of the player base to provide content that they can achieve with some level of challenge and difficulty. They also have a responsibility to themselves to increase revenue and profit. Creating raids that only 1% of raiders can complete does not increase profits and revenue. Simple as that.

    If you, or your guild, think the content is too trivial and too easy and does not provide the challenges you desire, you have two options. The first is self imposed restrictions to create your own difficulty and make the event harder on yourself. Next expansion, wear gear from ROS. Use spells and discs from 105-110. Bring 27 to the raid instead of 54. Or bring 36. Basically do things to create artifical difficulty to "challenge" yourself.

    The second option, of course, is retirement. You have mastered the game, it is too easy and boring for you, find another game or another hobby. Hopefully that new game or hobby will provide the challenge that you desire.

    Having said that, I am NOT advocating for anyone to quit or wear ROS gear. But understand that developers are not catering their game to the top 1%. They cater it to the masses, to the majority. And since the top 1% kind of is a minority, I do not believe that the developers are concerned that you think their game is too easy. They care about the middle 98%...
  19. Sancus Augur

    Beta is certainly a factor in how quickly raids are defeated on live. We defeated every raid this year on live on our first attempt, but obviously we spent time in beta practicing those raids.

    That said, for top guilds, these raids are not challenging in an absolute sense or relative to past years' challenging raids. That has nothing to do with beta testing; challenging raids in the past (Mearatas, Drusella's Vault, Kar Zok) were tested on beta.

    To some extent that's fine. Most raids shouldn't be challenging to top guilds so that other guilds have a chance at completion. With some potential exceptions, CoV tuning is actually pretty good/reasonable. That said, this is the final tier, and at the very least Vulak should have been more challenging. That's due to the raid's design and has nothing to do with guilds practicing it on beta. Arbiter is very easy for a T3 raid too, though it probably could've been swapped with Aary to create an appropriate difficulty curve.

    The top five or ten guilds participating in this race are much more than 1% of the raiding population, and I think it's healthy for the raid game overall to have an end boss that initially challenges them, even if it's nerfed later.
    RPoo, Sokki, FawnTemplar and 6 others like this.
  20. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    I don't do it for Bragging rights, god what an idiotic term. I do it to help a game I love be better for everyone in game, because the happier people are with the game in the long run, the longer they continue playing, which means the game is around longer for me to play too.

    I don't do it only for raiders, I don't test only raid stuff. My husband is a non-raider, has no desire to raid, isn't even playing on the same server I am, but I want him to be happy with what parts of the game he plays too. He hates Tradeskills, I freaking love them. Always have. I have characters who I don't play doing nothing but holding my overflow TS supplies.
    If helping people makes me happy, why should it bother anyone else in the slightest? it's a way to destress from my RL job.
    Good thing I'm a bard, I dance to the beat of my own drum, and don't care who joins me or not.
    Sokki and FawnTemplar like this.