When you hit the middle era of Everquest a number of expansion have multiple tiers of raid content, and these tiers only drop around 12 flagging items per round of lockouts. During live these expansions were current content for close to a year, however on TLP's we are looking at 8-12 weeks depending on the expansion. This is poorly balanced for the time tables that TLP run through these expansions. Underfoot being a really bad example of this problem. It's an 8 week expansion, where you need to flag characters thought 3 different tiers of content before reaching Convorteum. on 5 day lockout it's 20 days per tier for 4 flagging run. which is 60 days before reaching Convorteum. Underfoot is only the current expansion for 56 days. So unless there event to reduce lockouts, your guild can split the lower tier raids or have enough mains to try to power through with around 40,they won't be able to reach Convorteum before House of Thule unlocks. Also the content of these eras isn't nearly as well known or documented as it was in the earlier era, so many guilds are going to need time to sort out and learn the different encounters. Is there any chance at getting the flagging systems re-balanced for a rate designed for the time table available on TLPs?
This already happened. On Phinigel, we were able to beat UF in era within the 2 month duration. They also doubled or tripled the loot, so it was a huge smorgasbord.
Yeah, UF has its flags tripled and loot doubled. You won't be in Conv on week 2, but you should have no issues getting there in era.
It's good that they fixed underfoot, however I still think the module in general is bad for TLPs. On Mangler even with 2 weeks of reduced lockouts, it took the non-racing guilds 4-6 weeks to get a raid flagged for Crystallos through 2 tiers. After the first kill or two of a raid encounter guild have proven that they solved the puzzled, making guilds wait longer for the next tier seems unnecessary.
Flagging in SoF, SoD, HoT and TBL could all use some adjusting. As well as random raid mechanics like blockers in demiplane and the AA from the last raid zone in EoK. The raids can be done without them but it sure sucks being someone who gets stuck without them.
I was heavily involved in launch planning for <OGC> on Phinigel and am happy to provide an overview of our strategy and answer questions as well as I can. For Underfoot specifically, the triple keys and extra backflags allowed us to get into Convorteum very quickly. Our basic approach for the raids was to do 2x Fippy, 2x Beast Below and 2x Unburrowing. This provided enough keys to get a full raid into the next tier to do Brath and Arthicrex as a full raid. We used the extra backflags from those events to get in more people to split Badgers 3 or 4x. Going into Tier 7, we took a full raid to Fungal and Lichen Creep and then into Brell's Temple. That single lap of triple keys provided 30 keys for Brell, which turns into 36 with piggies. Brell himself with 36 was a challenge, but definitely doable. Everyone in the expedition for the Brell win gets flagged for Convorteum, so your first Brell win gets you more than a full raid for work in Convorteum. If you don't split the first tier raids, you can still get into Convorteum very comfortably on your second set of lockouts. We did all of our splits one at a time, so people could focus on playing a single character as much as possible. I recall we were a bit light on numbers for this launch, with around 40 real people. My biggest suggestion is to make sure raid runes go to Paladins for Splash and to Paladins and Shadow Knights for their new Defensive Disc. The Underfoot version is a massive upgrade for them and is basically required for them to help out on the tanking. Glyphs are also a huge asset and should be widely available coming off the SoD farm. I hope this helps, let me know if I can answer any questions. I can post a similar breakdown for House of Thule if needed.
