Secrets of Faydwer - 12 flags for 54 people?

Unless you can split raid these raids which most cannot it heavily impacts how much time you will have in Crystallos in a three month time period. On Phinigel 8 guilds completed SoF in era taking an average of 34 days to do so. The fastest guild completed it in eight days through split raiding it while the slowest not so lucky guild took 59 days.

If possible it would be great if the following tasks / expeditions be increased to produce at least 36 flags per completion.

Raid Task: Deepscar's Den
Mob: Overseer Gakkor Deepscar
Item: Cryptic Timetable (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

Raid Task: Big Bynn's Return
Mob: Big Bynn
Item: Coded Log Sheet (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

Raid Expedition: The Steamfont Factory
Event: Power Station
Mob: Chief Mechanic Clankwrench
Item: Notebook Page [Clankwrench] (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

Event: Mining Behemoth
Mob: The Mining Behemoth
Item: Notebook Page [Mining Behemoth] (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

Event: Spindlecrank
Mob: Spindlecrank
Item: Notebook Page [Spindlecrank] (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

Raid Expedition: Meldrath's Manion
Event: Meldrath the Malignant
Mob: Meldrath the Malignant (chest spawn)
Item: Oil Stained Crystal (Increase from 12 to 36 per kill)

This will be my first time experiencing SoF and if flagging of 12 per is really true then that will be a bit disappointing having to wait until the end of the expansion if at all to actually experience the content. Part of the reason the TLP has been so enjoyable for me is that coming back to the game I have got to actually experience all of the content in such a short time.

Flagging 12 people just seems like unnecessary gatekeeping to delay people from playing the game when the content had at least a year before the next expansion, but since we are playing on a TLP all of these restrictions just seem so obsolete from a design perspective. Hopefully we can see this adjusted or the limitation of flags removed altogether.

The first boss on that list is Overseer Gakkor Deepscar of Deepscar's Den. I just went to kill it on test and can confirm that its really only dropping 12 flags with a 4D 12H lockout.

Spindle, Behemoth, Clankwrench, Bynn, and Deepscar flag you for Meldrath then Meldrath flags you for Crystallos correct? So thats 12 flags every 4D 12H to get up to 54 just so you can begin the cycle of collecting 12 flags every 4D 12H up to 54 again so you can finally raid Crystallos? I know you don't need the full 54 but im looking at it from a leave no man behind prospective. Whats the timeline and math looking like on this if anyone wants to math it?





What is even the reason for this? Also what do we tell people at the back of the list? It sucks to suck? Our guild raids on a set schedule and we won't be able to split raid any of this so I guess we will be one of the unlucky guilds that takes 50 days to clear it.

For some extra Phinny context, some of those completions do owe some thanks to OGC being willing to give out spare pages from the Meldrath flagging from their split raids. I was leading Arcane Ascensions at the time, we had just merged the previous expansion from Wake the Forsaken and Mendacium. We were somewhat "lucky" in regards that we had all the boxes we'd just trimmed to get two guilds mashed together that we could bring back for some cameo appearances and try to split raid these events, but by that point the boxers had a couple months of raiding rust and and some sub-par gear to raid with. We split those early events, and due to how the split broke down with actual people, one raid tended to fly along with little issue and the other would struggle but eventually get there. Unfortunately I seemed to get stuck with the struggle raid, while the other raid leader got the ezmode. So when OGC offered to get people in for flags I whole heartedly accepted, which is why you see 2 weeks from our first Big Bynn to our first Meldrath kill, and a month to the Kera kill following (we only single raided Meldrath and started small raiding Crystallos).

Speaking for our status on Rizlona, we are leaning much more on boxing and don't do much in the way of alts, so I anticipate a slow flagging process as split raiding will be an impossibility at this stage. Turning up the key drop rate would be a boon for sure.

12 flag limit on 16 year old content is absolutely asinine.

But on TLP it's brand new...

Welcome the era of throttled progression.

SoF, SoD, HoT all suffer from this problem. UF did too, until they double the chests. SoD is probably the worst of the set. On Mangler during SoD, we had guilds 85ing people from other guilds into the tower of discord to loot keys, and handing out /dzadds to other guilds when they killed Lord Brekt for the backflag.

VoA throttle manages to top that. Hope you enjoyed that 1 T1 raid. Just wait for that lock out clear so you can beat it again, before you start T2. Raise and repeat. However you can use that raid time for everyone to work getting to 91 alaran, a requirement your leadership won't realized until you are further in progression.

Keep in mind this done to help keep a player based engaged for year long expansions.

Worst case math is a guild that raids weekends and is casual enough to not raid the first weekend of an expansion with a level increase. So Day ~10 of 84 is the first SoF raid and if you expect to clear MMM you have to be able to stagger split the flagging raids, having people play an alt in the other raid. Day ~17 you have 48 flags, Day ~24 you make it 60 flags and then raid MMM but don't kill Meldrath.

Day ~31, ~38, ~45, ~52, ~59 and ~66 you collect 60 Meldrath flags and one weekend doesn't go well and that still leaves you 2 weekends in Crystallos before SoD. If you do the flagging raids the first weekend, raid longer and kill Meldrath on your first MMM trip, don't fail to kill Meldrath one weekend and/or venture into Crystallos with "only" 48 flags and piggies you get an extra weekend in Crystallos for doing each of those things.

2-6 Crystallos raids according to maths.

they should be at minimium doubled to 24. we have better loot window tech so it shouldnt push out the other loot. it could also be only while it is current like the storms and por changes aradune and riz have gotten. although i suspect it to late for this change to happen for riz and aradune until the jan patch. mischief tb yeli and vaniki can reap the full rewards.

Would be really nice if they increased this but seeing as they wouldn't do it for all the other tlp's in the past its not likely

No. Split raid or suffer. Or both.

This. Players need to get better.

Considering these guilds are still going to be raiding Crystallos the first 3-4 weeks of SoD, this is just fine.

Who does that?

Outside of your Korafax splits(If you don't split Korafax, UF will unlock before you are in the tower), you should be getting spell unlock raids done the first few weeks. This also a good time to load up on the 81-83 rank 3 frags. Once you are in the tower, you won't be doing the T1-2 raids needed to collect those in any decent volume.

What does splitting have to do with "getting better?" What a laughably bad argument that just gives an excuse for devs to not properly tune artificial and arbitrary roadblocks to progression.

Splitting proves nothing but your guild simply has more not-completely-useless bodies to throw at event over and over until you have enough mains flagged. Nothing should ever be designed around splitting raids which were never previously split or intended to be split.

This content was designed for 1 year. TLPs have it for 12 weeks. Flagging requirements should reflect the change. It's a simple concept and dreadfully logical, unlike your utter nonsense post.

Your posts need to get better.

No

It's not as bad as you're making it out to be tbh ... First 5 raids are an absolute joke and 100% doable with 20-25 toons per split ... Big Bynn is the "roughest" ... Meldrath is doable with 36 + piggies ... aka 2 split the first 5 twice to get into MMM. Meldrath's Mansion is doable with 36 + piggies .. aka 2 cycles of first tier if you can't 3 split. Crystallos I've heard is fully completable with 24+ piggies, but Vyskudra would be pretty brutal. 7 of the first 8 are 100% doable with 24 cryst toons + piggies. AKA you go do 7/10 in Cryst while waiting for 3rd set of MMM keys to complete Cryst with 3 flagging cycles. It's really not bad, it just requires 2 splitting the first 5 raids to complete it in a "reasonable" time frame.

Edit: TBF SoD is even easier than SoF because Tower you can start with like 14-16 keys ... Think we had 16 when we went in then you get +1 key after each event. Tower is a joke lmao.

You're entirely missing the point.

SOF raid flagging was designed around one year's worth of content. TLPs do have this luxury and do not have content for a year. They have it for 12 weeks. That means devs need to tune flagging requirements to adjust for the differential. It's all about principle. Using the "split raids more" is nothing but excusing the devs for not doing their jobs and making necessary updates. You're somehow making it a player problem when it's the furthest thing possible from a player problem. Did guilds on live have to split (or even bother trying)? No. So why now should expectations change for the PLAYERS but the devs have no accountability?

You cannot unjustly punish smaller guilds/groups of players, especially with erratic and inconsistent flagging found in EQ. Some expansions you can be raid flagged with a few simple group missions; sometimes it's long arduous raid flagging; sometimes its a combo. That's ridiculous. Under normal, intended design, raids should not need to be split in order to successfully navigate through all the content in a reasonable time frame. And progression should always be somewhat consistent in minimum length of time required to reach end-game. How can you justify being able to complete 8 missions and be Solteris flagged then suddenly the next expansion you're locked behind multiple layers of raid flags which don't fully flag the raid each time? I'm sorry but that's a load of bologna.

If it took 4.5 raids of 54 players on live to get fully flagged, that means it took around 22 days to fully flag for MMM. It then took another 22 days at minimum to fully flag for Crystallos. That's just over 6 weeks and a day to get fully flagged for Crystallos in normal circumstances. 6 weeks on a one year expansion wouldn't be that big a deal. That's roughly 10% of the expansion's in-era lifetime. 6 weeks on a TLP is 50% of the lifetime. That's a huge discrepancy that needs serious adjustment. Even now on live, with devs arbitrarily locking the final tier of raids 3 months after release, players still get 9 months to do it. That's 75% availability of its in-era lifetime.