Encounter locking - lets talk about it.

My understanding it first to tag is first to claim the NPC.

I would say this is a Kill Steal prevention mechanic.

We could argue the pros to both methods. First to DPS or first to tag. In the end its a preference.

Not sure why this is being implemented. Who will see this as an improvement? Who it will help?

It will help people contest named mobs that do not have the DPS to "steal" the kill.

It will help who ever is the fastest casting spell to tag. Who ever can target the mob first with macros (or programs).

This brings back memories of the first TLP's where raid guilds would camp Dragons for hours and when they spawned, before you could even se the dragon spawn on your screen it was dead. Guilds were using programs to target the mob the instant the packets were registered and their army of AFK Shadow Knight's would Harm Touch and instant kill.

I believe shortly after SoE put in the diminishing return debuff on Harm Touch. I would assume that fixed the SK issue but not the fast target and cast issue.

I've seen games counter this type of tag snatching with a tag "window" and a "random" for the claim. Meaning, if 5 people tag the mob within x seconds time (say 1 or 3 seconds) each person who tagged it had a chance to win the "encounter lock".

To me this seemed fair and prevented abuse that I mentioned above. I wonder if they have put something like this into effect.

What are your thoughts?

This stops trains too, and AOE PL. But it makes EQ much less dangerous, which is a bad thing. You also can't help others in trouble by helping kill their mobs, the only way you can help is to heal the people, if you have that ability. It removes more of the social aspect of the game moving it more towards just your group versus the environment pay no heed to anyone else in the game.

I believe they are attempting to implement it as a tool to prevent tickets from camp drama, KSing, etc. I don't understand how they don't appear to see that it will do the exact opposite of that. People who can click fast are going to dominate everything, auto-clickers etc. Casters will have rains running on spawn to prevent others from tagging. I can even see people locking down key mobs, or others that people need to get a raid flag and hold it hostage for the purpose of extorting Krono. It is an absolute drama inducing mechanic, that I want nothing to do with.

Bards are going to be tagging whole zones of mobs and just running them in circles while their group casually kills them.

o.o
You trying to make me roll a bard?

If you see a Bard named "Tag King" its not me. Just saying, lol

We don't even know how they plan on implementing it, but there's nothing really stopping someone from doing that right now. If a boxed caster group rolls up on you, you aren't going to out DPS them. People think DPS race gives them some chance, but's just an illusion. Your average group isn't going to out DPS anyone who is prepared to steal camps.

But now you can tag off the bard and kill it. With how they stated the FTE works you wouldn’t be able to do damage to it once tagged.

In theory a solo paladin can steal a mob of a full group of monks because DPS doesn’t matter it’s just who clicks faster.

Most dps can out dps a bard to take a mob or two out of the huge pack of mobs the bard is running in circles. But on this server that won't be possible.

Healing out of group will also have to be removed, or it becomes massively exploitable and or broken.

Being unable to assist others seems like a massive cut to the social aspects of the game.

There's just nothing this fixes that is worth all the negatives.

People who are determined to steal your camp are almost always going to win regardless. The situation you are describing, most people are not going to waste time and will just leave to find another camp.

In my opinion it's just going to make it easier to cause drama. A single character will be able to claim a named out from under the group that's camping it. Currently they would at least need to dedicate enough boxes to outdps the group that's there.

Basically, if you're not going to have extreme GM involvement like in the old days of enforcing the play nice policy, then DPS racing is the closest thing you can get to a fair system since at least all parties involved have to be committed to a certain degree.

EQ isn't EQ without:

• Being able to help people outside your group
• Druid PL
• Monk and SK FD pull
• Faction tagging
• Countless boxing functionality (i.e. Out of group enchanter)
• Trains

The list goes on. FTE does not belong in EQ1.

easy solution if someone tags a mob before its graphicly spawned they get banned because they used a 3rd party program.

Wouldn't that involve daybreak to have a gm to catch that? They don't do gm monitoring anymore. Doesn't matter anymore cuz that ruleset is getting changed

If this goes active I hope they are prepared for the number of petitions they are going to get about people griefing.

Kill Stealing can be solved by getting friends/guildies to come and help out DPS. First tag there is nothing you can do about it if they have instant clicks, spells, songs, etc.

if i were you, i wouldn't hold my breath on the devs taking any action

Also encounter locking is a terrible idea, itll be the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people all they need is one good reason to quit this old game, evolving it into a wow clone may be good enough of a reason

Since the mechanism to award loot, XP, or whatever already exist as we have seen it with the Epic spawn engagement mechanism where whoever spawns the epic mob gets it regardless of who killed it I think this is purely intended to eliminate trains.

The mob goes home, resets and then unlocks if it's lost aggro for a short period of time.

Loses aggro -> goes home -> resets -> unlocks

I haven't seen it but I'm fairly certain that reset=full health with now residual spells and a cleared hate list just like it had spawned again.

Kill stealing isn't a thing, we've been told it isn't a thing ever since DPS race became the rule. The single bit of bad behavior that they have had to deal with constantly is training and now training is gone with FTE

/sarc Big shoutout to all the self styled vigilantes and white knights who brought this too us! /sarc

Vast majority of people I've met in EQ are normal adults. I don't think FTE is meant to be a solution to kill stealing. I can count on one hand how many times I can remember some antisocial clowns KS'd me or my group.

I hear there's a FAQ coming. I want to hear from the devs what their thoughts are. What is the goal of FTE? What is it meant to discourage or change? Will there be some kind of timer so people can't hold a mob hostage etc?

If this is to stop KSing, I would prefer any character that is competing to kill the same Mob have their PVP flags turn on for that encounter. Solve the problem with known toxic dirtbags sitting at Pawl Buster camp for months with their multiple Necros, and other named camps.

You don't even know yet how FTE will effect these things. It is entirely possible that the effects on everyday gameplay are minimal.

• Being able to help outside your group is likely going away for anyone not a healer, unless they implement a /Yell mechanic like EQ2 that renders the mob no longer worth loot/exp. Then you can help them. But you have no idea how it will be implemented.
• Druids can likely still oog heal and buff so there will still be ways to PL that are more reasonable. So it takes you a week to get to max level instead of a few hours. Not the end of the world.
• You have no idea if it will impact FD pulling, as you have no idea how it will be implemented. They have already stated on discord that there will be a 15 second delay before the mobs reset after losing aggro, plenty for a monk to do his thing.
• Faction tagging is meh. Either form a raid because no one cares about the exp from the giants behind the throne or manage your faction better. I have never run around faction tagging to get my faction handled and never had issues getting my faction where it needed to be to get my gear.
• OOG boxes are not required. And only the DPS ones are going away anyway. You can still likely have your OOG buffer/healer, just not a DPS. Seems fine to me. Would not impact how I play at all.
• No training is a good thing, takes away one of the more toxic and prevalent issues players have with each other, and cuts down on CS tickets.

As for FTE vs DPS race. It will be a wash. As many folks have said if another group wants your camp they are going to take it. Doesn't matter how many toons they need to bring, they will just bring more. 99% of the time the lesser group just moves on and keeps exping. The same thing will happen here. That solo necro might be able to steal your named a time or two, but when you leave the room mobs up for them to deal with as well they are going to be far less able to handle it. There are ways to counter most of the toxicity, and folks will figure them out in short order. If something ends up too horrid DPG can make adjustments. This ruleset would likely need several adjustments.
However, the community isn't even going to give this a chance so likely we're never going to see this implemented, which is a shame, I was curious to see how things played out. EQ with a new twist would have been interesting. Guess we will never know.