What's your favorite idea to handle Resource Contention you'd like to see tried in a TLP?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Tucoh, Apr 10, 2023.

  1. Tucoh Augur

    The First To Engage (FTE) / Encounter Locking proposed in Oakwynd may be intended to serve multiple purposes including:
    • Changing resource contention by removing kill stealing
    • Reducing trains
    • Reducing power-leveling services
    • Changing how mobs are split
    • Other stuff I can't divine
    I'd like to focus on the resource contention part of this and gauge the community's thoughts on what a good TLP idea would be to address it. The particular flavor depends on the TLP ruleset, server community, expansion and period in an expansion but the core issue is that for many players resource contention provides a frustrating, boring or annoying gameplay mechanic.

    What are your favorite ideas you'd like to see tried out in a TLP? I've seen a few ideas over the last week that I think would be interesting. Many of these ideas exist in other MMOs. Some of these are exclusive, others could be combined:
    • Dynamic spawn rates: Scale the spawn rate based on the number of players within a certain radius, or based on the death rate of mobs nearby. This way multiple groups could co-exist peacefully nearby or even within the same camp.
    • Personal-loot, shared rewards: Provide any player that tagged a mob with some level of contribution, giving them XP and a chance for loot.
      • EQ makes this difficult because of the irreducible nature of rewards. For many camps the reward is the named mob's drop, and everything else is secondary. Having Fire giants have a chance at dropping GEBs might work, but would be fundamentally different.
      • This would pair well with free-trade, where you could simply rove around the high-value spawns opportunistically, earn plat by selling what you get and buying what you need
    • Group-loot, shared rewards: Provide any group with enough contribution a share of the loot.
      • May or may not scale the total loot given or increase the difficulty.
    • Harder content: Do *something* to make the content harder, such that players are more motivated to work together to defeat content.
      • Many ways this can be done, my favorite is making the first half of every expansion release have the content in the expansion, but not the levels / AAs it confers. While removing/reducing the level restrictions on gear and tweaking the resists (among other things)
    • PvP Resolution: If two groups are competing for resources, one can instigate a PvP resolution that will do *something* to allow them to duke it out
      • One example is to flag the two groups as being PvP enabled and terminate if the other group is wiped or leaves the area. If the other group declines or loses leaves the area there is "something" that prevents them from interrupting the other group or stealing their mobs (even to the point of removing them from the pick).
    • Relaxed pickzone thresholds: Reduce the thresholds to open a new pick so there are more zones
    • Instanced zones: allow a group to create an instance of a zone for their group
    • Randomized loot: Randomize the loot Mischief-style, or a flavor of it. So if you need an item you can get it multiple ways
    • Free-trade: Make everything free-trade so you can simply earn plat/krono and pay for the item instead of fighting over the one camp that drops it. FV/Mischief style
    • Spread out players by increasing the attraction of other zones
      • Could be done in multiple ways, but I'm a fan of adding a Zone Item Modifier (ZIM) and having that increase/decrease with the ZEM either based on static values set at the start of an expansion by the designers, or dynamically based on recent activity in a zone.
    • Repeatable quests with a broad assortment of in-era rewards.
      • Example: A daily named hunt quest that provides players tokens to purchase different high-value items or quest pieces
    So what would you like to see done? Or any other ideas?

    If you have feedback on the latest TLP server and its ruleset in general, please post it here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/oakwynd-feedback.289766/
  2. Appren Gnomercy

    I'd probably scratch the whole group locking, and add shared loot with a damage treshold, probably limiting the number of groups (so you cant just have 6-7 groups doing 10-15% each on an epic mob and get 6 or 7 drops.

    Free trade, with a limited randomization, like others have suggested before. Have mobs drop one item from their loot table, and one (or more, obviously) from random.

    Some zones would benefit from a reduced pick treshold, for sure.

    I would not add instancing to all dungeons.
  3. Chuuk Augur

    I think EQ is big enough that you just need to spread people out. Obviously, that's not so simple because every pixel of EQ is known and published - but I think it would help if we get people out of the Unrest / MM / Guk / Velks / Griegs pipeline. Those zones are so packed because they have:
    1. some of the best loot
    2. the most nicely striated mob levels
    3. best ZEMs.
    Number 1 can be addressed by Mischief-style loot - but I'd probably expand it more and either add fancy loot to non-named mobs at reduced rates or make named mobs like 2-3x harder.

    Number 2 is tough to remedy by itself, but I think solving #3 will help.

    Number 3 is where I think the most work can be done. No one frequently kills in outdoor zones or "non-ideal" dungeons like Najena, Befallen, Permafrost, Xorbb simply because it's not worth it from an EXP standpoint. My solution would be to look at past TLP zone activity and assign some different ZEMs, and publish them. There's no reason for LGuk to have the best loot AND the best ZEM. The "difficulty" of dungeons no longer exists largely due to corpse runs being eliminated and maps being prevalent.
    Ulrin, KobalWR and Rijacki like this.
  4. Tanar Lorekeeper



    This would be great!!!!
  5. Tucoh Augur

    Nice idea! I added my flavor of it to the list.

    It's interesting because the problem of player overcrowding is inverted on live servers. On live many players simply can't find groups because there aren't enough players needing a given camp. My idea to solve that is to have weekly hot zones for each level bracket or expansion that give double XP, double item drops along with a daily quest that rewards group currency/xp/plat/overseer stuff in generous values. This would funnel players into high-value zones, letting those who need groups to do content more opportunities to find players.

    For TLP, shaking up the value of the zones enough to significantly disrupt the standard Unrest/MM/Guk/Velks/Griegs etc pipeline would be worth doing for its own sake even if it replaced it with another pipeline that players consolidated around. Doing it by spreading players out would be interesting but risk segregating the playerbase so much that player have to spend quite a bit of time trying to find a decent group instead of just looking in one of the handful of picks in Guk
  6. Sabra Lorekeeper

  7. Excruciator_Test New Member

    @DBG and @Anyone else that wants to get behind something reasonable to appose FTE and the toxic behavior of the RMT type "player":


    Obvious Problems that FTE is attempting to combat:
    • RMTers monopolizing zones via AOE pl.
      • Causes excessive server load due to AOE pl activities from 50+ mobs' pathing calcs hitting the server at the same time.
      • Locks out the entire zone/area to actual players.
      • Large trains agro whichever poor saps try and actually use the zone in a normal way.
    • RMTers monopolizing virtually all high value camps, planar armor drops in classic, epic spawns etc. .
      • Seemingly FTE may give these RMTers different forms of competition. Theoretically a group or individual can compete in an easier way with the RMTer (and vise versa, but with a more even chance of being successfully contested as they do not have to out DPS the apposition and cannot be trained by the apposition.)
      • RMTer bots cause massive player grief, drama and large amounts of server wide toxicity. They are known to camp steal, kill steal, train and do anything else they can to keep or take the zone/camp that they are useing for their RL job.
    Some obvious info but it must be said to justify the points: As we all know, most of these bots are just that, automated characters that have no one at the helm (Really though, there is a person responsible for the toon somewhere, they are just "managing" toons across many servers, camps, zones etc. . they are typically unresponsive and one will quickly conclude that they can almost never be reasoned or negotiated with.)
    • A seemingly side issue of combating trains.
      • Boo! risk vs reward imbalanced greatly, no more major consequences if you overpull and your group has to run, no more immediate consequences if someone pulls through your camp or ganks your named! (if they pull our named and their pull agros on your group, they just trained you and they can be banned or suspended.. er not anymore they cant) and player interaction and engagement reduced.
    My opinion on a better solution than FTE is:
    1. Daybreak should fully embrace the market for AOE PL + RMT for items (but not become the RMT dealer themselves by directly offering PTW services, other than keep providing/profiting off Krono for the transactions).
      • RMTers would have the option to register with Daybreak as an RMT account type (registration benefits tailored so the incentives far outweigh not registering).
        • For example, perhaps they can pay an enhanced monthly fee to access special pick zones (of certain zones) Altered or even made new/specifically with RMTers in mind. (yes yes, similar sounding to what some others have already foolishly brought up, but read on as the problems with those previous "ideas" do in fact have easy solutions that no one has yet been vocal about. lets make it easy for daybreak to "find" a solution to this instead of steamroll it upon us all and possibly push it to LIVE.)
    Pickzone features such as: (sorry about formatting, it messed things up after I posted and the junk wont go away)
          • Enhanced spawn timers
          • Less caster mobs (or none).
          • A slight delay before mobs begin their first melee round once in range of a player, making AOE stun far less risky once a mass of mobs enters the camp.
          • Maybe something like a zonewide DS buff that adds a % to the targets existing DS's.
          • Enhanced loot incentives. Maybe the fee tiers for registration could include access to drops from other zones/expansions (random zone wide or off existing named in these special picks) so the RMTers can kill 2 birds with one stone (pl + item RMT at the same time with the same/less accounts/bots).
          • Access to rare epic drops/spawns that they can then auction off to have a customer come do their turn in or loot their drop. (with similar scarcity to the corresponding actual zone scarcity.)
          • Insert whatever else is easy to code and benefits them in ways that are worth using over regular zones.
          • (yes all this doesn't address that they can still use normal zones for their RMT, read on for that detail.)
      • To combat server resource drain from these special picks, mob calcs in these zones such as pathing and other mob behavior could be processed far more simply than in normal zones like:
          • Implement something like "mob groups" (which can then merge into other mob groups) which then all share the same pathing calcs (by warping to each others' location once a member of the mob group gains agro on a player, not the pullers loc though + merging their runspeed and hit boxes etc. .)
          • Other calcs that are mob specific could be merged into these mob groups in these picks such as:
            • Respawn timers (if a merged group from the pull dies, they all share the same respawn timer and then become part of that mob group, potentially sharing future timers)
            • Averaged out mob dmg output to a flat, non random value (all mobs accessing the same variable or tableized value which houses their melee dmg output that round)
            • Averaged out plat drops (in a similar way)
            • Whatever else can be consolidated into 1 calculation for affecting multiple aspects of each of the pick zones.
            • Another possibility is, instead of many many mobs needed to give massive EXP, perhaps make 1 mob with loads of HPs but say, 50x more exp. Have it take just as long to pull and kill as the vast hoard of mobs. Give it equivalent plat/loot drops etc. . and then the RMTer can have an easier, less risky time (more incentive to use the registration and enhanced fee structure than normal zones) and the same result with less server impact and coding is achieved.
    2. The account/registration fees would need to be tailored (and likely flexible/changeable on the fly as supply and demand of RMT on a server will fluctuate routinely. We don't want the incentive to tip back to using normal zones because of imbalanced fees).
      • To make it so that actual players still have more incentive to play in normal zones rather than registering themselves as RMTers, thresholds on number of registered accounts required to access the RMT picks and specifying which accounts and/or characters will have access along with specifying the amount of "other" accounts have access at any given time (being their paying customers)
      • This would also have an added benefit of being able to keep track of specific RMTers / RMT groups.
        • Should they misbehave, consequences would be easier to enforce/document/track for Daybreak.
        • Daybreak could also put stipulations on these RMTers such as registered IP addresses, business name, or whatever they identify as. (I imagine a lot of these RMT groups don't want to be known by any identifying name or what not as I suspect most are circumventing their own countries' tax laws etc. . being as how they are more than ok with screwing people over by training, camp/kill stealing and in general infuriating the very "customers" they are then exploiting. People willing to do such things are typically not reputable businesses.)
          • If they are caught trying to use normal zones for their RMT activities then they can be penalized in some way. Maybe like the whole RMT community takes some penalty if an RMT bot is caught connecting with unregistered IPs.
          • They might even police themselves if the incentive to use the system is strong enough/if the structure is balanced in their favor correctly.
        • To police this in normal zones, give volunteer guides abilities to banish violating characters (afk botters/KSers/trainers/Campstealers/griefers) to a shared RMT pick zone that gives the offender access to that camp's drops but since it is shared by lower tier RMT access fees and other RMT rule offenders, it forces them to contend with ONLY other RMTers and not actual players. (Though they would likely be contending with themselves a lot of the time :D).
          • This way the red tape, financial burden on daybreak of policing/banning/suspending people is circumvented and there is still a real and immediate consequence.
          • Accounts that routinely end up banished without legit complaints as to the unjustness of their banishment can be easily tracked and investigated (giving the RMTer a visible and immediate consequence for bad behavior that is low impact to actual paid customer service.)
          • If there is a mistake made or guide privileges are abused and a real player is misidentified as an RMT botter, it's not all that big of a deal as the player can still get the drop they are after (unless privileges are abused, these banished players were still involved in some sort of toxic behavior and would be faced with a cheap way to be punished but not so much that they want to quit EQ but all while being incented to stay in line with "play nice" "rules" because it would still suck to be in the RMT prison zone.
        • I am sure there would be MANY people who would take great pleasure in volunteering for guide duty if they could banish an RMT bot toon to an RMT "prison" zone. Give the guides a double exp potion/s equating to their volunteer time + 30% or something so they don't actually end up with lost time and some sort of reward instead of just donating their time. Nearly no one wants to do that...
      • This way:
        1. Daybreak gets more of a cut of the RMT business with minimal server load increases and minimal policing and coding.
        2. Daybreak gains more subs, TLP health and longevity increases and instead of RMT being such a large drain on the community and Daybreak themselves, all of it is reduced to the minimum possible impact.
        3. RMTers wont have incentives to use actual real zones, and will be near immediately penalized by on duty guides if they do so.
        4. Toxic interaction between actual players and people who engage in RMT like monopolization will be drastically reduced.
        5. People who have the desire and money to pay to win can still do so and will have an easier time going about it.
        6. Normal players will finally be able to enjoy TLP EQ gameplay as it was intended. All without changing actual fundamental game mechanics with stuff like FTE. The free market will still reign and everyone essentially gets what they want out of it all.
  8. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    Ummm... in addition to or instead of Franklin Teek's daily quest in the weekly "HOT zones"? Even the non-HOT of the zones he usually gives out in each level range is still a higher drop rate than other zones of the same level range and some think they have a bonus to XP even when not HOT. It might not be 'double' for the current weekly HOT and the not so HOT but it is significantly higher.
  9. Falafel Lorekeeper

    I think dynamic respawn timers should of been a thing long ago, or just flat out reduced spawn times. Waiting 22 mins for things to pop in unrest and guk is too long. Luckily the new server addresses this with it's respawn time bonuses, but they come much too late, as do most of the useful bonuses.

    I like the idea of on demand instances to exp in, would just need to be implemented right. The thing that sticks out the most is it flooding the server with loot. But, as we've seen on Mischief, group loot being plentiful/worthless isn't the end of the world. I'd even be ok with instances not dropping any named loot. I'd still use them, as would many.

    Of course, both of these issues could mostly be solved with lower pick thresholds. I don't know if it's just concerns about server stability, or maybe they don't like people having non-contested exp, but I think it's about time for this.

    Or at least fix some of the thresholds so they make sense. The unrest threshold is pretty good iirc, but the OoT threshold is way too high for how people use that zone. The lower guk threshold also isn't great. I think they set it with the assumption that live side will have alot of people too, which usually isn't the case.
    Appren, xeveq and Magneress like this.
  10. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd


    At one time, volunteer guides did have the power to banish and other things but it was horribly abused. If you're not a paid employee, there is no repercussion to to your actions that are against company policy. The only thing they could do to the volunteer guides who abused the power was to ban their free and paid account, not really that much of a deterrent.
    Appren and Excruciator_Test like this.
  11. Excruciator_Test New Member

    Something easy and sustainable can definitely be devised by the devs though to counter that old issue :)
  12. coltongrundy Augur

    [IMG]
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  13. Magneress Augur

    Personal loot. Everyone gets credit and a share of the exp for killing a mob regardless of dps done.
    FranktheBank likes this.
  14. Go Take A Nap Augur

    I agree, there are a lot of nice zones that are vacant because exp sucks and also have bad respawn rate. Adding better Zems and slightly increasing OW respawn timers would be a great help. Specially if FTE is pushed through.

    Like HoT zone exp it brought new life to old zones and was quite refreshing.
    Magneress likes this.
  15. anonymous_ Lorekeeper

    Throw virtual scarcity out the window, let any group spin up a dz of any zone they want. I honestly couldn't care less if every player had all the group loot they ever wanted and every exp group was able to pick whatever camp they wanted whenever they wanted it. Sure, it's not really classic EQ at that point, but neither is FTE or any of the other gimmick TLPs.
    ForumBoss, Lexx42 and Magneress like this.
  16. MischiefTLP Augur

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o9tyiIjWnXYII1sNs1szDo3hAwJyghnP8Ybbrt19Cb0/edit#gid=0

    195 named mobs in Classic EQ, for no additional Dev time you can make most of them relevant with Random Group Loot or you can let the petitions pile up on Ghoul Assassin, Ancient Cyclops, Frenzied Ghoul and a handful of other mobs.

    Going by the Oakwynd announcement for 2 years in a row the Devs are going with PetitionQuest because that's what they consider to be engaging content. If you ever wondered what became of those 8 year old boys who "played" with a magnifying glass and ants, now you know.
  17. Sakuraba Augur

    "Shared" tagging with group loot does work extremely well for XIV. By group loot, trash drops earned by players are associated with their group. So if two people in separate groups engage a Highlands Dodo, one player might gets lucky and get 2 Dodo Thighs/1 Egg split amongst their group, while the other gets a different combination or even nothing. In dungeons you still roll Need/Greed/Pass on anything extremely rare I.E loots, mounts, minions, music scrolls.

    Maybe do a server with similar rules, "open tagging" would still be a thing but rather than a DPS race it would be a new means of cooperating to kill stuff even OOG. There would definitely need to be some preventative measures in place for this but eh.
    kizant, Aiona and Magneress like this.
  18. Ythera Augur

    I enjoyed the combination of random loot and free trade on Thornblade for clearing up resource competition. I would also like to see instanced zones added in for every zone. On Thornblade, once a week, my premade group would use the Kedge Keep AoC to go in and do the dungeon and it was pretty fun.
    ForumBoss likes this.
  19. xeveq New Member

    Classic practically forces everyone to be a . People are funneled into Unrest, Guk, and goblin island in OoT when leveling, and when respawns are 20+ minutes there's inevitably going to be fierce competition for nearly every single mob.

    It's ubiquitous every TLP: your group has cleared your camp of mobs so the puller starts inching toward other camps hoping for a little extra xp. The other group discovers the "theft" and a series of retaliatory actions ensues - trains, DPS races, "KSing", etc.

    The easiest and most obvious solution is surely to just not start in Classic? It's not going to eliminate all conflicts, but it would reduce them. Barring Mischief-like random loot, there will likely always be contentious camps, but at least if we started in Kunark, Velious, or Luclin we could spread out. In Classic literally *every* camp is contentious.
  20. Magneress Augur

    A lot of great zones in classic for 20-40 not divulging my secrets tho!