Why not get rid of FTE / DPS all together. Several other games auto assign loot to the player that participated in the encounter. I'm not saying that everyone in the raid get the epic piece, but someone randomly gets assigned the piece and you deal with it from that point. Keep two loot tables... a common table, everyone gets something from, so everyone feels like they got something if they participated. Then the 2nd loot table for rare items. If the person that got the rare piece needs it great, they get to keep it, or they can sell it off to anyone else that was in the raid (or has participated in killing the spawn) that also has a claim on it. No locking required. Just because another person/group came in and DPS'd them down doesnt mean they have any better chance at getting the item than anyone else.
Buddy, if the group is low on mana people know to say to so. It's not hard to hold pulls; it happens in almost every group at some point. Need a bio break? Hold pulls. If the group isn't camped in a safe spot then they ought to know that they assume the risk of getting overburdened to begin with. And part of the appeal of reduced respawn timers is to shake up existing camps and spread out, so of course there might be some required experimentation and growing pains. That's the appeal. It's hard to take seriously concerns about excessive exp/plat/loot. We have cash shop xp boosts, almost monthly xp bonus weekends (sometimes bonus *weeks*), pick zones (which obviously multiplies the amount of loot, plat, and xp), and to top it all off we can point to the success of the Mischief server which practically showered everyone in BiS gear. But nothing thus far has given the impression that we're getting extreme Mischief levels of loot anyway, and it's hard to see how reduced respawns are going to break the camel's back here. More importantly: the server is already slated to receive loot, xp, faction, aa xp, and reduced spawn time modifiers (plus so much more). People just want some stuff earlier, and maybe a bit more than what was offered. Sounds like p99 or literally any other TLP except for Selos and Vaniki is more your speed.
I could get behind increased spawn rate for outside zones, but not for indoor zones and dungeons. Anyone playing off peak times is going to have one hell of a job keeping spawns down and it makes crowd control a must, which are not always available. Increasing outdoor time spawn times would make some camps a lot more desirable and help to spread the player base.
Yeah, a little easier, not a huge difference though I think. It will just have a nice new feature that you don't train other camps between entrance and your group. You can already run to a camp and die close to your group but just outside of train range but you run the risk of training the groups in between.
You make it sound like the massively increased spawn rates are already a given and I should accept that or look for another server. That is not the case though. Oakwynd is not slated to become the ultra-hardcore-quadruple-spawn server for people looking for a challenge. On the contrary, right now it is actually looking that Oakwynd is more tailored towards casual players who like to play a lot of alts.
I honestly don't see the issue some have with decreasing the spawn rate by 75%. Imagine not having to worry about being stuck with a camp and only 5 mobs because pullers from other camps are constantly running in and out, pulling mobs while you're currently in combat and unable to. Unrest FP camp anyone? This literally solves this issue. It also reduces stress on the server as it will reduce picks. Not sure about you but zone lag due to 10 picks or more sucks and the idea that can be reduced is awesome. Not to mention the epic quest bottlenecks this would help. This also helps the OW raid community as well. I'm not a fan of FTE, and one of the major reasons is due to the inevitable that will occur in the OW raid scene. Decreasing the spawn time only helps the health of this as well. Devs, I ask again, please consider implementing this.
DEVS take note of this. You are making a huge mistake. FTE does NOT belong in a game like EverQuest where there are xp/loot camps. You are trying to fix something that does not need to be fixed and will only create more/different issues.
T FTE does not belong in EQ, you are making a foolish mistake. This is the only thing that would save a server like this. Scrap FTE or increase spawn rate dramatically. Otherwise, there is no chance this server will succeed.
Thanks for all the effort and work. Hopefully the server ruleset adjusts to be something playable and removes the inevitable toxicity under the current framework. Petitions and suspensions flying all over the place.
Reduced spawn, normalize ZEMs, and randomized loot on non-raid mobs will do wonders of in opening up the whole world for people to actually use and XP in. Would also do a whole lot more to address the two issues that you are trying to solve with FTE; trains and kill stealing. Edit: Forgot to add making keys/flags account wide; will help reduce the toxicity that is HS and VP keying.
I think the 75% is too much - as you said it would make it difficult for some casuals to get into camps. However, I think 33% reduction moving spawn timers (inside dungeons) from 26 mins to 17 mins is completely reasonable and still able to be dealt with by casuals, even with the awful mana regen in pre-GoD. That type of change opens other dungeons nobody goes too (even with good ZEMs) because the mob density makes it not worthwhile. The added mob respawn gives more chances at names (if lost to FTE groups), gives more mobs to kill for all camps so less contention on the fringes of their "camp borders", and allows each pick to support more people in general. It doesn't have to be such a large decrease to have a huge effect.
I agree with everything you said. 75% reduction is very extreme and that is why I am against it. 33% reduction though? As you said, still very noticable but it doesn't turn the server into some kind of "extreme survival horde mode". I could get behind that.
Back in my day. People were outraged when they tried to make EQ more like WoW. (WoW 10 years ago anyway, since not even WoW has FTE anymore)
Reducing the spawn time of mobs would make the server enjoyable. Not a fan for FTE in the slightest, but still looking for a reason to play. I think lowering spawn rates would make the server fun and interesting.
The most baffling thing is their claim of having listened to the feedback, and then done literally nothing that anyone suggested. FTE is still there, completely untouched, and in the most exploitative form that it could possibly have taken--some assumed there must have been more nuances to it than that, but no, it's literally first to tag a mob = mob is yours guaranteed. Some people asked for free trade and/or random loot, but they weren't listened to. Best they can do is heirloom items which, while an okay idea on its own, satisfies absolutely none of the talking points that those in favor of free trade were bringing forth. And the evolving expansion bonuses remain untouched due to being such a forgettable milquetoast feature that barely anyone even bothered to talk about it, so I guess the devs interpreted that as satisfaction despite countless complaints of the Oakwynd ruleset being boring and uninspiring. So they claim to have listened and responded while doing absolutely none of what the 120ish pages of feedback called for, while doing things that nobody cared enough about to ask for. They even have the gall to say that Encounter Locking is meant to mitigate KSing when anyone with more than one brain cell can see that this feature does the exact opposite, helping KSers while leaving the victims literally unable to do anything about it. Absolutely comical decisionmaking.
Except they have repeatedly reused rules from previous TLPs making your assumption completely invalid.
Hi everyone and Angeliana, I am Laurel, (English Cleric) played Everquest for over 22 years and 17 years on my main accounts on most of the tlp servers every year. I understand Everquest has to change and that change will be implemented without the majority of your customers behind you. I am sure you will want to carry on making money on TLP servers from bag sales, mount sales and potion sales. Please please either take feedback and listen to your good customers about the decreased spawn timers to help with the changes you want to make everyone happy. Seems crazy the tlp will be an experiment on customers but let your long time customers help make the changes you want go smooth by doing this. I am sure the long term players will give you feed back constantly about the FTE and help make this change smoother with communication between them and you. Please please please dont destroy tlp servers by not listening. We want tlp server to go smooth and any problems can be communicated so things go smoothly. If you are not going to do this .. then consider doing a normal tlp server too like you have done several server tlp releases with normal rules. Angeliana please be our hero don't destroy the tlp server this year please let us help you into making the new server a success. Hugs Laurel
So you're advocating for a system where I as a Bard could roam through the zones, drop my chants on a named that a group has spawned and then get a shot at the good stuff when it dies? That's what I'm hearing and as amusing as it sounds I don't think that will fly
