Oakwynd Feedback

I just read what you wrote, and appreciate your describing the implementation.

Now, I know a bit about software development, having been doing it professionally for 30 years. (I know, big deal; whoopie.) And I spent a good chunk of time coding for MUDs back in the day. (again, big whoop.) That gives me a good feel for what represents a core mechanic; what represents rushed development timeframes for changing a core mechanic; and what rushed development of a core mechanic can do to a player base.

In my experience, making these kinds of changes on this timeframe, is going to lead to many corner cases. Many unexpected outcomes. Things that are not "crash" bugs, but are unexpected (and often undesired) outcomes. For example, scripted encounters that don't work right. Unforeseen exploits and griefing. The tangled web of unforeseen and undesired outcomes from something that someone thinks is "surgical", just because they only touched a few source modules.

And I don't want to PAY to beta test that on a TLP. I don't want to deal with the ****show and learning process (for the devs) that that is going to bring to an almost 25 year old game. I don't want to spend the most nostalgic expansions for me, (the early ones), watching the holes in this play out.

Maybe others do. Or have confidence this is going to work well. Knock yourself out.

I feel this is a short-sighted change to a rule set for a product that is sold for nostalgia. This isn't as simple as making coin not have weight, or getting rid of corpse runs. This is changing the core mechanics of how Everquest mobs engage with players. Particularly with regards to groups of players, and how they interact. The social pitfalls of this; the exploits; it's all coming soon.

Hey, it's great they want to keep trying out new things. But by not having a parallel TLP launch at the same time, that preserves the old way of guilds and players interact for aggro, they're only giving the option to beta test, or to join an older TLP that is farther along on its lifecycle.

No thanks. I say, vote with your wallet. Your milage may vary.

You're joking, right? Loads of people have been asking for intentional training and KSing to be eliminated since Sony dropped the play nice rules because they were tired of policing it (KSing). Training is already against the ToS and now they're obviously tired of policing that as well so they're making it programmatically enforced. If FTE eliminates training and reduces KSing (or makes it an even chance per player) then it's a win. The other items on Oakwynd are just flavor that may give it some nice staying power. Oakwynd is vastly superior to another Phinny clone.

Weird, im getting all of my posts deleted even when they dont break tos. This is turning out to be a truly hopeless situation.

So within the ruleset, id have to move multiple characters through zones like LGuk to DPS race named spawns, often allowing me to contest named spawns in 1 or maybe 2 picks in a 25ish minute span. Now i can safely contest named spawns in 6 to 12 picks in 25ish minute span. Long, slow solo fights taking my time without fear of a pesky xping group in the area trying to ks and dps race my aggrod mob. This addition of FTE isnt all bad in that regard and could make things a lot more fun while still abiding by the rules and TOS

Not all that much. It happens from time to time, but there aren't people roaming the land searching for opportunities to snipe named mobs from others. Once in a while, two neighboring groups (e.g. hamlord and frenzy) will try to poach something from each other, and sometimes someone just steals a quest mob because they can. But it's definitely not something everyone just has to deal with on a constant, everyday basis.

That's because successfully KSing someone required that you outdamage them. This prevents any one person from ever KSing groups. You couldn't just traipse into frenzy camp and take that named mob from the group camping it because it's not really feasible to outdamage a whole group. This meant that outside of a select few mobs that are notorious for getting KSed (efreeti, certain epic mobs) you could camp a mob and never face any problems because no full group is going to just swoop in and stand around waiting for frenzied ghoul to spawn so they can KS it. That just didn't happen. What group will spend their time on that?

But on Oakwynd, absolutely anyone can KS anybody no matter what, as long as they get the first tag. If you don't think that'll lead to more KSing, I've got a bridge to sell you. It has been made much easier to KS, and it has been made literally impossible to do anything about it. That opens the floodgates for people who go out of their way to do it for as long as the drops from soloable named mobs are worth anything. As long as dungeon loot has value, FTE has created a new "profession" in Everquest: go from camp to camp with a respawn timer for nameds/PHs and spam a tagging macro to see if you get it. If you do, it's a free win because the group there can't do anything about it. If you don't, you lost nothing because you didn't have to spend a full mana bar attempting to outdamage them. That makes it a viable source of income.

Brushing this off as "KSing has always been a thing" is completely irrational. It's like saying "gun violence has always been a thing, so why don't we hand every citizen an AK47 and get rid of law enforcement altogether. Since there has always been gun violence, this change will make no difference." Anyone with any sense can see that it will, so why deny it? Is it base contrarianism or self-interest? Just a desire to disagree with people on the internet for the sake of it? Planning to use FTE to KS people and line your pockets? Because it kinda has to be one of these. It's not logically possible to just say that you don't think people will KS, because it's a self-evident fact that they will. FTE helps them do it, and prevents the victims from doing anything about it.

I'd like to see the Kunark 25% bonus loot changed to 50% so the progression is +50% kunark and +50%TSS to end at the same 200%
Most of the other bonuses scales this way and the early expacs could use a little extra loot

i am not a multi-boxing necro player - i 2 box occasionally and pal/dru is what i like to play - there are several classes that can easily out dps me if they so choose.


one singular person can roll up to your camp with a few necros - it's extremely feasilbe to outdamage a whole group
one singular person can bring a wizard or sk to a low lvl camp (like burgugle for example) and feasibly outdamage a whole group

You can play it down all you want - but ks'ing in early era's is highly prevalent at any camp that matters - efreeti, certain epic mobs as you point out are the areas in which i'm talking. xp grind spots aren't going to magically have more ks'ers because of fte.

How are people going to use FTE to KS and "line their pockets" as you say if they aren't hitting up the high value camps?

I never said people wont KS with FTE - you've pitted a viewpoint i've not expressed as an absolute expression.

the same group of players that load up the meta classes to box and "contest" camps will do so as well on an FTE server (we'll have a lot of wizards even though other classes can insta-tag) - people will attempt to KS high value targets - the difference is FTE gives 1 character a chance - not everyone boxes meta dps classes or has friends at the ready

i'll say it yet again - the people who box/have friends - the logic is you no longer have assured victory - that's why you think fte is bad - not everyone boxes or wants to play a necro/sk/mage - for those players - fte levels the playing field.

we will be trading a set of problems that comes with dps racing with a new set of problems with fte - but i am willing to give FTE a try - it literally cannot be any worse than what i've seen and experienced at high end named/epic camps as far as ks'ing goes

Solo Necro will actually be a lot more fun on this server. I've slowly warmed up to the idea so I'll try it out but really bummed we stuck in classic for 2 months.

curious to know if serial stealing nameds out of a camp will be viewed as breaking the rules by the gms. is there anything stopping a single max level mage or enc invised up, rolling around picks just scanning for camped targets to stick a pet or charm on, then moving on to another pick or target?

proponents of the system are saying this won’t be common, sure. it’s all speculation, but… am i allowed to do it? or does this behavior warrant a suspension?

honest question, because last i knew the rumor was there are ‘no camps’ in eq officially, but no idea where that was written down. if true, combined with fte, one could just surf around populated dungeons trying to get lucky with a slow puller, or by lurking around spawn points at the right time

People saying there are no camps are usually the ones who'll KS you. There have been camps for 24 years, DPG just don't recognise them.
They used to say "DPS is king". Now it'll likely be "FTE is king". They didnt sanction people KSing with DPS, they won't do it for people KSing with FTE.

I'll be doing exactly what you are wondering except on my Necro I won't have to worry about anyone out dpsing me since I only Solo no boxing.

i wonder if they’ll consider updating this policy for oakwynd.

they probably would be justified to do so, because at that point it really is using the new mechanics in unintended ways to game the system. assumably the fte system would also record player names to make investigation easier. although this still means more cs work for them if it ends up being an every day occurrence somewhere in norrath. i think the scariest solo player threats are going to be classes with both types of invis, a little cc, and charm in classic, ie. necro in guk and enc everywhere

It's probably gonna be a thing like if there is a lot of uproar about a certain person or a group and there is a lot of complaints or forums post then daybreak gonna do something if nobody say anything just let is go on

LOL they won't do a damn thing about it. It won't be a couple certain persons. It'll be 1000's of people playing it that way.

how about responding to the huge public outcry to this threads topic >?
some discourse on this topic would be amazing ( other than we going to do what we want and if u dont like it then u can go play another game idea )

Even if you shamelessly sit in someone's camp and attempt to tag only the rare mobs while they clear the PHs, I don't see how any rule could be crafted to prevent this behavior.

"Camps" have always been a thing, However that never gave the person or group ownership of the NPC.
It has always been "First Come, First Serve", even 24 years ago that was the case.

You may be at a location ( Camp ) but it never gave you ownership of the NPCs therein.
People who had this type of thinking, were and continue to be steamrolled in every TLP by people who understand this concept.

I would just tell the GM that the other players need to #getgood!

Yes and no. "First Come" doesn't matter to some people.
Let's say we're sitting on a named spawn. We already killed the PH and we're waiting for the next spawn. Then someone just comes, sit in front of us and says "it's my named now, thanks for killing the PH you can go now."
I'm not saying this kind of players are common, but it's not science fiction either.

If you want to live this out, just try getting ghoul assassin or cloaked dhampyre camp. You will have roommates