Breaking a Rotation

The PoS is certainly in group range. When I was asking for 2 more to join me (spots 5 and 6 in the group) it was because I did not bring over a charmed pet from isle one. If I can land a slow on PoS (will not be easy, dmg mitigation = harder to keep agro w/ tank), there is a very good chance I can four box him much less six man him.

You are right, Gorg is going to be out of my four box range, max hit is too high. That does not mean I can not add 2-8 people and take two groups after him. these mobs are akin to minis in hate and fear and while they may be a bit stronger in some instances, your are not rotating those mobs, nor should you be.

I will bring up adding Hate mini's to the rotation at the next meeting

Much like the same tired arguments, this tired threat has already been used. You guys need some new tricks.

I don't know how offering to propose a way to share content is a threat. DBG stated that rotations were the way to go, so we should rotate right? To ensure everything is simple easy and fair, you know?

So what you are saying is they are then not groupable if you have to add 2-8 members. Which debunks your entire argument. Wonderful to know.

also to add, and im sure its been said before, i dont understand why people think the rotation is evil. without it NO ONE aside from maybe two or three guilds would be seeing any planar content including minibosses and isles 1 - 4 ..... and to add i think that the rotation guilds have the servers best interest at heart, rotations are the best bet at preserving a raiding population on LJ. may not be the best scenario *cough* (instances heheh) but its the best system we have been given. work with the community on the server this whether people like it or not is done through rotations ....

What I am saying is this content is groupable at least through isle two. Gorg may not and I am assuming KoS certainly is not single groupable, especially w/ the dt. However these mobs CAN be killed in a p/u raid much like fear and hate minis can be. The situation is very similar, if groups of people can or they choose to band together to try, they should be able to.

While fear and hate they have gear reasons to be there, in sky it will be keys and quests. You literally could have cycles of people moving up islands every day. Once you are keyed for isle two, get in on the next kill and move on, all with chances at loot and quest drops.

I am betting draco is scaled back down too and perhaps even in the window of single to two groupable. Will have to test it next time in fear and hes up and no one else is there for him.

The rotation is not evil, some of its policies are outdated and misplace. Some of the reasoning is down right ludicrous. No evil however as I agree, actual large scale raid mobs need rotations at this point. These contested areas do not need large numbers and be completed simply by having people in the zone, lfg and banding together to drop the bosses if they need to.

A pickup raid could defeat virtually any encounter on the server right now. TBH I don't know if there are any mobs outside of maybe Bazzt Zzzt and Overseer/Hand that can't just be two grouped. This will remain the theme all the way until Velious, maybe even Luclin.

I don't think you need to worry much about rotations. Raid guilds are slowly wasting away because of the rotations since each meeting, each new guild that qualifies reduces the amount of targets available and people are leaving out of boredom.

Pick up raid and group content are two very different things. You yourself said the rotation was set in place on Raid mobs. Sky mobs are raid mobs. This is fact, not opinion. You continue to claim PoSky is one groupable, but the furthest you got is training it on a guild during their rotation day.

The comparison to PoHate minis is close. Those are also raid mobs. I think for the next rotation meeting, I'll move to have those rotated as well. Is that what you are going for? Equality!

Ok, I can believe this even though I have not experienced it first hand. It just fits w/ everything I have seen and surely would depend on the make up of the group vs the encounter. Personally I was looking forward to things being more difficult, why I have no interest in live.

So the point of contention is where do you draw the line in the sand for managing content. I still can not help but think it is your qualifying mobs that are the demarcation line. To qualify, you should be able to do it on your time via the mobs being there and you are ready to go or you have worked out w/ those higher in the food chain before hand.

People should be able to kill your qualifying mob (they can w/ Yael) in any way they see fit or are capable and then choose if they wish to join the rotation or forego the remaining raids bosses.

My friends list supports this as many of them are in your guilds. It is a sad state of affairs.

Without mobs to track/raid/compete for there is largely no reason to play. I mean no one is quitting per say but we log in for the 20 minutes it takes to kill something and then log back out. As more guilds enter the rotation our 20 minute EQ sessions become further and further apart.

With the rotation in place our "competition" has begun performing notably worse so really we don't even have to get better. On our end it's become a matter of tracking our own benchmarks to beat our own records and times which is at least fun in it's own right.

The forums on the other hand are a blast. I'm in this awesome 20 page "conversation" with a bunch of people. That and threads like this are what keep me engaged!

I feel you, I am at pretty much the same point w/ my guys, I am at the cap for my play style. I have alts and trade skills but I too find myself logging in and tracking targets that might drop upgrades. I am getting to the point where I am not even that motivated to do that anymore knowing it will make little difference and quickly be out dated w/ Kunark.

Part of why I am fighting the established status quo here in the game is because I am the same person out of game. I find myself loving and hating people, so I keep mostly to myself on my time. Right now, I have been enjoying extended my time that coincided w/ the release of LJ.

I actually see these discussions, and how guilds are managed as potential alpha testing grounds for new forms of government which should be managed over the internet. No representative needed or requested.

So maybe now many of you can see why I am fighting the staus quo, it is my nature and usually the staus quo is flawed.

Forum Quest is the best game ever!

Sometimes that has a place and sometimes it can be considered self appointed martyr or attention seeker. I'm no fan of the bottom barrel zerg guilds running the top but you seem think you are the Joan of Ark here which can be equally negative.

I don't fault anything you are doing. In fact I stand by your protest (me personally, not me as FI leadership). In the end I just want to play EQ but the fact is that there are some parties who prefer LawyerQuest and like to create Google Documents they can use to impose their will upon the server. I don't mind rotations, I advocated a rotation for TLP before I even started Faceless on LJ. However I am 100% opposed to "enforced" rotations where failure to obey a rule gets you suspended. It perverts the natural order of EQ communities.

Right now the server is being driven from the bottom up and it's weird and it's resulted in strange rules and policies which I disagree with. The fact is that each guild only gets one vote and casual/mid tier guilds will always outnumber hardcore guilds. Even the hardcore guilds will never reach a true consensus on votes because they actually compete with one another, so it's not in their best interest to vote the same. The result is a steadily declining FFA (competitive) environment and this current system.

If you want to see what LJ will be in the future envision one of two possible outcomes.

First is that you've got the most casual possible ruleset. No FFA, 24 hours for every mob, full rotation where you log in once a week or once every two weeks for your mob. In keyed zones guilds don't exist as raiding entities because no guild can key a force for VP/Sleepers etc. Instead the rotation guilds come together as a "joint" force where they all contribute 5-6 players to a raid and then those lucky players from each guild get to /random for loot.

Second is that one or two of the "top" guilds in a last ditch effort at self preservation splits into many smaller guilds to manipulate the vote and creates a totally new and probably more competitive ruleset that has random stipulations to favor the original guild in some way.

The only two things that could prevent those outcomes would be for DBG to stop enforcing the rotations or to instance content.

One of the reason why I think opening the content partially, combining ffa and rotation in sky might spice and speed things up for people and guilds in the rotation. Granted, this will not feed all the mouths and will actually split the pie further, faster. However it is content that people might actually participate in instead of not logging in.

This is where the rotation should be showing why there will be need for constant increase of spawn timers again. Provided they do not expedition the content. Every guild of x# of people decreases spawn time by some amount, or something...

There are a ton of valid points in this thread and the others in relation to what everyone has been arguing about involving PoS and the rotation in general.

We all know why rotations exist. We also know why DBG decided to enforce them.

I will agree with Zhut as I did with Snubs... Everyone pays their fee to play this game and should not be told what they can and cannot access. DBG should not punish anyone for playing the game. Regardless of what is classified as raid, group or solo content, everyone has a play style. Not everyone's play style is the same as the other, though some may be the same. It is unfair for a group of people to dictate what other people do in this game. Period.

Right now there are multiple threads arguing over the same thing. There are 2 solutions. Why? Because not everyone reads the forums, not everyone is in a guild that deems them self a raiding guild in a rotation or they're un-guilded. If a player goes to PoS and gets griefed by a guild, or even approached saying "Hey you're not allowed up here, please leave the zone", why should they listen to this person? It's not stated in the EULA that any zone is off limits to any particular player or group of players. So, the 2 solutions? Instance or 100% FFA as this game has been since the beginning. If guilds decide to implement a rotation, fine. But all they can do is enforce it for themselves. If a group/raid force of other players in the community unguilded or in none raiding/rotation guilds try and approach their raid target and/or zone, than you beat them to it. You don't have DBG ban/suspend them.

My opinions are that of my own. I am in a guild so I can experience content, better my character and interact with people. If I am told by my guild leader that I can only do this or that at a certain time or day, than I do as I'm told. Right now I am told this is the rotation and this is what is expected of our guild and me as a representative are held to this standard, I do it. It doesn't mean I agree with it, but it doesn't matter. I am in a position to listen. I agree with Darth, this was enforced by DBG, not by the guilds. I also would prefer everything be FFA.