Change keying for 3 month servers

This Split-Raid is the "Key" to progress in instanced content non-sense will eventually die as you get to VoA expansion.

So let's get back on track! Go. Go to top!

VoA is a good point. Try bypassing that (inappropriate for 3 month unlock) keying mechanism with splitting, heh.

You are correct that it was designed for a one year expansion cycle.

The fact you are leaving out is that there were no instanced raids back when these expansions were designed.

Due to AoC-based raid instancing, those same raid zones get cleared many, many, many times in that same time period. Even if you split raided to get your raid force VT and ST keyed, it wouldn't speed up the process because there was only ever ONE of that raid target up at any given time. When that target was killed, you had to wait many days until it respawned.

Instanced raiding means that every guild can get a copy of that raid target at the exact same time as many as they want. If you want to raid 10 NToVs a week, you just need 10 raid forces to request a NToV instance every week.

There is a massive difference in raid instancing compared to non-instanced raiding, and that does affect the way content is consumed compared to how it was originally designed.

TL;DR - Raid instancing invalidates the original design of these raid targets.

*** EDIT BELOW ***
I should point out that my message above relates ONLY to expansions that were originally created with out raid instancing. Obviously, any expansion that was created WITH raid instancing and a one year expansion cycle SHOULD have it's raid flagging/keying adjusted to fit a three month expansion cycle.

TL;DR - Expansions originally designed WITH raid instancing and intended for a six month or one year expansion cycle should be adjusted to fit in a three month expansion cycle for TLP servers.

They were designed for a one year cycle that involved the top guilds spending most of the year spent trying to figure out the content, and most guilds never saw it in era. They shouldn't just adjust flags by the ratio of original months to current months--that makes no sense when we can kill Emperor on day two or get enough ST flags to raid ST in a week.

Or beat SoF with its extensive flagging in seven days, a feat that took more than seven months when the expansion was first out.

When virtually every guild on every server since AoC instances have been able to clear VT in era, ranging from competitive guilds to ultra casual guilds, Luclin really doesn't need adjustment.

Obviously multiple factors should be taken in to account, but doing nothing is the wrong thing to do in my opinion. Also, I am really referring to the later expansions. I don't consider anything from LDoN backwards as being an issue in it's current state.

I agree, so let's separate Vex Thal and Sleeper's Tomb from the discussion and focus on the expansions that most guilds will not be able to complete in era due to the flagging restrictions--Underfoot, VoA and to a lesser extent, two or three others post-Underfoot.

You're talking about a game that maybe 100 people play!

Gotta pareto principle anything after Gates right down the tube broha.

Huh? There are 10 guilds on PhinnyProgress with at least Big Bynn dead, that means even if those guilds only average 40+ players that's 400 people minimum this effects. I know most of those guilds are fielding more like 50+, with a few lower running allot of bots. Not to mention eventually Coirnav will get to these points, so it effects them too. Acting like Phinny has no one on it is mind boggling in this thread.

There are 11 with at least one Big Bynn kill and 8 with at least one MMM, and several of those 8 have a few MMM kills now so will be killing dragons in Crystalos very soon for in era completions.... I know over half of the end game guilds actually have full raids with waiting lists if not splitting the lower tier stuff. Tons of proof there has never been a more active end game raid server in the history of EQ, to claim otherwise is asinine.

We want to keep Phinny healthy, keep the ability to clear content in era; given we put in the effort. Please address the keying/flagging issues from UF and beyond to enable this. One solution is: https://dgcissuetracker.com/projects/EQ/issues/EQ-2198?filter=allopenissues

I wish we could either have a big bold thing at the top or change the title to clarify this is referring to SoF+, not to Velious, Luclin or any other early expansions which were basically fine without changes.

I also wish people would keep the pointless server bashing out as well. Every server (except Agnarr) will experience this same problem eventually.

If you don't want to see Underfoot being basically unbeatable in era, one thing you can do is vote on the issue tracker issue Kazz99 linked.

Showing that alot of players care about this is the most likely way to get it acknowledged after the live expansion.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

DBG's silence on this issue is deafening.

Its because they are afraid to state their stance that nothings going to change and tough luck. I've said this a few times and so far noone from DBG has corrected me, or deleted those posts. I'm still running with that assumption.

Short Version? They don't have a method to change this for just some servers so it would be a global change to drop rates. They don't want to change live servers for a TLP issue even though said live servers are so far past this content to render it moot. So basically give up any notion of beating underfoot in era (or at all because who wants to work on the previous xpac when a new one is out) and same for VoA.

Don't think this is the issue, since they made the change with Trakanon for VP keying.

You don't need to do the flagging for SoF on live anyway--it is well past where flags are required--so it has no impact on live at all.

If they make a change, it has to affect all servers: True.

Anybody cares about this on live servers? Extremely false.

If someone can find me 2 people (you haven't bribed) from live servers who will be upset about Underfoot flag drop rate changes, I will eat my hat, ornamentation and all.

(Nevermind that my hat is currently an extremely edible looking pumpkin)

I in no way disagree, in fact I said it was moot on the live servers. as Machin pointed out, you don't even NEED a key on live to get in its so old.

I'm just having a hard time coming up with another reason they wouldn't say /ANYTHING/ in response to this fairly obvious issue. (Underfoot, VoA for sure, maybe others? I dunno.. my raiding days are gone) Its my understanding that when they do things like "classic drops in guk" or other zones, its actually a totally different zone with different NPC's in it; and they just switch the zone line to put you in the newer one once that window is up.

My guess is noone at DBG wants to take the time to make the zone copies for TLP, and doesn't want to mess with it for servers that won't have this issue (live, ragefire, lockjaw). Who knows for sure besides DBG, and thus far they're maintaining radio silence on this subject. (while also quite clearly seeing this thread as they combined several others on the same topic into this one)

While I suspect the devs have seen this thread (and all the others), the dev staff aren't the ones that moderate the forums and manage threads. It doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that their community relations person has seen the thread.

true, but this is a "hotbutton" issue so it would be pretty negligent of the community person not to notify the powers that be about it once they consolidated it. Either way its all speculation on our end until they say something, or those xpacs come and go with no changes.

i think the issue is more time based why noone has answered to this thread yet. They got more then enough stuff to do already and dont want to say either yes or no yet, since they dont know if they can get to it.
That being said, something has to be done for sure.

What confuses me about that, is that it's not like we are asking for a bunch of custom development, or a new AoC instance. We've even had it confirmed that item drops are a database change, so it wouldn't even necessarily need any "dev" time at all, being a "design" change, if i understand their terminology correctly (which I probably don't).

It is an itemization issue... yes, a db value change (probably a few because they have a convoluted method of total drops plus expected drops) and it is not like they have not done this and more for past content (e.g. even as far back as Kunark... VP access, look at the number of teeth Trak now drops).

In fact, they made even more changes there, they increased the number of foragers and hunter spawns and spawn rates to speed up Seb keys, they drastically reduced the time for the ground spawns to respawn for the VP key.... etc.