Change keying for 3 month servers

There are a lot of factors that make these keys, and servers, stupid.
1) We're doing everything in 1/4th the time (which is GOOD)
2) Instance lockouts limit you to around 1/2 the kill rate (also, good)
3) Raids are about 2x larger than they were in the day. (very, very bad combined with truebox)

So all loot, should drop at 8x-16x the rate it currently does. Ground spawns and shard drops should be 8x the rate they currently are.

Personally while I previously thought removing the keys entirely was the right step, I think it would take away from the relatively little there is to do in Kunark or SoL if they were completely removed. I think instead up the drop rate 8x, and drop the keys from ALL the mobs in a zone, not just particular mobs. For reasonable people with actual lives, you'll still spend a few days rounding all of it up and getting to see the expac, but not so much that you burn out and never want to it again. (And I never want to do VT/sszra again)

But it will never happen. I would suggest not logging in for 4 weeks. Guilds will be furious and demand everyone key up in week 1, it's just going to make you hate the game and burn out. So log out for a while. If you log back in again after a month, you must like the game. If not, there are other games out there.

I'm around these forums a lot and I don't believe i've ever seen them say they aren't changing UF flagging. I believe the last comment either way was at the start of the Phinny server where they said it was a real problem, but a long time in the future and they would address it when it came around, which is in January or so, giving them a full month to make and test the changes before UF.

We've been asking for an updated comment on it for like 6 months, and people keep saying "well wait until we're closer", so people wait, it gets asked again, still no response, etc.

They're purposefully not responding. Why that is, I don't know, but I assume it's because they're not sure what they want to do yet. That or they just like making us sweat.

A little birdy told me that the devs have no interest in adjusting the flagging of UF or any expansions. Which is asinine as the whole point of this server was making it so everyone could see the raids on time. Early game that's adding AOCs, late game that's adding more keys to drop.

Feel free to take that with a big grain of salt though, as at this point it's three "someone told me"s down the line.

No. This would be absurd, and WAY too much loot.

We aren't doing everything in 1/4th the time. Most guilds didn't even clear the expansions in era on live, and the top guilds on each server typically only managed to beat the expansion 6-9 months in. We are beating expansions in the first week, sometimes the first day.

Instance lockouts don't limit us to 1/2 the kill rate. They allow 10-20x the kill rate, server wide.

And, raids are not 2x larger than they were in the day. In velious and luclin on live, my guild often had more people showing up than would fit in the raid tool (84 people present for my first Vulak kill.) Today we are limited to 54 in aoc's etc, but able to clear most of the content with 20-30, far less than it took during live.

Guilds that raid aggressively are able to get pretty darn close to bis for most toons in three months, for expansions up through TSS. If you changed it to 8x the loot, most guilds would have people stop raiding after the first month.

Bottom line, players are already better geared on AoC TLP's than ever happened in the history of Everquest, or even previous non AOC TLP's. No need to increase loot, even slightly.

We've seen plenty of things that aren't game breakers come and go in the life of this server, which people ultimately recognize can be worked around, and we move along with our lives.

Then we see things like them wanting to skip GoD. Things that are so unpopular it basically unites the entire server in recognizing as monumentally bad.

Leaving UF flagging as-is is a skipping GoD level problem. It's the kind of thing that gets an order of magnitude higher engagement on the forums warning them that they are doing something extraordinarily inadvisable.

It's the kind of thing that, without exaggeration, will *at a minimum* send the players of this server into open revolt as the time gets closer.

There is an unspoken contract with the players on this server and it is in danger of being broken and people *will* be pissed about it. (That expansion unlocks will be designed so we can experience each expansion in era)

Guild leaders representing 3 of the top raiding guilds don't coordinate to post their objections to any old thing. Do the right thing and think very carefully again if you really want to ignore them.

Particularly, when the cost of listening is actually very small.

This. For all that I argued that SoF is fine as is, Underfoot and later expansions MUST be addressed or it will severely wreck the server population. If it were just underfoot we would get through it fine, there would be some unhappiness but people would move on for the most part. But there is a series of around 4 or 5 expansions in a row that all have the same problem, and will be nigh impossible mathematically to beat in era. In some cases (VoA) you can't even solve the problem with massive split raiding. These will have to be addressed, or population will drop to zero.

I'm gonna need to see verified magelo resist numbers before I can take this quote seriously.

Are you serious? Every guild that can raids every boss, every week and doesn't come anywhere near close. I have not missed a single raid and cannot fill my slots both because of the lack of loot, as well as the items I want not dropping.

The raids that can be split aren't raids that are worth doing at all in Velious or Luclin, except for keys. And nobody wants to deal with the logistics of split raiding, the time spent working on that spreadsheet could be spent with families or doing housework.

Yes I realize there are a bunch of people with some serious mental problems that play this game 24/7, but I don't see why we should focus on that tiny minority. Certainly what they do doesn't scale, if all players on the server did that, nobody would be filling BiS on all slots.

You don't need spreadsheets to split raid, and you certainly don't need to play 24/7.

When you show up to a raid with 54 toons that can be defeated with 15-20, you have only yourself to blame. It doesn't take much more than five extra minutes to divide your raid into 3 mini raids and kill the content three times. Unless your officers are incompetent.

If your not 80% BiS on any TLP at the end of an xpac (until now) your either not trying, or hated by the people who are in charge of loot council.

Verified magelo resist numbers incoming! https://eq.magelo.com/profile/3782480

But in all seriousness, already feels bad enough to be doing new content with half the guild sitting there unable to participate. If this is not addressed to avoid the issue with UF and beyond, it will end up fracturing guilds on the server and ruin what Phinigel has been able to maintain for 3 years now.

Let people progress at the level and speeds their guilds can handle, rather than having artificial gating hold it back, and prevent people from experiencing the content with all their guild (if they try to split or low number raid) or prevent them from experiencing it in era (if they stay together).

-Zanadare, Co-Leader of Resolute

I just got full p4/p5/quarm loot on Agnarr. I only have 2 possible gear upgrades at this point but I've been raiding potime now for 20+ weeks or however long it's been, I've lost count. I can guarantee that 0 people were full BIS from PoP until the release of LoY.

Its def possible people in Faceless were full BIS in prior eras because they could kill the raid targets in OW an extra 3 times per week or whatever, but in PoP when there's no OW, everyone is basically moving at the same pace.

Anyway, I think the keying/flagging just presents a challenge to be overcome. The hardcore people will overcome it faster, and more casual players will take longer. At least on Agnarr, it's all the same.I like the game as is because it presents a different feeling of reward/accomplishment based on your own level of interest and involvement.

With instances, a player with 100% raid attendance will get around 4 maybe 5 bis items per expansion.

Being able to get sufficient keys to raid in force in era is different than how much loot is available. Between pickzone and AoC those servers have way more loot than would have been originally possible.

Key drops/flags are different than gear drops. Maybe there are some specific key drops that need boosted, though I'm not really getting sense of any from this thread (thread is staying general with "not enough keys" --not enough keys for what?)

Plus you don't have 1-2 guilds blocking anyone else from proceeding.

The content being way too easy is a valid point and another discussion. More gear drops won't improve that situation.

Let me guess you played a wizard, or a necro? Good luck getting Maiden's Eye without a burn, or a raid for almost the entire length of the expansion. Cornaiv is apparently a ghost town so who knows.

Generally these boys burn out way faster. How many people are around, and active from FE still? I recognize like 4 names outside of Foamy from FE that played during classic. That includes almost their entire officer crew, including the guildleader. It takes special circumstances for someone to be able to batphone for 18+ months.

Surely this is an easy fix...or even easier to just make a comment about your plans. Silence on the matter only serves to cast even more uncertainty on the future of the server.

What's your plan for Underfoot? The server will just fizzle out and die if you don't address this issue.

Addressing this is a must. It has to change. There isn't enough time to flag a full raid (or more depending on the guild) with the limitations and get the most out of the expansion in the time given.

I really enjoy playing on your TLP servers. I keep my gold account just for this but with the current flagging drops lots of people are sitting out of raids just to wait for the next round of flags. Going forward even less flags drop in UF. Is something going to be done to bring a 1 year expansion time line in line with the 3 month cycle? Nobody enjoys sitting on the side lines. Instead of enjoying your game getting gear and buying krono so I have the plat to make the gear. I hung out on the sidelines sad and wondering if this game has a future.

I want to raid with my guild and not wait on the sidelines for 12 more Deepscar flags to drop 5 days later.

I have heard there will be similar and worse problems with future expansions, too. It would be a shame if guilds started falling apart because their raiders can't raid.

Please address the situation.

Thanks!