DPS Checks are costing you money.

Queen enrage timer is a wipe.

Karzok is not, I've tanked him for 30mins after power up's.

Honestly, I bet the first korsha event will have less of a gap in terms of the first time the best guilds beat it versus the first time lower end guilds beat it, assuming they field a full raid, because 95% of all your stacking/special stuff is worthless so you're mostly just auto attacking.

An "outlier" like that in the very first raid of the expansion where multiple win progression is required to get past it, was a total "expansion breaker" for those with lower DPS. We skipped over TDS entirely because of that raid. Had to.
-R

I put forward that there was an option. In the parlance of the Dark Souls community, "git gud"

Mr. M - You're right that my reference to Atrebes was from Freelance experience, so I can see where you had every reason to think what you did, and I didn't think you were trying to be a jerk at all.
I think I used it to give a "current" example *here* - but CTA's troubles really started to stand out as a total "blockage" in the "Defense of the City" in TDS. (like I just told Millianna - who knows the CTA crowd from Quarm)
I've done the Queen a few times now with Freelance, a few wins and a few wipes. Enough to feel that it's "not that hard" with a full raid, no missed emotes, and proper dealing with the Warcasters and smoke. I have a decent feel for that one. It might annoy me when a Chanter charms a Puppet that's at 25% health - because the Rangers headshot the crap out of it already - but hey that's life.

-Rat

If I remember right, rage timers started showing up when guilds were just rolling through events with dedicated Clerics res'n people. Bringing in other chars as people died while others medded up... And honestly, that's not the way to play the game. That's just lazy playing.

Queen's timer is so long that you could do it with a raid of 9 Warrior groups with a couple Clerics in there to keep them alive. If you're hitting *THAT* rage timer your raid force is doing something wrong. Hell, you could probably do it with 54 Paladins all DPS'n the mobs and splashing to heal themselves before you hit the timer.

I think many people forget how different lower and mid tier raiding is versus a top 5, a top 15, and the top 25 raiding guilds.

Pulling numbers half from the air and half from my last guild which I would consider low to mid tier. Lets say for discussion that each raid ideally has 3 tank groups and 6 dps groups. Each dps group accounts for 15% of the total damage. A mid tier guild will probably be down 1 dps group of 6. So about 15% off directly from the top. Two of the remaining 5 groups will be average players who would be dicey applicants in a top end guild, about 50 to 75% of a top end player so that brings it down another 7 to 8%. Additionally 1 of the groups is arguably a waste of space with players that should just be booted, so we'll just say we get 50% from them for another 7 to 8% drop. Already we are 30% less than a strong guild. Now factor in that everyone now has to dps 30% longer and now spends more time outside of discs and burns, which will continue to drop their dps output and make any mob regeneration or timed adds much more impacting.

I would also say that the above is kind of a minimum threshold to beating the expansion before the next is released in general. If you can do that or better you'll continue to hold your own versus content and can suffer typical churn in players and still win content when you hit a slump so long as you did your learning under better the conditions above.

I think this is roughly where they design around too. I would expect a lower guild to take 10 times longer than Roi, 3 to 5 a top 10, and 2 to 3 times a guild that can clear the content. I think expecting these guilds to progress on a higher guild output level is a mistake. You can argue that they shouldn't be able to do the content due to lack of skill and numbers. But I think the reality is these guilds won't be able to beat the content as it is now.

I personally don't care for hard dps oriented fails. If they exist it should come from being overwhelmed and have multiple approaches for guilds that lack in some areas. Queen isn't the worst kind of event for it since you can still win if you were in good shape and near finishing. But the rate of increase on doom light is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.

That why I said I could pretty much disregard a lot of comments from people in upper tier guilds. They just "don't know" anymore. Except Drogba - he's actually raided with CTA a lot on Drogblast and Drogbless.

-W

I think you'd be surprised by how many people in top tier guilds raid with low/mid tier ones on alts. I have plenty of first-hand experience raiding in guilds that are struggling with Queen/Vault, and I also talk to plenty of people serverwide that are in similar situations.

It's fine to disagree with points that "people in upper tier guilds" make, which admittedly might be formed without sufficient perspective on the operation of low/mid tier guilds, but unilaterally disregarding comments based on their origin rather than their merit seems fallacious.

I raid with a team of people that wouldn't beat Queen right now. I know exactly what the problems can be. The only people that can fix it are the people in the raid force. People not attacking the mobs until they're half dead, people not using discs/spells/aa's and end up doing 10k DPS... they're the problem and they need to fix it. It's not hard to increase that to a reasonable level - and I'm not talking "top tier" DPS. Just reasonable enough to beat the event well within the timers. People simply need to read up on their class and put in the effort.

I just realized something.

DPS checks is not costing DBG money. Poor, lazy, uninformed players who are not contributing on raids and (therefore) are making skilled, talented players upset with repeated failures and (thus) are leaving EQ...... those people are the ones costing DBG money from subscriptions.

I realize it is fun to blame others in 2017. But maybe the poor players should improve or get kicked out so that the good players can succeed. And then everyone, including DBG, will be happy!

Protip: Burn the Cyberdemon until it dies

Writing off people who are in top tier guilds is just backwards reasoning. You're ignoring the very people who have experience in being successful.

This is an obvious thing to point to.
And hey, yes - slackers are to be found everywhere.

But the inherent problem with DPS checks isn't the slackers.
It might be "the" problem for you.
But i doubt that all those guilds that still haven't beaten Vault or, to a lesser extent, Queen can ALL be tracing it back to this single "player-made" issue.

I see the problem like this:
Events are built/designed and "tuned" around some "optimum" and some assumptions.
Yet those assumptions and the "optimum" are met by only a portion of the population.
"Exclusivity" some say, is a good thing.
Because it sets them apart, gives them a fuzzy feeling inside or whatever.
But exclusion is never a good thing in the long run, for mostly more subtle reasons.
So there NEED to be, i feel, alternative ways of reaching the goal than "brute force".

DPS checks are, as i said above, not a bad thing per se.
But the HOW they're used and how OFTEN, that is "the" issue - as well as the "where".
When DPS checks are used as "the" bottleneck, then the design is wrong.
And in direct response to your Queen-related observation:
In Vault on Dervishes (as an example), you NEED "top notch" DPS - merely assisting "in time" as you claim does not cut it there.

You have to remember, a lot of top players use m a c r o q u e s t to assist them. So they don't need to "turn and find" their target, or try and stay within melee range. They just need to hit /assist and it does it for them.

Whereas non 3rd party users prolly spend half (mob hp) the time trying to find the darn target in among the mess.

I don't know about other guilds, but this kind of cheating has no place with us.
Nor is there a need to, really.

Not for the very first time you are doing an event, but for any subsequent tries, you can make socials to target
( like "/tar a_praetor_august09" or "/tar a_master_alchemist00" ).
Further, you can set up the xtar in various ways to help you too.
If, as you say, you spend half the mob's life-expectancy to try to target it, then your MA slacks or your /assist MA is set up wrongly.
Perhaps assigning multiple MAs might be a way for you and your force then?

Really, i can say nothing to your claim other than that WE do not use that.
(we certainly use log-parsers though, especially during the learning)
But i CAN say that your claim is insofar wrong, that scripting software is certainly not "needed" to be a "top guild" or for the targeting issue you mentioned.
It might, if i take your word on it's usage, optimize the DPS somewhat for reduced "you are too far away to hit that" messages when the mob moves.
But that is not the make-or-beak thing, nor what we talk about in this thread.

Really? A lot of top players use an aim bot to play EQ? People are going to risk an account or character they've played for almost two decades to run a bot program? You're delusional. Please pass us some of what you're smoking - it must be some good .

EQ is not hard. Not in the slightest. The top players pay attention and have actual situational awareness. Said top players go to the organized guilds that have their stuff together. That's how it works. Play better. Don't make up reasons why others are unskilled at a game where you largely stand in one spot, adjusting ever so slightly as needed. Again, this game is almost 20 years old - we don't see actual new players here. A bunch of old people play it. It can't be that hard...

Now, now...
Hold your tongue, grasshopper!

Hey now!

Is that the assumption people make to feel better about their own slowness? First, people should be situationally aware. Understand the event and where mobs typically are tanked by your guild's strats. Second, the tank team can help the melee dps out by being consistent to where they position things. Third, whomever the MA is can help by targeting the next target near the current target rather than running melee dps back and forth across an area (the exception being mobs that need to be prioritized or kept apart for mechanics). Strats can also offer some consistency for mechanics that require moving people around from auras and such by having set patterns or locations. Raid teams that create chaos from lack of structure and consistency will suffer lower dps.

It's not that hard as a melee dps class to locate and be on the next target without the use of any cheats. It's simply paying attention and having a plan.