Pre-discussion for declaration of intent with regard to seizing content by DPS or other means

Hmmm

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", in this case, call it whatever you want, if you are at the spawn point of a raid target, for the duration of the variance, you are socking.

Call it socking; but the key difference here is that you are not actually taking away from your other activities, because you would only be here when you're not doing anything else.

This idea arose from the issue of, how do you DPS to take mobs away from monopolizers without letting your own playtime get sucked up? This is the answer to that.

Also, the other key difference is that when the community kills the mobs this way, they freely distribute it to the public on NBG.

Call it socking if you must but acknowledge the differences and benefits?

Hmmm

It would need someone to co-ordinate it, to add and remove people from the raid. It would require someone to optimise it so that the best dps classes are in the raid. It cannot just be a rag tag collection of chars in the raid or they would stand no chance against the hard core raiders. I would say that would suck up a persons play time.

You say freely distribute it. To whom? Everyone in the zone? To the alliance raid? To all members of the guilds forming the alliance provided they could get to the zone / corpse before the corpse unlocks and it can be looted by anyone?

To all members of the guilds forming the alliance provided they could get to the zone / corpse before the corpse unlocks and it can be looted by anyone - you got it.

Oh yeah, that's another idea. I don't know about you guys but considering the brutally long times between unlocks, I'll probably have time to level up several characters. I could always level up a pocket mage and camp him out on Naggy, and just log him out when I doing stuff on other characters, and then quickly log him in when not doing anything else.

Hmmm

Naggy would be twice per week...would seem a bit of a waste to always park your char there.

Perhaps, but isn't that the point? Daybreak Gaming Company is abandoning us to this and it's an idea for a solution; all the good solutions were rejected and so we're left with picking the best of the worst.

And in theory, across several guilds, surely there might be enough players to share the load so that not everyone has to be there all the time? Worst case scenario, you can't do both Naggy and Vox so you just do Naggy?

Hmmmm

I would suggest a better approach would be to :
1. Determine raid windows (leave at least 1 char logged in continuously) and post raid windows to all alliance guilds. During classic, only Noble/Overseer/Hand did not have a server wide message when they died.
2. Decide what coverage is achievable, then go for for a raid target that falls within an acceptable window.

Hmmm...

What if all the guilds willing to submit to an equitable mob sharing system decided to forgo (at least until later expansions relieve the pressure) raiding as themselves, and raid as one big alliance? Officially, the way this would work is that the Alliance would just raid as normal. If non-Alliance guilds get kills outside the Alliance's schedule, no problem. However, if the Alliance shows up to a mob and finds a non-Alliance guild there already, that guild is invited to join the Alliance (whether the request to join is permanent or just for that raid is up for discussion). If they do, they join the raid and have the same loot share as everyone else (edit clarification: They get a fair chance at the loot, or 2 pieces go to the Alliance and 1 to the guild, etc). If they decline, the Alliance DPS burns the mob and then actively targets that guild's raiding for at least the next two weeks, taking as many of their mobs as possible.

Assuming that this is successful, you'd have a raid alliance with hundreds of active members. The key then would be how to set up a distribution system. Is DKP for that system manageable?

Alternatively, if every raiding guild is willing to join a rotation, the server could give a rotation a try and keep the Alliance idea in reserve until needed.

I think you may be forgetting why PoK and GL became the default idling zones. They are travel hubs to the rest of the game, so it makes sense to rest there when you're not doing anything. Sol B and Permafrost are dead ends, so unless pretty much all you do is raid that target, it's not a convenient place to hang out.

That said, anyone who wants to sit there in shifts to help police the game more power to ya, but not many will pay and log in to work guard duty.

Hmmm

Hate, you will not get every raiding guild to be a member of the rotation, they do not benefit from it, so no point even considering that.

In terms of DKP, how could that possibly work? Unless you meant something like suicide kings, where it is the guilds taking part, rather than the players that earn / lose the DKP for taking part in raids.

I am not a casual raider and just theorycrafting, so I would suggest the more casual guilds should discuss these things amongst themselves.

That is a given, but we fall back to the same question - do guilds just accept it, and do guilds just fight individually for mobs as they come up, or do they combine in some way to be more effective?

Also, even if we pretend for a moment that casual raid guilds don't exist, the problem is still there for the hardcore guilds, they still have to make the same decision.

But regardless of what does or doesn't get done on the organized enforcement front, do we agree that it's not unreasonable to announce to everyone (in the forums, in the newbie zones and /general when the server launches) that the server WILL be survival of the DPS-iest (cf. fittest) and that instead of people taking it personal against the DPSers/sockers, that they need to just deal with it by either joining the DPS war or conceding the mobs to the DPSers?

Hmmm

Does it really need announcing on the forums? Surely all the posts about it being wild west are enough of an announcement?

If I play, it will be in a monopolizing guild.

It doesn't take much searching to find that twisted legacy will be the premier guild on the new server. It's shaped up to be an allstar team of various dominate guilds of eq past. The plan is to contest all relevant content.

It's still debatable what kind of contesting will be allowed. I'd assume that dps racing is the accepted method because gms on fippy encouraged and witnessed it. As long as both guilds engage closely, it's not a kill steal. Just as two wizards nuking the same mob, on spawn, is not kill stealing because wizard two landed a second later. These situations have always been handled by gms in the same manner.

The problem is it doesn't matter what's allowed, people will do what's not allowed anyway. And there's always the risk that 2 months later GMs will come in on a slow night and unfairly enforce rules on a whim. End result is that the players who intended to do whatever it takes will have an advantage over those who try to follow the rules.

I suppose not, but we could at least get everyone to agree that it IS wild wild west, and when that first naggy kill comes, and someone zips past you while you're on FGs, you knew it would happen. While it will still be valid to hit the forums and let everyone know who did what to whom, hopefully knowing that this is how it is will reduce the overall drama.

Anyone planning to record all their raid gameplay, sort of like a bodycam to document what's going on?

They need to update the PNP or officially recognize that this is how things will be handled, though. Plenty of times loot was taken from one guild and given to another on Fippy because the guild that lost the dps race managed to land a hit a fraction of a second before the guild that won the dps race. Similar things happened in group content too.

ive got better things to do with my time than "police dps races" and lol at this whole thread for thinking its going to have any effect, or happen at all.

i play a ton, but have 0 interest in becoming involved in the cesspool of raiding that will be taking place.

In my opinion the game has a built in method of dealing with contesting. That is dps race. It's the only reasonable way to deal with multiple parties waiting for a single mob. No gm support means in game options only. Obviously kill stealing is subjective. Who makes the call when there are no gms? A dev needs to decide and let us know.

If there are no GMs then no one makes the call. And if there are no GMs, we shouldn't be required to engage within a few seconds of the other raid. The game has the built-in ability to detect who did the most damage; first to engage is no longer relevant.

It's not that we need to know who makes the call when there are no GMs, it's that we need to know if there's any danger of them popping in 2 months later and interfering with the environment.

Who cares? Just kill stuff and let it ride

If they don't give an answer then there will be dps racing everywhere until forced not to. No reason to fret about it. Ask for the answer and we'll see what they say.